title: we'll watch these molehills grow to mountains
pairing(s): seowaka main. side horikashi, mikochiyo, ryoukari.
summary: The Wakamatsu wedding is simple but elegant, and lives up to all expectations raised, as the newspapers and internet forums duly note. Similarly true to form, Seo nearly blinds someone with the bouquet toss.

a/n: i should really go to jail for abusing the semi-colon lol (re: cross-posting: this is already up on AO3 in full, weekly updates on this site)

disclaimer: i do not own GSNK. this fan work is transformative and was created solely for non-profit entertainment purposes. thank you.


Wakamatsu Hirotaka has lately had reason to be philosophising about the nature of his relationships, and their purpose; their overall place in the scheme of his life thus far.

Thinking on the course of past relationships and pseudo-relationships, though, inevitably leads him off on tangents pertaining to Seo—after all, she is the one responsible for introducing him to the concept of dubiously romantic attention and the ills of miscommunication. First times do tend to stick in the memory.

Time and distance have served to neutralise the devastating effect she had on his psyche, with the gradually diminishing encounters fading into sepia-toned school yearbooks, the same way he fades into fitful sleep after the insomnia passes. Seo is supposed to be a demon of the past. The way they've lived their now distinctly separate lives has always been the same, he supposes – touching but not intersecting; proximity without intimacy. He doesn't quite agree with Dante on the merits of this state.

He never would have thought he'd be initiating contact with her, but here he is, doing just that. And all because he panicked when his parents called him into the study and tentatively broached the subject of marriage. His brain had kind of shut down along with his temporary faculties of speech—though he remained alert enough to catch the oft-repeated phrases of "getting older" and "about time to settle down" and "blind date"; enough to know roughly what they were suggesting—and they caught the glazed look in his eyes just as they were trailing off "…even your younger brother's in a steady relationship…"

The temptation to say no and run screaming from the room in feigned madness is great (he's seen it work in shoujo manga where characters want to escape high-tension family confrontations), but he's never been anything but a filial son, starched up into proper piety and softened with gentle smiles. So he goes, anyway; goes on these blind dates with genteel, well-groomed girls who are supposed to be his type, every single one of them capable of passing for the epitome of coddled, beautiful only children. And he smiles back when they smile at him, offers his arm to them when they stroll along pavements, walks closer to the road, ignores the total apathy that he feels when he's next to them.

Wakamatsu's honestly tried to cultivate attachment, if not affection, but when faced with them all he can think of is how farcical the whole thing is. It's strange and puzzling, to say the least, that he has no interest in these women. No primary attraction based on looks. Not even any secondary attraction based on emotional connection, since he can't even muster that up. Okay, so maybe he's missing something in the big picture, but even so he still latches onto the small details. The parade of arranged dates has near-identical presences, but he can tell that there's one girl he's been sent out with more often than the others by the increasingly familiar sight of her manicure.

Actually, in his head he can tell who they are by manicure, and he slips the labels on over their faces like how he once labelled his screen tones when he couldn't remember their corresponding number tags. There's one who wears only pastel shades, one who favours candy swirls, another diamanté flowers, while the particular set his eyes often meet are invariably carmine red (they hurt his eyes, he wishes they were something more like olive green and polka-dotted, or translucent amber framed with silver shine; maybe even unpainted).

"How about her?" his well-meaning folks ask.

Wakamatsu thinks of her banal aura, all insipidly soft pink and bubbly sunshine backgrounds, and automatically shakes his head. Which is a giant misstep; it turns out, when he registers the magnitude of the frowns on their faces. It's a situation dangerous enough for his instincts to take over, and Hirotaka's instincts involve saying the wrong things, or things based on shoujo manga, most often both: this is no exception.

"Th-there's already—uh, someone else I had in mind," he trips out. "This is, well, I mean—marriage. And I-I'd like to pick my partner…myself."

He stares at the specks of dust swirling in the mid-morning light, at the heavy drapery, at a possible future of perfectly coiffed hair. It's simply awful.

"All right," his parents say, and he snaps his eyes up to meet theirs, vague unease coiling in his gut.

"Bring her to lunch next Saturday."


Wakamatsu has only one week to conjure this fiancée out of thin air, and life's not helping. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and therefore Friday evening finds him sliding into a diner booth opposite the one woman he once told himself he'd never date. She looks up expectantly when he sits down, and he takes a fortifying breath.

"Seo-senpai. Thanks for agreeing to meet on such short notice."

