Erina groaned as the phone in the hotel room started to ring with her requested wake up call. They had checked in late last night after a dinner service at Canvas and an eleven hour flight to Tokyo.

After thanking the poor front desk employee who had to be awake and chipper at five in the morning, she bent down in front of her suitcase and pulled out the makings of a simple outfit by the light of her iPad.

"Nakiri, what are you doing?" Yukihira gazed down at her, rubbing his eye. "It's gotta be the ass crack of dawn."

Erina rolled her eyes. Of course the man who slept through seven alarms on a near daily basis would suddenly be bothered by a little landline ring. "It is," she said. "But I have maid of honor tasks to attend to."

"The ceremony's not until two in the afternoon."

"Exactly," she said, pulling on her jeans. "I have to meet with the caterer and the baker and the florist to ensure that everything's done correctly."

"Okay, I understand the first two, but do you even know anything about flowers?"

Erina made a point of ignoring him. Considering the number of times she'd been a bridesmaid in the past five years, it would be suspect if she didn't know a great deal about floral arrangements.

"Then there's the photographer! He has to grasp what kind of lighting best suits Hisako's facial features. And those are just the essentials-"

"Nakiri, it's not even your wedding," he said as he watched her feel around for her bra.

And whose fault was that?

Erina blinked a few times. Had she really just thought that? Maybe it was the six retraction request letters she had to write to the notable food critics who had referred to them as a "husband and wife pair" in their Canvas reviews.

My apologies, Miss Nakiri, they had all written in their responses, I must have misunderstood.

She must have misunderstood along with them.

"Hisako has supported me all this time," she said, after catching herself. "If I don't make sure this day is perfect for her, it'll be like I failed as a friend."

"Damn, Nakiri." Souma took her hand, gently leading her back onto the bed. "You're always so extreme."

Erina rolled her eyes, but smiled a bit as he rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand.

"As if you're one to talk," she said, snatching her hand back on principle. He had definitely spent the majority of the flight revising his toast. From what she had read over his shoulder, it honestly wasn't half bad.

As she leaned back against the pillows, Erina pictured Hisako in her wedding dress with her bouquet of blue hydrangeas and hawthorn wrapped in cinnamon leaves, and on her honeymoon in Bali, reading on the beach, and later teaching her first child the art of calligraphy. She felt her eyes grow heavy with tears and closed them.

Suddenly, she felt Souma's hand on her thigh. "What's the matter, Nakiri?"

Erina exhaled slowly. It was truly frightening that a person as dense as him could read her so well. "Do you think he really loves her?" she asked after a pause.

"Hayama?" Souma asked.

She opened her eyes again just to glare at him. "No, her other fiance."

"You waited until now to ask that? C'mon, it's you, Nakiri. Would you have let it go this far if you didn't think they were right for each other? Didn't you make him sign a fifty page contract before you even let them date back in high school."

"Those were only guidelines!" Erina said. "And they were completely reasonable. Even permissive, all things considered." In her humble opinion, no one was good enough for Hisako, but she had curbed her overprotective impulses quite well over the years.

"You had three different lawyers go over it."

"Well, that's just common sense." Erina sighed. "But I suppose you're right."

"I should have gotten that on tape."

"Screw you," she said, giving his shin the tiniest of kicks. "I have to get going. Have you seen my-"

He handed her the black bra that had long since been discarded, apparently on his side of the bed.

"I'll be back," she said after she finished dressing, and she knew his eyes followed her to the door.

By the time Erina reached Hisako's suite, the rest of the bridesmaids were already in hair and makeup.

"The photographer should be ready for us in about an hour," she said before plopping down in an empty stylist's chair. Right away, the beautician started blowing out her blonde tresses.

Alice groaned from her plush salon chair. "My foot massage won't even by done by then."

"We're doing massages too?" Erina asked, scrolling through her online itinerary. That would add at least another hour to their prep time.

"We're not," Hisako said, moving her lips as little as possible, as not to disturb her makeup artist's meticulous work. "But she's pregnant, and she's gonna do what she wants anyway."

Well, she wasn't wrong.

"Just bear with it, Hishoko," Alice said. "Besides, it was cruel of you to wait until I looked like a blimp to get married."

"More like you waited until I was engaged to get pregnant," Hisako replied. "And you're not even showing that much. No one is going to notice when they look at the photos."

