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The summer sky spread wide over Iwatobi Pre-school’s playground. All around the screeching of children could be heard, a cacophonous sound that signaled the passing of another normal day in the life of Tachibana Makoto, age five. As he was digging in the sandbox, he could sense the approach of his best friend, Haruka, from from a little ways off, and a second set of shuffling steps that meant Rin was not far behind.
They had been attached to the hip since Rin had entered the preschool. Rin had immediately taken a liking to Haruka, and while Haru had been annoyed with the attention at first, that soon changed when another child named Kisumi decided to turn his attentions to the youngest member of their class.
Makoto was playing with his blocks at the far end of the table, close enough to witness the events that occurred, but powerless to stop them. Rin had set up his crayons next to where Haruka was studiously drawing a fish when Kisumi approached, sitting innocently in the seat next to Rin. He grabbed a crayon, purple, and began to draw on the paper where Rin was carefully doodling.
“Stop! You’re ruining it!” Rin cried out, looking in disbelief from the boy to his left and the paper, now ruined by big streaks of purple.
Kisumi frowned. “I’m not ruining it.”
“Yes you are!”
“No I’m not!”
Rin’s lower lip began its telltale wobble. He had always been easy to cry, but neither Haruka nor Makoto dared say anything about it. “I-it was supposed to be me and Nanase, but now it’s r-ruined.”
His sniffles became hiccups which soon became full on sobs as Kisumi stared, bewildered at the dramatic outburst. His eyebrows furrowed together in frustration. “Stop crying, you big baby! It looks better this way!”
Rin wailed louder at Kisumi’s words, slurred words coming from his mouth already past comprehensibility. Haruka, unable to concentrate on his work, pushed out his chair and approached the two.
“Don’t call him a baby,” he said, and took the hand Rin wasn’t using to wipe frantically at his eyes and held it. Rin’s sobs quieted, punctuated by small hiccups and whimpers.
“Only babies cry like that,” Kisumi pouted. He had only been trying to help, and Rin had gotten mad at him for it! How ridiculous.
“Rin isn’t a baby for crying a lot. Rin is Rin,” Haruka replied, voice even, “only a real baby would draw on someone else’s art without asking.”
Kisumi balled his fists, close to tears himself. It wasn’t fair. Not fair at all. Haruka turned his attention to Rin, who had finally quieted down. He was still sniffling, but was no longer shaking visibly, which Haruka took as a good sign.
“S-sorry,” Rin whimpered pathetically, handing Haruka the ruined drawing. “I w-was gonna give this to you when it was done, but n-now it’s- Nanase’s such a good drawer, so I wanted it to l-look perfect, but, but--”
Fresh tears stung at Rin’s eyes, and Haruka gently pried the picture from Rin’s hands.
“It looks beautiful, Rin.” Giant marks of purple marred the otherwise blue sky under which a crudely drawn stick figure of what he supposed were him and Rin and Makoto by their respective color schemes.
“Really?” Rin peeked up at him from underneath wet eyelashes, eyes shining. Haruka nodded, and Rin latched on to his middle in a vice-like hug. Kisumi, evidently forgotten, glared again at the two of them and made his escape. Two days later, Rin allowed him to draw with him and Haru at the art table, but only if he drew on his own paper instead of Rin’s. Kisumi was more than happy to agree to the condition.
Makoto smiled at the memory. Since then, Haruka had stopped minding Rin hanging around them, and while he would never say it aloud, he had taken it on as his duty to protect the younger boy.
Makoto turned when he heard Rin’s giggle and Haru’s hushing only a meter or so behind him. Haru approached, reluctantly holding Rin’s hand. Rin was rocking on the balls of his feet, and by the manic look in his eyes Makoto could tell he had something to say. He nudged Haruka in the side, and Haru cleared his throat, but whatever Makoto had expected him to say, it wasn’t what came out of his mouth next.
“Makoto, Rin and I are getting married.”
Makoto stared in stunned silence before stuttering out a congratulations. Surely it was too soon? Sure, Haru had just turned six, but Rin was barely five! He had never said anything about marriage or even liking Rin like-like that! And don’t you have to be an adult to do that sort of thing?! And don’t you have to kiss?!
“We want you to be the person who says we’re married and stuff,” Haruka continued, unphased by his best friend’s red-faced sputtering, “And Nagisa and Rei and Gou are gonna be there too.”
