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irisintheafterglow · 5 months ago

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ten things, twenty-seven dresses

↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺ now playing: elton john - "bennie and the jets"

summary: ten things you learn about itoshi sae, an ex-footballer turned cynical commitments-column writer.

♡ part of NOW PLAYING…IRIS' ROM-COM SPECIAL ♡

wc: 2.5k

cw/tags: written with fem!reader in mind but no gendered pronouns for reader, journalist!sae, swearing, sae is an angsty bitch, lil bit of angst and then tooth-rottingly fluffy

note: the first installment for my birthday rom com special and arguably one of my favorite romcoms of all time (all the ones on the list are up there, but 27 dresses has a v v special place in my heart). hope you like it!

likes, reblogs, and replies are appreciated!

“Let’s do a little exercise since you’re terrible at telling people no.”

“I’m not bad at telling people no,” you argue, swishing your drink around in your glass. “I just…don’t do it often.”

“But what about when it hurts you?” You shrug and he stares you with a blank expression, waiting.

“She’s my sister. Just because she wants me to plan a wedding in three weeks doesn’t mean I can refuse her. It’s literally my side-hustle,” you say weakly and can feel how ridiculous it sounds. He huffs an exhale through his nose and looks at you squarely.

“Give me fifty dollars.” Your nose scrunches in distaste.

“No.”

“C’mon, just fifty dollars.” You start to grin a little bit.

“No!”

“It’s really not that much,” he proposes and you shake your head enthusiastically.

“Nope!”

“There you go,” he commends you with an approving smirk that would still look like a blank face to anyone else. He reaches across you casually. “Can I have your drink?”

“Sure, go ahead–Wait!” He bursts out laughing and you cover your face in your hands, defeated. “That wasn’t fair!”

“It’s alright. It’s something you need to work on. When the time’s right, I think you’ll be able to refuse.”

“How can you be so sure?” He shrugs and leaves you wondering what he means.

Things you have learned about Itoshi Sae:

#1: He’s a writer. #2: He’s great at getting on your nerves. #3: He’s covering your sister’s engagement and was the author of all the columns about weddings you loved reading. #4: He was the worst thing that happened to you since your sister falling in love with your boss (the boss who you were also in love with).

Things Itoshi Sae has learned about you:

#1: Your handwriting is horrendous, worse than any long-time doctor’s. #2: You put a heinous amount of stickers all over your planner, which you’d left in a taxi after a slipup at his cousin’s wedding nearly gave you a concussion. #3: You’d been a bridesmaid at 27 weddings, ensuring the event was picture-perfect. When you showed him the dresses stuffed into your closet, every time he thought a dress was ugly, the next was so much worse. #4: You were completely delusional.

“So, you don’t believe in any of the stuff you write?”

“Not a word.” His lips form the shape of an overexaggerated ‘duh’ at the end of his sentence. Jerk.

“You…You can’t be serious,” you sputter, mouth fully agape and the handheld scanner gun forgotten in your hand. “Are you a romantic pretending to be a cynic, or are you actually a cynic that’s amazing at writing romantic crap?”

“I’m not sure what you mean by either,” he states, the scanner registering a hideously hot pink napkinholder to your sister’s wedding list with a beep! “Though the second one–the romantic crap–sounds more accurate. Hey, take a look at this monstrosity.” Sae nods toward a rooster-shaped umbrella holder, the painted eyes mirroring your expression of shock. “For the groom’s numerous umbrellas,” he continues. Without another sarcastic word, he scans the barcode and moves on to find the next item.

“How can you be so cynical about love but write so beautifully about weddings?” You mindlessly scan a stack of porcelain bowls and three different colored Dutch ovens.

“Why would she need three different versions of that?” He responds with his own question and you don’t hide your frown. Though you’d only been forced to know him for less than a month, Itoshi Sae’s arrogance and standoffish nature was enough to have your blood boiling with every interaction. Ex-football star turned journalist, my ass, you often thought to yourself. There’s no way anyone would put themselves through the suffering that is having you as a teammate.

“To you, those are just pots,” you inform him through gritted teeth. The high-pitched beep! of each item you scan becomes nothing more than white nois; too bad Sae’s voice couldn’t be the same. “But to her, that’s the pot we’ll be cooking our mother’s roast in for holiday dinner.” He fixes his intense blue eyes on you skeptically and you shrink away slightly. “Fine. I’ll be the one cooking it, but that’s not the point!”

