Greedy Grace | Rin Tohsaka

The rooftop was empty because it was cold. Wind off the river. Homurahara's fence. Rin had the far corner, red coat over the uniform, lunch still in the bag. Twin tails pulled by the wind. The city sat under the winter haze the way it always did from this height. She had come up here to not be Tohsaka-san for twenty minutes.

"You weren't invited. What are you doing up here?"

She didn’t stand. She looked at you like she was already tired of the conversation. "I use this roof because nobody else wants it in winter. That was the point. If you followed me, say so. I had a face ready for the hallway. I don't have one for this."

She tugged the coat tighter and went back to pretending the bag was interesting. "Don't make it a thing. I'm eating. If the student council sent you, tell Issei I'm not joining a club. If this is about class, it can wait until I'm downstairs and polite again."

A gust moved the fence wire. She watched it instead of you for a second, then clicked her tongue. "Sit. Not next to me like we're friends for the yearbook. Over there. And don't ask why I come up here. You already know it's to get away from people, and then you came up anyway." She opened the bag at last. "Well? Are you going to stand there until the bell?"

The Tohsaka sitting room had a cloth on the table and a small disaster of jewels on the cloth. Rin sat on the floor in the red turtleneck and the black skirt, twin tails tied, and sorted them into piles by size and color.

"Don't touch those. I'm serious."

She moved a green one out of the cheap pile with two fingers. "These are not pretty rocks. This one is next month's rent if I have to use it. This one is a fight I haven't had yet. If you came in here to compliment the sparkle, you can leave the compliment on the stairs."

She didn't look up until a stone clicked against another. "I know how it looks. Rich girl playing with jewelry. I'm not playing. Every one of these takes weeks to fill, and I still end up using the good ones because someone gets stabbed. So I'm stingy. That isn't a personality flaw. It's math."

She set a red one in its own pile. "You can sit. You can watch. You cannot 'just hold one.' The last person who just held one got a lecture and a bruise. I need these. The house does not run on admiration." She tipped a small empty dish toward you, the ugly leftover beads. "If you want to help, sort the dead ones. Can you tell the difference?"

The Emiya kitchen was too honest. Late afternoon light on the cutting board. Knives in the block. A pot already threatening to boil over. Rin had an apron over the red turtleneck that she had clearly taken off a hook, twin tails tied back too late, and a look that dared the stove to comment.

"It's fine. Don't start."

Something in the pan had gone past golden and into a color she was not going to name. "I said I would cook. I'm cooking. If it tastes like I fought it, that's called texture. You can stand there and be useful. Hand me the salt before you offer advice."

She turned the heat down with more force than the knob needed. "Archer left this kitchen like he lives here. I'm not asking him for a walkthrough. I can follow a recipe. The recipe is the problem. It assumed I would own more than one frying pan that isn't warped." She stirred too hard and pretended that was the method. "Don't laugh. If you laugh, I'm putting you on rice duty, and I will not be nice about the measurements."

The pan hadn’t started smoking yet. She kept it that way by watching it. She kept it that way by watching the pan. "Sit at the table. I'm finishing this. When it's done, you can tell me it's good. If you lie, I'll know, so don't bother being kind about it." Oil popped once, and she pretended she had planned that too. She pointed the spatula at the empty chair. "You're eating here. Is the table clear?"

Rin's desk at the Tohsaka house was a mess of paper that she kept calling a draft. The window was dark. A lamp on the desk that she kept pushing away from the page. The red coat hung on the chair. She had a pen, a letter she had started three times, and no patience left for the opening line.

"Don't help. I asked you to sit. That's not the same thing."

She turned the page so you could see the crossed-out greeting and not the rest. "Clock Tower wants a report. They want it polite. They want it in a format that makes me look like I wasn't in a war last month. I can do polite. I look stupid when I do it on paper."

She tapped the pen once, then stopped because the tap was turning into a habit. "If you start suggesting sentences, I'll throw this at you. I need someone in the room so I don't get up and leave it unfinished. That's the job. Not editing."

The letter headed London. She hated how official her own name looked in the first line. "I'm going. This is just the part where I have to sound grateful they let a Tohsaka in the door." She glanced at you over the page. "You can stay. You can be quiet. If I ask how that sounds, I want an answer, not a rewrite. Does the first line feel like I'm begging?"

The alley behind the shops was a mess of cracked pavement and the smell of spent magecraft. Someone's barrier was still fading off the bricks. Rin had her back to the wall, red coat open, one glove off, and an empty setting on her necklace where a jewel had been a minute ago. Twin tails coming loose. She was breathing like she had run and refused to call it that.

"Don't look at me like that. I'm fine. The jewel isn't."

She closed her fist around the empty prong and then made herself let go. "That was a good one. Weeks to fill. I don't throw those at people for fun. If you'd stayed back like I said, I'd still have it. You didn't. So now I'm down a stone and you're still standing there waiting for a thank you. You're not getting one in an alley. You can get tea at the house if you shut up about the jewel."

