It was an exceptionally bright Sunday morning. The sun was bearing down on the campus with its full force, and the few remaining students opted to wear less clothing to compensate, myself included. I ditched my usual sweater vest, settling on my a simple white uniform and some loose slacks, though I felt it did little to abate the heat.

Rin, despite expressing her usual demeanor, also seemed to feel the heat as she exchanged her usual slacks for a pair of short gym shorts. I didn’t compliment her on her choice of attire, though my eyes definitely enjoyed the sight of her in shorts.

We were currently out in the forest just outside Yamaku. I figured it’d be a nice trip away from the endless remedial classes Rin was having, and I probably needed some exercise to avoid getting chewed out by the Nurse.

If Rin had any thoughts she wanted to share, she didn’t feel like sharing them. I was too out of breath to say anything so the chirping of the birds and the rustling of leaves was all that could be heard during our trek through nature’s domain.

I didn’t really have a set destination in mind when I started this, but sometimes it felt nice not to know where to go, as long as we knew the way back. Besides, it would do Rin some good. She hadn’t seemed particularly eager to go on this walk either after a whole week of non-stop classes, but that was how she is.

After perhaps an hour of continuous walking, my breathing was getting heavy now, and my body felt like it was on fire. I was close to the point of stopping right here and now, but maybe I thought I could go at it a little further…

THUMP. THUMP.

A sharp feeling in my chest immediately made me reconsider that idea. I stopped and placed my hands on my knees as the pain rose and subsequently fell; my breath grew more frantic than before. Mercifully, I wasn’t about to have a heart attack in the middle of the forest. That would certainly be a death sentence.

“Hey, Rin?” I said, hearing the fatigue in my voice. Perhaps I was walking a little longer than I thought. “Let’s take a break here. I think I need it.”

If Rin noticed my little episode, she gave no indication. Nodding once, she walked over to a tree and sat down on the grass, leaning slightly against the trunk. It made for a cute sight, and it took the sting off my chest a bit.

“Thought tree,” she muttered as her head tilted demurely upwards, towards the leaves and the sky above.

“Hm?” I sat down beside her, letting out a deep breath. I was tempted to lean my head down towards her shoulder, but I refrained from doing so.

“This is the thought tree,” Rin declared.

“When did you came up with that?” I questioned, my mind recalling a particular event near the beginning of my stay at Yamaku, not all too dissimilar to this. It’s funny how much I could remember time spent with Rin as opposed to almost anything else. Funny, and a little bit eerie.

“When I came up with it. Just now.” Rin’s eyes were still glued to the canopy above. What I wouldn’t give to see what she sees, even for a few moments.

I loosened my composure slightly and rested my head on the tree. It was actually more comfortable than laying on the rooftop, and just as relaxing once I got in the right mood. Being with Rin has made me mastered the art of simply letting any worries go, and it is a useful skill to have when I just wanted to get away from it all.

“So, what are you thinking, Rin?” I asked, trying not to sound too curious.

“I’m thinking about how penguins look both black and white” Rin started. “Like the yin and yang symbol. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Either way, they’re both black and white and...”

Rin continued on and on about her various thoughts, before finally stopping. She took a few seconds to actually continue, and as I turned to her I could tell from her face that she’s braced herself for the words, the important ones. “And I’m thinking about painting again.”

“Oh?” I responded, trying to sound like it wasn’t a big deal. It was. It was absolutely a big deal, and something I didn’t even know how to approach in the slightest, even if I knew that it must be approached eventually. “So you really haven’t been painting at all this summer?”

“Not since…” Rin cut herself off, her eyes immediately shutting and her lips forming a deep frown. It was obvious to me what she was referring to. The exhibit, and all the painful memories that came with that experience for her. She broke herself trying to express herself to the world, and is only now trying to piece herself back together.

“You don’t need to say it. I know.” I placed a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it slightly to reassure her. “No need to dig up things you don’t want to.”

“But I want to.” Rin said, her voice more confusion than outright sadness. “I want to dig it up and throw it away and bury it again, over and over and over again. Like a person who keeps an old video tape even though he doesn’t want to watch it.”

“Rin…” Damn it, I don’t know what to say to her. My mind was grasping at straws. “It’s...alright. The past is in the past.”