And he feels horrible about it inside, but they both know that he knows that the only reason she agreed to meet him and hear him out was her desire to see his face in the flesh and hear his voice in person; just once more after so many years. Which makes this downright manipulative of him, but as already mentioned above, he is desperate—and she knows that. Clearly.

He proceeds to blurt out the chain of events that led up to this in excruciating detail, much too preoccupied with his tale of woe to notice the subtle signs of unearthly glee on her face. He isn't really sure he wants to know what exactly she finds so amusing, when he eventually does pick up on it (she's never been one for subtlety)—dealing with unwitting sadists is an unwelcome part of life. But he pushes it aside and continues rambling on and on and on about the blind dates and the false expectations and how there's no way out of it now, and when it's over at long last he's left panting despairingly at the sight of her supremely unconcerned face.

"So?" she says, pushing a glass of water across the table at him (how someone can be both so callous and so considerate at the same time, he'll never comprehend).

"You just here to rant, or what?" She leans forward, elbows on table.

"Are you actually suggesting that I go along with this nonsense of yours – and it's totally your own fault, anyway. I'm already about this close to breaking out in hysterical laughter, you know, but the last time I did that I got kicked out of a restaurant, so I'm not going to."

Wakamatsu stares fixedly at the varnished fake wood grain of the table top, biting his lip hesitantly. Try again. Come on. There's no one else.

He clears his throat.

"Seo-senpai,"he speaks lowly, seriously, leaning forward as well to match her posture, to close the distance between their faces. "I'll admit that you're not the woman I want, but (and here he grimaces) right now, you're the woman I need." He blinks away the rising tears of frustration.

"I've tried so hard, to feel the smallest bit of anything for all those other girls, and it doesn't work, doesn't feel right at all. And I—I don't know, but I knew you once, and—maybe we can make something happen? You know? Just…please. Please."

He waits.

That look in her eyes, it might just be empathy, though empathy won't be of any help in this case. He sees pity, too, and what cements into a grim sort of resolve. "Lucky for you I'm not in any serious relationships right now," she mutters—and his face just lights up at that line, so radiant it threatens to shed light on all the dark ugly undersides of this arrangement. There's going to be a lot of things to adjust to, something that really only first hits home when Seo's voice turns commanding.

"Now, if we're going to make this work, call me Yuzuki." There's an awkward pause, before she tacks on the next words, "…and tell me your first name."

"Hirotaka," he rushes out, as if he's afraid that she'll suddenly change her mind and back out on the scheme. "It's—"

"Hirotaka," she completes his sentence, voice uncharacteristically quiet as she echoes him. If he hadn't known her better he'd have said that Seo—no, Yuzuki —sounded almost reverent.

It's a Very Big Thing, as everyone knows, to be addressing each other on first name basis, sans honourifics. Even though the way this woman wraps her tongue around the syllables of his first name makes it seem so easy his refuses to cooperate in the same way, tripping over the unfamiliar word and refusing to right itself and be presented to the world. As Wakamatsu tries again and again to get her name out of his mouth while flushing progressively darker shades of scarlet, he sneaks a desperate glance at her, still sitting opposite him with a rather woodenly bemused cast to her features. The usual Seo would have been laughing uproariously by now, but he supposes that even people like her can improve over the years.

"C'mon, Waka. I mean. Hirotaka. Uh. This isn't that hard, you know?"

His jaw drops slightly further, helplessly.

"What, need some help? Repeat after me, you hopeless little shit," she grins, and leans forward coaxingly. "Yu-zu-ki. Say it like that."

He swallows at the daunting task ahead, but he knows that this is just the smallest of his worries. Just three syllables, he tells himself. Just three. He can do this, even with her smiling at him like she thinks she knows why he can't say her name, like he really holds a candle for her.

Hirotaka probably would have had a problem with that, but the rush of gratitude that swells his lungs and quickens his heartbeat helps him along: the way he says her first name for the first time ends up being so couched in warmth and tenderness that it almost sounds like he really loves her.

And that's good enough for today, at least.


There are little snags to the present-Yuzuki-as-fake-fiancée plan though, potential kinks they have to iron out together. They start by practising sounding intimate in the car as he drives her home, and it's such a horrible failure that they double over laughing whenever they can afford to take their eyes off the road.

Hirotaka makes a mental list as they glide on through the night, heading to the apartment complex where she lives. Hair, nails, speech, smile; and the way he looks at her as well, that's important too. He tells her as much, and together they mull it over, engine idling in the parking lot.

"I can do your hair, I guess. I can nick some of my sister's hair styling products or something. I'll just have to come over a little earlier to get it done, okay?"

