After dinner, Shibutani gets a campfire started in the firepit outside, and the rest of you head out to join him. Now that the sun's gone down, it's actually gotten a bit chilly, and the warmth of the fire is more than welcome.
Shibutani produces a set of aluminum skewers and a bag of marshmallows from his bottomless backpack and passes them around. Everyone's faces (even Gin and Koharu) light up as the smell of charred sugar fills the air and they lick the sticky sweetness from their fingertips. Mariko sighs.
"I'm so glad everyone agreed to come! I've always wanted to go on a trip like this, but Dad never really seemed to find the time," she says. A frown creases her face. "I kinda wish he was here."
"It's all right, Mariko. My family's usually pretty busy, too. At least, my mom is," you say.
"You wanna trade? My folks aren't nearly busy enough," Hayate butts in. "Can't spend more than a couple minutes at home without them nagging at me to study or start researching universities."
"Both of which are things you really ought to be doing. You're fortunate to have such an invested family," says Shibutani as he skewers several more marshmallows.
"I don't wanna trade my dad," giggles Mariko. "He's…a lot to deal with sometimes, but I still love him. It's just…being here reminded me of when he would actually take time off for me. He used to do it a lot more when my cousin came to visit. You guys remind me a lot of him and his friends."
"Handsome, intelligent, and fascinating?" Hayate flashes a winning smile.
"You'd be lucky to be one out of three," says Koharu, and the others laugh.
Rin leans forward. "You know, since we're starting to open up a little…how'd you guys feel about a little game?"
"Whatcha thinking?" you ask. She smiles mischievously. Her nose crinkles when she does that, you note. It's kinda cute.
"Truth or dare. How's that sound to everyone?"
As you figured, Gin and Shibutani straighten up quickly enough to broadcast exactly how they feel about that.
"Oh, what? The No-Fun Police have a problem with a game even primary school students play?" she huffs.
"Th-They most certainly do not!" says Shibutani.
"I know how these things usually go. You're gonna keep upping the ante until you make someone uncomfortable…or until they say something they didn't want to," Gin says. The way he emphasizes that last part doesn't escape you.
Surprisingly, Koharu comes to Rin's defense.
"I think it'd be fine as long we promise not to make anyone do anything dangerous. You can play Truth or Dare without being an ass."
The others nod in agreement. Gin rolls his eyes.
"You know what? Whatever. If you think you can keep it under control, then go right ahead. But leave me out of it. I'm gonna go finish washing up the dishes."
"Figures," says Rin as she watches her brother disappear inside the cabin. "God forbid Gin lets anyone embarrass him even a little. You're still game though, right Shigesato-kun?"
Shibutani winces. "So long as I can exercise the right to withdraw at any point."
That doesn't appear to completely satisfy her, but Rin claps her hands and says, "All right! Who's going first?"
Hayate's hand shoots up. "Truth. Lay it on me."
Rin's lips curl as if she's about to ask something truly devious, but a sharp glare from Shibutani flattens them out a little.
"How about…when was the last time you failed a test?"
"Ugh, what a softball," groans Koharu.
Hayate smirks in a way that suggests that he thinks so, too. "Never. Passed every single exam I've ever had."
"Bullshit," you say joshingly.
"What? I'm supposed to be telling the truth, aren't I? Have Saito-senpai check my records when we get back to school! Or go ask my mom – I bet she's got 'em all stashed in a drawer somewhere."
"It's true," says Koharu. "He helped me study for all of my exams last year. He might act like he eats crayons, but there are some parts of his brain that aren't rotten."
"Wow, what a generous way of describing someone smarter than you," says Hayate, struggling to contain a smug air of superiority.
"All right, let's not get into it before someone else can have a turn. Pick someone, Hayate," says Mariko. "Someone other than Koharu," she adds quickly.
"All right. Let's go with…senpai," he says, pointing to a flustered Shibutani.
"M-Me? I hardly think there's anything worth knowing-"
"Ah-ah-ah, I'll be the judge of that. Truth or dare?"
Swallowing hard, Shibutani mumbles, "Truth."
"Very nice. Now, I wanna know if you've ever been written up by a teacher before. And if so, what for?"
Shibutani is mortified. "I…I…"
"Holy shit, no way. C'mon senpai, don't leave us hanging," Hayate presses on gleefully.
"F-Fine. If you must know, I was given detention for swearing at my seventh grade teacher."
"Really? You?" asks Koharu. "Seventh grade…" mutters Mariko.
"For the record, I want to iterate that this was four years ago and in no way reflects on the quality of my character now. I may as well have been a completely different person."
"I just c-can't imagine what would make you mad enough to cuss at a teacher," says Nisekao. "W-Were they being mean to a friend of yours or something?"
