02.I Try To Laugh About It, Hiding The Tears In My Eyes.

River,

I know it's a bit early for me to already be writing to you, but I'm assuming you wouldn't mind since you and mum are always nagging me for not writing much.

I suppose I have been faring well, and so has Sage. I spoke to him a few days ago and haven't seen him since then. You know how embarrassed he is to be seen with me at school. I suspect he thinks that having his older brother ask about his wellbeing will make him look like a child in front of his friends. I don't see the problem with that considering the fact that he still is a child. He's barely into his fourteenth year and he's acting like he's all grown up.

Sixth year is already proving to be torturous. I'm trying not to think about my final year too much, but Sun-hee is already panicking because of the final exams, which we aren't even close to taking, and in turn this is making me slightly anxious. She insists on thinking farther into the future, because, in her words, sixth year will be over in no time and we will quickly find ourselves sitting for our N.E.W.T.S. I think that's just the Ravenclaw in her speaking. You know how much of an overachiever she is.

Achilles hasn't been speaking to me at all since we came back to school, and it's completely infuriating. He talks to Mateo, Halima and Sun-hee and pretty much anyone else in the school who happens speaks to him, but when he so much as catches sight of me anywhere in the corridors, he immediately goes the opposite way. River, if something terrible happens to my idiotic best friend, I am not be blamed. He'll merely be facing the consequences of his actions.

Otherwise, everything else is still the same. I still despise Sirius Black, now more than ever. He keeps on finding ways to annoy me, and River, I am really trying my best not to do anything drastic in retaliation because I know how disappointed you will be, but I can only have so much patience before I decide to drown him in the lake or something equally as horrible. You know I'm not like you. I don't know how to keep calm in the presence of morons.

I don't know why he insists so much on making me miserable! And I'm absolutely at my wit's end. The next you'll be hearing from me, it might not be under the best of circumstances because I swear on Merlin's beard, I will unleash my wrath on that pretentious git before then.

If mum asks, tell her I'm doing well. Sage and I both are. I'll ask him to write if he hasn't already. Write back as soon as you can. I'd like to hear of how you are faring on back home.

(Pray for my sanity. Merlin knows I need all the help I can get.)

Love,
Rain.

★彡

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─ ✦𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐍 𝐈𝐒 𝐍𝐎 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 to life changing epiphanies. This, however, is not at all what he'd envisioned his next would be. And it all happened because of his moronic friend who was still  adamant on having nothing to do with him.

The day starts off pleasantly, he supposes. His first few weeks as a sixth year are over and done with, and now a—hopefully—relaxing weekend lays ahead of him.

When he wakes up, it's a simple morning. He's the first to rise, which is nothing new, and his dorm mates are still all fast asleep. By the time he's through with his morning routine, Nicholas Bennett is sitting up in his bed, eyes half closed as he looks around the room like he's trying to figure out where the ever loving hell he is.

"What– Where am I?" He asks, which is also quite nothing new. "Mum? Mum? Where am I?"

Rain moves past him, right up to Dorian Blanchard's bed. Then, without warning, he promptly rips the covers off the snoring boy. Dorian awakes in a startle, and he's immediately alert. "What? What's going on? Is something wrong?"

Rain quirks a judgemental eyebrow at him, because he's a prat like that, and then he drops the covers in his hand. "Your friend is need of you," he explains shortly, as Nicholas goes on dazedly calling out for his mother in the background.

Dorian is still for a second, and then he registers Nicholas's confused cries and jumps into action. Rain walks out of the room just as Dorian begins the painstaking process of calming his friend down.

When he gets to the Great Hall, he immediately spots Achilles in the Slytherin table, which isn’t that packed considering it is a weekend. He frowns and quietly walks up to him, sitting in the empty space beside him without so much as a 'goodmorning'.

"I don't know when you're going to finally get your shit together," he starts quietly and he feels Achilles' eyes on him as he grabs four pieces of toast and a bowl of strawberry jam from the center of the table, "but I'm tired of waiting for you to tell me what exactly your problem is with me."

"Rain," Achilles replies, his voice tinged with quiet exasperation, "listen–"

Rain turns to him and points the butter knife in his hand at him. "Don't tell me to listen, you utter twat. It's been three weeks of this bullshit and I'm sick of it. I've been patient, and I've given you all the time and space you need to sort yourself out but you still won't talk to me! Since when do we do this?"

"Do what exactly?" Achilles asks, and Rain thinks it's quite audacious of him. He chuckles mockingly, working on lathering toast with jam to keep his hands at bay. He wouldn't put it past himself to strangle Achilles out of sheer fury.

"Spare me, Achilles," he spits. "Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. You avoided me all summer, and now you're doing the same thing here at school. You're acting as if we're strangers."

Achilles clenches his jaw. "Well maybe I don't need to spend every waking moment with you, Rain. My life doesn't revolve around you."

The comeback stings, but Rain doesn't let that deter him. "Like I don't have a life?" He questions incredulously. "Mine doesn't revolve around you either, but you don't see me going out of my way to avoid you with no explanation whatsoever, so I'm sorry if I find it hard to believe you."

