Chapter Text
Kotaro proposed as promised in a more romantic setting. Privately he took Sakura out on one of their ‘publicity dates’ and he took her to the observatory where a picnic that he had made her was waiting with a lot of lanterns.
Over-dramatic much. Sakura giggled to herself. “Are you going to sing to me now?” She teased.
“…Do you want me to?” Kotaro asked. “I have a guitar in the van.” He was ready to do anything necessary at a moment’s notice.
“Tempting, but no. I just want to be your fiancé right away.” Sakura grinned, desperate to just be official.
Kotaro nodded and led her down to the ground.
“All of Saga’s lights are beautiful but not as shining as you.” He spoke overly romantically.
“It’s just us, Kotaro.” Sakura teased, “You don’t have to be overly romantic.”
“I watched a bunch of online proposals though!!! I want to make this one good.” Kotaro pouted and crossed his arms.
Sakura kissed him on the cheek. She was impatient to be his. She wanted the bonds they shared to be visible to others.
“Sakura, will you please do me the honor of marrying me? I never want to be separated from you again.” He spoke, getting down on one knee and pulling out a ring. Sakura wasn’t sure when he had measured her finger for it. Maybe he always knew her measurements.
“Yes!” Sakura enthusiastically cried and hugged him as he slipped the ring onto her finger. She sobbed and smiled and hugged him tighter and tighter.
“You don’t need to cry. We already…Discussed this, remember?” Kotaro reminded. “It’s not a surprise! You were the one who suggested it!”
Sakura sobbed anyway. “I know! But I’m just so happy! I want so badly to be your wife.”
That made Kotaro cry too.“I never thought you’d get to marry me….I never thought in my wildest dreams that I’d get to be with you like this. Even before you died, I didn’t think you’d ever be my wife.”
“Well, I will be! And nothing can stop us from marrying each other now!!! Even death can’t separate us!” Sakura cried.
Kotaro smiled through the tears, trying not to sniffle too loudly. “Should I propose again in public? I could propose to you at the death metal place and make a big thing about it. Do we need to do this again in a performative way???”
“No. One proposal was enough. I like a more private one. And I don’t want to take my ring off.” Sakura said, rubbing her fingers against it. She wanted it to always on her hand.
Kotaro smiled. He kissed her forehead. “Okay.” He paused. “God. I’m going to have to forge both our identities so we can marry each other!” He realized, “And I can’t exactly name you Sakura Minamoto…”
“Sakura’s a common enough name. That can be my real name.” Sakura chuckled, “I’m just ordinary so nobody should connect me to the dead girl if I have a different last name.”
“Like?” Kotaro asked.
“Inui. I’ll be Sakura Inui and then when I marry you, I’ll be Sakura Tatsumi.” Sakura sheepishly smiled.
Kotaro blushed at the idea of having both of his last names. “S-sakura Inui, huh…”
“And then Sakura Tatsumi! That will be my real name!” Sakura grinned.
“…I would have preferred to be Kotaro Minamoto, but Sakura Tatsumi sounds really good too.” Kotaro agreed. “I’m glad we won’t be using your fake name, Ichiko. I want to call you Sakura at our wedding.”
Sakura smiled. She wanted to be Sakura to him too. She looked at her ring finger again and giggled and kissed him again, just wanting to feel his lips on her and the fullness of both their hearts in that moment.
“SO FRANCHOUCHOU!!!” Kotaro slammed his hands on the podium. “REMEMBER THAT BREAK UP PLAN I TOLD YOU ABOUT???” Kotaro screamed in the morning meeting.
“Let me guess…. Ookaba turned you down because nobody wants to make out with you.” Ai groaned.
Sakura had been back late from another one of her fake dates. The other girls in Franchouchou weren’t sure why Sakura had to keep up on the fake outings, but they didn’t judge her. She was also wearing a ring on her finger. They weren’t sure if Kotaro was now planning a story about Sakura cheating on him.
