Chapter VII:

Unpredictability


Sleep was something that usually came quickly to Ellie. Even with her stress-fuelled anxiety and constant barrage worries, she hardly ever spent more than five minutes trying to get to sleep at night.

Her five minutes of casual drifting off would usually result in an incredibly deep sleep that lasted a decent ten to twelve hours of rest, on average. Ellie was so used to this quick reaction that when she got home from her dinner with Rin and later spent half the night tossing and turning, she simply knew that something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

At about two in the morning, Ellie finally gave up on twisting and turning under the covers of her overheated bed. She sat up slowly, fighting against the blankets she had wrapped around herself like a cocoon, and muttered indecent curses under her breath, most of them being in Norwegian due to pure habit.

The room was almost completely black, with the only light present being that of Carla's open laptop screen that illuminated her side of the room. Ellie guessed that Carla had left it open unknowingly before going to sleep a couple of hours earlier. Ellie groaned, pressing hard into her eyes with the heels of her palms to try and wake herself up. It didn't work but Ellie didn't particularly worry about it. All she knew was that she probably wasn't going to be going back to sleep for a while now. Stupid insomnia. How do people live with this shit on a day to day basis?

Ellie climbed down from her bunk and sat down at her desk, rubbing the useless sleep from her eyes as she tugged her hoodie tighter around herself. She knew full well where this insomniac-like behaviour was coming from. It was to do with Rin. Of course, it's to do with him, Ellie thought, opening up her laptop in an effort to pass the time. It's always to do with him.

When Rin had kissed her, Ellie, true to her own knowledge of herself, very nearly had a serious heart attack. Her mind had screamed at her to run, to push him away and shrink back into herself like she always had whenever someone got too close. She'd wanted desperately to oblige, to find her legs and bolt, but for some unknown reason, she'd also wanted to stay. Maybe even more than she'd wanted to leave. Rin made her feel safe. As much as it killed her writer instincts to say it, he did make her feel that way and he made her a lot of other annoyingly satisfactory feelings as well. Ellie groaned once more at the thought. Nice, Churchill. You want to run away from the guy who likes you but then again, nah, I'll stay with him. Ugh, I am so messed up. Have fun with the insane woman, Rin.

Crossing her legs on her chair, Ellie sat back and waited out the morning through study for her Legal essay and music blasting through her headphones that were connected to the ongoing playlist on her laptop. The study notes and facts became a welcome distraction for Ellie's racing mind but the distraction didn't last as long as she had wanted. In the end, exhaustion won out over both her anxiety and desire to study, and she fell asleep at her desk just as sunlight began to leak through the cracks in the curtains that covered their balcony screen doors.

For the span of four days, Ellie avoided Rin expertly as she tried to figure out exactly how she was meant to feel about him. It wasn't as if she hated him or disliked him for what he did. If anything, kissing her was probably the one thing Rin did that made her like him even more. But it was the concept of liking him that made her think. The ever so slightly terrifying concept of liking a boy and him liking her back. It confused Ellie beyond comprehendible words and she had no idea about how to even go about expressing her feelings to him.

Dating wasn't something she was acutely experienced at. Ellie was hopeless, in fact, and she had absolutely no idea how she was meant to do anything around Rin anymore. The tension built as Ellie worked her way around Rin during training, helping the first-years whilst he was training in the pool and then bolting from the change rooms afterwards before he could get a chance to speak with her. Everything he did only seemed to frighten and confuse Ellie even more. She wasn't even remotely close to understanding how things were meant to be by the time Rin caught on to her little ploy, pulling her aside during training one afternoon.

People had already begun to filter into the pool during the early hour of the afternoon and Ellie was one of the first to arrive. She was helping a first-year with their dive starts when Rin found her, dressed in her track suit pants with the waist band rolled down to sit low on her hips and the top half of her swimsuit displayed on her torso as a substitute for her t-shirt.

Ellie kept her eyes forward, watching the first-year dive into the pool whilst making the small mistake of flinching before the starting signal. She ignored Rin even when he stood right beside her, the splash from the first-year's dive washing over the edge of the pool and soaking the ankles of her track suit pants.

