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Major spoiler warning. (Rin Chapter 3)

Prologue: On the Other Side of Shattered Glass

Rin stood alone in the middle of the atelier.

Hisao wasn’t up yet, for which she was… thankful? Thankful because she didn’t have to deal with the confusing and painful feelings that swirled within her chest? Feelings she couldn’t put words to, but which brought blood to her cheeks and a heavy, dragging pain to her chest?

Paint. She needed to paint. She had to paint.

She couldn’t paint. To paint you needed to think. Or to not think?

Rin wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t paint. She couldn’t think, and yet at the same time, she couldn’t stop thinking.

So she stood there like a glass robot, stalled in the middle of an uncompleted yet critical operation that’s essential programs had crashed.

She must have stood there like that for half an hour, a confusing array of dark colours swirling maliciously in her head, impossible to make any sense of.

She didn’t even notice Hisao when he walked up behind her.

“Hey.”

Rin jumped. It was a flinch that was only half from surprise. She felt an unpleasant tug on her heart as the vice inside her chest tightened.

He was her friend. Or was he? Why, then, was there something that came from him that hurt so badly?

Rin’s shoulders slumped as she couldn’t find the words to describe exactly what that “something” was… or even how she felt about it.

Hisao’s grip, indeed, his entire body, seemed to tighten. Rin could sense his tension, even with her back turned.

As his hand fell away and she turned to face him, she didn’t meet his eyes.

“I’m sort of sorry.”

As Hisao said those words, the maelstrom of confused colours in Rin’s head intensified into a squall. It became easier to meet his eyes and yet… somehow she felt worse. She felt a sensation inside her stomach that was akin to the inside of a dead tree. Yet at the same time, she felt like a child in a dark room. She wanted to run for the light switch, but was too afraid to lest the monster capture and consume her whole.

“Why sorry?”

“It wasn’t very tactful of me. You know, last night.”

Hisao’s entire body seemed stiff and uneven and there was an expression on his face that was troubled and yet unreadable.

He often looked troubled. Rin could handle troubled. However, this different kind of troubled, troubled like someone who…

Like what? Rin couldn’t find the words for it. All she knew was that it was a worse kind of troubled, the kind of troubled that made the painful sensation in her chest worsen too. It was the same kind of troubled that had inspired her to hug him on the roof, except this made her want to step away from him, not come any closer.

The distance between them was deafening.

Fighting back the swirling vortex of blood-red colours in her mind, Rin addressed the trouble mechanically. Hisao was always better with words than she was. Maybe if she just asked the right questions, some small part of this horrible sensation would lift.

“But isn’t that sort of thing something you want? Because you like me?”

Hisao’s face went blank. Rin kept her expression steady even if her internal world was anything but. She waited expectantly.

Eventually, Hisao continued, his voice quiet, yet measured and strangely… certain?

“No, I… even if it was, I think I’d prefer for things to go properly.”

Out of the swirling colours, one emotion came to the fore in force as Rin cocked her head and looked at Hisao in complete confusion. Yes, that was it, confusion.

Properly? What did that even mean for something like this? Did that… mean she wasn’t proper?

Was there something wrong with her?

“So you don’t want to do that sort of thing?” Rin asked, some of that same green emotion leaking out into her voice.

“I didn’t say that.” Hisao answered, firmly.

“So you do?”

Some of the green emotion faded away, replaced with firmness. That was simpler then.

“I didn’t say that either.”

“Then what are you saying, Hisao?”

“Listen, it doesn’t even matter…”

“Then why did you ask? Or was it me who…”

“…I just don’t think it was the best thing I could have done in that situation and I tried to apologise.”

The confusion in Hisao’s face left a darkness in Rin’s heart, an emptiness that made it hard for her to move, to take any action. He was the one who was good with words, the one who could take the confusing hail of conflicting thoughts and give them a voice.

Watching him struggle in the same way made things so much worse. Shooting in the dark, Rin opened her mouth to speak.

“Maybe. I don’t think it was a very good idea either. Probably.”

Closing her eyes, her mind went back to Hisao’s words as he’d taken away some of the hollow pain the night before.

“But this is not something that friends should do.”

“It’s like you said. We are not like that. We are friends. It was a bad idea.”

Rin met Hisao’s eyes as she began to stride on familiar ground.

“Maybe you should forget about it and I will too. I’m good at forgetting things so it should be alright with me.”

