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The valley was blanketed in gray. Rain drummed on every roof in the city like an endless chorus of noise.
A million pebbles of water splashed and pattered around the two figures streaking through the soaked streets, slowly turning to streams under their feet. It wasn’t raining especially hard, but it’d been consistent all day, the mist lowering visibility and mud accumulating to cling to anyone who dared be out.
Yuwen would’ve hated every part of it, if he wasn’t busy trying to win.
Kai was a little in front of him, laughing and jumping every few paces to make the puddles beneath her explode into drops and splash him.
Though he’d never tell her out loud, he knew technically, objectively, she was a little faster of a runner than him. His strength was in his arms, which just weren’t as key in a race. But he had another strength she didn’t.
The boy suddenly skidded his heels on the asphalt, sending a miniature wave in her direction like a car rounding a corner on a road as he turned and dove down an alleyway. He could hear a confused noise behind him and stamping feet as Kai turned to follow.
“Cheater!” he called over his shoulder as he climbed over the chain link fence at the end of the alley.
She knew he knew the best shortcuts in town, and she wasn’t about to let him take a whole different path to the trailer park without her, even if it meant piggybacking off his brilliant strategy.
He hit the ground first on the other side, on all fours with his palms brushing against the sodden ground, and continued bolting across the grassy backyard they landed in. The person who lived here had forgotten to close the gate on the opposite side of the fence. Half lucky, half unlucky; Kai was the highest jumper on the team but he was the better climber. He might’ve been able to get a larger lead if they’d had to climb over the other side.
Still, he was ahead as the gate spit them onto a familiar street corner. This was the part where Kai always bested him; there was nothing but a straight stretch of road between them and the entrance down to his trailer park, and she knew it.
He’d been trying for a while to find a shortcut that put them somewhere different, some approach she wouldn’t recognize right away, but nothing yet. And she grew more and more familiar with these streets they ran down, those shortcuts and routes he dragged her through, every day. Annoying, and something else as well; this weird… contented feeling it gave him to race familiar streets with her as she learned her way around their home. But mostly annoying.
His hope right now was the rain might make it hard to tell where they were, the fog hanging above and below and spattering droplets and breeze blowing those droplets around made it nearly impossible to see more than a few feet in front of you.
Your feet themselves were hard to see too. The muddy water streamed and splashed over his green rubber boots, a little too big for him, making them blur with the rain-slick road.
The wind suddenly picked up, blowing the hood of his coat back from his head. It’d been keeping the rain out of his face until this point, now the droplets ran down his head, making his bangs droop and beading his eyelashes so he blinked rapidly.
Fucking rain...
He let out a disgruntled snort, not bothering to stop as he shook his head to clear the water. That might’ve been a bad idea, he would admit to himself at a later date.
—
Kai heard a startled yelp and the sound of something heavy slapping against pavement ahead at the same moment she felt herself overbalance forward.
She always forgot that the road down to Yuwen’s home wasn’t completely flat, not exactly a hill, but a slant noticeable if you were skating or running.
She normally had fairly good balance, but the asphalt was slippery with water while still being uneven, and her foot caught on something - a rock, a pothole, a crack? - as she tried to steady her pace.
The road lurched toward her sharply and she instinctively threw her arms out to catch herself. A sharp pain blazed across her palms and forearms as she hit the ground. Stranger though, she felt her head and chin slam into something that wasn’t asphalt.
“Ahf- wh… owwwwww…” came a low and mournful complaint close to her ear.
She blinked and wiped the water from her face with one sleeve. It turned out she’d bumped into the slumped back of a very bedraggled Yuwen.
“Fucking rain!” he shouted, bringing his fists down on the hard ground and then wincing and shaking them out like it hurt.
“I think… I think the road already won…” she huffed breathlessly as he turned clumsily to face her, “you don’t gotta fight back.”
It was even harder to see now, but she squinted and saw that his pants fabric was ripped in one place on his right leg, two on his left, exposing large strawberry scrapes on both knees. He had a small bleeding scratch on his chin too, as if he hadn’t caught himself in time to avoid it, and hadn’t had another kid to run into either.
“Jeez, you good?” she murmured, tilting her head in concern.
“No! I hate rain!” he growled, kicking his legs out in front of him and splashing both of them, although they were already soaked, the rain seeping in while their hoods were down and their attention diverted.
“Really? You never told me,” she teased. He’d told her at least three times that day alone, and described in detail many other times his hatred for the dragging wetness, the chill, the grayness (she could agree with him on that part). Still, he’d been the one to propose they race home in it, “maybe running through it wasn’t the best idea,” she continued more earnestly.
“We always race here, though,” he muttered, looking down at his hands, “I refuse to bend my day to its will.”