Rin doesn’t seem to find comfort in those words. She continues to stare at the sky, and I could see the uncertainty in her eyes.

“That’s why...I want to paint again. Today,” Rin stated, her voice a whisper. “I need to paint over the me back then, paint it with the me that I am now. And I want you to be with me when I do that.”

“Me? Are you sure?” I asked.

Her gaze finally broke away from the sky, and towards me. The vulnerability in her face was heartrending, and the hand I’d placed on her shoulder was now moving to cup her cheek. She nuzzled against it eagerly, as if she were clinging onto a lifeline.

I needed no other response from her. Her silent pleas were enough for me to understand the request, if not the reason.

“Alright, I’ll watch over you.” I whispered as I closed my eyes. It was the least I could do for her.

I felt the gentle touch of lips on my fingers, and I noticed my smile coming back to me. Rin seems to take comfort in my touch and we let ourselves be for the moment, silently processing what was said. I wanted to feel contemplative and insightful, but all I could think of at the moment is Rin, the problems she’s going through, and how could I possibly help her.

“Rin, do you trust me?” I said quietly, my eyes still shut. The question was out of the blue, I realized, but I needed to ask.

All I could hear was a barely audible “Yes”, and I responded by ruffling her hair. In that instant, I was content.

“Hisao, you’re messing up my hair. Stop.”

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Once we were back at Yamaku, we decided to part ways temporarily, as she wanted to, in her own words, “get all of myself ready”. As much as I desired to be with her more, I understood that she needed to do whatever it is she needed to do.

I didn’t mind. I was riding a good mood all the way back to school and besides, I was hot and sticky. A shower was in order so I went back to my room, still pleased by what Rin had said.

Towel in hand, I ducked out of my room and had my hand on the bathroom door when I heard another door open behind me.

“Hey man…”

My mood instantly fell. Urgh, I guess a completely peaceful day wasn’t what fate had in mind. I looked to my side and sure enough, Kenji was there in his regular green jacket, complete with the scarf. Does he not feel how hot it was today?

“Hey,”man”. Can I...help you?” I immediately regretted my words. What force would I need to pray so that he didn’t take me up on my offer?

“Actually, yeah.” Kenji said in a slurry voice as he adjusted his glasses. ”There’s something I need you to take care of, my man. Top-secret stuff…”

Damn. Well, you reap what you sow.

“What is it?” I asked with a begrudging tone that he didn’t seem to notice at all.

He reached inside his jacket and immediately pulled out a green envelope. “This letter contains the key to defeating the feminist movement. It is the master plan to end all master plans. It is the culmination of decades studying them and their regime.”

...Well, if nothing else, I can’t blame Kenji’s insanity on heat stroke.

At that point in time, I didn’t even have the willpower to protest. “Alright, alright. Just let me shower and I’ll mail it for you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Thanks man, you’re risking your life for the cause, takes some balls,” Kenji declared with a nod, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. “If you need anything, brother, just ask. I got hands all over the black market. Illegal goods are my speciality.”

And like that, he was gone. I unashamedly looked at the envelop, my morbid sense of curiosity destroyed any sense of politeness I had towards him. It was nothing more than a plain envelope, all in all…

… and addressed to a girl.

I could’ve been wrong, but the name of the receiver was very much a feminine name, which begged the question on why was Kenji supposedly sending “the key to defeating feminism” to a girl? Or did he even knew he was sending it to a girl?

I chalked it up to Kenji being his usual manic self and entered the bathroom for my shower. I made a small note in the back of my mind to mail it after I’m done watching Rin paint.

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Once shower was done and over with, I headed over to the entrance to the girls dorm, where Rin was patiently waiting. She had changed into a dull blue smock and white shirt, the quintessential garb of an artist. The look fitted her very well.

Alongside Rin was another person, one I’m familiar with. If her cheerful demeanor and tan skin didn’t give it away, one of her arms ending in a stump certainly did.

“Hey Miki.” I said as she greeted me with a wave of her good hand. “I’m surprised you stayed over for Summer.”

