Note: Rain is a very very short story. It contains a good deal of angst for its size though. Also, I owe arby a big thanks. it was one of her pics that inspired this.
for major angst.

When he was younger, the water had been clean. Playing in it had been a treat, something to wash away the heat of a city summer. Eleven years later it was dirty, and you could feel the oils pushing down into the depths of your skin as you walked during a storm.

Pulling the high collar of his jacket closer around his neck, Kyo reflected quietly. He went backwards through time in that slippery half-capable way someone does after too many drinks in the evening. Memory was insulated, walled away through glass where it couldn't touch him, but he could look at it. Bad things, he thought absently to himself. It was all bad things.

Bad things to good people? He could have thought that, but he knew he was no saint. Slopping through one of the dirty puddles on the way home, his threadbare jeans soaked the grime and water deep into themselves. Kyo didn't notice. He was too busy thinking of things gone. He'd done his best to help others when he could. It just always seemed to backfire. He was very early in his twentys, but he had none of the stupidity of his age. He could only pretend he did, fake it with one drink too many.

Blonde and blue eyed, Kyo had a pretty face but a sad smile. He made his own bad things happen, and they leaked out of the edges of his eyes and showed the world. He didn't like the rain, he knew, because he couldn't tell if he was crying.

Home was far, and home was small, and home wasn't home because it was empty and alone. All his friends were gone. They hadn't left him, he'd turned and walked away for their sake. But he wasn't a hermit. He couldn't be. And down in his chest, building cages around his lungs and pinching them tight, he could still feel the lonliness.

The rain continued down, pattering into grey droplets and sliding down the waterproof edge of his coat. His hair and face were soaked, and it didn't matter.

"Not much in the mood for rain," he mumbled quietly, almost nonexistant against the sounds of the storm. Feet scuffed the concrete with a sheering sound through the water as he continued. "The rain's just dirty these days."