Whenever it rained, she would be sitting there.

It was the year of their ninth grade when Wooyoung noticed the peculiar habit. Upon leaving school one pouring afternoon, he saw her sitting underneath the cherry tree in front of the school building.

It was an abnormally warm winter day, so the branches were bare and gave her no protection from the water falling from the clouds. For a moment, Wooyoung watched from the school’s front steps underneath his umbrella, watching as the drenched girl alternately stared at the road a few feet in front of her to the sky too high above her.

It was strange – too strange. If it weren’t for the school uniform clinging to her skin, as well as the backpack leaning against her, Wooyoung would have never guessed that this person actually attended the same school as him.

He had never seen her before.

“Oh, that girl? Lee Jieun in class A,” Junho told him across the phone after Wooyoung had called upon arriving home. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard about her.”

“Nope,” Wooyoung answered. “Why? Is she that bad?”

“Well…I don’t know her personally, of course. Not my style. But people are always saying how she doesn’t talk to anyone. If you try to initiate a conversation, she kind of avoids you. Oh, and the rain thing, of course.”

“What rain thing?”

“You saw it yourself. Whenever it starts raining, she’ll just sit underneath that tree of hers and doesn’t go home for hours. The janitor once saw her and thought she was some kind of ghost. Isn't it scary?”

At that, Wooyoung let go of the subject. Surprisingly, it didn’t take long at all for him to forget about her. There were too many sports to play, too much homework to do, too many teachers to rub up to – certainly not enough time to worry about an antisocial girl with a strange hobby.

However, as soon as the weather became warm enough for the falling snow to melt into rain, she reappeared.

Again. In the same spot, she was there. With the same behavior of watching the road and then the sky. And again, he saw her.

Wooyoung listened absently to the sound of the rain clattering down on the pavement and on the top of his umbrella. What was with her? Was it true that she did this every single time it rained?

He found that he was walking forward upon impulse. Step by step, he approached Lee Jieun to her position beneath the cherry tree.

Five feet…four feet…three feet away from her. She didn’t seem to notice that he was there. It was only when Wooyoung stood right above her, simultaneously shielding her from the rain with his umbrella, that her clouded eyes came into focus.

“…Who are you?”

Her lips moved so slightly and her voice was so quiet. Wooyoung barely heard the words. He didn't answer, and instead stared back at her. Looking at her face. Eyes. Nose. Lips. Cheeks. Hair.

She didn't say anything to his silence. Instead, as if looking right through him to the sky past him, her eyes became faraway again.

~

Wooyoung found his mind drifting as soon as he arrived back home. His hand was sore from clutching the umbrella for a few hours. His legs were aching from standing the same amount of time.

"Wooyoung?" his mother's voice came from the kitchen. "Why are you home so late?"

He pondered for a brief moment how to answer. "School," he said simply. After all, what would his mother think if he told the truth: that he had been standing silently beside a girl as she ignored his presence?

He retreated to his room, collapsing onto his bed as he stared at the ceiling. Lee Jieun was an anomaly - that was for sure. What kind of a person spent rainy days out in the open, staring at...nothing?

But there was something about her. Her habit wasn't normal, sure, but shouldn't there be a reason for it? And she didn't seem to reject his presence.

Was she antisocial? Or was she just...unique?

Weeks passed. As soon as he woke up in the morning, he would check the weather forecasts for any predictions of rain. When it did, he would scurry out of his last class, grab his umbrella, and go out to the cherry tree to find her already sitting there.

They would not speak. 

The habit lasted for months, and then years. Not a single word passed between them in that time. Wooyoung had only heard her voice once, and it would often echo in his head when he was thinking alone.

Who are you?

Why didn't they talk? Why was she always alone in the rain? Even after so long, he could never bring up the idea to actually ask. He questioned himself often, but then established that maybe it was because he didn't have to talk to her. Even in the silence...they were connected in a way that no one else was.

It happened a few days before graduation. Every senior in the school was excited to leave high school and officially be announced as college or university students - including Wooyoung. However, he quickly began preoccupied by the rain that had begun streaking the windows.

It was one of those days. Was it fate, that on the last day they could possibly meet, that it was raining?

As soon as he set foot next to her, he knew something was different. There was something off about the atmosphere between the two of them.