“Sup, Hisao.” Miki responded eagerly, flashing me a grin. In a lot of ways, her cheery attitude reminded me a lot of Emi, though the two are supposedly rivals on the track team. “Didn’t really see a reason to go back home. Family seems fine without me judging by some of the calls they give me.”

That last statement struck a chord with me. Guess I wasn’t the only one feeling irrelevant in that area.

Miki gave me a teasing wink. “So...what’s with you and Tezuka over here? You guys doing something the school shouldn’t know about?”

I felt my cheeks immediately heat up at that verbal jab, which only made Miki prod me further. “Oh, your face is certainly being honest. Don’t worry Hisao, everyone in school knows at this point.”

I make no attempt to defend my position, unsure that it’s even a position I want to actually defend. I looked to Rin for any sign of help, but she simply gave me a neutral glance, as if she didn’t hear anything. I couldn’t tell if that makes me feel better or worse.

“Anyways.” I blurted out. “What are you doing here Miki? You hang out with Rin often?”

“Nah.” Miki said as she started to walk towards me. “I just figured I’d keep an eye on Tezuka, as a fellow dorm mate.”

“She’s watching over me because Emi’s gone.” Rin noted, her eyes darting between the two of us. “She comes in and helps me with stuff sometimes. I prefer Emi though. Or you.”

Instead of taking offense to that, Miki simply glared at me like a hungry predator eyeing its meal. “Oh, she prefers you, huh? I wonder if she’s referring to getting dressed or undressed.”

“Both.” Rin mentioned flatly, leading Miki to burst out laughing at her blatant confession of our intimacy.

...I would say I wanted to die right now, but considering I already have a fatal heart condition, I probably shouldn’t say that unless fate gives me another life threatening problem. As it is, all I could do was bury my head in my hands, the heat in my cheeks increasing exponentially.

“I’ll be heading out now. Have fun, you two.” Miki teased as she walked away with a satisfied smirk on her face. “Try not to break any curfew rules~”

“You know, Rin.” I said exasperatedly once I knew Miki’s out of earshot. First Kenji, now this. “I want to hide somewhere really far away, for the rest of the day.”

“My room isn't far enough.” Rin retorted, turning her back towards the girl’s dormitory. “Come anyways.”

I followed her to her dorm room, thankfully passing by exactly no one on the way. I opened the door for her and we both went in.

Her room was more organized than the last time I visited, a fact I found surprising for some reason. A desk with books and notes stacked up. A dozen posters hung on the wall, painted with Rin’s signature style. And finally a singular easel with a blank canvas, placed between the wardrobe and the bed.

This was actually the second time I’ve been here, the first being the time I came to check up on her when she was sick. The first time was a rather interesting turn of events, to put it mildly.

“You can sit on the bed if you want.” Rin said, and I did as she suggested. She sat down on the floor, which was littered with her other art equipment, her feet deftly moved to grab a brush. And then, she simply sat there, unmoving.

I remained silent for a bit, but then the lack of movement started to get uncomfortable. Rin not painting with a blank canvas in front of her was an unnatural sight. “Nervous?” I asked, and she shook her head.

“Just thinking about what to paint. Weird, my head is empty. Not empty empty, just empty about things that I want to paint.”

From my view on the bed, I could see her eyes concentrating on the blank canvas, as if looking for inspiration on that pure white sheet. Finally, taking a deep breath, she moved her feet and began.

“Don’t look,” she ordered as she brushed a blue line on the canvas. “Bad luck.”

Following her command, I looked away from the canvas. I instead analyzed the already-finished paintings that hung on the wall. They were all different from one another in terms of color and mood, and yet all of them had the same type of incomprehensibility that I’ve come to know from her works.

“Hey, did you remember the last time I came here? When you were sick?” I asked, hoping I sounded casual.

“No.” She responded instantly, and then added. “Don’t talk yet. I want you to talk, but I don’t want you to talk. Like an alarm clock that I want to wake me up, but not at this very moment in time because I just want to sleep more.”

“Mm, alright.” I sighed dejectedly before shutting up, finally accepting that she really doesn’t remember the first time I came here, where we had our first kiss. Not exactly the most romantic first kiss in the world, given the circumstances.

Time passed as I continued my silence, looking awkwardly around the room. I turned to look at Rin at times without looking at what she’s painting, studying her expressions. It felt like I was always trying to study her, like a tricky physics problem or a challenging postulate.

