Rain

In the sad tango with the rain, where the dark streets were usually empty and the atmosphere dull and gray, Kurosaki only felt sadness, sometimes mixed with anxiety and even anger.

He dived away from his only chance to end one part of his suffering and ended up wailing a loud off-key melody into the air, while beating the wet cement with his bare fists. He was just a shimmering shadow, trapped in the center of a busy street, calling for someone to come and hold him tight, to comfort him at his weakest form.

And although his mind and cold exterior wanted no one to come near him or do any of the things to make him at ease once more, Kurosaki wanted, deep in the confinements of his black, frozen heart, for the one he secretly desired the most, to come and rescue him.

She told him that he wasn’t alone, right? No matter where he was, struggling between life and death, he won’t be alone. So where was she? Where was she when he needed her most? Where was she, when he was all swindled out, fading into the darkness of society?

When will she come to his side and set him free?

Kurosaki lets out another pathetic wail and places his forehead down against the street as people walked by, ignoring, whispering and giggling, labeling him as a lost drunk, 

“Damnit!”

After a long while of whimpering and fierce trembling, Kurosaki finally felt that familiar warm hand he had been waiting for on his shoulder. He looks up to find himself lost in those soft brown eyes he cherished so much,

“Yo-Yoshida…?”

Was she really here in the flesh to rescue him, or was he hallucinating?

She gives him that warm, reassuring smile, as she covered him from the rain with a nova-checkered umbrella. Hesitantly with frostbite fingers, Kurosaki reaches over to brush them across those beautiful, light rosy cheeks of hers, “You’re here…Yoshida.”

His lips couldn’t stop quivering, his breath slow and irregular; it was so cold, so why wasn’t she leaning in to give him the warmth he needed?

He repeats her name and crawls closer into her arms, letting more tears trickle down and out another wail, quieter than the first two.

But she slips away from his grasp, gently slapping into his hands a small amount of money as her real name was called out, “Mizuki-chan!”

Mizuki turns, waves to a big-nosed man, then turns her attention back to Kurosaki, smiling at him the way Tsurara always has playing at her lips before disappearing from his sight.

Kurosaki was alone again, to weep in the cold, cascading rain, with money he didn’t need being donated to him as if he was someone who lost everything.

But fate played a cruel joke on him, because he did lose everything.

He lost his family. He lost his positive sight on life, friendship, love, and sympathy, everything that would weaken his heart.

It was the beginning of black and white for him.

When he found the last ounce of strength to carry himself home, he came face to face with something he had been avoiding all his life in front of his apartment complex.

They were dancing in the rain, each with umbrellas of their own in hand, giggling, singing and splashing. Akira takes the chance to jump onto a large puddle, thus creating a huge splash of droplets. It makes contact with Tsurara, soaking her white tunic, making her pink bra barely visible through the thin cotton. 

Tsurara lets out a loud squeal and hits the childish man, “Akira-kun, stop that! Look, you got my clothes wet!”

Akira has a erted look on his face as he makes out the outline of her bra.

Her smiles were so bright that Kurosaki became more jealous of the only man who could bring that out of her. It was the happiness that made the rain so much more bearable right now.

Kusano Akira was the first to capture Yoshikawa Tsurara’s heart, tenderly and truly, without tears and cruelty thrown at her.

Kurosaki’s own heart began to clench as he continued watching the scene.

Akira throws his umbrella aside and abruptly pulls Tsurara into a tight embrace. The giggles die down and an awkward silence follows. Although it was the barest of whispers into her hair, his words were loud and clear enough for Kurosaki to hear from where he was crouching by the steps,

“I like you, Rara-chan.”

“Akira-kun…I…”

It was unbearable for Kurosaki, to see her being swept away by another man, a man much more childish than him.

Tsurara wraps her arms around Akira’s waist and steps at the tip of her toes to plant a chaste kiss against his lips, before pulling back with a blush, “You’re really sweet, Akira-kun, really, but I—”

Of course, Akira doesn’t let it all end that way so easily and pulls her back into another kiss, filled with fiery passion.

At this very moment, Kurosaki regretted ever coming back here weak and in need of a warm body next to his. He wanted to vomit.

He should have just marched in between them, throw a taunt or two like usual and up the stairs into his home, slamming the door behind him in annoyance, away from the disgusting sight.

