Rin Hamada smells distinctly of cinnamon, musk, and pine. And I can tell because my face is currently buried in his neck. 

Few things in life are truly perfect. The snowflake that falls into your palm. The mist over a park in the early morning. That moment when you win a game of UNO with a plus 4 card so you cause pain even in your exit. But my friendship with Rin is perfect.

Take this morning for example:

By 8:10 I was walking into Emmett High School, saying hi to the people that partnered up with me for projects and wished me happy birthday on Facebook. At 8:15, I got to Rin’s locker and found him there, waiting for me because he always gets to school before I do. His parents are too strict and he’s too much of a do-gooder to ever chance it.

I saw Rin first. He had on blue jeans, a white t-shirt, and a muted brown plaid shirt thrown over top. An outfit exclusive to “boys next door” like him. His black hair was parted down the center, slightly curled as it fell over his brows.

Then he turned and caught my eye and his full mouth opened into the widest of smiles.

Both of us had convenient glow ups right before freshman year, but Rin’s was just a bit more glowy. Half the time, I found some girl waiting around to try to talk to him. 

Like the straggler I saw today, clutching one backpack strap tightly as she flirted. But as soon as I came, their conversation stopped. Because Rin is my best friend, he knew that our friendship mattered more than random girls. And we both agreed that relationships are a waste of time.

“Why should I waste my time paying for boring dates and showing off a girl I’ll forget in five years?” was my go to explanation for why I wasn’t dating. And Rin always nodded along because he agreed. Because we’re best friends.

With a couple more words, the girl was on her way just in time for Rin to throw his arm around me. I was dragged into his body, face shoved into his neck, while he gave me a noogie.

Luckily, my curly hair could handle the disturbance. Rin always told me I was lucky to have it. It was thick brown curls that I never put product into. Hair that always flopped out of my way when I was doing homework. I got the sides and back of my head shaved so it was just the bundle of curls up top. He said my hair was trendy, a real girl magnet for when I eventually wanted to find one.

I’d grabbed Rin’s far shoulder so I didn’t trip when he pulled me in and could feel his muscles rippling under my touch. I always wondered how he’d gotten so toned when he never joined a school sport but he never revealed his secrets. Rin’s efforts to mess up my hair, efforts that always failed, slowed and I got another deep inhale of his scent. 

Rin always smelled good in the mornings. The same way he always got here before me and always shooed off new girls trying to flirt the second he saw me. Some things just worked and the two of us worked.

Like how it worked for me to not fully inhale again until he let go of me. I always get a little tingly when I get close to him like this. It was the natural chemistry that came with being best friends. So not breathing in a lot was for the best.

Rin released me with a laugh, his straight white teeth blinding me with their shine. I wondered if any of his nearby admirers saw it too. It felt like the entire bustling hallway halted for a moment, eager to get a look.

“You look terrible, Elly,” my best friend, the asshole, grinned. 

His dark brown eyes looked black most of the time and those eyes were trailing me up and down. I bit the inside of my cheek, trying not to tug at my shirt. I was all too aware of the fact that my eye bags were so dark they’d turned plaid. 

I was aware of everything about my appearance when someone pointed it out and then looked me up and down. 

“Spent too long playing Fortnite?”

I shot Rin a glare, crossing my arms just in case my shirt had a stain on it. With how fast I’d gotten ready this morning, it was a real possibility.

“It’s insulting you thought I still played that covid game,” I scoffed. When Rin didn’t stop staring at me, narrowing his eyes the way only best friends did, I caved. “It was Apex Legends.”

“Same game, different fonts.” 

And coming in to interrupt our moment of perfect was Stephanie Huarez. The demon, the witch, the evil temptress. The- 

“Hey babe,” Rin smiled, bending down to give the beautiful sorceress a kiss. Because, against my every living desire,  Stephanie Huarez was–

Dun Dun Dun!

Rin’s girlfriend.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that,” I bit out, hoping she thought the tight set of my mouth was because of her gaming opinions. Not because her dainty hands were sliding down Rin’s chest. 

My friendship with Rin was perfect. Right up until the day 1 month and three weeks ago when he told me that he kissed Stephanie Huarez. I knew that  they’d only been together for 1 month and 3 weeks because I marked the date on my calendar as soon as he told me. 

