Secret Santa 2021 - Story collection

[Hacksorus]

Here's my year-late submission for Razoredge. I don't have a terribly good excuse, I just suck. I bent the rules of the prompt slightly, but it is my hope that I still retained the spirit of it somewhat. I wanted to get it out on Christmas(ish) so I didn't take the time to get it proofread. If anyone's feeling generous enough to offer constructive criticism, I'd appreciate it.

Prompt: A girl from the cast is slowly becoming alone since everyone is preparing something for Christmas and they leave her alone. What she doesn't know is that they are preparing something for her and they keep it as a surprise.


***

As I briskly stride through the hallway on the way to my destination, my elevated heart rate forces me to become cognizant of my needless haste, and I make a conscious effort to slow my pace. Taking a moment to reorient myself, I stop in front of a nearby window. Not much to speak of out there. The dull drizzle of rain, strong enough cancel my run with Emi this morning but not strong enough to form an interesting spectacle, continues to drag the day down. Emi had insisted with her usual optimism that we would have a beautiful white Christmas, but I think deep down we both knew not to get our hopes up.

Ah, Emi. Perhaps my rushed pace is a bad habit picked up from her. Ever since she took me to visit her father, we've been spending just about every waking minute together, much to the dismay of anyone unfortunate enough to be subjected to our presence; Emi is not shy when it comes to public displays of affection. As wonderful as this honeymoon phase of our relationship is, it's not without its costs. Some of our connections with other people have been left by the wayside.

When I went down to the track for our usual run yesterday morning, Emi was despondent. Apparently, when she went to help Rin in their normal morning routine, Rin was barely able to move. After practically dragging Rin to the nurse by the scruff of her neck, they found her to be suffering from serious malnutrition. But after bumbling through the bare minimum of excuses required to escape the nurse's office, she ignored Emi's protests and trudged on back to the art room.

"It's all my fault." Emi confessed to me. "I've barely been talking to her at all, let alone making sure she eats proper meals. I shouldn't have stopped having lunch with her."

"Come on now, this is just as much my fault." I reply. "And it isn't our responsibility to feed her anyway. Do you know what's been wrong with her lately?"

"I don't know." Emi said, dejection written across her face. "I think she started getting worse ever since she started working on that exhibition thing. I thought she was going to be happy, it went so well!"

Suddenly she turns her gaze up at me, preparing her puppy-dog look that I know she knows will work on me. "Could you please talk to her for me? You're already better at making sense of her weirdness than I am."

And thus, here I am in front of the door to the art room.

***

With some trepidation, I push the door to the art room open. Sure enough, Rin is perched in the same chair by the large window that she occupied the last time I saw her in here. No paintbrush being held this time, though. She just sits there in an awkward, stiff pose in front of what I can only presume is a painting she's working on. An awkwardness made all the more palpable by her complete lack of reaction to my entering the room.

It's clear that no salvation from this tension is forthcoming, so I suppose I'll be making the first move. "Hello, Rin."

She remains paused, only closing her eyes for a brief moment before slowly widening her gaze and slowly turning it towards me. Her auburn hair shows a dull, almost brownish hue from the muted lighting provided by a nearby window. Her hair seems to have grown a bit longer since our last meeting, her bangs reaching down slightly over her deep green eyes, and I have a feeling that this was not a deliberate style choice.

"Hi." She says. It's as though this room itself carries some restriction that requires us to speak in the fewest words possible. I venture forth regardless.

"Still hard at work, huh? It seems like everytime I see you, you're painting something."

This elicits a slightly puzzled look from her. "I thought people were supposed to paint here. You'd probably see me doing other things if you visited me somewhere else. In my room I mostly sleep."

Ah, well. Not quite the direction I was hoping this would take, but I suppose it's progress. I walk into the room and take a seat on top of a desk somewhat close to where Rin is.

"So how have you been, anyway? I haven't seen you in a little while."

She blinks once. "That's a hard question. I'm never quite sure what to tell people. Whenever I try and seach my head for an answer, it's like all those thoughts scatter in different directions. Like when you try to scoop fish out of a pond."

She looks out of the window, as if searching for an answer in the rain. "I think people think shooting fish in a barrel is supposed to be easy, but I'm not so sure that it is."

I'm not really sure what to say to this. I try another question. "Why are you here so late in the month? I heard from Emi that you usually go and see your parents over winter break."

"Nomiya thinks I should expand my portfolio for college applications. He told my parents that I should stay a little longer." This, in her characteristic stoic delivery. But somehow I get the feeling she isn't thrilled with this arrangement.

"Ah.. has the extra painting time been fruitful?

"Probably.. maybe.. not. Unless your definition of fruitful permits me sitting here for the past two days looking at this blank canvas. But if you thought that was being fruitful maybe you'd have even more problems than me."

Her surprisingly sharp eyes refocus on me. "How about you? Are you being fruitful?"

Her question, while probably asked with mostly innocent intent, nevertheless pierces me a little bit. I've hardly been here a minute and I'm starting to doubt if I have it in me to get through to Rin in any meaningful way.

