A Star's True Performance

Chapter Two - Tsukasa

Tsukasa had already been at the Wonder Stage for quite some time, waiting for everyone to arrive. He fiddled with his fingers nervously, he didn't know why he was feeling the way he currently did right now; simply dismissing it as nothing. He felt his stomach rumble again, the food in his lunchbox seeming very tempting; however he ignored his stomach's protests and held back, he couldn't just eat Rui's food like that. Though as he thought about Rui, he saw Rui approach from a distance with his normal cat-like grin upon seeing Tsukasa. He willed himself to relax upon seeing Rui himself, feeling an unfamiliar feeling in his stomach; it felt warm. His face started feeling warm, and a sickly feeling fluttered through his stomach. Suddenly he had the strong urge to just run away and throw up; but he didn't know the cause of this. Rui however seemed to pick up on that as he approached Tsukasa as he cleared his throat, trying to act normal.

"Tsukasa, is everything okay?" He heard Rui ask, as he sat down beside him on the stage's ledge. He cleared his throat and put on his best happy expression as he could manage. "HAHAH, of course I'm okay! What kind of star wouldn't be?" He said quite loudly, though he could feel the sickness from his stomach going to his throat, so he just swallowed hard; making sure Rui hasn't noticed his weird behavior yet. Rui seemed skeptical but carried on with whatever he wanted to say, his cat-like smirk coming right back on his face. Now he was wondering what it was Rui was about to show him.

"So Tsukasa-kun, I do have a small invention I'm willing to show you." He said happily with a small smile formed upon his face; it gave him butterflies, he wanted Rui to smile like that more. Seeing that smile was just enough to make Tsukasa feel like he was melting from the inside out. He wasn't sure of the origin of these odd feelings, but that was to think of later. He couldn't afford anymore setbacks from his work involving the show, a star would never allow such a thing to occur! However he himself didn't feel like a star at that moment, suddenly feeling like he let himself down. Unfortunately he was unaware of Rui's presence in all this thinking he was doing until he felt the warmth of Rui's arm wrap around his shoulder, bringing himself closer to Rui. To say he felt embarrassed would be an understatement.

He didn't really want to face Rui, however he couldn't resist the temptation of doing so; so he lifted his head up and allowed himself to come into eye contact with Rui. Rui seemed to be looking at Tsukasa's facial expressions, and for a mere second or so; falling down onto his lips. Rui was quick enough to avert his attention back onto his eyes, faltering for a second. He looked as if he wanted to say something; but he couldn't let himself say it out loud. Tsukasa was quite embarrassed by the fact that Rui was definitely looking at his lips as if wanting to initiate something, but acting accordingly. He was quite disappointed to say the least, though shocked on his own behalf; why would he want that in the first place? Then in that moment Tsukasa had it figured out, he had a crush on Rui. And this realization would be enough to crush him.