The rain didn’t stop for a while.

Daejung had run back inside for an umbrella, claiming that one of us would catch a fever if we stayed like that any longer. It was too late for an umbrella anyway, but I didn’t stop him from going. However, in the short time that he had left me alone, I had done some thinking, something that I believed Daejung should hear.

He came back a few moments later with only one umbrella and a towel in his hand. Both were useless at this point but he didn’t seem to care. He walked up to me, placed the towel around my shoulders and sat down beside me once again, holding the umbrella above our heads.

“What was their name?” I asked, breaking our silence. “For the flowers, I mean.”

“Skeleton flower,” he said. “They usually only grow in the mountains, places that are cold and receive a lot of rain. It’s shocking to find them here, but not really unexpected either.”

“Are they called that because they turn invisible?”

“Yes.”

Silence once again.

I knew what I wanted to say to him after that. I wanted to tell him how important he had become to me and how much I cared for him and that despite that, I would leave him soon but the words were caught in my throat and refused to come out. I had so much I wanted to tell him, so much I needed to tell him. By the time I had finally managed to say something, the rain had stopped.

“Daejung,” I called his name. “I—”

“I know,” he said. “You don’t have to stay with me any longer, Jangmi. You’re free to leave whenever you’d like.” It was as if he had read my mind—or maybe he had just come to know me so well in the time we had spent together. I’d go as far to say that he probably knew me a bit better than I knew myself.

“Thank you,” I said, “for coming to me that day.”

“You’re welcome.”

After the rainstorm comes a rainbow. It was faint and hardly viewable from where we sat, but it was still there. I stood up, the towel still hanging off my shoulders. Daejung still held the umbrella above his head despite the rain having gone far away from where we were.

“I think I know my favorite flower now,” I said, standing beside him.

“Congratulations,” Daejung smiled.

“Don’t you want to know what it is?”

“Jangmi,” he said. “Your favorite flower is yours, not mine to know, and I’m positive I know which one it is.”

“You’re right,” I said, letting out a relieved sigh. There was nothing left for me to say, and I knew it was time for me to go.

“Will you come back?” Daejung asked just as I began to walk away. I intended on leaving without saying goodbye—if I had said goodbye, it would sound as if we’d never see each other again.

“As long as the shop’s open,” I said.

“Good.”

He said nothing after that. Both with nothing left to say and backs turned to each other, I began to walk away from him. Despite being drenched with the sky’s tears, the father I got from him, the colder I became. I opened the trap door and started to climb down, looking up one last time as a way of saying farewell.

Daejung’s eyes never left the sky.