Chapter XI:

Breaking the Ice

"How hard is it to find vacant housing facilities in New York? I mean, seriously?! You'd think they'd actually care enough to at least give some options to young adults moving to the city."

Ellie rolled her eyes, panting heavily as she spoke. "Oh, yeah. They're definitely concerned about that. Especially when a certain Australian young adult is threatening to burn down half the city until she gets a place to live, sure."

Sweat cautiously slid down Ellie's back as she continued to run at a jogging pace on the treadmill, her urge to snatch and consume the water inside the half empty water bottle she had brought with her to Sakura's gym becoming soul-destroying as she vowed to stop running in the next ten kilometres. A trip to the gym was sorely needed after the girls spent their fourth straight day indoors, the illustrious lure of TV shows and movies becoming too great over their two week break.

Carla, being the obsessed-with-body-image teenager, had suggested that they take up the opportunity to use Sakura's ridiculously well equipped gym. It had been a while since Ellie had seen it's sterilised insides; white walls lined with spin bikes, treadmills, rowing machines and cross-trainers alongside various weight lifting equipment that filled the remaining space in the room. The floors were made of hard oak wood panels that extended from one wall to the next and the left side wall was comprised of an entirely glass panel that looked out onto the school's various sporting facilities in use at twelve o'clock on Saturday afternoon.

Ellie had been adamant at first, simply stating that training at Samezuka would be enough for their daily exercise intake. There was some doubt in her mind however, considering that she had been missing out on a few of her morning runs due to study days and a few out-of-the-blue all-nighters that lead her to sleep in disastrously late but Ellie remained strong and firm on her point, right until the bitter end. Carla only won the argument by exploiting of Ellie's small but fatal weakness. It was a weakness for heavy, expensive fitness-award-winning treadmills.

Although she was a swimmer and preferred water over land in terms of chosen sports, Ellie found that when someone put her on a treadmill, she could just run until she died. She had no idea why she loved long distance running so much but it was something that luckily worked in her favour during the cold winter netball season. Beep tests were most of her teammates worst nightmares, with the drill killing all desire to even attend training, but to Ellie, they were just fun little drills that unfortunately weren't challenging enough.

Carla groaned as she scrolled through the open tab on her iPad which she perched on the treadmill's book stand, her plan of finding suitable accommodation in New York whilst jogging obviously not working out. "I can't fucking believe," she said, panting through her frustration. "It's one of the biggest fucking cities in the world and I can't fucking find one fucking apartment. Jesus fucking Christ!"

"Repeat that again," Ellie replied with a smile on her face. "I want to count the amount of times you said 'fuck' in that sentence. I think it may be a record for you."

"Oh, shut up, Tornado. You're not currently experiencing the kind of frustration that I am."

"Uh, yeah. And that's a good thing. Because I don't even want to think about university until I finish the HSC, thank you. One stressful thing at a time please."

"Says the girl who stayed up until three in the morning on Tuesday, writing training programs for the swim team. I thought you were already done with those, by the way."

Ellie rolled her eyes, the sight of her cracked black nail polish slowing driving her to insanity as she continued to run beside Carla. "Well, obviously I haven't. Rin and I going to finalise it next weekend. We both just have too much school stuff going on and Rin's got some decisions to make, with all the calls from scouts and whatnot. I mean my holidays didn't even really start until Thursday, when my teachers managed to actually get all my assignments."

"Yeah well, that's what you get for being an over achiever. So, are we going to watch some movies tonight or are we re-watching Pretty Little Liars. Yet again?"

"I don't know," Ellie sighed. "I'm kind of in the mood for some happy, romanticness tonight. Minimal drama."

Carla shot Ellie a knowing look, smiling through the sweat and lactic acid built up inside their muscles. "Pride and Prejudice?"

"Pride and Prejudice."

Carla chuckled and turned her gaze back to her iPad as the decision was made. "I know you too well, don't I?"

"Oh, I don't know," Ellie said. "You still don't know my favourite type of ice cream."

"It's the Cookies 'n' Cream ice cream from the ice cream parlour back home."

"What?! How did you know that?"

"Ellie, you buy it every single time we go there. Not that to dot the 'i's and cross the 't's in that category."

Ellie looked at Carla with an expression of mock horror. "Oh my God," she gasped dramatically. "My life has been a spider web of lies."

