SPICE!💛 rinxlen

chapter 12

It had only been a day, but it felt like it had been a week since Len had gotten out of bed. He wish he were magic. Poof! Everything would be back to normal. Poof! All the bad things he had done in the past would have never happened. Poof! Shion-Sensei, Miku, and Meiko would be gone. Poof! He and Rin would live in a better place, going to a different school. Poof! Their parents would still be alive. But that wasn't possible. What's done is done. There was no going back.

'You were just playing games with me. Like all the other girls. I thought you had changed, that things would be different for me, but I just fell for the same trap. Why didn't I know?' Rin's words repeated in Len's head like a broken record. He remembered her expression—she didn't look angry, she looked crushed. As if all hope in the world had been lost. He had taken her heart and completely obliterated it.

Why…Rin-chan…why didn't I realize sooner… Len thought, digging through his junk drawer. He pulled out a fat file—a file full of things Rin had given him, from notes to birthday cards to valentines to even an orange leaf she had found and given to him many falls ago. Rin had been trying to get his attention since elementary school, Len had just ignored her.

Len's face felt sticky and gross from crying, his hair was a mess, and he hadn't changed out of his clothes he wore yesterday to the amusement park. He also thought he might have a cold coming on. "I guess I should go and clean up," he said to himself.

Len stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. "I look like a piece of shit," he sighed.

"You ARE a piece of shit. After what you did to Rin-chan? Deplorable," his reflection said.

"You know what? Just shut up," Len snapped.

"Looks like someone is on their man-period," his reflection said.

Len shook his head. He was obviously losing it if his own reflection even thought what he had done was wrong.

Len stood under the stream of warm water coming out of the shower for what seemed like hours. The walls were especially thin between his bathroom and the next apartment over, so he wanted to see if he could hear what Rin-chan was doing. Throughout the day he had heard clattering, as if she was moving things, and right now it sounded like she was on the phone. He couldn't make out what she was saying, but she sounded happy.

Len took a long shower, and didn't get out until the hot water started to turn cold. Just as he was getting out of the shower, he heard a knock on the door. At first he thought it was the apartment landlord coming to tell him to stop using up all of the hot water, but then he heard a familiar "Len-kun."

Len froze. He wasn't ready to face Rin-chan yet. He didn't want to answer the door, but he knew he'd be seeing her at school tomorrow. It was either do it now and get it over with or pretend to be asleep and not answer the door. Len chose the latter.