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The best day of Tetsurou’s life starts, as it usually does, with a wasp.
If Tetsurou wasn’t so busy panicking about the fact that there’s a wasp in the room and he doesn’t even have pants on, he’d probably be struck by an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. The dramatic parallel is completely lost on him, however, because Koutarou—who had his pants in his hands up until approximately ten seconds ago—has just thrown the aforementioned pants at the wasp. Tetsurou isn’t sure what Koutarou thought freshly steamed dress pants would do against a wasp, but whatever desired effect he was going for is made moot by the fact that, despite his reputation as the best spiker in the volleyball league, he misses the mark by at least three feet. Which is to say—if taken relatively to the size of the target—he might as well just retire now, because not even all-mighty Tetsurou can shoulder the burden of convincing him forevermore that no, this is not proof that he will never hit another cross shot again.
“Why!” Tetsurou whisper-screams, so as to not further agitate the somewhat annoyed-looking wasp. “Why would you do that!”
The wasp turns in his direction. Tetsurou grabs the curtain behind him to pull across his pants-less lower body as a pathetic makeshift shield and in the process unknowingly flashes his future brother-in-law, who has the misfortune of standing outside this particular window while pondering whether to move one of the signs one and a half centimeters to the left.
“Shut up! Did you have a better idea?” Koutarou says, in his usual tone of voice, i.e. all too loudly. (Tetsurou is under the misguided impression that being quiet will save him from the ire of the wasp, as if wasps are like librarians. What he doesn’t know, which Koutarou does, is that wasps are more like serial killers—they kill at random, and for fun.)
“Yeah, actually, I did.”
Koutarou tilts his head earnestly. “Really? What was it?”
“To not throw my pants at the wasp!”
“Oh, fuck off,” Koutarou all but growls. “At least I did something! You’re just standing there looking like you’re about to piss yourself.”
“Rude!” Tetsurou watches intently as the wasp crawls up and over the door frame. “Although now that you mention it, I do kind of have to pee.”
Tetsurou sees Koutarou roll his eyes despite the fact that he never stops tracking the wasp, which is flitting its wings in what Tetsurou is sure must be a threat of some kind. Koutarou seems to sense it too, because he’s finally gone quiet. It only takes about thirty seconds before Tetsurou starts to feel like maybe silence is overrated after all, which is also the exact moment Koutarou says—
“Okay, hear me out. What if you lure the wasp away from the door and I run as fast as I possibly can and get Tsukki to come and get the wasp for us.”
Tetsurou involuntarily looks away from the wasp to stare at Bokuto with an affronted expression, feeling irrationally betrayed. “Absolutely not!”
“What? What’s wrong with my plan?”
“Why am I the bait?”
“Well you can’t go get Tsukki, you don’t have pants on,” Koutarou says, like it’s obvious.
Okay, maybe it’s a little obvious. “Well you can’t go get Tsukki either. He can’t see me before the first look,” Tetsurou splutters.
Koutarou rolls his eyes. (Again! At Tetsurou! His bestest friend!) “It’s not like he doesn’t know what you look like—you guys went to the suit fitting together! Besides, you’re not even fully dressed. It’ll just be like when you woke up next to him today.”
“You think I woke up wearing a dress shirt?”
Koutarou only shrugs. Tetsurou weighs the pros and cons of his options. Sometime in between bad option number 7 and bad option number 31, Tetsurou notices out of the corner of his eye that the wall where the wasp once was is now suspiciously blank.
Tetsurou whips his head up to squint at the wasp wall. The wasp wall that no longer has a wasp on it. It’s only through a herculean effort that Tetsurou manages to squeak out, “Where’s the wasp?”
Koutarou spins comically slowly around in place, and upon finding the wasp nowhere to be found, yells, “Fuck it, it’s now or never,” and barrels through several pieces of furniture and out the door, abandoning Tetsurou to fend for himself.
☀
Outside, Tsukishima Akiteru asks for the thousandth time: “Is the sign centered?”
“It looks fine to me,” Keiji responds, also for the thousandth time. They’ve been pushing the sign a centimeter back and forth for what feels like an eternity but has in reality only been around ten minutes, which Keiji must still insist is entirely too long to spend on centering a stupid sign, no matter how beautifully covered in gold foil.
WRITE US A LETTER*
to be opened on our first anniversary
(and every anniversary thereafter)
*If you don’t know what to write: tell us a secret.
(We’ll keep it for you, we promise.)