Laughter soon erupted between them, the sore ribs feeling brought on by their hysteria near winding Ellie as she closed in on the last few kilometres of her run. It wasn't until their laughter finally died down into small giggling fits that they noticed a certain someone was vying for their attention.

"Miyu!" Carla exclaimed, greeting their dorm neighbour with her usual bright smile. "We didn't see you standing there, my ridiculously cheery friend!"

Miyu, the overly-enthusiastic captain of Sakura's various basketball teams, rolled her eyes at Carla's openly mocking statement. Ellie was ever so slightly surprised that Carla could even manage to speak Japanese during the holidays. It took Ellie what felt a full minute to even process what she had said and translate it into understandable words. And yet, I remain first in the class, Ellie thought. It's freaking pot luck, I know it is.

"That's funny," Miyu said in her native language, adding on a characteristically strange sarcastic tone. "I don't see you managing four first-year teams, five second-year teams and a third year team into nationals this year. Unfortunately, it's an occupational requirement to be cheery."

"As well as having an extreme sense of brutality in training," Ellie added on. "What's with the cold greeting? I thought we were all friends here."

"Oh, we are," Miyu replied. "But it's not you guys that I'm annoyed with. Half of my team dropped out last week due to 'prior commitments'. Traitors..."

"Let me guess, 'prior commitments' means-"

"They couldn't handle the pressure of school." Miyu scoffed at the thought, crossing her arms over her chest. "So annoying...you'd think that if you two could still manage to keep up with school whilst being in a foreign country and being on a swim team, then they can handle a little training and school mixed in. Idiots..."

Miyu had first introduced herself to the girls during their first week in the dorms. Her shoulder length ash-black hair had been pulled back into a disheveled ponytail and her basketball shirt had been covered in a mixture of water and sweat, the exhausted but strong body of a basketballer exhibited for all to see. Miyu looked hardly phased by her post-training look, smiling and laughing as Ellie and Carla introduced themselves underneath the archway of their door frame. Miyu had a strangely sarcastic and joking attitude for a girl of her standing, having priorly lived in a smaller country town near Sapporo, before being abruptly shipped off to Sakura for high school.

Ellie remembered liking Miyu from the very beginning. The two shared a strangely large amount of interests and Ellie admired Miyu's confidence, her will to succeed. It was as if Miyu was the kind of person that Ellie wished she could have been; strong, dedicated and cheerful. It was the kind of daughter that her parents deserved and it was the kind of person Ellie should aspire to be as an elite swimmer. But Ellie, unfortunately, just wasn't that kind of person. And so, she settled for simply being friends with Miyu.

It didn't take long for Miyu to recommend trying out for the basketball team to the pair, the sheer average height of both girls appealing aesthetically to the prospective captain. Although both Carla and Ellie had played on their school's team back home and managed to make nationals, they were both rather average at basketball as a sport. Netball was their main onland sport, which they both played for fun and to keep the muscles in their legs active. But basketball was always for fun, nothing else. Very rarely did they ever take it seriously.

Carla and Ellie exchanged suspicious looks as they caught wind of what Miyu was probably hoping to get out the conversation. She wouldn't, Ellie thought. We've already got enough shit going on as it is. Carla was the first to point it out, raising an eyebrow as she looked down at Miyu.

"Miyu, what exactly did you want to achieve by talking to us about this?" Carla said cautiously with a distinctive cheeky smile on her face. "Are you trying to recruit us?"

Miyu smiled, her eyes sparkling with the idea. "Maybe I was..."

"Miyu..."

"Come on, you guys. I won't let any games interfere with swimming and training is always on weekends when we have the time. It's always fun, I promise you." Miyu almost sounded as if she was begging for them to join the team, which, in reality, probably was what she was doing. "Besides, I did actually bother to look into you guys. Both of you are big fat liars, by the way. You said neither of you were very good at basketball and yet both of you are National CCC qualifiers."

Carla groaned in frustration, something Ellie also would have done had she not been completely dying from lack of oxygen. "That was at school. Not in actual competitive basketball."

"Come on, please. I'm dying here. Regionals are in a week and I've only gained two of the players I lost. I need people with at least some skills and a higher average height than that of mine. Please, please, please just at least...consider it."

Carla and Ellie exchanged looks, both thinking things of in relatively the same manner. Despite the fact that swimming was Ellie's main commitment slash burden and Carla had her auditions for a scholarship at her dance school coming up in a month, the both of them liked and loathed the idea of participating in a team sport. It could be an easy stress reliever if taken in a casual manner but Sakura was serious about their basketball. Ellie didn't know whether or not she wanted to get involved. Even if she did do well in team sports.

