“Ah~” Ruki yawned as he walked to the library. “Why do I have to get up early on a day off from school?” he whined to himself. He walks slowly dragging his feet and sees a figure standing by the stairs of the library. “You’re early today.” He says to the person when he reaches her.

“Who said I was late yesterday?” Vera looks up at him with a brow raised and a hand on her hip.

“No one did.” He chuckled. “So was today a laundry day too?” he asked as he eyed her outfit which was identical to the clothes she had on yesterday.

She looks at him with a brow raised for a second then started going up the stairs. Only when she reaches the top, she looks back at him and says, “Maybe.” With a smile and then enters the library. Ruki just shakes his head and follows her into the library.

When he walks through the double doors, he spots Vera sitting at the same table that he had picked yesterday. She looks up from a book and waves him over. With a shrug of his shoulders, he strolls over to her. “We have to be quite today.” Was the first thing the girl said when Ruki reached the table. “I don’t want to be kicked out again.” She clarified and shot him a warning look.

“Yeah, yeah don’t get your in a bunch.” He replied as he lifted his feet onto the table top.

“Don’t put your feet up like you’re at your own house!” she hissed at him and then slapped his leg.

“OW!” he yelled, even though she didn’t really hit him that hard. “That really hurt!” he yelled again, just to get on her nerves.

“Shut up!” she whispered through clenched teeth and put her hand over his mouth. “Do you want us to get kicked out again?!” she asked while looking around. Her eyes widen as if she found what she was looking for. She removes her hands from his mouth then hides her face with the book in front of her.

“What? What’s wrong all of a sudden?” he asked putting his feet back on the ground and looked at the direction she was facing before she freaked out. “!” he whispers when he found what had made her act like that, it was the same old bat of a librarian from yesterday, making her way to the direction they were in. “Crap.” He whispered as he looked away and covered his face with both his hands.

“Didn’t I make myself perfectly clear yesterday that I didn’t want you two to come back here?” a voice asked behind the two teens.

“Umm I don’t know what you mean.” Vera said but made her voice a little lower.

“Y-yeah miss.” Ruki added making his voice higher and was trying not to laugh. “You must have the wrong people. You know since your old and all, you forget easily.”

“Oh I don’t think I can forget a brat like you.” She smirked. “I want you two to leave right now and I won’t say it again.”

No one said anything back they just got up and went out the door and out into the hot streets. When the two teens reached the last step of the concrete stairs, Vera turns to the fair-haired boy with a confused look. “How did she even recognize us?!”

“Well I don’t think you can forget a silver eyed fox girl and a y blond blue eyed angel.” Ruki answered with a shrug. She gives him a look meaning *where the hell do we work on our project now*. “Here, I know where we can go.” He grabs one of her small hands and starts taking her to the park where he had the fight with the talkers a week ago.

They find a bench under a tree and trying to do their work. But it was hard because it is really hot and Ruki was distracted by Vera’s legs in those shorts. Then slowly his eyes traveled up to her stomach then finally stopping at her . “Are you wearing a bikini under your shirt?” he asked eyeing the yellow fabric and the string coming out from the back of her shirt.

She puts her pencil down and starts fanning herself with a piece of paper, sending her sweet sent drifting over to his nose. ‘Does she even know what she does to me with that sent of hers?!’

“It’s hot ok and I didn’t want to wear a stiff bra. Gosh! Now would you stop gawking at my s and get to work?” she picked up her pencil again and went back to her work.

‘How did she know I was looking there?!’ he asks himself as his eyes snaps back to the book that was sitting open on his lap. ‘Ok! No more looking at her, I have to get to work so I can actually do something fun today.’ He tried to focus on the black words on the pages but of course being the short attention span person that he is he starts to look at his surroundings. He looked up at the green leaves dancing when the wind blows through them and the tiny black ants on the ground walking in a line on a quest for food.

After a few seconds of watching the small bugs he started to get bored with that and decide to look at something that never seemed to bore him: Vera.

He stares at her busy at work with writing something down when Ruki sees a ladybug land on her hair. The boy watches it crawl around her hair for a while before a brilliant plan pops in his beautiful golden head.

The little devil’s plan consisted of him telling her that there is a bug on her head. When she hears that she will freak out and run into his arms, like a damsel in distress, telling him to take it off. Then Ruki would flick it off her but tell her that it’s still in her hair and he was having a hard time finding it. So she will cling to him closer and he would enjoy her touch for a few minutes.

So wanting to get the plan started, he faces her with his arms wide open, ready to enclose her in. “Hey.” He begins.