“Well, we paid the price. It definitely wins this round,” she said apologetically.
She steadied herself into a crouch, shook down her coat sleeves and offered her hands to help him up; his knees looked painful. He glanced over and paused.
“Whoa- uh- you good?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at her.
“Yeah, m’fine.”
Her arms hurt, but it was nothing too painful, she must not be that badly scraped.
She looked down as well.
Her palms and forearms were a solid mess of blood and dirt, from elbows to the base of her hands. Red over brown over red and turning the water a cloudy burnt umber as the rain washed away the mud and streaked her arms with the fresh blood that welled up. Actually, between the two kids, most of the water around them was stained reddish.
“Huh,” she said, turning her arms palms-down and then back up.
“‘Huh'? That’s all? That looks pretty gnarly, Kai,” he exclaimed, looking at her with wide eyes as she continued to hold her hands out indifferently.
“It doesn’t hurt that much, though. No big deal,” she shrugged.
“‘No big deal,’ she says,” Yuwen huffed. He didn’t take her hands, crouching with his palms to the ground and wincing a little as he pushed himself up, “you’re crazy.”
“I’m not the one who suggested a race through town during weather that I have a personal vendetta against,” she reasoned, standing as well.
She took a step away and gave herself a big shake to clear some of the water out of her face. Yuwen hissed and jumped away, whether she’d actually managed to splash him or if he was just complaining in general, she murmured a “sorry.”
“C’mon,” the girl pulled the hood of her raincoat back up, shivering slightly as she felt the water that’d pattered into her hair and seeped through to the clothes beneath her coat. She stepped forward and tugged Yuwen’s hood back up as well, “let’s get to your trailer before we get any more soaked.”
They continued down the road, walking now instead of sprinting. Yuwen soon fell behind her; she could hear his grumbles and winces getting fainter as the distance between them grew. Eventually she paused to let him catch up, turning to look his way.
“Scrapes or tired legs?” she asked as he drew close again.
“Both,” he muttered over the still-pattering rain.
“Mmm.”
She turned her back to him again and bent one leg in invitation. After a moment she felt his arms come to wrap around her shoulders, the plastic and waterproof nylon of their two coats sliding against each other.
They’d done this a few times before, sometimes just for the fun of running around that way, sometimes when Yuwen’s shorter legs got worn-out and he was brave or tired enough to actually admit it.
After making sure her arms were securely hooked under his bent knees, she carefully stood and continued towards the trailer park. The road had grown flatter, so she wasn’t too worried about stumbling again. Still, she took it as slow as she could stand to as the rain drummed down on them.
One of Yuwen’s many complaints about this sort of weather was how it drove people inside, but she was still grateful they hadn’t encountered many cars on the road on their way here. Her father’s criticism-voice (usually something she managed to ignore on ‘light days’ like today) whispered something in the back of her mind about ‘dangerous and irresponsible choices.’
“You know the worst part?” Yuwen’s voice cut through her thoughts, sounding from where his chin rested on the top of her head.
“What?” she asked as she stepped on to the sidewalk of the trailer lot, walking down the path with trailers and mobile homes parked on either side.
“I was totally about to win.”
That surprised a laugh out of her.
“You weren’t! I always catch you,” she argued.
“Nooooo, you didn’t the first time!” he shot back.
“That’s cuz I didn’t know where we were going! You disappeared halfway there and I had to wait for you to come back and find me!” she reminded him.
That day had been a confusing one, though it’d ended with warm food and fast conversation with Yuwen’s firm but endlessly polite mother.
“Not my fault you’ve got no sense of direction,” he reasoned, sounding almost bored.
She gave an offended huff and bounced them both in place to make him yelp.
“I’d never been to this part of town and you know it!”
“Well you’ve been here plenty now, and you still don’t know all the shortcuts,” he teased, “I’ve been saving some in my back pocket for when I really wanna get ahead of you.”
“Uh huh,” she grunted, shaking her head blithely.
She turned a corner and reached Yuwen’s trailer, marked by the brightly colored food truck parked beside it, and by the hand prints - two sets, one big, one small - stamped in yellow and purple paint on the side. These had been there from the first day she’d visited; she could only guess younger Yuwen and his mom had done them years prior, marking their home as theirs.
She bent her legs and Yuwen hopped down to unlock the door.
“My mom’s not home. She asked if I wanted a ride from school but said I got it covered,” he grinned as he stepped inside and stamped his boots on the mat to shake the mud off.
She imitated him, determined not to track any mud into the kind woman’s home, “And she believed you?”
“She doesn’t need to know I didn’t take the bus,” he shrugged, lifting his scraped chin proudly, “and, anyway, she knows I can handle myself.”