"Ah, sure. Are we letting my hair down, though? Putting it half up? Braiding it? No buns, please. I really can't stand those."

He takes his hand off of the steering wheel at last, even though they've been stationary for quite some time, and runs it tentatively through her hair. Yuzuki cringes lightly, shrinking from his impulsive, deliberate touch. Skin grazes skin, wounds that smart in places unseen.

"You're not the woman I want" – pretty difficult to reconcile words like that with the inherent tenderness of a gesture like this. Perhaps he might have meant to be reassuring, but it comes off as a jarring incongruity between words (cool, detached tone and all) and actions (distractingly, and confusingly enough, they reek of fondness) that throws both of them off.

Hirotaka blinks, and focuses on the issue at hand—like her hair, which is literally in his hand, but you know what I mean.

"Um, I was thinking of putting it half up, or in a side braid, you know? But that'll probably depend on what you decide to wear."

"Oh, yeah," she nods distractedly, "but where is this gonna be held, again?"

"Yes, my parent's house. Um, it's the swanky almost-mansion type, so nothing too casual. But I don't want you to look like all the rest of them, anyway, so maybe you should just wear what you normally do..?"

Yuzuki shrugs noncommittally, though her words are anything but. "I have this long Greek dress looking thing left over from being some cousin's bridesmaid," she says. "Will that do?"

She slants him a sidelong look. "Maybe you should just come upstairs with me and have a look. Since we are, you know, pretending to be engaged until the weekend's over."

So he does, even though he almost doesn't dare to step over the threshold. Apparently this is the apartment her older brother occupied while at university, and the relatively sparse furniture is testament to that; though it really shouldn't be that way, since it must have been years and years. The whole pared down aesthetic of the place strikes him as more than a little off; it rather feels like this space is merely inhabited, but not truly lived in.

What sort of young woman is she to not have her house done up in any way? At this point Hirotaka isn't very accustomed to making deductions from anything but manicures, and his senpai's nails aren't manicured, so he's kind of at a loss.

"You can go ahead first and have a look at my wardrobe," Seo nods in the direction of her bedroom. "You know, I gotta go make us tea, I guess." And then off she pads into what is presumably the kitchen, leaving him to send pleading looks after her retreating back before awkwardly shuffling further into the flat.

Her futon is shoved against the wall, rolled into a haphazard pile from which the still-rumpled covers peek, and he has to pull very hard before his eyes will be dragged away from the creases and dips her body has made in the mattress. It'd never do for her to walk in and catch him staring at her futon, who knows what she might say? Hirotaka wonders if he would he like to stay the night.

Truly, what would his response be if she offered?

He leaves when it's gotten so late that entire neighbourhoods fall quiet and the sound of their twin footsteps on the bare floor (of course there are no carpets) echoes loud in his ears. As he slips on his shoes at the entrance, hand on the wall for some balance, Yuzuki pads over on bare feet, long since stripped of those thin black stockings. He stares at the whiteness of her toes, the natural pinkish colour and simple arch of her nails, the ones he'll take in hand and carefully lacquer tomorrow—and all of a sudden the thought of such intimacy with an acquaintance as erstwhile as to almost be a stranger makes him quail. It's only just this once, he tells himself, and pushing any queasiness away before she can pick up on the scent of it (she always had been good at that).

He straightens up to make a last set of farewells, oddly stiff and formal now that he's trying to ward off thoughts about the texture of her skin, her hair, his picking that stray eyelash off her cheek. And that's when she leans up and plants a kiss on his face, deliberately catching the corner of his mouth under her lips.

When he freezes up, she smirks, reaches over and slyly pokes a finger into his chest. "What's the matter now, Hirotaka?"

For the first time in forever, he feels himself flush to the very tips of his ears.


Under the same night sky, one stiletto-clad foot is planted boldly on plush red velvet, then another. Multi-talented artiste Yuu (Kashima Yuu, really, but stage name: just Yuu)—actress, model, seiyū and household name—gracefully unfolds her lithe form from the vehicle in which she was conveyed to the premiere of the latest movie she'd starred in. It's a truly awe-inspiring affair, though many would say, not as awe-inspiring as her person on this night.

Shown off in beautifully stark contrast to the deep red of the carpet are the creamy length of her legs, sinfully long and drawing the eye up irresistibly towards her equally slender neck; the black silk that wraps her modestly up to the chin generously slit at the skirt to reveal several inches more thigh than ought to be allowed.

She's a real vision. And everyone knows it.