Vera sets down her pencil down and looks up at him. “What? Do you need help with something again?” she asks looking down at his empty paper.

He smiles wide and shakes his head. “No, just wanted to tell you that there is a disgusting bug in your hair.”

She freezes. ‘Oh here it comes!’ he smiles, waiting for her to jump into his awaiting arms.

But that never happens.

She does freak out, that’s for sure. But instead of her going into Ruki’s arms she jumps up off the bench making her papers and book go flying everywhere. She starts to run her hands frantically throw her hair screaming like a mad woman that got set on fire. “GET IT OFF!!” she shrieked.

Ruki jumps up and holds down her hands and looks her in the eyes. “Clam down! It’s off now.”

The poor girl finally stops screaming and looks up at him with tears in her eyes. “Really?” she asks in a small voice. Ruki just nods and wraps his arms around her waist, bringing her closer to him. “I hate bugs.” Vera says against his chest.

He laughs and starts to pet her head. “Oh really, I couldn’t tell.” He adds sarcastically and surprisingly she doesn’t say anything back.

“I don’t think I can work in peace after that ordeal.” She says after a long pause.

He smiles against her soft hair, “Great! Let’s go swimming!” she nods, letting go of his shirt and bending down to pick up her things that she had dropped. ‘Wait she was holding on to me?!’ he thought as his smile grew so bright that it would even make the stars envious.

---

After the two teens got their things together Ruki started heading to a free water park that was around the area. They walked in silence for a few minutes before he said something. “We’re going to make a detour.” He looks back at Vera and grabs her hand taking her to an unfamiliar street.

They finally stop in front of a white house with a wall for a fence. Vera looks at him with one of her brows raised. “Is this your house?” she asks looking at the wall.

“Uh, you can say that. Listen wait here while I go get something. Okay?” she just nods and on that note he starts to climb over the wall. He lands on the ground with great ease as he had done this numerous times even in the dead of night.

He takes a second to fix his clothes and then he strides to a window on the ground floor. He knock three times pausing in between each knock. He didn’t have to wait long till he saw the purple curtains draw back to reveal his girlfriend’s smiling face.

Akako quickly opens the window and steps back to let him come in. Ruki climbs in and gets straight to the point. “I need two towels.” He demanded and held out his hand.

Her smile drops and leaves the room but not without muttering ‘’ under her breath. Ruki snickers and sits on the window sill watching the door. He does that for a few seconds then starts to look around the room. Her room has always been messy with piles clothes all over the floor and an unmade bed with even more clothes on it. That was one of the things that had attracted Ruki to her. She was not like those annoying girls who cared about appearances. She wasn’t even embarrassed to bring him into her room. But now it seems like this mess was getting to be too much for him.

Ruki kicks at a pile of clothes and spots one of her bras. He bends down and picks it up with two fingers. He brings it at eye level and looks at it like some new found species. He has never really seen one this close for this long of a period. If you put Ruki and bra in the same sentence it usually has the words ‘take off’ and ‘on the floor’ somewhere in the sentence as well. ‘So this is what girls have to wear all day long?’ he looks at the lacy black thing and found a new reason he was glad not to be a girl. Then as if on cue a not-so-happy Akako walks into the room once again holding two white towels. He stands up and drops the bra back on the pile as she angrily hands the towels to him.

He looks at her with a brow raised but thanks her anyways and turns to go out the window again but she manages to jump in front of him to block the way. Akako narrows her dark brown eyes at him and places a hand on her hip. “And why do you need towels for? I thought you were doing your project with that .”

‘I don’t have the time for this bull.’ Ruki rolls his eyes and takes a step closer towards her. “It’s none of your business and she’s not a so you should stop calling her that.”

“HA! None of my business you say?! I’m your girlfriend for the love of god! And what, now she isn’t a just because you spent a little bit of time with her?” she huffed and shook her head. “And another thing, how do you know that she isn’t a if you can’t even communicate with her?!” Ruki clenched his teeth and did something that always gets his girlfriend to shut the up.

Kiss her.

He bends down and pushes his lips against Akako’s. She pulls away but Ruki just pushes her head back to his and continues to kiss her hungrily until her has one of his legs out the window.

He pulls away ending the kiss and swings his other leg out the window. “Bye.” He smirks as he walks away.

“Hey! I wasn’t done talking!” Akako yells and starts to climb out the window but was proven difficult because of the short skirt she had on.

