Angel's Feather/エンジェルズフェザー 1. Prologue

**A/N:** Written for the Ultimate Fanfic Challenge 200 Prompts, prompt #62 – highschool.

Angel's Feather again (when will FFN read my email and add the category? :(). Shou is one of the main characters, who lost his parents at a young age and his adopted parents right before the first OVA. This is set in between that, so his adopted parents are still alive…though to my knowledge they were never named, so I've named the mother Hisako for now.

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**Memories in the Rain  
Prologue**

Shou was the antithesis of rain in most senses of the word. He excelled at outdoor sports: soccer, basketball, baseball…things that often got in the way when it poured outside. He was almost always grinning: smiling, laughing, offering a hand – more like the sun in that aspect, that burning sun that managed to catch corner shadows. Even his name spelt a clear sky…and yet, those closest friends knew the first place to look for him in a murky day was by a window, looking out.

That day was a typical winter storm: droplets glittering and almost ice, banging on the window and the tin roof. Beyond them, the road was washed out, the grey looking even drearier with an almost invisible sheet of white covering it. But that was the sight he sought: an echo of the memories slowly rotting away within his brain.

He'd made the choice to remember and continue smiling on regardless, but it was on days where the sun stopped pretending that he threw down his mask as well. Because, just as the icy rain washed out the world, it washed him out as well…like the dreams he clung to stubbornly but couldn't keep: little wisps of smoke slowly sliding through his fingers and fading away.

On rainy days, he couldn't keep running about outside until he was too exhausted, mentally and physically, to think anything. On those days he couldn't push everything else aside and say he was happy. There were no distractions on those days: no ball coming his way for him to hit, or hand for him to grab and pull up to walk beside him. There was rarely even company on those days: the rain saw everybody bundled together and yet dispersed. At school, it would be a few students playing cards in the centre, a few more at their individual desks and everybody else loitering in the halls. Some might be in pairs, or little groups, but there was rarely any connection, any conversation. A chair or a book on one's lap made just as good company.

He didn't bother with the book; it was a façade that looked too strange on him. He wasn't much of a reader…though he usually wasn't much of a thinker either. He didn't give himself that time: he rushed everywhere, _ran_ everywhere, hurried through everything even if it meant things that required more attention (like his schoolwork) would up a little sloppier. It was his way of coping: his way of getting along with the world.

He'd hated the rain before his parents died; it was something that shut all the doors on him. Now it opened them. Now it was the freedom he couldn't give to himself otherwise. If he didn't run, he'd be trapped in those fading memories, trapped in that sadness.

It is the only time he allowed himself to regret.

**.**

_I told you to forget. I told you I'd remember for both of us. I do._

_I hope you did forget. After all…you always liked the rain, didn't you Kai?_

**.**

Hisako found her adopted sun by the living room window, sitting forward in the chair so his chin rested on the windowsill and his forehead on the glass. It hid his expression that way; it made it easy to pretend that sweet smile was still on his face, that the rain hadn't washed it away. But she knew it wasn't, even if she wasn't related to him by blood and could never take the place of his real mother.

It rarely ever mattered. He was their child, _her_ child, in everything but blood and young age – he was old enough to remember his family. But he never spoke of them. The only memento he kept was the pendant he wore around his neck, the one that sunk into the inner cloth of his shirt and hid itself from view.

Like the sadness that would be coated by smiles but never fade, it hid itself from everyone's sight, even hers. As a human she was relieved: a person's innate path was towards the future, and mementos of a dead past that wasn't hers made her a tad uncomfortable. But as a mother, _his_ mother even if not by blood, she wished he would share the pain he buried inside, instead of hiding it.

And he did, in a sense, on rainy days like that one where he'd let his well-crafted façade fall: a façade so carefully made that it was only because she lived with him, saw him so often, that she knew it to be a mask. It wasn't false: she couldn't call it a lie. It was simply his way of moving on…just like the silent vigil with old dregs of memories by the windowsill was his way of letting loose.