Yuwen flicked on the light and she sighed contentedly as the warmth and coziness of the space washed over her. It was August (still summer for the Florida town) and the rain hadn’t been too cold, but inside was still much more pleasant.
They both pulled off their dripping coats, shook them a little over the mat to get some of the water off and set them on hooks by the door.
“How soaked are your socks?” he asked, stepping out of his boots and giving a dramatically mournful sigh as his sodden socks hit the mat.
“I’ve had worse…” she smiled slightly as she stepped on the toe of one wet sock at a time to get them off without having to grab them.
She saw Yuwen give a slight involuntary shiver as he did the same. She knew he naturally ran pretty cold, the chill of the water was probably catching up with him a little harder than her after a minute in the warm interior.
“Where d’you guys keep the big towels?” she asked.
“Far edge of the counter, bottom drawer,” he described absently as he lifted one leg at a time and bent each bloody knee to test it.
She wiped her now bare feet on the mat one more time then stepped as lightly as she could to the opposite end of the trailer. She found the towels and grabbed a stack of them in both hands before going back to the door where Yuwen stood.
“You do realize you’re actively bleeding on those?” he deadpanned once he spotted her, tilting his head in mock-disapproval.
“Oh.”
She’d forgotten about her scraped palms. Indeed, when she handed one to Yuwen she could see a small smear of blood on one side.
“Mom’s never had trouble getting stains out of stuff but, still, it’s pretty weird to forget you’re hurt while you’re bleeding out,” he huffed lightly as he wrapped the towel around his shoulders.
“You make it sound like I’ve been stabbed or somethin. It’s really not that bad.” She admitted the pain was getting a little harder to miss now that the adrenaline of running and falling had faded, but she still didn’t think it was as bad as it looked. “Do you know where your mom keeps the bandaids and stuff?”
He paused, opened his mouth, closed it, “…In one of… three places?”
They dried themselves off a little more, wiping their mud-splattered pants the best they could. She didn’t think her locs were sodden enough to need blow-drying; her palms did give one sharp stab of pain as she gently toweled the ones on her forehead but it went away after a moment. They then went hunting for bandages, Yuwen moaning about his scraped knees all the while.
He eventually found a first aid kit in the bathroom nook at the back of the space and they pulled out a pair of chairs at the small wooden table where they usually ate.
He winced sharply as she pressed a bandaid over one of his scrapes. It took several large ones on each knee to cover all of the ripped skin.
“They’re deaaaad… I’m crippled…” he whined, flopping backwards so his head and arms draped off the other side of the chair.
“Boy, you’ll live. One more.” He sat up and she dabbed at the scrape on his chin with a cotton ball of disinfectant. “I guess we’re lucky you didn’t get any teeth knocked out.”
She eased a smaller sized bandaid over the spot with two fingers.
“Nah, I could totally pull off gold teeth. We’re actually lucky you didn’t bleed into my wounds,” he gestured towards her hands. His own palms were pink and lightly scuffed from the fall but not bleeding.
“They’re fine. I’ve had worse than some scrapes,” she insisted earnestly. She had dripped a little blood onto the table while grabbing bandaids from the open kit, which she wiped up now with one of the cotton balls.
Yuwen huffed and opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, then closed it and blew a long breath out through his nose. He grabbed the mini bottle of disinfectant and tipped it clumsily into a fresh cotton ball, though he went a little overboard and some of the clear, clean smelling liquid dripped on to the floor.
“You don’t gotta-“
“You just did it for me like I was five,” he pointed out, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, but…” she trailed off. She hadn’t really thought about fixing his scrapes as she’d done it. She’d been on a team of all clumsy boys for years, a fact Yuwen didn’t really know. A fact that… maybe she could tell him soon? Maybe? She supposed the instinct was still baked into her even after everything.
“Just gimme your hands!” he said impatiently.
She suppressed a small smile at the serious look on his face and held her hands out warily, palms up.
“I- ack-“ she yelped and flinched back involuntarily as the sharp sting of the antiseptic touched her skin. The same kind of pain as when she’d fallen came flowing back in, blazing like fire across her left palm.
“‘Fine,’ huh?” he tilted his head in barely disguised smugness as he grabbed her forearm to keep her from pulling away more.
She bit her tongue to keep from wincing as he continued to dab - about as skillfully as she’d expect - at the broken skin. It wasn’t bleeding as fast as it’d been before, but fresh blood still welled up as he did his best to wipe away the dirt that was still there. “Jeez, dude, there’s actual gravel stuck in here,” he muttered, giving the scrapes, interspersed with tiny specks of dark gray, a contemptuous look, “I think maybe just go to the sink.”
She was about to protest, half to maintain her stance of it being not that bad, half because she didn’t really like the idea of a strong stream of water rolling across her raw skin.
