Way Back Home

Rain

Then I turned my eyes to the window and everything
looked gray.
Gray city.
Gray buildings.
Gray roads.
Gray rain.

Rain beat down steadily on the window, it was the only sound in the entire house. The rain was quiet but the echo was eerily loud and it filled the room, it filled the house, it filled her head.

Chaerin sat immobile in front of the window. Her knees were pressed to her chest, her arms wrapped around them, she didn't know how long she'd been sitting like that. Her body was numb, it begged for her to move and bring relief. But her mind was numb as well and so she stayed still.

Chaerin loved the rain. It was a fact. She loved to watch the water fall from the clouds and see the lightning flash in the distance. She'd lost count of how many times she dragged Yoongi outside just so they could splash around in the puddles. Chaerin loved the rain. But she wasn't so sure that she could love it anymore. Not after this week. Now when she saw rain all she could see was black.

Black clouds.
Black dresses.
Black caskets.

Her entire world had been flipped upside down. Where there used to be color, there was now dull grayness. Where there used to be laughter, there was now eerie silence. Where there used to be family, there was now nothing.

So she watched the rain. Chaerin sat at her bedroom window, surrounded by boxes of her stuff, and she watched the rain.

She was only seventeen and now she was all alone. Legally she wasn't allowed to keep the house. Her grandmother's will left the house to Chaerin, but she wasn't a legal adult, so the home she had grown up in now belonged to the bank it had been purchased from many decades ago. And all the things that resided in that house were being packed up into boxes, that included Chaerin.

Social services wanted to place her in foster care, they wanted to move her away. But Grandma Min had somehow managed to convince the social worker to let Chaerin stay with her, at least until she turned eighteen. Then she would be able to make her own decisions about where to go and what to do. Well, that's what the law said.

The law says that a person of eighteen years or older is wise enough and responsible enough to make big life decisions about where to live and how to live. The law was crazy. Chaerin didn't feel anywhere near ready enough to work full time and pick out an apartment and pay taxes and be alone. She wasn't ready.

The bedroom door creaked open but Chaerin didn't hear it. All she could focus was the rain outside her window.

"Chaerin," she ignored the voice calling her.

"Chae," he called again and got no response.

"Chae, please say something," Yoongi shuffled closer, not really knowing what to do.

He had never seen Chaerin like this. She was always the strong one. She was the one to pick him up when he got down. She was the one to smile when everything seemed completely bleak. But now it seemed that Yoongi would have to be strong enough for the both of them.

Yoongi knelt down beside his friend. She looked awful. Chaerin had dried trails of tears on her face, which was thin and sickly pale. But he grabbed her hand regardless.

"Come on," he took both her hands and stood, hoping she would follow. But she didn't. Chaerin didn't move or even acknowledge his presence.