By the time she manages to get out of the window from hell, Ruki had already jump over the wall and was making his way to Vera, who was flapping her shirt to cool herself off. “Come on, let’s go.” He says to her as he places his hand on her back and starts to push her to the direction of the public pool.

When Akako pulls herself up above the wall all she can see is Ruki and Vera walking away. She huffed in defeat and jumped back down, walking back to her house with her arms crossed and grinding her teeth together.

---

The two teens finally made it to the crowed pool. When Vera sees the inviting cool water she goes to the nearest chair and takes off her shirt and shorts revealing a yellow bikini, leaving very little to the imagination. When she looks at Ruki and smiles, she looks like a sunflower, ready to rain sunshine on all who look down upon her.

Ruki just watches her in amusement as she jumps into the water. “Whoa! Come on in the water feels great!” she pops her head out the water and hangs on to edge of the pool.

“No, I’ll just stay here and… work on my tan.” He responded as he lay back on a chair and began to close his eyes. He hated taking his clothes off in public where everybody could see the bruises on his pale skin.

“Oh come on! Don’t be such a girl! ‘Oh working on my tan’ what B.S. only girls use that excuse.”

“No.” he simply replied.

“Are you scared to get your hair ruined, little girl?” she asks with a teasing grin on her lips. Without warning he stands up and jumps into the pool without taking off his shirt. “Wow, so you’re a man after all.” Vera replies when Ruki reaches the surface.

“Yeah, I’m a man that can do much more amazing things… want me to demonstrate some things for you?” he says with a smirk and starts swimming towards her.

“NO! Get away from me!” she screamed as she dunks him under the water and starts heading to the shallow area of the pool where little kids were playing in hopes that she can blend in with them. Ruki was so surprised by her sudden action that it took him a few more seconds then it should have to bring himself back up to the surface.

When he got his head above water he looked around for Vera so he could do the same to her but she wasn’t anywhere near him. ‘Where the hell is she? She can’t hide from me.’ he starts to swim around like a looming shark till he spots something that catches his eye in the shallow part of the pool. ‘I’m coming for you sunshine!’ he chuckles at the girl in the yellow bikini playing Marco Polo with a few kids.

“Marco!” Vera yells with her eyes closed and her arms moving about trying to find someone. She had the biggest grin, this was the first time Ruki seen her smile like that.

“Polo!” the children yells back and swim away giggling.

Ruki lifted one of his eyebrows in amusement as a little boy snuck up behind Vera and taped her quickly, but before she could turn around and touch him, the boy was already backing away as quickly his little body could take him.

When Vera turned around and felt nothing. She clicked her tongue and grunted out something in English. “Marco.” She yelled out again and started walking forward. The same little boy went behind her and taped her back again. Once again she was to slow to catch him.

Ruki stood there with his arms crossed, watching the little boy pull the same trick on Vera over and over again. Either she was letting him get away with it or she was extremely slow. But never the less for some reason he didn’t like that snot nose kid touching Vera so easily. ‘Wait, am I seriously getting jealous of a little bean spout? HA! Yeah right!’ he uncrossed his arms and walked to Vera.

He got behind her and eyes the little boy warning not to touch Vera anymore.

“Marco!” when she yelled that out the blonde boy wrapped his arms around her slim waist causing her to jump in surprise from the sudden action. He liked how she fit in him arms comfortably.

“Polo...” He whispered into her ear with his husky voice and had to resist chuckling when he felt her shiver from is voice tickling her ear.

“Big sis is that scary looking guy, your boyfriend?” the little boy asked. He looks up at Ruki with disapproving eyes and Ruki looked back at him with one of his brows lifted.

Even though the little brat asked that stupid question Ruki was still curious on how she was going to answer the kid. So he looks at Vera to see what she would end up saying.

A shy smile spreads across her face and Ruki swears that he could hear an orchestra of angles playing in the background. ‘Oh god, I hope she doesn’t feel my heart pounding on her back.’

“Oh god no, he’s not.” She says, instantly killing the orchestra with her laugh like an imaginary recorded being cut off. The kid must have liked her answer because he was smiling like he just got some candy.

Ruki removes his arms from around her waist and spins her around. “What do you mean by ‘god no’?!” he blurts out.

The girl smiles up at him. Her hair dripping wet, her soft face has droplets of water glistening from the sun reflecting on them, and her pink lips are shiny and wet.

How could anyone not think this girl was beautiful?

He watches her lips part with hungry eyes. “I mean no because you already have a girlfriend.” He looks up to see her head tilted to the side. “Right~?” she questions him.

“Yeah you’re right! I almost forgot all about my y Akako from being forced to be with the bland you.” He answered back with his brows pinched together.

