did i disappear without updating the angel chronicles? yes. do i have an excuse? no not really. this has been MARINATING for MONTHS in my google docs. my beta forgot this existed (marjorie if you're for some reason reading this hello i love you for putting up with my shit despise the fandom) and so did i tbh. but anyways! this is a literal romcom there's not much to add. when will i be updating? that's between me and god.
title comes from champagne problems my tswift.
DISCLAIMER for the ship purists. listen i know this ship has no canon justification i just Wanted to write about them because i Can. i will keep writing about these dykes in my scarse free time and that's a threat. anyways the cover art was a commission from me to empanadasdehumita on tumblr. enough about me i give you: this.
1. your mom's ring in your pocket.
"I think your brother has truly lost his mind this time," King says, still staring at the invitation in her hands.
"Why? Because he's marrying Kasumi or because he's inviting you to the wedding?" Yuri asks, sipping on her piña colada.
"Both."
King inspects the envelope once, twice, until she's sure the words aren't deceiving her. She looks up at Yuri, who's watching her expectantly, and predictably declares she's not coming.
"C'mon, Yuri, what's more awkward than going to your ex's wedding?" She argues, and Yuri has to admit it's a fair point.
"I'm not telling you what to do," Yuri says, "but you've been friends for, like, years—with both of them. It would be weird if you didn't come. I dunno, it would look as if you had a problem with them getting married." She shrugs, and King groans because goddamn. That makes more sense than it should.
King doesn't have much time to ponder over Yuri's words before a customer waves at her for a refill, she leaves the envelope aside and goes back to work, a myriad of thoughts running through her mind.
She never in a million years thought Ryo would marry Kasumi; when she introduced them to each other—while she was still dating Ryo—they could barely stand each other. It was already a surprise when Kasumi called her at 1 a.m three years ago, completely drunk, and cried on the phone begging King to forgive her for going on a date with her ex. She didn't manage to convince Kasumi right away that it was okay if she was attracted to Ryo (and that yes, she wasn't mad, because they're adults and King could not care less)—but in the end, she convinced her, and then began what King could only describe as the most chaotic relationship she'd ever witnessed.
She'd always seen them argue over rather mundane stuff, they butted heads more often than not; if Kasumi said the sky was blue, Ryo said it was red. If Kasumi did a hundred push ups, Ryo did a hundred and one to prove he was better. Why would they ever decide to get married?
"If I were to go," King continues, once everything slows down, "your father would realize I've been lying all this time about having a partner." Yuri's eyes go wide, suddenly remembering the little white lie they told Takuma to get him off King's back. The man was insistent that he preferred King as his daughter-in-law, and had only backed off when both Yuri and King fervently assured him she already had a new partner.
"Well, you can always just say you two broke up," Yuri offers, like it's no big deal.
"Well, yeah, but then I'd be alone at my ex's wedding and your father would probably force me to say something during the "or forever hold your peace" part," she explains, and silently wonders what is Takuma's problem with Kasumi—she's a nice girl, she's already agreed to fulfill Takuma's dream of having a grandchild. What else could he possibly want?
They're deep into a discussion about the ethics of lying to your friends about catching some sort of virus, maybe the flu, to avoid going to their wedding when suddenly one of King's employees elbows Yuri and throws herself over the counter, demanding King's attention with a nervous smile.
"Boss~! Just to, like, check: if I break someone's nose while on the clock, I can't get fired because it would count as part of my job, right?" Angel asks, and King sighs loudly, knowing where this is going.
"How broken are we talking about?"
"It's not even bad! There's no blood or anything, but the guy says he'll sue the whole place." She shrugs, and King thinks that it's not the first time someone has threatened to sue them, it used to happen a lot when she was on bouncer duties—but ever since Angel started working as their regular bouncer it happens a lot less.
Still, a threat is a threat.
"If he does sue, he will probably back down sooner than later—you had a good reason to break his nose, didn't you?"
"Yep! He tried to use a fake ID to enter and tried to stir up problems when I didn't let him in," she says, puffing her chest out with pride at a job well done. King smiles.
"That's my girl." She gives Angel a high-five and Angel's smile shines brighter than all the lights in Illusion.
"Well, good to know I won't get sued then! I better get going, I left Jenet all alone there. See ya, boss." Angel winks at King as she blows her a kiss, and just like she came, she left. King tries to not think much about Angel's actions; she's just like that, there's nothing to overthink there.
But, of course, Yuri doesn't know this because she had yet to properly meet Angel until now, so as soon as the platinum-haired bouncer is out of hearing shot, Yuri grabs King by her vest and declares that Angel has to be King's plus one.
