Love is Love 9 Ice-Frosted Gingerbread Part 1
A/N: Finally, I am done with finals and I'm in summer! Although, I am taking summer classes. :( That part sucks... And there's other stuff to do. You know, I planned for this story to release the chapters throughout the year so that the seasons in the chapter matched the actual seasons in America, but I guess that isn't going to work out anymore. :( That sucks even more unless I waited until Dec 2021, but that would be torture, and I feel like that story has been put off long enough. Thx for being patient!
As the last leaves of falls flew off of their branches, the days turned cloudy, and the season shifted into winter. The nights drew longer and the weather grew colder. Now that she was back in Japan, Luna got to wake up every morning to the sight of falling snow and she loved it. She got to snuggle in her blankets and sit by her window to watch the snowflakes flying past her line of vision. Most importantly, Luna could not wait for the food. She remembered looking in a magazine and the pictures of seafood hot pot and udon were practically begging to be eaten. Her stomach would grumble just at the thought.
Today, Luna was tagging along with Fuuto to an outdoor skating rink per Kota's invitation. The word was that Kaede and Kirin had planned a small Christmas gathering with their friends several days before the holidays. They insisted that this year they would be able to hang out with their friends since the Sonoda family's Christmas was strictly for family. Their parents ended up agreeing to their plan after much debate, but under one condition: that their older brother, Kota, would be there to keep an eye out on them.
Obviously, Kaede and Kirin hated that idea, but their parents didn't trust them enough due to their mischievous, ongoing record. There wasn't any other choice. That was when Kirin and Kaede came up with the idea for Kota to invite Luna along for the ride. They felt bad enough with having their brother chaperone them once again.
"Luna, hurry up! They got here ten minutes ago! They're waiting for us!" Fuuto urged.
As Luna adjusted her car into the parking spot, Fuuto manually unlocked the door and hopped out of the car. He ran over to Luna's side of the car and incessantly knocked at her window. Luna rolled her eyes. She was in the middle of sticking her keys into her purse, "Yeah, I know, I'm coming! Could you hold on for a second, Fuuto?!"
Fuuto went ahead and opened the driver's door for Luna, which wasn't the best idea considering the fact that Luna was leaning against it. Luna dropped her keys onto the gravel street.
"Fuuto you just made me-" Luna shouted. Although there was barely any time to complain because Fuuto was dragging her over to the rental skates.
"Someone's excited," Luna said, adjusting her hair in line for the rental skates.
"I haven't seen them in a while. I had work. I wasn't at school!" Fuuto complained.
"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Luna ruffled Fuuto's hair. She had to tiptoe to reach the top of his head.
"Arghh! Stop, I just did my hair," Fuuto swatted Luna's hand away.
"Okay, I will," Luna said, though her mind thought the opposite.
The two waited in line for a minute or two when Luna got a call from Kota.
"Hello," she answered.
"Are you here yet?"
"Mmhmm, me and Fuuto are waiting in line to get our skates-" Lua stepped forward in line, "-we're up next after the people in front of us."
"Cool. Kirin, Kaede, and I are still lacing up our skates. Do you want us to wait for you guys?" Kota said.
"No, you guys go ahead," Luna said, "We'll catch up. We're almost there anyway."
"Oh! Mimi's here too. She practically got here at the same time as us. So, we'll see you on the rink?"
"Yep, see you there." Luna hung up. She put her phone away as Fuuto received two pairs of skates from the rental person. He handed Luna the smaller skates and they walked to the bench area outside the rink to put on their skates. They sat together side by side. Luna was glad she remembered to wear thick socks once she took off her shoes. That way, the skates wouldn't hurt her ankles, and that happened a lot since the skates were just cheap rentals.
Luna loosened up the skate's laces and shoved her feet into them. She laced them back up and made sure to double-knot the bow at the end. She would have hated it if she tripped while skating. That would be embarrassing, and she hated it when her clothes got wet on the partially melted ice.
"Are you ready, Fuuto?"