“I’m one of the people who wants to make out with Kotaro, though…” Sakura frowned at Ai’s jab “In fact I have! So it’s not nobody…” Sakura reminded.
Ai opened her mouth and just wasn’t sure what to say.
“It’s not wanting to if you’re forced to do so.” Junko reassured.
“Nah, maybe she wants to, and she just has no standards.” Lily laughed.
Kotaro slapped his hands on the podium again and got the zombies attention. “STOP ARGUING DUMB ZOMBIES. Sakura’s standards might suck but that’s not important right now!”
“H-hey…I was trying to defend you…” Sakura frowned.
Kotaro ignored her. “ANYWAY!!! Things have changed and we won’t be going with the cheating breakup plan!”
“The thing that changed was he was rejected.” Saki laughed.
“I WAS NOT. I’m very hot and incredibly desirable! Sakura, back me up!” Kotaro begged.
“Uhh…Ookaba did actually reject you. He’s not single, Kotaro.” Sakura couldn’t back him up. “I don’t think he wanted too either…”
Kotaro groaned. “Well, Ookaba is irrelevant to this scheme! Anyway, Sakura and I will be getting publicly married instead of breaking up—”
“WHAT.” Everyone yelled.
“NO. I’M SORRY. WHAT. WHAT. WHAT. WHAT.” Ai yelled.
“No way, that can’t be your solution to not wanting your reputation to tank!” Saki yelled.
“Ah. So that’s why Lady Sakura is wearing a ring. Congratulations.” Yugiri seemed to be the only one who noticed that. She clapped her hands and gave the two of them a sly smile.
“Idols can’t get married! It’s unheard of!” Junko complained.
“Arr!” Tae nibbled on Sakura’s hand. Sakura pulled her hand away with the ring on it.
“You have enough panic, dummies?” Kotaro asked. “ALL RIGHT. SO HERE’S THE DEAL.” He directed their attention to a chalkboard. “Weddings bring people from all over! Saga needs a wedding to save it! And people are already way invested in Sakura’s and I’s relationship! The natural conclusion that makes people happy is for us to get married instead of breaking up!”
Sakura nodded along chipperly.
Ai was about to attack Kotaro for being stupid. Junko shook her head.
“…But we’ll know the truth that you two aren’t really married, isn’t that what you’re going to say, Mr. Tatsumi?” Junko tried to find reason and logic in this insanity. “I suppose appearing as a married couple in public isn’t too hard if you aren’t married in private…We already do all live together….”
“NO. Sakura and I will be really married-married. Nothing fake about it.” Kotaro announced.
That got everybody to be very stunned again.
“WHAT. LIKE REAL MARRIED?” Saki screamed.
There was yelling and confusion from everyone except Sakura who sat in her chair as most of the others stood up in surprise. Yugiri was the only one who looked even halfway calm.
“…Was the sex really that good to make you want to marry each other immediately?” Yugiri asked curiously. “I’m quite curious what kind of sex this was!”
“AHHH. NO. YOU HAVE THE WRONG IDEA, YUGIRI!” Sakura blushed, getting embarrassed now too.
“Yeah! Way to make it worse, Yugiri!” Saki criticized. “They aren’t having any of that.”
Yugiri raised her eyebrow. She looked over at Kotaro. Kotaro looked away.
“We’re getting married because we want to be together forever and tied together in the bonds of holy matrimony! It has nothing to do with sex or hormones!” Kotaro argued back.
“I apologize, I was being presumptuous.” Yugiri apologized.
“EVEN IF THE SEX WAS BAD I’D WANT TO MARRY SAKURA.” Kotaro shouted.
Sakura put her hands on her face, horrified by what he had said, and blushing greatly. Apparently though all of her friends hadn’t absorbed what he had said because they were still too horrified by the whole marriage thing.
“AHHH.” Ai pulled out her hair. “That’s not the thing you should apologize for, Yugiri! Why are you two marrying each other???”