But he doesn’t, and witnesses the most disgusting, sappiest scenes ever. Sappier than that one romantic-fantasy drama he found himself watching once, about a pathetic man who had the ability to go back in time and make things right with his childhood crush.

And that was something Kurosaki needed, to go back in time and grasp what he sought for before it was all too late.

Happiness was a word he didn’t recognize anymore.

After what seemed like an eternal, blissful kiss, Akira finally makes his leave, quickly rejecting Tsurara’s offer to come in for a nice, hot cup of soymilk. 

When Akira skips down the stairs, without notice of Kurosaki’s presence at all, Kurosaki slowly makes his way to his apartment, expecting Tsurara to be back inside the confinements of her own home, no where in sight.

His heart nearly skips a beat when he came face to face with her. She stood there at the last step, staring at him with those oh so familiar soft eyes.

She whispers his name, tenderly, cooing actually.

The way she was looking at him told him that she knew of his presence the whole time. But of course, Tsurara wasn’t that oblivious of his existence. She loved him, even when Akira, the man born to marry her and make her happy, was around.

Kurosaki’s usual cold attitude emerged, creating the barrier that was once broken around him, and he clucked his tongue in annoyance, “Get out of the way, poor girl.”

Tsurara frowns and steps closer to him. He steps back. He wasn’t ready to confront her, not yet.

It was a sudden question. Kurosaki expected her to throw something back at him, to react angrily and flail her arms, correcting the pronunciation of her name, or even a simple addendum of, “Can you at least put a ‘please’ to that sentence?”

“Are you alright?”

Her voice was soft and sympathetic.

For a moment, Kurosaki almost let his guard down again and begin trembling, slowly reaching out to grasp the side of her shoulders, but he took deep breaths and kept his composure in front of Tsurara,

“That’s none of your damn business. I told you already. Don’t into my life. You have your own, so go cherish it with that idiot boyfriend of yours.”

In the middle of that sentence, his voice cracks, and his lips began quivering uncontrollably, once more.

“Just leave me alone, Yoshida, please. I had enough of this…stop…stop looking at me like that.”

At last, Kurosaki collapses into her arms and buries his face into her chest, “…I don’t need your damn sympathy…!”

Contradiction…

He was lying to himself. He wanted her; he wanted her warm body next to his, her lips on his instead of Akira’s; her arms around his lean frame instead of that other man.

Kurosaki doesn’t care anymore, whether he was contradicting himself, or wanted to push her away and sleep under the rain. The world already fell down upon him and nothing could bring back what he sought for, what he worked his whole life to achieve for.

“Damn you, the old man, and your stupid boyfriend. Damn you all!”

He muffles a pathetic cry.

Tsurara doesn’t waste any time to throw her arms around his trembling body, letting the umbrella slip off her hand. They tumble back, and Tsurara was sitting on the wet steps, with Kurosaki buried in between her arms and legs.

He holds her tightly just as she did to him. Those vexing lips of hers move at the top of his head, blowing tender kisses as she utters sweet nothings. 

“Would you like to come in for a hot cup of coco?”

For the first time, Kurosaki doesn’t reject her sweet offer, because by tomorrow, everything will be the same as usual, and tonight would be another memory locked away at the end of his head.

Tomorrow, he’ll act as if she was dreaming, hallucinating, having a wet dream about her deepest desires for him.

“You are pretty erted for a .” He’ll say to her.

Throughout the night, he let her touch him, her fingers through his hair and kiss his tears away. He let her hold him, let her hum a lullaby, no matter how bad she sounded, and let her warm him up. Feeding him and caring for him just like his mother would when he became sick.

“You’re so complicated.” She says to him as he finds her pinning him to the floor after he threw random tantrums about the old man and her interference in his life.

“I shouldn’t have come in here. I’m leaving.” He mutters, getting up to escape from this place, before he did something he would later regret.

She doesn’t let him go though. No, instead, she snakes her arms around his neck and rests her head under his chin, “Everything’s going to be alright. Right now, just…try and sleep it off.”

And so, Kurosaki didn’t budge or complain any longer. He lay there with the woman that belonged to another in his arms, as the storm became heavier, thunder striking the air loudly.