And because he didn't cry, simply stared with an expression she never saw at the rain and how it washed out the world, she couldn't embrace him and chase the demons in dreams away. She wasn't supposed to, not when those dreams were what he clung to, he remembered at times when there was nothing else to distract. Because they, those things he didn't share with anyone, were as important as the happier times to him, and she respected that. Instead, she watched him from afar until he turned to her with a smile. And then she'd pretend not to have seen, instead tousling his hair and smiling herself as she sends him on his way.

If she knew beforehand it would rain, she would bake something as well. Particularly when it rained on the way home from school, so the warm smell would waft through to the door as soon as it opened to the washed-out image of the world. A nice sweet cake, or brownies fresh from the oven and dripping chocolate, so she could watch Shou get it all over his fingers and laugh truly, like he always did, and she could add another happy memory to her scrapbook, just like a real mother would.

It was only when he stared at the rain did she remember that he wasn't hers, that she could never replace his real family…even if he did call her "Mum", even if he did come home to her every day, and kiss her on the cheek when he left for school or sports and returned. Those times it was easy to call herself a mother, _his_ mother, and she couldn't be happier…but when he was remembering his family,

**.**

_I called you "Mum" because I think of you as my mother._

_I have another mother too, in my memories. Is that okay?_

**.**

He felt her standing there before he saw her: the woman he called his mother, who _was_ his mother now, even if she could never replace the one he'd lost. And she was a wonderful woman; he couldn't have asked for better. She knew when to leave him be and when to reel him close. She knew when he wanted to be alone, and when he wanted company.

She also knew about the rain, and his vigil thereof. And if he was at home when it started, she would be watching from afar, careful not to step into his space and disturb the spell but near enough still for comfort – the comfort that she was still there: real, _alive,_ and not a memory washed out by time like the rain. And it was comforting for her as well, to be near as though she could sweep a child into her arms and her warmth would drive all demons away.

But they weren't demons he chased after, but irreplaceable memories. Memories he'd sworn heedlessly to protect…and now struggled to do so. Struggled because it hurt to remember: hurt to think about parents now gone, about a brother living his life out elsewhere in the world, forgetting him…

He'd been the one to tell his brother to forget; that he didn't regret. Sometimes he did wish he hadn't promised to be the one to remember: to remember meant to carry that weight, and by running until he wore himself out he could flee from it…for a time. But the storms that kept the world indoors and made the outer scene fade into grey was the time he remembered: where he couldn't run away anymore and instead surrendered. Where he fulfilled the promise made years ago, on a rickety bed in an orphanage, the last night he'd slept beside his brother.

Sometimes, he wished he hadn't made such a promise, so he could be free of that burden as well. But that was only on those days where it filled his mind and soul, where the pendent he wore dragged his head down with its weight. After that, when the sun peaked out from behind clouds and the sky became clear and his mother tousled his hair and brought an unconscious grin to his face, he decided it was worth that moment of sadness and regret and mourning, because he could turn away from the windowsill and see his mother there with a smile on her face, and one day he might see the brother still out there behind the rain too.

**.**

_I said I'd remember. Sometimes, I wished I hadn't; it hurts to remember._

_But I knew that; that's why I said I'd do it. So I could protect you from that, little brother._

_And, one day, we'll meet again and I'll remind you, so we'll both suffer a little less._


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N:** A new chapter – and celebrating the shiny new category that needs more authors than just me in it. :D There are a few fics in the misc category from other authors, but those authors aren't on the site anymore. :(

Shou has a dog at the beginning of the first OVA. Who knows what happens to it, or where it came from. But it's there. Same dog I introduce in this chapter. And the kendo uniform is made of a uwagi (the top part) and a umanori type hakama (the bottom part, that's split like trousers). And now Shou's adopted father needs a name. Cheigo popped into my head so Cheigo it is. Also not sure what year they're supposed to be in, so I've put them in ninth grade (end of junior high school).

I explain a little of the issue of Shou's birth parents in this chapter. That is also canon (with a tint of head canon). As for the details…that might constitute a spoiler so I'll save that for PM.

