Author's note: I do not own Katawa Shoujo or its characters. Story based on Act 1 demo and contains elements that may be contradicted by the full release.
On the Nature of Bathing
"All done!" Emi triumphantly announced to Rin's empty room as she finished folding and putting away the last load of laundry.
Rin might have had a good grasp on use of the laundry room, but her ability to fold and put away clothes was lacking. When Emi first came in to check on things, there were at least two or three loads of laundry scattered among loose piles on the floor. Judging by the smell of things, she figured that some dirty clothes somehow got mixed in, so Emi washed everything just to be safe.
"Do try to be more careful Miss Tezuka," the matronly voice of one of the housing staff admonished from outside the door. "Even in our safe community we have to observe curfews."
"Yes, Ma'am." Rin replied emptily as she was let into her room. Once Rin was inside, her escort immediately disappeared down the hallway.
"Rin!" Emi jumped up from the floor in front of the dresser and grabbed Rin by the shoulders.
"Oh hey Emi. Wait... this is my room, right?" After noticing the lack of mess, Rin inspected the walls, checking for the strategically positioned coat hooks she used as aids to get dressed and undressed.
"It's almost midnight. Where were you?!"
"Sleeping." Rin seemed intent on just leaving that as her answer without elaborating further, but reluctantly explained herself after getting a good shake from Emi.
"...At the bus stop in town."
"All the way there? Are... Are you running away from school?"
"Running away... no I was walking towards wherever they were going."
"Who?"
"Ants. They always run like they know where they're going. I wanted to see what was so important to them. Usually it's a crack in the sidewalk but this time they went pretty far."
"Oh. Where were they going?" Emi seemed satisfied with Rin's answer, somewhat caught between realizing the futility of being mad and being genuinely interested in where ants go at night.
"I think they took the bus out of town. I was waiting for them to come back. Hey, Emi, did you steal my clothes?"
"No, I redid your laundry! They were getting wrinkled and stinky just lying around on the floor."
"Aw, you don't need to do this, you know. You're always doting on me like we're married."
"Married..." Emi's normally childish expression briefly faded into genuine solemness. "But I like to."
"Yeah but..." Rin looked pained, trying to muster the strength needed to say something serious for once. "I... I never do anything for you."
"That's not true! You're my friend and friends do these things for each other."
"But I'm usually a... What's that animal that leeches off of things? It's like a worm or something?"
"A leech?"
"Yeah, that. I gotta start doing some things for myself once in a while so I can be useful for you."
"Oh! I know! You need to take a bath, don't you? You can help me with mine!"
Rin took a whiff of herself and noted that she was in fact rather smelly. She wasn't about to fall for Emi's trap, though. Emi no doubt bathed herself after her workout.
"I can manage by myself. I've gotten pretty good with my brush and my bucket. Besides, you never actually need me to help you bathe."
"You can't get really clean like that." Emi fired up the hurt puppy-dog eyes to no avail. "And-and-I really do need your help."
"It's not gonna work."
Not to be defeated so easily, Emi retreated into her room. After a bit of metallic rattling and thumps from within, Emi sans-legs emerged from the room, in a folding wheelchair.
"Geez, I thought you hated using the chair." Indeed, Emi's much-loathed wheelchair normally sat ignored inside the closet, folded away under a pile of spare bedding. Bathing with Rin must have been excruciatingly important for Emi to resort to using it.
"I do. But now I'm totally helpless without a pair of legs to take me to the showers."
"Fine, fine." Rin surrendered to Emi's desperation. "Put that thing away and I'll let you bathe with me."
...
"Okay, all done. Now your left. Just how long has it been since you shaved your armpits?"
"I'm not sure. I did it a couple times and I stopped cuz it was too hard. Then it got too long to do it myself without getting cut up."
Rin and Emi sat on their plastic stools in the women's bath. Despite her insistence that she needed help, Emi still did most of the work, aside from riding to the bathroom on Rin's back.
"Well, you have to keep up the habit, or else you'll become a Yeti."
"Wait, so if I stopped shaving, I'd become an actual Sasquatch? We should stop then. I would like to try that."
"Yeah, maybe we should, when the weather gets cold again, perhaps?" Emi laughed, washing the safety razor under the faucet.
"Hey Rin... Have you ever been in love?"
"There was a sandwich once... no. That wasn't love. So I'm not sure. Have you?"
"Yeah, I have. Actually, I am."
"What's it like?" Rin turned around to face Emi so that she could get her legs shaved. "Is it nice?"
"It's confusing. Like you know how when you're a little girl you have this idea of a popular boy on some soccer team or a handsome businessman sweeping you off your feet? But then you do fall in love and that person is nothing like what you expected? That's the part I don't get."
"But is it nice, though?"
"It's kinda scary. I don't know if I like it. Maybe it's not really love. I don't think I should believe in something that's supposed to be so wonderful when it just makes me feel so... weird."
"Ow!" Rin winced and pointed out with her toe the raw spot of razor burn on her leg.
"Sorry!" Emi reached into a plastic bag and opened up a fresh razor blade.
"I believe in bubbles. I don't get them, though."
"What's there to get? They're pockets of air surrounded by fluid held together with surface tension."
"No, not like that. See that bit of soapy foam over there that looks like a Luxembourg? Why does it look like that? Why didn't it look like just a blob or something else instead. And why do bubbles pop when they do? Who decides that sort of thing?"
