Her Saviour

Chapter 31: On their way.

Rin’s Point of View

After she parted from Haru, she walked to her next class. She entered the class and found an empty seat at the corner of the room. It was beside the window and Rin liked it. She walked towards it and sat down. She then looked out of the window at students walking around the campus. Looking at the students laughing and walking with friends, she let out a sigh. She did not want to have any responsibility or obligation to any friends. She was not capable of building a relationship with people. Whether it was friends or family.

However, with Haru it was easy. She was happy and sad at the same time. She was about 50 percent sure that she might sabotage the friendship she has with Haru soon. On top of that, she was planning to die.

“Wait, I was planning to die yesterday. How did I even forget?” she thought.

Just then the lecturer entered the classroom. He started taking out his notes and his laptop. He connected it to the projector for his power point presentation slides. He then began teaching. Rin took out her notebook and her pen. She flipped open the book and listened to the lecturer to make notes. After about five minutes, her thoughts drifted back to her suicide plan.

Since everything felt alright from the time she woke up, her suicide plan seemed worthless for now. This is what borderline personality disorder does. She would feel happy at this moment and in an instance she would feel like she should die. However, at the moment, she pushed aside her suicide plans. It was a good day today and she wanted to live in the moment.

By the time she had her attention back on the lecture, the lecturer was almost done. He was on his last slide and was asking the students if they had any doubts. When the students answered “no”. He left the class about six minutes early giving the students plenty of time to reach the next class. Rin slowly put the notebook and the pen back into her bag. She took her time getting up and walking to the next class.

She remembered that Haru and she had made plans to meet for lunch. She reached her next class. One of the students was distributing handouts to all the students coming in. Rin was dreading it. She had no choice when it came to attending college but out of her own choice, she would not want to talk to other students. She walked into the class and that student handed her the handout. She politely grabbed the paper without looking at the person. She then started walking to an empty seat.

She sat down. There was still some time left until the lecture started. She remembered that Haru and she did not decide where to meet. So, she took out her mobile and searched for Haru’s name. She then texted him.

“Hey. Where are we meeting for lunch?”

She then kept her phone on the table and took out her notebook and her pen.

After about a minute, her phone vibrated signaling that she had received a text message. She picked up the phone and opened the message.

It was from Haru. It said, “How does the road to the west of the cafeteria sound?"

She texted back immediately, “Yup. That sounds good. See you in an hour then.”

She was about to put her phone in her bag when it vibrated. She picked it up and saw Haru had replied. It was a smiley emoticon. She smiled as soon as she saw it.

No sooner did she put her phone in the bag, the lecturer came into the class. Just like the second class, the lecturer proceeded to connect his laptop with the projector. He then asked one of the students to turn off the lights.

Rin forgot that they were going to watch a documentary for this module today. She thought, “Better than listening to him talk for an hour.”

Then the lecturer started playing the documentary. Rin watched as it started. After forcing herself to concentrate on watching for fifteen minutes, she gave up. She just flipped open her notebook and wrote the title of the documentary down so that she can watch it before the assessment.

She then doodled on her notebook. She was not good at drawing but she tried to draw. After she was done, she took one look at it and thought, “If someone who is good at drawing sees this, they are going to feel insulted”.

She then decided to pass the time by looking through her phone. She did not usually touch her phone during classes but today she was bored. However, after about five minutes, it did not feel right. So she forced herself to watch the documentary again. This time she made notes with it. By the time she made notes of about two pages. The lecturer stopped the documentary and said that they will continue this on Monday. He then disconnected his laptop from the projector, put his laptop in his bag, and left the classroom.

Rin let out a sigh. She was tired from these two classes. Being by herself was tiring. She also put her notebook and pen into her bag. She then stood up and walked out of the class. She walked at a steady pace to the place where Haru suggested. When she reached about half of the distance towards the place, her phone vibrated. She reached for her phone and saw a message from Haru. She opened the message. It said, “Are you on your way?”

She realized that Haru must have already reached and waiting for her. So, she quickened her pace. As she reached near the place, she could see Haru sitting on a rock near the large tree. His back was facing her. She quickly walked towards him and tapped on his shoulder.

As Haru turned around, Rin spoke, “Hi. I am sorry that I made you wait.”

Haru smiled and replied, “No. It is okay. Do not worry about it. I just reached here.”  

Then they walked to the cafeteria. They picked what they wanted to eat and walked towards an empty table. They sat down opposite each other and started eating.  While they ate, they talked about what happened in their classes. Rin complained to Haru about the boring documentary that her class watched and that she did not have any other choice but to focus on it.

“According to the curriculum, we are going to have a test on that documentary.” Rin said and frowned.

Haru laughed and said, “It will be okay. You can do it.”

Rin also laughed.

Then Haru said, “Well you had a boring documentary to watch, I played a rock paper scissors game with my friend for the seat near the window. And guess who won?”

