About Love: Chapter 1

While you may already be familiar with these terms, I’ve provided their English definitions for those who may not be.

さん (san): This is a general, respectful suffix used to address or refer to someone. It's similar to "Mr.," "Mrs.," or "Ms." in English. It's commonly used for people of all ages and social statuses in both formal and informal contexts.

様 (sama): This is a highly respectful and formal honorific used to address or refer to someone with great politeness. It is often used for customers, clients, superiors, or people of significantly higher status. Compared to さん (san), 様 (sama) conveys a greater sense of deference and formality.

ちゃん (chan): This suffix is used to express affection or endearment, typically towards children, pets, or close friends. It conveys a sense of familiarity and warmth, and is often used with people who are younger or of the same age but with whom one shares a close, informal relationship. While it can be used for both males and females, it is more commonly used for females and children.

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In the air-conditioned waiting room of the dental clinic, Asaka Takeshi sat alone. Normally, around 8 p.m., the place would be packed with office ladies and salarymen stopping by after work, taking advantage of the clinic’s late-night hours. But tonight, unusually, there was no one else around.

Suddenly, a child's wail, loud enough to match the chatter of several people, echoed through the waiting room. Even after the child had been taken into the examination room, the crying didn’t stop. Now, mixed in with the sobbing, came that distinctive sound of a dental drill—the kind that sent an unpleasant shiver down the spine.

"Ow…"

Pain might be contagious. The wisdom tooth on the right side of Asaka’s mouth, which had been fine until now, suddenly started throbbing. He gingerly pressed a hand to his cheek. He’d been coming here for three months, yet the treatment still wasn’t finished. Simply put, he had that many cavities.

His tooth had ached from time to time before, and he’d always known it was a cavity. But work kept him busy—or rather, the truth was, he just hated going to the dentist. He had put it off, thinking it would be fine. Then, all of a sudden, the pain had struck, sharp and relentless, as if something heavy had dropped onto his tooth.

That had been three months ago, right in the middle of a client consultation at the office. Seated across from a customer, Asaka had been explaining wedding venue options, flipping through a stack of brochures. He had been smiling, carrying on the conversation as usual—until, without warning, his forehead creased with a deep wrinkle, and his smile became stiff and unnatural. This wasn’t a headache or a stomachache; painkillers might not even help. He told himself he just had to endure it until the meeting was over, but the sensation of being stabbed with a needle over and over only intensified.

"Are you feeling unwell?" the client finally asked. That was when Asaka gave in. He had no choice. By that point, his face had gone pale, cold sweat glistened on his forehead, and his whole body trembled in his chair from the sheer agony. In the end, he had no choice but to apologize profusely and send the client away.

His boss, Kohara Tamaki, both the office supervisor and the company president, had looked down at him with open irritation. "Sending a client away because of a toothache? That’s the lowest of the low," she remarked coldly.

With tears in his eyes from the unbearable pain, Asaka had bolted from the office and rushed into a dental clinic on the second floor of a nearby building. Since it was the middle of a weekday, the waiting room was empty, and he was ushered into the examination room right away.

"You know, even elementary school kids don’t get cavities this bad these days. Do you even take care of your teeth properly?"

The middle-aged dentist had barely glanced inside his mouth before shaking his head with a wry smile.

"Jeez... look at this mess."

After administering treatment that only worsened his already excruciating pain, the dentist pulled up an X-ray image on the computer screen and pointed it out to him.

"These are your cavities. See? Pretty awful, isn’t it? Almost all of your teeth are affected. I only treated the one that was hurting today, but honestly, you should get them all fixed."

Even though he knew it was his own fault, Asaka couldn't help but feel irritated by the dentist’s blunt words. He had only intended to visit that one time, yet, for some reason or another, he had been coming back ever since. When he tried to use his irregular work hours and late nights as an excuse to stop, the dental assistant had smiled sweetly and said, "We’re open until eleven at night."

It seemed that, being located in an office district, the clinic had adapted its hours to accommodate working people. In the beginning, Asaka had been annoyed by the dentist’s habit of sighing heavily every time he looked inside his mouth. Later, however, he learned that the clinic had a reputation for meticulous treatment. That explained why the waiting room was always so crowded...

