Archive of Our Own ^beta

Rui would be lying to himself if he said he didn't harbor any sort of resentment toward his past self, who had been too absorbed in his infatuation to realize what he had signed himself up for.

Less than 24 hours ago, Rui was in a store, blissfully unaware of what would come of this trip. His focus was glued to the aisles stretching out before him as he absentmindedly nibbled away at his bottom lip.

"You're doing it again," a familiar, yet not all that reassuring voice chimed in next to him.

"Doing what, Nene?" Rui asked, his eyes squinting and his brow furrowing.

"You're biting your lip. It's your nervous tick," she stated, as if he wasn't aware of his own bad habits, "Is gift shopping really making you this anxious?"

Although Rui's head moved as he shook it in disagreement, his gaze still remained on all of the items before him, flickering to each and every item. "It's not that I'm nervous. I just want to make sure I do this right, is all."

He heard a soft chuckle arise from the girl next to him. "Well, yeah, but I don't think there's any way you could get this wrong. You know Emu's not picky; you could pick anything from here and she'd love it just because it came from you."

The comment was incredulous enough to pry Rui's gaze away from his perusing just so he could shoot Nene a pointed glare. "Actually, there is a way I could get it wrong, and you just described it." he chided, turning his gaze back to the exact same item as before. "I'm not here to get her 'just anything,' she deserves something special."

Nene smiled, watching as her lifelong friend stepped forward and picked up an object he had been eyeing for quite some time now. "Alright, alright; let me help you look."

And so, the childhood friends spent the next half hour of their day perusing the aisles for potential gifts. The store wasn't lacking in terms of stock— there were all sorts of things ranging from practical gifts and gag gifts all the way to trinkets and crafts. Yet, there was nothing that appealed to Rui. Perhaps he was being too picky; after half an hour he still had yet to find something suitable. Just as his mind had started to succumb to the notion that any gift at all would be better than showing up empty handed—

"Rui, look at what I just found!"

—A voice had snapped him out of his trance. "Oh?" he mused, turning around to observe what Nene wanted to show him. "What's this?"

On the shelf before them was a plush brown dog, seemingly plain save for the plastic paneling on its back, adorned with star-shaped holes and a button. Naturally, Rui pushed the button, watching with keen interest as the panel suddenly lit up, projecting a starry scene onto the bottom of the shelf above it. "Interesting..." he hummed, the corners of his lips tracing the faintest outline of a smile.

"It's really cute," Nene pushed the button as well, watching in awe as the lights changed color. "I think this gift is right up her alley; it's practically screaming her name—" As Nene talked, she turned her gaze to her friend to gauge his interest, only coming to a full stop when she saw a look of uncertainty thinly veiled over his face. "Oh, come on, Rui. You really don't like this one?" she asked, exasperation in her voice.

"Hehehe, it's not that I don't like it," he assured her, reaching his hand forward and picking up the toy. "It's actually perfect. Thank you, Nene." his voice trailed off with a hum as he slowly rotated the plushie in his grasp, observing every little detail on the toy.

Nene met his response with skepticism, crossing her arms over her chest. "But...?"

After a moment or so, he pried his gaze away from the toy with a look that Nene knew all too well. "I could totally make this myself. Wouldn't that make for a much more suitable gift?"

At the time, it seemed like a great idea— the toy seemed simple enough to recreate, and he could personalize its design to make it a more suitable gift for Emu. He couldn't see any immediate problems with trying to recreate it, and if there were problems, that would be for his future self to handle.

Now, as Rui was sitting on the floor, struggling to get this device to work properly, a part of him wished he were making a time machine instead, so he could go back and tell himself to just buy the toy from the store. He could feel himself become more and more frustrated with each and every thing that went wrong— and at around the seventh mishap, he let the frustration take over, unceremoniously falling back to the floor with a dull thump resonating throughout the room. The screwdriver he was previously gripping so tightly clattered out of his hand and onto the floor next to him, and although he had half a mind to catch it, he merely decided to let it fall.

