OH GOD RIN IS HOT (short fic)
From Echoalpha
| Type: | Humor |
|---|---|
| Length: | about 3800 words |
| Date: | December 2007 |
| Warnings: | Slapstick violence and mild adult humor. |
Named after (and indirectly inspired by) a common imageboard phrase— but I took it literally. (This assumes Shirou's house doesn't have air-conditioning.) This idea came out of nowhere, near the end of the Christmas Special, and the whole thing worked itself out in my head, almost down to the sentence, within minutes. Scary. But I've just been too busy, and it took me this long to write it out. This is either post-anime or completely AU. Either way, there's no Holy Grail War, no Masters or Servants, and even no magic. Just a quiet little slice-of-life story in which RIN COMPLETELY LOSES HER MIND. Enjoy!
Fate/stay night © TYPE-MOON / Kadokawa Shoten / Studio DEEN.
Rin swore to herself that, if JUST ONE MORE PERSON said she seemed unusually tense and quick to anger lately, she would RIP OFF SOME HEADS.
Yes, she had drawn some attention to herself after yesterday's gym class, when the laces of her shoe had knotted. After failing to loosen the knot within a few seconds, she had grabbed both sides of the shoe and cleanly torn it in half. She would have explained that her shoes were old and the soles were worn thin, but the rest of the girls had run screaming from the changing room. (Even more tiresome screaming followed when the half-dressed girls ran into some boys just outside the changing room.)
And Rin had inadvertently made a scene in class when her ink-pen stopped writing. When a bit of scribbling didn't "re-start" it, she had very suddenly shrieked like a banshee in the silent room, and cleanly stabbed the pen through the top of her desk without breaking it, like a tornado driving a straw into the trunk of a tree. Strangely enough, no one would sit next to her after that. It was also strange how her teacher had immediately transferred to another school, without leaving a forwarding address.
After that, she had agreed to see the school counselor. And she had patiently explained to the counselor that even a Stradivarius violin needed tension in order to perform. But the counselor said unhelpfully that too much stress would warp the instrument. And then, the counselor cut the counseling session short when Rin, tightly gripping the arms of her chair, suddenly snapped them off.
Didn't those fools know that Rin couldn't afford to relax? Besides the intense pressures felt by every Japanese high-school student, she also had to keep her reputation as one of the most popular and successful students, and if any of her friends dared approach her levels of performance, to put them back in their place ruthlessly. And she also had to handle her father's estate, and keep her own business affairs and her house-hold in order, and keep an eye on her hopelessly naive sister and that idiot Shirou, and OH GOD TOO MUCH MAKE IT STOP GONNA FREAK HA HA HA HA HA HA—
Rin shook her head to clear it. Today was a day off, and she had reluctantly agreed with Shirou to try to take it easy. She was only planning to finish writing a term paper (several weeks ahead of the due date), complete some tax forms for the estate (after the forms had given her accountant a nervous breakdown), look over Shirou's shoulder as he made lunch and "offer" advice on how to prepare a properly balanced and nutritious meal, and then do a few hours of intense aerobic exercise after lunch, in order to perfect her already five-kilos-underweight figure. She was planning to relax for a whole hour after that, assuming her schedule allowed it.
She sat at the desk in her room in Shirou's house, opened the lid of her post-breakfast extra-caffeinated double-cappuccino, added a full can of guarana high-energy drink to the mug, took a sip, and frowned. Too weak, she thought. She crushed a couple of No-Doz tablets (with her bare hands) and stirred them into the mug, and took another sip. Ah, she thought, that's better.
And then, she put on her eyeglasses and went to work. After a minute or so, the glasses had slipped down her nose. She pushed them back up, took another sip of her soothing drink, and looked back down at her desk. The glasses promptly slipped down her nose again.
Rin tore the glasses off her face, but somehow resisted the urge to crush the glasses in her bare hands. She had already destroyed her spare pair of glasses in an earlier fit of rage, and she didn't have time to spare for a trip to the emergency room, to have shards of glass slowly and painfully removed from her hand again.
Oh, Rin thought to herself. There's sweat on my face. It's already hot. That's right— the weather forecast predicted a real scorcher today. Well, that's alright. I'll just turn on the air conditioner now.
