The Dreams

Chapter Eight

Hibiki would be coming over any minute now. Rina was ready. Since they had been on a few more dates she had finally started to relax a bit. After the second date she had stopped stressing about the clothes she wore. Now she had stopped worrying about thinking up fun and exciting things to do with him. Being with him was enough, and she thought the feeling was mutual.

Tonight they were studying together. Corine told her that was a lame date idea, but Corine did not like studying, and, well, she and Hibiki both took their academic careers very seriously and they could see each other more if they studied together rather than separately. Tonight they were staying in her room and studying, and in her opinion it was just perfect.

As long as she stayed positive she knew she had nothing to worry about. She had cleaned her room so she had no fear of humiliation by way of her housekeeping skills. She focused as much as she could on making this place as guest ready as possible. If she worried about being a good hostess then she did not have time to worry about the possible implications associated with inviting a boy she had been seeing fairly regularly into her room.

Her entire home at this point was a bedroom, but the invitation to her bedroom was still there and she knew it. She did not want to be nervous about such things. She wanted to believe that she had no reason to be nervous about these things with Hibiki, but she was not a stupid girl, and she knew that even the nicest people she seemed to sync up with the most could still at times misinterpret her motivations. Allowing her mind to accept this fact, even giving herself a chance to confront such a notion was enough to set her into a spiral of panic. She knew she had to keep busy. Without time to think much she would not have time to come up with excuses to worry.

She tidied and straightened up until the moment her phone buzzed on her desk. Quickly, she checked her text messages. Perfect. Hibiki was just on time. She hurried out to let him into the building.

He had never been inside her dorm before. All of their dates prior to this one took place else where. Hibiki came to pick her up and Rina exited the building and off they went. Now he finally got to come inside.

Spending too much time in the hallway outside her room seemed like a bad idea to Rina. Usually nothing too strange happened in this building, but knowing her luck today would be the day someone decided to get sloppy drunk in the hallway. It had happened on other floors before, but so far the rooms around her had been spared from any such incident. At this point they were probably over due for some chaos.

Overall her floor of the building was a quiet one. She had the only single room, but the other rooms all had girls that kept reasonable hours and got along just fine with their room mates so things tended to be quiet and peaceful.

"Here's my room," she announced before cringing at how lame the statement sounded.

She opened the door and allowed Hibiki to enter ahead of her. As he took in the room she watched him for signs of disapproval or disgust. So far he seemed to be completely content, but she could not stop herself from worrying.

"Um. I don't have a lot of spare seating options, so you can take the desk chair and I'll sit on the bed if that's okay with you."

"Sounds perfect," he replied.

He crossed the room and sat down at her desk with ease that made Rina believe he could not possibly be feeling even the least bit nervous about being in her room. She tried her best to emulate his cool demeanor as she crossed the room herself.

"So what do you have to work on today?" she asked.

He pulled a notebook and a thick textbook out of his bag and sat them on her desk. From her seat on the bed she could not see the title of the book.