Prologue: Rain and Flowers

[E/D]: This is just a rewrite of my previous novel. Currently, I'm practicing writing again (I stopped for a while due to school shenanigans) and getting my ass out of writer's block. I hope you'll enjoy it (again)

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They said that there is always something special that happens beneath the rain.

Today, society is solely focused on turning themselves as puppets, lost into the mechanical grind of climbing up, and think of such things as nonsense. The formula to solve this is easy: slow down, take a breath, and try to see your surroundings, not just looking at it.

And by then they said, you’ll start to notice some beautiful things.

Like the scent of soil softening under the autumn wind.

Or the way stray petals float on puddles, as if afraid to sink.

The trail of raindrops against the window when you're busy looking at your reflection.

Let me ask you, dear reader, the one who's holding this book and reading it.

Do you believe in such an implication? That the rain rewards people with something special? Or was it just for aesthetics?

Honestly, I, Shimizu Itsuki, don't have the luxury of observing the world up to the miniscule detail, so I can only refer to it as half-right and half-wrong.

Because the rain was an observer to how the universe decided to play me with irony.

It was raining when the people whom I called 'parents' decided to pack their things in the dead of night and left without a word. I just woke up chasing their shadows and the stillness they left behind.

At first, I waited. Thought maybe they just went on a vacation outside of the country and they'll come back. Well, they did.

In the form of debts and problems they left behind.

It was raining when the first loan sharks decided to pay a visit. My young mind had no idea how to repay them, so every single piece of furniture and belongings in the house was towed away on a whim, fairly or unfairly.

Innocence and consideration have no place when your face is constantly pinned on the wall.

That time I realized, unreturned favors twists the concept of age and youth. A child becomes a functional adult in their eyes when it's money on the line.

I sold what I could, skipped what I had to, and learned how to survive on three ingredients and a battered gas stove. Safe to say, the slum of a studio apartment they gifted became my self-imposed prison.

I have stopped expecting rainbows in the rain, because it always brings me misfortune. I had stopped seeking happiness, as I would've spent that effort looking for something to do in order to survive another day.

However, the rain let up and luck finally decided to help me on my lowest. I was selected on the government self-supporting program at the time I stepped on high school, and the reward? A small mitarashi dango stall managed by a second-year highschooler in a public park.

It’s not much, but I'm thankful that it's mine. I nearly got rejected even, because of that female personnel, who said that I look ‘too good for a guy that went through hell’ and thought I was staging everything. It was a pity wrapped in a compliment.

That's thanks to my father's genes that gifted me this crimson hair, and to my mother that gave me these constantly tired hazel eyes.

Of course, who the hell this young could struggle on the streets to live another day? That's what my regulars always whispered at their approach. I just shut them up with a greeting sweeter than the soy glaze I offered them.

There were the kind old ladies who asked if I’ve eaten. Then, there's some office workers who don't take their change after buying. It's like a non-vocal assumption of my upbringings, which I found quite irritating, but accepted in the name of politeness.

Selling dango became my daily routine. It goes like this: three dango per stick, turn, baste, and serve warm. As long as I don't talk unless someone speaks first, or keep a personal distance from people, I'll never have any problem in doing it.

But that mantra, although counterintuitive, led me to practice taking everything slow and seeing my surroundings.

And thus I started to notice that person.

The one who never buys anything at all. The one who doesn't even look this way. The one that isn't my regular customer, yet I still can’t help but follow her with my very eyes.

Why wouldn't I? She just sits at the same rotten bench 10 meters across my stall that no-one uses anymore.

She arrives at exactly 4:30 PM, just as I had arranged the stall, then leaves at 8:00 PM, just as I was cleaning up for closing.

Every single day.

She doesn’t move much from her position and just leans forward with a sketchpad balanced on her knees, a charcoal pencil dancing across the page constantly, perfecting art in her own pocketed world.

I've known her as Kousaka Akari, a classmate of mine at Shonan High School.

She has long golden hair that always catches the sun just before it sets. Blue eyes that glare at the world like it picked the wrong fight.

She's the kind of girl my other classmates whisper about, but never approach unless they want a scene. Sharp, prideful, brash, icy, delinquent—I had enough of everyday dose not to forget. Yet I don't care. My experiences itself made me understand.

I don’t know her beyond the surface, neither would I risk trying to.

Ever since the second year of school started, I watched from the frames of my small empire every afternoon and night, as she slowly became a background to my constant routine.

We’re close enough to touch—but we exist on opposite ends of a quiet, invisible barrier. It’s comfortable, in a strange way. Like we're two stray cats who’ve gotten used to seeing each other in the alley, but never get any closer.

That’s how it’s always been. That’s how I thought it would stay.

It's the same as believing that the rain always brought misfortune.

Not until the afternoon the sky broke and the first autumn rain decided to break that routine.

I saw the golden flower wilt, and I was forced to cross that long drawn line.