Note:

Hello everyone. I hadn't intended to write any sequels to my one-shot Rin story, A Day With Rin. But recently, something amazing happened. I got the chance to visit Sendai in the Tohoku Region of Japan, as well as Tokyo for an overseas reporting assignment.

It was an utterly wonderful experience. Not only did I get to visit Japan for the first time in my life, I also actually visited Sendai and sort of followed in the footsteps of our favourite characters as I explored the city. It was a wonderful feeling to stand at the entrance of Sendai Station and see the a background screen from the game in real life right before your eyes, as well as experiencing the culture and beauty of Japan.

So I'm giving it another go. I had an inkling of an idea for how Rin and Hisao's life would continue after their beginnings at college, but my trip to Japan really gave me a lot of inspiration. I hope to incorporate my experiences into this story and others, as well as explore Rin and Hisao's relationship. I hope you like it, and if you do, please drop me a review or a message. Or even if you don't like it. Then I can figure out how to improve. Either way, have fun reading.

Thank you,

Finn.

Chapter 1 - Stability

Professor Ono seemed to have evolved the ability to speak continuously without needing to pause to take a breath. As he droned on and on about quarks and sub-light speed I found myself idly speculating on things like circular breathing and gas bladders. Biology had never been my strong suit, but five minutes in Ono's class and my mind demanded to focus on something, anything else other than physics.

I looked down at my notes. Instead of a dutiful list of facts and figures that would have been of immense help for the finals, there were a bunch of doodles and sketches. I'd been in the art club while attending Yamaku Academy, but I had largely given it up for the same reason that Salieri gave up music – I was always in the presence of someone infinitely better. And there she was, repeated over and over on my notes. Whenever I was bored, I liked to draw my girlfriend, Rin herself. Messy hair, large almond-shaped eyes with a slightly vacant expression. Rin would have been utterly at sea in my physics lecture, and I took some small comfort from that. Then again, she had demonstrated an unnerving tendency to understand things I had no clue about.

The professor glanced down at his wrist and stopped talking. Around him, my classmates looked up from their notes or woke up from their naps, unused to the sound of silence in the lecture theatre.

"Looks like I'm running a little late. The next week will be reserved for personal consultations to cover any material you're unsure of before the finals. Good afternoon."

I picked up my bag and was stowing away my books and other stuff when someone clapped me on the back. Instinctively my hand shot up and clutched at my chest, but thankfully I didn't feel any pain.

"Hisao? Are you ok?"

"Yeah it's – it's nothing," I managed to say, in a passably normal tone of voice. It was just a reflex, but I supposed it was a good sign that I didn't seem to be suffering from an attack. I saw my classmate Tsukiko standing beside me, looking concerned. So it was her who slapped me on the back. Tsukiko was a rather cute bespectacled girl of average height, who enjoyed the extra attention that came with being one of the few female students majoring in Physics. I supposed that we were friends, although the most we did was to sit beside each other during lectures.

"You sure?" she asked again.

"Yup, I'm fine. What's up?"

Tsukiko smiled. "Boring lecture huh?"

"Oh I don't know. They're all the same when it comes to Ono."

"I wanted to ask if I could copy some of your notes...but it looks like you weren't paying any more attention than I was."

I chuckled. "Guilty as charged." I placed the notepad in my bag and slung it over my shoulders.

"Um, would you like to have lunch?" asked Tsukiko after a moment's hesitation.

"I'm meeting my girlfriend Rin for lunch. We're going to this little noodle place in town."

"Oh, I didn't know you had a girlfriend..." she said. Was there a note of disappointment in her voice? Nah, it couldn't be.

"Rin's studying art, not science. You could join us if you like."

"I wouldn't like to intrude."

"Please, you won't be. I'll treat you to a drink of your choice. Only I'm rather broke at the moment and I have to go to work after lunch, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't order any expensive alcohol."

Tsukiko laughed. "Ok, I'll join you guys. I'd like to meet Rin."

