It doesn't rain for five days.
Shinji checks the weather forecast obsessively—on his phone between convenience store customers, on the computer at school during lunch, through the clouded apartment window at dawn. The sky remains stubbornly clear, that particular piercing blue that winter brings, cold and sharp as broken glass.
His father broke a plate on the third night. Not threw it—just let it slip from his hands during dinner, drunk enough that coordination became optional. The ceramic shattered across the kitchen floor in a pattern like scattered teeth, and Shinji's mother had cleaned it up without a word, on her hands and knees, picking up each piece with fingers that trembled from exhaustion.
Shinji had wanted to help. Had started to move. "Sit down," his father had said. Not yelled. That was worse somehow, the quiet command. "You'll just make it worse. You make everything worse."
So Shinji sat, and watched his mother bleed from a cut on her palm she didn't even acknowledge, and memorized the shape of the broken pieces because that's what artists do—they remember the way things fall apart.
Now it's Thursday morning, and the forecast finally shows rain. Sixty percent chance, starting around 8 AM. Shinji's heart beats faster just looking at the little cloud icon with its falling droplets.
He hasn't told anyone about the garden. Not that there's anyone to tell. He exists in the margins of other people's lives—the quiet kid at school who sits in the back, the convenience store worker who doesn't make small talk, the son who has learned to take up as little space as possible.
But the garden exists. And Hakurage exists. And somewhere in that green space, there's a commission waiting with his name on it. Five thousand yen. More than that—a purpose. Something beyond survival.
The first drops hit his window at 7:52 AM.
Shinji is already dressed in his uniform, bag packed, sketchbook wrapped in plastic. His mother left an hour ago. His father is still asleep, or unconscious—there's not much difference anymore. The apartment smells like stale alcohol and something burnt from yesterday's attempted cooking.
He leaves without breakfast. There's nothing to eat anyway. The garden gate is open when he arrives.
This surprises him. Last time, it had been closed, nearly hidden. Now it stands ajar, almost welcoming, and Shinji wonders if Hakurage left it this way deliberately. If maybe he'd been expecting Shinji to return.
The thought makes something warm bloom in his heart, then immediately wither. Don't get attached. People leave. People hurt you. People forget you exist.
But he walks through the gate anyway.
The rain is gentle today, more mist than downpour, the kind that coats everything in a fine sheen without really soaking through. The garden seems to breathe in it, the leaves and petals drinking greedily. Shinji follows the stone path toward the pavilion, his feet remembering the way.
Hakurage is already there.
He sits on the pavilion floor, surrounded by what looks like research papers and photographs. He's wearing the same mud-stained jacket, and his hair is damp in that way that suggests he's been outside for a while already. When he looks up at Shinji's approach, there's something in his expression—relief, maybe, or satisfaction—that disappears so quickly Shinji thinks he might have imagined it.
"You came," Hakurage says. "You're paying me to come." "I'm paying you to paint. Not to show up." Hakurage gestures to the space beside him. "But I'm glad you did both."
Shinji sits, setting his bag down carefully. Up close, he can see the papers are old newspaper clippings, their edges yellowed and fragile. Photographs show the garden in what must have been its prime—manicured, vibrant, with people in white coats examining plants. In one photo, a couple stands together, smiling. One has Hakurage's eyes.
"My parents," Hakurage says, noticing Shinji's gaze. "Six years ago, before everything ended."
Shinji wants to ask what ended, how, why. But Hakurage's voice carries that particular flatness that means the door is closed on those questions. Not locked—just closed. Maybe later.
"Your first commission," Hakurage says instead, pulling out a small photograph from the pile. He hands it to Shinji.
The image shows a child's red swing set, partially obscured by overgrown hydrangea bushes. The paint on the swings is chipped, and one seat hangs crooked from a broken chain. It looks sad in the way abandoned playground equipment always does—full of ghost-laughter and phantom joy.
