Muted colors of the rain by Suburban Thrills

Armani suits and Prada shoes

I remember the first day I met her. I was in my final year of high school and she was just a year younger. She was my little half brothers then, and just another nuisance to me. Every time she came over, she would always greet me with a smile and a polite little 'Hello'. Every time she came over, each greeting would be met with either silence, or a roll of the eye.

Their two year relationship was always a roller coaster, she and my brother. A fight would emerge between the two just to end up with them breaking up. But they always got back together in the end. That changed one day... I still remember the sounds of a high pitched screaming and the low tones of my brother.

I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose; it was the same routine and perfectly scheduled right down to the dot. Forcing myself to focus, I listened to the hard down pour of the rain on the roof and the hum of my laptop. This work wasn't going to get itself done and I'd be damned if I would let some little lovers quarrel interrupt my flow with their negative energy.

Ah, reminder to self: enough with the Zen books. Consider Feng shui.

However, I knew this fight was different when I heard a loud thump against the wall which was so conveniently on my side. Growling to myself, I got up and walked over to their room and swung the door open. Before a witty remark could spill itself from my mouth, my eyes traveled to the shattered lamp not too far from my feet – the source of the thump, no doubt.

I looked up at her, she was staring at the shattered pieces with such intensity, such contempt, and such...hurt. My half sibling stood and stared at her with wide eyes filled with surprise and shock at her sudden vandalism. Her eyes suddenly flew towards him and he stepped back with a glimmer of fear. The tension in the air was almost tangible.

"I...hate...you." She said through gritted teeth.

"L-listen, I never meant it to turn out this way. It just...happened." The boy was foolish enough to think that that would be enough of an explanation.

A pregnant silence filled the room, leaving a quite uncomfortable feeling.

"'It just happened'. Don't make me laugh. Dicking around with some girl for a month isn't something 'just happening'. Or were you too fucking stupid to figure that out? What the hell is wrong with you? What in your sick, twisted little mind justified it as right?" She asked out of frustration that was laced with pain and sorrow.

I stood glued there at the door, feeling like a housewife watching the climatic point in her favorite soap opera.

How was he going to respond to THAT?

No matter how I tried, I couldn't tear myself away until I found out.

"I- I don't know! I just don't know! Look, I know we can work through this; we've worked over everything else, right? So, so what's so different about this? We can make it through, together." He pleaded pathetically.

Now, if I indeed were that housewife, I would be screaming "INFIDEL! INFIDEL! INFIDEL!", but seeing as though I wasn't, I was content with just standing there, feeling just a little ridiculous watching this scene play out.

She looked at him then, with those dark brown eyes wide in disbelief. Her mouth moved, trying to grasp the words to respond, but all that came out was a sigh. Her shoulders, once strong and defiant, suddenly slouched as her fingers dragged through her black hair.

"I can't." she finally whispered. "I just can't."

The sound of her voice seemed so foreign to me at that moment. The strong, resilient girl I knew suddenly sounded so utterly broken. An unknown anger boiled within me as I looked over at my brother.

"What do you mean you can't? We, we can start over! I – can change the way I am and we can be happy with each other."

I wanted nothing more than to shove his face into the wall.

"You don't understand...I can't do this anymore. I'm so tired of being hurt and you not knowing what you've done. I need to do this for myself..." she looked up at him with tears coursing their way down her cheeks. "It's over... maybe...maybe we can grow to be friends later... but right now, I just need to be away from you."

With that, she turned away and brushed past me as she made her exit. My hand itched to reach out and grasp her wrist. To pull her close to me and whisper sweet nothings to make those tears disappear.

My sibling pushed past me and dashed after her figure and grasped her forearm before her hand grasped the knob to the main entrance.

"Later..." he gruffly said, "later, I hope you can forgive me."

She turned and stared into his face before she smiled sadly. "Later, maybe."

The rain was pouring that day. Still, she didn't hesitate to step out into the storm and walk away. After returning to my room, I wondered briefly how she would get home. She didn't live too far, but it was still raining heavily. I tried to finish the assignments I had yet to complete but this feeling in my gut had eliminated the possibility of concentration altogether. I sighed to myself as I glanced out my window and stared out into the dull and muted colors of the world.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

The sound of softly playing music in the café seemed to calm my headache a little bit. It had been a long, long day at the office and the impending migraine didn't help in the least. I looked out of the window to the park across the street and sighed. It was raining. Every time it rained and all the days in between, I couldn't help but think about her. It had been three years to the day since she had left, and it had been three years she had drifted in and out of my thoughts.

Quite silly, isn't it? There I was, a 20 something year old man with a successful business under my belt along with an infamous name in the corporate world, day dreaming about a girl he had barely spoken a word to and hadn't seen in three years.

I sighed again.

Reminder to self: be rid of the annoying habit.

With a final sip of coffee, I set out with my umbrella to get to my car and finally go home to rest. My hand was at the handle when something caught my attention from the corner of my eye. I looked towards the park and through the haze of the distorting rainfall, stood a woman in a business suit with her arms outstretched and her face skyward.

That face. I'd recognize it anywhere.

I dropped my umbrella and made a mad dash across the street and over the park grounds, closer to her.

ARMANI SUIT AND PRADA SHOES BE DAMNED!

There were more important things to take care of!

So there she was, the woman that stuck with me like the plague, standing there with her arms out as if she were to fly away and a smile gracing her lips. It was almost as if...as if the rain were washing away everything, leaving a clean slate in its wake. I stood there for a moment, just looking at her like the enigma she was. I could hardly feel the weight of the dress shirt or the suit that was quickly becoming drenched from the rainfall.

She opened her eyes at that moment. They grew wide with surprise at the sight of me standing there. Her mouth opened, but before she could utter a word, the distance between us was closed and she was hushed with a lovers' caress of lips on lips.

Ah yes, I remember that part quite fondly.

When we parted, she looked up at me with those eyes just to look away with a splash of dark pink splashing up on that cute little face. It was then I released a rare chuckle and cupped her cheek, guiding her face to mine as our lips met again.

Here she stood, my Kagome, looking disheveled with water dripping from the hem of her skirt and blazer and hair plastered around her face.

And she couldn't have been any more beautiful.