“A-and when is it-this wedding?!” Makoto asked. Oh, god, he was supposed to be the priest who declared them married? He was DEFINITELY not qualified… the last time he had prayed at the shrine was- oh, god when was it?! Oh, no, God was going to be mad at him… how could Haru ask this of him?!
Haruka hummed and looked at Rin. “When is the wedding going to be?”
“After nap time!” Rin declared. The small boy stepped forward, placing a hand on Makoto’s trembling shoulder.
“Makoto, you’re the most grown up out of all of us, and the tallest, so you’ve got to be the one to speak for the gods,” he said seriously. Nothing so far had done anything to reassure Makoto that any of this was a good idea. They were too young! Too young too young too young!
“Makoto,” Haruka said solemnly, “You’re our only hope.”
Makoto swallowed thickly and wished, for once in his short life, he had stayed home sick that day.
******
“Mako-chan! Is it true?!” Nagisa cried. He, Rei, and Gou ran toward him as their class was let onto the playground for recess. Haru and Rin had run off somewhere to do whatever couples do before they’re to be married. Haruka didn’t tell him, and Makoto hadn’t wanted to ask. “Are Haru-chan and Rin-chan really getting married?!”
Makoto sighed and nodded his head.
“Geez, why didn’t nii-chan tell me?” Gou muttered, sticking her bottom lip out in a pout, “I’m definitely going to tell Mom when we get home.”
Nagisa sighed dreamily and clapped his hands. “I wanna get married too!”
“Nagisa-kun, you don’t have anyone to get married to,” Rei said, adjusting his glasses.
“Hmmm… I’ll marry Rei-chan!” Nagisa declared, pulling Rei in for a hug. Rei struggled out of his grip, face growing redder by the second.
“I’m not going to marry you!” Rei shrieked as Nagisa puckered his lips and tackled him again, toppling him to the ground. “I’m going to become a scientist and win the nobel peace prize! I can’t get married until then! Get off me!”
Nagisa relented, puffing up his cheeks in a pout. He turned devious pink eyes to Makoto.
“Then, Mako-chan!” The remaining blood drained from his face when he realized what the look meant. Gou stepped out of the way as Nagisa lunged forward.
He locked Makoto in a hug, and if it weren’t for the fact that Makoto was quite tall for his age, Nagisa would have planted a kiss on him right then and there. The two boys wrestled for several minutes, when Rei, who had been quiet for a while, finally spoke up.
“Do you think they’ll have a baby?”
The other three children went still, shocked by the astute question.
“B-baby?!” Makoto squeaked. He hadn’t even thought of that! Oh, God, as mature and independent as Haruka was for his age, he was not, was NOT ready to have a baby of his own. Rin could barely keep a dry eye for the whole day, what would he do when the baby started crying? Sure, he had seen his mom take care of Gou as a baby, but he didn’t remember most of it because he had been a baby himself then, so how could he-
“Rei-chan, can two boys even have a baby?” Nagisa asked innocently.
Rei smiled, and pushed up his glasses up the bridge of his nose in the smug, self-assured way that meant he was about to begin a speech about something he had read in a book, a fact he rarely missed the opportunity to remind others of. “Well, I haven’t read anything about it, and I’ve only ever seen moms and dads with babies, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible! Maybe no one’s ever tried it before! It could be an experiment, we could be the first people to discover if-”
The words died in his mouth as he and the other two realized that Makoto-gentle, steadfast, Makoto- was crying.
“Mako-chan…” Nagisa began, tentatively placing a small hand on his friend’s shoulder. Gou crouched down on his other side and rubbed her hand in small circles on his back.
“T-they want me to make them married!” Makoto sobbed, “I don’t even know how to do that! I’ve never even been to a wedding!”
Nagisa and Gou looked at each other, small lips turning into frowns. Rei stared at the three crouched figures uncomfortably. Makoto’s plaintive wails began to attract looks from other kids on the playground.
“A-and what if Haruka and Rin don’t want to hang out with me anymore!” he continued, “What if they’re too busy being married to play with me, with any of us, anymore?!”
Gou rubbed Makoto’s back until his cries died down. He whimpered a small apology, and Nagisa smiled and shook his head.
“Mako-chan, Haru-chan and Rin-chan wouldn’t do that,” he reassured him, Gou and Rei nodding in agreement, “They’ll always be our friends.”
“I agree with Nagisa-kun,” Rei said, “My parents have lots of friends over for dinner all the time, and even if I don’t understand everything they say, they look like they’re having fun.”