"Let's go over to the Art Department then, I'm picking her up from there."

The Tohoku University's Art Department was a separate building on its own, situated right in the middle of the main campus. It was a remarkable mirrored-glass structure with fountains and gardens with stone sculptures, a marked difference from the gray, drab utilitarian facilities of the other departments. It was also hard to miss the stream of art students walking to and from the place. They were usually more creatively dressed than the rest of the student body. My workman-like shirt and slacks and Tsukiko with her t-shirt and jeans were the ones that stood out.

"It's so fancy."

"You've never been here before?"

"I've never actually had to take a class here. Maybe next semester."

"You should, it's really nice around here."

I led her through the corridors and stopped outside a large classroom. It had long tables, lots of windows, and was incredibly messy. Easels and canvases and art supplies were everywhere, with a few students in the room working on their own pieces in their own private little spaces.

Rin had a corner of her own and was industriously working on a new painting. In the past few days I had watched it grow from an indistinct mass of grey-blue into an abstract depiction of a stormy sky. If I looked closer I could just about make out a wall running along the bottom edge of the picture, and I knew the whole picture was a view of the sky from our apartment's balcony. It was a great feeling to know something about the painting that the rest of the world didn't. It was like our little secret, just the two of us.

I went up to her and placed my hands on her shoulders. Rin was wearing a turtleneck sweater and long pants with the cuffs rolled up to mid-shin to avoid paint splatters. Her casual dressing was more like mine and Tsukiko's than the rest of her art student cohort. She looked a little startled at the contact, then relaxed when she saw it was me.

"Hi," I said jovially, happy to see my girlfriend again after hours of mind-numbing physics.

"What are you doing here?" asked Rin, and I could see Tsukiko looking a little confused. A normal girlfriend would have been much less blunt. Then again, that's just how Rin rolls.

"Have you seen a clock lately? It's lunchtime. We're going to town, remember?"

"No."

I gave an exaggerated groan and Tsukiko giggled. "Well I'm reminding you now. There's this noodle place I want to try out, and I want to see you before I go to work."

Rin thought it over, then nodded. "I suppose I am a little hungry." Then without another word, she laid her brush on the floor, slid her feet through her sandals and stood up.

"Let's go. Will Hanako be joining us?"

"No, she said she had a meeting with her professor. What about your stuff?"

"It'll be here if I get back."

"You mean when."

"I mean if. I might be kidnapped along the way. Or a meteor could fall on my head and obliterate me and everything within a seventy mile radius."

"Is that...likely to happen?" asked Tsukiko hesitantly. I cut in before things could get worse.

"Rin, this is Maeda Tsukiko, from my physics class. Tsukiko, this is my girlfriend Tezuka Rin."

"Pleased to meet you," said Tsukiko, bowing her head a little. After a prod from me, Rin did the same.

"Hello. Are you a scientist too?"

"I hope to be."

"What a good answer. I must remember that one."

And with that, she turned and walked out of the classroom. Tsukiko shot me a glance, and I could do little but shrug.

The buses down to Sendai were extremely crowded during the lunch hour, but that didn't matter so much. It was a pleasant walk into the city anyway. I had my arm around Rin's waist, all the while chatting to Tsukiko as we came down from the hill. Rin kept mostly silent, slowing down from time to time to look at interesting passers-by or comment on oddly shaped clouds.

After a bit of searching, I managed to find the noodle shop I had noticed on my way back from work earlier in the week. The shop was tucked away between a large office building and a post office, and there was already a good queue lining up outside.

"Should I go find a table?" asked Tsukiko.

"There's no need," I said. "We're ordering take-away so we can go to the park and eat there."

"Why the park?"

"So that Rin can eat," I said. "The place is really cramped and there's no way she can use her feet in here."

"Oh...sorry," said Tsukiko, going red. Rin shook her head.

"It's ok. Hisao forgets sometimes too."

"We're lucky the weather is so nice," I said. "It'd be nicer to eat outside, don't you think?"