It was her who spoke first.

"Four years."

Wooyoung looked down at her in alarm. Her voice...it was still the same from that first time. Except now, as he looked at her, he found that her eyes were focused - on him.

It was the first time she had gazed at him for more than a few moments...and it took his breath away.

"Since I've been sitting here."

She was talking.

"Isn't the rain nice?" She reached out her hand, palm-up. Droplets of water clashed down against her skin. "What is it? It can just wash away everything."

He couldn't form any words to respond.

"It happened right here. The accident."

~

It was raining.

"Why did you choose today of all days to take us on a family trip?" Jieun's mom asked from the front seat, though she sounded more amused than actually annoyed. "It doesn't look like this storm is stopping anytime soon."

"Exactly," came the response, from Jieun's father, who was steering the car. "No one else will be going on a trip on this kind of day...so all clear for us!"

In the back seat of the vehicle, Jieun was flipping through her backpack that she had brought along. Her father had spontaneously told his family to pack for a road trip, so she had just stuck random necessities into the backpack. There hadn't been time for any actual thinking.

Upon further inspection, she was missing some things. Some very important things.

"Dad, turn back!" she said, quickly panicking as she realized that she had somehow forgot the one thing that she actually needed. Desperately, she flipped through the books inside the backpack only to find that it was missing.

"Why? What's wrong?" her mother asked.

"I forgot my music scores!" she said. Jieun had just begun a new composition. If she didn't bring it along, a spark of inspiration could be gone to waste.

"You don't need that for a few days, right?" her dad replied light-heartedly. "Who needs music notes I don't understand when I have my daughter's voice to sing songs for me?"

The attempt at lightening the mood just made things worse. Jieun frowned before saying, "I need that! Turn back! I need it!"

For just one moment, her father turned his head to say something.

Just one moment was all it took for the truck on the other side of the road to lose control.

Everything came falling apart. Jieun was thrown forward against the driver's seat as the two vehicles met directly, instantly crushing the car's hood upon impact.

Glass shattered. Airbags expanded, but were rendered useless. There were no screams but the ones escaping the tires as the other driver failed to avoid the family's car. Jieun barely registered the pain that pulsed from her arm, which was crushed against the car door, and her temple. Blood flowed down her face as her view began to cloud.

Am I...dying?

It took fifteen minutes for the sirens to arrive. The only one who had survived the accident was a fourteen-year-old girl.

Surgery was needed to stabilize her condition, and when she woke up the doctors and nurses broke the news to her - her parents were dead. Maybe if they had waited a day or two for her initial shock to subside, her trauma wouldn't have worsened.

Maybe if they had waited a day or two, she wouldn't have lost her voice.

She was sent to live with her aunt and uncle, who pitied her for the accident. They wouldn't know what was going on in their niece's head - why couldn't she talk? Time was passing. Yes, her mother and father were gone - but shouldn't she at least think that they wouldn't want her to suffer silently like she was?

Time to time, Jieun would be thinking about what had happened.

Whose fault was it that her father looked away from the road?

Whose fault was it that the car crashed into a truck?

Whose fault was it that her parents were gone forever?

It tortured her every single moment of every single day. She would cry noiselessly and wish that she hadn't been so selfish to want to go home for a stupid book. But no matter what, time could not turn back.

Losing her voice didn't just mean that she couldn't speak - it also meant she couldn't sing. She didn't want to sing - music had indirectly caused her parents' death. She wanted nothing to do with it.

It didn't take long for things at school to turn out horribly, too. None of her classmates understood why her voice wouldn't come out. They assumed it was because she was antisocial and hated people, when the person she hated the most was herself.

Admist the lonesome times, Jieun made it a habit to sit at the exact spot where the accident had happened. Letting the guilt wash over her with the rain so that she would become numb. To everything.

~

Wooyoung listened in silence as she recalled her story. Her tone didn't stray from the same calmness and steadiness. He wondered what he could say...

"Why can I talk to you?" Jieun asked, her voice getting quieter. "I don't know you. I still can't talk to anyone else.

"So why you?"

That was the last question she left for him in their senior year. They would not meet again for a long time. As Wooyoung walked away from that tree that day, he realized one thing:

I didn't say anything to her.

 

Finally got my stuff back...look forward to updates!