After approximately ten minutes of rudimentary silence, Rin spoke. "Ellie...I have to talk to you about something."

Veiled hurt laced Rin's voice as he spoke, breaking Ellie's heart with every syllable. There was a sort of desperation in his tone that made Ellie feel strangely guilty for having taken time out to understand her feelings for him, as if she had wounded him with her actions. Ellie supposed she was being a bit ignorant of Rin as a person. Although she most likely was the cause of the hurt that was evident in her friend's voice, Ellie ignored her inner good nature and thought of herself for once. The action was based on selfishness but it was something Ellie felt she had to do.

Naturally, Ellie took to her first line of defence. Hostility. "If it's to do with the candidates for the relay, I'm finished and I've already emailed the results to you. Otherwise, I'm more inclined to get to training, thanks. Shouldn't you be setting an example and captaining like usual?"

"Ellie!" Rin snatched Ellie by the elbow, forcing her to turn her head and look him in the eyes for the first time in just over four days. It almost physically hurt her to do so. God, oh god, I really am a horrible person. "Can you actually take this seriously for once?"

"Take what seriously?" Ellie hissed, her temper acting quicker than her need to please. "If you didn't already notice, I'm trying to coach someone like the good little vice captain you wanted me to be. So what exactly is it that you want me to take seriously, Rin?"

"You know damn well what I want you to take seriously!" Rin very rarely lost his temper, and usually, it was never a result of Ellie. She never truly understood why this was but that moment was one of the very few exceptions to his endless amounts of patience for her.

Muttering insults underneath his breath, Rin yanked her toward the exit with many stares from the other members of the club. Carla shot Ellie a sympathetic look from the other side of the pool before turning back to Sosuke, who watched on curiously. So much for supportive friends, Ellie thought as the entrance door slammed behind her and she was left alone with Rin for the first time in days. God, this really is horrible.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Ellie leaned back against the railing of the ramp they stood on and sighed. "Go on then," she said. "Fire away. Might as well get the onslaught over with before I go crawl into some insignificant hole and yank my own hair out, tuft by tuft."

"Why do you do that?" Rin said, his tone significantly less angry than before. He sounded more tired than angry, as if that one outburst had exhausted him. "Why do you just push people away whenever things get tough?"

"I don't know," Ellie replied, staring off into open space. "Maybe you should ask the person who gave me my distinctly annoying personality. I'm sure they have a better understanding of it than I do."

"Ellie, stop with the sarcasm and look at me."

If only it was that easy. Dragging her eyes away from the hypnotising open space beside Rin's head, Ellie looked at Rin just as he asked and felt her heart slow into a steady, constant and heavy rhythm. Rin most definitely didn't seem angry with her anymore. In fact, he seemed worried. Ellie felt the urge to reach into her stomach and rip out her guts at the thought. Yet another person who thinks they have to take care of me. Great.

"Ellie, what happened?" Rin asked, stepping forward and making the gap between them a few inches smaller. "Did I do something wrong? Well, I'm assuming I did, considering you've been avoiding me the past few days-"

"It's not you, Rin," Ellie interrupted. "As much as I'd like to say that it is...my discomfort has nothing to do with you. Well, not nothing but most of it's just me."

The tension that was evident in Rin's shoulders relaxed at her words but his worried expression failed to change. With him so close, Ellie felt the urge to simply reach out and wrap her arms around him, all against her better judgement. Ellie wondered if she was finally turning soft. She never had thoughts like that, not even when she felt as if she should. God, calm down teenage hormones. I'm not in the mood for your shit today.

Reaching out and playing with stray hairs that escaped her ponytail, Rin continued on with his little questioning session but this time, with a more relaxed nature. "What's all this secrecy about then, hm? I can hardly even look at you without you glaring at me and you've avoided me ever since that night. Not exactly a response I was looking for, Khaleesi. You're kind of putting me off."