"Still! I put so much work into getting you and Akira together, and I couldn't even drink at the bachelorette party."

"You dodged a bullet there," Ikumi said. "The rest of us were hungover for like five days."

"Lightweights," Alice quipped.

"You say that now," Ikumi said as she inspected her new French manicure, "but the minute the kid comes out, I'll be drinking you under the table again."

Just under an hour later, the bride to be stood in front of a full body mirror, turning this way and that to see how the dress moved with her.

"Do you think the bun is too high?" Hisako asked Erina when she approached. She ran her fingers over the pearl headpiece that held it in place.

"Spin around," Erina said. When she did, the Nakiri heiress watched her carefully. "Just as I thought."

"What is it? Did something rip?"

"You look perfect."

"Don't scare me like that, Erina-sama!" she said, though she was smiling. "Thank you for putting so much work into all of this. I know you didn't have the time for it."

"It was nothing," Erina replied, smoothing her hands over her own tea-length blue gown. "Besides, you know you're the only reason I was able to function for the first eighteen years of my life."

"That's not true," Hisako said. "I was probably more of a hindrance than anything."

"You hindered me from making an ass of myself," Erina said as she grabbed a champagne flute, filled it. "Well, as much as anyone could back then. The least I could do is plan your wedding."

Hisako opened her mouth to argue, but instead she just sighed. "In that case, I can't wait to return the favor."

Arato Hisako and Hayama Akira stayed at their wedding reception for all of forty-five minutes before sneaking off to fool around and then leaving on their honeymoon.

"Typical," Alice said as she sorted through her pile of wedding gifts, hours after most of the guests had retreated back to their hotel rooms. "It's just like them to pull something like this."

Erina shrugged. "I suppose that's just what happens when two introverts get together." She wouldn't tell Alice just then that Hisako had been planning to do this since the beginning. They had originally wanted to elope, after all. "Do you think they'll want the his and hers hand towels in London or in Tokyo?"

"London," Alice said. "What about the champagne flutes?"

"Send those to Boston," Erina replied, handing her cousin a shipping label with the right address. Those would help when she had to entertain her Harvard friends.

"The picture frames can go to Dubai," Alice told her later, when they were nearly done. "Can you believe those two finally got their shit together? I was actually worried for a little while."

Erina had been too, back when Hisako was coping with the breakup by dating a string of professional athletes. "Her father still isn't happy."

"That man is never happy," Alice replied. She put the last stamp on the last box and left shipping instructions for the hotel staff. "But they are. That's what's important."

After they were done, the cousins went back to their respective rooms.

"You must be exhausted," Souma said. When she finally returned it was close to 3 am. "I was about to go find you."

"Unnecessary," she said through a yawn as she pulled her pumps off and started rubbing the arch of her right foot.

He tossed her the shirt she had slept in the night before, and she quickly deserted her dress and jewelry and crawled back into bed. Erina was half asleep by the time she realized she still had makeup on. "Yukihira," she nearly groaned. "Can you hand me the-"

"I got you," he said, and in a matter of minutes he had found the wipes at the bottom of her makeup bag. Then, gently, he wiped the cosmetics from her lids and lips and cheeks. It wasn't as thorough as what Erina would usually do for herself, but she didn't quite have it in her to complain. "You want the lotion too?"

She shook her head. "Too tired. Thanks, though."

"Anytime." He kissed the space between her eyes, and Erina couldn't help but smile a bit.

"Where are you going after we check out tomorrow?" she asked. "I might stay in town for awhile." It had been months since she'd last checked up on The Evening Star.

"Same here," he said. "Pops probably hasn't opened the diner in a year."

"He definitely hasn't." Erina recalled reading about one of his pop-up eateries in Toronto that spring.

"Are we going to your place or mine?"

Erina was going to ask why an 'or' was even necessary, why they couldn't each go to their own apartments as they always had in the past, but the words wouldn't come. "You pick," she said.

"Yours, then."

Erina smirked. "You just like my balcony," she said before yawning again. "We'll go in the morning."

"Good night, Nakiri."

"Night." She was asleep before the word had fully left her lips.

Author's Notes: Sorry for the delay with this chapter! I'm graduating from college in a month, and things have been a little hectic for me this semester, both academically and professionally. Thanks for reading, everyone, and have a great day!