So here it is, the last chapter. Thanks for sticking around with me guys! I'm glad you all enjoyed it and I'm gonna be taking a break for a little bit. I'm going to be moving over the next couple of weeks and I need to plot out the next few stories.

I have an idea for the bet and then there's a few side stories about them meeting one another's parents and a few of the confidants finding out about them. It'll take a while but I hope you guys will be patient. Thanks for the support and spread the word!

Also BIG THANKS to Emerald_Treasure, LonelySupport, and Hugofthunder for all your help. You guys have been awesome.

If you know anyone who will enjoy this and do fanart...I wouldn't mind some lol.

But in all honesty...thanks. You guys have made this an incredible journey. I know it's been long and difficult but it means a lot!

I'd appreciate some constructive comments from you guys! They really do help inspire me and keep me going.

See you all soon!

Chapter 15

Akira opened his eyes just as the earliest rays of sunlight broke through his blinds.

Rubbing his eyes, he rolled over and smiled to find Sadayo still laying next to him. Her eyes were closed and her mouth slightly open and a gentle snore coming from her throat. As he watched her, Akira laughed to himself when he saw the familiar sight of an old tee-shirt of his draped over his girlfriend's shoulders.

After their shower, Akira had made a trip downstairs to bring up two substantial pieces of cake for the two of them, along with some ice cream. When he'd returned, Sadayo had dressed in his one of his tee-shirts, and he'd laughed when he saw that it hung past her knees. She'd asked him what was so funny and when he told her she couldn't help but laugh either at how ridiculous she looked but she'd blushed furiously when he said she could keep it. Afterwards, they ate their dessert and snuggled up in bed watching movies before falling asleep beneath the covers, her body curled into his as he held her in his arms.

He couldn't believe how well he'd slept in spite of the knowledge of what today would bring.

Her train left at one, which meant that once she was gone, it would be at least another six weeks before he could hold her again or even kiss her. He'd taken for granted how much her presence calmed him and made it easier to sleep. Even if it was slightly uncomfortable, having her next to him always made sleep more refreshing, and he seemed more invigorated every time he woke. But after today, his rest would become restless again, and he didn't know how well the stuffed animals she'd given him would help.

Resigning to this fate, he gave her a soft kiss on the forehead before carefully moving out of the bed and began dressing as quietly as he could. Just as he was making sure his shorts would stay up, Akira heard her say his name.

Turning, he found her eyes peeking out at him from beneath the covers. Smiling he walked back over to the bed and sat down. She moved, the bed creaking beneath her as she moved her body so she could rest her head on his lap.

"Where are you going," she yawned as he stroked her hair.

"To the store." Akira felt a small pain in his chest as he thought about the minutes ticking away. "I wanted to cook for you one more time before you left."

"You're so sweet Aki-kun," she said tiredly as her cheek nuzzled his thigh. "But you're also a perfect pillow."

"I can stay if you want." Akira was still trying to figure out if they had enough food for breakfast in the house, but he was more than willing to forego it if she wanted him to stay.

"I want to go with you," she grumbled as she squeezed his leg. "I want to stay with you until the last minute."

"Okay." Akira patted her head and rested his own against the wall. "If that's what you want, you're going to have to get dressed."

"Can't you just roll me around in a wheelbarrow or something?" Sadayo stared up at him, her lower lip protruding in a pout. "Or carry me like you did last night?"

"If it weren't for my shoulder, I would." Akira gave her lip a small flick and smirked as it bounced. "But it's too impractical, so you're going to have to walk."

"Fine." Sadayo sat up and gave him a quick kiss before stretching, the upper half of her shirt fell around her shoulders, showing off a significant amount of the bare skin and the necklace that lay beneath.

"You're going to need to change your shirt," he laughed trying to adjust her shirt for her.

"Why?" Sadayo gave him a small wink and began playing with the fabric, making it flutter enough that he could see her breasts. "You don't like how it fits me?"

"I like how it fits you just fine," he said with a coy smirk. He leaned in and gave her a soft kiss and nuzzled his nose against hers. "But I want to keep what's hidden beneath it all to myself."

