Chapter Text
The coastal town was busy with all of the people who had gathered there for the carnival on the beach, but after being among the rides and sideshow attractions all day Sonia had chosen to step away and find somewhere a little less crowded to relax. She enjoyed getting to go on the different rides, and some of the tents that had popped up for the event had contained somewhat interesting things to look at, but as the afternoon dragged into evening she was looking for something a little less mainstream and a lot more peaceful. What she found was one of the streets in the town, completely empty of other people but full of vibrant storefronts that were screaming her name to enter them, and she couldn’t resist that call.
There was a candy shop, several boutiques, and even a tiny toy store that she was surprised wasn’t being overrun with children; without fail Sonia entered every one, enamored with the goods they offered and unable to make it out without buying at least one thing, putting a smile on the face of each shop’s owner with her bubbly personality and lack of reservation when it came to spending money. After exiting the third boutique she’d entered, tucking her extra money back into her purse, she found herself standing across the still-empty street from a run-down façade on a building, an eyesore compared to everything surrounding it. The window on the door held a sign saying that it was a fortune teller’s shop, and that they were doing free readings that day, and that day only.
Sonia didn’t need to think twice about going into the shop, if she wasn’t going to be spending money in there she couldn’t possibly add to her collection of bags she was already toting around, and she ran across the street to go inside without hesitation. The interior was just as dim and drab as the façade had been, and she found herself squinting in the nearly-dark building as she looked to see where the fortune teller was located. “Oh, a visitor,” a rough voice said, making Sonia jump backwards in surprise at the suddenness of the sound. “Not just a visitor, I can tell, but someone looking to learn her fortune.”
“Y-yes, if that would not be too much trouble, I would be interested in learning my free fortune!” Sonia replied, still looking around as her heart continued to race from that shock she’d experienced. “If you could just turn on some lights, or maybe tell me where you are, I would greatly appreciate that.”
“Right, right, not everyone is as fond of the dark as a batty old woman such as myself.” With the sound of a clap, candles in the room lit up at once, and Sonia found herself in awe at the magic of the illumination of the room—until she noticed that all of the candles were fake, battery-operated, and clearly hooked up to a sound-based sensor. At a table in the center of the room, which she had no idea how she’d missed, sat a wrinkled woman with wiry hair pulled up into a tight bun, her eyes pressed closed and a mostly-toothless smile on her face. As she held out a hand in Sonia’s direction, she told her, “Come to me, my dear, and let me process what the spirits have in store for you.”
“Oh, I…let me just drop these right here and I can do that.” Pushing her bags off of her arms and onto the floor, Sonia nearly ran to the chair at the table across from the woman’s, holding her own hand out to meet the woman’s in the air. Immediately it was grabbed and flipped, so that her palm was facing upward, and the woman began tracing the lines in her palm, muttering things to herself about what she was feeling.
Over the course of the following hour, the woman went through every stereotypical fortune teller activity in the book, going from the palm reading to a crystal ball, to tarot cards, and even to “speaking with the spirits”. Sonia was going along with everything, enjoying how it was relatively peaceful to be sitting in there, even if she was being told that horrible things were going to happen to her and her family in the near future. She didn’t say a word other than when the woman prompted her to, not wanting to break the illusions or scare the ghosts off or anything like that, and with everything that she heard she found herself more interested in learning about the process as to where the woman was getting these things.
As it seemed things were beginning to wrap up, the door to the shop came flying open, and heavy panting and matching footsteps entered the shop. “I have been searching high and low for you, with the Devas helping as much as they can given the amount of places you could have disappeared to,” she heard Gundham saying there in the doorway, him being the one responsible for the tired breathing that now filled the air. “Next time you decide you’re going to explore, please do everyone a favor and let us know first!”
“A dark energy enters the building,” the woman grumbled, taking hold of Sonia’s hand once more and continuing on with her reading. “The darkest of auras, in fact. One that spells great adventure and excitement in your life, my dear. I can sense it within you, and within that aura, that big things are meant to happen to you in due time. A ceremony, full of flowers. A tragedy, full of suffering. And two joys, full of new beginnings.”
“What is she going on about?” Gundham asked, collecting himself and coming closer to where they were. “What kind of nonsense have you gotten yourself wrapped up in the second you decided to go off on your own?”
“It is a fortune teller giving me a reading,” she answered, not daring to look behind her at Gundham when there was a serious expression on the woman’s face that was deepening as she kept hold of the delicate hand. “The door said it was free so I gave it a try.”
He looked over at the woman and how she was concentrating heavily on whatever she was thinking about, before shaking his head. “That’s no reason to interfere with such demonic and dastardly magic without consulting with me first. She’s most likely cursed you with something and I’m not proficient enough in spell-breaking to rid you of it.”
“It is no curse!” the woman bellowed, her voice still rough but now almost ear-splittingly loud as she rose from her seat, not even clearing Sonia’s head while standing. “Ceremony, tragedy, two joys. I sense great energy rising from you both, intertwining in my mind. A strong feminine energy first, but a stronger masculine one second. Come back three years from today to prove my prediction wrong, if you can bare to show your faces around my shop again.”
At once, both of them repeated the amount of time that she’d requested for them to wait, but they were silenced with a hiss that showed them that she was not willing to take questions. Without even thanking the woman for her time, Sonia pulled her hand away, jumped out of her seat to grab her things, and ran for the door, Gundham right behind her. “As I said, she has most likely cursed you, and based on her behavior there at the end I wouldn’t be surprised if her curse affects me as well. A Tanaka, cursed by some sham woman in a seaside town looking for monetary gain,” he muttered, checking the folds of his scarf to see if his hamster companions were all accounted for. When he found all four of them, he looked at Sonia and saw her hanging her head, her shoes scuffing the ground as she walked. “Do not blame yourself for falling victim to her wiles, it happens to everyone who enters her shop, I’m certain.”