"Yep, just let me tie this last knot," Fuuto said and once he finished his laces with a bow, he stood up on the textured matting. Luna followed him as he walked over to the ice. There were other people stuck near the entrance to the ice skating rink, blocking the way to get in. They were afraid of falling. What Luna learned from her experience was that it was best to just go for it. It got her used to the unfamiliar feeling much faster and that gave her more time to enjoy herself. Fuuto was the opposite.
Luna skated onto the ice with ease. Her feet were still tense, but she felt balanced enough to not be scared.
"U-Um, L-Luna?" Fuuto called out from behind.
"What are you doing?" Luna said. Fuuto was holding onto the railing for dear life.
"D-Don't j-judge m-me. L-Look at all the o-other people," Fuuto stuttered.
He was right there with all the other people. He was just another animal in the pack squished with the other people holding onto the railing near the rink entrance.
"C'mon, Fuuto just let go." Luna managed to pry one of Fuuto's hands of the railing and pulled at it, skating further onto the ice. Fuuto yelled in pain as his remaining arm gripping the railing stretched, "S-Stop. Luna, stop!"
"Aren't your friends waiting for you?" Luna tugged his arm, which Fuuto yelped out in response.
"T-They can c-come over h-here!" That was when Luna finally yanked Fuuto off the railing. The momentum made the two glide on the ice for a few inches. Then they stopped. Fuuto didn't wasn't moving a muscle. He stood there a couple of feet from the rink's entrance with his body stiff, arms out in front of him.
"You scaredy-cat," Luna let him stand in place by himself.
"I-I don't w-wanna fall, l-like an idiot!" Fuuto said.
"Just skate over here," Luna beckoned to herself. Fuuto shook his head furiously in return, "Nope, I-I'm not going anywhere!"
"How are you going to skate if you stay still the whole time? Your friends are waiting for you?" Luna scanned the rink. Where were his friends? Then she spotted Kirin, Kaede, and Mimi on the other side of the rink, "Ooh! Found them!"
"What? Where" Fuuto looked in the direction Luna pointed. His mouth dropped, "How am I supposed to get over there?!"
"I know how," Luna skated behind Fuuto.
"L-Luna, what are you doing?" Fuuto's eyes widened.
"You can get there like this!" Luna pushed at Fuuto's back and skated a few paces towards Fuuto's friends.
"S-Slow down!" Fuuto's arms flailed around in a crazy pattern, and once Luna thought Fuuto was at a decent speed, she let Fuuto skate away. Fuuto's head snapped around," Why'd you let go!?"
She watched her brother wobble towards his friends. He landed right into Mimi's arms. His friends laughed, though Mimi's face captured shock and surprise.
"That was vicious." Luna could tell who the voice belonged to without looking.
"He just needed a push," Luna turned around, and there Kota was in a large cocoa-colored coat. He wore his usual happy-go-lucky expression on his face.
"You're not wrong," Kota admitted, "Shall we skate?"
"Yes, 'sounds perfect," Luna replied.
They decided to take their chat into the stream of skaters already circling around the rink. Kota intertwined into the flow of traffic without a moment of hesitation. That stunned Luna. Kota even began skating backward to make sure he didn't lose Luna. The skaters were going a bit fast on this section of the rink, and all Luna could do was look at the skaters pass by. It was too intimidating to slip in.
"What are you waiting for?" Kota skated back upstream to Luna.
"Give me a second. They're skating pretty fast," Luna said.
"Don't worry, I'll catch you if you fall," Kota said.
Luna took a deep breath. Even though her skating skills were a level above "rail-holder", she was still freaked out if people were skating too fast nearby her.
"I'll be right beside you," Kota reassured her, and that convinced Luna to slip into the next wave of skaters. That was a good start, except that Luna was skating too slow, and in the end, a burly teenage boy sped past her shoulder, pushing her in the process. It all happened so fast, Luna didn't have enough time to regain her balance. She braced herself for impact. It was inevitable.
