It was raining when they first met, too.

Shane could vividly remember it; he was waiting in the hall outside of his ninth grade classroom when Niko came running down the hall, all winded and flushed bright red like he had run all the way there from wherever it was that he had come from.

“Excuse me,” he asked hurriedly, “do you know where 9-Malaya is?”

He was fifteen minutes late for the PTA meeting.

Shane already knew who Niko was, at that point. His friend Peach was Niko’s cousin, and he was the one who picked her up from school whenever her older brother couldn’t do it.

Although they’ve never met directly before that exact moment, Shane had seen him enough times from a close range that he could easily recognize him. Niko’s hair was a beautiful chestnut brown, and it fell in gentle waves around his face in locks longer than what Shane was used to seeing on the boys from his school. His expression was a little sharp at first glance. But whenever he smiled – and he smiled often, around Peach – he looked very pretty.

Shane didn’t have much of an opinion about him. They hardly interacted, after all.

Niko, on the other hand… Well, he had a lot of opinions about Shane, and the foremost one was that he was scary.

“Yeah,” Shane replied with a noncommittal shrug. “Right behind me. That’s 9-Malaya.”

The way he spoke was rigid, and his expression was so severe that Niko felt like he was talking to a teacher that was four times his age rather than a teenager who was only two years his junior. It didn’t help that his long, black hair was pulled up into a ponytail so tight, he could see the tension tugging at his temples. Everything about him was severe. Even the straight-backed way that he stood.

For the record, Shane wasn’t usually like that. At least, not anymore.

And Niko, well, he didn’t usually arrive late to important meetings, either.

They were both pretty courteous people under normal circumstances. Shane always made an effort to smile and sound polite when talking to other people regardless of their age, and Niko was in the habit of arriving at least fifteen minutes early to every function he was required to attend.

But that day, the rain was a bit of a downer, and neither of them had been able to withstand the gloom that had been lurking over the city all morning.

“O-oh… Thank you,” Niko ducked his head gratefully.

“No problem.” Shane shrugged. “Meeting’s just started, you can go right in.”

So Niko went. And Shane stayed.

And that was how they first met.