Summary
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Gokusen, and this story is not in any way connected to Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Special Thanks to BlackJack 7 who provided some of the ideas and was a sounding board for me. You may indeed find a few references to the story Growing Up Yakuza in here as well.
A/N: This is sort of a sequel to my two previous stories, Gokusen 2: Lost and Found and A Gokusen JDorama Ending. In order to understand how, please see the incredibly long author's note at the end of this chapter. So be warned, there are some characters introduced in the previous fanfics that will appear in this story without much of an introduction or explanation. If you are cool with that, continue reading. If not, check out the A/N at the end and do what you gotta do.
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Prelude: Your wedding day is supposed to be one of the happiest days of your life. Oh sure, the weeks, months, and perhaps even years leading to the wedding are full of stress, headaches, and endless planning events. And the week prior to the wedding may be one of the most hectic, but shouldn't be the worst week of your life.
However if you are the fourth generation yakuza heiress marrying the son of a prominent senator who was your former student, what can you expect? Such was the case for Yankumi, that is Yamaguchi Kumiko, and Sawada Shin. So after overcoming all of the objections and struggles it took to get them together, and there were more than a few (her background, his background, their age difference, their former status as teacher and student, several love rivals on both sides, his father's objections as a law abiding politician (oh, please as if that isn't an oxymoron I don't know what is), and finally her own refusal to admit her feelings and see him as student no more, but as a lover and as a man.) After all that, they thought that the wedding would be a piece of cake, right? Well, it was more like the worst week of Yamaguchi Kumiko's life, and it began like this.
Chapter 1: Prelude to a Wedding
The door opened as the music began playing. Shin was at the altar dressed in an all-white tuxedo with silver accents, complete with white shoes and gloves. His hair was long and slightly feathered at the end, and he had his signature smile on his face. He was looking at Yankumi with pride and love. She was fetching in a fitted sleeveless satin wedding dress with a lace veil that ended at her waist and a train that picked up from the waist and flowed behind her. Her hair was elaborately pinned up, and she had a jeweled tiara attached to her lace veil on her head. She wore white satin gloves that came up to her elbows and was carrying a single long-stemmed red rose. She felt like a princess. She was smiling at Shin and was accompanied by Kyou.
Although she had been walking in time to the music at least at first, with every step she took, Shin seemed to be getting further away. Yankumi began to quicken her pace, dragging Kyou with her, but Shin seemed to be even further away. She finally broke into a run, lifting her wedding gown to avoid stepping on it or tripping over it. Shin's smile faded into a frown. The faster Yankumi ran, the further Shin would get. All of a sudden the ground began to crumble beneath her and spread until it reached Shin. At that point Yankumi planted her feet and took a flying leap toward Shin. Just as she reached him and landed right in front of him, the ground gave way beneath her. "Shin!" Yankumi yelled and reached out her hand for him, catching hold of his tie.
"O … jou!" Shin called as he reached out to catch Yankumi. She was hanging on to his tie for dear life.
"Shin, I love you!" Yankumi yelled.
"O … jou!" Shin's face began to strain and was turning shades of red, purple, and blue. "O … jou."
Yankumi finally opened her eyes to find that she had Minoru in a choke hold and was pulling on his collar. She let him go, and he flew back across the room on the floor.
"Minoru! What the hell do you think you're doing? You know I'm going to be a married woman in a week. Is this how you treat your Ojou by trying to sneak upon her in her sleep?" Yankumi was getting angrier and angrier as she thought about it.
Minoru crossed his hands in front of his face and shook his head as Yankumi headed toward him menacingly. "Ojou, it's the phone for you." He handed her the phone hurriedly. "The Little Raven asked me to wake you up." Minoru told her quickly as she stopped mid-punch, and her devil face quickly transfigured into a smile as she took the phone.
"Hello, Mani?" Yankumi asked.
"Miko? Honest to goodness, what takes you so long to wake up and get the day started? You have one week until the wedding. I would think you would be chomping at the bit to get each day started." Imani chided her.
"Hey, you're the one interrupting my dreams of marrying the man that I love finally." Yankumi had a dreamy look and a goofy grin plastered on her face.
"Well, in a week that dream will become reality, so wake up already, get dressed, and wipe that goofy grin off your face." Imani teased her trying not to chuckle.
Yankumi stopped grinning. "Get dressed? For what?" She was confused.
"Because I'm taking you to lunch today." Imani replied.
"But I already have a date with my beloved Shin." Yankumi protested and then grinned dreamily.
"Cancel it. After this week, you can have lunch with him almost every day for the rest of your life. Besides I have a few more things for you to discuss with me concerning the wedding. Can't you spare some time to have one last lunch with your little sister?" Imani pouted.
"Oh, alright, just for you. I'll cancel with Shin. When and where do we meet?" Yankumi asked.
