Rin: Clearer Than Words
Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 4:21 pm
Rin: Clearer Than Words
By cosmicmustache
[Based on the Rin Tezuka path of the Four Leaf Studios’ visual novel “Katawa Shoujo”]
The ringing of the school bell and subsequent explosion of shuffling students anxious to exit the classroom brought Hisao back from his mental wanderings. Mr. Mutou’s science lecture had been particularly droning today. That and a stagnant, warm classroom, reflective of the day outside, had long ago sapped what little will there’d been to pay attention.
As he stood to stretch kinks of stagnation from his arms, legs, and back, Hisao was comforted by the number of broad yawns and eye rubs occurring throughout the warm classroom. Apparently he’d not been the only one to ‘check out.’
Exams were still a ways off, and the homework for today was light, so Hisao had no concerns with attending the weekly art club meeting. He’d been at it for a month now and still struggled to find justification in attending. His artistic abilities, if he truly had any, seemed to remain as dormant as he’d been in class today. He wasn’t even sure why he kept going. Sure, some of the activities were a fun diversion in the way that crayons and finger paints had been fun as a child. But he never felt compelled to “do” art as he thought an artist probably should. Additionally, when Mr. Nomiya decided to use a meeting to engage the club in one of his one-way art “discussions,” Hisao felt very out of place and, frankly, bored.
Of course, there was Rin, and there was Rin’s art. If anything truly compelled Hisao to continue going to art club, it was likely those. He still got a thrill from watching Rin work, just as he had when he’d helped her with the festival mural. Perhaps ‘helped’ was a bit too generous, but he’d had his part in the process, and he remembered being transfixed with the emergence of Rin’s fanciful creation upon the white wall. Watching art being made…watching Rin…it made him feel…well…
“Nakai?”
Hisao started as he heard his name. Coming out of his musings, he noticed Mr. Mutou looking at him quizzically. The room was oddly quiet, probably because everyone else had left.
“Is there something I can help you with?” asked the seemingly puzzled teacher. For a moment Hisao considered engaging Mr. Mutou in a discussion about art club, art, even Rin. He’d always been willing to give advice to Hisao in the past, albeit usually in his own slightly disjointed way. But, “No,” Hisao thought as he shook his head. As willing as he might be to help Hisao through his thoughts on the matter, anything artsy and touchy-feely would probably be outside Mr. Mutou’s ability to engage. He was a truly science-minded man.
“Uh, no thank you Mr. Mutou,” Hisao said as he picked up his books and headed for the door, “I was just lost in thought. See you tomorrow!”
Mr. Mutou’s quizzical expression followed Hisao to the door, but, thankfully, he didn’t say anything as Hisao left for art club.
The walk down the hall to the art club was uneventful. No run-ins, literal or figurative, with Emi; no recruitment attempts, blatant or sneaky, by the student council; and no peaceful conversations with Lilly or Hanako. For the most part, the school had already been emptied of students with the exception of the occasional one or two who, like Hisao, were headed for an after-school activity or had stayed behind for tutoring.
The room Hisao stepped into was quiet and empty. For a moment he thought he’d walked into the wrong classroom, but the smell of a place used for art, scented with essence of old paint and brush cleaner, was unmistakable. Then he thought he’d perhaps mixed up his days. It would be just his luck if his mind was a day ahead of reality making the weekend that much further away. But, no, a quick check of his watch confirmed day, date, and time.
A movement to the side caught his attention. Rin was sitting on the floor partially hidden behind one of the tables and obscured by the fact that Hisao had not expected to see anyone sitting on the floor. She was the only other person in the room, and she sat facing the outside wall with its broad windows looking out over the school grounds – though, being on the floor, Rin wouldn’t be able to see the view. The windows let in a late afternoon sunlight that shot highlights through her auburn hair causing glistening trails through it as she moved. She was painting on a canvas set on the floor, propped against the wall. Bottles and cans of paint were spread out around her along with a loaded palette, a cup of cleaning solution, and a number of kaleidoscope-stained rags crumpled in front of her beneath the canvas.
Rin hadn’t seemed to notice Hisao’s entrance, so he walked gently up behind Rin and asked, “Where is everyone?”
If he had been expecting Rin to be surprised about his sudden appearance or his question, he was going to have to live with disappointment. She answered him in a matter-of-fact tone, “Mr. Nomiya cancelled art club for today.”
