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Kusuo Saiki had no real opinion regarding the rain. It didn’t really matter. He could dry his clothes in an instant if he wanted or just make the offending clouds disappear in seconds.
The wonder and excitement of a rainy day that most children experienced at least once in their lives was lost on him. It was just another type of weather he would have to deal with and nothing more.
When it poured hard enough to wake him up at 3 in the morning is when he finally drudged up a semblance of a reaction to it.
Annoyance.
Dazed irritation was the only emotion Saiki could muster as he blinked his eyes open. Outside, the sky dumped buckets of rain onto the rooftops of the countless houses in the area. It rattled the shingles above his bedroom and spilled down the windows, forming puddles on the ground below.
He sighed. Just another thing he’d have to deal with on his way to school in the morning. The thought of making the rain clouds disappear crossed his mind, but the bleary exhaustion that grasped his body kept him in bed. There was no need to do anything. It would pass and he would go back to sleep. Eventually.
Maybe the rhythmic tap, tap, tapping of the rain would gradually coax him back to sleep. Minutes past as he lay there, just listening to the rain and hoping that what woke him up moments ago would allow him to return to his peaceful dreams. But that was not meant to be. Even with psychic abilities, rarely did things go the way he wanted it to.
For a split second, the thoughts of another flashed through his brain. Even this late at night, people were still awake and thinking. He could never escape people’s thoughts, no matter what time of day it was. Sleep was his sanctuary, and it was being invaded.
His annoyance with the situation increased.
He tried to shut it out and focused his attention back on the rain. At this point, he was almost praying that he’d be able to return to a state of rest. Sleep had almost reclaimed him when an intense emotion that was not his own echoed through his skull.
It jarred Saiki from his comfortable spot under the covers as he sat bolt upright in bed. Gasping slightly, he centered himself. Now he was beyond irritated. He had not been prepared to be so rudely ripped out of his dreary stupor at three in the goddamn morning and was not about to let such an aggravating person keep him awake. It didn’t matter whether they meant to startle him or not, he was going to deal with it.
Zeroing in on the offending thinker, Saiki probed into their mind, hoping to figure out what could’ve caused such an extreme reaction at this unholy hour. He was expecting to be able to locate and hopefully shut up this obnoxious human alarm clock. If his psychic powers were going to keep him up at night, then he sure as hell was going to use them to return to sleep.
Gusts of wind rattled the windows and rain continued to pitter patter against the walls of the house. A vast series of vague thoughts and bright colors passed through the mind of the other person and into Saiki’s brain. The ferocity of the initial emotion that had awoken him was still there, but was now peppered with new, accompanying and fervorous feelings, each as intense and as fierce as the last.
What exactly was this person thinking….?
Happiness? Excitement? Desire?
No…. It was delight. Complete, utter delight.
And it was coming from someone he knew. Someone he would probably consider a friend.
It was only a few weeks into their senior year when, as per the formula, a new student joined the ever expanding cast of Class 3; an exchange student from overseas who was there to study and eventually attend a university here in Japan. She had a bright smile and appeared as your completely generic, run-of-the-mill student that anyone could get along with. A girl who would’ve been a side character with maybe only a couple of lines in any other story. Someone that Saiki absolutely would have tried to befriend only a few years ago. It was only natural she’d quickly find herself being practically adopted into his friend group.
If anyone from the school were to describe her, the first word that would come to mind would be “average.” Everyone except him, of course. His telepathy made sure of that. Nothing could remain hidden from him. She appeared totally normal, but one glimpse at the inside of her head would reveal a constantly expanding landscape of increasingly wild dreams and fantasies.
If Saiki had to describe her, he would probably use words like “loud” and” colorful.” Her mind was full of continuously bizarre daydreams at all hours of the day, each one more imaginative than the last. Stories of far away lands played across her mind like a movie while strange, but interesting characters starred in them.
The intensity of her daydreams rivaled that of Kaidou’s, but she rarely let them leak into her everyday life. Her classmates and friends knew of her tendency to zone out, especially during class, but she would never let on to what was going through her head when she did stare off into space. As far as she was concerned, no one knew about her constant stream of fantasies. Saiki did, which he found to be very unfortunate for the most part. If there was ever a time to call his telepathy a curse, it was whenever he was around her for a lengthy period of time If he spent too long looking into her head, it would leave him reeling. Her mind, in a word, was colorful. Blinding at times. But not always an unwelcome distraction.