Luckily for her, Kota was right there beside her as he said he would and he caught her just in time before she could fall onto the ice. Kota made an "oof" sound as Luna fell into his chest, "Gotcha!" He shouted victoriously. Luna could feel his heartbeat with her hands on his chest. His heart was beating fast and his chest was warm. Kota's doe-eyes glowed with pride, "See! I told you I would catch you if you fell." Then his face turned into concern from Luna's lack of response, "Hey, you okay?
"Yes, I'm totally okay thanks to you. Sorry about that," Luna said.
"I'll catch you anytime," Kota said, "Besides, this wasn't the first time you bumped into me."
"Thank you," Luna pushed away to give Kota some space. The warm feeling faded away.
"Ha, ha, it's alright. Shall we keep skating?" Kota said.
"Sounds good to me, but I think I'm skating too slow for the people behind."
"I can fix that." Kota grabbed Luna's hand and pulled her back to him, so their shoulders were touching. "As I said, don't worry about that. I'll make sure no one pushes you over."
Luna squeezed Kota's hand. She didn't want to let go of his hand accident and get caught up in the traffic again.
Besides that minor mishap earlier, spending time with Kota set Luna's mind at rest. With just Fuuto to look after, all she needed to accomplish from now on was getting her and Fuuto back home in time for dinner. However, Kota made her forget that in a blink of an eye. While circling around the rink, talking with Kota reminded Luna a lot of their boarding school days. It felt so real. Luna could imagine herself in the boarding school library with Kota there by her side. She could almost smell the scent of old books and paper. She could hear the quiet rustling of pages being turned and the small squeaking noises from the chairs being pushed in.
"Hey, Luna," Kota appeared from one of the bookcase aisles. He was in his school uniform even though classes were over for the day.
"It's about time-," Luna was looking over her textbook and notes. It was around 5 o'clock and the sun was already setting, "-you've been coming here almost every day now."
"I don't see what the problem is if I just came to study like a good student," Kota remarked, sitting in the seat next to Luna's. He scooted in his chair, creating that squeaking sound a chair would make as its legs scratched the wooden flooring. The sound was amplified by, echoing in the empty library. A student reading nearby shushed them and Kota gave them a silent apology.
"All you do is skim over your notes from class. That isn't really studying," Luna accused.
"I can't help it if I already understand the material," Kota pulled out said notes.
"That must be nice since I actually have to try and study to get what's going on in class." Luna flipped a page in her notebook and used her colored pen to underline the important text.
"Wow, nice notes." Luna discovered Kota's face next to her. She jumped in her seat, "What are you doing!" she whisper-shouted.
"Your notes are very organized, very pretty," Kota said, "Does it help you remember things better?"
"No, it doesn't. I just like my notes looking pretty." Luna turned back to doing her thing. She turned to the next page of the textbook and read over the first paragraph. She grumbled. She didn't understand what she was reading at all. She was Japanese, not French!... Well...She was French, but she grew up in Japan only speaking Japanese. She could only speak broken French.
She heard Kota laugh. She gave him the side-eye.
"Ha, ha, sorry, sorry, you don't need to glare so hard. Don't you want me to explain it to you?"
"Yes please," Luna sighed in defeat. She slid her textbook over to him.
Kota recognized the content immediately, "Ah! I see. You're going over the French fables we learned in class." He examined the text.
"You know French is my weak point."
"Luna, you aren't bad at French. You're good at memorizing vocab. You just have some trouble remembering how the sentence structures words, so the translation gets a little grumbled," Kota shared. He pointed at one of the sentences in the textbook and translated it into Japanese for Luna to understand. The tension in Luna's temples began to loosen. It was nice. Kota always explained enough for Luna to connect the dots together, but not too much as to spoon-feed her the answers to the homework. She appreciated how he didn't treat her like an idiot.
"I think I got it now," she said.
"Are you sure?" Kota leaned close to her to check over her answers. This time, Luna held her breath. His eyes were dark like the night sky, which Luna thought was very pretty.
"Okay, it looks like you got everything right-" Kota caught Luna staring at him.
The two stared at each other as the dinner bell rang, and right on cue, the librarian at the front desk had begun packing her things away, "Library is closing. You got five minutes," she announced.
Luna broke eye contact first.
