Story: There's Rain Coming (all chapters)

Authors: BatchSan

Back to chapter list

Chapter 1

[Author's notes:
]

There's Rain Coming

That's all it took for Yuri and Angel to get together - a drop of water. Something so small and otherwise inconsequential as a drop of water had the power to bring two complete strangers together. People rarely believed the couple when they told them how it happened.
---

Up until that particular day, Yuri had either been in short, uninteresting relationships or alone for months, even a year or two. She had no luck when it came to relationships. The men didn't care much what was on her mind and the women usually refused to see eye to eye with her on certain topics that she felt were important. She had finally decided to call off dating forever - or at least until her eye caught sight of the next pretty face. Then she would stupidly fall for it and follow it home like some love starved puppy, repeating the vicious cycle. Most people would say Yuri was something of a masochistic. In a way, they were probably right.

This time though, she felt positive that she wouldn't slip back into her gluttonous patheticness.

The day she first met Angel, she had just been fired from her job at a bookstore. Unfortunately, Yuri's deep, passionate love for books had pushed her to the point of sneaking books out of work with her. The manager finally caught her in the act, slipping a book into her messenger bag while in the storage room. Luckily, she had known the manager for quite some years, he was an older man who had been friends with her mother. Because of his zero tolerance for thieves of any kind, he fired her on the spot and banned her from the store. Thankful not to be in the backseat of a cop car, Yuri trudged home with her few belongings, including several books she took when the manager hadn't been looking. Passing a pizzeria, she decided that a possible last indulgence was in order. Without a job, it'd probably be about a month before she would begin to wear through her savings.

A slice of mushroom and extra cheese later found Yuri standing at a bus stop. The pizza had made her miss her bus, the behemoth rolling away just as she rounded the opposite corner. If the box of belongings hadn't been weighing her down, she may have ran for it, possibly to no avail other then burning off some of the pizza. As it was, she stood at the stop alone, wondering what her next plan of action in life should be. It wasn't until the smell of lavender and creme permeated her nostrils that she looked around, surprised. Beside her, a woman maybe a few years older then herself stood no more then two feet away. Dark brunette hair, streaked occasionally with gold highlights, was long and cascading gently down her back. If the pouty lips and cool eyes hadn't distracted her so much, Yuri might have thought the open umbrella she was holding was odd considering there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

"I heard there's rain coming." The stranger said, snapping Yuri out of her gawking.

Pursing her lips, Yuri was briefly reminded of her mother telling her never to talk to strangers.

"There's no clouds in the sky." She replied. What did mothers know?

The stranger turned to her then, making Yuri's stomach drop into her nether regions thanks to the sparkling green eyes that danced at her. Her lips twinged slightly in a smile.

"That doesn't mean the rain won't come."

"True. It'll still be a while though before it rains. You don't need to have your umbrella open." Yuri flushed speaking fast in her nervousness.

"You're cute when you blush." The stranger said with a wink.

As suddenly as she had appeared and began talking with her, she turned and began walking down the block. Fighting back her starved puppy complex, Yuri chewed her lip until she could taste blood before giving in and calling out to the departing stranger. "My name is Yuri!"

The stranger waved a hand as she departed, chuckling softly. "Angel!" Then she was gone around the corner.
---

Trying to behave and stick to her word concerning relationships, Yuri had remained at the bus stop and did not stalk after Angel. Nor did she return to the bus stop in hopes of seeing her again - there was no need anyway. Without her job at the bookstore, she didn't really have any reason to travel to that part of town. Beside, Angel was a strange person, nothing like what she usually went for. Yuri loved the bad boy or girl types. The kind that were a prick with the world but secretly had a soft, mushy side. Of course, she had finally realized the sickness of being in that type of relationship and that's why she fought so hard to remain single. Still, that didn't mean that each day that passed she didn't think of those cool eyes or playful chuckle before banging her head against a wall to clear her head.

Job hunting turned out to be a welcome distraction though. It took Yuri about three weeks to land a new job after much chasing around of her tail. The fact that she managed to land a job near the bookstore where she formerly worked was only coincidental, having picked the locale out randomly from the newspaper. While secretarial duties weren't her idea of an interesting job, she was thankful to be employed again. Because her savings had dipped into a danger zone and the new job withheld her first paycheck as part of a trial, Yuri was on the broke side, saving her money for food she needed and bus fare. So it wasn't until her second paycheck came in, three weeks later, that Yuri decided a bit of celebration was in order. The sky was gray as she cashed in her check at the bank. Walking to the bus stop, the lure of the pizzeria called her in for a mouth watering slice.

A slice of extra cheese pizza later, Yuri stood quietly at the bus stop. In the last few weeks she'd been working, there had been no sight of Angel and honestly, Yuri figured she had imagined her. As alluring as Angel had been, there was no way she was real. Rummaging through the small messenger bag she toted about, she felt it - a drop of water. It landed directly on her wrist, sliding down her hand, threatening to go into her bag if she didn't move it. Moving her hand to flick the droplet away, a soft hand with a firm grip, grabbed her wrist to stop her. Angel stared intently first at Yuri when she looked up and then at the droplet. Without a word or warning, Angel brought the finger with the droplet to her lips and kissed the drop of water away. Blushing enough to make her ears burn, Yuri blinked in mute surprise and arousal. Cool green eyes peered calmly down at her until she realized there was an umbrella over them.

"I told you the rain was coming."

"I don't see any clouds..." Yuri said slowly, trying to come to her senses that were being totally taken over by the woman still holding her wrist.

Lips twitched up into a playful smile. "You can see them if you stop staring so hard at me."

Panicking slightly, Yuri took a step back coming back to her senses.

"I'm sorry. I just..."

"The bus is coming. Let's talk on the way."

"Talk on the way?" Yuri was confused, her mind feeling intoxicated by the mysterious woman. "The way to where?"

A kiss to the back of her hand. "Anywhere you want."

It was that moment, as the bus pulled up in front of them and a breeze mixed with rain and hot air momentarily blasted over them, that Yuri realized what this was. It was love. She had never felt it before, but it made so much sense, no matter how crazy it sounded. All those failed relationships, all those days self hating, all the time she spent trying not to get into a relationship - it all made sense now. Destiny had played a game of cards with her life and this was final hand, the winning hand.

"Let's go then." Yuri smiled.
---

So maybe it hadn't been only the drop of water, more like a combination of things. Some possibly even preordained. However, the moment when it became perfectly clear to both of them was that single drop of water on Yuri's skin.

-End-

Back to chapter list