Stephanie was short and petite. She had an hourglass body, an award winning smile, and glossy black hair that fell past her ass. It was no wonder she became Rin’s first girlfriend, despite swearing that he never cared about relationships before.

She’s the reason why Rin went from coming by my place every night to only half of those nights. She’s the reason why, instead of studying at the ice cream shop while I worked so I wouldn’t be alone, he’d be out doing couple-y things. She’s the reason why, any time we hung out with Tyler and Coby, the four of us were forced to talk about Stephanie. What she was doing, what she liked, what she didn’t like. And what she loved about Rin.

But she doesn’t know Rin like I do. 

I’ve spent most of my life knowing that Rin, the chillest guy in the whole world, lived exactly 2 blocks away from me. It was too easy for him to become my best friend. Rin brought me the worms I ate on the playground. My parents didn’t care if things weren’t PG-13 so I always got my hands on the video games that Rin and I played during middle school homeroom. And now, on the days we weren’t just going to walk to school and back, Rin had a car and drove us anywhere we needed to go.

We didn’t need Stephanie Huarez to come in and mess everything up. The only reason why I didn’t tell Rin that obvious fact right at that second is because I’m a good friend. Good friends don’t make you feel terrible about dating perfectly decent people. 

Good friends, the type that know their friends as well as I know Rin, know that they don’t need to do that. Before they even hit 2 months, Rin will realize why relationships aren’t worth all the trouble. He’ll get bored and she’ll get jealous or the reverse because Stephanie is really pretty and they’ll break up. Then peace will be restored. The peace of not having to watch them awkwardly flirt at 8:20 in the morning. 

So I will suck it up. Even if his girlfriend doesn’t know that Fortnite and Apex are not the same thing.

“Babe, Fortnite and Apex are not the same thing,” Rin sighed because best friends also read each other's minds. But while I was genuinely irritated by her joke, he looked charmed. Like Stephanie’s lack of video game knowledge was charming. 

If I didn’t know that, Rin would have ranted at me for an hour about it until I agreed with him. When you’re that close to somebody, you don’t have to pretend. Like Rin was pretending to be smitten right now.

“And if I told you Downton Abbey and Bridgerton weren't the same, you’d be pulling your hair out,” she rebutted. I couldn’t help giving Stephanie a high five, which she returned with a cute giggle that people only mastered on TV. I’d never watched those shows but could appreciate the analogy.

“ . . . because they’re the same.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes and then, to my surprise, dragged Rin down into a kiss. 

I’ve experienced plenty of this, them kissing right in front of me. Then making out right in front of me. Rin even palming what I agreed was a great ass right in front of me. For some reason, I always watched the whole thing. Porn makes the whole thing seem far more passionate but in real life, Stephanie and Rin look like they’re just trying to suck holes out of each other’s faces.

“Can you guys get a room?” I joked (not really), making them laugh like they didn’t take me seriously. “Like actually. Some of these kids are barely 14.”

At the perfect moment, a niner walked by, their schedule printed out on a paper like it wasn’t already the second half of the year. Rin saw them too and his body nearly folded over with how hard he laughed. It lit up his whole face and made him look way happier than he did when he was kissing Stephanie Huarez.

Rin shrugged out his watch, a move only he and 45-year-old men could pull off, and cursed.

“We gotta go. I’m going to drop Stephanie off at her class and if we wait any longer, I’m going to be late to my class,” he explained, his frazzled expression not matching the concept of being 5 minutes late for a class that doesn’t mark tardies. “I’ll see you later, Elly.”

Later meant in 10 minutes when he walked into English class perfectly on time. But Stephanie was already dragging Rin away so I just said “later.” It was like watching a lamb get taken by a wolf. Or Ariel when she foolishly signed off her voice to a monster who was clearly evil-looking.

Except Stephanie had dragged Rin out of our perfect existence with kindness and a well-rounded personality.

I trudged the opposite way down the hall. Saying hi to Facebook mutuals suddenly lost its luster. My routine felt boring when I didn’t have Rin around to do it with. But tucking away my sadness, I clung to the good news.

Soon this would all be over. Soon I’d get my best friend back.