"There's no zoo," I told Rin, looking over the directory map we had retrieved from the Town Hall. "But there is a wildlife sanctuary."

"What's the difference?" She asked. We walked side by side down the walkway. Like the day before, we had found ourselves on the college campus.

"It's basically a national park. There are animals there but they're all wild and there are no guarantees we'll get to see them." I lowered the map. "What do you want to do?"

She looked around the scenery of campus. "I… I don't know. I kinda like it here."

"On campus?"

"Yeah. It's really cool."

To me, it seemed just as interesting as a brick wall. I folded the map back up and put it in my bag.

"What do you do for fun in college?" She asked, her eyes following a group of students as they ran across a field of green grass, kicking a soccer ball between them.

"Well, there's sports," I told her, watching them as well. "Some people join clubs, some people go to parties. There's plenty to do. Just depends on what you like." I lowered my hands into my pockets as I spoke.

"What did you do?" She glanced at me curiously.

I shrugged. "My friends were huge basketball fans, so I played with them sometimes."

"That's the one with the hoops, right?"

I turned away to hide my smile. Her ignorance was almost cute. "Yeah. That's it."

She looked around. "Where are they?"

"What? The basketball courts?"

"Yeah."

I followed her eyes. "I dunno. Maybe there's a gym somewhere inside. Or maybe they don't have any."

She frowned. "That'd be stupid."

I rose my eyebrows at her. "You wanna play?"

A small shrug was her only response.

I grinned down at her. "Let's see if we can find one."

We blended in enough to confident enter the buildings of the commons and the classrooms. No one questioned us or even glanced in our direction. Confidence really can get you anywhere, I thought.

"Those armbands are everywhere," she suddenly said. We passed another group of students, all girls, wearing pink and yellow on their arms. Amongst them was a single guy, standing in front of them with a confident smile. He was wearing a plain red one. He caught my attention right away. I hadn't seen any colors mingling the day before.

"Here," I said, stopping in front of an open door. I tore my gaze away from the guy, remembering all the creepy guys from my college who talked to girls like that.

Beyond the door was a large gym. Metal beams crossed on the ceiling just below the giant square skylights. On the walls were banners with all of the records the school held in every sport from swimming to baseball. Half of the court was taken up by a casual game. The other was empty. The sounds of the basketball dribbling across the court echoed with every hit.

The guys ran across the court, bobbing and weaving within each other trying to stop the ball. Their shouts and the shrieking of their sneakers on the ground earned Rin's full attention. She watched the game with wide eyes.

"That looks hard," she said.

"We're not gonna play an actual game," I assured her, walking to a cart full of basketballs.

"That's no fun," she pouted.

"You want to play an actual game? Do you know how?"

"I'll figure it out," she said quietly.

I grabbed a ball and bounced it in her direction. She scrambled to grab it before it rolled into the game a few feet away from us.

"Your ball," I said with a sly smile. With my height advantage and experience, there was no way she could win.

She held it gingerly in her hands, glancing at me with wide eyes. And then, to my amazement, her expression completely contorted into a sly smile, her eyes narrowing and her stance widening.

In a single movement, she dropped the ball to the ground, dribbling it perfectly, and then jammed her elbow into my chest to block any attempts at swiping it. She pushed behind me, gently tossing the ball into the hoop with a swish.

"Ah hah!" She laughed victoriously. "I'm not as clueless as you think!'

"Where did that-"

"We had a hoop at our old-" she cut herself off, glancing towards the game once again. "Our old house. And I was the reigning champion."

"You could have told me!"

She joined her hands behind her back smugly. "I wanted to see if I could surprise you."

I let out a laugh. "Well, you did."

She retrieved the ball from the ground and tossed it to me. "Your ball."

I decided to give her a taste of her own medicine and dashed forward right away.

"You ass!" She laughed, trying to jump between me and the hoop. "I wasn't ready!"

She was too weak to stop me. I rose my arms to shoot for the hoop, but a sudden swipe of her hand knocked the ball out of my hands.