“How can you say that when you came out without having her read your future? Are you just telling lies to make me feel better?” She sniffled, only for Gundham to reach out towards her, grabbing her shoulder and trying to pull her around to look at him. As she raised her head, she saw him beginning to hide his face behind his scarf, several furry heads poking out of it to assist with the task. “Come on, tell me the truth.”
“I think that there’s a high probability that we are both marred by her words, which means that we must work hard to prove them incorrect! We shall do so, and then return to see her in exactly three years to show how wrong she was!” His face was lighting up behind his scarf, and Sonia couldn’t help but smile at both the sight and his insistence that things were going to be fine. “There’s that brilliant smile upon those lips, one that this Supreme Overlord of Ice will always allow to pierce his heart.”
Giggling, Sonia came in closer to him, and right as they were about to fall into a proper embrace, a shadow popped up over them, masking them both in darkness for a second before hands were prying them apart. “What do the two of you think you’re doing out in public like this, getting all kissy-faced?” Kazuichi snapped, his hands not doing much to separate the two, but certainly annoying them both with his touch. “I thought we were havin’ a fun day at the carnival, not the two of you havin’ a date night here in town!”
“We never invited you to be here with us in the first place, you chose to crash our day together on your own terms.” Looking at where Kazuichi had touched him with disdain, Gundham tried not to let it ruin the moment and let his eyes drift back towards Sonia and her amused expression. “Ahem, I mean, this wasn’t a date night, this was a retrieval mission. The Devas and I were searching for Sonia and just found her moments ago.”
“That’s not what I walked up to. I know what I was just seeing between you.” Sounding absolutely disgusted, Kazuichi reached to push Gundham away from Sonia, but was met with her hands grabbing his wrists to attempt to stop him. “M-Miss Sonia? Why’re you—”
“This is no way for you to be treating someone who has done nothing but be nice to you today, even though neither of us wanted you with us!” Sonia let her grip tighten as Kazuichi visibly squirmed, his face contorting wildly as he felt her hands latching onto him and pushing him backwards. “You must apologize for your behavior, right now!”
“—okay, okay, I’m sorry for acting like this, but it’s not like—ouch! I mean it, I’m really sorry!” There were tears forming in the corners of Kazuichi’s eyes at how hard Sonia was holding onto him, and he wanted to get her off of him sooner rather than later. “I just thought we were havin’ some playful banter here, you know? A shove here, a grumble there, it’s all in good fun, Miss Sonia, I promise!”
Based on how she didn’t let go of him even at that so-called promise, he knew that she was not buying what he’d said, and there was going to be little to change her mind. Seeing that Kazuichi was a bit tied up with someone who was not backing down from her iron grip, Gundham took the opportunity to make their unwanted guest feel even more uncomfortable and disgusted at what he was having to witness. He didn’t do much, just lean over and gently kiss Sonia’s cheek, but it was enough to set Kazuichi off even more, him hollering and begging for them to not be acting as they were in front of him.
Teasing Kazuichi with their small displays of affection was one of the things they often did to have fun while he was around, and as he was often around bothering them for various reasons, they got to do it rather frequently. He’d ramped up his assault on their time from the moment they’d gotten serious about their relationship, especially since he felt like he was entitled to some of Sonia’s affection given that she showed him kindness a lot more than she should have. That had always irked Gundham, but he wasn’t one to tell the woman he was devoted to that she was doing things wrong, not when she’d just as often step up and tell Kazuichi off for his behavior.
Things may have changed for all of them in the time since they’d graduated from Hope’s Peak Academy, but their paths had remained intertwined no matter where they’d gone, to the point that Kazuichi was in the process of opening up his own mechanic shop, with the help of Sonia’s money from back home. That was why he was always around, and Sonia was helping solely to try and get Kazuichi off her back once he could sustain his own business, so that she could focus on more important things in life. Gundham had committed himself entirely to the prospect of helping out somewhere with animal welfare, and he had wound up in a somewhat well-paying position at a veterinary hospital, acting as the person in charge of any breeding duties. It was long hours, and he came home frequently with new scratches and marks from his furry patients, but when he was able to provide for himself and Sonia on his own dime, that was all he could ask for.
He may have been paying for the two of them, but when she was still paying for someone else who wasn’t even part of their relationship, it came off as a bit strange. Their other friends and acquaintances that they’d known for years all asked questions about it, specifically about if Sonia maybe did feel something romantic for Kazuichi in addition to what she claimed to feel for Gundham, and easing everyone’s minds was next to impossible in their current situation. That was how he came to the conclusion that something needed to be done, but telling Sonia to stop funding a shop that never seemed to be coming around was not the choice he made. In fact, aside from comments here and there about how Kazuichi didn’t need to keep taking her money, he didn’t talk to her at all about her choice to assist him as much as she was.
What he chose to do instead was something straight out of fairy tales, and resulted in Sonia becoming the happiest princess alive for quite some time. He set his hamsters out on a mission to assist her in getting prepared for some kind of unknown night out, and with how elaborately trained they were, there was no doubt in his mind that they’d be up to the task. All he told them was to make her look like the princess she legally was, using things already in her closet, and then he let them loose; in the time they were dolling her up and directing her in what to wear and how to do her hair and makeup, he was preparing himself for what he’d set his heart on doing for her at the end of the night.
It was a date that he took her on, taking her back to that seaside town a couple months after their adventure there with the fortune teller, and while there was no carnival on the beach to distract themselves with, there were streets upon streets of shops and restaurants to walk by. She asked a few times if he had somewhere in particular he was taking her, to which he assured her that there wasn’t anywhere, and that if she was thinking they were going to visit the old woman again she was mistaken, but half of that was a complete lie. His destination was along the moonlit boardwalk, after an evening of sampling foods at several different stops and buying quite a few things they didn’t need, and it was there with the ambient sound of the crashing waves that he asked for her hand in marriage, as elaborately and dramatically as he could manage.