Ellie's father had always joked about how she was probably more of a team player than she realised, with her average individual times at carnivals often being blitzed by the times she would produce in a relay. During primary school, when the boys would play Aussie Rules football on the oval during lunch, when Ellie played the game with them, she would often go all out. Tackling boys much bigger than her, snatching the ball out of their hands, even threatening to start a brawl. Ellie was scary competitive and determined in team sports.

Both Carla and Ellie had started a netball team for Saturday games with the intent of using up that determination that always seemed to come on whilst playing with others. As satisfying as winning with the team was for Ellie, when it came to basketball during the summer season, Ellie often got a little too into it.

In netball, there were strict rules about coming into contact with others and at what distance defenders were allowed to stand which kept Ellie grounded and focused. But when it came to basketball, with minimal rules about distancing and general shoving, Ellie found that she was both causing and receiving bruises from her never-ending supply of violent determination.

Ellie slammed on the stop button on the her treadmill and came to a grinding halt as she panted out her exhaustion. On the behalf of both of them, Ellie replied. "Fine," she said with a sigh. "We'll join. But the moment any carnivals clash with swimming, we'll look the other way. Swimming comes first, then study, then other sports, understand?"

The wave of hysteria that was created by Miyu was understandable but both Carla and Ellie went along with it, laughing and rambling along with her as they both considered how exactly they were going to fit basketball into their already packed schedule.

Arguments, as it seemed, went on for hours when it came to Rin and Ellie.

"We have to do the beep test for them," Ellie remarked. "I literally have no other way of finding out who's fit and who's not if we don't."

Rin winced at her suggestion, his expression already opposing Ellie's decision to conduct a dry land training session for the sake of improving the team's overall fitness. He'd been strongly opposed to the idea for over an hour straight, in which their argument had reached high screaming levels and caused both Carla and Sosuke to hastily leave the dorm unexpectedly due to the rising level of noise. Ellie barely managed to convince him that the dry land training sessions should be done for the good of the team but his opposition to the beep test was only just beginning and Ellie was already finding it hard to deal with Rin's constant declines to all her ideas.

They'd been sitting on Rin's bed for at least three hours that afternoon, going over the times from prefecturals and deciding who needed more work than others in the team. Ellie, according to Rin, would be coaching the butterflyers and backstrokers until regionals to help them get their form in the best possible shape by race day. Rin would be coaching the freestylers, whilst Carla would be coaching the breastrokers due to the large amount of unused knowledge she possessed from her days specialising in breastroke.

The plan to improve the team's form seemed effective enough to Ellie but she saw the need for an improvement in overall fitness in the team, something that Rin was strongly opposed to for some insignificant reason which was unknown to Ellie. "We need to be more focused on form," Rin argued. "We don't have the time for fitness training anymore. Besides, form is what always wins a race."

"Not the point, Rin," Ellie replied after ignoring the sudden urge to gouge her boyfriend's eyes out with her pen. "If they don't have an adequate amount of fitness, they won't be able to sustain their form in their races. So as much as form training is good, we need to at least have one or two dry land sessions within the next two and a half weeks. It'll do us good and you know it will. But I'll won't know where to start if we don't do the beep test."

"You're perfectly capable of writing up programs, Ellie. Times and common knowledge are enough facts you need to devise programs. I've seen you do it before, don't think you can lie to me."

"I won't know whether or not they can handle the program I'm writing, though."

"Why should that matter?"

"It always matters. If they'll just be swimming without really getting anything out of it, there's no point in them following that program in the first place because they're wasting their time."

"Training is never a waste of time, no matter how hard the session is."

"You seriously know nothing of the general rules of sports, do you?"

"Ellie-"

"Rin."

Frustrated, Rin groaned and threw his notes down onto the hardwood floors before running a hand through his tangled hair. For the most part, he looked displeased and generally unsatisfied with the turn that their conversation had taken but as he stared off into open space, a dangerous spark lit up inside his red eyes and a sly grin stretched across his lips. Ellie raised an eyebrow, biting her lip in worry. She knew that look, although she'd only ever seen a few times. Whatever Rin was thinking about, it was most likely a very bad idea. A very, very bad idea.

"Rin," Ellie said with a warning tone in her voice. "Rin, what are you thinking?"

