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She never imagined that she’d ever see this place again.
A massive crystal chandelier hung in the gold-tiled lobby, and the tables were adorned with luxurious flower arrangements that were bigger than she was. All around them, well-dressed staff greeted visitors as they entered the building.
It was the very place where she’d come for that matchmaking party all those months ago.
“Gosh, what a great venue!!” Ayumi gasped in admiration from where she stood beside her. “I never knew Dr. Shiga had such good taste! You sure are a lucky girl, Honoka.”
The top planner at I&H Weddings let out a deep sigh.
“Yeah..I guess I am.”
The two of them had stopped by the hotel to do a last minute check-in with the staff before her big day scheduled for the coming weekend.
After convincing herself that surprise childhood friend Itaru Yuikawa wasn’t her Mr. Right after all, she’d fallen right back into the arms of the stoic doctor, a textbook rebound. Maybe it was the fact that life with him promised to be utterly uneventful, but she found comfort in the idea. And Sotaro really was quite sweet once you got to know him, not to mention handsome - and rich to boot. All the things her heart had desired, or so she had believed.
She should count herself lucky, she thought for the thousandth time. Once she’d dealt with all ten of the men she’d had thrown into her path, she’d finally found the one she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. And it was true...Sotaro had requested that this very hotel be the venue for their ceremony and reception, the single bit of sentimentality that betrayed his feelings about an event that one would think he would be indifferent to, having gone through the experience twice already.
“Maybe it was fate, meeting you at that party and dropping all my cards.” He’d given her one of his rare genuine smiles when he’d made his request. “I knew you were the one right from the start. Love at first sight.”
She wasn’t so sure it was. Honoka had never told the good doctor that just before she’d bumped into him, there had been someone else at that matchmaking party who’d been the very first person to catch her attention.
Her relationship with Sotaro had always been on the cooler side, almost prosaic. It was the opposite of how things had been with Haruichi, where every time he looked at her it felt like a fire ready to ignite.
She didn’t dare admit how much she missed him.
“What is love if not a game of deception?” Haruichi had posed the hypothetical at their last meeting, and his words still stung.
She’d held things back just as he had. If they had been given a second chance...well, that was hardly worth dwelling on, wasn’t it?
At some point, she’d realized that that those frenzied months of back-to-back dates had been motivated more by a sense of vengeance against her scumbag ex-boyfriend than anything else, and her own insecurity about her weaker qualities had made her less than forthcoming with her potential matches. If she had given Haruichi time to explain things on his own terms before calling him out and severing all ties, could she have found a place for him in her heart? It was a question she refused to let herself answer.
Part of him had always known that fortune would never be in his favor when it came to romance, what with being part of an organization whose very name meant “unlucky hand.”
Haruichi had kept his distance since their last encounter, just as he’d promised. After all, he had willingly chosen to play the game of love, and those were the terms of his loss.
“Are you all right, Mr. Mamiya?” his secretary asked as she brought in the tablet loaded with the day’s agenda and left it on his desk. His staff had noticed the change in him, and he’d been well aware of their whispers in the hallway, their concern over how he’d started to look so haggard and not at all like himself these last few months.
“Just fine. Nothing to worry about.” He gave a fake smile as he accepted the coffee she handed to him. His secretary seemed especially attuned to his plight. She nodded sympathetically as she backed out the door.
As was his routine Haruichi picked up the tablet and took a glance at the local news app before checking his meeting schedule. He didn’t often read the social section, but a tiny blurb in the sidebar immediately caught his eye.
“Hospital Heir to Marry this Coming Weekend. Sotaro Shiga, son of the director of Tozai General Hospital is to wed a Miss Honoka Kozaki, a planner at I&H Weddings on Saturday...”
Honoka...
He’d always told himself that leaving her had been an act of love, a way to grant her the happiness she couldn’t find with him. But when he looked at his screen and saw her pretty, empty smile as she hung onto the arm of her aloof fiancé, he realized it had all been a mistake.
Something had to be done.
“What are we going to do without you!” her coworkers cried on the last day before she took her extended leave.
“Don’t worry - I’m not quitting. I’ll be back right after my honeymoon!” she reassured them.
It was one of the (many) compromises that had come along with her agreement to marry Sotaro. She was glad that her work was still valued, if nothing else. What with the way her heart was wavering these days, it was more or less the only thing she could feel confident about.
“C’mon, Honoka! I swear...you’re the bride but I feel like I’m more excited about this wedding than you are!” Standing behind her in the hotel’s bridal dressing room, Ayumi picked up an ivory flower-and-mesh fascinator and affixed it to her hair “Isn’t this cute?” she said in her cheeriest voice. “Omigosh, why the long face?!” It was impossible to deny it - try as she might, Honoka simply couldn’t muster her excitement over her own wedding. What on earth was wrong with her?
Not even Ayumi’s promise to dress up in a rented Octokitty costume and do a dance at the reception had managed to make her smile. And yet her junior staffer persisted in doing her darndest to cheer her up.
