“Ready to go?”
 
A small nod tells me she is.
 
With that, I stand up, pausing for a moment to stretch my back, and I grab the duffel bag off the floor, hoisting it over my shoulder. Despite its size and the fact that it’s filled to the brim with all sorts of painting apparatuses, it doesn’t seem as heavy as usual. Must be all of the running. It really is fortunate that we stayed in contact with Emi after graduation.
 
Heading out the door, we make our way over to the elevator, and step inside. I push the button labeled ‘G’, and the doors close. The elevator churns and begins its descent, and I notice Rin staring straight ahead, her gaze not shifting in the slightest. She always hates riding in elevators. I really think she would prefer to live closer to the ground floor, but unfortunately this apartment was the only one we could find that was big enough to act as her studio, while also being close to my workplace.
 
“You all right?” I ask.
 
“Yeah. Well, no,” she says, frowning, “It’s just, what would we do if this thing broke? The rope snaps or something malfunctions and we free-fall to the ground.”
 
The bluntness of her statement catches me off guard. “Wow, that’s kind of depressing.”
 
She turns to me, her eyebrows slightly raised. “You think so?”
 
Before I have a chance to respond, the doors slide open and we step into the lobby. Mid-afternoon sunlight is streaming in through the giant glass doors that form the entrance of the building, a glaring contrast to the muted darkness of the elevator. I hold one of the doors open for Rin, and then follow her outside.
 
We set off down the street, Rin leading the way. I’m only half-sure of where our destination is located, but she seems to know how to get there well enough.
 
As we wait for the light to change at a crosswalk, I notice a few people staring at Rin. It’s something that I haven’t gotten entirely used to, but I can’t really blame them, can I? After all, it’s not every day that you see a girl with no arms walking down a city street. If anything, it reminds me of the way I couldn’t take my eyes off her on the day we first met. And besides, she doesn’t seem to mind people staring. She’s always been very forward with others about her disability.
 
The light changes and we cross the street, pulling a little bit ahead of the crowd. We continue on, passing various shops and restaurants. After several more blocks we take a right turn, and I see a small park ahead of us. I vaguely recognize it, having passed it a few times during my morning jogs. This must be where she’s taking me.
 
“There,” she says, confirming my suspicions. We pass through the gated entrance, and she nods toward a large hill near the center of the park with a lone tree at its peak.
 
“All the way up there?” I ask, but Rin has already started her ascent to the top. I give an exaggerated sigh, and begin trudging after her up the side of the hill.
 
By the time we reach the top, my heart is pounding rapidly, and my lungs are on fire. Maybe I’m not as fit as I thought I was. I set the duffel bag on the grass and take a moment to catch my breath before unzipping it. I remove its contents; small containers of paint, a collection of brushes, the easel, the-
 
“Ah, damn it,” I mutter, instantly realizing why the duffel bag seemed so light. “I forgot the stool.”
 
“That’s all right,” she replies indifferently, “I can just sit on the grass.”
 
I look up and see that she’s been staring at the same spot ever since we got up here. I recognize that look. She’s found the perfect subject, the perfect view, and now the only thing on her mind is how she can transfer it to her canvas.
 
I set the easel up in front of her and she lowers herself to the ground, removing her sandals. I adjust the easel’s height to match her position and then step back, admiring the view she’s chosen. From atop the hill, the now-setting sun is barely visible behind a sea of buildings, and its light can only just be seen reflecting off the ocean far to our right. From up here, everything seems so close.
 
“It really is gorgeous up here,” I admit.
 
“I don’t know if I would call it gorgeous,” Rin replies, “More like…condensed. When I’m up here it feels like I could reach out and touch anything I see.” She blinks and cracks a tiny smile. “Well, I couldn’t, but you know what I mean.”
 
I stifle a chuckle and she turns to me, one eyebrow raised. “You know I heard that,” she says flatly, the smile gone from her face. I flash her an awkward grin and sit down next to her, handing her a brush and opening the containers of paint. She dips the brush in a dark-red color and places it on the canvas, swiftly dragging it across the paper in a single practiced stroke.
 
We make snippets of idle conversation, which quickly die down as she becomes intently focused on the painting. Occasionally she asks me to get her a new brush or mix two colors together, but for the most part I spend the rest of the afternoon laying in the grass, lost in my own thoughts.
 
