A/N: Well, I hope this story can make some people happy. I tried to make it as accurate and faithful to the characters as possible, and you know what? If it's still too bad, then too bad. I really am trying, and I'm going to try and make Ruki as close to herself as can be. I know that Strawberry Girl was very inaccurate, but it was MY FIRST STORY, so give me some slack. I know I will do better in this one.

Now, for those who overlook all that crap and are just looking for a good story with a good storyline (I'm being redundant aren't I?) I think this will be pretty decent. Oh, and throughout the story it's a gradual Jenruki. But I think that the other fans will like this story. Oh, and by the way, it will switch POV's throughout, so be aware of that. Just so you know. anyone else in real life, it is purely accidental and coincidental.



Disclaimer: I don't own digimon, nor do I plan to make a profit off of this. It would be nice to, but oh well. Also, if this has happened to

Friendship and Love

Prologue: Rumiko Makino at Seventeen and Beyond / Beginnings in Friendship



She was only seventeen when it all happened.

It was prom night, and she just had the time of her life with her new boyfriend she found three weeks ago. I think it was boyfriend number fifteen for her for the four years she went to high school, but that's another story. Anyway, she and her "king" were the prom king and queen; champions, if you will. She was beautiful back then with her blonde hair and lavender eyes, and I figured that was why almost every guy in high school was all over her.

So what do Seniors do after they graduate? Party, of course. It was at her house, the main party. All the "cool" people went over there, as well as the wannabees who thought they were cool. And what do they do when they party? Get drunk, smoke, dance-

And lose virginities.

That last one may not necessarily be true, but I recently saw a movie in which some friends tried to lose their virginity at prom night. It just so happened that she and her boyfriend started to get a little over romantic, making out everywhere; the living room, the swimming pool, the kitchen, until eventually it reached her parents' bedroom. Her parents were gone, by the way, on vacation, and they decided to let their house be raided by the naïve soon-to-be graduates.

It got very steamy once the guy pulled her shirt off as well as his, and pretty soon it got to where almost every high school student wanted to be.

She looked around. "Dammit. Sweetheart, do you have any forms of protection?"

"Forget it. It makes the experience worse with them."

So they got down to business. It was no turning back for her. Here she was, only seventeen, having sex with her boyfriend on her parents' bed.

It was there where Rumiko Marie Makino entered the first day of the rest of her life. And there, I, Ruki Rose Makino, was conceived.

******************

Or at least that's what I am told. My parents each have told me different sides of the coin. Those two, my mom and my jerk of a dad, got married when they were only eighteen. I don't even know how I was born; my mother doesn't even tell me. Some mother. As for my jerk of a dad.

*******************

I was only four years old when events took an interesting turn, to say the least. I was asleep, despite it being only three p.m. It might have been my naptime, I dunno. Anyway, it seemed that my mom and dad got in a huge fight, and pretty soon push came to shove, as it usually did between the two, but this time, it got more aggressive. He was hitting my mom, and I think he even threatened to kill her once or twice during the scuffle.

I woke up, hearing the yells and screams. I hopped out of bed and walked over to my parents' bedroom, where I saw what I couldn't believe. There it was, my mother and father, arguing and my father seemed to be winning, both verbally and physically. There was some blood on the floor. It could have been from my dad, but I highly doubted it. I heard my mother squeal,

"Ruki! Honey, help me!"

I stood there motionless. I mean, it isn't everyday your parents are beating one another up. Besides, what could a four-year-old do? I didn't know what to do, and I waited to see what happened.

Turns out, some neighbor nearby heard the noise in my house and decided to call 911. The police and ambulance raced over to 6224 Kavazi Drive. Of course, at the time I didn't exactly know what was going on. The cops stormed through our house and arrested my father, the father that could have possibly killed my mother had the authorities not come through.

That was the last I heard of my father. He and my mother divorced, and we took back our maiden name of Makino. I never even really liked Patikawa anyway. I heard many rumors throughout the years, ranging from prison, to death penalties, to escapee, to raising another family somewhere across the world. I didn't know which one was true, neither did I care about him.

Not soon afterward did we move in with my grandmother to start anew so to speak. I love my grandmother; I really do, but she doesn't need to be involved with our affairs. It's something only my mom and myself could take care of.

So that's what happened. One week, my grandmother, her mom, whatever you want to call her, went to a trip in southern Japan to take care of things that I had no intention of knowing. I was about eight years old at the time, so my mother decided to have a woman-to-woman talk.

