Chapter 1: Raindrops
The sound of the rain makes me remember how we met.
I'm not sure if it hurts me more than it makes me happy. To remember how it felt first seeing your face. First seeing your smile. Hearing you say you trusted me.
It's no use now. All I can do now is remember, remember, remember you, smiling through my tears, while the blank walls of this temple stare back at me unforgivingly, and the only sound is the rain outside.
If I die in here, alone where no mortal should be, my last thought will be of you.
Susu. Forgive me.
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The bridge was a steady white bow in the moving blur of raindrops, while the water beneath it quivered and trembled like fine silk being rumpled, shot over with bright sparks as each drop pierced the water surface.
The voices and footsteps fluttered around me as people ran for cover, vendors snatched up their wooden benches or folded away the shutters of their little stalls, fine ladies were hustled away into carriages by their maids, and children chased each other through the puddles.
And two figures stood motionless on the top of the bridge; one in white, glistening like a rainwashed statuette of GuanYin the Goddess of Mercy, the other in pale green, the wet drops on her glistening as she looked around anxiously.
I hesitated, suddenly becoming conscious of the wooden umbrella handle in my hand. How lucky I'd brought one, I had just been thinking. Now I found myself thinking how they needed it more than I did. What young ladies would get caught in the rain without even one maid to hold an umbrella for them? They would be soaked, their fine clothes would be ruined, probably; and they would be the laughingstock of coarse men. If they didn't even have a maid with them, they would not have a carriage to take them home either; how were they going to get back?
My clothes would dry soon enough. I turned and made my way towards the bridge, splashing through the puddles clumsily. My shoes were soaked by the time I reached the foot of the bridge; the rain was getting heavier.
The one in green was tugging at the arm of the one in white. "Sister, don't be stubborn. No one does this, I tell you. You'll be laughed at and looked down on."
"What harm is there in a little rain? I would like to see who would dare to laugh at me for something like that."
The rain stung my cheeks as I raised the umbrella. "Excuse me, ladies. I think you need this umbrella more than I do." I shouted over the roar of the rain.
The girl in green shrank back from me with a suspicious air, but the one in white turned towards me.
I felt my heart, already pounding from running, give a short painful spasm that made me gasp--a faint sound that was, thankfully, immediately lost in the sound of the rain.
That face.
It was a face I would continue to see--even if only in my dreams--for the rest of my life.
"I thank you, but you need it yourself." Her voice was low and mild but she somehow managed to project it over the pounding of the rain.
I tried to answer, floundered helplessly for words, and finally stammered, "Truly, I do not need it. I would be happy if you accepted it."
"I could not dream of accepting it." She motioned it away with her hand, courteously.
I held it out, stubbornly, and felt the rain come pouring down on me, streaking my face in cool needles. Impulsively, as she made no move to take it, I pushed it into her hand.
The white sleeve fell back as I did so, and exposed a deep gash on the forearm for a split second. It had been superficially bound with a handkerchief that was now soaked through with blood. She gathered it back swiftly and seemed about to drop the umbrella, uncertainly, when the girl in green emerged from where she'd been hiding behind her companion. Snatching the umbrella, she said haughtily, "Then we thank you for your kindness, sir. Sister, let's go."
"Your sister--" I stammered. "She is hurt. Forgive me--I have taken a liberty--but her wound needs to be seen to."
"It is a small wound," the Beautiful One said with something almost like a laugh. "It is kind of you to be concerned, but it will heal soon."
I shook my head. "Please--if it is not overstepping boundaries--you ought to see a physician. While you wait for the rain to subside you can have it seen to and bound up."
"No physicians," snapped the girl in green almost angrily. She had a brooding look in her eyes. "We don't trust physicians! Last time I met one, I almost got my gallbladder cut out."
"I am a physician." I swallowed. "Let me at least wrap it for you. It may keep bleeding otherwise, or leave a scar. If you do not despise my meagre skills, please let me help you bind it up." I paused, seeing the suspicious expression in the green girl's eyes, and glanced timidly at the Beautiful One. "If you trust me."
She stared at me, surprised, and I felt how stupid I must look, standing there like an idiot. I was about to turn and back off, too embarrassed to do anything else, too stupid to say anything else--then suddenly, she smiled.
"I trust you."
I smiled back, feeling an inexplicable happiness.
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