Now I can only see Ruby as a kid being cuddled by his Mom and giving Amane a smug look, and then him just crawling into Ai's lap and returning the look back at her like

CHECKMATE

But ugh god, the idea of them being childhood friends/pseudo-siblings who both bug each other but also occasionally get caught up in Scheming Battles/alliances (because lbr, they probably have tried to dunk on Aqua SO MANY TIMES) is too good.... and tbh, Amane's been doing the Dreamer thing for a while now (and even trained under Ai), so he'd be happy to help her out whenever she's not busy with her mom!