Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Perfect
“Chishiya, where are we going?” I asked, putting on my shoes. “And why did you tell me to dress nicely? Are we going to a fancy restaurant?” I added, looking up at him, while quickly grabbing my purse.
He was leaning against the door, hands in his pockets, seemingly deep in thought. “You’ll see,” he answered simply, swiftly turning over and opening the door for me.
I exited, eying him skeptically. Something was off about him today. He wasn’t as composed as usual, he seemed a little stressed — maybe even nervous.
“Is there something on your mind?” I asked him, as he continued being suspiciously quiet, while we were walking to the garage. “Is it about work?” I quizzed.
“No,” he answered, looking at me, smiling lightly. “Everything is perfect,” he added, noticing that I wasn’t quite convinced by his answer.
“You sure?” I raised an eyebrow, but I couldn’t help smiling back at him.
He chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sure. Don’t worry,” he assured me, before he opened the car door for me, gesturing with his hand for me to enter.
“Okay, but why are you being such a gentleman today?” I laughed, getting in.
“What do you mean? I’m always a gentleman,” he replied, smirking, before getting in as well and starting the engine.
“I don’t know about that…” I teased him. “…a gentleman would tell me where he takes me,” I added, hoping that he’d tell me — I was way too curious.
“A gentleman wouldn’t ruin the surprise,” he argued, seeing right through my intentions.
“Aw, well, it was worth the try. Can you tell me at least how long the drive is?” I asked, thinking that maybe I could find out by asking him questions.
“Not that long, fifteen minutes,” he answered, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.
I also looked out the window and over the street. I knew this road, it was the one I took whenever I would go to University.
It’s crazy how fast time went by. It feels like it was yesterday that the meteorite hit Tokyo, that I got the role of my first ever TV show and transferred to Japan.
Soon after that I got together and moved in with Chishiya, and finally also graduated from University.
And even though it didn’t feel like that much time had passed, in reality years have gone by.
“Hmm… do I know the place?” I asked further, trying to think of any possible location he could take me to.
He just smirked at that question. “Yes, but also no,” he replied.
“What?” I looked over at him, confused. “How can I both know it and also not know it?!”
“You’ll see,” he answered, chuckling, “we’re nearly there.”
“Can you give me one last hint?” I asked, seeing as we got nearer and nearer to the University. I had to know what he meant, right?!
“I’ll give you a big hint, it’s a café,” he said, smirking.
“A café? But if we’re going to a café, then why are we going all dressed up?” I questioned him skeptically.
“Because it’s not just any café,” he explained, looking over to me, as he parked, near the university park.
That’s when it clicked. The university… the park… the café. It’s the place where we first met!
“But… How?! I thought after it got destroyed by the meteorite and the owner died it’s been closed and abandoned?” I asked as we got out. I was smiling like a kid, I’ve always wanted to go back there one day.
Chishiya smiled next to me as he saw how excited I was about this. “Well, someone just bought and completely renovated it. I thought we had to check it out.”
“So that’s what you meant with ‘I know it but I also don’t’,” I chuckled. “Kind of embarrassing that I didn’t get it earlier,” I added, shaking my head.
“No, it’s not embarrassing at all,” Chishiya stated, hands in his pockets, as we were walking down the pathway.
I looked at him skeptically “Chishiya, what is up with you today?! Normally you would’ve teased me, today you’re all nice…”
“I’m always nice,” he argued, looking all confused as to why I would accuse him of such things.
“You’re not,” I replied, laughing. “And that’s what’s concerning me, you’re too nice today. Who are you and what did you do to my Chishiya?!”
He smiled and rolled his eyes “Well, you’re still as annoying as always. It’s nothing. Come on, we’re here,” he said, as he stopped in front of the café.
“There we go, that’s more like Chishiya,” I replied, as I looked at the familiar building. It looked so different from how I remembered it, but at the same time so similar.
“Let’s go inside,” Chishiya said, walking over to the door, hands still deep in his pockets.
We entered and even though all the tables, chairs, decorations and the wallpaper were completely different, memories from that day came flooding back.
It was already quite late and so, not many people were there. We instinctively went over to the same corner the table we met at was placed in the old café and sat down.
We ordered and, as the waitress was gone again, my gaze turned back to Chishiya. And there it was again, he seemed lost in thought, he kept on looking down then back at me.
There had to be something bothering him.
He remained silent until the waitress came back with our drinks. He took a sip of his coffee, before going back to thinking.
“Chishiya?” I said calmly, getting his attention. He looked up at me, almost nervously. “What are you thinking about?” I asked him, smiling softly.
“I’m thinking about a lot. It’s hard to explain. The short answer would be, about you,” he answered. “How lucky I was to meet you here.”
“You’re thinking about me?” I asked, smiling — I didn’t expect that — he seemed so worried. “Now I wanna hear the long answer,” I said.
“Well, the long answer is, that I’ve been thinking about our past.” He chuckled, and looked down.
He looked back at me “I just remembered the one time you were really drunk at your friends’ party and I came to pick you up.”
“Oh, god. You didn’t have to bring that back up again…” I said, burying my head in my hands.
“You don’t remember, but on the way home you kept telling me over and over how much you love me.” He smirked.
“I mean, that’s not bad. You know the latin saying ‘in vino veritas’? Drunk people tell the truth, so maybe I just love you a lot!” I replied.