Rin's smile widened even further. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Leaning toward her, Rin caught Ellie by the ankles and yanked her toward him, forcing a surprised gasp out of her mouth with the abrupt movement. The physical contact made Ellie's heart pound and she slowly began to slip into a anxious panic but as Rin leaned forward and loomed over her with a wicked smile on his face, she suddenly felt as if her heart had stopped inside her chest. Oh God, she thought. He had a very, very bad idea.

"Does this scare you, Ellie?" he said seductively, forcing a frown to surface on Ellie's already blushing face. "Do you want me to stop?"

"Rin, if you don't get off me right now, I swear to both the Old Gods and the New that I will kick you down where the sun don't shine," Ellie warned, breathing hard under the burning heat rising in her cheeks. When he remained unmoved on top of her, Ellie decided to give him a second warning. "Rin-"

"Let go of the beep test," he said. "And I'll get off you. Simple as that, Churchill."

"You're such an asshole," Ellie muttered. "Don't use that as blackmail. It's so mean."

"So is the fact that you're going to make myself and the rest of the team do the beep test."

Ellie rolled her eyes, gaining some confidence as the conversation picked up a more casual tone. "You're the one pushing the boundaries between us. At this rate, you're going to be running suicides for the week. Get off me, please."

"No," Rin said, wearing the expression and tone of a defiant child. "I'm sorry but no. This is just unacceptable."

"So was the invention of Vanilla Coca Cola," Ellie remarked. "But people still went along with that."

Unfortunately, Ellie's comments failed to hinder Rin's attempts at making her uncomfortable enough to give in to his wish. And so, as Rin remained unmoved and continued to smirk down at her with a smile reminiscent of Lucifer's grin as he fell from heaven, Ellie decided to take matters into her own hands. Reaching up quickly, Ellie grabbed Rin by the shoulders before rolling the both of them off the bed and onto the floor in a tremendous tangle of limbs.

Rin protested at first, moving his hands from their position on either side of her head to try and pry her grip on his shirt loose but that happened to be his ultimate undoing. As he leaned back on his knees, Ellie managed to hook a leg around the back of his knee. Rin promptly began to wobble and gave Ellie the opportunity to shove him hard in the chest, hard enough to send him tumbling off the bottom bunk. But unfortunately, Ellie's plan didn't go by as smoothly as she had wanted. She failed to untangle herself from Rin's limbs in time and as Rin grabbed ahold of her waist and tugged her body in the direction of his falling momentum, Ellie had no choice but tumble down to the ground with him.

There was a soft collective thud that sounded in the room as the two of them collapsed onto the ground in a clatter of limbs, groaning and giggling with bottled up amusement as they assessed their battle wounds. Ellie laughed giddily, her head resting against Rin's chest with one arm around his torso and her legs stuck mixed in a complicated tangle with Rin's. For some reason, the physical closeness didn't seem to bother her anymore. Ellie wondered curiously why she had had such a sudden change of heart but since there was no definitive answer to be found inside her own head, she let it go and enjoyed the anxiety-free moment.

"Okay," Rin said in orderly fashion, attempting to sound somewhat like a zookeeper approaching a wild animal. "Do not make any sudden movements. I most certain don't want to break any major bones or snap off limbs. We have regionals in two and a half weeks. My future is a stake here."

"Your future?" Ellie scoffed at his comment, twisting her body far enough around to allow her to practically sit in his lap. That was, without breaking her own legs in the process. "What about my future, you inconsiderate ass?"

"Oh, your future is firmly set in stone," Rin replied, barely managing to untangle his arms from her waist and torso. "You'll go to Milan, become a model and leave me behind a poor heart-broken man because you'd have found some taller, better-looking guy to date."

"Well, that's a fantasy if I've ever heard one," Ellie remarked. "You know, these muscular shoulders are far too broad to fit into a size two gown. Although, I'd love to see someone try and get me into one."

"Are you saying your fat?" Rin said. "Because I can assure, you'd be kidding yourself if you ever said you were."

Ellie rolled her eyes, hardly encouraging his little idea. "It's not as if that would matter, anyway. I'm far too bland to be a model."

Rin smirked with his familiar shark-tooth smile, sitting up and leaning back on the heels of his palms. "I don't know about that. I think your face is gorgeous enough to qualify."

