An hour later Kotoko smiled sheepishly at Naoki from the bed in the second VIP suite. When he had arrived (at a run) he had ordered the personnel to move her there, since by then she had regained a measure of consciousness, albeit appearing a bit confused. None of the others in the room were in better condition, as they were trying to make sense of the overlapping shouting matches taking place.

"I finally get to find out what the VIP suite feels like from this side," she joked, "and all I had to do was cause a riot."

"That's about your speed," he agreed, "so it's not too surprising."

"But this time I don't understand how it happened. Why was everyone so noisy?" she asked. "And why was your mother here?"

"It appears that she and the manager joined forces to keep you under surveillance." As this prompted another "Why?" he explained, "They seemed to think that you were having a fling with either Nagayama or Kamogari. Or possibly both."

Her nose wrinkled in disgust. "I knew your mother was crazy, but Honda must have pushed her over the edge to have her suspect me of that. Of course, being in show business, she's probably started to believe the weird stories she makes up."

"Well, she got what she deserved. Apparently they were both lambasting Nagayama for writing a love song about you."

"What? You know that you are not allowed to date!"

"Don't you dare think that you are going to steal my Kotoko-chan away! Why, she and my son are just as good as married, you homewrecker!"

"You can't call him a homewrecker in front of all these people! It might reach the press! What about the publicity?"

"Who cares about the publicity? You need to control that gaudy flash in the pan!"

"What do you mean, 'flash in the pan'? I'll have you know that he has had five straight years of number one hits and consistently tops the lists of teenaged girl preferences!"

"Pbbth! Teenagers! I'll have you know that my Kotoko-chan is not so easily swayed."

"Uh, Honda-chan?"

"Imagine their surprise when he told them that the song was written about Kamogari."

"Na-kun? In love with—?" Kotoko placed a hand over her mouth. "What was Keita-san's reaction?"

Naoki snorted. "I don't think I've ever seen a person turn that red so quickly. He mumbled something about 'thanks but no thanks'."

"Really? What a disappointment for Na-kun. But you know," she said thoughtfully, "I'm pretty sure that Keita likes someone. I wonder who it is?"

He opened his mouth to reveal his suspicions then thought better of the idea. "At any rate, the news was quite a shock to his manager. I don't think she was aware that her main money-maker swung both ways."

"Huh!" Kotoko's eyes lost focus, recalling the visit of the Tokyo nurses. "Now she has more fake stories to make up. Well," she shook her head, "at least I'm out of the picture."

"Not quite." He grinned at her. "I believe the latest news flash is that you just had a dramatic collapse at the realization that your childhood sweetheart will soon be departing your care."

She folded her arms. "That's a better story than the fact that two people who work in the medical field can't count."

"Mom disrupted so many of our schedules that that one got lost in the shuffle," he chuckled. He pulled one hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "She's going to try to take credit for the baby," he warned.

Kotoko frowned. "That's impossible. We haven't been able to, you know, ever since she got here."

"Yes." Naoki's grin widened. "I expect it was that living room ravishment that I was subjected to shortly before we had to visit the family in May."

Her fingers moved while she stared at the ceiling. "Yes, that would be right. That was," she snickered, "a little spontaneous. But," she turned to him, "are you happy about it?"

"Well," his mouth twisted, "not about having to tell Mom about the marriage and baby at the same time."

"Yikes."

He laid his head on the pillow facing her. "But yes, I am very happy with this result of a decade of loving you."

"Ten?" Again Kotoko's fingers counted. "We only met eight years ago."

"You forget," he touched her nose with a forefinger. "I was awake during our freshman opening ceremony."

"Oh. That." She made a face.

"I kept looking for the girl who had the audacity to sleep during my brilliant speech," she swatted his forehead, "plus make me laugh out loud in front of the whole school. Of course, I didn't know why my eyes kept being drawn to you, and being the insufferable ass that I could be back then, never asked your name. So it was both a surprise and delight when I discovered you under the collection banner after the earthquake."

"You never told me that!" she accused.

"What? And admit that I fell for you first? What about my masculine pride?"

"Ha! You know what I think of masculine pride. Anyway, how're we going to tell the folks?"

Naoki closed his eyes a few moments. "Let's ask off for Tanibata in a couple weeks and force her home to Tokyo. She'll go crazy for awhile after the announcement, but at least with the rest of the family around, the annoyance should be diluted."

"How are we going to survive her wedding plans in the meantime?" she asked.

This time his grin was evil. "She's still working on the music, isn't she? Just tell her that you want to use Resplendent Olympus songs extensively. It should take her a few days to go through their repertoire and decide which ones are 'appropriate'."

When Kotoko recovered from her giggle fit, she tugged on his hand, "Hey, you don't think she's going to want to return and stay with us until the baby is born, do you think?"

He grimaced. "We're going to have to find a new place with a password or fingerprint lock."

"Or both!" she laughed.

A/N: So, in case you didn't catch the hints, Kotoko and Naoki registered their marriage the morning after they returned to Kobe from Tokyo. (Remember, they arrived to work late and were holding hands when accosted with the news of the arrival of Phoebus?) Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, although I feel like not a whole lot happened in comparison to the earlier stories in the series. However, as I stated in the beginning, this was great therapy after my previous angst-fest. I'm currently working on another non-canon pairing tale—sorry, not Yuuki! It is already longer than this one, but I'm not sure when I'll be ready to begin posting chapters. As always, thanks for reading!