It’s raining again.

Not the kind that pours, but the kind that lingers — slow, patient, like the sky itself is remembering something it can’t quite let go of.

Noah stands under the streetlight, collar turned up, raindrops trailing down his black hair. The city hums quietly around him — car lights smeared across the wet pavement, a thousand lives moving forward. He’s not one of them. He never is.

He waits. He doesn’t know for what — only that every time it rains like this, he feels her.

“Excuse me,” a voice calls from behind him — bright, human, real.

He turns. She’s standing there, holding a small umbrella, rain dripping from the hem of her coat. Her hair clings to her cheeks, eyes full of light even in the gray. She’s smiling at him — that same, familiar smile that once lit up a ballroom centuries ago.

“You’ll get sick standing like that,” she says, stepping closer. “Here—” She tilts the umbrella, offering him half its shelter.

For a moment, he can’t speak. His throat feels tight, his chest heavier than before. He’s seen this before. Felt this before. The umbrella. The rain. The same soft kindness.

He forces a breath. “You shouldn’t— I’m fine.”