Hisao and I haven't been talking. I keep telling myself this is a good thing., but I kind of miss him in spite of myself. There's something about the way he listens to me that feels good, as if I'm the most important person in the world. I guess that makes some of the things I said to him pretty awful.
        I need to stop thinking about him. It's been a while since I hung out with Rin, maybe I'll do that. Yeah, that's a good idea. I put my legs back on and walk into her room. Her door's always open when she's there.
        Rin is painting in her usual way, standing on one foot while her other foot holds a paintbrush over the canvas, which is taped to the floor. She's remembered to open a window this time. That's good, because she gets even weirder when she's high on paint fumes.
        "Hey Rin," I call from the door. I know she hears me, but she doesn't respond. She's focused on her painting, apparently. This is normal, so I pick my way through food wrappers and art supplies to sit on her bed and watch her. I look at the painting. She's doing watercolors today, it seems.
        "Is that the city?" I ask.
        "I told you that's bad luck," She says in an absent tone.
        "Oh, right." I keep forgetting Rin doesn't like to talk about her art. I cast around in my head for something else to talk about. My brain catches on something that happened a few days ago.
        "Hey, Rin. When you needed to use my window the other day, was that all you were doing in there?"
        Rin pauses, her brush suspended in midair. Her back is turned to me, so I can't see her face. When her brush starts to dribble water and paint onto the painting, she sighs deeply and places the brush in the cup that sits next to the canvas, and then she sits on the foot of the bed.
        "No."
        I don't know if I should be surprised or not. "So...what else were you doing?" Rin fidgets and squirms for a while before mumbling, "I wanted to see." I blush.
        "You mean, you wanted to see us..."
        "Yeah."
        "What the hell? Rin, you can't just walk in on people like that on purpose! Why would you even?" I'm usually not at a loss for words, but if there was ever a time for words to fail me, this is it.
        Rin's shoulders are slumped. When she interrupts my sputtering, her voice is ashamed. "I was jealous."
        "What?" I'm nonplussed. "You're jealous of me? Um. Hey, it's not working out so hot between me and Hisao, so if you're interested in him, you could-"
        Rin turns and glares at me. It's melodramatic, but it shuts me up before she even starts to talk. "You're an idiot, Emi." Her tone is disgusted. It reminds me of how I sounded when I threw Hisao out of my house, and she continues, "Yes, I like Hisao, he's cute and nice and that stupid ahoge makes me wish I had hands to yank it with, but I don't want to break up what you two are doing just because of that. You don't know how lucky you are. You have a good-looking boyfriend who actually cares about you, and you want to just throw that away for no reason. "
        She takes a deep breath before continuing, "When I walked in on you, I wanted to see what it's like when people to do that, because chances are I'll never get to have something like it. Even if I do get a boyfriend, which is unlikely since even you and Hisao think I'm strange and you're the only friends I have in this zoo full of cripples, he's probably not going to care about me the same way Hisao cares about you-and-" By this point, her voice is choked up, and there are tears in the corners of her eyes. "I'm going out."
        She slips into a pair of padded clogs I helped her pick out and rushes out, leaving her room key on her desk, and me on her bed, wondering why I keep driving people away.