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He has four vivid memories about monsoon season.
One, when his parents still lived with them, and the world was filled with peace, and Tomoro could wear his yellow poncho and his orange rain boots and stomp around outside until the clouds cleared and an arc of seven colors flashed across the sky. Asuka told him it was a rainbow, and that it meant good things and soft blessings. Tomoro wished for a rainbow every day in the slums to keep Asuka safe.
The second time had been during a flash storm that rose the water level near their apartment. Asuka hadn't come back yet. Tomoro had been strictly advised to stay inside no matter what even as the wind slammed against the windows and the lights flickered off from the harsh rain pouring down and the walls leaked as the water level got higher and higher. He had to climb all the way to the highest floor to keep himself from drowning.
Weeks ago, it had poured cats and dogs when he was met with Kyo's former—whatever whose talk of their dynamic gave him an eerie resemblance to something else. Tomoro didn't know which was worse. Watching Kyo fall unconscious while surrounded by fire and staring at Kekomon's body or having to tell everything to a comatose Asuka wishing that his brother would bring him into a hug and tell him things would be alright.
The fourth time monsoon season had blindsided him, Tomoro wishes not to think about too often. If he does, he thinks he'll never get it out of his head, forever cursed to replay his stupid actions in a loop in his thoughts, but just because he didn't want to think about it didn't mean that the universe was going to just let it go.
No, of course not. Tomoro was never meant to have a nice day, after all, because nice days and him don't go together. Something always has to go wrong. Plans always have to be remade. He always has to suck up his feelings and be the bigger person even though he'd rather be anything but such as he stands across from another figure holding an umbrella to ward off the pouring rain.
Their face is slightly covered, the umbrella dipped just a tad, but Tomoro isn't stupid, as much as people would claim him to be. While there could be people who stopped in front of him because they want to drag him away to be harmed, especially in the slums of all places, Tomoro knows that gray umbrella far too well. The faded logo on the side. The gold handle gripped by black gloves. The silver statue at the top shaped like a T.
Rain bounces off it, the sound echoing in his ears and in the air, pattering against the puddles already formed in the divots of the earth. Monsoon season has turned the sky dark with dreary grey clouds blocking the sun but Tomoro can still spot soft orange eyes when the umbrella is shifted that look almost like they're glowing in the dark.
If he was on the ground, covered in mud, bruises, and drying blood, it would be almost like back then, just like when they stood across from each other drenched from head to toe.
As it is now, he is still on two feet, a white grocery bag sliding down his arm as his hand curls inside his pocket, feeling like a fish inside a glass bowl watching the outside world. He supposes that would be an accurate description for anyone who stands in the rain watching someone else. With how hard it's pouring, making things almost impossible to see as fog creeps in through, carefully obscuring the world from their view, it feels like you're in a glass container with no way out.
"…..Hey."
Soft. Controlled. The slightest hint of an accent. Tomoro squeezes the handle of his umbrella until he can feel it in the palm of his hand. His stomach flutters despite himself. "Hey," he mutters, tilting his umbrella forward just enough, "for someone who hates the rain so much, you sure do meet me under it a lot." The words leave his mouth unbidden, as if he has no control of his tongue, and Tomoro winces, the puddles beneath him splashing onto the ankles of his pants as he marches forward with a tickling laugh at the back of his throat. "But, uh, I gotta go back home. Medicine cabinet won't restock itself , you know? I'll see you—nng!"
He's supposed to walk back home and restock the medicine cabinet in the bathroom as per Reina's instructions. He's supposed to keep his head high, keep walking, and never look back no matter what. He's supposed to have put this all behind him, because there was nothing going on and he had just been thinking too much for no real rhyme or reason but how was he supposed to do any of that when an arm slithers around his own to yank him backward, his umbrella slipping away to clatter to the ground at the same time as the gray one, giving him a clear view of tousled blue hair and wide orange eyes with cheeks flushed the slightest pink. Monsoon season was always so cold.
