In the afternoon, I sat on the windowsill, enjoying the sunlight on my back and eating the apricot danish I had just bought from the supermarket. The apricot was a bit cool, but my back was warm. The taste was sweet and sour, and the air had a certain density to it.

However, just as I finished the last bite, the weather turned gloomy. I stared outside at the fine rain veil for a long time, reminiscing about the time when I had tasted rose-flavored ice brew coffee in a café in Taipei and the rain had suddenly poured down. As a child who grew up in northern China, it was the first time I realized that the rain depicted in ukiyo-e prints was realistic.

When the rain finally stopped, I ran to another supermarket to buy eggs. But as I walked out of the store, it started raining again, this time even harder, and the raindrops splashed against the ground like waves.