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The rain rapped loudly on the umbrella that Ruri had opened, urging her to run a little faster. She laughed as she stepped over the puddle on the sidewalk. Heartland always looked particularly warm and glamorous on rainy days. The colorful lights of the city reflected in the water, every drop that fell from the sky a dazzling echo of a beautiful memory. Billboards, shop windows, even the signals from the traffic lights sparkled between the buildings and Ruri cheerfully stuck her nose out from under her umbrella to let her gaze wander around. Not too far away she could see the tower in the skyline, and the familiar sight of the town’s landmark made her smile. Then she looked back at the street she was walking in. It was early in the evening and as usual the city’s center was quite crowded. Workers commuting to their cars or the next stop in time for the change of shift, noisy teenagers, parents trying to coordinate their children and their shopping at the same time.
Despite the chaos all around her, Ruri spotted the boy across the street almost immediately. He slipped through her field of vision like a shadow, covered in dark clothing that seemed rather off to her between all these glittering lights. She stopped, curiously turning her head in order to peer over at him in the gap between two passing cars. He had huddled close to the wall of a house, his legs drawn tightly against his chest so as not to get wet under the narrow ledge of the window edge under which he had ducked, but apparently it wasn’t of much use. He had pulled the cap he was wearing down over his face, but Ruri could see it was just as wet as the rest of his clothes, and something in her chest tightened pitifully at the sight. That poor boy must be soaked to the skin. Even from her spot across the street he looked frozen and terribly lost. Then he lifted his head up for a moment and a flash of clear blue eyes pierced through Ruri's memory.
She knew this boy!
For the past month or two she’d kept seeing him in the city center, sometimes in the pedestrian zone near the playground or the big fountain, but mostly in the park. He had sat there, somewhere on the side of the road, playing deep, haunting melodies on his guitar, that still lingered in her head for a long time when she’d stopped to listen.
At that point, the idea of sleeping in the park under the stars or the colorful sea of lights in the city had seemed bold and romantic to her. The air had been warm, enticing with the promise of freedom and the scent of sweet dreams. When Ruri glanced at the cloudy sky now, the thought of not having a safe home struck her as absolutely horrifying. She pursed her lip, taking a hesitant step towards the street. Waiting for the cars to pass, she quickly jogged over to the other side to speak to the boy.
The rain poured down relentlessly on Kaito, sucking the colors out of his surroundings and reaching for him with icy fingers. The outlines of the city blurred before his eyes like wet ink, a bizarre, fuzzy illusion of a reality he had once known. Too much metal, too much glass everywhere. Dim. Cold. Lifeless. Haruto's smile in the water film at his feet trembled and finally vanished completely, and somewhere between his lungs and heart, Kaito registered the loss with a dull ache. Bitter he stared back at the sky. The huge buildings loomed in front of him like a dreary wasteland and the shadows they cast over him felt cold and threatening. Just like the weight of Heartland's hand on his shoulder.
Shivering, he wrapped his arms around his knees to hold on to what little warmth he had left, but it didn't help. He was soaked and his clothes stuck to his skin as if someone had forced him into a body that was too tight for him. He felt strange and fake and for a moment Kaito was sure the pathetic cold seeping into his bones was just his imagination as well, but then he felt the unyielding wall of the house against his back and the wet sidewalk he was sitting on and something in his mind came to the logical conclusion that these sensations actually belonged to him. He let out a shaky breath. Water still dripped from his cap. And the city was still dead.
It took a full minute for the boy to finally notice her among all the other passers-by. She had stopped about two or three feet in front of him, the umbrella tilted against her shoulder so he could see her face. He blinked in surprise. The guitar was leaning against the wall right next to him and it seemed to be the only thing in his possession that was still dry.
"Hello," Ruri said gently.
Another blink. As if he had to convince himself that this was real. That she was actually speaking to him. "Uhm ... hi," he muttered confused. She had never heard him talk before, but the calm, peaceful tones of his music were still buzzing in her head and somehow she had always imagined his voice to be pleasantly soft. That was ... not quite right. It sounded a little scratchy, like he hadn’t used it in a long time, and darker than she’d expected.
"I don't want to be intrusive, but ...," Ruri whispered, suddenly unsure of herself. She eyed the thin frame of his body, the slight tremor in his arms. The cap was new, but apart from that, his damp jacket and the guitar, the boy didn't seem to own anything. Don't you have a home?, she wanted to ask, but how was she going to approach him on that without making this whole situation uncomfortable for them both? "Do you need ... a place for tonight?"
The boy stared at her. Clear blue eyes behind the misty veil of rain, so very different from the blurred city lights around. "I ... am not available for this kind of service," he explained slowly - wary - and Ruri felt the tips of her ears glowing, first from shock and then from embarrassment.
"Oh my God! No! I -…no! That- I didn't want- ... That wasn't ... ", she stammered. Her cheeks burned.
The boy raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Oh," he murmured when he realized that he had misunderstood her.
"I just wanted ... You looked like you were freezing, so I thought you’d probably want to warm up somewhere. Or get out of the rain at least."
