a/n: *burps*
disclaimer: i do not own GSNK. this fan work is transformative and was created solely for non-profit entertainment purposes. thank you.
Meeting Ryousuke for lunch is a very different sort of suffering from the ordeal that was eating with the Wakamatsu family.
"I don't suppose I'm really qualified to say anything since my imouto is getting married before me, but…this is a little out of the blue, you know?" Her older brother frowns thoughtfully over the top of his water glass. How on earth is that crease in his forehead not yet permanent?
"I didn't even know you were seeing a guy so seriously," he grouses. "Ah, gosh. This is really uncool, you getting hitched first."
Yuzuki sighs wearily, having had more than her requisite fill of her brother's prominently displayed insecurities in the two decades or so they've lived in the same house. Suave, cool, and flippant he may be on the outside, but her nii-chan is an idiot through and through. Who else could go charging forth into the world so many times, over and over again, despite limping back as always with leaden step, mooning over some unreciprocated affection or trifling misunderstanding?
He is, above all things, sensitive, as she is not, and she realises that doesn't exactly make them the best combination – but they love and understand each other in their own way, because that's kind of part of the package when you're tied by blood. Perhaps she's the big picture sort of person, and he likes to sweat the small stuff, but what really matters is that they know how to best cheer each other up when the other's feeling down, stuff like that.
Still, it's a little sad that all she can muster up in the face of his muttering about pulling the wool over his eyes is a half-smile and an overused jibe about setting him up on a blind date.
Eventually, of course, he pulls himself together and gets round to ferreting out information; there is so much he wants to know, and so little time. So who is this guy? What's his name, why does he even have such a long name? Wakamatsu Hirotaka? Sounds like some zaibatsu heir or something – hey, whaddaya mean he really is? Huh? How did you two even meet? How long has it been since you've met? Is this future brother-in-law, perchance, someone your Ryousuke-nii-chan knows?
Yuzuki smiles like a cipher. "We go way back, him and me," she says, or rather gloats, and Ryousuke quietens a little, slowly tilting his head to give her the side eye.
"Way back to high school?" he hesitantly puts out, and she immediately looks impressed, shooting him back with a how did you know look. "Just a lucky guess," he mutters, swinging his head to casually glance out the window and maintain the appearance of nonchalance – only to be brought face to face with the very man he's currently having a flashback about.
The High School Boyfriend (real name: Nozaki Umetarou, alias: Yumeno Sakiko), as he's always been labelled in Ryousuke's head, is standing right outside on the pavement, conversing with a friend almost as tall as he is, one with a nice smile and hair that gleams with purple undertones in the afternoon sun, also sporting what is very obviously a shiny new engagement ring. But of course Ryousuke totally misses all that, fixated as his sight is on the tall, dark one.
It must be so painful, thinking back to frustrations keenly felt for a now fifteen year old love, because even feelings that once seemed evergreen will cease to grow and wilt if left untended for so long.
Following her brother's line of sight draws Yuzuki's attention to the pair standing just outside, and almost the whole restaurant notes how adorably her face lights up when she registers her fiancé's presence, and immediately grabs her phone to send him a barrage of spam mail that he steadfastly ignores for as long as he can, before finally turning his head in exasperation – only to freeze mid-sigh (and eye-roll) when he locks gazes with her, on opposite sides of the glass.
Hirotaka brings a hand up to his forehead to shield his eyes, squinting at her like she's a trick of the afternoon light. "Ah," he says, flushing belatedly at her excited waving, and clumsily raising a hand to return it. That, and the hurried scrambling for his mobile phone (she's sending her own device a particularly significant look) to tap out a reply, is what catches Nozaki's attention, who's stuck as ever in the cloud of his own manga-related thoughts.
"Oh?" the taller man asks, perking up suddenly – which is strangely incongruous, given the wilting intensity of the afternoon's heat. "Wakamatsu-kun, who are you waving at? Are you waving at someone?"