His breath comes out in a hitch. His voice betrays him as it utters out, "Raito," like he is praying to the heavens above and Raito jerks, letting go of him as if he'd been burned, his mouth opening and closing. A fish out of water he looks like to Tomoro, staring with eyes so wide they resemble dinner plates and mouth unable to close properly like a door with rusty hinges.
"Tenma," he finally says, or rather, croaks out, tongue swiping across his lips. They are too close yet not close enough, inches away yet Tomoro swears he can feel Raito's breath on his face. "Tenma," he repeats, like he's trying to test the way Tomoro's name sounds on his mouth. "Tenma." And again, third's time the charm, maybe, mouth twisting, opening, closing.
Tomoro should tell him to get on with it. He should shove him away and continue walking even though Raito isn't even holding onto him. There's nothing holding him where he stands. Nothing but emotions too big for him to control. "You're bleeding," he says instead, body moving before he can think, finger pressing against a pink cheek to push the blood out further before it's swiped away by the same thumb and washed clean away by the rain.
He wonders if Raito's gotten clumsy now. If he trips over his feet and hits walls. If he's trading blows with someone who doesn't think twenty-four seven.
The thought makes his stomach curdle like spoiled milk.
To think Raito would find someone else to spar with, someone else to talk with, someone else who could be more of an independent and understanding person than Tomoro himself filled him with the same dread as hearing that the unit Asuka laid in had been attacked by Jokermon and his strange partner. He knows, from the stand point of who he is at his core, that he shouldn't feel anything less than understanding of Raito's desire to find someone who wasn't assigning unnecessary meanings to their arrangement, that maybe Raito just wanted to trade blows without thinking, but his heart says otherwise, shriveling up at the sight of scrapes and bruises on Raito's face—bruises that Tomoro definitely didn't give him.
It wasn't fair how easily emotional he got. It wasn't fair that Raito could so up and leave him without a second glance. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. It wasn't. Whatever happened to a solution for both of their selfishness? Whatever became of speaking through each kick and punch? Of knowing exactly how the other was thinking based off the way you were bruised alone?
Had it all been in Tomoro's head—this back and forth conversation that they did, the stories they traded by bloodying each other's faces? Had Raito seen this as little more than a way to get back into shape after leaving Tactics and disbanding from Team Seven? Was it him who had read the situation wrong, grossly misinterpreting what should have been obvious from the start?
"Raito," he whispers, the idea of calling out to the boy using anything but making his spit taste sour and his stomach to twist, "Raito, I—"
What was he supposed to say? Raito didn't like it when he apologized, always citing it as unnecessary unless he truly needed to, but what if he thought the other deserved it? What if Raito just couldn't accept that Tomoro could be just as bad as he could be good (if he ever really was), that this was all Tomoro's fault and Raito deserved to be given grace because of it?
He had always thought Raito was better than him, even while he saw him as little more than an annoying pest, when the boy had gone from a mosquito that wouldn't leave him alone to someone Tomoro couldn't fathom living without. Better emotional control. Better genius. Better combat skills. All Tomoro could offer was his unlimiting kindness, his persistence in dragging Raito out of this dark void that he was in because no one deserved to wither away even if they were supposed to be his enemy and isn't that the big, surprising twist?
Here he was, desperate to not let who was supposed to be his enemy, his rival, leave without a second glance. Did Raito brainwash him? Was Tomoro so desperate for connection aside from his family that he jumped headfirst into the only one that was available? Raito doesn't even give him the time of day like a friend was supposed to—if they were even friends in the first place. Sure, they met up frequently, exchanging blows and keeping the other from going home too roughed up, but did Raito know that Tomoro can't eat broccoli? Did Tomoro know what foods Raito despised with his entire being?
Did Raito know his birthday? That this was still his first time being a Cleaner?
