The sound of the Rain

1. Back home

It has been ten years since Alyia stood here, in this airport, the last time. Ten years ago, her mother brought her here when they were moving to Osaka after her parents divorced. It feels like it was just yesterday when her mother came to her room and told her they would be moving. Alyia argued with her that day and even ran away from home because of that.

“Yush. Let’s go home.” She bolstered herself, collecting a small suitcase she brought with her. The rest of her stuff should arrive within a few days by moving truck. Her college life was about to start in one month, so she had time to settle in her new home. Her father, whom she hadn't seen since the divorce, had an apartment in Tokyo where they lived before and for this reason she chose college here and not back in Osaka. This at least Alyia tried to convince herself about. Easy living and not having to worry about the rent or money for the place to stay was only one reason she wanted to come back here.

Traveling by taxi seemed the most convenient right now. The city was huge, and she only remembered a small part of it. She only knew the area where they lived before all together. The taxi took her straight to the location and right in front of the building, not like she paid too much attention to the road. Her thoughts wandered to other places.

Buildings in this area didn’t look like cheap ones, and from what she already knew, his apartment was very close to her college, just two stops by metro, and the company she worked for as a writer's assistant had an office in this area. Her moving did not thrill the editor she worked with, but in the end, he had no other option but to hand her to his colleague who worked and lived in Tokyo.

She had little expectations of her father’s flat, especially since her father lived abroad for over three years. He came back only once and directly to Osaka to attend the funeral of his ex-wife and support his only child. Not like he was supporting them or helping over those ten years. Alyia knew he felt guilty for what happened during the last two years, so she used this guilt to get this flat from him.

She had already prepared herself to find his place in a terrible condition, so she came one month before the start of the academic year just to prepare the place and settle down. To her surprise, the apartment was in good condition. He covered the furniture with white sheets to protect it from the dust, which made it significantly easier for her to prepare the entire flat. When she removed those covers, the place itself seemed almost ready. The apartment needed basic cleaning to remove the dust collected on the sheets and covers and bringing a little more stuff to make it look like a home. It even surprised her why he didn’t rent it or sell it while gone. Maybe her father still planned to come back one day.

“Hmm, this will do.” Alyia stood in the middle of the room, looking around and scanning the whole place to find out if something else she should clean. She pretty much cleaned the entire apartment from the ground to ceiling, but the result still didn’t satisfy her properly. Alyia made a list of things she needed to buy before she could fully relax. When she looked out of the window, she realized that cleaning took her almost the entire day. The moon had come out already, so going out shopping was fully out of the question, but she didn’t feel sad. The view she had from the window left her speechless. She felt captivated by the night light of the city and the entire romantic atmosphere this city generated.

The window had a small balcony, so she took a brief break and just enjoyed the night view of the city. She knew little about her father. Her parents discovered it when she was eight years old and already before, he spent only little time at home. If she remembered correctly, it could be around the time when she was seven years old when her parents almost fought almost daily. After that, her father came home very late, if he came at all, and Alyia barely saw him.

Getting this apartment must cost him a lot of money, especially because of the location, view and the building layout itself. This area was one of those clean and safe ones with good access to school, public transportation, and many shops and markets. The building was close to the center, so it was very easy to go anywhere from here. Alyia had technically everything within the grasp of her hands, so she could focus not only on school, but on her writing and as well get another job to pay the debt she had left after her mother died.

Alyia wasn’t the type of person who would wake up early in the morning without reason. She loved sleeping more than anything, but there were still too many things to do and she needed to familiarize herself with the area. Once she put on her daily clothes, she headed straight to the streets. Her first stop was the convenience store to buy some small necessities for her daily life and, as well, some instant noodles, which she loved. Alyia got used to keeping some junk food at home in case of an emergency.

Searching for a market was another challenge. She had to ask passersby for directions several times before she finally found it. Alyia wanted to buy some fresh food to make sure she could cook healthy food. Honestly, Alyia herself would be absolutely fine with instant and fast food, but her mother made her promise that she would take care of herself and her health on her behalf, so Alyia had no other choice but to take care of herself and start cooking properly to make sure at least once per day she would have a proper meal. Once she made a promise, there was no way around it.

As she walked the streets, she ended up in a very familiar place. The place she thought she would never visit again. The playground hasn’t changed at all since the last time she stood there. All the climbing frames, slides and other things for kids were still the same. She recognized they had given them make-over to make them look new and some of them were most likely fixed, but they still kept their original shapes and coloring. Memories flooded her mind, bringing deep sadness, which she thought she locked deep inside her heart. After a deep breath and trying hard to push tears back, she turned and continued on her way, with a simple thought resonating in her mind: “I will find him!” Alyia repeated that sentence in her mind several times until those words became burned deep into her thoughts.

