Mischievous Marriage

Honeymoon in Distractions

Yuki's POV

Pain stabbed through my chest like a knife.

Why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this kind of betrayal?

I raised the glass of bourbon to my lips and swallowed the burning liquid in one gulp. The alcohol burned my throat, but it did nothing to dull the pain clawing inside my heart.

Hana.

Her name alone was enough to break me.

I closed my eyes, and the memories came rushing back.

FLASHBACK

The day before the wedding had been deceptively beautiful. I remember the air being crisp, carrying the faint scent of blooming jasmine as I walked Hana to her front door. We had just finished a quiet dinner. Looking back, the silence between us should have screamed. But back then, I translated her quietness as pre-wedding jitters. I thought she was simply overwhelmed by the scale of the Furukawa-Miki union.

I hopped out of the car, rounding the hood with a spring in my step that feels foreign to me now. I opened her door, offering my hand like a protagonist in one of those romance novels my mother used to hide.

"Is everything alright, Hana?" I asked, searching her eyes.

She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she stepped into my space and wrapped her arms around my waist, burying her face in my chest. I felt her breath hitch. I assumed it was love. I assumed she was leaning on me because I was her rock.

"Yuki," she whispered, her voice muffled by my coat. "Thank you for everything you've done. I love you."

My heart, usually so disciplined and focused on margins and acquisitions, melted. It was a physical sensation, a warmth that started in my chest and radiated to my fingertips. I tilted her chin up and gave her a chaste, lingering kiss. It was a promise.

"I can't wait to have you as my wife," I said.

She broke the kiss faster than usual, a flicker of something. Guilt? Panic? Crossing her features. "I need to go. Good night, Yuki."

I watched her disappear behind the heavy oak doors of the Miki estate. I stood there for a moment, smiling at the empty air, thinking that tomorrow would be the pinnacle of my existence.

I was a fool.

The next morning, the sun was too bright. It felt like a mockery. I was halfway through my morning routine. The sharp scent of shaving cream, the crisp feel of a tuxedo shirt when the silence of the house was shattered. My mother's phone rang. Then came the scream.

"W-what?!" she cried out from the hallway. "This can't be happening!"

I abandoned my tie and ran to her. "Mom? What's wrong? Is Hana okay?"

My mind went to the worst-case scenario: a car accident, a sudden illness. I wasn't prepared for the reality that was much more lethal. My mother looked at me, her face a mask of aristocratic horror.

"She's gone, Yuki. She left in the middle of the night. Her parents found a note."

The words didn't make sense. "A note? What do you mean, a note?"

"She doesn't want to marry you," my mother said, her voice dropping into a cold, hard tone. "She claims she loves someone else. Some... nobody. She said she wants to spend her life with him."

The floor felt like it was tilting. I sat down on the velvet couch, my legs suddenly unable to support the weight of my own body. My heart didn't just break; it felt like it had been pulverized.

"That's a lie," I whispered. "She told me she loved me. Just last night."

"She deceived us all," my father snapped, stepping into the room. He wasn't crying. He was calculating. He grabbed the phone from my mother's shaking hand. "Listen to me," he growled into the receiver, speaking to the Mikis. "This ceremony will not be postponed. Do you understand? Our family's reputation is on the line. If there is an empty altar today, I will personally ensure that your family's business interests are erased by the end of the fiscal year."

He hung up and turned to me. "Stand up, Yuki. Fix your tie."

"I'm not getting married," I said, my voice cracking. "If it's not Hana, there is no wedding."

"There is always a wedding," my father retorted. "I will not be the laughingstock of the business world because a girl had a change of heart. We will find a solution."

"A solution?" I laughed bitterly, the sound jagged in the quiet room. "She was my life, Dad! You can't just swap her out like a faulty part in a machine!"

"In our world, Yuki, everything is swappable," my mother said, her eyes flashing with a cold fire as she stepped forward and slapped me. The sting on my cheek was nothing compared to the void in my chest. "Stop being a child. Fix your face. We have guests arriving."

Thirty minutes later, the "solution" was presented. Hana's younger sister. Honoka.

The ceremony was a blur of white lace and lies. Standing at the altar, looking at Honoka through her veil, I felt a physical revulsion. Not because of her. She was innocent in this but because of the sheer absurdity of the situation. I was saying vows to a stranger while the woman I loved was likely in the arms of another man, laughing at my expense.

Every "I do" felt like a sin. Every congratulatory handshake from a business tycoon felt like a slap. By the time we reached Okinawa, I was drowning in a sea of bourbon and resentment.

I stayed in that drunken haze for the first day of the honeymoon. It was easier to be angry at the bottle than to look at Honoka.

When I woke up on the second day, the hangover was a physical assault. My head throbbed in time with my heartbeat. The room was silent, the air heavy with the scent of sea salt and my own self-loathing. I looked around, half-expecting to see Honoka cowering in a corner, but she was gone.