Staring wordlessly at the popcorn ceiling above him, Rui decided that now would be a good time to take a break and let the frustration pass before he picked up the work again (lest he get even more frustrated and give up entirely). Instead of trying to come up with explanations as to why nothing was working the way it was supposed to, he allowed his mind to wander somewhere different, somewhere better.

In a not too distant future, the ceiling he was staring at would be covered in stars and constellations, the culmination of the effort he put into Emu's gift. He fantasized about all of the different ways Emu would react to the present (although most of them involved a hug because lord knows he could really use one of her hugs right about now), and as he pictured himself lying next to her, listening as she talked about the different constellations in the sky and what they meant, he felt the knot of frustration inside of him slowly ebb away until it had completely vanished, in its place a warm feeling in his chest and a faint smile on his face.

As he finally picked himself up off the floor, he caught a glimpse of his work wall, littered with blueprints, concept art, and (arguably the most important part), a bunch of memos from Emu; sticky notes with various doodles, little notes of encouragement surrounded by tiny hearts, some blueprints of her own, and even a few polaroid photos of them. Scattered all over his room were traces of her, little reminders of why making this device from scratch as opposed to simply buying it from the store was worth all the trouble.

With renewed vigor and a clear mind, Rui picked his screwdriver up off of the floor and got back to work. The break had served him well— in no time at all the gadget was finished without a flaw in sight.

Satisfied with the results and excited to show it off, it took every ounce of self restraint in Rui not to immediately give her the gift as soon as she arrived at his place later that night. Instead, he waited right up until the two of them were about to retire for the night, only then revealing that he had a surprise in store for her.

"Close your eyes, Emu-kun..." Rui waited for a moment until he was certain that Emu had fully closed her eyes and wasn't peeking between her fingers before retrieving the gift bag from its hiding spot. He placed it in her open hands, no longer able to keep a neutral expression. "Okay, you can open now."

Emu's eyes flew open before he could finish his sentence, but he didn't mind it at all, too busy admiring the way her eyes widened in curiosity. She wasted no time reaching into the bag, fishing out the item inside and letting out an excited squeal when she saw what, or rather whom, it was. "Phenny!" she cheered, hugging the miniature mascot with a smile so wide that it made her eyes squint.

In her hands was indeed a decently sized pink Phenny, adorned in a jester's hat and an outfit that bore a striking resemblance to Emu's performance costume, something which she had only noticed after she was done hugging him. "Oh! Look, Rui-kun, we're matching!" She held the Phenny next to her, holding up a peace sign with her other hand and flashing her biggest grin. "He's like an Emu Jr.!"

Rui chuckled at the comment, reveling in Emu's contagious excitement. "I see," he mused, as if he hadn't specifically designed the Phenny in her likeness. "Perhaps this Phenny could actually be a Robo-Emu."

Emu gasped. "My very own Robo-Emu-Phenny! I love it so-so much!" Carefully, she set down the gift on the desk. As soon as her hands were free, she practically threw herself at Rui, hugging him as tight as she could while burying her face in his sweater. He could hear a very muffled "thank you," alongside other words that he couldn't quite make out.

Rui eagerly returned the hug with his heart pounding inside of his chest. "You know, Emu-kun, there's more..."

"There's more?!" Without breaking away from the hug, Emu pulled her head away from his sweater, resting her chin against his chest to look up at him in awe.

"Mhm," Rui nodded. "Somewhere on our dear Emu Jr. is a button, waiting for you to push it."

That was all he needed to say for Emu to practically fling herself back to the mascot, turning him around in search of the button. Rui watched her in silence, feelings of adoration and admiration stirring inside of him. To have someone who was so interested in his creations and loved every single one of them— to have someone who loved him with just as much fervor— was truly more than he could've ever hoped to find in life.

"Rui-kun! Rui-kun!" Emu's ecstatic shouts brought the boy back to earth. "I found the button!" she gestured excitedly for him to come closer so she could show him. Naturally, he obliged, stepping forward and resting his hand atop her shoulder as he watched her push in Phenny's beak. A satisfying click sound could be heard, yet after a few seconds, nothing happened. "Hmm..." Emu's face contorted into a pout. "Was that a fake button? But the click sounded so real! Why isn't anything happening...?"