“It’s for the Saga tourism, didn’t you hear!?” Lily said, “He’s pretty simple—"
“Because we’re in love.” Kotaro answered, shooting down Lily’s defense and saying it very calmly.
“…Um…Uhh…Kotaro and I talked about things and decided we should be a real couple…” Sakura explained, “And, that we should get married. Well, I suggested we should get married. There’s a lot of pros to having a wedding! I’m sure it will boost Saga’s tourism too!” Sakura defended. “He agreed although he was going to force Ai and Junko to marry instead…But I convinced him out of that and now we’re the couple getting married.” She rambled.
There was so much to process from what Sakura said. Apparently, Kotaro and her were a real couple. In love. And they were getting married.
“T-thank you, Sakura.” Was all Junko could say in dumb silence. She decided to just think about the part where Sakura had saved Junko from having her own fake marriage.
Sakura smiled and nodded.
“…So did the fake dating trope get to you? Did you two catch feelings like Maimai said?” Lily teased.
“Nope!” They both chipperly said.
That made everyone even more confused.
“We were in love with each other before the fake dating.” Sakura explained, “So neither of us caught feelings.”
“I’m s-sorry…You liked Shades???” Saki was so confused.
“You have feelings??? And liked Sakura??? What were you doing falling for one of your idols???” Ai criticized.
"I fell in love BEFORE she was an idol, okay???” Kotaro yelled.
Everyone narrowed their eyes at him falling in love with a literal corpse.
“No. Don’t look at me like that. It was before she was a zombie or a corpse too. We’re childhood friends.” Kotaro tried to explain.
“I…What.” Saki just looked like she was laughing.
“HUH???” Ai asked.
“No.” Junko shook her head.
“Oh my. I was wondering how you fell in love with her.” Yugiri said.
“Wow, Sakura, did you not recognize him or something??? Why didn’t you tell us your childhood friend was our manager???” Lily asked, stunned by this news.
“He changed his name! And identity! And personality! And he wore sunglasses! Don’t blame me for not recognizing him!” Sakura frowned, crossing her arms. “He was keeping it a secret from me on purpose because he didn’t want me to know he spent 10 years of his life resurrecting me.”
“Oh that’s actually rather sweet—” Junko said.
“Not like you would recognize me anyway, dummy.” Kotaro teased. “How many times did you take off my sunglasses when we were intimate??? And how many times did you recognize me??? 0! That’s what!”
Sakura blushed. “I was a little distracted, okay! I knew I knew your eyes from somewhere, but I just thought I had that feeling because I was really in love with you!”
Kotaro grinned and looked gleeful when she said that.
Ai just groaned. She didn’t want to see this flirting. “Okay. Okay. You two are in love. Okay. But why get married immediately? Can’t we keep this fake- I mean real relationship going? I don’t want to be living with a married couple.”
“We didn’t want to be separated any longer!” Kotaro said simply.
“I was dead for 10 years, I don’t want to regret anything more. And I’m impatient.” Sakura admitted.
Nobody was sure if or how they should dissuade them, so they just gave up. They would scream for weeks though, they were sure, but they were all just stunned speechless.
“S-so…Wedding planning, huh?” Lily decided to get on board with the craziness.
“YEAH. THAT’S WHAT WE’LL BE DOING FOR A BIT. Hmm…Can Franchouchou play as a band? Or is that weird to make Sakura sing at her own wedding? Oh well. Franchouchou will be the entertainment. I can make a concert at the same time.” Kotaro decided, “Hehehe….I’ll get to write wedding songs.”
Sakura brightened up because Kotaro was happy. “Let me plan our wedding a bit too! We’re all here to help you!”
“Of course! Everything gets approval from you!” Kotaro happily agreed.
Everyone else felt like they were entirely left out of the loop as Kotaro and Sakura happily chattered about various things.
They couldn’t really do anything besides agree to help.
As Sakura had predicted a wedding did garner a lot more attention than just dating and being caught making out. There was a lot of excitement from their fans and a lot of reporters from even outside of Saga came to cover it.
