Umbrella

Detective Conan (c) Gosho Aoyama

Ai noticed Ayumi searching through her knapsack for the third time now. And again, Ayumi threw a short, timid glance at Conan. Then, just a moment later, she looked directly at Ai before starting a fourth, futile search in her knapsack again.

Ai sighed silently. It was so easy to tell what was going on.
It was the end of the school day – Ayumi, Mitsuhiko, Conan and Ai herself had stayed a bit longer to help cleaning up the classroom. The rest of the class had already left shortly after Gentas father had turned up in the classroom to pick him up for some kind of family reunion in another province. So it was just the four of them in the shoe locker room. The heavy rain outside and Ayumis occasional looks through the window, were an easy sign telling that she forgot her umbrella today.
Then these quick looks at Conan and her could only mean that she wanted to ask one of them to share their umbrella with her.

Mitsuhiko and Conan had already taken their umbrellas out of their bags, waiting for the two girls to meet up with them and finally go home.
Ai shook her head slightly. Why didn't Ayumi ask already? All she had to do was walking up to Conan and ask him to share his umbrella on the way home. But the way she behaved it made it seem like this equalled a declaration of love…
"On the other hand", Ai mused, "Asking the boy that she loves for protection from the rain under his umbrella is probably not that much different from a confession in a kids mind…"

The solution was obvious: All she had to do was to take her own umbrella out of her bag and invite Ayumi to walk together with her.
This was the easiest way to release Ayumi from her misery and not to hurt any ones feelings – Ai risked a short look at Mitsuhiko who presumably noticed that Ayumi had no umbrella by now and who was probably hoping that Ayumi would ask him for help.
Just Conan himself was as unaware as usual when a girl tried to express her feelings for him.
A simple and easy solution that would preserve the status quo of their little group.

Ai reached in her knapsack, grabbed her own umbrella, hesitated for a moment… and pushed it back into the bag without any of her friends noticing. Problems have more than just one solution. And this one was far better.
"Mitsuhiko", she announced aloud. Smiling she walked towards the dumbfounded first-grader. "I forgot my umbrella at home. Can you please share yours with me?"