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The envelope had been floating around for three weeks before it finally reached him. By the time it landed on his counter, the corners were grey and frayed, covered in smudge marks from a landlord who could not care less and a post office that had taken its sweet time redirecting it.
Jo sat on one of his new kitchen stools, staring at the front of it under the glare of the overhead light. He did not open it right away. He just traced his thumb over the familiar handwriting.
It was neat, slightly rounded script that he would know anywhere—the exact same writing that used to leave messy grocery lists stuck to their old fridge.
Right across the middle, spelled out in faded black ink, was his old address in Setagaya. The third-floor walk-up where the kitchen pipe always leaked and the windows rattled whenever the midnight express train roared past. That was the place where Yuma used to kick his shoes off by the door without unlacing them, tossing his keys into a chipped bowl with that loud, familiar rattle.
He thinks I'm still there, Jo thought. A dry, quiet laugh caught in his throat, sounding way too loud in the quiet room. He had no idea.
When he finally slid his finger under the flap, the paper tore with a thick, heavy rip.
The card inside was heavy cream cardstock, crisp and formal. It did not look like anything Yuma would choose; Yuma liked rough textures, cheap recycled paper, things that felt a little more broken-in.
This look expensive—then his eyes hit the text.
Nakakita Yuma and Takayama Riki.
Request the honor of your presence at their wedding.
Jo forgot to breathe for a second. The air in his lungs just turned solid, as he stared at the names until the letters started swimming together into black ink blots.
It felt like some kind of bad joke.
For almost three years, Jo had survived on the quiet assumption that they were just taking a break. They had not spoken a single word since the day they packed their lives into separate cardboard boxes, but in the back of his mind, Jo had always treated the silence like a pause.
A temporary timeout until work got less stressful, until they stopped bickering over stupid things, until they grew up a bit. He thought they were just waiting for things to settle down so they could figure out how to patch it up.
He had not realized that while he was sitting around waiting, Yuma had completely moved on and built a whole new life with someone else.
The invitation sat on the corner of his kitchen island for four days. Jo went through the motions—going to work, cooking dinner, making coffee—but hie eyes kept cutting back to that piece of paper.
Looking at it made his new apartment felt strange—the dark wood furniture Yuma had never seen, the quiet street outside the window, the lack of train noise. It was a life he had built entirely on his own, but suddenly it just felt empty.
Every logical part of his brain told him to throw the invitation card away. He should just check the box next to Regrets, mail it back, but them a nice toaster form their registry, and stay home. He could spend that Saturday sleeping in, watching TV, and pretending it was just a normal weekend.
It would be a lot less painful.
But the closer the RSVP deadline got, the more he felt his heavy, restless knot in his stomach. If he did not go, he knew exactly what would happen—he would spend the next ten years wondering what if, treating Yuma like some unfinished story in his head.
He actually needed to see it happen; he needed to stand in the back of the room, look Yuma in the eye, and watch him say those words to someone else.
Otherwise, he was never going to let go.
Jo picked up a pen from the counter, checked the box marks Attends, and slipped it into the return envelope before he could talk himself out of it.
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The venue Yuma had chosen was an old, converted greenhouse tucked away on the western outskirts of Tokyo. It was a massive structure of iron beams and glass panels, overtaken by cascading ivy and long, hanging strings of warm, clear bulbs. The air inside felt thick, humid, and smelled faintly of damp earth mixed with expensive perfume.
It was loud, dizzying, and too beautiful.
Jo stuck to the perimeter, standing a few feet away from a tiered champagne fountain that kept up bubbling hiss. He kept adjusting the cuffs of his black suit, checking his watch, and clearing his throat for no reason because he felt out of place.
Looking around the crowded floor, he recognized a dozen faces from their university days, but the ragged edges of their youth had been scrubbed away. Everyone had expensive haircuts now, corporate titles, and thin gold bands catching the light whenever they raised a glass.
Then, his gaze drifted toward the heavy glass doors leading out to the garden, and everything else in the room just faded into background noise.
