Chapter Text
Toichiro Suzuki is a married man.
The ceremony had been short, borderline perfunctory. A Western format, a preference of Isla’s when he’d gone without. The ornamentation of poetry and choral music had been a farce, they’d both felt that. A signature on the dotted line at the city courthouse would have been more than enough. A single declaration, this is all it takes. I, Toichiro Suzuki
take thee--
He rests his chin atop the crown of her hair, blonde and braided and snug against her nape. --Isla Merriam,
as my lawfully wedded--
The crowd has aawed, as expected. Not that the sight was unexpected. She’d always been enchanting. That’s how he first noticed her, among the muddled and mundane of everyday life when he didn’t have a
wife.
They circle around the subject of their marriage in a slow waltz, dimmed by the candlelight surrounding them. Vague trails of camera light surround them, capturing a moment to the contrary: one they will not ever forget.
“What was that, my love?” Isla leans into his shoulder, a shove as gentle as she’s able. She is often quick to speak to his silence.
Toichiro had not meant to add a voice to their surrounding peace, something of a sphere that often evades them. He clears his throat kindly and says, “Not enough.”
“Not enough? Toichiro, you are more than enough for me. You are everything.” She whispers fiercely, with a furtive glance to either side, as if to screen the waltzing couples for eavesdropping on a conversation that should have happened prior to the wedding night, one would think.
“You misunderstand me.” He returns, effortlessly sliding them into the next phase of their dance. Seamlessly do they pass couples of the same age, younger, older, and wiser, all in a blur and Isla can no longer tell the difference.
“How am I to understand, then?” She murmurs into the golden rose pinned to his lapel.
“I felt that I was not enough for myself. All myself, I was alone, and that was enough. I had no need for others.” There is a verse to the constant, slow thrum of his heart, why now, why you?
The press of crinoline against his thigh.
“Oh, Toichiro.” Isla softens, melts just about. She cups his cheek in her palm and coos in sympathy, as she sees it, concern, as she realizes is now needless. “Is that all?”
It is not all.
Toichiro nods.
There’s a sweeping turn to the music, to their dance. It softens and brightens before sliding into a more temperate drama.
“I don’t believe you’ve ever been in love.” And she cannot hide the utter lack of guilt, that rise to become pride, that outstages her voice. “I thought for the longest time that I was hopelessly chasing your affections. I never imagined you would have seen me, wanted me, and not known that I saw you, and wanted you.” There’s her laughter as a chaser, lest she sound insecure. If Toichiro were insecure, he may have been holding her tighter. The smug smile rests peacefully along her colored cheeks.
Love, he thinks, to the lowest throne of his heart, that lackluster, honey-colored rise of something, perhaps love, that turns within his chest like a stomachache. It will have to be that, he concludes. It will have to be this resignation of love, otherwise I am weak. Toichiro is not weak, he will not falter to this ache in is heart and the whir in his mind that redirects gravity towards her, his new center, that whirring magnet piece in his mind. Everything. She can be that, and nothing. He has a job to do, after all. He has a world to oversee.
She is my world.
She is nothing.
World domination.
She is everything.
“I-” Toichiro begins. Over her shoulder he sees the eyes following them across the room. Not judging or apprising. They’re in awe of us. He thinks. Of me. It’s a feeling he is getting to know. “I’ve always wanted you.”
“You’re getting our hearts confused, love.” Isla laughs: the high tenor of silver against glass, calling for their attention, a kiss. Rose and lily lipstick meets the corner of his mouth. “And here I thought I was a fool for marrying such a confident man.”
He tilts his chin to slant their lips together. A purge of gasp and palms faltering over a starch-lined pearl-colored shirt.
Isla pulls away with a shriveled gasp, “Gentle.” She whispers against his neck. “Gentle. We’re not alone, yet.”
A winking light on the corner of their dance reminds them.
One day, Toichiro muses, one day it will only be the two of them.