It was always on the nights that rained.
Watching the raindrops, aglow with city light, slide down black glass before plunging into oblivion.
Death at the bottom of the urban graveyard.
And for a moment she could let the world go quiet; pressing her back against a cold window.
The nothingness would fill her up until it wasn't nothingness.
And in a sad way, to her it was beautiful.
Some of the armor painted on her exterior would flake.
And there she was on those rainy nights. Alone, lost in thought, and painfully content as the raindrops continued to slide to their deaths.
She lay, a mess of sheets; tangled in a web of limbs.
Tossing and turning in a tumble of dark hair.
A quiet, sterile room which smelt faintly of vanilla.
Cold night sweat shimmered on her body as she fell in and out of the glowing urbanity through the blinds.
Marred with bars of light.
Events of the day leaked from reality into the warped illusions of half-sleep.
She tried to shake the thoughts off, but memories clung to the roots of her hair. They twisted there and merged with the shadows of ideas which make up identity.
Fast, hot flashes of moments which re-forged old stories and played out new ones.
Then the themes started to reoccur.
Block them out.
Not now.
Just sleep.
Just sleep.
Just- damn it, those blue eyes.
Soulless, dead.
His colour, his black, echoing throughout her dreams in a rush of helplessness.
Always too late.
Always left behind, even in her mind's fiction.
Doors opening and closing.
Clocks ticking.
The scent of blood.
She shuddered.
Why couldn't he get out of her head?
He was her fixation.
She was drawn to him.
Not romance; something indescribable.
Rain sliding down the windows as she finally collapsed into unconsciousness.
The golden blur of un-reality.
Feet pounding the floor.
Doors flying open wildly.
A scream up ahead; and a girl with silver hair slumped in a puddle of water.
Couldn't stop to help.
He was there.
She didn't even know what she wanted to ask him.
Just being there would mean something.
And maybe she would finally understand; understand herself.
Understand this.
The bare corridor narrowed until everything was so close she couldn't breathe.
She pounded into the concrete, slammed against a door and fumbled with the handle.
Blood pulsing through her head.
Open
Come on
Scuffles in the next room.
Door clicked.
Flung open.
Pools of blood where a man lay shriveled on the floor.
"Who?" she managed to heave out, but she already knew the answer.
Window smashed open.
It was raining.
She flung herself out. The icy wind pushing her upwards, yet still she managed to fall.
Down, down into the urban graveyard.
Searching for him.
But always; always too late.
Enveloping darkness and cigarette smoke.
Into the black mirror.
Jolted awake.
The bedside table growled angrily as her phone vibrated; its ghostly luminescence seeping into the room.
She regretted being woken, as bad as the dream had been.
Slight sigh, she placed the phone to her ear.
"Kirihara here."
"Boss, sorry to distur-"
"Spit it out Kouno."
"Ah sorry…urgent report, BK 201's on the move, he just killed an MI6 contractor inside the British Embassy, code number YR 561. We wouldn't have called so late but…"
"But?"
"Well we just got confirmation from the Astronomy Bureau that BK 201 just used his powers to shut off the electricity in the building next to your apartment block. Apparently someone from MI6 is tailing him."
"Shit. Got it Kouno. Requesting backup. Be here as soon as you can."
"Understood."
She ran to the cupboard sling on her trench coat.
There was no time to dress properly.
Not when it was him.
Flicked on her light switch and cringed at the glare.
Grabbed her revolver, already loaded.
Safety off.
Then the electricity, it fizzled, and for a second her hair stood on end.
The lights fell.
He had to be on the roof.
She sprinted, no time for shoes.
Had to feel her way to the floor's stairwell.
Clambered up it as quickly as she could in the dark, breathing heavily and praying no one else was on the stairwell with her.
She couldn't be late. Not this time.
Nearly at the top she slipped on the steps, knees scraped up. Taste of blood.
She was too close.
Grappled with the door handle and fell into the night.
Rain immediately slicked her hair down the back of her coat. The thick material flapped in the freezing wind, intermittently revealing pastel pajama shorts and singlet.
Blood dripping from her lips from when she slipped.
The scene was empty.
No.
Not this time.
Not this damn time.
Not while these stupid dreams and memories were still tangled in her dripping hair.
Blood was splattered artfully on the ground.
She began to shiver, clothes plastered to her body.
Bare feet.
She turned in anger; and there he was.
Silhouetted against the glaring advertisements over the city.
Mask half broken.
Torn sleeve.
About to leave.
She was too late.
Then their eyes met.
"BK 201."
He crouched on the edge of the building, about ten meters away from her.
"Please wait." She puffed, hating how desperate she sounded.
He turned, back to her, ready to sink back into the city, back into anonymity.
"Li-kun," she relented, and he froze for a moment and the rain slid down his jacket.
"Don't call me that," came the dull reply.
She shook violently with cold, fighting to keep her face impassive.
Blood continued to trickle down her lips.
She didn't want to say it.
Didn't want to admit something like that to herself. The verbalization of emotion.
He flung a wired knife into the darkness some twenty stories below where the cars thundered past.
He couldn't go.
Not again.
She rushed silently on bare feet towards him. Pulled up her gun. Had never been so close to him, except for when he was Lee; but that didn't count.
"Hei," she spoke, voice devoid of any emotion.
He stood up straight, her gun pressed between his shoulder blades.
"Hei, I just want to talk."
"Give up."
That banished all coldness in her body.
Give up?
"I will not give up."
He turned his head slightly towards her and pulled what remained of the mask off his face, letting its remnants fall into the nothingness.
She could feel his ragged breathing through the gun, see the dark blood stain slowly blooming on his jacket's sleeve.
And she could feel the heat of his body.
It had always been hard to believe that he was alive, that he wasn't a robot.
But this body heat proved it.
She warily glanced into his heavy eyes, mentally creating a barrier so that she couldn't loose herself in them.
And suddenly she understood.
Those blank eyes, they weren't full of nothing. They were filled with everything.
Everything she had known, and everything she could ever know.
He had never seemed so old; and so painfully youthful.
And he knew her gun was a lie.
"Goodnight Misaki," he breathed, and with those serious eyes still locked on hers he whispered, "I like your pajamas."
And he was gone.
And as hard as she tried, she still couldn't help feeling that some of her had left with him.
She watched his figure fall among the raindrops.
Into the oblivion.
The lights came back up in the building.
She was left there like that in the rain, with thoughts of him still stuck in her hair.
But this time, she couldn't help thinking that maybe she hadn't been too late.
That she arrived just in time.
It was always on the nights that rained.
The nights when clouds covered the artificial heavens.
It was those nights when, against all odds, the starlight seemed so much brighter.
Well, to her anyway.
A/N: Thank you all so much for your wonderful reviews; they seriously brighten my day. Also thank you for those who posted my errors, I'm a terrible proof reader and I'll go back and correct my mistakes soon. I'm not going to be able to post very regularly with school and all, but I promise I will try to keep going with this. If you want a song for this chapter, go with either Black Mirror or Intervention from Arcade Fire, it's all a little dark, but that's what I like. Now, enough of my rambles. I hoped you enjoyed :)