As soon as classes were done for the day, Yuuki hurried off toward the library. He retrieved the philosophical book he’d been reading earlier from his bag and dropped it into the return box. He turned to leave, but unfortunately ended up making eye contact with one of the teachers that happened to be milling around.
“Oh, how did you find it?” she asked.
“A difficult read, for sure.”
“Haha, I see,” she responded, cracking an amused smile.
Yuuki couldn’t bring himself to tell her how confusing and boring the experience had been for him. The teacher looked to have taken a liking to him for some reason, to the point that she had taken up a lot of his time the last time he had come to the library. Thus Yuuki decided to beat a hasty retreat to the school entrance before the teacher had the chance to recommend him yet another bizarre tome.
“I spy with my little eye... a Narito!” a cheerful voice rang out as Yuuki was switching out his shoes. He glanced to the side and wasn’t exactly shocked to find Yui waving at him and approaching. “Going home now?”
“Yeah.”
Yui gave him a slight smile before she walked past him to her locker and began changing into her casual shoes, as well. Yuuki, meanwhile, shut his locker and headed outside. The sky had been cloudy the entire day, and it was beginning to look like it was going to start pouring at any moment.
“Whoaaa, looks like it’s gonna rain soon,” Yui, who had appeared beside him, observed. Yuuki was startled by her sudden and unexpected interruption.
“Do you walk to school, Narito? You must live pretty close by then, right?”
“Yeah, I live at the end of Nakamachi Dori Street.”
For the most part, Yuuki commuted to school on foot, mostly because he was forced to on account of having totaled his bike when he crashed it into a ditch on the side of the road one drowsy morning. The barest consolation for him was the fact that Higashiseiyou High School wasn’t particularly far from his house in the first place. The walk took about 30 minutes if he picked up the pace.
“Oh, really now? I’ll be walking to the train station today. Wanna tag along?”
Yuuki couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. He’d have understood if she’d made a show of asking during class, considering her reputation, but for her to go out of her way outside of class was completely out of left field to him. Though maybe it was all just a matter of coincidence. Besides, Yuuki didn’t see a reason to complain, so he figured he’d take her up on her offer.
“We’d never even talked to each other until this morning, and now look at us go,” she said. “Strange how things work out, huh?”
Yui maintained her usual bright smile as they passed through the school’s front gate. As the distance between them and the school grew, and the number of students became sparser, Yui’s posture and general demeanor became much more relaxed.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Yuuki replied, completely failing to carry on the conversation. He was always the type of guy to simply keep to himself, although the fact that this situation was completely novel to him didn’t help.
“So tell me, which devil do I have to make a deal with to heal you from being so tongue-tied?” Yui joked. She’d finally grown tired of his constant silence and was now peeking at his face from the side.
“You want me to say something?”
“Uhhhh, yeah? Got any interesting stories? Anything will do,” she pleaded, clearly not realizing the absurdity of the task she’d just bestowed upon Yuuki.
He had to actively suppress the urge to turn her down. After all, if he were to keep insisting that he was an “average high school student,” he figured it’d be a good idea if he showed her that he was in fact capable of holding a conversation.
“I have one that’s related to the book I was reading this morning.”
“What about it?”
“It talked about the spirit of “ressentiment” which is fundamental for slave morality, and—”
“I’m sorry, you lost me there,” she interjected, shutting him down.
While she did indeed say that anything was fine, this particular topic was clearly too sophisticated for even the most seasoned of philosophers. Yuuki felt a smug satisfaction knowing that Yui wouldn’t be able to tease him about it. He briefly fell back into his own inner world before being dragged back to reality by Yui.
“I usually go to school on my bike unless it's gonna rain,” she said, unprompted. “Your house is still a bit further away, right? Do you have an umbrella on you?”
“Forgot to bring one with me before going to school. What’s the worst that could happen anyway? Getting drenched?”
Yuuki was well aware that he could avoid such a wet fate with a quick trip to the convenience store, but he wasn’t keen on wasting money.
“Oooh? Then I’ll be the good guy and share mine with you if it ever comes to that,” she brandished her umbrella as though it was a sword and stared down her next victim.
Yuuki was unsure about how to reply and hesitated, but Yui’s contented sigh saved him from having to say anything in the first place.
“That’s what you get for what you pulled this afternoon,” she said.
“Sorry?”
“If you hurt me, I’ll hurt you twice as much!”
“You what?” Yuuki asked, utterly confused. Before he could even begin to make sense of what she’d just said, rain suddenly began to pour down. Yui quickly opened her umbrella and gave him a meaningful look.
“Out with it now,” she said, “I’ll let you under it with me if you ask nicely enough.”
“Keep dreaming.”
“Have fun getting drenched then!” she mocked, sticking her tongue out.
Yui took a few steps away from Yuuki, who himself was distracted with trying to figure out the best way to avoid getting soaked. The rain was closer to a drizzle than anything, and he thought that if he picked up the pace, he could make it to cover in time. Just as abruptly as the rain had begun, though, it’d stopped falling on his clothes. It took him a moment, but he glanced to the side and finally realized that Yui had chosen to approach him after all. She was struggling to hold her umbrella up to shield them both from the rain.
“It’d be so much easier for me if you held this thing,” she complained.
Yui was now barely an inch away from Yuuki. She was shorter than him, barely reaching up to his chin as they awkwardly huddled together under the umbrella.
Yuuki took the chance to eye her up from head to toe before finally speaking, “You look great.”
“Haha, very funny.”
He wasn’t joking. He remembered he’d grown to about 5’8” in last year’s physical exam, so that meant that Yui was probably somewhere around 5’3”. Her high waist hinted at long legs that were concealed below her skirt. His eyes were also drawn to her arm that was still straining to hold up the umbrella. It, too, was dainty and slender.
A memory flashed through Yuuki’s mind. He remembered having a long and serious conversation with Keitarou about how the curves of a woman’s waist and butt were sexy or something along those lines. Yuuki couldn’t help but tremble at what Keitarou would say if he saw him in this situation. All the guys in class have a thing for her, which made Yuuki feel restless enough that he eventually decided to step out from under the umbrella.
“Why are you running away from me?”
“The rain really isn’t that bad.”
“What? Ooh, I see how it is. You’re embarrassed, aren’t you?” she said with a grin, pointing her finger at Yuuki. She looked elated, as if she had got him figured out.
The reality was that the rain was letting up and actually stopped right after he’d left the safety of the umbrella.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. There’s no way—“ Yui insisted as she extended her hand so she could check the intensity of the rainfall. “Whaaaaaa—?!” she exclaimed, bending backwards in surprise. Yuuki watched her in silence as she flushed a bright red and folded her umbrella back up. “Ahem... So that was an overreaction on my part.”
“It was funny... sort of.”
“I’m not hearing any laughter. Throw me a bone; even a fake smile will work. Are you sure you’re not just a robot or something? Beep-Boop?”
“I’m just not very expressive. I can assure you that I’m busting a gut laughing, though. On the inside.”
“You sure you got that right? It honestly sounds like you’re making fun of me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. For real.”
“Alright then, show me that million-dollar smile,” Yui said with a solemn expression and moved uncomfortably close to Yuuki. Even someone as detached as him would wince a bit after seeing her acting so serious about it. Though for the life of him, he still couldn’t understand why she was getting so impatient, or why she even cared this much about him in general. He had a bad feeling about it, but all of a sudden, a brilliant idea flashed through his head.