“That’s the whole point,” he drawls boredly. “All this crap is stuff the billion-dollar wedding industry wants to force brides into buying, saying that they need it to have a happy marriage. In reality, did you know most divorced couples–”

“I don’t care about all that, I care about the wedding day,” you cut in before he can worsen your already irritable mood.

“Sure, and that’s why you insist on taking every responsibility so that you don’t have to focus on how lonely you are.” If looks could kill, you’d be celebrating a funeral along with your sister’s wedding. One last scan and Sae decides to take a break, settling into a nearby sofa with a loud floral print. “You know what I think?”

“Oh, do enlighten me.”

“I don’t think you want marriage,” he states, his words striking you on your temple like the butt of a dagger. “I think you just want a wedding.” You briefly meet his eyes and find them scrutinizing you as your patience hits its boiling point. He meets your unsaid challenge and doubles down on his observation. “You like to experience other people’s happiest days because you’re not sure if you’ll ever have one for yourself. But you don’t have time to think about all that, since you’re too involved with everyone else.”

“I really wonder what sad, childhood trauma made you like this,” you seethe. “What, did you have your own fancy wedding only to get left brokenhearted at the altar?”

“Bingo.”

Your attention snaps to him, wondering if you’d imagined him confirming your poor-intentioned accusation. The withering of his otherwise impenetrable confidence doesn’t make you feel as happy as it should. You don’t ask for an elaboration, but he absorbs your silence and gives you one anyway.

“With my younger brother, no less.” He laughs mirthlessly, raising his eyebrows once in ironic amusement. “Why’d you think I left football and took the first job that hired me? If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s tell people what they want to hear. PR-shit.”

“Sae, I’m sorry. Really.” Your cheeks burn in shame and you wait to be told to go to hell. When it doesn’t come, you try to patch up the wound you knew you tore open, saying, “It was just a guess.”

“It was a pretty damn good guess,” he sighs and guilt pangs in your chest. “You know, for being completely oblivious of your own self, you read other people pretty well.” The sentiment doesn’t make you feel better in the slightest, and his face falls more with a single long exhale. You do the only thing you can think of to make him feel better, feeding into what was irking you moments earlier.

“Wanna find the ugliest stuff and register my sister for it?” He tilts his head and looks at you curiously before the ghost of a smile appears on his mouth.

“Let’s do it.”

—

NEW MESSAGE: Hey. It’s Sae. I told my boss not to publish the article and I’m so sorry. Give me a call back.

NEW MESSAGE: Hey, it’s me. Give me a call when you can. I didn’t mean for this to happen.

NEW MESSAGE: Gonna try calling your sister. Please talk to me. I’m sorry.

#5: He wasn’t a bad kisser.

#6: He wasn’t bad at the things…beyond kissing…

#7: He used you. Itoshi Sae used you.

Your forehead had been pounding since that morning, attributed partly to a hangover (you still didn’t know the correct words to “Bennie and the Jets,” which you’d belted on top of a bar) and partly that Sae completely humiliated you to advance his career goals. You should have seen this coming; he was shady to begin with. Stealing a page from your planner and taking pictures of every single bridesmaid dress you still kept for sentimental purposes? It was only a matter of time before he betrayed your trust, not to mention use you in the same newspaper section that you loved so much. You’d eat up the column if you weren’t the subject, ready to laugh at the person who was a perpetual bridesmaid and never a bride. If you were angry, however, your sister’s ears were blowing steam like a boiling kettle and her ego was on the brink of exploding.

“Bridezilla. He called me a Bridezilla! How fucking dare he?” She paces across shining hardwood floors in front of you, fuming back and forth as you continue to stare blankly into space. “And you! You let him write all those things about me!” You say her name futilely, and she shakes her head. “No. No, I can’t deal with you right now. You were always too trusting,” she groaned. “It’s okay, it’s not your fault,” she reasons after a moment and you can’t tell if she’s trying to convince you or herself. She glances at the clock on the wall and rushes to slide on her shoes. “I’m getting my dress fitted, so you should go now if you wanna come. Try not to fucking embarass me while we’re out.”

Things you learned about your sister as a bride:

#1: Despite her protests, she was the definition of a “Bridezilla.” #2: She was willing to lie to your boss (who you were still in love with…in theory) and change her whole identity to seem like the perfect girl. #3: She had no qualms about cutting up your late-mother’s dress. The wedding dress you wanted to wear. The dress from your parents’ perfect day that she was too young to remember. #4: When you found out that she’d cut up the dress beyond recognition, she was just a bitch who broke your heart and cut up your mother’s wedding dress.

