To say that he was left-brained would be an understatement. He was composed of logic and deduction and little else; any time emotions became involved, he struggled to respond appropriately. It wasn't as if he was cold-hearted, no - he would gladly take a stray cat in out of the cold, or give up his seat on the train to someone less able, or offer an umbrella to a soaking, shivering schoolgirl. But these were things that invoked an automatic sense of sympathy and compassion, and had little to do with what he actually felt. If someone were to ask him what his relationship was with the girl who had taken the umbrella from him, he would have started and stammered and been thoroughly annoyed with himself.
Perhaps it helped, in this situation, that the schoolgirl was none other than Yuizaki Hiyono, and that Ayumu's relationship with her could be adequately described as "complicated."
On most rainy days, he walked her home (or at least offered), as she had a terribly unfortunate habit of forgetting her umbrella. But on this particular day, the timing had been all wrong: he'd fallen asleep in the Newspaper Club room as he waited for her, and she'd missed her stop by the room entirely, instead lingering around some of the other clubs trying to get the "scoop" on one thing or another. By the time she was finished, the school was nearly empty, and she'd (mistakenly) assumed that her brown-haired companion had grown sick of waiting and had walked home by himself... with his umbrella. So she'd taken a deep breath and started out in the pouring rain, hugging her bag to her chest and praying that her notes wouldn't get soaked. All she had to do was get home, and then she could call Ayumu and chastise him for leaving a poor, helpless schoolgirl out in the rain...
... but she never got the chance, because after barely two minutes out in the elements, a panting, half-soaked Narumi Ayumu appeared beside her and thrust his umbrella into her hands.
"Na - Narumi-san?"
"Hnnn..." He was too busy catching his breath to reply, so instead he simply looked at her incredulously. Who else?, his expression seemed to ask.
"N - no, that's not wh..." She realized she was replying to his facial expression and stopped herself. If she got into that habit, he might take that as an excuse to communicate only in glares and grunts. The lack of interaction would be enough to drive her completely insane. "I thought you had left already."
"No." He gulped down some air, still panting, leaning under the umbrella with his hands on his knees. "I was asleep."
"In the club room...?" She suddenly realized she hadn't checked there. "Oh... I forgot."
"You forgot?" Another incredulous look; Hiyono was beginning to feel a little sheepish. "Stupid girl," he muttered, and straightened himself out. His head bumped the top of the umbrella and he made a face, snatching it from her hands. She was too short to be holding an umbrella for both of them. "I always wait there."
"But it was la..." Her voice trailed off to nothing, then resumed in full force. "Did you run after me?"
"What does it look like?"
"But..."
"Hurry up, I want to go home." He started walking, and Hiyono was abruptly exposed to the downpour again. She gave a little yelp and hurried to squeeze beneath the umbrella, which was not really made for two people, shivering a little. "What were you thinking, doing that?" he continued to scold her. "You really are stupid."
Hiyono seemed unabashed by this remark. "But Narumi-san, why did you run after me? I would have been fine."
"You would have complained in the morning."
This was true, but why would she admit to it? She took any excuse for conversation that she could get with him, especially if it was one that would result in him offering a boxed lunch to make it up to her. Anything that ended with Narumi Ayumu's cooking was a good thing. "But," she said, getting to her point, "you didn't have to run."
Something seemed to click in Ayumu's head; he looked down at her, then looked away, then down at her again. "Because," he started, then seemed puzzled by his own only half-given response. "Hn," he muttered, almost resolutely, and stared straight ahead. "You're wet."
"So are you..." She cast a glance at the back of his uniform, which had been spattered with rain. "Considering how quickly you walk, Narumi-san, you would have caught up to me eventually, even if you didn't run. I'm sure you must have realized that."
He didn't reply. She bit down on her lip, wondering if she'd said too much. Maybe she was pressing the issue too hard. Even if it wasn't like him at all to do such a thing, to chase after her in the rain - to chase after her at all - maybe it was better just to let it go. If she was grateful (and she was), she didn't want to jinx any future events by questioning him so much that he resolved himself to never do anything nice for her again -
"Because I didn't want you to be cold."
"E - eh?"
He wasn't going to repeat himself, apparently, which was fine - she'd heard it all the same. "Narumi-san," she murmured, gently, and her cheeks flushed in spite of herself. "That's..." She hesitated on her word of choice. Oh, the hell with it - what was the worst he could do, glare at her and give her the silent treatment? Call her an idiot for the tenth time that day? "... sweet," she finished, and smiled. "Really."
If Hiyono had looked hard enough, she would have seen Narumi Ayumu blush for the first time in many years.