Choices: The Sequel to Weathering With You

Sora the Birthday Baby

All throughout the rest of July and on into the end of August, Hodaka got accustomed to living with the Bisin cult, which, roughly translated meant "rain god". It was also the honorable title given to him by Bi Jun himself for obvious reasons. Remembering his own experience with Hina and the over exhaustion that led to her powers going out of control (such as the early winter that reflected Hina's pain), he decided to provide his rain services every Wednesday until he had to go back to college. This notice was spread onto online articles throughout the district, but the weather channels and television stations in the urban areas remained true to their astronomical guesses until Hodaka's powers proved otherwise.

Farmers and villagers who believed the cult went into the city to buy umbrellas and raincoats to prepare for next few Wednesdays and several of them were granted audience to the Bisin temple where they could ask Hodaka for requests. But of course, Hodaka was not willing to sacrifice himself, let alone find himself in the same boat as Hina three years ago, and he turned down every request no matter how many times the farmers pleaded.

"Wednesday's child is full of woe," Hodaka would always say. "So it only seems fitting that I could summon the rains on that day."

Not everyone in the district was happy with the new seasons of rain. On the last Wednesday of July, a school bus nearly drove off the road due to the slippery road and the roads that weren't paved over caused cars and wagons to be stuck in mud. Others got sick with colds and some social events were cancelled due to the rain.

Hodaka didn't mind all of this. It was all a part of life taking it's natural course. From his throne, dressed in the traditional robes we wore on Ojiisan Okazaki's birthday party, he felt like a god, like a Buddha, like Emperor Puyi, like Emperor Sunjong, and like Emperor Hirohito all rolled into one. Yet he couldn't help but feel sorry for all those people who suffered because of his rain. Suffering was always around him, or at least it was outside. Inside, he was very friendly every other member of the cult.

Bi Jun was like a second grandfather to him, much more open-minded and congenial compared to Ojiisan Okazaki, as were See Kyung-sang, Kim Bora, her husband Moon Dae-sung, who acted like second parents to him (or third counting one Keisuke Suga). Tum-sung and the other children, Chin-sun, Chul-moo, Wan-bo, Sun-bo and Kojo-hee, were more than enough siblings that he needed compared to Nagi but he still loved their charm and innocence. The two teenagers, Kae Gun-seok and Lee Eun-hoon were practically brothers, to themselves, the other children and Hodaka. Chang-min visited him on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the days in which he was the least busy with his practices at the church as well as weekends.

The men and women of the Bisun told him stories about other times when it rained—reminiscences from older ones, events told them by their parents or grandparents repeated by younger ones. He could see generous faces in so many of the faces around the throne, hear a loving voice in their voices. It's like a previous incarnation of me was here himself, he thought; I can see how life must have been when the other me was here.

He didn't spend most of his time indoors however, sometimes helped the villagers tend to the crops with buckets of water, knowing very well not use his abilities on something so trivial. At other times, he helped to tend to the needs of the other members of the Bisun with their problems, like mathematical equations for Sun-bo and Chin-sun. The district itself was so small and rural that everybody knew everybody, and knew everybody's business. But smaller, closer, more comfortable somehow. What he was hearing and sensing, without recognizing it, was that the tiny world he was seeing was kinder than any he had ever known. He knew only that he was enjoying being in it very much. Korea had it's ups and downs to the Japanese, but aside from its cities and docks, the rural countryside was what he needed at this time. Best of all, it was different compared to home.