I Don't Care (12/12)
Author: ryosukekoibito
Pairing: Hikabu, with some side Takachii, Yamajima, Okaryu, and Dainoo
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: Hikaru had a great life. He had two great jobs, fun and caring friends, and an amazing boyfriend that he loved more than anything in the world. Life was good, but it would be perfect if Takaki would just stop calling during his make out sessions with Kota.
A/N: So! This fic is part of a project my sister
thanku4urlove and I have been working on. It ties in with two other multi-chaps: I Do, and I Don’t. If you’d like to get some other perspectives on the same series of events, please check her stories out! I Do is from Chinen’s POV, and I Don’t is from Takaki’s.Previous Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
Luckily it only took Takaki about a week to fix his whole divorce issue with Chinen. For most of that week the two men seemed to be avoiding each other like the plague, Takaki spending hours at a time lounging around in Hikaru and Yabu's tiny apartment, complaining about how much he hated his mother, about how much he missed Chinen. It was endearing, Hikaru thought; but that was probably his generally overly-happy state of being talking.
He found that after proposing to Kota, everything simply seemed better, and their combined happiness was what usually sent Takaki off, the frankly miserable singer getting tired of not being properly pitied. Hikaru honestly didn't care. Yes, he wanted things to go well for Takaki, and regardless of the outcome of this 'married-dating-divorce' mess, he would support his friend; but he and Kota were finally engaged, and he wasn't going to let Takaki's sulking get in the way of his happiness.
The band found out that Takaki and Chinen had reconciled the following Saturday when Hikaru spotted incriminating evidence on Takaki's person, after they'd finished performing.
"I'm guessing by the hickey on your neck that you and Chinen have reconciled things?" Kota giggled, slinging an arm around Hikaru's waist, leaning in and pressing his lips to the space right behind Hikaru's ear, as if he'd suddenly decided that hickeys were the new best thing. Inoo seemed to share this sentiment, declaring to a blushing Takaki
"Hey man, I'm not judging you. Hickeys are great." Their singer just turned a darker shade of red, but he confirmed
"Uh... Yeah. Everything is fine. Everything is fantastic, actually." That made Hikaru smile, feeling so happy for his friend. Finally, everyone seemed to be doing well. There was no drama, and everything was progressing smoothly. That peace barely lasted twenty-four hours, Takaki once again disrupting it, this time by getting himself into a hospitalizing accident on his motorcycle the next day when he went to go and pick up the cake for Chinen's birthday party. The party had already started when Chinen got the call informing him of Takaki's accident, and so the nine of them relocated it from Daiki's apartment to Takaki's hospital room. Luckily, the singer seemed to be-while banged up-overall okay, smiling and laughing with them until the group decided to call in a night, everyone scattering to their various homes with waves and farewells. It was late into the night, and as they began their walk home Kota groaned, tossing his head back to look up at the dark sky, declaring
"I'm starving!" Hikaru empathized with the sentiment; he too was hungry. In the haste they'd felt when going to see Takaki, all thoughts of food had been abandoned, and in consequence they hadn't eaten since mid-day.
"Let's get something to eat." He declared, taking Kota's hand. "We'll go to the first place we see that's still open." Kota nodded in agreement, and they soon found themselves sitting at a booth in a fast food establishment with sodas, slightly stale fries, and paper-wrapped hamburgers. For a while they ate in silence, the both of them hungry and slightly tired from the evening's exciting events. Hikaru was completely absorbed in his french fries when Kota said
"Let's set a date for our wedding." Hikaru's head whipped up, looking at his fiancé in surprise. Kota had an eager glint in his eyes, and Hikaru just blinked at him, still taking that sentence in. Finally, he asked
"Now?" Kota shrugged.
"Yeah. Why not?" Hikaru didn't know why not, so he nodded.
"Okay." He set his food aside, giving his fiancé his full attention. "When do you want to have the wedding?" Kota thought about it for a few moments.
"After I graduate in the spring." Hikaru nodded. He too had assumed that the wedding wouldn't take place until Kota had finished school. That would simply be too much stress on Kota's shoulders. Kota continued "But I want to be married soon, so...still that spring perhaps? How does this coming May sound?" This May? That was a fast turnaround. Hikaru wasn't sure they could get everything prepared in time to have the wedding in less than six months. But the thought of being married was one he liked, and if Kota was ready to push for it, then so was he. He nodded, smiling.
"I'll start trying to find a venue that can accommodate us on such short notice." He told his fiancé, and Kota grinned, taking his hand across the table.
"It's going to be amazing." The older man announced, and Hikaru couldn't fight the smile growing on his own lips, instead plucking a french fry off of his plastic tray, holding it up to Kota's lips. It would be a little crazy, trying to throw a wedding together with that little time, but he figured that he could probably do it. At least, he'd try. And so, from that point on it became his new biggest project.
Kota still had school, so Hikaru did most of the wedding planning on his own while his fiancé was out attending his classes. He'd still run his ideas by the older man, and Kota contributed a lot, giving Hikaru lists of ideas he'd had throughout the day most nights to help, as well as commenting on anything Hikaru proposed-but Hikaru had to finalize most of the decisions on his own. It was a great deal of work, planning a wedding, and Hikaru spent all time not with the band or at his ramen stand planning and preparing, making phone calls and narrowing lists down. Most things were easily agreed upon, and if the two of them had differing opinions, the situation was dissolved within the evening. Only one thing posed a major argument.
It was over a month into the wedding preparations when Hikaru got two phone calls within the same day for two different wedding venues that he'd been interested in, both telling him that they had reservations open up for the two weeks that he'd requested. Hikaru was extremely excited about it, and he scheduled tours of the places for the following weekend, not wanting Kota to miss out on this aspect of the plans. It wasn't the tours that caused any argument; it was the decision that came afterwards.