"Ruki, sweetheart, I've been meaning to tell you about your life in general." Of course, I had no idea in hell what she was talking about or where she was getting at, but I let her continue.

"Ruki, your father." she started. But I knew what she was talking about.

"I know. You guys divorced and we haven't seen him since," I interrupted.

Mom sighed. "This is a perfect example of how not to live your life. I made a mistake in starting my life early at seventeen, what with your birth and all. I'm not saying you should have been born, but I'm saying that we should have decided about this at an older age, not while we were still teenagers who hadn't even graduated. We were arguing about financial problems, our parents wouldn't help us financially and we were stuck. Then it got really bad, and that's where all the fighting started." She looked at me and took a breath. "All this because of some stupid-ass decision I made on my prom night."

I looked at her. "What does this really have to do with me?"

"Ruki, darling, I'm trying to help you learn from my mistakes. Just because you fall in love with someone, don't think that you have to spend the rest of your life with them." She started to break down, a sight that, now that I think about it, I didn't want to see at all, half because it was pathetic to see a grown person cry, and also because it almost made me cry. "Ruki, don't just immediately fall into a relationship. Think about it. You'll ruin your life like I did. It's okay to be good friends with a guy, but please, think twice before jumping off the bridge."

I gave her an eyebrow. "What bridge?"

She gave a quick smile. "Oh honey, I just hope you don't go down the same road that I do."

********************

That's what really started it all. I didn't want to be by anyone else; I wanted to be alone, to protect myself. There were the casual friends or acquaintances that I met at that private school, but that really isn't the same kind of friendship that, oh say, Takato and Jenrya have. I didn't want to disappoint my mother, but sometimes she just pisses me off. I originally liked the ideas of hormones taking your body over, being eight years old and full of life at all, but I soon adapted to her quote-unquote "wise" teachings, and soon afterward, I felt no romantic affection for those of the opposite sex.

My first test came when I was thirteen years old. When we, the tamers, fought the D-reaper and all way back when, a fellow hero by the name of Ryo Akiyama was willing to sacrifice himself to make sure we won. He might have done this to show off to me, at least that's what he said. I thought that was very sweet, yet, lame.

Only four hours later did he ask me out. I remembered the words from my mother, and with a lot of hesitation, I had to reject him. I apologized to him and asked him for forgiveness, but he just left me. I felt bad in a way that I destroyed his emotions like that, but also, a bit proud of myself, because I had done what my mom had asked of me.

I haven't seen Ryo in forever. It's kind of sad, but I'm sure he'll find another pretty red-headed girl to start a nice relationship with when he's older. I don't know for sure if he moved or not, but it's odd, because now he doesn't talk to me or see me.

It was weird, because through all of this, I had became good friends with, Jenrya Lee, who also played a valuable part in saving our world. I mean, we were cool with each other before during the days of us being tamers, but now it just seemed that we could talk about anything with each other, something I could not do back then, and I still remembered when this nice little semi-relationship started.

When I was fourteen, I decided to take a walk in the park. It was pretty cloudy, in fact, it could have easily started to rain. Renamon, Gillmon, Terriermon, and all the other digital monsters were gone from the earth, and I started to reflect upon my late friend, Renamon. Well, I don't like to think she died or anything, she just "went home." I didn't go to the park as often as I would during the days of the digimon tamers, but it still felt nice to get out there once in a while and just be alone to think.

It was there where Jen also decided to go to the park. He and his little sister Shiuchon were alone at home, so Jen, being the responsible and caring brother that he is, took Shiuchon to the park to go on some slides. Shiuchon was only six years old, so she still enjoyed that kind of fun and leisure.

******************

He saw me first. "Hey Ruki, haven't seen you in a while!" He called over to me. Sitting on a faraway bench, I pretended to not notice him. Then, being the responsible and caring brother he is, he left Shiuchon alone on the merry-go-round to go talk to me. Some brother.

"Jenwya! Awn't you going to watch me spin awound?" Shiuchon shouted over to him, in her high, yet soft voice.

"Don't worry, Shiuchon, I'll be right back." He walked over to me, a good 100 meters away. "Hey, Ruki, how's it going?"

"Um.shouldn't you be watching your little sister?" I asked him.