Her eyes were entirely focused on the canvas, her pupils jittered slightly as she added more brush strokes onto it. Her face was like stone, unmoving and unfeeling contrasting with the quick actions of her feet.

I couldn’t see what she was painting, but my limited art experience and my imagination could at least let me guess at how she was making it. A multitude of seemingly unconnected strokes of varying colors filling the canvas, slowly revealing more and more of the overall picture as it gets added, like a beautiful landscape after a foggy mist.

Another stroke was added, then another, then another. Slowly but surely the picture comes to life just as the artist envisioned it to be. I wondered if Rin thought the same way when she’s actually painting, or that was simply how I see it?

“Come look.” Rin said at last. That was fast.

I turned my head to look at what she painted.To my surprise, it wasn’t an abstract piece. In fact, the picture I was staring at was very familiar to me. Short green strokes represented the slight falling of leaves, the light blue background dotted with the occasional white and gray. It was…what she looked at this morning in the forest; the sky blocked by the canopy of leaves.

“I couldn’t think of anything to paint.” Rin said as she looked down at the floor, sounding a little sad. Sure enough, there was a frown on her face, ever so slight. “I try to think of what to paint before but all it does is make me remember the time at the atelier. It’s annoying, so I painted this.”

“Rin…”

“This isn’t me.” Rin acknowledged as she looked at the painting in disappointment. I agreed, the painting was beautiful but it wasn’t...Rin, or rather it wasn’t how she saw things. I liked to think I at least knew that much. “But, the paintings I painted for the exhibit weren’t really me either. They were just what I wanted to show other people, but it still wasn’t me.”

Her words were starting to worry me, so I got off the bed and knelt down beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You can always try again.”

“I tried again and again,” Rin muttered as her face continued to look down. “But it’s like trying to catch a swallow with your hands. You think you can get close but it always flies away. And then it flies back close to you so you try to catch it again and…”

I couldn’t help but sigh at how apt that analogy applied to both our situations.

“Maybe it is impossible for people to truly understand you. I don’t, and I’m not sure if I ever will completely.” I said, both my hands now on her shoulders. “But that doesn’t make your attempts any less important, or meaningless.”

“But why?” Rin lifted her face up to look at me, her eyes seeking answers I don’t fully know. “Why try if they won’t ever understand?”

“Why do you still love me, even if I don’t understand you?” I said softly, returning her question with one of my own. It was both my answer and something I desperately wanted to know.

“I...” Rin stopped and closed her eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I do, I just do. You’re like a part of my brain that wasn't there before. I want you close even if I know you don’t truly know me, but that doesn’t apply to anyone else. Why doesn’t it?”

I sat down on the floor beside her, pulling her close. Even if words couldn’t get through sometimes, these little acts could. Perhaps it would have been enough for the both of us at another time, but not here. I needed to soothe her doubts, even as I fear that I might fail. I’ve always feared that I might fail her, yet I keep trying.

Because I love her.

“I wish I could give you all the answers, but I can’t. Only you can.” I leaned my head against hers until our foreheads were touching. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t help you find your own answer. That’s what I’m here for.”

“Can you?” Rin pleaded with subdued desperation.

I gave her a slight kiss on the cheek. “I can, and I will. It may not be now, or tomorrow, or even a year from now, but you will find an answer you’re satisfied with, and I’ll be there every step of the way. We may be drifting in uncharted territory, but we’ll still be together. I promise.”

It was a really flimsy promise in hindsight, with nothing to back it up, but Rin seemed satisfied as she returned the kiss with one of her own. She closed her eyes again and let out a deep breath before gazing at me. No words were spoken, there was no need to in that instant. Afterwords, Rin sighed and looked at me, a slight flicker in her expression.

“I want to paint again. Hand me another canvas?” Rin said as she separated from me and resumed her previous position. There was a slight fire in her voice, a renewed sense of determination. “It’s in the wardrobe.”

I nodded and moved to open her wardrobe, her voice adding. “Don’t peek at my underwear. Emi says boys like to do that and that I shouldn’t let them.”