"Okay," she huffed as she climbed off the bed and began pulling on her jeans. "If you're so dead set on going out can you find me my bra?"

While Sadayo finished adjusting her pants, Akira began looking through the remainder of their mess, though he was distracted by the sight of her in the morning sun. He admired how her skin had gotten a bit darker since their trip to the water park, and her tan-lines had gotten more apparent, and he'd teased her as often as he could about them. As she started looking for her belt, Akira finally found her bra and gently tossed at her.

"Hey," she laughed as the bra landed on her head.

"What would that be in basketball? Three points?"

"I don't know," she chuckled as she put it on. "I never paid much attention to sports outside of gym class."

"Same here," he sighed as he sat down in his desk and spun quietly as she finished dressing. As his chair made its final spin toward the door, he was greeted by a fully dressed and smiling Sadayo. "Glad to see you're finally dressed."

"You have no room to talk," she laughed as she pulled him out of the chair. "Do you know how many times I've had to wait for you while you took your time making it to our meet-up spot?"

"A valid point," he smirked as they headed downstairs and out the front door.

The morning was warm, and as they headed out past the gate, the were glad to see the streets were empty. Even though it was a Sunday, his neighbors usually had a habit of wandering around early to go to brunch or get an early start on yard work. Today though, it seemed fortune favored them and joining hands they began their slow stroll down the street.

When they reached the main street, he found it still relatively empty, and when he checked his watch, he could see why. It was almost seven so most breakfast restaurants weren't open and a strong wind was blowing through the main street. They both gave a small shiver, but the humidity warmed them up almost immediately, though that didn't stop Sadayo from moving closer to him and he was happy to oblige her by wrapping his arm around her and stroking her arm.

"You're so warm," she sighed happily as they turned toward the store. "Can you promise to do this next winter when you're back in Tokyo for college?"

"Absolutely." Akira gave her a gentle squeeze, and they entered the grocery store. Grabbing a basket, he slung it over his free shoulder and smiled down at her, "If you want I can cook for you as well. I was thinking of asking mom to give me a couple of lessons before I left."

"That'll be interesting," Sadayo mused as they headed toward the meat aisle. She began poking through all the meats and asked him, "What'd you plan on making for breakfast?"

"What would you like?" Akira asked after setting down a pork loin. "Even though my family thinks I only know coffee and curry, I've been teaching myself a few things when they go out so if you want to try something we can try it out."

"Can we have…," Sadayo stopped when she remembered the face Akira had made the morning she'd cooked pancakes for him. He'd liked them well enough, but Sadayo couldn't help but notice the troubled look he'd had the moment he saw what she'd made.

"What was that," he asked after putting what looked like thin strips of ham into the basket. "Did you figure out what you wanted?"

"Well, I was wondering," Sadayo tried to figure out something and after a moments thought asked, "if we could have waffles? I don't know if your mom has a waffle iron and it's been a long time since I've had one."

"Is that what you want?" Akira leaned down and kissed her just as a woman rounded to corner. She gave a small laugh at the scene before grabbing what she needed and walked away, giving Sadayo a wink.

The teacher blushed a deep crimson at the woman's reaction and after a few deep breaths nodded and said, "Yes, that's what I want."

"Then that's what you'll get." Akira gave her another soft kiss on the lips and chuckled as she jumped. "You know for someone who got used to getting affectionate at the water park; you're suddenly very skittish."

Huffing, Sadayo turned on her heel and muttered something about needing to look up a recipe for waffles and began playing with her phone.

As she began flipping through screens, Akira looked over her shoulder to see that she was indeed looking up waffle recipes, but couldn't help but notice that her blush remained. Shaking his head, Akira reached a cautious hand out and placed it on the small of her back. She stiffened for a second but relaxed quickly and inched closer.

"Do you have all these ingredients at the house," she asked holding up her phone.

He felt like his mother as he adjusted his glasses, but after a minute he nodded saying, "Save for some vanilla, butter, the eggs, and a topping we should have everything. What kind of topping and sides do you want?"

"The ham is fine," she whispered pointing at the basket. "And I'd like a fried egg with it."

