For ImmortalxSnows's contest. I never thought I'll ever write a Shannon/Kanon.

The rain is a strange being. Everyone interprets it in a different way. As tears falling on a world, forsaken by his God. As something pure, cleansing the world. As the epitome of boredom. As a dance, something so beautifully orchestrated, that no human creation will ever come to compare to it. The bringer of rich harvest. The thing, creating muddy streets. A god some freaky old tribes used to worship.

There are probably as many versions as there are people across the globe. And all of them are correct, in a way. For rain isn't always the same. In fact, it's never the same.

There is the drizzle that remains on a woman's lids as she shyly evades a man's gaze. There is the downpour, in which a lot of people bid farewells to the waking world. There's the spring rain whose echo awakes the rivers. There is the mizzle that falls during summer and is never enough for the sweating society. And yes, even the mist, the fog is rain – it makes winter mornings so peaceful; it walks hand in hand with the solitude one would desire with her beloved one.

Shannon loves rain in all its types. She loves the fine rain: it's the time when she runs around with Milady Jessica. She loves the slashing rain: its songs against the window-glass are always enough to make her mind wander to its deeply-ignored subconscious, to the place where dreams gather. The place, awoken just a few months ago. Because the sea is blue now, because she is a human now, not furniture. She knows what it feels to be both a human and furniture. And she doesn't want anybody to feel what furniture has ever experienced. She wants each furniture to become a human for being a human was a gift.

She wants to watch the sea with Kanon. She wants him to taste the happiness and the beauty of the world. She knows he can't see anything while being mere furniture, for memories are still here; memories of what it felt to be furniture, something almost invisible, something worthy only for breaking.

As much as she loves rain, Shannon hates it when they say it's going to rain on the weather forecast. In the kitchen, while preparing the dinner, one small TV is always turned on and it is common for the news (instead of a nice film) to echo from the walls. And, because of that, all servants know both the latest gossip, the newest homicides and sport winners and what the weather will be like in the next few days.

The last thing is good for the one in charge of the garden: those beautiful roses don't just sprout out in the sky without any help from someone else. Roses demand attention, love; they need to be looked after with carefulness, and even if one drop water is given to them more than it had to be, they won't be as perfect as they usually are.

And it is bad, when Kanon is on the duty of taking care of the roses and on the forecast they say it's going to rain. Because it's obvious to everyone that he'll stay outside, to tend to the gardens despite the fact that he might catch a cold, or something more serious, under that rain. And the worst thing, it's the fact that he does not even try to hide his face. And the droplets fall on his cheeks, slowly taking their sweet time before falling down. To everyone it looks like he is crying, especially to those who don't know him.

Or maybe it's worse for those who know him, who understand him. Those, like Shannon, know he rarely shows his emotions, unless really angered. And even that happens rarely; maybe it hasn't happened yet. But it will happen someday. Someone will torment him and he'll get angry because, deeply buried within his self, lay the concern for those he loved.

Shannon prays to Beatrice-sama to die before that day came. It will be too much.

Kanon has always been with her, even during the times when she was still Sayo and both of them lived… unhindered by any ideas they are not humans, if one can say it like that.

During those times, they weren't servants and sometimes Shannon finds herself wonders whether they would be the same people if they stayed back. They would have never been servants, they would have never known the people they know and cherish deep inside (no matter what they said to others). There would have never been Kinzo to make them what they are now.

One can so easily wonder what would had happened if they had not been adopted by that rich but quite mentally ill man and not been subjected to his inferiority-complex-creating ways. Despite the fact that everything that man did was quite gruesome, the two of them were able to grow up in what they are now. In a way, they have to thank him. He has made them in what they are now; because of him taking them to work for him as slaves, furniture, he granted them a possibility, a hidden way for them to become the humans they are now and to meet those people who firstly captured their hearts, even though her brother refuses to admit the fact that he cares for Milady Jessica.

As much as she loves George, sometimes, just sometimes, Shannon finds her eyes to dart away from him to gaze with strange worry at Kanon. It's usually the time when there is rain and he's silent and the roses continue their little lullaby in duet with the rain.

She wants to make him see.

As she lifts the hose up to make it rain water, careful to lead the flow to drop on Kanon, as she sees the small smile on his face, the seed of something bigger, Shannon hopes to be able to show him the wonders of the rain one day. And make him beam a real smile.