Through the Rain
By Jin (aiko@cephiro.com)
Feeback, pwease? ;_;
Kodomo no Omocha belongs to Miho Obana and Ribon Comics, 1999. Suing is futile.
rain is like tears:
unrelenting
until they're gone.
what did they hold to leave such a gaping hole
inside me?
how can you Shine
new light on everything?
Your light is the instigation of
the dawn at the end giving me
the entirety that I find in
Light, providing
what I need to walk
Through my life
to my death.
through the Rain.
It was raining, of course. What a perfect way to start the day.
Hayama Akito snorted and kicked a stone down the sidewalk, not caring that by leaving the shelter of the umbrella his leg got drenched. It was only water, and it would dry when he got to school. He put his right arm in his pocket and kept walking. The rain came down in buckets, leaving Akito able to discern only a short length of the walk in front of him. Things always seemed dreary in the morning…
Akito frowned up at the dark tormented sky, as if willing it to stop its angry downpour. Akito was never fond of rain, it reminded him too much of crying. And Akito hated crying, especially if he was the source of it… He hated the clenching in his gut, the pressure in his chest, and the hollow feeling afterwards. Akito cried sparingly, if at all in the last few years. Very few things were worth crying over in Akito's view… certainly not something like a scraped knee, like other people did. He cried once or twice when he was a child, but he soon learned that it wouldn't do him any good. No one was there to comfort or coddle him.
Maybe that was why he wanted so badly to be with Sana whenever she needed to cry. When he first met Sana, he thought she was just spoiled rich kid who thought the whole damn universe revolved around her. Yeah, he was jealous of her, although he never would have admitted it to anyone. She had a loving mother that was alive, a warm house to return to everyday, and a huge group of friends. She even had a "pimp", for Christ's sake. But… something about Sana drew him towards her. She always seemed to find light in any situation.
To everyone else, she was truly a girl with no worries. Sometimes, Akito would look up to see her sitting at her desk, surrounded by her friends, with that foreign melancholy look gracing her face, and he knew that they were wrong. He ended up finding more in common with her than he would have ever imagined. Whenever she cried, Akito felt like he was crying. Maybe it was because of Sana's way of projecting her emotions, in everything she did. When he tried to console her, he was fueled by the desperate need to end that horrible aching, for both she and him. Thinking about such things made him remember his past way of life, the past ways of his family…
Stopping at a crosswalk amongst the haze of the falling rain and car exhaust, Akito waited for the walk sign to change. He noted the water gushing down the curb; if it were to rain any longer the streets would be flooded. Groups of people were all around him--mostly other students and workers stubborn enough to brave the storm; joggers had wisely decided to stay home this morning. Girls giggled and complained about the rain, businessmen talked on their portable phones, boys laughed boisterously. The light changed from red to white, and the mass of people started forward. Akito waited a minute, watching the people passing him by. He never did enjoy walking with a crowd. No familiar faces. But wasn't that reminiscent of his life in general? Was, he stressed. Replacing his hand in his jacket pocket, he approached the curb and the small river of water. He still managed to get his ankles wet despite his careful avoidance of the rush of rainwater. He walked on.
Akito nearly jumped out of his skin when a sudden weight hit his umbrella, causing him to nearly drop it. Water cascaded down from every side of his umbrella, making it seem as if he was encased by it. The downpour stopped as soon as it began, and he heard a feminine voice cry out above him.
"Ah, I'm so sorry! I didn't see you! Sorry!"
Akito took a quick glance up at an old woman hanging out of a second story window holding a now empty bucket.
"Sorry!" She repeated, placating.
Scowling, the boy looked forward and resumed walking. Damn people…
He hadn't gone more than three steps when somebody knocked into his back with great velocity. Not at all expecting it Hayama fell forward, but slammed a hand in front of him to prevent himself from landing flat on his face. His umbrella rolled a few feet away from him. Now he was pissed off.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Akito yelled; he turned to face the idiot who had run into him.
"Eh? Hayama!" Akito stared into deep brown eyes the same shade of his own.
The rain made it hard to discern her. She sat on the slick sidewalk, rubbing her head with one hand, the other supporting her weight. Her school uniform was completely sodden with rainwater, and her hair clung to her round face. Raising her sopping bangs from her eyes to peer at Akito closely, Sana grinned self-deprecatingly.
"Heh heh… I woke up late again."
"Ah."
"Rei-kun was sick."
"Ah."
"I forgot my umbrella."
"Ah."
"You sure have a hard back."
"…"
Akito brought himself to a crouching position and offered his hand to the girl, which she took willingly.
"Thanks, Hayama." Sana beamed. Akito looked sideways, avoiding her gaze. This action only caused Sana to smile wider.
"Um…" Sana spoke, suddenly sheepish, "Sorry…"
Akito looked at Sana, an inquisitive expression barely tracing his stoic features.
"You're all wet now…" Sana smiled meekly. Looking down, Hayama saw that indeed, his once white jacket had been stained an off gray from the assault of the heavy rain. It had taken less than a few seconds for the rain to soak him thorough and through.
"It's fine." Akito spoke carelessly over the roar of the rain, and picked up his umbrella, pulling Sana under it. "…This wouldn't make much of a difference, but…"
Sana blushed. "T-thanks…" she smiled.
Akito felt the hot blood stinging his cold cheeks. He quickly snapped his head away.
"Yeah."
Sana wiped the cascading water from her face and peered out from under the shelter of the large umbrella. "This is the first heavy rain we've had this year."
Akito made no comment, only stared ahead.
"Hey, they might even cancel school like last year! That'd be cool!"
"…" Akito said.
"Rain like this can be really troublesome, y'know? Pounding against the roof, making a bunch of noise, making a lot of people feel miserable… kind of like crying, I guess."
Akito's eyes darted over to the obliviously musing girl.
"But then, rain does have its good qualities, y'know? I mean, after it's all over, everything looks like new, and people are happier and refreshed. So I guess you can just think that it will be over eventually and have something to look forward to after it stops. Don't you think, Haya-" Sana froze, surprised, as Akito suddenly grabbed her and held her to him tightly.
"Hayama…?" Sana inquired gently. Akito's answer was to embrace her even more strongly. Sana smiled softly and returned the embrace, closing her eyes.
They stood like that for minutes, Akito embracing her with both arms, his hand still holding the umbrella over them at an angle from behind Sana's back, while Sana encircled him with her arms as well, dropping her book bag to the floor. The rain continued to pound down on the earth around them.
Sana never failed to amaze him. It was times like this, when he was feeling his worst and just wanted to be left alone, that she always managed to shine a new light on… everything.
Whenever Sana cried, he felt the same as she, as if he were crying too. But whenever she found a happier answer, and she smiled that amazing smile, he felt the same as she then- overjoyed, happy, alive. Her smile was the one thing to look forward to, throughout any rain or storm of hardships.
Slowly, Akito pulled back, letting his arms slide from Sana's shoulders.
"Sorry to… trouble you." Akito spoke quietly, barely audible over the rain.
Sana smiled, a teasing lilt in her tone. "You're welcome."
She took his hand and beamed. "Well, now we're going to be late!" she spoke lightly, pulling him forward with her.
Akito gazed at her smiling face as they ran through the rain.
Her smile was what he looked forward to, what he used as fuel to live through his life. Through the rain.
Thank you, Sana.
O wa ri~!