“Why?”
“Drama club.”
“Huh?”
“Dra-Ma-Clu-b,” Rin repeated, stressing each syllable as if it had been the words Hisao hadn’t understood.
“What about the drama club?” he asked.
“He gave them our stuff, so now we can’t have art club.”
“Stuff?” thought Hisao. Rather than continuing the seemingly divergent line of questioning, a mistake he often failed to learn from, he looked around the classroom and noticed that most of the chairs and all of the easels were gone. Mr. Mutou’s lecture must have really taken its toll on Hisao today! He hadn’t noticed how bare the place was until now.
“Oh,” he said, “yeah, the chairs and easels are gone.”
“Mmmm-hmmm,” came Rin’s disengaged reply, her focus apparently still on the emerging art before her.
“Hey, that’s right, I heard Misha say that the drama club is putting on a play this week.”
“Mmmmm.”
“What play are they doing?” Hisao asked, not really caring, but wanting to make conversation. Hisao had recently come to realize that, despite the obvious hazards, he went out his way to find things to talk to Rin about.
“Dunno, read the posters.”
“Posters?”
“Yes. Posters . . .on easels.”
Hisao stood in thought for a moment before his brain finally unfogged enough to put the pieces together. “So they’re using our easels to display the posters that advertise the play?”
“Mmmm-hmmm.”
With that the conversation finally came to a decidedly dead end. It was probably for the best as Rin was still completely engrossed in her painting. There must have been something exciting she was trying to get out of her head, because her foot rushed back and forth between palette and canvas in quick, broad strokes creating a mesmerizing array of shapes and colors on three mediums: the canvas that was the focus of Rin’s efforts, a tarp spread out to protect the floor and wall, and Rin’s feet and ankles. The last two were spotted and streaked with castings from the rapidly moving brush of the artist. Hisao found a moment’s amusement as he pondered whether he’d be more likely to find meaning in Rin’s art or the mess upon her legs.
Deciding he didn’t want to disturb Rin any further, Hisao pulled up one of the few remaining chairs in the room, set his book bag down beside it, and sat to watch.
As always he found himself quickly engrossed in Rin’s painting or, rather, in Rin painting . . . Rin’s ‘Rinniness’ to paraphrase a statement she’d once made about their friend Emi. To Hisao, watching Rin paint was the most relaxing thing in his life. He could let his mind wander off by itself, enraptured with the shapes, colors, and movements as they appeared before him. There was no longer any caring, just observing and appreciating.
Hisao’s mind had just begun to ‘zone out’ when he was brought back to reality by a groan emanating from Rin. She made some odd side-to-side movements, followed by some twists and shrugs. Each move was accentuated by a grunt or a groan.
“Are you okay?” Hisao asked her.
Rin sat and stared at her painting for a bit before replying, “The floor is too low.”
“I should have expected a response like that,” Hisao thought to himself.
“Or maybe my legs are too high,” she continued. “Do you think my legs are too high?”
Hisao gave her the best answer he could think of, “No, I think your legs are nice.”
The following silence gave him a moment to think about what he’d said.
“I mean fine!” Hisao blurted in an attempt to edit his previous comment, and then in a more collected tone stated, “They’re fine; right where they’re supposed to be.”
Despite the recovery, Hisao could feel the blood rushing full force to his face, but, as could be expected, if she had even taken note of his verbal slip, Rin displayed no reaction.
“I just can’t get my legs in line with the floor and the wall and the paint and the brush and the painting, so I lean back, but then I start to fall backward, so I lean forward, but that makes it worse, so I sit up, but I already knew that was bad, so I lean back, but. . .”
“You start to fall backward,” Hisao injected, rather proud of himself for keeping up with Rin’s run-on explanation.
Rin turned to look at Hisao with wide, green eyes. “Yes.”
“I think I know what we can do,” Hisao said before the conversation suddenly became another foray into his potential psychic abilities.
Reaching into his book bag, Hisao pulled out a library book he’d picked up during lunch. It was another short novel that only slightly interested him but would be a useful accomplice in the act of killing time. He then moved behind Rin and sat down on the floor with his back to her. Opening the novel, Hisao hunched forward in a ‘reading pose’ and said, “Lean back.”
