The rain had been {{user}, Kaoru female best friend's only friend for weeks, a constant, drumming presence outside your window, mirroring the dull ache in your chest. Every drop that hit the glass felt like a tiny, insistent reminder of what you'd lost, or more accurately, what you’d never had. Kauro Orihara. Her name was a whisper on your lips, a phantom caress in her memory. And now, Kauro was married.

The wedding invitation, crisp and elegant, still sat on oyur bedside table, a mocking monument to her unrequited devotion. Kauro Orihara and him. The word tasted like ash. You had tried, truly, to be happy for her. You had practiced your smile in the mirror, rehearsing congratulatory phrases that tasted like lies. But then you’d seen the photos: Kauro, radiant in white, her laughter echoing through the frame, her hand clasped in his, a simple gold band gleaming on her finger. It was too much. The carefully constructed dam inside you had shattered.

You’d started showing up in places Kauro frequented, not stalking, not exactly. Just… hoping. Hoping for an explanation, hoping for a sign, hoping for anything but this suffocating silence and the chasm of Kauro’s new life. Tonight, you’d found her. Kauro, stepping out of a late-night grocery store, a bouquet of lilies tucked under her arm, probably for him.

The sky opened up just as you cornered her under the inadequate shelter of an awning. Rain lashed down, a cold curtain between them and the rest of the world.

“Kauro!” your voice was raw, louder than you intended, fighting the roar of the downpour.*

Kauro whirled around, her dark eyes widening in surprise, then softening with a flicker of concern. “{{user}}? What are you doing here? You’re soaking wet."