She looked past him referring to them as a couple of darkness and accepted his proposal without any hesitation, giving him enough time to slip a modest ring onto her finger before she was pulling him to his feet to give him a large, passionate kiss, complete with one foot kicking up behind her. “I had no doubt about what you would say,” he breathlessly admitted after they’d broken their kiss apart. “In my heart, I knew that you were far too enticed by my attunement to the dark gods to say anything but yes.”
“I don’t think it was to do with that,” she replied, bringing a thumb to brush against the scar that crossed his eye, carrying it up and into his hair, touching only the lighter parts. “How I feel about you is more about who you are and less about what you say you are, if that makes sense. I like you for your looks and your heart, Gundham, not for gods or whatever you go on about.”
“There will come a day where you may think differently about that, I’m afraid, but today’s not that day! We shall begin preparing the ceremony joining us in an unholy union at once, complete with involvement from the Four Dark Devas of Destruction themselves!” Cackling, Gundham noticed how Sonia’s face seemed to fall as he mentioned his beloved pets. “What’s the matter there, my darling? Afraid to see their power in such a ceremony?”
She shook her head, an act that usually sent blonde locks flying everywhere but due to her hair being elaborately pinned up thanks to the direction of those four hamsters, nothing moved at all. “No, it is nothing about your sweet hamsters! I just remembered what the fortune teller told us, she talked about a ceremony and I…I couldn’t remember what else she said about it.”
“Whatever it was that she said, it’s unimportant. Completely forgettable. Don’t worry a second about a word that came from her lips, your time would be better suited for planning the wedding of your dreams.” As he leaned in to kiss her again, there was a second where she considered pulling away to refute his claims, but she allowed herself to believe in him and what he was saying. He was better-versed in that sort of thing than she was, and if he thought it wasn’t worth her time she should listen to him.
Having the goal of a wedding that would go off without a hitch and allow for both of their unique personalities to shine was difficult to achieve, but they were determined to make it happen no matter what. The biggest obstacle to the whole thing, beyond getting Sonia’s family to agree to not force the wedding to be where none of their friends could afford to attend, was one Kazuichi, who was completely shattered by the fact that the woman he pined for, who was lining his pockets with shop money, had agreed to marry a guy he simply could not stand. How he hadn’t seen the engagement coming from a mile away, especially given how often he was around them, they didn’t know, but he was taking the development especially hard.
When it got to the point that he was on their front step, moping every moment he could about having been too slow to make any sort of move, it became time to do something to show him that he wasn’t going to be able to change their lives by being so selfish. Of course, much like the initial proposal had been done somewhat because of him, the decision that was made for how to handle his behavior was also hastily done, and could have been handled much better than it was. But they were borderline desperate when they made the choice to throw open the door while he was outside, make eye contact with him, and hold each other as closely as they could while still being modest, and it worked to get him to leave them alone for at least a little bit.
He came back eventually, though, and if Kazuichi could be called anything, it would be persistent. “So when’re ya going to realize that you can do better than the Tanaka chump, Miss Sonia?” he asked one day after they’d been having an otherwise cordial meeting about his shop plans. “Like, I dunno, with someone who’s got real life ambitions. Someone who knows where they’re going and how they’re gonna get there. Someone like me.”
“I am afraid that I see right through your attempt to get me to try dating you, Kazuichi, and I have to say that my answer remains the same as it always has. I am not interested in sampling your wares.” Pursing her lips together, Sonia watched Kazuichi look around rapidly as he tried to figure out what it was that she meant, and when he shrugged and gave her puppy-dog eyes instead she knew that she had to put her foot down once and for all. “I will not date you, and that is the end of that! Even if something were to happen to Gundham and he could not go through with the wedding, I would not resort to being with you.”
“D-don’t ya think you’re being a bit harsh with that?” he stammered, his hands coming up to the sides of his unruly pink hair, grabbing it and tugging at it in desperation. “I’m a nice guy, I really am, and I’d do a lot better for ya than he ever will! Hell, I’d do ya a lot better than he ever will, that’s a promise!”
“I must ask you to stop, unless you would rather I stop giving you the money you need. One of us has to stop right now.” He was still grabbing his hair, making himself look freakish as he almost screeched in despair at her words, but she was not going to let him convince her to back down. “Stop it, your behavior is not doing anything to make me change my mind!”
Lowering his hands slowly, Kazuichi looked panicked as he tried to meet Sonia’s eyes, finding her completely looking past his glances. “C’mon Miss Sonia, you know that I can’t do this mechanic thing without your money here and there, you can’t just start tellin’ me you’re going to stop giving me it! What have I done to deserve that?”
“I think you know what you did to deserve it. You cannot treat me like I am a piece of savory meat and expect me to allow that behavior!” Sonia’s hands were starting to curl into fists, as she was allowing herself to work through her anger at how Kazuichi always acted towards her, especially about her relationship with Gundham. “I have found someone who appreciates me in ways that you do not, and you must respect that. Otherwise, the money stays with me, and we could always use more money to make it rain.”
Kazuichi sputtered for a moment before pulling his beanie down over his eyes, slumping his whole body forward until he was nearly doubling over. “I get it, I’m just a waste of your time and money, none of this is going anywhere anymore is it? All my dreams, out the window, and all because I know you could do better with me than with ol’ Gundham.”
“Go home, Kazuichi. I cannot handle being in your presence anymore,” Sonia said, her voice sounding confident in her assertion. “Do not show your tail around here again until you have learned your lesson.”
She didn’t explicitly state what lesson he needed to learn, but he knew within himself what it was she was referring to. That got him off their backs for a few weeks, time spent starting to plan what they were going to do about their engagement—naturally they were preparing for it to end in a happy and successful marriage, but there were so many aspects to achieving that to keep in mind. It was in discussing those aspects that little issues kept cropping up, specifically ones relating to Sonia’s family and how they wanted the wedding to take place in Novoselic, where they could supervise everything. She was strongly against it, as was Gundham, and that argument became more grating than fighting with Kazuichi ever got to be, even at its worst.
