AXIS | Yuzuru Hanyu

35.

Thankfully, their secret planning didn't take as much effort as everything else. They had seemingly avoided the wedding planning by telling everyone they were tired of work and everything going on, encouraging the ladies to do whatever they wanted without asking for too much feedback.

Brianna took an afternoon off to go dress shopping, she didn't want anything extravagant, but it had to be something good enough to be special. Running through different shops, nothing looked good enough for the occasion. Bri knew this would happen with the actual wedding dress shopping but didn't expect this one to be even harder to get. It was a lost afternoon, after all, no dress fit what she wanted. When she arrived home (aka, Yuzuru's house, she had finally sold hers a few weeks prior), Brianna took her drawing notebook and let her ideas flow, drawing a few rough sketches of what she wanted. Maybe that was the big problem, she had such a fixed idea of what the dress should look like that it was hard to settle for anything else.

Thankfully, she knew just the person to give the sketch to bring it to life, with a quick phone call, she contacted Satomi Ito, Yuzuru's main costume designer whom she had quickly become friends as soon as they met. Satomi usually didn't design or make stuff outside of the costume realm, but the designer gladly opened an exception for Brianna. They met the day after to look into the sketch and take measurements. It wasn't overly detailed or anything like that, very different from the designer's usual work, but they both knew she could pull it off. Brianna only had to convince Yuzuru to wait a couple of weeks.

They decided on asking Toru-san to photograph it, with the condition that he wouldn't talk about it with anyone else. It was very important to them that the information didn't get out. The photographer was more than excited to say yes, saying time after time how honored he was that they chose him.

Eloping in Japan was no easy feat, they couldn't just get married in any place they wanted, it had to be a city hall or another type of official building that would be authorized to emit the marriage certificate. The plan was to sign everything at the city hall to get the legal part done and then head to another location to exchange their vows in the Western style and take a few pictures for future memory.

The one small thing they didn't account for was the need for witnesses. This meant that at least two people would need to know about this crazy plan of theirs. After a bit of consideration, Yuzuru came through with a call to another skater, Keiji, that was an old friend, and Ghislain, who was in Tokyo coaching. They had both excitedly said yes, with Yuzuru's friend nagging him about not knowing anything about his friend's future wife.

Meanwhile, the skater had finally accepted the offer he had been refusing for a whole year. Sekkisei and Kose, a major sponsor of his had been suggesting a bigger show for a while.

The first offer to Skate at Tokyo Dome had appeared right before his first show, making him shocked, especially when the request came from the venue itself. The prospect of such a big arena for his skating provided both opportunities and challenges, ones that he wasn't sure he could face.

Only after knowing slightly what he wanted for the future shows did he take the offer. The show would happen only a week after his official wedding, making the prospect of this elopement plan even more inviting. Yuzuru knew how chaotic that week would be, without nearly any time left for proper celebrations of their marriage.

Brianna was the first person he told outside his team, they were cooking dinner together when he casually dropped the news. 

"So, I'm doing a show at Tokyo Dome..."

"You're what? How? When? I have so many questions..."

The skater explained that there had been previous offers that he refused by a lack of confidence. He wasn't sure he could pull off one of Japan's biggest venues.

"There is a small problem" he said when he noticed her excitement with all of this.

"What is it now?"

"It's a week after the wedding" he said and Brianna expected more words out of his mouth.

"Oh... that's all?" she let out after realizing that it was the problem.

Yuzuru laughed, he expected her to react differently, and this was more than refreshing.

"You don't mind?"

"Yuzu, this is huge! I would even change the date if necessary. I'm so happy and proud of you" She hugged him close and pecked his cheek.

"Have I mentioned I really, really what to marry you as soon as possible?"

Brianna grinned and hugged him tighter. "He should set a date, probably better to check with Keiji and Ghislain"

"They told me to book whenever. They can work their schedules around it."

"And Toru"

"He will cancel anything he needs."

"You are crazy"

"Yes yes... so the real question is When do you want to get married?"

It was the simplest of questions, but one that brought butterflies to her stomach, she couldn't wait to be his wife.

"Honestly? Now" she said making him laugh "But my dress is still in progress, so we need to wait a couple of weeks"

Marked on their phone calendars was now a date in two weeks, a Thursday, not common for weddings at all, but it would allow them to take 5 days off without worrying about skating or software designing or anything like it. 

Soon they would be officially married and ready to tackle challenges side by side.