After a moment he felt the warmth and weight of Rin’s back push up against his. With Hisao leaning forward slightly to read, Rin was now able to lean back against him to support her at a better angle for painting.
“Does that help?” Hisao asked.
Rin didn’t answer. Instead, Hisao felt her start to move around in small, broad, fluid motions. It took him a few moments to realize that she’d begun painting again.
Hisao was a bit disappointed that he couldn’t watch Rin paint from this position, but he was glad he was able to help his friend, and he soon lost himself is his reading.
He wasn’t sure how long they sat like that – long enough for his back to start getting stiff. After a while, though, Rin abruptly stopped moving. The sudden lack of motion caught Hisao’s attention.
“Hey Rin, is everything okay?” He asked over a shoulder.
Rin sat up, and Hisao found himself slightly disappointed at the sudden loss of contact.
“My brain is empty,” Rin replied.
Translating what she’d said from ‘Rin’ to ‘normal person,’ Hisao realized she was saying she was done painting.
Stiffly, Hisao rolled over to a kneeling position, then stood and stretched his back and neck. He took a moment to look over at Rin’s newest work. As expected, Hisao couldn’t really figure out what the painting ‘meant,’ but he was able to appreciate the beauty of the way in which colors and shapes combined aesthetically into art. There was something else about this painting though - something that didn’t seem quite right.
“The painting isn’t finished, is it?” Hisao asked.
“It’s done for now but probably won’t be done later,” said Rin as she began to cap the rainbow of paint containers around her before placing them in a wooden box beside her.
Hisao smiled as he took pleasure in realizing he’d correctly assessed the status of Rin’s painting. When he’d first started watching her paint, back when she was working on the mural, he wouldn’t have had a clue about when her work was or wasn’t done. Recognizing when one of Rin’s paintings wasn’t complete made him feel a little closer to her than before.
His smile eased slightly when he realized that even Rin didn’t always know whether her paintings were complete or not, but he didn’t let that fact dampen his mood completely.
While Rin continued capping paints, Hisao helped by taking the various paint brushes to a sink near the supply closet to wash out what paint he could before placing them in a jar of cleaner to soak. He then walked back over to where Rin had finished putting the paint containers in the box. Hisao took the box and put it back in its place in the supply closet.
By the time he got back to Rin, she’d moved off the floor and was sitting on the chair he’d pulled over. She was fumbling at a green, plastic box with her feet. It was one of the bins used to dispense the cleaning wipes, similar to baby wipes, students used to clean paint off their hands . . . or, in Rin’s case, feet.
The flip top on the lid was open, exposing the slot where the wipes would come out. Hisao didn’t see any wipes in the box though. Confirming Hisao’s observation, Rin shook the box and said, “Empty,” then let the box drop to the floor with a clatter.
“It’s okay, I’ll get some more,” Hisao said.
Hisao went back to the supply closet and, after a few minutes of searching, pulled a new box of cleaning wipes from a top shelf. Removing the cellophane wrapper as he walked, he brought them over to Rin.
“Here you go,” he said, placing the box in front of her.
Rin didn’t move or respond. Hisao noticed that she was staring out the window at a reddening sky filled with hovering, puffy clouds. It was a beautiful sky, just the type to quickly enrapture Rin. She was as still as a statue. Even her eyes seemed frozen on the view.
Rather than interrupt Rin’s thoughts or musings or whatever it was her brain did when she got like this, and not really wanting to wait around to see how long she could sit like that -- probably a long time --, Hisao knelt down in front of her, opened the lid to the wipes, and pulled out one of the wet rags to clean off Rin’s feet.
Gentle taking ahold of Rin’s right foot, he began wiping away spots and streaks of sticky, hardening paint. Beginning at the calf and ankle, he moved downward across the top of her pale foot, occasionally turning or folding the rag to find a clean area as it became saturated with the artistic residue.
As he cleaned, Hisao couldn’t help but notice the underlying strength in Rin’s feet and ankles. They were lean like the rest of her, but he could feel strong, taut muscles under the pale skin. They made him think of gymnasts he’d seen on television. They were little things with hardly any body to them, but what they had was all finely-tuned, lean, and nimble muscle. Rin’s feet were like that.