Hirotaka hems and haws for a millisecond before shifting on his feet to fully face the restaurant's glass front: it's a move that has Nozaki following his lead and turning to look. "Oh," he raises curiously, "would she happen to be your…?" leaving the girlfriend/fiancée/whatever part unsaid in favour of subtly lifting his little finger. Hirotaka's blush is, fortunately or unfortunately, all the answer he needs, and the next thing he knows Nozaki is steering him through the entryway and into the seat next to Yuzuki's.
It's awkward.
It's also fairly cute, from Nozaki's point of view. Couples in general are always interesting to observe, but he rarely gets the chance to peer at them up close. The nearest he gets to lovebirds these days are those old school friend outings where a couple happens to have formed within the group or his occasional catch-ups with Mikoshiba and Sakura (though those two aren't together, per se), so he's more than happy to be in close proximity with an engaged pair.
Wakamatsu stammers a greeting, quite unable to look his friend straight in the face as he formally introduces his fiancée and her older brother for the first – but perhaps on closer inspection, not so first – time. Still, Nozaki makes sure not to widen his eyes too much in recognition when he sees that yes, indeed, it is the very same Seo Yuzuki from Roman High School, fellow member of class A (or was it B?) along with Sakura-san, the one absolutely besotted with Wakamatsu-kun even though she probably never said so out loud; while her brother, he takes it, is just another of those very common faces, not blatantly forgettable yet not particularly worth remembering, because he feels vaguely familiar despite Nozaki having no recollection of their ever having been introduced.
Seo is similarly befuddled by the apparent antagonism in the air, because he catches her sending inquisitive looks at the crackling (and completely one-sided) tension between her nii-chan and Nozaki himself. Though she doesn't bother with that for long, choosing instead to turn to her betrothed (god, now that he thinks of it, that's such an old-fashioned word) and needle him with an endless ream of questions about his exact eye colour while forcing him to squint at her ring and into a pocket mirror in turns, pausing every now and again to shove teaspoons of cake into his mouth. Wakamatsu obligingly follows her lead, and tries not to stare too deeply into her eyes while they peer into the tiny square of mirror together.
And then there is Ryousuke, pretending to glower at some dirty spot on his coffee cup, all the while looking like he hopes the man half reflected in its surface will just turn to stone and crumble to dust in the stream of sunlight.
For once, Hirotaka is glad that she's being horrible at reading the atmosphere, because he doesn't think he could take much more than this toggling of viewpoints without going cross-eyed. How they know each other, what they might know of each other – well, he doesn't want to know. Not right now, at least.
Moving in together gradually – or at least as gradually as possible when you only have less than half a year, is ridiculously tough. There are still both their apartments to clean out neatly and vacate, though in his case it's more a sprawling suite of rooms in a section of his parents' mansion. Which he won't exactly have to move out of, obviously. Yuzuki does roll her eyes when the small convoy of unmarked vehicles pulls up to the curb to assist with the moving, but obligingly cancels the hired service and fires off a text to the new tenant that she can come over a little earlier like she wanted.
It's not like she has much to bring over, after all, he's seen with his own eyes the utter lack of furnishings and personal belongings she has in that flat. Her door is ajar, motes of dust swirling in the streak of sunlight allowed entry into her flat. Hirotaka steps up to the threshold cautiously, not sure if he should still toe off his shoes, when she turns and sees his framed in the doorway, one hand resting by his side.
Instead of packing, it's clear that the majority of the morning had been spent scrubbing the floors down, dressed as she is in their high school gym shirt and old basketball shorts, hair messily pulled back in a ponytail. Yuzuki squints at him for a long moment like he's a trick of the light before actually inviting him in.
"Hey," he offers, awkwardly stuffing his hands into his pockets so he doesn't do anything stupid like try to shake hers, because that might make things even more awkward, even though he kind of wants to hold her hand and he thinks she could possibly be amenable to that suggestion, should he make it. "I'd offer to help scrub your floors, but it seems you've already done a really good job. Um. Sorry I couldn't come over sooner."
