In the midst of a bustling life, some unexpected things always arrive quietly.
They are like pearls hidden in the long river of time, sparkling with brilliant light at unexpected moments, adding a unique color to ordinary days.
Perhaps it's on a normal morning, opening the window, and the fresh air, carrying a faint floral scent, wafts in.
Or perhaps after school, a sudden summer downpour, thick with a stuffy atmosphere.
The rain falls, pattering, blurring vision and thoughts alike.
Sasuke stood under the eaves of the school building, his gaze hollow as he stared at the rain curtain.
Beside him were other children, equally anxious, waiting.
As one by one, figures were picked up by their parents, Sasuke merely looked up indifferently at the gloomy sky.
His ears were filled with the chaotic sound of rain, intensifying his sense of loneliness.
He frowned, praying that this oppressive, hot downpour would stop soon.
The surrounding emptiness made the sound of rain even clearer, and in Sasuke's peripheral vision, he suddenly noticed a familiar figure at the other end of the eaves, also staring ahead with a similar sense of desolation.
The other person seemed to sense his gaze and looked over.
Their eyes met without warning, and both froze for a moment, then turned their heads away.
Naruto pouted, looking like he refused to talk, and Sasuke also frowned, unwilling to look at him again.
Between them, separated by the school's main door, the distance seemed as close as a few steps, yet as far as the Milky Way.
For the first time, the phrase 'empathy' was validated between them.
Just as this emotion made them both uncomfortable, a clear voice broke the dull atmosphere.
"Naruto? Sasuke?"
Having just finished her cleaning duties, Chizhao thought she was the only one left at school, but when she came out, she saw two familiar figures.
Looking at the pouring rain, she roughly guessed what had happened.
"Chizhao?....." Naruto's eyes lit up with surprise when he saw Chizhao.
"Why are you still here so late?"
"Because it was my day for cleaning, but you two, did neither of you bring an umbrella?"
The two, whose secret had been revealed, were speechless. Sasuke, not wanting to be lumped in with the 'idiot Naruto', turned to Chizhao, looking as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"I was specifically waiting for you to leave school together; as for that guy, I don't know."
Naruto was furious, gritting his teeth as he glared at the smug Sasuke, surprised at how cunning he was!
He sprang in front of Chizhao, his cerulean eyes revealing urgency:
"Me too! Me too! I was also waiting for Chizhao!"
Unexpectedly, Naruto was so thick-skinned. Sasuke snorted, and several fierce sparks flew as their gazes clashed.
If she didn't know that neither of them had a habit of carrying an umbrella, Chizhao almost would have believed their nonsense.
She sighed helplessly and opened the umbrella in her hand.
It was neither too big nor too small; it would be just right for two, but a tight squeeze for three.
"But my umbrella isn't big enough for three people....."
Naruto, however, unceremoniously squeezed in from the left: "Perfect, it's enough to cover the two of us!"
Clearly, Naruto hadn't included Sasuke.
The displeased Sasuke suddenly exerted force, moving Chizhao's hand holding the umbrella handle to the right, exposing half of Naruto's shoulder from the umbrella's shadow.
"Yes, it's enough to cover the two of us."
That hateful Sasuke!
The two simultaneously gripped the umbrella handle, vying with each other, unwilling to give in, and Chizhao, caught in the middle, felt utterly overwhelmed.
"Stop!!!"
"If you keep fighting, no one gets to use it!!"
After Chizhao's loud reprimand, the two finally stopped their actions.
But their mutual animosity had not dissipated.
"How about this," Chizhao suggested, "I'll hold the umbrella in the middle, and you two try to squeeze in as much as possible."
After allocating space, Naruto on the left leaned further against Chizhao's shoulder.
His little face flushed, he lightly inhaled Chizhao's unique subtle scent, his bright face grinning:
"Got it! I'll stick close to Chizhao!"
Sasuke on the right rolled his eyes at Naruto, lowered his crossed arms, and cautiously moved a little closer to Chizhao:
The faint, familiar scent reaching his nose involuntarily reminded him of the day he let out his emotions, and his earlobes subtly warmed up.
"No choice, this is the only way....."
Feeling the warmth from both sides, the heavy rain in front of them seemed like a huge challenge, making Chizhao serious.
"Alright! Let's go!"
The three stepped into the rain curtain. The raindrops hitting the umbrella made a chaotic yet unusually cheerful sound.
On their shoulders, exposed on the left and right sides, more or less got wet from the raindrops, but the two boys didn't mind.