"You have to open it first, Emu-kun."

"I have to open it?" Emu parroted, her sad expression morphing into one of confusion. She took a moment or two to figure out what Rui had meant before picking up the toy and twisting the jester hat atop its head.

Surely enough, her intuition was correct, and the hat started twisting. When she took off the hat, she was greeted with a bunch of small patterns adorning the top of Phenny's head. "Oooh, he's glowing..." she hummed.

While Emu was occupied with looking at the patterns, she failed to notice Rui looking up at the ceiling and the disappointed huff that left his mouth. "It's a little hard to see with the lights on, here, allow me," Rui excused himself to turn off the light switch, and the moment the room was supposed to shroud in darkness was the moment it lit up. In the same instance the main light shut off, the ceiling was adorned with tons of glowing stars.

"Woah!" Emu craned her neck so she could stare at the now starry ceiling. "This is..." her voice trailed off, too mesmerized to think of a proper word.

Rui returned to her side, looking up alongside her. "Now, we can look at the stars before we fall asleep," he rested her hand atop her shoulder, lowering his head to look at her. "What do you say, Emu-kun? Would you care to go star-gazing with me?"

"I've always wanted to go stargazing in my pajamas!" Emu exclaimed, hurrying to the bed. "How'd you know?" She turned around to face Rui, holding out her arms and letting herself fall back onto the mattress in a dramatic fashion.

Rui huffed, a cheeky smile on his face. "I'm a genius, Emu-kun; it's my job to know these sorts of things," he answered, trailing not too far behind her.

It was only after the two of them were settled, lying side by side, that one of them spoke again. "Rui-kun?" Emu asked, turning on her side and lazily splaying her arm across his chest. Rui merely hummed in response, resting his hand atop hers and tracing circles with his thumb. "How long did this take you to make?"

"Honestly?" he couldn't quite stifle the chuckle he let out right then. "Longer than it should've," he admitted. "I kept messing up at the beginning. I think it took longer to get started than it actually took to complete it."

Emu rested her head against his shoulder, pink eyes focused on the ceiling. "This has to be the best gift I've ever received. Thank you so much, Rui-kun!"

There were so many things Rui wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell her how he had loved her to the point of creation, how he would do anything to make the stars shine for her. Instead, he kept it inside; someday, there'd be a time to confess all of those feelings to her— but for now, he was content with where he was. "Do you like it?" he asked.

"Do I like it?" Emu's pink eyes flickered down to meet his yellow ones. "Of course! I love-love-love it!"

Rui closed his eyes, a faint sigh leaving his lips. "That's good, because I put a lot of work into putting in accurate constellations despite knowing nothing about them." discreetly, he opened one of his eyes while he spoke so he could look at Emu.

"Oh! Oh!" The excited spark lit up in Emu's gaze. "Here, let me show you!" Pulling her hand away from Rui, she pointed up towards a specific spot on the ceiling. "You see how those four stars in a line are bigger than the others? And then, right next to it is another big one? These five stars make up the constellation of Cancer, the snippy snipper— your zodiac sign, actually!"

"Hmm..." Rui hummed, both of his eyes now wide open as they followed where Emu was pointing with her finger.

"You know what zodiacs are, right?"

Rui laughed softly. "Yes, I know about the zodiac signs," he assured her. "I just... I honestly don't see how that's supposed to resemble a crab."

As Emu continued to explain the constellations to him, Rui let his eyes flutter shut once more. Everything about this conversation had played out exactly as he had imagined it would just a few hours prior— yet although it was the same, it was notably different. If anything, it was significantly better now that Emu was actually beside him. Feeling the warmth from her presence, getting to watch her enjoy the gift he prepared for her, every little thing about her made all of the work he put in more than worth it. He would definitely do it all again if it meant he could keep making her happy like this. Any and all frustration-inducing equipment malfunctions would be a problem for his future self, he decided, as he allowed himself to drift off to the sound of Emu's voice.