Rin saw Haru smiling proudly through which she knew that he had won. However, she wanted to tease him a little bit so she said, “Oh I know. Your friend won right?”

Rin watched as Haru’s smile vanished and look confused. Rin held in her laughter for a while but could not do it. She burst into laughter and spoke, “Look at your face. It is like ‘Come on Rin, how could you think that I lost’ Oh my god this is priceless”. Then she continued laughing as Haru smiled.

She then heard Haru speak, “Yes. Exactly.” However, Haru also joined Rin in laughing. They laughed for a good while. By this time, they had finished eating. They stood up and walked out of the cafeteria together. Haru asked her where her next class was. Then he insisted on dropping her at the class.

Rin felt that she was being spoiled. However, she was not complaining about it because she liked it. It was not because she was being a spoiled brat. This is because she was not sure how long she wanted to live. In that time, she would like to be happy instead of crying.

When they reached near her class, about five minutes or so were left until the class began. She was worried if Haru would reach on time. So, she said, “Haru, you should go to your class now. There are only five minutes left. And Thank you for walking me to my class.” She smiled at him.

Haru looked at her and replied, “Okay Rin. See you after class. Oh wait, meet me near the library after your classes are over?”

Rin smiled and said, “Okay Haru. I will be there. See you.”

Rin watched as Haru walked out of her sight. After that, she walked into her class. She searched for an empty seat. All the seats near the window were taken. She sighed and just sat on the empty seat right near the door.

"Well, this is fine. I can just walk out faster after class is over.” She thought.

This module was a block period, which meant that she had to focus on two hours of nonstop blabbering. It was not that she did not like it. However, a block period after lunch was like applying salt on a wound. It was also exhausting and she always wanted to directly go home to sleep.

That was why she did not like it. Nonetheless, there was no other option. Rin could not afford to miss any more classes if she did not want to get kicked out of the college due to an attendance shortage.

She hoped that two hours would go by fast.

The lecturer came in and as soon as she did, she began speaking. The lecturer reviewed what they learned yesterday. Rin was so confused because she was not present in the class yesterday. She made an attempt to understand it but after few minutes, she gave up.

Just then, she remembered that she would be going somewhere with Haru later. She tried to guess where that place was. However, she also failed to do that. However, even though she did not know where they would be going, she had a feeling that it would be something special.

“Something special as in something related to love?” thought the other half of her.

“Oh my god. No. There is nothing like that between us.” Thought the more sensible half of her.

However, this led to her thinking. There is something between them. Though it was not love. Something which she could not grasp. It was confusing but it felt nice at the same time. Besides, bizarrely she felt like she had known him before. She wanted to know more about it. She wanted to know why she felt at ease with him. However, it felt like it would take some time until she finally knew the answer.

By this time, one hour had already passed. The lecturer gave them a ten minute break. Then she quickly went to her desk, opened a bottle of water, and drank it.

“Of course, you have been talking nonstop for almost an hour. You would be thirsty.” Rin thought.

She could never bring herself to like her. She talked too much.

After the ten minutes break, she started the lecture. Which meant that she was going to talk nonstop again. As soon as she did, Rin drifted her attention to the outside of the class. She looked through the door. Many students were out on the lawn. They were seated in a circle and at the middle, there was a person who was probably the lecturer. The sun was not shining brightly so it would not have been too hot outside for them.

She shifted her attention back to the class and checked the time from the large clock in the class. It was 3:30 pm.

“Whoa, I looked out for a while and suddenly thirty minutes have passed?” she thought. She was not complaining though. She wanted to smoke. She flipped her notebook and stopped at a new page. This time she was not going to draw. She just wanted to write random words.

She was thinking of what to write. However, Rin thought that it would be better to take some notes than write random words.

“It is just around twenty five minutes. I can concentrate.” She thought.

For the first time in two hours, she actually did listen and make some decent notes for this module.

After what felt like an eternity, the lecturer stopped. "So much for 'I can concentrate'. It felt like forever" she thought. She then put the notebook and the pen in her bag and stood up. She left the classroom and walked towards the library.

After about five minutes, she reached near the library. She had stopped at a washroom on the way. She was worried if she had made Haru wait again but was relieved when he was not there.

Then she waited for about two minutes, after which she saw a familiar silhouette of a person. As the person walked closer towards her, she was sure that it was Haru.

As soon as he reached, he asked, “I am sorry. Did you wait long?”

Rin shook her head and said, “Nope. I did not wait a lot.”

Haru nodded and spoke, “Let’s go?” Rin nodded. Then they walked to the main entrance of the college and into the parking. Rin followed Haru as he walked towards his car. When they reached, Haru opened the door of the front seat for Rin. Rin smiled and teased him, “Wow. You are a gentleman. Thank you.”

