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I used to live in Seattle when I was growing up. I remember a lot of my boyhood, especially the rain. People would walk down the wet ways in colorful coats, carrying different patterned umbrellas. I loved hearing the tap, tap, tap of the raindrops hitting the ground and windows, the shade of the grey sky when you looked up. Sometimes, I’d close my eyes and let the raindrops whistle past my ears and fall on my tongue. All I could hear was rain and all I could feel was rain. Rain was my best friend. Rain and Yuki.
I’d run out of my house when I heard my little friend falling, when I saw the pureness of the water outside of my red brick townhouse. I’d silently, yet quickly put on my blue raincoat, open the front door, and stand on my doorsteps in what seemed to me, perpetual awe.
One day, I decided to look down. Down at the puddles on the ground. I saw myself; my bright blue eyes, and my short blonde hair. Me against the hue less sky. Raindrops began falling, creating little ripples in the water. I grinned at them, and stared for a long time, and then, suddenly, I saw a flash, a shimmer, of yellow. Yellow, like the sun. I turned my head up to see a little Asian girl down the steps, about my age, in a yellow raincoat. I first saw her in a reflection of a puddle, the yellow of her raincoat almost casting rainbows on her face. Her round head danced, bobbed as she laughed at herself, and her black hair bounced happily near her cheeks.
“Who are you?” I decided to ask shyly, in the innocence of my young voice.
The little girl lifted her sunny face and replied in a small, Japanese accent, “I’m Yuki.”
Tap, tap, tap. Yuki.
“I’m Harry.” I introduced myself bleakly, almost as bleak as the grey clouds. Yuki raised a small hand toward me. Her hand shone.
“Come Harry,” she said simply, and I grabbed a hold of her luminous hand. We ran down the steps. Splash, splash, splash. Water fell on my forehead and I laughed in surprise. Yuki laughed too, like a rainbow after a storm.
“I wonder why everyone thinks rain is sad,” she giggled curiously. “It’s like dancing, Harry!” Yuki spoke my name as if it were a ray of sunshine. She spun around and she truly looked like the sun in the sky.
Tap, tap, tap. The sun.
She ran ahead, on the sidewalk, and turned into a small alleyway. Her back faced me. My foot fell in a puddle. I smirked.
“Yuki, look!”
She turned around and I kicked water at her. And instead of getting mad, she laughed. She dipped her white hands into a small puddle, and just as I had splashed her, she splashed me.
Splash, splash.
I threw water back at her, and soon it started to pour. We were soaked. We fell in laughter on the wet ground.
Tap, tap, tap.
The rain laughed too. My best friends.

* * * * * *

I usually spent rainy days with Yuki, but on a sunny day, I’d want to stay inside. But just as always, my mother, from the kitchen, would urge me, “Go to the park, Harry!”
So I’d walk to the park in pure sunlight. I trekked across the sand to the swings. I loved the swings as a young boy. They were the second best thing next to rain. I always had a place there on sunny days. But today was different. Yuki was in my swing. I scowled.
“Hi, Harry,” greeted Yuki, calmly, but sweetly. I didn’t acknowledge her greeting.
“You’re in my swing,” I replied crossly. Yuki almond eyes widened, for rays of sunshine illuminated from them. But before she could say anything, anger came over me and I pushed her, harshly, off the swing, and she traumatically fell in the sand. A look of horror escaped her countenance, almost as though God put a thunderstorm in front of the sun. I was as cold as snow, knowing I had been mean. Yet, I did nothing to repent. I took my seat on the swing. Clinging to the chain, I watched Yuki utter a small cry, and I watched her run away.
Tap, tap, tap.
Her footsteps sounded like rain. The sun ran away.
I glared at my swinging feet. I felt strange.

That was the last time I saw Yuki, at least, for a long while. Rainy days were not as joyous as those earlier ones with Yuki. She gave rain a light.
So I grew up, without lighted rain.
Tap, tap, tap. Where’s Yuki?
Well, she’s gone, I would say. That’s what I would say for eleven more years of my life.

* * * * * *

I was a grown sixteen-year-old boy who had made a life of his own—I took up painting. Art classes, fairs, the whole thing. I mostly painted scenes of rain, of course, things I loved the most. I had recently, at school, painted a picture of a little girl in a yellow raincoat, watching herself in a puddle. It was, obvious to me, Yuki. I smiled and frowned at the same time at this memory. The last time I was with her, I had been very much unkind. It was amazing how I still remembered her, being that she had been part of my childhood past. I even wondered why. I told myself it was the rain who remembered, and the rain reminded me.
I remember walking home from school one cold afternoon, briefly after a rainfall. My painting swung under my arm as I looked down at the fresh puddles. It had been a while since I looked down at the puddles. They were as beautiful as I remembered.
Suddenly, as if coming from the back of my mind, yellow. A glint, a gleam, of yellow. I froze.
Just as I looked up to see what was the cause of this old, familiar light, it began to rain.
Tap, tap, tap. Yuki.
My painting clattered to the floor, the dirty city floor, splattering water on the canvas and paint. But I didn’t care. Yuki.
It was her, but much older, my age now. She had grown into a slim adolescent, long black hair, her slim eyes still shone. And she was wearing a yellow raincoat.
“Hello, Harry,” she said expectedly. She stood at the other end of the sidewalk, next to the front steps of my house.
“Hi, Yuki,” I murmured, unbelieving. There she stood, seeming to forget my mean action from so long ago. I took a stand. “I’m really sorry, Yuki.”
A smile crept on her thin, glowing lips. “Oh Harry.” was all she said. She held out her gleaming arms out toward me. I accepted the embrace warmly. She forgave me, for that incident in which I’d never forgotten. After all those years.
“Thank you,” I said without hesitation, without doubt. Our hug loosened and my eyes flickered to my fallen painting. Interested, Yuki picked it up steadily and gazed at it. The little girl in the picture appeared exactly like herself as a young girl, and I would of known, I painted it. And she must’ve known too, for her eyes followed each line and each shape, and then she gave me her scintillating grin.
“Thank you,” she responded emotionally. I smiled, and she smiled too. And then it began to pour.
Tap, tap, tap. Yuki kicked water on me, giggled, her head bobbing just like the way it used to. She laughed, and rays of sunshine hit my soaked face. I splashed her back.
Splash, splash. Yuki.