This story has been rewritten. Please see author’s note at the end of the chapter.

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Watch your step, love is broken

I am every tear you cry

Save your breath, your heart has spoken

You already have my life

For I am finding out that love will kill and save me

Taking the dreams that made me up and tearing them away

But the same love will take this heart that’s barely beating

And fill it with hope beyond the stars

Only love

Another day, another sunrise

Washing over everything

In its time, love will be mine

The beauty and the tragedy.

--Trading Yesterday, “The Beauty and the Tragedy”

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Chapter 1: The Day Before Tomorrow (Sawachika Akito's PoV)

The dull morning light seemed to shake something inside of me. Not easily roused, I muffled a groan into my pillow and turned over. It was hot, like a summer day, and my exhaustion melded together with a forceful awakening. The most unpleasant feeling imaginable.

My covers laid discarded on the floor, displaying how the heat had already gotten to me in a different, semi-conscious state. My skin bristled against the irritatingly bright layers of sunshine that cascaded through my half open window curtains. I shot up, sitting upright on my bed as I glared at the blue sky and singing birds of the morning world.

I tousled my hair further and groaned once again, persistent, but weakened. I fell back on my pillow tiredly, willing the flow of time into reverse, to return the night for another moment of sleep.

A high decibel shriek sounded on the other side of my door, followed by clamouring footsteps. My sisters in the morning.

The one thing about having such a big family that really irritated me, I pondered while opening the door to my oldest sister sprawled across the floor, bar of soap at her side, was the morning commotion.

“Honestly, what is the matter with you, Sachi? Slipping on a bar of soap!” Chisa scoffed, pressing two slender fingers to her cheek.

Sachi’s eyes flashed with an unusual bout of anger. “This is your fault! Tossing it at me so leisurely!” she retorted, gripping the soapy block and pointing it accusingly at her sister.

“Oh, please,” Chisa cooed. “Don’t blame me for your own clumsiness.”

“Chisa!” Another voice bellowed from the bathroom down the hall. “You used all the hot water!”

Chisa sucked in a sharp breath, her hand fluttering to her mouth. Sachi arched an eyebrow, fighting the twitching upturned corners of her lips.

I rolled my eyes dramatically, dragging myself back inside my safe haven and pulling the door closed with a click. I knew from here on I wouldn’t be getting any sleep, so I grudgingly began my five minute process of getting ready.

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Conversation buzzed at the breakfast table as per usual as I seated myself silently. I heaped a generous portion of scrambled eggs onto my plate and dug my fork into them.

The spread wasn’t usually as dramatic, or as western for that matter, as it was this morning. We had eggs, bacon and pancakes this morning, a monthly event at best. The majority of the time I spent breakfast with instant oatmeal, especially when my dad didn’t have time to cook up something different. Though, it beat steamed rice, miso soup and fish any day. Rule of thumb: Breakfast should be as uncomplicated as possible.

“Good morning, Akito,” my mother, Chie, greeted with her naturally sunshiny disposition. “Did you sleep well?”

I nodded quickly during a mouthful of eggs. “Didn’t make it through the commotion, though.”

My sisters were missing from the table, otherwise I wouldn’t have mentioned it. They were still working at getting ready, nothing out of the ordinary.

My twin brother, Ryoutarou, chuckled and scarfed down a piece of bacon. “Yeah, they were screaming up a storm this morning. It was delightful.”

Ever the optimist, Ryou usually seemed to mean what he said. Pretty much the complete opposite of me. You’d think as twins we’d be pretty close, but the older we got the more we grew apart, going off to different schools, and no longer required to share the same room just because we were twins. We naturally grew apart.

My father, Jun, arrived at the table again, dumping a new load of sausages onto the bacon plate. I snagged one absent-mindedly.

“This is practice for that family reunion coming up! I hope you’re all excited to taste the best freakin’ Western cooking you’ve ever tasted!”

My dad, the chef, liked to regard himself as highly as possible when it came to all things cooking. A busy man, but when he had time to hang around and make breakfast for us, it was always something else.

My youngest brother, Tetsuya wiggled in his chair, reaching forward for a few sausages of his own. “Do I have to go to another one of those? They’re always so loooong, and no one even talks to me, let alone cares I’m there.”

I suppressed a bout of laughter. Tetsuya always brought this up, and always received the same following lecture.

“Son, you’re a part of this family. Though it may not seem like it, your presence is very appreciated!” My dad declared, waving his empty frying pan. “Your know your aunts all dote on you! The reason they aren’t giving you all their attention is because you go off somewhere, go into hiding.”

Ryou nodded his agreement, “Mmm, he’s right. We always find you sleeping in the basement or something.”

“After eating all that rich food, too,” Mom added, cutting herself a tiny portion of sausage. “It’s terrible for your digestion, Tetsuya.”

Tetsuya rolled his eyes and hopped from his chair. “Well, better be off now! Don’t wanna be late! Bye!”

A squeal sounded from upstairs. “Late! I will be late and it’s your fault!”

“Oh, can it. I needed to curl my hair this morning!”

“Your hair is naturally wavy! What could you possibly need to curl it for?!”

“I’m telling you that isn’t the point! Curls and waves are totally different! Though you don‘t know the first thing about hair.”

Hair… arguments. It was time for me to go, too. I lifted my bag from the entry way banister, called a goodbye over the squeals, and was out the door.

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Said family reunion was coming up this weekend. Now, I didn’t mind attending them, though I didn’t particularly enjoy them either. With a handful of gossiping aunts, grandmas, cousins, everyone else female, there was always something to listen to. One thing they never got tired of doing was talking. Meanwhile, the male population, those that weren’t chained to their respective females, would make for the living room TV.