Keiji’s thinking about the logistics of letter writing as a wedding activity—he wonders how many letters they’ll get from well-meaning but drunk individuals that only say something along the lines of Dear Kuroo and Tsukishima, CHICKEN BUTT —when his train of thought is interrupted by the muffled sound of screaming. “ KOUTAROU DON’T YOU DARE LEAVE ME— AHHHHHHHHH! ”
“Uh…” Keiji says, mildly concerned.
Akiteru taps his lip, doing his best to ignore whatever unholy event is unfolding in Kuroo’s dressing chambers. “Yeah, I agree. The pencil cup should be on the other side of the sign.”
☀
The closet Tetsurou’s managed to squeeze himself into smells like it’s been a closet for longer than he’s been alive. Which, to be fair, isn’t going to be very long unless Koutarou comes back with Kei very soon, because Tetsurou swears he can hear the wasp buzzing just on the other side of the closet door. Oh god, he’s going to die. At the tender age of twenty-seven. On his wedding day, no less!
Tetsurou thinks he’s going insane when the door finally opens again and a voice goes, “Oh wow, it’s actually a wasp.”
“I told you!”
A tsk . Then—“Go get me a cup and a magazine.”
Kei’s voice washes over him, abating. Tetsurou thinks— That’s the man I’m marrying today . His fists unclench; his heartbeat slows. There, stuck in a closet far too small for his size while the love of his life goes against a killer bee in hand-to-hand combat in his name, Tetsurou feels a warmth like spring welling in his chest.
☀
It’s not until Kei is gone, the wasp safely removed from the premises, and Tetsurou is safe that it finally hits him—déjà vu.
☀
Dear future Tetsu and Tsukki,
I have a confession to make. The reason I didn’t go back to save Tetsu from the wasp that day was, in part, because I was mad at Tetsu for some reason or another (can’t remember what the reason was but I distinctly remember feeling Wronged with a capital W) but another (perhaps bigger) reason was because… well… I Am Also Scared Of Wasps.
That’s how I knew that even though Tetsu is my bestest bro and light of my life, we were not meant to be roommates for life. It is an non-negotiable rule, after all, that there should always be at least one roommate in the living arrangement who is not scared of bugs.
This might come as a surprise to you, especially since I was a little bummed (I was just bummed! I did not throw a tantrum!) when Tetsu first
abandoned me
moved in with Tsukki. But eventually I realized that even though Tetsu and I are soulmates, you two are soulmates
and
Tsukki doesn’t give a crap about bugs, so… touché.
As much as I want to write a billion other things about how you two are perfect together, Akaashi is finally not dancing with anyone which means it’s my turn to dance with him.
May you triumph over the wasps together forever,
Koutarou
P.S. Tsukki, you may have won the right to be Tetsu’s forever roommate but just know that you will have to pry the title of Tetsu’s forever gym buddy out of my cold, dead, hands.
☀
It’s such a beautiful day. It’s such a beautiful day that even Hitoka, whose job might be described by some people as capturing beautiful moments, is profoundly overwhelmed by what a beautiful day it is. It’s not just the weather, which is perfect even for mid-spring—clear topaz-blue skies adorned with wispy veils of cirrus clouds—or the flowers, fuller and brighter than any flowers she’s ever seen before, lining the garden venue in full bloom. It’s all of that, sure, but there’s something else—something she can’t quite put a finger on—making it all overflow.
Maybe it’s the decorations. Akiteru’s been tirelessly setting up all morning, and it’s almost fully done now. Gold party streamers and swaths of chiffon interspersed with sprigs of eucalyptus strung up along the garden walls; bundles of flowers, tucked away in every nook and cranny in sight—hydrangeas and camellias and azaleas, in every gradient of yellow and pink. Hitoka lifts the camera to her face and peers through the lens at the sight before her—petals drifting through the air and streamers swaying with the breeze, a scene fit for a fairytale.
Hitoka clicks the shutter. She looks at the image, and it’s objectively beautiful. Years of experience have lent her a near-perfect eye for composition, and the lighting—spring sun filtered through gossamer clouds—is any photographer’s dream. But she looks at the real thing, and back down at the image, and still feels like there’s something missing.
It’s not the first time Hitoka has felt like this before, but it’s the first time she’s felt it so acutely that she wonders if she’s signed herself up for an impossible task. There is always something about a moment that doesn’t translate to a photo, beyond simply the difference in dimensionality—something more like the honor and melancholy of seeing a moment happen, and knowing that you will never see it happen again. Not at the same place, at the same time, in the same way.
