Yerin jumped when the rain started to pour suddenly, the skies had been clear literal moments ago and the sound of water splatting on the roof of the car spooked her. Rain was a good thing, it cleared the air, watered the earth, and cooled the heating up summer temporarily. But when it was making such scary noises, Yerin couldn’t bring herself to appreciate it much.

Usually she’d be fine with it, but when it was hitting so hard, it sounded more like thudding icicles rather than water droplets, was her car roof okay? Steering off the traffic jammed highway, Yerin finally reached the exit where she would continue to inch her way home. Driving in heavy rain was a hazard both for her windshield wiper management as well as caution to the slippery street.

Once she made it to her parking garage, Yerin breathed a sigh of relief, uploading a message her social media while she waited for her elevator. Scrolling through her feed, she noticed that SinB had also written something about the rain.

[I like the sound of rain.]

Perhaps the rain sounded nicer wherever she was, Yerin knew how to appreciate a nice sounding rain so all she could assume was that SinB was somewhere where the rain didn’t come smashing down from above in a terrifying manner.

Entering her home and stretching out her stiff neck, Yerin put away her bag and pulled a bottle of yogurt from the fridge, sipping it as she the tv in the living room and sitting, well, laying across all the available space and watched the news.

That is, until lightning flashed, and the power went out at the same time.

Yerin sighed and sat up. In times of power outage, opening the fridge was a no no, unless you wanted everything inside to ruin. Slapping a sticky note on the handle to remind herself not to open it, Yerin shivered when another flash occurred outside, she counted the seconds to the sound of thunder. It seemed that the main storm had yet to come, even with how much it was pouring already.

Her phone flashed and Yerin picked it up, wrapping herself in a blanket as she unlocked it.

Ddin: [Unnie do you mind if I stay over tonight?]

Yerin’s eyes widened, talk about out of the blue.

Yen: [I don’t mind, do you have spare clothes? I’ll have to look for something your size.]

Ddin: [That’d be great! I’m kind of soaking wet, I hope you don’t mind.]

Yen: [When will you arrive?]

Ddin: [5]

Yen: [Fair warning, the power went out.]

Ddin: [Oh, to the stairwell it is.]

Yerin sighed, of course the one day that SinB was staying over that the power outage would happen, it was likely that the reason why SinB had asked to stay over was that she had been in the area because of a schedule, then the street or the highway going to her apartment might either be jammed to hell or flooded and warnings to not use them were sent out, leaving her stranded. Yerin felt better that SinB had chosen to ask her to stay over rather than choose a random hotel to stay at, it meant that SinB properly kept her in mind after all.

It was unfortunate though, because of the power outage, the water boiler was not on and as a result, Yerin couldn’t draw a bath for SinB to warm up in. Nor could she use a hair dryer to help dry her hair. Well, she was still waiting on updates when her power would be back up.

Hearing a knock on the door, Yerin grabbed a towel and left the change of clothes at the bathroom.

“Hey unnie!”

“Whoa, when you said soaking wet, I thought it wouldn’t be this bad.”

Yerin chuckled and wrapped the towel around SinB quickly, pulling her inside. At the least, they could rub dry her hair and have her in dry clothes.

“Well, I hadn’t expected that I would suddenly be found drowning on land with that much water coming down.”

Yerin poked SinB’s side as she led the way to her bathroom.

“You, also didn’t have to post something so cheesy, what was it you said? I like the sound of rain? You goose, you’re drenched.”

SinB laughed and ruffled her hair some more.

“Well, it was nice at first, then I was told that the trains had stopped due to flooding on the railways.”

“Oh, that’s terrible! I think was watching the news about that when the power went out. It hasn’t gotten dark yet, but I should go grab the candles. The clothes are on the counter, and you can use any towel in this closet.”

Yerin left SinB to her troubles and went back to the living room, finding her pack for emergencies and set up a few candles around. They had a safety cover on them to prevent fires, putting out the wick when the candle was off balanced enough. Lighting one for now, Yerin waited on the couch, browsing through her phone with its remaining battery.

“Unnie, is it ok to just leave my clothes in the dryer?”

“Yeah, we’ll dry it when the power comes back on.”

SinB took a seat beside her and Yerin couldn’t help but feel a sense of awkwardness. It had been quite the while since they last met, and all their interactions up until now, kind of felt like both sides were trying to act as close as they were previous.

“Unnie-“

Thunder sounded right when SinB was about to speak, causing Yerin to jump. She wasn’t too afraid of thunder now, but it still spooked her to some degree.

“Wh-what is it?”