Taking advantage of being alone, Asaka pulled a wedding magazine from his bag. In public, whenever he flipped through something like this, people would peer over curiously, glancing at his hands or even his face, which he found irritating. But alone, there was none of that hassle.

The page he was looking at featured a whimsical wedding with balloons. It looked extravagant, but all he could think was how much of a hassle the cleanup would be. "Well, I guess that's not the couple's problem. It’s up to the staff to deal with it," he muttered to himself.

The automatic door slid open, signaling someone’s arrival. Lost in his reading, Asaka didn’t bother to look up. A chair by the window creaked as someone sat down. Tilting his gaze just slightly, he caught sight of the hem of dark gray slacks—probably another salaryman on his way home, just like him.

Letting out a quiet sigh, Asaka closed his magazine and finally raised his head—only to nearly jump out of his seat in surprise at the sight of the man sitting across from him.

The man, who had apparently noticed him from the start, met his gaze with a slight smile and gave a polite nod.

"Hello there."

"Ah—it's been a while, Sasagawa-sama!"

Bowing at a perfect right angle, Asaka flusteredly greeted him. The man let out a small chuckle and shrugged his shoulders.

"No need to be so formal. Are you here for treatment too, Asaka-san?"

"Ah, yes. A cavity..."

Sasagawa adjusted the black-framed glasses on his nose slightly.

"I've got a cavity in my wisdom tooth, too. I’m having the stitches removed today."

The word stitches sent a chill down Asaka’s spine. It reminded him of the time, about a month ago, when he had his left wisdom tooth extracted.

"That sounds... rough," Asaka murmured.

At his words, Sasagawa awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

"Well, I didn’t take care of it properly, so I suppose it’s my own fault."

His words trailed off. Even while sitting, Sasagawa's tall frame was as striking as ever. However, compared to this time last year, his jawline seemed more defined—he looked thinner.

It was often said that after marriage, men tended to gain a little weight thanks to their wives’ lovingly prepared home-cooked meals. But it seemed that hadn’t been the case for this man.

Asaka found himself recalling something from a year ago—the time he had coordinated Sasagawa Yoshirou’s wedding.

◇:-:◆:-:◇

Asaka Takeshi’s decision to become a bridal coordinator was purely by chance.

It was the spring of his third year at university, a time when conversations about job hunting had become commonplace among his peers. Around then, his older sister—five years his senior—announced that she was getting married to her boyfriend of three years. His sister had always been strong-willed, and Asaka had attended the wedding with nothing more than a lighthearted sense of relief—finally, the nagging presence in his life would be gone. Never did he expect that this wedding would turn his fate a full 180 degrees.

A church ceremony followed by a reception at a restaurant—looking back, it had been a fairly conventional affair. But until then, Asaka had never realized that a wedding could be so relaxed. There were no stiff, formal speeches from superiors, no cringeworthy video montages detailing the couple’s love story. His sister, never once changing outfits, remained in her wedding dress the entire time, moving through the softly lit venue where tasteful music played, greeting each guest personally, chatting, and laughing. There wasn’t a single conspicuous display of tears—just a joyful celebration.

After the reception ended, his sister and her new husband went to thank the woman who had produced their wedding. Until that moment, Asaka had assumed bridal coordinators were nothing more than event handlers, but seeing the space this woman had crafted, he found himself genuinely impressed. It was from that moment on that he became aware of the profession.

He started buying books, gathering materials, and spending his weekends working part-time at weddings, handling miscellaneous tasks to gain firsthand experience. The more he learned, the more deeply he felt drawn to the profession.

Even before that, Asaka had always known he wanted a job that involved interacting with people rather than desk work. And for someone like him, this job felt like the perfect fit.

While his parents fretted over their son, who had entered his final year of university without securing a job, and his friends spent their last year of student life partying, Asaka poured his earnings from part-time work into enrolling in a bridal coordinator school. Then, the moment he graduated, he made a bold move—he applied to Office Dragée, the private firm of Kohara Tamaki, the very coordinator who had organized his sister’s wedding.

His first year was spent as an "assistant"—in reality, a glorified errand boy—learning the atmosphere of the field and the workflow of the job. By his second year, he was finally hired as an official employee and began working under Kohara’s direct supervision, absorbing the ins and outs of planning and client relations.

Then, in June of his third year, Asaka was given the opportunity to coordinate a wedding on his own for the first time—albeit under Kohara’s supervision. The clients were the Sasagawa couple.

