Along an otherwise barren road crept a gleaming limousine, its tires crunching over salt and ice.
"A best man and a best woman...is that even allowed?"
"I'm fairly certain it's up to the couple, sir."
Seto turned his stubborn pout from the stationery in his gloved hand to the crystallized windowpane. "Who gets married on White Day, anyway?"
"Again…" Isono shrugged. "The couple decides."
"Why did Yuugi send me a goddamned letter instead of asking me in person?!"
Isono coughed and glanced at the rearview mirror. "I'd imagine to allow for some distance until you cool off enough to answer."
"Cool off?! I'm cool! I'm relaxed!" He bent the letter in his grip. "...I was relaxed, till he sprung this on me—"
Isono rolled his eyes. "You see my point, sir."
"Whose side are you on, Isono?"
"I'm offended you have to ask," Isono said, half-hurt, and Seto, half-regretful, let that go unanswered.
Isono eased the car to a stop at an empty intersection. "Will you agree to it?" he asked.
Seto studied the snow as it plummeted through the beam of a streetlight. "...I mean, yeah," he mumbled. "It's impolite to refuse."
"I think it's even less polite to lie."
"Y-E-S, YES, I'll do it, so help me God," Seto growled. "You're my witness. Satisfied?"
If his boss weren't so worked up, Isono would have laughed. Instead he said, "That'll hold up in court."
In the mirror he watched Seto read the letter one more time—the one he'd read probably a hundred times that day—and then take out his phone.
Seto, Honda, and Mazaki. Yuugi's best man, Jounouchi's best man, and Yuugi's "best woman." Whatever that meant. The other "best woman," or maid of honor, whatever—Jounouchi's sister—couldn't make it tonight.
"I asked them to write down what they wanted," said Mazaki as she spread her binders and folders and sticker-ridden nonsense all over Seto's dining room table. "Here's Jounouchi's list. Honda, will you check over it? See if he told you anything I missed."
"Sure," said Honda, setting down Seto's beer he'd taken from Seto's fridge, leaving a daisy chain of sweaty rings and ignoring Seto's dirty looks.
"For you, Kaiba," Mazaki said, striding to the end of the table where Seto slouched, as far away as possible. She handed him a purple folder. "Check over Yuugi's list, please."
Seto snatched it from her. "Hmph."
Yuugi hadn't said jack shit to Seto about what he wanted—this was all brand-new information. He appraised the sparse list, recognizing Yuugi's expressive handwriting.
• wedding party in heather gray/sapphire blue
• corsages = white?
• toast/speech from Seto + Anzu
• sliders at reception, pizza
• tokens for games
• ARCADE
Toast and speech...Seto lingered on the third bullet point, nestled in the middle, disguising itself...pretending to be as innocuous as flowers and pizza.
"This looks good," Honda said. "They still wanna have it at the arcade, huh?" He shook his head and chuckled. "I thought that was a joke!"
"I think it's cute!" chirped Mazaki. She bit the cap off a highlighter and checked a box on one of her spreadsheets.
Honda nodded. "It is, but with suits and stuff? Won't it look weird?"
"Yuugi's mom wants the pictures to look nice," said Mazaki. See? Mazaki knew more than Seto did. Yuugi'd talked to her, evidently. So why was he involved in this?
"How about Yuugi's list? Everything good?" Both guests of honor turned to him, expectant.
"I guess," he huffed.
"He didn't mention anything to you?" Not a goddamned word!
"One thing," he said, sneering. "He wants to marry me instead of the loser dog."
"Very funny, Kaiba!" The pair said this in unison and laughed at the coincidence. Seto sank, if it were possible, even lower in his seat.
"As far as wardrobe goes," Mazaki mused, "I wonder what's the best route?" She gnawed on the neon green cap. "I've had some friends order theirs online." No, no. Way too tacky.
Honda said, "Maybe we could rent. That place where Jou and I got our tuxes for the spring formal was nice." God, no! Spring formal?! Who knew where those clothes had been?!
"Wouldn't—" As soon as he heard himself speaking, Seto clamped his mouth shut. He was too late. Honda and Mazaki rounded on him.
"Wouldn't what?"
They put such pressure on him with their bland demands and dogged, freakish nonchalance, crowding him out of his own house, and frankly he was tired of it, but Yuugi was not wearing a stinking, sodding, rented tuxedo to his own sodding wedding.
Seto sighed a grand total of five times before he gave in. "...Wouldn't it be sensible to visit a tailor?"
Mazaki shrugged. "That'd be nice," she said. "I just don't know if it's in their budget..." Her voice echoed off the lofty ceilings of the mansion's dining room, and all three of them had the same thought at once.
After a brief and wordless exchange, the tag team aimed their direct attack at Seto's life points.
"Say, Kaiba…"
He drew his trap card, This Isn't My Wedding So GET LOST (artwork: Seto's boot landing squarely on their asses, punting them out the door and into a pile of mud), but dammit! They played first!
First Mazaki, "You go to a tailor, right? Your help would mean the world to Yuugi." She nudged her cohort. "Wouldn't it, Honda?"