After a short wait I asked for three bowls of spicy pork ramen, to be taken away. I had to pay a little extra for the plastic bowls, but I handed it over without complaint. Then it was off to the park. A lot of people had the same idea, eating their lunches in the sun. Rin sat down on a relatively clean patch of grass without warning, prompting Tsukiko and I to stop and do the same.

"You didn't ask what I wanted," said Rin, inspecting her bowl of ramen.

"This is the house specialty. Salarymen from miles around queue up to try it. Go on, I'm sure you'll like it."

"But what if I don't?"

"Then you can decide where to go for our next lunch."

Rin looked as though this was an acceptable deal. As Tsukiko watched, Rin picked up her fork between her toes and dug into her bowl, eating just as quickly as she was doing with her hands. The talk turned to school and the looming spectre of the exams. Tsukiko was intrigued by the fact that Rin had no finals, but had a bunch of semester-long assignments to complete instead.

"You're lucky," said Tsukiko.

"Am I?" said Rin in mild surprise. "I suppose so, I was lucky to get my scholarship. I'm lucky that our apartment has enough juice in the fridge to drink. And I'm lucky that Hisao loves me."

Tsukiko blushed scarlet. Rin's frank and open manner of speaking was something that took people by surprise, especially when talking to others for the first time. "No, I meant your exam assignments," she said. "I'd like to not worry about cramming for a final paper."

Rin shrugged. I noticed it was rather similar to mine, and idly wondered who influenced who first.

"I didn't like those kinds of papers either. But isn't that why we came to university, to study the way we want to study about things we want to study about? If you don't like the way the physics department conducts its finals, why don't you switch courses?"

"It's not that easy."

"It's not?"

I coughed. "It's different for other people Rin. Let's leave it at that."

The rest of the meal continued in awkward silence, with only Rin seemingly unaffected by it. She finished her food, balanced her bowl on the top of her foot, and then swiftly volleyed it into an open trash can.

"At least you didn't miss this time," I said dryly, as Tsukiko watched, her mouth open.

"I liked it after all Hisao," said Rin, turning and giving me a rare smile. "You do pick good places to eat."

"It's my secret talent."

"Could you teach it to me?"

"I don't know. It's an ancient and secret technique. I learned it while I was away in the mountains in a mystic temple."

Tsukiko chuckled at my little joke while they cleared up their own packets. Rin meanwhile was looking thoughtful, before her eyes lit up like she was struck by a sudden realisation.

"That can't be true."

"What?"

"You can't have learned it in a mystic temple. You don't own any camping gear. So you couldn't have visited the mountains."

Tsukiko once again looked as though she'd missed a step, but I remained as calm as ever.

"Flawlessly reasoned," I said, and Rin looked happy. She looked happier still when I gave her a kiss on the cheek and a hug.

"Alright, I have to get to work. What about you Tsukiko?"

"I need to get back to campus."

"Great, Rin does too. Could you do me a favour and see she gets there alright?" I said, with the last bit delivered in a whisper.

"Um, sure."

"Thanks! See you ladies soon." I walked away, and Rin took off in the opposite direction, apparently eager to get back to the university. Tsukiko followed her. It had been a day of surprises thus far. Not only did I have a girlfriend, but I'd be willing to bet that Rin was utterly unlike anyone she had ever met before.

"Tell me Tsukiko..."

"Yes?"

"Tell me everything you know about butterflies."

Later that night

I reflected that while the rainy afternoon when I made love to Rin for the first time would probably never be bettered, we'd been trying to top it ever since. Although we still hadn't succeeded, I enjoyed the practice.

I stretched my arms, lying full length on the sheets and watched Rin get up from the bed and wander around the room, looking for her clothes. I liked to cuddle afterwards and once in a great while Rin would too, but more often than not she would be restless, as if making love fired off some creative spark within her that demanded to be set down on paper or canvas as quickly as possible.