But the difference between them begging to be able to have their wedding where their friends could attend it, and dealing with Kazuichi and his jealous, clingy behavior was that her parents eventually saw the light and let their daughter get her way. They agreed to come out to the wedding, rather than make her hold it in their royal court, and that was the end of the fight. When Kazuichi decided that he was done being upset over getting told he wasn’t good enough and that Gundham was better than him, he was once again back to being as obnoxious as he had been before, complete with his need for the last bits of money to open his shop and get it completely running.
By the time he was back to begging for money, though, there were more developments on the wedding planning front that he’d missed out on, and the second he found out that the entire wedding party had been decided without him being asked a thing, he was complaining about it. “Why would either of us want to approach you with that topic?” Gundham asked when he heard Kazuichi kicking up a fuss about being left out. “If it wouldn’t be seen as disrespectful to invite everyone else we went to school with and exclude you, you can guarantee that you would be nowhere near the event.”
“It was my idea to let you remain on the guest list,” Sonia chimed in, showing that she was still able to be kind to Kazuichi even after telling him how she really felt about him. “I do not think it is a very popular idea, but it felt right to me in my heart to do it. You can save your thanks for after the wedding.”
“No I’ll…just thank ya now, I suppose. Real kind of ya to keep me on the list even though someone—” he shot dagger eyes towards Gundham, who scoffed at the gesture, before going back to looking at Sonia with a much more relaxed expression, “—would rather me die than be there. You’re real kind to me, Miss Sonia, all the time.”
“Please refrain from looking at me so longingly, I must remind you that I am engaged to be married to the man presently with us.”
To coincide with Sonia’s words, Gundham cracked his bandaged knuckles on one hand, trying to look as menacing as he could with hamsters actively crawling across his scarf around his neck. “I’m not going to be as generous with the kindness as she is, so do as she says or I will go above her and scratch your name from the ledger.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll give it up, you don’t gotta be so threatening!” Gulping, Kazuichi began looking up at the ceiling, as opposed to directly at either of the others present. “But since I’m gonna be goin’ to the wedding, you’ve got a place for me up at the front with you both, yeah? Maybe doin’ the job of reading the stuff, or perhaps holdin’ the rings? I can do either of those things with some practice.”
“I think you have missed the point of what was said,” Sonia told him, speaking up before Gundham could say something elaborately and with the intention of riling Kazuichi up once again. “We are inviting you out of being appropriate, we do not have room for you to fill any positions in the ceremony. Please do not be offended that we have chosen others over you, they just…are better than you are.”
“Excellently stated, my love. Now take her words to heart, Kazuichi, as we are not going to discuss this further with you.” To show the seriousness of what he said, Gundham took that moment to grab Sonia and lightly kiss her a few times, once on her hand, once on her forehead, and twice on her cheeks, all of which were met with Kazuichi squealing in agony at having to watch their display of affection. He was basically begging for the kissing to be finished before it was over, a power that Gundham enjoyed having in that moment, but he knew that it could result in issues in the near future, especially if this man was planning on actually attending the wedding he was invited to for some reason.
Kazuichi may have been the thorn in their side when it came to the wedding, but his negative reaction to the news was the only one that was anything but incredibly happy. When they approached Mahiru for being the photographer for the event, she was beyond ecstatic to be thought of for such a big occasion. “This is technically a royal wedding, since Sonia’s a princess,” she mused, stroking her chin in thought, “and future employers would eat that kind of thing right up if I had it in my portfolio.”
“There will be much more royalty than just me present for you to photograph.” Seeing the way that Mahiru’s eyes lit up at that fact was enough to make Sonia smile as well. “My family will be in attendance, and as I am sure you can guess they are also royalty. If taking pictures of them will benefit you, and taking pictures of us will benefit us, is there any way this will go any way but swimmingly?”
“If you’re fine with me using your wedding pictures for my own job search, then I think it can only go well for all of us!” Mahiru was still stroking her chin, but the excitement in her eyes made it clear that she was already thinking about how she was going to get the best pictures imaginable. She was just as excited to be part of the wedding as the to-be bride and groom both were, and they were happy that she didn’t even seem to bring up money and getting paid for her work until late into the planning process (because by then they knew how much money they had to offer her, and it was way more than she would have gotten for any other photography job that night).
Some of their other friends were just as eager to be included as Mahiru was, even though their inclusion wasn’t quite as important as hers. Teruteru was beyond thrilled to be able to cater the event, whipping up several potential menus to use over the course of the invitation conversation. Hiyoko liked that she was asked to help with some basic dancing skills before the day of the wedding, and being given the secondary task of leading all the guests in different traditional dances was enough to make her look genuinely thankful for being asked to do anything in the first place. And then there was Nekomaru, who looked like he thought he was being interrogated until he heard the word wedding come up the first time, then he was yelling and celebrating more than the couple themselves were. He wasn’t even being asked to be the best man in the ceremony, just one of the groomsmen, but he was happy to be included in any way.
As they all came to terms with what they were being asked to do, and the rest of the invitations (both verbal and through the mail) were given, it became clear that it wasn’t just Kazuichi that wasn’t being given a special task to do. That wasn’t obvious to him, in his self-centric thinking, and despite everything he continued griping to Sonia about how he wished he could have something more to do because of how close he was to the two of them—a fact she was more than happy to remind him he had made up on his own. “We are not close at all,” she said, him going slack-jawed at what he was hearing, “and I wish you would stop pretending that we are. Our closeness is like cats and dogs, not close at all.”
“I’d like it better if you weren’t givin’ me an animal example as you’re rejecting me again,” he grumbled, picking his jaw up with his hand as if he’d really unhinged it in the shock at how she’d actually told him off. “I’m not sure why you’re gonna keep treatin’ me like this, I mean, I’m a good guy, right? I deserve to get to do somethin’ like everyone else!”