Yuma was standing in a circle of older relatives, throwing his head back as he laughed at something an uncle had said. He was wearing a cream-colored three-piece suit that made his shoulders look incredibly broad and emphasized how tall he actually was. His hair was styled back, off his forehead, highlighting the clean, familiar lie of his jaw.
This was not the frantic, overwhelmed version of Yuma from their early twenties—the guy who used to come home from twelve-hour shifts drained, falling asleep at the kitchen table with a half-eaten convenience store rice ball in his hand.
This Yuma looked steady and grounded, like a man who knew exactly where he belonged.
Before Jo could think about slipping away toward the restrooms to hide, Yuma's eyes scanned the crowd and stopped dead.
The smile evaporated from Yuma's face—his expression went soft, his eyes widening slightly as he gripped the steam of his wine glass a little higher. He muttered a quick apology to his family, broke away from the group, and started weaving through the packed tables.
Jo's stomach did a miserable, heavy drop. He wanted to run, but his shoes felt glued to the floor. As Yuma got closer, Jo realized he was not alone; he was gently towing someone along by the wrist.
"Jo," Yuma said, catching his breath as he stopped a couple of feet away. Up close, the scent of his vanilla perfume hit Jo like a physical strike to the chest because it was the same exact bottle Yuma had kept on their bathroom ledge for years. "You actually came. I… honestly, I was terrified the card got lost in the mail."
"It took a little longer than usual, but it found me," Jo said. He forced his hands into his trouser pockets so Yuma would not see his fingers twitching, keeping his tone as light and conversational as he could manage. "Had to make its way through the old neighbourhood first—but congratulations, Yuma. Seriously."
"Oh, thank God," a bright, energetic voice cut in.
Takayama Riki stepped out from behind Yuma's shoulder, a massive, brilliant smile breaking across his face. He was wearing a matching cream suit, though he had left the top two buttons of his shirt undone, a small sprig of baby's breath pinned to his lapel.
There was not a single trace of awkwardness or suspicious in his eyes; instead, when he looked at Jo, there was only genuine, open warmth.
"Yuma was losing his mind for three weeks," Riki said, stepping forward and immediately pulling Jo into a quick, tight hug before Jo could even react. Riki smelled like citrus soap and fresh rain, and when he stepped back, he kept one hand resting naturally on Yuma's forearm. "He kept saying he'd ruined his only chance to have you here because he used that stupid old address. I'm Riki, by the way."
"Jo. Nice to meet you."
"I know exactly who you are," Riki said with a light, easy laugh. "I've heard enough college stories to last a lifetime. The famous Jo—I'm just really glad you made the trip. It means everything for my husband."
Jo looked down at Riki's fingers curled against the fabric of Yuma's sleeve, watching the way Yuma's posture shifted under his touch. His shoulder dropped a fraction of an inch, and he leaned a little closer to Riki's side as the defensive tension drained out of him.
That was the part that hurt the most.
Jo had spent weeks bracing himself to meet a rival, preparing to feel a bitter, protective anger—but Rki was not a villain at all. He was spectacular and secure, entirely unburdened by the years of heavy, exhausting arguments and silent treatments that had eventually broken Jo and Yuma apart.
Riki did not carry the scars of their past; he just made Yuma happy.
"You guys look great," Jo said, and the terrifying part was that he meant it from the bottom of his heart because he could not even find it in himself to hate the person who had replaced him. "The venue is incredible, too."
"Riki picked it," Yuma said, his voice softer now, his eyes locked onto Jo's face with a quiet intensity that made Jo want to look away. "He wanted somewhere with a lot of light."
"And right now, the light is telling us that we're late for the cake cutting," Riki chimed in, checking a small watch on his wrist. He gave Yuma's arm a playful tug, pulling him back toward the center of the greenhouse where a crowd was beginning to gather around a decorated table. "Don't you dare sneak out early, Jo. We still have to get a drink together when the formalities are over."
"I'll be around," Jo promised, forcing a small nod.
As Riki guided him away through the sea of guests, Yuma looked back over his shoulder. He did not say anything, but his eyes stayed fixed on Jo through the spaces between the moving bodies, sharing a long, heavy look that seemed to hold a thousand conversations they had never got around to having.
