…Covered in Rain
Written by: Ciuline Ihmenjo
Card Captor Sakura does not belong to me. The characters in Card Captor Sakura do not belong to me. CLAMP owns CCS. Besides, even if you do try and sue me, I have no money.
Little words…
This is what happens when you write something that doesn't really beg for continuation in your own mind but does that sort of begging in the minds of everyone else. So, I just decided to write this mostly because I'm having issues with linking Fallen 23 together correctly.
o()o A Crying Rain o()o
It had been nearly two months since she arrived on my doorstep. Two months had passed since she dragged her satin-clad body into my living room. Of course, by now, both Syaoran and Sakura knew that she was living with me. It was even more fortunate that her family had allowed her to stay in Japan. I think they realized that she might have finally discovered the solace that she needed. Perhaps it was only that this house offered her stability that she just did not have in China.
In two months, nearly all signs of physical trauma had disappeared. The bruises faded in the first two weeks. Her fractured wrist – from when he snatched her as she dashed out the door and away from his arms – had taken a bit longer to heal. Of course, no one had found out about it until she declined sparring with the gaki – she had a habit of wearing long sleeves. It took the combined efforts of him and Sakura to drag her to the hospital for a diagnosis. She only needed the basic ace bandage since her body had already began to heal, but she fretted and moaned every moment she had it on. She called it a weakness; I called it cute.
Her clothes and a few minor personal effects arrived in a small cardboard box. Her fiancée had burned most of her stuff when he found out that she had bolted. His lack of foresight and the act of frustration earned him a one-way ticket to a front row seat of the revenge of the Li clan. Last I heard, he was scrubbing down the outside of the mansion… with one of those travel toothbrushes and no safety line. Most of the important things had been hidden away at the mansion by the gaki's mother as a precaution for this sort of destructive behavior, so she was still able to retain her little treasures. But even that woman's influence had not been enough to spare the demon's wrath on its fiancée.
She had spent days at the computer, one of the portable telephones stationed by her arm until she found out that her little box was safe.
I didn't blame her at all, though she apologized profusely for worrying us all so much.
Strangely enough, as much as she warmed up to the rest of them, she seemed to warm even more to me. Perhaps it was because I had answered the door and invited her into the house. Even then, I found myself utterly confused as to why she decided to move into my room. I was even more dumbfounded when her family gave a startlingly quick approval to the arrangement. Sakura only shrugged and gave the tiny smile that said she knew more than she was letting on. The brat only shrugged alongside her. He attempted to explain the whole system that the Li family used to resolve disputes of this sort, but the whole process became lost on me when he was trying to explain the effects of talismans on certain decisions.
I wasn't particularly thrilled with the arrangement. Of course, I had allowed her to stay in my room, at first, if only to shove her out when she began to show signs of healing. Those signs were few and far between. She still shies slightly away when I touch her. So, what I though was originally only a brief stay turned into a much more extended one.
O o o o o O
Tonight I found her sitting on the window sill, moonlight shining down on her face. The wind rushed in from the outside, whipping her hair about her face. The storm front has just reached the area, and I had found myself racing the slow drizzle that usually accompanied these sorts of storms. She looked up at me and smiled, her usual pout transforming into the rare expression of a smile before my eyes.
"You're back early," she said softly. "I didn't expect you to return for some time."
"And you're lucky that you have a key to the house." I set my pack down on the bed and flopped down on beside the light object.
"In case you're wondering," she said, hopping down from her perch, "they went out for dinner with Tomoyo." Soft footsteps echoed through the room as she padded towards the futon beside the bed. A soft click and a general rise in temperature told me she had decided, rather thoughtfully, to shut the window. Her face appeared just above my own. The black threads fell onto my face, trying their best to block out the fluorescent lighting.
"Meaning they actually won't be attempting to suck the air out of each other's lungs." I rolled over and sat up as she plopped down next to me on the floor. Her response was a tiny little smirk that tugged at the edge of her mouth.
"It means that we have the house to ourselves." She began tying her hair back, fingers deftly maneuvering them into her traditional twin ponytails. "You don't have to be so sardonic about it." She rose and made her way to the door. "Should I make dinner for us?" she offered.
"I ate at work," I blurted out before thinking.
"Oh," she said softly and trudged towards the door.
Stupid! Stupid! Mentally, I kicked myself, rolling into a sitting position.
"I can just make something for myself, then." She had turned away from me looking absolutely crestfallen. Even her hair seemed to sag. Her trudge seemed to slow to the speed of a dying snail.
"Of course, that doesn't mean I'm still a little hungry," I called, albeit haltingly, to her back.
It was a dead lie. I had never considered myself a slouch when it came to cooking. Since I had gotten a part-time job at a waiter while attending classes at the university, I had made a deal with the manager to make some meals at the end of my shifts – with a slight cut in my pay – so as not to put as much a drain on my own budget at school having to pay for food at the cafeteria.