"I dunno.." I reply with some honesty. "I don't think I'm very fruitful today either."

Silence, for a few moments. We both look out the nearby window and listen to the light patter of rain.

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas." Rin abruptly blurts out. "Or I was, I think. There's something nice about falling snow, snow on the ground. It's like my worries fall out of me and have a soft place to land."

"Hmmm.." I hum in reply.

"I like the rain, but it feels out of place." She continues. "Like when you have dessert for breakfast and you know whatever you eat next isn't going to be as good. I wish I could put the rain in a box and save it for another day."

"I think I understand," I reply. "I have a lot of fond memories of snow this time of the year."

Rin turns her head back to the empty canvas, staring into its emptiness with a vacant expression. I guess I'd better get to the point.

"Emi and I are leaving for break tomorrow evening. We'd like to have lunch with you before we go, if that's okay with you?"

Rin keeps staring at the canvas.

"Alright." She says with what I think is some hesitation. "Please leave me alone now. I'm going to paint. Maybe."

Deciding not to press my luck, I say my goodbye and leave Rin to her acrylic-smelling prison. But as I leave, I am struck by a flash of inspiration. Maybe there's something I can do after all.

***

"This is so cool! We've really outdone ourselves with this one." Emi's merriment was as evident in her gait as it was in her voice as she bounded down the cramped stairwell in a series of playful jumps. Part of me was worried she might hurt herself, but I knew by now how light she was on her artificial feet.

"We?" I retort, semi-sarcastically. "This was completely my idea."

"Don't be silly, ideas are just ideas. Without my help, there's no way this thing would have gotten off the ground. I'm in a good mood though, so I'll let you take 50% credit." She spins around at the base of the landing and winks at me.

I suppose she has a point. What we've done was completely unprecedented, absolutely outside of school rules. If it weren't for most people having already cleared out for winter break and Emi being close with the nurse, who was thoroughly amused by the idea, I can't imagine getting permission for it. Really, there were a lot of logistical annoyances that should have stopped this, but once I told Emi my idea she loved it so much that nothing, it seemed, would get in her way.

Emi was leaning back on the wall at the base of the stairwell now, stretching her hands above her head, waiting for me to finish my descent. "And thanks to my professional training, you were able to carry all that equipment up to the roof all by yourself!"

"Wouldn't have killed you to lend a hand." I sigh lethargically as I take my last steps down the stairwell.

"But you were doing so well!" She grins playfully at me. "Besides, making my boyfriend carry stuff for me makes me feel like a real lady."

"Sure, sure." I step up to her and playfully pinch her nose for a second. "I bet your mother would get a real laugh out of that one, after she was scolding you for chewing with your mouth open at dinner last night."

Emi puts her hands on her hips, shooting me a slightly defiant glare. "A real lady knows to thoroughly enjoy every meal."

"I guess I can't blame you, that food was delicious." I reply.

Emi and I chat in the hallway outside the stairwell to the roof for a little while, passing the time waiting for Rin to show up to this meeting place. Emi has been studying more advanced nutrition recently, both for her own training as well as her career prospects. I find it pretty interesting as well, so we've spent a decent chunk of time discussing it and coming up with meal ideas. Eventually, Rin comes around the corner and lethargically makes her way towards us.

"I hope we aren't going to be eating lunch here. I'm not very good at eating while standing up." Rin sizes us up a little bit. "I notice you don't have any food. Is this one of those interventions I've heard about? Where you surround someone you care about and try to convince them to stop being a drug addict. I promise I've stopped with the cold medicine. I'm also pretty sure you guys wouldn't be able to stop me even if I was an addict."

"No! Of course not!" Emi replies. "And if you ever become an addict you better believe I'll do worse to you than an intervention. I'll beat you up and shove those drugs up your ass before you even know what hit you."

"Even if it's one of those drugs that you're supposed to shove up your ass?" Retorts Rin without missing a beat.

"Er, well, I guess not those ones." Emi sighs. Rin may be the only person I know who can regularly defeat Emi in a battle of words. "Anyway! Enough about that. We're having lunch on the roof."

"On the roof? I know I've been annoying you recently, but I think giving me hypothermia is a little excessive." Rin replies.

"Don't worry, we've got plenty of warm food and drinks," I chime in. "Let's just give it a try. If we don't like it we can come back inside."

And with that, we begin our brief ascent up the stairwell. If Rin suspects anything is strange, she doesn't give it away. At the top of the stairwell, Emi opens the door for Rin to walk through. She takes a few steps forward and stops in her tracks.

As I catch up to the two girls, I can see Emi grinning from ear to ear. As I look back upon the surroundings, I notice that I'm doing that too. The roof is a true winter wonderland. A layer of brilliant snow sprawls out around us, enough to feel the crunch beneath one's feet but not quite enough to be annoying to step through. I was satisfied to leave it at that, but Emi went ahead and hung up a bunch of green-and-red decorative lights as well, and I'm appreciating the added effect now.

