That Evening

[Fiori]

((Ruby Forrester continued from A week or so later...))

It'd been several hours or so since Ruby had sent her text, and she was already beginning to feel doubtful again.

As she made her way down the street, carrying with her a bag full of MacDonalds burgers and french fries, she quickly checked her phone again to see remind herself what her original text had said. Hey. I want to speak to u about something. Can we meet at 7:00? xxxxx. It was a couple of hours until Brian had finally replied, saying something along the lines of Sure thing. busy atm cud u meet me at 8:00 in mcdonalds? seeya soon.

Odd. Brian wasn't usually busy on Saturdays. Hell, he was hardly ever busy at unless he was in the middle of a game or something. Oh well, no problem. At least this gave her more time to think over how she was going to word this. The last thing she needed was for Brian to horribly misinterpret what she was going to tell him. Sure, what she was about to do was going to result in a seriously awkward moment no matter what she said, but at the very least she could try to avoid making it sound as though she thought it was entirely Brian's fault for being such a lousy lover or something. After all, she was pretty sure that most girls would leap at the opportunity of being with a guy like Brian, hence why it was so important that she told him now rather than put it off any longer.

That said, at the same time she was also perhaps a little too impatient. There's no way she could sit around in MacDonalds for what could potentially be an hour or so for Brian to show up. The fact that Brian wanted to talk at 8:00 rather than 7:00 was pretty annoying all by itself. She wanted to get this over and done with now, damnit!

But then, a thought occurred to her. Why not bring the MacDonalds to him instead? Surprise Brian by arriving at his apartment ten minutes early. She wasn't entirely sure whether or not he would actually be there of course, but if not she could always show up slightly late at MacDonalds anyway. It wasn't as if it was that far a walk from where Brian lived. Besides, she would much prefer to discuss this kind of thing in private than in a public place, especially if said public place was a fast food restaurant full of overweight diners.

As Ruby waited for the elevator to get to the floor that Brian lived on, she checked her phone again to see what the time was. Hmm, it's 7:43. Oh well, no harm in being early, right?

Eventually, the doors to the elevator opened, and Ruby made her way down the familiar corridor to where Brian's apartment was. As she reached the door, she was about to raise her hand to press the door bell, when she suddenly spotted that the door was slightly ajar. Not thinking much of it, Ruby was about to ring the doorbell again when another thing caught her attention.

...Huh? The hell is that noise? It sounds just like...

She froze on the spot.

No way. There's absolutely no way that it could be that. Brian must have left the TV on or something. There's no way in hell that he would ever...

Biting her lip, Ruby slowly opened the door and walked inside, praying that she was only imagining things. That the thing she could hear was actually something completely innocent and absolutely NOT what she thought it was.

Much to her disappointment, it wasn't.

Right there, sitting on the couch in front of the TV, was Brian kissing someone.

And to make this incredibly awkward moment all the more surreal, said someone was none other than Shiro Tanizaki.

.....What the fuck.

To say that Ruby was feeling conflicted would have been something of an understatement. That said, it was an incredibly one-sided confliction. One the one hand, a very small part of her was saying that this was exactly what she was hoping would happen. That Brian would give up on her and go with someone else, someone who would actually be able to love him back. She was going to break up with him anyway, so why get herself worked up on it?

Sadly, that small voice was drowned out by a thousand others who were feeling immensely pissed off with Brian. How dare he! How fucking DARE he even consider cheating on her, after all the years she'd wasted pretending to like him? If he didn't want to be with her that much anyway, then why the flying fuck did he bother staying with her for so long? The fact that he was cheating on her with a GUY just made things even more weird, and opened up a million other questions that Ruby dreaded to know the answer to.

And so, feeling incredibly angry and confused, the one part of Ruby that was desperately trying to stop her from doing anything rash could only watch as she yelled at him at the top of her voice.

"What the FUCK, Brian?" she shouted, causing Brian to jolt back in shock. As soon as his eyes met Ruby's, his skin went visibly pale from sheer fear, and his face formed a mixed expression of surprise and concern.

"R-R-Ruby, wait! I-I-I can explain, this isn't what it looks like at all I swear!"

Ruby hardly heard him. She was too busy trying to figure out whether or not there had been any clues in the past leading up to this situation. Brian and Shiro had been friends since the start of that year. Not immediately, seeing as she could recall Brian being somewhat jealous of Shiro at first after seeing what he was like on the track, but after a while to two had become really close friends. Much closer than they seemed at first, from the looks of things. More-or-less everyone knew Shiro was gay, but Brian? Ruby would have never guessed in a million years that he swung that way. Just thinking about it was giving her a headache. Coming to think of it, the more she stayed in this room, the more sick she was beginning to feel about the whole situation. She couldn't even remember why she was there in the first place. All she knew was that she wanted to turn around and walk as far away from there as she could.