Rin crawled over to the window in her room, and reached up to the window air conditioner she had had put in at her own expense, shortly after moving in with Shirou. She still couldn't believe that Shirou had lived in this house for so long without air conditioning. Why, she would just go crazy if she had to—
*click* The air conditioner didn't start.
Rin turned the thermostat off and on repeatedly, more quickly and frantically with each turn. Oh no, she thought. This cannot be happening!! IT JUST CAN'T!!
The air conditioner still didn't start. Rin kneeled in front of it and weakly hammered it with her small fists. "NO!!" she cried out loud to herself. "NO!! NO!! NO!!..." And then, she hung her head and began to weep piteously.
"Uh, Rin? Is something wrong?"
Rin spun around, and found Shirou standing at her door, looking at her with genuine concern. She immediately turned off the tears, pulled herself up, and cleared her throat. "*ahem*... Oh, hello, Shirou. I just happened to notice that my air conditioner doesn't seem to be working."
Shirou was kneeling in front of Rin's air conditioner. Rin anxiously hovered behind him. She usually didn't let Shirou practice his patronizing do-good-ism on her, but she had to admit that he was very good at fixing minor electrical and mechanical problems, and this was a genuine emergency.
"Do you think you can fix it?" Rin asked anxiously.
"Well, it has power," Shirou said. "The circuit breaker for this room hasn't cut out, and nothing else in here has lost power, anyway. Maybe there's a little dirt in the thermostat switch..."
"Do you think you can fix it?"
Shirou stood up, and rubbed his neck. "I can take off the cover and blow out the switch. But if it isn't that—"
"Do you think you can fix it?"
Shirou frowned at Rin, and demonstrated his Grasp Of The Obvious. "Uh, Rin? You keep saying the same thing, over and over again. I think the heat and the stress have locked up your brain."
Rin said the only thing she could. "Do you think you can fix it?"
"Yeah, I think so," Shirou said. "Just hold still for me. Uh, pardon my hands." He carefully held up Rin's hair with one hand, and felt for the ridge at the base of her skull with his other hand. And then, he delivered a firm dope-slap to the back of her head.
Rin's eyes lost focus, and she went all wobbly. Shirou imagined that he could hear her motherboard beep and her primary fixed-drive spin up, as if she were doing a warm reboot. "...thank you, Shirou," she finally said. "I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me."
Shirou smiled warmly. "I'm just glad you're alright now."
"But Shirou? One other thing."
"What's that?" Shirou asked.
"IF YOU EVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT TO ME AGAIN, I WILL KILL YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS!!" Rin jumped at Shirou and reached up to choke him. She took the taller Shirou by surprise and knocked him off balance, and they both stumbled back towards the window.
"*urk*" said Shirou. "I think you're— *urk*— killing me now!! *urk* I can't fix— *urk*— the air conditioner— *urk*— and die at— *urk*— the same time!! — *urk*"
*CRASH!!*
Shirou threw off Rin's hands and spun around, and a panicking Rin peeked over his shoulder. They found that she had thrown him against the air conditioner too strongly, and knocked it cleanly out of the window.
"!!!!!!!!" said Rin.
Shirou leaned out of the window and looked down at the air conditioner, where it had fallen to the ground. "Don't worry, Rin," he said. "This is a low window, and it didn't fall far. And they make those things to take a beating. If there was nothing else wrong with it, it's probably—"
The air conditioner suddenly and spontaneously burst into flames.
"Oh, wow," an intrigued Shirou said. "I've never seen an air conditioner do that before."
"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" said Rin.
After thanking Shirou for his help and then kicking him out of her room, Rin slumped to the floor, resigning herself to sweating out a very hot day without air conditioning. I had better change out of my long-sleeved sweater now, Rin thought, and put on a sleeveless blouse.
She began to pull off the sweater. But it clung to her in that awful way that heavier clothing clings to hot sweaty skin, and it proved difficult to pull her arms out of the long sleeves and to pull the sweater over her head at the same time. She suddenly screamed in frustration, fell to the floor, kicked her legs against thin air, and struggled out of the sweater like a feral cat backing out of a garbage bag.