A little late for that boundary Rin, considering what we’ve done. But that’s neither here nor there, as I took out another canvas and placed it on the easel.

Another period of time passed as Rin painted on. I leaned on the bed so I could be next to her. I wanted to be as close to Rin as I could get, and by her few glances at me, she seemed to want me close by too.

Distant objects in space can still be affected by their gravitational pull towards each other, I recalled Mutou saying in one of his long-winded lectures. Another apt metaphor for the two of us. Ever distant, yet pulling each other closer.

She burned through the second canvas, and the art was more abstract this time around, though I could barely make some traces of a familiar object here or there. It was a piece that was much more Rin in its nature, but it didn’t seem to satisfy her.

“Mmm, still not right,” Rin noted, though she didn’t seem sad as the last time. If anything, her determination intensified.

“Another canvas?”

She nodded absently, and I went to place another one on the easel.

Time really flew by as Rin painted through another three canvases. Each of her pieces grew more and more distorted as she went along, as if capturing some alien reality. Her eyes never broke away from the easel, and her feet was a blur as she attacked the blank slate in front of her with color and form.

In the end, with five completed pieces spread out on the floor, Rin finally decided that it was time to stop and laid her foot down. The floor was a mess of paints and brushes, and Rin herself was messy and sweaty from all the effort exerted.

“I think you need to clean up,” I suggested, which Rin responded with another absent-minded nod, her mind clearly on the art laid out before her.

Allowing Rin to ruminate on her thoughts, I slowly picked up the scattered art tools around her and gathered it, leaving them in a neat pile in the corner of her room. When I was done, she was still fixated on her works.

Feeling my stomach growl, I asked, “Want me to grab you lunch? I’m sure there’s still stuff in the vending machines.”

“Okay.” Rin said quietly, before laying down on the floor and closing her eyes. She said nothing more, and I walked out the room, leaving Rin alone with her art.

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Returning with two sandwiches in hand, I opened the door to the sound of light snoring. Rin was asleep on the floor, her face an odd expression of both serenity and uncertainty.

I couldn’t help but find it cute, and also that I didn’t have it in me to wake her up at the moment. I simply placed her sandwich on the desk as I sat beside her, eating mine silently, staring at her sleeping face.

While looking, I couldn’t help but wonder what she thought of before she slept. Looking to the five paintings for clues, I could only conclude that she was slowly finding herself again in her art. Painting for her own sake, nobody else’s. It was a hypothesis I was comfortable with.

It wasn’t long before I saw her eyes finally flutter open, looking out the window to the afternoon sky. She looked at me and a smile formed on her face, a sight I hope to remember till the end of my days, for such a sight was too breathtaking for me to describe.

“Good afternoon, Miss Tezuka,” I said coyly, giving her a smile. “Enjoyed your nap?”

“Yes. I didn’t have to think about anything, like how a door doesn’t think even if you opened it or not.” Rin replied, a slight giddiness in her voice. “But now I am thinking, but I’m ok with that. Why am I ok with that?”

“Maybe you’ve finally found your answer.” I stood and handed her the other sandwich. “Your lunch.”

She slowly got up and grabbed it, and started to eat her food. She quickly finished it and suddenly shook her head. “I’m still thinking about it. Take off my clothes, Hisao.”

The last statement threw me off guard, and I eyed her suspiciously. “Rin, I don’t see how the two are related.”

“They don’t,” Rin said, lifting her shoulders up. “But maybe they do, maybe you taking off my shirt will give me my answer, like opening a cocoon and revealing a butterfly. Even if it doesn’t, take it off. It’s hot.”

Well, when my girlfriend asks me to take off her clothes, what kind of guy would I be to refuse? I sat down close to her, my hands slowly wrapping around her waist.

I started with her smocks, unhooking the back and letting it fall down to the floor. I could already feel myself blushing as I got to her shirt, slowly pulling it up until I saw all of Rin’s exposed torso, save for a pale blue bra. Looking up at Rin’s face merely showed me a smile with droopy eyes, and I wondered if she was doing this intentionally to mess with me.

“You like taking off my clothes,” Rin declared with an innocent voice only she could manage in a situation like this. “Like that one time in your dorm room when we had sex.”