"Oh, yeah." Honda pondered his beer, keeping one eye on Seto. "Yeah, it would for sure."
Like a cornered cat Seto growled, bristled, hissed. Right when they lunged, he swatted.
"Can we use your—"
"No way in hell!"
Seto, Yuugi, Mazaki, Jounouchi, his sister, Honda...Bakura, and...some guy with a ridiculous earring shaped like a six-sided die—
"Ryuuji Otogi," whispered Isono. "He was present during Battle City. Runs the annual Dungeon Dice Monsters tournaments."
"Dungeon what?"
"We sponsor them, sir."
"If you say so…"
Standing near the mannequins and dressed as sharply as ever, Isono was truly a "suit." Seto, too, had come from work, and his bespoke, 100% wool turtleneck suit felt quite at home among its siblings. The rest of these losers had clearly never been to a place like this.
"Whoa…" This was Jounouchi, admiring a display of handsome headwear. "I'd look good in this…" He plucked a hat from a mannequin head and crammed it over his hair. To the mirror: "I do look good in this!"
"Hey man, put it back. I don't think we're supposed to try stuff on—" Honda grabbed for the hat but failed to deter him.
Bakura took turns with each tie, rubbing them against his face. "How soft these are," he muttered to himself. "How excellent they'd be to craft with…"
Otogi and Jounouchi's sister were seeing each other? Or something? She pointed out shirts she thought suited him; he laughed and blushed and reached for her hand. Get a room.
Mazaki licked her finger and paged through the shop's catalog. "Geez...Are these prices for real, or just to scare people off?"
Yuugi sat on the arm of the chaise lounge, kicking his feet against the side. Did he realize he was doing that? "Who knows...I dunno if I feel right asking Seto to pay for all this…"
From the storeroom strode Ito-san, Seto's tailor and eminent designer, dressed in a fine suit of his own and flanked by two assistants. He stopped on a dime and took in the chaos before him. Despite his presence, the ruckus continued; and though Isono and Seto bowed and greeted him, he dismissed them with a thimble-clad hand.
"Please," he said, exquisite with disappointment. "You warned me of this group. I simply did not prepare myself enough."
He clapped his hands together. Everyone shut up and scrambled to bow. Bakura turned beet red and flung the ties aside. Across the room, Jounouchi eased the hat back onto the mannequin, hoping no one saw. But Ito-san missed nothing—Jounouchi shrank beneath his withering look.
"If the grooms will step this way," he said. He appeared displeased that Jounouchi was one of them.
"Stewart will see to the groomsmen," he went on, indicating a wisp of an American to his left. "If you'll follow him. Ladies," with a nod to Mazaki and Jounouchi's sister, "if you'll follow Kumai-san." The woman at his right hand bowed. The group dispersed with minimal murmurs and shoves.
Seto exhaled and sat on the chaise lounge to wait, but Ito-san called him out.
"Kaiba-sama. Are you not a groomsman?" he asked, adjusting his glasses with a delicate tap. Seto flushed.
"Yes," he said, "but you already have my measurements."
"You appear a bit broader in the shoulders. I would like to take them again."
Isono offered an encouraging nod, and though his nerves were as frayed as the hems of Jounouchi's jeans, Seto complied. He hastened to catch up.
"Kaiba! Damn, dude!" This was Honda outside the dressing rooms as they pulled off their coats and slung them over a chair. "This place is classy!"
"Not the kind of place to make a fool of yourself in," said Seto. Smoke rose from his nostrils. He hated this normally, in the dead quiet when the whole place was reserved for him and the austere Ito-san took his measurements himself. Who the hell was Stewart?
They waited on a bench, crammed hip to hip. Quarters were close, too close. Seto could hear Bakura's heavy breathing, could smell the clinging exhaust from Honda's motorcycle. Otogi stepped on his foot. "Sorry, man!"
"Nngh."
Stewart rejoined them, pins and measuring tapes dangling from every limb and looking like an emaciated Christmas tree.
"I'll take yours first," he bleated, patting Bakura on the arm.
Bakura flinched so violently that he knocked Stewart backward. The Christmas tree fell into a bin of fabric with a crash.
"What the devil was that?!" called Ito-san from across the shop.
"No devils, just Bakura!" Honda called back brightly, as Bakura fretted and danced around Stewart and Otogi scooped up the debris. Seto rose.
"Keep going without me. I'll come back later."
Stewart paled further. "But Kaiba-sama—"
"I'm leaving."
He threw his jacket over his arm, kicked through the door and left them. He was glad Yuugi was in another room—didn't feel up for a lecture.
"He's such an asshole," he heard Otogi say.
"Let's go, Isono."
Isono vacated his chair and snapped his book shut in one motion. "That was fast, sir—"
"I'm done."
Without another word, Isono held the door and followed his boss out into the cold.
Like the answer to the puzzle they sometimes gave to children, Seto was the one who didn't belong. All of them had a parent or a friend to help them tie their ties, button their buttons, style their hair. Seto knew how to do all that. And Seto had said to Mokuba, no, it's alright, I don't need you back here. I don't mind if you stay out there with your girlfriend. I know she's got anxiety, I know she panics when you're not there with her. Who does that remind you of?
