Maze

31

The sun acted all high and mighty throughout the morning, but now, it chose to concede to the army of grumbling, dark clouds.

Exactly like what Adelynn had predicted.

It began with a series of soft taps—like gentle knocks to the door—as the first, small droplets appeared on the window. Seconds turned into minutes, and the pitter-patters grew more furious, mercilessly pounding against anything that it made contact with, as though their knocks went unanswered. Distant buildings slowly vanished in a bulky veil of fog, and trees tried their best to hold on whilst being run over by the wind.

People on the sidewalk frantically pulled their bags or hoodies on top of their heads and scrambled for the nearest shelter. While a myriad of umbrellas started opening up in the vicinity to block the incoming downpour, a few were prepared enough to wear on their raincoats and windbreakers.

Listening to the rain drumming in the background which drowned out both Aly and Adelynn's conversations, I rested my chin on my hand and closed my eyes. While so, a faraway memory decided to pay me a visit; that day was pouring heavily just like this one, but had always made me feel the full of the joys of spring.

***

"Man, when will the rain ever stop?!"

It was all Edward could complain as he placed his hand outside the shelter we were forced to run into, catching drops of water from the skies. Narrowing his eyes, he forcefully flung his basketball away and crossed his arms. "And they said it's gonna be sunny all day. Yeah, sure. Sunny indeed!"

I simply sat there and did nothing. As much as I wanted to say something, the words would not want to come out of my mouth. It was like something was choking them in.

"This sucks... I wanna hang out with you today so I can teach you how to play basketball." He slumped into the bench and sighed in defeat. "Oh well, it can't be helped."

"I-It's fine, really." Finally, I managed to squeeze my voice out and slid beside him, "I-I just wanna hang out with you..."

What in the world was I saying?

Thankfully, Edward didn't seem to hear me—perhaps because I was way too silent, and I was actually grateful for that. He then stood up and wandered restlessly around the shelter. "Gee, we can't even go out as well..."

Just as he was about to grumble, he stopped when he noticed a garden just beside the basket court; it had a bunch of plants with very wide leaves, probably almost as tall as us. He seemed to be on the same page as he immediately grinned at me—all of the sulking he did vanished in a heartbeat.

Before I could stop him, he was already stepping right into the rain. His hair flattened even with his beanie, and his hoodie darkened, but never was he bothered. He was more focused on snatching the stem of the leaf. He gritted his teeth as he tried yanking it out of the soil, and even as he stumbled backwards, he finally plucked it off.

He instantly strode back to me, completely drenched with water trickling all over his skin. Heck, his legs were shivering from the cold, but that never wiped off his wide smile.

"Let's use this as an umbrella! It's huge enough to fit us in," Edward suggested, his blue eyes sparkling with might as he lent me the giant plant. I firstly looked at it up and down as my fingers fiddled against each other, however, I found myself taking it from him. Then almost as quickly as he came, he ran to the garden.

Well, he was not wrong; the plant itself was so gigantic, it completely covered me. It was kind of flimsy, but at least for a short while, it could shield us from the rain. That was actually so smart of him.