"Wha-"

"Hah!" She laughed again, dribbling back to the half court line. She may be short, but that girl could jump.

"Oh come on," I said with a grin, ready to jump after her. I stood between her and the hoop. Her eyes scanned the court around me, looking for easy paths past me. She wasn't going to find any.

She dribbled slowly to my right. Of course. Taking advantage of my left-handedness. I moved with her, constantly blocking her way to the hoop.

She was standing past the three-point line. Glancing up towards the hoop, she stopped, gathering the ball in both hands and throwing it.

My fingertips just barely brushed against it and the ball landed on the ground.

"That would have made it!" She protested. "You asshole!"

"I'm not just gonna let you score," I defended myself.

She glared up at me with that competitive smile I had become so familiar with. "This is war," she told me.

I grabbed the ball once more. "Bring it."

Neither of us kept track of the score. We barely noticed when the game next to us ceased and its players left, leaving us alone in the gym. Between every round, I checked to make sure our bags were safe. They were exactly where we had left them.

"Getting tired?" She taunted. I had kept better track of the time, making it a habit to glance at the clock every few minutes. We had already been here for almost an hour.

I rested my hands on my knees. "Yeah, actually. This is exhausting."

She hopped with the glee of a child. "We just got started!"

"How can you have that much energy?" I panted.

She smacked the ball once against the ground and picked it up again. "Come on. This is fun."

I let out a sigh. "Fine. Just a few more, though. I'm starving."

She ran for the hoop once more. When we were in the midst of our game, I hardly noticed how exhausted I felt. It was only between rounds did I feel ready to collapse into a heap on the floor.

A few tries later, I ran forward, dribbling the ball in my left hand, trying to take her off guard with a sweep right down the middle of the court. I pointed my right shoulder towards her to keep her short arms away from the ball. My elbow was planted firmly against her small figure.

I jumped forward, aiming for the hoop, my exhausted arms using her to push off of and propel me towards the hoop.

She fell to the ground. The impact of her hitting the court reverberated around us.

"Shit! Rin, I'm sorry!" I yelled, throwing the ball away from us and falling to my knees next to her. "I didn't mean to! I- ah, fuck. I'm sorry."

She sat up, rubbing her head. A small chuckle escaped her. "I think you gave me another concussion," she joked, all the liveliness in her voice gone in an instant.

She was joking, but I still felt like a dick. Without thinking, I rested a hand on the back of her head, turning it gently to the side to see the small scar left behind from London. It didn't look hurt in any way. I looked her over for any other new injuries. "I'm sorry," I pleaded. "I really didn't mean to-"

"It's-It's fine," she insisted, looking down at the ground as I inspected her for any signs of trauma. I was too busy turning her head over in my hands to notice the deep blush that had formed on her face. "Really," she said. "I'm fine."

I glanced towards our bags, lowering my hand from her head. "Let's go get food or something," I suggested as I stood.

"Yeah," she agreed. I held a hand out to her, which she hesitantly accepted, and I pulled her up from the ground. "I'm hungry," she muttered. We grabbed our bags.

The ball was still rolling aimlessly across the gym's empty floor as we left.


We hadn't spoken to any of our friends since we arrived. When Rin and I returned to the hotel room at night, Flower and Anon were passed out already. When we woke up in the morning, the two of them were replaced with Yuma and Kanon, who were also dead asleep. That night was no different.

"These guys are no fun," I muttered as we entered the dark room. Only tiny hints of the sun poked through the curtains. It was going down, finally, but the sky was going to remain lit in the fading colors of sunset until the next morning. As usual, Flower and Anon were snoring away in their beds.

"I know," Rin agreed, setting her back next to the couch. "I'm not even that tired. And they'll be pissed if we turn on the TV and wake them up or anything."

I frowned. "Well… what do you wanna do?"

She thought for a moment, peering out through the curtains next to me. "I know it sucks with the whole 'sun always up' thing, but you wanna know something really cool about Fairbanks?"

"What?"

