Then I turned my eyes to the window and everything
looked gray.
Gray city.
Gray buildings.
Gray roads.
Gray rain.

Rain beat down steadily on the window, it was the only sound in the entire house. The rain was quiet but the echo was eerily loud and it filled the room, it filled the house, it filled her head.

Chaerin sat immobile in front of the window. Her knees were pressed to her chest, her arms wrapped around them, she didn't know how long she'd been sitting like that. Her body was numb, it begged for her to move and bring relief. But her mind was numb as well and so she stayed still.

Chaerin loved the rain. It was a fact. She loved to watch the water fall from the clouds and see the lightning flash in the distance. She'd lost count of how many times she dragged Yoongi outside just so they could splash around in the puddles. Chaerin loved the rain. But she wasn't so sure that she could love it anymore. Not after this week. Now when she saw rain all she could see was black.

Black clouds.
Black dresses.
Black caskets.

Her entire world had been flipped upside down. Where there used to be color, there was now dull grayness. Where there used to be laughter, there was now eerie silence. Where there used to be family, there was now nothing.

So she watched the rain. Chaerin sat at her bedroom window, surrounded by boxes of her stuff, and she watched the rain.

She was only seventeen and now she was all alone. Legally she wasn't allowed to keep the house. Her grandmother's will left the house to Chaerin, but she wasn't a legal adult, so the home she had grown up in now belonged to the bank it had been purchased from many decades ago. And all the things that resided in that house were being packed up into boxes, that included Chaerin.

Social services wanted to place her in foster care, they wanted to move her away. But Grandma Min had somehow managed to convince the social worker to let Chaerin stay with her, at least until she turned eighteen. Then she would be able to make her own decisions about where to go and what to do. Well, that's what the law said.

The law says that a person of eighteen years or older is wise enough and responsible enough to make big life decisions about where to live and how to live. The law was crazy. Chaerin didn't feel anywhere near ready enough to work full time and pick out an apartment and pay taxes and be alone. She wasn't ready.

The bedroom door creaked open but Chaerin didn't hear it. All she could focus was the rain outside her window.

"Chaerin," she ignored the voice calling her.

"Chae," he called again and got no response.

"Chae, please say something," Yoongi shuffled closer, not really knowing what to do.

He had never seen Chaerin like this. She was always the strong one. She was the one to pick him up when he got down. She was the one to smile when everything seemed completely bleak. But now it seemed that Yoongi would have to be strong enough for the both of them.

Yoongi knelt down beside his friend. She looked awful. Chaerin had dried trails of tears on her face, which was thin and sickly pale. But he grabbed her hand regardless.

"Come on," he took both her hands and stood, hoping she would follow. But she didn't. Chaerin didn't move or even acknowledge his presence.

So he tried again. Yoongi grabbed Chaerin's legs behind the knees and unfolded them from their cramped position. Then he took her shoulders and physically lifted her from the ground. She didn't protest. In fact she didn't react in any way.

Once she was up on her own two legs Yoongi took her hands again. Step by step, he walked backwards to the door, gently pulling Chaerin along. Her bare feet shuffled slowly across the wooden floors. She moved like a zombie.

Yoongi moved Chaerin out of her bedroom and down the stairs. He guided her through the foyer, out the front door, into his house, and to the sitting room. He gently stopped Chaerin beside the piano, making sure she was stable on her feet before he lifted the piano lid and pulled out the bench.

She'd been begging him for months to play something for her and for months he'd refused. But he couldn't refuse anymore, his friend needed him. He just hoped it would be enough to to break her out of this stupor.

He sat down on the piano bench and gently tugged Chaerin's hand until she got the message and sunk down beside him. Yoongi could barely stand to look at her. It's like she was there but she wasn't. Every movement she made was robotic. She only slept and ate when other people told her it was time to do so. Her face was a blank mask, not showing even the slightest glimpse of any human emotion. But worst of all, her smile was gone. That beautiful, earth-moving, heart-breaking smile that made people stop and stare, was gone.

And Yoongi didn't know how to get it back.

Briefly, he wondered if this is how Chaerin saw him those first few years, if she thought that he was as broken and empty as Chaerin looked right now. Yoongi hated to think that she had ever felt as useless and helpless as he felt right then.

They really would have to save each other.

Yoongi glanced down at the piano keys. They were exactly as he remembered them, but of course he hadn't played in a couple years now. He hadn't played because he felt too dark and twisted inside to make beautiful music. But this moment wasn't about him. This was about Chaerin.

He pressed his unsure fingers down onto the dusty keys. Slow, screeching notes rang through the air as Yoongi slowly moved his fingers across the piano. As the minutes ticked by his hands grew steadier and the familiar rhythm of music floating through the air relaxed him. But eventually the music faded out, and silence enveloped the two friends sitting side by side on the piano bench.

He knew it wasn't much, but Yoongi picked up her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. It was all he could think to do.

"You haven't played in forever," a small, croaky voice mumbled beside Yoongi.

After days of not moving, not speaking, and being generally numb to any basic human emotion, Chaerin finally broke.

"My family is gone," she sobbed. "My grandmother is gone, Yoongi. I can't bring her back. I can't do anything," her cries worsened and her head fell on Yoongi's shoulder.

"I don't have any family left," her voice broke. "Actually no, I don't have any good family left. Because m-my grandmother is dead, my other grandparents were dead before I was even born, my father is as dead as the rest of them, and my mother—" a twisted chuckle left her lips.

"My mother. Well she's not exactly winning any parenting awards. My dad died when I was a baby so my mother was all I had, but then she went and got arrested. And she went to jail and social services left me with my grandmother. And now my grandmother is dead. Now I'm alone."

Tears flowed so rapidly down her face that she thought she might drown, but she just couldn't stop crying. She hadn't cried. Her grandmother died and she hadn't cried. But the shock had finally worn off and everything hit her like an anvil to the head, so she cried.

Chaerin dug her face into Yoongi's neck, leaning on him for support. She really needed somebody to support her right now, and she had never been more grateful to have him at her side. Yoongi wrapped his arms around Chaerin and pulled her closer. She had been there for him every day for seven years now, it was his turn to be there for her.

"You're not alone," he whispered to her. "You have me. I know I'm not much, that I'm moody and stubborn and sometimes a downright ass—" Chaerin gave a strangled laugh at that.

"But I'm here. I'm always going to be here. So you can try and get rid of me with all your might, but you can't shake me. You're stuck with me, Chae, for the rest of our natural born lives," he smirked when Chaerin gave him a light smack on the ribs.

"You're not alone, Chae. And as long as I'm alive, you will never be alone."