"Shirou, sometimes I'm not sure whether you're an idiot with amazingly good luck, or an idiot with horrendously bad luck."
Shirou struggled to maintain his voice and not let it break as he said "Rin, if we could have this conversation after—"
"I mean honestly, Shirou. An attraction charm? In a heart? That you just happened to find, which just happened to break on you because you were just in the wrong, or right, spot at the door? And this just happened to come from a dead apostle, who just happened to have it on his body when you were sent after him? Some men would literally kill for this opportunity, why I'm sure—"
"Rin, I-I'm trying to—"Shirou stuttered out, in the middle of another of Rin's lectures.
"—with several different colored jewels, and that was just for a taste! And here you are with an attraction charm just soaked in to your body by accident. You're real lucky it's just me here, and I have such good control over my person. If Sakura was here—"
"Yes yes, I understand. But if you don't mind—"He tried again to get through to Rin.
"—and then the whole city would be talking about it for weeks. Sakura's like that. But of course, I can take care of this myself, with all control you would expect from me. I just need a couple hours alone with you and I will remove the charm in no time. Charms really just—"
"Tohsaka! I'm trying to take a shower, I need to clean off the blood! Please leave the bathroom!" Shirou couldn't even see Rin through the fogged up glass or the steam in the air, but he heard the door close and calmed down. He had actually feared Rin might try to enter the shower, she had been acting a little more pushy than usual, but Shirou supposed that Rin might have just been worrying in her own way. It was sort of cute how even after all this time together, she still had problems expressing herself, but really to him, that was just part of the charm.
Poor choice of words, Shirou thought to himself, as he laid his head back against the tiles of the shower stall. He was planning on scrubbing himself very thoroughly to ensure that the blood had completely left him, but was starting to have second thoughts.
That was the second time Rin had interrupted him, perhaps he should make this quick. It's not as though he didn't like, err, being with Rin, but in her potential state of mind, it didn't feel right to him. Even though their busy lives kept them from spending as much time together as they probably would like, and they both had skirted around the issue of whether they were even dating or not, Shirou did enjoy the moments of peace they had, such as they were. Shirou reached around for the soap bar, and began scrubbing his arms.
Maybe it would even be best if he just rented a hotel room for the night. That should create the necessary distance for the charm's effect to wear off, though he wasn't entirely sure of how it worked. Considering he wasn't being swamped by admirers, it must at least partially be based on how near to Shirou they were, and likely how recently it happened as well.
"There's probably some kind of temporal and spatial aspect to the charm," He thought out loud. Rin's teaching of more proper terms for describing the characteristics of magecraft had been paying off. Though she would probably take full credit for it, he was proud of himself for having actually been able to follow some of the conceptual discussions without needing someone else to break it down for him multiple times.
"I see my teaching has been paying off. Very good Shirou. Maybe it's time we have another lesson."
"Wuh-wuh-wuh how-when, what?" Shirou squeaked out. Rin had an amused smirk on her face, and one of her hands on her hips, with the other trying to hide her devious looking smile. She had let her hair down, and it clung to her body as the water droplets glided slowly down her shapely—
Shirou raced out of the bathroom, grabbing a towel off the rack as he locked himself in his room. He scrambled about the room, but couldn't find any of his usual clothes, no matter where he searched, and in fact, even the blood-soaked ones were missing. How very peculiar. However, he knew there should be one set of clothes that were still there. He laid down flat on the ground, and reached under his bed, pulling out his winter jacket, jeans, and boots, from behind Saber's stuffed lion, where he had stored the clothes when spring came. As quickly as he could possibly do, he dressed himself, before racing towards the front entrance. All he needed to do was—
BONK!
What the hell? Shirou got off his rear and rubbed his slightly red forehead. He reached his hand out to the front entrance, only to find an invisible barrier. A bounded field of some kind, this was what he had run into. Obviously, there was only one person who could and would do this. Well, no. There were a lot of people that had the ability and desire to lock him in his apartment using magecraft, for various reasons, some of them not far off from what's currently happening. In fact, Rin might just end up doing this later without the charm effects.
"Shirou, I see you found some of your clothes." Shirou turned around and saw Rin clad in only a towel, her hair dripping wet. Rin looked… disappointed. That was never a good sign, even more so today. Actually, this was probably not even cracking the top 10 most dangerous moments in which Rin looked disappointed. A list of 10 doesn't even cover these last two months, Shirou thought to himself. Snapping his attention back to Rin, he hadn't even noticed that she had stepped right up to him, looking up at him as she felt around his chest.
He tried to put some distance between the two but only ended up squished against the barrier. "Rin, listen. You're not in right mindset. You need to step back and think calmly about this situation. Especially that step back part."