The clicks of a hundred cameras go off in rapid succession, the rapid shuttering like a muted roar, appreciative and hungry and shooting off beams of light that bounce mercilessly off the enamel of teeth, say, or the retina of an eye. Never one to be overwhelmed, Kashima smiles, poses, blows kisses galore.

As usual, both the event and after parties see her surrounded by an admiring gaggle of (okay, fine, mostly) women, and then of course she busies herself with making sure that all tonight's princesses are liberally showered with an equal share of overdone compliments and flattery. Perhaps she'll be able to set a new record for mass swooning, and who can predict what else? But little does she know, as the merry little group's laughs trail off into the glittering night, that something sinister is brewing under the calm surface of their lives.

Basically: a "dating scandal" erupts.

For what must be the first time in her dalliance-saturated life, Kashima Yuu finds that she has generated one too many reports about her unholy appeal towards the fairer sex, leading to rampant online speculation about her sexuality and disregard of the gender binary. She may have thought herself immune to criticism about her conduct before, but she cannot deny that she is indeed shaken by the sheer volume, or the vehemence, of what other people have to say about her. And of course it isn't just about people talking, it's about the tone they're using, breathing life into assumptions and insinuations that could perhaps have lain dormant for years past and future, if not for this one untimely window of opportunity through which the venomous tendrils of anonymous netizen's voices have snaked.

Perhaps it would've been alright if she were in America or Europe, where 'coming out' seems to be some new in thing for celebrities; where flirting with countless ladies could be s solid boost rather than a stain on her reputation; but here she is in Japan, deeply conservative Japan, where despite what everyone might spout about cultural acceptance and freedom to be oneself, there is absolutely no way her showbiz career will survive the storm such rumours surrounding her will whip up.


The streets are empty save for a smattering of silhouettes, spots of darker grey on grey.

Nozaki Umetarou walks home from convenience store slowly, though with his long legs it isn't hard for him to cover as much ground as, say, Sakura if she were brisk walking. On this particular evening his thoughts are dwelling on something other than his manga – well, at least not directly related to his current series – for once.

A woman, to be exact. One he'd met under the most contrived circumstances possible in order, he guesses, for life to heap upon him the massive irony of being a shoujo manga author and having what was meant to be fantasy become reality. Seriously, the chances of a meet-cute like this are truly one in a million.

But maybe that's just him, they're more like run of the mill for his protagonists…

As a man writing under a female pseudonym, under the guise of a sweet young thing, fan meetings and signing events have always been an infinitely terrifying prospect (though sometimes he has to ask himself why he even bothers anymore, since it's likely that no one would believe him anyway).

Umetarou's been fortunate, really, that with every passing event that Yumeno Sakiko once again chooses not to show her face at, the positive hype surrounding her has only multiplied dramatically. Super reserved gentle flower declines to bask in spotlight! Etc., are the sort of things the newspapers seem to enjoy churning out, and they're joined happily by the editors of manga magazines in perpetuating the erroneously wrong image they have of their supposed author.

Yamato Nadeshiko? Him? Umetarou supposes he is a tad flattered, but no.

Anyway, time to return to the subject at hand.

He had certainly not anticipated that someone else would be hiding out in the back, furrowing their brows over trying to formulate an escape plan from this dratted mass manga signing event. He'd thought himself rather alone in the cordoned-off area behind the staff quarters the mall bookstore boasted, swathed in dusty drapes from some long-forgotten event and too busy ruminating to realise he'd in fact been spotted slipping away by his trustworthy editor.

Having masqueraded for the bigger part of his life as a delicate beauty of good background, the very epitome of understanding girl's hearts, what sort of author would he be now, to reveal his true gender and smash the fans' hearts to smithereens? It would be the worst sort of treachery, nothing would be more callous. Or perhaps they'd take it as a deliberately orchestrated prank?

Inching backwards down the darkened corridor towards the emergency exit, Umetarou nearly jumps out of his skin when his back collides with someone else's, thoughts careening off into the wildest of feasibly trite outcomes.

And then there's that moment when he doesn't need to try and place himself in a manga hero's shoes, because he's experiencing first-hand the rush of heady adrenaline and anticipation and fear as he turns to make eye contact with whatever's behind him, mouth gaping like a goldfish.

When one gets caught trying to escape by someone else trying to escape, there's only one way things can go: making a break for it together. The glorious rush towards the door at the end of the tunnel, the dawning appreciation of soon-to-be-free-ness, the emphatic turning of the handle – tragically cut short by the dreadful buzz of a received text message.

Hands shaking, he reaches for his phone to open the mail.

