This chapter took a bit of work to get off the ground for me, so I hope you can excuse that it's been over a week! But, I feel like it turned out really well in the end, so it's probably fine. As usual, expect the next chapter promptly! And some more excitement along with it! Hopefully I'll have less to distract me and it will be done sooner. Until then~~

Enjoy!

Night Shots – Chapter 7

"So," Rin started, sitting down. "How long have you known about this place?"

Len joined her at a table. "I've actually known about it since last year," he said. "But I only came in once or twice since then, and didn't stay long." Their table was in an outdoor section between the street and the café; Len took a moment to breathe in the fresh air, happy that they weren't stuck in a car anymore. "They're mostly known for coffee, but a friend told me that the desserts here are hard to pass up." He stirred a spoon in his cup, sitting in front of him. "Coffee is still my favorite, though." Len looked up and smiled. "I know it's a lunch trip, but hopefully it'll be fine! Late breakfast and all, right?"

Rin nodded and smiled, looking around. "It's nice. I love the decoration inside, and from out here it looks really… quaint." She glanced at the sign hanging down above the front door: 'Little Paradise,' with the letters hand-painted in a stylized font to look fancier. Through the large, wide windows, Rin could see two workers inside. There was a man behind the main counter with a display of various cakes, and there was a younger girl talking with a few customers— what few others there were. Both were well-dressed and looked like they were comfortable with their jobs. They had polite smiles on their faces, and a happy aura around them, despite the lack of business.

Rin and Len, sitting outside, had a low overhang keeping them in the shade. There were several other tables, but aside from the handful of patrons inside, they had the place to themselves. Sitting across from each other, they had small conversations as they took sips from drinks they bought when they arrived. In that part of town, the buildings were only allowed to be a few floors high, and from the ground they could see the crystal sky from nearly end to end. A few wispy strands of clouds drifted along, and a soft breeze was blowing past them. Brushing a few strands of hair out from I front of her eyes, Rin took the time to appreciate where they were, and who she was with.

She was actually finding it easy enough to keep attention on Len in a normal way, and wasn't spacing out at all. 'Maybe it's the new location,' she thought. 'I can't even remember the last time I would have been through this part of town.' They were about half an hour away from their apartment, on a street Rin had already forgotten the name of. When they left home they had set out immediately onto a road that Rin was pretty sure only the day before would have taken you away from the city entirely. Eventually, it looped around and actually became a shortcut to the city's old town, without the mess of zigzag roads and to a place with no skyscrapers, high rises, crazy traffic or too-big crowds. The peace and quiet were something Rin was used to having at home, but peace and quiet and time with Len, somewhere other than their apartment, was a very, very nice change of pace.

"We could do much worse than here," she stated. "Good pick!"

Len had kept a soft smile on his face since they got there, and it only grew larger at his sister's compliment. "I'm actually really excited to be here again," he said. "I haven't had any dessert in forever, and it just seemed like the perfect excuse!"

Rin had no objections. "I'm enjoying myself so far!" she said, and she meant it. They hadn't done much yet besides talk, but it felt nice. Rin said, "I like getting out with you like this, we don't do it enough."

"You know, mentioning that," Len began, "we should really come out this way more often. I'm sure there's other places around worth hitting up. We could explore new parts of the city together! Sounds fun, right?"

Rin nodded. "Yeah. I would like that a lot."

"We haven't really done anything like that since we were…" Len sat back in thought for a moment, expression showing fixation on finding an exact number. "…Geez, 16? 17? I think the last time we just rode around, both of us had only just gotten licenses. You drove." He took a sip of coffee. "And it felt more like a celebration of that than us really looking around at anything."

"I think I remember that," Rin said, the scene vividly reappearing in her mind. She thought to herself, 'You were wearing a t-shirt your job at the beach gave you, and it was tight enough I could literally see the outline of your chest through it.' She held back a shudder. 'Very distracting.'

"…In fact, didn't we almost crash?" Len asked.

"No," Rin answered quickly. "I don't think we did."

Len shrugged the thought away. "Well, we didn't do much sightseeing, either way. And that was years ago."

"I wonder if most people do, though," Rin said. "Especially if they've lived somewhere their entire lives, like us."

Len raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't that just make them more interested in knowing about their home? If it's always been home, and they don't know? It's how I am, anyway."

Rin said, "Well, actually I think it just makes me feel more content." She propped her elbow on the table and sat her head in her hand. "Like, why do it now if I've been here forever, right? And everything's been fine all along?" She sipped her drink. "I think people who are new to something are more willing to explore, since they don't know nothing about it. But it seems to me that if you've gotten used to something, it's hard to see why it should change."

Len thought for a second. "Well," he finally said, looking up at a cloud, "I think it's important not to get stuck in a rut with that sort of thing."

"Yeah?"