I'm sorry it ended the way it did, his eyes seemed to say.
But, thank you for letting me go.
Yuma gave a very slight, almost imperceptible nod, a quiet look of gratitude that needed no words before he disappeared into the crowd.
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By ten o'clock, the celebration had drifted into a loud, dizzying blur.
The reception floor was a chaotic mix of clinking champagne flutes, pulsing bass from the speakers, and the constant, blinding flash of cameras. Guests were laughing, dragging each other toward the dance floor, and spilling the wine onto the crisp linen tablecloths.
It was suffocating—Jo felt the walls of the greenhouse pressing in on him, the heat from the overhead lights and the sheer volume of the room making it hard to get a clean breath of air.
He slipped through a heavy side exit, stepping out onto a secluded concrete terrace that overlooked the dark, quiet expanse of outer gardens.
The drop in temperature was an instant relief. The cool night air hit his face, immediately cutting through the fog of the alcohol and the suffocating noise of the party. Jo walked over to the metal railing, leaning his weight against it as he stared out into the shadows of the trees.
He let out a long, ragged breath that he felt like he had been holding since he first tore open that cream-colored envelope.
The metal hinges of the door creaked behind him. Jo did not need to turn around to know who it was; his body recognized the specific weight and sound of those footsteps before his brain even caught up. It was a terrifying kind of muscle memory, something ingrained in him after spending five years navigating a living space where they constantly had to step around each other.
"Riki will look for you," Jo said quietly to the dark, his eyes staying fixed on the distant outline of the property wall. He pulled his hands from his pockets, gripping the cold iron bar of the railing to keep them steady.
"Riki's currently trapped on the dance floor doing the tango with my aunt," Yuma replied. His voice sounded closer than Jo expected, rougher and less polished than it had been when they were playing host to room full of relatives.
Yuma stepped up to the railing, leaving a careful foot of space between them. He had already abandoned his suit jacket somewhere inside, and his white shirt sleeves were rolled up his elbows, exposing the familiar lines of his forearms. He looked older under the dim terrace light; there were faint lines of exhaustion around his eyes, but the nervous tension he usually carried in his jaw was gone.
They stood in silence for what felt like an eternity, the muffled, heavy thud of the bass vibrating through the glass panels behind them. Yuma reached into his pocket, pulling out a small silver lighter, flicking the flame on and off without actually lighting anything. The small clicks filled the quiet space between them.
"You moved to somewhere else," Yuma said softly, breaking the quiet without looking over, his thumb finally stopping on the flint wheel.
"Yeah, a year ago,. It's closer to the park." Jo shifted his weight, his eyes tracking the tiny, repetitive motions of Yuma's hands.
"I felt like a complete idiot when the invitation bounced back the first time," Yuma admitted, a faint, self-deprecating smile appearing on his face as he stared down at his own shoes. He slid the lighter back into his trousers, his fingers lingering near the pocket seam. "The post office stamped it with giant red ink mark, and I realized that I didn't even have your new number. I didn't know where you were working."
Yuma finally lifted his head, his gaze sweeping over the side of Jo's face. "I had to track down a mutual friend from our old university club just to get your landlord's contact info. I just really needed you to have the invitation."
"Why?" Jo finally turned his head, studying Yuma's profile in the shadows, his voice dropping an octave. "To make sure I knew that you're getting married to someone else?"
Yuma turned his head too, his eyes locking onto Jo's with an intensity that made Jo's heart ache. There was not any anger left in his expression, just a profound, quiet weight.
He took a slow step closer, the distance between them shrinking just enough that Jo could feel the heat radiating off him. "No, because you were the biggest part of my life, Jo. For five years, you were the only thing that mattered to me. I didn't want to step into the rest of my life pretending that we never happened."
Jo swallowed hard, his fingers tightening around the cold metal of the railing until his knuckles turned white. He looked away, focusing on a distant streetlamp outside the property.
"Riki—he seems good for you."
"He is," Yuma murmured. He let out a soft breath, his shoulders dropping as he looked back out the garden. He reached up, loosening the top button of his shirt with a sharp, impatient tug. "He's brave, Jo. When things get difficult or messy, he didn't shut down. He doesn't pack a bag and disappear to his parents' house for weeks because he needs to think. He stays right there in the room, forces me to talk about it."
