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Rain.
Jisun has only ever known rain. In her twenty-some years of living, she’s seen storms, drizzles, everything in between. Spring showers so fine they collect like mist before hitting the ground. Near-biblical torrents that plunge in sheets from the cavernous sky. But most often, just the steady, insistent pattern of a watery drum, part metronome and part heartbeat, set to a gray backdrop of clouds.
She knows rain in all its forms, better than the back of her hand. She could name a thousand of its kinds without breaking a sweat.
Jisun, after all, has only ever known rain. But when it comes to the sun, well.
She hasn’t the first idea.
-
It’s Chaeyoung who leans conspiratorially over the plate of hors d’oeuvres and not-whispers, “They hired her, you know.”
“Hired who?” Jisun, having known her for years and still unable to shake the image of high-school-age Chaeyoung spewing an entire mouthful of juice in a fit of laughter, pushes the plate a considerable distance away. “The photographer?”
“Oh, no. That poor kid’s doing this for free. I mean her,” says Chaeyoung. “The Sunshine Lady.”
Jisun has never heard the name. “Is that some kind of band?”
Saerom and Hayoung had wanted a small affair — city hall, only family plus a few close friends, and a quiet reception in the park afterwards. Jisun doesn’t know why they wouldn’t just stay inside, especially considering the way Hayoung’s flats are practically wilting in the mud, but hey, she’s not one to tell the happy couple what to do. She’s just glad there’s a gazebo to cover the food.
“The Sunshine Lady,” says Chaeyoung, with a ridiculous air of self-importance, “is magic. The real deal. They say she brings the sun.”
No one has seen the sun in decades, not since humanity screwed the climate permanently out of whack. “Yeah, right,” snorts Jisun. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
The two of them pull their ponchos tighter around their nice dresses and wait. Out in the middle of the field, Hayoung is trying to teach Saerom to waltz without music. It’s quiet except for the rain, and the rain doesn’t count.
Then, without a single regard for the weather or the silence or the general atmosphere of the moment, the loudest, most beat-up sedan Jisun has ever seen pulls up to the curb and skids into an illegal parking spot. The driver doesn’t even bother to remove the keys from the ignition before stepping out and clambering over.
“Order for Saerom and Hayoung?” she asks.
“That’s us,” says Saerom.
The woman smiles — all cheekbones and perfect, even teeth — before bowing her head and clasping her hands together in prayer. Jisun doesn’t even have time to raise an eyebrow before the first sunbeam hits.
Warmth is the first thing Jisun feels. Warmth, and light, and an inexplicable tension in her chest, like her heart can’t decide whether it should seize with emotion or untether and take flight. She watches as patches of gold bloom across the ground, small at first, but insistent, relentless, unashamed.
The rain stops. The air dries. The clouds break away, and behind them, the sky sings in a blue Jisun has never seen before.
So this is it, she thinks. Now I know.
Growing up, all the books said to never look directly at the sun. Jisun can’t, and doesn’t.
No, worse — she stares at the Sunshine Lady, already making her goodbyes and speeding away. The ugly little car becomes nothing but a speck in the distance, and Jisun forgets how to breathe.
-
“So what’s the occasion? Graduation, promotion, special day with a special someone?”
The Sunshine Lady’s name is Park Jiwon. Jisun knows this from the ancient blog page where she takes her so-called “orders”, and to be completely honest, she’s not what Jisun was expecting at all.
“Or maybe you just felt like having a change of pace?” Jiwon sticks out her neck, blinking. She squawks like a bird and acts like one, too. “Not important. Rates are the same.”
“Uh, no…” starts Jisun.
“Really,” says Jiwon, “you can tell me anyth—”
“Your website sucks,” blurts Jisun. She bites her tongue, manners catching up with her honesty a beat too late. “Sorry, I don’t know why I said that.”
Jiwon laughs. It’s a wide-mouthed, doubled-over kind of thing, giving Jisun another look at those teeth. She wonders how long it took the braces to get them that way.