"Okay," he sighed as they headed toward where the eggs and other dairy products were stored he couldn't help but feel a bit upset at her attitude. She's spent so much of their trip to the park trying to get him to calm down and enjoy her company that her change in position was frustrating. When they arrived at the dairy section, he began looking through the eggs and felt her eyes on him despite her looking through all the other products.

"Did I upset you?" She asked in a low enough voice that only he could hear her.

"No," he said as an employee walked by in greeting. "I'm just confused by your change in attitude. You've spent a lot of this trip trying to get me to open up and right now you're like Morgana during a fireworks display."

"I'm sorry," she sighed moving a bit closer to him. "I don't know why I'm acting like this, but I want you to know it has nothing to do with you."

"Well you are leaving today," he grumbled as he rubbed his elbow against her arm. He placed a fresh dozen of eggs into the basket but continued kneading her arm. "It'd be a bit strange if you were happy to be leaving."

"I'd be happier if I were leaving somewhere else to come here," she said quietly, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "But it can't be helped right now. We still got some time until you can start college and even then I'm going to be busy with the start of the new term, so we're not going to have a lot of time together when you move back, well not right away."

Akira watched her as she spoke and when she stopped, he could see that something in her mind was beginning to work itself out. Knowing how she got while lost in thought, he took her hand and after getting the butter, lead her to the produce department where she immediately grabbed several berries and crammed them into the basket and gave him a sheepish grin. After brushing a few strands of hair out of her face, they headed to the baking ingredients for the vanilla and then to the front. After paying the couple then headed back to the house where Akira began preparing their breakfast while Sadayo sat at the island watching a news report on her phone while Mona purred contently in her lap as she snuck him small bits of ham.

They ate in relative quiet, Akira standing next to her, in hopes that it'd help her mood.

He couldn't keep his eyes off her. How she cut the food, and how she smiled at something she saw on her phone. He wanted to embed as much as he could into his mind, and when she was done Akira realized he'd only eaten half his breakfast.

"Are you okay," she asked, pointing her fork at the half-eaten waffle and egg. "You've hardly eaten anything."

"I'm fine," he said truthfully as he began eating the rest of his breakfast. Sadayo looked mildly concerned at his renewed vigor but decided against saying anything and started clearing up one last time.

By the time they had finished, it was barely nine, and both of them decided to spend the next couple of hours on the couch, watching something as they held each other. Neither of them said much outside of the occasional question about something on the television. Both of them were too afraid to say much else, knowing that anything they said would lead to a conversation that'd last hours or a possible fight.

Finally, at eleven, they gathered up the rest of her things, and as they headed out the door, both of them laughed to find Mona sitting in Akira's bag staring up at them expectantly.

"So you want to say good-bye," chuckled Akira as he picked up the bag, the familiar weight of the cat resting against his shoulder.

"Of course I do," said the cat happily. "Even if she can't understand me it doesn't mean I don't want to make sure she's okay. Besides who else is gonna feed me scraps like her? I gotta play up the nice card as often as I can."

"You're such a cutie," chuckled Sadayo as she scratched Mona behind the ear. The cat let out a loud meow which made Sadayo laugh, but Akira cringe since what he heard was the cat screaming at the top of his lungs.

"That's enough," grumbled Akira as Mona's howls of delight were reaching levels of unbearable volume. "If you want to get those flowers from Gin we can't waste any more time."

"Okay, okay." Sadayo gave Mona one final scratch before adjusting her purse. When she reached for her suitcase, she found Akira already had it in hand and kissing him on the cheek, she opened the door, and they began their walk toward the station.

The streets were now littered with the occasional person, and Akira was glad that they didn't run into any of his neighbors as they left the house. Walking towards Gin's house, the settled into a comfortable silence, both of them merely enjoying the morning breeze and sunshine and when they got to Gin's stand, they found the older man working through a few orders. When the line cleared out, he gave them both a big smile and after stuffing a few treats for Mona into Akira's hand disappeared behind the counter and reappeared with a small but impressive looking bouquet.

"Oh wow, Gin they're beautiful" gasped Sadayo as she began looking through the flowers. She recognized the Forget-me-nots and Azaleas but was unsure of the others.

