Not yet...

“Ah! That was great! I wish I could go out drinking like that every day!” Ruruka said to herself as she walked into her apartment and turned on the lights to illuminate it from the midnight darkness. Inside, the walls were coated with pink wallpaper with different fruits printed on it. She walked past her kitchen and entered her bedroom, where her oversized bed sat underneath a mountain of plush pillows and colorful stuffed animals. The walls were covered in shelves of the various expensive things she’s gathered over the years, from books, to trophies, to priceless glass menageries, and her closet was stuffed so full of similar items that it was almost full-to-bursting with things she hadn’t even looked at in months or even years.

She still managed to find room to place her newest coat, however, and began to take off her new jewelry as well.

“I should also go shopping on other people’s dime more often too! Not even Sonosuke let me get this much in one spree before!” said as she admired her new necklace in her hands. “It’s almost a shame I’m never going to see that one guy again. What was his name? Dooichi? Pft, I’ve forgotten it already.”

Ruruka moved to put down her purse and change into her pajamas, but she stopped when the ‘Bottle of Sunshine’ Shuichi had bought her bounced out and landed onto her bed. Pausing, she picked the curio up and held it in her hand, remembering what Shuichi had told her when he had bought it.

“Like a ray of sunshine… Tch! As if!” Ruruka tossed the bottle into the closest trash can and wiped her hands clean. “That was just as phony as he was!”

Ruruka finished changing into her pink, strawberry-themed pajamas, turned off her lights, and flopped herself onto her mountain of pillows. There, she flipped herself around a few times, grinding her teeth as she did her best to push Shuichi out of her mind.

“Dammit… what are you doing, Ruruka?” she mumbled into a pillow shaped like a whale. “There’s no reason to feel bad about what you did… he’s a traitor, just like Sonosuke was! Just like my other boyfriends were! Just like… she was.”

Ruruka tossed and turned some more before eventually staring up at the ceiling for an hour before she finally closed her eyes again. But, as she drifted off to sleep, she could feel her hand subconsciously reaching for something, but she didn’t realize what it was until it reached the arms of one of her dolls and she imagined for a moment that it was Shuichi she was holding.

“Ah!” Ruruka shot awake and slapped her wrist. “Bad hand! We don’t need him! We just don’t, got it? So what if he was kind, and trusting… he still deserves to be left in the dirt!”

Ruruka lied back down and went drifted off to sleep again, this time drifting off far enough to dream. In the dream, she was walking in the middle of a completely pitch black field. She was scared, at first, but then the sun peeked over the horizon and blanketed the area in its warming rays. She began to relax and walk through the field as flowers, trees, and grass bloomed all around her, filling her nose with a plethora of pleasant scents.

“Ah… what a lovely summer day!” Ruruka said to herself as she walked up to a tree that was sprouting strawberries, apples, grapes, and everything in between. She moved to pick one of the berries but, to her surprise, it dissolved into black dust before she could bring it to her mouth. “Huh?”

Ruruka moved to pick more, but the same thing kept happening.

“Hey? What gives!” Ruruka growled and, in frustration, hit the tree, causing it to break in two and crumble into ash. “Oh no… I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!” Rurkuka said to no one as she backed up to only realize that the grass she’s standing on was also starting to die as well. Soon, it started to spread everywhere, killing all the flowers, trees, and small animals that were living there. Eventually, the entire field of greens had become nothing but a lifeless plain of ash.

“No… I… this isn’t my fault…” Ruruka began to sniffle as the sky began to dim. “Huh? N-no!” Ruruka gasped as she realized that the sun was starting to set. “No! Please, don’t go! I don’t want to be alone!”

Ruruka tried to chase after it, but the sun was too fast for her, and she soon found herself alone in the dark, cold, empty field all over again, clutching husks of dead grass in her fists.

“I don’t want to be alone again… please…” Ruruka wept, her face down in the dirt. Then, when everything seemed lost, she felt someone place something onto her shoulders; a warm fur coat.

“Ah!” Ruruka shot up out of her bed and looked at her clock; 1 AM. She was only able to sleep for an hour. “Dammit… why can’t I sleep!?”

Ruruka rubbed her eyes and glanced over at her closet, where she saw all the things that Shuichi had bought her staring her back in the face.