“No, I know,” says Jiwon, once she’s done busting a gut. “It’s not exactly my strong suit.”
“I went to school for computer science,” says Jisun, unsure of why she’s telling her this. “I can help you.”
Here, Jiwon gives her a look, somewhere between intrigued and suspicious. “And how much are you charging?”
Jisun answers again without thinking. “I’ll do it for free. I’m out of practice, in any case.”
“Really.” Jiwon doesn’t seem to believe her. “What’s in it for you?”
Blue skies and freedom and sun, sun, sun. But Jisun doesn’t want to sound desperate. “You were at my friends’ wedding. I’m curious. I want to know how you do it.”
Jiwon looks amused. “I’ll tell you now — it’s not a skill you can learn. You couldn’t do it if you tried. But,” she says, flashing a grin, “if you don’t mind just watching, I’m not going to be the one to stop you."
-
As promised, Jisun polishes up Jiwon’s website. She sets up a navigation dropdown, makes the text a readable color, and gets rid of the blinking yellow header with Jiwon’s face superimposed over a photo of the sun like the baby from Teletubbies.
“Aw, but I liked that,” says Jiwon.
“I didn’t,” says Jisun, and replaces it with something much more eye-friendly and significantly less disconcerting.
She starts running analytics on the site, too, using Jiwon’s (horrible) spreadsheet of past orders and info on the new ones coming in. The updated website only helps, garnering a fresh wave of enthusiastic customers.
“See?” says Jisun. “Your website sucked.”
“And now it doesn’t,” says Jiwon, motioning for her to get in the passenger side of the hideous sedan. “Come on, we have a junior volleyball game to get to.”
So Jisun spends her days riding shotgun in Jiwon’s car, traveling through the downpour from date to ceremony to casual picnic, bringing the sun wherever they go. Jiwon has atrocious music taste, and the sound ricochets like there’s no tomorrow because they’d have to be crazy to drive with the windows down, but her voice almost makes up for the way she sings along at the top of her lungs. Almost.
The singular time Jisun gets the aux, Jiwon complains the whole trip about her “old person music”, so Jisun just grins and bears her way through the impromptu solo concerts until, one day, she realizes she doesn’t hate them anymore.
That’s the strange thing about Jiwon — she should be abrasive, obnoxious, the kind of personality Jisun can’t stand. But there’s a charm to her, too, despite everything.
Maybe it’s the way she’s so sickeningly earnest. Maybe it’s the way she never does anything in halves.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the way that, when she closes her eyes and asks for sunlight, the universe always answers.
-
Here’s the thing: Jiwon doesn’t remind Jisun of the sun.
If anything, she’s like the wind — blustery and giddy, breezy one moment and raucous the next. She simply calls for the sun, and the sun goes with her.
But if Jiwon isn’t the sun, then Jisun certainly isn’t, either. She’s not nearly bright enough for that, or even wild enough for wind. Nor is she regal enough for snow or tough enough for hail. Jisun doesn’t think herself much of anything.
At the end of the day, then, she’s nothing special.
She supposes the rain suits her just fine.
-
“My mom was really sick,” starts Jiwon.
Across the lawn, a family with two kids laughs, chasing each other around on the grass. The youngest has a vitamin D deficiency, the parents had explained. She’s getting sick of the supplements; just a little bit of sun might really help.
“She basically lived in the hospital, and so did I. Day in and day out. All the blood tests and scans and who knows what could never figure out what was wrong with her.”
Jisun has always thought of herself as healthy. Now, she’s realizing lucky might be a better word.
“I got so fed up one day — of the nurses, of waiting, of being so damn helpless — that I ran out of the hospital. I ran and ran and didn’t stop until I ended up at this little outdoor mall with a fountain right out front. I don’t know why, but…”
The wind rustles through the still-damp branches of nearby trees. On the horizon, gray clouds hang back, holding their breath.
“I threw in a coin and wished for a miracle,” says Jiwon. She swallows thickly, bracing herself to continue. “My mom passed the next day. But when she did, she finally got to see a blue sky.” Jiwon bows her head. “That’s when I knew. That’s why I am the way I am.”
