epilogue pt. ii

you're the one

if you listen to zutto by doberman infinity and you're the one by greta van fleet in this chapter you will cry and it will be so sweet and my heart is melting. more authors notes at end of chapter.

The half hour before the wedding was the most stressful thirty minutes of my entire life.

Scratch that. The entire week before the wedding was a stress-fest.

My grandmother loved having the kids around. Only the main faction leaders were here, but Nakazono had figured out how to run a livestream back to Oyakou for all the kids who hadn't been able to fly out. My grandmother was spoiling the kids rotten, and we'd likely have a hard time getting them to go back to Hope Hills. Kazuma was teaching Fujio and Nakagoshi how to surf, which was always entertaining to watch. I hadn't surfed since high school, but the waves were good enough that I went back out there a few times.

On the day of the wedding, Ichigo Milk set up a huge tent on one corner of my granparents' property, and were dead set on keeping me away from Murayama before I walked down the aisle. Nonoriki insisted that it would be bad luck for Murayama to see me in my dress before the wedding, and they even roped some of the S.W.O.R.D guys into keeping him away.

Junko was fussing over my hair while Oshiage poked my face with the ends of makeup brushes, gushing about how great they thought I looked.

"Murayama is so lucky to have you." Junko remarked. "God, I can't wait until I get married."

"Junko-san!" Oshiage scolded "Don't make her laugh while I'm trying to do her makeup!"
The entire thing was actually fairly uncomfortable.

"Odajima!" I shouted for the blond, who was in makeup chair of his own after Nonoriki insisted he needed to do something with his hair. "Can you go check on the kids? Tsukasa's suit is a rental and I will literally throttle that child if he damages it."

"Not a problem." Odajima said, getting up from the chair while Nonoriki protested

"I'm not done yet!" She shouted

Shortly after he left, Sakura came into the tent, likely needing some space from the rest of the kids. She'd never worn heels as thin as the ones she and Naomi were wearing to match their bridesmaids dresses, and she was kind of wobbly on her feet.

"Why did I let you talk me into wearing these damn shoes?" She sighed, stealing a vacant folding chair and undoing the straps of her shoes. "I'm putting my flip flops back on until this thing starts."

I tried to hold back a laugh because I knew that if I laughed, I was liable to get stabbed with some kind of makeup accessory. "How are the others?"

Sakura groaned. "As soon as they all got here, their crackhead energy magnified. Right now they're trying to fish Nakaoka out of the ocean."

I snorted "How did that happen?"

"The wedding photographer wanted all of the Oya kids in one photo and Yas thought it would be funny to push Nakaoka off the edge of the dock after the photographer was done."

I sighed. The tent was starting to feel stuffy. "They'll never change. Are we just about done here?"

"Just about." Junko smiled, sliding one last hairpin into the dark locks. "Naomi-chan! Where's the tiara!"

"I've got it!" Naomi shouted, ambling quickly over the sand with the white box in her hands. The entire morning she'd been taking little mental notes for when she and Yamato inevitably decided to tie the knot. The box was heavy, but the tiara itself was pretty light when Naomi settled it on my forehead.

Once Junko, Naomi and Oshiage agreed that I looked ready to walk down the aisle, I got up from the makeup chair and moved to leave the tent.

"Where are you going!" Nonoriki shrieked. "Murayama can't see you until you walk down the aisle! It's bad luck!"

Sakura laughed. "Loverboy is with Todoroki, Seki, Furuya and Shinya. They're with the photographer and will be busy for a while. But, if it would make you happy, I'll go with Midori-chan and make sure Murayama doesn't see her."

Sakura and I left the tent together, her pale pink bridesmaid dress gently dusting the sand. When I lifted the layers of my dress just enough that they wouldn't drag in the sand, Sakura did the same.

"So." I said, eager to start a conversation as we headed over towards where all the guest were flooding in, no sign of Murayama or the groomsmen. "I bet Tsukasa hasn't been able to keep his eyes off you since you put that dress on this morning."

Sakura's face went pink. "I bet he can't wait to get me out of it." She answered honestly.