I helped her put on her panties and a large T-shirt that was big on me and bigger still on her, but one that she liked wearing to bed. Then she walked out of the bedroom without another word. I rolled over on my stomach and checked the little alarm clock on our bed side table. It was nearing midnight and I had work the next morning, but strangely enough I felt a little restless too. It was as if being with Rin was all that I needed to overcome my usual sleepiness.

I pulled on my boxers and went into the living room, frowning as I saw Rin sitting on her little chair on the balcony, looking up into the night sky. She was studying the stars with mild concentration, and I knew that she was lost, a million miles away. Physically she was here, but her mind was out there, among the stars, wheeling and soaring and leaving the Earth and everything and everyone in it far behind.

It bothered me still, even now, that Rin would never truly be tethered to this planet, that at any moment her mind would detach from the cares of this world and focus on something so far away and so alien to me that I would never have a hope of understanding it. I wanted to be with her, and to understand her, and this made it hard. I suppose the only thing that made it bearable was that I knew she would eventually come back, and that when she did the first thing she would do was to look for me.

I watched her silently, leaning against a wall, as Rin drank in the sight of the night sky, eyes wide open, recording every inch and every moment. After a long while she got up and went over to me. I knew she wanted a hug without asking, so I wrapped my arms around her and let my body heat warm her up a little after spending so long out in the open.

"Hey. What're you thinking?" I whispered, my voice muffled a little by her hair. I loved the feel of her in my arms, her skin under mine, her feminine scent filling the air.

"I can't explain it to you, Hisao," she said, and my heart sank. In one sentence, she had managed to say the one thing that would hurt me the most. The fact that after all this time I couldn't and most likely would never truly be able to understand her.

But instead of getting angry, I held on to her and said something else.

"Try."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes baby. Please try."

Rin took a deep breath, and then launched into a long spiel about the sky and the way it made her feel, the way it kept changing even though it remained constant in her life, always over her head wherever she went, and how confusing it was that something so permanent could be so fluid at the same time.

If I was being honest, I would have to confess that I had no idea what Rin was going on about. At midnight, and just after we'd made love. But that was Rin, and I had accepted long ago that I would have to put up with moments like this if it meant being able to be with her.

I pointed out something that made a little bit of sense to me, and gave my own perspective on it. While I sensed that Rin didn't feel I had fully grasped what she was trying to say, she seemed happy enough that I was making the effort. Eventually she went back to bed, turned over and promptly fell asleep.

A breeze blew into our apartment, reminding me that Rin left the window open. I shut it and then got back into bed next to her, softly stroking her beautiful red hair with my hand.

"I love you," I said quietly, to myself. Then I tried to fall asleep as quickly as Rin had, but I spent a long time looking at her slumber peacefully before I could nod off myself.

Tsukiko and I had lunch together a few times since that first time, with Rin joining us if she was free. More often than not, she wouldn't be. She had finished her painting of the sky as seen from our apartment window and had moved on to something else that was taking up almost all of her time.

Even after a few weeks worth of progress, I still had no clue what it was supposed to depict. Painted in Rin's signature abstract style, with lots of colours and no discernible shape or form, she mentioned it was intended to be part of her final submission for this semester's assignments. Although I supposed it was a good thing she was spending a lot of time working hard on it, I was worried that Rin was slipping back into her bad old habits of not eating and not taking time off to have a break and talk to me.

The worst thing about it all was that I couldn't focus too much on her, as my own workload was beginning to pile up and the exam schedule was looming over the horizon as well. The difference between college science and high school science is...enormous. In the past I could have cruised through with a few hours of hard work and done the rest by intuition. But college is a whole new level. If I didn't keep working flat-out, every day, I would quickly fall behind the rest of the class and struggle to keep up.

What with my own studies, and my job, and Rin's tendency to withdraw and not discuss the things that are on her mind, I was feeling more than a little frustrated myself. From time to time I caught myself thinking of an easier time, back when we were all still at Yamaku and the future seemed a problem for another day.