But it’s different, she discovers, when it’s your friends. Because—she realizes, to her own selfish horror—that the beauty that she wants to capture the most—the beauty that she may never be able to capture—is not how beautiful the day is, or how beautiful Tsukishima and Kuroo are, but instead the feeling that puts a filter on everything she sees and makes even the most mundane white folding chairs—scratched-up and tainted grass-green where the legs meet the lawn—exquisite. The feeling that makes her think that maybe she’s signed herself up for the impossible. Because if she’s sure of anything—among all the doubts gathering like a storm on the horizon—it’s this: there’s no setting on her camera and no preset in her photoshop files that can possibly recreate how much she loves her friends.
Because that’s the thing about fairytales, she realizes; all the magic happens in your mind.
The door on the left opens first, then three seconds later the door on the right follows. Hitoka steadies herself. There is no time for self-doubt.
Her vision blurs. It feels like an epiphany. She clicks the shutter.
☀
“Is it raining?” Tsukishima asks, just as Hitoka feels a drop of wetness hit her forehead. It is raining, she realizes, followed by the reflexive urge to shield her very expensive and very finicky film camera from impending water damage.
And it’s a good thing she did, because in the span of mere seconds, a drop turns into several drops turns into an entire sheet of rain falling from the sky, or maybe it’s the sky itself that’s falling. They make a beeline for the indoor reception hall, where they gather like stray cats in a gutter, their Sunday best reduced to damp expensive fabrics that stick uncomfortably to their skin. Both Tsukishima and Kuroo look like they’re wearing suits with fringed shoulder pads, and though Tsukishima’s hair has somehow managed to escape unscathed, Kuroo’s perfectly coiffed mane has wilted into a mess more akin to a bird's nest. Outside, the gold foil on the sign Akiteru worked so hard on is starting to peel, and the waterlogged chiffon drapes are sagging helplessly, and still Hitoka looks out the rain-streaked windows and thinks— It’s such a beautiful day .
☀
Dear Tsukishima and Kuroo,
When you announced you were getting married, I knew I couldn’t let anyone else shoot your wedding. It’s such an important moment in your lives, and I wanted you to have the best photos you could possibly have. Not that I’m the best photographer, or even the best wedding photographer; I’m sure there are plenty of photographers in Tokyo more skilled than me. Perhaps it was selfishness more than anything, but I thought—and still think—that there is something special about me and my relationship to you that meant no one else could possibly do you justice.
To be honest, I’m not even sure that I have done you justice. Something I have to confess: photos are but a poor projection of the things that happen in the world. Perhaps all the justice I can hope for is that when you read this letter and look back on your wedding photos in five, ten, twenty years, you will feel again (perhaps not in the same way, but a way all the same) the magic that happened here today.
I know you were worried about whether I could enjoy the wedding if I was busy taking pictures, but I assure you that if anything, having the honor and challenge of capturing your beautiful day has only made me enjoy it that much more.
With all the love in the world,
Yachi Hitoka
☀
Miraculously, the rain stops almost as soon as it starts. Less miraculously for Akiteru, it stops almost the exact second that he carries the last of the plastic folding chairs into the ceremony hall. He doesn’t notice it, however, until he spots Kuroo Masako hauling five chairs (all at once!) right back out of the hall.
“What are you doing?”
Masako points toward the window. “Look—the rain’s stopped.”
Akiteru stops (for the first time since he got out of bed that morning), and looks out the window. The rain has, in fact, stopped. Akiteru thinks it must be a trick of the light when he first sees it—it’s just too cliché, too on the nose—but there, in the corner of the windowpane, the rainbow that they all say comes after the rain.
☀
It was a sense of nostalgia—and wild, unadulterated curiosity—that brought Akaashi Keiji to RSVP Yes to the cream-colored invitation that had found its way into his mailbox earlier that spring. It wasn’t an impulsive decision; he’d carefully weighed the pros and cons (pro: free food; con: awkward as hell) and found the charm of young love (yes, even ten years later) too attractive to resist. Which is to say, he was fully prepared for the possibility that he might come to regret the decision. What he wasn’t prepared for, however, was the relentless and exacting perfectionism of one Tsukishima Akiteru.
“Don’t you think the t is crossed a little too high?” Akiteru asks, and this time Keiji can barely contain his sigh. Last time, it was the bend of the U (uneven); the time before that, the loop on the tail of the R (too big). Keiji has written and rewritten the sign in gold sharpie enough times now that he thinks he’ll see the words WRITE US A LETTER burned into the back of his eyelids for the rest of eternity.
“Not really,” Keiji says dryly, but Akiteru only tsk s.
The perfectly gold-foiled sign that Keiji had nudged into perfect position twenty minutes ago was now—courtesy of the abrupt and rudely unannounced downpour earlier—a sopping, gold-foiled mess. Thus: the gold sharpie. Thus: Tsukishima Akiteru.
