Author's Comments: Another old short of mine imported from ASuki. Whoo!
Tagline: In her life, Tohsaka Rin only loved two men.
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The first man Tohsaka Rin loved was a man who, in her opinion, was one of the greatest magi to ever live. He followed the code and supported his ideals right until the very end; touched by him as a child, she chased desperately after his shadow until she was seventeen, tried her hardest to follow in his footsteps and become the magus he had been, the magus he had trained her to be.
The first man Tohsaka Rin ever loved was her father, and she never got over him.
It was an innocent love, in the way of children; not the love of a woman to a man, not even the love of a girl to a boy. It was the love of a daughter to her father, the love of a child who idolized an adult. She had been young, and innocent, and at the time all she had known on that day was that he wouldn’t come back. And she had loved him anyway, even knowing that, even when she went up to her room, locked the door, and wept into her pillow for two hours, later resolving to never cry again because if he had been there, he would have scolded her.
When Rin was older, she learned of the flaws that came with the man she had loved. She learned that being a magus first, while it had suited him fine, was a poor fit for her personality and self; she learned that he had been a horrible, horrible judge of character, and cursed the fact that he had somewhat passed that flaw onto her.
But the greatest flaw of the man she had loved, the only true sin he had probably ever committed in his life, was lost to her until the night she saw it burned into her sister’s skin. The night she had spent at the Matou mansion, crying, covered in blood from her sister’s nails, trying her best to heal her sister’s pain and hold her close as she screamed and thrashed, was the night Rin learned that the man she had loved with all her heart was a man who had sentenced her sister to Hell.
She knew this now, at seventeen. Her father hadn’t been perfect; he hadn’t been the shining, white knight she had held up on a pedestal, the perfect magus she had chased after for as long as she could remember.
She loved him anyway. Even when morning came and she groggily opened her eyes, her sister whimpering in her sleep and snuggling even more tightly into her arms, she knew she still loved him. Yes, he had been a flawed man, he had committed many wrongs. She could never deny that.
But he had been her father, and she had loved him from childhood. To give up that love now was to cut out a piece of her heart and leaving it bleeding somewhere alone and cold.
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The second man Tohsaka Rin loved hadn’t even been a man when she met him; he was just a boy, a boy with a heart of gold and a stubborn streak that put her own to shame. He chased after his ideals full speed, never looking back. Sometimes Rin felt that even if she sprinted as fast as she could, she could never keep up with the boy, even if she poured all of her heart and soul into it.
The second man Tohsaka Rin ever loved was Emiya Shirou, and he was the man she would eventually die beside.
It started out as most romances did; a crush. Seeing the boy from a distance, admiring him, and then realizing he was in her school, which led to mild interaction. It wasn’t until the Holy Grail War that it shifted; that admiration deepened into friendship, and friendship eventually became true, honest love. She had seen the boy that was Shirou, had seen the man he could become that was Archer, and was shocked to realize that knowing this only made her love the boy more, even as she did her best during the War to save the man. In the end, the man was lost, and she was left with the boy.
Unlike her father, it didn’t take long for Rin to pick up on the fact that Shirou had one huge, glaring, obvious flaw beyond his mile wide stubborn streak: even after the War, he was simply far too nice for his own good. He may have accepted how impossible his ideals were, and had learned to value his own life because if hedidn’t, his girlfriend would beat him, but at his core, Shirou was still far too kind, and still had a bad tendency of valuing the life of others over his own. It was a flaw he would never be without, and to be honest, Rin had to admit that even when the flaw annoyed her to her last wit, it was still part of what she loved so much about the boy.
The same age as she was, Shirou was far from being the ideal lover, even when they had been together for some time. He was often rough when they were alone in bed, something she secretly enjoyed but always scolded him for; he hardly knew how to react, if he did at all, to times when she felt oddly affectionate towards him, either at his house or in school when they were alone. He still seemed to enjoy teasing her far too much for his own good, even when she found a way to return the favor.
And, if Rin was honest with herself, she knew that was part of the fun.
He wasn’t perfect; he was perhaps the one boy who suited her well, but certainly not the boy who suited her the best. Life with him would never be easy, or quick, or simple. Life with him would often be hard, sometimes very rough, and even more often it would be complicated and quite possibly painful. It was no secret that if Rin wanted, she could have a boy who had more of her mindset, who licked her very hand if she commanded it.
But if there was one thing Shirou had over every boy who had ever chased after her, it was that he knew her; not only the top student that the others saw in school. He knew the cold magus who tried so hard to suppress her heart, he knew the girl who he teasingly called ‘demon’ and enjoyed playing pranks on him, he knew the Master who had grieved for the death of her Servant even when the War had ended.
And he knew the girl who had come home to him that afternoon, pale and covered in blood, and had held her tightly in his arms, stroking her hair and whispering when she had collapsed into his chest, sobbing out her anger and frustration.
Loving Shirou would never be easy, but then again, Rin would have been very, very bored if life had been easy.
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“Would your father have liked me?”
He asks it one night, in the dark; she is snuggled on his chest, gently tracing small patterns on his skin as her hair spills around them both. They’re both still warm and a little sweaty from sex, covered only by the sheet of his futon; they both know tomorrow morning there will be trouble, since she’s never stayed the night before, and Taiga doesn’t know yet that they’re dating.
But he asked her to stay, softly and with gentle eyes, and she said yes.
Rin doesn’t even need to think about it. “He would have despised you,” she says with a soft laugh, shifting to look into his golden eyes. “You’re everything he always taught me to not be.”
Shirou snorts; there is no anger or sadness in the sound. He never knew Rin’s father personally, but he has seen the impact he had on the girl he loves, and he knows the man would have hated him.
“Nothing to say to that?”
“You just confirmed something I already knew.” He strokes her back lightly. “I guess I just wanted to hear it from you.”
Idiot, she muses affectionately, lightly pinching his chest and amused by his hiss. “For what it’s worth,” she says lightly, smiling, “I like you a lot.”
He laughs softly at that, his hand moving up to run through her hair, and Rin purrs and curls tighter against him, figuring that yes, there’s nothing wrong with staying this way for the rest of her life, if she somehow can.
“Just like?”
She smiles, and this time she nips lightly at his neck, thrilled by the soft gasp Shirou releases, the way he shudders at the sensation and holds her tighter.
“Don’t push it.”
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Originally Posted by Bird of Hermes