“Except everything I “forget” is still there. So am I really forgetting anything? Or am I just trying to move somewhere that’s less painful?”

Rin’s resolve melted away into the stale air of the atelier as Hisao’s face hardened in opposition.

“I can’t do that.” he said.

“Why?” Rin asked in semi-desperation. Hisao’s expression softened.

“Because I like you, that’s why.”

Rin felt a second emotion come to the fore which made her face contort into a scowl.

“I told you that you shouldn’t talk about that.” Rin’s voice was quiet and at the same time, almost a snarl.

Hisao’s expression didn’t shift however and in fact it only seemed to harden. Invisible entrenchments went up between them as the air in the atelier seemed to drop by several degrees.

“I don’t agree. Besides, you brought it up yourself before.”

Hisao raised a hand to his face and pinched his nose. Rin examined his expression warily, unable to read him.

He was so hard to read. Even more so than other people. Were you supposed to read Hisao? Maybe you were only supposed to read other people. Hisao was like a radio; you couldn’t watch or read his feelings.

You had to listen to him.

Rin tried to think about listening harder. This was hard as for a long time Hisao gave her nothing to listen to. He just sat there and wore that same troubled expression that was just as troubling to Rin.

She desperately wanted that expression to go away, but how? She didn’t have the words.

When Hisao next spoke, his voice sent a black spark through her mind.

“Do you hate me?”

Rin closed her eyes at that and tried to reflect on the ugly, frustrated vortex of colour that circled within her mind.

Hate? Was that the word? It felt unfamiliar.

Yes, unfamiliar. Alien, even. It certainly wasn’t how she felt about him, and she said as much.

“I don’t hate anything. I don’t think I’m a hateful person.”

Rin got half her wish. Hisao’s expression did change. Unfortunately it only changed from a shade of vague consternation into a tone of deep confusion. Confusion that Rin could hear in his voice. It was certainly no less troubled.

“Then what am I to you? Help me understand.”

There it was. The empty feeling came back, along with the painful sensation in her chest and the hole in her stomach.

They hurt so much more now. He hurt so much more now.

“I can’t.”

She couldn’t. She didn’t have the words.

She never had the words. More than any other time, Rin wished she had the words in that moment.

Dark shoots sprang through her mind as Hisao’s face visibly crumpled.

“Why?”

Uncertainly, quietly, Rin tried. She tried to give her best explanation of herself.

Instead, what she ended up saying was an admission of defeat.

“I don’t think you’d understand. I’m not sure I do.”

That was it. Rin felt herself relax slightly. It wasn’t the answer she’d wanted to give, but it was the end of the matter.

The longer they stayed like this, the worse the distance got. The worse the pain got. Rin didn’t care about the confusion anymore. She just wanted that hollow feeling to go away. This would end it, it had to. What else was there to say?

Instead, Hisao’s face hardened.

The next words out of his mouth were incomprehensible, yet they shot a bolt of agony through Rin’s chest.

“Fine, then explain to me.”

“What?... but I just…”

Blankly, Rin looked back.

“I can’t.” She repeated flatly.

Hisao slowly looked away, his expression almost imperceptibly darkening. Rin waited in utter bafflement for him to say something, anything.

When he finally spoke, his voice was heavy like an executioner’s axe.

“So…”

Rin felt Hisao’s eyes practically drilling into hers. The hollow feeling in her chest began to rise, and she felt sick. Yet she couldn’t look away…

“It’s fine if you want to turn me down, but at least do it properly. And if you do, then last night was definitely a mistake.”

Hisao’s face twisted as he continued, as if he’d swallowed a lemon. Worse for Rin was the way his voice did too.

“In fact, this whole thing might’ve been a mistake.”

Rin felt her stomach twist painfully and the nausea got worse.

“I don’t want to turn you down.” she said, too quickly, too mechanically. The pain was getting worse; like someone had reached inside and twisted her heart around by its tubes. She couldn’t take this much longer. Still she stared back as Hisao’s eyes narrowed.

A dangerous tinge came into his voice, a black, dread-laden anger that even Rin couldn’t mistake for anything else.

“So you can’t decide? But why are you playing with me like this then?”

His voice was rising. The pain was getting worse.

“Hug me, then ignore me; kiss, then ignore me, play me like a fiddle, is that it? Kiss me, then forget again.”

