After the press conference that shook all of Japan with Kaoru’s surprise public proposal, time still kept moving forward.
The drama Ai had appeared in ended with a staggering final-episode rating of 30.4 percent.
Even though her marriage and childbirth had been exposed while she was still an idol, Ai’s popularity showed no sign of slowing down. It only kept soaring higher.
Her fanbase had originally been limited to idol otaku and a few age groups.
But the twins’ vlog, the pure love and happiness they showed at the press conference, and the responsible way they carried the family on their shoulders all worked in Ai’s favor across every generation.
From teenagers who longed for free love to people in their sixties who valued responsibility toward family, the intense attention directed at the so-called Kaoi couple showed no sign of cooling.
After the press conference, Kaoru took a quiet break and rested until his injuries healed, without doing much else. Interview requests kept pouring in afterward, but he turned them all down.
For the YouTube uploads, Kaoru edited the videos himself at home using editing software, while Rentaro stayed busy with work. He adjusted the cuts a little more to reflect fans’ requests and suggestions than Rentaro’s usual style, and the response from viewers became even hotter.
The subscriber count rose so fast that before anyone knew it, he had surpassed 1.6 million. Not just viewers from China, the United States, South America, and Europe, but even Koreans who lived in a neighboring country and usually had little interest in the Japanese entertainment industry were leaving over-the-top praise in the comments and openly showing their affection.
Because of the coverage and other issues, the twins’ kindergarten attendance was postponed, and they were free to run wild at home. Since the whole thing was already public knowledge anyway, there was no point in going out and making things a hassle. And with the couple temporarily suspending kindergarten attendance for safety and media-response reasons, Aqua and Ruby spent their days in carefree comfort at home.
In a house so perfect that it made heaven seem less appealing, where the favorite was always in sight if you looked one way and the second favorite if you looked the other.
In the morning, they were with Kaoru. In the afternoon, they were with Ai. They spent their happy days together in the spacious house.
When the New Year came, Kaoru and Ai began preparing for their wedding. They set the date for March 25, exactly two months after the day they registered their marriage. It was a warm spring day, when the cherry blossoms would be in bloom and the season was at its most popular.
For the venue, they narrowed the options down to hotels and wedding halls with large gardens so the ceremony could be held outdoors.
But anticipating that the press would swarm the event on the day itself, they chose the Tokyo New Era Hotel after giving maximum consideration to security and safety. As a historic five-star hotel with a strong reputation, it cost a great deal, but that was no problem for the couple.
Known for keeping security tight for VIP clients, the hotel never leaked news of Kaoi’s reservation to the media.
And when it came to the rings, dresses, and other things that couples usually spent so much time and effort on, Kaoru and Ai were perfectly in sync and finished the preparations without any trouble.
As for the wedding band—the wedding ring, so to speak—Kaoru and Ai made their decision quickly. Compared to the turquoise ring Ai had received as a birthday present before, and the proposal ring set with a large diamond, they chose a clean, simple pure-gold ring.
"Heheh—☆ What do you think?"
In a pure white dress that emphasized the graceful curves of her body and her elegant beauty, with a shy yet playfully familiar smile and those starlit eyes sparkling—
Kaoru could only stare at his wife in a daze, mouth slightly open and silent.
The twins, already worked up beyond reason, snorted excitedly and cheered.
"Waaah! Mama, you look so pretty!"
"Mom’s dress... the best!!! The strongest!!! It’s beauty at the highest level!!!"
But Kaoru could do nothing except stare blankly at his wife. Blue eyes and starlit eyes met in the air and locked onto each other.
Ai’s smile grew even brighter at the sight of her husband’s stunned reaction, which was adorable in its own way and filled her with pride as a woman and as someone who was loved.
Words like beautiful didn’t even begin to describe it. The Ai standing there in that flowing white dress became a moment Kaoru would never be able to forget.
"Hah."
Kaoru then started thinking about who exactly he should send invitations to. He firmly excluded his father and mother. Their relationship was practically worse than that of strangers, and even now, long after the press conference, they still hadn’t contacted him separately.
Still, out of a sense of duty, he asked the driver uncle about his father’s recent movements, intending to send an invitation whether he came or not. But the answer was exactly what Kaoru had expected.
Instead, he gave an invitation only to the driver uncle, along with a request that he absolutely come.
As the couple wrote the invitations, they judged how far they should spread them.
Kaoru wanted the wedding to be quiet and small. He simply didn’t have that many close people to invite, and more than a crowded event, he wanted to focus on the wedding itself.
But since his wife might feel differently from him, he asked Ai how far they should send invitations.
Ai placed her index finger against her chin and thought for a moment before smiling softly.
"I’m sorry to the other people, but the stars of the wedding are just the two of us! If people crowd around us even at the wedding, I think it’d be exhausting."
As expected, husband and wife were of one mind. Kaoru smiled and pulled Ai into a tight embrace.
Of course, they would invite the Saito couple, the two representatives Rentaro and Toshiro, Director Gotanda, and the members of B Komachi.
They also decided to send invitations to a few of Kaoru’s high school friends, a few close seniors and juniors from the troupe, several actors he had grown close to through his activities such as Satomi Aragaki and Junpei Matsumoto, Tsukasa, the director of You in the Time That Falls Like Rain, PD Kaburagi Masaya, and Yuno Hasegawa, who had worked with them during the interviews and the incident before that.
There were no family members or relatives attending Kaoru and Ai’s wedding. But neither of them cared in the slightest.
They filled each other’s emptiness. They became each other’s family.
It was not only a day to receive congratulations, but also a day that would never be forgotten in either of their lives—and more than that, a day they wanted to use to celebrate the happy life of their family.
In fact, when they kept the invitations limited instead of spreading them out like a wedding of the century, Ichigo and Miyako were surprised and worried, asking whether it was really okay to invite so few people.
In Japan’s wedding culture, people often personally contacted guests, sent invitations one by one, and then had to reply to each response as well. Because of that, there were many cases where people felt hurt if they weren’t invited.
But—
"It’s fine☆"
"At first... I was only going to send out half as many invitations as I’m sending now. We don’t have that many close people anyway... and this wedding is being held for our family."
"......"
"I-I see... if that’s what you two want..."
In the end, the Saito couple gave in, and Kaoru and Ai simply waited for the wedding day with excited hearts and no worries at all.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register