"Oh. You're right, Shirou. I do feel light-headed after all. Can you help me to the bedroom? I need to lie down for a moment." She began tugging at his jacket, all the while maintaining eye contact, batting her eyelashes in what he supposed would be her attempt at a flirtatious signal. Really, it came off as her twitching her eyes, Rin was not very good at subtle. But that only made a more dangerous situation, lowering his guard as she tried to slide her hands around his body. He knew just how to handle this, the perfect plan.
"Sure Rin, let me just—" Shirou reinforced his body, burst towards the bedroom, pushing Rin to the ground, and knocking over the couch on the way. He locked the door, traced several E-Ranked noble phantasms in a number of crisscrossing patterns over the doorway, before promptly panicking. Rin knocked on the door softly. Then heavier, and heavier, and heavier. It became a war drum beating before it stopped abruptly. The silence lingered in the air, he felt relief and worry at the same time. Maybe she had calmed down, he still wasn't sure of the charm's strength after all.
"Gandr Shoot!" The sounds of wood cracking filled the apartment, images of the door splintering into fragments filled his head. He couldn't actually see the door, as the noble phantasms littered the entrance. He mentally patted himself on the back for that one.
Rin yelled from behind the weapons, "Shirou! If you don't let me in this instant, I will destroy every single kitchen appliance we have, one by one." A necessary sacrifice to buy him time, Shirou thought as he wiped away the tears forming at the corners of his eyes. But he could do without them, it was Saber who would be even less pleased when she returned. Realizing that, the situation cracked top-10 in danger. He could no longer wait it out in here. He couldn't even be here anymore. He needed to think quickly. Rin always makes mistakes, it's a given. There's got to be some way out. He looked around the room and stuck his hand out towards the window pane. He could touch it, there was no barrier! He broke the window with his bare reinforced hands in excitement, creating cuts along his fists. He reached his hand out only to meet the invisible wall once more. Stupid. The barrier was just on the other side of the window pane. Of course it wouldn't be that easy.
The sounds of metal and electronics grinding together halted his thoughts.
"Shirou, the blender is broken! And the microwave! That was just the start! Don't make me do this!" How in the world did she… the blender and microwave? No time to think about it. Maybe if he broke through the ceiling and went into the room above, he could escape through using the tenant's apartment above him? No, never again. She never forgave him for the ice cream thing, and he didn't doubt her sister did either. She would turn him over in a heartbeat, assuming she wasn't affected by the charm.
WRRZZZZTTT!
The sounds of crushing and whirring steel made him think he had activated his marble reality. Water crept under the doorway, and his boots were making slushing sounds on the carpet. The floor was soaked. What in the world was Rin doing now? As if reading his mind, she yelled while the sounds of steel persisted, "I don't think the dishwasher was made for the sink!"
This was bad. And not just missing `Illya's birthday bad', but Shirou would go so far as to say it was like `Lancer's luck on an average day' bad. Lorelei hadn't acted like this. Lorelei had been calm, and only slightly more touchy, even if she did call him by his name, something pretty rare. But Lorelei was practically a magician, it would make sense she was more immune to a charm, even one created by a dead apostle's lifelong research. He shuddered to think about what may happen when, or at this rate if, he ended up outside and having to deal with regular people. Rin was a genius, and she was going crazy.
The sounds stopped. The carpet was still soaked, but the metal grinding ceased. Shirou was tempted to move some of his noble phantasms to peak through and find out what Rin was doing, but decided to wait a moment, lest it be some kind of trap, which he wouldn't put past Rin. He stared at the clock on the wall, watching the second hand slowly tick around the numbers, counting the time. 1 minute. 2 minutes. 3 minutes. 4 minutes. Nothing. 5 minutes. 6 minutes. 7 minutes. Still nothing.
He gave in and peaked through a crack in the weapons he made. Rin was nowhere in sight. "Rin? You there? Are you okay now?" No response. Just the sounds of water spraying from the headless sink, the faucet was also nowhere in sight. Shirou slowly removed the noble phantasms, trying not to make a sound. Eventually he had created a hole in the makeshift wall large enough for him to squeeze his way out of. He peaked his head out, looking in every direction and just like before, he saw nothing. He decided Rin had either passed out somewhere out of sight, or had left. He crept out slowly still, as a precaution for it being a setup. The sounds of the carpet and his boots slushing ruined any attempt at silence, but he continued walking towards the doorway slowly anyway, carefully avoiding the wood that lay scattered throughout the apartment, and the wiring and pieces of metal embedded in the carpet and walls. He reached his hand out to the doorway and met no resistance, his hand went straight past where the bounded field had been. Rin was truly gone. Not quite sure how this happened, he silently praised this stroke of luck from the gods. He left the apartment room, walked down the stairs and out of the complex. He couldn't quite shake the feeling that he was missing something, but then again, he figured, he was usually missing something.