She smiles lopsidedly, an easy little half-lift of the corner of her mouth (but perhaps that's just him, perhaps other people would call it a smirk) – it brings him briefly back to being fifteen again. "Not a problem. Ryousuke-nii's busy today, but he stayed late last night to help pack."
He flicks his eyes up to scan the four corners of the living room, then tilts his head to the side and says, "But you don't have much," in a bewildered manner.
The smile spreads; the corners of her eyes crinkle a little. "Work stuff," she practically sings, "there's boxes and boxes of them to make up for that," and leaves it at that. He does too, instead choosing to shift the conversation to the current and future status of their living arrangements, while she regards him coolly over the top of the Pocari can she procured seemingly out of thin air.
Hirotaka notices that in the middle of a rambling lecture on how her morning commute will be negatively affected by the change in address and what he's trying to work out to mitigate that, at which point the words fade from his lips mid-sentence, and he shiftily fidgets with the Pocari can he'd thought to bring, still hidden behind his back.
Yuzuki sees, of course, and wastes no time calling him out on it.
Seeing as he was so thoughtful, she says, she'll most certainly drink his offering; and then offers up a surprise side dish of reciprocity by passing him her own half-finished one, still cold from the refrigerator.
He drinks it well. They both do.
"You'll be staying with me for now, okay?" he says gently, reaching over to buckle her seatbelt for her as the car smoothly pulls away from the curb. It's exasperating that a basic safety measure like that is something she doesn't even bother with, but at least he gets to feel more like a husband-to-be, doing things like this. "There's plenty of room, so you'll have your own space. Um, as in, you won't have to worry about shar – no, it's too early, I'm sure they won't mention sharing rooms, will they? A-ah, anyhow. You. I-I – we – won't mind. Never mind."
Hirotaka sighs softly, pressing his forehead against the cool glass of the car window, though what feels like barely two seconds later he jerks back into sitting upright.
"We're here," he mumbles, trying to glance surreptitiously at her out of the corner of his eyes, until eventually he gives up and turns his aching neck to survey her profile, backlit by the sunlight through the window. "Yuzuki? C'mon."
His hands automatically reach to unfasten her seatbelt and shake her awake; smooth a lock of hair away from her face, tuck it behind her earlobe; features softening instinctively as he takes in the light filtered by the veil of her eyelashes, fluttering as she stirs, the gleam that glances off her rich amber irises, and he smiles.
"Go take a shower to freshen up and then I'll show you around, alright?" he moves his errant hand back down to rest on his thighs, shifting over on the seat to open the car door. Unexpectedly, he's stopped by a hand gripping his sleeve. "Alright, danna-sama," Yuzuki grins, and reaches over to flick him on the forehead, fast enough so he never actually sees it coming.
He yowls in protest and doubles over immediately, clutching a hand to the rapidly reddening spot. "That hurt!" he whines, fighting the urge to give her a playful shove. "Do that again and I'll make you kiss it better," he sulks, and manages to keep up the pouty act for at least the next hour in his intended's company.
Seo Yuzuki just laughs.
He is caught rather unawares when she cocks her head at him and poses the question: "What now?"
"Well, I was thinking that perhaps you could start sending out change-of-address cards, senpai," Hirotaka says, kneeling carefully in front of the lacquered tray he's just placed on the low table to pour her a cup of fragrant tea; "how about it? I think at the very least it would help to inform people beforehand – just subtly, of course – so we can avoid more reactions like Sakura-senpai's happening…"
He trails off, lost in thought over everyone else's potential reactions to news of their impending union that the tea nearly spills from the brim. When he looks down, adorably startled at the sight of the near-overflowing teacup, to see her slim fingers daintily holding fast the spout, he hastily puts the teapot down with a clatter. "Ah, sorry," he frets apologetically, glancing contritely up at her faintly bemused visage. "I'll drink a little of it first so it doesn't spill on you."
She watches more intently than she'd meant to as Hirotaka dips his head to slurp daintily off the porcelain rim, eyes lingering sneakily on the barest outline left by his lips as he raises the cup and proffers it to her in turn. Would it be too obvious, she wonders, if she were to rotate the thing in order to drink from the same spot he did? The idea of stealing an indirect kiss is vaguely appealing, and she wonders if this sort of thing is what idiots like Nozaki consider romantic behaviour.
