WANTED: php talent for improvement of markdown-RubyText plugin code

plugin-markdown-rubytext is one year old !
It would be great to make following 2 improvements to the PHP code on this occasion ♪
1- plugin construct method improvement:
actually, これは{r}日本語{/r:}です。 does not output. To work, its needs a extra space before {r}.... The final HTML output comes therefore with a undesired space before the Ruby tag output. It seems that the preg_match PHP function used to construct the output needs that space. The idea is to find another way so that これは{r}日本語{/r:}です。 outputs without any undesired space.
2- plugin output improvement:
from: <ruby><rb>日本語</rb><rt>にほんご</rt></ruby>
to: <ruby><rb>日本語</rb><rp>(</rp><rt>にほんご</rt><rp>)</rp></ruby>
Any suggestion, like integration to the shortcode infrastructure that would reach those goals, is welcome. Please, feel free to make a pull request in the linked GITHUB plugin repository. Kindky asking the community ☆