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You wake up surprisingly early—well, for you anyway—and for a moment you aren’t sure why. Then your ears fully register the sound of rain against your window, and your skin registers the chill in the room, the temperature having dropped a few degrees thanks to the weather. There’s something soft and perfect about the way the gentleness of the morning wraps around you, and you think about going back to sleep, but…
You roll over onto your side so you aren’t facing the wall and are instead facing the rest of the room. Aqua’s bed is empty. Namine is still curled up in her bed, blankets all kicked down to the end of it like usual. You wonder if Namine’s ever seen real, proper rain before. You wonder how long the rain might last.
Sighing, regretting it even though eagerness thrums in your veins, you drag yourself out of bed. The clock on the wall tells you it’s close to 8am. A decent time of morning, though early for you. Riku was probably going to die of shock once he saw that you were up this early. And as you move to wake Namine, she looks surprised too. You tell yourself it’s not because you’re the one she has to drag out of the bed most mornings and instead it’s because of the thrill in your voice and the promise you have something exciting share with her.
Namine likes taking her time getting ready in the mornings—you’ve watched her ritual, grumpily and wishing to still be asleep, from shelter of your blankets many times before—so you leave her to it and go figure out where Aqua went.
The musty smell of the mansion is ten times worse in the rain, and humidity hangs in the air. The light inside is all dim, clouds obscuring what you figure would otherwise be warm sunlight. (Not like you’d know, since you’re never up this early, says Riku’s voice in the back of your mind, and you shush it irritably, because geeze you don’t need your brain’s imitation of him nagging at you when you’re just going to get to hear him do it in person within the hour.) When the stairs sag a bit under your weight as you descend them, you think for the first time that maybe it’s with mold and not with age, and that makes you a little queasy. You try not to think about it anymore.
It takes you a couple moments to find Aqua. Finally you spot her by the glass-paned doors that look out into the backyard of the mansion, nestled between the two staircases and underneath the upper walkway. She has a hand pressed to the glass, and she’s staring out with a vague look in her eyes. You can’t decide if it’s because her brain is filled with a half-awake fog like yours is, or if it’s… that thing she does. That thing that she likes to pretend doesn’t happen, that thing Mickey won’t talk about. That thing she does where it seems, for a few moments, like she’s not grounded in reality with everyone else.
You don’t want to startle her, so you clear your throat loudly and walk around her in a wide birth so that when you come up next to her—not too close—it’s from as within her line of sight as you can manage. You do this partly because it’d be mean not to. You also do this because you’ve felt the cool of her Keyblade against your throat before, put there on reflex when you came up behind her too quickly.
“Oh!” Aqua says, when she notices you, and she shakes that vague look out of her eyes. “Kairi. Good morning.”
“Good morning,” you answer brightly. “The rain wake you up, too?” you ask, hands behind your back as you lean towards her a bit.
She hesitates before she answers you with a distracted: “Mmhmm.” You’re getting better at telling when she’s lying, or at least when she’s trying to hide something, but you don’t press it. Instead you follow her fond gaze out the window, to where the rain falls against the back porch and the grass, in a slow and gentle way that truly makes this a perfect rain and a perfect morning.
“You know,” you say, a little playfully. “Be a lot more fun if you stopped staring at it and actually went out to play in it. I know you’re like, an adult, but no one’s gonna judge.” Well, you figure she’s an adult, anyway. It’s been hard for you to peg her age, which is frustrating, but it’s not like you can ask. You just know she’s somewhere between five and ten years older than you, and, that’s close enough to the adult zone.
She looks at you a little bewildered for a moment, but then she cracks a smile. “I suppose you’re right,” she agrees. She fumbles with the latch that keeps the glass doors sealed shut, and once she’s got it undone she slides one door aside with a grunt.
Humid, sticky air blasts the two of you, as well as a few spatters of raindrops. Aqua flinches, at first. But then she takes a deep breath. She reaches out and lets water gather in her palm. And then she takes another deep breath—this time more like she’s savoring the smell of it. You follow her lead, knowing you love the smell of the rain. It’s… not quite like it is at home, though. The smell you’re used to is, well, saltier, probably. Everything on the Islands is.
Aqua slowly slides out into the rain, holding out her arms like she’s relishing in the way it hits her skin. You watch her for a moment, and you wonder how long it’s been since she’s last seen the rain. Something in your chest tugs.
You don’t have time to ponder it, because Namine’s joined you now, and you have to turn your attention to coaxing her out into the rain. She doesn’t ask what it is, which you guess is a good thing? She probably knows about rain from your memories, or from Sora’s, or from someone else’s, tucked away in the back corner of her brain. She’s still apprehensive, though. You have to step out into it first (laughing as it easily trickles down your back through your loose nightshirt) and hold out your hands in offering.
She takes them, and you drag her, squealing, out into the rain.
You press your toes into the grass and the wet earth, relishing in the sensation. Namine’s wearing shoes, since she got dressed, but that’s alright. A grin tugs at your lips as she smiles and laughs, though she’s a little hunched over like each drop that hits her is unexpected.
“Isn’t it great?” you ask, gleefully, and Namine nods. She seems too surprised by the new experience to actually say anything.
Movement on the edge of your vision draws your eyes over to Aqua. She’s doing- something, with the water. You have to blink three times before you’re certain about what you’re seeing. She’s holding her hands in front of her face, and there’s water gathering on her fingertips. She smiles fondly at it, and then she drags a hand through the air. The water follows the motion in a perfect arc, and your grip on Namine’s hands go slack as your jaw hits the floor.
You watch Aqua, mesmerized as she pulls the water through the air in a dance. She’s light on her feet, and she’s laughing as she spins, and she looks like she’s having such a good time. That brings a warmth brimming your chest much stronger than Namine’s surprised giggles did. (You want to ask Aqua how she’s doing this, just like you want to ask her how she does every other magic spell, but you bite the urge down. Asking her about magic always makes her sour, and you don’t want to ruin this.)
The three of you stay out there for a while, laughing and dancing in the rain. Aqua definitely shows you up, seeing you don’t have fancy control over water and she does, but it’s. It’s fine. Really, this isn’t a competition, you’re just having fun in the rain.
You realize it’s time to go in when you notice Namine shivering. You’re soaked to the bone, too, you realized, and it’s… cold. (But, seeing as you’re used to the warm climate of your home, you suppose you should have anticipated that.) You think about letting Aqua stay out here as you usher Namine back inside, but—Well, Aqua’s pajamas are as thin as yours are, and the last thing you want is her getting sick because she wasn’t paying attention.
Surprisingly, she’s quick to agree about going back inside, regarding you and Namine both with a look you get often enough from Sora’s mom. She suggests making hot chocolate, and heads to the kitchen to do so while you and Namine head upstairs to dry off.
You tell Namine to grab one of the bigger blankets off your bed—the fuzzy, comfy one that ends up being your bottom layer every night just because you like how it feels on your skin—while you yourself grab a towel for Aqua. Turns out she doesn’t need it, though, you find when you join her in the kitchen. She’s dried herself and her clothes through magic. (It’s really, totally unfair.) (One of these days you’ll ask her how she does that without her dodging the question, you’re sure, you just have to figure out the right way to ask.)
Soon enough the three of you curl up together on the beat-up couch in the main hall, snuggled under your blanket with you in the middle, each of you with a warm mug of hot chocolate in your hands. You can still hear the rain falling, outside.
It truly is a perfect morning.