"Yes, ma'am," Kota said, breaking his eye contact as well. He threw his notebook in his bag. He turned to Luna, "Did you eat anything yet?"
"I ate just a little bit," Luna said. Kota stood by her, waiting for her to put her things away.
"Wanna join me for dinner?" Kota asked.
"Sounds good to me," Luna packed her things away neatly into her bag, while Kota stood by and waited for her to finish.
"Cool," Kota responded.
Luna pulled her bag strap over her shoulder. Then Kota murmured beneath his breath, "Hey, have you ever wondered what the library was like past hours?"
"I guess," Luna said, "Why?"
"Just curious," Kota said.
"Alright then." Luna gave him the side-eye again.
Then it all happened so fast. Kota dragged Luna into one of the bookshelf aisles, crouching the both of them down. He shoved his hand over Luna's mouth before she could protest, although, at that point, Luna didn't bother to resist.
"Anybody else here?" An old, fragile voice called out. It was probably the librarian. They stayed silent for several seconds. It was as if they were waiting specificaly for Luna and Kota, giving them one more chance to reveal themselves. Luna had never felt more anxious. She wasn't used to breaking the rules.
"Locking the door," the old voice said, and after those last parting words were spoken, Luna and Kota were left with the sound of a light switch and keys locking the door. The two were left in complete darkness with the only light source being the moonlight shining in from the windows. The coast was clear. Luna ripped Kota's hand off of her mouth-maybe a little more forcibly than she meant to-and whisper-shouted, "What are you doing?!"
"You said you wondered what it was like after hours and you said you were joining me for dinner," Kota defended, speaking in his normal voice.
Luna whisper-shouted again, "What! I didn't ask-"
"-Why are you whispering?" Kota said.
Luna cleared her throat, "I didn't ask to actually stay behind!"
"C'mon, you were curious too," Kota said.
"I mean-I guess..." Luna started. Then she whined out in frustration. "Fine, you're right! I was curious," she answered rather sheepishly.
"Hm," Kota's eyebrows raised in surprise, "I thought you would be angry for much longer to be honest," he admitted.
"Well, we're already here and we can't just leave and get caught."
"True, very true," Kota chuckled, "You ready for dinner?"
"What's on the menu?" Luna said.
"Prepared to be amazed," Kota sat down, his back resting against the bookcase. He unzipped his backpack and dumped the contents out-it really reckless in Luna's opinion, but oh well. Besides the atrocious mess of his notebooks, half-broken pencils, and such falling out, there were a few notable things on top. That being bright-colored juice boxes and saran wrapped sandwiches of what seemed to be grilled cheese.
Luna sat down next to Kota. She took one big look at the mixed pile of notebooks, pencils, and food and she looked at Kota, "We should have gone to the cafeteria."
That was one of Luna's favorite memories. She remembered it so vividly, unlike the countless math and science classes she had to attend. Seriously, what was the point of those classes when Luna didn't remember any of them?
Kota's hands tightened around Luna's, stopping her from other skaters passing in front of them. Once the skaters were on their way, Kota pulled Luna along.
"I always like a good thriller. How about you?" Kota asked.
Luna's nose cringed, "I do not like thrillers."
"What! How come?" Kota's mouth dropped.
"I just don't like them," Luna stated.
"Then you're a little chicken," Kota teased.
It was just like old times and Luna wanted this moment to last forever. It was like the times where all she had to worry about was passing her French class and being homesick. The being homesick part was a bit embarrassing since Luna hated to admit that.
"Yes, I am a huge chicken! Is there anything wrong with that?!" Luna admitted. "I just do not like jump scares," she clarified.
"Well… What type of movie genre do you like then?" Kota asked.
"I personally like rom-com movies. It's easy to watch and it's for everyone," Luna said.
"Thrillers are for everyone. It just depends on who can handle it or not-", Kota reasoned, "-and doesn't every girl like rom-coms?"
"Yes, I am a girl. I can like girl things," Luna pointed out.
"Okay, okay, I got it," Kota held his hands up in defense.
"That's what I thought."
