So Kain is a rather sensible sort (also he's a dork, but that's another story), and wants everything very structured and in logical progression. I can but hope I've done it right. This is one of the ones that made me stay up far too late and chew on my headphone cord far too much.

I hereby dedicate this fanfic to my little sister. She'll understand.

Also, everyone, happy Valentine's Day! I was a few hundred words in as of last Thursday (with not very much idea of where the whole thing was going, even), at which point I realised that this would, for Valentine's Day, be rather suitable. So I thought, Best get going. I fail like this quite often.

What the Answer Ought to Be

There is a lot to be said, Kain Akatsuki will tell you, for anyone who knows how to handle women. It is a mysterious, invaluable, elusive skill, he is told, something which can take years to grasp and even longer to master (and in the end no one quite understands it anyway and it's probably an urban legend born of egoism and wishful thinking with a generous side of desperate hope). It is said to be of nothing less than the utmost importance, because the cliché of Hell hath no fury is clichéd because it's true, and so Kain rather thinks that something that important should be easier to do, in the vein of other very important things like sleeping and bloodletting and trigonometry.

But with regards to this most vital of skills nature has been quite impressively unhelpful, and so to be able to handle women one needs ability, reflexes and tact of the highest calibre, and, preferable above all, sex chromosomes that match.

Kain likes to think he does alright. Certainly he is tactful, if only by comparison to the company he keeps; his reflexes could be worse; and, as for the ability part, he believes that he is beginning to get the general idea of the whole thing (it's a start). The sex chromosome matter is of course a lost cause, but you can't have everything.

His problem, by all possible calculation, is that he simply knows far too many women. More than once he has wondered what his life would be like were there fewer women in it; he has come to the conclusion that it might be lonelier but would surely be far less complicated. He imagines that he would find it difficult to choose between loneliness and complication, so he figures it's lucky that he's already got one so doesn't have to worry about the other. Much easier that way.

See, Kain grew up with plenty of women around. His mother, his aunts, all three of Hanabusa's sisters, and other assorted relations. And then there's Ruka, who is included in the 'other assorted relations' but justifies a mention all of her own, because if nothing else he sees her the most. (He also happens to be desperately in love with her, but that is an entirely different matter.)

He supposes that, out of all the women he's ever met, Ruka is the least difficult to handle. This is probably because he knows her well enough to be able to deduce what she is going to do or say under any given circumstance, and she probably wouldn't agree with him if he told her this (bless her), but she can be somewhat predictable. Lovely, but predictable. Kain does not take this for granted, because Ruka is pretty much the only woman he really knows how to handle, save maybe for his mother, whose actions he can also occasionally predict: "Akatsuki, stop slouching."

If only it were all that straightforward.

But, as fortune would have it, it isn't. Because, while he knows what Ruka is going to do, he hasn't the slightest idea why.

Ruka is very womanly. She has fluttery eyelashes and polished nails and all sorts of strange feminine proclivities, most of which seem to involve extremely complicated body language or things that smell nice. And she is, most of the time, very difficult to understand.

Kain doesn't know how her mind works at all. There's no pattern he can see to her behaviour, no decent reasoning of any sort—it is probably, he thinks, all of a piece with those moods of hers, and the way they change would unsettle anyone. And because she's got no pattern, there isn't one he can follow with regards to how on earth he's supposed to respond to the things she says. This bothers him somewhat, because he wants to be able to say the right thing, really he does, but she's so confusing and it's just impossible.

Thing is, Kain likes to understand stuff. He understands numbers, he understands Hanabusa, he understands how to conduct his life without getting his earring caught on anything; and so it bothers him that he just can't understand Ruka. He feels as if he's got a duty to, but he'd have no idea where to start. And it's important. How is anything going to work out otherwise?

As it were, he and Ruka are, by now, involved. It took a while, no doubt about that—they've long left school; they're still not quite adults, but they're close enough—and they are quite unquestionably together. He, to use the old-fashioned but appropriate term, courted her for a while, approached gently, with delicacy; and then one day she said, "Oh, for goodness' sake, Akatsuki, you're taking too long," and leaned up and kissed him rather thoroughly, and that was that.

Kain is of the opinion that, in order to uphold a healthy relationship, each partner ought to have a good, decent understanding of the other. Ruka, of course, understands him perfectly. He will some day express to her that he thinks that this is slightly unfair, and that he'd like to gain a greater appreciation of her motivations for everything. He has not done this yet on account of that he's never gotten the chance, because she always conveniently distracts him with her charming, devastatingly attractive smile and her pretty eyes and all sorts of other things. (He suspects that she does this on purpose, but he is not complaining.)

He can imagine how the conversation will go. He'll casually, vaguely mention to her that he doesn't understand her at all (just by the way, thought you should know); she'll laugh at him for even trying.

This is where he'd sigh in a very long-suffering sort of way. He's known Ruka for as long as he can remember and all he can fathom is that she's a woman and the way her mind works is completely beyond him. He'd think he'd have the good sense to leave it there, but it turns out he doesn't. He spends an awful amount of time wondering why Ruka has said or done something; of course he never actually asks her, because that wouldn't get him anywhere at all. (Thinking about it never gets him anywhere either, so what difference would it make?)

Ruka often tells him that he thinks too much. He's never bothered to decide if she's right or not, but he lets her think she is because it's probably better for everyone that way. (That, at least, he has learned by now.)

Sure, Kain's persistent, determined, all that; but this is the one thing that really gets him. So one day he just says, "You know, I just don't get it," and Ruka looks at him with one perfect eyebrow raised.

"Get what?"

"You," Kain confesses, and tries not to think about the possible consequences. "I don't understand you at all."

Ruka looks at him for a moment, and then she smiles. It is dazzling. "Why would you want to? I don't think you're supposed to," she says.

Kain blinks as he tries to take this in. He feels as though he should strongly object, but he can't think of anything with which to back himself up. He settles for asking her, "Don't you feel like I should?"

"No," she replies, amused. "We don't think the same way at all. I couldn't possibly expect you to understand me. Honestly, Akatsuki, I told you, you think too much."

Oh.

So there's that.

It's a bit strange, really. Kain has always felt as if he needs to understand Ruka for her sake, for the sake of their relationship; and now his worldview has taken an abrupt one hundred and eighty degree turn. He put too much thought into trying to understand her, and as such didn't realise that things were perfectly fine when he didn't understand her. He feels very foolish.

"Oh, Akatsuki," Ruka says very sympathetically, "don't be daft. I mean it."

Kain sighs, and wonders what he's going to spend his time thinking about now.

Ruka, unsurprisingly, realises this.

"Come here," she says. "I'll give you something to think about."

In the end, she's right, and Kain forgets that he ever tried to understand her. She is a woman, after all, and he is a man, and he doesn't know what he's talking about; but she loves him and he loves her, and that's that.

At least so far as he understands.