Chapter Text
Lance shivered and pulled his thin jacket tighter around his body. At this point, he knew his pants were likely ruined--though that was probably because of his reckless choice to wear white slacks to teach on a rainy day. It wasn’t his fault, however, that his umbrella had chosen this day, precisely, to tear itself to pieces.
And so, here he was, huddling under a bus stop and hoping the rain might let up some in time for him to sprint to the university campus.
What a great first impression, he thought glumly. Bus after bus passed him, and he tried to make himself look busy, tapping away at random apps on his phone and stubbornly refusing to remove his earbuds and ask for help from the streams of office workers and students disembarking at the stop. He still had a half hour. There was still time for the rain to end, for the sun to return and magically make him instantly dry. He still had half an hour. Lance shivered again, more bodily this time.
As precious minutes ticked by, Lance silently cursed his wardrobe choice once more, as well as his cheap taste in umbrellas that left him stranded with unprofessionally soaked-through clothes. Just as he ran a hand through his damp curls and resigned himself to a long walk in the rain, he heard the noise of a throat clearing behind him. Then, the pattering of rain on the sidewalk in front of him disappeared in an arc, growing louder above his head instead, where the boughs of a black umbrella stretched over him. Surprised, Lance turned around, following the line of the stranger’s fingerless-gloved hand, gripping the handle, up over their arm and finally to their face, framed by dark hair.
“Sorry,” said the stranger. “Are you going to the university?”
“Oh, uh, yeah,” Lance stammered dumbly. “You too?”
A small smile. “Yes. Would you like me to come with you?”
“Please. Um, yes, I mean. Thank you, for that.” He nodded up to the umbrella as they began to walk towards the main gate. “My umbrella kinda bit the dust this morning, so I was kind of… stuck.”
The stranger laughed a bit. Lance noticed a faint dimple in one of his cheeks, the way his eyes crinkled a bit at the corner as his lips turned up, and felt a tiny rush of warmth, despite the lack of sunlight.
“You looked lost. The school’s the only big thing at this stop, so I thought maybe you were stranded.”
“Yeah… thanks, again. I’d be late if it weren’t for you, dude.”
The stranger waved a hand dismissively. “It’s okay, I was coming here, too.” As they passed through the gate together, Lance reminded himself to give a little bow to the security officers, following the stranger’s lead. Before their conversation could continue, they found themselves beneath a large awning jutting off of a building, and the stranger shook his umbrella before closing it. He turned back to Lance. “Is today your first day?”
Lance chuckled dryly. “I stick out that much, huh?”
“No, no,” the barest hint of a flush snuck up over the stranger’s face. “It’s a small campus, is all, and I haven’t… seen you around before.”
“It’s alright, dude, I’m messing with you. “I’m new, yeah. I came for a US exchange to help teach English here for a month.”
“Oh,” his face brightened a bit. “Are you teaching with Professor Nagano today?”
“Are you some sort of psychic?” Lance grinned, reaching for the door to hold it for his companion. “That’s the class I was almost late for.”
“Me too! I mean--I’m the Teacher’s Aide, so I mostly take attendance, but… that’s something I can do pretty fast. But, teaching--you must be excited, huh?”
“Excited is… yeah, I am, but also kinda nervous, I guess? I haven’t ever taught a college class before. Just like, really little kids.” Lance pressed the up button for the elevator.
“I’m sure you’ll do great,” the stranger said, and despite his anxiety, Lance found himself believing him.
The automated voice in the elevator chimed in to tell them they’d reached the third floor, and Lance dutifully followed behind. “I’m, uh. I’m Lance.”
“I know,” grinned the stranger, and there was that dimple again. Lance dragged his focus away from that long enough to process what he was saying. “Keith. That’s my name.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Keith.” Lance made a move to stick out a hand before thinking better of himself, and tilting his shoulders forward in a bow. Keith chuckled again at Lance’s awkward aborted motion, but followed suit.
“Nice to meet you too, Lance.”
Lance had enough time before the door opened to Professor Nagano’s classroom to remark that his name sounded good coming from Keith’s voice.
“So, we think you did well,” Keith began, setting his notebook down on the desk in front of Lance. Notes, a mixture of Japanese and English, filled the margins alongside Lance’s partial lesson plans. “Maybe next week, more pair work with the students would be good.”
“I kinda got the sense they liked that part best, yeah,” Lance agreed, nodding attentively and trying to subtly decipher some of Keith’s scratchy handwriting. Seemingly sensing this, Keith’s fingers moved--still glove-clad, Lance noticed--to flip the notebook around for Lance’s convenience. They trailed across certain words as he continued to detail his thoughts on Lance’s teaching style. Lance was… mostly paying attention.
“Sound good?”
Okay, maybe not paying as much attention as he should have been. Lance shook himself out of his mini-trance, and nodded again, flashing Keith a smile and scribbling something into his own notes. “So… More group work next time, and having them summarize the passage in their own English, right?”
“Exactly. If you have any other activities you want to lead, you can send Professor Nagano an email, too,” Keith continued, flipping through pages until reaching a blank one. “Here--this is her email and office number,” he explained while writing carefully, neatly. “And this is my email, in case you can’t reach her.” Lance accepted the scrap of paper as if receiving precious information. “So, I’ll see you next week, then?”
“Uh, yeah. Thanks, Keith, this will help a lot,” Lance gestured to his notes, the scrap of paper set carefully against the spineward side of the pages.
“No problem.”
It wasn’t until after Keith had gone all the way down the hallway and into an elevator that Lance recognized the long, black shape at the back of the class was Keith’s umbrella, left behind.
From: [email protected]
Subject: wasuremono
Hey, Keith,
This is Lance McClain from earlier today. I think you left your umbrella in Professor Nagano’s classroom? Do you need it back?
Lance
From: [email protected]
Subject: RE: wasuremono
Lance,
Whoa, thanks for letting me know. Tell you what, keep it for today so you can get home dry. I’ll come by one of your classes and get it tomorrow if there’s a time that works for you.
See you soon,
Keith
See you soon, Keith’s email repeated itself in Lance’s mind. Keep it for today so you can get home dry.
Lance clutched at the handle of the umbrella as he made his way across the street for his bus stop. He couldn’t help but wonder what Keith was going to do on the way home. He also couldn’t help but remember that tomorrow was meant to be his day off of teaching, but of course Keith wouldn’t know that.
So, Lance thought as he scanned numbers and scheduled stops on passing buses, it seemed his day off was going to be spent at school, after all. Not that he was complaining, of course.