From: Ken-san Subject: Don't even think about it

Make that two received text messages, actually. So, well. That's one plan put to rest.

Which is how the two, not a second more than necessary wasted on introductions, find themselves spending the last fifteen minutes before the event opens hastily instructing each other on how to execute their respective signatures flawlessly, in the pantry of all places.

Umetarou was secretly more than a little pained that Ken-san had given them a withering sideways glance when they hastily shoved through the ranks of chairs and took their (exchanged) seats amongst their infinitely bemused fellow writers and editorial staff, but he hadn't outright vetoed the idea.

"Whatever floats your boat, you two," he'd muttered. "Just don't mess up, okay?"

"Have no fear of that, Ken-san," Umetarou had immediately spoken up. "While you were searching for us just now, Yaguchi-sensei and I were most studiously practicing how to execute each other's autographs in the pa—"

"Pantry, yes," Ken-san finished for him, massaging his temples wearily. "If you would be so kind as to spare me the details?"

"Ah, and stop calling Yumeno-sensei Yaguchi-sensei, Yaguchi-sensei."

The rosy glow of pleasant reminiscing segues into the warm crocus yellow of the living room light that shines dimly through the veil the curtains make, as he looks up at his apartment from the street below.

That's right, he recalls, starting up the steps; Mayu's there today.


Next morning Hirotaka stops by Yuzuki's place early, like he'd promised, bearing said hair products and nail polish and a pack of bobby pins, since he just knows that she won't have any around. He hustles her out of bed and settles her into a comfortable kitchen chair for the next few hours while he experiments with her hair and deftly paints her nails, buffs and polishes them to perfection. All the time she seems to be half asleep, but in reality, she's much too awake for his liking.

"The things I do for you," he sighs in mock exaggeration, blowing on her nails to hasten the drying of the shiny polish.

And the perfectly timed retort, only the slightest bit indignant—

"You're fucking kidding me, Waka, you're doing this for yourself."


The introductions out of the way, they go in to lunch. He picks the seat on Yuzuki's left, which puts him a little further away from the rest, though the view of his parents whispering to each other incessantly is unfortunately unblocked.

"Yes," they're murmuring into their palms, "green and gold will do very nicely."

Green and gold will do very nicely for what? When he realises that he's spoken aloud, they turn and give an indulgent smile, the sort of expression that parents always get when they think they're withholding good news from their ignorant offspring. "Oh, do try and guess," they coo just a tad patronisingly in the face of the blank stares they receive.

"My ring is green and gold," his sister says.

"Rose beetles," declares his brother.

Then even Yuzuki opens her mouth to respond. "Kiwi fruits," is her very concise input to the conversation.

Not that he's one to talk, because Hirotaka is speechless. His parents are pleased with them though, and they share a conspiratorial glance, before casually dropping the biggest bombshell they possibly could.

"The invitations, of course, what else?" they say, and he sits there stupidly for a moment before it sinks in.

They continue blithely, smiling. "The wedding will be in six months."

"Fuck," Seo and Wakamatsu spit in unison.

Everyone very nicely pretends that they've just coughed.

The first to recover is Yuzuki, and she's quick to adopt a facial expression of pleased but extremely startled surprise that evidently goes a long way towards mollifying his parents, who were just about to laser them to slivers with their eyes. "Six months," she murmurs thoughtfully into one fist, scrunching up her brows as if she's really thinking it through. And she might have been, but just then he catches, from the corner of his eyes, the hand on her lap unfurling to display her open palm.

Dear, dear Yuzuki: her voice doesn't betray any expectation, but he thinks he would have to be blind not to see that whatever she says next will weigh on his decision—whether to put his hand in hers, or not. It's almost chilling to imagine what would happen if he stayed frozen like this, if he didn't make a move to take her hand. Hirotaka chooses to; leans forward and laces his fingers tightly through hers; flicks his troubled blue eyes over to meet clear amber ones straight on.

The corners of Yuzuki's lips turn up in the barest smile, and she draws their interlocked palms up to prop under her chin as she turns back to the others. "Six months," she begins again, "I suppose that's enough time."

It works well enough, and they are pardoned for the slip, though the ensuing discussion on wedding plans and living arrangements and all the different ways they could have wedding clothes done washes right over his head. On the way back to her apartment, he can barely remember a word of what was said.

All he can think of, right now, is that he's really going to marry her. That she's going to marry him.

Why, forget the ceremony, his taking her hand just now under those very circumstances was as good as plighting his troth to her on the spot.