Getting out of the rain was such a ridiculously mundane desire that Kaito almost laughed. Then he realized that this was exactly why he had fled under this pathetic ledge in the first place and he hastily gritted his teeth to stifle a snort.
"I'll be fine," he replied calmly. He expected the conversation to end there and the girl to go on her way again without paying any further attention to him, just like the rest of the passers-by, but the tips of the shoes under the brim of his cap didn’t disappear. Curious Kaito looked up again, but instead his gaze caught on one of the posters across the street and his body instinctively went rigid. Suddenly the rain wasn't the only thing that made him shudder.
The girl let her eyes wander down the busy street and Kaito used the brief moment of her distraction to regain control of his panicking heartbeat again.
"Are you in trouble?", she asked carefully after turning back to him.
"No."
"If you are threatened by someone -"
"No usually means you should stop persevering on something," he replied. The girl was silent for the next few seconds, but she still stood there. Kaito crossed his legs, his pants were wet anyway, and awkwardly pulled his shoulders away from the cold wall at his back.
"You’re awfully persistent," he finally groaned. “At best, I'm just a neglected homeless man. But I might as well be a junkie. Or a criminal. How do you know that I won't hurt you if I go with you?"
“I don't live alone. My big brother is at home as well, he'll take care of me.” She smiled carelessly and something inside Kaito's gut twisted painfully. He felt the muscles on his face twitch bitterly and hurried to cover the movement with a blink. Too many dark memories. Too much guilt.
"And how can I be sure you won't harm me?," he interjected half-heartedly, but it didn't really matter what kind of risk he might expose himself to now. Out of the corner of his eyes, he glanced once more at Heartland's illustration on the poster, all of this fake benevolence and more depravity than Kaito could ever overcome. Then he closed his fingers around the guitar. In the end, it didn’t really matter which devil he surrendered himself to.
Their footsteps echoed softly under the umbrella. Ruri raised her hand a little higher, casting an attentive look at her side. Even under the umbrella, the boy looked pitifully slim and lost. Water trickled down his hair that peeked out from under the cap, and he gripped the guitar so tightly it had to hurt. But she said nothing, just tugged gently at the sleeve of his jacket every few steps when he strayed a little too far from her side.
On the last landing in front of the girl's apartment, Kaito paused indecisively. Ruri - he probably only remembered her name out of skepticism, because who was this kind to a stranger? - had already slipped through the door to deposit the umbrella in the entrance area, and then looked invitingly back at him, but his legs just wouldn't move. He could feel the ground beneath his feet clearly, the weight that pinned him down uselessly, while the bright apartment opened up before him like an abyss. A damned paradise of everything he didn't deserve.
Haruto.
Helplessly, Kaito clung tighter to the neck of the guitar until the wood in his grip groaned, forcing himself laboriously to relax his hands and continue breathing. "I ... can just stay here in the stairwell," he suggested, unsure which of them he was actually trying to convince. "It's warm here and dry, and you don't have to -" - come into contact with all the things that were bad about him.
"Come on in now," she interrupted him softly. “You're soaking wet. And I'm sure you must be hungry too.” She stepped aside, making room for him, and Kaito didn't know why, but he followed the gesture.
The apartment was everything Heartland hadn't been. Bright, warm, lively. He awkwardly stumbled through the hall after her, ashamed of the disturbing noises of his footsteps and the drops he left on the floorboards, but Ruri didn’t seem bothered by any of his concerns. She took two towels out of a dresser, pressing them into his arms and called a cheerful greeting to her brother in the next room, before turning back to him with a serious expression. “Take a warm shower, okay? Shun can lend you something to wear."
Shun was half a head taller than him, Kaito noticed uneasily as he joined them in the hallway, looking back and forth between him and his sister with a critical expression. Ruri gestured over to him with a smile. “This is Kaito. Can you lend him some of your clothes? It’s raining cats and dogs outside."
For a moment Shun looked like he wanted to point out all the things that were wrong with this situation, but then he studied his dripping wet, trembling appearance and grunted something that might have been an agreement.
"Do you want something warm to drink?", Ruri asked gently. "Tea, hot chocolate, coffee?"
"I- ..." Kaito just stood there, perplexed and strangely overwhelmed. He was still holding on to the guitar, pressing the fresh towels against his chest, embarrassed. The warm glow of the apartment flickered before his eyes. "... Hot chocolate ... would be nice," he finally whispered.
She hadn't expected him to actually fall asleep. He had taken the chocolate and Shun's clothes. They were a little too big for him. He was too skinny. He hadn't taken the shower, but Ruri had heard the tap in the bathroom and when Kaito had handed her the towels back, his fingers weren't quite as cold anymore. "Just until the rain stops," he had mumbled when she’d pushed him onto the couch and Shun had pulled a blanket out of the closet.
Now he was curled up on some pillows. The guitar was leaning next to him on the living room table and from her spot at the door frame Ruri could count the steady rhythm of his breaths. He had closed his eyes, but she vividly remembered the pretty blue color they were, and when he had whispered a quiet ‘thank you’ to her, for a brief moment something in them had sparkled like the lights out in the rain.