King tries to reason with her, explains that Angel is just flirty by nature and there's no chance she's into her. Besides, if she were, she's her employee—it wouldn't be professional for anything to happen between them. At that, Yuri falls silent for a second, going back to sipping on her piña colada while King does her job.
"You know," Yuri says after a moment, "it doesn't have to be real. You could just pretend."
King allows herself to think about it for more than a minute, and when she can't come up with a better alternative, she promises Yuri she'll keep that in mind.
King thinks and thinks and thinks about it. The more she does, the more it sounds kind of plausible. She doesn't have to worry about not being convincing enough because Angel's charm would do the job for both of them, and if anyone at work were to find out, they can just tell the truth—it's not like they're going to keep the charade for too long, it's just one night, and then it's done.
That's what King thinks, anyway.
The engagement party is what makes King cave in and decide to ask for Angel's help.
It was just a casual dinner, except for the part where she got to know why Takuma didn't approve of Kasumi: apparently, he and Kasumi's dad had a life-long rivalry that neither man would let go of—even for the sake of their children. They somewhat behaved themselves, and only because Mai and Yuri—but Mai especially—had threatened them, so they'd be on their best behavior.
Once the dinner and the gift exchange was over, Takuma had confided in King that he still hoped that she'd change her mind last minute and give Ryo another chance. King had uncomfortably reminded him that not only Ryo was in love with Kasumi, but she already had a partner, and Takuma had commented he'd love to see who was charming enough to make King give up on Ryo.
King's thoughts immediately went to Angel. Yeah, she was—is—the best option.
So she decides to bite the bullet and call Angel to her office with the wedding just three weeks away.
Angel sits in front of her, with her back straight as an arrow, a shiny smile, and her perfectly done make-up with the highlight being the eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man. King always thought Angel's make-up is some sort of deceiving mask; no one would think such a pretty girl would have so much strength and fighting spirit inside her.
She's patiently expecting King to tell her what's all of this about, but King's more nervous than she's letting on, so her wording isn't the best.
"Right, so, I'm going to be honest with you here—"
"You're not gonna fire me, right? Because I swear I'll try to break less noses, boss; I kinda really need the job."
"No! It's nothing like that, you're one of the best bouncers I've ever had," King is quick to assure her, and Angel sighs in relief. "I want to talk to you about more… personal matters." She mentally kicks herself when she sees Angel recoil in her seat, why is she being so damn mysterious? She's freaking her out. "My ex invited me to his wedding, and I need someone to pretend to be my girlfriend so I don't have to deal with my ex's father pestering me to interrupt the ceremony. I figured I'd ask you, 'cause, well, I think you're very charming."
King's words are messy, coming out of her mouth without her thinking twice about it, and Angel's expressions range from amused, to confused, to pensive. She's about to tell her that she can refuse to go with her, but Angel speaks before she can form any sentence.
"I find it hard to believe someone like you can't find someone else to pretend to be her girlfriend," she says, lifting a brow. Her words make a blush creep on her cheeks. Someone like her. What does that even mean? "Why me?"
"I told you, you're very charming; it won't be hard to convince people we're together." Though, King thinks, charming is a bit of an understatement; Angel is a Disney princess in the sense that she can make even the grumpiest people on Earth fall in love with her. She's witnessed first hand how, just in her first week at work, she befriended all the staff, even one of the bartenders, Georgie, who usually hates everyone.
There was no one more perfect to be her pretend girlfriend than Angel.
"Well, I'm glad, you thought of me, but—" Angel hesitates, drying her sweaty palms on her jeans. "—I'm kinda seeing someone right now, what would I tell her if I agree to this?"
Oh. King hadn't taken into account that Angel could be in a relationship—it made sense, actually; a pretty girl like her must have someone in her life already. It bothers her for some reason, but she pushes it down.
"The truth," King replies, shrugging. "We're just pretending for the night."
There's silence for a long moment, during which King thinks Angel is going to tell her to fuck off and find someone else to pull this scheme with. That never happens, though; Angel says she will do it under the condition that she'll get two days off after the wedding, because she plans on drinking every cocktail available. With a laugh, King tells her it's a deal.
King can't remember a moment where Angel texted her for other reasons than telling her she couldn't make it to work that day, or to request a day off for some family event. So it comes as a surprise when just a few days after their agreement, she texts her photos of different dresses to help her pick which one to wear.