“Ugh! Would you stop calling me bland?!” she demanded with gritted teeth.

“Bland, bland, bland, B-L-A-N-D!” he shot back like a little child, even adding a childish taunting tone to it, which didn’t sound right with his deep voice. He was acting immature but he didn’t care at the moment.

If he wasn’t so annoyed he would have enjoyed the way she was glaring at him like she was trying to drill holes into his skull.
Just to annoy her even farther he was going to add another ‘bland’ maybe even use a synonym of the word, but was stop when at that moment she splashes his face. “What the ! Are you in first grade or something?!” he asks wiping away the water, already forgetting the way he acted so immature just a few seconds ago. That out lash only earned him another splash in the face.

“That’s what you get for calling me bland.”

Another splash, “That’s for trying to ‘teach’ me a lesson on my very first day at school.”

Ignoring the water hitting his face, he moves closer until he is close enough to reach out and grab one of her tiny wrist. But she still manages to splash him again with her free hand.

“That was for bullying the sweetest person I know!”

Ruki starting to get pissed and he was still trying to grab her free wrist but the water that Vera was throwing at him was starting to sting his eyes so he had to keep them closed.

She hit him with water again. “That is for touching me the way you did at the club!” she had stop long enough were Ruki was able to open his eyes up again.

When they were fully open he could see that she was backed into a wall so she couldn’t run away from him anymore. He was about to say something about her liking the way he had touched her that night when he was stopped by another splash of water in the face. Having enough, he was finally able to grab her wrist. He puts her hands behind her and pulls her snugly against his body. “And that.” She looks up at him with her stormy eyes. “Was for taking my first kiss and saying that it was bad.” She then looked down at the water between their bodies.

It took a few seconds for Ruki to process what she had just said, but when he did his eyes go wide at her with surprise and a hit of confusion. “F-f-first k-kiss?!?” he yells, letting go of her wrist and brings his hands to either side of her face trying to get her to look at him. “Look at me!” he demanded when she didn’t comply, still keeping her eyes on the water. He clicked his tongue, grabbing her arms and places them around his neck. Then he puts a finger under Vera’s chin. “Look at me… please.” He begged.

She finally looks up at him with dead eyes but tightens her arms around Ruki’s neck bring their faces closer to each other. “I’m sorry.” He says with all of his pride out the window. “If I had known that I wouldn’t have said that to you.”

“Oh please!” she snorts.

“No it’s true!” he says as he wraps his arms around her waist. Then a smile comes on his face. “Hey bland girl why don’t you try convincing me that your fun again?” he suggests as he starts to get close to her lips but she turns her head the other way.

“No I should have never done that; you have a girlfriend for Christ sake!” Vera starts to pull away from him as if she just notices how close they are but he wouldn’t let her pull away.

“What she doesn’t know won’t kill her.” He coos, trying to get her to face him once again.

“No that’s not right I’m not going to be your little mistress, where you can come when you want something! And I’m not going to share you either. If you want to be with me, you can’t be with someone else. I’m the only child so I’m not good with sharing.”

“So what do you want me to do?” he asks with a brow raised.

“UGH! Do I have to spell everything out for you? Break up with her you fool! And not a half assed one either. It has to be a real reason, none of that ‘oh it’s not you it’s me’ bull crap. So until you end things with her, I’m not doing anything with you.” She pushes Ruki away and lifts herself out of the pool. “Oh I don’t think we should meet up tomorrow because I heard it was going to be really hot.” She says as she starts to dry herself off and put her clothes back on.

“You’re hot.” Ruki teased and even added a wink with a dazzling smile.

Vera wrinkles her nose but then a smile slowly creeps up her face. “Bye, see you at school.” She said not looking back while she went out the exit with the towel around her neck.

*It has to be a real reason.* her voice runs through his mind as he watches her walk away. “Reason number one… you, my little play thing.” The blue eyed devil declared with a devious smile.

---

When Ruki got home he went straight to his shower to wash off the chlorine. He put the water on hot. He felt relief and clean the instant the water hit his body. The boy stood there just letting the warm water run down his skin. After a few seconds he started to wash his hair and clean his body.

He was still thinking about what Vera had said to him as he stepped out the shower and was towel drying his blond hair when his phone caught his eye.

Ruki crawled into bed with phone in hand and called someone. Pressing the phone to his ear he waited for the other person to pick up.

“Hello?” the deep voice said on the other end.

“Reita I need you to do something for me.” Ruki declares as he examines his black painted finger nails.