One of the kids shrieks in delight, breaking the silence. Got caught during tag, it looks like. The child brushes away the mud and takes off again.
Jisun thinks about joy and pain and the things in between, and doesn’t say anything else.
-
A national baseball game, their biggest gig yet. The stands are packed with roaring fans, raincoats shed and forgotten upon their seats.
Jisun and Jiwon look on from the top of the stadium. One of the players slides in the drying dirt and sends up a spray underneath his cleats. Whether he’s earning points or failing to, Jisun couldn’t say.
Jiwon cheers anyway. She’s in her element here, among all the noise and high spirits. It doesn’t seem to matter that her complimentary jersey is a few sizes too big; she hasn’t yet noticed the cheap drugstore eye black smearing sideways across her cheekbones.
And when Jisun turns to look at her, she’s struck by that odd beauty, that lopsided, anomalous mix of parts that shouldn’t work but does. She can’t help it — as always, she can’t look away.
“What’s with the face?” asks Jiwon, finally catching Jisun’s stare. One streak of eye black has gotten even longer now, like a comet’s tail that leads to her right ear. “Don’t tell me you don’t know the rules.”
“I don’t,” says Jisun, “and I’m not about to learn now.”
“Come on, I’ll teach you,” says Jiwon. She points down at the field. “That’s a bat, and that’s a ball.”
Jisun rolls her eyes, good-natured. “I know that.”
“Okay, then how about these?” Jiwon points again. “Gloves, bases, home plate.”
“New to me,” Jisun deadpans. She jerks a thumb over her shoulder at the lights above the crowds. “You want to tell me about those, too?” she asks, just as a deep boom shakes the stadium.
Jisun’s first instinct is to freeze. What was that?, she wants to ask, until she sees the soaring, colorful sparks reflected in Jiwon’s wide-eyed stare.
A hush, before the next launch, and the next, and the next. Jiwon’s mouth curls into a soft smile. “Those are… those are fireworks.”
Jisun whirls around. Before the setting sun, brilliant starbursts dance in shimmering displays of gunpowder and flame.
She doesn’t quite know what she’s thinking, but she breathes, “They’re for you, Jiwon.”
A bark of laughter. “Don’t be ridiculous,” says Jiwon. “Maybe they’ve just been looking for an excuse to use them. It’s hard to light fireworks in the rain.”
“Then that means they’re for you,” repeats Jisun, refusing any other explanation. She looks back and watches Jiwon turn orange, purple, gold in the light of the explosions. “You made this possible.”
Jiwon shakes her head, sheepish. “No, come on.”
“Give yourself some credit, Sunshine Lady.”
“If that’s how you’re putting it, well…” Jiwon fidgets with the sleeve of her too-big jersey, drifting closer to Jisun’s side. “I wouldn’t have gotten this job without your help. You deserve the credit just as much as I do.”
Jisun feels a tantalizing swell of pride, despite herself. “You really think so?”
“Yes,” says Jiwon. She tugs Jisun in by the collar. “So, this is for you, too.”
Their lips meet just as the big finale rockets its way into the air, illuminating the sky with a galaxy of fiery stars. Jisun closes her eyes, and lets her heart fly alongside them.
-
“I’m dying,” says Jiwon.
Jisun doesn’t know how to respond to that, so she laughs, “Aren’t we all?”
“No,” says Jiwon, “I mean—” She stops herself. “Never mind.”
They’re at a red light, windshield wipers beating a muffled rhythm back and forth. Water rolls across the glass and diffuses the streetlights into a thousand friendly pinpricks. If Jisun squints, she can see the overtime workers huddling at the crosswalk, finally staggering home beneath their black umbrellas.
Over the radio, a woman croons, “Everyone has a tomorrow…”
Jiwon waits before speaking again. “If you could have the sun back forever, would you?”
Jisun tears her eyes away from the sidewalk. “What?”