"Well, I'm not sure if that was my intention but I assure you, I never meant to hurt you by avoiding you, Rin. I honestly didn't. I just needed time. Time to work out...how I felt about this situation. Yeah, let's go with that."

Rin tried hard to cover up his look of confusion but Ellie saw right through it. "What do you mean 'time'? I thought the statement was pretty clear to be honest but-"

"Oh, it was pretty darn clear but that's not the point. I needed time to...to just figure out how things are meant to happen from here on out."

Rin raised an eyebrow, watching her with a more openly confused look. "I don't follow you, Khaleesi."

"Ugh, I'm not saying this right," Ellie groaned, trying hard not to be distracted by Rin's fingers idly twirling around her hair. "Look, Rin, I don't do...romance. I'm not that girl who would die to have a boyfriend. I'm not that girl who consistently stresses over whether or not they're going to end up alone. I just don't do that kind of stuff. But now that I'm getting caught up in all of it, I can't help but feel completely-"

"Lost?"

Ellie laughed nervously, hugging her torso loosely and leaning further back into the railing to limit the temptation of colliding with Rin. Stupid hormones..."Yeah. Just a bit."

"Don't worry. You're not exactly alone." Rin took a small step forward, his hands slipping down to her waist out of instinct. Ellie shivered at the contact and gently pushed his hands away before crossing her arms over her chest once more.

"Excuse me, but I'm sure you've dated plenty of Aussie girls while you were over there a couple of years ago."

Rin shrugged. "Yeah sure, but not as many as you'd think. It's not like I'm especially experienced at this either."

"Liar..." Ellie muttered, looking down at her feet with a childish pout. "Liar, liar, pants-on-fucking-fire."

"Don't swear, Ellie. It makes you seem far too much like me." Hooking his finger underneath her chin, Rin gently tilted Ellie's head upward. Before she could slip away like her mind was screaming at her to do, his lips were on hers and Ellie felt her heart melt in her chest cavity. Goddamn it Rin. Stop it! I have a hard enough time controlling my own emotions on a daily basis without this shit.

It took Ellie at least ten full seconds to finally snap back to her senses. Her hands had already involuntarily wandered up around Rin's neck and she was pulling him closer, almost craving more of him. Ellie felt like slapping herself. She was acting like the silly, teenage girls that she had always hated to watch in action. For Christ's sake, pull yourself together woman.

Abruptly, Ellie yanked herself away from Rin, her chest rising and falling as she took in heavy breaths. Ellie's mind was still in complete shambles but at the very least, she had a small grasp of her own common sense back. That was enough for her to grow the courage to pull away, her lower back colliding with the railing as her hands remained on Rin's chest. As much as her collision with the metal bar behind her hurt, the pain brought her back to reality better than anything in the surrounding area.

"For the love of God...please don't do that," she panted, Rin's racing heart drumming frantically underneath her fingertips. "I can't think when you do that."

Rin flashed a cheeky grin and leaned in just a bit too close to Ellie's face. "Do what?"

"What do you think, Shark Boy?! What could you have possibly done in the last thirty seconds that would ever so slightly infuriate me?"

"That doesn't exactly narrow it down, Khaleesi. As far as I know, everything that I do infuriates you."

Ellie glared at Rin, her blue eyes boring invisible holes into the boy's forehead. I may just kill him, she thought. I may very well murder this guy. "Could you at least take me seriously for five singularly-frustrating seconds, please?"

"I always take you seriously, Ellie," Rin said with a sigh. "It's part of being your friend."

"Ah. You see? That right there! That condescending tone. That's what makes me think you're not currently taking in what I am explicitly telling you. I don't think you realise how much of a big deal this is for me, nor do I think you realise how much of an annoying ass you're being right now."

"Woah, woah, woah, calm down." Rin held up his hands in mock surrender, taking two steps back for safety as he always did. "I'm just trying to make you relax but obviously, that isn't working."

"Aw, gee, you think?" Ellie replied sarcastically. "I didn't realise that I was freaking out over this. No, I had no fucking idea."

