[1.1] The Dream Rooftop Date

What exactly is the perfect "Dream Date"?

There were no doubt many different ways to answer that question, but it was not one that Kasuga Teru ever thought about too much.

The prospects of dating never crossed his mind until high school, and those three years went and gone in a flash without coming across that special someone.

But here he was, seated in his old classroom, prepared to see someone for a date of his own.

Teru got up from his sun-kissed desk by the windowsill to make his way towards the door. He paused a bit when some of the students turned in his direction, but the teacher, buried in his blackboard, paid him no heed in favor of his lecture.

Or was it homeroom? They could've also been discussing test results. Either way, it didn't matter. And as the other students turned back to focus, so did his remaining care.

There was not a soul in the hallway, nor between the stairs to stop him as he made his way to the roof. The closest thing there was to company was the warm rays of light coming through the windows. A preview of the weather through the baseball field across from him on the ground floor.

Clear weather, comfortable warmth, and a promise of a beautiful skyline to enjoy the fleeting time of youth with a special someone.

This was the perfect weather for a rooftop date at school.

"Teru!" A jubilant voice waved at him as he opened the door to the roof. "There you are!"

A warm, bubbly tone... that didn't quite match the scenery before him.

---

It was raining.

The sunlight through the window panes was a lie.

What was lying in wait instead was a vicious evening storm that raged through the winding metropolis below.

The intersections between each building were consumed by dense grey fog, leaving only a couple of stories from the top exposed. Not even the blinding neon billboards on the surrounding high rises below could pierce through.

Were there even still streets below? There was no way to really know if all the rain had managed to flood everything.

They might as well have been clouds, both down below and up above.

The roof that held Teru and his date—the only two people crazy enough to be out in this weather—was swaying back and forth ever so slightly.

It was more skyscraper than school, a flat peak of concrete tiles, glass and pipes. And there wasn't anything taller in sight to rival it.

On the bright side, Teru's school uniform was somehow hydrophobic enough to keep his entire being from turning into a wet sock. The same went for his date.

She was also considerate enough to bring a pair of umbrellas that had some kind of heating element on the underside.

It did the job of making the outside not miserable or hypothermic. And keeping his mint green head dry.

Clearly, this was the perfect weather for a rooftop date at school.

"Keina, I have several questions..." He turned to the girl by his side, whose eyes were glued to the grayscale horizon.

Keina tilted her head, her pink hair and ribbon shimmering through the drops that fell to the side of her umbrella. 

"What's question number... two?" She smiled.

He obliged with a less pressing question.

"Shouldn't we be sharing an umbrella?" He mused. "It's great you brought one for each of us, but I thought people usually like to huddle together under one umbrella in bad weather."

A faint tint flashed on her cheeks as her eyes showed a similarly brief epiphany.

"Oh, I didn't think about that! But... One umbrella of this size probably wouldn't be enough for two people. And a bigger umbrella would probably get caught by the wind and send us flying off."

He nodded. "That makes sense, that makes sense. Especially with this weather."

"...So, what's question number one?"

"Why this weather?!'"

Keina shook with amusement at his retort, "It wasn't my first choice, but you have to admit it makes for pretty good ambience."

Teru could only give her an extended stare. Good ambience?

"Blink twice if this is a secret cry for help."

She only offered one wink. A half blink.

"There's a charm to it! The falling rain, the slightly banged-up neon lights... It kinda makes me want to be like 'I am the Night!' while watching over the city below!"

She emphasized such desires by leaning a foot on the ledge as she looked over the endless sea of grey clouds. "Don't you?" 

Teru gave her a deadpan look that a snarky sidekick would give to his apparently aspiring vigilante.

"Is there even a city below? How even high up are we?"

Keina contemplated her guess with her umbrella hand on her temple.

"Like... Skytree high, maybe?"

His jaw practically dropped.

"WH-that's 634 meters! How, what, I went up TWO flights of stairs from-"

He had to cut himself short as he attempted to motion to the door he came through behind him.

A door that was no longer there. Now just a solid metal wall.

"Ugh, of course." Teru threw his arms up. "Apparently, I didn't come from class anymore."

"Now you're getting it!" Keina gave a thumbs up.

"Not really?!"

She giggled, clearly elated with his hammed-up exasperation, enjoying her time here despite the rain. Her mood seemed like the one thing this place couldn't break and turn melancholy.

"So, now what do we do?" He asked, "There's no door back inside anymore. Do we just keep chatting in the rain?"

"Hmm..." Keina focused on something in the distance, her eyes trailing down below.

"I think there's something down there. We can dive down."

Down 634 meters?!

"It's fine!" She winked, "We each have our own umbrella, we can get down there no problem!"

"That's not—"

He didn't have time to suggest revisiting the sharing one umbrella idea before she hopped onto the edge of the skyscraper, her back facing one Skytree's worth of a fall.

"Keina, wait!"

"I'll see you at the bottom!" She waved at him before swinging herself backwards like a trust fall exercise, her umbrella doing nothing to slow the process.

She had already disappeared beneath the cloudy fog by the time Teru could get to her ledge, a brief jolt of acrophobia shocking him as he looked for some trace of her.

He was not lucid enough for this.

Scratch that, he was probably too lucid.

He glanced back at the metal wall, hoping that the door back to school would have magically returned, before giving up on it and bracing himself to go down after her with a sigh and a prayer that his umbrella was a good enough substitute for a parachute.

And as he prematurely slipped on the wet metal surface and started to tumble down the side like an unmajestic ragdoll before he was ready...

He woke up back in his bedroom as his body jerked back into consciousness.

Awakened prematurely from his dream.

Or rather, her Dream.