“If you could really bring back the sun, if you could stop this rain for good, would you?” Jiwon stares straight ahead, hands at their proper ten-and-two on the wheel.
“Where is this coming from?” asks Jisun.
“Nowhere. Just… you looked so happy,” says Jiwon. “That day, at the game.”
A faint pink rises to her cheeks, or maybe that’s just the glow of the stoplight. Jisun feels matching heat bloom across her own face. “Well,” she says, dizzy from the memory of fireworks and dusk, “I wouldn’t be mad about it.”
“Okay,” says Jiwon. Then she leans over and kisses Jisun until the light turns green.
Later, when she drops Jisun off at her apartment, she hesitates, car idling at the crumbling front steps. Jisun feels the eyes on her back as she unbuckles her seatbelt, steps out the passenger door, unwittingly turns to meet them.
“Hey,” says Jiwon, halting as if it’s caught in her throat, “this was nice.”
“Yeah,” says Jisun. She’s not good at this, but for Jiwon, she’ll try. “It really was. Um.” She shoves her hands deep in her pockets, bashful. “Thank you.”
Jiwon ducks away, but not before Jisun can see her blinking fast. “Thank you, too,” she says quietly. Then she looks up, eyes dry, and smiles. “Bye, Jisun.”
Jisun waves. Jiwon’s sedan rounds the corner, and she’s gone.
-
Jisun dreams of Jiwon falling — limp body plummeting through the air, through the clouds, past that stark cobalt blue.
Right before Jiwon hits the ground, Jisun gasps awake to a bright, clear morning. She sits up in bed, heart pounding, taking in breath after shaky breath. It was just a dream. Everything’s fine, she tells herself. She’s here now. It’s quiet and warm. The sun is shining.
No, wait.
Jisun goes to the window and pushes aside the curtain.
The sun is shining.
-
“Jiwon?”
No answer. Not that Jisun is expecting one.
“Jiwon, I’m coming in.”
Jisun slots the spare key into the apartment door. It creaks open, sticky and old, beneath the firm push of her shoulder.
She’s greeted by the smell of dust and the sight of drawn blinds. Tissues everywhere. Wilted plants. A lone, white envelope, front and center on the countertop.
Jisun hooks the key under the sealed flap and slices it open. The paper unfurls like a bleeding wound.
If you’re reading this, says the letter, the rain is gone, and so am I.
I’m sorry, Jisun. For not telling you earlier. It’s not your fault.
My powers don’t come for free. It would have happened whether I knew you or not, and I’m glad we met.
I hope the sun makes up for it.
Jisun clutches the words to her chest. She sinks to her knees in the middle of the dark, empty apartment, and she sobs.
-
They’re calling it a miracle.
The sun has finally returned after years upon years of hiding, and for the first time, so many people are rejoicing in its light. They flock outdoors in droves, waking early for dawn and staying out late to catch the sunset. They act like they can’t and won’t and never will get enough.
Meanwhile, Jisun feels like she hasn’t slept in days when, truthfully, she hasn’t done much of anything else.
She’s drawn the curtains tight, blocking off the sky and outside world. She keeps to herself, ignoring calls and invitations. It’s better this way, she tells herself, and lets her phone go to voicemail for the third time this week.
On the one rare day she manages to leave her room, she tugs on a baseball cap and stumbles down the sidewalk with no real plan. She winds up at an outdoor mall, the kind with a fountain in the central plaza.
Shiny coins wink up between the ripples, and a dull memory stirs her to action.
Jisun fishes around in her pocket and comes up with a hundred won. She wraps the coin in her fist, curling trembling fingers over smooth metal, and holds it out over the edge of the fountain. She takes in a slow breath. She counts to three. She opens her hand.
The coin falls, breaking the surface of the water, flipping silvery-white through bubbles of its own making — this way and that, throwing light with every turn. So cheerful, even while sinking. As it settles to a stop on the tiled bottom, Jisun watches, and she wishes.
Call it a miracle. Call it impossible, one-in-a-million odds.
Jisun makes her wish, and turns to take the long way home.