12 None of those mattered

Ring. Ring.

Not even a full minute has passed since the bell has rang, indicating the end of class, half of the students has already left the classroom.

"It's raining really heavily, huh."

Yuu remarked as he peeked outside the window.

"Did you bring an umbrella, Yuu?"

"No. Don't tell me you didn't bring yours?"

"It's raining heavily and we don't have our umbrellas. Time to die, I guess."

"How the hell did you come to that conclusion, Eru?"

"Don't you get it?! If I don't have an umbrella, I have to run through the rain and I'll end up sic—"

"Or you can just wait for the rain to settle down, like a normal person. Why did I have to ask you?"

They decided to sit down on the porch (or terrace) outside the building and wait for the rain to stop.

...

It has already been at least an hour or two since they started waiting but the rain was still pouring down heavily.

"You look bummed out, Eru."

"It's just that it doesn't look like the rain will settle down any time soon. Then I..."

"You won't be able to hang out with that Seki guy?"

As soon as Eru heard Seki's name, she stiffened and her ears and cheeks started turning red.

"I-I'm not! Why did you have to bring up Hiromata-kun?!"

Eru shouted at Yuu, loud enough to be heard even with the sound of rain constantly dropping.

"You mentioned me, Kasumi-san?"

A familiar voice called out from a distance.

Eru's eyes widened as he saw Seki approaching them with an umbrella in hand.

"H-Hiromata-kun?! What are you doing here?!"

"It's already been two hours and you still haven't arrived at the house so I thought you didn't have an umbrella."

He answered nonchalantly as he set foot on the porch where the two were taking shelter in.

"That's great, Eru. You guys can go ahead of me."

"Eh? What about you, Yuu?"

"I'll just wait for it to settle down."

"Here, Jin-san. You can have this."

Suddenly, Seki joined in their conversation and handed over the umbrella he was holding to Yuu.

"Eh? I can take it?"

"Sure. Kasumi-san and I will just go together."

Yuu paused for a second to think before taking the umbrella.

"I'll take you up on that offer then. Take care of Eru, Hiromata-san."

"Leave it to me."

Seki puffed his chest as he reassured Yuu whom nodded in response and started walking away.

...

"Uhm, Hiromata-kun. Do you have a spare umbrella other than the one you gave to Yuu?"

"Nope. What for?"

"Then how will we go home?"

...

The sudden realization finally hit his dense head.

"Ah, right."

"Don't you 'ah' me! Why did you gave it to Yuu if you didn't have a spare?"

"I forgot."

Hearing Seki's reason, Eru couldn't help but place her palm on her forehead.

It was already too late for their realization since Yuu was already far from sight.

"Can't you call Jin-san and ask him to bring us umbrellas, Kasumi-san?"

Hearing Seki's suggestion, Eru reached into her pocket only to see a battery empty phone. The two could only sigh and sit down once more.

...

"I'm bored, Kasumi-san."

"I can tell. I am too."

Side by side, the two sat in silence.

...

"Ah!"

After a few minutes of awkward tranquility, Eru jumped in excitement as if an idea just popped into her head.

"What is it, Kasumi-san?"

Eru brought out a laptop from her bag.

"I completely forgot. I had this 'cause I had a presentation earlier."

"I see."

She booted up the laptop and opened a application.

"I told you that I'll show you a visual novel, right? I have a really good one downloaded here."

The application booted up and the title screen greeted them. Eru pressed a couple of buttons before handing the laptop over to Seki's lap.

"Here, Hiromata-kun. First you have to enter your username. You can use your real name or a made up name. It's a really important feature so think hard about i—"

Before Eru could even finish her sentence, Seki entered the name he desired.

[Welcome, Dipshit!]

"Why would you name him that?!"

"Eh? It's funny."

"What are you, a grade schooler? What kind of humor is that?"

With Eru scolding him like that, Seki could only gaze at her with pleading puppy eyes.

"Ha... It's too late to change the name so we don't really have a choice but move on with this."

A scene suddenly came up in the visual novel. It seems to be set on a school setting on early spring.

[A.N. - Any dialogue with brackets [like this] means that the person speaking is from the game.]

"The scene looks like it's an opening ceremony in a highschool."

"Yep, yep! Your character is a transfer student to this school and you'll be meeting tons of different girls to date."