This time, he's the one who leans down and kisses her cheek. It is, unfortunately, the kind of kiss that is meant to function as an apology of sorts—quick, perfunctory, and reeking of apologetic hesitancy as to whether the kisser should linger or leave. Hirotaka chooses the latter, as it is, because the urge to find some space and just let go of his composure for a little while is overwhelming; and so he bolts without really thinking any more, without thinking about what it might look like to her, with only an unspoken resolution hastily formed, that he should call her later to make up for it somehow.


He dials her number from his call log history, and dimly notes that she picks up within the first three rings as he swallows the lump building in his throat.

"Hey," he rasps into the receiver, forcing himself to speak without preamble. "Thank you. Thank you, thank you very much."

Yuzuki actually huffs into the phone, and he jumps a little at the crackle it makes over the line. "Is that all you're going to say?" she demands, sounding indignant and more than a little injured—in short, a tone he never thought he'd hear from her – enough to make his conscience prickle. If he were to think about it impartially, he would see that what Yuzuki has done for him today is probably the most selfless deed she's ever ventured to undertake in the entirety of her life; so uncharacteristic and so massive a sacrifice it is. What can he ever hope to offer her in return for this? The year will pass and they will be (perhaps not so) irrevocably wed, and he won't be able to give her back her time, or her peace of mind, or his heart, because that's completely out of the question. It's the sort of debt that will always be notoriously difficult to repay; he supposes he'll be thinking about it (about her) every waking moment for the rest of his life.

And all these thoughts of short-changing her, though he doesn't consider the possibility, rather crowd out the thought that he might be short-changing himself too. Yet how could he, really, when the enormity of unfairness is obviously so much heavier on her shoulders than his? His skewed perspective tells him that he's gotten out of an entirely arranged marriage to a stranger and trapped his senpai in one instead, while reality can only revel in the sheer irony of him jumping to such a conclusion.

Also: what's that about Seo-senpai not being able to read the atmosphere? To him, at least, it's pretty obvious that she can, though she still goes ahead and says what she wants to anyway.

"W-well, I—don't really know what else to say," he edges out. "Sorry."

"Oh, are you?"

"Uh—I-I, um, anyway! We-we're getting married. To each other."

"So it would seem."

"Yeah, s-so, can…can we go out, um, together?" Hirotaka can feel his face getting redder with every attempt to put his proposition into words, the irony of the situation hitting his composure full force. "Like, as a proper c-couple, you know. On a—on a date."

"Right," she replies, drawing out the word as much as she can, making him hold his breath in tandem with her sceptical drawl. "And what you aren't telling me is…?"

He exhales noisily, and finds himself somewhat stamping his feet on the spot like a petulant child, only he's an exasperated man in his late twenties with trouble articulating his exact emotions. This woman is every bit as irritating as she was over a decade ago, just in a different way compared to then – it used to be that she saw only what she wanted to see, but now she sees exactly what he doesn't want her to see.

"Is what I'll tell you when you meet me this Saturday at 11am, alright? I'll pick you up from outside your house."

His Yuzuki (oh my god, his Yuzuki) grumbles and demurs, but finally agrees. Hirotaka supposes he can understand the need she feels to wrangle and not just give in to the seeming normality of this new arrangement they'll have to circumnavigate, and any new feelings that might arise.

Everything's going to snowball into a pure white wedding, they know that, and yet it's still rather unpleasant to discover that there's nothing to be done but help it along.


"My grandparents have offered to take care of the wedding bands, actually," Hirotaka says nervously, rolling up his sleeves as they exit the mall carpark. Yuzuki strides along briskly at his side, her heels tapping rhythmically. He follows them discreetly as they travel over dimly stained concrete and the dull greyish white of rarely-swept lift lobbies to smooth, painstakingly polished tiles, subtly inset with glitter; automatically slowing his long strides to match her shorter ones. It's a strange reversal of roles.

He brushes at imaginary specks of dust on her sleeve, the awkward prelude to trying to link arms with her, where he ends up being the one with a hand slipped into the crook of her elbow. She looks up at him, mildly taken aback, and he struggles with the urge to tell her that not all physical intimacy between them has to be justified or explained or something—even if that is actually the case right now, because his wanting to touch her is driven by his wanting to tell her something.

With a resigned sigh, he grasps her forearm and lightly guides it around to rest intertwined with his. Yuzuki glances down, then fully up at him, and he takes the opportunity to tell her then, "We're here today to get our engagement rings".

She curls her fingers (and her lower lip), the tips of her nails digging little crescent moons into the creases of his shirt, like little needles stabbing into the pincushion of his bicep. "I see," she says, and he slows his step, turns to face her fully—but words fail him, and so he simply closes his mouth and continues walking, the pain in his arm anchoring him to the reality of it all.