And exactly one month between updates. Lol, I'd told myself _roughly_ one month.

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**Memories in the Rain  
Chapter 1**

**.**

Puddles decorated the ground and Shou fought down a grimace as he squelched his way across the park. The rain had tapered off, but the way it ran through the fragile image of the world still remained. Now though was not the time to drown in memories; unlike the times of torrential rain before a window and stillness behind, the world was in motion again.

And so was he, juggling his sports bag and kendo gear and trying to avoid getting too muddy. It occupied his mind easily enough, occasionally coloured with curses from others in a similar predicament, or the giggles of little kids who didn't care how much of their boots and coats were muddied – and he wouldn't care too much either, except he was on his way to Kendo practise and the instructor always frowned at a less than impeccable presentation. A lack of respect to the sport, he said.

And his students could respect that. It simply meant he had to step a little more carefully through mud and puddles, balancing the weight of his two bags. But that was his fault as well: he'd been the one to volunteer a soccer scrimmage after Kendo practise – assuming the instructor didn't have them do squats again. Last time they could barely walk – and yet walk they had to, because every person in the world despised staying still. Except the ones who'd given up on life and the world.

Rain was like the grim reaper and the sun that came out thereafter, shining harshly off puddles and painting the grey with a rainbow of colours was the harsh slap of life. It was a random thought that had once struck him in a moment of melancholy, and he kept it even now. Kept it even as he winced when some mud splashed on to his hakama and stayed there. Kept it even as he spotted Naoto bent over under a tree and put a grin on his face.

It was impossible to sneak around in the mud and Shou didn't even bother to try; he hated that anyway. Instead he yelled out the other's name.

Naoto straightened and grinned. 'Yo,' he said, waving the other over. 'Help me out here.'

Shou blinked and went over. 'What is –' he began, before staring at the little puppy Naoto was crouched beside. It looked white – or specked brown. It was hard to tell with all the mud, even if the recent rain had made it run. Even more so because it was still moving, getting itself even muddier. 'What the hell?'

'Bullies.' Naoto shrugged. 'That old boy scared them off.' He pointed at his kendo stick, now propped against a tree with its base slowly getting stained with brown. 'Except now this little pup won't let me pick it up.'

He reached for the puppy again to illustrate his point, and it made a weak snap at his fingers.

Shou shook his head. 'You look like you're going to attack the poor puppy.' And, while it was a jest, it was also a fair point. Naoto was dressed in the same sort of uniform as him: blue uwagi and black hakama, but he'd also tied his slightly longer and far darker brown hair into a ponytail and added a headband to keep the fringes away. He looked more threatening than he was as a result.

Shou wasn't a whole lot better, but at least his hair was still free. Though he had his fingerless gloves on too. He took those off, stuffing them into one of the numerous small pockets on his soccer bag before forcing his kendo stick in as well, then crouched down carefully. Naoto had taken no such caution, and the legs and seat of his hakama were soaked with the mud. The puppy growled and snapped at him too, but Shou accepted the bite. He'd expected it, and while it mightn't have hurt at all if he'd left the gloves on, it was weak and frightened and lacking any malicious intent. And when the puppy looked up, Shou met its gaze.

It didn't take long for the jaw to loosen and the head to drop, and Shou carefully scooped it up. Naoto leaned over and stared, before sprouting a pout. 'Why is he such an angel with you?'

'Because I don't scare him off with that gangster look,' Shou grinned back, though he knew that wasn't the reason at all. Naoto was a teddy bear deep down; it was Shou who always got into fights and sprouted cuts and bruises…but he jumped into trouble without thinking so he could protect people, or animals. Often, those were people he had absolutely nothing to do with, animals he'd never crossed paths with before. He didn't have pets; he cared for strays sometimes, for a little while, before dropping them off at the shelter. His adopted parents didn't mind; they asked if he wanted to adopt the pet instead. He didn't, and they accepted that. Just like they accepted the memories of the past hid behind smiles on sunny days and came out during the rain.

