Under One Umbrella

Wong Ha Jung

Wong Ha Jung liked thunderstorms. Some of them, anyways. He found that the most beautiful ones occurred earlier on in the afternoon while the more straight forward ones happened at night. The latter were surprisingly boring much of the time but he supposed that it just wasn't possible for every storm to show lots of lightning. Oh, well. People were safer if the storms were dull anyways.

Today, it was a decent kind of storm, Wong Ha Jung decided. Kind of grey, but not too overly dark. There was a little bit of thunder and a few sparks of lightning. So far, however, they weren't frequent events. He heard that there would be a cold front passing through, though, so that promised more severe weather. I hope that the worst of it comes after all of the students are already inside, he worried.

There weren't many people in the courtyard at that time and the rain was starting to drop in sheets. At least it wasn't blowing too hard yet. Horizontal rain was just the worst. For now, his umbrella would keep him mostly dry, although he couldn't say the same for his socks or the hems of his pants. The was splashing against his bag, too, but that was waterproof at least. He should have fixed the straps before he left, though. One of them had twisted on his shoulder in a way that he had problems fixing one-handedly. Just a minor annoyance, nothing major.

As he entered the central part of the courtyard, a spot of red caught his eye. Since he wasn't wearing glasses that day -he didn't want the rain to blind him if it was windy- he had to squint to make out the shape huddled under one of the balconies. Is that Lydia? The color looked about right.

In any case, the person looked like they were stranded in that spot and the rain certainly wasn't going to be letting up any time soon. Wong Ha Jung started over in that direction.

Wong Ha Jung

He winced a little at the sound. At least now I know for that's Lydia, he thought brightly. It was always kind of embarrassing in those first few moments of seeing somebody without being able to completely recognize their blur. He really should try to wear his glasses more often but sometimes it just... slipped his mind. And most of the time when he was younger, off of his face. The amount of money his parents spent trying to replace broken glasses was appallingly high in comparison to their incomes. As for contacts, he preferred not to be poking things into his eyes.

At Lydia's frantic waving, he began to walk faster. But carefully. As the mud squished under his shoes, he couldn't help but think that it would be really horrible if he were to go and trip over something. Since his schooldays, he had always seemed to have a habit of doing embarrassing things like that whenever other people were around to see. He had largely graduated from those incidences by high school -another reason why he found himself liking America more than Hong Kong- but the worry never went away.

As he joined the riding instructor under the balcony, he could see that Lydia was soaking wet, hair and clothes plastered to her body. “Could you do me a real big favor?" She shivered a little as she made her request.

"Oh! Of course." He held his umbrella more out to the side to let her under. He would probably get wet but he didn't mind it too much. Wong Ha Jung liked that sort of thing. It was just terribly unprofessional.

Ah... An idea came to mind and for a few moments, he eyed Lydia in hesitation. "Uh, wait a moment."

Again, he knew that he was going to get wet anyways. For now, though, his blazer was still dry and Lydia was obviously cold. He slipped out of it awkwardly, working with one hand fumbling around the strap of his bag. When he had gotten it off, Wong Ha Jung offered it to her sheepishly. "You look like you need it more than I do," he said. "I don't mind the rain."

Wong Ha Jung

In hindsight, Wong Ha Jung really should have started worrying the moment that Lydia's face snapped from miserable to an Oh, I have a great idea so we're going to do this thing look. The problem with that, though, was that with his poor eyesight, it took just a little while to process. His reaction time also wasn't helped at all by the fact that his mind had essentially crashed to a halt the moment that Lydia had grabbed his hand. When she took off running, however, that was when the strange black hole in his thoughts disappeared in a burst of panic.

It had been something like seven years since Wong Ha Jung had been a relationship. So, not since college. He wasn't really sure why people called those undergraduate years the best years of their lives. For him, it was just that awkward muddling time which was partially good but mostly an embarrassment. What it taught him was that he should just give up looking at women -and men. There was that, too- and throw himself into work. It was just simpler that way, and it made his head spin less.

