Chapter 80

Rin.

I walked around my house silently, one hand holding the other. I was still in my pyjamas, and all I had done was wash my face before hearing the news about my father.

Ren was gone. He was never coming back. I wasn't sure about how I felt, but I was startled when Doris yelled my name from downstairs.

"Rin, it's your friend!" She called. My heartbeat began to speed up immediately. I tumbled down the stairs, nearly tripping, and hurried to the door.

"Len," I said quickly, hoping that my eyes weren't very bloodshot anymore, "You're early."

"Rin," he said softly, "You were crying."

My lower lip quivered, and that was enough for him. He enveloped me in a hug and I sobbed into his shoulder.

"It's alright," he whispered, patting my back and walking in, "Tell me what happened. Are you and your father not getting along or something?"

I watched as Doris disappeared into the kitchen, clearly curious but respecting our privacy. I stared at Len with my blurred vision. He kissed the tears on my cheeks and offered a smile.

"Len...my father is...my father's...," I kept choking on the last bit, but I swallowed slowly and managed to let it out, "My father is gone."

Len looked at me with wide eyes as his frown dissolved. "Gone?"

I nodded and the tears just kept coming. "Passed away. In the plane. N-Natural causes..."

Len sat down on the sofa, pulling me down beside him. I tried to make the tears stop, but they just wouldn't. He stroked my hair, and I could tell that he was feeling confused and hurt, and probably ten other emotions, too. I began furiously wiping my hands across my face, trying to clean off the tears. He pushed my hands away and wiped my face with the edge of his sleeve.

"Len, what do we do now?" I whispered. He shook his head.

"We already decided, Rin."

"We'll never know the truth, will we?"

"We will," he smiled slowly, "Besides, we aren't chasing it. Remember your decision? Whether we are siblings or not, you'll still love me."

"And I do!" I said quickly. He nodded.

"I do, too," he added, "And nothing's going to stop me."

I sniffed. "Doris and I have to go to the funeral," I said, "The flight's tonight."

"When will you be coming back?"

I paused. "I don't know. Maybe a week?"

"What about the concert?" Len looked uneasy.

I tried smiling. "I won't miss it, and I'll practice. Besides, we'll still have two weeks. I'm sure Miku won't be angry."

Len sighed. "She just tries to keep us in line. Without her, the concert would be an absolute mess."

"How am I supposed to tell them?" I whispered. My voice was just as shaky as my body. Len pulled me close for a hug.

"Stop," he said, "Stop shaking, Rin. I'm here, right? I'm never going to leave you..."

"It's not that, Len, it's just...," I looked up at him, "I don't know what I'm supposed to feel right now. I love you, and whenever you're around, I can't help but be happy. Ren's...gone, but I don't know if I'm sad or not."

"You're crying," he smiled, kissing my forehead, "I think that, beyond sadness or happiness, you're feeling liberated."

"Liberated?" The word felt odd and unexpected against the flesh of my tongue.

He nodded. "You're free now. Broken out of the shackles of our relationship, and torn away from the pain of both having and not having a father. You've got Doris now, right?"

"Yes," I said softly, "She's...different, really, she is."

"I can tell," Len grinned, "Rin, I'm sorry to say this, but you're looking adorable."

I wiped my face with the sleeve of my pyjama shirt, "W-What?"

He shook his head. "I just want to...kiss you."

His comment was so blatant and the redness of his cheeks was so obvious that I couldn't help but giggle. The tears wouldn't stop, but being with him made me grin despite the circumstances.

"Then do it already, silly!" I said. He nodded and pressed his mouth against mine, hands wrapped around my arms. We closed our eyes and I smiled uncontrollably. My heart was beating so hard that I felt as though it would burst right out of my ribs and splatter all over me and Len.

"I'll be waiting for you," he said once we stopped.

I nodded. "I'm spending the rest of the day with you, and I'm going to call you every day!"

He laughed. "You better, or I'll have to call you!"

"And what's wrong with that, mister?" I crossed my arms and he tickled me, making me fall apart.

"It costs a lot," he grinned, tickling me by the ribs. I laughed uncontrollably as he continued, "But you're the most valuable thing to me."

I ruined his cute moment by sitting up straight. "Oh, so I'm a 'thing' now?"

"N-No, that's not what I meant!" He frowned and pulled back. I shook my head.

"I'm kidding, Len!" I kissed him again.

Meiko.

"What?" Mikuo looked at me like I was crazy, and y'know what? Maybe I was. But hey, he liked me, right? So he should be able to do what I want...right?

We were standing in his room, by his window, and he had one foot teetering out, balancing against the ledge. He had his arms hooked around my neck, and while he had a worried frown on, I was grinning like a maniac.

