Chapter Text
— April, 2015
For being one of the largest Universities in Sendai, one would think that the management would have the budget to build a sheltered pathway from the dorms to the main campus. Unfortunately, the management had used up all their budget on repainting the whole school and setting up various statues that no one really appreciated anyway.
This meant that Hitoka had, once again, found herself running under the rain to meet her girlfriend for their date. It was their first monthsary together but since they were both busy with projects, they decided to celebrate it on the weekend and meet up on the day itself for a quick lunch.
Hitoka’s professor had droned on longer than she expected him to. She barely had time to run back to her dorm, throw her humongous art folder onto her bed, get dressed into something cute, pack the cookies she left out on the counter to cool down and run off to the main campus.
In her haste, she didn’t think to pack an umbrella — mainly because it was supposed to be a sunny day. It wasn’t her fault that rain started pouring down five minutes into her speedy walk to the main campus.
“Kiyoko-san!”
Even with the heavy downpour, Hitoka saw Kiyoko’s eyes widen when she looked up at her phone and saw her small, blonde girlfriend running towards her in the rain. Kiyoko looked like she was about to run forward and shelter the younger woman but Hitoka reached the sheltered space before Kiyoko could even move.
“Hitoka-chan! Oh my gosh—!” Kiyoko dashed forward to throw her own scarf over Hitoka, gently patting the raindrops away from her face and neck. “You’re completely drenched!”
“You know,” Hitoka started while slipping off her cardigan since it made her clothes stick uncomfortably to her body. “If I had a hundred yen for every time I ran through the rain to meet you for a date because I was late, I’d have two hundred yen. Which isn’t much but it’s—”
“—weird that it happened twice.” Kiyoko finished Hitoka’s line with a chuckle and moved to pat down Hitoka’s arms next. “I can’t believe you’re soaked to the bone and still trying to quote American cartoon shows to me.”
“It’s a coping mechanism.”
“What are you coping from?”
“The embarrassment of being late and showing up like this…”
Hitoka started to blush and tried to hide it by tilting her head forward so that her hair would shelter her face from Kiyoko’s view. Unlucky for her, her hair was plastered onto her cheeks so Kiyoko saw it all. Even if Hitoka’s move had worked, Kiyoko could still see the red tips of Hitoka’s ear peeking through her hair.
“Don’t be embarrassed.” Kiyoko placed the scarf around Hitoka’s neck and started to gently brush the hair away from Hitoka’s face. “I think you look gorgeous. It was definitely worth the wait.”
With Kiyoko’s hand on her face, Hitoka couldn’t turn away and hide the way she heated up at the bold compliment. They were still in the very early stages of their relationship. While Kiyoko seemed to have flawlessly settled into the role of Hitoka’s girlfriend, Hitoka herself was still in the phase of pinching herself every few minutes to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Unable to come up with something to say, Hitoka gaped like a fish and made stuttering sounds like she was trying to speak.
“Cute.” Kiyoko leaned down to kiss Hitoka’s exposed forehead before taking her girlfriend’s hand and leading them to the campus bookstore. “C’mon. Let’s get you another outfit.”
Poor Hitoka was tripping at almost every step of the way. If her strong girlfriend didn’t have such a good grip on her, she would have fallen flat immediately. Thankfully, Hitoka’s brain was quick to boot up and she caught herself before she nearly tripped for the seventh time.
Before they entered the store to buy Hitoka a pair of Sendai University branded clothes, Hitoka remembered something and stopped in her tracks.
“Wait!”
Reaching for her bag, Hitoka pulled out a small container filled with oatmeal cookies and offered them to Kiyoko with a bow. “These are for you!”
“Oh! I almost forgot,” Kiyoko exclaimed, quickly pulling something out of her tote bag and passing it to Hitoka. “And these are for you.”
Hitoka smiled as she received the small bouquet while Kiyoko carefully took the cookies. Exchanging flowers and cookies have become a date routine for them as it was a nod to their first date. With it being their monthsary, Hitoka baked a batch of Kiyoko’s favourite cookies and Kiyoko wrapped a small bouquet.
“Now we’re officially re-creating our first date down to the fine details, huh?”
“Oh God, don’t remind me.” Hitoka grimaced. “I was so embarrassing.”
“You were endearing.”
“Embarrassing.”
— March, 2015
Yachi didn’t think she could ever show her face at her new school. She hadn’t even begun her first day yet and she had already humiliated herself three different times.
The first time was when she went to the financial aid office to talk about her scholarship and proceeded to walk into the glass door in front of a dozen other students. The second time was when she decided to check out her dorm room and accidentally walked into the wrong unit — which would have been perfectly fine if the occupants of the room were not making out. Unfortunately, her luck had been running low that day.
And now, she was running across the quad and under the heavy rain. She was soaked to the bone . Honestly, she felt like she was able to attain her daily water intake solely through skin absorption alone. It was a little frustrating because she spent the whole morning picking out a cute outfit to wear that day.
Yachi did not care too much about what she wore on most days. Perhaps it was a habit she developed from hanging out with her old volleyball team outside of school — most of whom had no sense of fashion whatsoever — but she often just plucked out a random item from her closet.
Except, this time, Yachi was supposed to be meeting up with Shimizu. She had been around the older woman outside of practice and competitions before, but even those hangouts were with their fellow teammates. This was the first time Yachi was going to meet Shimizu alone . She wanted to make a good impression but she was starting to believe that the universe was against her.
Finally, she spotted her
crush
upperclassman sitting by a statue and reading a book. While Yachi was still running through the rain, she called out to the other woman, “Shimizu-san!”