Against her will, Rin looked away, her face twisting downwards as she did so. The pain was reaching a crescendo, and as it did so, a new and unwelcome emotion was beginning to emerge. A dark red one.

Desperately, Rin’s eyes darted around the paintings in her room, hoping to find some answer in the only means of expression that had ever made sense to her.

Her works looked back, abandoning their creator in her hour of need. They were mute as ever… no, not mute, but saying all the wrong things. A chorus of incompetent doctors giving irrelevant advice as the patient bled out through the gaping hole in her chest.

Coldly, Hisao continued.

“Then what?”

Desperately, Rin tried to break the situation down in her head. How did she get here again?

“I needed to paint so-“

Rin spoke as quickly as she could, then came to an internally horrified stop as Hisao’s face contorted with uncomprehending rage. He wasn’t listening anymore, was he?

“I’m sorry”

Suddenly, he was shouting, words impacting Rin’s shoulders like physical blows.

“Don’t give me that, Rin! I am not some damn muse of yours, free to be abused for the sake of painting!”

Rin tried to stretch to some kind of response, some kind of explanation, but Hisao continued unabated.

“I am not some medium for whatever you aspire to. I am me!”

“Who… who else would you be? What do you want from me? You’re the one who-“

“There is a limit to selfishness!”

Helplessly, Rin stared at the floor, wiggling her toes as if her more expressive digits might provide a less pathetic answer than her tongue. For all the use it was; it might as well have been bleeding out on the floor beside her heart at that moment.

She couldn’t explain. Why couldn’t he understand that? Rin didn’t know how many ways she had to explain that she couldn’t explain and that words weren’t what she used to explain and there wasn’t time to make a painting and even if there was…

…was there any point? She had no time and she had no words.

More to stop the pain than anything else, Rin cobbled together what few ideas she had into some kind of shield.

“I can’t do anything else. Or I can do all sorts of things, but I… can’t… do…”

She hesitated.

“It’s the only thing I sort of do properly. Most of the time.”

Her plea sounded small and pathetic even to her. The very air around her seemed to grow dark and oppressive.

Hisao snarled. “Yeah, that much I’ve figured out myself, thanks. Art first, everything else second, or thousandth. Ever paused to consider things from a perspective other than yours?”

“That’s not fair.”

That thought cut across Rin’s mind like a razor, leaving another open wound to join the ones in her heart and stomach. She stared back at her friend… or her assailant, like a deer in headlights. The expression on his face was hideous, a swirling mixture of anger, contempt and bitterness that made her feel like she was shrinking.

“I didn’t want to-“

“What?” Rin’s thoughts interrupted her own broken babbling tongue. It could never say what she wanted it to say.

“Don’t you understand?” she pleaded. “I can’t.”

“You don’t understand. You’ll never understand.”

“Can’t what?”

“Exactly”.

Rin stared desolately at the floor as Hisao devolved into angry ranting. She began to shake. Was it with fear or… something worse? Something alien and unfamiliar to her?

“You never explain yourself!” Hisao roared. “How am I supposed to understand if you never explain anything?”

Was he going to shake her?

“Why don’t you ever talk?” he continued. “Say something!”

Rin didn’t. She didn’t even really hear him.

She was too busy retreating into the darkest recesses of her mind, trying to quell the rising storm of black emotions that had dominated all the others and driven them free from her mind.

The angry storm of despair and powerlessness steadily fought for, and won, control. Rin felt herself begin to shake as Hisao’s eyes began to widen at the late realisation that he’d crossed a line he couldn’t return over.

The storm broke…

“Go away.”

It took Rin a moment to realise that she’d spoken. Yet she continued with certainty.

“Go away Hisao. I’m sorry, I can’t deal with this.”

As she spoke, a tiny portion of the dark atmosphere lifted. At least she was back in control. Some of the darkness cleared, but the pain in her heart remained.

That hollowness only got worse as Hisao silently, sadly, turned his back on her, on her entire world and stalked towards the atelier door. The distance between them seemed to grow far more quickly than his retreating physical presence would suggest.

As the door closed with a final clang, Rin saw Hisao walk soundlessly out of her life.

She felt physically sick, her body shaking uncontrollably. Without warning, her legs gave out beneath her. She sank to the floor.

For a long time, without a word or a tear, Rin just squatted there pitifully. There was no Hisao-shaped piece to fill the hollow space that had appeared in her heart. Like an automaton without a power source, she sat there empty, her frustration and loneliness pooling together into a despair that only she could ever feel and understand.