Kotaro made sure to include a lot of Saga business owners so they could advertise things about Saga to tourists. Also using businesses for advertisements made things cheaper! He was very excited about the promoting Saga aspect.
It took a while, but eventually they had all the preparations even if Franchouchou was still confused until the very end.
“I just can’t believe it!!!” Maimai sobbed when she helped Sakura pick out a wedding dress. Maimai had begged to be a bridesmaid, and all of Franchouchou had fought for the maid of honor position. Eventually Tae had managed to crawl her way past the others and earn the position for herself. “Is this for the scandal??? Being fake married is going to be even harder than fake dating!!!”
“Oh. No. We’re for real dating.” Sakura corrected, excitedly, “Well. We’re getting real married.”
“WHAT.” Maimai excitedly squealed. “Hehehe…So you did catch feelings—”
Sakura rolled her eyes. “It’s not like that! We liked each other before fake dating—”
“That’s a classic trope too!” Maimai’s eyes sparkled. “But, huh…I never thought Mr. Tatsumi would actually fall for one of his idol’s. The fake dating trope is powerful! People can even fall in love with the undead.”
“Oh! No. Kotaro’s my childhood friend. He was in love with me before I died and resurrected us all to give me my dream. It wasn’t the trope at work.” Sakura agreed.
“W-what…HEHEHE.” Maimai giggled. “I NEVER WOULD HAVE GUESSED. YOU’RE LIVING OUT A SHOUJO ROMANCE, SAKURA!” She yelled, “That’s so exciting.”
“Shhh…Shh.” Sakura hushed, “Yeah. I am.” She smiled to herself, “Can you help me put everything together for my wedding now?”
Maimai nodded.
Jofuku didn’t watch the news. He didn’t read tabloids. Kotaro had invited him to a large-scale event at a community center oddly enough? He hadn’t really read the invite deeply. A wedding hall or something. He hadn’t ever been there. Had Franchouchou been hired to host a wedding??? Was he supposed to deliver booze? Or was he on squid delivery duty???
…He hasn’t been coming by as much, but something’s happening in Saga. I can feel it. A lot of new people were coming in. Kotaro was doing something right and Jofuku wished he’d show up to report what he was up to.
Jofuku arrived at the wedding. Ookaba waved him over. Jofuku hadn’t met Ookaba before but he had heard about the guy who had discovered the zombies secrets. He was dressed a lot more proper than the scraggy looking guy Kotaro had described him to be. Maybe it was because this was definitely a wedding Jofuku was at.
“Oh. Hey. Tatsumi told me to wait for you. You’re kinda like his father, right?” Ookaba asked.
Kotaro headed over. “Jofuku! I’ve been waiting for you!” He was in a white suit. He was a lot better dressed than normal. The bowtie actually matched the rest of the assemble for one thing. And he was wearing his jacket.
“K-kotaro? Um. What’s going on?” Jofuku asked.
Kotaro frowned. “…Wait. You don’t know? Have you not been keeping up with the news?” He hadn’t been visiting Jofuku as much to get drunk because he had been so busy and distracted preparing for his wedding. He thought sending an invitation would be enough and calling him on the phone and inviting him. Did Jofuku not know this was HIS wedding???
Jofuku shook his head. “The news is for the young’ins.”
Ookaba frowned, personally offended “I’m part of the news! Although I guess you’re like…20 or 30 years older than me?”
“Try hundreds or thousands. This guy is immortal.” Kotaro said casually.
Ookaba’s jaw dropped open. Every moment he spent with Kotaro new terrifying information was revealed. “Wait…Are you…The food truck owner??? From the 80s???” He realized. He had seen the pictures!!!
Jofuku nodded.
“…Tae’s food truck?” Kotaro asked.
“She’s his daughter.” Ookaba told him.
“TAE’S MY SISTER???” Kotaro was shocked. “Maybe I should move her into being a groomsman then. I’ve had to split Franchouchou up pretty evenly because of how many of them there are and how much they were fighting over being Sakura’s bridesmaids.”