"Ellie, seriously, calm down now. You're losing it over nothing."

"Am I?"

Ellie laughed mockingly, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms over her chest before returning back to glaring at Rin's stupidly attractive face. "Let me break it down for you, Rin. Firstly, I've never actually been in a committed relationship, nor did I ever intend to be until my career in swimming was well and truly over in god-knows how many years. Secondly, I've never actually kissed a guy before and you don't even seem to be acknowledging that fact as you just make out with me to get your way. And thirdly, I am confused as hell on how we're meant to go forward from here. Seriously, what the hell? I have never been this angry and confused in my life. And let me tell you, Year 8 geometry has held the title for 'Most Infuriated and Confusing Thing Ever' for a number of years. So...where do we go from here?"

The question hardly seemed to phase Rin. He shrugged casually as he leaned back against the opposite railing and crossed his arms across his chest, slightly mimicking her. The action annoyed Ellie but since Rin was on the verge of answering her question, Ellie chose to let the small behavioural infraction go. Although what mainly annoyed her was actually the fact that she was staring blatantly at Rin's clothed chest and shoulders, Ellie continued to direct her anger at Rin. It was the easier option, after all.

"I don't know what to tell you, Ellie," Rin said, sounding far more relaxed than she had ever felt. "There isn't really a science to this. It's more of a case of feeling rather than educated guesses."

"You think I'm incapable of feeling anything?"

"No, of course not. It's just that you're a bit more of an...objective based person. You go from point A to point B with known steps in between. And you excel at each and every step until you're on top at point B. That's just how you are. But this-"

"Is completely and utterly unpredictable?" Ellie scoffed, shaking her head at the thought. "Yeah, I know. That's what I've been turning over in my mind for a while now. This isn't a case of 'Point A to Point B'. This is a case of 'Point A to Point Who-The-Hell-Knows-Where'. And you're right. I don't know if I can deal with that unpredictability."

"Ellie, the unpredictability of a relationship is what makes it appealing. It's what makes it interesting."

"No, it's what makes it dangerous."

Rin raised an eyebrow, frowning as he took in the meaning of her words. "Don't you mean the possibility of coming out of this heartbroken is dangerous?"

"Of course it is," Ellie replied. "I wouldn't know how to deal with something like that. That kind of despair, it's...it's crippling. It rips people open and exposes them like an open nerve. I've already felt like that for my entire life. I already know what it feels like to be under the microscope, judged by people and their expectations and hopes and love. I know what that feels like and I-"

"Ellie." Rin's voice snapped Ellie out of the void she was slowly inching toward as she drew further and further into herself, the words spilling from her mouth like acid. She was panicking and it must have been obvious enough for Rin to see on her face. His voice was calm and soothing, everything Ellie hated to hear when she was on the verge of a panic attack. So patronising, she always thought. Just yell at me, for Christ's sake. It'd bring me to my senses quicker.

"Ellie." Rin repeated her name, taking a cautious step forward and continued to speak in that frustratingly calm tone. "Ellie, calm down. You're overthinking things. You're getting worked up. Just breathe, alright? Just breathe."

Breathe? How am I meant to do that when I feel like all the air around me feels like it belongs to someone else? Would I owe them something? Owe them, like I owe everyone else. Ellie violently shook the thoughts from her head, cursing herself for stumbling into a depressive anxiety without even knowing it. It was very rare for her to freak out like that, especially in front of anyone but Carla and her parents. Ellie wondered if she already considered Rin to be closer than a friend. Closer, even, than the best of friends.

How nauseating, she thought, swallowing against the lump that had formed in her throat. Breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth, Ellie looked up at Rin and suddenly began to feel that cliched kind of safety she had felt four full nights before. Ellie knew that she could trust Rin, then and there, but she found it hard to believe that her mind had given in so quickly.

"I'm sorry, Rin. Really. I just...think about these things and it's like a domino effect. If one problem arises, everything else just comes barreling back toward me. Sorry. Again."

