My So-called Bride

Vow 2: My So-called Arranged Marriage

I stared blankly at the mysterious Asian girl, the one who called herself Yuzuki Mikage, with an awkward smile plastered on my face.

After a short silent moments, I let out a simple chuckle, as if I just heard a funny joke. "Wife? You're - you're kidding, right?"

Somehow I expected her to burst out laughing and point at my nose to say "Gotcha! You should see the look on your face!"

But no, she looked deadly serious about what she said.

"O-kay, you're not kidding. Erm..." I seriously panicked, really. I didn't know what to do or say in that situation. And I missed the right timing to reveal myself.

I didn't even know the slightest thing about this girl and suddenly she just popped up into my daily life, claiming to be my w-wife? I could only guess that someone must be pulling some weird prank on me. Maybe it was Becky. She'd love these kinds of pranks and watch my reactions to her 'evil' schemes. She must've asked one of her friends to help her.

Then I had a sudden idea. "You know what? I just remember. I–, I mean, Aaron, he, uh, he's at his friend's house right now! Yeah, doing some... school project, and stuff. And, uh, he won't be back before 6 o'clock. I hate to have you wait for him so maybe, erm, you should go home! And I'll tell him you drop by?"

She fell silent and thought to herself for a minute.

Just when I thought my lie was too obvious, she nodded as she understood. "I understand. Thank you for telling me that. I will come back again when he's available."

She gave me another polite nod and later exited herself from our car porch.

As soon as she left and out of my sight, I heaved a sigh of relief. Lying was tiring, I thought to myself.

"Woof!" Jesus barked. He wanted to go after the pretty Japanese girl, but I held back the dog by his collar.

"Oh no, you're going no where, buddy. Back to your dog house now, you." I dragged the Siberian Husky back to his little blue house and I made him stayed there.

I stepped inside the house, trying to get that entire weird situation with the Japanese girl just now out of my mind.

The first person I met was my Grandpa David. The old man was sitting on the couch, staring blankly at the ceiling while his face was serious and somewhat a bit... sad. I wondered what happened to him while we were out.

"Gramps? What's wrong?" I asked worriedly.

"...Huh? Oh, Aaron, it's you." It took Grandpa a good long minute to answer me. He didn't seem to notice me when I came back. He looked slightly surprise and then recomposed himself. "Yeah, I'm, uh... fine."

"Really? You don't look fine though." I said.

I remembered one time when Grandpa David had the same expression like this before. It was the time when our grandmother, Penny Dagwood, passed away. She was the nicest grandmother anyone could have but she died when I was only six. Even though I only remembered very little of her, it was very painfully heartbreaking for us, especially for grandpa, when our dear grandma died.

"Look, Aaron. I have something I need to tell you." Grandpa broke the long silence as he spoke, "When everyone gets home, we'll have a family meeting."

"Why not tell me now?"

"This is serious. And I need everyone to be present."

His tone was as solemn as his eyes were, so I dared not to question him anymore. I decided to wait until dinner.