"Thanks, Wa-Hirotaka. I mean, um, yeah, thanks," Yuzuki says, quickly bringing the cup to her mouth and tilting back, quickly noticing that Hirotaka is noticing her drink too. "So, change-of-address cards, you were saying?"
Hori Masayuki spends his days efficiently getting things done.
It may seem dull and routine to always be repeating the cycle of rising, eating, working and then sleeping, but Hori is truly passionate about his particular line of work. It keeps him on his toes, really, how he can never really be sure what his tomorrows will bring; whether a fresh debutant who needs just a dab of positive news coverage to get people noticing her; a washed-up has-been cracking his skull over how to retreat from the industry with dignity; a scandal-ridden mess hoping for yet another reprieve; he'll welcome them all with the same dry humour and tacit reassurance.
Hours of cross-analysing articles and news spots to assess the scale of the offensive required to overhaul his clients' images does often leave him cross-eyed, but that's nothing compared to the gamut of emotions he'd experienced when a spectre of his past had been ushered into his office what still feels like merely yesterday.
Of course there was no way he could have been surprised, in fact, he wasn't expecting himself to be surprised. Unless they'd been hiding under a rock somewhere in a swampy backwater region, there was no one in this country, it seemed, who hadn't been privy to the biggest media shit storm ever; and in actual fact Hori's colleagues were all rather expecting the knock on their door sooner or later. But when the media's latest high-profile victim, known to all as Yuu, had self-deprecatingly and rather destructively shown herself into his office, Hori found to his chagrin that it was none other than someone he once knew.
The very bane of his high school years – one Kashima Yuu. Yuu.
How could he not have made the connection? He beat himself up after wards in the relative privacy of a cramped public toilet stall for not once conclusively linking the surfeit of prince roles, the legions of adoring female fans, alarmingly numerous for one born a woman, and the always immaculately coiffed cobalt locks to one another. In any case, she was nearly beyond help when she first turned to them (dare he say, to him?) for assistance.
Being the incredibly dense creature she was, she'd gone ahead and tried to explain how the 'philandering' and 'Casanova syndrome' had always been a harmless and necessary part of her day to day interactions with women of all ages, and then gone ahead and allowed herself to be wilfully, blatantly misinterpreted (though saying such things in press conferences is rather asking for it). Hori had had to literally push her up against a wall (ooh, look, kabedon) and impress upon her the necessity of not speaking without thinking. Ignoring the rapid-fire thundering of his heart as he'd fisted his hands in her collar and leaned into her face had been easy with his anger behind him, but later, alone for the closing of the office, he'd slid down in the middle of the corridor and allowed himself a moment to blush with abandon, hidden in the darkening shadows of the night.
Even then it'd been a relief to see how much better her next foray into the jungle of press interviews had been handled: with Yuu professionally smiling into the cameras and declaring that since anything she said was going to be horribly twisted and quoted out of context anyway, perhaps she should just hold her tongue? The immediate chorus of "No, no, no, no" that had arisen was infinitely amusing to hear, though Hori did think she took the baiting a little too far after that.
It's a relief that Kashima will be leaving the country for a period of time to immerse herself in her latest project, surprisingly not another movie where she can reprise her trademark role of the sincere, princely gentleman, but a return to her very roots – a return to the stage, to the theatre. Despite the years of practice with schooling his features into their everyday set of brisk no-nonsense taskmaster, Hori can't help but look surprised when he discovers the exact route Kashima's going to be using to hide out abroad and evade all the bad press over the next few months or so. "A play," he repeats after her, careful to ensure that he doesn't sound the least bit incredulous, or scathing, or bitter; flicking his eyes up off the stacks of paper on his desk to survey her face. She doesn't say anything.
The blinds of his office are half-drawn today, so the light that filters in is only sufficient to weakly illuminate the side profile of the person sitting across from him, hands folded neatly in her lap. As he watches, she runs a thumb smoothly over her knuckles, over and over again, smiling wanly at him; and he remembers that she of all people knows that he was once an actor too.