"I don't owe you anything," Achilles retaliates.

Rain laughs again. "Says the wanker who's been my best friend for ten years."

Achilles scoffs, and he rolls his eyes. "Get over yourself, Rain. Not everything is about you."

His working hands stop, and he turns to Achilles, who's still adamant on avoiding his gaze like it's poison. That's as much he can take. Talking to Achilles has never been this difficult before and he feels like something sharp is digging into his ribcage.

The sound of rushing blood fills his ears and his chest heaves, his veins turning  icy with fury. "Fuck you."

He stands up quickly, letting his utensils clatter carelessly on the table. This catches the attention of the girl sitting across from them. She quirks an eyebrow quizzically, but he ignores her as he strides out of the hall with his head held high.

There's heat and pressure building behind his eyes, but he doesn’t let it go further than that. He refuses to cry over this.

By the time he reaches the courtyard, he's completely out of it. He only realises himself when he's sitting on a bench. His eyes are still stinging, which is stupid, because he's been through alot worse and he never cried during those trying times. He exhales shakily, and his breath fogs up in the cold morning air. "Fuck," he curses as he hastily wipes away the wetness his eyes with the front of his shirt.

No, Rain won't cry because this is stupid. Achilles is stupid, because if he thinks Rain is going to sit around and wait for him to tell him what he did wrong, then fuck him. "Fuck that arshole," he whispers furiously. "Fuck him. I don't need him."

Rain knows that he can be hard to deal with, because he's stubborn and at times unknowingly cold and detached. It's been that way for as long as he can remember, but Achilles has always dealt with it accordingly. He used to cry about how mean Rain could be when they were still children, but he grew used to it. At least, that's what Rain came to believe.

Did he finally become too much for Achilles to deal with? Did he drive his best friend away? Did he...

"Oh, shut up," he chides himself.

Maybe Achilles was onto something when told him that not everything revolves around him. He doesn't get to think further.

"Rain?"

He inhales and buries his face in his hands. "Leave me alone, Mateo."

There's a quiet shuffle, and then he feels a presence sit down next to him. "Brought you breakfast. I saw you leaving the hall like two minutes after you arrived so I'm assuming you didn't get a chance to eat anything."

He peeks out through his fingers, and he sees a plate of pancakes on Mateo's lap. He slips the hands off his face and sighs pitifully. Mateo smiles at him softly. "Hey," he greets as he pushes the plate towards Rain.

Rain accepts it without any protest. "Hello," he replies. "My best friend is being a tosser."

Mateo hums sympathetically. "That shouldn't stop you from having breakfast, now should it?"

Rain takes up the fork on the plate. "I suppose not." He chews on mouthful of pancakes, swallows then looks at Mateo. "You saw that spectacle in the hall?"

Mateo makes a face, like he's contemplating whether to tell him or not. Rain stabs his pancakes and rolls his eyes. "You can tell me. I'm not made of glass, you know."

Mateo shrugs his shoulders. "Well, nearly everyone who was in the hall saw it." Rain cries out in embarrassment, "It not that bad! I promise. There weren't even that many people so I'm sure few people know about it."

"Like they won't talk," Rain retorts. "Whatever. I don't care. Not like it's the first time people have something say about me."

The sit in silence for a few minutes, until Mateo cuts it. "What's really happening between you two? I've never seen you like this. Ever."

Rain frowns at his plate. "I honestly don't know. I thought the rest of you knew because he seems very eager to talk to you instead of me."

That came out harsher than expected, and it makes him pause. "Sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I know it's not your fault."

Mateo huffs. "It's alright. I wouldn't be too happy I someone I cared about did that to me." Rain swallows the lump in his throat. "We can talk to him for you if you want. I mean, I'll probably be too scared to look him in the eye, but I can try."

Rain is so surprised by what he's said that he laughs. "No, it's fine. You don't need to do that. But I have to ask, why are you so terrified of him? He's not that bad, honestly. If anything, I'm the one you should be afraid of."

Mateo laughs along with him and knocks their shoudlera together. "As if. The worst thing I've ever seen you do is hex some poor sod who looked at you wrong in the corridors."

Rain gives him a look. "That 'poor sod' was Mulciber. You know just as much as I do that he deserved it."

Mateo's face sours at the mention of that name. "Ugh, please don't say his name. You'll ruin the entire day for me."

Rain laughs again, and for a while, he forgets about why he was so upset.

◈ ━━━━━━━ ⸙▪︎⸙ ━━━━━━━ ◈

Halima corners him as he leaves the Slytherin dorms for the second time that day. He looks at her in surprise, as she leans against the wall right across from him.

The entrance being him closes and he hastily approaches his friend, looking up and down the corridor for any signs of danger. "What do you think you're doing here?" He hisses. "Do you have a death wish?"

He grabs her her forearm and pulls her along  as they leave the Dungeons. "I literally just got here, but that's not important. Mateo told be about what happened this morning and I got worried about you."

