Hunter walked at an unhurried pace, his shoulders squared and his hands shoved into his trouser pockets. He wore nothing but a white button-down shirt, without his school blazer.
Watching him, Jiyu almost wondered whether the rain was falling only over her head. She tilted her umbrella aside to check.
It was coming down even harder than before.
She shook her head.
‘Isn’t he cold?’
Hunter had been walking around in shirtsleeves since March, when daylight saving time began and the clocks moved forward an hour. But March in New York felt far more like the tail end of winter than the beginning of spring.
Even so, he stubbornly refused to wear anything over his shirt until daylight saving time ended and the clocks turned back in November. Only then would he grudgingly put on a blazer.
Lately, whenever he ran into her, Hunter complained that he felt hot.
“Why do I always get hot whenever I see you? It pisses me off.”
Meanwhile, Jiyu was always cold and shivering.
She pursed her lips and glared at the back of his head.
‘I’m not a heater. He even blames me for his body temperature.’
On top of that, Hunter never carried an umbrella, whether it rained or snowed. Back in lower school, she had occasionally seen him under one held by the nanny who came to pick him up. But ever since he had started commuting alone, she could not remember seeing him use one even once.
He would stroll casually through a drizzle, and if the rain threatened to become a downpour, he would sprint down Fifth Avenue at full speed, kicking up his own gust of wind.
Her mother would have been horrified at the thought of him catching a cold. Lauren either knew her son was as hardy as a wild animal or was determined to make him even more so, because she let Hunter do whatever he pleased.
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say she had simply given up.
No one could stop the Hamilton prince once he decided to be stubborn.
In any case, with his naturally high body temperature, he seemed perfectly comfortable wandering around in nothing but a shirt on a rainy day when it was only fifty-nine degrees Fahrenheit.
But today, Hunter—who normally covered ground with such long, rapid strides that no one could catch him—was moving unusually slowly. By now, he should have been two blocks ahead, his figure already shrinking into the distance.
Instead, he stopped obediently at the crosswalk and waited for the signal beneath the rain.
That was strange too.
Since when did the king of jaywalking wait for the light?
Just then, the raindrops grew heavier. The sound of them drumming against her umbrella took on an ominous weight.
“What should I do…”
Jiyu stopped a few steps behind Hunter and wrestled with indecision. For what had begun as a drizzle, the rain was now falling thickly, and his shirt was already half soaked, clinging to his shoulders.
It only grew heavier.
On a day like this, if you saw someone you knew standing at a crosswalk without an umbrella, getting drenched in the rain, simple human decency dictated that you offer to share yours.
‘But it’ll be so awkward…’
Before she could make up her mind, the light changed.
Hoping Hunter would hurry ahead as he usually did, Jiyu followed a short distance behind him. But he stopped again at the next crosswalk, still wearing the relaxed air of someone taking a leisurely stroll along a beach in midsummer.
By then, his sleeves and the entire back of his shirt were soaked through.
Jiyu glanced at the size of her umbrella. It was small, but still large enough for two.
Guilt prodded at her conscience like a bout of indigestion.
‘Ah. Forget it.’
Swallowing, she called out to Hunter in a voice so faint it was barely audible. If he failed to hear her and kept walking, she intended to use that as an excuse to keep the umbrella to herself all the way home.
“Hey… Hunter?”
Hunter turned toward her without the slightest hint of surprise, as though he had been waiting for her to call.
With an irritated motion, he swept back the wet hair plastered across his forehead. Drops of water fell from the darkened brown ends and landed on the collar of his shirt. Tiny, transparent beads clung to the lashes half veiling his deep Mediterranean-blue eyes.
He blinked, then wiped the rain from his face with his palm.
“What?”
Their eyes met.
“Um… it’s raining really hard. And since we live in the same building anyway, I thought… maybe you could share my umbrella? I don’t mean anything by it, so don’t feel obligated! I mean… it’s completely fine if you don’t want to.”