Two rags were completely used up by the time Hisao finished Rin’s right foot, ending with the toes. Hisao noted that there was a callous built up between Rin’s big toe and the second toe. It looked similar to the callous he’d developed on his middle finger from long days taking notes in class. Hisao guessed Rin’s was a result of hours holding paint brushes and art pencils between her toes.
With one foot now clean, Hisao let go of Rin’s ankle, dropped the used rags next to the box of wipes, gentle took ahold of Rin’s other ankle, and pulled out a fresh rag to begin the effort anew.
As he began wiping paint from Rin’s left ankle and foot, he glanced up at her -- right into her eyes.
She was staring at him.
Hisao wasn’t sure when she’d given up her sky gazing to watch him, but the intentness in her eyes gave the impression she’d been watching him for a while. It flustered him a bit, and he blushed slightly under her scrutiny. He quickly looked back down at her foot and resumed his efforts at cleaning off the paint.
Hisao didn’t know why he had blushed when he’d noticed Rin looking at him, just as he wasn’t sure why he kept cleaning her foot when he could have just let her finish the job herself. There was something there, he thought, in the way she was looking at him. Rin didn’t often look directly at Hisao, or anyone else for that matter. But this time she was obviously and completely focused on him . . . and he kind of liked that, even if it did make him feel a bit self-conscious.
It was more than that though. Beyond the intensity of Rin’s gaze was a content he couldn’t read and hadn’t seen before. It was like the content of her paintings, beautiful and eye-catching, but indecipherable.
Lost in his musing, Hisao suddenly realized that he’d finished cleaning her left foot as well. This fact created an awkward situation as Hisao still sought to avoid making eye contact with Rin. Instead he busied himself with closing up the box of wipes and wadding up the used rags before tossing them, like a miniature basketball, into a nearby trashcan.
Hisao than stood up as Rin, simultaneously, got to her feet. Their combined actions left them standing just inches apart, face-to-face.
Rin, a bit shorter than Hisao, looked up at him with those murky, green eyes. There is was again, that look that said . . . well . . .something. As he looked back at her, he felt he should know what it was, but he just couldn’t make the translation, or he was too scared to do so.
“I don’t have the right words,” said Rin, her voice breaking into the quiet moment between them.
Hisao swallowed hard against a lump that had formed, unnoticed, in his throat. He could feel and hear his heart pumping away in his chest.
“The right words for what?” Hisao asked, or at least started to ask. All he got out was “The righ . . .” before Rin closed her eyes, stood up on her tiptoes, leaned forward, and pressed her lips gently to his.
The kiss probably didn’t last more than a couple of seconds, but it was long enough for Hisao to realize a couple of things. First, Rin was right. Kissing him had conveyed her thoughts to him so much clearer than her chaotic words could have. Her kiss said, “I like it when you’re around,” “I trust you,” “Thank you for sticking with me,” and “You’re special to me.”
Second, Hisao realized that he really liked being kissed by Rin. He’d been confused and unsure about what they’d come to mean to each other in the time since they’d met. Were they acquaintances? Friends? Something more? Something less? He’d often found himself oddly unsure of what to say, how to act, and even how to answer her wandering, oddball questions. Being with her was usually an unpredictable event laced with frustration, fondness, curiosity, concern, and exasperation. However, at this moment he was absolutely sure that he liked being here with Rin kissing him and that he wanted to pursue the path this event seemed to open.
Rin concluded the kiss by dropping back down to her feet and opening her eyes, which immediately focused on Hisao again. There was no mysterious message in her face now, nor any unstated question about how she felt about kissing him. It was just Rin looking at Hisao as she’d often done before -- intent but not overbearing; observant but not piercing.
Trying to recover his thoughts in the wake of this unexpected occurrence, Hisao stammered, “Rin, I . . . I’m . . . well, uh . . . “
“Me too,” she stated plainly.
“You too?” Hisao asked - perplexed because he was completely unsure of what he’d been trying to say himself.
“Yes, I’m hungry too. You were going to tell me it’s dinner time and you’re hungry, right, so I was just agreeing with you. Maybe we should find Emi. She always seems to have food. She usually gives me too much food, but I think I’d like too much food this time. So let’s go.”
With that Rin slipped on her sandals, turned around abruptly, and walked off toward the classroom door. She’d only made it halfway to the exit before Hisao had grabbed up his book bag and began following after the auburn-haired artist who led his way. Smiling, Hisao again took pride in his increased ability to keep up with the erratic but entrancing Rin.