He nodded, looking back at her. "I mean, it's important to know what you could be missing, even if you end up still missing it. If that makes any sense." He stretched out his back a bit, turning in his chair. "Even if you're used to doing all the same things all the time, at all the same places…" He let out a small gasp as he snapped back to face front, stretch over. "…It's better to be kinda adventurous." He smiled and motioned with it hand. "Or else you'll never find new things! Like here, or anywhere else, really." He went on, "So we should both go around, find some new things, and explore a little. It could be like a mini-adventure for us, you know?"

Rin smiled. "It sounds like a great idea, Len." She said, "I would like it a lot, actually."

Len looked happy, and was about to say something. "—Oh, hey," he said suddenly, glancing at the side door to Little Paradise. "The cake's here."

The server girl was stepping outside, smiling as the lot of them looked at one another. She set down a platter on the table between them, a chocolate cake with elaborate design and showiness to it. "I hope you excuse the wait," she said. "It took a little longer than we expected it to."

"It's no problem," Len said. "Thank you."

Smiling at him, the girl nodded and Rin watched her head back inside. Getting a closer look, she was almost definitely even younger than the two of them were; there was no way she was any older than 18. 'Probably a high schooler on break,' Rin thought. The best way she could describe the girl's uniform was that it looked based on the color scheme of formal clothes while stylistically it looked more totally like a summer dress. Lots of black and white, lacy frills here and there, and strings on the back apparently holding it all together on her. She looked good in it.

Rin waited until the door had almost closed behind the girl before looking back at Len.

'…Hmm?' Rin noticed something strange.

Len's eyes had lingered in the direction of the girl for a few extra seconds. His eyelids were half closed, his gaze shifted lazily with her as she had left them and gone inside. Even after the sun glare on the window glass made it hard to see in, Len's brow furrowed just a bit and he kept his head on track, an instant longer. A single moment passed into a second. His smile had mostly faded away, vaguely left behind on the far corner of his lip. He looked really, really fixated. But at the same time, he seemed almost casually disinterested in absolutely everything going on around him. He hadn't seemed to notice Rin staring at him for a solid five seconds until she shifted in her seat.

Len snapped back to look at her. "Ah—!" He tried putting a smile back together, but the way his lips came together just made him look embarrassed. "Mm. S-Sorry, sorry."

Rin cocked her head. "Sorry about what?"

Len looked at her without saying anything right away. Blinking a few times, he opened his mouth to say something, then stopped. He looked almost… confused? "…I…?"

Rin listened intently, still letting her head rest on her hand. "…You…?"

Len let out a short, light laugh. "Nothing, I guess." He said, "Sorry for nothing."

Rin steadily cocked an eyebrow.

Len went on, "That was weird, wasn't it? Right, sorry. Ha-ha. That was, ah, weird."

Rin just slowly nodded along with him. "Um… Right. No problem, though." She asked him, "Are you fine?"

Len put a hand up. "Fine? Right, no, of course I am." He repeated, "I'm fine."

They looked each other in the eyes for a while, neither of them saying anything. Len seemed supremely, uncharacteristically uncomfortable.

Eventually, though, he broke the silence. "Um." He said, "So, uh." He rubbed the back of his head, and gradually smiled again. "Ah… Heh. Cake's here."

Rin brought her arm back down to her side and sat up more. "Right!" she said. "So, let's eat then!"

Len nodded twice.

They ate in silence for another minute. Once or twice, Rin would look up at Len and notice that he seemed distracted. She thought, 'It's definitely weird, but…' Her brother would go a few seconds staring down at nothing. '…Just, what exactly was that all about?'

Returning to idle conversation, it didn't come up again.

/

A few weeks earlier, late one night, Rin was laying on top of her bed. Her light was on and the door was left slightly open, and there wasn't nearly as much of a mess on her floor. The other living mates had all gone to sleep before her, but Rin had decided that she would keep at it for a while. It was after midnight.

She was reading a book she picked up a few days prior, and had engrossed her almost immediately. It was a love story, about a knight and a princess. Rin wasn't usually into stories which sounded cliché, but after giving it a chance, she decided she would try and finish it. Unfortunately, she was a slow reader, and had a hard time sitting still to do it. The desire to read would come at the most random times for her. Sometimes, it would be the middle of the night; she would be tired one second, nearly asleep, and wide awake the next with no way around it. So there she was, night owl Rin, propped up against a pillow and set to go till morning. She turned a page.

Things had been silent for a long time, when the abrupt but quiet sound of a door opening shook Rin's attention. Looking up, she watched the crack in her doorway. However, as dark as it was in the hall, she heard footsteps pass by without seeing any movement. But she could make out which direction the steps had come from. '…Len?' she thought.

Setting the book aside, she stood up and snuck to the end of her room. From inside, behind her door, she tried to listen carefully to whatever was going on. Closing her eyes to focus, she opened them again immediately when she heard the apartment's front door open and shut. Worried, she whispered aloud, "…What?"

She stepped out of her room, and left the door behind her as open as it had been. She had been wearing her clothes from that day after she decided to stay up, and briefly wondered if she should change out of them before continuing. 'No time to,' she settled on. 'And it shouldn't matter, anyway.'

