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I should have worn a kimono after all, Rei thought, for what must have been the dozenth time in the last half hour. Somehow, her thoughts always seemed to circle back to that one point. Miku had suggested it, she remembered, and had even gone as far as quietly offering to be the one to contact a local rental place that she'd heard good things about. But even the thought had been overwhelming for Rei. The last time she'd worn a kimono had been at her coming of age. She remembered how excited and elegant she'd felt wearing it, with its draping sleeves and bright blue-and-silver patterning. Her hair was too short to wear traditional kanzashi in, so she'd worn a pair of thoroughly flashy and modern dangly earrings instead. Yuu had complimented her on her sense of style. They hadn't been dating yet, at that point, but she'd been so happy--
The idea of covering that colorful memory with the plain black fabric of a mourning kimono was too much.
Instead, she'd worn a modest black skirt and blouse. It had seemed acceptable enough when she and Miku had gotten dressed in the morning, but now, Rei regretted it. Her friends and Yuu's from college had mostly shown up wearing western clothing as well, but Yuu's family…
Yuu had always been open -- and occasionally quietly despairing -- about his family's insistence on the traditional. The Asou family was an old family, with a meticulously-preserved ledger that reached back to the late Tokugawa period at the very least. His own family's history had been what had gotten Yuu interested in studying folklore in the first place. Maybe that was why Miku had started to open up to him first. They could compare notes on being expected to learn things like calligraphy and koto-playing as children while their classmates played sports instead.
If Miku were here, she could handle Yuu's family for Rei. But Miku was out front, gracefully accepting gifts and recording them in a notebook, while Rei was inside by the altar. She stood out among the kimono-clad Asous, her choice of clothing garnering disapproving looks. It was just one more aspect in which she'd failed in their eyes, she knew. She wouldn't have been their choice for a wife for Yuu in the first place: she ran her own photography business, her cooking skills began and ended at cup noodles, and had extremely progressive views on just about everything.
Even so, if she hadn't killed Yuu, maybe she could have learned to get along with his family eventually. But there was no chance of that now.
Rei stared down at her tightly clasped hands, at the engagement ring that both reassured and censured her every time she saw it. She really should have worn a kimono, she thought again. At least that way she would have been able to blend in.
She didn't look up at the sound of approaching footsteps. One of Yuu's relatives murmured a familiar greeting, so it was probably more family or friends of the Asous, most of whom had only interacted with Rei long enough to give their brief, awkward condolences. It took her a moment to realize that the source of the footsteps had stopped directly in front of her. With a start, Rei looked up, and found herself face to face with a sharp-featured woman in her late twenties. The woman was wearing a simple but elegant black dress, Rei noted with some dull surprise. She was also staring at Rei intently enough that Rei found it oddly hard to breathe.
After a moment of silence, the woman spoke. "You're Kurosawa Rei-san, aren't you? Yuu's fiance. The one who was driving the car."
Rei's tongue was a useless lump in her mouth as familiar guilt stabbed through her, and all she could do was nod.
"I thought so. I'm Asou Misaki. Yuu's cousin." Before Rei could react, the woman's-- Misaki's-- gaze softened. "I'm sorry. This must be harder on you than anyone else." And with that, she stepped forward and put her arms around Rei in a warm embrace.
Still unable to find her voice, Rei froze. Yuu's cousin Misaki. That's right, she'd heard the name before. They weren't really cousins -- it was more like second cousins once removed -- but the two of them had always gotten along extremely well, a detached part of her remembered Yuu saying, with fondness in his voice. Neither of them had quite fit in with the rest of their family. He'd hoped to introduce them someday, but it hadn't been urgent. Nothing had been urgent. They had all the time in the world, until they didn't. And now Misaki was here, and Yuu wasn't, and Rei had no idea what to say to her.
As it turned out, she didn't need to be the one to fill the silence. "Don't blame yourself for the accident," Misaki murmured. "I know what it's like, losing someone you love. Thinking over and over again that if you'd only been more careful. If you'd done just one little thing differently. If you could only take their place. But Yuu wouldn't want you to torture yourself like that. He loved you."
With every word, Rei found herself trembling, and before she knew it, there were tears in her eyes. A sob welled up from deep inside her. She tried to ignore the prickle behind her eyes, the painful knot at the back of her throat-- but despite her best efforts, Rei began to cry. Not the soft tears suitable for a memorial service, but the great, wracking sobs of visceral loss that hurt to let out.
The sea of black kimonos around them murmured in disapproval, but Misaki just held her gently, stroking her hair as though Rei were a child, or perhaps a doll.