My Classmate is a Witch

One of the girls at my college is a witch. I would overhear small talk sometimes on what sorts of things she did with her magic, but I never heard her name or what she was like. She was simply the nice witch who did small favors for other people. Every other evening after my last class, I would catch her flying home on her tiny old broom, sometimes talking with her little snake friend. Although it was strange for her to talk to a snake, she always seemed rather lively each evening as I stood alone waiting for the bus to come. I was always a little jealous of people with magical powers; it must be nice to fly around on a broom instead of walking all the time. I've always wondered what it was like to fly, but I never really got a chance to ask any witch for a ride without sounding intrusive, mainly because I didn't know anyone who was a witch on a personal level. As each evening passed with her soaring high in the sky, I found myself more interested in learning more about her — I wanted to at least know her name or what year she was in. I wanted to know what her snake's name was or what her major was. However, she always looked like she was busy or in a rush to return home, so I never bothered to catch her attention whenever she soared past me. Ah, well, whatever. She's probably been bothered enough by people pestering her all the time about mundane questions like "what kind of stuff can you do with magic" or "can you show me some magic".

On a snowy, winter evening, I was waiting for the bus to arrive with a cold can of coffee in my hand. It was going to suck having to cram for finals, but winter break would finally be around the corner at least. Then, I'd have to plan out classes for the spring semester and deal with my advisor ... ugh, just thinking about it all gave me a headache. I placed the coffee onto the frost-covered bench and warmed my cold, numb hands with my breath. The bus was always late and it was times like this where I wished I could just teleport home and not have to deal with the cold. As I was left to think about classes all by myself in the winter chill, I heard a loud bang come from above the light post next to me. I looked up and saw the witch girl crashing right down toward me. Out of pure instinct, I hastily reached out and caught her in my arms. I almost fell over due to the impact of catching her, but I managed to maintain my balance. Once the second of adrenaline passed me, I realized how small she was — I thought she only appeared so small because she was so high in the sky, but all this time she had just been a small person. She made soft little groaning noises as she rubbed her red, bumpy forehead — I guessed the heavy snowfall obscured her vision and made her ram into the light post. The only words I would muster with my slowly processing brain were, "Um ... are you okay?"

When I finished my sentence, the girl blinked in surprise and looked directly into my eyes. Then, she panicked with heavily flushed cheeks. "U-Uh, yeah! I'm fine so you can put me down--" she stammered, quickly turning her head away from me. So, I put her down onto her tiny feet and watched her pick up her broom from off the snow-covered sidewalk. As she brushed the snow off from her broom, I picked up my coffee and took a sip. The girl had short fluffy hair, wore big glasses, and had a huge, poofy coat on. She looked like a cute little marshmallow.

"I ... um ... thank you," the girl quietly murmured, hugging her now-battered broom in her small arms.

"It's no problem. It's snowing hard, so maybe you should just take a bus home before you get another bump on your forehead," I said before taking another sip of my coffee. I felt her gaze on me as I gulped the coffee down; it felt sort of awkward, but I figured I'd have some fun with it. I asked with a playful grin, "Is watching me drink that interesting?"

"No! I was just thinking ..." the girl trailed off for a moment and then reached her right hand toward my can, "give me your drink for a second."

I gave an obviously puzzled look at her unexpected command. I blurted out, "Um ... you want a sip?"

"N-No! Just give me it," she said with a flustered look. I laughed at how surprisingly cute this witch was and handed her the drink as she requested. Suddenly, steam started to escape from the mouth of the can and the fragrance of coffee drifted toward my nose. The girl smiled and handed me the drink back, making sure I didn't burn my hands on it. My numb hands started to gain feeling again from the nice warmth of the can. The girl explained to me, "It's as thanks," but it looked like she had more to say. I was quiet to let her talk, but she wasn't saying anything. Before I could ask her what was thinking about, she immediately burst out, "U-Uh! My pet snake is starving so I gotta go now— have fun with your drink!"

The girl let go of her broom and the broom tilted itself horizontally. As it levitated in the air, she lept onto her broom and just before she could take off, I grabbed her by the wrist. I wasn't really thinking about what I was doing since I wanted her attention, but a second later I realized how rude it was to suddenly grab her. I awkwardly asked her, "Before you go ... is it alright if I know your name?"

"Oh, um ... it's Rin," she replied, not making eye contact with me.

"I'm Kamui. Maybe tomorrow ... we can talk again?"

"... S-Sure," she answered with a sheepish nod. I let go of Rin's wrist and watched as she soared off into the snow-falling sky. Once she was out of sight, I looked back at my warm drink and took another sip.