The words hit Jo with the force of physical blow, knocking the wind out of him. It was the exact truth they had spent their final, agonizing months avoiding each other.
Jo closed his eyes, his forehead lowering slightly toward his hands. He had been so terrified of failing, so overwhelmed by the sheer scale of his own feelings, that he had built a wall around himself. He had retreated into a stubborn, defensive silence until Yuma simply grew too tired knocking on a locked door.
They had not stopped caring about each other; Jo had just let the clock run out while he was waiting for some perfect, magical moment to finally be brave.
"I was too young," Jo whispered, the admission tearing out of his throat, sounding incredibly fragile in the open air. He opened his eyes, looking at Yuma's shadow on the concrete floor. "I was stupid. I thought we had all the time in the world to figure it out."
Yuma closed his eyes, a ragged breath escaping his lips. He shifted his position, his hand moving slowly along the railing toward Jo's side.
For a fraction of a second, his fingers hovered in the air, hesitating, before he let his palm rest gently over the back of Jo's hand. The skin of his palm was incredibly warm, but the heavy, polished band of his new wedding ring felt freezing where it pressed against Jo's knuckles.
"We were just a little too early," Yuma said, his voice cracking slightly as the wind picked up around them. He did not pull his hand away, his thumb brushing a faint line against Jo's wrist. "Or a little too late."
Jo looked down at their joined hands, the contrast of the gold ring cutting into his vision. Once, this had been his entire world. Once, he had been the person who got to hold Yuma's hand through the worse nights of their youth.
He shifted his fingers just an inch, letting their knuckles brush in a small, devastating gesture of shared grief for the timeline they were leaving behind on this terrace.
"In another life, Yuma," Jo said, turning his palm upward so their fingers could slightly intertwine, his voice dropping to a fierce, quiet whisper. "If we had met now. If I had been smart enough to understand what I had—I would have been the one waiting at the end of that aisle today."
Yuma looked at him, his gaze tracing every line of Jo's face as if he were trying to memorize it one last time. A single, tear escaped his lashes, catching the faint light from the greenhouse before he quickly raised the back of his sleeve, brushing it away with a rough, hurried movement.
He gave a slow nod that felt like a final agreement.
"In another life, Jo—I would have been your boy."
The heavy door clicked open behind them, throwing a wide square of warm, yellow light across the concrete and cutting their shadow in half.
Jo instantly pulled his hand back, his fingers curling into his palm to trap the remaining warmth as they both snapped their heads toward the entrance.
"Yuma! There you are!" Riki called out, sounding completely out of breath and laughing. His hair was messed up from dancing, and he was holding two fresh glasses of champagne that were bubbling over the rims.
He leaned his shoulder against the f=doorframe, a bright, happy fixture in the doorway, his eyes darting between the two of them with nothing but innocence. "They're getting the sparklers ready outside for the exit. Come on, everyone's asking where the groom went."
Yuma turned back toward the door, his posture instantly adjusting, his spine straightening as his face fell right back into the soft, radiant expression of a man who had just married the love of his life. He took a deep breath, smoothing down the front of his shirt with both hands.
"Coming," Yuma called back, his voice smooth and steady. He paused at the threshold, his hand resting on the handle of the door as he looked back over his shoulder into the darkness where Jo was standing. "Are you coming back inside, Jo?"
Jo managed a small, genuine smile, stepping back into the deeper shadows of the terrace where the light from the ballroom could not reach his face.
"Go ahead," Jo said softly, his voice even, tucking his hands safely into his pockets. "I'll be right behind you."
He watched Yuma walk away, watching the natural, easy way Riki slid an arm around Yuma's waist, Yuma immediately lifting his head to whisper something in Riki's ear that made them both laugh as they stepped back into the warmth of the crowded room together. The heavy door clicked shut, the glass panels turning into a dark mirror that only reflected Jo's own solitary figure standing against the railing.
He stayed out on the terrace until the bright flare of the sparklers faded into the night, alone in the dark, finally letting him go.
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