The first raindrops began to fall, soft and hesitant, like tapping at a window. Matt looked up at the sky, already painted in shades of silver and blue, and smiled, not because of the rain, but because of what it meant.

Melanie was beside him, her hair already catching a few wayward drops, her arms wrapped around herself as the temperature dipped.

“I told you it might rain,” he said, reaching into his bag for the folded umbrella.

He was always the one to bring an umbrella like a grandma who’s always prepared.

“You also said it might not,” she teased, brushing her damp fringe from her forehead.

He laughed softly. “That was the gamble.”

With a smooth flick, the umbrella unfurled between them, a modest black canopy barely wide enough for one. But it was always enough. Somehow, she always found her way beneath it, her shoulder pressed to his, her warmth steady beside him.

He held it high, tilting it slightly toward her to shield her better. She moved closer. Closer than necessary, maybe, but not unwelcome. And then, as if the motion were as natural as breathing, he slid his hand through hers. Not forcefully. Just there, like it had always belonged.

He loved the coolness the rain brought, the way it washed over the world and left everything smelling like earth and possibility. But more than that, he loved how it gave him reason to be this near to her. No explanations needed. Just weather. Just timing. Just fate.

They walked slowly, letting the rain write its rhythm around them. Every drop was a note in a song they didn’t need words for. The world blurred in the periphery, people hurrying, cars hissing on wet pavement, but within their small circle, it felt quiet.

 Intimate.

Like a secret kept just between two hearts.

And then, as they reached a quiet corner, where trees bent low and the streetlights cast a warm glow through the mist, he stopped.

She looked up at him, her lashes wet, her eyes shining like reflections of the sky. “Why’d we stop?”

He hesitated, just a moment. Just long enough to feel the weight of everything unspoken.

“Because I’ve been wanting to do something,” he said, voice low, barely rising above the hush of the rain.

And then, gently, he shifted the umbrella. Tilted it not just to cover them, but to shield them, angled just enough to hide the view from passersby. As if the world didn’t deserve to see what was about to happen.

She watched him, her expression softening, her breath catching.

And then he leaned in.

The kiss was slow, deliberate. No rush. No fireworks. Just warmth. Just closeness. Just the quiet truth that they didn’t need the sun to burn brightly—sometimes, love blooms best in the rain.

Above them, the umbrella rustled under the weight of water. Around them, the world kept spinning. But under that small roof, in the cool whisper of a rainy afternoon, everything had stopped. The umbrella barely shielded them from the downpour, but it didn’t matter as his lips met hers, gentle and urgent all at once, as if the rain had made the moment more real, more theirs.

Everything was perfect.

"Under One Umbrella" — Part Two

Soft, slow, and full of meaning. Neither of them spoke right away. There was no need to. Some moments don’t require words. Some truths just settle in the space between two people, like warmth lingering on your lips long after the touch is gone.

He looked at her then, really looked. Her cheeks were faintly flushed, not from the cold but from something else, something warm and unspoken that hung between them. Her eyes were bright, soft with a vulnerability she usually kept hidden, and for a moment, he wondered if she felt it too,the quiet connection, the pull neither of them could deny. The air between them shifted, charged with the weight of what was unspoken, and he found himself reaching for her once more, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

 She blinked once, then twice, like waking from a dream.

“You just did that,” she whispered, not quite a question, more like an awestruck observation.

“I did,” he said. “And I’d do it again.”

There it was, that tiny flicker of a smile at the corner of her lips, the one she tried to hide but never quite could. She nudged him with her shoulder, a playful little nudge that betrayed how her heart was racing.

They began walking again, slower now, their steps unconsciously in sync, drawn closer by an invisible thread. Time seemed to stretch, each moment richer than the last, both wished the world would pause. Their fingers, once gently laced, now held tighter, no longer just a touch, but a quiet promise neither dared to speak aloud. The silence between them wasn’t empty; it pulsed with meaning, charged with a quiet electricity, like the air just before a song begins. It was the kind of silence that lingers when two hearts have found each other in the stillness, when something unspoken has settled between them—tender, new, and impossibly real.

As they turned into her street, the rain softened, a drizzle now, almost like a curtain falling after the final act. The sky began to lighten around the edges, the clouds breaking ever so slightly to let a bit of soft evening glow seep through.

They reached her gate, a small iron arch covered with sleepy vines and wet rosebuds. He stopped, turning toward her again. The umbrella lowered a little now, the urgency of rain replaced by the urgency of something more delicate—goodbye.

“Well…” she said, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve.

“Well?” he echoed, smiling.

“I liked today.”

"So did I," he said, his smile softening as his eyes lingered on her—like, in that moment, she was the only thing in the world he could see.

She laughed quietly, the sound like wind chimes in the rain.

He stepped back a little, but kept the umbrella tilted toward her until she was safely under her porch. Then he let it fold, water slipping down in a hush as he closed it with a flick.

She lingered by the door, watching him. Her expression unreadable—but her eyes? They were a storm of thoughts and feelings and unsaid things.

“Hey,” she called just as he turned to go.

He turned back.

“If it rains again tomorrow…” she started, then paused, her smile growing a little bolder, “…I’m not bringing an umbrella.”

He laughed, heart swelling. “I’d bring a tent if it meant being close to you.”

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling too brightly to hide how much that meant. “Just the umbrella. For now.”

He winked. “Deal.”

And with that, he walked away, into the wet, glistening street, umbrella swinging gently at his side, heart carrying the warmth of rain-kissed lips in the cool evening air.