“Wherever you got the idea that everyone else has something to do, you should tell it that it is very, very incorrect! It is only a few people who have special jobs at the wedding, I can promise you that.” Smiling, Sonia hoped that he would accept her words as the truth that they were and move past it once and for all, but this was Kazuichi she was dealing with and he was never going to make things easy for her. He continued grumbling and complaining over the next several times they were together, despite her trying to get him to see that he was wrong over and over, and it quickly escalated to the point that she felt she couldn’t do things on her own.
Dragging Gundham in to interact with one of his least-favorite people was a big task, but the second she made it clear that it was a last resort, he came in ready to pick a fight. “How dare you not take Sonia’s word as truth, when she could spend her time doing much more productive things than spinning you a web of lies!” he bellowed when he saw Kazuichi entering their home on his next visit, spooking the guest into nearly turning around and not coming back. Once again, though, it was Kazuichi they were dealing with, and he didn’t know how to admit defeat and get over things.
“What’re ya gonna do about me knowing that you’re just trying to, y’know, save face with me while I’m here so that I don’t suspect that you’re both lyin’ to me?” Kazuichi asked, realizing that leaving was not going to do him any favors in the reality he’d painted for himself. “I just want to be part of things like everyone else, and you’re not givin’ me that much. What kind of friend does that, huh?”
“I’m not your friend,” Gundham coldly replied, raising a hand dramatically in front of him to try and strike a terrifying pose. “In fact, I am the Supreme Overlord of Ice who shall never be questioned in such an insulting manner! Whoever told you that ‘everyone else’ has a role in our upcoming wedding was sorely mistaken, and if I hear even one more word from you about wanting something that you do not deserve, the Devas and I will find great joy in bringing harm to you in any way possible!”
Flinching at the thought of being hurt by a man and his four hamsters, Kazuichi shook his head rapidly to show that he was not interested in such a fate. “I get it, I’ve gotta just suck it up and get over the fact that you don’t wanna include me, but Miss Sonia—”
“I have no interest in including you.”
“—okay, whatever, I get it. I’m just a waste of your time and you’d rather not invite me than let me be there and do what you’re letting all the others do. I’ll get outta your hair over this now, I really will.” Kazuichi may have been saying that, but he certainly didn’t mean it, and the couple knew that the argument would keep happening again and again until the wedding was an afterthought to all of them. That was exactly what happened, and in the last weeks before they were married they were having to push Kazuichi out almost daily because he would keep coming back, begging to be given a role in the wedding.
As not everyone actually had a role, which he learned and finally almost immediately after showing up at the ornate church where the ceremony was being held, he never mentioned his desire to be given the same treatment as all others again. There wasn’t even an apology for all of the obnoxious behavior he’d had beforehand, but one wasn’t expected and certainly wasn’t going to be demanded. After all, Kazuichi showed up to the wedding and didn’t blurt out that he objected to the lawful union between Gundham and Sonia when he was given the chance to do so, and for that they could forgive all behaviors he’d put them through. He let them have their day in the heavily-decorated church, where the flowers greatly outnumbered the people present, where all of their friends and family put aside any cultural differences to have a good time. There was nothing more they could ask for from him, on such an important day in their lives.
That didn’t exactly translate to after the wedding was long over and they’d started to settle into their married life, because their greatest wish with him was for him to stop showing up at their house at random hours, expecting to be allowed to come inside and have long conversations about money and his shop. That was the one thing that they begged and pleaded with him to stop, just because they knew that they could always talk about that at some more convenient time for everyone involved, not just him. With a smirk he’d remind them that nighttime was best for him, because he was running a fledgling mechanic shop and didn’t have time during the day to step out and talk to them, and was there really anything else they could be doing at night that was more important than talk with him?
With shifting eyes and blushing faces they’d both have to say that there wasn’t anything besides sleep, and that was how they knew that Kazuichi was only doing this to them to keep them from doing anything he didn’t approve of. “One of these days we should not even open the door for him,” Sonia remarked after they’d finally gotten him to leave at some late, after-midnight hour. “It would mean the sound of his knocking all night, but it would also mean not having to talk to him.”
“If you believe that we could get anything done with that racket as background noise, you are sorely mistaken,” Gundham replied with a yawn, completely exhausted due to his work life and the late hour. “It’s better to at least put a stop to his banging and suffer with his presence, than have to listen to the banging all night. He is, obviously, quite persistent.”
Blinking back sleep as she stood, Sonia gently latched herself onto one of Gundham’s arms, laying her head on his shoulder. “But if we ignored him, there would be more banging than just his, correct? I think that would be quite an acceptable trade.”
He was unable to answer her as he was gasping for words to even say in response, his tired mind unprepared for that sort of question to have been asked. Instead, he led her back to their room, where they both promptly fell asleep when finally, properly in their spots in the spacious bed.
Once things with that stupid mechanic shop began settling down, and it was finally turning a profit that meant that Kazuichi wasn’t begging for more money to keep it running, he began to leave the couple alone a lot more than he had been. He was still showing up unannounced at their front door several times a week, almost always in the evening when they were least excited to see him, but it wasn’t a near-nightly occurrence like it had once been, and they were beyond thankful for everything that had fallen into place to give them that peace. They’d been able to use their nights without his intrusion very well, staying up past their designated bedtime weaving stories and intertwining bodies as often as they pleased, and they were both more at peace with him showing up when it meant that they’d get their alone time together the following night or two.
Then came the string of nights where he didn’t show up at all, and the only communication they had with him came in the form of messages he was sending through common friends that he had with the couple. Some days it was Hiyoko or Akane calling Sonia, clearly against their will, to pass along that Kazuichi was still somewhat creepy about her and that he was planning on giving her some of her money back soon enough; other days it was one of a multitude of people just happening to stop by the veterinary clinic to talk to Gundham about something they’d been told by Kazuichi. Neither of them were exactly thrilled to be having to talk to him through middlemen, as it meant that there was possibly more to the situation that was being left out, but not seeing him was a very nice change of pace.