“You know, people are usually more subtle when talking about stuff like this,” I said sarcastically as I stared at her body. It was how I remembered it on that rainy day; thin and fragile to the point of being malnourished, but a body I still found beautiful.

“Do they? Emi seems to like talking about it.” Rin said with a smirk. “She talks a lot about being naked, I wonder if she wants to be an animal. Animals don’t wear clothes.”

Ok, this was much more information than I needed.

“Emi is a girl. This is different…” I responded, hesitating to do anything else. She then pressed herself against me, her chest onto mine. My hands tightened their grip around her and my fingers ran down her back, making her tremble slightly.

“You feel so nice, like a pillow,” Rin murmured, her face still buried against my shoulder. “I like it when you’re around. Whenever you’re around, it’s like I’m sick, but a good kind of sick. Is there a good kind of sick?”

“I believe it’s called love,” I murmured back, nuzzling her neck slightly. This all felt like some sweet dream, one I did not wish to ever wake from. “And we’re both infected with it, I’m afraid.”

“Love…” was all she said, leaving the singular word hanging in the air between us. “Sounds weird.”

We stayed like that for a bit, comfortably resting our bodies against each other. I would have suggested that we move to the bed, but the tenderness of that movement was not something I wish to interrupt.

“I’m going to take a shower.” Rin mentioned, her voice hazy as she slowly and reluctantly parted from our embrace. “Then...what do you want to do? I feel like I want to do what you want to do, even though I don’t know what you want to do.”

An idea immediately popped into my head.

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“Hisao, I don’t get this. What do you do?” Rin, clean after her shower, asked as her foot pointed to the next question, her expression mildly frustrated. I couldn’t help but shake my head, this was the second question in a row that she immediately asked for my help. I wonder if picking Math instead of Physics was the wrong choice, but it probably would have been the same either way.

“Ok, so this question uses some principles from the question beforehand.” I started, pointing to the question above. “See how it uses this equation?”

Rin nodded slightly.

“You first use this equation on this part, then a separate one on the second part.” I continued, feeling a little like Mutou as I finished my explanation. “Then you make a third and final one using the previous two.”

“Oh.” As if a lightbulb in her head was turned on, she immediately began scribbling out the equations. After a while she finished, showing me the paper with an answer. It was correct. “Like this?”

“Yeah. Now that you got it, let’s take a break for you to process what you learned.” I said, taking a look at the paper of math questions in more detail. It wasn’t the hardest thing in the world, not to me anyways. But teaching Rin the same principles that I have taken to heart was another matter entirely.

That wasn’t entirely true, though. Rin had a pretty good grasp on the fundamentals of mathematical equations, but when it came to questions that were asked to use more than one type of equation, or used an equation in an unorthodox manner, she gave up almost immediately.

Rin finding unorthodox questions hard. I couldn’t help but notice the irony in that.

“Am I getting better?” Rin asked as she slumped slightly down on the chair, the lingering frustration still on her face. “I don’t know if I am. It’s like going up an escalator, but you don’t know if it’s going your direction or the opposite direction.”

“You are improving,” I tried to assure her, much like how a teacher would assure a student. Not too demeaning, but not too encouraging either. “You just need to know what equation method to use for the situation. Other than that, I say you’ve got a good grasp of things.”

“Talking math is hard,” Rin blurted out, her head tilted to one side, giving the impression that she’s half-drunk. “Math is like another language, like Math and English are cousins and they share the same words, but they don't mean the same. I think I prefer English.”

I decided not to respond to that analogy, instead placing the paper down and patted her on the shoulder. “You’re getting better, trust me. I have confidence that you’ll get by your finals just fine.”

“You’re a good teacher, Hisao,” Rin mentioned with a slight smile, though the compliment was undercut by her flat delivery. “Whenever I don’t get something, the class teacher just sighs before doing anything. But you don't sigh when you help me.”

I considered that for a brief moment. As frustrating as it could be sometimes, I did find my time teaching her to be an overall enjoyable experience. Is it because I liked teaching others, or simply a byproduct of the specific individual I was teaching?

Perhaps a bigger sample size could confirm my hypothesis later, but not now.

“Well, I think we can wrap things up for now, if you want,” I offered as I placed the paper on the stack of books. “Unless you can stomach Physics on top of Math.”

