Chapter 30 After getting caught in the rain

The originally bright sky suddenly started to drizzle, and Tokyo occasionally has a few days of uncertainty in late spring.

If he were at home, Naoki Natsume could still enjoy the ripples of rain falling on the Kanda River and the cherry blossoms floating on the river.

But there are few trees in the streets and alleys of Shibuya. At first glance, they look like spilled colored ink. Under the light gray sky, even the color tone is darker.

Except for those low pedestrian streets, looking through the glass at the tall buildings in the distance is as magical as twisting a Rubik's Cube.

Sitting in a Thai restaurant on the second floor of Dogenzaka Street, Natsume Naoki looked at the street scene outside the window, his eyes slowly narrowed, and finally focused on the rain streaks sliding down the glass.

This is the Thai restaurant he recommended to Asai Mao. It’s a five-minute walk from Shibuya Station on the Yamanote Line. The store is easy to find.

"I have already told the chef. They are easy to talk to and have a good attitude. Natsume-kun, don't forget to remind me to get our ingredients before leaving."

Asai Mao's words drew Natsume Naoki's attention back to the store. The interior decoration was very elegant, with white walls and wood carvings.

The white walls are like pieces of white paper, and the oil paintings hanging on them are like children's graffiti.

Asai Mao held her hands in mid-air and swayed them gracefully to make the last bit of water stains left after wiping them dry evaporate faster.

Washing hands before meals is a good habit that the maid requires the Natsume family to follow.

Natsume Naoki smiled when he heard this: "I know, when Kitahara was working here, I often came here to eat, and the service was very good."

Just as he was talking, as Asai Mao took his seat, a waiter next to him brought the menu and introduced the special dishes to the two of them in an authentic Kanto accent.

Natsume Naoki waited quietly for him to finish, just glanced at the menu and said: "I want a Thai pork knuckle rice, what about you?"

Asai Mao didn't even look at it. She took out a tissue and wiped her hands gracefully: "Just like you."

What she eats doesn't seem to matter to her, which makes Natsume Naoki slightly surprised.

It seems... it’s different from what I thought?

Didn't Asai just relax as he pleased because he was under too much pressure?

"Okay then," he said to the waiter: "Two Thai pork knuckle rice, one is slightly spicy and one is not spicy."

Asai Mao looked up at him, and Natsume Naoki smiled back.

All the meals Mao Asai cooks at home are made according to his preferences. For example, although he can't eat spicy food, he can't eat without ordering spicy food to appetize him. This aspect is a perfect inheritance from his previous life's eating habits.

As an authentic Japanese, Asai Mao's eating habits are somewhat like Natsume's parents in rural Hokkaido, who rarely eat spicy food.

Even if the food she usually cooks for Natsume is spicy, she will prepare a small bowl filled with water.

When I was a child in Hokkaido, my mother also looked like this when eating, so Natsume Naoki thought maybe all Japanese people were like this.

She saw all this, so he ordered a non-spicy one.

"Isn't there anything you like on the menu?" Natsume asked.

He still felt that something was not right about Asai Mao today. When he went out, he claimed that it was not work and asked that dinner be cooked according to his own preferences...

He thought Asai Mao was under too much pressure at work and needed to vent, so he wanted to take her out for a walk and let her choose the food she liked.

Asai Mao shook his head: "I didn't read the menu."

After saying that, she turned to look at the rainy scenery outside the window. People were rushing on the street. There was a man and woman without umbrellas. The boy put his coat on the girl's head, and the two of them were running in the rain.

Natsume Naoki looked at her profile, and suddenly felt that this girl was so mysterious that he had been with her day and night for 28 days, but he had not yet seen through her heart, and he had no way of knowing her past.

It turns out that he doesn’t understand her at all, Natsume Naoki thought to himself.

There seemed to be light in Asai Mao's eyes. She lowered her eyebrows and looked at the couple. Under their wet coats, the two people were smiling happily even though they were soaked by the rain.

The couples on the street were just passers-by. She quickly lost interest and started looking at the shops on the street.