“Yeah, definitely too high. One more time, if you please.”
If Keiji were a stronger man—both figuratively and literally—he would’ve snapped the sharpie in two. Instead, he only clenches his fist around it hard enough for his nails to dig painfully into his palm. “Why don’t you write it then?”
Akiteru waves him off. “Oh, my handwriting is horrible. Come on now, just one more time. You’re doing great.”
Just as Keiji’s about to resign himself to the fourth iteration of WRITE US A LETTER— the sound of church bells. (Later, he’ll learn that it wasn’t really church bells, just a collection of various ringable items that Akiteru had collected from various antique shops over the years, which is not the weirdest hobby Keiji’s heard of but definitely the one that surprised him the most upon learning of it). But Keiji doesn’t know that yet. Thus: church bells, which in hindsight is a strange conclusion to make, because Keiji’s ninety percent sure they’re not in a church.
Akiteru looks toward the window, deer-in-headlights, and says—”It’s about to start. This will have to do.”
Keiji sets down the sharpie. Of course. Saved by the bell.
☀
Dear Kuroo and Tsukishima,
I must say I was surprised when you called me with the news that you were getting married. Not because the news itself was particularly surprising—at the risk of sounding like that one old person who thinks they know everything, I could have predicted this ten years ago—but because I was surprised that you had thought to invite me.
Here’s a secret: I didn’t know what I was doing when I was a student there, and I sure as hell didn’t know what I was doing as a teaching assistant, either. I think this is something you all might have figured out for yourselves by now, but there comes a point when you realize that no one really knows what they’re doing in life, and we’re all just kind of making it up as we go along. Maybe that’s what makes it so much more special—those few moments in life when the fog clears and the path becomes so obvious you wonder how you could have ever missed it. Not to go back to my old man-isms, but your (shared) path was so obvious to anyone else who had eyes and a brain—like I’m talking neon flashing signs level of you can’t miss it—but I guess that’s just how it is when you’re young; all fog and no path in sight.
I’m glad the fog cleared. I’m glad you didn’t miss it.
Best wishes,
Akaashi Keiji
☀
When Kei proposed, there was a part of Tetsurou that was—not quite surprised, but—taken off-guard. After all, they’d been together for nine years already, almost ten, and it kind of felt like if they were going to get married it would have already happened by now. It’s not that they didn’t want to get married—it just never really seemed like a good time, with Kei focusing on law school and Tetsurou focusing on getting his career off the ground. And then Kei graduated, and it was studying for the bar; Tetsurou got promoted to senior associate, then manager, then regional manager, but there was always another rung on the ladder. Really, the only time Tetsurou even remembers Kei mentioning it at all was that one time after Daishou and Mika’s wedding, when Kei had said, I think I get it now, why people get married.
In hindsight, Tetsurou has to admit that the proposal was all very Kei-like. It was a Sunday morning, and they were at their favorite brunch place, a cute little French-style cafe-slash-bakery that made these exquisite strawberry cream donuts that, after three years, still tasted as good as it did the very first time. There was nothing out of the blue—nothing that would have alerted Tetsurou to the events that would occur—except that Kei was dressed suspiciously nicely. Tetsurou had made some snarky comment about it before they left their apartment, but Kei had skillfully explained it away by mentioning a client meeting he had later that day (spoiler: there was no client meeting). It’s the reason why Tetsurou hadn’t thought anything of Kei bringing his briefcase, or the fountain pen clipped to his jacket pocket—the same one Tetsurou had bought for him when he passed his bar exam.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” Tetsurou said as they waited for their order, completely oblivious to the storm on the horizon.
“Yeah,” Kei replied, nonchalant. He ruffled through his briefcase, pulled out a stack of papers and a little velvet box, then got out of his seat and down on one knee. “Tetsurou, will you marry me?”
“Wait, what?” Tetsurou blinked, stunned by the abruptness of it all. Looked at Kei, then at the ring, then back at the papers on the table and blanched at the words at the top of the document— REQUEST OF REGISTRATION OF MARRIAGE . “What, like right now?”
Kei shrugged. Why not?
“No—” Tetsurou regretted his choice of word as soon as he saw Kei’s face fall. “I mean yes, yes of course I’ll marry you. What I meant to say was—you want to get married”—he gestured toward the papers—“just like that?”
This time, aloud—“Why not?” Kei asked, eyebrows furrowed. He hadn’t moved from where he knelt, dutifully still on one knee.
Tetsurou floundered; they were beginning to draw attention. He took the ring from Kei—noticed belatedly that it was one he’d pointed out himself at a street market in Italy last summer, a simple little gold band carved in the shape of knotted twine—and pulled him up off the floor. “It’s just— I mean— aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves?”