Ellie blushed, feeling that familiar anxiety rise up inside of her belly before it finally settled inside her chest cavity. Ellie hated when Rin gave her compliments. Even if they were sweet, insignificant mandatory compliments, Ellie couldn't handle what they meant or what they were supposed make her feel like. No matter how used to them she managed to let herself be, Ellie still couldn't handle the feeling of foreboding she got from them. She had no response to them and in turn, she panicked, sensing everything wrong with both herself and her surroundings.

Ellie was suddenly ever so aware of the fact that she hadn't worn make-up or jewellery that day. She was ridiculously aware of the fact that she always wore hoodies and sports shorts instead of flowery dresses and great flowing skirts. But most of all, Ellie became brutally aware of how physically close Rin was to her in that moment.

"Rin..." Ellie whispered, the alarm bells sounding loudly inside her head as she fought off an instinctive panic. "I thought we talked about-"

"Yes, we did talk about it," he replied. "Yes, I am quite aware that we discussed your strange disposition toward compliments. But I am also aware of the fact that you are beautiful."

Ellie's blush intensified at Rin's words, the sudden urge to run away and hide overcoming her in a rushed wave of nauseous anxiety. "Rin-"

"No, Ellie, stop," Rin said firmly, grabbing her by the arms to hold her down and stop her from running away like the frightened child. "Look, I like you. I like you immensely much. I hate the fact that I hurt you with my words sometimes, even though I mean well, and I hate that I can't do anything for you in terms of your anxiety. But I'm tired of this. I'm tired not being able to tell you the things I desperately want to tell you because you're scared of what those compliments and statements mean. I'm tired of tiptoeing around you when all I want to do is hold you and tell you everything will be alright. I'm tired of being locked out of your mind when all I want to do is kiss the problems away."

Rin's words cut deeper into Ellie's soul than she ever thought they would. Rin didn't have to remind her of what horrible things her personality made her do on a daily basis. It didn't matter how much she wanted reach out and touch him without being afraid of what it would lead to, how much she wanted to kiss him without thinking horrible anxious thoughts about it, how much she just wanted to be with him. Ellie was an eternal slave to her own anxiety. And there was almost no cure. Just time and experience would heal her, for it's all she knew.

Fighting against the new wave of salty tears that threatened to flow down her cheeks, Ellie took in slow shaky breaths, slowly becoming more and more frustrated with herself. She wanted to be the person that Rin deserved, the openly loving girl with so much to give. But she simply wasn't that kind of person and it frustrated Ellie more than anyone could have ever imagined.

Biting back tears, Ellie sighed with a shivering breath and leaned her forehead against Rin's, wanting nothing more than to reverse the last few minutes and redo everything to save herself from this discussion. Rin wrapped his arms around her torso and pulled her closer, against Ellie's weak attempts at struggling, whispering comforting words to her silently as she fought with her own mental demons.

"Ellie," Rin whispered softly. "Ellie, don't just sit there looking like you're going to cry. Talk to me. Tell me what's on your mind."

Ellie shook her head, smiling emotionlessly. "What's on my mind? Plenty of things. The first of them being that I'm sorry I'm not who I should be."

Rin looked at her with pity, moving his lips closer to hers as she continued to speak. "Ellie-"

"It's not fair on you, I know that," she said. "But I'm trying my best. You know how I am. I can't...I can't do things without prior knowledge on them first. It takes t-time for me get used to things and-"

"Sometimes you just have to take the plunge, Ellie. No knowledge, no time to adjust, no safety. If you get hurt, that's just how it is. But if everything goes right..."

Ellie wasn't exactly sure what happened next. She remembered Rin tilting his head up toward hers and his grip on her waist tightened hard enough to leave marks. She remembered his lips pressing against hers and her heart slamming hard against her chest as she failed to find her legs and run far, far away. She remembered whimpering like a kicked puppy and tugging at the ends of Rin's hair as he kissed her softly and slowly. She didn't remember a lot about the beginning but Ellie was firmly fixed in the present.

Ellie quickly found her fingers tangled in Rin's loose hair, lightly tugging at his roots as they kissed on the floor like a couple of distracted teenagers. Ellie supposed that they were indeed just distracted teenagers in that moment, drawn to each other like moths drawn to dangerous, flickering flames. It terrified Ellie, her heart still slamming hard against her rib cage, but Rin kept her grounded, reminding her of his presence with his touch and comforting her with his kiss.