One of the things I constantly admire about Rin is the relative ease with which she does almost anything. She always has a relaxed air about her, and never seems to get uptight about anything. Is that what drew me to her originally? Or was it her differentness, the way she seemed to me like a visitor from another plane of existence?
 
I turn and watch her for a moment. Right now she has tuned everything else out and is lost in her own world, where the only thing that matters is painting. The breeze plays lightly with her unkempt hair as her foot moves skillfully across the canvas. She really is more beautiful than she gives herself credit for, and I feel like I don’t tell her so as often as I should.
 
When I first met her, I wanted to get inside her mind, try to understand her, see how she thinks, but now that we’ve been together for so long I haven’t really thought about it much. She is Rin and I am Hisao, and no matter how hard we try, neither of us will ever completely comprehend the other. Perhaps that’s how we ended up together. We formed a sort of mutual misunderstanding. I know for other couples that kind of thing would be unacceptable, but it’s just part of the anomaly that is the relationship between Rin and I.
 
---
 
I must’ve dozed off at some point, and I am woken with a start by the sound of an airplane overhead. I take a moment for my eyes to get used to the now-black sky, and then pull out my phone to check the time. 10:47. Damn, it’s getting late.
 
I notice Rin lying with her back against my side. I turn towards her and put an arm around her, feeling her breath rising and falling softly in her chest. For a moment I contemplate staying here a while longer, but I decide against it and gently rub her shoulder. She stirs and shifts on to her back, opening her eyes halfway before sitting up groggily and yawning.
 
“What time is it?” she asks, trying to blink the sleep out of her eyes.
 
“Almost eleven-o’-clock,” I answer, sitting up myself, “We should probably get going.”
 
“You shouldn’t have woken me up,” she says, giving me the usual indirect stare, “I know how much you like to watch me sleep.”
 
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I reply in a half-serious tone. I stand up and begin to put our belongings back into the duffel bag, noticing the unfinished painting. “I guess we’ll have to come back so you can finish it, huh?”
 
“No, I think I can do the rest of it from memory,” she says, “That way I can take some ‘creative liberties’ with the finer details. Still though, I would like to come back some time. It’s really nice here.” This makes me think for a moment. I stick my hand into the pocket of my jacket and cradle the tiny box inside. I’ve been carrying it around for weeks, waiting for the right moment. Maybe now would be as good a time as any.
 
I finish collecting our things and zip the duffel bag shut. Rin stands up and starts to head down the hill, but I call to her, “Hold on a sec.” She turns back to me.
 
“What is it?”
 
“Just come here for a minute.”
 
She walks back towards me and cocks her head, looking at me curiously.
 
“So, based on what just you said, you like it up here, right?” She nods. “Well, I’ve been meaning to ask you something for a while now, but I haven’t really been able to find the right time or place to do it. I guess here would be as good as anywhere else.” I take a deep breath and try to get my thoughts together before continuing, at the same time realizing how nervous I am.
 
“Rin, I know you better than I know anyone else in the world, and just being around you and getting to spend time with you makes me happier than I’ve ever been. I feel connected to you on a level that no one else could possibly understand.
 
“So,” I continue, getting down on one knee, “If it’s all right with you, I’d really enjoy spending the rest of my life with you, Rin, no matter how long or short a time that ends up being. Wherever our lives end up taking us, I want to go there together. I want the last thing I see before I fall asleep and the first thing I see when I wake up to be you. And…I want to be there for you when you need someone. I don’t really think I need to tell you th-“ I get cut off from my rambling by Rin uttering one word.
 
“Yes.”
 
“…What?”
 
“I’ll marry you, Hisao.”
 
I stand there dumbfounded for a moment, trying to wrap my head around the words, but she leans down and kisses me before I have a chance to say anything. I slowly stand back up and wrap my arms around her, trying my hardest not to break the kiss. We stay like this for what feels like an eternity; a perfect eternity with just the two of us together.
 
After we eventually pull apart, she smiles at me. Not just an everyday, Hisao-made-a-bad-joke smile, but a true representation of her feelings. I feel an odd sense of pride in knowing that I was the one that caused it.
 
I retrieve the small box from my pocket, and I open it, revealing the ring inside. “I had to save up for three months to buy this,” I tell her, “I hope you like it.”
 
“I like it,” she says, “It looks like the sun.” She kicks off one of her sandals and extends her left foot towards me. Kneeling down, I take her foot in one hand and the ring in the other. Suddenly I am puzzled by something, and I look up at her.
 