A realization seemed to dawn on Kei. “You want to have a wedding?”
Tetsurou nodded. Wondered, for just a second, if Kei had only meant for it to be nothing more than a document, signed—a loose end, finally tied.
“We’d have to profess our love. In front of everyone,” Kei said matter-of-factly, only Tetsurou heard the implicit question. Saw it, rather, in the apprehensive arch of Kei’s left eyebrow, which he just knew was going to twitch in three, two—
“What? It’s not like we haven’t done more embarrassing things.”
☀
Tadashi can’t say he’s the best man who’s ever lived, but he thinks he could say he’s the best best man who’s ever lived. After all, he’s single handedly fended off all four horsemen of the apocalypse this morning alone—conquest, when Bokuto had misplaced Kuroo’s bowtie and became set on the idea that the one Kei was wearing was in fact Kuroo’s, so then Tadashi had to rummage through the absolute trash heap of Bokuto’s 2002 Subaru Forester to find Kuroo’s real bow tie; war, when Kuroo’s sister made an offhand comment about how gold was so 2022 and Tadashi had to convince Akiteru, who had been in charge of the majority of the decorations, that she’d actually said that the place was beautifully decorated despite the fact that gold as a color was so tricky, too ; pestilence, when Kei’s mother, who actually has hay fever, discovered she was out of allergy medicine and thus sent Tadashi to the nearest 7-Eleven; and finally death, when Tadashi, in an elegant display of his quick thinking, managed to save Kei’s freshly made-up hair from the designs of mother nature with an unimportant piece of scrap paper he’d found in his pocket.
Except—okay, so it wasn’t exactly an unimportant piece of scrap paper. It was more like a booklet, made of much nicer paper than could be described as scrap , and not quite so unimportant after all, as Tadashi discovers mere moments before Kei is supposed to walk down the aisle. Kei’s halfway out the door when he stops abruptly and asks, voice rising all the while, “ Where are my vows? ” and for a second, Tadashi doesn’t know—looks about the dressing room in a panic, backtracking mentally until that moment in the rain, when he’d pulled that not-so-unimportant piece of not-scrap paper out of his pocket. Tadashi reaches back into his pocket then, dread gathering in the back of his throat, and when he holds out the booklet Kei takes one look at the runny mess of ink and tree pulp and shrieks so loudly that Kuroo comes knocking on the dressing room door.
“How did this happen ?” Kei half-whispers, accusingly at Tadashi’s back, who’s too busy sending Kuroo away to think of an answer, much less verbalize it. It’s only once he’s managed to convince Kuroo that yes, everything is alright— no, no one has died— no , Kei hasn’t changed his mind, that Tadashi thinks to himself—how did this happen?
Tadashi remembers it now. Miwa was styling Kei’s hair, except he was so uncharacteristically restless he couldn’t sit still. Why don’t you practice reading your vows? Miwa had suggested, which was such a great suggestion it worked so well that Tadashi would even argue it worked a little too well. Kei read through his vows once, and then again, and then for a third time—sitting perfectly still all the while—as his frown grew deeper and deeper and he decided over and over again that no, the emphasis wasn’t right, it wasn’t right at all, it was so incorrigibly wrong that maybe it wasn’t a question of emphasis but the way he’d written it from the beginning. This went on until Miwa put down the comb and declared Kei’s hair finished and ready for presentation, which was when Tadashi confiscated Kei’s vows through the power vested in him as best man and sent Kei to rearrange the charcuterie board.
Tadashi breaks into a devilish smile.
“It’s fine!” he proclaims with all the confidence he can muster, patting Kei on the back with a force that he hopes comes across reassuring rather than an indication of his desperation. “You’ll be fine! Remember? You read through them so many times this morning while Miwa was doing your hair that I’d be more surprised if you hadn’t memorized it already.”
And then to Tsukki’s abject horror, Tadashi pushes him out of the dressing room—as is the duty of the best of best men—out into the terrifying, grassy, flower-lined aisle leading straight toward the altar.
☀
Dear Tsukki and Kuroo (but mostly Kuroo—really, Tsukki, feel free to skip this one),
Kuroo— I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you this (if I am found dead or go missing after you open this, Tsukki did it)— but Tsukki called me in a panic the night you all decided to write your own vows convinced he’d just made the worst mistake of his life. I managed to talk him off the edge by reminding him of the day he decided he wanted to become a lawyer—which worked about as well as you can imagine—and then he hung up on me and proceeded to write five different drafts of his vows, all of which ended up in his trashcan before ever seeing the light of day.
