Rainy Days

Scraps of torn paper littered her bedroom floor like wilted petals. Aika still held the last pieces of the photo in her trembling hands — the one where they were smiling together, back before everything fell apart. Before she discovered the truth, hidden in a message she’d read by accident on Kenji’s phone. "Yo Yuki 😏 my folks are out tonight... you coming over ?"

Yuki. Her best friend since childhood. The one who had comforted her when her cat died. The one who knew all her secrets. The one who had helped her choose Kenji’s birthday gift just last month. The same Yuki who, for the past three weeks, had been sleeping with her boyfriend behind her back.

Aika let the last pieces fall onto the hardwood floor and turned toward her smartphone lying on the bed. The screen lit up, revealing the long conversation she’d been reading over and over again, obsessively, for days. Kenji’s messages had grown more and more distant, his excuses more fragile. "Sorry, can’t tonight, family stuff." "My phone died, didn’t see your texts." "Let’s meet tomorrow, promise."

A tomorrow that never came, no matter how long she waited.

11:47 p.m. In just a few hours, she would have to go back to school — to face the stares, the whispers, that crushing feeling of having turned invisible overnight. Her old friends had chosen sides without a word. She had seen them fall silent when she approached, avoid eye contact, slip away into other conversations. Kenji and Yuki were popular; she was just Aika, the quiet girl who blended into the background.

Rain drummed relentlessly against her window, tracing blurred rivers down the trembling glass. That steady sound had once lulled her to sleep, but tonight, it only deepened the void gnawing at her chest. She set the phone down and walked over to the window, pressing her forehead against the cold surface.

Classes over the past few days had become an emotional obstacle course. Every hallway was a minefield where she risked crossing paths with them. The first time she saw them together, she thought her heart might stop. They were by the lockers — Kenji murmuring something into Yuki’s ear, Yuki laughing that crystalline laugh Aika knew so well. When their eyes met, Yuki had the audacity to wave at her, as if nothing was wrong.

Aika had run to the bathroom and thrown up.

Since then, she had mastered the art of avoidance. But today, her luck had run out. As she left school, she had spotted them at the bus stop, wrapped in each other's arms, waiting for the rain to let up. That image had seared itself into her memory: Kenji gently brushing a strand of hair from Yuki’s face, their lips meeting in a kiss so tender she had once believed it was hers alone.

She had come home drenched, legs shaking, heart in pieces. Her mother wasn’t back from work yet. The house was quiet, almost hostile in its fake calm. Aika had rushed upstairs and locked herself in the bathroom.

Hot water poured over her bare shoulders in the shower, mingling with the tears that wouldn’t stop. She curled up in a corner of the shower, knees pulled tightly to her chest, letting the steam wrap around her body like a funeral shroud. The cold tiles against her back only reminded her how utterly alone she was — so devastatingly alone.

And it was there, in that utter vulnerability, that she felt it: a presence. Gentle, comforting, hovering just at the edge of her awareness. Not a hallucination — no, something more subtle. Like an invisible hand softly brushing the edges of her shattered soul.

"I understand your pain."

The voice echoed inside her mind, so clearly she opened her eyes with a jolt, scanning the empty bathroom. Nothing. Just the sound of falling water and her ragged breathing.

Yet, as she walked home, that feeling had stayed with her. Passing through the small park near her house, she had the overwhelming certainty that someone was watching her — not with the curious, cruel eyes of high schoolers, but with infinite tenderness. Like a mother keeping watch over a wounded child. She had turned around several times, only to see dripping trees and empty benches beneath the relentless rain.

But just before reaching her house, she could’ve sworn she saw a figure near the old oak tree. Tall. Motionless. Watching her with a kind of sorrow that pierced through the downpour. The moment she blinked, trying to clear the rain from her lashes, the vision was gone.

Now, standing in front of her window, Aika could still feel that mysterious presence somewhere beyond the veil of the rainy night. A part of her longed to step outside, to seek out that benevolent shadow that seemed to understand her anguish better than anyone ever had. Another part, more rational, whispered that she was losing her grip on reality.

She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead harder against the glass. Tomorrow, she would have to face school again — the sidelong glances, the silence of people she once called friends. She would have to pretend everything was fine, swallow down that bitter lump that never left her throat.

"You will never suffer again."

This time, the voice was so close she jumped and spun around. Her room was empty, bathed in the dim glow of her digital alarm clock. But something had shifted. The air felt softer, infused with a scent she couldn’t place — something between incense and dried flowers. A fragrance both soothing and unsettling.

She slipped under her blanket, pulling it up to her chin. Outside, the rain was still falling, but it had softened, like a sorrowful lullaby. For the first time in days, Aika fell asleep without crying, cradled by the promise that still lingered in the air.

Unaware of the world beyond her dreams, she didn’t see the figure that appeared briefly outside her window , nor the tender smile that lit up a delicate face before vanishing into the rainy night.