Today is actually such a nice day. With Autumn officially here, the wind is starting to become nice and cool, yet not so cold that I have to wear triple layers. There's also very few clouds in the sky, making it a rare chilly sunny morning. This is the kind of day that's perfect to spend just lying around and falling asleep till late in the afternoon.
Yep, I'd rather be doing exactly that right about now. So then, why am I running for the second time today?!
I take out my phone from inside my bag and look at the time. 8:02 AM. I still have time. The first class today is modern literature. Ms. Kuwabara almost always comes to class 5 minutes late, giving me 3 more minutes to run to the second school building, up the flight of stairs to the second floor, through the corridor, and into the classroom.
Then again, this might finally be the day a runaway pelican suddenly plummets from the sky, dropping right on top of me, killing me on the spot. One can only dream, I suppose.
Though if it were to happen, I hope the suicidal bird is accurate in its aim and not hit Kurebayashi, who is running behind me. As I make it past the connecting walkway between the main and secondary building, I get the sudden urge to look behind me and see if Kurebayashi is still there.
Sure enough, she's gradually falling more and more behind. Looks like she isn't the running type of person. There's not enough time to wait for her, nor is there any reason for me to do so. Yet for some reason, I start to slow down without even realizing it. Now, she's pretty much caught up to me.
Strange.
"Sugiyama-san, there is no need to wait for me. Please, go on ahead or you'll be late."
Looks like she also noticed that I slowed down quite a bit. Normally, I would take her saying that as absolute permission to leave her in the dust. Survival of the fittest, I say. Instead, I slow down even further till I'm practically doing a light jog just to match her speed completely.
"We're already late anyway, so there's no point in running at full speed. Besides, what's the difference between being 2 and 10 minutes late anyway?"
"That is a rather odd way of looking at our situation, but I can see your point."
After entering the secondary building, we both stop running and have now settled on walking the rest of the way.
It's strange.
When I decided to not run ahead and instead wait for her, I was expecting this exact scenario to happen. Both of us making our way up the stairs, walking through the hallway, and subtly entering our respective classrooms; everything is going as I thought it would. The only thing that didn't happen is a conversation. I was expecting her to strike up some small talk on the way. But no one talked. There wasn't even an attempt to do so, both from my end and hers. I'm used to awkward moments of silence, like elevator rides with someone you used to be classmates with but are not particularly close to. But this brief moment filled with silence I had with her was oddly pleasant.
I can't understand why I felt that way, nor why I'm still thinking about it even after opening the door to the classroom and terrifically failing to sneak my way to my desk. Even now as the teacher is tearing me a new one and ordering me to stand outside the hall as punishment, my mind is still stuck in that moment.
This is really strange.