I don’t know exactly how many drafts he had to go through to get to the final version, but what I can tell you is I didn’t get to see any of those first five, but I did get to see the last twelve. So we can deduce that there were at least 17 different drafts, though I suspect there were likely many more—we all remember how many times he rewrote his law school application essay.
I guess what I’m trying to say is: after ten years, these are the trials and tribulations (albeit self-imposed) that he still goes through for you. If there was ever a moment that you thought this whole ordeal was a bit perfunctory, I hope you will think of those 17 (or more) drafts, and you will understand that marrying you was not just to dot his i ’s and cross his t ’s. You mean so much more to him than just a piece of paper, or a ring, or a (however fabulous) wedding. More than you, or I, will likely ever know.
Best wishes,
Yamaguchi Tadashi
☀
Kuroo Masako isn’t the kind of person who cries at weddings. And she’s been to lots of weddings—both as a guest and as a day-of coordinator, and the only time she’s cried is as the latter (out of sheer stress, professionally hidden inside a supply closet). Coincidentally, it’s the reason why she got ordained (the whole fiasco was caused by the officiant’s sudden death the day of the wedding), though she’s never actually had to officiate a wedding before.
Not that she’s officiating today because of an unforeseen disaster—Tetsurou actually asked her six months in advance whether she’d like to be the officiant to their wedding. Masako had agreed because it seemed easy enough, and she was too busy thanking god he hadn’t asked her to plan the wedding to think about it very deeply. It was a relatively easy role to play, after all—all she had to do was say a couple words, wave a magic wand, and ta da! pronounce them lawfully wedded husbands. She hadn’t imagined that it could be anything more than that. Hadn’t imagined the way the words would catch in her throat, and her eyes would blur, and she’d have to discreetly wipe away those pesky, welling tears in the moments when everyone was too busy looking at them to notice her.
Only, she’s getting ahead of herself; she still hasn’t imagined all that yet. She can still almost believe it’s just another wedding—fresh lawn, white chairs, spring sun setting idly in the background as forty faces stare expectantly at her as if she’s the reason the procession hasn’t started yet. It’s then that a short, blonde-haired woman ( Yachi , she reminds herself) comes running up to whisper in her ear—there’s been a slight delay, something about soaked through vows—and then it really does just feel like another wedding, and it takes Akiteru vigorously shaking the unholy contraption of bell-like items for Masako to keep herself from marching into the dressing room to take care of whatever the hold-up is herself (because if there’s one thing she’s learned from fifteen years of wedding planning, it’s that she always has to do everything herself).
Masako straightens. A second later, Kei is walking down the aisle, the cream-colored satin of his suit shimmering gold in the warm sunset light. Then Yamaguchi, Hinata, and Akiteru in shades of olive-green; Daishou, Iwaizumi, and Koutarou in burnt orange. Finally, Tetsurou—in matching cream, his hair somewhat salvaged from the state in which Masako last saw it, smiling so brilliantly that Masako finds herself smiling, too.
(Now—now she imagines it.)
But Masako has a job to do, so she begins to speak. And they’re just words, really—it’s nothing she hasn’t already heard a million times before—but they prick at the back of her throat, and then her eyes begin to inexplicably tear up, and then she’s wondering if maybe she has hay fever too, after all. Luckily for her, the introductory script is as short as it is sweet, and then she’s handing it off to Kei, who seems surprised that it’s his turn already.
Masako watches Kei inhale, and finds herself inhaling, too. The entire audience—all forty of them—inhales all at once, until the tension in the room feels like a balloon, ready to pop.
“Tetsurou,” Kei starts, then immediately has to pause to swallow. “I spent a really long time thinking of the right thing to say to you. We’ve been together for ten years, and in those ten years I’ve said a lot to you. Cliché things, mean things, romantic things. Things I’ve never said to anyone else. Things that I am sure no one has ever said to anybody ever before in the history of the world.”
“Which is to say, I thought about all the typical vows—promises to love you no matter what, to clean up your vomit and fold your underwear ‘til death do we part —and I realized I’ve said them all already before. And then I thought: What’s the point of throwing a party just to tell you what you already know?
“For months I had no idea what I was going to say. And then a month ago, when I was fretting over what to get Masako for her birthday, and you said—like you always do—that it was fine, that she would love it, that I was worrying too much, I realized. It’s not that I didn’t know those things—because I did—but that sometimes there are things that you don’t quite believe until someone else says it out loud.
“What I’m saying is—I promise to be that person for you. To tell you all the things you already know, again and again, for the rest of our lives. To make sure you never have to doubt my feelings for you. To be your vote of confidence when you can’t be your own. To say all the things I’ve already said before, and all the things I haven’t, for as long as you’re willing to listen.”