"Great," I muttered, rubbing my temples. "Another sister who can't wait to get away from me."

I stepped out onto the balcony, the Okinawan sun biting at my eyes. And there she was. Below, near the hotel entrance, Honoka was talking to a man. He was slender, with messy brown hair, holding a small girl. Honoka was smiling, really smiling. It was a look of genuine warmth I hadn't seen directed at me once.

My jaw tightened. Flirting already? My parents would have a heart attack if the "replacement" bride was caught in a scandal before the honeymoon was even over.

When she came back to the room with soup, I was ready for a fight. I saw the disappointment in her eyes when I pushed the food away, but I didn't care. Seeing her face only reminded me of the wedding, the day I became a ghost.

Then, she spoke.

"Do you want to go on a cruise?"

I didn't look up at first. I didn't want to see her face. Seeing Honoka was like looking at a blurred photograph of the woman I actually loved. She had the same hair, a similar silhouette, but the soul was all wrong. It was too bright. Too "sunshine." It grated on my nerves.

I forced my eyes open and raised a skeptical eyebrow. "A cruise?"

"Yeah," she said. I could hear the tentative smile in her voice, the kind of smile you give a stray dog you're afraid might bite. "Earlier, I helped a little girl who got lost while looking for her brother. When we finally found him, he gave me these as a thank-you gift."

I finally looked at her. She was waving two slips of paper, her eyes searching mine for even a flicker of interest. I felt a surge of irrational annoyance. Here she was, playing the Good Samaritan, making friends with strangers while I was drowning in the wreckage of our families' ambitions.

A cruise. The very idea was exhausting. A boat full of happy couples, champagne toasts, and the endless, mocking blue of the ocean. It was exactly where a man in the middle of a tragic honeymoon didn't belong.

"No," I said. The word was flat, final, and cold enough to frost the windows.

I watched the light in her eyes die instantly. Her shoulders dropped, and for a split second, she looked so small, just a girl who had been dragged into a mess she didn't create. My chest tightened, a sensation I chose to ignore.

"Then I'll just go alone," she murmured.

She began stuffing the tickets back into her pocket, her movements clumsy and dejected. She didn't argue. She didn't yell. She just accepted my rejection like she had accepted everything else, the marriage, the coldness, the "old man" insults.

The room fell into a heavy, awkward silence. I stared at the glossy marble floor, counting the veins in the stone. Let her go, my mind whispered. You'll have the room to yourself. You can drink. You can mourn. You can be alone with Hana's memory.

But as I watched her turn toward the door, a memory surfaced. My father's voice, cold and metallic: "You will marry her. You will maintain the image. You will not bring shame to our name."

If she went out there alone, looking like a discarded doll, what would people think? Or worse, what if she got lost like that little girl she helped? She was eighteen, naive, and had a habit of wandering into trouble. I was her husband by law, if not by heart. If something happened to her, it would be another failure added to the mountain I was already carrying.

I let out a long, jagged sigh that felt like it was dragged out of my lungs.

"Fine."

Honoka stopped mid-step. She looked up, her bangs falling over her eyes.

"I'll go."

Her eyes widened, shimmering with a sudden, ridiculous spark of hope. "Really?!"

I felt a flush of heat creep up the back of my neck. I quickly reached back and rubbed it, looking anywhere but at her. The last thing I wanted was for her to think this meant I was starting to like her.

"Don't make a big deal out of it," I snapped, though the bite was gone from my tone. "I'm just bored of sitting in this room. And someone needs to make sure you don't fall overboard."

The irony of that statement would haunt me for the rest of the night.

She didn't care about my grumpy attitude. She practically beamed, her entire aura shifting from gray to gold in an instant. Watching her, I felt a strange, uncomfortable pang in my gut. It wasn't love, I was sure of that. It was just the realization that while I was busy trying to keep a ghost alive, this girl was trying to live.

"I'll get ready!" she chirped, scurrying toward her suitcase.

I sat back down for a moment, burying my face in my hands. What am I doing? I was Hana's man. I was a man of logic and business. Yet here I was, about to board a romantic cruise ship with a girl I had spent the last seventy-two hours trying to ignore.

I stood up, adjusting my collar in the mirror. My reflection looked tired, haggard haggard, even. I looked like a man who was losing a war with himself.

"Let's go, then," I called out, my voice stern again. "Before I change my mind."

As we walked out of the suite, I kept a respectful distance between us. I told myself it was for her sake, but it was for mine. I needed to remember the boundary. I needed to remember that this was a deal, not a marriage.

But as the elevator doors closed, reflecting the two of us standing side-by-side, I couldn't help but notice how short she was compared to me. How fragile she looked.

Just for tonight, I told myself. I'll play the part of the husband just for tonight. Then, tomorrow, we go back to being strangers.

I had no idea that "tonight" would end with me screaming her name into the dark, cold depths of the ocean.