I don't mean to upstage the bride, but I also want to look better than the other guests, her text reads. King refrains from replying that if Kasumi was going for a full traditional Japanese wedding kimono like she said she would, upstaging her would be hard work—but looking better than everyone else, yeah, that will be easy enough for Angel.
She tries to picture Angel in the four options she gives her, and though she would look good in anything she wore, King thinks about how mighty Angel looks in the two piece, emerald green dress, and can't help to get her breath a little caught up. The green would compliment Angel's skin tone better than the fuchsia dress with the off-the-shoulder design, or the black, floor length gown.
The green one, definitely, she sends.
The bubble with three dots appears almost right away.
I knew you'd say that one, you have great taste, boss, followed by a string of winking emojis. King wants to tell her to stop calling her boss, but Jean calls from the kitchen, and she has to shift her attention to something else.
"So, when people ask how we met, what are we telling them?" Angel asks, sitting on top of the bar counter with her legs swinging back and forth in the air.
It's 3 am and they've been closed for twenty minutes now, the place is a mess, as it always is during Sundays, and King should tell Angel to get off her counter because she just wiped it and doesn't need it getting dirty again, but she's much more preoccupied counting the money in the register.
"Probably that we met on some dating app, I dunno," King offers, she hadn't thought much about the details yet.
"Booooo, that's boring," Angel protests, finally hopping off the counter to stand on the opposite side, leaning on the wooden surface as she stares at King, who finally peels her gaze off the bills. "We should have fun with this, make the most out of it. Why don't we come up with some almost-hard-to-believe love story, eh?" Her smile is so radiant and hopeful it almost hurts to look at.
"I don't know, I'm not really a romantic person." Anymore, she adds in her mind. She'd been a hopeful romantic before, dreamed of all the things romance movies promised would happen if she did everything right, and now Kasumi has all of that instead of her.
Whatever. It doesn't matter.
"Deep down we all are," Angel says, so sure of her words. Her voice cuts through the noise threatening to take over King's head. "At least I always try to look for the romantic side of everything, like right now."
At that King raises a brow, prompting her to go on. Angel soon realizes how that sounds and rectifies herself, a blush creeping on her cheeks. "Not like that, boss, I meant–"
"Just call me King, it's fine."
"King," Angel breathes out, like she's testing how the word sounds on her tongue. It makes something inside King twitch, though she doesn't know what or why. She ignores it. "I meant, King, that I think there's something romantic in every aspect of life, even in a poorly lit, dirty bar at 3 am." She gestures a lot with her hands, tripping over her words, but King knows exactly what she's talking about.
"You mean you romanticize everything?" King offers, and sees how Angel's face lights up in recognition and exclaims that yes, that's the word. She'd forgotten it for a second.
"Downsides of being bilingual, you forget words in both languages," she laughs, and it occurs to King that this is the first time she's heard her laugh, not just giggle. It's beautiful.
"I didn't know you're bilingual," King comments instead, realizing how little she knows about Angel.
Soon they're wrapped up in a conversation about themselves, in which she learns Angel was born and raised in Mexico until she was seventeen, that she has a major in Physical Education, but realized sooner than later that she doesn't have enough patience with kids to be a teacher, that she's able to hide her accent, but it slips out when she has to pronounce difficult words.
They talk and talk and talk, until King can't keep delaying it anymore and they have to close the place.
Before she gets in her car, Angel stands on her tip toes and kisses King on each cheek as a goodbye. King feels her face burn for the rest of the day.
That night, she dreams of kissing Angel in her emerald green dress and wakes up disappointed it wasn't true.
It's the inexplicable disappointment that alarms her and makes her shoot a text to the group chat, after thinking about it for hours, saying she has something she needs to talk about. Their answers were normal, until Yuri replies "Does it have to do with Angel?", and suddenly Mary and Mai were inviting themselves over to her apartment, with Yuri arriving some minutes after them.
"If I weren't so tired, I'd kick all of you out," King says as she falls on the couch next to Mary.
"Yeah, yeah, we've heard that before. Now, spill. Who's Angel?" Mary inquires, excitement dripping from her tongue as she leans on King's side.
King opens her mouth to reply, but Yuri gets ahead of her: "Illusion's new hot bouncer that's totally into her!"
"We've been over this, she's flirty with everyone!" King defends herself just as her friends' voices start to get louder and louder. "Besides, she's seeing someone else!"
"Keyword seeing," Mai points out. "She's not even dating them, which means you may have a chance with her."