By cosmicmustache
[Based on the Rin Tezuka path of the Four Leaf Studios’ visual novel “Katawa Shoujo”]
The ringing of the school bell and subsequent explosion of shuffling students anxious to exit the classroom brought Hisao back from his mental wanderings. Mr. Mutou’s science lecture had been particularly droning today. That and a stagnant, warm classroom, reflective of the day outside, had long ago sapped what little will there’d been to pay attention.
As he stood to stretch kinks of stagnation from his arms, legs, and back, Hisao was comforted by the number of broad yawns and eye rubs occurring throughout the warm classroom. Apparently he’d not been the only one to ‘check out.’
Exams were still a ways off, and the homework for today was light, so Hisao had no concerns with attending the weekly art club meeting. He’d been at it for a month now and still struggled to find justification in attending. His artistic abilities, if he truly had any, seemed to remain as dormant as he’d been in class today. He wasn’t even sure why he kept going. Sure, some of the activities were a fun diversion in the way that crayons and finger paints had been fun as a child. But he never felt compelled to “do” art as he thought an artist probably should. Additionally, when Mr. Nomiya decided to use a meeting to engage the club in one of his one-way art “discussions,” Hisao felt very out of place and, frankly, bored.
Of course, there was Rin, and there was Rin’s art. If anything truly compelled Hisao to continue going to art club, it was likely those. He still got a thrill from watching Rin work, just as he had when he’d helped her with the festival mural. Perhaps ‘helped’ was a bit too generous, but he’d had his part in the process, and he remembered being transfixed with the emergence of Rin’s fanciful creation upon the white wall. Watching art being made…watching Rin…it made him feel…well…
“Nakai?”
Hisao started as he heard his name. Coming out of his musings, he noticed Mr. Mutou looking at him quizzically. The room was oddly quiet, probably because everyone else had left.
“Is there something I can help you with?” asked the seemingly puzzled teacher. For a moment Hisao considered engaging Mr. Mutou in a discussion about art club, art, even Rin. He’d always been willing to give advice to Hisao in the past, albeit usually in his own slightly disjointed way. But, “No,” Hisao thought as he shook his head. As willing as he might be to help Hisao through his thoughts on the matter, anything artsy and touchy-feely would probably be outside Mr. Mutou’s ability to engage. He was a truly science-minded man.
“Uh, no thank you Mr. Mutou,” Hisao said as he picked up his books and headed for the door, “I was just lost in thought. See you tomorrow!”
Mr. Mutou’s quizzical expression followed Hisao to the door, but, thankfully, he didn’t say anything as Hisao left for art club.
The walk down the hall to the art club was uneventful. No run-ins, literal or figurative, with Emi; no recruitment attempts, blatant or sneaky, by the student council; and no peaceful conversations with Lilly or Hanako. For the most part, the school had already been emptied of students with the exception of the occasional one or two who, like Hisao, were headed for an after-school activity or had stayed behind for tutoring.
The room Hisao stepped into was quiet and empty. For a moment he thought he’d walked into the wrong classroom, but the smell of a place used for art, scented with essence of old paint and brush cleaner, was unmistakable. Then he thought he’d perhaps mixed up his days. It would be just his luck if his mind was a day ahead of reality making the weekend that much further away. But, no, a quick check of his watch confirmed day, date, and time.
A movement to the side caught his attention. Rin was sitting on the floor partially hidden behind one of the tables and obscured by the fact that Hisao had not expected to see anyone sitting on the floor. She was the only other person in the room, and she sat facing the outside wall with its broad windows looking out over the school grounds – though, being on the floor, Rin wouldn’t be able to see the view. The windows let in a late afternoon sunlight that shot highlights through her auburn hair causing glistening trails through it as she moved. She was painting on a canvas set on the floor, propped against the wall. Bottles and cans of paint were spread out around her along with a loaded palette, a cup of cleaning solution, and a number of kaleidoscope-stained rags crumpled in front of her beneath the canvas.
Rin hadn’t seemed to notice Hisao’s entrance, so he walked gently up behind Rin and asked, “Where is everyone?”
If he had been expecting Rin to be surprised about his sudden appearance or his question, he was going to have to live with disappointment. She answered him in a matter-of-fact tone, “Mr. Nomiya cancelled art club for today.”
