Hello guys! This is my first Itazura na Kiss fic. I hope you guys like it! The premise is that Kotoko and her father never move in with the Irie Family but continue on with their lives. Don't worry, I am a full on Kotoko/Naoki shipper, so there will be Kotoko/Naoki time eventually! I have read the manga, seen the anime, watched all the subbed versions of the story I can find (Taiwan: It Started With a Kiss 1 & 2, Korea: Playful Kiss, Japan: Itazura na Kiss: Love in Tokyo) so some of the story lines might be based off of one of those and it mightn't be in another. Please let me know if there are any typos, or incongruities so I can fix them!

So without further ado...

Wabi-Sabi

Much has been written on this concept, but in a sentence, one might be able to understand it as "a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay."

Prologue

Aihara Kotoko was in love. She had been for two years and after trying for those two years to raise herself to her love one's level, she realized that such an endeavor was futile. However, she wasn't about to give up either. Her father always told her to try her best and to never give up. Kotoko was not a smart girl. She wasn't particularly pretty or talented in anything, to be honest. Except for her unrivaled kindness and her unwavering ability to keep on keeping on with everything she did, she was quite plain.

There was no reason for her to believe that her love knew who she was, let alone return her feelings. Still, she would write him a love letter, because she wouldn't be able to forgive herself if she didn't at least express herself. To her, honesty and bluntness were the best way to get anything done.

She was home alone while writing said letter, with a cup of tea next to her to fuel her passion filled letter, along with a dictionary and her computer (to look up anything that mightn't be in the dictionary). You see, her love was very intelligent and she didn't want to embarrass herself by writing a letter with the wrong characters or the wrong information. It was important that this letter be clean and precise; Kotoko wouldn't have it any other way.

Kotoko's father was at his restaurant, working, and it was fortunate this was so. He wouldn't like this kind of letter. Kotoko was her father's only child and her mother had died many years previously. They only had each other and if her father knew she was already in love, he might be sad or even cry at the thought of losing his baby girl.

Kotoko was nearly finished now. She put her painstakingly handwritten letter into a cream envelope. Looking at the small folded piece of paper, it was absurd to think that all her hopes and dreams from the last two years accumulated in this one tiny gesture. Kotoko, still deep in thought, sealed the envelope with a heart shaped sticker and quickly kissed the front of the envelope with her love's name written in small, neat print. Tomorrow morning, Kotoko would get up early and she would wait in the courtyard of the school for the boy that would receive her letter.

Tomorrow would be the day she would finally tell of her love to Irie Naoki.

Satomi and Jinko were astonished. They were Kotoko's best friends but they had not even had an inkling of the poor girl's feelings for the cold, heartless boy from Class A. And now the whole school knew, and the whole school were talking of her audaciousness (that's actually an optimistic term, most were just calling her stupid). And while the school gossiped of Kotoko's confession and Irie's cold rebuff, Kotoko sat in the empty music room, red-faced and tear-stained.

"Kotoko! What were you thinking!?" Jinko was always the harshest critic among the three girls.

A small whimper escaped the girl curled up on the floor and heavy sobs followed.

SMACK! "Jinko! Kotoko's upset! You're not helping at all!" While no one would call Satomi incredibly nice, or incredibly observative, she had a kind of intuition when it came to people and their feelings. "Kotoko, sweetie, are you ok?"

At Satomi's kind voice, Kotoko looked up. For a moment, it seemed she would smile and nod and everything would go back to normal, but instead more tears spilled from her eyes and she continued to cry. Satomi saw that reassuring the girl and comforting her would not be effective and instead plopped herself down in front of her friend and grabbed her face. "Listen to me, Kotoko. That Irie is a jerk, to be sure, and he doesn't deserve your tears! And, Kotoko, we have to be realistic; he will never love you! Not if you told him every day for a year. He's in Class A and from a rich family and is good at everything. You are the total opposite of those things."

Kotoko looked at Satomi with red-rimmed eyes, without even noticing that one of her best friends just insulted her a little bit. "But Satomi, I've loved him for two whole years! He's so handsome and smart, and he might have been mean today but I know there's some part of him that is kind!"

Satomi and Jinko shared a look that said, Two years? It's much more serious than we thought.

Jinko piped up again. "Kotoko, come on, be real! You are in Class F! Class A hates Class F, you know that! And you might have a sweet, cute face, but it is not beautiful and you have the body of an elementary school kid! I know you're great and all when you know you, like we do, but that jerk doesn't, so what have you to offer him in the first place? I heard that Irie Naoki doesn't even show interest in the smart, beautiful girls in Class A!"

Even though none of the girl had ever been in a similar situation before, it was apparent that the 'tough love' strategy was working. Kotoko wiped her eyes free of salty tears. She was still pouting and it was clear she was racking her brain for any reason why Irie Naoki might ever love her.

"But, he's just so… perfect." Kotoko sighed, smiling sadly up at her two friends.

Satomi jumped in before Jinko could say something that would ruin all their good work. "He's pretty damn close. But no perfect man would so rudely reject a love confession, would he, Kotoko?"

Kotoko looked overwhelmed with such simple logic and sat for a minute pondering what Satomi had said. Just as Jinko and Satomi thought she would start up with the sobbing again, the young, devastated girl jumped up to a standing position, nearly knocking over her friends.

"Right! Who wants such a cold man? He's rude and unfeeling and…. and… not worth my time!"

Jinko jumped up with her and shouted, "RIGHT!" Satomi, much more reserved just stood and smiled and hugged her friends. "Don't worry, Kotoko! We will find you a nice, loving and thoughtful boyfriend! One who's much better than that dreadful Irie Naoki!"