Now, that definitely interested me more than listening to some mixed aged ladies all spazzing over the method of straining corn. Which was admittedly better than the earlier spazzing over my deceased relatives that had left them nothing in the will, but either way. I sat there, left behind with them in the kitchen, completely unneeded but getting complained at when I attempted to leave.

After corn, my aunts took on a complicated discussion about my uncle, who had discarded the family years before. They brought up and commented on events that happened thirty years prior, and by then I was fighting both a nagging yawn and a decision of whether or not I should be feigning shock as a reaction to what they were saying. No, that would only egg them on. And possibly draw me into the conversation, heaven forbid.

“That Hiroto, he’s a psychopath, a complete psychopath.” My aunt, Yuriko, spat bitterly.

“That is for sure. All those times he insisted we were stealing from him, he was flipping out like a cheese ball, he has no sense in that head of his! None whatsoever!” Aunt Emi cried, her voice a raspy wave of noise. “It’s his own son that was actually stealing from him!”

Everyone except my mom and I showered their agreement in a blur of babble. I decided to weigh my options. How badly did I want to leave this table? What were the chances I’d get noticed? Both were pretty high, I concluded.

Standing to my feet, my aunt Rika immediately asked where I was going. Bad move, bad move. Now all the attention was suddenly poured into me.

“By the way, Aki-kun! You’re in high school this year, right?” Rika went on, her excitement spreading quickly to the rest of the table. “They grow up so fast! And Aki-kun, you’re so incredibly handsome!”

“Do you have a girlfriend yet? I bet you have to beat them off with a stick!” Yuriko gushed.

“Oh, Chie, the girls must just throw themselves at him and Ryou-kun, don’t they?! They must!” Aunt Akako joined in, giddy at the conversation switch.

I released a pained half-laugh half-sigh as I wondered if a response was even required. I just wanted to go to the living room… or even better, find an empty room to sit in for a while. Or pull the Tetsuya card and zonk out there.

My cousin, Rie, giggled and leaned forward in her seat. “So, Akito, do you have a girl?”

She was about five years older than me, from either my memory or calculation, and she belonged to Emi. Needless to say, she loved to ride the gossip train with the rest of my family. Good thing so many people were enjoying themselves.

I crossed my arms loosely over my chest and as to not offend them by the gesture, forced a half-grin. “I don’t, no.”

Of course, a simple, irrefutable answer as such could spark even more obsessive chatter. Go figure.

“Oh, oh, but you plan on getting one soon, right?!”

Uh, not really…

“You’ll be so popular with the girls at school! You always have been! No doubt about it!”

Wha…? Except they have no way of knowing that.

“The second you meet your girlfriend, bring her here to meet us! I mean it!”

I groaned inwardly. Why were women so captivated with this particular issue?

Rie clapped her hands together, giggling again in her seat. “Oh, I’m so looking forward to that!”

I have not agreed to anything, here.

Finally, I rose the rest of the way and made a beeline for the food table, using the excuse I was still hungry. I was bursting to the point of nausea, but it was a great getaway excuse all the same.

“By the way, have you heard from Shigeru-kun at all?”

I momentarily froze after rounding the corner, pausing to listen in to something that might actually be interesting. I almost wished I was still there to gauge Mom’s expression. She didn’t hold up well when it came to mention of my younger brother. In a spout of rebellion, he had run away at ten years old and we hadn’t heard a word from him since.

Mom’s voice was quiet, just above a whisper that I needed to strain my ears to hear. “No… we haven’t.”

To my surprise, the responding silence lasted a few seconds. I couldn’t picture their expressions, but I had a good idea of how Mom was looking. The colour was likely draining from her already pale, clear complexion. Her eyes were likely downcast, her hands in her lap as she forced back the accumulation of tears. I could picture one pesky tear slipping past her barrier, I imagined the softening expressions of my family members as they spotted it.

Before they had the chance to speak, I hurried down the hall, slipping into the noisy living room with my sickening plate of food in hand. There was no way I’d be touching it.

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A/N: Hi, thanks for reading Ame Agari! If you’re familiar with the story, it was the summary segment version that I had started posting on Fictionpress in March 2009. This is the full novel version, a project I started tackling around August of this year. Because… well, even though this story was intended to be written in segments like it had been, I just felt the need to expand it into a full story, something more substantial. It is almost completely rewritten and rehashed, very few segments have been recycled into this version. And if they have, they’ve been edited nicely… I hope. ^^;

If you’re interested in the history of this story, I came up with the basic plot and main characters (Akito Sawachika and Nakuru Tsumaya, the two viewpoints this story is told from) somewhere around 2003, so it feels like it’s been with me for a very long time. These past six years have felt like a fleeting eternity.

If you were following the segment version, it’s all gone now… I intend to replace it with this one, and I hope you’ll like it better. The inspiration I’ve had for this oldie story has been like nothing else this year.

Ame Agari means “After the Rain” in Japanese. The story is set in Japan, names are reversed like they are in original Japanese (ex. If Nakuru is her first name, her name is Tsumaya Nakuru), honorifics are used. It’s a manga story, after all! If you’ve read Racing Fate, I hope you’ll enjoy the connections between it and Ame Agari. However insignificant they may be…

As for where I’ve been lately? I’ll explain in a short little paragraph.

To tell the truth, I’m a little wary of posting my stories online nowadays… I’ve gotten so far in Jagged Dusk, but I’ve only posted up to chapter 2...! I still visit FP regularly, longing to post my stories, but allowing myself to be held back. Though, with Ame Agari, I’m a little less worried. Like maybe it isn’t even good enough to be plagiarized… (laughs)

Lastly, I hope the beginning isn’t too dull, especially for those of you that haven’t read my summarized version… please do review, if you have the time! :) I’m awfully long-winded, aren’t I? The first author’s note is always the longest… ^^;

Kisara