Asaka’s first impression of the Sasagawas was that they were a very calm and composed couple. They were both twenty-eight, having been classmates in school. The bride, Haruka-san, was pale-skinned, delicate, and an elegant beauty with an almost ephemeral air. The groom, Yoshirou-san… well, to put it bluntly, he was the kind of man who made one wonder how he had managed to win over such a beautiful woman. He was very tall, but the way he hunched his back as if trying to hide it only made him appear even more unassuming. Still, his job as a civil servant reflected his diligent nature, and even after just a short conversation, Asaka could tell he was a serious person. When he smiled, his already gentle eyes drooped even more, giving him an endearing warmth.

How could he create the "ideal" wedding for these two? No matter what obstacles arose, he would overcome them—that was Asaka’s mindset as he approached the project. But as it turned out, planning proceeded far more smoothly than he had anticipated.

The couple’s main request was for a "simple" wedding. They wanted to hold a civil ceremony in front of their guests, followed by a modest reception at a restaurant. With such clear and straightforward preferences, the basic plan was decided in no time. They had no particular demands for the venue, so they simply selected a restaurant from the list of those affiliated with the office.

Then came the part of wedding planning that most women are particular about—choosing the wedding dress. Asaka accompanied Haruka-san to the rental boutique, expecting the usual back-and-forth. However, she fell in love with the very first dress she tried on and made her decision on the spot.

The planning had gone so smoothly that it was hard to believe it was Asaka’s first time handling a wedding.

And yet, on the day of the ceremony, he made a disastrous mistake.

From the moment the ceremony began, Asaka had been standing tensely in the corner of the restaurant. That was when he noticed something—stuck to the hem of the bride’s wedding dress was a strip of brown packing tape. The bodice of the dress was made of a velvety fabric, so it had likely been used to remove dust and ended up clinging to the gown.

The civil ceremony ended, and as the couple began making their way toward the main table set up inside the restaurant, Asaka saw his chance. The moment the bride passed by him, he stepped forward casually, as if merely picking up a stray piece of trash, and bent down. The second his fingers closed around the tape, he felt a strange tug at his right foot—then, in the next instant, the bride went sprawling to the floor in a spectacular fall.

For a moment, he couldn’t comprehend what had happened.

“Asaka, your foot—!”

A sharp, low voice barked beside him. Kohara yanked his arm, and it was only then that he realized the gravity of what he had done.

The bride’s gown had a long train. And Asaka—he had stepped on the inner lining with his right foot.

The room buzzed with hushed voices. The bride, still crouched on the floor, pressed a white-gloved hand to her face, looking on the verge of tears.

“I-I’m so sorry—!”

He stammered out an apology, but his mind had gone completely blank. He had no idea how to salvage the situation—he simply stood there, frozen in place.

And then, it happened.

Like a scene from a movie, the groom, who had been walking beside her, smoothly knelt down at her side. He extended a hand, but the bride shook her head, refusing to get up.

In response, he simply whispered, “I’m sorry.”

And then, without hesitation, he gathered his bride into his arms, cradling her as if she weighed nothing at all.

Holding his sniffling wife close, he strode toward the main table as though nothing had happened.

The groom had never struck Asaka as particularly dashing. But at that moment, he looked undeniably cool.

Somewhere in the crowd, someone started clapping. The applause swelled, rippling through the room. As the couple took their seats, they exchanged glances and shared a shy, embarrassed smile.

The tears had vanished from the bride’s face.

In the end, her tumble had turned into an unexpected highlight of the day.

Of course, Asaka later apologized profusely, but instead of berating him for his blunder, the couple had actually taken the time to comfort him.

After the ceremony, once the venue had been cleaned up and Asaka finally settled into the car for the ride home, it happened.

The moment he sank into his seat, his eyes brimmed over with tears. Relief crashed over him, loosening the tension that had held him in a vice grip all day. He tried to hold it in, but it was no use. Hunched over in the back seat, he cried.

The more he sobbed, the more acutely he felt his own inadequacy. I should have done this instead… If only I had realized sooner… His mind spun with regret.

Beside him, Kohara spoke matter-of-factly.

“If you have time to cry, use it to reflect on today and study harder.”

She was absolutely right.

And yet, the tears wouldn’t stop.

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