Eventually, after a long time, she picked herself up numbly…

…and started painting. Painting in fast and furious brush strokes that came here and there and breathlessly and unceasingly as if painting was the only thing that mattered in the world.

As if the world would stop turning if she stopped.

Because Rin realised, in those moments of pure, distilled agony, that it would for her.

Steel bars dropped around her heart, caging and fortifying it at the same time to keep out a cold and unloving world.

A world she could never understand and could never have. A world that would never understand or want her.

As the shadows grew long and alarming signals of pain and fatigue began to sound from her body, she didn’t stop painting.

It was all she had left. Even if she wasn’t sure if it mattered anymore.

If she mattered anymore.

Eventually, Rin collapsed. The paintbrush fell from her toes as she did so, clacking against the ground almost silently. Powerlessly.

Rin wasn’t even conscious when she finally managed to express at least one of her feelings perfectly to an empty room.

---

Whew.

As you can tell by the words "Prologue" this is supposed to be the start of a longer story. Problem is that I haven't really got the ideas for that story fleshed out in my mind, and I'm completely unfamiliar with writing a character like Rin. I've dabbled in fanfiction before, mostly to my personal dissatisfaction, yet I've never gotten over the idea of writing in general, so here I am again, latching desperately onto a passing idea in a very Hisao-like manner.

If this goes down well, people think I've gotten a good grip on Rin and Hisao (who I think I'm going to have considerably less trouble with) and I can weave together a coherent narrative I may be able to expand this into a full story. This was really as much a proof of concept as a proper chapter; the story picks up after this bad ending and the bad ending itself (from Rin's perspective) seemed like a natural way both to start the story and to get a handle on the characters. A kind of tutorial for me. I hope you guys enjoyed this and I can find the inspiration; otherwise this'll have to stand as a rather depressing one-shot.

Well, it -is- a depressing one-shot as it stands. It's a good psychological perspective on that scene, and of course most of the time it seems as if it leads to a dire fate. The writing is certainly above average, although the sample size is limited.

Ooh, another Rin story. This should be fun.
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Well, I've commented elsewhere that I have no sodding clue how Rin thinks, so I can't really comment on your portrayal of her. What I will say is that this piece is very much how I saw Hisao in this scene - a completely unreasonable arsehole. TBH, he was an arsehole for basically all of Rin's route until the good end
I really quite like it, even if it is a little depressing. You're certainly better than the majority of writers here (myself included).

Oh, and while I'm at it, welcome to the forums! Please leave your bags by the index, Silentcook or one of the other staff members will be here to show you to your room shortly. Thank you and please enjoy your stay

Thanks for the feedback guys, and thank you for the welcome! I'll try not to make trouble.

I can certainly live with above average, especially since it's been years since I put pen to paper. Or in this case, finger to keyboard.

Depressing the audience is something I've got some experience with, now if I can just find a way to lift them back out of that depression afterwards I'll be set.

The read I got on Rin was that she really isn't THAT un-normal. She's basically a kind girl who has extreme difficulty expressing herself and is incredibly lonely as a result. If Hisao had been just a little more patient and a little more understanding he wouldn't have had either the above mess or (Act 4 Spoiler)the scene in the dorms.

I wouldn't call Hisao a completely unreasonable arsehole, though he certainly was in this scene. Hisao demonstrates time and time again that he does actually give a damn about Rin and the other characters he interacts with. He also does strike me as normally being quite patient.

However, I think he's cursed with three main flaws. Hisao is given to moody bouts of introspection when he's lost for direction, he's got the nastiest form of "slow burning" anger I've seen for a while in a character that emerges when his patience finally gives out, and he's got a creepy "possessive" streak that's probably his worst trait; see his "white knighting" in his other routes. He can't let things go easily and this both bails him out and gets him into trouble in other routes.

It certainly makes his behaviour in the Act 3 bad ending all that more unreasonable; he was the one who invited himself to the atelier because he couldn't keep away, against Rin's direct orders to the contrary. That's why Rin thinks to herself "You were the one who-" in this chapter.

Identity Crisis wrote:I wouldn't call Hisao a completely unreasonable arsehole, though he certainly was in this scene. Hisao demonstrates time and time again that he does actually give a damn about Rin and the other characters he interacts with. He also does strike me as normally being quite patient.