"I wish you all the best with your endeavours, then, Yuu-san," he says, almost betrayed by the slight quiver in his voice when he curls his mouth around the too-short syllable of her first name, and feeling way too intimate for his liking.
"The same to you, Hori-san," Kashima replies with a courtly bow of her head. "I'll be going now."
Her well-trained voice is steadier than he likes, and he doesn't dare hope that her sounding choked over the suffix she'd added to his name was a clamping down on the unconscious tendency to say senpai, doesn't dare hope that she remembers the him that she adored.
Hori climbs into his car and shuts the door briskly, rubbing his hands to warm them from their brief exposure to the insidiously penetrating chill. The radiator sputters to life, in tandem with the engine as wisps of heat and care exhaust drift about in the confines of the cabin. He turns the radio dial.
"…and in other news one of the Matsuyama group's young heirs is reportedly soon to be married. An official announcement was issued collectively by the Wakamatsu family, a very high ranking side branch who have long been deeply invested in the running of…the identity of the bride has yet to be revealed, but rumour has it that it is a former schoolmate of Wakamatsu Hirotaka, the young man soon to be…"
It's the morning after Kashima has departed from Japan, and it seems life has decided to fling another of his old school acquaintances in his face. They have all lived largely separate lives from graduation up till now – of course all that youthful spouting off about keeping in touch over the decades is complete and utter bullshit, and he knows they all knew it from the start, and made all those empty promises anyway. That's an accepted part of life, after all. Get swept up in the flow of a new campus and new city and new faces and new feelings; forget about the past.
Move on from silly puppy love.
Hori has to settle for labelling them acquaintances because all other words don't feel right. They technically aren't friends any longer, but being once so close means that he's still powerfully attached to the idea of their friendship, and so saying they're 'erstwhile friends' or 'just ex-schoolmates' simply won't cut it. That's right, acquaintances, acquaintances, the word coated inside and out with emotion. How?
His very distracted mind barely manages to log the usage of Wakamatsu Hirotaka, bride, and former schoolmate in the same sentence, causing him to momentarily jolt upright before collapsing heavily against the leather backrest with a quiet sigh. Unfortunately, this poor excuse of a senpai will have to admit that he has no guesses as to who the lady could be, since apparently all he ever worried himself about was Kashima, Kashima, nothing but Kashima. The radio plays on in the background, like weak sunlight intermittently filtering through the murky depths of his recollections.
"Word from as-yet-unverified sources has raised the suggestion that this union is not in fact the result of a business alliance, as many have been saying online. A more romantic spin has been put on things, as it seems that the groom was sent off on a series of blind dates but refused them all in favour of this mystery love…..."
Hori freezes.
Even more so than when Kashima Yuu was sitting opposite him in his suddenly too-small office, the radio broadcaster's usage of the choice words 'blind dates' immobilizes him; and all he can do is remain there, alone in the driver's seat, and let the unwanted influx of memories forcibly kick down the defences he has so painstakingly erected around his heart.
Blind dates are something he's only seriously tried once, and thereafter seriously sworn off. Nearing your thirties and wanting to settle down soon must be something nearly everyone should be able to empathise with, he feels, so he'd caved to all the well-meaning jibes form co-workers and agreed to meet someone they thought was compatible for some after-work conversation. In any case, it would have helped give him some perspective that would be valuable for handling certain profiles of clients, and who would he be to turn down such an opportunity?
It went better than he'd expected it would. A familiar face, no souring of the expression when the other party registered his height (or lack thereof), no "honestly I'm just here to get laid but you're really not my type I have to go now". Imagine then his (doubtlessly well concealed) surprise when, at the end of what was in his opinion a wonderful night, one Sakura Chiyo had laughed gaily and thanked him for the good time, as an old friend.
– A friend? He'd wanted to say as he arched a bemused brow at her countenance, faintly flushed from drink. And here I'd thought we could be something more.
