Asahi Shimbun 朝日新聞 ⋮ Nanami Kento

Chapter 16

The sky begins to drizzle rain. Nanami looks up and he doesn't think much of it. He continues to walk his way home. The rain comes down slightly harder. The guy picks up his pace. At some point he's sprinting with an arm above his head to shield his glasses from  getting wet. His inattentiveness along with the misty environment causes him to collide into someone.

"Sorry!" You stumble as you apologize to the person you ran into.

"My apologies!" Nanami looks up from his slight downward gaze to see you completely drenched. It's dumping rain now.

"Nanami?"

But he doesn't answer you. He removes his business jacket immediately and throws it over you. It was not in your favor to have chosen to wear white today. The rain had made your button up somewhat translucent and he tries not to let his eyes linger somewhere they shouldn't be too long.

"Thank you..." you grip onto the fabric of his outerwear and pull it tighter against you, "But what about you??"

"Don't worry about me. Where do you live?" He asks and he puts his arm back up, "I'll walk you home."

You wave your hands to respectfully decline his generosity. It would make you feel terrible, especially since it was practically storming, "Oh, no! That's ok—"

Nanami cuts you off, "I'm not taking no for an answer."

He could tell you were intoxicated by the way you stumbled. And the fact that your skin was so warm despite it being extremely cold out. There's no way he wasn't going to escort you home in these conditions. The man likely would have let you go if it hadn't been raining this hard. Being a gentleman is in his nature, his personality. He'll likely never rid of this habit.

"But—"

Nanami stops you from talking again. He grabs you by the arm and pulls you towards the assumed direction of your home, "The quicker we get you home, the quicker we'll get out of this rain."

"That's-that's the wrong way..." you say and you now hold no opposition's against him. There was no point in arguing against someone who's made up their mind. Plus your slightly drunken stupor would likely allow anything to happen right now—anything.

The man stops and then he pulls you back in the other direction. Your feet drags across the wet concrete as your voice guides him where to go and his jacket still shields you from the downpour.

After about 10 minutes and an additional 5 to catch the elevator up to the appropriate floor, Nanami walks you all the way to your unit. Then it took another 2 minutes or so of fumbling with your keys to manage to unlock the door to your home.

You turn around and place a hand onto his chest. Normally you'd realize your small action but your minds slightly muddled, so it's likely you won't notice it this time around. Your enthusiastic voice shows him your gratitude, "Thank you so much, Nanami! You really didn't have to. This is so sweet of you. Thank you so much!"

Nanami tries to ignore the feeling of your hand on his chest and then he thanks the universe when you remove it not a second later, "It's no problem at all."

"You're welcome to stay." You say as your hands go up to wring the water out of your hair. It's likely late and you'd hate for him to deal with the weather at a time like this.