It tasted way better warm.

The following evening I waited at my usual bus stop with another cold coffee in my hand, this time to keep me awake to finish an essay due on midnight. I sighed and watched my warm breath dissipated into the cold air. By now, Rin would have passed right by me — maybe I was too pushy yesterday and she decided to stop taking this route home anymore to avoid me. A part of me yelled at myself for being so rude, but another part of me wondered why I cared if she would ever come back. It wasn't like we were on friend terms or anything, after all. Before I could rest my drink on the bench behind me to warm my hands up with my breath, I heard a small voice call out to me, "U-Um ... good evening." I looked over my shoulder and found Rin hovering behind me on her broom. This time, she had her little snake friend coiled around her neck and shoulder. It looked at me with curious eyes and I looked back at it as it hissed gently. Then, I noticed Rin's gaze fixed on my cold drink and I couldn't help but laugh when I realized her intention.

"You know, heating up my drinks isn't the only way to talk to me," I informed her, swirling the drink in the can.

"W-Well--! I hardly know you, so I don't know what to say," Rin said, her flushed expression easy to read. The snake looked at her with a rather dumbfounded look as if it heard her reasoning.

"Then why not start with asking stuff about me, goof," I replied with a grin. Rin climbed down from her broom and gave a silent nod.

That evening under the gentle snowfall, we spent a lot of time asking each other questions and getting to know one another. Oddly during that moment, I wished that my bus would never come so I could keep talking to Rin. Although she seemed extremely shy, she also had a sort of feisty, angry side to her whenever I poked at her through my jokes. It was adorable watching such a tiny person become the embodiment of flustered anger; I didn't expect her to be so expressive to me in such a short amount of time. A couple days passed and eventually, it was exam week. After the last day of exams, I realized that with winter break coming and a new semester starting, it meant potentially never seeing Rin again. Well ... I only knew her for a week or two so I knew I shouldn't be as disappointed as I was, but I didn't want it to be the end of our small friendship. So when she stopped by to talk to me, I asked Rin something in the lines of, "we should exchange phone numbers," and to my surprised she agreed. That night, I laid in bed staring at my phone's contacts list. Would it be weird to send her something the same night I got her number? What should I send her? Something funny or something normal? What type of message would she like to receive? Why did I care so much ... ?

As I thought, I didn't know her as much as I wanted to and so I procrastinated on sending her a message. In some ways, I wished she would be the first to send a message, but she never did.

The following semester, I found her again in my chemistry class. We made direct eye contact with each other the moment she entered the bustling lecture hall. She stood at the front of the crowded room, looking around frantically; she was obviously nervous and lost with the amount of people flowing through the aisles and rows of seats. I felt out of place to help her, but I reached to the seat beside me and tapped on it, beckoning her to sit next to me. Like a lost duckling, she waddled over and took the seat. I wanted to talk to her and apologize for not sending her anything, but the professor immediately started the lesson. So, we sat together without saying a word that day. It was the next day where we both were able to talk to each other again — we were asked to work on a small discussion in groups of four.

"I'm Zeph and this is Eli. Wanna work together," the short-haired girl who sat in front of us asked with a wide grin. She pointed toward the taller, lankier guy who was a complete fashion disaster. As Zeph and Eli talked about anything but the discussion topic, I caught a glance at Rin who looked like she had something to say to me in particular. Once Zeph and Eli had left after class ended, I wanted to apologize to Rin for not contacting her during winter break, but instead she was the first to say something. "I'm sorry for not sending you anything during break ... I-I ... um ... I dropped and broke my phone," Rin murmured in complete embarrassment. I blinked in bewilderment and then erupted in laughter. It turned out that Rin had gotten so flustered over getting my number that she (or her snake, rather) dropped her phone while she was flying on her broom and broke the screen entirely. I didn't expect her to have such a clumsy side to her, but I found it extremely cute. Then again, this was the girl I met because she had rammed right into a pole.

As time passed, I got to learn more about Rin than I would have from just our bus stop conversations. I learned that flying on a broom and heating drinks weren't the only things she could do; it caught me off guard all of the time whenever she used her magic, but I always thought it was amazing at what things she could do. Sometimes when the heater wouldn't work in the classroom, Rin would use some magic to pop power back into it (people usually thought the heater was just picky, but I knew from Rin's concentrated looks that she was the one fixing it); when the vending machine refused to spit out the drink I paid for, Rin would take the initiative and make the machine pop the drink right out. However, she was always very negative and modest with herself. Once Zeph and Eli met Thomas, the amount of people in our little group became uneven and meant one of us had to work alone in group projects. Oftentimes, Rin would insist that she would join another group, but I wandered off into joining whatever group she was in anyways. Although she acted angry toward me for following her around all the time, I knew from the look on her face that she was relieved to have someone she knew in her group. Also from what I could tell, a lot of people tried to take advantage of her because she was a witch.