"Um, I don't think I understand..."
"It's real, though, isn't it? Just because you don't get it doesn't mean it isn't real. If it feels like love, then it must be love."
"Thanks, Rin."
Emi continued attending to Rin for a while but slowed down as more troubling thoughts surfaced in her head.
"Hey Rin."
"Yeah?"
"I've been bathing you for a while, right? It's kinda funny isn't it? After all this time, I don't think there's a spot of skin on you I haven't touched already. We might as well be lovers now, huh?"
"Huh?"
"I, I mean like, my hands have been to places where most girls would only allow their boyfriends to touch."
"If you put it that way," Rin cringed, "every relative, nurse, and caregiver who's ever given me a bath has been my lover."
"Well, well, what I mean is..." Emi grabbed Rin's crotch with a soapy hand. "Does this feel different to you when it's me touching you like this? Because right now it feels different to me."
"Yeah, it kinda hurts. You're pulling on 'em."
"Oh." Emi let go. "Then what about..."
Emi grabbed the sides of Rin's head with both hands and kissed her on the lips, almost falling off her own stool.
"Well. Nobody else has ever done that, so I can't say."
Saddened by the fact that Rin just wasn't getting it, Emi hastily finished up shaving Rin and quickly rinsed the both of them off using Rin's bucket. Dwelling on her defeat, she barely noticed when Rin grabbed a towel with her toes and began drying her off.
"Come on." Rin crouched down with her back facing Emi, after draping bathrobes around both of them. "I'll take you back to your room."
"I'm sorry that I'm being weird to you. I've been feeling kinda off lately."
"Off? What's it like to feel on?" Emi giggled briefly at Rin's reply and went back to languishing on Rin's back.
"Rin? Are we really friends or... Or am I just your nurse?"
"You wanna spend the night in my room? Somehow my mess got cleaned up when I was gone and I'd like to show it off."
"I'd like that. Let's stop by my room first so I can get some things."
...
Since the two of them don't take up much room, Rin shared the bed with Emi, even though she had a futon in the closet for such an occasion. Being more trouble than they were worth in warm weather, Rin's pajamas had long vanished somewhere in the room. At Emi's request, she wore an old gym uniform instead of going nude.
Emi looked up at Rin and wondered why she was feeling the way she felt. Rin just laid there, staring up with her eyes half open. Perhaps Rin was unfolding the secrets of the universe through some unconventional line of reasoning that completely bypassed normal logic. However, she was just as likely to be thinking about food.
Rin was always mysterious like that, even to Emi. Maybe that was what made her so captivating. Emi, on the other hand, wore her heart on her face. She stared longingly at Rin, biting her lip to keep from doing anything foolish.
"Why did it have to be you, Rin?" Emi silently asked with her lips.
"Ow!" Rin's legs jerked.
"What is it?"
"I think I'm broken." Rin squinted and gritted her teeth. "I pulled my groin earlier when I was reaching up for something."
"Do you need to go to the infirmary?"
"No, it's just is kinda throbbing right now. Can you massage it for a bit?"
"Oh, sure." Emi slid her hand under the waist band of Rin's bloomers. "Which side?"
"Left. Lower. No. Lower than that. Keep going. Lower. Okay now towards the middle... Okay good. Right there."
Emi obliged for a moment and stopped, realizing she was just conned into fondling Rin. She looked up at Rin's face and glared indignantly. "Is this some kind've joke to you?"
Rin sat up slightly and kissed Emi in response. "Hm. Interesting."
"What? Why did you do that?"
"It is just like you said. It does feel different now."
"But earlier in the shower..."
"Well that was in the shower. You touch me like that all the time. But now we're in bed. I had to make sure."
"Oh," Emi looked stunned. "So you know how I feel about you now, right? If it makes you feel uncomfortable, I can leave you alone so you can take care of yourself from now on."
"No. I don't mind anymore. I like it when you help me with things. Just give me something to do for you once in a while."
"Just stay with me." Emi fell slack in the bed and wrapped her arm around Rin.
"I can do that."
"Oh, Rin? You're a pervert for making me do that just now."
"Well, you're a pervert for using bath time as an excuse to feel me up. And you could've massaged me over my clothes, by the way."
"I know."
A Friend, A Mere Nurse, or Something Else?
Emi laid still on the bed, at a loss for words with her hands above her head in a display of surrender. After some awkward shifting of positions, Rin emerged from under the covers and sat on Emi's stomach.
Their eyes scanned over each other thoroughly, soaking in every iota of detail that they fail to notice on a day to day basis. Subtle details like the depth of Rin's eyes, the sheen of Emi's hair, the candy-like visible moistness of Rin's lips, and the goosebumps on Emi's chest all shone bright as day. That night, the two were truly seeing each other for the first time.
Emi reached out and laid her hands on Rin's knees, tracing her fingertips down slowly until she locked fingers with toes. Acts of intimacy including everything from holding hands to having sex would require some sort of creative improvisation, but Emi and Rin handled those challenges nicely. They've made it far in life, together, even just as friends. They welcomed the coming days that they would spend as a whole greater than the sum of their parts.
Rin tilted her head around and locked eyes with Emi, her normally unfocused gaze suddenly piercing and precise like emerald daggers. She licked her lips slightly and mouthed a few silent sounds, in preparation to speak.
"Okay. Now, you can say we're lovers."