“Uh…which toe?”
 
She considers this for a moment, and then replies, “You choose.”
 
I decide to place it on her second toe. The ring fits snugly around it. I stand up and watch as she stares at her foot, admiring the ring. I embrace her, resting my head on her shoulder. “I love you, Rin,” I whisper into her ear.
 
“I love you too, Hisao.”
 
In an instant I am struck by the sheer impossibility of this ever happening. I’m now engaged to an artist with no arms who I met at a school for children with disabilities after being diagnosed with cardiac arrhythmia. I thought being sent to Yamaku would be the end of the world for me, but after I met her, something changed. At first I thought she was just an unusual girl, but I soon came to realize that underneath her curious exterior, she’s just another person who wants to be understood. And I realized that that’s all I wanted as well.
 
For the longest time I tried to break that wall of understanding between us. I wanted her to make sense to me. But at some point, I put it past me. We didn’t need to fully understand each other to love each other. Somehow, both of us having that same feeling of misunderstanding linked us on a deeper level than I thought possible, and was enough to bring us together.
 
And so I love her for what she is. I love the odd things that she thinks about. I love the way that she makes up words when she doesn’t feel comfortable with the ones she knows. I love how we can be together in silence and still feel connected. I love…Rin.
 
I’m jostled out of my thoughts by her voice. “You’ve been hugging me for a long time.”
 
I let go of her, grinning sheepishly. “Sorry, I was just thinking about…stuff.”
 
“I know how it is,” she says. I pick up the duffel bag and put an arm around her, and we head down the hill. We pass through the park gate and onto the sidewalk.
 
As we turn a corner, I decide to ask her something. “How did you know what I was going to ask you?”
 
She looks up at me. “I could see it coming from a mile away,” she says flatly, “You’re not exactly a master of romance, you know.”
 
I smile at this, and we continue the rest of the way home in peaceful silence.
 
By the time we reach our apartment building, it’s nearly 11:30. We head inside and step into the elevator. As it begins to ascend to the 33rd floor, I notice Rin frowning at the floor.
 
“You shouldn’t think about the elevator like that,” I tell her, pulling her closer to me, “It’s not healthy.”
 
“It’s not that,” she replies. Her tone sounds oddly depressing for someone who was so cheerful just a few minutes earlier. “Just…can I ask you something?”
 
“Anything,” I say, “What is it?”
 
She takes a deep breath and exhales before speaking. “After we get married…Is anything going to change? Between us, I mean.”
 
“Well,” I begin. I’m not sure what I should say. “Yes and no. What are you thinking, exactly?”
 
“The way we feel about each other,” she asks, “Will that change?”
 
“Of course not,” I reassure her, “If anything, getting married is just a confirmation of how we feel about one another. It’s a way of telling the world just how much we love each other. Nothing can change how we feel unless we both want it to.” This seems to put her mind at ease a bit, and she looks at me with a tiny smile.
 
The elevator grinds to a halt, and we step out, heading for our door. As I fumble with the key, Rin rests her head against my arm. At the same time I realize how exhausted I am, and after I open the door and drop the duffel bag, I very nearly hit my head while throwing myself onto the couch. After a moment Rin joins me, curling up against my side.
 
I can’t help but think of what she asked a minute ago. Maybe I sprang the whole marriage thing on her too suddenly. I turn to her and start to say something before noticing a single tear making its way down her cheek.
 
“Rin?” I ask, placing an arm around her, “What’s wrong?” I hate seeing her cry. I hate it more than anything else in the world, and I hate it the most when I’m the one causing it.
 
She looks into my eyes and swallows hard, struggling with the words, “It’s…nothing. I’m just…happy. Really happy.” She smiles at me through the tears in her eyes, and I feel myself start to choke up, “I haven’t felt this happy in a long time, Hisao.”
 
“That’s…that’s really great,” I tell her, my vision blurring from the tears forming in my own eyes, “I want you to be happy all the time, and I’ll always be here to do anything for you to help you feel that way, okay?” She nods and burrows herself closer against my chest. I grab the throw blanket hanging over the back of the couch and drape it over us, instantly feeling the warmth it brings.
 
“Good night, Rin,” I lean over and kiss her on the forehead. But she’s already gone, lost in the deep expanses of her mind that I’ll never know. Asleep.
 
And soon, so am I.