Luna's thoughts drifted back to the night she spent in the library with Kota. After breaking a lot of school rules, staying in the library after hours, and going in the restricted section, it was time to head back to the dorms. It was curfew. Kota checked the clock above the exit. He read the time aloud. It was an hour past curfew, and that meant that the two had to sneak back into the dorms. Luna just hoped that her roommate had covered for her. It was the least Lola could do after all the times Luna covered for her when she wanted to hang out with Tom.
Kota suggested it was better they head to Luna's dorm first. Assuming it was Luna's first time staying out past curfew, which it was, he wanted to be sure Luna got back without getting caught. Luna told him that she was fine, but he insisted. He was the one who tricked her into staying out after all. He even helped her climb the oak tree up to the second floor. He was awfully nice about it. Kota jumped from the oak tree to Luna's dorm window sill.
"Okay, now just jump over," Kota instructed. He held out his arms to Luna.
"What!" Luna said. "I can't do that!"
"Yes, you can!"
"No, I can't! Isn't there any other way?" Luna pleaded.
"Unless you wanna get caught," Kota said, "C'mon, just don't think about it."
Luna took a deep breath. She locked her eyes on Kota's arms and she went for it. She pushed off of the oak branches as hard as she could and stretched her arms out to Kota. Luna felt a wave of relief wash over her as soon as landed right into Kota's chest, and as he promised, he caught her, his arms wrapping around her.
"See that wasn't so bad," Kota chuckled.
After that, Kota left. Hopping back to the oak tree and down to the ground literally a million times faster than Luna. It was clear that this was routine for him.
Luna stopped her train of thought, "Kota?"
"Yes?" Kota said.
"Do you remember that time we stayed in the library after curfew?"
"How could I forget," Kota grinned wide, "That night was awesome. The only sad thing about it was that you didn't let us do it again afterward."
"You know, I never thanked you for that. It was really fun and I needed it… So, thank you," Luna looked Kota in the eye.
"I knew it would cheer you up, even if you never said anything. That day was sort of important to me," Kota said.
"Really? Why?" Luna asked Kota, although something else seemed to be on his mind.
"Looks like it's time to go home," Kota changed topics. Kirin, Mimi, Fuuto, and Kaede were all standing beside the railing instead of skating around. It looks like they were getting a little bored.
Kirin spotted her brother and then waved her arm in the air, "Mimi has to go," Kirin called out.
"Then we should go too," Kota answered back
"Okay then, we'll just say our goodbyes real quick," Kaede added in. Kota nodded in agreement.
"We should probably get going too," Luna said, but before she could tell Fuuto, Kota pulled her aside.
He stood Luna right in from him. Then left his hands to his sides. When he spoke his voice stuttered ever so slightly, "S-So…"
The stuttering was a bit out of character for Kota's usual bright personality. Luna caught him playing with the hem of his jacket. Kota let out a half-laugh. He tousled his curly hair as if to calm himself.
"Yes?" Luna said.
"You got any plans for Christmas eve?" Kota's question totally caught Luna off-guard. The question was just so out of the blue.
"Nothing much. Probably just a family dinner and presents," Luna said, "Why?"
"I-I was wondering if you wanted to make some plans again," Kota said.
"Sounds good to me. Are Kirin and Kaede planning something again?"
"N-no! It would just be us two together. I mean my family only really celebrates with a small Christmas dinner and then we open presents in the morning. That's about it," Kota said.
"Okay, and? You know Christmas eve is tomorrow, right?" Luna said.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah! Of course, I do! I just sort of wanted to hang out with you, you know? One on one? Like just us two," Kota asked in a quiet manner. He switched from playing around with the hem of his jacket to one of the belt loops of his pants.
Kota definitely owed Luna. She decided she was going to save him from any further embarrassment, so she said, "I like that, so Christmas eve?" Luna pulled out her phone to write the date down.
"Great, then I'll text you the plans, so make sure you have your afternoon free," Kota said.
A/N: Also, thank you guys for 1,000+ views! It really means a lot! The comments are always very encouraging and give me great feedback. Thanks again! :)