"I see."

They kept playing through the game until the first girl came up.

"Ah, there she is! Her name's Peko-chan. She likes to pull pranks on the other characters and she really like rabbit. Use these information to make the right choices! Here, she will ask you for your name and depending on your response, her first impression with you will vary."

Choice 1: [Hi! I'm Dipshit, nice to meet you.]

Choice 2: [Before asking one's name, you should say your own first.]

Choice 3: [Begone, thot.]

Eru was about to make a suggestion, Seki has already pressed the space bar.

[Begone, thot!]

[E-Eh?! How rude-peko! Don't you even think of talking to me again-peko!]

"Hey! Why did you choose that?! Now it will be really hard to get her affection points up!"

"It's pretty funny, no?"

As soon as Eru heard Seki's reason, she glared at him with eyes of disgust.

"K-Kasumi-san, if you stare anymore you'll pierce a hole through me."

"But why did you have to do that?! You should have at least thought about it a bit deeper! Now Peko-chan has been hurt!"

"B-But she's a fictional character..."

Hearing all these, Eru's frustrations grew higher. Then she suddenly remembered the time when Seki thought her how to play FPS games.

'Now that I think about it, he was probably really annoyed backed then. I was really bad and was being an incredible weight that he has to carry. But he didn't really show his frustration and was patient the whole time.'

After composing herself, she made a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, Kasumi-san. If I'm being too annoying I'll just run to the closest convenience store and grab an umbrella."

"No, you'll catch a cold! It's just... I'm really surprised that we have totally opposite mindsets. I guess if I think about it, I'm quite jealous that you can make a decision in such a simple and concise way. If it was me, I would have analyzed everything and waste a bunch of time."

"It's not something you should be jealous about though. Most of the time, I end up regretting the things I decide."

"The same happens to me even if I think about it for a significant amount of time."

Hearing each other's stories, the two shared a laugh.

"Then let's add more promises to our pile then. I'll teach you to think before you act and you'll show me how to be decisive!"

"Uh-huh. I'll count on you then, Kasumi-san."

Seki nodded to Eru's suggestion.

"Not that you need to change anything, Hiromata-kun. Your way of thinking is pretty cute, you know."

...

"Kasumi-san... Are you calling me cute?"

Hearing this, Eru realized her incredible blunder in her choice of words which cause her to blush.

"I-I'm not! Geez!"

"But you know... Now that I think about it, aren't we in a relationship where calling each other cute is normal?"

Out of the blue, Seki brought up the topic that Eru was avoiding. Once again, she was reminded of her conversation with Yuu earlier in the day.

...

Only the sound of raindrops falling could be heard for a full minute or two before Eru broke the ice.

"Hey, Hiromata-kun... Is it really okay for us to be dating?"

Faced with such a question, Seki gazed at Eru's somewhat worried face.

"Why'd you ask?"

"Well I have been thinking. Is it okay for us to be in a relationship? I'm worried that maybe we only became like this because I was making rash decisions. Actually, that maybe it, haha. And thinking about all that, I wonder if it's better to just start out with being friends. What are your thoughts, Hiromata-kun?"

Eru asked as her eyes met with Seki.

"To me, it doesn't really matter."

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"Friends. Lovers. To me, I guess it's all just titles. Not to say that these words hold no meaning. I'm sure they do to other people. But I don't think that's really the case for the two of us, Kasumi-san. Let me remind the words that our friends and families told us."

Seki chuckled before continuing.

"We're a weird ass couple."

"E-Eh?"

"If we became 'only friends' right now, would anything change? Would we hang out less? Will either of us start avoiding the other? I don't think so. The same goes for the latter. If we continued dating, would we suddenly start flirting? Would we be able to kiss? Would we do lewd stuff together?"

"N-No... I don't think so."

"See? Well that's my opinion, at least. I'll leave the decision to you though."

Hearing such genuine words from Seki's mouth, she heart thumped.

'Maybe... Just maybe... It's fine if things don't change. Even just for a little bit, I think I'll let it stay like this...'

Was that the right option?

Would she be hurt by her decision?

Is it a wrong choice?

None of those mattered to her.

The two simply sat side by side, watching each raindrops quite intensely;

so heavily;

yet so elegantly;

Fall down to the ground.

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