When school ended, rain began to fall.
Clear raindrops kept falling, like tears from the sky.
"Oh no! The weather report never said it would rain!"
Shido ran along the road ho.
Even though he held his schoolbag above his head, he still could not stop the rain from soaking his clothes.
"I'll stop by Yakumo-senpai's place for a bit."
The shrine was closer to the school.
Rather than going all the way ho soaked like a drowned rat, Shido decided to take shelter at Mikoto's house.
He quickly passed under an overpass, and the shrine's torii was already close.
"Huh?"
The mont he entered the shrine grounds, he saw an unfamiliar girl.
Her small body was wrapped in a cute coat. A large hood decorated with rabbit ears completely covered her head, as if trying to hide it.
But what drew his attention even more was her left hand.
A funny-looking rabbit puppet was worn there.
The quiet shrine was covered in rain. Only that girl seed happy as she hopped around.
For so reason, she bothered him.
It was as if a strange feeling of wrongness had caught Shido's attention. Even though the rain had soaked him from head to toe, he did not move.
Thud!
Just then, the girl suddenly slipped.
Her body hit the ground hard, and the puppet on her left hand flew off all at once.
Then she stopped moving.
"Hey!"
Shido ran over and helped the girl up.
"A-are you okay?"
At close range, Shido saw the face hidden under the hood.
Sea blue hair.
Cherry colored lips.
She was a beautiful girl, like a French doll.
[!!!]
The girl opened her eyes, revealing blue eyes like sapphires.
"Thank goodness... Does anything hurt—"
Before Shido could finish speaking, the girl's face turned pale with fear.
She jumped far away and trembled slightly, like a frightened small animal.
————————
"Ara, it's raining."
Mikoto looked at the sky through the window.
"Shido... probably didn't bring an umbrella."
According to the weather report, there was only a ten percent chance of rain today, so Shido would not have taken an umbrella to school.
Looking at the ti, he was probably running along the road after school right now.
Normally, third-year students won't leave school earlier than Shido. But Mikoto often left early.
Tamako obaa-chan was not here anymore, and the shrine still had to keep running, so Mikoto was both studying and working, taking care of the shrine at the sa ti.
The school understood her situation.
Of course, it was also possible that they only "understood" thanks to Ratatoskr's help.
Either way, before she crossed into this world, Mikoto had been a university student. As long as she found so ti to read the textbooks, high school lessons were enough. There was no need for her to study everything seriously all over again.
She picked up two umbrellas and went outside.
The shrine was between the Itsuka house and the school. If she was lucky, she might be able to find Shido.
And maybe...
"Ah."
The mont she stepped outside, she saw a familiar figure.
She had thought about the possibility that Shido might co to the shrine to avoid the rain, but who was that girl talking to him?
The green coat looked cute, but it also had an unreal feeling.
The rabbit puppet on the girl's left hand opened and closed its mouth, as if it was not the girl herself speaking to Shido, but the puppet.
The girl hopped away.
After turning a corner, she vanished from sight, leaving Shido standing there in a daze.
"What was that, anyway..."
A girl who liked using ventriloquism to talk through a puppet, and who called Shido a "lucky pervert."
The developnt was so strange that Shido scratched his cheek.
"Huh?"
Just then, the rain he had been feeling all this ti suddenly disappeared.
Shido turned around and saw Mikoto standing behind him, holding an umbrella.
"The cute girl left. What a sha. It was clearly a romantic rainy day eting."
"No... um..."
"I'm joking. Hurry and co inside. You'll catch a cold."
Mikoto smiled.
Since the house was only a few steps away, she did not give Shido the second umbrella she had prepared. Instead, she shared one umbrella with him as they walked back.
"I'll prepare the bath. Go wash up first."
Looking at Shido, who was completely soaked, Mikoto said that.
"It's okay. The rain's almost stopped. I can wash up when I get ho."
Shido looked outside.
As if the girl with the rabbit puppet had taken the rain away with her when she left, the rain was gradually becoming weaker.
"There's no way I can let you go ho like that, right?"
Mikoto sighed and looked at Shido.
Just by standing there, a small puddle had already ford on the floor beneath him. He looked like he had just been fished out of a river.
"Uh... then I'll trouble you."
Shido looked down at himself.
Not only was he completely soaked, but because he had helped that girl up earlier, there was also a lot of mud on his knees.
So he accepted Mikoto's kindness.
———————
"Ah... I'm alive again."
Shido lay in the bathtub and enjoyed the lemon scent rising from the bath salts.
The uncomfortable feeling from being drenched in the rain was washed away completely.
"Shido, I'll take your clothes and wash them, okay?"
Mikoto's shadow appeared on the frosted glass between the bathroom and the changing room.
"Please do, Yakumo-senpai."
While thanking Mikoto in his heart, Shido relaxed his body.
[I'll soak a bit longer and use this chance to wash away all the tiredness that's been building up lately.]
That was what he thought.
On the other side, Mikoto took Shido's clothes to the washing machine.
After adding detergent and the clothes, she set the washing and drying ti, then pressed the start button.
[Oh no!]
Suddenly, Mikoto realized sothing bad.
There were no spare clothes at the shrine for Shido to wear.
"From washing to spinning... then drying... uu..."
Mikoto sadly found that the washing machine displayed an estimated ti of about one hour.
[What should I do...Ah!]
As Mikoto was worrying, she suddenly clapped her hands as if she had thought of sothing.
[I rember that's still here!]
She walked to the small storage room and pushed open the door.
What entered her eyes was exactly what she wanted.
It was sothing that had been given as a free gift by the shop owner when she bought a large number of new pieces of furniture after AST blew up the shrine. She had thought it would not be useful, so she had put it in the storage room.
"Found it!"
Mikoto lifted it up and looked at it.
When she imagined how Shido would look wearing it later, she could not help laughing.
——————
"Shido, I put so spare clothes for you in the changing room."
"Ah, thanks."
"And also..."
"Hm?"
"Um... sorry!"
After saying that, Mikoto quickly ran out of the changing room, leaving Shido alone to wonder why she had apologized.
"Next... I should make dinner."
Mikoto walked into the living room, checked the ti, then opened the refrigerator and began planning what to make for dinner.
"Wh-what is thisssss?!"
Ten minutes later, Shido's scream rang out from the changing room.
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