Naoto knew that as well. Not as well as his adopted parents, but Naoto was a close friend. He knew the parents Shou lived with weren't his birth ones. He knew that his birth father was a mystery, down to the man's name. He knew that the only shreds of knowledge he had of his mother was the red pendant he wore under his clothes and the knowledge that she'd died trying to protect them: him…and his little brother.

But they were infants at the time and could hardly have defended themselves.

'Yo.' Naoto's voice was too loud in his ears, and Shou's balance wavered a little. 'What are you drifting off for?'

'I'm not,' Shou replied, standing up. Though he had been, even if they didn't really have the time for that. The puppy in his hands yowled a little in pain as it squirmed, and Shou carefully stood. Naoto stood as well, grabbing his things. 'I guess I'll drop – ' A surreptitious check under the tail. ' – him home with 'kaa-san.'

Naoto rolled his eyes. 'How'd I know you were going to say that,' he said rhetorically. 'Guess I'm coming with.'

'Sensei will be annoyed at the both of us,' Shou warned. It was a moot point though; Naoto's uniform was going to get him scolded even if he got to the dojo on time.

It was going to be a chore keeping his own hakama and two bags clean. Shou was just glad they both had straps so he didn't need his hands to hold them.

**.**

Shou might have underestimated the instructor of the dojo, or one of the other attendees had spotted them with the soaked and possibly injured puppy and given their excuses. The instructor simply nodded and let him in after a quick glance; Shou's hakama had a few spots of mud on it, but it was no worse than the other boys lined up.

Naoto on the other hand, with the mud obvious even in the black colour, was subjected to a fierce glare before ordered on the side lines. Shou offered a sympathetic shrug before lining up. He could see the younger class in progress at the back, and Naoto was looking over there as well. But they were nearing the end of junior high and were expected to be more careful.

Though the instructor wasn't unreasonable. He'd said nothing about the few flecks that everyone had on their hakama. Flecks that looked dull despite being so similar in colour, that were slowly drying in the warmth of the dojo and dusting the polished wood with even finer specks. Specks that clung to their bare feet once they started their warm-up exercises: jogged around the room before speeding up into a sprint and then drifting off into more mobile activities and, finally stretches.

Naoto got a brief scolding and then joined them, doing his laps a little more hurriedly than them but being mindful all the same. Muddy clothes were one thing, but rushing through warm-ups could mean a strained muscle and any avid sportsman or martial artist knew to avoid that. Shou was both; Naoto leaned more towards the latter. Both of them knew the importance of warming up.

Serious training followed; not power training that would have them all hobbling home, but speed and technique that were equally important. Shou could never pick things like that up with just one presentation, but the feeling of doing it again and again was satisfying and it wrote the motions neatly into his mind. Callouses always came out of skills lessons like this one, but he didn't mind. There were plenty less painful things to occupy one's mind; he knew what he enjoyed.

He and Naoto practised together; the last time they'd been partnered up with different people, Naoto's partner had gone off with a broken finger. Accidental, but they'd been training together since they were in the junior class, from their elementary school years. Naoto, who didn't often fight outside of martial arts classes and tournaments, too often underestimated them.

Shou, who did get into unofficial fights quite often, knew better how and when to pull his punches. Which was never against Naoto, who would take advantage of the opening and leave him with a broken finger and a bruised ego.

An annoyed sigh from Naoto told Shou the other boy was holding himself back from doing just that again. 'You're drifting off again,' he said. 'Geeze, you're always sleepwalking after it rains.' He tapped his kendo stick against his leg. 'Get into stance already; let's see how well you've managed that new move.'

Naoto might come out sharp, but Shou knew he wouldn't strike until he knew his opponent was ready. 'Right,' he said, straightening himself and slipping into the greeting stance. Naoto mimicked him and they bowed in unison before dropping into fighting stance.

The mud on their hakama didn't look as ridiculous as it might have if they were a different colour. Shou soon forgot about it as he was forced to devote his utmost attention to his technique and opponent. He'd sparred enough times with Naoto to know that, while he wouldn't start a match until his opponent was ready, he wouldn't notice any lapses of attention _within_ the match until the opponent was sprouting a bruised or broken appendage.

