Dedicated to blaerofvalenwood. She's someone I really look up to and also I am trying to win her love.
Yazawa Nico was not a woman who scared easily.
She sneered at horror movies. She stepped on bugs. She challenged roller coasters. Once, she even fought a clown. Indeed, Yazawa Nico was someone who laughed in the face of death itself.
So it wasn't as though she was scared when she was alone in her apartment at one in the morning, dressed in nothing but pink cotton pajamas and a matching bathrobe, clutching a spatula and staring down her front door as it rattled and banged from some unknown outside force.
No way. That wasn't scary at all.
Her heart definitely wasn't beating so loudly she could hear it.
Her hands were in no way shaking to the point where the spatula was a blur.
She was most certainly still breathing very normally and very calmly.
And the clattering at the door was absolutely not getting louder and more aggressive with every passing second.
A voice in the back of Nico's head told her to call the police. Another asked her what would happen if she turned to get the phone and whoever was outside broke in. A third voice questioned what she would do if she didn't try to call the police and that happened anyway.
A fourth voice was just starting to offer its own two cents when the banging abruptly stopped. Nico's grip on her spatula tightened. She tried to recall all the self defense moves she'd seen in cheap kung fu movies on rainy days. And at the last moment she remembered that her spare key was under the doormat outside.
The door swung open.
Nico dropped her spatula and screamed.
The orange-haired mess that'd stumbled in started screaming too.
There was a solid twenty seconds of screaming. It was kind of embarrassing. Then Nico realized that she was screaming at some woman barely taller than her and probably not any older, sloppily dressed and reeking so strongly of alcohol that Nico could smell it from across the room. She stopped screaming.
Once the other woman noticed that Nico had stopped, she quieted down too, hovering near the door and squinting her eyes in a confused manner. "So, uh," she began before Nico could, tilting her head to the side as though looking at things in a new angle would help. "Who are you?"
"Me?" At that point, Nico found herself more annoyed than anything else (not that she'd ever been anything else, definitely not scared, totally not terrified, shut up) and she snapped, "Who are you?"
"Hoshizora Rin, nineteen years old, college student, pleased to meet ya!" The woman responded automatically, lifting her arm straight into the air and grinning as she spoke.
If it weren't for the fact that this overenthusiastic, clearly drunk slob of a college student had just broken into her apartment and was acting as though she had a right to be there, Nico might've thought it was a little cute (though not nearly as cute as herself, of course).
"Grand," she grounded out. "So, Hoshizora-."
"Aww, no need to be so formal. You can call me Rin!"
"… So. Rin."
The student blinked up at her curiously with glassy eyes. It was sort of endearing.
Not. Nico corrected herself. "Rin," she tried again.
"Yes."
"Pray tell."
"Yes."
"What exactly are you doing here?" Nico paused. Contemplated. Decided she couldn't resist adding, "Something tells me you aren't here to get the autograph of Super Idol Nico-."
"Idol?" Rin cut her off with a drawl, leaning forward and gaping at her. "You're an idol? That's crazy!"
"Okay, wow, excuse you-."
"There's an idol in my apartment! Just wait 'til Kayo-chin hears about this!" Rin immediately started digging through her pockets. Old wrappers and receipts fluttered to the ground as she searched for her phone, but by then that was the last of Nico's concerns.
"What." Nico stared. Rin didn't reply. Nico repeated, "What?"
"Hang on, hang on."
"Rin!"
"That's my name, don't wear it out."
Nico stormed over and grabbed the girl's collar, yanking it down so that they were nose-to-nose. She could see her own scowl reflected in Rin's startled yellow eyes and set her jaw to make it look darker.
"Listen up, idiot," she hissed. "I'm only going to say this once. This is my apartment. Mine. Not yours. Understand?"
Rin's eyes were glazing over and Nico shook her once to wake her back up.
"Understand?"
"Aye, sir!"
"Tell me what I just said."
Rin beamed. "You're an idol!"
"I'm going to beat you up."
Five painstakingly long minutes later, which may or may not have involved a lot of yelling and threatening, and dodging of fists on Rin's part, Rin seemed to get the message.
"Waitwaitwait." Rin, sitting crosslegged on the floor, free from Nico's death grip and very much not beat up, waved her arms wildly. "You know, that- that actually makes a lot of sense!"
Nico fought the urge to slam her head into the wall. "Glad you think so."
"Like… that's why my key wasn't working!"
"True."
"And why there was a key under the doormat even though I don't have a doormat!"
"Also true."
"And why there was a super cute girl waiting for me inside!"
Nico nodded in agreement. "Very true. Well, not the waiting for you part, but-."
"Mannn, I thought for sure I was just dreaming." Rin laughed loudly and rubbed the back of her neck. Then she paused, apparently thinking something over, and brightened again. "I guess this is better though?"
"You literally broke into my apartment."
"Yeah, my bad." Rin stood up, brushing imaginary dust off her pants and then offering a thumbs up to Nico, which the older woman did not feel obliged to return. "I should probably head out then."
"Please do," Nico deadpanned.
Rin made no move to leave, however. She remained where she was, hands in her pockets and staring at Nico with a look of careful consideration on her face.
Nico grimaced. "What exactly is that expression supposed to be?"
"Here! For your trouble!" Instead of answering her question, Rin held out a slip of paper with flourish. "I owe you one now, I think, so if you ever need a favor or anything you should call me. Or text me. I usually don't answer calls. Or something." She flashed another innocently dazzling grin.
Nico took the paper with only a hint of reservation. Upon closer inspection, it was one of the receipts that had fallen to the floor earlier, and scrawled on the back was a phone number accompanied by a small message: hmu for some ramen yo ;3
"You're a real charmer, aren't you," Nico commented dryly without looking up. She didn't wait for a response. "Get outta here."
Rin saluted. "Roger that!" And with that she all but waltzed out, even taking care to shut the door quietly behind her. Silence followed, and somehow in the emptiness there was almost no trace that she'd ever been there in the first place.
Nico stuffed the receipt into the pocket of her bathrobe, telling herself she would throw it out tomorrow, and turned to go back to bed. She tried to pretend she didn't trip over the fallen spatula on her way there.
And the next day she told herself it was only natural to want to check up on a drunk student and make sure they were okay as she shot a tentative text to Rin.
To: Hoshizora Rin
From: Yazawa Nico
yo it's the person whose house u broke into last night
To: Yazawa Nico
From: Hoshizora Rin
omg pls dont hate me I'm sorry i'm so sorry i'll make it up to u i promise!
To: Hoshizora Rin
From: Yazawa Nico
yea ok buy me ramen and we can talk