Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I wish I do, but I don't.

Summary: The rain falls because the cloud can no longer handle the weight. Tears fall because the heart can no longer handle the pain.

"I hate the rain you know." She told him, as they watched the droplets of rain from the sidelines which started to grow heavy by the second. "It took my love away…it took my parents away…it took my happiness with it, and I don't think I'll ever have it back." He was silent for a moment, letting the woman beside him speak her heart out. "I'd like to change that." He calmly said, and before Sakura could make a reaction, his warm lips were on hers, the length of his body pressed fully against hers, then he lifted her up and walked towards the backyard slowly letting themselves be drowned by the heavy downpour.

Rate: M (for language and future adult themes)

Setting: Modern AU with a little bit OOC on some characters but I like to keep them close to their original selves.

Pairing: Kakashi x Sakura (Main) | Sasuke x Sakura (Secondary) [Why? Because I can.]

AN: As to the characters' ages, let's all agree to keep them in their early 20s...Yes, even for Kakashi. Why? Well, wouldn't that be fun. :)

Chapter 1: Hello

'It's so lonely when you don't even know yourself anymore.'

Sakura stood there. Her eyes fixed at the gray, lifeless gravestones of her parents. It was so ironic how just two weeks ago, she had the best vacation with them, then suddenly, life decided to play a cruel joke on her and took them away in the blink of an eye.

She remembered the warm sun on her skin, the cool breeze of the salty air, the refreshing feeling brought by the sea, the smiles and dozens of pictures she had taken with her family; but she also remembered how their car sharply swerved over a cliff, her father losing grip on the steering wheel, her mother screaming in her seat, and the vehicle tipping and rolling over that foreboding slope, its jagged edges breaking the windshield and the windows, gravely denting and damaging the car into a useless heap where they lay afterwards.

She remembered every fiber, every rock, every detail as she forced her eyes to stay open, and she saw how fate took the life of her parents before her eyes, blood drenching the skin of their seats as well as the broken glass windows.

She saw the awkward angle her mom's head took and she could only imagine the state of her father, while she remained crumpled at the back seat with an unfamiliar object lodged in her stomach. She was spurting blood, lots of it, and at some point at the back of her mind, she felt relief. At least she'd be with them. At least she'd be with her family. But she was wrong.

She felt herself being carefully dragged out of the car turned scrap.

'Hey, I need a medic asap! This one's alive!' She heard someone call.

She fluttered her eyes open, trying to register the movements that was happening around her despite the excruciating feeling which enveloped her body, but when her eyes focused, they fell on two more bodies being pulled out of the vehicle and deep inside, a silent scream erupted at the recesses of her mind as she saw lifeless bodies of her parents being covered with white cloth.

Sakura lifted her head up, closing her eyes as she let herself be drenched by the heavy downpour. The feeling of the thick droplets of rain enveloping her body reminded her of that very same day where the rain also took her parents away.

Sakura hated the rain, she always hated it, but she despised it even more after that dreadful day took place. But at that moment, as she stood alone and uncaring in that graveyard, Sakura allowed the chilling drops of rain to swallow her, to erase the silent tears she let out, to wash away her sorrow, to take her away.

Unknown to her, there was also someone in that graveyard who welcomed the heavy downpour. Someone who wanted his sorrows to be washed away too. Someone who, for a very long time endured what Sakura was feeling at that very same moment. Someone who wanted to forget as well.

As the two people stood drenched under the rain, both of them decided to tilt their head sideways letting their silent gazes meet, their eyes speaking in volumes despite their distance, until Sakura decided that it was time to go. It was time to get back to her empty house, to that hollow place she once called home.

It had been a month now. A month of trying to live her life the normal way she was supposed to do. After the short funeral of her parents, she resumed going back to her post-graduate classes. It had been difficult. Sakura admits that it was difficult to resume to an old lifestyle she was used to with her parents, but now she's just got to suck it up, and she had her mother's words to get her going.

"Sakura, the only barriers in life are the ones we create in our minds…" She remembered her mother telling her one evening when she found her crying on her bed because she wasn't the one chosen to participate in the most coveted research position in the university. "So, you should set your goals beyond your reach so you always have something to live for."

She remembered her mother's smile and the warm hand that rubbed her back, and from that moment on, Sakura swore to set her goals high and far and she'd aim all those for her mother…well, at least that was the plan. She had no one left after all. No grandparents, no cousins that she knew of, no distant relatives. Nobody. Now, she's just got to aim for it for herself and swallow the bile that forced her to give up. "No! I'm still going to do this for mother and father." She told herself. "I'm not going to waste this second life."

But everything was easier said than done.

He was back at the graveyard, paying a visit to many of his loved ones who have long since left him in such a wretched world. He tried his best to be at that same place, every single day, in the exact time, not missing a beat come hell or high water. It was sort of his redemption for being the one left alive instead of being the one six-feet under.

During all those times where he's lost all those close to him, he knew he was the one who was supposed to die. But life had a morbidly funny way to make him remember that it's not him who gets to mold his life into the way he wants it, and somehow, life decided that he needed a good fuck with his, hence his misery.

Life had probably had a lot of good laughs because of what it did to him and it made him want to give up hundreds of times. But of course, life had always been the master manipulator, that's why it was him who was standing over grave stones and not his family, not his best friends looking over his. He sighed.

He'd then make his way to the nearest coffee shop like he always does. Years of misery and loneliness has built a routine for him, and he liked it. It felt safe. But every day since that one fateful rainstorm-filled morning, his eyes traveled around the grave yard searching for a familiar figure…searching for that pink-haired girl with the same sorrowful eyes like his.

TBC