This scary sounding rain with the added effect of thunder booming in the distance really wasn’t making this storm any better.

“Is…everything okay? You seem extra spooked today.”

“Ah…well it’s fine. I just feel like today’s rain sounded a little scary.”

Yerin fumbled her hands on the edge of the blanket on her lap, realizing that SinB hadn’t fully dried her hair with the towel.

“You…haah, turn your back this way. You can’t just leave your hair dripping like that, you’ll catch a cold.”

SinB had complied with a smile. Yerin couldn’t help but smile herself, the last time she did this, was when they were in their first two-bedroom dorm during the time when they had helped each other dry their hair after late night showers. Yerin who had the most energy ended up helping the most, where the girls were too tired to even raise their arms to dry their own hair.

“Thanks, unnie, but in my opinion, the rain still sounds nice.”

SinB played with her hands in her lap, perhaps feeling sheepish.

“It’s just reminding me that nature does exist when we’re always living in this concrete jungle of a city.”

Yerin understood that. Wherever you turn in the big city, all you would see were buildings of grey, silver and roof to ground tempered windows. The rare tree in the street divide, the parks that were growing scarce and the scattered bushes along the sidewalk were the only things of nature besides the temperature change that signaled the changing of seasons.

When night fell and their small talk had come to a halt, the power had successfully been turned back on in time for them to have a warm dinner, but the rain hadn’t stopped.

“Unnie, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“No no, you sleep on the bed, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

The two glared at each other, both holding either side of the pillow that Yerin had brought out to situate herself on said couch.

“I’m the one bothering you out of the blue, you should sleep in your own bed.”

Yerin pouted slightly but not matter how she had tugged on the pillow, SinB wouldn’t let go.

“Fi-“

Thunder boomed again and this time, Yerin yelped. It was bedtime and her tiredness from work had built up this far, reacting to every boom since the beginning of the storm hadn’t helped her get used to the loud noise and in fact, she seemed to get more and more wary of how loud it boomed.

“Unnie?”

Yerin took a deep breath.

“L-let’s share the bed. Please?”

“O..kay?”

Yerin pulled SinB with her by tugging on the pillow that she had yet to let go of, putting her pillow beside the one already on the bed.

“Sorry.”

“What for? I get that you don’t want to be alone, it’s okay.”

“You reminded me of the last time we shared a bed, though last time it was you who was lonely.”

SinB had been left alone in the other three-room apartment once and was craving company, as a result, she stayed in Yerin’s room who was the only other available person. It would have been Yerin going over to comfort her, but since her dog was at her parent’s place, SinB insisted that she stay over at Yerin’s.

“Unnie?”

Yerin blinked slowly, since she had gotten in bed, tiredness washed over her, and she was almost set to fall asleep on the spot. SinB reached over and helpfully pulled the blanket up to Yerin’s chin, since she had only gotten to holding the blanket at her waist when her movements slowed.

“It’s reassuring to see that you love your sleep the same as always.”

Yerin blinked, what was that? SinB said something? She couldn’t really make sense of it and her eyebrows furrowed; her hands gripping on the edge of the blanket like a kangaroo baby with its paws on its mother’s pouch. SinB poked her between the eyebrows, leaving her even more confused.

“Sweet dreams unnie.”

Somehow, she felt like she should hug SinB, or maybe she shouldn’t. Closing her eyes, Yerin felt her conscious slip…

Yerin grumbled when her blanket was pulled away from her, opening her eyes as she squinted at her perpetrator, she paused as if she had forgotten when SinB had gotten there.

“Nn?”

“Yerin unnie! It’s almost noon! Your phone didn’t ring so I assumed you had no schedules, but you should get up now, right?”

Yerin blinked a few more times and sat up, rubbing her eyes. Wasn’t the atmosphere somehow better than last night?

“Unnie!”

Yerin turned to look at SinB who was uncharacteristically chipper for this morning, only to find that she was up close to her, inches from her face.

“Huh?”

“I told you to get up, what are you doing staring stupidly at this face?”

“Wha-“

SinB kissed her on the cheek and Yerin halted everything. Breathing included.

“Hello? Earth to Yerin unnie? I have to go now but we forgot to run the dryer before going to bed, so wash my clothes for me, okay? Call me up when you have the time to return it! See you soon!”

With that, Yerin was left dumbfounded on the bed, SinB who left like a whirlwind, and the sunlight of a clearer sky peeking in between the curtains.

===========

why am I not removing the completed tag? because it gives me the freedom to not make promises of updates :)

I dunno, this could be the last, it might not, you never know when my imagination strikes :D I hope you all have a wonder day