Leaning away from the window, she glanced at me with a smirk. Not gonna lie, I didn't know what she was planning, but I was a little scared.

"You wanna see what I like to do in my free time?" She asked sneakily.

"Uh - do I?"

She grabbed my wrist. "Come on," she whispered, pulling me through the room once more.

We were already walking out of the lobby, entering the brisk air of the street when I remembered neither of us brought our bags. Rin had noticed too, but she didn't seem bothered by it. So I wasn't going to be, either.

"Where are we going?" I asked her. We were walking back towards campus. The city was devoid of life. It was almost midnight, after all. It looked almost eerie. All the same buildings that had bustling with activity only a few hours ago were abandoned now in what seemed like dusk.

We had nearly reached the campus. Next to us was a line of shops we had passed several times in the last few days. They were cute little brick buildings, varying in height and thickness, with everything from clothes to cooking ware to furniture displayed in the square windows. They reached down the entire street, past where we had entered and stretching further from where we turned off. I was in the midst of admiring them when Rin suddenly veered to the right between a closed bakery and a dark-windowed boutique. "You'll see," she sneered.

"Dark alleys? I'm worried."

"Oh come on. You can trust me."

"Can I?" I joked.

She shot me a glare before disappearing further between the buildings.

I don't really have anything to lose, I figured. With a deep breath, I jogged after her into the alley.

The walls were narrow on either side of. We dodged trash cans and stray animals as we made our way behind the building. Against the brick wall, there was a steel ladder.

"Up we go," she said with a smile.

"What is it with you and roofs?"

"Probably the danger," was her casual reply.

"Fair enough." Once she had pulled herself up a few feet ahead of me, I climbed on after her.

I crawled onto the cement roof of the bakery. The roof, as well as those around it, were littered with pipes and maintenance rooms, creating a very dangerous playground about twenty feet over the street in some places, more like forty in others. The city was dead quiet. From our new vantage point, I could see beyond further throughout the darkened city. The dark, but not quite black sky only heightened the appearance.

"It's creepy," I said aloud. To the right of our building was another small store equal in height, to our left was a similar brick structure with a roof that stood an extra floor higher.

Rin was standing uncomfortably close to that edge of the roof, peering over the side. "You think so?"

I nodded, watching her, ready to jump in case she slipped.

"I think it's peaceful," she disagreed.

Glancing at the scene once more, I shrugged. "Maybe." I turned back to her as she backed away from the ledge.

I opened my mouth to speak, but the words caught in my throat as Rin suddenly ran forward, jumping off of the roof and barely reaching the top of the building next to us with her fingertips. For a miserable moment, she hung from the building, a dangerous drop below her, before she let out a huff of air and pulled herself up.

"Rin!" I shouted as she disappeared over the edge of the roof over me. "What the fuck was that?"

Her smiling face peered down at me from the neighboring roof. "Too scared?" She asked with a laugh.

"That fall could have-"

"Don't chicken out now!"

"You really expect me to jump up there-"

"Yes!" She yelled, her voice full of that childlike laughter. "Now hurry up! Before I leave without you?"

"Leave without-" I muttered to myself, peering over the edge just like she had done. The drop wasn't enough to kill me, probably, but it was definitely enough to seriously injure me. And that was the last thing we needed on this mission. I could imagine the infuriated looks of the others if they learned what we were doing. Nothing like a good roof jump to cripple your killers.

"Fucking hell, Rin, are you serious!"

"It's not as bad as it looks! Just aim for the rooftop!"

"Not as bad as it looks? You barely made it!"

"That's because I'm barely five feet tall, Len! Come on! You have twenty seconds!"

"Motherfucker," I said to myself, backing away a few steps. What the hell was I doing? Never in a million years would I have imagined jumping off of a roof to follow a crazy short girl through this deadly playground. And yet, here I was.

"Come on, Lenny~" she sang. Her voice was the only sound in the dead city except for my pounding heartbeat.