Kei’s voice breaks at the end, and then Tetsurou’s half-laughing, half-sobbing, whispering something about hay fever and grass pollen, along with everyone else in the party and everyone sitting in the front row. Even Masako has to take a second to swallow the lump in her throat (which she’s sure is actually her heart).
And now everyone’s looking at Tetsurou, her precious little brother, and he’s still wiping tears away with the cuff of his shirt. He holds up a finger, as if to say— one second. A second passes, then another. Everyone waits. Masako remembers how shy he used to be, how you could say nothing but hi to him and it would take him fifteen seconds just to say it back. She can barely imagine it. How far he’s come since then; how far he still has to go.
They wait. He’ll be ready to continue soon, really. They can be a little patient; he has a long road in front of him.
☀
My dearest Tetsu and Kei,
Tetsu, I don’t know if you still remember this, but when you were six years old and in your clown phase you once told me that when you got married, you’d hire a troupe of clowns and have one perform at every table. I asked you why you thought that was a good idea, and you said something like—”So that everyone will be as happy as me.”
I think you gave up on that particular idea the next year when you discovered that Alisa was scared of clowns, but in hindsight that was kind of a genius plan (not that I would have ever admitted it as a teenager). But as it turns out, you didn’t need clowns. Of course you didn’t need clowns. (Insert joke here about how you were the clown all along). All you needed was a homemade charcuterie board, tacky gold decorations, and enough love for each other to make everyone else fall just a little bit more in love with the world.
I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy for you as I am today.
Sooooooooo so happy for you,
Masako
P.S. Kei—please don’t worry too much about the ring, really.
No one will remember it ten years from now
— Okay, maybe everyone will still remember it ten years from now, but take it from someone older and wiser who’s been to more than her fair share of weddings: the worst thing a wedding can be is unmemorable.
☀
By the time Tetsurou’s finished saying his vows, Kei is trying so hard not to cry that he’s shuddering instead, shoulders wracking with the effort. Masako’s voice sounds a million miles away; Iwaizumi, despite standing two feet in front of him, is merely a blur. It’s a good thing Kei’s run through the ceremony in his head so many times he doesn’t need to hear or see to know what comes next, but his hands are shaking so badly he’s absolutely certain he’s going to drop the ring.
Iwaizumi approaches, ring in outstretched hand. Don’t drop the ring, don’t drop the ring, don’t drop the —
He drops the ring.
☀
To be fair, it’s not completely obvious who drops the ring. It could have been Kei, or it could have been Iwaizumi—no one, Kei suspects, will ever truly know. But it’s not a matter of who, but what. The what being the fact that it’s Kei’s wedding day, and every single person that Kei can claim to care about is watching him, and Tetsurou’s ring is on the floor.
It’s not like we haven’t done more embarrassing things. Bullshit. If Kei survives the next five hours of the day, he’s going to shove those words down Tetsurou’s throat. This is, by far, the singular most embarrassing moment of Kei’s life. Not even that time when they were twenty and Tetsurou had somehow convinced him it was a good idea to get frisky in a rental car in an empty parking garage and they’d (of course) gotten caught by the poor underpaid security guard holds a candle to the heat spreading like butterfly wings across Kei’s cheeks right now. Even if it wasn’t, it sure would be when Kei bends down to pick up the damned ring and Tetsurou’s hand is already there, centimeters away, ready to pick up the ring that Kei’s supposed to be giving him—
“You can’t pick up your own ring, dumbass,” Kei whispers under his breath as he swats Tetsurou’s hand away. “Think of my dignity.”
“Hey now, think of my dignity. I can’t have people thinking I don’t help my husband when he’s clearly in need—”
With the ring safely in his grasp, Kei grabs Tetsurou’s hand. “Shhh,” he hushes, and notices that his hands aren’t shaking anymore. “You’re getting ahead of yourself.”
☀
“Oh just kiss him already!” someone who sounds suspiciously like Koutarou yells, and yeah— maybe they’re getting a little ahead of themselves, but who are they to refuse the demands of their esteemed guests?
☀
Tetsurou,
So… I might have broken the rules. I am writing this letter 12 hours before I am technically supposed to, but in my defense I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to do it when the day finally begins (also, I couldn’t sleep. Sue me.)
Here’s my secret: I’m glad we decided to host a wedding, however embarrassing it might turn out to be. The truth is, I’m not as averse to embarrassment as I make it seem—the past ten years with you would have been intolerable otherwise—though it is true I am not inclined to public declarations of love. But it’s not that I didn’t want a wedding; I had simply never thought about it, not really, until you brought it up that day I proposed.