'Ready?' Naoto asked.

Shou adjusted his grip and grinned. 'Ready.'

**.**

They did wind up playing soccer afterwards, letting their kendo uniforms get as muddy as they liked since they needed to be washed anyway and letting their muscles worked until they felt like they had the consistency of noodles because they needed to be loosened up after the skills class they'd just had. The puddles were still there, but smaller and murkier than they'd been two hours before. Right when the rain had stopped they'd been pure and reflecting; now, they were simply being sucked into the earth.

Naoto didn't call Shou out on his lapsing attention again, nor did Shou find his thoughts straying off. The match had given him a good run for his money even if few of them shared a place on the soccer team and could truly compete. It was always fun though, to be able to play without standards in place – where he could trip over a hastily tied shoelace and fall on his face in the mud and only be laughed at. Competition was a different environment, where silly mistakes one could laugh at in luxury were paid for too dearly – but in it existed a drive he could find in no other setting.

Naoto came home with him afterwards. Said he was curious about the puppy and Shou believed him; he probably was. He'd scared the bullies off after all – though the question as to whether he'd have actually fought for said puppy still remained. If it was a friend, Shou had no doubt Naoto would defend them, but strangers were a different story. There were things not worth sacrificing for them.

He always said Shou had an older brother complex, trying to protect the fragile looking and weak. And he did, because that was the sort of person he remembered his brother to be: smaller, thinner, paler, kinder and more tender. But Shou had never told that to Naoto, never mentioned his brother. From that time they were separated at the orphanage, when the younger twin had been adopted and elder left behind left behind, Kai was a memory for Shou and Shou alone.

**.**

The puppy was more or less fine. Drenched by the rain and stained brown by the mud, but Hisako had given him a warm bath to make that fur white again and wrapped him snugly to drive off the chill. The only problem left was his appetite; as she explained to the two boys, the puppy wasn't drinking the water she'd offered, or milk, or the leftover dog-food they had from the last stray Shou had picked up.

'I asked Cheigo to pick up some medicine from the vet on his way home,' she explained, setting the rejected bowel down after her latest attempt. 'But I don't think that's the problem here.'

Shou inched forward and Naoto hung back; Naoto didn't mind animals in the least, but they didn't get along with him like they did with Shou, and he had no intention of aggravating a puppy who didn't look like it could stay standing for more than a few seconds.

'Here boy.' He offered a hand. The puppy glared at him weakly but didn't sniff, didn't search for an identity, or recognition. He took the offered bowel of water from his mother and tried with that, but got the same result. 'Guess he's not too fond of people.'

'That might be because those little brats were kicking him around.' Naoto was tapping his kendo stick against his thigh, the mud on his hakama now dry and leaving little flakes on the carpet. No-body noticed – or if they did, nothing was said. 'Makes you wonder why; they obviously didn't want a fight.'

After all, they'd fled when they saw him and his kendo stick – or maybe they'd recognised the ninth grader as someone out of their league. Shou had expected them to be older, but he wasn't naïve enough to think the youngsters of the world were kind. He'd spent the earliest moments he remembered in an orphanage after all, where it was Kai behind him and the world in front.

Except now it was Naoto behind him and a shivering and pale looking dog in front, and Shou's task was to get something in to his stomach before he truly got ill.


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N: **It's been a while, and somehow this chapter seems to stretch on more than I originally imagined it to. But this is the sort of chapter that peaks at everybody but doesn't do much to forward plots – if it did, this chapter would be over before I got to play with Shou's character more. :D Also, part of the style is to contrast with the next chapter, where the rain finally lets up for a bit you'll be happy to know. It's the whole rain=inaction, not rain=action contrast.

Enjoy!

