Under the Umbrella ✓

-09-

So he's the regular who sits by this seat whenever I come with Sandra.

It had been easy to miss him amongst all other things in the café given how camouflaged he was to the whole carefree setting, almost as if he were a piece of furniture that appeared only during the afternoons. He wore a navy-blue shirt with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, hair pushed back away from his face, and yet his face nearly covered from how low his head was hung over the pile of sheets on the table.

It wasn't that she hadn't seen him before. Despite not taking his appearance in then, she vaguely knew him by the seat he took whenever she stopped over in the afternoon. She realized she had just happened to get the window seat that one time in the afternoon because she was abnormally earlier than her usual visitation time.

Some part of Aria wasn't quite sure if it was him either. Her mind had been hysterical the day the stranger had lent his umbrella that she didn't pay much heed to his countenance, his build, or anything distinctive. From the rough remembrance of the stranger's face, she made up her mind to test it out.

She walked up towards him and laid the umbrella she had been carrying around like an accessory for the last few days on the table, causing him to glance up at her. She saw the look of recognition cross his eyes, which relieved her of her doubts since she didn't have to compose an awkward apology if it had been the wrong person. She noticed now that his eyes were a peculiar shade of a mixture between blue, green, and gray. It was hard to tell the actual color of his eyes. Maybe it was the play of sunlight behind him.

He studied the umbrella as if to ensure it wasn't swapped or tainted with anything else. Then he took it into his hands. In one swift thrust, he shortened the stick of the umbrella into the fabric. She couldn't help the slight drop of her jaw nor conceal the look of astonishment at the act. She didn't even consider the umbrella could have possibly had that feature, and she went around using it as a cane all these days from being too cautious.

Aria righted her jaw and promptly voiced out what she had wanted to say before she could miss the moment. "Thank you for lending me your umbrella that day."

"No problem," he responded, looking up at her again and meeting her eyes with a directness that startled her. She couldn't make out the intention of his unvarnished look, but it made her cower nonetheless. She immediately averted her focus for the mug of coffee on his table.

"Uh... let me pay for your drink as my thanks," she offered, casting a fleeting look at him.

"Okay," he consented right away in his deep but quiet voice, his eyes still fixated on her face.

She didn't know what she was expecting. It just wasn't this. It didn't seem like he was trying to be distant, but it also felt like he wanted to get the moment over with.

"Um, okay. Thank you again," she mumbled.

With a discomfited shuffle between one foot to the other, Aria swiftly hoofed it to the table across his – the one where Aria and Sandra usually sat by when they noticed that the window seat was occupied –without waiting for a reply. She doubted she'd have received one, but it guarded her pride from shattering by walking away before she found the answer to that. Ignoring the stranger to the best of her ability, she sat at her seat in silence, mulling over the things she had deemed less significant, and planned her day.