He only realised he'd spoken aloud when she actually replied, and then he couldn't bring himself to tell her how slighted he felt over not even being good enough to impress her as a legitimate dating option, that despite all his own private justifications about agreeing to this date it still stung to not be noticed that way – the blinkers of an erstwhile friendship completely blocking her from considering him on merit.
Merit.
Another word, yet another word that tastes bitter in his mouth, for reasons he'd rather shut out of his mind.
The big day of the Wakamatsu wedding dawns at long last.
With everyone milling around the venue either finishing up last minute details or mingling by the comically oversized punch bowl, Hirotaka takes the opportunity to slip away from the entrance for a while, a brief escape from the ceaseless stream of congratulatory smiles and handshakes he's been subjected to for goodness knows how long. The suite of rooms the bride was given for the pre-wedding preparation is some distance away from the wedding hall, and he takes his time striding through the labyrinthine corridors of the hotel they'd picked off the shortlist presented to them, the same way they'd picked the caterer and the florist, the same way they'd dealt with the guest list.
Here, in the relative privacy of near-empty corridors, Hirotaka can breathe a little easier and admit that even though everything's gone much faster than he thought it would, it's also been way smoother than initially anticipated.
The only way he'd be ruined now would be if his bride-to-be decided not to show up at the altar, thereby damning him to the soporific lectures of family elders as well as a great deal of salacious gossip among the assembled guests and press.
Mind already saturated with numerous panic-inducing thoughts, Hirotaka's composure is not ready to withstand the massive knock it takes when no one responds. He raps on the white wood again and again with the back of his hand – his knuckles rubbing raw – and still! There is no answer, and the cold hand of dread clenches his heart in a tight fist. He whirls to dart helpless glances along the length of the corridor, but of course there is no one who can, so he curls his trembling fingers around the cold handle and twists –
Only to be faced with an empty room. Signs of occupation, if not inhabitation, are present everywhere, but a quick and thorough search he makes of the suite reveals no one: neither the bride nor any of her party (and that too gives him pause to ponder, aside from immediate family, who is his wife's party?). He is mere seconds away from quite possibly hyperventilating to death (it might just be a better fate to face than the embarrassing expositions of the society pages) when he hears bare footsteps echoing in the outside corridor, and turns to face the doorway of the suite with a grateful exhalation of breath, in time to see a pair of ivory pumps thrown unceremoniously onto the carefully waxed pale parquet flooring.
Blond wood. He stares hard at it, through the gaps between his fingers, instead of at blonde hair; hugs his body to the wall and shuffles over blindly to the outside of the room and refuses to look at Yuzuki. Hirotaka presumes she is regarding him bemusedly, and he's actually right, only she also looks perplexed, and rather concerned for his sanity.
"Are you alright?" she ventures to ask, not quite reaching out a hand to touch his shoulder, not quite retracting it either.
"No, it's nothing," he mumbles into the wall, tapping his forehead repeatedly on the smooth plaster surface until he's more than a little cross eyed. "Ah, Yuzuki apparently I'm not supposed to look at you before the actual ceremony commences, so could you please go back in already?"
She scoffs lightly. "Okay," she replies, then steps right up to him, so close he can smell the shampoo in her hair and the fragrance of her skin, soaking into his neck cloth; so close he entertains the thought that she is drinking his scent in too. After she shuts the door behind her, he runs careful fingers disbelievingly over the solitary bloom she has tucked into his lapel and smiles like a schoolboy.
It gives him real courage later, when he has to kiss her in front of everyone.
Hirotaka thinks he might very well have lost all feeling in his limbs when he's told he may kiss the bride, and he dimly registers that he still hasn't let go of Yuzuki's hand after sliding the ring on. He curls the fingers of both his hands around hers, pulling her forward to meet him halfway by their linked hands, until his forehead can tilt down and rest on hers.
The hammering of his heart is loud.