The electricity went out and they were left sleeping together with the raspberry scented candles.

After hours of self-loathing and blaming the world, Kurosaki was finally at ease.

+++

The loathed rain, the gloomy, crappy atmosphere and the dull grayness of society didn’t end until the very next morning, where he woke up with a jolt, in her bed, half-, wrapped up with a pink blanket, and the cat sleeping peacefully on top of his stomach.

Kurosaki was sure something between him and that woman had happened last night, but it was all too much of a blur for him to remember.

He runs his hand through his hair and rubs for forehead after, anxiety written on his face, “…did we even use protection?”

To his relief, Tsurara was sprawled on the floor, fully clothed—though her skin was shown to the extent in her dinky little shirt and shorts that showed her bare, beautiful legs—hugging one of her cute plushies, a large stuffed carrot, or Nat-chan—something she probably got from a commercial—and a smile playing at her lips.

He shuddered at the thought. Perhaps he wasn’t ready to make her his yet.

Without a word or sound, Kurosaki takes the chance to sneak out.

“Where are you going?”

Damnit, she woke up.

Kurosaki stiffens and nervously looks back, but still kept that cold, grumpy look he usually had in the morning. He wasn’t a morning person anyway.

He nearly falls when he finds her half asleep, sitting up with droopy eyes and wild bed hair.

“Akira-kun? Neh, if you’re getting the newspaper, can you get the mail for me too…?”

She cracks a stupid smile and then falls back with a thud.

Kurosaki face-palms and couldn’t help but throw an object at her. She just called him Akira. His lips curved into a gentle smile, nevertheless.

Rolling his eyes, he grabs one of the cat’s toys and throws it at the girl, as desired, “Get it your damn self, Yoshida.”

And with that, he left, leaving the door wide open and brushing pass a very shocked Akira, who had gotten the things she requested, the keys hovering in the air where the doorknob should be.

“Rara-chan…and big brother…Kuro-kun…together…?”

Although Kurosaki didn’t want to admit it, he was thankful for her compassion.

He made sure that this wouldn’t happen again, because he couldn’t afford to let his guard down. Not even for a second, not now, not when there were still many things he needed to finish.

Yesterday night was just a momentary collision, a mistake he made on himself. He was lost in a daze, disoriented and wasn’t sure where he was at life. He blamed the old man for slowly breaking the strong barrier he created around himself from day one.

He reassured himself that it won’t happen again, not with Tsurara to witness his misery.
Kurosaki watched as Akira ran into her house, letting out weird sounds like a coo-coo clock. He decided to let Yoshida play with soymilk lover a little bit longer then.

With a heavy sigh, Kurosaki closes his eyes and snaps his fingers,

“Maido ari, bang.”

—OWARI—

Omake:

Akira lumbered into Tsurara’s house, throwing the mail and newspaper aside, forgetting everything that he just saw and jumps, landing on top of her, 

“Rara-chan, I’m here, so let’s play.”

Tsurara screams and throws at pillow at him. She grumbles something incoherent and turns, obviously still asleep. It was a Saturday, and her day off, so she wanted to sleep in some more.

Although he felt a little uneasy about Kurosaki’s presence and what he just saw, where jealousy and possessiveness emerged from deep inside, Akira still cracks a huge smile, moving these lingering feelings to the back of his head, pouncing and bouncing happily on top of his favorite person,

“Kon-kon.” He gives her a sloppy, morning kiss.

~owari~

Omake 2:

When they encountered each other near the restaurant, after a whole week since that fateful night, with Tsurara delivering more coffee beans to the old man and Kurosaki just coming out with a new set of information, they stop dead in the middle of the busy street, and make tension-filled eye contact.

“Kurosaki…Are you feeling better?” Again, her voice was soft and sympathetic.

He arches an eyebrow, “What are you talking about?”

“Well I hadn’t seen you since that rainy night, so I assumed you were still…”

Kurosaki lets out a snort, “Having wet dreams about me now? Tsk, tsk, tsk…what a dirty mind you have, Yoshida...”

She pouts and then averts her gaze, whispering to herself, “Maybe it was a dream…”

And that was it. She brushed pass him without another word. She was so gullible.

Kurosaki has gained, yet another point.

He continues moving once more, a grin plastered on his face, “I’m good.”

~owari~