“Ohh by the way, the cake from the patisserie - looks so yummy! But uh, didn’t you have a retraining order against Chef Kashi or something?”
“Oh, it’s just water under the bridge now,” said Honoka with a nervous laugh. That had been Sotaro’s only other request, and she didn’t have the heart to deny him. The man surely loved his strawberry cake. She could have sworn that she saw the chef himself as they made the delivery, but when she went over to approach him, he’d turn and run. Ah well, it was all in the past. Wasn’t it time for her to move forward with her new life anyway? Says the woman who can’t get over the man she called a liar...
“Hey, be careful by the way! I heard that this very hotel had a secret gathering recently, you know, the handover of power to that yakuza princess? I saw it on this local gossip blog I follow...” Ayumi brought up her phone and showed her the post on FindFriend along with the accompanying picture. Honoka stared. There was Natsuki Mamiya, dressed in formal kimono, eyes fierce. She remembered the photo from the restaurant she’d gone to with Haruichi. Without a doubt, that was his little sister.
“I...yeah, guess I’ll try to be careful then...” What did this mean? If Natsuki had decided to take on the reigns of the Mamiya family, then that meant Haruichi...
Did that mean he was free?
The day of the wedding, the golden hotel lobby was packed to bursting with guests.
Honoka took a moment to sneak out of the dressing room and take a peek at the crowd. Nervousness welled in her stomach. She’d spent her whole career anticipating this day.
Her boss, Manager Tanaka along with all of her close colleagues from the I&H Wedding staff were present - she saw Rie preening in the back while Shinji and Masaki were somehow managing to behave themselves. Her bridal party, that is, Yuri and Lady Sachi, were off putting the finishing touches on their makeup.
All of her country mouse relatives had come to the city, practically overflowing with excitement for her sophisticated Tokyo wedding. Looking over at the other side of the room, she saw Sotaro’s father looking at them with distaste and did her best to ignore it. She caught sight of her future mother in law - the poor woman - and did her best to compose herself.
In what seemed like no time at all, the big moment was upon her. Everyone ooh’d and ahh’d in admiration as she walked down the aisle on her father’s arm. She looked over at her matron of honor, and a pang of guilt pierced her heart when she saw that Yuri had that familiar “so disappointed in you” look on her face. Doubt wavered in her heart. This was all a mistake, wasn’t it?
Sotaro looked up at her, happy as she’d ever seen him.
No! she couldn’t give up now! Not after all she’d been through!
He’s not a bad person. I love him! I swear I really do! She shouted internally at herself as her feet carried her forward in satiny white pumps.
No one greeted Haruichi as he entered the lobby and made his way toward the main ballroom.
No staff or henchmen accompanied him. Not even Akira. He was going to enter her world and offer himself just as he was.
Steeling himself, he took a deep breath and kicked in the door.
The wedding party turned and gasped, none more taken aback than the bride herself.
This was exactly the scenario she’d been dreading...or had she been hoping for this?
Was he going to start hurling random objects around and brawl his way through the crowd like a scene out of one of those Ryu ga Gotoku games?
But of course, Haruichi always managed to surprise her. He strode up the aisle to meet her, bold and unafraid.
“You’ve missed me,” he said simply as he approached.
“I...,” she stammered. Cheeks flushing with guilt, she looked up at the man whose love she’d always known was real.
“Haruichi...yes, you’re right. I have.” I wish I’d never let you go...
"I should have told you that I love you." He smiled as he took her hand and kissed it, ignoring the shouts and expressions of shock from those around them.
“Why waste a wedding?” She eyed him as though he had lost it, but her shock quickly made way for a warm and happy certainty.
Say yes...
“Marry us,” he said to the officiator, who complied with a nervous look of fear on his face.
The “I do,” fell naturally from her lips, and when Haruichi kissed her, she returned his passion in kind, heart pounding in her chest. When they broke apart, she looked up in remorse at the man she’d just jilted.
“Sotaro,” she said, voice heavy with genuine remorse, “I’m so sorry...”
Like a man possessed, he held out his hand to accept the sparkling diamond ring she gently dropped in his palm.
Impressive...a third marriage disaster...maybe he really was cursed.
Haruichi didn’t give her time to dwell on her guilt. He laced her fingers with his, and together they dashed down the aisle, running as fast as they could away from the life she’d thought she wanted.
“I can’t believe what just happened,” Honoka murmured as they sped away in the getaway car. Beside her, Haruichi simply placed a hand over hers as he turned the wheel with the other, taking them onto the highway and away to parts unknown.
“Speaking as your new husband, I’d like to request that you save your worrying until after we’ve been allowed some time alone together,” he turned to give her a rogueish grin that seemed suggestive of things to come. “There are a thousand things I’d wished we had the chance to do together, and now I finally get to have you all to myself.”
The car continued to cruise, and once the traffic was clear, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
“I agree...as long as we get to stop for takoyaki on the way.”