Suddenly I have more followers, 10 away from 100, wow!  Never expected that to happen.  Thanks guys!  And thanks for enjoying these so much.  These have become sort of fun writing exercises for me :)  This is the longest one so far.

Truthfully, Kanji Tatsumi had wanted to propose right away.  Right away meaning, “Confused love at first sight,” when he had first met Naoto Shirogane.  Of course, professing one’s love during the first meeting is foolish, but he had a feeling, you see, that the two of them would be forever.

Later, he discovers that this is absolutely the best thing he could ever say to Naoto as a wedding vow.  "I’ve loved you since I first met you,“ and, "I had a feeling that this would be forever.”

But more on that later.

For now, Kanji Tatsumi and Naoto Shirogane are engaged.  She’s not big on wedding planning – hadn’t even had plans to get married in the first place.  Meanwhile, Kanji wants to make her the most beautiful dress the world has ever seen.  

“Dress?”

“Yeah!  It’ll be beautiful!”

Granted, at this point in her life, Naoto is over that particular roadblock in her psyche, but the word dress still makes her become flustered.  She doesn’t mind them, but she certainly doesn’t have them in her closet on a regular basis.  However, she wants to make her soon-to-be-husband happy, so she musters up a smile and says, “All right.”

Then everything goes downhill.

Their friends – Naoto uses the term loosely in the coming days of the wedding – all have their opinions.  She loves each of her friends – again, loosely – and she thanks them for their advice – loosely, loosely.  According to Rise Kujikawa it’s bad luck to see the bride, the dress, and anything in-between before the wedding.  Naoto believes that it’s a silly tradition, but Chie Satonaka and Yukiko Amagi all agree with Rise.  Naoto refuses to wear something not made by Kanji – especially a dress – but Rise assures her that she knows a place, has connections, yadda yadda celebrity status.  

Meanwhile, Yosuke Hanamura tells Kanji about the wonder concept of bachelor parties.  Rise chimes in, mentioning the bachelorette party, and how she’s going to get the girls the best stripper that Rise Kujikawa can buy.  Kanji reminds them – rather loudly, despite his black hair and glasses – that the only girl he’s interested in seeing naked is his fiancee.  This makes said fiancee blush, but she agrees, all she’s interested in is Kanji.

“It’ll be fun!”  Both Yosuke and Rise promise

That hill?  Still going down it.

Between Kanji and Naoto, Naoto is the one who gets completely wasted at her party.  She thinks she started dancing on a table, started spouting out nonsense in the form of “take it off!” though she’s not sure if she was talking to the male stripper or Rise – neither?  Both?  Herself?  At that point the alcohol had enhanced her sexual needs; she hadn’t seen Kanji in days thanks to Rise insisting that they couldn’t see each other until the wedding.  She remembers saying something like “I require a man,” maybe even something like, “Yukiko-senpai, let me borrow Chie-senpai and the device I keep in my nightstand, she can wear it.”  

On her wedding day she is delightfully hung over, head pounding and stomach churning.  She assumes that Kanji must be in a similar state and none of the girls have the heart to tell her that he’s completely sober.

“You drank so much, Naoto-kun,” though honestly, Yukiko had just as many drinks. However, she’s capable of holding her alcohol, unlike a certain miserable detective.

“Yeah, I thought you’d have one, maybe two, but…” Chie can’t finish the sentence, still a bit flustered at Naoto’s request last night, especially since Yukiko had been o.k. with it.

“… is it because of what you told us last night?”

Naoto tries to remember what Rise means by “told us.”  What did she tell them?  When Naoto looks confused Yukiko speaks up, whispering, “That you’re not ready to get married.”

Hill?  Still going down.

Kanji is already getting in his tux, as nervous as he is excited.  He’s getting married to the “boy then girl then a pleasant mix of both” of his dreams.  Teddie is too busy crying, he’s beary happy for them, beary beary – yeah you get it.  The bear, Yosuke, and Souji Seta are acting as Kanji’s best men.  He couldn’t just pick one, or rather, he had Souji in mind but Yosuke and Teddie had made these faces at him.  

Kanji bets that she looks beautiful in her wedding dress.  He pictures her standing in front of a mirror, long gown flowing over her body, making her look like one of the fairy tale princesses that he use to read about as a child. 

Beautiful is the right word if you mean huddled over a toilet and throwing up.

That’s what Souji gets to hear when he goes to check on Naoto.  The girls are standing around her, Rise gently rubbing her back.  Chie gives Souji a sad look and says, “She doesn’t want to get married.”

“T-that is not true,” Naoto stutters out, “I… I was under the influence of-”

“This was before the alcohol,” Rise says, “If you don’t want to get married, why are you-”

“I-I am just nervous!”  Naoto stands up, stumbling out of the bathroom, “I am allowed to be nervous!”

“Why are you so nervous?”  Souji asks, “You know that Kanji loves you.”