“Good morning.” She greeted the salesmen as she walked past their shops. The market was amazing, buzzing with life and noise. Filled with multiple smells which fully occupied her senses. Everyone around wanted to sell or buy. They tried hard bargaining over the prices in order to get a better deal. It didn’t matter whether it was the seller or the buyer. They all just wanted to earn or save some money. She never understood bargaining. Alyia usually greeted the sellers, asked for the prices, and chose the stuff she wanted. Never in her life had she tried to argue about the price being too high. Alyia enjoyed speaking with others and enjoyed the company of people around her, but her social skills lacked experience and the older she became, the harder it was for her to start regular conversation and usually she just wanted to finish and leave.

As always, Alyia simply accepted all the prices the sellers told her, but she wasn’t unhappy about that. The prices they asked for were almost the same as in Osaka and, since she is now in Tokyo, she expected the prices to be a little higher although she shopped at the market; the prices were still way lower there than those she would find in supermarkets. This saved her some money, which meant she could buy something for herself. She bought pretty much everything she wanted and although she had a hard time getting here, getting back home was now a piece of cake.

At home, Alyia organized everything she bought and directly took out her laptop. It was time to do some work, especially since her editor scheduled their meeting for tomorrow. She met him once back in Osaka. They told him to come and introduce himself before Alyia moved out of the city, so it wouldn’t be so difficult for her to meet with the stranger in a new city. The Chief editor liked her and supported her in the work, so making sure she would know her ways around the new office and having someone who could take care of her there seemed important to him.

Since her childhood, Alyia has loved writing. In the beginning, she only wrote her diary, or to be more precise, she started with drawing her diary, but once she learned how to write, step by step, she kept track of each of her actions and the people she met. Soon after, her short imaginary stories popped up in her mind and she learned to put them down on paper as well. Her biggest dream is to become a famous author and write her own book. For now, she worked only as a ghostwriter, which meant her editor gave her unfinished stories from their online platform to finish. The company she worked for had several options for publishing. They owned a platform for online novels and short stories; they published magazines, and, of course, printed books. The finishing story of someone else could be quite challenging. Alyia always had to read the entire story and familiarize herself with the writing style, with the level of language the author used and many other things in order to finish the story with no one noticing that someone else wrote the end. Several times her editor handed her only half finished books, which meant she had to come up with the plot as well, just by guessing from what happened in the first half of the book. After two or three finished stories, she realized she could use this as an opportunity to practice her own writing and find the style which would be perfect for her.

As she was taking out her laptop with the notepads, her diary dropped on the ground. In her life, she had already written and filled several of them, but this was different. It didn’t look special, just a book-like notebook still with too many empty papers, but this one had special meaning for Alyia. She never used it as a dairy, although someone special gifted it to her with a wish to support her dream. This little book-like notebook held something way more important within its pages than just simple daily routines and reminders from Alyia’s life. This one held very special and strong feelings, which Alyia always tried to keep locked as deep as possible.

“Aaaah. This is pissing me off. I didn’t think that coming here would be so hard.” She ruffles her hair, shaking her head. Her mind became preoccupied by memories and her heart ached from longing, but she refused to let it overwhelm her. She placed the diary on the table, opening the laptop and trying to focus on her work instead.

Before she left Osaka, her editor gave her two more stories which were left without update for over half a year, and authors stopped communicating with their editors as well. In such cases, especially if those stories had a decent audience, they usually handed the story to one of their ghost writers. The company kept around three of them and Alyia was one of them. Alyia didn’t know the exact conditions those authors signed, and she didn’t even care about that. All she knew was that each of them got half a year to finish the book. If they talked to their editor, they could get an extension, but if they ceased communication as well, once the limited time passed, the book was taken away from them together with their income from the book and the ghost writer got it into his portfolio. Not like those books’ authors were changed, but those who could benefit from them were ghost writers. Before her mother got sick, Alyia could write to her heart’s content, but once her mother lost her job because of her health, Alyia couldn’t afford to just aimlessly write without end. She needed to earn money to make sure they both could survive and, almost miraculously, this work opportunity dropped into her hands.

When her mother became sick, Alyia called her father, asking for help. Maybe he thought they were trying to steal some money from him or he simply didn’t feel like helping them, but when she called him and told him that her mother had died, he returned to support her. Alyia didn’t ask him about his relationship with her mother, nor did she ask about his reason for leaving them alone for such a long time without help. Maybe it was his guilt that brought him back for the funeral, but Alyia already didn’t care. She didn’t blame him for her death. Not even his money could buy her health and let her live. Alyia knew that very well and since he refused to help financially before, she didn’t ask him to pay off her debt from the medical bill. Either way, she was now back in Tokyo with a few important things that really mattered to her on her mind.