“….What.” Jofuku scowled.
“Oh! Welcome to my wedding!” Kotaro said, “Can you do me a favor and walk Sakura down the aisle please? She hasn’t met you, but she agreed! She doesn’t have a father to walk her down and all of Franchouchou was fighting over the position so I suggested you instead!”
“WHAT.” Jofuku yelled.
“I’m getting married to Sakura—” Kotaro tried to explain.
“WHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAT.” Jofuku asked again. “AND YOU DIDN’T MENTION THIS UNTIL NOW?????” He shook Kotaro, repeatedly.
“I was busy!” Kotaro said apologetically. “Sakura was taking up all my time with her cute little face! Stop getting so angry!”
Jofuku scowled. “How did…how did this happen???? I thought…I thought you were still being angsty about her not liking you back!!!”
Ookaba laughed. That seemed accurate to Kotaro.
Kotaro frowned. “We…talked things out. Oh. But before that we were in a fake relationship for Saga’s sake to keep things a secret and for reasons and kissed a lot…” He listed.
Jofuku just got more and more confused. “I guess I’m going to have to get some gossip magazines and catch up on them…”
“I can help!” Ookaba offered.
Jofuku appreciated that. This was all so confusing. “…Congratulations, Kotaro. I’m happy for you. I will make you wash dishes in my bar for a week for not telling me that YOU WERE FREAKING GETTING MARRIED.” Jofuku growled.
“I forgot! And don’t make me do that! I need to honeymoon with Sakura!” Kotaro begged.
Jofuku just frowned more and more.
Ookaba sighed. He understood his pain. “Sakura’s the only thing on his mind…I feel your pain…”
“Oh. This is nothing compared to the 10 years she was dead. You really want to hear him go off about Sakura? Watch him cry over her corpse every day ever and go into an insane rant about her! It got even worse when she was a mindless zombie.” Jofuku laughed. “Ahh! Jofuku, Sakura bit me and I liked it!” He mocked, “And then he cried a lot.” He snickered.
Ookaba wasn’t sure if he should laugh or be concerned about how much of a freak Kotaro was. He was sure Jofuku would have a lot of funny stories though during the wedding.
Jofuku greeted Sakura and met his daughter-in-law for the first time. He had seen her before as a mindless zombie but not a real person before. This was the legendary person who had made Kotaro decide to revive the dead.
“I’m Jofuku. It’s nice to meet you…I’d love to talk more with you after the wedding.” He greeted, much kinder to Sakura than Kotaro. The only reason he hadn’t whacked him was Kotaro had a wedding to be in.
“Hello! I’ve heard so much about you from Yugiri and Kotaro!!! I’m so excited to meet you! They both think you’re such a good person.” Sakura said excitedly.
“…Kotaro thinks I’m a good person too?” Jofuku was surprised.
“Well…He hasn’t said that fully, but I can tell he does. He has problems expressing his feelings and he definitely loves you.” Sakura defended her future husband. “I hope…You’ll like me father-in-law.” She bowed.
Jofuku smiled. He did like her. She was very pretty, and she had a bright smile. He understood why Kotaro wanted to protect that smile.
He helped her position her veil. “I do like you. I just wish Kotaro had remembered to tell me about everything BEFORE the wedding.”
“He didn’t??? Oops.” Sakura winced. “H-he’s been a little busy.”
Jofuku could guess what he was busy with by the way Sakura blushed. He decided not to say anything. “I’ll walk you down the aisle, even though I’m not technically giving you away but gaining you into my family instead.”
“Thank you!” Sakura said.
Jofuku walked Sakura down the aisle. As soon as Kotaro saw Sakura in her wedding dress, he started crying. He couldn’t help it. She was so beautiful!
“S-sorry.” He apologized when Sakura got by his side.