Gou nodded along to the boy’s words. “Onii-chan definitely won’t abandon us, and neither will Haruka. And since Haruka will be my brother too once he marries onii-chan, I’ll beat them both up if they stop talking to us!”
“Yeah!” Nagisa giggled, and Makoto’s face broke into a small smile. He sniffed and dried his eyes on his sleeve.
“Thanks, you guys.”
The teacher called for Makoto’s class to head inside for lunch, and Makoto left his friends, determined to work his hardest to make sure this was the best wedding ever.
********
They set up underneath the cherry tree a few meters apart from where the rest of the children were playing. It wasn’t in bloom, but Gou had made a delicate crown of white wildflowers for Rin to wear. Nagisa and Rei had made the rings after snack time, carefully weaving red and blue yarn together to form a braid small enough to sit on Rin and Haruka’s fingers. The seats were overturned pails, and other than Gou, Nagisa, and Rei, a stuffed bird named Iwatobi-chan that belonged to Haruka and several of Gou’s dolls were in attendance. It was the finest playground wedding ceremony any of the children had ever seen.
Makoto stood before a stoic Haruka and a trembling Rin, their hands clasped between them, staring into each other’s eyes. He cleared his throat and began the ceremony.
“Boys and girls and Iwatobi-chans,” he began, ignoring Nagisa’s giggle from the front row, “we are gathered here today to see Haru and Rin get married. If anyone has any reason why they should not be married and live happily ever after, please say it now.”
Makoto scanned the small audience. It was silent, except for the background noise of the other kids on the playground, oblivious to the ceremony taking place just a stone’s throw away from them. A warm breeze shook the branches at the top of the tree.
“Haru, do you promise to love Rin forever and ever?” he asked, turning to his best friend, the most important person in his life. His voice shook a bit, but he held it together as Haru looked him in the eyes and assured him, “I do.”
“Rin, do you promise to love Haru forever and ever?” he asked, turning to the teary-eyed redhead.
“I-I do,” he sniffled, quickly wiping his eyes on his sleeve.
“Then I declare you, um, husband, and, um, husband…? You can now k-kiss the… k-kiss…” Makoto looked away in embarrassment as Haruka leaned in to press a small, chaste kiss on Rin’s cheek.
Nagisa whooped and hollered, Gou cheered, and Rei clapped politely as Haruka and Rin turned to face them, holding hands. Haruka turned his head, leaned back and whispered a “thank you” to his friend before he and Rin ran off to the swing sets to enjoy their blissful newly-wed life.
“That was beautiful, Mako-chan!” Nagisa exclaimed. Makoto smiled at the retreating pair of backs. Rin was tugging on Haru’s sleeve in the direction of the sandbox as Haru tried to walk towards the swing set, the two already bickering about something silly, and Makoto couldn’t help but think that it was a rather beautiful wedding.
********
“Makotoooo.”
“Makoto.”
“Ma-ko-to-san.” Makoto jumped, Rin’s voice startling him out of his memories. He looked around at the wedding guests, crowded into seats at the tables littering the reception hall. It was an intimate gathering; most of the guests were Rin’s Australian friends and former teammates, but he could see Haruka’s parents and Rin’s mother seated together with Yamazaki, Nagisa, and Rei. Several of their Japanese teammates had made the trip as well, but many others had sent gifts and well-wishes instead of opting to make the ten hour trip to Australia.
“It’s time for the best man’s speech,” Rin nudged him across the table from where he was seated next to Haruka in the center of the table of honor. Rin frowned. “Don’t tell me you were asleep?”
“And miss my two best friends’ weddings?” Makoto smiled at Rin who smiled back sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. Rin turned his attention back to Gou, who was seated on his other side as the maid of honor. Makoto reached for his glass to begin the toast, when Haruka grabbed his arm.
“Thanks for doing this,” he said, striking blue eyes gazing at him in that intensely unsettling way of his, “I know Rin would never say it out loud, but he was worried you might not-that you might not want to-”
Makoto smiled gently. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world, Haru-chan, not for anything.”
“Drop the -chan,” Haru replied, smiling one of his small, pleased smiles. He understood, even without the near-telepathic connection that they had cultivated over the years. They were important to each other, and nothing in the world, especially not stupid, ugly prejudice, would tear them apart.
“Oi, Makoto,” Rin leaned forward to look at him, oblivious to the exchange that had just taken place, “Did you think of anything good to talk about? Make sure it’s nothing embarrassing!”
Makoto laughed and grabbed his glass. He knew exactly which story to tell.