After a moment, she caught her breath and sat up again. Alright, she thought to herself, you can't lose your cool over a little thing like that, or else you won't stand a chance of surviving the day... Oh, one of my twin-tails has come undone. I'd better tie it up first.
She found the loose ribbon in her discarded sweater, and reached up to one side to gather up her hair. She paused and held her long hair up to her face for a closer look, vaguely surprised to find that it had suddenly caught her attention.
Hair is weird, Rin thought distantly. Why does something so long and narrow keep growing out of the top of my head? It doesn't make any sense, when you stop and think about it...
She suddenly held her face in her hands and whimpered. Come on, Rin, she thought, come on! Think rational thoughts. Think rational thoughts...
She gathered up her hair again, and tried to tie the ribbon around it. But the loose hair clung to her sweat-covered arms and face, and she fumbled with the ribbon as she rapidly lost the ability to coordinate her hands without a mirror. She suddenly screamed again, flinging the ribbon across the room, pulling her other twin-tail loose, and rolling around on the floor, flailing both her arms and her legs, and throwing out her hair in all directions.
After exhausting herself with this second tantrum, Rin slowly pulled herself upright again, and kneeled in the middle of the floor, gasping for breath through her open mouth, and drooling lightly. She had also begun to cry bitterly angry tears again, apparently not worried about how much water her body was rapidly losing in the hot weather.
As the last shreds of her sanity fell away, Rin heard a knock at her door. "Rin? It's Sakura. May I come in?... Rin?..."
A cheerful Sakura opened the door, holding a colorful popsicle. "I made some treats, last night. It's already so hot, and I thought you might... like..."
She trailed off. Rin was kneeling in the middle of her room, clothing and belongings scattered all around her, not wearing a top, drooling on the floor, and staring up at her through long disheveled hair, with red eyes burning with madness.
Cheerful smile painfully frozen on her face, Sakura slowly backed away and closed Rin's door again.
Shirou walked up as Sakura stumbled back and fell against the opposite wall of the hallway, across from Rin's closed door. "Sakura? Is something wrong?" Shirou asked.
"It's Rin!" said Sakura, obviously fighting to stay calm. "I think she's completely and utterly insane!!"
"Yes," Shirou said patiently, "but I was wondering if something else was wrong—"
Rin very suddenly slammed her door open. With inhuman speed, she silently lunged at the popsicle in Sakura's hand, like an evil spirit in a low-budget Japanese horror film.
"EEEEEEEE!!" said both Sakura and Shirou.
Sakura and Taiga sat down to a light lunch with Shirou. "Isn't Rin joining us for lunch?" Taiga asked.
"I don't know," Shirou said. "She, uh, isn't feeling very well today. I think it's the heat."
Taiga shifted, as if to stand up. "Oh, dear. I didn't know. Should we go check on her?"
"Not if you... yuh..." Sakura trailed off, raised a trembling hand, and pointed. Taiga and Shirou turned to look to the doorway behind them.
Rin slowly shambled into the room. She had stripped down to her underwear, and then loosely wrapped a white bed-sheet around herself. Her hair hung in tangles and partly hid her tear-stained face, her eyes were glazed over, and she was still breathing loudly through her open mouth.
Sakura held her hands to her mouth. "Oh, poor Rin!" she said out loud to herself, as she watched Rin silently stumble past her.
"She's gone from model student to hikkikomori in under four hours," Shirou said grimly. "I've never seen a girl fall so far so fast."
"Rin even excels at failure," Taiga noted.
Rin continued on, past the table and into the kitchen. "Rin?" said Shirou. "All of the food is already on the table. And I'm not sure we should let you near the knives..."
Ignoring him, Rin opened a cabinet and pulled down a large bowl, and pulled out a drawer and rummaged through it for a serving spoon. And then, she opened the freezer door of the refrigerator, took out an ice tray, and loudly dumped it in her bowl.
Rin shambled back to the table, and plopped down in her usual seat. "itadakimasu," she mumbled hoarsely. And then, she held up her oversized spoon awkwardly like a small child, spooned up an ice cube and put it in her mouth, and began to chew on it with very loud crunching noises.