Her shoulders perked up at my words. She whirled, nearly tripping over her own two feet. "Hey, I'll make something great!" Energy and balance magically restored, she almost ran into the door on her way out. "You can count on me!" she called cheerfully before skidding down the hall.
I had been looking forward to a longer night. Classes and a job had the high tendency to seriously retard one's energy levels. At the moment, I wanted to do little more than attempt to create Lake Drool in my bed. I had, though, some semblance of compassion – though Sakura would tell you otherwise – that begged me to at least humor my roommate's sudden need to please my stomach.
Groggily, I sat up to the faint sound of a muffled curse and accompanied shifting of at least a dozen metallic bodies.
"Are you okay?" I called after stumbling to the door. She didn't answer.
I leapt out of bed, wondering if she had managed to rain metallic death onto her head. Skidding out of my room without a care for my safety, I dashed down the hall. I nearly stumbled down the stairs in my efforts to take them two at a time. When I finally lurched into the kitchen, I found her amidst a rough ring of pots and pans, dripping tears onto the upturned saucepan in her lap.
"I'm a failure," she muttered, trying to pick up the bits and pieces of scattered cookery.
"You're not," I said, stooping down to aid her in her task.
"That's what they all said." She sniffled. In actuality, it was more of a honk. Not one of those tinny little things, the sound had enough force to echo through the empty house. "I'm one of the few people born to the main family without a single hint of magical aptitude. I screwed things up with Syaoran, so the clan felt it necessary to find me another suitor. From there, I messed things up even more." She had stopped picking things up to clutch the saucepan to her chest. "Nothing ever works for me. I'm just this little black sheep that no one wants."
Outside the rain had begun to fall. Its eerie noise brought me back to the night she arrived here, battered and broken. Now, she had come extremely far from her state during those first few weeks.
"And if you keep thinking like that, you'll only ever amount to little more than nothing." I began to place the pans back in the cupboard over the stove. "You've done great while living here."
"You're not helping," she sniffled, softer this time. I might have had to repair damage to the foundation if she kept on with her previous sniffling.
"I'm telling it like it is," I said over my shoulder. "Besides, weren't you going to make dinner?"
"Oh!" She leapt to her feet, forgetting the saucepan in her hands. It slammed into the ground. At least, it would have, were her feet not in the way. She cried out, falling back to the ground to examine her toes, blowing cool air over them in an effort to dull the pain. She began muttering again in her intelligible Chinese. I had begun to pick up on things, most noticeably after Sakura had picked up the same habit, so I knew a few of the words emerging from her mouth. Overall, she was swearing. Under everything, she was hurting, and definitely not in a physical sense.
"I can make dinner, you know."
"You said you were hungry," she muttered through clenched teeth. "I'm not so inept that I can't make dinner."
I stooped down, scooping up the saucepan and the remaining lids that littered the floor. "Yes, but you don't seem to be having much luck with it." I stopped, trailing off with the last few syllables. No matter how many times I rolled the last phrase over in my brain, none of the outcomes came out in a positive manner.
The look she shot me was of pure misery. She stood abruptly and ran from the room, out the front door and into the rain. Wind howled through the now open portal. The door pounded against the wall and I could hear the drizzle of rain pattering through the front door.
"Meilin!" I shouted, dashing after her. I whizzed through the front door, grabbing the handle as I ran out. The door shut with a wet slap as I dashed to the front wall. I scanned the surroundings for any sign of her. She was halfway down the street, doubled-over and trying to bring herself back to her feet.
I rushed over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned, whipping around with fire blazing in her eyes. Her fists were clenched tighter only than her jaw.
"God damn you!" she shouted, hurling herself towards me.
"Stop, Meilin, please," I said softly, fending off her frenzied blows as water poured down around us.
"All of you! Damn all of you!" she shouted. Her feet shot out from under her again and I rushed forward to grab her. Unfortunately, she grabbed me and we toppled to the concrete. I found a way to wrap myself around her, turning slightly to cushion myself against the oncoming blow. I squeezed my eyes shut.
My shoulder slammed into the ground. The impact snapped my teeth together and sent a dizzying pattern of spots over my vision. Something that wasn't supposed to make popping noises did so to the accompaniment of a grating noise. Through all of this, I somehow managed to keep a grasp on her. I could feel her body pressed into my own.
When I opened my eyes, I was staring directly into her panic-stricken eyes. She was trying to hit me. For the amount of effort she was expending, she was getting nowhere – somehow I had pinned her arms to her sides in our mutual plummet. I felt her knee drive into my groin and a woosh of air leave my lungs, but still I clung to her. Eventually she began to calm down, her struggles ceasing until she fell limp in my grasp. Her head came to rest atop my own. Her breath came in ragged gasps.
"I think that dislocated my shoulder," I said with a wince.