I suppose I didn’t think anyone would be interested in coming. We’ve been together for so long, after all, that I think people (us included) sometimes forget that we aren’t already married. It’s so easy, isn’t it, to take everything for granted? Because I took it for granted—that’s the only reason I can think of that explains why on earth I thought that Tadashi and Akiteru and Koutarou and Masako and all of our friends and family, who claim to love us very much, wouldn’t be interested in seeing us get married.
And most of all—I’m sorry for taking you for granted. You, who have always worn your heart on your sleeve, your big, lovely, generous heart, that I have come to love more than anything. I should have known you would want to share it with everyone, because I want to share it with everyone, too—the love that I am so lucky to have, and give, for the past ten years and—if all goes according to plan—for the rest of my life.
Love,
Kei
☀
It all gets a little hazy, after that.
Or at least—that’s what they’ll think another ten years from now when they look back on this moment, and they have to really think to piece together the vague shape of the shenanigans that transpired. They’ll remember Koutarou’s speech, where he’d tried to take credit for being the reason behind their entire relationship, then proceeded to make everyone cry (with laughter) at his recount of the way it all began; they’ll remember the bouquet toss, when Iwaizumi ( Hinata , Kei corrects, even though Tetsurou still begs to differ) spiked the bouquet which, miraculously remaining in one piece, hit none other than Oikawa square in the face; they’ll remember Tadashi’s not-so-secret stash of jello shots, which turned out to be a little more potent than anyone had bargained for, and ended up sending more than a few strong soldiers to end their night with a date with the toilet bowl (which, to this day, Akiteru still reminds everyone was a very pretty toilet bowl, with little hand-painted flowers decorating the porcelain—isn’t that just so adorable?)
They’ll remember the way the lights dimmed, and a love song played, crackling, out of the speakers Kei’s had since university, as the newlyweds danced like fireflies against the night. They’ll remember the way the speakers sputtered and died mid-song, and Tetsurou laughed but didn’t stop dancing, instead started to sing. They’ll remember Kei finally crying, all those held-back tears coming down in streams, and how Tetsurou said under his breath, Oh come on, my singing isn’t that bad , and then Kei was laughing so hard he missed the next step by two beats.
Something they won’t remember: Akaashi tearing up on the sidelines, muttering about how they’re just children, what are they doing, how did this happen, I’m just a child— and Oikawa patting his back placatingly, saying There there, let’s get you to bed , it’s way past your bedtime. They won’t remember Koutarou bawling into Iwaizumi’s shoulder— My god he’s still so pretty why won’t he dance with me— or Tadashi knocking over the cake topper and, in the process of attempting to catch it with his wet hands, vandalizing the WRITE US A LETTER sign such that it read RIT S L ER (Yachi actually got a picture of this, though it would never see the light of day—Tadashi made sure of it). They won’t remember the color of the tablecloths, or the impossible fullness of the moon, or the bees that wouldn’t stop attacking the spiked punch Masako made.
But right now—right now, it’s all crystal clear, razor-sharp. The soft spray of champagne in the air, their dress shoes squeaking on floors sticky with spilt wine, the minutes spent laughing and dancing spilling into hours spent much the same. In the moment, the memory is so recent and raw it’s invincible, like it could last forever. And in a way, it does—the same way photographs do, even as the edges soften with age and the brightest colors fade to the sun, with the indubitable proof that they were looked at and touched and loved.
☀
My dearest Kei,
I hope you know I’m never going to forgive you for having better vows than I did. Not that it was a competition! You were always good with words—I suppose that’s part of what makes you such a great lawyer—and I guess I’m not even really that mad about it, because you wrote them for me, and you said them for me, even though I’m sure it was all very embarrassing and now you’ll have to kill me and all our guests to keep your reputation as a stone cold bitch. You’ll have to spare someone though—maybe Akaashi—or else it really will have all been for naught, all the pomp and circumstance that you proclaim to hate so much.
Here’s my secret: actually, I forgot what my secret was. I think I might be a little drunk, because I had it all thought out, you see, this very clever secret that I’ve been keeping from you, who already knows everything about me. I guess you’re just going to have to ask me tomorrow what it was. Maybe you’ll know it better than I do. All I can remember right now is something about being an orange, or maybe a grape— or maybe it was grapefruit? Anyway, it was supposed to be something about how fucking lucky I feel to be married to you, and how much I love you, and how much I love that you love me too, but I can’t quite get it to work right now. So ask me tomorrow, okay? And the day after that, and the day after that, and every day after that, too.
tl;dr: All the things you already know.
Forever and always,
Tetsurou