At that moment, almost as if he'd been listening in (he had), Kinnosuke Ikezawa, known as Kin-chan to all his friends burst through the doorway to the music room to shout,"Kotoko-chan! Don't tell me it's true! You didn't declare your love to-to-to that Irie Naoki? Because I love you, Kotoko! I will always love you! I would be a nice, loving, thoughtful boyfriend!" He had grasped Kotoko's hands at some point during his speech and while trying to pry her hands from his grasp, she missed his rather precise description of what Satomi had named for her as a boyfriend.

Jinko and Satomi did not. "Kin-chan, you eavesdropped! Kotoko knows you love her! You don't need to tell her every single day!" Jinko stopped to take a breath to continue shouting at the nonplussed Kin-chan, but Kotoko's small voice stopped her. "It's ok Jinko. Kin-chan… at least he has a chance. He loves someone who at least knows he exists. Its better he say than keep it inside for two years only to have his heart broken." At this Kotoko started crying again. But this time it was a silent, shame-filled cry, with tears of embarrassment. Jinko and Satomi, still shell-shocked from what she had proclaimed were a little late to rush to her in comfort. Kin-chan was quicker.

He pulled out a handkerchief and softly dabbed at Kotoko's tears. Quietly, with uncharacteristic gentleness but still with a fierceness that only he could accomplish, Kin-chan said, "I won't ever forgive that Irie Naoki for making you cry. Not ever!"

Kotoko, accepting the handkerchief, looked at him, and with a new sense of appreciation, said, "Arigato… Kin-chan."

A Few Years Later

Kotoko and Kin-chan remained very good friends. Through some intuition not normal to the young man, Kin-chan backed off from his endless declarations of love, although he never lost his enthusiasm in relation to Kotoko. After they had both graduated from school, a year from the ill-fated love letter, Kin-chan asked Kotoko to go on a date with him. Kotoko, still stung by Irie's rebuff, told him that she still needed time, but it was not a definite no forever.

Kin-chan took this as permission to continue pursuing and wooing her and once he had learned that she planned to work at her father's restaurant after graduating, since she had not made it into any colleges, he quickly managed to secure himself a position as an apprentice chef at the very same place. He thought it to be fate that he was already somewhat skilled in the art of cooking and now Kotoko's own father would teach him to be a professional.

Kin-chan had dreams of marrying Kotoko and hey together inheriting Aihara, the restaurant named for its creator. After three years of working side by side it seemed that dream was not only a possibility but a certainty.

On Kin-chan's 20th birthday, Kotoko surprised him by asking him on a date. Though Kotoko would exactly say she loved him as one should when contemplating marriage, she did know he was the sweetest, most caring man she knew and that she's be lucky to have him as a boyfriend, and eventually husband. She also knew how neat it would be if she did marry him. They would both be able to inherit the restaurant. He would use his already highly improved skills to run the kitchen and she would use what business sense she had to run the front of house and the books. And once she was ready to have children, it would be a simple matter to let Kin-chan run the entire restaurant, or even hire someone to fulfill that role. She would live happily ever after.

However, every now and then, she would look back to her high school years and sigh at that love she once had for a boy she barely knew. At her graduation, it had been revealed that Irie had been accepted to the University of Tokyo and that he'd be continuing his studies there. The rumor was that he planned to take over his father's company, Pan Dai, when he left University. It was that day that Kotoko had finally given up on the torch she held for the harsh young man. Watching him cruelly turn down requests for pictures and his second button from his uniform, she realized that it was time. She could continue loving a boy she had never truly known and would never even see in the future, or she could actually live her life.

Kotoko was as much a daydreamer as ever, and she would find herself looking back and wondering what would have happened if Irie had accepted her declaration of love such a long time ago. But more often, she looked ahead, wondering about her life with Kin-chan, if he would propose, what she would say and if she could ever be truly happy with him. She knew that many girls were much worse off than she, with uncaring, abusive or cruel husbands. Kin-chan truly loved her, and as the girls often told her, it was better to be the more loved in a relationship, especially for women.

Satomi and Jinko often reassured her that she would grow to love Kin-chan more and more, and they even ventured to say that she already did but she just didn't know it. Her father said a similar thing, saying that he could see that they were good friends, and that she would be lucky to have a man so devoted. She knew both her best friends and her father were right, and it wasn't that she didn't want to be with Kin-chan. They'd already shared a few quick kisses, nothing serious, and more surprising than anything to Kotoko. But it was during those kisses that Kotoko realized she burned for a passionate romance, and a man that she loved desperately. A man she could not live without.

In high school, that was what she believed love to be. She wanted to find someone that when she wasn't with them, she only ever thought about him. That when she saw him, she wasn't able to not smile. That when he kissed her, he heart felt like it would leap from her throat and her head would spin. Kotoko once wished for all these things. But now, nearly four years later, when that wish came back, she almost immediately silenced it.

It's time to be realistic, Kotoko, she told herself. It might take her years to find such a person, and who's to say that he would even love her back. Instead of wasting all that time, she could be happily settled with Kin-chan, and in the summer of her 20th year, she decided that is what she would do. Whenever it was that he decided to propose (and she guessed it would be soon, by how the poor boy was acting) she would accept. She wanted children and she wanted to be able to enjoy them.

Kin-chan was, in fact, preparing to propose. He had already made a plan, and had decided that he would ask her in three months' time, giving himself enough time to prepare the perfect date, the perfect meal and the perfect proposal. And if it weren't for a long overdue disaster, they would have continued on their path to each other, ecstatic (on Kin-chan's part) and decided (on Kotoko's).