When they talked to her parents the next weekend, Junshiro nosily interrogated Sora, "This brat is my daughter so I'm kind of used to her demands, but although you may be crazy enough to want to keep her, are you sure you will be able to afford whatever she talks you into?"
Mizuki immediately objected, "Hey! I have obeyed every restriction since grade school!"
"How much have you even managed to save up since you started this job?" Junshiro asked Sora quizzically. "Do you know what kinds of degrees she's been looking into?"
Sora assured him, "I do. We've been discussing which career paths look better in the long run." He also gave her father the figure on their combined savings account and Mizuki's parents both gazed at him in surprise.
Mizuki pointed out a little smugly, "That's even after he bought his motorcycle."
Sora objected mildly, "You had saved up a lot more than I had expected on your own." He assured Junshiro, "It hasn't been all that long since Takumi and I finished our degrees. I know how much it's going to cost, and I'm not claiming that I've already got it all covered, but I think we'll be okay."
Minori spoke up hesitantly while they were outlining the projected costs of the informal marriage gathering itself, "Don't forget to include outfits."
Mizuki objected, "We aren't doing a formal ceremony!"
Minori informed her daughter rather tartly, "Those photos that you complained of, that will be shown for the rest of your life, will still be taken. Even if you're not going to hire a professional photographer!"
Sora assured her, "Several of my friends have published photographs professionally, and each of them offered to take our photos."
Mizuki had rather gleefully exchanged the variety of formal outfits that each of their grandparents had suggested, for a simple plan where they would just wear jeans and T-shirts. She didn't remember Sora mentioning the photography offers and didn't know how to respond.
--
That night Sora asked Mizuki a little plaintively, "So what kind of outfits are you going to talk me into?"
She wrapped her arms around him and plastered herself against him, before replying in a rather cowardly fashion, "I just want the kind of wedding where you're happy to marry me. What kind do you want?"
"Something simple and quick," he replied promptly. "If you leave the choice to me, I'd just wear the same outfit I wore to the last two weddings I attended."
"What about me then?" Mizuki asked. She gave him a long look and added warningly, "Even if you saved the dress I wore to Shizu-nee-chan's wedding, I'm never going to wear it again."
Sora laughed, but didn't immediately offer an alternative.
"Do you still have it?" Mizuki asked curiously.
"Yes," he admitted after a minute.
She bit him lightly before asking, "Why?"
He shrugged. After a minute he pulled her up and kissed her seriously for several minutes. When he finally let her go he explained, "I don't know. I couldn't throw it away. Everytime I tried I thought I'd never see you again."
Mizuki glared at him and insisted firmly, "We're getting married Sora, get rid of it!"
He blinked at her and then grinned joyfully before replying obediently, "Yes dear."
Mizuki eyed him consideringly, and then suggested, "Let's do the shopping for date nights that I suggested before? As long as it isn't explicitly wedding formal wear, it'll be fine to wear it again."
"Says the woman who just ordered me to throw away a dress that's only been worn once," he teased laughingly.
She couldn't help laughing, even though she prevaricated helplessly, "We can donate it?"
--
Sora's grandmother offered to have one of her previous wedding dresses modified to fit Mizuki instead, when she found out that they hadn't picked anything yet a few days later.
Sora asked her teasingly, "Are you sure you won't need it for your own wedding?"
Haruko sniffed and informed her grandson, "If he's not willing to buy me a new dress, he can wait forever."
"Has he asked you to marry him?" Mizuki asked curiously.
"Only twice so far," Haruko replied complacently. Mizuki and Sora stared at her and she added, "He has to ask at least once more. This is the last time I'm ever getting married."
"Do we get to meet him first?" Mizuki asked after a moment.
"I've met him several times, he's okay," Sora assured her.
"That depends on whether or not I'm allowed to bring him to your wedding, at this rate," Haruko informed Mizuki.
"Sure, what's one more," Mizuki asked airily, making both of them laugh.
--
Takumi and Eri had their baby about a month before Sora and Mizuki had their ceremony scheduled.
Sora seemed to enjoy exposure to the new born, but he whispered to Mizuki one night, "I am very glad to be able to hand him back to his parents again."
Mizuki admitted, "I was kind of hoping for a girl though, Shizu-nee-chan says hers will be a boy too."
--
Shizune and Shinichi returned only a few weeks later, so that even if Shizune went into labor a little early, she would be near her family.
Mizuki gave them the bedroom and slept in the living area on a foam futon for her last week of school. She was rather shocked to find how close she had come to graduating with honors, despite having maintained decent grades throughout everything.
Shizune fussed over the fact that she hadn't actually achieved them, until Mizuki took her college entrance tests.
Her scores on those were high enough that she could have gotten into the best universities in the country, so she finally discarded her backup plans of attending one of the trade schools instead. She still felt a little guilty about committing Sora to covering several years of tuition, but he seemed really happy about it.
--
When they went apartment hunting, Mizuki told Sora insistently while pointing at a city map, "I want to find something in this area if we can."
"Why?" Sora asked curiously. "This district over here would be more centered between the college and my job?"
Mizuki bit her lip and replied, "I didn't consider your job. Is this area too inconvenient?"
"No, it's fine," he replied quickly. "I just don't understand why that area? It's not near the river or anything obvious to me."