“Hmmph…”

It was 3 AM, and Shuichi was still on the bench he was before, staring at the main entrance to Kokai park. He could barely keep his eyes open at this point, and he was now nodding off for longer and longer periods of time, but he refused to go to sleep entirely. He knew that he needed to stay alert for when Ruruka finally got there, so he could greet his new girlfriend with open arms and they could be happy together.

“Yeah… happy… together….” Shuichi said to himself as his eyelids drooped over his eyes and he began to lie down onto the bench.

But, just before he felt himself drift off completely, Shuichi felt a hand tap his shoulder, and he opened his eyes to see Ruruka standing there in front of him in the outfit he met her in, carrying two large paper shopping bags.

“Ruruka!” Shuichi shot up like an arrow from the bench. “There you are! Where have you been all this time?”

“Sorry, I got distracted by… stuff,” Ruruka replied, refusing to look Shuichi in the eye. “I would have called you, but I… forgot your number. I stopped by your apartment an hour ago, but you weren’t there. I was going to give up trying to find you, but then… something told me to check here.”

“Well, of course, I’m here! I said that I’d wait, didn’t I?” Shuichi replied.

“Did you really wait here for me this whole time?” Ruruka asked. “That was… loyal of you.”

“Yeah, well, my friends all left a while ago, but we can still work out if you want to. Let me just… limber myself back up and-” Shuichi began reaching for his toes, but Ruruka stopped him.

“I didn’t come here to workout, Shuichi,” Ruruka told him, a hand on his shoulder.

“Oh?” Shuichi stopped stretching. “R-right, I guess it is pretty late. How about we both get some sleep back at my apartment and-”

“Here!” Ruruka interrupted Shuichi again and shoved the bags she was carrying into his arms. “Take your stupid stuff back! I don’t want it anymore!”

“Huh?” Shuichi looked down into the bags and saw everything that he had bought her earlier that day. “But… isn’t this everything that you told me to buy? Was it defective or something?”

“No, it wasn’t,” Ruruka replied coldly. “And I never had any medicine I needed to get at home, Shuichi. And I never planned on showing up for your stupid park workout either!”

“I… I don’t understand…” Shuichi stammered, his hands starting to shake.

“It means I ghosted you, you big dumb idiot! I lied to you and betrayed you!” Ruruka shouted, scaring some birds out of a tree behind her. “I know I said we had a real connection before, but the truth is that I only wanted to date you because I thought you were loaded. I wanted you to be my new sugar daddy.”

“Y-you’re joking right?” Shuichi tried to laugh, but it sounded more painful than jovial.

“It’s not a joke! Now take your dumb stuff back so I can get out of your hair, and you won’t ever have to see me again!” Ruruka stomped her foot and turned around. “After what I did… I honestly wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted to see me again. You have every right to hate me.”

Shuichi sniffled a little as he felt his heart strain, but… he didn’t feel it break. It hurt, for sure, but just when hope seemed lost, he remembered back to what Kae had told him the day before;

“She needed me to be there for her, and I needed her to be there for me too. And if that’s wrong, then I don’t think I want to be right.”

“No… I… I don’t hate you, Ruruka,” Shuichi finally said.

“What!? Are you fucking joking!?” Ruruka spun around to face Shuichi again in frustration. The idea that someone wouldn’t be furious about something like this made her blood boil more than anything else. “Why don’t you fucking hate me!? After everything I’ve done to you, you’re fine with it!? No! I lied to you! Be angry at me! Call me a bitch or something, anything! You’re still not in denial, are you?”

“No, I… I get it. What you did was bad and… it hurt me quite a lot. But at the same time… I can’t really blame you, either.” Shuichi wiped his tears away and looked Ruruka in the eye. “You’ve been hurting for a long time haven’t you?”

“Ah!?” Ruruka blushed and looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“No… you may have lied to me a lot today, but that loneliness, that desperation for companionship… I could tell that was real.” Shuichi stepped closer to Ruruka. “Ruruka… when was the last time you really felt loved?”

“I… I…” Ruruka sniffled and, a moment later, she rushed into Shuichi’s arms and broke out into tears. “I can’t remember!” Her tears began to soak the front of Shuichi’s exercise shirt as he gently held her there to his chest. “I know I said my mom was cool, but… that’s not true at all! She threw me away when I was only twelve! Just left me alone in our apartment before running off with some guy I barely even met! She never cared about me at all, and I practically had to raise myself!”

“I… I’m so sorry, Ruruka… I had no idea.” Shuichi began to stroke Ruruka’s sweet-scented hair.