If class got too dull or he didn’t want to be involved in whatever conversation his friends were having, he would turn his focus to her. He would never tell her, but sometimes he’d get just as absorbed in the fantasies as she was. The constant twists and turns of her daydreams made them almost as unpredictable as one of his TV shows. Her out of control imagination would’ve made her someone he’d have avoided not too long ago. But now she was a welcome addition to the increasingly strange group of people that associated themselves with him.
She had moved in with a host family not too far from his house, meaning he fell prey to at least one of her fantasies before breakfast everyday. It was no surprise he was hearing her thoughts now. Not even the sound of the rain could drown her out. He let himself wander through her thoughts. Something was missing. It only took a second before he realized what it was. Her constant fantasies had grinded to a halt. What had taken its place was pure emotion.
Bursts of color punctuated her quickly increasing excitement. Saiki still had no idea why she was so fired up in the first place and decided to take a look. If he was going to shut her thoughts up, he needed to know the best way to calm her down and send her to sleep. Ignoring the slight ache it caused, he used his clairvoyance to find her.
He was not expecting to see her running out the door into the rain in her pajamas and down the poorly lit street. His initial annoyance was replaced with startled exasperation, then confusion, before finally settling on concern.
Where the hell could that complete airhead be going this late at night? He thought to himself as he grabbed a jacket and an umbrella and went to find out.
It didn’t take long to find her. He teleported to where she was. Maybe a little too close to where she was. He ducked behind a street lamp for cover, hoping she hadn’t seen him. After a quick scan of her thoughts he realized he could’ve appeared directly in front of her and she would have been none the wiser. She was utterly lost in her own little world, and he still had no idea why.
After a few more minutes of convincing himself he was not stalking her, but rather just following behind her, they ended up at a nearby park. Saiki scooted along the edge of the park to hide behind a nearby tree. Making his presence known to her at the current moment would probably be more than a little suspicious and just as creepy. She took a few more steps until she was in the middle of the clearing before looking up at the clouds.
Her delight with the whole situation she had gotten herself into only grew as the rain continued to fall. With a grin splitting across her face, she held her hands out as if to ask the sky for a hug. Ah, she’s finally lost herself to the delusions, he thought, wondering if he could handle dealing with essentially another Kaidou.
Any moment now she’s going to start spouting nonsense about how the storm gods have come to collect her or something crazy like that.
He decided it was probably a good time to knock her out and take her back home. He raised his hand to put a stop to the rain. She was going to get sick at this rate. But he stopped when he turned to her again. The girl in front of him had started to dance.
Dancing was the nicest way to put it. To anyone else, it was more like awkwardly spinning around and jumping in a less than elegant way.
But the way she giggled and smiled and splashed around in the small puddles was something he could only describe as dancing. Her excitement was tangible.
It took Saiki an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize that she was playing in the rain. Just like a little kid would.
Colors and emotions exploded and seemed to travel throughout her body as she twirled around. Laughter bubbled out of her with every raindrop that tickled her face. She was completely soaked. And she absolutely didn’t care. Without pausing she brushed her hair out of her face and continued her rain dance. There were no fantastical stories in her head, no thoughts of homework or food or even exhaustion. Just childlike excitement and wonder. If he hadn’t been able to read her mind, Saiki would’ve sworn she was possessed by the spirit of a toddler….or an overexcited worm.
The wind continued to blow as the rainfall started to ebb away. The downpour slowed to a drizzle. From behind the tree, he could see that the cold was starting to get to her. Chills wracked through her body and he could see the goosebumps forming on her arms. But the cold drops and the chilly gusts did nothing to break the grin on her face. Time to get her home.
Go home, go home, go home, he looped through her mind. A flash of disappointment went through her thoughts, but some part of her seemed to agree with his telepathic messages. The shivers that she had been ignoring took hold and her reluctance to abandon her late night rain party dissipated. She quietly turned to leave the park. A hot bath and a warm drink were in order.
She had only taken a step when, to his surprise and annoyance, she froze. Eyes scouring the ground, he followed her gaze to the shadows that were stretching through the puddles and across the wet patches of grass and soil. Their eyes followed the source of the light to the brilliant, full moon that had been revealed by the clouds.
The moon doused the landscape with a pale glow. The two of them stared at the moon with the cold completely forgotten. Sure, Saiki could go to the moon and back in an instant, but there was something about the way the light dappled through the raindrops and across the wet soil that held his attention for a few moments. He turned his gaze away from it to look at her.
She stood there, with her tangled, soggy hair and soaking wet pajamas in the middle of the park, looking absolutely ethereal. The light made the droplets on her face and hair glitter like tiny diamonds as her eyes sparkled with awe. She watched as the clouds ghosted across the moon in heavy wisps. Her celebration of the rain was now replaced with wonder of the glowing white sphere.