"Why are you cleaning up Yura's mess by yourself? Where's Yura and Gaven," I asked Rin one day, catching her cleaning up the chemical spills and beakers from our table. I had left the classroom for one moment to take a phone call, but I didn't expect to come back to Rin slaving away. As if caught red-handed, she gave a rather awkward smile to me.

"Um ... well ... I can use magic to clean it up, so it's no big deal, really," Rin responded as the reactant floated off of the floor and into the sink attached to the lab table, "It's just more convenient this way—"

"It's Yura's damn mess, so Yura can clean it herself. It wasn't our fault she was running around like an idiot with chemicals in her arms," I scoffed. It was true. Yura was always messing around and oftentimes pushed the work onto us because she was 'too busy' with other classes to do her own part of the presentations. However, I think at that moment my focus was too pointed on my annoyance with Yura rather than my concern for Rin. We were silent for a moment and I saw the conflicting emotions of guilt and relief through Rin's expression. I shouldn't have yelled at her, but it just sort of came out ... for a while now, Rin had been so passive to pressure; it made me wonder how long she had been allowing herself to be pushed around from other people. I rubbed the back of my neck and sighed, grabbing some of the used beakers to wash.

"I'll help you clean up, but next time tell me if they bully you and I'll tell Yura to fuck off," I huffed and then I paused. Well, that wasn't a good way of comforting her ... so I tried to put my emotions into better words. Once I found the right words, I assured to her, "You know ... you don't have to be afraid to rely on me. I'm always here to help."

Rin rubbed her cheek and nodded. She seemed to have a lot on her mind. "... Everyone always asks me to do favors for them because I'm a witch and everything is easier with magic apparently ... but I was wondering ... er ... even though we've known each other for a long while now, why you haven't asked me once for anything involving magic ... even when it's something small like heating up your drink like last semester," Rin muttered quietly. I thought about what she said for a moment; I didn't even notice it, but it was true that I had never asked her once for a favor involving magic. She had always been the one to initiate magic-related favors for me and in a lot of ways she had always helped me through her generosity.

"I guess ... because I know that you are yourself. Like ... you can do whatever you want with your magic. If you wanna use magic, then that's fine, but only if you want to. You shouldn't use it for things that you don't want to do," I said, trying to find a proper way to convey my thoughts. From her following silence, I thought my message had been unclear, but Rin gave a small, slow nod in response a minute or two after. She simply said, "... Thank you," and that was the end of our conversation regarding that topic.

It was after that day when things started to pick up and become interesting. As I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom the following morning, I heard a small yelp come from my bedroom. I stopped brushing my teeth; the yelp was strange and obviously terrifying since I lived alone. I wondered if someone had broken into my apartment, but the uncertain-sounding yelp make me wonder if the said intruder had broke in on accident. I took a peek into my bedroom to see who it was and saw an equally surprised Rin sitting on my bed in her pajamas. Her glasses her barely on her face and her bed hair was ... messy, fluffy, and cute. We stared at each other for a long moment before Rin suddenly yelled, "S-Sorry! I'll go home right away—" and burst out of my apartment in complete embarrassment. We didn't have chemistry that day, so I never got to ask how Rin was able to break into my apartment, let alone know how she knew where my apartment was. I sent her a text asking her what had happened, but no response followed.

On the night of the next day, I had just come out from the shower. As I dried my hair off with a towel, I suddenly felt a gaze on me. At first I thought it was just my imagination, but then I heard the sound of the shower curtain opening. I opened my eyes and saw Rin through the reflection of the mirror in front of us. I blinked in surprise; there was no way she had been there the entire time. I mean, I had just come out from there. I turned around and watched as she immediately whipped her head away from me. I looked down at my wet, bare chest.

"Ah, wanted to see me naked, didn't you," I teased with a big grin.

"The last thing I want to see is your chest," Rin exclaimed, her cheeks as red as a tomato.

Since it was late, I decided to walk her back to her own home since it wasn't too far from where I lived. She explained to me that she unwillingly keeps teleporting to my home and claims that she doesn't know the reason as to why. I wanted to ask her if she had any guesses as to what could trigger her teleportation magic, but she scurried into her home and wished me goodnight. When I got home, I tried to look up on Google on cases of witches teleporting, but nothing came up through searches except for articles laughing about how such a thing would not be possible (something about how it wouldn't make sense how matter could suddenly disappear and reappear). The next chemistry class, Rin didn't show up. I was a little worried, especially since she had suddenly texted me that she was sick. Since she wasn't present, I was able to be in Zeph's group for once and I asked them their own opinions on what was happening.