She flicks her eyes up to meet his first, an unsteady gaze that then skitters away to glance at the bloom still fastened to his lapel, edges curled brown by now. Her eyes barely land on his lips, instead latching onto his Adam's apple. He swallows and squeezes her hand– and she leans up, tiptoeing unnoticeably beneath the trailing folds of her gown to touch her lips to his. There's a collective intake of breath in the room when he leans down further and slants his head to the side, even though they barely deepen the kiss, even though neither of them opens their mouth, even though they pull apart after the requisite chaste duration of about two seconds.
Say what they will in public or private, the wedding snapshots, once developed, are irrevocable proof that their cheeks are each overspread with a beautiful blush. The residual warmth lingers for hours on end, the kind that calls for the gentle touch of wondering fingers, again and again and again. It's so very poignant and strange.
It rather recalls one of the pre-wedding shoots they had had to participate in, the one themed as a traditional Japanese wedding ceremony. They don't actually sit through the marriage meeting between families, or sit opposite each other on the tatami and take turns sipping from cups of matcha – those are all taken as solo shots, just angled right to make it seem as if the couple are facing other in the photosets that will be released – but they do have to sit under the silk covers of a futon together and pretend to look calmly disinterested while pulling strategically on each other's obi; all because the photographer got it into his head that they might like to have a couple of personal shots to keep and refused to be dissuaded from the notion.
Yuzuki has always been blessed with the most blasé of expressions, and so she faces no serious challenge in complying with the directions of the photographer for this last set of photos. Unfortunately, that is not at all the case for Hirotaka. They eventually give up hope of correcting his perpetual blush, and right on time too, for Yuzuki is already done holding in her laughter and ready to just suggest they scrape the whole idea and walk off set.
"Let's do it this way, then," the photographer says, leaning over to pull them into another position. "The guy lies down and pretends to be asleep, okay, and we'll have the girl awake and leaning over him. Put your head in her lap, maybe?
Relax your shoulders – you're too tense – ah!
Good, good. That's a nice pose, miss. Lovely touch. Now don't move."
The shutter had clicked away rapidly, and Hirotaka had focused with all his might on keeping his eyes closed and his features relaxed. It was so much harder than it sounded, because when you close your eyes your face goes all unguarded, and truth be told he couldn't much like the idea of baring his ugly soul unconsciously under her gaze.
The Wakamatsu wedding is simple but elegant, and rightfully lives up to all the expectations that were raised prior to the actual event, as the newspapers and internet forums duly note. Similarly true to form, Seo nearly blinds someone with the bouquet toss.
That someone is Nozaki Mayu, and the nearly is only because Mikoshiba Mikoto had the sense to try and bat the projectile out of its single-minded trajectory towards Mayu's marble-carved face (not that the likely victim was making any effort at all to avoid the oncoming missile). He'd had good intentions and pretty good aim, but unfortunately Mikoshiba had tripped in his haste, and so ended up falling ungracefully against, firstly, Mayu's chest, and secondly towards the floor; all messy tangle of limbs and mussed red hair and startled red cheeks, clutching the bouquet of red roses close.
Being resignedly braced for the hard impact of landing, he'd been extremely unprepared for nearby Sakura to deftly catch him in her arms and keep him there a few seconds, practically dipped at the waist. Instead of the ceiling and light fixtures and far-off streamers and slowly-descending stray petals from the flower arrangements, he'd been enveloped in pleasant warmth and the light flowery fragrance of his high school years, pressed up close and face to face with vermillion hair and violet eyes.
She'd said, "Are you alright, Mikorin? Mayu-kun too?" and he'd desperately shoved the flowers into her hands so he could place his own on her delicate shoulders and haul himself upright.
Red, red, red everywhere he wasn't meant to be seeing it.
The post-wedding reception is kept afloat until the early hours of the next morning on a veritable sea of quality champagne and the entire guest list's desire to get as drunk as possible. Sakura Chiyo sits on one of the many abandoned high stools littering the rim of the hotel bar, unwilling to follow the mass exodus to the dance floor and upper echelons of the establishment, and surveys her surroundings through glazed violet orbs, lashes of lead weighing her entire head down. She can't really tell by looking at the sky because she's indoors, but she estimates from the delicate sort of background stillness in the air that it should be about three in the morning.