"They are?" Gin looked over the flowers and winked at Akira who seemed to be a bit embarrassed by what the florist had created. "I guess I did all right."

"You did more than 'all right.'" Sadayo gave him a big smile and handed Akira the bouquet and asked, "How much?"

"Don't…," started Gin but was cut off by the teacher.

"I said I'd buy, so I'm buying." Sadayo began flipping through her bills a stern look on her face. "So, how much?"

Taken aback by her forcefulness, a nervous smile spread across his lips as he said, "Friends and family discount for a bouquet like this...let's call it an even two-thousand yen."

"Gin that's….," began Akira only to be cut off in turn by the old man.

"That's my price for her and for you and I don't want to hear a word against it." Gin held his hand out and accepted the crisp note with a smile. After putting it in his till he turned back to them and patted Mona on the head before bowing to the couple. "You two be safe on your trip to the station. Sadayo-san," he said with another gracious bow, "take care of this moron for us when he moves away to school. Despite what others in this town may say there are a few of us that give a damn about what happens to him."

"Of course," said Sadayo with a nervous smile at Akira before bowing to Gin. "I promise to do what I can for him."

"Glad to hear it." Gin gave her another kind smile and bid her a safe journey before turning back to his work.

"So they know you're moving away after graduation," she asked after they were a reasonable distance away from the stand.

"Well, yeah," Akira said rather surprised by her question. "My parents know about my plans to attend a school in Tokyo since I had them help me with the paperwork and they were actually pretty supportive of it. I mean, they weren't at first given what happened with my arrest and time being in juvie, but after talking about it for a couple of hours, they came around."

"Do they know about your living arrangements?" Sadayo knew Akira had enough to get away with having a decent apartment on his own, but she figured he'd end up living in a cheaper place or Leblanc to be able to live off his wages from Crossroads and the other part-time job he had lined up at the convenience store.

"Of course," he said with a chuckle as they approached the station. "They're not happy about my plans to live alone and already set up a deposit into my account to help with expenses, despite me telling them 'no.'"

"Sounds to me like they care more than you think they do." Sadayo gave him a sideways glance and snorted. "Any parent willing to do that must care about their kid an awful lot."

"If you say so," Akira mumbled. He knew what she was getting at and it was true that his parents were getting better about trying to get to know what happened during his year away, but Akira wasn't willing to let them in on that information.

"You know, you're going to have to talk to them about this at some point." Sadayo was well aware of Akira's distrust at telling his parents anything the events of the past year and her trying to get him to talk to them had become a regular point of conversation.

"I'll do it when I'm ready," he snorted as they approached the ticket counter.

"I know," she said as she retrieved her reservation. The sense of finality in his voice told her that there was no use in taking this conversation any further. Checking her phone, Sadayo saw that they still had almost an hour before she needed to board and pointing at a small restaurant in the station she said, "Can we go sit for a bit?"

"Sure," he said with a slightly softer tone in his voice. After giving Mona some of his treats, Akira was unsurprised to hear the cat say, "You know she's just trying to help, right? And she is right; you should talk to them, at least a bit more than you have."

Akira shook the bag slightly, making the cat mewl in protest as they sat down.

"What's the matter with him," inquired Sadayo as she looked down at the flustered cat.

"I'm not sure," he said looking down at a glaring Mona. "I think he's just doing that to be annoying."

"You're lucky I can't leave this bag." Hissed Mona as a server approached and took their orders for a couple of coffees and a scone for Sadayo.

"You know I'm just trying to help when I tell you things like that, right," Sadayo asked as she began fiddling with the salt shaker.

"I do," answered Akira as he watched her fingers dance along the glass. "I just don't want to deal with it right now. All I want is to focus on you, me, and getting into school. Those things are all that matter to me at the moment."

"If that's what you want, then I'll support it." The server returned, and they both began flavoring their coffees while Sadayo chewed on the edge of her scone. "I just don't you to have any regrets or harbor any undeserved anger towards him."

"I appreciate it," he said as he sipped his coffee. "If I feel like it's getting too much, I'll talk to you and let you know, is that fair?"