That string suddenly broke in the worst way, with him coming over in the middle of the day begging for Sonia to help him out, because he’d gotten in over his head and the money he’d made was gone and he didn’t know what to do except turn to her. Sonia may not have wanted to be roped into Kazuichi’s affairs more than she’d already been, but if there was one thing she couldn’t stand seeing it was him looking like he was about to cry there at her front door, so she went against her better judgment and went back with him to his shop to see what could be salvaged. What she found there was not an unfixable mess like he’d described, but rather a completely cleaned building that looked like he’d been doing some repairs to the facility rather than just people’s cars and machines.
“When did this get to be so sparkling?” she asked him as he led her through the building, into the main office that was organized with file cabinets and a real desk, before taking her into the waiting area that was completely empty, minus a few chairs in one of the corners. “I must say, this is more impressive than I thought you could make it. It is almost like a dirty pig isn’t the one running it after all!”
“Yeah, uh, that’d be ‘cause it’s me runnin’ this place, not someone without any class or sense about them. I know how to make somewhere look nice, especially to impress the lady who helped me get this far.” Kazuichi was beginning to blush as he spoke, his hat coming down over his eyes thanks to his hand that was firmly placed on the top of his head. “I just wanted to show ya this as a thank you for all your help, Miss Sonia. Couldn’t have done this without ya bein’ there for me.”
“You are very welcome,” she replied, her eyes wandering around that empty space and her mind beginning to drift into things she could do with such a place. “Say, Kazuichi, do you ever have many people here at once?”
He shrugged, his hat obscuring his view of what she was doing. “A couple people here and there, never enough to fill all the chairs. Why d’ya ask, huh?”
“I was just curious. This space would make for a lovely storefront, to help drive business here at your shop. Clothing, perhaps? I could always import goods from Novoselic and sell them to those who never have had the chance to visit, that could drum up business and make extra money that could be spent on further improvements!” Clasping her hands together, Sonia did a tiny bounce as she turned to face Kazuichi, as he was pulling his hat back up to where it normally rested. “Wouldn’t that be the bee’s elbows, if it worked out?”
“I wouldn’t be complainin’ about extra money, or more time spent with ya,” he replied, that blush becoming deeper on his cheeks. “It’s up to you, though. And that man you married, if you’re even gonna let him in on this plan of yours.”
Mentioning how she’d have to talk to Gundham about the idea of opening a shop in the building she’d technically bought for Kazuichi (he’d picked the location and made the purchase, but she’d supplied the money for it) brought the wind out of Sonia’s sails a bit, but nevertheless she persisted with her eagerness to succeed. “He will understand that this is what will make me happy, and as long as I am happy then he will be too! It is how things should work in a marriage, after all.”
Her optimism was blinding, almost to the point of blocking out the fact that she was dealing with someone who absolutely did not see eye-to-eye with her husband, and until she got home she was convincing herself that everything was going to work in her favor. That changed when she approached Gundham with the idea—he was immediately skeptical when she started talking about opening her own shop for Novoselic fashions, and when she mentioned where it would be operated out of he immediately put his foot down. “Nonsense! There is no room for you to be working alongside such lowlife as Kazuichi, not when you are both a princess and the wife of the Supreme Overlord of Ice. You must change these plans at once if you want to truly create a place of your own.”
“I should have expected you to say that, but I promise that working there would be perfectly fine! You must trust me on this, Gundham, it will work exactly as I want it to!” She wasn’t desperate enough to start begging him to let her do her own thing, as she understood that he was being apprehensive with good reason, but right then all she wanted was to give this silly dream a shot. “I was the one who paid for the building in the first place, I should get to make use of it too.”
Shaking his head, Gundham didn’t continue shooting her idea down, but he did tell her to put it in the back of her mind and really think on it for a while before she chose to do anything with it. That was the cue that meant that they had other plans for the evening, which resulted in them going out for a lovely date night followed by constructing new parts of the sprawling cages that his hamsters lived in once they got back to the house, and the activity was enough to get Sonia to mostly forget about what she’d decided she wanted to do. It was a thought that drifted back into her mind off and on over the following weeks, but she never let it get as strong as it had been while she was standing in that empty part of the shop.
That changed one night when Kazuichi, predictably, was at their front door, his hand banging on it relentlessly as he demanded entry. He was earlier than his usual arrival time, showing up just after dinnertime, when the couple was together in the room with the hamsters while Gundham was carefully hand-feeding them, like he did whenever he had the chance. Sonia went to go see who was at their door, and when she came back minutes later with Kazuichi still in his greasy work clothes behind her, it was clear that something wasn’t quite right. “Just the people I’ve gotta talk to,” he said as the occupants of the house locked eyes with each other, Gundham’s dual-colored ones narrowed as Sonia’s looked apathetic to whatever cause she’d heard to bring Kazuichi into their home. “It’s goin’ horribly, lemme tell ya that much, okay? I don’t know what to do anymore!”
“You can start by leaving and returning in less dirty attire, your grease stains never come out of the carpeting and it would be fatal to the Devas if they were to stumble into any of it.” If it had been Sonia to speak first, perhaps the reaction would have been much gentler, but Gundham was not pleased to see freshly-dirtied Kazuichi in his house (he wasn’t fond of Kazuichi ever being there, but this was more of a disdain than usual). “Change, and quickly, before you touch anything.”
“And where am I supposed to get something to change into from, my car? That’s implyin’ I’ve even got one right now, which I don’t!” To try and alleviate the problem he’d caused by walking in while wearing work clothes, Kazuichi began to unzip the front of his jumpsuit, but all that did was make Gundham snap at him to take care of that elsewhere, not in the presence of himself or Sonia. “Ugh, what are you expectin’ me to do? I’ve gotta get out of this, but it’s not like I’ve got somethin’ on under it, so it’s either me strippin’ to my boxers or I’m stuck wearin’ this.”