Rin shook her head and gave a flat stare, which is as blunt as she’s ever gotten. I guess even someone as out there as Rin had something in common with the everyday student: an instinctive desire to not learn any more than they have to.

I looked out the window and see that the horizon was a bright orange, the sun well on its way to setting. Yawning slightly, I found it a little hard to believe that I almost spent an entire afternoon in the girl’s dorm. It honestly felt like time sped up those past few hours: the painting, lunch, and teaching all felt like just moments ago.

“I’m tired.” Rin moaned out in the middle of my thoughts. “My head feels like milk. Except milk supposedly makes you smarter, but the milk in my head is making me dumber.”

“I can get you dinner, if you want.” I suggested. “Though I think I’m getting sick of bread. Maybe we should head to the convenience store and grab some instant noodles in the future.”

“Let’s go out, Hisao.” Rin said, already standing. “I want to be outside my room. This room feels like Math right now, and I don’t like Math.”

Personally, I wouldn’t mind if a room felt like Math. Math I understand. Regardless, I nodded back and opened the door for her, and she bolted out in an Emi-esque way out the room. The two of us quickly made it out of the dorm and onto the campus.

Rin and I didn’t have a set destination in mind, so we settled for simply taking a walk with her around the school. There seemed to be a lot of wandering in our lives lately: us in the forest, Rin with her paintings and her studies, and me with Rin. We’re both moving in uncertain directions, like explorers without a map.

I felt a little worried at that prospect, though less so than I expected. It was so easy to get lost in it, to simply wander aimlessly without a single goal in mind, but it was also...empty. Not meaningless, as the peace it grants for the present was of some value, but that value is only for the present, never the future.

I reflected back on Rin’s question, on why she should try reaching out if people won’t understand her the way she wants to. The answer I gave her seemed to satisfy her, but on further inspection I was the one left feeling the answer wasn’t entirely perfect.

Logic, after all, dictates that an act which bears little to no chance of success to be an exercise in futility. Repeated attempts will not alter the outcome, much like how it was impossible to jump an entire building’s height no matter how many times you jumped.

So why try if the conclusion was already written out?

“Hey, Rin?” I asked. Just as she looked to me for answers, for direction and acceptance, sometimes I desired the same from her. “Do you think some things are impossible?”

“Of course. I can’t hold something, because I got no arms. That’s impossible. You can’t get pregnant. That’s also impossible.”

“That’s not what I mean. What if you’re like...trying to climb a wall that you can’t climb. Even if you know you can’t get over that wall.”

“Oh…” Rin closed her eyes, thinking. Whether or not she understood the true meaning of my question, I didn’t know. There were so many things I didn’t know. “I don’t know what it’s like to climb. No arms. But if you can’t climb it regardless, you can’t climb it. But if you want to try, try.”

“Even if you know you’re going to fail?”

“Everyone does something for a reason,” Rin mentioned as she stared into the distance. “Emi once said she’s going to run so fast she breaks the sound barrier. I don’t think she ever does, or at least she never showed me she can, but she still runs. She runs, I paint, and you do your...Hisao stuff. I never know what you do; you need a hobby.”

“But whatever you do, you do because you want to do it, I think. Everyone says they’re going to do stuff even if never happens, but they still keep doing it even if what they say never comes true. Odd.”

I took a minute to I swallow what she said. It’s true that people make all these grand ambitions for themselves, yet rarely do they fulfill it in its entirety. So many people say they’re going to become billionaires or create something amazing, only for them to quickly forget about it.

Yet they’re still going on with their lives.

Even if you know it’s impossible, there is still value in the attempt. It’s only now that I understand the true value of what I said to her, those words that were just a hopeful attempt at comfort. Just because something is forever out of reach, doesn’t mean the chase towards it was any less real, or meaningful, or life-changing.

After all, if I didn’t chase after something seemingly impossible, I would never have gone after Rin. It might be one of the few things I’ll never regret doing in my life.

“You can be very wise at times, Rin.” I said, half-jokingly and half-earnestly.

“Are you going to start worshipping me? Like the Buddha or the Pope?” Rin responded, her eyes still distant from where she was. “I hear people worship wise people.”