Ruinene

Ruinene is the het ship between Rui Kamishiro and Nene Kusanagi from the Project SEKAI fandom.

Canon
Rui and Nene are childhood friends and neighbors. They're both parts of the group called Wonderlands×Showtime. In their first appearance in the story, they're shown to be hanging out in the same place.

Main Unit Story
In Chapter 6 of Wonderlands×Showtime's Main Story, Rui was invited by Tsukasa to join his and Emu's troupe. Though he had initially been uninterested, upon spotting Nene from afar, he decided to join under the condition that they let Nene join aswell, to which Tsukasa accepted.

Due to an incident that had happened in the past, Nene had given up on performing. However, Rui had modified an old robot he made and created Nenerobo, a robot that has a very similar appearance to Nene, that she could use to perform until she was ready to come back on stage again. Nene was initially skeptical that Tsukasa and Emu would accept a robot into their troupe, but to her surprise, they did. When Nene asked Rui why he had asked her to join when he knew she had quit, he then asked her why she came, to which she replied with calling him a terrible person. He laughed and said she was no better, then stating that he thought it would be better than staying at home playing video games all day.

In Chapter 11, Nene stays behind to practice her performance. Rui also stays and interrupts her by saying he knew she'd be here, making her embarrassed. He says that he wanted to make sure she isn't overexerting herself for the show, showing his care towards her. He offers to help her perform, which she accepts. After practicing, he tells her that everything is perfect, and that she shouldn't worry about anything, seemingly making her happy.

In Chapter 13, the show is ruined due to Nenerobo's battery running out. Tsukasa becomes furious about this and claims that his show was ruined all because Nene forgot to charge the robot. Rui takes her defense, saying it's also his fault for not checking the batteries. When Tsukasa crosses the line, Rui coldly asks him to stop. After Nene runs away while crying, Rui tells Tsukasa he was wrong for telling her all that. He goes as far as to tell him that he doesn't have what it takes to be a star, because of how he treats team work. After those events, Rui catches up to Nene and says that he's sorry for making her join the troupe and forgetting to charge the robot. He then tells her he won't force her to perform again.

In Chapter 17, Nene reveals to Tsukasa and Emu that she and Rui are childhood friends, and that he tried to do shows with his classmates, but it never worked out in the end, so he made robots to perform alone with. She says, however, that she thinks he doesn't want to perform alone. When the Tsukasa, Emu, and Nene find him performing alone, she tells Rui that she's decided to keep performing. Rui says he's glad to hear it. Nene then asks him if he really wants to perform with others again, to which he doesn't respond. When Tsukasa tries to convince him to come back to the troupe, Rui says that although he's glad that they've given Nene another chance to perform, he doesn't see eye to eye with him.

It is later revealed through card side stories that Nene no longer needs to hide behind Nenerobo to perform, but still uses her to help practice. Rui noticed this and offered to add AI to Nenerobo, which would allow her to move and speak freely. Nene agrees, under the condition that he doesn't add any weird features, to which he responds by laughing and saying that he wouldn't, and that his goal with the modifications is to make her and the audience happy. Throughout the stories, Nenerobo gets more and more advanced as Rui continues to add more and more features.

Full Power! Wonder Halloween!
In Chapter 1 of ''Full Power! Wonder Halloween!'', Nene tells Rui that he seems to be having more fun lately. She then compares him to his past self, saying that he used to look really bored, but now he has a "weird face". He goes onto say that he really is having a lot of fun and Nene says she's glad he is.

Nene describes her friends with a lot of negative adjectives, like "idiot" and "weird", but is still shown to deeply care about them. She sees Rui as nosy, but still worries about his mental wellbeing. Rui, on the other hand, wants to help her with her communication problem, Nenerobo being one of the things he did for her. Rui is said to have a particular personality and a strange sense of humor, and that usually made people avoid him. It's stated that it's just a misunderstanding, but Nene does say that his strange behavior includes using people as test dummies for his ideas and waterboarding them in swimming pools. Though, that does not stop her of staying friends with him. Their personalities might not exactly match, but it doesn't stop them from being very good friends.

Fanon
Ruinene is one of the most appreciated and popular het ships in the Project SEKAI western fandom. However, both Nene and Rui are shipped with other characters instead, like Tsukasa and Emu. Despite their higher amount of fanfiction in AO3, it doesn't stop the fandom of shipping Rui and Nene together; on top of this, Ruinene is more popular than Emunene in the Eastern fandom, having almost five times more fanart on Pixiv than both Emunene tags combined. Additionally, it is not rare to see the fandom shipping everyone in the Wonderlands X Showtime group together, and that includes Ruinene. They follow the childhood friends to lovers trope, which is usually appreciated in most fandom. Some people could also say that they follow the opposite attracts trope.

It is currently the 9th most written ship on AO3.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

ART

TWITTER

Trivia

 * Their Kizuna Rank titles include: "Neighbours", "What We Wanted To Be", and "Alchemist and Mermaid Princess".
 * They have a height difference of 24 cm, with Nene being 156 cm and Rui being 180 cm.
 * They sing "Nijiro Stories" together with MEIKO and KAITO, and also have an alternate vocal version for "Sekai wa Mada Hajimatte sura Inai".
 * They both got inspired to perform after seeing the same play.
 * In Rui's inital "Wonderlands×Showtime Relationship Chart", he had said that he wanted Nene to "overcome her trauma" and in the updated version, he says that "I'm glad you overcame your trauma".
 * In Luka's "Mesmerized by Mermaids" card's side story, Rui and Nene were on the same volleyball team against Tsukasa and Emu.
 * When they were about to lose, Tsukasa taunted them, making Nene angry and asking Rui if they could cheat, to which he happily agreed.