Touko Fukawa had never believed that she could look beautiful. She'd never believed that a beautiful bride on her wedding day could ever be her, but there she was in her wedding dress with her hair spilled across her back and her face done up in such a way that she could even think she looked beautiful.

Aoi Asahina and Sayaka Maizono, though Fukawa had never been big fans of them while they were at school, had actually done a decent job. They'd made her… well, they'd made her beautiful.

"Wow."

Fukawa jumped and turned around to see Naegi in his suit, gaping. He shut his mouth and managed an awkward smile. She blushed and looked at the ground, clasping her hands in front of her. Naegi made his way into the room, ignoring Maizono's "You shouldn't see her before the ceremony, Naegi-kun!"

"You look beautiful," he said in that absolutely sincere and wonderful voice of his. Her blush darkened and tears threatened to spill over. He noticed, of course. "Are you okay?"

"I-I'm fine," she said, holding back the urge to snap at him. She reminded herself that he wanted to marry her and that he wasn't going to reject or make fun of her. She'd run off when he proposed, and he'd chased after her. It had taken him so long to convince her that he was being sincere. It almost made her wonder if today was all a huge farce, if it was just… "I'm fine."

Naegi glanced at Asahina and Maizono, a wordless plea for some privacy. Maizono got it at once, and pulled Asahina out behind her. Naegi turned back to her, studying her with that same look of awe on his face. She didn't know if it was possible, but she blushed even harder.

"You know you're beautiful, right?" Naegi asked, and Touko tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and nodded shyly.

"They made me beautiful," Touko said. "T-thank you. For telling them to. And for marrying someone like me."

"Wait, no, I didn't mean that-" Naegi broke off. He spent the next few moments just staring at her, taking in her face. She felt slightly uncomfortable with the situation, but not in a bad way. He sighed. "I really do want to marry you, you know. And they offered to help you with your makeup. I didn't – I didn't make them do it or anything."

Fukawa resisted the urge to snap and ask why she couldn't do her own makeup, because the rational part of her knew that Maizono was far better at makeup than her, and Asahina was… bubbly. Fukawa wasn't actually totally sure what she'd done to help, but she'd just piled into the room after Maizono.

Fukawa had gotten a lot better at holding back snaps about how nobody liked her when she was around Naegi. She wasn't perfect, but… she was better than she had been. "Thank you anyway," she said, her voice barely a whisper, and Naegi hugged her. He wasn't that much larger than her – he had, thankfully, hit a growth spurt after high school – but his hugs were still nice. They felt safe, even if he was sort of soft and small. He rested his head on the top of her head and they stayed like that for a while before being interrupted.

"Naegi-kun! They require your presence at the alter!"
Naegi gave her a quick kiss on the top of the head and stepped away. He headed off with a sort of weariness that often came along with dealing with Kiyotaka Ishimaru who had, upon learning that there was to be a wedding, taken it upon himself to make sure it ran smoothly. There had been a few bumps along the road – Ishimaru had been almost distraught when he'd learned that it wouldn't be a traditional Japanese wedding, and Naegi had had to remind him that it wasn't actually his wedding – but it had taken a lot of stress off of her.

"You look very nice, Fukawa-kun!"

Fukawa muttered out what could be taken as a thanks and then she was alone in the room, hugging herself, taking deep breaths and trying to get a hold on herself. Then she made sure that her stupid crying hadn't ruined the eye makeup that Maizono had put on her, and readied herself for what was possibly going to be the last truly happy day of her life.

But that wasn't really true, because she was marrying Makoto Naegi, and he tried almost obscenely hard to make everyone happy. It had been annoying at first, but when he'd decided to make her happy as well… well, then the annoying factor had gone down quite a lot.

So Touko Fukawa took one last look in the mirror, marveling at how the beautiful woman could be her, and headed out to her wedding.

I'm… not sure how I feel about this one, but an anon on Tumblr requested a Naegi/Fukawa, nondespair AU, right before their wedding. So here we go!