"I need you to paint this," Hakurage says. "Exact as you can. Same angle, same lighting, same feeling." Shinji studies the photograph. "Is this somewhere in the garden?"
"It was. Far corner, near the east wall. The swing set is still there, but the hydrangeas have grown over it completely. You can barely see it anymore." "Why this specifically?"
Hakurage is quiet for a long moment. The rain fills the silence between them. "Because someone needs to remember it existed. Before it disappears completely."
There's something in his voice—not quite pain, not quite longing, but close to both. Shinji recognizes it because he hears the same thing in his own voice sometimes, late at night, when he's too tired to maintain the walls.
"I can do this," Shinji says. "When do you need it?"
"Next time it rains. No rush." Hakurage starts gathering his papers. "I sell them to collectors online. People who appreciate nostalgia, lost places. Your style—it's raw but honest. They'll respond to that."
"How do you know? You've only seen my sketches." "I know." Hakurage says it with such certainty that Shinji doesn't argue.
They sit together as the rain continues its gentle percussion on the pavilion roof. Shinji pulls out his regular sketchbook and starts drawing the pond again, adding details he missed last time—the way algae colors the water near the edges, the koi fish that occasionally surface despite the cold, the reflection of clouds in the still sections.
Hakurage watches him work. Normally, being observed would make Shinji's hands shake, would make him hyper-aware of every pencil stroke. But something about Hakurage's gaze feels different. Not judgmental. Just... present. Like he's studying the act of creation itself rather than evaluating the result.
"Do you go to school?" Shinji asks, not looking up from his drawing. "No. Dropped out two years ago." "Don't you get in trouble? Truancy officers or whatever?"
"My situation is... complicated. Legal guardians aren't exactly chasing me down." Hakurage's voice stays neutral. "What about you? This is the second time you've skipped."
"I go most days. Just not when it rains." "Why not?"
Shinji's pencil pauses. Because rain means escape. Because rain means his father sleeps heavier, drinks harder the night before, creating windows of safety. Because rain means this garden, means this strange kid who pays him for art, means feeling like a person instead of a problem.
"School feels pointless sometimes," he says instead. "I'm failing math anyway. And science. My teachers look at me like they're already writing me off." "What about art classes?"
"We don't have real art classes. Just once a week, and the teacher barely looks at my work." Shinji adds shading to a koi fish, making it three-dimensional. "My parents think art is a waste of time. My dad says I should focus on 'real skills' so I can get a 'real job.' As if working at a convenience store until I'm dead isn't already my future."
The bitterness in his own voice surprises him. He doesn't usually let it out like this, doesn't usually let anyone see the anger underneath the resignation. "Your parents sound like they're afraid," Hakurage says.
"Afraid of what?"
"That you'll be better than them. That you'll escape whatever trap they're in." Hakurage picks up a small pebble from the pavilion floor, rolls it between his fingers. "People who've given up on their own dreams can't stand watching others chase theirs. It reminds them of everything they lost."
Shinji looks at him. Really looks. Hakurage can't be more than fifteen, but he talks like someone who's lived multiple lifetimes, each one harder than the last.
"Is that what happened to your parents?" Shinji asks quietly. "Did they give up on their dreams?" "No." Hakurage's hand closes around the pebble. "They died chasing them."
The rain gets heavier suddenly, as if the sky heard those words and wept in response. It drums against the pavilion roof like applause, or like fists pounding on a door that won't open.
"I'm sorry," Shinji says. "Don't be. You didn't kill them." Hakurage tosses the pebble toward the pond. It lands with a plop, sending ripples across the surface. "I did."
The words hang in the air between them, heavy and terrible. Shinji's hand stops moving entirely. "What do you mean?"
"I mean exactly what I said." Hakurage stares at the pond, at the ripples spreading outward. "There was a storm. I was nine. I got scared, called them crying, begged them to come home from a conference in Yokohama. They left early to drive back. Wet roads, poor visibility, a truck that couldn't stop in time." His voice remains perfectly flat, reciting facts. "Head-on collision. Both dead at the scene. If I hadn't called, they'd have stayed overnight like they planned. They'd still be alive."