Well, if I'm being honest, maybe winter wonderland is a slight exaggeration. It's still a school rooftop on a cloudy day, after all. The consistency of this artificial snow is a little different from the real thing. And if you look over the horizon, the lack of snow anywhere else is a little hard to ignore. But I think this is pretty neat, and I hope Rin does too. She's still standing there, stock-still with her back to me, so I can only wonder.

"..Huh? How?" Rin mutters, just loud enough for us to hear.

"It's artificial snow. We rented a portable snow machine and got permission to run it up here for a while." I say.

"Well? What do you think?!" Emi is jumping up and down with such vigor that I fear she may accidentally launch herself over the protective fencing.

It seems Emi will need to wait a little longer for her answer. Wordlessly, Rin takes a few more steps forward into the snow. She walks with measured precision, as if the snow will break if she isn't careful with it. Finally, she turns around and plops down on her back, staring up at the sky from her bed of snow.

Emi and I exchange quizzical glances. We've never been able to predict Rin's next move, and I suppose we're not going to start today. After a moment's trepidation, we both walk over to Rin, standing over her a little bit but not so much that we block her view of the sky.

Emi ventures her next question. "Aren't you cold?"

Rin looks up at us with a serene smile on her face. "Yeah."

***

After we eventually convinced Rin to get up and put on the jacket we brought for her, we brushed the snow off our nearby seats and began our lunch. Hot chocolate and one of Emi's new health food creations, a banana and chocolate chip oatmeal bake. My protests to Emi that this might have been too much chocolate, as usual, fell on deaf ears. The food, preserved warm in our insulated containers, provided a wonderful contrast to our chilly surroundings. It was a carefree lunch, blissfully reminiscent of the ones we used to have here back in the spring. Rin really did seem to be back to her old self, at least for the moment. As we finish the last of our hot chocolate, Rin says something I wasn't quite ready for.

"Thank you," she begins, taking another sip of her drink. "Lately it feels like I've been stuck in a pile of muck except when I try to get back up again my legs don't work and every time someone comes by instead of helping me up they just try to tell me to use my legs differently and when I try to think about how to use my legs differently my legs feel five percent less real than they did before they said anything so I try to just use my legs differently without thinking about them and that doesn't work either so I-"

"Rin!" Emi interrupts. "Breathe, please. It's okay."

Rin collects herself. "Sorry. I mean, thank you. I feel like you did all this because I've been sad and even if you didn't and it's just a coincidence I'm happy anyway."

"We're really happy you like it, Rin," I say. "We have been a bit worried about you lately, to be honest."

Rin seems to think for a moment. "I'm going to go home tomorrow, too. I mean, I think I will. I'll have to call my parents first. But I'm pretty sure they'll be okay with it."

"Oh, changed your mind about the portfolio?" Emi asks.

"I don't really know if there's a mind to change," replies Rin, "I feel like I was on a train and the portfolio was a station I stopped at. Except I had to push the train myself, and they wouldn't let me wear shoes."

She closes her eyes. "I can talk to my parents about it. Maybe."

"That's wonderful, Rin!" Emi jumps in, "But don't you want to go to art school? I thought you were really gunning to make it into a good one."

Rin looks up to the grey sky, as if searching for an answer to the question. Then she turns to me.

"Hisao, could you throw a snowball at Emi for me?"

I can feel the smile spreading across my face. "Gladly."

[Razoredge]

First of all, don't blame yourself, I'm still happy you did something for me. And to be fair, you surprised me. I expected, with such a prompt, to read something Hanako-related, but I was surprised, in the good way, to see that I was wrong, and for that, thank you. I'm quite difficult when it comes to Rin stories, ask Emo, he knows. But, to be fair, here, I liked it. The simple fact that Rin was happy at the end is enough for me to like it. It has some flaws, but it's not "as bad as you thought it was". I like it. I really do. This is a simple piece, but that works great. Thank you for that, I liked the reading, I liked the story, and I liked Rin being happy at the end. So, yeah, thank you for that, mate.

[Hacksorus]

First of all, don't blame yourself, I'm still happy you did something for me. And to be fair, you surprised me. I expected, with such a prompt, to read something Hanako-related, but I was surprised, in the good way, to see that I was wrong, and for that, thank you. I'm quite difficult when it comes to Rin stories, ask Emo, he knows. But, to be fair, here, I liked it. The simple fact that Rin was happy at the end is enough for me to like it. It has some flaws, but it's not "as bad as you thought it was". I like it. I really do. This is a simple piece, but that works great. Thank you for that, I liked the reading, I liked the story, and I liked Rin being happy at the end. So, yeah, thank you for that, mate.

Thank you, glad you liked it. A Hanako-related story probably would have better fit the prompt really, but I recently re-read Rin's route and wanted to take it in that direction instead.

Happy holidays, fellow Rin enthusiast!

[Mirage_GSM]

Interesting...
My first thoughts if I had drawn that prompt would probably have been either Shizune or Misha.

[Feurox]

Here's the link to my prompt for Brythain, nearly 2 years late! (Sorry Bry!)

A lengthy boy, so in its own thread. Enjoy!

An Empty Space Where a Person Should Go