“Why?”
“Drama club.”
“Huh?”
“Dra-Ma-Clu-b,” Rin repeated, stressing each syllable as if it had been the words Hisao hadn’t understood.
“What about the drama club?” he asked.
“He gave them our stuff, so now we can’t have art club.”
“Stuff?” thought Hisao. Rather than continuing the seemingly divergent line of questioning, a mistake he often failed to learn from, he looked around the classroom and noticed that most of the chairs and all of the easels were gone. Mr. Mutou’s lecture must have really taken its toll on Hisao today! He hadn’t noticed how bare the place was until now.
“Oh,” he said, “yeah, the chairs and easels are gone.”
“Mmmm-hmmm,” came Rin’s disengaged reply, her focus apparently still on the emerging art before her.
“Hey, that’s right, I heard Misha say that the drama club is putting on a play this week.”
“Mmmmm.”
“What play are they doing?” Hisao asked, not really caring, but wanting to make conversation. Hisao had recently come to realize that, despite the obvious hazards, he went out his way to find things to talk to Rin about.
“Dunno, read the posters.”
“Posters?”
“Yes. Posters . . .on easels.”
Hisao stood in thought for a moment before his brain finally unfogged enough to put the pieces together. “So they’re using our easels to display the posters that advertise the play?”
“Mmmm-hmmm.”
With that the conversation finally came to a decidedly dead end. It was probably for the best as Rin was still completely engrossed in her painting. There must have been something exciting she was trying to get out of her head, because her foot rushed back and forth between palette and canvas in quick, broad strokes creating a mesmerizing array of shapes and colors on three mediums: the canvas that was the focus of Rin’s efforts, a tarp spread out to protect the floor and wall, and Rin’s feet and ankles. The last two were spotted and streaked with castings from the rapidly moving brush of the artist. Hisao found a moment’s amusement as he pondered whether he’d be more likely to find meaning in Rin’s art or the mess upon her legs.
Deciding he didn’t want to disturb Rin any further, Hisao pulled up one of the few remaining chairs in the room, set his book bag down beside it, and sat to watch.
As always he found himself quickly engrossed in Rin’s painting or, rather, in Rin painting . . . Rin’s ‘Rinniness’ to paraphrase a statement she’d once made about their friend Emi. To Hisao, watching Rin paint was the most relaxing thing in his life. He could let his mind wander off by itself, enraptured with the shapes, colors, and movements as they appeared before him. There was no longer any caring, just observing and appreciating.
Hisao’s mind had just begun to ‘zone out’ when he was brought back to reality by a groan emanating from Rin. She made some odd side-to-side movements, followed by some twists and shrugs. Each move was accentuated by a grunt or a groan.
“Are you okay?” Hisao asked her.
Rin sat and stared at her painting for a bit before replying, “The floor is too low.”
“I should have expected a response like that,” Hisao thought to himself.
“Or maybe my legs are too high,” she continued. “Do you think my legs are too high?”
Hisao gave her the best answer he could think of, “No, I think your legs are nice.”
The following silence gave him a moment to think about what he’d said.
“I mean fine!” Hisao blurted in an attempt to edit his previous comment, and then in a more collected tone stated, “They’re fine; right where they’re supposed to be.”
Despite the recovery, Hisao could feel the blood rushing full force to his face, but, as could be expected, if she had even taken note of his verbal slip, Rin displayed no reaction.
“I just can’t get my legs in line with the floor and the wall and the paint and the brush and the painting, so I lean back, but then I start to fall backward, so I lean forward, but that makes it worse, so I sit up, but I already knew that was bad, so I lean back, but. . .”
“You start to fall backward,” Hisao injected, rather proud of himself for keeping up with Rin’s run-on explanation.
Rin turned to look at Hisao with wide, green eyes. “Yes.”
“I think I know what we can do,” Hisao said before the conversation suddenly became another foray into his potential psychic abilities.
Reaching into his book bag, Hisao pulled out a library book he’d picked up during lunch. It was another short novel that only slightly interested him but would be a useful accomplice in the act of killing time. He then moved behind Rin and sat down on the floor with his back to her. Opening the novel, Hisao hunched forward in a ‘reading pose’ and said, “Lean back.”
After a moment he felt the warmth and weight of Rin’s back push up against his. With Hisao leaning forward slightly to read, Rin was now able to lean back against him to support her at a better angle for painting.