Things that your younger sister, the bride, learned about you:

#1: You had a lot more pictures of her during her wild college years than she thought you did. #2: You were capable of revenge. #3: You were willing to ruin her engagement and expose her lies at her rehearsal dinner in front of her closest friends and family. #4: You spent so much time taking care of her that you’d forgotten how to take care of yourself. Things you had learned about Itoshi Sae: #8: He was willing to buy you a new phone so you didn’t need to keep using a paper planner. #9: He was the first person to understand that you needed to be taken care of.

—

“You know, I really appreciate you telling me about your sister’s ingenuity,” your boss comments as you help him clean up in his office a few nights after you took down your sister and made up with her the next day.

“Of course, I couldn’t not tell you,” you say, your heart still sore from the constant stress of the previous few days.

“That’s what I love about you,” he smiles at you, murmuring your name softly. “You never say no.” He looks at you fondly and something clicks in the back of your mind. It’s something you need to work on. When the time’s right, I think you’ll be able to refuse. You’re quiet enough for him to notice. “Did I say something wrong?”

“I…” You begin, steeling your nerves as your boss stops to listen. “I quit.” He blinks once, then twice, before your declaration registers in his head.

“Sorry?”

“I quit! I’m done,” you say as your words start to gain steam. “I was only supposed to stay here for a year. I stayed at this job because I loved you.” He comes to stand close enough that you can count the colors in his eyes. They’re dull. They’re nothing like Sae’s that shimmer like the sea on a clear summer day. They aren’t blue as the waves behind a perfect beach wedding. They aren’t Sae’s.

“Do you still feel that way?”

Things that you learn about your boss:

#1: He wasn’t as good of a kisser as Sae. #2: You didn’t love him anymore, and you had a kiss equivalent to a handshake to prove it.

You’d waited years for the opportunity to finally kiss your boss, but realized that it was meaningless and the only kiss worth having was with the asshole writer covering a wedding across the city, on a boat (cute for the happy couple, but very unlucky for you). After forcing your poor taxi driver to go faster than the legal limit and leaping from the dock to the departing boat, you shove your way through wedding guests to look for broad shoulders and a pink head of hair.

“Oh my!” You bump into a mountain of tulle and lace and realize that you’re face-to-face with the bride, whose face lights up with recognition. “You’re the bridesmaid! The one who helped all those weddings!”

“Yes, I am,” you confirm sheepishly, an idea sparking to life. “Can I…Can I ask a favor?” The excited bride gladly quiets her band and taps the head of the microphone, effectively grabbing the attention of every passenger onboard. With a nod, she hands you the mic and you’re standing in front of a crowd of strangers.

“Go ahead!” She whispers from behind you. You clear your throat.

“I’m…I’m looking for an Itoshi Sae,” you begin carefully, beads of sweat running down the sides of your face. You spot him in the crowd, scowling and unhappy as ever, and chuckle. “There you are.” To your surprise, Sae doesn’t look angry; he looks sad, like he was as brokenhearted as you. No time like the present to make a fool of myself, you decide without another moment’s hesitation.

“I’ve been waiting my entire life for the right guy to come along. When you came along, you were nothing like who I expected. You’re grumpy, and cynical, and cold…” One inhale, one exhale. It was just you and him. “And there’s a very likely chance that I’m falling in love with you.” Gasps of surprise murmur through the audience and you awkwardly hand the mic back to the bride, stiffly parting the crowd to stand in front of him at a respectful distance. “Sae, I just really…um…” He considers you before the warmest smirk appears on his face.

You hate it and love it simultaneously.

“Get over here,” he hums. He tilts his head slightly, waiting for you to accept his request. After a moment, you gladly close the distance, letting his arms wrap safely around your waist and kissing him like it was your own wedding day. “I love you,” he murmurs against your lips.

—

Things you learned about Itoshi Sae, a year later:

#10: He was happy to have 27 bridesmaids at your wedding, donning the dresses you wore for their special days and finally experiencing the happiest day of your life.

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#irisromcomspecial #sae itoshi x reader #sae itoshi x you #sae itoshi x y/n #itoshi sae x you #itoshi sae x reader #itoshi sae x y/n #blue lock x you #blue lock x reader #blue lock x y/n #bllk x you #bllk x reader #bllk x y/n #bllk fluff

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