"Your father would be a better person to talk to," she chuckled as she handed him a piece of food. "He's trained to deal with things like this."

"He'd send me to a colleague," replied Akira knowingly. "The one thing my dad said he'd never knowingly do is try and treat us. He said it'd be too difficult to keep a clear head while he did it."

"I'll take your word for it." Sadayo looked up from her coffee and gave him a soft smile. "But it makes me happy that you're willing to put so much faith in me."

"Would you rather I not," he chuckled as he took another sip of coffee. "If you want I can go back to being the sullen ass you met on my first day at Shujin?"

"No thank you," she answered with a light laugh. "I much prefer the man sitting in front of me, than that arrogant brat."

"And yet you still call me a brat whenever you can." Akira shook his head and chuckled when he heard Mona make gagging noises from the floor. Tossing the cat a few more treats Akira and Sadayo settle into their routine of quietly enjoying each other's company when he noticed a disturbed look on Sadayo's face.

"What's wrong," he asked as he drained his cup and placed an order for another one.

"I was just thinking about something," Sadayo asked for another scone to go with her refill as well, the stress of their conversation was making her hungry, and it was all she could do to help her stay focused.

"What's on your mind?" Akira was beginning to worry he'd said something wrong by telling her he wanted to drop the conversation about his relationship with his parents.

"I was just thinking about what life is going to be like when you move back to Tokyo." She sighed as she received her food and refilled coffee and instead of drinking or eating she simply stared at her food. "There's no guarantee you're going to get into college on your first try and if you don't what are you going to do?"

"Most likely, I'll do a prep school." Akira had thought about this as well, and he more than understood her fears. "It'll probably take up about as much time as college, and between that and work I'll probably have a similar amount of free-time. Do you think I'll forget about you?"

"No," Sadayo said loud enough that it drew the attention of a few other patrons. After apologizing, she turned her attention back to him and began fidgeting in her chair. "I was just thinking that if you were living alone and had to do all that, you might not have enough time to eat or take care of yourself properly." She turned her gaze down at Mona who was currently licking himself and laughed. "Not to mention what would happen to Mona while you were so busy."

"I wouldn't forget about Mona." Akira leaned down and patted the cat fondly on the head.

"Damn right you won't," scoffed the cat as he rubbed his head against Akira's palm. "If you did I'd be forced to rat you out to the others."

Ignoring the cat's threat, Akira returned his attention to his girlfriend and said, "And while I appreciate your concern, weren't you the one who offered to come over and cook and clean for me on occasion?"

"I did." A blush spread up Sadayo's neck, and her hand began toying with the necklace. "But after the past few days, and a couple of jokes from Makoto and Haru about what we'd do once you moved back I got to thinking that maybe you moving back alone isn't the best idea."

"So, what are you thinking? I should get a roommate?" Akira had pondered asking Ryuji or Yusuke about living together, but he hadn't found the right time to do it. "I had thought about it, and it would make things easier, but the problem with that is we'd have to worry about getting interrupted or getting overheard."

"That would be less than ideal," chuckled Sadayo at the memories of the previous week. "But no, I just meant that...if you were up for it...we could maybe move in together?"

Akira nearly dropped his cup at this question, and Mona began chuckling to himself as Akira started wiping some coffee off his shirt.

"Are you serious?" His chest was burning a bit from the coffee, but the nervous look on her face drove the pain away. "You want me to move in with you? Like fighting over who didn't take out the garbage and who does the dishes living together?"

"On top of the other benefits that come with living together," muttered Sadayo with an amused smirk. "But yes, that kind of living together. I know it's still a little early for us, but I just thought that if you were willing, we could give it a try. I mean it'll bring up a lot of questions in regards to your parents, and possibly even mine if they decide to show up."

Sighing he wolfed down half of her scone before saying, "I mean I'll understand if you don't want to do it, but the offer is there if you...want...to..."

Her voice trailed off as he moved his chair next to his, girlfriend and took her hand in his. He could feel her hand shaking in his and as he squeezed it, he quietly asked, "Are you sure about this? I'm not against it, but unless you're serious, I don't want to commit to it. I'd be fine with us living separately for a while until we were more comfortable with the idea."