Rain lets go of her arm. "Can you confront me somewhere else next time? If any of those pricks saw you—"

"Oh, come off it. You know they wouldn't even get anywhere near me to actually do me any harm. I would have them on their arses in seconds."

Rain doesn't doubt it, but the idea of Halima confronting  Mulciber and his pathetic posse doesn't sit right with him. He knows how awful they can be. "Whatever. Just...Don't ever come down here alone again. You never know what could happen."

Halima loops her arm around his. "Forget that. Are you alright? You constantly seem ready to go on a murderous rampage."

"I always look like that, Halima," he replies. "You've been my friend for three years now. You should know this."

"Well, you seem angrier than usual these days. And I know it's because of this fight between you and Achilles."

"Merlin, not this again," he mutters. "Look, Halima, I don't think qualifies as a fight because even I don't know exaclty what's going on, and I'm the one he's mad at."

Halima makes a frustrated sound. "Well— You've known him the longest! I thought you could read each others minds and automatically know what's bothering the other or something. The others won't say anything, but whatever this is? It's completely throwing off our dynamic!"

"That's not my fault," Rain says to her, pulling his arm away from hers. He can't stomach any more of this talk of Achilles. The scene from this morning is still replaying in his mind like a loop, and it fucking hurts, to be honest. "Look, if any of you are going to talk to me because of this bullshit, then I'd rather you just leave me alone."

He starts walking away.

"Rain. Rain! Come–Come on! Don't walk away– I'm sorry!"

He ignores her, speeding away as the unpleasant emotions fester in him. He's sad because Achilles suddenly doesn't want anything to do with him, and then he's angry because why the fuck is he letting this affect him so much when it's not his fault?

If anything, Achilles is the one who deserves to feel terrible, not Rain.

He just wishes that everyone  would leave him alone to process his feelings, because he's never really been good at that.

Just look at what he's done now. Snapping at Halima when she's only concerned about two of her closest friends.

See, the problem with Rain is that when he's in a state where his emotions become too much for him, his body moves on autopilot. His legs move on their own, and he finds himself going to places he hadn't intended to.

For example, in fourth year, he found a couple of idiots from his year picking on his brother, who was only in his second year at the point, and in retaliation, he'd left them soaking wet from head to toe and he'd grabbed Sage's arm to drag him away from the scene despite his protest. He'd been so furious that he went completely blank until he came back to his senses and found that he'd taken them all the way to the the lake.

It started in third year, and it's already happened so many times, but he still isn’t used to it.

Now, when he left the Dungeons, Rain had the intentions of going to the library, but surprise! He instead finds himself on the third floor, walking past the Charms classroom, down the corridor.

When he realises himself, he comes to a stop and blinks as he tries to regain his bearings. His heart is beating way too fast for his liking and his breathing is stilted. He presses the heel of his right palm to his forehead and hisses at the light stabbing against his skull. "Shit."

He reaches for the wall on his left moves to lean against it. He's incredibly glad that no one is around this part of the castle at this time to witness his slow descent into madness. It would completely ruin his reputation.

By the time he's managed to calm himself down, he hears a noise from further down. He frowns and decides to ignore it in favour of doing what he intended to do in the first place.

That is, until he hears the noise again.

If Rain has learnt anything from his five years at Hogwarts, is that weird noises in secluded parts of the castle is a sign of one of two things, a couple engaging in something unholy, or studentbeing bullied.

Most of the time, it's the former, and so Rain usually decides to mind his business. But he must remember something similar happening to Sage in his second year, because he gets up to his feet and moves further down.

He silently hopes to himself that nothing too undignified is happening, because it might give him more nightmares than he would like to have.

He gets to the corner, and he hesitates. The more he listens it, the more it sounds like someone quietly laughing instead for crying out for help.

Still, he looks past the wall.

For all the life altering epiphanies, nothing could have ever prepared him for what he sees.

The first thing he sees is the back of Sirius Black's head, because he could recognise that unnecessarily long and shaggy black hair anywhere.

At first, he thinks Sirius is alone, and he's about to step out and ask just what the hell he's doing, until a pair of arms come to encircle his neck.

At first, he feels nothing. He studies the posture more, and with the way Sirius is leaning down, the arms around him, it's clear that he's snogging someone.

Normally, Rain wouldn't think of this sight as anything abnormal, because it's Sirius Black, school heartthrob and bad boy extraordinaire (Ugh). Personally, he's never seen him in the middle of his conquests, or whatever boys like him refer their romantic pursuits as.

He only hears stories and rumours, and he expected to feel the same level of disgust he usually feels when he notices couples within his vicinity doing anything remotely romantic.

But this horrible, gut wrenching feeling? This thing that makes him feel like the world around him has crashed and burned? This thing akin to a monster trying to claw its way out of his throat?

Yeah, this wasn't part of the plan.

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okay, listen
don't hate on my babe achilles. Ik he's being kind of dick rn, but I promise he actually has valid reasons 😭😭
he's just as emotionally constipated as rain is, whose default emotion is "rawr ill kill anyone who
dares look me in the eye"

Ugh and Mateo is such a good friend,  I love him :((((

and rain shutting down on his friends because he can't handle