"Stop saying sorry, Ellie," Rin said. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

"Right. Sorry. I mean-"

"Come here, maniac."

Rin tugged Ellie into his arms, securing her in a comforting hug that Ellie was surprised to find that she desperately needed. She was unsure of herself to begin with, simply keeping her arms up, mashed between Rin's chest and hers. The position was understandably uncomfortable but Ellie chose to move against her better judgement that was simply belting out all sorts of alarm bells. She loosely locked her arms around Rin's torso and rested her chin on his shoulder, closing her eyes as Rin held her tightly.

Rin toyed with Ellie's ponytail as he spoke, twisting the strands between his fingers and most likely matting them together in the process. "So what happens now then? Do you want this? Or are you going to back away?"

Even though Ellie's mind was still fixed on how Rin was casually destroying her solid hour of endless hair-brushing, Ellie knew what her answer would be before he'd even asked the question. Damn you, Matsouka. Damn you and you're stupid, stupid smile.

With a defeated sigh, she answered him. "I'm with you, Rin. I may be riddled with harsh anxiety problems but I'm not an idiot. I wouldn't throw someone as good as you away."

And just like that, Ellie found herself with a boyfriend and absolutely no idea where the experience would her lead to. She blamed it on her father. He always had been the reckless one in the family and Ellie guessed that his antics were finally beginning to rub off on her. How-fucking-dandy.


As expected, Carla was ever so slightly hysterical upon hearing the news of Rin and Ellie getting together. Ellie supposed that Sosuke had told her, if not a few days after the fact, but when her best friend came barrelling in to the dorm one afternoon and began furiously kicking Ellie's bunk while she slept, Ellie knew that Carla had finally caught on. Oh joyous occasion.

"Ellie, quick," Carla called from below Ellie's bunk. "Are you or are you not Rin's waifu? If not, I may cry and we're having an emergency Iggy party until you change your mind. If so, we are still having an emergency Iggy party but this time, in celebration rather than as a passive-aggressive convincing technique."

Ellie groaned loudly from the top of her bunk and buried her head into her pillow to avoid answering the question. Carla had already been hounding her with suspicious questions about Rin since six o'clock that morning, interrupting sleep that Ellie severely needed.

Ellie had chosen to chuck an all-nighter the evening before with the intentions of studying for the majority of the night. But after about three hours into the evening, Ellie had folded as Rin texted her about the new season of Game of Thrones and ended up watching the entire season that night with Rin commenting on the show through their Skype call throughout the entire experience. Although she was tired and overly grumpy about being woken, Ellie still felt strangely happy about the memories of that evening. She guessed that the feeling was related to Rin but Ellie stubbornly didn't want to admit that to herself.

She was too tired to be having mushy feelings and almost every part of her body agreed with her as Ellie began to drift off to sleep. Sleep that was yet again interrupted by her loud, obnoxious best friend.

"Tornado, I'm going to be having an Iggy party no matter what, so you might as well just answer me." Carla stood on the other side of the room, staring up at Ellie's stretched out form with expectant eyes and a knowing smile. I'm going to kill her, Ellie thought. I think I might actually do it.

"Leave me alone, Funkita," Ellie yelled weakly in reply. "I need sleep, not an interrogation."

"That's not a definitive answer, my friend. It's a yes or a no. Simple as that."

"It's not that simple and you know it, you asshole."

"Yay or nay, Ellie. Say either of one those answers and I'm putting on our good friend Iggy for a wonderful party."

Ellie took one long, deep breath and sat up, rubbing her eyes as she fought hard to stay awake. 'Emergency Iggy Party' was something Ellie had come up with during their Year 10 mid-terms. It was meant to be a stress-reliever sort of thing; whenever either one of them was about to have a series meltdown during study, the other would put on any random Iggy Azela song and keep it on repeat whilst screaming the lyrics until the other felt better. It often worked, especially when Ellie felt like she was on verge of tears, and the two had kept it as tradition through any of their testing periods.