"I hope it dislocated your brain," she snapped back over gulps of air.
I chose wisely to keep my mouth shut. Too many kicks to the shin by Sakura had taught me this lesson.
"I can't believe you," she cried out when she finally regained a normal breathing rate. "After everything I've been through, you turn out to be just as much of an insensitive prick as every single other guy. You god damned bastard!"
I winced, more from the shoulder than her words. "I'm afraid you've got the wrong guy."
This response only provoked a more furious response in her. Her arms wiggled loose from my grasp and I took a few neat hits across the skull and around my shoulders. Still, I clung to her until this fit ended and she collapsed onto me once more.
"Damn it!" she cried and began to sob. "I'm just going to screw this up. It'll be just like everything that's come before."
"Screw what up?" Reaching out with my uninjured side, I lifted her head to take a good look at her. Her eyes were welling up with tears. Rivulets of rain and sorrow ran down her face. In all, she looked exactly like she had two months ago. This time, she lacked the bruises, but she still appeared to hold the weight of the world on her shoulders. I stroked her hair gently. My fingers caught the tangled strands and moved them away from her face.
"This," she sobbed, "this… everything!" She buried her face into the crook of my neck and cried. Her chest heaved with every motion as we lay on the sidewalk, rain pelting away at our bodies. The storm inside her was reaching its crescendo. It would burst, battering her around like a bird in a hurricane. Sunny skies had to follow.
She beat away at me, this time out of need rather than fury. Compared to the world, she seemed so small in that moment. I felt the need to comfort her for reasons I couldn't explain. So, I did. I reached out, cupping her cheek in my palm.
"Hey, it's okay. You didn't mess anything up." I stroked her face absentmindedly with my thumb. "We can go back to the house and cook up some real nice dinner together and then get some dry clothes on. Everything will be okay." I didn't know this for a fact, but it was the usual response that I could remember from Yuki's collection of shoujo manga. It was also what I'd normally say when Sakura came home from one of her few and far between arguments with her gaki boyfriend.
She didn't respond for a moment, only continued to cry into my chest and beat her fists against me.
"Hold me." The words came from far outside the situation. I almost asked for her to repeat them until she nuzzled further into my neck. What she said suddenly clicked. "Please?" she pleaded.
"I would, but one of my arms isn't really responding to my commands." I looked up with a little twinkle in my eye. She sat bolt upright on my chest.
"Oh… " She brightened somewhat. "Ooh!" She looked down at me, not the shivering wreck she had been just moments before. He demeanor had changed completely from one instant to the next. "It isn't broken?"
"I told you before… I think you just dislocated my shoulder in that tumble."
"You did?"
I nodded, not trusting my mouth to remain smart and silent.
"It doesn't look to bad." She reached down and pressed against one of my shoulders. "This one?" I winced, but shook my head. She reached down and pressed against the other one. My body gave an involuntary jerk and I nodded through gritted teeth. "Close your eyes and grab onto something. This might hurt." I reached out, following her orders to the letter. I felt something soft and supple beneath my hand. My brain quickly imaged her leg, tightly grasped in my fingers as she popped my shoulder back into place. I bit back a scream and tightened my grip. She flinched but didn't speak at all. For a few moments, I lay there panting while she gingerly untangled my fingers from her thigh.
"That should be better, but we need to ice it." She stepped off my chest and cleared her face of the remaining tangles.
"You've done this much too often." I sat up, working my shoulder a little, bracing myself with my other hand.
"Sparring with Syaoran comes at a price," she said with a chuckled. Her expression turned. "And whenever that… thing…"
I shushed her, gently laying a finger over her lips. Her mouth twitched into a nervous half-smile. "You don't have to say anything."
"Thank you," she said softly. She extended an arm and helped me to my feet. Shifting to my uninjured side, she clung fast to my arm there. "Thank you for everything."
"You did pretty much everything tonight. I haven't done a thing," I insisted.
"Only because you just don't see it yet," she moved closer to me, leaning her head against my bicep.
Looking down at her, she suddenly became ten times as fragile and ten times as strong in the same instant. As she rubbed against my arm and closed her eyes, everything about her changed. She released me and ran on ahead.
She turned and waved at me halfway to the front door. "I'll get dinner started and find some towels for when you get in."
I only nodded. My shoulder popped, loud as a gunshot and she giggled.
"You really have done more than you could ever know for me," she said while turning towards the house. I barely even caught her words, but as I approached the house, the rain slowed to a trickle. The night moon began to pierce the clouds.
I didn't understand at the time, but it was the key to everything now.
Small reminders…
This story will never have an actual update schedule. It's more something that I'll post from time to time when it fancies me. I'm dreadfully sorry to all of you who are fans of Covered in Rain. It was a whim to begin with, so it will remain a whim until it's finished.
See you next update: Ciuline Ihmenjo