Looking down at Len's room, Rin saw he had closed his door behind him. The others they shared space with had shut their doors, as well. The stream of light coming from hers, as thin as it was, was very obvious in the dark hallway. 'Len must have noticed I was up,' she thought. 'What is he doing? He didn't say anything to me, and it didn't sound like he even stopped at all…'

She made her way to the main room, and stopped before the front door. '…If he's left,' Rin thought, suddenly, 'Then what am I even doing here?' Hand hovering over the door handle, she wondered, '…Am I planning to follow him…?'

Before she could answer her own question, the front door opened back up again, and she jumped.

When Len stepped back inside, seeing his sister there, frozen, he jumped as well. "…Rin?"

She just looked at him with suddenly-wide eyes. "…Len?"

Len was fully dressed, and had his closed cell phone in his hand. As shocked as they both were, he looked much more surprised to see her than she did to see him. "I…" He finally managed, "I didn't expect to see you up."

"Yeah," was all Rin could say. "S-Same."

Len looked at her, up and down. "Are you, um. Were you planning on going somewhere, too?"

Not understanding at first, Rin remembered what she was wearing. "Oh!" She said, "Oh, um. Well, I—"

Len put up his hands. "Actually, no, wait. I'm really sorry." Rin looked at him in confusion. He went on, "I-It's totally not my business to ask that. I don't know what I was thinking, just forget about it."

'Oh.' Rin thought, '…As polite as he's trying to be, after saying that, I can't really ask him what…' Realizing that what Len had said could be taken to mean any number of things, though, Rin quickly spoke up. "No, no, it's nothing like that!" In her rush to speak, she almost failed to keep her voice low. "I just…" She looked into his eyes with a long pause. She imagined the look on her own face must have been a similar bewilderment. "…I guess… I was going to go stargazing."

Len looked at her with even greater surprise than before. "S… Stargazing?"

Rin almost didn't register what she herself had said. But she nodded. "…Stargazing."

Len's posture almost visibly loosened up. "…Oh."

Without thinking, just to break an oncoming awkward silence, Rin blurted out, "Would—Would you like to come with me?"

For the entire exchange, they looked right in each other's eyes, and Len's expression didn't change at all right after she said that. Rin regretted saying anything. But, before she could add anything else, Len nodded with that same look of surprise they both shared still on his face. He slid his phone into his pocket. "Sure," he said. "I'd love to."

Rin nodded in turn. "A-Alright then."

Putting her shoes on, Len opened the door once again, and the two of them stepped outside together.

There was nothing seasonally special about that night. But when the two of them saw it, it still managed to take their breath away. The moon hung in a beautiful white crescent. The stars, and all their constellations, were full and bright. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky. The city in the distance was quiet and mostly dark; from where they were standing, it was like the universe had overtaken everything else and placed them at the center of the world.

With both their mouths agape, Rin was the first to remember words.

She looked at him and lightly tugged his arm. When he looked at her, she said, "…Well… Come on."

"Right…"

She led him down the few flights of outdoor stairs that took them to ground level, and felt reasonably sure that she had no idea what she was doing. Afraid to say anything, to ask anything, to question how she had gotten there or why Len was agreeing to follow her outside at that hour, Rin decided she would roll with what life gave her that night, and worry about it later.

She took him out to the large, grassy field next to their apartment, its scattered trees blowing in a nighttime breeze. They both alternated between looking at the sky, the ground, and each other, eyes sometimes meeting and sometimes not. They walked like that until they reached the rough center of the park. Stopping there, Rin turned to look at Len. He stopped, and looked back at her.

After a moment, they both silently approved and sat down next to each other. They were a few feet apart, but near enough, their fingers running through the soft grass. They gazed up at the stars.

"…It's a beautiful night," Len said.

"Yeah."

"…Do you come out here often?"

Rin glanced at him. His eyes were fixed upwards. "…Sometimes."

"I can see why." Len said, "I feel like I don't even notice it."

Rin looked at him more obviously. "The stars?"

Len looked at her. "Everything."

With the expanse of the sky set above them, Rin and Len looked each other in the eye. Her other questions withered away. Neither of them thought of anything that they could be bothered to ask then. Their voices still low, the stars out, the moon bright, she looked at her brother sitting next to her in the grass. A lot of thoughts came up in that instant, and she kept all of them quiet as they ran through her head. But first and foremost, she couldn't get over how good he looked in the dark.

Rin looked away, and laid back. After a moment, she heard him lay down as well.

They stayed like that for a while, silently, next to each other and satisfied.

Rin asked, eventually, "Do… Do you think…"

Len turned his head towards her.

Rin turned hers, too. When they looked each other dead in the eye, she went quiet.

"…Rin?" Len said.

She thought long and hard there, lips shut. Her face turning a subtle shade of red, she turned away again. "…Never mind."

After that, she couldn't say a word. And neither did Len.