"How about at my restaurant at noon? And please dress like you are meeting Shin for a lunch date. In other words, lose the two ponytails and the glasses."
"Tsch, Imani." Yankumi began to complain.
"I mean it, Miko. Just wear what you were going to wear to meet Shin." Imani told her.
Yankumi grumbled in an almost inaudible tone. "Of all the insufferable, intolerable, it's not like …"
"Is that complaining and grumbling I hear?" Imani asked already knowing the answer.
"Nope." Yankumi answered.
"Good, I'll see you in a couple of hours. Try to be on time." Imani told her.
"A couple of hours?" Yankumi turned to see that the clock had 10:00. "Crap, I better hurry." She hung up the phone.
"Bye sis, see you there, and don't forget to call Shin." Imani told her.
Yankumi hit her forehead with her hand. "Oh, right, Shin. I already forgot. Okay, bye. See you." Yankumi hung up racing to start the shower, call Shin, and get her clothes ready. "Uhm Shin, I'm sorry but I can't make lunch today. Something came up."
"Don't tell me. Let me guess. Is it about your fake little sister, Imani? Are you standing me up to meet her again?" Shin asked sounding annoyed.
"Shin, don't be like that, and don't call her my fake little sister. Don't forget that her mother's blood was shed right in front of her to save me so that makes her my blood, and she was kidnapped in my place and taken to an orphanage in Hong Kong so that makes her my sister. Besides, there is plenty of stuff left to do for the wedding and she is the one doing most of it." Yankumi explained, upset.
"Does that mean you have to jump whenever she says so? You said that she doesn't even bring up the past and told you not to feel guilty about it. So stop feeling guilty and giving in to her. Anyway, if she is doing everything for the wedding, what is the wedding coordinator for?" Shin asked.
"Don't ask me. Your mother is the one who insisted on hiring her. I told you that I didn't need it. The kumi or some of the ladies that work for Grandpa offered to organize it and wanted to keep it simple." Yankumi stated and then pictured a wedding organized by the kumi or the ladies from the club.
She and Shin were both picturing it and shivered. Yankumi shook her head. "Nevermind, bad idea. Anyway, you know I can't talk to that woman so Imani does it for me. That lady is always so frightened and nervous whenever she is around me or comes to the house, and yet she still talks down to me like I am a child or stupid whenever it comes to wedding etiquette even though I am very knowledgeable about love and romance."
Shin cleared his throat to keep from laughing and giving Yankumi a retort. "We are running out of dishes, too because every time she is here she manages to drop a tea cup or plate. She always jumps nervously like the kumi is going to eat her or something. Even Fuji gets nervous when she is around. That time a car backfired, it took three of the members to extricate her from Kyou." Both Yankumi and Shin broke out in laughter recalling that time.
"She still swears to this day that it was a gun shot. Anyway, Shin I have to go before I am late. I'll see you later this evening for dinner or tomorrow for lunch." Yankumi told him.
"That's not good enough, but I'll see you later." Shin sounded disappointed.
"Shin, I love you." Yankumi told him.
"I know. I love you too, Kumiko." He drawled her name. And I'll see you before you know it. He smiled to himself and hung up.
Yankumi, meanwhile rushed to get ready and meet her friend at the restaurant in time.
(A/N): I am known to write extremely long chapters, but I am trying to keep my chapters shorter, which will probably mean more chapters. I'll try to break everything up appropriately however. Now for the really long explanation about this fic and my other two. I beg forgiveness and patience, but I have to justify myself. When I found fanfiction, the purpose was to get a hint of what happened in the manga since not all of the chapters have been scanlated. I never intended on writing a story because I truly enjoyed a lot of the stories out here and felt that I had nothing to add. But I felt the need to write an ending to the Jdorama since the manga was still ongoing. Before I finished that, someone commented that there are not a lot of Gokusen 2 stories. So, I had to write one. Again, I have noticed that there are not a lot of stories about what kinds of things would happen at their wedding. So, I decided to write that one too. So this is the third and final installment in the trilogy I never intended on writing.
Now that you understand why I wrote it, let me explain how to read it. Of course, if you read it as a stand-alone fiction, you should enjoy it. However, I have a mischievous side. So, this story connects my other two stories together. It is sort of a sequel to both A Jdorama ending and Gokusen 2 Lost and Found. It picks up at the end of Lost and Found and the next to the last chapter in a Jdorama Ending. I had no intention of writing one, let alone three stories. I certainly didn't intend on making them all interrelated, but it couldn't be helped. That is how it ended up. Please enjoy this story, but if you want to know how the three are related then I encourage you to read Gokusen 2 Lost and Found first. Then all of the chapters in Gokusen a Jdorama Ending, except for the last one, then read this one, and finally read the last chapter in a Gokusen Jdorama Ending. But you don't have to to enjoy this story. I think it stands alone just fine.