Embracing Rain: A Theerapanyakul Story

1. The Boy Who Learned to be Quiet

Moving this story here from AO3. Its AI assisted there. I am trying to slowly update it. The whole story is complete and out over there. This one will take time.

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Rain knew how to make people laugh.

It came easily enough that most people assumed he did it because he was happy. Rain had never seen any reason to correct them.

"Tell me again," Sky said without looking up from his laptop, "why the roof is leaning."

Rain leaned over the scale model occupying most of their studio table and considered it with appropriate seriousness.

"It isn't leaning."

"It has developed a relationship with gravity."

"It's an experimental angle."

"It's collapsing."

"Architecturally."

Sky finally looked at him.

Rain held his expression for three seconds before breaking into a grin.

Sky sighed. "You're impossible."

"And yet you continue choosing me as a project partner."

"I was assigned to you."

"Destiny works in mysterious ways."

"Administrative errors are not destiny."

Rain laughed, drawing smiles from several students at the next table.

That was how most people knew him. He arrived late with coffee and an apology, forgot rulers but remembered birthdays, and could turn a failed model into enough of a comedy routine to convince exhausted classmates to stay another hour and fix it.

Rain was fun.

Rain was easy.

Rain was always fine.

The late-afternoon sun spilled through the architecture studio's tall windows, catching suspended dust above tables crowded with models, tracing paper, rulers and abandoned coffee cups. Printers whirred in the background. Chairs scraped across the floor. Someone swore when a blade slipped through foam board, and a moment later someone else called across the room for glue.

Rain loved the studio.

The noise made sense here. Doors opened because someone was coming to class. Raised voices meant an argument over measurements or materials. Mistakes resulted in crooked walls, wasted cardboard and complaints about having to start again.

A leaning roof was simply a leaning roof.

Rain reached for the utility knife beside Sky's elbow.

Sky caught his wrist before his fingers reached it.

"Eat first."

Rain looked at him innocently. "I ate."

"You drank tea."

"Tea is practically soup."

"It isn't."

"It contains water."

"So does the river. I wouldn't recommend having that for lunch either."

Rain gently pulled his wrist free.

"I'm not hungry."

Sky glanced at the untouched sandwich beside Rain's backpack. It had been sitting there since noon.