Sakura took a hand off of her bouquet and put it on his hand to reassure him, “It’s okay, Kotaro.” She told him in the sweetest and reassuring voice. “You’ve waited for this for a long time, so it’s okay to cry.” She was about to kiss him but then remembered she couldn’t until they were married.
Jofuku sat down, crossing his arms and still seething and being bitter until the last moment. He wanted to be the priest that married them!!! If they had told him he could have prepared all of this! He wanted one of his saviors of Saga to get married after all!
He glared at Kotaro, and then the person officiating the wedding.
Saki and Junko was crying loudly too. Lily had to cover Saki’s mouth because she hadn’t silenced herself. Ai was glaring at Kotaro still, and Yugiri was smiling.
The groomsmen were Junko, Yugiri, and Saki. The bridsemaids Ai, Lily, Tae and Maimai. Lily had wanted to be a groomsmen and had volunteered but the moment she realized she’d have to wear a tux she had moved back over to Sakura’s side. Everyone except Yugiri had fought over trying to stay as one of Sakura’s bridesmaids. Yugiri had been the only one okay from the beginning with being on Kotaro’s side. Her tux was sort of undone over its shoulder so that she could still be sexy.
The officiating person asked if Kotaro and Sakura had any personal vows and they both nodded.
Kotaro got out his first. “I, Kotaro, can not exist without you.” Kotaro recited, “You are my heart, my soul, my entire being. My world is consumed by you. You brighten my life Sakura; I have and will always love you. In failure, success, bad and good luck, sickness and in health, death and life, destruction and recreation, I will always love you and hold you. Death won’t even part us. I will support you endlessly in whatever dreams you have. I will never abandon you. You are my dream, the music of my soul and life, and you will always be my wife, even if I have to create entire universes for you to be that.” Kotaro swore, over-dramatic until the very end.
Sakura looked like she was about to cry now too, from joy. “I love you. In death and life, in sickness and in health, I will never part from you or leave you alone. My soul will be entwined with yours for all eternity. I will find you no matter what happens in the future and will always be by your side. I cannot wait until you’re my Husband.” She swore her own vows.
The priest sighed and recited the normal wedding vows that weren’t quite as overdramatic.
“I do.” Kotaro said immediately even before the priest had finished his vows. He was that impatient.
Sakura chuckled and waited for the priest to finish her part. “I do—” She agreed.
As soon as the priest said they were husband and wife, Kotaro pulled Sakura into his arms, dipped her and kissed her passionately as she threw her bouquet in the air and wrapped her arms around her new husband. There were cheers from the audience.
The cheers seemed to awaken Kotaro that he should not keep kissing Sakura and he pulled away. He picked Sakura up so he could hold her in his arms and she could be higher to the sky as the cheers continued and all of Franchouchou’s fans cried in joy.
Sakura looked so happy, smiling more than anyone had ever seen her as she kissed Kotaro lightly on the cheek again.
Tae immediately zoomed for the bouquet and jumped across the room before Saki, Ai or Junko could. She grabbed it with her mouth and ate it immediately.
Nobody knew what that meant but they laughed. “Number 0!” They chanted and cheered.
Sakura giggled. She was just so overjoyed to be Kotaro’s wife and in Kotaro’s arms. They were both so happy.
The cheers around her weren’t as exciting as the feeling in her heart.
“We better go speak to guests and do normal wedding things. And then you can sing the song I wrote for you.” Kotaro kissed Sakura on the forehead.
Sakura pouted. “You won’t leave my side all day, right?”
“All eternity.” Kotaro promised, “I’ll always be with you. Don’t worry about that.”
They were so happy. And Saga was none the wiser that any of the girls were zombies. After all, the scandal and interesting thing about Franchouchou was that Number 1 married her manager. Why would there be anything weirder than that? There was no need to poke into things.
None of Sakura’s creepy fans ever hit on her again either since she was publicly a married woman.
Nobody thought to look into the girls backgrounds and uncover juicy gossip.
Franchouchou’s secrets were safe another day.