And so, she did.

Or at least, she tried to. She was halfway down the corridor when Brian caught up with her, calling out her name in an attempt to stop her. Eventually, she did turn around to face him, a vicious scowl on her face as her eyes bore into Brian's.

"What do you want?" she said, still clutching tightly to the bag of MacDonalds.

"Look Ruby, I know this looks really REALLY bad..."

"You don't say..."

"...But if you give me a minute, I can explain everything!"

"Oh really? That I'd like to see. Let me guess... Shiro challenged you to a tongue wrestle? Someone dared the two of you to re-enact a scene from Brokeback Mountain? Or was I really just so fucking bad that I literally turned you gay?"

She wasn't particularly thinking about what she was saying anymore. She was just too angry and confused to care.

"NO! Nonono, nothing like that! I still want to be with you Ruby, I REALLY do! Believe me, I'm just as confused about all this as you are."

"What? So are you saying that you're actually bi-curious or something, or were you and Shiro just sharing a friendly smooch?"

Brian opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. That said, his expression said more than words ever could.

On that note, Ruby turned away and continued walking towards the elevator, actually making it inside before Brian caught up with her.

"Ruby, wait! Don't go!"

"Fuck off Brian..." said Ruby as she pressed the button to go down. However, just as the elevator doors were about to shut Brian managed to get his arm in just in time, causing the doors to open again as Brian took a deep breath and began to explain.

"Look, Ruby... I know it's hard to believe, but I do still love you, I really do! It's just... Yes, you're right, I do have feelings for Shiro. Feelings that I'm more than a little confused about. But believe me when I say that I did NOT plan on any of this happening! We haven't been seeing each other behind your back for months or anything like that. Hell, I only realised I had feelings for him in the first place just the other day..."

Ruby couldn't help but raise her eyebrow, which Brian almost immediately noticed.

"Wait, no, I'm not saying that it's your fault or anything! I'm pretty sure I've felt this way for a while now, and It's only been recently that I've actually... Fuck, I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. The thing is, I NEVER actually wanted to do anything about it. You're my girlfriend Ruby, not him. I only called him over here in the first place because I wanted to talk to someone about... Well, us. For the last few weeks I've been meaning to talk to you about that night. Properly, that is. But I just... I just could never think of what to say. And I-I wanted to talk to someone else about it beforehand. And seeing as Shiro's one of my closest friends it just made sense to ask him, y'know? It was just meant to be a simple conversation, nothing else. It's just that..."

Again, Brian found himself lost for words. Almost as if he didn't even particularly know himself how things went from a simple conversation to a full blown makeout session. In any case, Ruby couldn't help but notice that there was now tears dripping from Brian's eyes.

"...It's just that i'm an idiot, that's what. A stupid fucking idiot who made a stupid fucking mistake. Good god, I feel so awful about all this. I'm literally just as angry with myself for what I've done as you are. I care about you Ruby, I really do. You've got to believe me when I say that I never wanted to hurt you like this."

What had started out as a few stray droplets had now gone on to become a steady stream of tears that ran down his cheeks.

"I love you Ruby. And... And I know that things have been a little awkward recently, but we can still make this work! Some day, I know we'll just look back on this and laugh, I just know it. Just... Just please, give me another chance to prove it. I know that what I did was truly unforgivable, and you have every right to never want to see me again. But if there's any way that I can still somehow make up for this, please let me know and I'll do it for you."

For the next few seconds or so there was a complete silence between them, neither of the two teens being particularly sure where to go with this. By this point, Ruby's temper had died down somewhat, and she was even beginning to slightly sympathise with Brian despite what he had just done. She knew Brian well enough to know that his explanation made way more sense than the idea of him outright cheating on her, even if there were still numerous questions left unsaid. And even if he had been intentionally cheating on her, she didn't doubt for a second that he was feeling genuinely regretful about it. She'd seen Brian try to act before, and to be perfectly frank he was pretty awful at it, and besides he wasn't exactly the kind of person who would lie about this kind of thing.

But... Deep down, she knew that there was no way they could remain together, especially not after what had just happened. And as much as Ruby wanted to make Brian feel happy, she knew that it wouldn't be right to lie to him anymore. Especially if he had just found someone else he could be happy with instead.

"Brian... I think you and I have both known for the past few weeks that isn't possible." she said.

Brian was about to open his mouth to say something, but immediately closed it. Even he could tell that there was no point in saying anything else after that.

It was at that point that Ruby remembered the hamburgers she had brought with her, and decided to hand them over to Brian.

"Here, I brought you this. I hope you and Shiro enjoy them together."

On that note, Ruby pressed the button and the elevator doors began to shut, only this time Brian did nothing to stop them.

Halfway down the elevator shaft, Ruby could no longer stop herself from bursting into tears.

((Ruby Forrester continued elsewhere...))