The sky had deepened into a velvet navy by the time the afterparty began, stars peeking down like guests too shy to join but too curious to look away. String lights glowed golden overhead, casting a warm haze across the garden now transformed—tables cleared, chairs scattered, music swelling with energy as guests clinked glasses and laughed loud enough to shake the roses.
Yuu and Kenji stood hand in hand near the dance floor, cheeks flushed from the whirlwind of the ceremony, the speeches, and the endless hugs from people who had only just stopped crying. Yuu turned to Kenji, still stunned by how unfairly beautiful he looked—eyes bright, veil long gone, dress flowing like he was born in it.
Then, with a subtle cue from the DJ and a shift in the crowd, the music changed.
A gentle swell of piano and strings.
Their first dance.
Kenji blinked, suddenly shy, but Yuu just smiled and extended his hand again like he had so many times before.
Kenji took it.
The song was soft. Something they both loved. Something they'd danced to in their living room in socks and sweatpants a hundred times, but never like this. Surrounded by clapping, teary-eyed friends. By all the versions of themselves they had shed to get here.
They swayed slowly at first, unsure of the space. Then—more confidently. Kenji's head found its place on Yuu's shoulder, and Yuu's arms wrapped gently around his waist. It wasn't choreographed. It wasn't showy. It was just theirs.
By the time the song ended, Kenji was smiling so wide his cheeks ached, and Yuu kissed his forehead as their guests erupted in applause.
Then came the cake—a towering white creation with gold flecks and a delicate cat-shaped topper that made Kenji giggle and Yuu sigh like he regretted it already.
"I still can't believe you made them sculpt a cat," Yuu said as they approached it.
Kenji grinned. "You're marrying a cat person, deal with it."
They cut the first slice together, ceremoniously—then Kenji immediately smashed a piece into Yuu's face.
Yuu sputtered, stunned, cake on his nose, before grabbing a chunk and chasing Kenji across the dance floor. People cheered. Nakamura shouted, "Ten bucks on the one in the dress!" and someone screamed-laughed when Kenji tried to duck under a table.
It was perfect chaos.
And then the drinks started.
One toast. Then two. Then—
Well.
Fifteen.
Kenji wasn't exactly counting.
What he was doing was throwing back shots with the enthusiasm of a frat boy and the metabolism of a teenager, dragging Yuu out for every fast song, ignoring his aching feet, spinning in circles that made his veil of hair fly.
When the DJ announced karaoke was open, Kenji didn't even wait to be dared.
He stumbled up to the mic with a wide, glassy-eyed grin, pulling Yuu behind him.
"Ladies and gentle-thems!" Kenji slurred into the microphone, nearly knocking over a stool. "It's time for the worst thing to happen to your ears since my college phase."
Someone shouted, "WE LOVE YOU, KENJI!" and Kenji blew them a kiss before cueing up the first song: "I Wanna Dance with Somebody."
What followed was five minutes of pure, unfiltered joy. Kenji howled every lyric off-key, waving the mic like a sword, bouncing around the floor with zero regard for rhythm. Yuu stood at the edge of the crowd, hands on his hips, cheeks red from laughing too hard.
Kenji shouted between verses:
"Yuu once fell off the bed during sex—and just kept going!"
Everyone howled.
Yuu nearly died. "KENJI—"
"He called it a 'dynamic pivot!'"
More laughter. A round of applause. Someone shouted for another song.
Kenji sang ABBA. Badly.
Then Britney. Worse.
At some point, he tried to climb onto a table and Nakamura gently guided him back down with the patience of someone who had absolutely expected this to happen.
"Y'know what," Kenji slurred into the mic, eyes half-lidded and heart on full display, "I'm drunk. I am very drunk. But also—I'm married! To the hottest, kindest, nerdiest man in Tokyo!"
Yuu buried his face in his hands. "Someone take the mic—"
"AND," Kenji said, raising a triumphant finger, "he once cried after I proposed to him… for fun. On April Fools."
The crowd gasped.
Yuu shouted, "THAT WAS MEAN!"
Kenji blew him a sloppy kiss. "But we still got married. Eventually."
The crowd laughed, clapped, and chanted his name.
And Yuu couldn't stop smiling.
Because yes, Kenji was wasted.
He was loud. Off-key. Embarrassing.
But he was alive.
Unburdened.
Happy in a way that felt hard-won and deserved. The kind of happiness that didn't need to be quiet to be valid.
By the end of the night, Kenji was draped across a lounge chair, cheeks flushed, feet bare, singing some love song with only 30% of the lyrics correct, while Yuu sat beside him, stroking his hair back gently.
"I love you," Kenji mumbled sleepily. "Even if your dancing is bad."
Yuu laughed, kissed his temple. "I love you too. Even if you shout our sex life to a hundred people."
Kenji blinked. "I'm a public servant of truth."
Yuu grinned. "You're drunk."
Kenji snuggled closer. "Still married though."
And in the middle of the clinking glasses, the flicker of sparklers, and the low hum of late-night music—
They were