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WERE SOMEONE TO ASK ME IF I ALWAYS LOOKED AT YOU THIS WAY, the answer would undoubtedly be no.
What other answer could there have been? You were a nuisance. Nothing more than that. You looked pitiful, the day that we met — begging a complete stranger for scraps. I’d have never remembered you if you didn’t show up fuming overmorrow, holding a grudge over something I frankly saw as nothing more than a small, private victory above a stranger I’d never see again.
…I can hear your voice yammering away at me for that thought even if I never said it out loud. I know it’s a lie. I know I would have remembered you, from your face alone.
The sight of you irked me for the longest time. How could you do that? You didn’t even have to do anything and it’d make my eye twitch like a doll broken out of commission. You were always just there, forcing yourself into my life and crawling into my space like you owned it, staining every inch of me like you were intent to stake your place in my space or die trying. I couldn’t believe how anyone could hold a grudge for that long — and still, I don’t, even when we’ve taken to speaking of you as less than a terror and more of an inimitable driving force.
I can admit it now, with no small amount of pride lost, that it was unbelievable because I’d never thought anyone could commit so much for something — someone — so small.
How does anyone even recover from that kind of devotion? It struck me as a bother, without a doubt, but I know with the benefit of hindsight that it was only because I could scarcely believe that anyone would find me as a worthwhile target. Hiding it behind bravado was easy — of course you’d want to get revenge on me, shortcake, this is the only thing you have going for you, isn’t it? — but I still cringe at the thought of my stupidity. But it wasn’t easy at all when you’d charged in and confessed, when you carried yourself with all the damnable certainty that you will make me fall in love with you.
Who would have thought. You weren’t very good at lying, after all.
Carrying these feelings for you wasn’t easy. God, Zemu, since when was it ever easy with you? You made me put in effort into things I never thought I’d have to think about, and you make me think I am worth the effort, even if I still don’t understand just why you’d waste it all on me. I knew I was nothing short of done for when my pulse started to stutter whenever I heard your name, when I started to know you were coming from the sound of your clumsy footsteps. I didn’t know what to deal with it all back then, how the sensation in my chest bloomed like injuries that ached but never bled.
I still don’t know what to do with it now, not entirely. Seeing you walk down the aisle with that smile on your face, I can tell you’re trying your hardest not to just barrel down the pews. It makes me want to laugh, but I’m afraid that if I do, it’ll come out wet and stained with tears. Crying and laughing at the same time… what do I even do with you, Zemu? You make me feel things I never would’ve even thought possible were it not for you. The spectacle of something like a wedding wouldn’t have even appealed to me were it not for you.
Yamaguchi elbows me in the side. He snickers a little, tells me I look constipated — that I should look happier, Tsukki, Zemu’s already near — but that only makes me scoff more. The back of my neck feels too warm. I don’t feel ashamed of my feelings, not the way I would have been about such sappy things before you, but having everyone witness us like this… a part of me just wants to keep you to myself, you know? I’d almost forgotten there was anyone else at all if Yamaguchi hadn’t interrupted the moment.
Something strikes me when you come up beside me, when you take your place and the ceremony begins. It doesn’t feel right to just have you there; for all that you’ve done to make yourself at home with me, it doesn’t feel right unless we’re whole and intertwined. I take your hand — you always say I’m warm, after all — and I can feel the tremor of you holding back your laughter, how I have to draw my thumb over the back of your hand just to silence you or else I’ll start laughing, too, at how eager we are for this. Other times, I would have shamed myself for believing that I ever deserved this.
But not today. Not when you’re dressed the most gorgeous I’ve ever seen you, all bouncy pink trim with pearls and silver in your hair, and not when you sneak another glance at me and all I can see is the truth that you’ve forced me to realize long ago — that you love me, you do, and that I will have no choice but to love you too.
I may not have had much choice in the matter then, but I know now that I would continue to choose much the same if I ever had to make that choice again and again and again. As much as it would have bothered me to say this before, you’ve made it impossible to even think of a life with anyone else — you’ve sunk yourself into every crevice of me, through crack and fissure, and emptied me of the bitterness that came with being me.
And for the rest of our lives — as I pull over the veil to see you in your entirety, as you loop your arms around my neck to yank me down before I can even stoop for you when our officiant tells me I can finally seal true what I’ve long since committed myself to — I will forever hope to be just as much of an anchor for you, Zemu.
My shortcake. My star. My one and only.
Who else could I have loved — who else could have loved me better — but you?