"Oh, don't worry, she can take care of-" Jenrya turned around and saw that no one filled the void that was the merry-go-round. "Shiuchon?" He looked frantically for his sister. I laughed at first, but then I saw that he was getting really serious noticing his expression. I got up and started my help on the search as well.

"Shiuchon? Where are you?" Jenrya and I called. No answer. Then I saw it.

A man, very tall, had a figure in his left arm. In fact, the figure looked like a little girl-

"Shiuchon!" Jenrya yelled at the guy and his sister. "Give me back my sister, you asshole!" He chased after the guy, who had started to run. Soon I gathered my senses and started running as well.

The guy was fast, as he easily out ran Jenrya, taking a left turn to a dirt road. Suddenly I had an idea. I could tell where he was going, and I could cut him off. I took a sharp left through the bushes, as the kidnapper was going to take another left since there's nowhere else to go down that road.

I had a couple of cuts from the bushes and trees scraping me, but I didn't care. The man was running off with Jenrya's sister, for crying out loud. Finally, I reached the end of the path, right when the guy was approaching. I jumped up and tackled him to the ground, making care not to hit Shiuchon.

Jenrya caught up and grabbed little Shiuchon from the jerk who dared attempt this, and I grabbed him. Jenrya gave me his sister and he did the same to the man, grabbing his neck. "Sir, I do know how to properly defend myself, and I also know how to properly kick your ass."

"Yay, Jen!" Shiuchon shouted. I looked at the little girl. Man, how clueless is she? The guy, meanwhile, shivered, probably pissing his pants.

"If you ever, and I mean ever, try something like that again," Jenrya grabbed his throat harder, "I will make sure your neck can fit through a cheerio."

The mysterious guy laughed. "Hah, do I think I'm afraid of a teenager like you?" He choked out.

Time froze in my view. From what it seemed, the guy pulled out a small knife from his jacket and was about to retaliate to Jenrya, readying his knife to stab him, all in a quick second. "Jen watch out!" I managed to blurt out. I closed my eyes for a second, but then opened just to see what was going to happen.

Jenrya, though, was one step ahead. He took his free arm and wrapped it around the guy's knife arm and twisted it, breaking the man's wrist instantly. He screamed in pain and misery as he dropped the knife. Jenrya picked it up, hiding it from the criminal.

"Like I said, you'd better run," He said to the guy. The man shrieked a scream, got up, and deserted us in the blink of an eye.

Speaking of blinking, I blinked my eyes in amazement as I saw that incredible display of self-defense. I walked right to Jenrya, who had the knife in his pocket.

"Well, at the expense of expanding your sister's vocabulary, but damn," I said to him, smiling.

"Hey," he said, "Don't you think that what she just saw warped her enough?" He looked at Shiuchon. "Hey Shiuchon, I'm sorry for leaving you like that. Just don't tell mom or dad about this, ok?"

Little Shiuchon smiled. "Damn, Jenwya, you shu beat that ashole up!"

Jenrya and I each exchanged nervous laughs. "Um. Shiuchon, maybe we should go home," he said, sweatdropping.

******************

It was there that Jenrya and I hung out more together. It was incredible, what he did to that guy so effortlessly. In fact, every time I reminisce about it, it seems even more amazing; I mean he was just fourteen, beating up a thirty-some-odd man like that.

He was my first ever good friend. Well, like I said before, there were the occasional friends that I got to know from my nine years at that private school, but none like Jenrya, I guess. It's kind of ironic that a guy would be my best friend; also that it would be a guy that I knew for only a year. We didn't have that much in common either; in personality, in family, nor in just living our life. I guess we negate each other in a sort of weird way, or complement each other if you will.

I ended up going to the same high school that Jenrya, Takato, and Co. went. It seemed that my mother had figured I had enough moral education that was the private school. I dunno, it was pretty nice in that school, but those uniforms were something else.

Jenrya and I remained good friends throughout most of high school. He understood my dilemma that my mom set upon me and respected it, not violating it once during our new friendship. He's pretty nice, but I honestly think he's trying to fight off that promise.

However, there was the end of the high school years, where things would happen that would change both of our lives forever.

*******************

A/N: So how do you like it? Medium rare? (J/K) Just starting and all on the story, but this one seems easier to think of unlike some of my earlier ideas. Review and tell me what you think; I really would like to build off of this.

I wonder if I kept my characters fairly accurate. Hey just tell me!

Till next time.