Rain pours down like an angry god sending floods to teach his creations a lesson. He's drenched from head to toe, his hair losing the usual spiky style he sets it in (because who wants to approach a deliquent) and draping over his eyes, the strands slightly curled at the end. His hoodie sticks to his skin, slightly see through, and Raito's eyes are glued to the plethora of purple-black spread across his side and stomach, the bruises shaped like curling fingers around his wrists. He stares like he's seen something divine and Tomoro wants to crow out, see, see! I knew it! but his voice is shot, drowning in the depths of his own cowardice.
If he points it out—will Raito tell him to stop being so delusional? If he splays his hand across his stomach, feeling the way his nerves light up like fireworks shooting into the sky, the pain exploding into brilliant bursts of color that shine in the reflection of Raito's shaking pupils, will the other see him as deranged? Will he ignore the way he steps closer, fingers pressing against the wet fabric of his hoodie, close but yet so far at the same time?
"H—" Tomoro swallows, "—hiding this from everyone was a pain in the butt, you know? Reina likes to grab my wrist to drag me places if I'm not paying attention, and stretching too high pulls on the bruises too so Kyo gives me this strange look when I fumble in the mornings or on cooking duty."
He watches as Raito's hands curl once around the fabric of his hoodie before slipping away as he snorts, shaking his head. "Lemme guess," he mutters, "you told her you just fell?" His lack of response should be an answer enough as Tomoro shrugs his shoulders, peering at the gauze wrapped tight around Raito's midsection when his shirt rises the slightest bit up. It doesn't stop the bruise from peeking through at the top through his drenched, see through shirt, but Tomoro keeps himself as still as a statue when he catches sight of it.
What now? He wants to ask, what are we supposed to be doing here? Here they stand, drenched in rainwater, their umbrellas on the ground, themselves fully exposed to the other, and Tomoro's head is a war of thoughts and feelings he shouldn't be having battling each other to try and spill out of him before he can stop them.
Raito looks composed, his hands by his sides, slightly in his pockets, not even caring about the way the wind tousles his hair or how his shirt sticks to him from the rain. He doesn't look at Tomoro, eyes fixated elsewhere, shoulders up to his ears, and Tomoro feels the grocery bag he's holding slide further down his arm, the crinkling sound it makes making him jerk as he glances down at it. Right. Right. He can't stay here. His family's expecting him. Whatever Raito wants to say, whatever he has to convey to him, it could wait until they met up again, until they were facing each other from opposite sides of a submerged building's roof. "I'll…." he licks his lips, stepping back slightly, would a see you later be too much? Scare Raito off?
He'd stopped him for a reason, after all, or so Tomoro wishes to believe. Maybe he just wanted to see him one last time until they go their separate ways. Maybe this was some sort of sign from the skies above that they meet again the same way they started their arrangement. "See you, Raito," Tomoro utters out in a whisper, clutching at the grocery bag's straps as he whirls around, the puddles beneath his feet splashing wildly as he steps forward.
And nearly squawks as the hood of his hoodie is snatched and yanked on, sending him sprawling back until he's slamming against a wall, pain shooting up his spine like that of flames bursting forth from a bonfire before it settles down, sparks flying in the air.
It takes a second for him to realize that Raito's got him against the wall of a building within a dead end alley. It takes a second for him to come to terms with the fact that his wrists are free but the front of his hoodie is clenched tight within Raito's white knuckled, trembling fists.
His glasses slip down his nose, rendering Raito a blurred mess of blue, and Tomoro can hear his heart pounding in his ears, thinks it might even jump out of his throat as he's held there like he truly doesn't mean anything—a doll on display that can feel the way Raito pushes him further into the wall, digging his knuckles into his chest, their foreheads so close they can press them together if Tomoro moves forward.
That's your question, huh? Something unravels in him, spilling forth and bursting like a garden ready to take bloom, and Tomoro grasps it with both hands, lifting his leg up to slam his foot into Raito's stomach and send him stumbling back until he hits the wall opposite of him, swaying, mud splashing across his shoes and ankles.
Orange eyes settle on him, shaking pupils wide, and Tomoro drops the grocery bag onto his hand, tying it on a rusty metal pipe poking out next to his head, and lunges.