“I know.  And I love him, too, but… I never thought I would have this.  I… I am so focused on my career, I never once thought-”

Souji smiles, taking Naoto’s hand, “You hadn’t planned on this and it’s taking you off guard.”

“This was not part of my life plan at all.  What if… it all goes wrong.”

“Nothing is going to go wrong, Naoto-kun,” Chie smiles.

Which, of course, causes the spiral of disasters.

Rise getting a dress for Naoto?  Yep, that fails spectacularly.  She had it specially ordered, ready to bring it to Naoto on her special day, but the woman she ordered it from has completely bailed – taking Rise’s money with her.  Rise vows to hunt this woman down, “Naoto-kun is an awesome detective, we’re going to find her and kill her,” but Naoto doesn’t chime in.  She’s too busy looking horrified, wearing nothing but a white robe with small, white flowers in her hair.  

There’s no way she can walk down the aisle in a bathrobe!

On the other side of the chaos stands Kanji with Yosuke and Teddie.  The decorations are a mess, the idea of an outdoor wedding completely biting them in the ass thanks to the rain that suddenly falls outside.  Quick, check the Midnight Channel – har har.  The flowers are drenched, the chairs for guests collecting puddles, and the candles have been completely put out by the rainfall.  

“We can move everything inside,” Yosuke says, “It’ll still be a great wedding!”  

But inside lacks the flare that had been put into outside.  Inside is just a dull building, no flowers and magic anywhere.  Kanji decides to spend a few minutes swearing as loudly as he can, Yosuke trying to calm him down.

Until Souji comes by with news about the bride’s dress.

And the bride’s refusal to leave her room.

And the bride kicking out all three maids of honor and locking her door.

And the bride deciding to never, ever get married.

This sends Kanji into a whole new string of curses.  And there they all stand, Kanji, his friends, his mother, Naoto’s grandfather, Souji’s uncle and cousin, Mitsuru Kirijo and the others they met so many years ago, people from their old school, police officers that Naoto works with who whisper poor Shirogane, the pastor… and no Naoto.  Kanji is pretty bummed out about everything, ready to apologize to everyone and inform them that there will be no wedding.  

Then his mother walks up to him and smiles, fixing his tie and telling him that everything will be o.k.  

She tells him about her own wedding, how it had been a disaster.  How her dress hadn’t fit because she had gained weight, how his father’s pants got mixed up with someone else’s so they were much too long.  How he had gotten a flat tire on the way to the ceremony, leaving her at the alter for far too long.  How someone had made the mistake of saying he wasn’t going to show up and how it made her temper flare, the bride not only snapping loudly at said person but punching them in the face.

“Shit ma!”  At least Kanji now knows where he gets his temper.

The point of the story, of course, is to give Kanji some hope.  Eventually, his father had showed up, bottom of his pants dirty from him walking to the gas station to call a tow truck.  The tow truck driver had been nice enough to drop him off at the wedding, even towed his car for free.  His father had asked how so and so got a black eye, but Mother Tatsumi would never tell.

Her story inspires Kanji and he quickly leaves, through the downpour of rain, to go to his mother’s shop and get the very thing that’ll fix the entire situation.  

When Naoto hears a knocking on her door she immediately snaps, “Go away!”  She’s been crying since this whole mess has started, curled up in the corner, looking very much like the shadow she had faced years ago.

“Naoto!  Open the door!”

She recognizes the yell of her soon-to-be-ex-fiance because she is absolutely not getting married now.  However, unlike the brides maids she kicked out, Kanji is persistent and keeps pounding on the door.  Naoto sighs and walks over, throwing the door open, “Kanji, can you please sto-”

“Here.”

Naoto’s brain processes everything at once.  She notices how soaked Kanji is, glasses wet, hair damp, and pristine suit and tie covered in water. Then, she notices that Kanji is holding something in a clothes bag, the young man handing it to her, “What is this?”  She asks.

“Go on, open it.”

It’s not a dress that’s inside the bag.  It’s a beautiful white suit jacket with a matching, knee length skirt.  It’s here that she realizes that Kanji hadn’t made her a dress at all, but a wedding suit of sorts, something she would be comfortable in.

“But… Rise said…”

“Screw that,” he says, “Since when did we ever follow tradition?”  He smirks.

“You made me something even after she told you not to?”

“I wanted to,” he says, “I’ve always wanted to, ever since I got the idea to propose I thought, ‘I could make the perfect wedding outfit for you.’”

Terrific, Naoto thinks, her eyes are watering again.  She sets the clothes bag down and hugs Kanji, mumbling out a mess of words I love you and thank you and I love you I love you I love you.  They end up kissing the way young lovers do, Naoto’s arms around Kanji’s neck, pushing herself up on her toes in an attempt to make herself taller.  He still needs to lean down a bit, but once they connect it’s truly wonderful.  

After that, there’s no more hills to go down.