“Sink, Kai!” the boy pressed before she could, baring a striking resemblance to his mother for all of two seconds before cracking the effect with a mischievous squint, “sink or I tell everyone else you pushed me down on the road.”
She gave an offended gasp, “You wouldn’t!”
“I would!”
“They wouldn’t believe you!”
“You don’t know! I’m very persuasive,” he tossed his head vainly and she rolled her eyes but got up and dragged herself unhappily over to the kitchenette sink.
Her palms and forearms hurt more than ever as the cold water streamed over them. The few tiny bits of broken road that’d dug themselves in were surrounded by clotted blood. They felt like tiny knives plunging into her flesh then out again as she gingerly rubbed her arms to dislodge them.
A soft whimper escaped her, and she let it. This sucked; they were dry; Yuwen was patched up; no advantage in ignoring it now.
Yuwen stood close by, casually leaning against the counter and watching her curiously.
“This is so weird. It’s like most of your pain receptors were asleep and then they suddenly woke up late and realized they’d been attacked by the ground,” he gestured at the red-stained water for emphasis.
“It’s not-“
“If you say ‘not that bad’ again I really am gonna tell the team you pushed me,” he challenged.
She stuck her tongue out at him, then shrugged, “No point making a big fuss.”
“Ehh, I think sometimes a big fuss is necessary,” he asserted, gesturing with one hand, “repeat after me: Ow. This hurts.”
“You are not tryina teach me how to healthily express pain,” she shot back, then turned her gaze back to the sink as she watched the dirt disappear down the drain, “but… yeah. Ow.”
Eventually after gently rubbing soap over her palms and forearms, as well as her elbows (which had round strawberry scrapes to match Yuwen’s knees) the wounds looked clean and were no longer actively bleeding.
The scrapes weren’t actually especially deep, but there were no bandaids big enough to cover the ones that spanned almost the whole of her forearms, so Yuwen grabbed a roll of gauze bandage to wrap those.
“We’ll- uh- probably have to tell the others something,” she said, tilting her head towards his knees and chin and then down as he fumbled with the white strip, “dunno if they’ll all just ignore this.”
“Eh, it’s not that uncommon for me. They might ask cuz of you though. We could say we got in a fight,” he suggested cheerfully.
“With each other or the ground?”
“With some bank robbers. And we fended them off fearlessly!”
“And then tripped and fell on our faces while going to return the money,” she chuckled.
“Maybe you did, I got in a tussle with their dog on the ground.”
“I thought you were scared of dogs?”
“Am not!” he screeched, then recovered somewhat, “and don’t forget who’s carefully and masterfully tending your wounds right now,” he looked down at her right arm. He’d managed to fully dress up the scrapes and was now holding the attached roll in one hand blankly, “what do I do now?”
She snorted, “Cut it loose first.”
She instructed him on cutting the strip from the roll and sticking it down so the wrapping stayed in place, then let him do the other arm all himself. It was a little haphazard, but it got the job done. Same with the multiple bandaids covering her palms.
He insisted they check her knees as well in case she had “something 'not that bad' there too.” One of them looked a little grazed, but not bleeding, she’d really caught almost all of her weight with her arms. They hurt, her brain and body were fully aware of it now, but it slowly subsided to a dull throb beneath the bandages instead of a sharp stinging.
After all was treated and the kit put back, they sat at the table in silence for a moment, tired and battered but with their hurts taken care of.
“Hear that?” Kai asked after a beat.
“Hmm? What?” he looked around confusedly.
“Rain’s stopped,” she explained. The constant pattering on the roof was gone, replaced with a faint, steady dripping sound.
She wasn’t sure when it’d stopped between all the distraction, but when she got up gingerly and stuck her head out the door, the sun was shining amidst the parted clouds, and the air smelled clean and warm.
She turned back towards him, “Want some fresh air?”
They sat on their folded towels, perched on the steps outside the trailer door, letting the sun fully warm and dry their heads.
“Do you hate this?” she gestured around at the drying pavement.
“No, after rain’s fine. Weirdly humid, and sometimes it smells weird. But fine.”
“After rain literally smells amazing, what are you talking about?” she demanded.
He snorted and stuck his tongue out but didn’t say anything else. After a beat he piped up again.
“Don’t tell Taylor I fell on my face on the road, yeah? I mean-“ he added quickly, “I mean don’t tell anyone- just- ya know- using her as an example. Random example.”
She giggled and smirked at him.
“She- or they, but you know, she as a random example- might be able to guess what happened on her own, but yeah. I won’t.”
“Cool,” he cleared his throat and wiped his hands absentmindedly on his pants, changed from the ripped ones.
“Cool.”
They slipped into an easy quiet after that, punctuated by the dripping of water, and chirping of birds as they announced the clearing sky.