However, I think he's cursed with three main flaws. Hisao is given to moody bouts of introspection when he's lost for direction, he's got the nastiest form of "slow burning" anger I've seen for a while in a character that emerges when his patience finally gives out, and he's got a creepy "possessive" streak that's probably his worst trait; see his "white knighting" in his other routes. He can't let things go easily and this both bails him out and gets him into trouble in other routes.

I think the main problem with this position is that Hisao is quite clearly five different people after Act1, depending on which girl he's spending time with on a relationship. It's hard to compare HIsao/Hanako with Hisao/Rin or Hisao/Emi for that reason; the gestalt personality would be terribly fractured.

I don't think Hisao is an asshole in this scene.
Yes, he is losing his temper, but from his perspective he is completely justified in doing so.
He IS telling Rin his feelings in complete honesty, and in my opinion this confrontation HAS to happen in order to make the good end possible - in fact almost the exact same confrontation does happen in Act 4 on the path to the good end.
Otherwise Rin would never have understood how much her behaviour hurt Hisao, and Hisao would have continued to hurt inside, and that would have been a recipe for disaster.

I never understood why that scene in Act 3 led to a bad end while the one in Act 4 didn't.

Oh and good job on the writing.

Not bad. Not bad at all. Rin is a very interesting character to try and write for, and unlike most such stories involving other characters I think using third-person PoV makes sense here. If you've read my own Rin first-person chapter, I made a similarly unusual (for KS fan fiction, anyway) choice for her perspective. I'll refrain from commenting further until the story is a little further along, but I commend you at the very least for tackling a story thread that very few have been willing to touch thus far .

Ooh, this is good! You definitely have a knack for abstract narration, and you have a few lines in here that are simply brilliant. As Dewelar mentioned, not many people try Rin routes, because it's so difficult to establish character development while maintaining her PoV. I don't particularly like the third person, myself, since we only seem to be dealing with Rin's thoughts anyway, but that's a minor quibble at best. If you're looking to continue this, I wish you luck and look forward to more.

Oh, one thing, don't use quotation marks for Rin's thoughts, I was a bit confused until I figured out that she wasn't actually voicing the things in italics.

Blank Mage wrote:Oh, one thing, don't use quotation marks for Rin's thoughts, I was a bit confused until I figured out that she wasn't actually voicing the things in italics.

It's funny, because this worked for me. This might be just how I read it, but I felt like the quote-thoughts were the things that Rin wanted to be able to say, but couldn't, quite, as opposed to just thoughts-for-the-sake-of-thoughts.

Plus, it's Rin. Some piece of it has to be different.

Again, just me. Maybe.

An interesting start. I wonder in which direction you will take this. Bad ends lead to nothing good in general, but you never know. Maybe it will lead Hisao and Rin to a better understanding of each other

Well, now. I'm always a bit wary when a new user creates a thread in this forum, but this one is indeed pretty good.

I like that it's a Shards of Ire fic, because I adore Shards of Ire (ooh, I just noticed the connection to the title of the fic!), but I'm disappointed that you say this might become more than a one-shot, because that makes me think that this is going to be a BEFF and I have strong feelings about BEFFs. Admittedly, Rin BEFFs are way less bothersome than Hanako BEFFs, but I still side-eye the genre on a broader level. Admittedly I did technically write a BEFF in a different fandom, but... that's different, because that Bad ending was actually written badly. The Katawa Shoujo bad endings, by contrast are written just fine, so far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, there's not much more I can say, other than to add to the chorus of approbation; I'm no expert in writing Rin, but I think your choices here made for an effective exploration of her character. I look forward to seeing any further output from you.

Oh, and:

Identity Crisis wrote:Hisao is given to moody bouts of introspection when he's lost for direction, he's got the nastiest form of "slow burning" anger I've seen for a while in a character that emerges when his patience finally gives out, and he's got a creepy "possessive" streak that's probably his worst trait; see his "white knighting" in his other routes. He can't let things go easily and this both bails him out and gets him into trouble in other routes.

This is pretty much exactly why any Iwanako/Hisao relationship, under any circumstances, would be more likely to explode than not. Great observation.

Thank you all for the warm feedback, and I'm definitely happy to have garnered such a positive response to my writing!

You guys have certainly given me a lot to think about. Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of sleep last night and I don't want to start discussing the characters too closely, but I did at least want to make a response and show that I appreciate the feedback.

