CH 2.5

After walking for a while, she lent me a handkerchief, as if she was still concerned about me.

“H-here, wipe yourself with this.”

“Even if I wipe it, I’m already soaked right now, so…”

Then Hinagata pouted as if she had decided, and approached me about half a step.

“…Eh?”

Mine and Hinagata’s shoulders and arms are almost in contact with each other.

“T-this way, …..Ryunosuke won’t get soaked…”

“No, that’s right ──”

I think you’re getting too close, here.

I can feel Hinagata’s body heat even through her uniform.

I’m starting to feel weirdly nervous…

“I don’t want you to catch a cold because of me.”

“I’m not going to catch a cold from this.”

In dramas and mangas, people catch colds when they get wet in the rain.

“I hate not being able to meet you if you have a cold and are absent from school …”

Hinagata says, looking at her toes with her upturned cheeks.　

Well, I knew that she didn’t want me to catch a cold because of her.

I’m nervous, and apparently Hinagata is too. As we were walking down the street in almost silence, a car passed by us and ran over a puddle of water with great force, causing it to splash violently.

My uniform… and especially my pants, which were getting a little wet, were soaked by the splashing rainwater.

“Ugh.”

“Are you okay?”

I’m glad I was on the side of the road.

“Yeah. Well, I’ve got about ten minutes left. It’s fine.”　

Hinagata poked me in the pants.

Hey, what are you doing? 

“You’re wet.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing”, I shook my head.

I couldn’t help but say it in the spirit of talking with Sugiuchi, but I didn’t have any other intentions with Hinagata.

“Umm. Y-you know, …My house is in front.”

“Ahh, okay. Here, your umbrella. My house is near Hinagata’s, I will arrive there soon if I run.”

“Almost there, so….”

“Yeah. So don’t worry about it——”

Hinagata, with a red face, pointed in the direction of her house.

“U-uh, l-let’s go home and dry our uniforms..!”

You mean at Hinagata’s house? My uniform?

“But my house is only about four or five minutes away——”

“I-it’s fine.”

What do you mean, it’s fine?

“You know what? You think I’m a kitten or something, don’t you? I can’t catch a cold like this.”

“T-ther….. There’s always a “what if”! P-please, come to my house!  —Please….”

I rolled my eyes at her unusually strident insistence. The last part was a muffled whisper, though.

I don’t know if she was embarrassed or if there was some other reason, but her face was still red.

“Okay. Then I’ll take your word for it.”

“Funfun~” Hinagata then shook her head several times.