Looking past the fact that this man had just considered being indecent in someone else’s house without a second thought, Gundham knew that him sitting there, wasting time arguing back and forth was only going to lead to more of a mess to clean up. “Head into the bathroom, I’ll get you something to change into. Once you’re clean we can discuss what brought you here in this state.” He made sure that Kazuichi did, in fact, head to where he’d been directed before he left the room himself, telling Sonia to stay right where she was and not to follow him.
He went to their bedroom and grabbed the first unworn pair of pajama pants he found in his closet, and to pair with it he took a holey shirt that the Devas had clearly chewed to their hearts’ content. If Kazuichi was to complain about either article, then he was just being ungrateful for what he was being given, and with that in mind Gundham went to where he’d told the other man to go and knocked twice on the door. Instead of the door opening, he was treated to being told, “Look, I’m not sure if you’re guessin’ why I’m here or not yet but—"
“Right now, I don’t care why you’re here,” he cut in, putting a stop to whatever Kazuichi was trying to do. “Open the door and put some clothes on so we can wash that grimy suit of yours and discuss this like…adults.” The door came open, and before Gundham could pass the clean clothes through it, the jumpsuit was being pushed at him, and that made the exchange much quicker than expected.
“—I wasn’t gonna ask for you to wash it, but thanks there, pal! I’ll be out in a sec, you’re treatin’ me so much better than I thought you would!” Kazuichi seemed pleased as he closed the door on himself to get re-dressed, while Gundham quickly made his way to the closest sink he could think of, choosing the one in the kitchen over all others. At least there he could enlist the assistance of dish soap to try and get out some of the grease that was clinging deeply to the fabric in his hands.
Losing track of time while he worked, Gundham only remembered that he’d been in the middle of feeding his pets when he heard Sonia scream from the room where their sprawling cage was located. He was soaked up to his elbows in soapy water, but he dropped the jumpsuit into the filled sink basin and ran to see what had caused his wife distress. “What is going on in here?” he loudly asked as he stormed into the room, finding Sonia backed against the wall with all four Devas climbing on her, every single one of them looking at Kazuichi as he was trying to fix part of the tubing for the cage. “How did that—what did you—explain what is happening in here right this instant!”
“He was trying to feed the hamsters, and one of them bit him and he fell into the cage,” Sonia replied, stroking one of the animals that was resting in the crook of her arm. “It was only an accident, Gundham, there is no need to be so angry about it.”
“Angry? Me? This is not angry, this is me being concerned for the well-being of the Four Dark Devas of Destruction!” He had already accounted for them several times, each time he looked at Sonia another chance to count how many furry creatures she had on her, but he was constantly going back to looking at Kazuichi, at how he was trying to rebuild what he’d broken and failing to do it correctly. “Step aside, lowlife, and let me handle this!”
“Whoa there, why’re ya callin’ me a lowlife? All I did was stumble because one of your beasts bit me,” Kazuichi snapped, waving a piece of tubing that had broken off in his hand at Gundham. “Besides, before ya start thinkin’ about building it all back together, when I stumbled I think I threw the knife you were usin’ to cut up their carrots. Think it landed in part of the cage.”
“The knife? And you could have hit one of them with it?” The fear of losing one of his hamsters without him being present for its demise was something that Gundham never wanted struck into his heart, and yet there it was, on full display for the others in the room. He now knew that he needed to get the knife out of wherever it had landed before any of the Devas got to return to their cage, and that needed to be done before any further repairs were made. “Okay, I have a plan to return everything to its proper state. Where exactly did you see the knife fall?”
Kazuichi motioned his head towards a heavily-tubed part of the cage, where there were multiple open ends due to the initial accident. “Somewhere in there, wasn’t quite sure which one it was. All I know is that I knocked the rest of this down, and I’ve gotta fix it for ya before ya blow your top.”
“I thought you were going to say ‘blow your load’,” Sonia chimed in, doing nothing to help the heated situation between the two men. “That would be quite vulgar for this particular moment though, so I understand why you chose not to.”
Gundham was ignoring her, shaking his hands off to have them as dry as possible as he began searching the opened tubes for the sharp blade he used to give his hamsters only the finest cut carrots for their nightly snack. As he was looking, Kazuichi was initially working on reconnecting other pieces of the cage he’d broken apart, but soon he found himself watching what Gundham was doing intently. At the very moment that Gundham’s head perked up, having spotted the shine of the blade deep down in one of the tubes, the handle caught on the curved part below it, an idea formed in Kazuichi’s mind that was his way of trying to be helpful. “Hey, if you’ve found it, why don’t ya just take off all the parts of the cage above it so you’re not windin’ your arm down through so much tube?” he suggested.
“I would rather not have to do more work to reconnect this, thank you,” Gundham replied, taking off exactly one extra piece of the cage before slowly sticking his hand down into the wide tube, waiting to feel the blade between his fingers before he carefully attempted to grab it. Unfortunately for him, as he was about elbow-deep in the tube, Kazuichi dropped the piece he was working on above them, allowing for it to fall right onto the back of Gundham’s head. It wasn’t a hard impact, but unexpected enough with him already being on his toes that he lost his balance and fell forward.
What he noticed next was that his wrist was stiff and that the tube now reached to the middle of his upper arm. “Gundham, are you okay?” Sonia asked, all four Devas squeaking along with her. “That looked like your arm slid down rather deep, did you find the knife?”
He tried pulling his arm out of the tube but found himself unable to do so, and the stiffness in his wrist turned to a stinging sensation that made him slightly panic. “I believe I did,” he replied, turning to look back at Kazuichi and how he had both hands covering his mouth in shock at what he’d seen. “What, do you have something to say about what you just did? I know you’re responsible for my handmade cage falling to pieces and crashing into me.”