“Hitoka-chan, I thought I told you to call me—” Shimizu began with a smile but her face quickly morphed into shock when she looked up and realised the state Yachi was in. “Oh my god!”
Yachi watched in horror as Shimizu quickly put her book down and ran towards her; away from the shelter. ‘ Oh no, she’s too beautiful to be in the rain, ’ Yachi’s mind unhelpfully yelled out.
Once Shimizu reached Yachi, she quickly slid her coat off and threw it over Yachi’s head. Shimizu used the sleeves to tie a knot and secure it before putting her hand on the small of Yachi’s back and begin ushering her to shelter. Yachi tried her best to scream out in sapphic panic.
Once they were out of the rain. Yachi took a moment to collect herself before carefully taking the coat off her and inspected Shimizu for a moment. Thankfully Shimizu herself was not drenched too badly.
Yachi, on the other hand, felt like she had become one with the rain.
“Hi…” Yachi reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear as a nervous habit but realised there wasn’t much to tuck since her hair was plastered all over her face.
With the coat off, both Yachi and Shimizu realised that they were standing a lot closer than they had ever been. Both women started to turn pink but made no move to step back. As a way to diffuse the funny tension in the air, Yachi raised up the bag she had been holding so tightly to avoid rainwater getting in it.
“I made you cookies!” Yachi opened it up to show Shimizu the chocolate chip cookies sealed in a container. “I wanted to thank you for showing me around my new school but you said I’m not allowed to treat you to a meal until I get my first job — but I really wanted to do something for you so I had the idea to bake you something! I thought I could get it done in time but I underestimated how long it would take for me to finish it up and come all the way here so it’s a ‘thank you’ and an ‘I’m sorry’ cookie… I rambled again! I’m so sorry!”
Terror set in Yachi’s eyes as she realised she had been rambling with her face less than six inches away from Shimizu’s. Before she could dig her grave any further, Shimizu giggled and gratefully accepted Yachi’s gift.
“Thank you, Hitoka-chan. I’ll be sure to enjoy them after dinner.”
With a small smile, Shimizu unwrapped the scarf around her neck and used the ends to dry off Yachi’s face. To no one’s surprise, Yachi felt all the blood rush to her face and it took everything in her to remain standing. Thankfully Shimizu ignored how red Yachi was and simply wrapped the scarf around Yachi once she finished what she was doing.
Yachi reached up to feel the scarf around her neck. It was soft but not because it was made to be soft — it was soft like clothes that had been worn for years. It was almost embarrassing how long it took for Yachi to realise that it was the scarf Shimizu had been using since her first year at Karasuno.
“Your skin is so cold, Hitoka-chan.”
Oh, Yachi would beg to differ . She felt absolutely nothing but heat all over her body and she would really appreciate it if Shimizu could either step back or kiss her—
“We should drop by the bookstore and get you something new to wear.”
Shimizu interrupted Yachi’s inner monologue before walking a few steps and picking up her things. Yachi took that moment to cool down from the intense lesbian panic she was experiencing. She barely registered Shimizu guiding her towards the school bookshop and leaving Yachi by the heater as she riffled through the sweatshirts.
“Here,” Shimizu spoke in a voice so sweet that Yachi’s lesbian panic came back, “these should be in your size. I’ve already paid for them and the lady behind the counter said that you can use the employee’s bathroom here to get changed since the nearest student bathroom is far away.”
With shaky hands — from her waterlogged clothes or her internal state of emergency, Yachi couldn’t tell — Yachi took the bag from Shimizu. Her hands were shaking so violently that her fingers brushed up against the other woman.
“I’m sorry!” Yachi yelled out as she bowed in apology. That only made her blush even harder and set a course for escape. “Thank you! I’ll get dressed really fast!”
Faster than any runner Shimizu had ever seen on the track, Yachi dashed for the employee bathroom and shut the door behind her before Shimizu could even say a word.
Honestly, it was extremely endearing. Yachi had gained a lot of confidence in the last three years but Shimizu couldn’t help but feel enamoured whenever Yachi’s awkwardness pops up. She wasn’t dense either; she knew Yachi tended to be more awkward and shy around her. It was one of the many reasons she found herself gravitating to Yachi over the years. Not because Yachi had an obvious crush on her, but because Shimizu found her cute .
Deciding to wait outside the bookstore, Shimizu walked out and stood by a flower bush that was near the door. As she did so, she noticed that there were some flowers that were laying on the grass by the bush. The area they were in was sheltered, which meant that the bush was not wet. Shimizu figured that the management must have gotten someone to trim the flower bushes that day.
Reaching down, Shimizu picked up the prettiest looking flower. She wasn’t familiar with various types of flowers but she felt like the purple would look very pretty on Yachi’s blonde hair.
“I’m back!”
Shimizu turned around to see Yachi bent forward with her hands on her knees and panting. It was criminal how cute she looked in their school’s grey sweats and a worn-out red scarf.
“Does it fit well?”
“Yes! It does!” Yachi straightened up to thank Shimizu one more time but paused when she saw what Shimizu had been holding. “What’s that?”
“Oh? This is for you.” Shimizu stepped forward, slid the flower above Yachi’s ear and secured it in place. “It’s a ‘thank you’ for the cookies.”
“O—Oh!”
As Shimizu stepped back, she smiled to herself as she noted that the purple flower looked really great snuggled in between Yachi’s blonde hair and red-tinted ears. Purple was a beautiful colour on Yachi and Shimizu began to wonder what other colours would compliment the shorter woman even better.
Glancing down at the clothes Yachi was wearing and Shimizu’s own scarf around Yachi’s neck, Shimizu deduced that she may be biassed since it seemed like every colour looked wonderful on Yachi.