Unfortunately, Carla was also prone to abusing the Iggy parties whenever she felt like it. Sometimes she'd use it for celebrations. Sometimes she'd use it to drown out her parents when Ellie went over to her house. And other times, she'd just use it because she could. This was one of those occasions.

"Ellie, my dear, please just tell your best friend whether or not you recently got a boyfriend?" Carla complained as Ellie climbed down from her bunk. "Because I would like an answer. And when I have an answer, I get to play Iggy."

Ellie plonked down onto her desk chair, pulling her phone off her dock and flicking through the texts from Rin that she'd missed. "Put Iggy on, Carla. It makes no difference to me, considering I'm now the one with a boyfriend. And if you create a ship name, I will murder you in your sleep."

The chaos that ensued was expected, with loud music blasting through Carla's overpriced speakers and various amounts of yelling coming from her best friend, but Ellie blocked it all out, her head pounding with the lost hours of sleep that she had wracked up the night before. Her fingers typed up a text on her phone screen, her reactions slower than usual and her spelling lacked it's usual common flair. Still, it got the message across and that was enough for Ellie at that moment.

The Fangirl has instigated an E.I.P. And I need sleep. Halp.

Rin's reply came quicker than Ellie thought it would, leading her to believe that he either kept his phone on him at all times or that he was literally waiting for her to text him. Ellie chose to believe the first. Am I allowed to ask what the hell an E.I.P is?

Ellie rolled her eyes, the noise behind her dying down ever so slightly as Carla began to tire. Emergency Iggy Party. I'll explain it to you later. God, she's going to be interrogating me for hours now.

About?

Our newly updated relationship. Sosuke really needs to ask her out already. Her complaints are getting ridiculous.

Aw, poor you. Want to come over? I'm doing something at the pool but I think you could help.

Ellie raised an eyebrow, quickly glancing at the afternoon sun that was beginning to set beneath the horizon of school buildings and then looked back to her phone in confusion. Training's over. What the hell are you doing at the pool?

Don't ask questions. Just get here.

Overcome with a sense of curiosity, Ellie quickly slipped into her pair of touched high-waisted denim shorts and pulled on one of her plain black sweaters before snatching her swim bag and bolting out the door whilst rattling off a half-assed excuse to Carla. Ellie supposed she knew would understand. If Carla was so damn happy about Rin and Ellie getting together, then she would understand. At least, Ellie hoped she would.

The pool was relatively quiet when Ellie reached it's entrance but the light flittering out of the windows and faint splashing sounds echoimg out from inside indicated that there was in fact people inside the facility. Ellie slipped inside, her hands already reaching up to twist her hair in it's usual bun as she wandered over to the spot where she usually sat her bag. Out of simple curiosity, Ellie glanced over at the source of the splashes that resonated from the centre of the pool and could only stare in awe at what she saw.

"What the hell are you doing, Matsouka?" Ellie exclaimed, dropping her bag down to the ground as she placed her hands on her hips. "I don't recall whether or not you actually told me that you were planning this. I would have prepared a debate if you had."

Rei, who had been swimming what looked like a breastroke drill with a kick board, continued to swim on, oblivious to Ellie's outburst at his being there. Rin pulled himself out of the pool and strolled over to her, casually towelling his hair as he walked. The expression on Rin's face gave Ellie the impression that he wasn't particularly worried about her reaction but then again, Rin never usually seemed to be worried about anything from Ellie's limited experience.

Water sprinkled down on Ellie's shoulders and hair as Rin shook out his hair, to which Ellie sharply punched him in the bicep and muttered inaudible curses in Norwegian. Rin laughed at her reaction. "Sorry. Didn't think it bothered you so much to be covered in water. You obviously chose the wrong sport, Khaleesi."

"Not funny, Shark Boy," Ellie groaned. "And also, not what you should be sorry about. Would you care to explain what's happening here before I smack you over the head with a kick board?"

Rin frowned in mock hurt, giving Ellie the urge to follow up on that threat. "Ouch, Khaleesi. You could be a little nicer about it."

"No. No, I couldn't. Explain or meet your red-headed doom."