When he tries just for old times' sake, he finds that he can in fact throw her off with just a twist.

Suddenly disconnected from each other, they remain in awkward limbo for a few strides until he moves to fold his hand over hers, gently half-cupping it in the space between them. Before he realises it he's distractedly brushing fingertips over the hollow of her wrist and smiling when her pulse flutters against his.

Unbelievable.


"I'm glad that's done," Yuzuki says, putting her hands behind her head and leaning back on them as she walks. Hirotaka glances down at the delicately embossed paper of the small carrier and lets the corners of his mouth turn up a little; just as she turns her head to glance at him. He's only ever seen her get all rosy cheeked when in the middle of enthusing about her beloved B-grade sci-fi flicks, but he could swear that right then, while sneaking looks at his sheepish smile, she starts to glow a little. It's a tiny, hidden sort of satisfaction.

Hirotaka's satisfied, too, even if he doesn't say so either. The way Yuzuki had latched eyes on one ring and turned to him decisively (after ignoring most of the information the immaculately professional sales assistant had offered them on the subject of purchasing engagement jewellery and more) was rather moving, though he hasn't the foggiest idea why. "It's the colour of your eyes, huh," he thought he'd heard her mumble, "good enough to remember you by."

"Mmm," he nods, lightly grabbing onto the fabric of her shirt to guide her through the growing throng of shoppers. "Are you hungry? Thirsty? Do you want to get something for the drive back?"

She eyeballs him impressively, somehow managing to be simultaneously straight faced and quaking with silent laughter. "Someone's being very generous today."

He clicks his tongue and throws his head back in mild exasperation, purposefully avoiding her eyes and choosing to look at the curve of her lips instead, the hint of a dimple on her cheeks. "I'm taking that as a yes, senpai."

And she laughs out loud at that, putting a little bit of spring in her step as they locate the nearest café. "This is the first time you're paying for our food, huh," she remarks, sounding all too pleased with herself, and he doesn't have the heart to dampen her spirits after all the curveballs he's thrown her lately. In fact, Hirotaka decides to give in to temptation and try something romantic like make sustained eye contact while scanning the available selection of beverages, or guide her away from any glassware with a hand on the small of her back, when his eye catches on two dreadfully familiar flashes of red ribbon in striking vermillion hair.

(Just between you and me, though: his first coherent thought after the dread swoops in is: "She's still wearing those at her age?")

Surprisingly, his partner actually notes the subtle paling of his complexion—and for a moment he's glad, the swooping in his stomach held at bay for the while—until he realises that as a result of that they've somehow both been waved over to sit across from an unfortunately erstwhile friend. There's no way they can hope to pretend that they hadn't seen her, of course, so they grudgingly pick their way through the sea of low tables and rattan chairs to Sakura's side.

"Eh, Chiyo-chan," Yuzuki mutters, "hello. What're you doing here? You alone?"

"Oh, you remember Nozaki-kun and Mikorin, yes? I was just waiting for them; we haven't had a catch-up session in ages…though Nozaki just messaged us to say he can't make it anymore. And you two are here together because?" She asks, being honestly curious, because she'd never in a million years thought that they'd be anything more than oblivious senpai and harassed kouhai.

Hirotaka and Yuzuki fidget on the spot, chew on their drink straws and shoot each other looks that scream "You tell her" – which leaves Sakura feeling more puzzled than ever, because when did Yuzuki and Wakamatsu, of all people, ever seem like they could come across as so in sync? And Sakura has always been tactful and adept at reading the situation, but right now she really cannot help ploughing ahead with the questions, regardless of whether she's about to uncover something she didn't know she didn't want to know. She sips at her brew to wet her increasingly dry throat and tries again.

"Er, I mean, I didn't know you guys were friends – were still in touch?" She watches as the two people facing her open their mouths hesitantly at the same time, then ducks into her teacup to avoid any eye contact.

Yuzuki starts first. "Well, this is kind of bad timing, Chiyo-chan—"

"—but we're engaged," Wakamatsu completes the sentence.

Sakura immediately spits out her tea.

"Well," he blanches, "this is awkward."


Sakura sits in the café, still trying to blot the tea stains off the hem of her skirt, but then Mikoshiba slides into the booth to beam across at her and all is forgotten for the moment while she haltingly relays the news of Seo and Wakamatsu's engagement.

