Chapter Text
THE WORLD BEGINS WITH US
sakura garden
dies in spring; four seasons bear
beautiful blossoms
Between Eri's designs, Beat's enthusiasm, Rhyme's organisation, and Rindo's conducting, the wedding had gone almost perfectly. Meiji Shrine in the cool March breeze: sake sipped, vows read, sakaki offered, rings exchanged. Shiki had meticulously stitched Neku's white-and-violet haori from Eri's gorgeous designs; she knew his measurements by heart. She'd added enough I-love-yous on the inner lining to make him blush. He had slicked his hair back for the occasion; she couldn't wait to muss his locks back to their lovable spikes.
They had offered their gratitude to her mother and father, who had backed her when she'd thrown herself into Gatto Nero and supported him through those rocky years of therapy and healing. His parents hadn't attended.
Mr. H had presided over the white wedding, his suggested vows fast, loose, and coffee-stained. Beat, his best man, had sobbed at his side and thrown him into a hair-messing bear hug. Eri, her maid of honour, had squeezed her hand. Rhyme—stunning in an orange-coral tux—had brought the rings. Rindo had raced about conducting the entire affair, everything so smooth she could have hardly believed; Shoka had watched in wide-eyed affection. Fret had cheerily raised a toast, then rubbed Nagi's shoulder while she had given an impassioned, teary-eyed speech about her comrades-in-arms forging an ever-changing pact, tempered in the fire of danger and quenched in the river of time.
Joshua had shown up for the first time in years since abdicating the Composer's throne, dismissing the lapse with a shugi-bukuro. She'd opened the envelope: a single sky-blue feather alongside an eye-popping sum of yen and a note: have fun, Neku.
Kariya and Uzuki—former ever a harrier, latter now the Conductor—had congratulated the couple, looking not a day older compared to the newlyweds' twenty-seven and twenty-eight. Even Minamimoto had arrived in-between 'artwork' and Composer duties, mostly to wolf down wedding cake. Still, she'd caught him and Nagi linking arms.
At her then-fiancé-now-husband's request, she'd permitted Coco on promise of good behaviour. Shibuya's supposedly-cutest-fairy-princess-slash-Reaper had only bared her teeth once at Beat before her wife Tsugumi had calmed her. He'd been proud of Coco, he'd told her as he'd held her hand to keep her from marching over and kicking Coco out: Coco had come a long way from shooting him dead.
Catching the bouquet with lightning-fast reflexes, Shoka’d presented it to a bright-red Rindo. N'awwwing, Fret had hooked his arms around Nagi and Minamimoto's shoulders, squeezing them in alongside Mr. H, Rhyme, Beat, Eri, and the newlyweds—Coco and Tsugumi photobombing in the corner—for a group wedding selfie against Hachiko’s budding spring greenery.
Yes, the wedding had gone almost perfectly.
Almost.
One thing amiss: the sakura forecast had gotten the date wrong, winter casting a longer shadow than expected. Shibuya wouldn't glow pink for another few days. He'd offered to postpone the wedding, his frown solemn and contemplative. She'd asked for his hand. Here, and in marriage. He'd given it willingly, wantingly.
"Who cares if the sakura are late?" she'd whispered. "If we want to know what flowers next year will bring, we'll plant them ourselves."
He'd met her gaze. "...you're right. Let's plant them together."
With the festivities finished, guest-gifts given and tearful hugs exchanged, the two of them had returned to the apartment they'd shared for nine years, kimono peeled off, yawns mirrored, giggles exchanged, hands held. Their hands roamed everywhere in the unlit closet as they helped each other change, familiarity with their bodies and habits precluding the need for light. The way he tugged on her pyjama top while tickling her navel, how she buried her face in his chest as she unbuttoned his shirt: they hadn't just come together into each other's lives like perfect puzzle pieces, but fumbled in the dark for years of practise, reaching for one another, asking questions, speaking up, listening patiently and tenderly.
They'd fumble on for the rest of their lives, re-forging their pact with every moment they chose one another; they'd fumble on together.
Stretching out on the futon, she sleepily waved him over. He laughed softly and clambered over her. The thumb of his right hand brushed over the inlet of her left wrist before slipping into her palm. She closed her fingers around his, lazily circling his knuckles. He'd explained before how much he loved feeling the callouses where she'd held needles for hours, as she adored the bumps where he'd depressed spraypaint-can nozzles for days. She pulled him down towards her. Covering them both with the blanket, he lowered himself onto her, legs loosely intertwined.
"I'm too tired to do anything else tonight," he admitted, his face resting above her heart. "I love you, Shiki."
Alighting her right palm on his head, she waited a moment before moving. Years ago, during the Game, when she had reached for his shoulder, he'd slapped her hand away, pressed his 'phones against his ears. Now he closed his eyes as she stroked his hair, tilting up into her hand. "No wonder you closed the café for the month if you're gonna hibernate."
"Hey, I'll be awake to check the family registry fixed tomorrow."
Her throat lumped: he'd insisted himself. "And then you'll hibernate? Inspiring."
"Well, I'd been considering spending the month with you, but maybe I should open Mewsic back up tomorrow." She flicked his brow and felt him grin into her nightshirt. "And by open it back up, I mean just for the two of us. Sometimes I just wanna be with you."