Rin shook his head with a smile and shrugged, sighing heavily as if explaining the situation was going to take up all the energy he had. "He asked for help," Rin explained. "He wanted some coaching on the strokes other than butterfly. And now, I'm helping him."

"Okay..." Ellie said suspiciously, the gears grinding inside her head as she worked hard to process the information. "How long have you been coaching him for?"

"Since the start of the week."

Ellie very nearly went to shove her boyfriend into the pool. "You've got to be kidding me. You've been sitting on this knowledge for a week and yet you didn't tell me?"

Rin shrugged. "Didn't have the time."

"Didn't have the ti- oh my God, leave the premises right now if that is your answer to my question. You had plenty of time to tell me on various occasions. Seriously, what the hell?!"

"Well, it's not like I can change it now, Ell," Rin replied, twisting his towel in an effort to evident water from it's fibers. "Besides, I owe him. And I'm telling you now, aren't I? God, can you just drop the adorable pout and get on with it?"

Ellie frowned and crossed her arms over her chest, trying not to act like a spoiled five-year-old but failing miserably as Rin stared her down. "I do not have an adorable pout," she muttered under her breath, avoiding Rin's eyes. "You can stop looking at me like that, you know?"

"Oh, I'll never stop looking at you, Ellie. You're too pretty not to look at."

Ellie felt heat rise in her cheeks at Rin's words, her nerves returning in a sudden flood of anxiety that stabbed at her gut. She wasn't used to having compliments thrown at her on a daily basis, even if the compliments were coming from a person who was most definitely was allowed to spout them. She wasn't used to being so close to someone other than Carla and she most definitely wasn't used to questions that people had begun to ask about Rin and herself. The whole 'boyfriend-girlfriend' process sincerely scared her, both mentally and emotionally, but Ellie felt that she had to give it her best try. For Rin and for herself, she knew that she actually had to try to commit.

Ellie bit the inside of her cheek and rubbed her arms to try and calm her nervousness. Stupid, stupid boys and their stupid, stupid compliments.

"Please don't say those things," she said. "You know how they make me feel."

"I was hoping that they make you feel special but obviously, that's not working." Rin tilted his head to the side, as if trying to see Ellie in some new light. "Why aren't I allowed to give you compliments again?"

"They just make me so nervous," Ellie replied. "I never know what to say back."

"You don't have to say anything back, Khaleesi. Not unless you want to."

"That's a horrible imbalance, right there."

"I like giving you compliments."

"And I never give them back. That's the problem-oh my God, this is going nowhere."

Rin laughed softly, leaning down and softly kissing Ellie on the cheek. Ellie was surprised that her heart hadn't jumped out of her chest, although her thoughts were distinctly explicit. Fuck, fuck, fu-uck. Fuck, fuck, fu-uck. Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck-stupid Rin. Goddamn it!

"Are you going to help me out or not, Khaleesi?"

The question's answer was an obvious 'Yes'. Ellie knew that she never usually had the will to refuse those she cared about. At that moment, Ellie supposed that Rin was now a part of that especially small group.


A.N: I am so done with school right now... New episode of Free! and ermahgerd, the MakoHaru feels are real. Also, IN WHAT WORLD IS THAT SUITABLE BACKSTROKE FINISH?! GODDAMN IT FREE, IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE A SWIMMING ANIME, AT LEAST GET THE RULES OF SWIMMING RIGHT!

Also, I may or may not have jumped on the Attack on Titan bandwagon. And the Tokyo Ghoul one as well...I have too many fandoms.

So, I was planning to finish this chapter yesterday. I had everything ready and I was close to finishing, yadyadayada, but then life happened, as it always does, and I didn't get to finish this until later. I am sorry. School currently hates me. And I have a migraine that would make even the toughest man cry. Ugh.

Thank you to IKhandoZatman, LilweenGalatrass and no name for you reviewing. Thank you to everyone else who followed and favourited and are now having to put up with my antics. I apologise in advance.

Until next chapter :)