“Ever since she betrayed me… I’ve always had my guard up… trying to protect myself from others getting too close… unless I got something out of it,” she continued, still weeping. “I had lots and lots of ‘friends’... but even my lovers I never let get too close…”

“But you still felt lonely, didn’t you?” Shuichi asked, but there was no judgment in his voice. “It’s still not too late, you know; we could start our relationship over again! Try to be real, honest friends, helping each other improve, and then maybe…” Shuichi thought back to what Kae told him about good relationships taking time, and what Sayaka said about becoming the best version of yourself. “... maybe we could be something more?”

“Y-you really want to still be friends with me… even after I squeezed you for money… and left you high and dry?” Ruruka wiped her nose on her arm and looked up into Shuichi’s smiling, sincere face. “You’re… even dumber than I thought you were.”

“W-what?!” Shuichi gasped as Ruruka pushed Shuichi away from her body and began heading back toward the exit of the park. “Ruruka, wait!”

“No… I won’t wait, Shuichi. And neither should you.” Ruruka wiped more tears from her eyes and glanced back over her shoulder. “I’m not worth waiting for. I’ll just disappoint you again."

“I… I…” Shuichi reluctantly lowered the hand he had outstretched toward Ruruka. “I understand. Good luck out there, Ruruka. I hope we can meet again one day, under… better circumstances.”

“Better?” Ruruka paused and turned back around and walked back to Shuichi. “I don’t know if things can be better… and I don’t know if I can ever be better either. But for you, Shuichi…” Ruruka stood up and her toes and gave Shuichi a short and sweet peck on the lips. “...I promise that the next time we see each other, I’ll at least try to be better. But for now… this is the end for us.”

With that, Ruruka turned around again and disappeared into the night, leaving Shuichi’s gifts behind… except for a small glass she had still had in her purse.

Shuichi, meanwhile, just stood there blushing, unsure of what to do or what to say until he felt his phone buzz in his pocket.

“Hey there, Shuichi! I just saw your girlfriend's picture of you on Instagram, and I have to say that you are absolutely adorable with her!” Marisa Amami’s text to Shuichi read alongside a picture that Ruruka had taken of her and Shuichi smiling together on MP Bridge. “I wish you two the best of luck together! I can already tell that you’re both in for a very bright future!” And then, his phone battery died.

“Right… a bright future indeed.” Shuichi laughed bittersweetly, wiping away tears as he sat back down on the bench he had waited on. “I should get back home now, shouldn’t I? But… I’m way too tired to drive. Maybe I should just… rest my eyes for a few moments… and then I can drive home.”

Shuichi shut his eyes softly, but he wouldn’t open them again. Within moments of closing his eyelids, Shuichi fell into a deep sleep and collapsed completely onto the bench like a sack of bricks. He remained there, quiet and alone, for several minutes before someone new finally walked into the park.

“Alright, time to test out my OWA 2.0, complete with new dildo functions!” Curie, the Ultimate Inventor, said to herself as she fiddled with a remote control that connected wirelessly to the metal backpack she was wearing. “I know Kaede said not to test it in public, but she also said not to start another fire in the apartment complex, and she needs to learn that you can’t have it both ways! Huh? Wait a second… is that?”

Curie brought her goggles down over her face and used them to zoom in on Shuichi’s slumbering form.

“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Too-good-to-show-up! I was waiting for your lazy butt to call me up to tap this sweet ass of mine, but I didn’t even get so much from a text from you! Well, what do you have to say for yourself?” Curie poked Shuichi in his cheek, but he just mumbled and stayed asleep. “Pfft, asleep, huh? You could at least have the decency to give me a disappointing fuck before you go and pass out on me! Although… now that I look at you… you do look kinda cute like that.”

Suddenly, Shuichi opened his mouth and wrapped it around Curie’s outstretched finger, and began sucking on it gently.

“Oh! Oh my!” Curie redly blushed and put her other hand to her cheek as she enjoyed the sensation. “Well, I guess maybe I can forgive you just this once… but you’re coming home with me! I can’t have you stay out in the cold all night, after all; you could catch pneumothorax or whatever.”

Curie pressed a few buttons on her remote, and several robotic arms extended to pick Shuichi up off the bench.

“You might have forgotten to call me yesterday, Shuichi, but I guarantee that you’ll never forget me again after today,” she said as she walked back out of the park. “In fact, I bet I’m going to be the only girl on your mind for a long, long time~”