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**Memories in the Rain  
Chapter 2**

**.**

Shou hadn't managed to convince the little puppy to drink a little from the bowl of warm milk before his father came home with the medicine. It was the sort that stunk as well, worse than blazers did when they got caught in downpours on the way to school and then dried draped behind chairs during class. The whole room would smell like a fish market then, particularly if it was still raining and the wind was wild outside as well. Opening the windows meant letting all that rain in and on their books and hair and other things, so the smell remained trapped inside.

If only teachers were more partial to opening the door – but the noise from the corridor was easily distracting so the teachers were well justified in wanting to keep the door closed. It was just a shame, because classes were just that much more unbearable on rainy days. Shou could hardly concentrate in them – or on much of anything save the past when it rained.

But the rain was still dancing on the roof and the windows, pattering loudly enough that they had to raise their voices to be clearly heard over it. If the puppy made a noise, it was swept away by the increasingly vigorous torrent they'd shut outside. At least at home they could throw all the wet clothes into the dryer and turn on the wood heater and fill the living room with flickering yellow and orange and the scent of dry burning pine.

And the heat from the fire was drying the puppy's fur as well. And though he didn't seem to want a sip he didn't mind his fur being dried further by a towel or his mother's hair dryer. He didn't mind being brushed gently either: tired eyes rolled up to stare into Shou's face and the boy laughed, and that was the end of the matter. A brush they kept specifically for the many strays that came in and out of their home – and, maybe, Shou sometimes thought, because his parents hoped Shou would take a pet for keeps one day…though he didn't think he ever would. They were adorable, and the sort of company that could steal his mind away from such gloomy days, but that feeling of grounding could only last for so long when one too often took to the skies. If he were a bird in his past life, he thought he would be a white dove, flying out above the sea and vanishing into the backdrop of white cloud…

Even though that didn't seem to fit the life he lived at all, rushing and jumping into things he was better keeping out of. But little doves could do that as well. He wasn't a strong person, and he didn't do Kendo or take on bullies to win. He just did those things because he couldn't bear to watch the even smaller, more defenceless, things being hurt. Like porcelain or glass, being knocked off a table to shatter into irreparable pieces.

He wasn't a rubber ball that could bounce back from anything by any means. Nor wood – though perhaps he disliked that comparison for the simple reason that wood was rooted to the ground. And wood burned: create the warm smell of an open heater in winter which he didn't mind, but it wasn't the fresh wind smell he loved. It was just far the preferable option to the rain and wet, stagnant, smells.

He set down the brush and offered a fur-tinted hand to the puppy. The puppy licked it: progress he hadn't had before. He hadn't minded the pampering, but the more intimate actions had been met with resistance. Shou offered the bowel again. The puppy clamped its jaw and turned away.

'There's a saying,' his father said, watching the pair from the couch and a steaming mug of coffee, 'that someone who dresses themselves up but refuses to eat is preparing for their funeral.'

Shou made a jerking motion, as though going to stand but managing, just barely, to hold himself back. It wasn't as though he hadn't seen dead or dying animals before after all. Birds that were stoned on the way to school and fell off their perch, only to be crushed underfoot. Or sometimes it was a completely innocent reason they fell, and equally innocent when a sneaker pressed against feather and flesh and the sound of cracking bones alerted them too late. Because people didn't make it a habit to look down. Birds did that, flying straight in the sky. They didn't have to look forward, because there was no prey and likely no friend to be found like that. When the space of the third dimension was so open, why would two things exist on the same continuous line?

The world was made of infinite lines stacking atop each other in infinite planes. That thing they called dimension was only a means to quantify the unquantifiable – to distinguish between those that were doomed to forever walk and remain attached to a surface they called concrete, and those that were able to hover and move through the air – that invisible medium.

But air wasn't invisible, because invisible seemed to mean it didn't exist. And the wind _made_ it visible, on those glorious gust-filled days that one really couldn't think anything else within as they struggled to go on with their normal lives. Roots helped then. Birds got blown away far more easily than the humans that could hold on to something and struggle on.

But it was so much easier for a bird to leave things behind, and to forget… A pure white dove. He doubted there was much from the past that greyed it.