Instead, they leaned even closer to the girl in the middle, feeling the warmth radiating between their bodies.
The three continued in this tacit agreement for a while when Naruto suddenly noticed that Sasuke had actually grabbed Chizhao's wrist, and he immediately yelled:
"Sasuke, that's a foul! We agreed not to touch the umbrella!"
Disturbed by Naruto's loud voice, Chizhao leaned back to avoid his secondary sound wave attack.
This also created space for their argument.
"Huh? You big idiot, look closely, I didn't touch the umbrella handle. I just thought she was too tired holding it alone, so I was helping!"
Naruto blinked in surprise, not expecting Sasuke to notice such a detail.
"I didn't realize you were so observant...."
"Don't think of me as being as insensitive as you."
Listening to their argument, Chizhao frowned, stopping Naruto who was about to start up again.
"Stop arguing for now, it's raining so heavily, we need to get back quickly. Both your shoulders are almost soaked."
Sasuke shrugged indifferently, thinking it was a trivial matter.
But Naruto slyly leaned further in, and the umbrella inadvertently tilted a few more degrees towards him.
A "well" mark appeared on Sasuke's forehead, and he looked at him without stopping his steps.
"Hey! You're too close."
Naruto raised his cerulean pupils, looking back with a hint of provocation:
"Yes, so what?"
Annoyed by his thick skin, Sasuke reached out to pull the umbrella a little closer.
"Hey! Wait....."
A gust of wind mixed with rain blew directly at them, and Chizhao's umbrella, not held firmly, slipped from her hand.
Cold raindrops immediately drenched the three of them from head to toe.
"The umbrella!!"
Watching the only umbrella float away from them in the air, Chizhao couldn't tell if the liquid on her face was rainwater or tears.
"It's all Sasuke's fault! Why did he have to grab the umbrella!"
"It's because you pulled the umbrella too close to your side!"
Even though they were completely soaked, the two continued to blame each other.
A surge of anger rose in Chizhao's heart. She clenched her hands into fists and gave both of them a sharp rap on the head.
"You two, that's enough!!!"
【Bad Deed Progress +6】
The gloomy sky was like a heavy grey curtain, weighing down on the earth, making it hard to breathe.
Raindrops beat against the ground like a dense drumroll, splashing countless glistening water droplets.
And the rainwater under the eaves poured down like an endless transparent beaded curtain, forming a spectacular water screen.
The two boys, each with a noticeable bump on their heads, sat with a girl in the middle, all three staring blankly at the seemingly endless downpour.
Chizhao, not expecting things to turn out this way, hugged her knees and sighed, rainwater from her bangs constantly dripping to the ground.
She wondered how long this heavy rain would last.
Naruto wiped the rain from his face, and seeing the soaked girl beside him, his heart was filled with guilt.
"Sorry, Chizhao, it's all my fault for insisting on squeezing under one umbrella with you, making you get wet too....."
Sasuke, equally apologetic, rubbed the large bump on his head, gazing at the rain curtain, his voice low:
"Me too..... Sorry."
Chizhao was truly on the verge of tears, secretly vowing to stuff 10 umbrellas into each of their backpacks!
"You two have to treat me to something delicious, otherwise, I won't forgive you......"
Hearing Chizhao's tearful request, Naruto patted his soaked chest.
A few raindrops slid from his golden hair, and his cerulean eyes, reflecting the misty rain, looked damp.
"Then I'll treat you to ramen! As much as you want!"
The expected ramen made Sasuke scoff.
He propped his cheek with his right hand, his black hair clinging to his ear, and his usually placid black eyes softened a bit at this moment.
"Anything you want to eat besides ramen is fine."
Naruto looked at Sasuke's smug expression, his back teeth grinding.
Why was this guy so annoying?
"Well, thank you two for that....."
A slight breeze blew, and the three of them shivered in unison.
This summer breeze carried a biting chill.
They huddled close together, trying to dispel the cold with each other's body heat.
For a moment, the only sound in the world was the pattering of raindrops.
Suddenly, a "creak."
The door next to the three of them opened without warning, and a white figure darted in front of Chizhao, wagging its tail frantically.
"Akamaru? What are you doing here?"
Immediately after, a familiar voice came:
"Huh? You three..... why are you squatting in front of my house....."
The three simultaneously looked towards the source of the voice, seeing a boy with red inverted triangles on his cheeks and a wild look in his eyes standing by the door.
Aside from the two stunned boys, Chizhao was the first to call out his name: "Inuzuka Kiba?"