The first time it rained, they were just kids.
She was seventeen. He was eighteen.
The kind of love that grows in monsoon puddles, barefoot walks, and paperboat races.
They didn’t talk about forever. They only talked about tomorrow.
And then… he left.
A train pulled away with her heart inside.
No goodbyes. Just distance.
And letters that stopped coming too soon.
Twenty years passed.
She lived her life. Married once. Divorced once. Built a quiet routine with coffee, books, and closed windows when it rained.
Because the rain still remembered him.
And it hurt too much to let it in.
But life has a way of circling back.
She was in her hometown for just a day. The sky was gray, the air heavy.
She stepped out to buy tea leaves from the corner shop that no longer sold tea.
And then — the rain fell again.
The same smell. The same rhythm. The same kind of silence between drops that she hadn’t heard in years.
She stood still.
A voice, just as still, broke through:
“You never liked umbrellas.”
She turned.
There he was.
Same eyes. More lines. A grayer smile. But him.
Neither spoke for a moment.
Because time was real, but so was something else — something they had left in the space between two summers long ago.
They found a bench. Shared silence. Then tea. Then stories. Then laughter.
And when the sky cried a little harder, she didn’t run inside.
She let the rain fall on her face.
So did he.
There were no apologies, no questions.
Just two people who had learned to walk separately,
and now stood quietly in the same storm again.
The second time it rained,
they didn’t say goodbye.
They just walked —
slowly, together,
without umbrellas.