And sometimes, the strays died as well. Like that cat that had been caught in the gutter. She had died before he could even free her. But he'd brought her home anyway. Just so they could bury her. Just for that closure. Because he couldn't in all good will leave her there. It would have been a sight that would haunt him at every gutter he passed.

Sometimes he did see that cat still, in gutters. Sometimes he felt her throbbing heart still and that desperate claw digging into his flesh slacken and fall away. But he also saw its peaceful face once his mother had washed the blood away and arranged her prettily in a little box. Like a doll sleeping in its casket, waiting to be taken out for a walk by some innocent little girl who would breathe life into it. It was settling, in a sense, rather than leaving something unfinished. A sense of fulfilment from trying, even if that attempt ended in failure, than walking away after doing nothing and receiving no useless pains for it.

That was something he couldn't stop doing. Couldn't stop jumping into fights he couldn't win. Even though his father was telling him that puppy might not survive, he couldn't stop tending to it, coaxing it to take in a little something.

Even if it was supposed to be a hopeless cause to convince someone who had lost the will to live to continue on. He wouldn't know though. He'd never met anyone like that: animal or human. Hadn't met anyone who could honesty say there was nothing in the world worth living for – and he hoped he never would. Oh, he had seen animals just about to die: that peaceful last expression that graced them – but that was different to giving up. That was just acceptance.

Accepting made things easier. Giving up – Shou would argue that made things all the more harder in the end, for everyone. That sliver of hope – that was what made life worthwhile to continue living, to continue trying in.

If he didn't have that sliver of hope, that faint string that still attached him to his far away brother, he didn't know what he'd do. Or who he'd be: not drowning in the rain, or running about as though to dry himself off in the sun. Not jumping head first into things and suffering the consequences. Not being the protector that then had to be protected…and making firm friends like Naoto and family like the Hamuras, that just added to the experience called life.

_But all those hopeless things you hang on to – you might as well let them go so they'll stop dragging you back._ And then he laughed aloud, a sound that surprised the puppy into lifting his head again. _I'm such a hypocrite_.

**.**

His father read the action easily. Too often they'd been like this: the custodian and the carer and the vulnerable little life being cared for with the mother in reach, on call. She was doing the dinner dishes now. The rain drowned out her humming and the running water and clattering of utensils and plates.

It fit the normal family paradigm too well – so well that the illusion of completeness, of the absence of all those extra ties, could almost be believed. But it was raining, and that changed the scene. If it wasn't, Shou would be running inside and out with balls and sweet smelling flowers and some fruits that were just becoming ripe and twigs of thyme that made any animal or human to inhale it deeply sneeze. Some of those were pranks, but they were lively ones and that energy was contagious. And it was usually day, and sunny, sometimes windy, sometimes not.

When it rained, there was a feeling of inactivity that clung to everyone. But it clung most of all to those who tried to fly on the winds, doing as much as they could as though the time would slip away from them if they did not. And Shou was one of those people, and that desire, that disregard for the ground, was one of those things, that stated so painfully their little family scene would not forever last. Because even if nothing happened, one day Shou would grow up and want to live alone, or be married, or go find the remnants of his real family that still existed in the world. And then they'd lose him, or grow distant from him. Because they hadn't spent their whole lives together with him. He'd been too old when he'd come to them, lived with too many other families.

But Hisako and Chiego both knew that, and accepted it. It was enough for them to have Shou there: have that energy in the sunny days that they could give back to in the quiet, raining, ones. They had a connection there: cookies and advice and a warm home and Shou called them his parents without hesitation and smiled at them. Those sorts of things were okay, enough as they grew like buds in the spring and gained their beautifully coloured petals. They didn't stand to lose as much as it appeared. It didn't rain every day after all.

And as long as it didn't rain the day they would part, it would be a memory filled with energy and life.

Chiego drained his cup and slipped off the chair. The carpet was thick and soft, because they'd had a dog long before Shou had come to live with them and he'd been a bundle of energy as well. It had been an old dog, that had eventually broken a leg and been put down, but before that it was the child running about laughing and causing trouble that they'd never had.