"I'm as sure as I can be," she sniffed as she returned his squeeze. "Situations like this aren't foolproof so I'm not one-hundred-percent certain, but I want to try at least." Sadayo leaned in, kissed him on the cheek, and whispered, "I don't like worrying about you, and I want to take care of you."

"I want that too," he answered and gave her a kiss of his own. "If there's one thing I've learned this past week is that I love taking care of you and I want to do that as much as I can."

"So that's a 'yes,'" she asked as she nuzzled his cheek.

"That's a 'yes,'" he as he wrapped his arms around her.

When his arms wrapped around her, the weight she'd been feeling throughout the morning seemed to alleviate slightly, and she rested her head on his shoulder. "You have no idea how happy that makes me."

"I have an idea," laughed Akira as he squeezed her tightly. "But I'm going to have to tell my parents before I move so, you may end up getting thrown into a phone call or something fairly soon."

"Dammit, I forgot about having to tell them where you'd be moving to."

"It'll be okay," he said with a content smile before something came to mind. "You're not going to have to tell the school about this are you?"

"I'll look into it," she said with a lump in her throat. "I think there might be something, but I don't have the guidelines on me. Will you be okay if I have to tell them?"

"As long as we try, I have no regrets." Akira gave her a soft kiss just as her phone went off. "What's that?"

"That," she sighed as she turned off the alarm she'd set, "is my phone telling me I need to get on the train."

"Oh, yeah." Akira had almost forgotten about the reason they were at the station in light of their recent step as a couple. "Shall we?"

Sadayo nodded and after collecting Mona and the rest of their things. Heading onto the platform, the couple found her train and after checking in Sadayo gave him a hesitant look, before turning around and giving him a deep kiss.

Ignoring the sounds of disgust from Mona, Akira wrapped his arms around his girlfriend and returned the kiss. His hands squeezed her close to him, and he could feel a burning in his eyes as she separated from him and he could see her tears brimming in her eyes. Reaching up he wiped them away, kissed her, and choked out, "I love you."

"I love you too," she chuckled sadly as she wiped his own tears away. "I'll let you when I get home. Will you stay up for me?"

"You know I will." They both laughed and gave each other one last kiss before she boarded.

As much as he wanted to stay, Akira couldn't bear looking at her as she waited for the train to depart. Blowing her a kiss, she waved back and blew him a kiss of her own before turning and making his way home. When he arrived, he made a bee-line for his room, he set his bag down, locked the door, and laid down as tears burned his eyes before passing out.

When he woke it was just past six, and Akira found Mona curled up in his arms, his furry head resting on the human's shoulder. After patting the cat on the head, he headed downstairs to find his family waiting for him with some takeout boxes and warm words of welcome for him. He returned them and sat down, pecking at his dinner while he told them about his friends arriving and what they did for his birthday, all the while keeping quiet about the love of his life.

After hardly eating anything, he excused himself and returned to his room and played a game for a while before deciding to check his phone. When he did, he saw several messages with attachments and smiled at all the pictures their friends had sent. Photos of their day at the movies, his birthday dinner, a few embarrassing ones of him and Sadayo at the park along with embarrassing ones of their friends all doing dumb things or playing jokes on each other; loving but painful reminders of the week's events.

Saving all of them, Akira exited out of the thread he had with Futaba and opened Sadayo's message from an hour ago and read it.

I made it home safely. Call me when you can. I love you, and I miss you.

Smiling, Akira took a moment and looked around the room and decided that he couldn't stand seeing or hearing those words right now. It wasn't her fault, but he just couldn't deal with it at the moment and deciding to do something about it, he found what he needed and began a small project that suddenly sprang up in his mind.

When it was finished, he called for Mona, and the cat appeared in seconds, looking flustered at what Akira was asking him to do.

"You called me up here for that?" The cat shook his head as he hopped onto the desk and began fiddling with Akira's phone as he tried to figure out how to take a picture with it. When he finally figured it out, the cat hit took a few pictures before unceremoniously letting the phone drop to the desk. "Can I go now," he sighed as he scratched his ear.