As she watched the moon, he watched her. Seconds stretched into minutes. The shivers that had almost convinced her to head home were back, but she ignored them. The cold rain began to come down harder, and still she stared. Saiki stepped on a particularly crunchy stick, hoping to snap her back to reality, but she still remained oblivious.
The world had fallen away. She was entranced by it and she wasn’t leaving anytime soon. It was just her and the moon.
And me , he quipped as he stepped out from his hiding place. He stood there for a few moments, thinking that the sound of the rain against his umbrella would catch her attention. When that didn’t work, he sighed.
“ What are you doing out here, y/n?”
The trance shattered and a brief feeling of surprise went through her mind as she turned to face him. Her confusion was short-lived. She was never shocked to see him, no matter how questionable his sudden appearances were. For whatever reason, he always seemed to be in the right place at the right time and she just accepted it for the most part. It was a part of who he was and she wasn’t about to worry about it. It was a sentiment he was grateful for.
“I like the rain,” she said simply, “have you seen how bright the moon is yet?”
Her smile returned as her gaze shifted back up to the sky. He wasn’t about to let her be bewitched by its glow again.
“ It is raining, you’re going to get sick”
“Maybe”
“You should go back to bed”
“You’re probably right”
He narrowed his eyes in annoyance. Groaning, he placed the jacket around her shoulders. That caught her attention. Eyebrows raised, she turned to look at him again. “You worried about me?” she asked.
“ I’m not about to risk catching a cold from you when we’re at school tomorrow”
She snorted and went back to observing the night sky. He was lying and they both knew it.
Moments passed as they stood there. Saiki was doing his best to warm her up without her noticing, but there wasn’t much he could do while she stubbornly continued to soak up the rain. Drying her clothes would be pointless. She’d just get wet again, not to mention it would be way too noticeable. She kept gently pushing his hand away every time he tried to put the umbrella over her. It was a lose-lose situation. He only had one option left. Time to end her fun. Gently grabbing her shoulder, Saiki attempted to guide her towards the park exit and then proceeded to fail miserably.
Between the exhaustion of being up at almost 4am and the sudden warmth that arrived with Saiki’s appearance, her brain decided it was a great time to be bold. With shockingly deft precision that contradicted her clumsy dance moves from before, she grabbed him by the hand that was holding the umbrella and pulled him into a starting position of a slow dance. If anyone were to walk in on them at that moment, it would’ve looked like a threeway waltz between him, her, and the umbrella. It was a strange scene to say the least.
Her sudden burst of confidence quickly trickled away when she realized how close she had pulled him in. Oops , was all she could think.
He didn’t pull away. His expression didn’t change. And he would never admit to the jittery feeling that he had shoved to the back of his mind when she pulled him in.
She couldn’t quite meet his gaze, but wasn’t about to back down. “Dance in the rain with me Saiki?”
She hadn’t meant to whisper, but it took all her nerve to bring herself to say it out loud. She could feel her face heat up as he audibly sighed.
“ If I do, will you go home and dry off?”
“Yeah….”
A long silence followed. She could feel the cold seeping into her bones causing her to shake slightly. The tension was thick. He gently pulled his hands out of her grasp and closed the umbrella. Before she could back away, he intertwined his fingers with hers. “You can be such a pain in the neck sometimes.”
The clouds covered the moon up once again, throwing their surroundings back into darkness. It did nothing to hide her beaming face from him. She resumed her rain dance once more, only this time with someone to share it with.
Fingers laced together, she swung him around like a ragdoll. He wasn’t much of a dancer. But that was fine, neither was she. He was there, spending that moment with her. That was all she could ask for. Her uncontrollable giggles only got louder as she tapped her way through the puddles, splashing him in the process.
The light of the moon peeked back through the clouds as the rain slowly faded into a gentle mist. For a brief moment, she saw the tiniest smile on his face and the tension melted away.
She reached out and ruffled his damp hair. “Now who’s gonna get sick,” she hummed.
“This was your idea”
“You’re the one who followed me here”
“Next time you do something like this, don’t go alone”
“Why? You want to join me again for another dance?”
“....”
“Alright then, you’ll be my dance partner whenever it rains then. Okay, Saiki?”
Looking at her eyes, he realized there was no sarcasm behind her statement. He didn’t need to check her thoughts to see that she genuinely meant what she said. Despite the absurdity of the whole night, he couldn’t help but want to see her that happy again. If that meant losing a few hours of sleep for a dance, so be it. Hands still weaved together, he squeezed hers a little tighter as he guided her out of the park towards home.