The two venues were very different from each other. One place was a Christian church, a lovely white building with high ceilings and a long isle. There were plenty of benches and a minister-a nice foreign man with a thick accent-willing to do the ceremony. The other place was a beautiful, ancient, Shinto shrine, which although smaller, had an amazing garden surrounding it, everything elegant and balanced, and it offered a very traditional ceremony, with the sharing of sake. The problem was that while Hikaru was immediately drawn to the more traditional option at the Shinto shrine, Kota decided that he'd liked the Christian church better.
Kota liked the trendiness of the church. He liked how flashy it was with its high ceilings and stained glass windows, and he claimed that he liked how much more of a relaxed aura the building held. It felt to him much more like a place of celebration, and that was what a wedding was all about, wasn't it? A celebration of their love. They could hold the reception in the fancy hotel next to the church; it would be easy to rent out a ballroom. Besides, he declared, he would much rather wear a suit to their wedding than the traditional outfit. While Hikaru understood Kota's perspective, he wasn't completely swayed.
Hikaru had always assumed that he'd have a Japanese style wedding. He was a Japanese man, after all, and it was the family tradition. Besides, while the wedding was a celebration of their love, it was more than that. It was a serious thing. The wedding ceremony spoke of their lifelong promise of love and companionship, and that was a big deal. It was an eternal commitment that was not to be taken lightly. Not that he didn't want to celebrate, but it just didn't seem as real of a thing to him-more like playing make believe-if it was at the western church. Kota wasn't all too pleased when Hikaru informed him of his view on the matter.
It took them days to reach any sort of resolution. They debated fervently, neither one willing to back down, and it actually got to be a bit of a problem, as both venues were anxiously waiting for their decision, their time limited. It was frustrating for the both of them, and it took a great amount of energy, before they managed to settle on a compromise. They decided to have the wedding ceremony at the Shinto shrine, Hikaru in traditional garb, while Kota got to wear his suit. It would be attended just by close family members, and would be a very serious ceremony. However, afterwards they would have the reception, attended by all of their friends and extended family, in the hotel ballroom as Kota had proposed. The reception would be a big, boisterous party, a proper celebration, like Kota had wanted, with a jazz band and food and dancing. It was the perfect combination.
Their whole winter was saturated with wedding preparation. Yet as they sat side by side on their bed, all wrapped up in the comforter because the heater broke, meticulously addressing what felt like hundreds of invitations, Hikaru felt a warm happiness in his chest, and he loved that he could just lean in ever so slightly, and get a sweet kiss from his handsome fiancé. This was amazing. This was the dream. And before he knew it Kota had graduated, and official documents were filled out, and then the day arrived. It was like his subconscious realized it before he did, a nervous buzzing in his stomach like bees the first thing he felt when he woke that morning.
He cracked jokes all morning, Kota humoring him as they each prepared individually for the ceremony. They left their apartment that morning in the same manner that they did everything else for the past ten years-together. Hikaru then fell silent, and Kota took his hand in the cab as they made their way to the shrine, and his gaze met Hikaru's, and some of the nervous energy drained away, a smile blooming on his lips. They pulled up to the shrine, and Kota climbed out first, offering Hikaru his hand, and he said
"Let's go get married." Hikaru felt his grin grow larger, and he took the hand, climbing out of the car, and he said
"Let's." And then, they did.
The ceremony and afterwards the reception were both amazing, their friends and family extremely supportive and happy, and it was an unforgettable night full of dancing, love and laughter. They spent their honeymoon in an amazing apartment on the other side of town that Hikaru immediately fell in love with, and it was revealed to him on the last night of their stay that Kota had taken the initiative to buy the place. They moved into their new home the week after, and Hikaru didn't think life could get better.
He was proven wrong when one evening in August Kota came home dripping wet from rain, a small bundle of brown fur in his arms. The puppy was tiny, probably only a few weeks old, and it was a mostly indistinct creature, its most defining feature these huge floppy ears that seemed disproportionately large in comparison to its head. Hikaru looked over at his husband questioningly, and Kota just said
"It was storming. I just couldn't leave her." They got to work taking care of the little creature, and drying it and feeding it, and as they worked Kota explained that he'd found it lying outside the train station under a bench, shivering silently. He proposed that they didn't actually have to keep the dog; they could just take it to a pet shop or try and find a new home for it. But as Hikaru scrubbed it dry, the little bundle blinking up at him, he shook his head.
"Let's keep her." Kota smiled, nodding. That night the three of them all curled up in bed together, the puppy cradled between their two larger bodies, and the dog-eventually named 'Mai'-completed their little family. And Hikaru couldn't help but feel in the weeks to come, that he must be the luckiest man in the world, to have been granted a happiness as big and perfect as this.
Corresponding Chapters:
I Do | I Don't
A/N: So, it's over! I just wanted to thank everyone that took the time to sit down and read this fic, and if you read my sister's corresponding fics, that's even better. We worked hard on these, and while the story may not be the most exciting, the challenge of writing three separate points of view that worked cohesively together was one that was something new for us, and we did our best to make it enjoyable for all of you who read it. Thank you especially to those of you who commented! I know it's easy to be a silent reader, and so I really appreciate you taking the time to let us know that someone was reading, and perhaps even enjoying, our stories. Please, don't be shy! I always love hearing from you; and if you liked this please check out our other works! You'll all hear from me again soon, I have another, longer fic lined up to post; one that's part of my Heisei Kumi AU, revolving around Chinen. Until then, I hope you're all well!