It's a good thing he hasn't had the time to order anything yet, so as it is all he chokes on is air—but the similarity of his reaction to Sakura's is uncanny, if not a hundred times more exaggerated in terms of bugged-out eyes and slack-jawed flush.

And then, of course, Ryousuke would just happen to walk past and see the two of them, because life is full of the most wonderful coincidences. Sakura and Mikoshiba watch, spellbound, as Ryousuke strolls past the glass front with eyes that slowly swivel to lock onto theirs, then halts abruptly and retraces his steps before turning into the café and heading straight for their table.

It's like something right out of a movie, down to comically puzzled expressions and the impeccable timing. There's even vaguely tinny background music blaring from the café's sound system. Oh, lord.

No time for formalities, really, the man gets right to it.

"Chiyo-chan," Ryousuke greets her with perfunctory nod. "Have you already heard about Yuzuki getting married?"

"Ah, um, yeah. Just, in fact." She says perkily, though it comes out a tad too strained. This is a little too much even for a close shave, isn't it? The mere thought of what could have happened if any one of the people who'd been sitting in the booth across from her had arrived or left a minute later is enough to make her quail spectacularly. "I was a little surprised!"

There's a pause in which that titbit of information is digested, and then Ryousuke turns to Mikoshiba. "Are you the one she's getting hitched to?" he asks baldly, and then regrets ever letting the words leave his mouth once he sees the destructive bout of flustered (but entirely truthful) denial that follows.

"Ah—no, no, who would want to? I-I mean—w-wait, no offence to your sister but, um, j-j-j-j-just, just absolutely not!" There's a too-loaded pause then, which makes it all too clear that Mikoshiba has something else to add in his defence, something he's reluctantly considering tacking on. Sakura and Ryousuke both lean forward, eyes fixed on the spasmodically twitching pair in front of theirs.

"I-I'm married already, anyway," Mikoshiba mutters, not disappointing them at all when it finally comes to the big reveal. "Or was, b-but that's not important at all, is it?"

The flush staining his cheeks feels like it'll never vanish even under vigorous scrubbing—ah, and anyway wouldn't vigorous scrubbing just redden them more? He squirms under the careful scrutiny of his companions, suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin. It takes, or rather has taken him, very long to realise that this is something he's never actually told his high school friends before.

Satisfied, Ryousuke bids them a quiet farewell and leaves, slipping back out into the thin morning light. Mikoshiba watches him go. Not that he's avoiding Sakura's eyes, really. But it's just that instead of the earnest stare and rapid-fire interrogation he was fully expecting from her, she's just smiling fondly at him in this silly, giddy way.

(No, the twang of his heartstrings is totally not imagined.)

"You didn't have to say that to get Ryousuke-kun off your case, you know," she says, eyes crinkling in time with her sunny smile as it spreads across her face. "But you really tried your best. It was cute, Mikorin."

Mikoshiba's throat immediately goes as dry as the fucking Sahara desert, because Sakura thinks he was joking.

Sakura, who always understood him best back then—was it perhaps too unrealistic to hope that she'd still know him as well more than ten years later? Oh wait, that's rhetorical, he doesn't want that answered at all. The expression on her face now is something he cannot bring himself to look at, not with the ominous way his insides are flipping about, not with the slow freeze of his facial muscles.

Her small hand reaches out to ruffle his hair and he catches it in an extremely clumsy dodge, blinking a little at the sight of his hands, so large around hers. He sighs heavily, and her eyes flicker over to meet his. Sakura looks concerned, of all things, as he worries his bottom lip.

"You know, Sakura," he says, voice slow and soft, "I wasn't making that up."

Her lips twitch uncertainly. Deep breath, Mikoto tells himself, deep breath.

"M-maybe it's more unbelievable than Seo getting married, but I-I was too, for a while. Not anymore, uh, we're divorced now. But it was p-pretty good while it lasted…and, um…I don't know, I guess I was too swept up in the whole thing to think about telling you. You guys. My high school friends in general? You were all so busy with your new jobs and everything anyway. Though Kashima knew, because she was best man, and after that I—ah, p-please don't cry or anything, you guys do mean a lot to me—it was just. It got bad after a while, and then. And then I couldn't even think of facing anyone. And there was kind of no point telling anyone. Wasn't there? S-so that's the truth of it."

Mikoshiba ends on a note plaintive, pleading, and infinitely insecure; and all Sakura can think to do at that moment is to grasp at her tea for a much-needed calming draught.

Unfortunately, the cup never makes it to her lips, foiled as she is by her nerves. Sakura decides that her skirt is beyond saving.

.

.

.

cont.