Chapter Seven — Downpour


It was raining.

Kagome had mixed feeling about the rain.

As a child, she hated the rain because it was like the sky was crying. It rained the day her dad died too. And it rained during his funeral. For the longest time, she would find herself unexplainably sad when it would rain.

It changed when she was in the fourth grade.

A lot of the other kids had grown out of making fun of her name or her eyes but there were still a few mean brats that would bring it up every so often.

One of the kids had mocked her for her poor English because as a mongrel gaijin, it should be better. Of course her teacher had called the kid out and punished him quite severely but it still hung with her. She hadn't met Eri and Yuka until middle school and Ayumi had gotten picked up by her parents since she had an appointment which left her to walk home alone when the rain had started.

Her hair had still been short back then and hung freely so her raven tresses had clung to her face and made it particularly hard to see with the heavy downpour. She'd started running, to get out of the rain faster when a siren blared so loud her heart stopped.

Through the haze of hair and rain she saw bright, white lights—

Little Kagome had yelped when her bottom hit the sidewalk unforgivingly.

"Ah, sumimasen!" With a hurried push of her hair, Kagome had peered at the hand in front of her face. "I guess pulled you too hard."

She had shyly grabbed the offered limb and met the eyes of a boy about her age. He was taller than her by a bit and had blue eyes, like hers, and a shock of white hair that spiked up. He'd pulled her up, more carefully than before, and shuffled himself so she was under his umbrella too.

"I'm sorry for grabbing you like that but I couldn't leave a girl who needed help alone."

Kagome remembered staring at him to the point he'd begun to shuffle sheepishly.

"Ano… Where are you going? Not to be weird or anything—it's just that you're soaked and it's kinda cold—"

"Higurashi Shrine," she murmured quietly.

"Eh?"

"I'm heading to Higurashi Shrine."

The boy had looked dazed before he smiled. "I just moved near there! It'd be no problem to walk you home—if you want."

Kagome smiled tentatively. "I wouldn't mind that."

"Great," the boy had smiled widely and they had begun to walk side by side, the rain pattering against the umbrella. "I guess you're Kagome then?"

Kagome had curled into herself a bit. "Yeah. Why?"

"My Kaa-san and I visited the other day and the lady there said she had a daughter named Kagome about my age."

Kgaome wrapped her arms around herself more tightly after that. This boy didn't seem like a bully or anything bad and he was really nice so far. "Is it Kagome as in Kagome Kagome?"

"Yeah."

The boy had been quiet for a moment. She'd guess that she sounded mean with her answer. "I think it suits you."

Kagome had looked at him at that—really looked at him. "Really?"

"Yeah! I think it's a pretty name actually! Matches your eyes."

"…You think my eyes are pretty?"

"Way prettier than mine."

Kagome smiled. The only one who said that were her parents—more so her Kaa-san since she'd inherited them from her Tou-san. "Thank you."

That day had been one of the first good memories that came with the rain. Come to think of it, she'd never gotten the boy's name after. She'd seen him around school but never talked to him again—he'd always been on the field or talking with a bunch of other kids. He was pretty popular from what she'd remembered.

And then he had moved away to another part of Tokyo.

Here she was, though, standing in her high school's grounds, staring at the sky and thinking of something that had happened six years ago.

It was one of her favourite memories of the rain if she were honest, along with the day Sango had been proposed to by that Kuranosuke-sama of the Takeda clan.

That had been a fun time.

Pulling her umbrella over her head, Kagome walked forward stalking past the gym.

The sound or splashing and breathing had her pausing as she caught sight of a familiar skinny boy. He was sidestepping through a rope latter in his uniform, his umbrella and jacket abandoned to the side. He looked away from her but she could feel it, rolling off of him in waves.

Desperation.

Desperation and sadness.

She remembered feeling that all too well. When Kikyo had pushed her down the well after she broke free of Menomaru's spell, she'd exited the Well in tears to a world of snow—a world of frozen rain, a world of frozen celestial tears. How desperate and sad she had been when she thought she had killed Inuyasha.

How desperate and sad she'd been—and still was—returning to an era without a Well…

A pained groan and the sound of splashing water jolted Kagome from her trance.

She smiled bitterly and walked forward.

The boy had looked up from his scraped palms and soaked clothes when the rain had stopped falling on his neck and face. He whirled around and looked right into unreadable blue eyes.

Kagome offered him a kind smile.

"Are you alright?"