“……”
He stared down at her without a word.
After stumbling through the entire sentence, Jiyu lowered her gaze and let the umbrella dip slightly.
‘I shouldn’t have said anything. Even in this rain, he’ll probably snap that there’s no way he’d share an umbrella with a nobody like Ju Parker.’
She quickly shifted the handle to her other hand and hurried to make an excuse.
“I was only saying it casually, so don’t worry about it. Well, then, I’ll just… huh?”
In the next instant, Hunter closed the distance between them in a single stride, bent down, and ducked beneath the umbrella.
Startled, Jiyu sucked in a breath.
The scent of Central Park on a rainy day suddenly filled the cramped space beneath the canopy.
Hunter’s face was far too close.
Jiyu could only blink in confusion as he took the umbrella handle from her hand and raised it higher.
At that exact moment, a yellow cab sped around the corner and plunged its rear wheel into a dark puddle, sending a violent sheet of filthy water surging toward them.
“Gah!”
Hunter instantly tilted the umbrella sideways, blocking the muddy spray that rose as high as their waists.
In exchange, rain poured directly onto Jiyu’s head, drumming against her hair as she stood frozen, too startled to react.
Hunter released a relieved “phew,” only to assume an unmistakable expression of regret a second later. Slowly, he turned his head toward her.
Silence stretched between them as they faced one another.
Hunter quickly straightened the umbrella and cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Ahem. Better than muddy water, right?”
“……”
Jiyu wiped the rain streaming down her face with the sleeve of her cardigan and stared up at him.
Hunter gestured toward the crosswalk with his chin.
“The light changed.”
Only then did she look at the signal. The white walking figure had already changed to a flashing countdown beside a red hand.
Hunter angled the umbrella slightly toward her and gave her back a gentle push.
“Let’s go.”
They crossed the street side by side.
Hunter repeatedly took a long stride ahead, then hesitated and slowed. By the time they reached the middle of the block, however, he had adjusted his pace to match hers.
The forearm with which he held the umbrella occasionally brushed against her shoulder.
Her left shoulder protruded slightly beyond the edge of the canopy. Hunter appeared to have underestimated the breadth of his own shoulders, while a little extra space remained on her side.
Jiyu subtly tilted the umbrella handle toward him.
He immediately adjusted it back to its original angle.
Surprised, she glanced up at him.
She had always assumed he went through life like some animal swinging from monkey bars, guided entirely by instinct.
Apparently, he was beginning to resemble a civilized human being after all.
If nothing else, the Hamilton family had relentlessly drilled manners and etiquette into him from the moment he was old enough to understand words. It seemed those lessons were finally beginning to take effect, even on Hunter Hamilton.
As her mother always said, live long enough and you would eventually see everything.
After they had walked several blocks in silence, Jiyu suddenly asked,
“Why don’t you ever carry an umbrella?”
Hunter shrugged and answered with complete indifference.
“Dunno. Too much trouble.”
Of course.
Jiyu fell silent again.
The rain pounding against the umbrella was loud enough to drown out the rest of the city. Heavy clouds blanketed the sky, casting everything in a gloomy blue-gray haze. The red taillights of cars lined up along Fifth Avenue blurred through the rain and glowed with a dreamlike softness.
The downpour filled the awkward silence between them for another couple of blocks.
There was something Jiyu wanted to ask Hunter, but she could not decide how to bring it up.
‘Should I start with small talk?’
But she had never exchanged casual conversation with Hunter beyond what was strictly necessary.
She had no idea where to begin.
When she stole a glance at him from the corner of her eye, her stomach twisted for no apparent reason. Standing this close to him made her realize just how much he had grown lately.
Sensing her gaze, Hunter lowered his eyes toward her and tipped his chin to one side.
“What?”
“Huh?”
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
“I’m not. I wasn’t looking at you.”
Jiyu feigned innocence and quickly looked away.
“You were just staring at me like you had something to say.”
She stiffened inwardly.
How did he know?