The sun has since slipped beneath the stratum of dark-fringed clouds that hang lowly today, and as a result, rain pours in an onslaught, drenching him from head to toe the very second that he sets foot outside of the library. (And itâs dreadfully insulting, how rain thinks it can fall on him! Him, out of all people! Him, Ruki Mukami!) He wouldnât be caught dead walking outside alone like this, in his sorry, sodden state, and no matter how many times he tries to pry it away, the fabric of his shirt clings to his skin as if it were some form of newfangled adhesive.
   Itâs fortunate for him â and unfortunate for her â that she finds him, twenty minutes into an exceedingly sour mood. Her sunny presence is a gentle one against his, but the first thing he does is to recoil, ever so slightly, as if he were so approachable enough as to warrant a strangerâs pity. (Surely, with his designer jacket and his expensive accessories, he thinks heâd be the last person on earth to be recruited for some charity campaign.) Heâs seconds away from sending the person away with an icy 'no, but thank you', until he registers the owner of the voice that reaches him â Yui.
   And then, he allows her to stay, but grudgingly â with an eye half-narrowed and angled suspiciously down in her direction.
   "Theyâre already ruined, arenât they?" A sarcastic comment fails to catch in his mental filter, before he sighs, shaking his head from left to right to shake out what droplets of water he can, in the brief reprieve from the weather. He remains under her umbrella, brushing dark strands of hair back from his forehead, tousling them gently, before answering: "Youâre being so troublesome⌠âAh, Iâm headed home. If you think you have the stamina to walk to the edge of this city and back, then I donât see why you canât keep up."
   Ultimately, this proves to be his roundabout way of accepting her offer, and forcing her to go with him, despite how far the Mukami mansion is located â it would take them a good chunk of time (between thirty minutes to an hour) to arrive at its front gates. As they head down the sidewalk (he navigates from here on out, heâs sure she doesnât know where he lives) and stop at one â of many â crosswalks, he puts his hand over hers and jerks it up an inch or two, heightening the position of the umbrella above them so that the metal rods stop bumping against his head.
