Short Story | Painting the Sky with Colored Pencils

Light blue is my younger brother's color. Thinking this, I press my hands together in front of his grave. Even as the rain begins to fall, I have no desire to open my umbrella. My brother and I used to draw pictures together often. I would draw the town, and he would draw the blue sky. That is why the light blue colored pencil belonged to him.
My brother and I were ten years apart. He caught a bad cold when he was five, developed severe pneumonia, and passed away during the year of my high school entrance exams. My parents were worried, but I kept studying properly. However, I stopped drawing.

Looking back now as a second-year high school student, I realize I was still just a child back then, and I didn't truly understand what it meant to never see my brother again. That is why, in the drawer of my study desk, there is a colored pencil with a sticker of my brother's name on it.
The October rain is cold. My school uniform is getting soaked. When I get home, I will tell my parents I didn't take an umbrella with me. The falling rain looks light blue. The rain connects the sky and the ground. The light blue connects my brother and me. For a while, I looked up at the gray sky.

I sneeze, close my eyes, and when I open them again, light is streaming through the clouds. The wind high above moves the clouds, and eventually, it clears up. I sneeze again. I might have caught a cold from being out in the rain. I sniffle and say, "See you later," to my brother.
I return home and lock myself in my room before my parents can make a fuss about me being soaking wet. I hang up my uniform, sit at my desk, and gaze at the sky outside the window. Perhaps it was just a passing shower, as a blue sky is spreading out. On a hunch, I open the bottom drawer.

"Don't catch a cold," I felt like I heard my brother say in his lisping voice. I wanted to retort that he was the last one who should be saying that, but I'm an adult now, so I won't say such mean things. I open the tin case of colored pencils.
The light blue pencil was gone. Seeing me out in the rain, did my brother paint the sky light blue for me? Even though my set of twenty-four colored pencils is now missing one, I think I will try drawing the town again. Because that color looked so vivid. Like a rainbow after the rain.