Shirou grimaced. "Rin? Chewing on ice cubes like that can't be good for your teeth."
Taiga was shuddering. "It hurts my teeth," she whimpered, "just to hear it."
Sakura swallowed heavily, summoned up all her courage, and reached out to her dear sister. "Rin, sweetie?" she said in a gentle loving voice. "It's OK if you want to eat ice on a hot day like this, especially if you don't feel good. But we could crush those ice cubes for you, and maybe add some flavoring?—"
"RRRAAUUUGH!!" Rin huddled over her precious lunch, and wordlessly snarled at Sakura, like a junk-yard dog guarding its bone.
Sakura ducked and covered. "hamana hamana hamana..." she said in pure fear.
"I'm sorry, Sakura," said Shirou. "The best thing might be to leave her alone, and to try to act normally, as if there wasn't a violent psychopath in our midst."
Taiga took this cue from Shirou, and tried to make idle meal-time conversation. "So!" she said brightly. "It sure is hot today, isn't it—"
*WHAM!!* Rin slammed her hands against the table, rattling all the dishes on it, and silently glared at Taiga for daring to bring up the subject.
"Oh, for pity's sake!" an exasperated Taiga said. "Look, Rin! I know you've been under a lot of pressure, and I know you hate this hot weather, but that's no excuse for this kind of behaviEEEEE!!"
Rin threw off her sheet, grabbed her bowl of ice cubes, and tackled Taiga. Quickly pinning Taiga down, Rin began to shove her ice cubes down Taiga's blouse mercilessly.
"YEEEK!! YEEEK!! YEEEK!!" said Taiga, weakly struggling in vain against Rin's insane strength, and also gasping and writhing in a deeply disturbing way from the ice cubes.
"Shirou!!" cried Sakura. "Do something!!"
"Can't," Shirou said, as he openly stared at the bizarre cat-fight. "Too turned on."
As the afternoon wore on, the heat and humidity grew even more oppressive. However, rain was already falling not far from Fuyuki City, and it was expected to move through the area very soon, bringing cooler air and lower humidity with it. After hearing this weather report, Shirou took it on himself to deliver the good news to Rin.
Shirou found Rin lying flat on her back on the floor, in the middle of the common room, still clad only in her underwear, with her arms and legs splayed out. She was vacantly staring at the ceiling. A small electric fan was running beside her and cycling up and down her body, but it didn't seem to be helping much.
Shirou was careful not to startle her. "Rin?" he asked gently. "Are you, uh, feeling any better?"
"I'm dying," Rin said weakly, with the certainty of an outcast stranded in a desert. "My mind is already irreparably broken, and now my body is failing. I've become too weak to move, and I can feel my flesh decaying and rotting from my bones. I'm just waiting for sweet, sweet death to end my suffering."
"Oh," Shirou said awkwardly. "Uh... that's nice..."
Rin rolled her eyes up to Shirou. "I don't have much longer," she said, "before I slide back into madness for the last time. Shirou? Kill me. Please. Kill me now. You could just bring your foot down hard on my neck and break it. And then, you could wrap up my broken little body in this sheet, and bury me in the back yard."
"Sorry, but we both know I can't do that," Shirou said sadly. "My personal code of ethics limits mercy killings to cases of massive visible trauma. But hey, if a box truck spins out of control, crashes into my house and crushes you terminally, I'll be more than happy to finish you off."
Rin sighed wistfully. "I should be so lucky," she said out loud to herself.
"In the meantime," Shirou said nervously, "would you mind dying somewhere else?"
"Well, excuse me!" Rin said irritably. "I'm so sorry to have inconvenienced you during my last hours on Earth!"
"It's just, I'd rather not have any visitors find my live-in friend lying around in her underwear," Shirou said. "Fuji-nee, Sakura and I are hanging out behind the house, waiting for the rain to roll in. Would you like for us to keep you company while you die?"
"...yes, that would be nice," Rin said softly. "But like I said, I'm far too weak to move. You'll have to carry me."
"Oh," Shirou said again. "Well... uh..." He kneeled at Rin's side, but paused, uncertain how to proceed.
"Is there a problem?" Rin asked impatiently, still without moving.