"That boy is like a lovesick puppy." I chuckled, turning to look at the group of full-timers, who had finally managed to pull Nakaoka out of the water. Yasushi had ditched his suit jacket after the pictures, but it was still a shock to see the boy in a suit, his long hair tied in a simple bun.

In the distance, I chuckled as I caught Futa trying flirt with Yumeko. She rolled her eyes, thoroughly unamused. I couldn't quite catch what he was saying, but if the snickers from Agyo, Hiroomi and Raita meant anything, I had a feeling that he was making a fool of himself.

Standing near the back of the rows of chairs, a tall girl with a low-cut dress showing off a back full of yakuza tattoos was gently holding on to Smokey's arm. Himari Iemura. Smokey was looking a lot better than he had when I first started getting involved with the gangs of S.W.O.R.D: his face had more color in it, and his hair looked healthier. He was still coughing a little too harshly, but there was no more blood associated with it. Himari mentioned once when us S.W.O.R.D ladies got together for coffee that the doctors had told her that if Smokey had gotten the hospital a few days later, he might not have made it. It was because she got there when he did that they were able to treat his sickness with radiowave therapy and surgery to remove the tumor on his lungs.

"Himari!" I shouted, trying to catch her attention. The reconstruction of the Nameless City was the last project Hiroomi, Daichi and I had been assigned to before we graduated, and even though the company the hired Hiroomi had taken over, I still found myself stopping by every so often.

Watching Daichi flirt with Lala was physically painful.

"Midori-chan!" Himari said excitedly, pulling me in for a hug. No matter how many times I told her to drop the honorifics, there were some things she learned as a part of the Iemura family that were going to stick with her."You look incredible!"

"So do you." I laughed. "I'm so glad you managed to tear this one away from the Nameless City for a little." I said, gesturing towards Smokey

"Trust me." Himari sighed. "It was not easy."

"I can hear you, you know." Smokey chuckled, giving me a quick hug

"Oh come on." A voice groaned from behind us. "Even Smokey has a date to this thing?"

I smiled, turning to face the voice. "Hello, Hyuga."

Hyuga Norihisa stood just behind Himari, has hands stuffed in the pockets of his delicatley embroidered suit jacket. Even though everybody had already been here for some portion of the week, it was nice to see everybody again at the wedding. Everything had a different lens over it today.

Sakura laughed. "I'm pretty sure the hot blond guy from Sannoh's here alone."

"Yeah, but it's classy when Cobra's single." The leader of the Daruma whined. "Seriously, Tetsu's here with his girlfriend, my best friend is with Smokey, Rocky's got his girl of the week. And when I show up single somewhere, it's 'oh look, Norihisa is single again'."

"I'm sure that's not true." Himari chuckled, Smokey trying to hide his laughter.

"Why don't you go talk to Cobra?" I suggested. "If you keep moping around, you'll end up divorced three times like Ukyo."

"Fine." Hyuga said sarcastically. "I'll be ba-"

He stopped abruptly, looking in the direction of the tent where Ichigo Milk was. In front of the tent was Cobra, who was not-so-stealthily making out with Junko.

So that's who he was seeing.

"That was a little unexpected." Smokey said shortly.

"Great." Hyuga scoffed. "So I am the only single S.W.O.R.D leader."

Sakura and I kept walking, chatting a little with guests, scolding Futa for trying to flirt with my sister and actually having a somewhat nice conversation with my mother, who, for the first time in a while, was proud of me. It was enough to make me almost cry before I even made it to the altar.

Tetsu was chatting up a storm with just about everybody, showing Gillian's first ultrasound picture to anybody who would listen. He was over the moon to be a father, and Gillian was looking forward to starting a new life for herself in Sannoh, feeling closer to her stepfather than ever since coming to Japan, even after everything she found out in her quest for answers.

"Enjoy your sleep while it lasts." Shibaman said to the father-to-be, patting Tetsu on the shoulder. "Since Koharu was born, I don't think I've gotten more than two hours of sleep a night, three if I'm lucky."

"Don't listen to him." Gillian interjected, resting one hand on her small baby bump. "Everything is going to be fine. Until my mother flies in for the birth and annoys the living daylights out of us all."