"It's not so bad," I insisted, "Come on, I want to show you how easy it is, how safe it is! Jump!"

"N-No, I can't!" Mikuo sounded genuinely frightened, "Dammit, Meiko, what if I break something?"

I sighed and pulled him back. He was shaking and clinging to me, looking back and the open window with a horrified expression.

"Fine," I said, "Let's try something simpler."

We headed downstairs and stood on his porch.

"Jump from here," I said, gesturing towards the steps. He tilted his head slightly and looked at me with a questioning expression. There was a half-smile planted on his face, and he looked so nice that I kissed him quickly, without really thinking twice.

But do you have to think twice before kissing somebody? The first time I kissed him, I wasn't really thinking about it; it had just happened, like the snap of a finger or a baby's first breath.

"Is something wrong?" Mikuo asked, shaking my shoulder gently. I shook my head.

"Stop looking at me like that and jump already!" I grinned, pushing him towards the steps. He yelped and staggered, nearly falling, before making a jump and landing on his feet.

He exhaled and turned to look at me. I stepped down and stood beside him, crossing my arms.

"What, did you seriously think that I couldn't jump that?" He asked. I laughed.

"It's not that," I pushed him back gently, "It's just...you'd say the next one was too harsh if I didn't let you jump these steps first."

"W-What's next?" He buried his hands in his pockets, "I'm not jumping from my bedroom window, Meiko! No matter what you do, I'm not going to!"

"Relax," I patted his shoulder and pointed to the porch railing, which was about a foot higher than the steps, "That's the next one."

Rin.

Len and I sat in the room where I kept the family photographs. We were passing picture back and forth, eyes flickering from one image to the other, memories and ideas darting across our minds.

"What will you do?" I asked Len, putting a photograph face down on the sofa. He squeezed my hand and kissed me softly.

"I'll miss you. I'll...I'll never get to talk to my father now, but it doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would..." he said, looking away for a moment, "Rin, you have to promise me something."

"What is it?"

He let go of my hand and lifted his index finger in front of his face. "Promise that you'll only cry during the actual funeral, and no more than half a litre throughout the entire thing, okay?"

I blinked. "What? You're kidding, right?"

"H-Hey, it's just that...if you do any more, it'll hurt me," he said this with a straight face. I stroked his face gently, and his eyelids slipped over his blue eyes as I did.

"I'd never even dream of hurting you, Len," I whispered as he slid my hand off of his face and pressed it against the right side of his chest. I could feel the rapid beating of his heart, but I couldn't tell if it was because I was with him, or because he was worried about me leaving.

"I know," he said, and then shrugged, "I'm sorry for being like this. You just lost...we just lost our father, and here I am, asking you to cry as little as possible."

"You're only saying that because you care," I smiled, "By the way...we need to tell the others."

"You're okay with it?"

I nodded. "Of course! They're my friends, and really...how could I ever keep it from them?" I frowned, "Does your mom know?"

Len shook his head. "She's probably not going to find out, either, not unless I tell her. If I did tell her, she'd get suspicious as to how I found out. But no, she won't. She's cut off all ties with him."

"Right, if you told her that I told you..."

"She'd catch on," Len finished. I sighed and pushed my hair out of my eyes.

"Do you think she'd ever be okay with it?" I asked slowly, "With the two of us being..."

"Probably not," Len pressed his nose against mine and gently pushed me down against the sofa, "But she doesn't need to know."

He kissed me hard, harder than he ever had since after finding out that we were probably related. He pressed his tongue against my lips and I let him in, digging my hands into his hair as his hands slid up my back.

He pulled away and I sat up slowly. His hands were around my waist and his eyes were drilling into mine.

"I really don't want you to go, Rin," he said under his breath, kissing my neck. I whimpered as he bit me gently, right under the jawbone. He went higher, up to my ear, before pulling away and meeting my eyes again.

"I'll be back before you know it," I said slowly, dizzied from his kisses, a hand pressed against my neck, where I was positive there was now a mark, "We should go and tell the others now."

Len and I left the room and, after a few minutes, we left my house. I sent a text message to all of our friends to meet us in the park.

We sat under a tree, Len and I. It was the same tree that we had sat under on that one Saturday that changed everything.

Except now, we were together again. So much had changed in a week, and I just sat there, under the shade, not crying, but resting my head against Len's shoulder, waiting to deliver the news and wanting to move on.

I had Len, and as selfish as it sounds, the whole world could end and I'd still be fine, as long as he was still by my side.

(This chapter sucks. That's my brain talking.)
Anyway...see you next chapter.
Seriously, if you guys told your twitter followers, Facebook friends, et cetera, about this story, I'd be very happy! I don't use any social networks, so...yeah. Believe it or not, it's true. (｡-_-｡)