A lot of the "choices" I made here are down to what I personally felt most comfortable with or in one case due to my own ignorance of writing practices. I feel most comfortable writing in the third person because that's the perspective I have the most experience in; I've always written in the third person mode and my experiments with first person have felt clumsy and stilted at best. I should probably try the first person more often for precisely that reason. As for the italics, that was me simply not understanding that you're not supposed to put thoughts in quotations. As it happens I lucked out and it created a certain effect. That happens sometimes in writing!

I actually went back and reviewed Rin's entire route, Bad and Good endings, before I wrote this. This was certainly a good thing because I badly misread Rin's character on the first run through and would have made a lot of OOC mistakes had I just dove in and started writing. As it is it seems I made at least a passable effort.

That brings the question of whether and where the story continues from here. Overnight I came up with at least four or five different directions the story could take, with different possible branching paths, none of which are simple to write and all of which have several large and obvious storytelling landmines sticking out on either side of them and probably dozens of less obvious ones. At this point I'm hesitant to even nail down the genre.

It's going to be an adventure. A very Rinnish one. If I can get started that is.

Leaty wrote:I like that it's a Shards of Ire fic, because I adore Shards of Ire (ooh, I just noticed the connection to the title of the fic!), but I'm disappointed that you say this might become more than a one-shot, because that makes me think that this is going to be a BEFF and I have strong feelings about BEFFs.

Well, like I said, Rin's Good End is practically a BEFF since you can only get there via a scene just like this one ("Illusions for People")
Theoretically you could set "Demused" after "Shards of Ire" and you'd hardly need to make any adjustments.

Mirage_GSM wrote:Well, like I said, Rin's Good End is practically a BEFF since you can only get there via a scene just like this one ("Illusions for People")
Theoretically you could set "Demused" after "Shards of Ire" and you'd hardly need to make any adjustments.

Yeah, I can't dispute that. I just really like the implied finality of that ending.

The Destruction of the Self

The hard, dusty feel of the atelier floor was the first sensation to return to Rin.

She lay on her front, her face tilted down and to the side. There was something odd about that, as she seemed to remember toppling backward as her paintbrush dropped to the ground. Maybe she’d rolled over somehow?

Also… had there really been so much dust here?

Uh oh. Breathing was a mistake.

Rin flipped onto her back in alarm, any thought to her predicament gone as her lungs filled with dust. It was always a wonder how instantaneously her body could react to cause her pain. Her eyes shot open.

It was dark. Her lungs hurt. Her legs…

…why didn’t her legs hurt?

Was she paralyzed? Rin panicked, a shot of adrenaline coursing through her as she struggled to move her legs. After a moment, they reluctantly complied.

The effort, and the wave of relief that hit her when she realised she could indeed move, was enough to remove what little strength Rin had. She curled up onto her side and began to cry.

That kind of sadness, that kind of spontaneous, complete desolation, was a new experience for Rin. It was like normal sadness, but far worse, and it came with the same bitter, hollow sensation that had been haunting her for days. Days spent in the atelier at work on her paintings, spent baring her soul to an empty room in a language no one else could understand.

Rin was now sure that no one else would ever understand her.

For a while, the atelier had given her a warmer, happier feeling. It had felt like there was a big ball of yellow, happy energy hovering just beyond her grasp, and that she only had to reach out a foot and grab it. She’d felt that way because, in her mind, she’d seen a world where someone, somewhere was able to understand her paintings. A world full of people like her, who would be able to understand her. That was the feeling the exhibition had given her.

However, as time went on, that feeling began to fade as cold facts re-established themselves.

Sae didn’t understand her paintings, even if she could appraise them. Nomiya certainly couldn’t understand them. Rin doubted Emi could even really see them and Hisao…

Hisao…

For a little while, Rin had begun to believe that maybe Hisao really could understand her. Even without her paintings. He had put up- no, he had stayed with her, but ‘put up with her’ wasn’t the right phrase. Even though he’d had nothing to do while he was with her, he’d hung around simply because…

…he’d wanted to?

He’d seen how she acted, how she was from day to day, and he’d wanted to stay with her afterwards. Rin hadn’t understood it at the time, but that had made her feel better. Even though he didn’t do anything, Hisao helped her focus. He helped her to calm down the torrent of confusing feelings and words and put them into some kind of perspective. Rin had found it easier to paint, but also easier to talk. She’d said more words to him in a few months than she’d spoken in years.