"Shiba!" Shizuka called from where she was sitting with Shinya's girlfriend, Madoka Ishii. "Do you know where my phone charger is?"

"I don't know!" Shibaman shouted back.

"Can you go look in the rental car?"

"Fine."

Those kids were barely nineteen and already acted like a middle aged married couple. Oh god, I found myself thinking, is that what Murayama and I are going to be like in a few years? The prospect of ending up like a sitcom couple was drastically unappealing, but I thought that if there was anybody I'd like to live through that with, it was Murayama Yoshiki.

"Hey kiddo." My dad said, resting his hand on my shoulder. "You about ready to get this show on the road?"

I nodded. "Hell yeah."

My heart was pounding so much that I thought it was going to beat out of my chest as we got in line ready to walk to the altar. All of the fist fights and all-out brawls were nothing compared to how I felt when the music started and the procession began to make their way down the aisle. We'd chosen 'Zutto', by Doberman Infinity.

"I'm proud of you." My dad said, linking his arm through mine as we started walking down the white carpet that had been laid out over the sand, following Naomi and Sakura to the altar.

The hands I had clasped around the bouquet started to shake as we walked past the full-timers.

Yasushi was sitting at the end of the row- well, standing while the bride walked down the aisle- and he flashed me a toothy smile and quick thumbs up, momentarily distracting me from my nerves. Nakaoka was still soaking wet.

Murayama was just as nervous as I was, if not more. He was figeting like crazy at the altar, settling for hiding his shaking hands,in the pockets of his suit jacket.

"Hey, man." Shinya said, gently kicking him in the heel. "There she is." Shinya smiled, pointing one ring-clad finger in the direction of the aisle.

Murayama's jaw dropped when he saw me coming down the aisle, and I swear I thought I saw him start to cry from joy when we met eyes.

That's when it set in, you know? That we were actually doing this. We were getting married.

I thought my legs were going to give out as I let go of my dad's arm and moved to stand on the altar across from Murayama. He reached for my hand, squeezing it gently before everybody in the audience sat back down and Kaz launched into his speech (read: comedy routine).

"Wow, okay." He started. "So when my baby cousin told me that this was going to be a bigger wedding than we had originally thought, I had no idea that she meant she'd be inviting a nightclub owner with silver teeth, the son of a former yakuza boss who has a criminal record, two guys who used to be in a biker gang, and army of teenagers with anger issues-" At that point, the full-timers cut him off with cheers, Sakura and Tsukasa joining in from behind me. "A guy fresh out of the hospital who's dating the heiress to a yakuza family and two millennials with no jobs who just ride motorcycles all day."

"I do have a job, thank you very much!" Masaki shouted back, small echoes of laughter rippling across the crowd.

"And you know, I told her not to wear heels today so that she wasn't towering over the groom." He turned to Murayama. "Do you want a step stool, little guy?"

At this, Todoroki pretty much doubled over in laughter. Murayama found himself chuckling as well, quickly sticking his middle finger up at Kazuma.

"When we were teenagers, Midori went though a pretty hardcore Ace of Spades phase, swearing up and down that she was going to marry Takahiro. Now, either Takahiro got shorter and paler, or my cousin seriously lowered her standards." Kaz joked.

It was here that Kaz needed to stop, because Todoroki was laughing so hard that we wondered how he was able to breathe.

"But all jokes aside, in Midori's entire twenty-three- well, I guess it will be twenty-four in a few months- I have never seen her as happy as I have this week when she was next to Murayama. And so with that final thought, and with the power invested in me by literally nobody- like seriously, I don't think there's anything even remotely legally binding about this, so maybe you should go to a courthouse or something and sign whatever papers later- I now pronounce you husband and wife."

I stared at Murayama, a huge smile on my face as I reached for his hand again.

"You may now kiss the bride."

NOTES!!

god guys, i'm so emotional right now-

it's been an absolute dream to have 6.5K reads at the time of writing this note and so much support since I started writing teenage dirtbag, and its been one of my favourite books ( and the longest) to write.

I cannot wait to revisit s.w.o.r.d in my other fics and i hope youll show them all as much support <3

xx, Tasia