The point here, though, was that Lydia was nice, attractive woman and Wong Ha Jung was that clumsy guy who could recognize that she was. But he wouldn't do anything about it because he was sure that the moment he so much as toed that boundary between far away and shouting distance, he was going to seriously embarrass himself in some way. And right now, this had all the makings of an incident that he would probably be able to laugh at in about a week but until then, would make him blush something awful at the thought of it.

So therefore, it wasn't too much of a surprise to him when he felt his feet miss a step in a particularly deep puddle of mud. Expecting it still did nothing to prevent that quick jolt of fear that went through him. It did, however, give him enough of a warning to yank his hand out of Lydia's grasp before he brought her down with him.

Wong Ha Jung tripped straight into the mud. Well, this is familiar, he thought as he landed, resignation and mortification going hand in hand. There was a quiet cracking sound, which was probably from his glasses breaking in his breast pocket, and then lots of mud all over him.

Even though he was really tempted to just stay down there in the puddle -who knows? Maybe if I keep still long enough I can melt away?- he pulled himself out quickly, sitting up in dazed bewilderment and hastily trying to wipe the mud off his face. "Ah, s-sorry!" He wasn't quite sure what he was apologizing for but it seemed like the right thing to do at the moment and saved them both from an awkward silence.

"I'm fine," the man said with a nervous laugh, smiling with his eyes squeezed shut. He was pretty sure that his face was the same color as his hair at that point.

Wong Ha Jung

Oh no! Now Lydia thought it was her fault, which was completely incorrect and just... He really should have thought forward a little more, maybe said something about how clumsy he usually was. Ah, why hadn't I just done that? Wong Ha Jung wondered. Admittedly, he wasn't thinking so clearly right then because he was starting to get flashbacks to his schooldays all over the place and that, that was uncomfortable to say the least.

"No, no. I'm fine, thanks," Wong Ha Jung said, trying to reassure her. "This happens so often, you just -oh you have no idea. It's really not your fault so please don't think that it is." He wiped his hand off before taking hers with a grateful, immensely embarrassed smile.

After pulling himself up, the man attempted to get as much mud off of his clothes as possible. It was a decent distraction away from the mad blush that he knew was burning on his face at that point. So much for having outgrown things like this, right? He supposed that some things just never changed.

His bag was a little banged up but it would be fine and the grime was already sliding off of it. It probably take some time to get his clothes cleaned, though, and Wong Ha Jung wasn't really looking forward to spending the rest of the day like that. He might just go back to his apartment and change. Getting new glasses would have to come later, he supposed. His spares were still sitting back on the nightstand with his contacts. It probably wasn't a good idea to have left them both in the same place.

"Really, though," the counselor said, with a smile and not quite stuttering in his embarrassment. He was starting to ramble, though. "I should know better than to go out without glasses or contacts. I just can't see very clearly without them. Can't even tell one foot from the other sometimes." He laughed a little before swallowing. "I'm very sorry to have worried you."

Wong Ha Jung

So, so sometimes, there were these incidences when two equally embarrassed and or awkward people would just have a moment -multiple ones, definitely multiple ones- of shared clumsiness. He wasn't too sure how else to describe it but that truly seemed to be an accurate description of what was happening now, Wong Ha Jung thought. But Lydia really was being so nice about it that he couldn't help but be embarrassed all over again about everything.

He ducked his head at her offer, blushing because she was still holding his hand. It wasn't bad, it was actually kind of nice. But the times when the counselor would be used to that had kind of gone by a long time ago. Still, he probably wouldn't let go unless she did first because to do so otherwise seemed like it would be awfully awkward. And somewhat rude. A little of both. Once again, it wasn't anything bad. It just made his mind sputter a bit.

"I'm just really sorry, I mean -I didn't mean-" Now he was just babbling like an idiot, so he closed his mouth again. Probably turned more red, too, but that was just a guess. At a certain point, Wong Ha Jung supposed that it had to cap off.

He swallowed before smiling sheepishly and starting again. "So, um. How have you been, Lydia?" there was a nervous laugh in his voice.