A few days after Ando's proposal, the newly engaged couple were invited over to Kimiko and Anzu's place for some collaborative wedding planning. Hiro and Ando weren't planning on getting married for a while—in fact, they hadn't the faintest idea of a good date for the occasion yet—but from the way Anzu had spoken to Hiro over the phone, he'd gotten the feeling it was more of an excuse to talk to him than anything else.
Now, the four of them were hanging out in Kimiko and Anzu's living room, exchanging ideas for their and each other's weddings, as well as just socializing a bit. Kimiko was sitting on the couch with her knees drawn up to make room for Anzu, who was sprawled lazily over the length of the couch, writing in a spiral-bound journal whose cover was the pinks, purples, and whites of the lesbian pride flag. Hiro, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor next to Ando, wasn't sure if the design choice had been intentional (probably not) but it was very fitting nonetheless.
"You see, I going to suggest that you guys could do, like, one of those cutesy themed weddings." Flipping through her wedding planner journal, Anzu tapped on the end of her pen over and over again, creating a series of clicks that was starting to grind on Hiro's nerves. "But I don't know what kind of theme would suit the two of you. So then I thought, why don't we all get together over the long weekend to sort things out?"
Hiro nodded along, glancing sheepishly down at his own wedding planner, in which he had done nothing but doddle hearts and try to work out who should take whose name. So far, he was leaning towards hyphenating their names.
"I wouldn't mind a themed wedding," he said. Turning to Ando, he asked, "What kind of theme would you want? Something generic, or—?"
"Not something nerdy," Ando said matter-of-factly; Hiro was a bit put off by the vehement rejection of something he hadn't even suggested yet. "Sorry, Hiro, but I don't really want any particular theme," Ando elaborated when Hiro pouted a bit. "I'd like us to do things like normal people just this once, okay?"
"Alright, alright," Hiro sighed. It wasn't like he'd been dead-set on doing such a thing in the first place, and he did understand how Ando felt. "But we can't do everything your way either! This has to be a collaborative effort."
"Anzu and I are planning to have a very traditional wedding," Kimiko piped up, putting her arm around Anzu. "It was my idea, but she said she loves it."
Anzu puffed out her chest in pride. "I'm going to wear a tuxedo and everything," she said, raising her hands to her unbuttoned collar to adjust an imaginary tie.
Kimiko giggled, giving her fiancée an affectionate kiss on the cheek. "And you're going to look stunning in it," she said.
"Aww, you flatter me, babe." Blushing, Anzu turned her face away and covered it with a couch cushion.
Hiro was pleased as always to see his sister in such a happy relationship. When they were younger, Kimiko had been fairly popular with the guys, but she'd never exactly seemed content with the ones she'd dated, always pining after the men she knew she could never have. He vaguely remembered her having a girlfriend once in university, but for reasons Hiro had never learned, it hadn't worked out. He realized with a twinge of guilt that in the timeline he'd created by preventing the slushie incident, Kimiko had never dated that girl. Then again, who could say—maybe spending almost half of her life in an ultimately unhappy relationship was what it had taken for her to realize her orientation.
Either way, the fact of the matter was that Kimiko now had a charming, wonderful fiancée who would surely be the best in-law Hiro could hope for. However, just as he was reflecting on this, Anzu blinked, seeming to remember something, and she suddenly got a distant, vaguely anxious look in her eyes. Staring down at the wedding planner journal in her lap, she thumbed backward through the pages until she was near the beginning of the journal—impressively, it was almost filled up, and each individual page was crammed with notes in tiny, neat handwriting that must have belonged to Kimiko. In the later pages, Anzu had been doing more of the writing, and half her characters were barely legible.
Opening the journal to the page she'd been looking for, Anzu showed Hiro and Ando a drawing she'd done in the margins. It was pretty small, and the ink was smudged, so it was hard to see at first. It just looked like a couple of people standing next to each other. Hiro pushed his glasses up and leaned in closer to see what Anzu was showing him this doodle for.
"Hey, it's us," said Ando just as Hiro was coming to that conclusion himself. Anzu hadn't captured their likenesses particularly well, but he couldn't see why else she would want them to see this random drawing she'd done in the margins of her journal.
Anzu gulped, giving Ando a sort of half-nod. "I know it's not a very good drawing," she said, "But that's not the important part."
"I know," said Hiro. "It's the thought that counts. And I do appreciate you wanting to draw us, believe me."
"N…no, that's not it," she said, pointing to the figure standing next to Hiro. "I don't really remember what I was thinking when I drew this, because it was a while back, but this isn't actually supposed to be you, Ando. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be me."
Upon closer inspection, this did seem to be the case. The figure next to Hiro was wearing a checkered shirt, which seemed to be one of Anzu's favourite clothing items. Still, Hiro didn't see what was so unusual about this. Then he checked the date of the journal entry. It was several weeks before they'd met.
"…Okay, so you drew this before we'd met in real life," he said. "But you knew Ando and I as comic book characters way before you knew us as real people, and there's nothing wrong with a bit of self-insert content, right?"
Anzu's brow crinkled. She handed the planning journal back to Kimiko, who examined the doodle with a little hum of approval. "See, that's the thing," said Anzu. "I have written some self-insert stuff about you guys before. It was all pretty bad, and I never published it anywhere, but…" She dropped her voice to a whisper, glancing around as though afraid they were being listened in on somehow. "The basic plot was that the two of you were dating, and I got to hang out with you… and I was getting married to Kimiko."
"Whoa," Ando muttered. "This must really be like a dream come true for you, huh?"
However, Hiro was already beginning to put two and two together. "I'd say it's less like a dream come true, Ando," he said, tugging on his fiancé's sleeve, "And more like… a painting."
He motioned toward the glittery poster of him on Anzu's wall. In it, he was wearing a pair of glasses with a light blue frame. He hadn't bought those ones until a little over a year ago, and he distinctly remembered Anzu saying she'd drawn it at least a couple years prior. And then there was that drawing she'd done of him over a decade ago, in which he had on a shirt he'd only bought recently. Everything was coming together now—things Hiro had previously dismissed, but were now adding up.
Ando squinted at the poster. "What are you talking about? That's not a painting; she said she'd drawn it in pencil crayon." Then his eyes widened and he gawked at Hiro. "Wait, you're not saying you think Anzu is—?"
"What are you all going on about?" Kimiko interrupted, placing her hands on her hips. "Anzu, what do they know about you that I don't?"
"We didn't know either until just now," Hiro said, so stunned by his realization that his voice came out quieter than he'd meant.
On the edge of the couch, Anzu shifted awkwardly, staring down at her blistered bare feet. "Yeah, Kim, it probably took me way too long to realize this, but…" She glanced up almost guiltily at her fiancée. "I think I'm a pre-cog."