"How dense are you? She's teleporting to you because she loves you that much," Zeph answered, sarcastically rolling her eyes as if the answer was obvious. My look of doubt made Eli hold back laughter and Thomas raise a rather pitiful eyebrow raise.

"Moomoo, I thought you and Rin were dating this entire time, but you didn't even know? I didn't think you were that dense," Eli teased, laughing so loud that some of the other groups were starting to look at us weird. I looked between Zeph and Thomas: Zeph was trying to hold back her laughter and Thomas just sighed in heavy disappointment. I felt extremely dumb and confused for the rest of the class period.

The same evening, I laid on my bed with lots of thoughts and emotions about Rin spiraling down my mind. I was sure they were just making fun of me, but there was no way that Rin liked me in that way ... I mean, it was true I flirted with her all the time and she bickered to me in ways that she didn't with others, but I didn't think it meant we were lovers — I wasn't even sure if I liked her that way either. I covered my eyes with the back of my arm and thought to myself for a while. My life had been dull for the longest time; I often found myself wondering why I was bothering with college and what I would ever do in the future. College was stressful and because of my terrible track record of behavior and grades in high school, no one had expectations for me to at least become a functioning member of society. I think at some point I gave up on myself seeing everyone else give up on me. Nothing sounded promising, yet ... every time I saw Rin fly past me on her broom while I waited those winter evenings for the bus, it gave me a spark of hope and wonder that there were still things that felt impossible, yet could be possible. Logically ... there's no way a broom could fly or support the weight of a person, yet Rin the witch could make it happen. I felt like I could do anything when I watched her soar past me every night. In fact, my life became so colorful once she entered my life and I enjoyed every moment I spent with her ... I felt a strange feeling in my chest.

"U-Uh," I heard a familiar voice meekly call out. I removed my arm from my eyes and saw Rin leaning over me, her face close to mine. She quickly sat up and looked away from me. "I-I'll leave now— I'm sorry for bothering you all the time ... h-haha ... it must be annoying that I keep barging in all the time, isn't it?"

Before she could leave my side, I wrapped my arms around her so she couldn't escape. I didn't want her to leave — not when I finally figured everything out. I said to her, "... Zeph and them said that you've been teleporting to me because you love me ... I know they were joking, but ... is that true?"

I felt Rin trying to push herself away from my grasp. She stammered, "W-Well, um— I—"

"I hope that's true. I really hope so," I blurted out. As soon as I said that, she stopped resisting.

"H-Hahaha ... w-why do you say that? Are you gonna make fun of me if I say it's true," Rin said, her voice wavering in fear. I tightened my embrace around her. I wanted her to know.

"No, because I think ... I love you too. If it were anyone else, I'd of course be annoyed they're barging into my room all the time, especially if I'm half-naked but ... since it's you, I don't mind. I mean ... I kind of like it since it means I can see you. I get an excuse to talk to you again," I admitted. I felt a small grip around my back.

"I'm sorry ... I-I can't help it ... whenever I think about you, I ... start thinking about how I wanna see you again, and then ... w-well, I just find myself next to you," Rin tried to explain. Before she could ramble on, I kissed her on the forehead to silence her. I didn't want her to apologize; in fact, I wanted to thank her for coming to visit. Rin had been nothing but a blessing to me, even though I had not realized it at first. When I took a moment to process her following shocked expression, I realized that I probably shouldn't have been so bold.

"Ah, um ... sorry ..." I muttered, instinctively covering my lips with the back of my hand. I was expecting her to yell at me or whack me, but nothing like that happened.

"N-No, it's fine ... I mean ... I didn't hate it," Rin mumbled quietly, her hands touching the place where I had kissed her gently.

"Then ... would you mind if I kissed you again," I asked her. I felt my face become a little warm.

"... G-Go ahead," she whispered, closing her eyes. Rin slowly removed her fingers from her forehead and held her breath, as if bracing herself. She was so cute; I loved her. I kissed her again. It felt ... really nice. I kissed her again, this time on the cheek ... and then again on her lips. Every time my lips touched her, my heart skipped a beat and begged for more — all my head could think of was how much I loved her and how stupid I was for not realizing it earlier. As I kept kissing her, I felt her hands slowly reach and interlock with mine. Right then and there, I wished I could keep kissing her forever. I wanted to shower her in kisses until I could show her how much I appreciated and loved her.