I closed my eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and ran. At the last inch of pavement, I hurled myself from the roof. I found myself floating in open air for a terrifying second. My arms stretched out in front of me. Time itself seemed so slow. Rin was watching me, her smile faltering just a bit as she watched me. I missed. I missed it.

I didn't miss it.

I grabbed onto the ledge just in time, hearing another sweet laugh and feeling arms assist in pulling me up.

I scrambled to my feet, even higher from the ground than before. My arms were trembling.

"See?" She grinned. "Not so bad."

"Not so bad? Rin, this is horrible-"

"We're just getting started," she promised.

"I am not doing that again."

Her expression lowered into a pout. "Don't tell me you didn't feel just a little rush from that? It wasn't all bad, was it?"

My chest and shoulders heaved as I tried to steady my breathing. I wasn't tired, yet I could not help but tremble at the fact that I had been inches away from a very painful night or worse. I was barely able to stand on my two legs as I tried to calm myself down.

And yet, there was something else. Something other than fear. Something other than anger towards Rin for being so stupid. Something that made my blood feel as if it were coursing with electricity.

I lowered my gaze from her dumb grin, still too angry with her to admit that it was extremely-

"Thrilling, huh?" She answered for me. Her hands on her hips, her smug smile - she knew she had me. "Told you. I'm a sucker for the dangerous stuff."

The roofs expanded beyond us. It was much easier to see their twists and turns from up here. The best part about this jump was that we were now on one of the tallest buildings. There would be very few, if any, jumps upwards after that.

She hopped on the balls of her feet. "You ready?" She asked.

"For what?" The anger was still in my voice, though it was quickly being overrun with my curiosity. I guess I could understand why she liked being up so high.

Those blue eyes gleamed. "Our race," she answered.

"Race?"

She pointed behind her. "See that down there? That sign?"

I followed her gesture. Far across the rooftops, on a building lower than this one but an incredible distance away, was a neon sign. Only half of it was visible behind a small room growing out of the building it was built on like a tumor. The brick walls jutting into the sky stretched over the sign. There was a ladder on the side of it.

"First one there wins."

I gawked at it. Between us and our destination was a jungle of pipes, electrical boxes, and even more heart-pounding jumps over alleyways identical to the one we had just entered through.

"And if one of us dies?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes. "We've done more dangerous things before. Plus, it's good practice. In case we ever need a rooftop escape on a mission."

Her point made sense, but not enough to completely convince me. "Everyone else will be pissed when they find out-"

"Who says they have to know?"

I widened my eyes. "I didn't know you kept secrets from them."

She frowned. "Not big ones. Just a little white lie won't hurt anybody."

"It will if one of us slips and dies, Rin."

She waved a hand at me. "I'm going. You coming with?"

It was stupid. It was dangerous. It was probably going to kill me.

"I guess."

Her frown evaporated, replaced with that dazzling smile once more. "You're on." She set her right foot forward. "Right here. On the count."

I desperately scanned the area before me, trying to find the quickest, and, more importantly, the safest path to our destination.

"If you're scared," Rin taunted. "You can just let me go first and follow."

"Fat chance," I answered with amusement.

"There's the Len I know."

Straight ahead was jump with about a five-foot drop to the neighboring rooftop. It looked easy enough, especially compared to the monster I had just crossed. To my right was a building yet another story taller, no doubt the tallest around, with a window I could use to climb up. It would take me some time, but after I reached the top, it would be smooth sailing.

"You ready?" She asked.

"I… I guess," I replied, focusing on scouting my path more than my words. Rin knows this place best. Maybe you should just follow her and then pull ahead at the last minute. It was an idea. A safe idea.

She nodded. "Three."

Follow Rin. Follow Rin. Follow Rin.

"Two."

My heart thudded painfully in my chest. This was it. This was how I'd die.

"One."

"Go!"

There were some birds on the building across from us. They bolted away, squawking in protest as we leaped across the gap, sprinting across the gravel.


You guys ever seen those extreme parkour videos online? I watched some to get a sense of what roofrunning is like and og my god people are fucking crazy. Just watching that stuff makes my heart pound.

Thanks for reading :)