December began quietly.

The first weekend passed sweetly, although its Sunday was another day of clinging to each other, and sighing about their imminent parting.

The second weekend Sora was late. He had messaged that the weather was too uncertain to bring his bike and that he'd decided to take the train, and that was the last Mizuki had heard from him.

Mizuki glared at her phone, but Sora didn't reply to her messages and her calls went straight to voicemail.

She bounced around the main room and the kitchen anxiously until her father snapped, "For the gods' sake Mizuki, either find something to do or sit!"

She responded by moving to sit at the table, where she picked up her school tablet, and stared at it blankly. The following week would be the last week in this semester and she ought to be studying for the tests, but she couldn't concentrate.

"I wish that he had told me which train he was taking," Mizuki complained.

Junshiro reached over to pat her shoulder, but didn't reply. He sympathized with her anxiety, but didn't share it.

Mizuki couldn't stand to eat much of her supper, and decided that if Sora didn't show up before she had to leave to take the bus, she'd call in sick. With only about a quarter of an hour left, the door finally opened.

Sora was soaking wet, and Mizuki gasped and exclaimed, "Sora!"

She flung herself toward him but stopped before she ran into him. He looked exhausted. He dropped his bag next to the door and reached for her. Mizuki hugged him, and then pulled him down the hall, to the bathroom.

"Strip Sora," she commanded.

He gave her an amused grin and began taking off his damp clothes.

She started the water warming even as she asked worriedly, "What happened? Why are you soaking? What's wrong with your phone?"

Sora answered the last question first, "I don't know what's wrong with my phone, I may need to get a new one. I charged it last night, but it's dead." He assured her tiredly, "Nothing else happened. I'm soaking because I took the wrong bus route and didn't have my phone to check, so I walked quite a ways from the stop that had the right street name."

"The right street name? But…" she interrupted.

"Fortunately I stopped to ask at a place where they knew of your father's bar, so I just had to walk a long way," he assured her. "Although if I had realized how far it was going to be, and how much it was going to rain on me on the way, I'd have taken the bus back to the station and tried to get on the correct route." As he pulled the last of his clothes off, he asked with concern, "Aren't you going to be late for work?"

She pulled out her phone and checked. "I think I can still get to the bus in time," she assured him.

He reached out, pulled her close, then bent and kissed her before instructing, "Take a good coat and an umbrella Mizuki."

"Yes dear," she replied with a grin, that he returned with a startled expression. "Get warmed up soon," she demanded.

He caressed her face and then promised, "I will. I wish I could come pick you up. Maybe I'll rent a car."

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"Have my parents message me if you do that," she replied as she exited the room.

She ran to her room and grabbed some of Sora's dry clothes. Her father took them from her hands when she came out, and said, "I'll take them to him, go if you're going."

Mizuki dashed over to the door, paused, and told her father, "Thanks!"

She grabbed her jacket, opened the door, then turned back and grabbed an umbrella before dashing off to the bus stop. The bus was already there, but the driver kindly waited as she ran up.

--

When Mizuki checked her messages during her break, she had one from her father, "Sora's bringing a car to pick you up tonight."

She felt a little startled, despite having heard him say that he might rent a car. When he picked her up after her work shift ended, she complained, "Doesn't renting this cost as much as I made tonight?"

"If it does, you seriously need to quit Mizuki," Sora insisted firmly.

"How much?" she asked. He told her, and she winced but admitted, "It's not as much as I was afraid it was."

On the way back to her parent's place, he informed her, "I'm kind of thinking of just arranging a reservation for the entire week that I'll be off, since there's no way to tell if the weather will be good enough to ride home, even if it turns out that it's good enough to come here."

She suggested uncertainly, "We could just use public transportation?"

Sora grinned at her, and replied, "We could, and I will if you insist, but I'd rather not."

Mizuki shrugged, she didn't actually mind having him transport her and the extra time it gave them.

When he parked in front of her home, he asked, "Want to make out for a minute before we go in?"

"People will see us," she objected immediately.

"In this rain?" Sora asked incredulously.

Mizuki looked at the rain streaming down the windows and conceded the point, but still protested, "We'll either wind up having sex in the car or I'll fall asleep and you'll have to carry me in."

"Or both?" Sora questioned with a grin.

"I'd rather just do it in bed," she admitted.

They exchanged glances and exited the vehicle quickly.

"In the shower," he corrected, as they entered the apartment.

She grinned up at him and asked, "Two showers in one night?"

"I won't melt," he promised.

--

In the morning, they both slept until Junshiro rapped on the door and announced, "Breakfast."

Sora asked sleepily, "Has this always been how he wakes you up on Saturdays?"

Mizuki was so groggy that it took a moment for her brain to translate the question into meaning. When it did, she turned in his arms and smiled, before assuring him, "No, this is otosan being discreet because you're here. On school days he or okaasan will come in and rip the covers off the bed if I don't get up. And usually we were the ones who woke our parents up on Saturdays, but I never worked at night before this job."

Sora grinned and replied, "I see," as he cuddled her closer. He ran a hand down her back. "We're going to be late for breakfast," he informed her.

"Okay," she agreed. A moment later she blushed, and suggested very quietly, "You could do it like you did when you said you wanted to pound me, that didn't take long."

He grinned at her. "Gods I adore you Mizuki."

--

They were only a few minutes late to breakfast.

--

It wasn't until they finished eating that Mizuki announced unhappily, "We can't go out today, I really need to study for finals this weekend."

"Alright," Sora agreed easily. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

She shrugged, but barely glanced at her parents before suggesting boldly, "Let me cuddle in your lap while I'm going over everything?"

Sora hesitated before asking, "Won't that distract you?"

"No, it's relaxing," Mizuki assured him.

Minori interrupted a little anxiously, "So much rain, and Tama-sama hasn't come home. Would you call him before you start Mizuki?"

"Okay, but he's probably lounging around in someone else's house," Mizuki replied reassuringly.

She went to the door and called for him for a little while first anyway.

Junshiro assured his wife, "He'll be fine. He's lived through eight winters of both rain and snow already that we know of."