sunny rain

From outside the glass windows, the golden sunbeams of the late afternoon sun glisten off the soft drops of rain falling from the sky.

Changmin plays with his hands anxiously behind his back as he watches Sooyoung walk towards him. Her hair is tied in a loose bun and her beautiful dress flows behind her like a stream of dewdrops gliding down a gentle leaf.

The warm rays of the setting sun seep gently through the glass windows, the light shadows painting the room in a magical glow. A grand piano starts playing and soft music starts to fill the air.

He closes his eyes as the notes conjure photographs in his mind – back to the time when he was barely older than eleven; about a memory of a young boy and a young girl running barefoot under a sun-shower.

Going home on a particularly sunny afternoon, he walked with a spring on his step. Tracing the bush-lined path towards their home, he trod past trees whose arms sag from the weight of its leafy branches; above the smooth pebbles scattered on the dusty road, beneath the lemon-colored sky.

It was during this walk when he first saw her. Sitting with her legs crossed under the shade of an old gingko tree. Her face upturned and her bright eyes looking on the stretch of heaven above the horizon.

“It’s going to rain.”

He heard her mutter, her gaze never leaving the sky. He tightened his grip on the straps of his backpack, about to take a step on, when he heard her speak again.

“Do you know that when the sun shines through the clouds of rain, it means a tiger and a fox are getting married?”

He raised his head and saw that the girl was now looking at him with her shining brown eyes, the color of autumn singing. Unknowingly, his feet stepped towards where she was sitting. And under the droopy canopy of that old gingko tree, as the clouds dripped and rain started to fall like tiny, thin light beams tumbling from the sky, their friendship started.

Changmin opens his eyes and sees Sooyoung smiling at him.

The days of their youth stretched from months to years but somehow, nothing has changed. His memories with Sooyoung will always be of soft rain on late afternoons; when the sun would color each and every drop with a golden hue, the two of them running under the rain, sitting on a porch, sharing a cup of coffee, watching the rain trickle off the roof and cloak the earth in a carpet of brightened colors.

She stops a few steps short in front of him, faces her mother and father and receives their final kiss. Her eyes search for his and her face brightens once more, very much like that certain afternoon back when he was still eleven.

The sun-shower outside mists down on the rolling grass and bathes the world anew; its descent mirroring the tears nestling on Changmin’s eyes as he takes the hand of his lovely bride.

The ceremony ends and they walk out of the chapel as onlookers throw garlands at them. Hand in hand, they walk past the beautifully-adorned canopy into the soft sunset. People look up to see a shy rainbow paint the sky above them, colors none the brighter than the happiness and love they see on each other's eyes.