"Yeah," said Akira as he waved the cat toward the door. "Thanks for all your help Mona."

"Just pay me back when you can," yelled the cat before running downstairs.

When the cat was gone, Akira wandered over to the door and locked it before picking up his phone and dialing her number.

It took few rings, but after a moment he heard the phone click, and her voice happily say, "Hey, Aki-kun."

"Hey." Akira felt a strange mix of relief and longing at the sound of her voice. "How're you holding up?"

"Could be better," she sighed happily. He could hear the ruffling of fabric and guessed that she was either getting dressed or doing something in her, he stopped and corrected himself, their room.

"What are you doing?" His voice sounded almost robotic as he asked the question and Akira felt like an ass for not even trying to sound happy.

"I'm getting ready for bed," she said, and he heard the sound of something squeaking beneath her. "And yes I'm wearing the shirt you gave me."

"Truth be told I wasn't even concerned with that." Akira tried to sound amused, but once again it seemed slightly hollow.

"I just thought you'd like to know," she said sounding a bit upset at the tone of his voice. "Are you okay?"

"Kind of," Akira rubbed his neck and let out a heavy sigh. "I dunno, I'm trying to be happy, but when you said that you missed me, I started to feel bad, like it's my fault."

"Don't be like that," she said, and he could hear the sound of what sounded like a radio or television in the background. "I do miss you, and I know you miss me. We got spoiled this week, and it's only natural we're feeling this way. But there is a bright side."

"What's that," asked Akira when he heard the smallest hint of laughter in her voice.

"We have all these great stuffed animals to cuddle when we're feeling lonely."

They both chuckled, and Akira picked up one of the animals she'd won them. The small bear was pretty cute, and he had to admit that it helped with easing his loneliness. As he began fiddling with its nose, Akira heard her let out a loud yawn.

"Are you getting sleepy," he chuckled after setting the bear down on the mattress.

"Yeah," Sadayo yawned again, and he heard the covers shift as she moved. "I don't know how long it's going to take, but it'll happen eventually. It's just weird sleeping alone now. I keep wanting to stay on my side, so I don't hog all of the bed."

"You can be a bit of a bed hog," laughed Akira earning him a raspberry from his girlfriend.

"You're one too," she snorted back. "I woke up several times to have your legs sprawled over me and your arm on my neck."

"I made up for it," he shot back. "If I remember right you got more than enough massages and other bedroom activities done as compensation for my active sleeping."

"This is true," hummed Sadayo before yawning again. "You are good at cuddling among other things."

"You need to get to sleep," he sighed as he heard her smack her lips.

"I know." There was a definite smile in her voice and Akira couldn't resist sending the picture Morgana had taken of him. He heard the phone blank out for a second and heard her ask, "What the heck did you….," her voice trailed off, and he heard a loud sniffle and her voice breaking as she said, "you're so sweet."

"Do you like it," he asked as he heard another sniffle.

"I do," she whispered, and he heard her laugh.

"Good," he said with a loud sigh of relief. "I wanted to make sure you had something to help you through the next few months when you felt that way."

"I want to hear it."

"Hear what," asked Akira as he rubbed at the stinging in his eyes.

"What you wrote on that paper," chuckled Sadayo before blowing her nose rather loudly. "I love the picture of you and the sign, but I want to hear you say it."

"Okay, okay." Akira sat up and grabbed the paper from the desk and coughed quietly before reading.

"Sadayo, I know things are tough right now. I know how lonely you are because I'm just as lonely. But you aren't alone in this you have our friends and me. However, if things get unbearable, I want you to remember two things. The first is that I love you more than I can express and..."

"And what," she asked with a small giggle.

"Do I have to say this," he asked as he felt his cheeks and ears burn.

"Please," she begged, "I want to hear you say it."

"Okay," chuckled Akira at how cute she sounded. He didn't have to read this part of the paper and set it back on the desk as he continued.

"And that even when we're separated, you should always remember that..."

"That what," she asked.

Akira could hear the strange mix of tears and happiness in her voice and felt his own tears begin to flow again.

Wiping them away he took a deep breath and after mustering up the willpower, quietly said, "I'll be home soon."

Fin