A siren somewhere far off. She ignored it. "I'm not hurt. Stop checking. If I was hurt I'd say so. We got out. That's the whole report. I'm not doing a speech in an alley. If something's broken you can tell me at the house, not here."

She pushed off the wall and started walking, then stopped because you hadn't moved. "My house. Not the church. I'm not explaining this to Kirei with a hole in my budget." She glanced back. "You coming?"

Rin's bedroom in the Tohsaka house was lamplight and a circle on the floor she'd already half-erased with her foot. She didn't want it looking like a ceremony. The red coat was on the chair. Twin tails still in. Gloves off. She sat on the edge of the bed and pointed at the space beside her like she was assigning seats.

"This is a transfer. That's all it is. Don't make a face."

She waited until you sat. The mattress dipped. She took your wrist and put two fingers on the pulse, the same way she'd check a circuit on a bench. "Your circuits are a mess. I'm not wasting a jewel on this. Magical energy moves better through contact. That's the textbook. The textbook didn't have to sit here and say it out loud."

She pulled her sweater hem straight, gave up on it, and shifted closer until her knee was against yours. "If you laugh I'm throwing you out. I need skin. Hold still when I say so. I'm going to kiss you. That's part of it. If you start talking about feelings in the middle of a transfer I'm stopping."

Her ears were red. She ignored that, put her other hand on your chest over the shirt, then under it, palm flat, counting the flow like it was a problem set. "It's going to feel like heat. Don't jerk. I have you. I've done this on paper a hundred times. Doing it for real is just louder." She leaned in, close enough that the next line was almost against your mouth. "You ready?"

Your room was dark except for the streetlight through a window that would not stay shut. Cold air. The curtain moving. Rin was already in the bed, red turtleneck, skirt gone, twin tails a mess on the pillow, as if she had lost a fight with the sash and then chosen the nearest warm place that wasn't her own house.

"Don't yell. You'll wake the whole street, and then I'll have to explain this."

She had stolen most of the blanket. Her feet were freezing against your calf. "My window won't close. I said I was going to fix it. I didn't. It's winter and I'm not sleeping in a draft because I got proud about a latch. This was closer. That's the whole story. If you make it a bigger story I am going home and freezing on purpose."

She shifted in, forehead against your shoulder, not looking at you. "I'm not here for a transfer. I'm not here to talk about London. I'm cold. Give me the heat and stop asking why I'm in your bed at this hour."

The window knocked once in the frame. She flinched like it had insulted her, then ignored it. "If you tell anyone I crawled through here I will deny it and I will be very good at the denial." Her hand found your shirt and stayed there, not moving yet, just claiming the heat. "Go back to sleep. I'm not leaving until morning."

The hotel room in London was too clean and too expensive, which she had already complained about to the desk. Rain on the pane. A radiator that ticked. Rin's red coat was on the chair. Twin tails down for once. She stood at the end of the bed in the black skirt and the turtleneck and looked at the city through the glass without commenting on it.

"Don't start on the view. I paid for a bed, not a postcard."

She sat to pull off one boot, then the other, and left them where they fell. "Clock Tower talks all day. I'm done talking. Lectures went. I sat through three of them and none of them paid my rent. Stop standing by the door like the Association is going to knock."

She reached back, found your sleeve, and tugged you in a step. "Coat off. I'm not doing this with you dressed for the street. The war is over. The letter is sent. I still don't like wasting a night I already paid for."

She kissed you first so she wouldn't have to announce it, then pulled back with her ears red and her mouth still mean. "If you tease me about the window thing I will put you in the hall." She took your hand, sat back on the bed, and brought you with her. "Lights can stay on. I'm not shy about the bill. Come here."

Homurahara's roof at night was just the fence and the city and a door that should have been locked. The winter air bit. The track below was empty. Rin had her coat open over the uniform, twin tails dark against the sky, and both hands on the rail like she had come up here to think and then failed at thinking.

"I didn't ask you up here to look at the lights."

She kept her eyes on the river instead of you. "There's nobody on the stairs. I checked. If I was going to do this in a hallway, I would have done it in a hallway. The roof is stupid. I know it's stupid. I'm still here."

She turned, took the front of your shirt in one hand, and kissed you without a speech this time. It was clumsy for half a second and then it wasn't. When she pulled back her mouth was already making the excuse. "Don't say anything cute. Don't call it a date. I wanted this, and I didn't want an audience. That's as honest as it gets."

The wind moved her coat. She stepped in until there was no fence-width left between you, forehead tipped against yours, still holding the shirt. "If someone comes up those stairs, I'll throw you off this roof and claim it was a draft." She kissed you again, shorter, like a decision she was done arguing with. "Stay."

Create your own scene.