Haru replied, “No problem” and smiled back. After that, she watched Haru go around and get into the driver’s seat. He put the key in and started the car. Haru drove out of the college parking.

As soon as he did that, he asked, "Do you want to go to the isolated place below for a smoke?"

Rin replied, "Yes. I have been wanting to smoke one for about an hour ago. We had a block period” and she fake wiped away a tear.

Haru laughed and said, “A block period? That sounds tough. By the way, what is your comfort food?”

Rin replied immediately, “Ice cream. What is yours?”

She was still wiping away some fake tears.

Haru replied, “Pancakes. And how about this? After we smoke, we go eat your favorite ice cream?”

Rin spoke, “I do not why you are going to treat me to ice cream but whatever you are doing, it is working.”

Haru asked, “Do you have a place in mind?”

Rin nodded.

Just then, they reached the isolated place. Haru stopped his car and they both got out of the car. Rin watched as Haru walked around the car to where she was and leaned on the car. She also leaned back and took out two cigarettes. They lighted their cigarettes and smoked.

They were silent. Rin did not know how to break the silence. Besides, it was not an awkward silence. Due to this reason, Rin decided that the silence was fine. Rin was looking at the distance. Then she decided to look at Haru. As soon as she looked, she found a pair of dark blue eyes looking at her. Their eyes met and they stayed that way for a while.

Rin started to feel hot and she knew that she was starting to blush. She hurriedly turned away and continued smoking.

According to Rin, now it became quite awkward. She wanted to end the awkwardness and thought of something to talk about. Just then, she heard Haru speak.

“Rin, you done? It is nearly 5 pm. We have to go eat ice cream and then we have to go somewhere. We can smoke again after a while.”

Rin calmed down and replied, “Yes, I am done. Let me just step on the cigarette butt.”

Rin threw the cigarette and stepped on it. Making sure that the fire died, she opened the car door and got inside. Haru also got in and asked, “So tell me the direction to this Ice cream parlor or tell me the name of it and I will find it on Google maps. After that, I will turn on the navigation.”

Rin replied, “Oh. You do not have to do that. I will tell you the direction.”

Haru nodded and started the car. Following Rin’s directions, they reached the Ice cream parlor in about fifteen minutes. He parked the car and they both got out.

Rin was excited so she led Haru into the parlor. She then dragged Haru to choose which ice cream flavor to eat. After about ten minutes, she decided on chocolate chip ice cream.

She looked at Haru and asked, “Which flavor are you going to get?”

Haru replied, “I will be getting what you are getting.”

Rin nodded and placed their orders. After the person working there scooped their ice creams and gave it to them, Haru paid and they walked towards the booth in the parlor. They sat down and started eating it. They talked about what ice cream flavors they had eaten and Rin was confused to see Haru shocked when she told him that she had eaten almost every flavor that this parlor sold.

Then he spoke, “You really do like your ice cream huh?”

Rin smiled and nodded.

After they were done, Haru spoke. “Come on. We have to go. We spent about an hour here. It is 6: 15 pm now. Oh and before we drive towards the surprise, should we buy a pack of cigarettes and some snacks to eat on the way?”

Rin nodded.

They walked out of the ice cream parlor and got into the car. They drove to a convenience store. Haru stopped the car there and both of them got out. Rin followed Haru into the store. They picked up some potato chips, gummy bears, cookies and cream flavored Pocky sticks, and some sodas. Haru helped carry those to the counter and then asked the person behind for a pack of cigarettes.

After the person told them the total, Rin reached for her purse to pay but Haru stopped her.

He said, “I will pay.”

Rin spoke, “No I will. You already paid for the ice cream”.

Haru replied, “No. I am the one who invited you to come. I should be the one paying.”

Rin argued, “No. I am the one who picked all these snacks. I am not even sure you like them, so I will pay.”

Haru argued back, “Of course, I like them. So I will pay.”

Just then, the cashier faked a cough and looked at them with a look that said “I do not care who pays but pay up”.

Haru whispered to her, “I will pay right now. Let’s talk about this later.”

Rin whispered back, “Okay” but she was planning to pay the amount back to him.

Haru paid the total amount and Rin made a note of that. Rin was about to carry the bags that contained the snacks but Haru was faster. He quickly picked them all and refused to give it to Rin.

They walked out of the store and Rin helped Haru open the car door as he had bags in both his hands. After putting the snacks in, they got in. Haru asked Rin to check the time as he started the car.

Rin spoke, “It is 6: 35 pm. “

Haru nodded and started driving.

Rin searched the bags for the packet of Pocky sticks. She opened it and put one in her mouth. Then she handed one to Haru. She asked if she can connect her phone with the car’s stereo. Haru nodded. So she connected and started playing music.

They reached the highway and Haru drove on it. Rin was enjoying the moment even though she did not know where they were heading. Little did she know what Haru had planned.