“Yeah, uh, lemme just…help pop that part of the cage off. Me and Miss Sonia can fix the rest of this, but I don’t think you’re gonna exactly like what I saw happen.” Kazuichi took control for a moment, doing exactly as he said and freeing the part of the cage that Gundham’s arm was stuck in from the rest of the tubing. The moment the seal was broken, the unmistakable sight of blood dripping from the part his arm was in filled their vision, and Gundham was left unable to say a word as he realized that he’d managed to pierce his wrist with the knife he’d been trying to get, all because he’d fallen forward from a light impact.
The speechlessness wore off within minutes, but by that time he was already being taken over to the closest hospital, so that he could be helped out of his current predicament and stitched up if needed. By the time Sonia had managed to drive him over, the blood had stopped running, which was a good sign that he hadn’t injured himself too severely, but it was still necessary to have someone take the knife out for him. “I would stay here with you, but I cannot leave Kazuichi at the house by himself for too long,” Sonia explained, after she’d stopped at the curb to let her husband out of the vehicle. “He will be escorted home as soon as he has assisted me with cleaning up the mess he made. I am not letting him treat us like the doormats he thinks we are!”
“Oddly assertive, but please do come back when you are finished. I would hate to be stranded here all night without you.” He blew her a kiss as he closed the door so she could drive off, and into the building he went. The night was quite busy there in the emergency room, and because his arm wasn’t actively making a mess he told to sit down and wait until he was called back after checking in. There were a few seats open against the wall, away from the coughing, vomiting messes elsewhere in the waiting room, and he took the one directly in the middle, leaving one open on each side. People came and went, visitors and patients alike, but he paid no mind to any of them, focusing only on thinking about what had happened to land him in that very place at that moment. He’d been so wrapped up in fixing what had gone wrong for his hamsters that he’d forgotten that Kazuichi had been present for his own issues, and now those were clearly a thing of the past.
It was at about the time that he was considering going up to the desk to see how much longer he’d be needing to wait that a couple approached him, a sick and clearly pregnant woman taking one of the seats next to his, while the man she was with stood in front of her, as if he was waiting for something. Quickly Gundham realized that what the man was waiting for was a place to sit right next to her, and he made an offer: “Would you care for this spot, sir? I could move to allow you to be next to your companion, if you desire.” The man seemed surprised to hear the offer and accepted it, and when Gundham stood to move to the other empty seat he realized that a clump of hamster fur from his clothing had been left behind where he’d been seated before, but the other man didn’t pay it any attention.
“Thank you for that, it means a lot,” the man said, his voice tired and showing the strain of being caretaker of someone so sickly like the woman next to him. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to you? That doesn’t look like something that warrants a visit to the hospital.” Right then Gundham made the decision to embellish what had happened a bit, to paint the situation less like an accident and more like an intentional attack on him, and from there conversation naturally flourished between himself and the couple.
Of course, in true Gundham fashion, he was being a bit more dramatic than necessary to lighten the mood, but he felt that they needed it. And when it came time for him to finally go back to see someone about the knife and the tube, he made sure to give them one last thing to smile about before he was out of their lives. “I shall take my leave,” he said to them with a bow, continuing with wishing them the best for what felt like the tenth time during their talk, and following it with, “Let’s hope that the next time your paths cross with that of Gundham Tanaka, it is under better circumstances.”
It wasn’t until he was back in an exam room that he realized he hadn’t gotten their names and that there was a chance he’d never remember them if he did see them again. He was hopeful that he’d see them before he left, but he was in and out rather quickly once a nurse actually came in to see him, the removal of the equipment and stitching the rather minor incision taking less than a quarter of the time he’d spent waiting for it to happen. It did mean that he was left sitting outside the hospital in the cold until Sonia was able to come pick him up, and during that time he didn’t see the couple either, but they were on his mind the entire time he was waiting.
Sonia drove up much like she’d dropped him off, quickly and clearly in a hurry to get back home. “We sanitized everything and got it all back to normal, minus the cracked pieces and the one you had on your arm,” she told him once they were on their way, “and I made sure that Kazuichi understood that he was never to come over like that again, no matter what his crybaby story of the night may be!”
“I do appreciate you putting your foot down like that,” he replied, giving a somewhat content smile even with the late hour and his now-obvious tiredness. “However, what happened was merely an accident, and I feel it was one with a purpose beyond our understanding. I met this couple tonight while waiting to be seen, and…”
He was still telling her the story by the time they got home, and even as they were getting into bed he was talking about what kind of impact that his interaction with the couple had left on his mind. Even though she was barely able to get a word in, Sonia was happy to listen to him break down exactly what had happened and why he was so fixated on it. When he finally wrapped up, she nodded in understanding, even as her head was beginning to sink back into her pillows. “That sounds like it may have turned into something tragic if you were not there to keep them company,” she decided, her eyes fluttering closed as she was already starting to drift off. “A tragedy, full of suffering as they waited to get help.”
Although he knew whatever he said would most likely not be heard as she was quickly falling asleep, he couldn’t leave their conversation off on those words, not when he knew where they were from. “How dare you speak the fortune teller’s so-called prophecy to me in our bed,” he grumbled, rolling onto his side to look at Sonia and her peaceful expression, completely unaware or ignorant of what he was scolding her for. “I forgave the ceremony with flowers part, but this, this is unacceptable. There was no truth to what she said to us, and when we can return to her dwelling next summer we will prove that to the world.”
It had only been a year and a half since they’d heard what the old woman had predicted for them, and it was still a year and a half until they’d know they were free of whatever magic her words held. Gundham wanted to believe that she had spewed nothing but hot air, that her prediction was so vague it could apply to anything, but deep in his heart he had a fear that she’d been right on two points, and the third was the one he was most insistent on proving wrong.
His last thought before falling asleep was on the couple at the hospital, and how he wished he could make their chance meeting what fulfilled the prophecy, if it needed fulfillment.