Shibutani crosses his arms and stares off into the woods. "N-No…I had come to school half-past noon, and she yelled at me for being late. Pardon my language, but I told her to 'Get off my fucking case.' Needless to say, I deserved a far harsher punishment…"
"What?" everyone else sputters in unison.
"W-Well, I…W-Wait! Why am I telling you this part anyways? I think I'm more than finished, thank you very much!" He snaps towards you. "Katsuji-kun! Truth or dare!"
"Whoa, me? Okay…um…how about a dare? No one else has done one yet."
It seems like a pretty safe choice. Frankly, you don't think Shibutani is capable of thinking up a decently embarrassing dare.
"V-Very well. I dare you to…play a song for us!" he says with a smirk that really isn't warranted.
"Letting him off a little light, senpai," says Hayate.
"No, no, I wanna hear!" says Rin, resting her chin in her hands.
"Well…okay," you say. You've never been comfortable being put on the spot, but it's just for your friends…
As you unzip you case, you realize it has been some time since you've actually played your guitar, let alone worked on any of your songs for Dad's birthday album. Nevertheless, your fingers slide right into place over the fretboard like they were made to be there. Closing your eyes, you run through the first couple notes of one of your songs in your head, then launch right in.
As a kid, you'd spent hours lying on the floor listening to Dad's records – he'd always put them on while he was in the kitchen. There was a lot of funk – heavy and bass-driven, each note hanging on as long as it could in a rhythm that pulled your head along without realizing it. It crept into your style as you learned to play and infected everything you wrote.
The piece you're playing now borrows heavily from those days spent entranced by spinning vinyl. You wanted to capture the kind of joy that comes from nostalgia, but as you pick your way through the notes, it comes off differently than you'd intended – more wistful than joyful, with notes that are drawn out instead of pointed, and dominated by a powerful sense of longing.
Something hot and wet and rolls down your cheek. Your fingers stop as if they've forgotten what they were doing. Are you…crying? Why are you crying?
"Tetsuo?"
Mariko touches your shoulder, and you snap back to yourself. You look away to hastily wipe your tears.
"Sorry. It's all good. Does that work, senpai?" you ask Shibutani.
Shibutani shifts uncomfortably in his seat before saying, "Of course. You…have quite a talent, Tetsuo-kun."
"Yeah, can't believe it still sounds like that after whacking all those Shadows. It's really something else, dude. Anyhow, who's next?" says Hayate.
"Uhh, Mariko. Truth or dare?" you ask, absentmindedly.
"Hmm…I'll do a dare, too!"
You grab a marshmallow, walk over to the dock, and set it down on one of the piles closest to the water. Before you return to the campfire, you make sure that your eyes are clear.
"I dare you to hit that on your first try."
Mariko squints nervously into the darkness.
"You want me to shoot it? Is that going to be okay?"
"C'mon, Mariko-chan, you've hit tougher shots in the Clouds!" says Hayate.
"But it's different there!"
After a little more hesitant back-and-forth, Mariko relents and obliterates the marshmallow to the delight and awe of your friends, and the game continues. But try as you might, your heart's not in it. What's more, Rin seems to have noticed, as well. Her attention doesn't leave you right up until the point when everyone agrees to call it a night and head off to bed.
• • • • •
Something's not right.
Your eyes snap open. Judging from the moonlight streaming through the living room windows, it must still be quite late. The rise and fall of the sleeping bags on the floor around you tell you that your friends are still deep asleep – except one. Rin's sleeping bag is empty. That's certainly odd in and of itself, but that's not quite what's bothering you. It takes several minutes of sleep-addled fumbling about before you realize what it is – your guitar is missing, its case left forlornly on the floor like a discarded banana peel.
You wrap your jacket around you as you wander off the porch and cast your gaze around the yard. Rin is nowhere to be seen.
You're about to head back inside and wake Gin when you start to hear something. The aimless plucking of guitar strings drifts towards your ears, carried by the cool night breeze. You follow it deeper into the forest and up a gentle, rocky slope. Then, just up ahead, a voice joins in. It's Rin's voice. It stops you cold.
For several minutes, you stand there at the edge of the clearing, captive. Her singing is lyricless, wandering, oppressively disconsolate. It swells around you, pulling like a lost child, frightened and vulnerable, and in this moment, you have never felt closer to another human being.
It finally drags you into the clearing and insists that you look at her. She's perched atop a large, flat rock, seemingly oblivious to you and accompanied by several empty cans of beer. With her usually bright eyes vacant behind a veil of snowy curls, she seems a wholly different person. She idly picks at the strings of your guitar in the way an infant inspects a new toy – piqued by curiosity, but without purpose.
A brittle stick snaps under your foot, and the spell is broken. Rin lifts her head towards you with neither surprise nor guilt. Just a barely-there drunken smile.
"I'm not very good, am I?"
She extends the guitar towards you, then reaches for a new beer.