"Girl, what chance? I can't, she's an employee. She just happens to be… Stupidly, distractingly hot." King groans, covering her face with her hands. She has eyes and they function, she's very well aware that Angel is a gorgeous woman and, as if it wasn't enough, her looks aren't even the best part of her; it's the playful banter, the flutter of her eyelashes that create tornadoes on people's stomachs, and her toothy smiles that shine brighter than the sun during summer.
She's almost like a dream, one King can't allow herself to want.
It's not only that King is her boss, it's that all of her significant relationships crashed and burned in the most painful ways, she's not sure if she can allow herself to go through that again. It took a long time for her and Ryo to go back to normal, and even then, it was never the same again.
"Well, what's wrong with having sex with your employee? A little power imbalance can be hot sometimes," Mai says, looking at her friends for support, but ends up gaining a cushion thrown to her face.
"I mean, it's not ideal, but if you realize that you like her too much, why not give it a shot?" Mary tries to save Mai's statement, but King tenses at her words.
"I never said I like her," King is quick to defend herself, "I just said she's hot, which is so fucking true. Yuri, tell 'em."
"Yeah, that much is undeniable. She won the genetics lottery, that's for sure. But—" Yuri lifts a finger, and King knows what comes next, so she closes her eyes and wishes she could melt into the sofa, "—you did ask her to be your fake girlfriend at Ryo's wedding, and we've all seen The Proposal, we know how this is going to end."
Mai and Mary's shrieks make her jump out of her skin. She's never hearing the end of this.
The following days, Mary, Mai and Yuri come to visit her at Illusion solely to meet the silver haired bouncer they hadn't paid much attention to until then. They say what she knows already; she's pretty, she's buff, and looks really nice.
"I think she's perfect for you!" Mai exclaims, and King hates the way it makes her heartbeat accelerate that her friends like Angel.
It's the Tuesday before the weekend of Ryo's wedding, and Angel comes by King's office before opening time to insist, once again, that they need to settle on a storyline beforehand.
"I can improvise really well, if you give me an idea to go by," she tells her, and King tries to roughly remember when was it that this little white lie started.
"We've been together for a year and a half," she says, tapping her fingers against the desk. "We met… I don't know, where did we meet?"
"At South Town's museum," Angel replies almost right away, like she's been thinking about it for some time now. It doesn't make King's heart flutter, shut up. "I approached you because you dropped your wallet somewhere, and then I noticed you were cute, so I started to flirt with you. You flirted back, gave me your number, rest is history." King whistles, impressed at the storyline she just came up with – though, it's fair to assume that it isn't a spur of the moment thing.
She says nothing about it.
"Wow, that's… impressive. You watch a lot of romcoms?" She tries to sound playful, but she comes off as awkward instead. Angel giggles either way, nodding.
"And I read a lot of romance books, too. That's the plot of one book I'm reading, actually," she comments, leaning further on the table, her tone suddenly too perky. King places her chin on the palm of her hand and happily lets her chat about whatever she wants, listening to her as if she's the most interesting person in the world (she is).
"You know, I realized I don't know much about you," Angel thinks out loud, her legs swinging back and forth in the air, sitting yet again on the countertop.
It's Wednesday and they close early because, well, not many people come to the bar to get drinks in the middle of the week—not while it's still spring, at least. King's already accepted there's nothing she can tell Angel to prevent her from sitting on the countertop, but it's not like she cares that much either.
"There's not much to know about me," King replies, wiping some glasses and trying to avoid Angel's inquisitive gaze.
"Agree to disagree. Like, c'mon, you're the most interesting person around, even if I only know basic level stuff about you; like, you've owned this place for years now and you're only twenty-eight, you're French, you know martial arts, you have a degree in Literature…" She stops for a second, staring at a spot on the wall, and then she turns to look at King with a slight frown on her face. "Wait, actually, now that I think about it, I don't know your real name."
Yes, that's intentional, King thinks. She chose to be King to leave Fleur alone, to distance herself from the stupid things she'd done when she was younger, but when it was all over and everyone knew King instead of Fleur – well, it just felt natural not to go by that name anymore.
She hesitates for a second, wondering if she should keep the mystery or just tell her. Part of her wants to hear how the word roll off Angel's tongue, but she also knows that's much more intimacy than she can allow herself, so she does what she does best and deflects it.
"That's because my real name is King and I'm the heir to some faraway kingdom," she jokes, hoping that'll distract her, and when Angel giggles she sees her opportunity to change the topic. "Ask whatever you want, baby, and I'll answer." She only notices that the pet name slipped out when Angel's lips curl in a small smile and she casts her eyes down, suddenly looking shy.
King doesn't try to correct herself, though.