~After the Rain~ (Soramafu)

Another Bright Flash

After I had been left behind at the hospital by Sou and Kain, I decided to go to the store of my grandmother and work a bit there. So I could forget my current situation and just concentrate on the work.

So I stood there, with an embracing uniform my grandmother picked out for the staff member of the store. A green shirt and pink trousers. I really hated this so called uniform. The first times I tried to bring my grandmother to change the uniform, but that didn't work out at all. After a few times I gave up. In that matter she always had been really stubborn, but I loved her even with this strange style of her. She always had been something like a mother for me. She was a really friendly woman even though the fade was cruel to her. She lost her husband a few years ago. She raised me the most of the time completely alone. The main reason for that was, that my parents worked far away and lived there, too. But they wanted me to live a life in a quiet and lovely village like this where I stay in now.

I looked out of the store as I saw a face I knew very well. This face with this brown hair and those dark brown eyes, I would recognize everywhere. The most outstanding was definitely his hair. The guy I just talked about was Kradness, one of my best friends and an Utaite exactly like myself. I thought he wanted to buy some instant ramen or something alike.

As he stepped through the door I put on my best smile, that I could offer him, at this, for me, really hard time. He smiled back as he arrived the table that was in front of me. Now he stood there with his instant ramen in his hands and looked at me. I could sense that he knew something. Maybe I was just too easy to read.

"Mafumafu,", he said, "what is wrong? You look very bad. What happened?" I didn't know if I should really tell him what was going on, but I didn't want to lie either, so I decided to say the truth. "Soraru... I told him that I love him... And Sou", I sighed, "He is in love with me and I broke his heart with this." It was hard to explain it, but I thought he would understand it.

"I see, that's really a complicated situation you are in, but you should try your best to make it easier for Sou. So please don't do things like kissing Soraru in front of him or something else. It would make it worse, I think, but it will be alright. Everything's going to be OK. " he said, trying to comfort me a bit. "I really hope it will turn out like this. Even though I don't know if I will ever get the chance to kiss Soraru... I think he doesn't want to be my friend anymore. Even though I hope he had another reason to stay away from the hospital... " I mumbled.

I looked into Kradness surprised face as he screamed, "You have been in the hospital?! Why didn't you call me? I'm your friend! I would have visited you there!" A bit confused by his reaction I answered, "It was just for a few hours. I just had troubles to breath because we were in a cat caffè and I'm allergic to cats. That I've been told by the doctor. Live is just too cruel... I like cats so much! It is always like that... Isn't it? The more you love something, the more it hurts if you can't have it. It's just the same with me and Soraru. It hurts knowing that his heart doesn't belong to me... But I think that is only one of my problems for now... My other problem is the thing with Sou."

"Don't worry too much about this, it will be alright. They are your friends no matter what happens and what is even more important", Kradness smiled a bit as he continued, "Soraru have to be a really big idiot if he let someone like you go." Somehow this words really helped me to feel a bit better, I even smiled a bit. "Thank you", I started, "you really helped me a lot." He answered, "Ah, man, I didn't do anything worth to thank me."

With this, the conversation ended and after Kradness bought the ramen, he left the store with a little smile on his face. He was a really dear friend to me and he always gave the best advices. I hoped I could repay this favor to him.

I watched him leave and sighed. It was really a hard time for me, I really hoped nothing that bad would happen again in the next days and everything would just turn out to be like before again. But I thought that it wasn't as easy as Kradness told me. I still was thankful for his advice for me and I was glad that he comforted me a little with his words.

At 8.00pm I closed the store and went upstairs to the rooms of the house where my grandparents lived. I switched on the light and looked around, no one was around. Over the day my grandmother often made sports or played games with the neighbors. I thought she came back home, when I was in the hospital. Because at this hour she usually was already back, but I thought she was just sleeping in her room. Even though I knew that it was still a bit too early for this.

After I ate some sandwiches in the kitchen, I sat down in the living room and watched TV. Nothing interesting was shown on TV and I started to sleep, still sitting on the couch.

I slowly opened my eyes and looked at the clock. It was 10.00pm. I slept two hours before I woke up. After I realized that I wasn't in my bed, I stood up and turned off the TV that was still showing this boring show. How could they make two hours of this crap?

I looked at my phone unconsciously hoping that Soraru had called or texted me. In fact someone had called me, but not Soraru. The number was unknown and I didn't know if I should call back, but I thought that my grandmother maybe had called me from a mobile phone of her friends because she left hers at home or so.

I tapped at the screen and waited, hoping that someone would pick up. After a few seconds I heard someone ask in a low voice: "Hello, I'm doctor Iwashiro Yuma. Who am I talking to?" I was shocked. What happened? Why did a doctor call me? I really hoped that they called me because they switched a number or something similar.

After I realized that I didn't answer the question and explained in a rush, "I'm Mafumafu. I was called by this number, but I couldn't pick up the phone, because of that I called back."Oh, you're the sister of misses Naori-san, aren't you?" he asked. I wondered why he had called my grandmother by her given name, but maybe he didn't realized that it wasn't her family's name. Either way, why did he call me her sister?" I explained a bit confused, "I'm her grandson. What happened to her?" He said a bit surprised, "Oh, sorry I thought you were a girl, because of your voice." I actually was used to be called a girl, because of my voice. But at this moment it really pissed me off. I mean I really was worried about my grandmother. "It's OK, but please tell me what happened." I said in an angry tone. "I'm really sorry,", the doctor started, and I knew that this would end in a bad way. "Your grandmother died because of a heart attack in the afternoon. We tried our best to rescue her, but we couldn't save her."

I couldn't believe what he just said. I ended the call and looked at the painting that was in front of me. Tears were running down my face as I sat down on the couch so I couldn't fall to the ground. I thought that day couldn't become any worse. I started to scream to let my unbelievably despair out. It didn't really helped me, but I just didn't care about it. This whole situation showed me how disgusting life can be to people that didn't do anything wrong. I already knew that it could be like this, because I've already experienced a lot of bad things in my life. But at this time, fade, or however you like to call it, really stole my hope. Fade? I couldn't blame anyone else. I mean, who should I blame. Myself? Would that change anything? I supposed not. My tears didn't change anything either, but that was OK. I cried, because I have emotions, because I'm a human.

As I calmed down a bit I stopped screaming. I tried to stop crying, too, but that wasn't that easy. I didn't have the power to go into my bed so I slept on the couch. This whole day was very tiring and because of that I really slept that day, even though I thought so much about everything. About my current situation, the reason why my grandmother had to die and the worst - I thought of Soraru, the only one who could help me in this kind of situation.

The next morning I woke up at 6.30am the usual time to get up for school. I didn't feel like going to school at all, but it couldn't be helped. So I stood up and went to the bathroom. My eyes were really swollen. I thought of using makeup, but I think that would have looked really strange. I sighed as I decided to just let it like this. Then I made myself ready for school and after half an hour I went out of the door, heading to school.

Normally I and Soraru met at a corner of an old building, but at this morning I wasn't sure if I should really wait for him, but I really wanted to see him even if he didn't talk to me anymore. So I stayed there, waiting for him to come along. Over me were grey clouds on the sky. They wandered there like always. Somehow they made me feel comfortable with their never changing attitude... I looked at the street Soraru always was coming from.