"H-Hey, should you…?" you stammer as you slip your guitar back into its case.
"Hmm? Oh, did you want the last one?" she says with a blank grin, and holds out a can.
"That's not really it…I mean, I'm not old enough to drink. Are you?"
Rin breaks eye contact and stares off into the trees. "Heh heh…maybe not…too late now, though."
You climb up onto the rock and take a seat next to her.
"Your brother…we were talking earlier. He's-"
Rin snaps her heads towards you, visibly annoyed.
"Worried? Concerned? Of course he is. Why do you think I'm out here in the middle of the night?"
"I dunno. I was wondering that myself."
"Don't. It's not worth your time. I'll ruin you, too, you know."
Rin gives you a smirk utterly devoid of mirth, and takes a long swig of beer.
"I'm not sure I know what that means," you say.
"I've got a poor fate," she answers. "No matter what happens, something goes wrong eventually. Stick around long enough, you'll get caught up in it, too."
She finishes the can, crumples it, and tosses it to the ground.
"That's not true. You've saved my life twice already. I…actually owe you a lot," you reply.
Rin pauses before cracking open the last beer.
"I did, huh? Well, I guess we'll see how that plays out."
A pregnant silence fills the space between you. You can't justify the feeling, but you want nothing more than to put your arms around her. She's still practically a stranger, so you know you shouldn't. Yet, there's something intimately familiar about her sorrow, like a stolen memory, that compels you to be close.
"I know what you're thinking," she says at last.
"Huh?"
"I'm telling you now, you should just let me fight Shadows for you. That's all. Don't waste your time like Gin does. There's no changing me at this point."
"You don't think your… uh, fate can be changed?"
The look she gives you almost makes you wish you hadn't asked.
"I wasn't supposed to be born. Mom and Dad were poor. One kid was all they could handle. Wouldn't even go to the doctor to get a look inside. So when I popped out after him…I guess it must have been a nasty surprise.
"I don't really remember much from when I was little. Just that we were left home alone pretty often. Mom didn't work before I was born. I know because she said it a lot. She spent a lot of time telling us what she used to be able to do before we came along. Dad, too, as a matter of fact. Then, one day, I guess they both decided that they wanted to be able to do those things again. They both went to work, and just didn't come back."
"Fuck." It's all you can manage.
"Gin and I lived with a couple foster families after that. But they were just more of the same. No matter where we went, they didn't really want us there. I could tell. So whenever they got tired of us, I just ran away. Eventually, we got so tired of running that we decided we didn't need anyone else. That's how it's been ever since."
Glistening, fat tears roll her down her face, but her expression doesn't change from the same, placid smile. She brushes a finger across her cheek and stares at the wet fingertip as if surprised.
"Huh. I'm sorry. You didn't need to hear all of that crap. I don't know what came over me."
"It's all right. I don't mind."
Her lips curl upwards. This time, it feels genuine.
"I guess listening to you play earlier made me think about some stuff I haven't thought about in a while." She pauses for a moment. "You were crying…you must have a poor fate, too, huh?"
"Oh. That. I…actually – I don't know why I was crying. I mean, I don't think things are going too poorly. Sure, they aren't ideal, but look at where we are right now. And I've got a bunch of great friends here, too. I guess I think that fate's what you make of it."
"What about the stuff you can't change?" Rin asks.
"Oh. Sorry, I wasn't thinking about what I was saying."
Rin places a hand on your knee. Your pulse quickens.
"No. I wanna know what you think. Like, the Shadows – if you could become a Shadow…and fix the things you can't change…would that be worth it?"
"Well, no. Not if means I'm not myself anymore. That's why we're fighting them, right?"
"But a Shadow is yourself, isn't it? Just a different part than the one you show on the surface. Can you really say that you wouldn't be yourself?"
"Why are you asking me this? Are you…?"
Rin laughs. "No. Don't worry about that. I'm pretty sure my other selves aren't much better off anyways. But living with a fate you can't change…I can understand why people wouldn't want to."
"Well, I can only speak for myself, but I guess I would try to focus on the things I could do something about. If I don't have any control over something, it's not worth the effort."
"Easier said than done. I hope you mean that."
You think about it for a second.
"I do."
Suddenly, her head falls onto your shoulder. Automatically, you move to put her upright again, but she pushes your arm away.
"Mm. No, I'm tired…"
"Want me to help you back to the cabin?"
"Not yet. Play me that song again, instead? Just for a little while."
"Oh. Umm, okay." You can understand Gin a little better now - it's hard to refuse those pleading eyes.
As you play, Rin begins to quietly hum along. The song is the much the same as before – but this time the edge is softened, the longing gone. The way you'd meant it to be.
Thou art I...
And I am thou...
Thou hast established a new bond...
It shall grant you the strength to open thine eyes...
Thou shalt be blessed under the sign of the Wheel of Fortune Arcana…