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Rain doesn’t boil in the human realm. It patters and lands coldly on Hunter’s skin, dripping languidly down the length of his forearm, but it doesn’t burn. It’s soaked into his short hair, into the sweater that Ms. Noceda had so kindly given him when she saw just how torn his shirt had been. It seeps uncomfortably down his back, coaxing a shiver from him, but it never burns.
Hunter wishes it did.
Not out of any sort of longing for his own home, or his wishes to return there, but because maybe if the rain boiled, burned, scalded his skin, it would be a little easier to hate him. Perhaps it would be easier to hate him if he knew that he had lied about even this. But he hadn’t. Hunter hates himself for even thinking it, but he can’t help but believe that Belos must have loved him, once.
He wonders if there was ever any kind of genuinity at all in those moments of reflective thinking, fond memories, and gentle hands. He wonders if Belos had ever thought well of him, or if he had always just been a tool.
Every ghost of a kind touch on his shoulder or an amused hand in his hair fizzles away like mist as the cold rain hits his skin with its gentle rhythm of tap, tap, tap. He stares at his hands, at the droplets that land there, and wonders why. If Belos had never truly cared, then why was this rain just as he said it would be? Hunter wishes he could set the rain ablaze with hurt and with hellfire, if only so that he could justify more readily hating the man who had raised him.
It’s silly, he knows, to be so upset over something so little. He knows that if he were to mention it to the others, he would be rewarded with only pitying stares or unwanted reassurance. Hunter loathes Belos. He does. He hates the way he treated him, the way he expected so greatly and hurt so much. Yet he can’t bring himself to hate him. Some part of him, perhaps the part of wood and of stone, is fiercely loyal to the memory of the man. He knows it's irrational, knows that Belos was a horrible man who has done unspeakable things. But not everything was bad, he tells himself. There were good moments. Because there were. He knows the others would disagree with him, tell him it was all fake, that Belos had used him from the very start, and he would nod his head and repress every good thing that Belos had ever said or done. He always was good at following orders.
He watches the rain roll down his arm. Onto the bench beneath him and onto the ground, collecting in a puddle that soaks through his boots. He blinks droplets from his eyes and doesn’t feel it when Flapjack, who had nestled under his hood, nips at his ear.
He stares ahead at the statue of two men, of heroes, of mysteries. He wonders, bleakly, if Belos had ever loved any of them.
Belos wasn’t lying about the rain in the human realm, and Hunter wishes he had. Because maybe, just maybe, it would be a little easier to turn and never look back.