He was patient and above all, he was kind. It was a kindness that Rin had begun to rely on, even…

…what was the word when you believed that something would always be there for you, even when you really maybe shouldn’t if you thought about things enough? It was a feeling that made her feel… bad. Really bad. Like she deserved her current misery.

Rin realised just how heavily she’d been relying on Hisao. Not to do anything, but simply on his physical presence.

She’d begun to believe that he would stay there forever. That he really did understand how she felt, or could at least tolerate it.

Rin violently kicked the floor as she realised how stupid she’d been for actually believing that. For daring to believe she could actually be understood.

It wasn’t her fault and it was her fault. She couldn’t explain how she felt. She’d failed to explain how she felt. The same old paradox came up again and again, twisting and twirling around in her head until she was too dizzy to think about anything anymore.

Even Hisao couldn’t understand her and now he was gone. What… what was the point of all this painting if no one could see the person behind it?

What was the point of expressing yourself if no one could see you?

As Rin huddled there on the dirty floor, she felt utterly invisible. It was the most horrible feeling in the world, an isolating, painful pressure that weighed upon her heart and spread throughout her entire body. She didn’t want to move, not now, not ever again. Some small part of her brain, a more primitive part perhaps, knew that eventually her body’s more primal urges would force her to move on. But the rest of Rin’s mind was content to lie there on the ground until she died. Perhaps she could even will herself to die faster if she thought about it enough.

Eventually, Rin did move, if only for lack of anything else to do. Even she couldn’t sit still forever. Feeling more tired than she’d ever felt in her life, yet not even remotely like sleeping, she forced herself into a sitting position.

The lights were off, which seemed odd to Rin. Maybe someone had come in and switched them off. She did wonder if that was possible, since she’d been passed out in the middle of the floor, but it wasn’t implausible. Perhaps she’d been missed.

That was the explanation that made the most sense to Rin’s embittered state of mind. As usual, she simply hadn’t been seen. She supposed she should be used to that.

Rin dragged herself to her feet. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a paintbrush glistening in the darkness, but she didn’t feel like painting now. She wondered if she’d ever feel like painting ever again. If she’d ever feel like doing anything else again.

Instead, she staggered towards the atelier door. Maybe she could at least go back to school, go back to her room and try to forget that any of this had ever happened. She pushed at the door with her foot.

…

…locked?

A new emotion set into Rin that made her lips quiver as she numbly realised that she was locked in the atelier.

How long had she been lying there? How many days had she been up here before Hisao came? The implications of that formed a pit in her stomach as a cold sweat broke on her brow. This wasn’t how she wanted to die. This wasn’t how anyone should die.

Rin hadn’t even known that that door was lockable. There was a door to the outside that was lockable and she had the key for that. Green notes sounded through her head as she reached towards all the natural explanations she had and came up short.

Locked in a dark room. Without conscious permission Rin’s frightened eyes searched the shadowed corners of the atelier.

Nothing seemed out of place. Dozens of completed paintings, quite a few more uncompleted ones. Paint supplies, panels, a skylight which didn’t seem to be letting much moonlight in today. No, nothing-

…

There was something. Actually, that was quite a big something. A big mirror that hadn’t been there before.

She wasn’t being too observant today, as a whole.

Rin stared at the alien object like a deer in headlights. Some small part of her brain was shouting at her that this was completely surreal, but for some reason she couldn’t quite process the full implications of that.

Instead she found herself taking slow, steady steps towards the murky surface of the glass.

Every dusty, sinister step registered on Rin’s bare feet. For some reason, she felt a growing sense of foreboding about what she would find there. She stepped in front of the glass…

…nothing. Nothing except her reflection. That probably hurt worse than anything she’d imagined.

The small, pale figure of Rin stared back at her and she spontaneously hated every detail. The messy, dishevelled hair, the ill-fitting overalls like a child playing at an adult’s craft and above all, the pathetic, sorry expression on her face.

Rin felt something ignite inside her that made her feel as if her blood was boiling up into her head. She lashed out at the mirror, lashed out at herself, without even thinking about how crazy and stupid that idea was.

If Rin was expecting a satisfying rain of glass and a lacerated foot, she was sorely mistaken.

The glass trembled, but stood solid, and indeed seemed to wobble slightly, as if she hadn’t kicked glass at all but instead some kind of incredibly dense jelly. Rin was left balancing awkwardly on one leg, the other one painfully jarred as it lay still connected to its opposite number.