Maybe their first reasons for fostering Shou hadn't been as noble as others believed. The house had just seemed so painfully empty, and so soon after their precious dog's death it seemed impossible to take another pet. And so they took in the boy, who was slightly too old to be called a child at that stage, and would only grow bigger.

It was raining that first day and the boy had been so lost in his own thoughts they had wondered if they'd made a mistake. That was fine though, they thought, if they had. Fostering was a temporary thing. They hadn't signed up for a life commitment.

But the next day it had been sunny and with a slight breeze and Shou was a blur in the gardens, acquainting himself with the flowers and the trees and the park near them with its basketball court and all that empty space. They'd learnt so much about him that day, both by observation and guessing. That he'd like to play soccer one on one with his new adopted father. That he'd like to have nice fresh cookies dripping with chocolate when he came back, hot and sweaty and fulfilled.

By the time the next rain came, they'd realised what it was: that time Shou took to stop moving about and looking ahead, to just look back. To remember things that hurt but he couldn't bear to forget – and that was fine. Neither of them thought such important things: the past, should be forgotten. If that was the way he chose to remember, to honour that past, then that was something that could accept, and support.

And there was nothing to do outside when it rained. Whatever they could do inside was just an artificial scene: soft carpet instead of grass, and the smell of firewood and closed windows instead of all those unnamed things that was mixed into outdoor air. They couldn't take the puppy outside and coax it with thyme and little balls and the opportune butterfly. They could only take a soft rubbery ball and roll it about the floor and hope it would be enough to coax the little soul out of his shell.

It was like playing a board game instead of soccer outdoors. For Shou, it was something he couldn't throw his entire being into, but dogs were a different breed. And something that did pull him away from the writings of the past in those sheets of rain was an animal, a puppy or a kitten or something else, who could barely stand but still raised his or head enough to lick at his fingers.

Chiego watched Shou dip his fingers into the bowl of milk and then offer them. The puppy turned him down, lowering his head onto the dry towel again.

'Really?' Shou sighed.

Chiego found the ball they used to play with and rolled it gently over. Shou stopped it; Chiego had made sure he would see it, and it wouldn't have hit their injured guest even if he'd missed. He didn't give up any more than Shou did, and Shou knew that well. Words could be taken in many a different way, depending on the speaker, and how much the one who heard or read them knew of him or her. His wife would understand; they'd been married for almost twenty years after all. Shou, for the three years they'd lived together, had come to understand that too. Quickly too, as though they were meant to become the almost family they were. Or just plain family, those days where sleets of rain couldn't sneak in and slow the world down enough for them to think about the finer details to everything else.

But even when the world went on in slow motion, things did move. Shou nudged the ball to the puppy's nose. The snout retracted instead of nudging forward, and so Shou flicked it back. Chiego rolled it again, and they repeated the motion until the puppy got irritated or into the little game and nudged the ball himself. It knocked into the bowel and came back with droplets of milk which a dry tongue crept out between slacked jaws and licked off.

Chiego laughed. Shou cracked a grin, then laughed as well. It was infectious, and silly: that bowls and fingers were ignored and an annoying little ball got the job done. Or maybe it wasn't like that at all. It probably wasn't. That little game of ball was just a sign of things that could be done on those dreaded raining days when the rest of time stood still and the past knocked on the door. The puppy slowly lapped up the rest of the milk, and even the medicine that had been brought. And though it wouldn't be a quick fix, it was the end of the danger and only the hammering rain on the roof and windowsill still spoke in sombre tones.

But it sounded as though it had gotten lighter. Though it might have just been their imagination, because things always seemed lighter after a good laugh. There just wasn't always a button to push to create that – but sometimes, silly things happened, or things happened that appeared silly, and there was a faint silver lining in the grey clouds that were otherwise too tightly meshed together to separate.

Or maybe it was because the distraction had so stolen them, that there was no room left in either of their minds to go on thinking about pasts or finer details.


End file.
