#beta sdr2

There are certain things even I can’t understand. A simple example is how people find joy in something terribly small, something that wouldn’t make a dent in their lives yet here they are, smiling and laughing.

“You have to learn how to dance in the rain, is how my little sister says it,” Hinata-kun says.

Both of us are leaning against the steel fences of a train station. It’s slightly windy tonight; a small break from the unforgivable summer heat. People behind them went by their lives, rushing to get home and to go out.

“Dance in the rain?” I ask. I have no idea what he means—I’m terrible at this poetic stuff.

“See, you’re always trying to survive the storm,” Hinata-kun says. “The storms that keep raging on in your life. You know… the terrible things in it. But we have to adapt to it and learn to be happy with what we have.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” is all that I want to say and it comes out of my mouth as a vengeful attack. He doesn’t see it coming, because his face pales a bit at the sudden answer. But I quickly calm down—it’s a date.

“Because you’re an idiot,” I quickly add. “So naturally… you wouldn’t understand.”

“Maybe I don’t,” he says, sounding a bit disappointed. A familiar urge plunges into my senses—cutcutcut. “Maybe I never will, but… At least I want to believe that you can still be happy.”

He doesn’t say I want to make you happy because he feels like I wouldn’t like it.

Sometimes I wish I’d never have to hurt people. But that’s laughable to wish for, given that I’m an assassin.

“M-me too,” I just say, after a long while of staring into the train tracks. I ponder about the last things people see before they die. “I… I wish I could be happy.”

“Aren’t you?”

A phantom knife slices deep into my skin. Again, he doesn’t say don’t I make you happy.

“I’m scared.”

“But you have to dance in the rain.” He smiles, trying to lighten the mood.

“The storm never calms into a rain for me.”

“Then what do you call this?” He asks. “Is this…”

“It’s hiding under the storm.”

“Hiding?”

“I can never be free from the pain I am chained to in my life,” I say. I promise myself not to burst into tears. “I can’t dance in the rain, because there will never be calm in my life. The only thing I can do is to run away from the storm every now and then.”

“So you’re running away with me?” There’s a faint smile on his lips.

Maybe I am, I don’t say.