It had been a good kick. If her reflection hadn’t blocked it with one of her own, she’d have kicked her doppelganger in the chest.

Suddenly feeling incredibly stupid and more than a little small, Rin withdrew her leg…

…or tried to.

To her alarm, she found she couldn’t get free of the mirror. Her leg was stuck there.

Rin felt a bolt of panic go through her, twisting her expression as she tried, first experimentally, then desperately, to get her leg free of the mirror. She came dangerously close to overbalancing on her other leg as she pulled and twisted to try to get her limb back.

Suddenly, she stopped. She felt like her blood was turning to ice.

Her reflection was changing. That wasn’t good.

Rin moved, but her reflection didn’t. As she struggled frantically, it froze upon the mirror’s surface.

From where its heart should have been, black tendrils spread out through her chest. They covered her upper and then her lower torso, before spreading out throughout her arms and legs.

As they did so, the details of her clothing, indeed, the outline of her very flesh, began to disappear. She stopped struggling as she gaped in horror at what was happening.

As the tendrils began to reach up towards her head, she tried to extricate herself with one final, massive push.

All that managed to do was put her squarely on her back as she nearly felt her leg pop.

For a few merciful seconds, Rin was too busy reorienting to her new position on the atelier floor to look upwards.

When she did so, she screamed.

Rin’s reflection was now totally black. The hair had receded into an ink-black scalp. The face no longer looked like hers and in the place of Rin’s awkward figure was a sleek, black, featureless torso that didn’t look anything like her body.

Petrified, Rin watched as the black shape slowly, yet all too surely, came closer to the mirror’s surface. She was too scared to make sounds any more, too scared to make any attempts to free herself. It wouldn’t have worked anyway. Rin was no longer an active part of this play. She was a prop, at the mercy of whatever terrifying drama was being performed here.

The figure approached the glass surface.

Then, it impacted…

…and burst.

Rin jumped violently as the mirror’s surface disappeared wholly into darkness. Suddenly, her leg dropped free, hitting the ground painfully as she cried out from surprise. The shock reverberated through her entire lower body.

For a full ten seconds she sat there, trembling, as she stared up at the pitch-black glass in front of her. The whole ordeal couldn’t have taken more than a minute.

Shaking violently, she got up.

She didn’t know what had just happened or why. All she cared about at that moment was getting out of that room before something else happened. She turned to run…

…and collapsed as she felt a bolt of crushing pain rip through her chest.

Rin’s face contorted as she felt something forcing its way out of her flesh, tearing an open hole that led straight to her still-beating heart. It felt like she was bleeding, but the substance that was oozing through her overalls was too cold and too thick to be blood.

As she screamed and convulsed in pain upon the ground, it began to spread. Over her chest, then down the rest of her torso. It trickled over her arms… and then her legs.

Rin’s cries of pain quietened down as she came to the horrific realisation that she couldn’t move anymore.

In shock, she waited, staring up helplessly through the skylight as the darkness closed over the rest of her body.

It wasn’t fair. The world was just outside, waiting for her. Rin’s self-destructive feelings seemed to vanish at the prospect of being destroyed in a way that was very much not of her own choosing.

As the darkness began to creep up over her neck, she finally, belatedly, tried to get help, to reconnect with the human support network she’d cruelly been allowed to separate herself from.

“HELP! SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME! HEEEEL-…”

It was far too late. Rin’s desperate cries for a saviour went unanswered, and were silenced as the black film settled over her mouth. As she watched, her eyes bulging as they looked down over her embalmed body, it crept upwards…

…and then closed over her nose.

She couldn’t breathe! In pure panic, Rin struggled on the floor. She tried to move anything, her legs, her torso, the useless stumps of her arms... she mentally writhed on the floor, desperate movements dancing through her mind that her body refused to follow.

The darkness took her vision… and she finally despaired.

As the darkness closed over her head, Rin began to fade away. Even the primal urges that were screaming at her to try to save herself began to die away, to be replaced by a deep sense of tiredness and disorientation. It was as if the world was fading away from her… or was she fading away from the world?

As the last of her willpower died away, she heard something calling her name. Calling her away from this world and to another, wholly unwelcome place.

“Tezuka… Tezuka… Tezuka…”

“…Riiiiiiiiiin…”

…

Beep… beep… beep…

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