Tangling her fingers in his hair, she fluffed up the spikes. "Sometimes I wanna be with you too."
"And the rest of those times you wanna be working at Gatto Nero." The teasing edge gave way to tender pride. "I better savour this honeymoon while it lasts, since I know you're gonna be—" He paused. "—right by my side for life, as long as you want to be."
"It might've taken you twelve years, but you finally figured it out." His ears reddened. "Gosh, guess that's the mission for today." Slipping her hand down, she poked his cheek. "I didn't even have to call you a chicken this time."
"Hey, I'm not a chicken. I thought we'd agreed. I'm a cat."
She giggled. "I know what you are."
"Better than I do? I'm all ears."
"You're the man I love."
He watched her with those thoughtful eyes that drew her in. She'd fallen willingly then, and she'd choose to fall in love with him all over again every day. "Yeah." His voice sounded a little hoarse. "Yeah, I am." His tone opened her giggling into laughing. His responding laughter rumbled into her chest, warm and soft under his weight, hands joined, pyjamas smelling of them both. She felt him relaxing into her as she untensed beneath him, barely able to tell where he ended and she began. He'd whispered before how the years had made the shadows dance less frequently around his vision, sounds mistaken for gunshots less likely to roar blood through his ears.
But only in these quiet moments with her, he'd murmured, did he feel truly safe.
She never needed these quiet moments to feel safe or happy. Neither she could never replace the colours and sounds of the happiness he gifted her.
He reached up towards her as they'd both reached towards each other for years. His fingers curled under her chin to cradle her jaw. She leaned into his touch, nestling her cheek in his palm.
The crinkle of his eyes only thickened the lump in her throat. Could she—selfishly—
Trust her partner. "...hey, Neku?"
He breathed the word so affectionately her eyes stung: "Yeah?"
"About the family registry..."
"I'm serious." A heart traced along her jaw. His heart.
"I know!" She closed her eyes. "That's the problem. When you put your mind to something, you can do anything. Including being a stubborn blockhead. I just...want to be sure. I don't mind taking on your name. Or we could just both keep our own names."
His thumb ran along her lashes until she blinked him into focus. His irises glimmered wetly. "Shiki, I love you."
"I love you too..."
"And I want to take your name." Gentle sincerity curved his cheeks up. "I know you can be just as blockheaded as I am and you won't stop being conscientious until after our personal stamps get registered. But I'm serious. It's been nine years since I came back, and I've never been so sure about anything in my life—other than marrying you."
Tears blurred his silhouette. "You sap."
"So I'm giving up the sakura garden." He had suggested taking her name. She'd thought it when he’d sign the nameplate: his surname’s ephemeral sakura. So silly. Just a name. The strokes didn't prophesize his future.
But it had reminded her. Maybe it had reminded him, too.
"I'm not dying when the spring ends. If we want to know what flowers next year will bring, we'll plant them ourselves, right? I'll plant your beautiful blossoms year-round, because I'm not going away again, Shiki. I made that promise for you and for me. I'm not just some—some sakura blossom you see for a week and then have to wait three years until I'm in your arms again."
When he gripped her hand that tightly, she didn't have to look to imagine how the faint scar between his first and the second knuckles stood out.
Just last year: he'd been cooking her breakfast, and she'd hugged him from behind, too sleepy to announce her presence beforehand for the first time in a few months. He'd panicked, cut his hand open on the knife. She'd slipped, banged her knuckles on the kitchen counter. He'd bandaged her, as she'd bandaged him, kneeling together on the kitchen tile, laughing in relief.
She clenched his hand right back.
"I love you so much, Shiki. Now and always."
She'd learned his hands, and she'd learn his ever-changing hands again every time she held them, all the changes sudden and gradual over the twelve years they'd known each other and the fifty, sixty, seventy they'd have into the future.
"I know, Neku. I know you're not going anywhere ever again. I've never been so sure of anything in my life—" She couldn't suppress her grin. "—other than marrying you."
"You sap." He smiled so adoringly that his eyes squinched up. "Well, Misaki Shiki, will you forge this ever-changing pact with me?"
Tugging up on his hand, she felt him go willingly, shimmying himself up closer to her until his nose poked hers, the faint aroma of strawberry wedding cake on his breath.
The sakura hadn't bloomed yet, but it didn't matter. Long after the final petal had fallen, the beautiful blossoms they planted together would still grow. The flowers they had started planting years ago by themselves, the flowers they planted with their friends and family, and the flowers they would plant long into the future. Someday, after their hands had grown too weak to keep planting, had ceased holding one another, had passed back to dust, the soil they had tilled and the land they had watered would keep blooming beautifully.
No more transient weeks snatched from between the jaws of death. He'd stayed with her for all four seasons of her name; she'd stay with him for all four seasons of their lives.
"Because I want to hold this hope on my name—our name—until the end. Like I'll hold your hand." Her heart would burst. "My partner in life."
"My partner for life." His hand held on so tightly to hers that she knew neither of them would ever let go. "As long as I'm with you...we can do this, Misaki Neku." Her smile: soft as his gaze. "It won't be seamless, but it'll be ours, for the rest of our lives."
"Ours. Yeah, it's ours," he murmured into her lips. "The world begins with us."