For some reason, in that moment Ellie finally felt like she was breaking that cycle. Ellie finally felt like she could be free of that horrid need to keep away from others out of fear. Why was she even afraid in the first place? Ellie had lost sight of why she even chose to live as she did in the present but she hoped that those feelings that she had developed over so many years would finally vanish. Just as she'd always hoped they would.

That sickeningly sweet feeling of safety washed over Ellie in a wave, just as Rin began tugging at the hem of her hoodie and kissed her desperately as if his life depended on it. Ellie shivered and pulled away against the complaints of her own racing mind, shaking her head violently as she fought to catch her breath. "Rin...no...too much...not now."

"Ellie," Rin whined, sounding like a spoiled child as he nuzzled into her neck. "Come on. We just broke the cycle of the no touching here. Celebrate a little."

Ellie shook her head again, her fingers gripping the fabric of his shirt harder and harder in defiance. "Don't push it, Rin. I'm basically dying here."

"Considering how fast your heart is beating, I'm surprised you haven't had an actual heart attack."

"And is that not enough reason to keep things at this level for now?"

Rin smirked, lightly nipping at Ellie's neck and sending sharp, tingling sensations up and down her spine. "It's reason enough to tell me that you're enjoying this."

Ellie almost wanted to laugh as a blush flourished on her cheeks. Well, my mother's going to be horrified. Her too-focused-and-too-scared daughter has finally caved and became a horny teenager. How wonderful. "You suck. Like royally."

"Really? I don't recall ever sleeping with a member of the royal family. Must check up on that."

"You are disgusting."

"Ellie, I'm an eighteen year old male with an agenda and a brain. What else do you honestly expect of me?"

Ellie rolled her eyes and pouted as Rin kissed her softly on the lips with a smile, dangerously slipping his hands underneath her hoodie. "Rin," she warned between kisses. "Rin, I told you-"

"And I didn't listen."

Ellie's hoodie was quickly dispatched, dragged up her torso faster than the speed of light and pulled over her head in a second. The Nike tank top she wore beneath was just about as skin tight as the sports shorts she wore, making her feel even more exposed than she would have liked. But Ellie let it happen and even offered Rin a shaky smile as he pulled her closer, her fingers finding their way into his hair yet again.

Even though she was almost enjoying the moment she was having, she still felt that nervous, anxious bubbling inside her stomach and Ellie's mind was still very much on high alert. Where is you head at woman?! Ellie's frightened and anxious mind screamed at her. Do you not realise or even see what is happening here?!

Rin's lips met hers and for once, Ellie didn't feel like running away. She smiled into the kissed, giggled like the stupid, lovesick teenage girl she never got to be and enjoyed the moment while it lasted.

But even that moment had to end. And it couldn't have ended in a worse possible way.

"And you were worried about us being the horny ones?!"

Ellie never recalled moving quicker than she had in that moment of panic. Scrambling backwards, Ellie crawled off of Rin quickly and pushed herself to her feet in a mad dash, nearly tripping over her own feet as she did. Never in Ellie's own twisted anxious life had she ever felt so embarrassed and horrified in one expanse of time, colour flaring in her cheeks as she snatched her hoodie up off the ground.

"Oh my God, Carla, you are such an ass!" she yelled, covering her face with her hands. "I hate you and your horrible timing."

"Why?" Carla said. "Were you enjoying yourself there? Oh wait, you were too busy shoving your tongue inside Rin's mouth to really tell me, weren't you?"

Ellie groaned, hiding her face in her hands as she wished for the floor to disappear beneath her and swallow her whole in hopes of waking up from the horror nightmare she had found herself in. Carla smirked from underneath the doorway, a scowling Sosuke slipping past her to get into his dorm. Rin's expression was one of annoyance, annoyance that he directed firmly at Sosuke who scolded him loudly for walking in at the worst possible moment.

As much as she wanted to storm out of the room and hide underneath the covers of her bed for all eternity, all Ellie could manage to think was, I'm never going to live this down. Never. Ever. Ever.

A.N: I needed that after Episode 10. I'm sorry but I did.

So a bit of relationship development in this chapter. I wanted to sort push some sort of development out of Ellie, especially since she was sort of stuck in a hole in my head and I just needed to sort of push the story along.

At least that's why I think I did it. I'm actually having trouble formulating this authors note. My cold is really messing with me. Eh.

Thank you to SheepRainbow and My Father's Daughter for reviewing. Thank you to everyone else who favourited and followed.

Now I will go hide in a corner whilst I try to get over Episode 10 because the SouRin feels hurt me. Until next time...:)