"Why are you drowning in the rain?"
The rain wasn't just falling; it was claiming the city. The University of Washington campus had turned into a charcoal sketch with colors upon it being diluted , the vibrant greens of the Quad washed out into a uniform, heavy gray. Julian stood in the center of the deluge, his head tilted back, eyes closed as he heard a voice that was not meant to be. .
The voice was clear, cutting through the rhythmic sound of the downpour. Suddenly, the relentless rain drops on his face stopped. The world grew dark and silent. Julian opened his eyes to see the underside of a black nylon umbrella.
Lily Vane stood before him, her arm extended to hold the umbrella over both of them. The scent of jasmine—sweet, delicate, and entirely out of place in the middle of a rain—reached toward him. Her blue eyes weren't mocking; they were searching, filled with a sharp, unsettling curiosity.
Julian didn't move. He didn't thank her. He felt a strange, mixed irritation at having his solitude interrupted. "I wasn't drowning," he said, his voice hoarse. "Seeing the rain makes me happy. I wanted to be alone in it and enjoy it."
Lily tilted her head, a stray curl falling over her eye. She didn't buy it. A small, smile touched her lips—the kind of smile belonging to someone who had seen too many high-society masks to believe in a simple "happy."
"Happiness?" she voiced , her voice dropping to a low, chill. "You look like a man trying to wash away his own emotion to forget it , Julian. Miserable people always give a noble excuse for their desperation. They call it 'solitude' or 'artistic inspiration'whatever when, in reality, they're just too tired to find an excuse to relieve a burden ."
The words hit Julian like a physical blow. It wasn't just the accuracy of the statement; it was the thing which she told was his way to forget them by doing things like this . The grief for Clara, the weight of the supermarket rent, the "boring" degree, and the suffocating pressure of his parents' expectations all surged to the surface, fueled by a sudden, hot flash of anger.
"Desperation?" Julian's voice rose, cracking with a bitterness he usually kept locked behind his polite mask. "What do you even know? You're Lily Vane. You're a rich heiress with a legacy older than this campus. You have everything—the cars, the business, the safety. You look at a man standing in the rain and see a 'noble excuse' because you've never had to stand in it with a lot of expectation from your loved ones for their survival because you had everything delivered to you but is there anyone who you can call lonely have you ever seen one ."
Lily's eyes widened, her grip on the umbrella handle tightening until her knuckles turned white.
"You don't get to judge a sad man's plea from under a happy life," Julian hissed, his heart beating against his ribs in a way that felt like a warning. "Stay in your own world, Lily. It's drier there."
Before she could respond, before she could offer a rebuttal or an apology, Julian stepped out from under the umbrella. He didn't look back. He turned and ran, his boots splashing through deep puddles, his breath coming in gasps that tasted of copper.
Lily stood frozen on the pavement. The word he told hung in the air like a foul odor. She watched his retreating back—a lone, dark figure blurring into the mist—until he disappeared past the engineering buildings.
"A rich girl, ah?" she whispered to the empty air. She looked at the rain and the empty campus then at the expensive umbrella. A sudden wave of fatigue washed over her. She didn't feel like an heiress. She felt like a ghost haunting her own life. Slowly, she turned and walked toward the campus gate where a black sedan was already waiting.
The ride back to Rainier Valley was a blur of neon lights reflecting on wet asphalt. Julian pedaled his bike with a desperate, rhythmic intensity, his muscles screaming against the resistance of his drenched clothes. By the time he reached the small supermarket, his skin was red and he was shivering.
He pushed the bike into the small, cramped garage as he parked it and entered the house through the back kitchen. The air inside was warm, smelling of turmeric and fried onions. His mother was at the stove, her back slightly hunched. She froze when she heard the squelch of his shoes.
She turned, her face a map of exhaustion and immediate, crushing sorrow. "Julian," she breathed, dropping the wooden spoon. "Oh, my son. Again?"
She rushed over with a worn towel, her eyes brimming with pain as she saw him. "It's been a decade, Julian. Ten years since we lost her. Can't you stop this? Can't you stop drenching yourself every time the sky turns gray? You'll catch your death, and then what will we do?"
Julian looked at his mother—really looked at her. He saw the gray hair she tried to hide and the way she checked the price of milk every morning. He reached out and took the towel, giving her a small, hauntingly sincere smile.
"It was a promise, Mom," he said softly. "I told her I'd play with her in the rain. Promises aren't meant to be broken just because the person isn't here with you."
His mother's lower lip trembled. She reached out to touch his wet cheek, but he gently stepped back, heading toward the stairs. "I have a lab report to finish," he lied.
She watched him go, a weak, heartbroken smile flickering on her face. She knew that lab report was a shield as he was always dodging, always wearing a fake smile . She knew her son was still out there in the fog, searching for a little girl who would never come home as a mother. It pained her to see her children suffer but emotions are exhausting. If you remember and grieve every second she should be strong for her son .
Six miles away, in a penthouse that overlooked the shimmering lights of Lake Union, the atmosphere was entirely different.
Lily's room was a masterpiece of curated luxury—velvet curtains the color of wine, an antique mahogany easel, and floor-to-ceiling windows that made the rain look like a decorative water feature rather than a storm.
She sat on her stool, a fresh canvas before her. She had intended to paint the "transition of light" on a haunting painting that Julian had described in the library. She wanted to capture that flicker of the uncertainty.
But every time she touched the brush to the palette, her hand shook.
"Miserable people always give a noble excuse..." The words she told echoed in her mind, but now they sounded cruel, even to her. She thought of Julian's face when he yelled at her. It wasn't just anger; it was the look of someone who had been stripped bare. He was a person who carried a story inside him, and she had walked over it in designer shoes and said those things.
She remembered the way he didn't run when the rain started. He had walked through it with a strange loneliness , while everyone else—herself included—was terrified of getting a little wet.
Humans always try to be dry. They don't like soaking in rain to not face circumstances,their weakness,not to see their own weakness.
She put her brush down, the Smalt Blue paint drying into a dull crust. She had lived her whole life being "Lily Vane," the girl who had everything. People either wanted something from her or hated her for what she possessed. No one had ever looked at her and said those words, even if that honesty was fueled by rage.
She felt a hollow ache in her chest—a rare, uncomfortable sensation called regret.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to the empty, gold-trimmed room.
She didn't know his last name. She didn't know where he lived. She only knew he was a "Smith" who studied computers but thought like a poet. She stared out at the Seattle skyline, the rain blurring the lights into a chaotic mix of colors.
It was right all colors mixed together did eventually produce black. But as Lily looked at her blank canvas, she decided she wasn't ready to let the darkness be the final word.
"Until next time, Julian Smith," she murmured, and for the first time in years, Lily Vane didn't care about the "Alchemy of Color." She only cared about the truth.