“Does that help?” Hisao asked.
Rin didn’t answer. Instead, Hisao felt her start to move around in small, broad, fluid motions. It took him a few moments to realize that she’d begun painting again.
Hisao was a bit disappointed that he couldn’t watch Rin paint from this position, but he was glad he was able to help his friend, and he soon lost himself is his reading.
He wasn’t sure how long they sat like that – long enough for his back to start getting stiff. After a while, though, Rin abruptly stopped moving. The sudden lack of motion caught Hisao’s attention.
“Hey Rin, is everything okay?” He asked over a shoulder.
Rin sat up, and Hisao found himself slightly disappointed at the sudden loss of contact.
“My brain is empty,” Rin replied.
Translating what she’d said from ‘Rin’ to ‘normal person,’ Hisao realized she was saying she was done painting.
Stiffly, Hisao rolled over to a kneeling position, then stood and stretched his back and neck. He took a moment to look over at Rin’s newest work. As expected, Hisao couldn’t really figure out what the painting ‘meant,’ but he was able to appreciate the beauty of the way in which colors and shapes combined aesthetically into art. There was something else about this painting though - something that didn’t seem quite right.
“The painting isn’t finished, is it?” Hisao asked.
“It’s done for now but probably won’t be done later,” said Rin as she began to cap the rainbow of paint containers around her before placing them in a wooden box beside her.
Hisao smiled as he took pleasure in realizing he’d correctly assessed the status of Rin’s painting. When he’d first started watching her paint, back when she was working on the mural, he wouldn’t have had a clue about when her work was or wasn’t done. Recognizing when one of Rin’s paintings wasn’t complete made him feel a little closer to her than before.
His smile eased slightly when he realized that even Rin didn’t always know whether her paintings were complete or not, but he didn’t let that fact dampen his mood completely.
While Rin continued capping paints, Hisao helped by taking the various paint brushes to a sink near the supply closet to wash out what paint he could before placing them in a jar of cleaner to soak. He then walked back over to where Rin had finished putting the paint containers in the box. Hisao took the box and put it back in its place in the supply closet.
By the time he got back to Rin, she’d moved off the floor and was sitting on the chair he’d pulled over. She was fumbling at a green, plastic box with her feet. It was one of the bins used to dispense the cleaning wipes, similar to baby wipes, students used to clean paint off their hands . . . or, in Rin’s case, feet.
The flip top on the lid was open, exposing the slot where the wipes would come out. Hisao didn’t see any wipes in the box though. Confirming Hisao’s observation, Rin shook the box and said, “Empty,” then let the box drop to the floor with a clatter.
“It’s okay, I’ll get some more,” Hisao said.
Hisao went back to the supply closet and, after a few minutes of searching, pulled a new box of cleaning wipes from a top shelf. Removing the cellophane wrapper as he walked, he brought them over to Rin.
“Here you go,” he said, placing the box in front of her.
Rin didn’t move or respond. Hisao noticed that she was staring out the window at a reddening sky filled with hovering, puffy clouds. It was a beautiful sky, just the type to quickly enrapture Rin. She was as still as a statue. Even her eyes seemed frozen on the view.
Rather than interrupt Rin’s thoughts or musings or whatever it was her brain did when she got like this, and not really wanting to wait around to see how long she could sit like that -- probably a long time --, Hisao knelt down in front of her, opened the lid to the wipes, and pulled out one of the wet rags to clean off Rin’s feet.
Gentle taking ahold of Rin’s right foot, he began wiping away spots and streaks of sticky, hardening paint. Beginning at the calf and ankle, he moved downward across the top of her pale foot, occasionally turning or folding the rag to find a clean area as it became saturated with the artistic residue.
As he cleaned, Hisao couldn’t help but notice the underlying strength in Rin’s feet and ankles. They were lean like the rest of her, but he could feel strong, taut muscles under the pale skin. They made him think of gymnasts he’d seen on television. They were little things with hardly any body to them, but what they had was all finely-tuned, lean, and nimble muscle. Rin’s feet were like that.
Two rags were completely used up by the time Hisao finished Rin’s right foot, ending with the toes. Hisao noted that there was a callous built up between Rin’s big toe and the second toe. It looked similar to the callous he’d developed on his middle finger from long days taking notes in class. Hisao guessed Rin’s was a result of hours holding paint brushes and art pencils between her toes.
