Chapter 163 - Under Senpai's Umbrella?!

As I entered the classroom that day, I was attacked by the sudden news that was in the mouth of many students. At first I was a bit confused too because my brain doesn't work properly early in the morning, so it took me some time to settle in.

Apparently, Kizhashi and Gaisen broke up last week and this news got slipped from one of Kizhashi's friends. It was kind of fresh news in the class because both of them were seen as the perfect couple, and their breaking up was a bit unexpected.

Well, that is what others were thinking. I knew about their circumstances so I wasn't fazed at all. Now if I was the prior Sakamaki who didn't know about their predicament, then I would've been surprised too.

I was actually quite astounded by the fact not even a single person was aware of them being a fake couple. I think popular people just give off those vibes. If I was to date someone like Kizhashi, even if we were really dating, no one would believe us.

Both of them were acting as usual around them, except for the part where they used to act cute and romantic. It appeared as if both of them were quite unfazed. Reina was surprised the most by this, as I remember that she used to like Gaisen too.

Though I wasn't interested in Reina at all, I couldn't care less what happens to her. If she was my target, then I would've surely helped her with her emotional dilemmas. But at that moment, it did not bother me at all.

The last period was about to be over, and out of the blue, dark clouds started covering the sky and the sound of thunder could be heard vibrating the glasses off the windows. And as it already seemed like it'll rain, all the students were hurrying down once the bells rang off.

Sadly, we had chemistry in the last period and our teacher told me to collect all the laboratory notebooks from everyone and submit it to her. Now, since everyone was in a hurry to leave because of unexpected rain, it was a hassle to collect them.

After a few minutes of struggling, I was able to collect all the notebooks, and I headed towards the lab again to keep it on her table. But what felt like a few minutes was actually half an hour. As I came back to the class, it was empty and none of the students could be seen around.

I closed the door of the classroom and walked through the empty hallways as the sound of my footsteps resonated around me. I looked outside the window on the way down the stairs and noticed that it had already started pouring drop by drop.

I knew that I wasn't carrying an umbrella, so I had to make a run towards my home while it wasn't pouring as hard or I could wait near the lockers until the rain stopped which definitely wasn't an option since the rain wasn't going to stop anytime soon.

I came to conclusion and picked the first option because it won't matter even if I get drenched a little bit. But it'll be an immense problem to stay here waiting for the rain to stop, which might not happen in the next several hours.

Holding my bag tightly in my left arm, I jumped forward and started sprinting at full speed towards the main gate of the campus. As I stepped on the wet ground, tiny droplets were soaking on my body as I made my way through the rain.

I could see a girl walking slowly in front of me. As I ran past her, I heard a soft voice call out my name. Coming to an abrupt stop, I looked behind me and noticed Naoto looking at me from under her black umbrella.

I looked into the cold dark eyes of Naoto as she peeked at me with a blank expression on her face. I was actually quite surprised to see someone else in the school, too. 

Looking at her with a curious look, as the rain still kept pouring on me, I asked, "Why haven't you gone home yet?"

She gestured with her eyes to me, and said, "Come under the umbrella."

"Are you sure?" I asked her as sharing an umbrella with the girl was something many boys dreamt of and somehow this was the second time I was sharing an umbrella with a girl. She kept looking at me with a plain expression as I continued, "We will be going opposite directions at some point."

"Oh shut up! Here." She just clicked her tongue as she walked towards me and raised the umbrella to match my height and I was under the umbrella with her.

"Why don't you have an umbrella with you?" She asked as the sound of the drops pouring on the fabric of the umbrella was slowly becoming loud.

Looking at the uniform, she was fairly dry compared to me, who had his white shirt sticking to his body as it was wet. I replied to her with a question of mine, "Why do you have one with you?'

Nodding her head, she started walking forward as she said, "I don't know… I just don't take it out of my bag."

Moving a bit closer to me as the umbrella wasn't big enough to fit us both properly, she slowly started pacing as she said, "Anyway, let's go."

Without saying anything further, I followed her and the rest of the walk went in silence, as none of us probably had anything to say. Or maybe she was feeling awkward sharing the umbrella with me. But she wasn't the kind of girl to act like that, so it was maybe that she wanted me to start a conversation, but I was too late to understand.

Also, the fact she was sharing an umbrella out of the blue could also mean that it was just out of courtesy since no person would leave another person whom they knew standing in the middle of the rain.. So it wasn't the correct thing to assume that I was making progress.