What in god's green earth is she doing? Trying to get as drunk as possible at three in the morning the day after the wedding of two high school acquaintances – friends? – Classmates? No, only Yuzuki was a classmate – this is giving her a headache. It's as cliché a situation as they come, so what should happen next? The smooth-talking, handsome cad should be making his scheduled appearance any moment now…
…or maybe he won't.
She's distracted from her inner turmoil when she catches sight of a lanky figure draped across one of the plush couches that line the walls of the bar. Walking over slowly brings her near enough to convince her that the reclining form is that of Nozaki Mayu, otherwise known as the younger-brother-of-the-biggest-unrequited-love-of-her-pathetic-little-life. Chiyo's mind is working sluggishly, and her mouth still feels pleasantly layered from the alcohol she's imbibed. Which is good, because she really can't stand it when it feels like her mouth's been scrubbed down with camel piss and garnished with rotten eggs, the way it does after enough time has been whiled away in this goddamn stupor.
Floating around in a liminal state isn't very good. She opens her (still not gross!) mouth to speak and pull herself back firmly into reality. She totally forgets his name for a second, though.
"Mayu-kun, Mayu-kun, Mayu Mayu Mayu-kun," she mumbles, "Hey, are you asleep?"
"…"
"Then–
Can I say somethin' lame like 'sleep with me'? Hmm? Mayuuuuuu-kuuunnnnnn."
Dark eyes suddenly hold her gaze; and acting on instinct, she freezes up. The anticipation is killing her; Mayu really should just make quick work of this. He doesn't even have to haul his lazy ass off the sofa; all he has to do is contort a couple of facial muscles. Surely that isn't so hard? Though she supposes she can understand if the sea of sake shots and rounds of beer pong have taken their toll on the heap of human lying at her feet.
Chiyo comprehends that he looks like he's waiting for her to do something, so she cocks her head to the side and grins sloppily. "Well?"
Mayu looks at her for a long, long minute, and then sort of smiles. "Oh, what is this," he half-shrugs, half-snorts as he realises he has to consider her proposition seriously even though he would much rather not. "Maybe it's just that I attract redheads," he mutters to himself, making a stab at levity (and hoping, in a vaguely desperate sense, that she will get what exactly he's trying to imply happened, and that it might make her reconsider).
The hysterical laughter that bubbles up from his companion in the wake of that statement isn't quite exactly the ideal response he had in mind, but it'll have to do given the circumstances.
Some twenty floors above, the newlywed Wakamatsu couple tumble into the lush feather bed of the honeymoon suite. Being forced to smile for the cameras for hours on end is an arduous, unenviable task for any normal person, but even Yuzuki is worn down by the sheer drudgery of the whole shebang. They hadn't had time to eat at the pre-wedding reception, the actual ceremony, or the after party, or the interview sessions. One measly glass of champagne at the toast-making par to the proceedings was worth close to nothing, as far as they were concerned. When finally allowed to excuse themselves from the wedding hall, they'd both reached for the room service menu in unison form where they'd been lying sprawled on the smooth tiling of the room's entryway.
Having eaten her fill, Yuzuki had immediately proceeded to collapse in a boneless heap on the bed and begin snoring softly without further ado. Hirotaka sits at the table and stares at her place settings, before deciding to follow his wife's suit and dispense with taking a shower – he is too tired to even want to think of moving an inch. Ambling over to the bedside, he carefully sinks down onto the mattress at her side and detaches all the pins from her mussed hair, the ones she only half-heartedly tried to pull out before succumbing to sleep.
For each bobby pin removed, one wavy lock falls briefly over his fingers.
Hirotaka lays them neatly out on top of the dresser drawer, next to his keys and wallet, where he actually keeps a copy of that wedding shoot print he swore he didn't want a copy of – the one where he is asleep, and she leaning over him, one hand slipped beneath the folds of his kimono to caress the burning skin stretched over the firm thundering of his heart.
.
.
.
cont.