Seto cursed himself for this, because he did need help with one thing. In the margins of legal pads, in the notes on his phone, in an extra open tab at 2 AM he'd worked out bits and fragments of a best man speech, and he'd combined them onto an index card on the limo ride over. He'd given speeches in front of all sorts and sizes of crowds, and he did enjoy it when he could perform. But for this one, no one wanted a performance. They wanted some sappy, sentimental shit, and he was not prepared to give it.
Despite popular belief, Seto had no desire to behave like a total asshole. But he was not the best judge of that, so the bathroom mirror wouldn't work. He needed to practice saying this thing, at least once, in front of a person.
He wasted a good twenty minutes pacing the periphery of their makeshift holding room, a chintzy party space that smelled permanently of pizza and popcorn. The soles of his shoes squelched over old soda stains. He watched Mazaki smooth Bakura's signature Ito jacket and affix Honda's corsage. She checked with the latter for his ring, his speech for Jounouchi.
Seto's grip tightened around both of those items. Mazaki was annoying, but she had good sense. He could ask her, maybe...?
Dammit. This was stupid. Time was running out. He should just give all this junk to her and leave.
"Everything okay, sir?"
Seto jumped. Isono peeked through the half-open door, his hand on the knob. He always looked weird without his glasses.
"I'm fine," Seto said. This room was too hot. He noticed with dismissive disgust that he'd sweated through his shirt. "Shouldn't you be sitting with your family?"
"My son takes his mission to save my seat very seriously," said Isono, smiling a little, but his expression fell right back to concern. "Are you feeling sick?"
"I said I'm fine."
Isono tugged his collar and persisted. "Is it nerves?"
"Dammit, yes, it's nerves! Who'd a thunk?" Honda glanced their way and Seto fought to keep his voice low. "We line up in fifteen minutes and I haven't practiced saying this shitty speech, and I'm gonna piss everyone off and ruin Yuugi's wedding!" It took all his self-control not to ram his fist into the wall. "Why the hell did Yuugi ask me to do this?! What did he think would happen?"
Isono adjusted his grip on the knob. He chose his next words with care. "Well, sir...I'd be happy to run through the speech with you, if that would help."
Seto was angry, not at this offer but that he hadn't thought to ask, and now he was embarrassed. Of course Isono would offer. And he'd be honest with Seto if it was shit.
"Yeah, if—" He nodded once, stamping on his lingering adrenaline. "Yes, if you—"
Isono lit up. "Not at all, sir! Er, follow me. Someplace more private…"
They snuck around the ceremony space and ended up in the laser tag briefing room, surrounded by vests and toy guns made of neon colors and clattering plastic. Tinny music and explosions from an epic space battle played on loop. It was dark—lit only by planetary decals—and no one was around, not even an attendant.
"Not quite KC Space Station levels of cool," said Isono mildly, "but it'll do."
Seto stargazed at his feet. Even the carpet glowed in the dark. He brought up the flashlight on his phone and shone it over his index card. He cleared his throat. Isono waited.
"...Here it is," said Seto. Isono inclined his head. Seto cleared his throat again.
"...Alright, I'm starting."
"In life, it's vital to have someone who cares about you, and for you to care about them. This sustains life. This gives you a reason to fight. Sometimes, you even win that fight. But there will always be another. So you will always need that person who cares about you, who respects you, who looks out for your well-being. And you will always need to be that person for them.
"Today, it's no different. Romantic love makes the same demands. I've seen both of these men fight, and I know they will take that seriously. I know they'll stake their lives for one another. They have already.
"...I've known Yuugi for what will be ten years next month. We weren't friends at first. And even though I didn't care about him, he was always kind to—"
Seto's index card fluttered to the floor. He covered his face, his tears. What the hell was this? Why the hell was he here?
He felt the sudden pressure of arms around him. Heard the crowd of friends and family erupt into applause.
"I'll read it later," said a tearful Yuugi into his shoulder. "I love it. I love you. Thank you, Seto."
Isono released his brief hug. He beamed.
"Yuugi will love it," he said, and as an afterthought, "sir." He fished out a handkerchief and chortled as he dabbed his eyes. "I wear those glasses to look tough. Really I tear up all the time!"
Seto straightened his jacket. "Sap," he said.
"Indeed." Isono folded his handkerchief and pulled the door open. A jumble of voices fell into the room, tangling with the music.
Seto hesitated. "Isono."
"Yes, sir?"
Seto found the floor again. Traced Saturn's rings with his eyes. "Thanks."
"Anytime." Isono smiled. "I'm on your side, you know."
Seto laughed, a single huff through his nose, and strode forward. "I know."
On their way back, Seto slid the speech into his pocket, where it settled next to Yuugi's modest ring and a golden puzzle piece.
PIECE #11: ISONO
Doctor's Note: This chapter ended up the longest (occurring right after the shortest chapter, too). It was a lot of fun! I love Isono and how kind and loyal he is. I see him being about 12 years older than Seto.
Thank you for reading! - Dr. MP