"I don't know how to, uh, hold you," Shirou said very nervously, "when you're in your underwear, and the hot and sweaty shoulders tight stomach long legs perky breasts..."
"If you're too cowardly to feel up a dying woman," Rin said, "then go get Sakura and your Fuji-nee to move me. Honestly, do I have to think of everything? I'm dying here!!"
A chastened Shirou slinked away. A minute or two, an angry Taiga walked up, followed by a worried Sakura.
"Sakura, you take her by the shoulders," Taiga said, "and I'll get her legs... Rin? I don't know what's gotten into you today, but these little games are becoming— WHOOPS!!"
Taiga had picked up one of Rin's legs, but Rin's sweat-covered skin slipped from Taiga's also-sweaty grip, and her leg fell back to the floor with a dull thud, like a sack of potatoes.
Her impatience forgotten, Taiga suddenly grinned. She picked up Rin's leg in both hands, purposely let go of it, let it fall down again with another lifeless thud, and giggled childishly.
"I hope you're enjoying yourself," Rin growled. "After I die, I'm going to come back and haunt you for this."
"Understood," Taiga said, as she continued to play with Rin's leg. "But this is so much fun, it'll be worth it."
The four friends were lounging in an open doorway behind Shirou's house, watching the clouds grow heavy, and listening to the thunder as it drew near.
Sakura was kneeling on the floor, holding Rin's head in her lap, and patting Rin's fevered brow with a damp cloth. "Rin, sweetie?" she said. "The air is already cooler. Do you feel any better yet?"
"GAFLBLABLFABLGHAGLBLGHALBL," said Rin, apparently answering in the negative. Her eyes had glazed over again, and although her mouth had curled up in a creepy little smile, she otherwise seemed to have lapsed into catatonic stupor.
Another peal of thunder sounded, and then the first drops of rain began to patter against the dry ground. "Here it comes!" said Shirou, demonstrating his Grasp Of The Obvious again.
Sakura held Rin's head in both hands and turned it to the side. "Look, Rin!" she said in an encouraging voice. "It's raining!"
Rin blinked. Her creepy smile faded into a more natural expression of awe. She pulled herself upright, stumbled to her feet, and walked a short distance into the back yard.
As the rain began to pour, Rin held out her arms out to each side and fell to her knees. She raised her face to the skies, closed her eyes, and let the rain fall down on her.
"I do believe," Taiga said quietly, "we are witnessing something like a spiritual rebirth."
Sakura brushed tears from her eyes. "It's so... beautiful..." she whispered reverently.
"I've never seen this side of Rin before," Shirou said. "She really is an amazing girl."
And then, a thoroughly soaked Rin stood up in the heavy rain. She suddenly began to dance and run around in her underwear, laughing like a child.
"I haven't seen Rin act like that in at least ten years," Taiga said. "She looks so happy."
"We've seen so many different sides of Rin today," Sakura said. "Some of them have been really scary... but some of them are really wonderful."
"I'm glad she trusts us enough to show us all the different sides of herself," Shirou said.
Rin gleefully shouted back to her friends. "HEY!! What are you all waiting for!? The rain feels GREAT!!"
Taiga immediately began to pull off her blouse. "Fuji-nee!?" said a startled Shirou.
"Oh, deal with it, Shirou," said Taiga, as she quickly stripped down to her underwear. "We're family... Shirou? Sakura? As you grow older, you'll learn that you get fewer and fewer chances to act like a child again. You shouldn't let a chance like this pass you by."
Taiga set her clothes aside, and ran out into the rain. "Look out, Rin!!" she shouted playfully. "Here I come!!..."
An embarrassed Sakura and Shirou looked at each other. "Uh, Sakura?..." said Shirou. "If you'd rather not?..."
"It looks like fun," Sakura said shyly. "And, um, I'm OK with it... if sempai doesn't mind..."
"...yeah," Shirou said. "I'm OK with it too."
Sakura and Shirou took off their outer clothing, with a minimum of embarrassed glances at each others' bodies.
Then they looked at each other. They laughed. They instinctively reached out and held each others' hands.
And then, they ran out into the rain together, to play with their friends.
