love comes in many forms

breathless (monayukka - mature)

The first time Sugai Yuuka ever made the mistake of getting drunk at a bar, she didn't wake up in her own bed.

No. She woke up to an unfamiliar red ceiling instead, wrapped in sheets that felt much cheaper than the ones she was used to, and, perhaps most alarmingly, she felt much colder than she normally would in her room, given that it was already mid-April.

And while normally her thoughts were wired to operate at their sharpest when she wakes up, the perfect morning person, she couldn't really wrap her mind around just about anything that morning.

Her head felt heavy and sluggish, brain lagging two steps behind for each new detail she idly picked up, and when it finally registered just how bright the strips of light coming in from the blinds were, Yuuka was assaulted by a headache so intense, she nearly had to bite back a yelp.

What the hell is going on!?

Okay, Yuuka, think.

Yesterday had been a normal day. She had gotten up at nine o'clock sharp, practiced her horseback riding, had lunch at home, then she had the afternoon off for once so she spent it quietly, reading a good book with a cup of tea and her cat in her lap. So far, so good. But then—

Then there was that bachelorette party she'd been invited to, ages ago, and she totally wouldn't have gone if the bride and the rest of her posse hadn't literally dragged her away from her house in a fancy, ribbon-packaged limo.

And gee, if she was already going all-out for an evening that would inevitably culminate in everyone involved getting absolutely shit-faced, one had to wonder just what that girl had planned for the wedding day itself. What a joke, she didn't even love the guy. Yeah, Yuuka was aware that, sooner or later, she would have to meet the same fate, as the only daughter of the Sugai Company. She would just be married off to someone at her family's convenience, for the greater good, meaning, financial stability, so she simply had to enjoy her freedom of being able to reject her marriage candidates while she was still young enough to be allowed that much, then live the rest of her life tangled up into a sham marriage.

Yuuka wasn't normally so cynical, really. That was something her friends would often make fun of her about, how she seemed to always have her head up in her clouds. In truth, all she wanted was to be ordinary, sometimes. She knew she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and had a future readily available to her on a silver platter, but what good was such a life when she had to live with the idea that her fate had already been decided before she was even born?

She hated weddings and everything that came with them. They always made her think about such things.

So when the gathering place they had arrived at that evening turned out to be nothing but a cheap club, Yuuka felt the tiniest bit of pressure slip away from her shoulders. She was mostly still really tense, as she felt like a fish out of water, she wasn't even much of a drinker. But at a place like this, it was all too easy to get drunk on the atmosphere alone. For once, she felt free of any pretenses, and while normally she would be that one killjoy who would stubbornly remain sober, that night she had decided to take the chance and get absolutely smashed.

She could distinctly remember the first two shots of unidentified alcohol burning down her throat. The next three were closer to a blur.

After that—nothing but a gaping hole in her memory.

If she wasn't quite so mortified, Yuuka could've almost laughed at how cliché of a situation she had gotten herself into. Figures that the first time she'd ever gotten drunk, her mind would not retain the most vital information.