“I thought so,” he chuckled. “Then another thing you said was that you wanted to… marry me. But I don’t know how true that statement was, since in the same sentence you also said you wanted to give birth to at least ten of my babies.”
“That does sound like something drunk me would say…” I said, laughing. “Who knows, maybe there's some truth in it too,” I added.
“I just hope the thing with the babies isn’t the truth…” Chishiya added, laughing too.
He looked down again, then quickly back up. “Then I’ve been thinking further back. Back to the time after the meteorite crash, back to the hospital.”
I was just looking at him, listening intently.
“How you pretended to be my wife, how you visited me every day and even when you got released from the hospital, you still came every day.” He smiled.
“Yes, I remember how I kept on trying to beat you in chess, and when I finally did, it felt like the biggest achievement of my whole life.” I laughed.
“As it should, you know, you’re the first person to actually beat me,” he laughed too. “You know what else I still remember? One time you had a busy day, and you were so tired that you fell asleep on me in the hospital bed.”
“Oh, yeah I was really embarrassed because of it, but it was the best sleep I had for weeks,” I admitted.
“It just made me so… happy that you felt so safe around me, that you’d even fall asleep next to me. I was hesitant to even breathe, because I didn’t want you to move or wake up — you just looked so peaceful.”
He looked around nervously. By now we were the only people left in the café. Eventually he continued “And that was the first time I thought about it, I thought about how it would be if you were really my wife, and you’d sleep like this, next to me, every day.”
“But I didn’t know if you even wanted to be with someone like me, I knew that you pretended, but only for the doctors, so I didn’t know if it was real…” he rambled.
“Chishiya, what are you trying to say?” I asked him, smiling, and looking at him expectantly.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that… I didn’t know — and I realized that I still don’t know if you want to marry me, so I concluded the only logical thing to do is… to ask.”
I froze. My mouth opened in shock.
He took my hands and made me stand up, a soft smirk on his face — he was probably proud of the smooth transition he managed to make.
Is he really…
He got down on one knee, pulled out a little box from his pocket and opened it.
“Do you want to marry me?”
…proposing to me?!
I couldn’t believe it, my hands were in front of my mouth in shock. I was smiling from ear to ear. I looked at his face, he was smiling nervously.
“Yes!!” I exclaimed without hesitation, jumping into his arms to hug him, which took him off guard — making him lose his balance and tumble backwards.
We fell down to the ground laughing, I landed on top of him. I’ve never genuinely been so happy, like I was in that moment — it was indescribable.
I kissed him, still on the ground “Of course I want to marry you, Chishiya!!” I repeated, laughing.
“That makes me really happy,” he said, smiling at me. “Don’t you want to try on your ring?” He added, as we got up again.
“Ah, yes, the ring!” I rambled, I didn’t even notice it. I stood up and he slid the ring onto my finger, I was stunned — too stunned to speak. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and it had a black diamond on it.
“Chishiya… this— it’s more than I could’ve dreamed of…” I mumbled, still dazed by everything that was happening, as I looked at the ring on my finger.
My heart was beating rapidly. I looked back up at him — my fiancé — I couldn’t believe it. He had a big smile on his face.
“I’m so glad you like it,” he said “I’ve put a lot of thought into this. I thought that, since you always say you like my dark eyes, you might like the dark diamond better.”
“It’s perfect,” I replied, hugging him again. “Now every time I look at it, it reminds me of the eyes I fell in love with…” It’s another thing I love about Chishiya, he always pays attention to small details.
“You’re the best, Chishiya… I love you so much,” I added, burying my head in his shoulder.
“I love you, too,” he responded, his arms wrapped around me tightly.
“So, fiancé…” I started, kissing his neck. “Why don’t we head home and I show you just how much I love you…” I whispered into his ear.
He just chuckled as an answer, his breath tickling my skin.
I leaned back and looked at him, a cheeky smile on my face. “What? You didn’t expect such a bold question from me, huh?”
He raised his eyebrow slightly, smirking “Quite the opposite actually,” he answered, grabbing his wallet with one hand and leaving a bill on the table for the waitress to take.
Then he slipped the wallet back into his pocket, and his hand returned to holding me, as I looked at him confused.
“I was expecting — or rather hoping you’d ask. I booked a room at a fancy hotel for us for this whole weekend,” he revealed.
“What?!” I exclaimed, my eyes fluttering open in shock. “I knew you had some aces up your sleeve, but this? I would’ve never expected something like that from you!”
“I have to admit, it was actually Kuina’s idea,” he replied, laughing at my surprised face.
“Come on now let’s get going,” he added, freeing himself from my hold and walking out, expecting me to follow him — and so I did, with the biggest smile on my face I ever had.
But that smile soon disappeared.
It disappeared exactly when we were standing in front of the hotel.
Seaside Paradise. It was written in big letters on the gate marking the entrance of the ginormous building.
I didn’t know why but the name alone sent shivers down my spine. But why? I had never been there before…
“Is everything okay?” Chishiya suddenly asked, probably noticing my strange behaviour, startling me.
“Huh? Yeah— yes, everything is okay,” I rambled, turning to look at him instead of staring at the building.
“Are you sure?” He replied. “We don’t have to do this, we can just go back home—”
“No, no. Everything is perfect, it’s nothing,” I interrupted him, shrugging him off and smiling again.
He looked skeptical, but he didn’t question further and so we walked into the seemingly normal hotel.
But somehow I had a feeling something wasn’t right.