The woman leaned against the door and looked at the sky, complaining to the owner of the store next door that there were no customers. The owner of the store next door crossed his arms on his chest and said with a bold smile that it didn't matter, it was always going to rain.

Soon the pig's trotter rice was served, and the two of them ate in silence, acting as naturally as at home.

In the eyes of the waiter, they look like an old married couple, with a perfect tacit understanding even if they don't speak -

The boy lowered his head to take a mouthful of rice and when he raised his head, the girl had already pushed the tissue box in front of him. The girl wanted to drink water, but the boy had warmed the hot water in advance.

"I'm going to the bathroom."

After finishing her meal, Asai Mao wiped her mouth gracefully with a napkin, then got up and went to the women's restroom.

The elegant decoration in the store also includes the toilets, which are clean and bright, and even have several sinks.

Asai Mao washed her hands, looked up at herself in the mirror, and suddenly bent over uncontrollably, then covered her nose with her hands and coughed a few times.

After coughing, she frowned slightly, used her white hands to lift her blue hair to expose her forehead, and then put the back of her hands against it.

Although the water was very cold and the washed hands were also cold, Asai Mao still knew that her forehead was a little hot just now.

What followed was a strange feeling in my body.

Asai Mao gently clenched her fist in front of the mirror, feeling the muscles of her arm causing her fingers to contract and stretch, feeling the slight pain beginning to spread in the seams of her bones, and murmured softly: "Is this... the feeling of a cold?"

Asai Mao carefully recalled in her mind the feeling of weakness caused by a cold, and found that she could only find memories from before the age of six, and there was no way to compare them.

"Have you not been sick in twelve years?"

Then she realized something more unusual than not being sick for twelve years - since she hadn't been sick for twelve years, why did she suddenly catch a cold again?

And it was probably because it suddenly rained on the road just now. After being exposed to the rain for a while, she quickly caught a cold and felt physically uncomfortable?

……………………

Natsume Naoki originally planned to go shopping in Shibuya with Asai after dinner, so it was a rare opportunity for him to take a half-day off.

But because the spring rain came suddenly, the two of them had no choice but to return home in disinterest.

He was writing at his desk in his study room, and studying had become the norm.

The sound of raindrops outside the window combined with the unique earthy smell of rainy days diluted the bitterness of the Chinese medicine in the room, making his thoughts a little more sad like a cherry blossom spring.

"Even the evening classes have been cancelled."

The screen of the mobile phone is open and placed on the table. The bright white light in the slightly dim room tells the email from the professor——

[Due to weather reasons, "Advanced Mathematics III" in the evening will be changed to online teaching, gesture sign-in will be carried out, and attendance will be included in the final score.]

After all, online classes are not as efficient as offline classes.

If other people suddenly learned that the class had been changed, they would be very happy, but Natsume Naoki would not... He had already played all morning, and he had never indulged himself for a whole day in more than ten years.

There was a delicate fragrance coming from outside the door, and Asai Mao was preparing for the evening meal.

In his previous life, Natsume Naoki loved to watch a food program called "Night Food". The heartwarming editing and beautiful atmosphere were the life he once longed for...and of course, Lao Dao's craftsmanship.

Suddenly, his head felt stinging, and some memory fragments flashed in Natsume Naoki's mind.

It seems that... when he was a child, he told someone a similar ideal, but he can no longer remember it.

Suddenly, Natsume Naoki discovered that Asai Mao's skills were not inferior to those of Lao Dao. The maid claimed that her superb cooking skills were due to hard special training and were for work needs.

But he felt that the current life he lived with the maid was different from the life he longed for in his previous life. The only thing missing was the camera submerged in the water and the cats and dogs running in the backyard.

Um……

When I feel better in the future, I’ll ask Asai if he wants to get a cat!

After calming down, apart from the sound of rain outside the window, the sizzling stew in the kitchen seemed to become clearer.

In this warm, drizzly evening, after Natsume Naoki studied for another hour and a half with the swaying cherry blossoms outside the window, Asai Mao's call came from downstairs.

"Natsume-kun, come down for dinner."
Chapter completed!