She looked up at him and pointed out, "It's between the college and Takumi-san and Eri-chan's place. I thought it would make offering to babysit easier, but you'll go to work every day, so…"
Sora interrupted her with a shocked expression, "Will you have time to offer to babysit?"
Mizuki gazed at him with a blank expression, and then asked cautiously, "Did you change your mind about letting me work a part time job?"
"No!" he objected. "I mean, I don't want you to feel like I'm restricting you from it, but full time classes usually include a ton of homework?"
"Well, you're the one who told Takumi-san that we could babysit sometimes? Were you going to go there alone and do it yourself?" she asked curiously.
"I thought that would be kind of a once a month thing?" Sora protested a bit weakly.
"Aka-nee-chan usually brings her kids to our parents place once a month, and they live hours away," Mizuki protested. "But we'll still be close enough if we look in the district you suggested instead."
They started looking in the crowded area that Sora had pointed out, but it didn't take long for him to suggest that they go look around the one Mizuki had highlighted. The way the traffic eased as they made their way to the area that had lacked any particularly noticeable attractions, made both of them view the district favorably.
"It's comfortable isn't it?" Mizuki asked when they sat down in a local restaurant a while later. "Even if most of the places for rent are kind of average?"
"A few pop stars live in this 'average' area," Sora replied dryly. "The shop where we rebuilt my bike is only one district over."
"Pop stars?" Mizuki asked curiously.
"You'll know them when you see them," Sora replied with amusement.
"Why didn't you point them out to me?" she complained.
"I haven't seen any of them while we've been looking around," he explained.
--
Some of the pop stars Sora had mentioned came to his wedding. Takumi's mother was one of them. The mechanic who had helped him rebuild his motorbike was another.
Mizuki couldn't help gazing at her husband, after they submitted the online forms, and wondering if she really knew him.
Eri carried her infant closer, and whispered, "That expression is very familiar. You'll get used to them."
"Does Takumi sing too?" Mizuki asked quietly, but incredulously.
"Not usually where anyone can hear him," Eri responded cautiously.
Mizuki couldn't help asking Sora dryly, a bit later, after a gorgeous blonde woman finished teasing him about his 'out of this world' wedding, "Are you sure that you're okay with such an ordinary wife?"
Sora covered his face and groaned, "oh gods Mizuki, don't start."
"Is she one of your exes?" she asked hesitantly. Several of the women had introduced themselves as such, and all of them had been tall and beautiful, if not as stunning as the blonde.
"She is…" Sora hesitated, as though he didn't know exactly how to identify her.
Takumi leaned over and explained, "She's his cousin."
Mizuki abruptly scooted back far enough to get a better look at the woman.
"Through my grandmother's marriages, not a blood relative," Sora added.
"Is that better or worse?" Mizuki asked with confusion.
"For what?" Takumi questioned.
"I don't know," Mizuki confessed, as the woman gave her a small cheery wave. She waved back.
Sora buried his face in her hair as he bent closer. "She's nicer than she looks?" he suggested.
"Unlike me?" she asked sweetly.
He laughed. "No wonder your mother insisted you had to marry me before you could move in with me."
She turned, grinned up at him, and asked teasingly, "Oh? Why? Do you think she just wanted me to be your problem?"
"Yes," he replied swiftly.
She pouted at him until he scooped her up and kissed her.
"Do you at least like having me be your problem?" she asked a little anxiously.
"Yes," he agreed with a grin. "I love having you be all mine."
--
The problem with an ex a few months later wasn't with any of the friendly women that Sora had given in and invited to their wedding.
Mizuki's first term at the college was disrupted by the courtroom attendances required to place her testimony next to that of the battered woman who resembled her a little too much for coincidence.
Mizuki couldn't help feeling guilty, despite everyone's insistence that it wasn't her fault her ex had attacked a woman who resembled her. She knew her guilt was a useless feeling, and that realistically there was nothing she could have done that could have prevented the assault the woman had suffered… but she couldn't banish the feeling.
She couldn't help questioning everything she had done over the past two years, as though if she searched hard enough, she could find the mistake she had made. The thing she could have done right to have prevented all of this.
Sora was patient with her. He never withheld an assurance that it wasn't her fault, even though she knew that she had asked at least a hundred times. She felt guilty over that too, and hoped that she wasn't hurting him with her own doubts, while being unable to let go of them.
--
On their first anniversary after Mizuki finally reached the current legal drinking age, she toasted a little bitterly, "I've been old enough to marry, or die for my country, or sign on any contract line, but finally I can drink to you."
Sora raised an eyebrow, and got up. He left his matching glass at its place on the table, and bent to taste her kiss. "A sweet enough age," he murmured.
Mizuki couldn't help objecting, "It's not very sweet."
"I know, your life is full of classes that make my head ache when I try to help you out," he admitted with amusement.
She gazed up at him, and the eyes that met hers were clear, and his smile was warm. He was as beautiful as the day she had met him in a small shop on that distant island.
"I love you," she blurted.
"I know," he whispered as he scooped her up. He laughed at her offended expression and assured her, "I love you too, and I won't leave you alone until I die."
"Sora…" she whispered.
"Or you leave me?" he asked uncertainly.
"I won't!" she objected instantly. "You're mine!"
"Yeah," he agreed laughingly.
--
It was a strange little anniversary ritual. One of them would take the first sip, and the other would taste it through their kiss. It somehow always washed away the uncertainties between them that had built up within a year, and let them laugh.