With one foot now clean, Hisao let go of Rin’s ankle, dropped the used rags next to the box of wipes, gentle took ahold of Rin’s other ankle, and pulled out a fresh rag to begin the effort anew.
As he began wiping paint from Rin’s left ankle and foot, he glanced up at her -- right into her eyes.
She was staring at him.
Hisao wasn’t sure when she’d given up her sky gazing to watch him, but the intentness in her eyes gave the impression she’d been watching him for a while. It flustered him a bit, and he blushed slightly under her scrutiny. He quickly looked back down at her foot and resumed his efforts at cleaning off the paint.
Hisao didn’t know why he had blushed when he’d noticed Rin looking at him, just as he wasn’t sure why he kept cleaning her foot when he could have just let her finish the job herself. There was something there, he thought, in the way she was looking at him. Rin didn’t often look directly at Hisao, or anyone else for that matter. But this time she was obviously and completely focused on him . . . and he kind of liked that, even if it did make him feel a bit self-conscious.
It was more than that though. Beyond the intensity of Rin’s gaze was a content he couldn’t read and hadn’t seen before. It was like the content of her paintings, beautiful and eye-catching, but indecipherable.
Lost in his musing, Hisao suddenly realized that he’d finished cleaning her left foot as well. This fact created an awkward situation as Hisao still sought to avoid making eye contact with Rin. Instead he busied himself with closing up the box of wipes and wadding up the used rags before tossing them, like a miniature basketball, into a nearby trashcan.
Hisao than stood up as Rin, simultaneously, got to her feet. Their combined actions left them standing just inches apart, face-to-face.
Rin, a bit shorter than Hisao, looked up at him with those murky, green eyes. There is was again, that look that said . . . well . . .something. As he looked back at her, he felt he should know what it was, but he just couldn’t make the translation, or he was too scared to do so.
“I don’t have the right words,” said Rin, her voice breaking into the quiet moment between them.
Hisao swallowed hard against a lump that had formed, unnoticed, in his throat. He could feel and hear his heart pumping away in his chest.
“The right words for what?” Hisao asked, or at least started to ask. All he got out was “The righ . . .” before Rin closed her eyes, stood up on her tiptoes, leaned forward, and pressed her lips gently to his.
The kiss probably didn’t last more than a couple of seconds, but it was long enough for Hisao to realize a couple of things. First, Rin was right. Kissing him had conveyed her thoughts to him so much clearer than her chaotic words could have. Her kiss said, “I like it when you’re around,” “I trust you,” “Thank you for sticking with me,” and “You’re special to me.”
Second, Hisao realized that he really liked being kissed by Rin. He’d been confused and unsure about what they’d come to mean to each other in the time since they’d met. Were they acquaintances? Friends? Something more? Something less? He’d often found himself oddly unsure of what to say, how to act, and even how to answer her wandering, oddball questions. Being with her was usually an unpredictable event laced with frustration, fondness, curiosity, concern, and exasperation. However, at this moment he was absolutely sure that he liked being here with Rin kissing him and that he wanted to pursue the path this event seemed to open.
Rin concluded the kiss by dropping back down to her feet and opening her eyes, which immediately focused on Hisao again. There was no mysterious message in her face now, nor any unstated question about how she felt about kissing him. It was just Rin looking at Hisao as she’d often done before -- intent but not overbearing; observant but not piercing.
Trying to recover his thoughts in the wake of this unexpected occurrence, Hisao stammered, “Rin, I . . . I’m . . . well, uh . . . “
“Me too,” she stated plainly.
“You too?” Hisao asked - perplexed because he was completely unsure of what he’d been trying to say himself.
“Yes, I’m hungry too. You were going to tell me it’s dinner time and you’re hungry, right, so I was just agreeing with you. Maybe we should find Emi. She always seems to have food. She usually gives me too much food, but I think I’d like too much food this time. So let’s go.”
With that Rin slipped on her sandals, turned around abruptly, and walked off toward the classroom door. She’d only made it halfway to the exit before Hisao had grabbed up his book bag and began following after the auburn-haired artist who led his way. Smiling, Hisao again took pride in his increased ability to keep up with the erratic but entrancing Rin.