Shinji feels something crack open in his heart. This is the kind of pain that has no comfort, no solution. The kind that becomes part of your skeleton, holding you up and weighing you down simultaneously.
"That's not—" he starts.
"Don't," Hakurage cuts him off. "Don't tell me it's not my fault. I've heard it from social workers, from lawyers, from the distant relatives who didn't want to take me in. I know the logic. I understand cause and effect. But logic doesn't change what happened. I called, they came, they died. I'm the variable that didn't need to exist."
The rain continues. A koi fish surfaces, gulps air, disappears again. "Is that why you're trying to save the garden?" Shinji asks. "To make up for it?"
"I'm trying to save the garden because it's all I have left of them. Because their research deserves to continue. Because..." Hakurage finally looks at Shinji, and his eyes are drowning. "Because if I let it die too, then what was the point? What did they die for?"
Shinji understands this logic intimately. The desperate need to make suffering mean something. To transform pain into purpose because purposeless pain is unendurable.
"My father hits me," Shinji hears himself say. The words come out quiet but clear. "Not all the time. Just when he's drunk enough to forget I'm his son and remember that I'm the reason they're poor. My mom works herself to death and he can't hold a job and somehow I'm the problem because I exist, because I need food and suplies and space."
He's never said it out loud before. Never admitted it to anyone. The words feel like violence leaving his mouth, like he's making it more real by speaking it.
Hakurage turns to face him fully. "Does he hit your mother?"
"No. Just me. It's like... I'm the safe target. The one who won't leave, won't fight back, won't call the police because what happens to me if he goes to jail? Where do I go?"
"Here," Hakurage says immediately. "You come here." Shinji laughs, but it sounds broken. "I can't live in a garden." "Why not? I do." "That's different. You own this place."
"For six more months. Then we'll both be homeless." Hakurage says it like a joke, but it's not funny. "But until then, if you need somewhere to go, you come here. Anytime. Rain or no rain."
Shinji gulps, hard, along with the tears that threaten. He will not cry. He hasn't cried in years, learned early that tears change nothing, that they only make you a target.
But his voice breaks anyway when he says, "Thank you."
They sit in silence after that, two kids carrying impossible weights, offering each other the only thing they have—presence. Witnessing. The acknowledgment that pain is real even when you can't fix it.
Shinji returns to his drawing. Hakurage pulls out a small journal and starts writing—notes about plant growth, weather patterns, things that need repair. Ordinary tasks overlaid on extraordinary damage.
The rain doesn't stop until noon. When it finally tapers off, both kids are surprised to find hours have passed. Time moved differently here, slower and faster at once.
"Same day next week?" Hakurage asks as Shinji packs his things. "If it rains." "It will." Hakurage stands, stretches. His back cracks audibly. "Weather forecast says the rainy season is starting early this year. We'll have plenty of time."
Shinji shoulders his bag, the photograph of the swing set tucked carefully in his sketchbook. At the pavilion entrance, he pauses. "Hakurage?" "Yeah?" "I don't think you killed your parents. I think something terrible happened, and you survived it, and surviving doesn't make it your fault."
Hakurage doesn't respond immediately. When he does, his voice is softer than Shinji has heard it. "Then I don't think you deserve what your father does to you. I think something terrible is happening, and you're surviving it, and surviving doesn't mean you caused it."
They look at each other across the pavilion, two mirrors reflecting the same broken light.
Then Shinji nods and leaves, walking back through the garden toward the gate, toward Tokyo, toward his real life that feels less real than this place ever could.
Behind him, Hakurage watches until he disappears. Then he returns to the photographs spread across the pavilion floor, picks up the one of the swing set, and whispers to it like a prayer: "He came back. Just like you said he would."
The rain may have stopped, but the garden remembers. Gardens always remember.
TO BE CONTINUED...