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As soon as we entered the restaurant, staff at the reception area already approached us.

“How may I help you, Miss?”

“Hello. We have a reservation for two with private seating under Wada at eight.”

“Everything seems to be in order then, miss. I’ll lead you to your seating right away.”

The waitress hurried through the open lounge toward the private seating arrangements and pointed us to the room furthest in the back.

“Here you go, Miss. Have a nice stay, staff will be with you momentarily to take your order.”

After entering the small, traditionally decorated room, I helped Yuri take off her long, white coat to reveal the intrinsically woven sapphire dress underneath, with thin laces barely covering a large part of her back. It formed an odd, yet soothing contrast with her black hair and pale skin, almost appearing as if her outward temperature had sunk by several degrees at once. Something only a long hug could fix.

I quickly hung her coat on the hanger and put the lily in the vase already standing on the table for the time being. While waiting for our orders to be taken, I continued to gaze into her wondrous eyes, getting absorbed further and further by the endless nothingness that appeared to calmly coexist within her. A few minutes later I stopped, seeing as Yuri slowly grew worried about my obsession with her eyes. She had told me off before, so it was better quit while I was ahead. When the waitstaff entered the room, we ordered all the food my measly paycheck could provide for the day, without coming short on rent.

The food soon began to arrive one plate after the other, and we began feasting on the succulent cuisine this high-end place had to offer.

“Are you sure we can afford this? Weren’t you behind on rent last month?” Yuri asked.

“Of course we can, and besides, we usually split the bill anyway, how expensive could this possibly be?”

“You mean you didn’t check the prices beforehand? This menu doesn’t even show the prices next to the food, so I assumed you knew what you were getting into. I, myself, have been saving for a while now. But I know your spending habits, and they’re not quite conservative, to say the least.” Yuri began reprimanding me.

“Like I said, there’s no need to worry, darling. I’ll be totally fine, financially,” I reassured her, taking a sip from my glass. “The soft, prickly feeling of expensive alcohol trickling down my throat always fills my pockets right back up, so you really don’t have to worry about anything for today, alright? Please try to enjoy it. And to put an end to this before it starts, I worked additional overtime for the past few weeks, so I really will be fine doing stuff like this once in a while.”

Talking about money always brings me down. Why is she always this considerate of me? This one day of the year, she should at least try to take it easy. She doesn’t even let loose on her birthday when she’s by herself, so I guess that means more overtime for me today, yippee.

Despite my attempt at defusing the situation, Yuri still seemed quite tense.

“Relax, honey. This only happens once a year. Besides, maybe we could finally move in together? I know last time I brought it up we weren’t in the brightest moods, so how about now?” Starting a discussion to lead her off topic always had been the most surefire way to calm her down when she got serious.

“Maybe it’s finally time to take the step, don’t you think? Enough pondering around, right? Sure, our current apartments aren’t that far apart, but even that short distance is slowly getting too much for me. I want to be with you every minute of every hour of every day. Please?”

“Like I said last time, finding a fitting apartment isn’t quite the light work you think it is, not at an appropriate price range, that is. And while your words sure don’t make it easy for me to say no, maybe we should wait just a little while longer for that. What would your father think, after all? Last time we met he still seemed to dislike me quite a lot. His opinion seemed important to you all this time, so why the sudden change of pace?”

“Because, Yuri, my father hasn’t talked to me in a while ever since you two had that talk alone. But that’s besides the point. I just told you; I can’t bear the thought of missing even a single more second of our lives together.”

I slowly stood up, my heartbeat picking up rapidly.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’ll use the bathroom for a moment.”

“Sure, I’ll be right here when you come back. Love you.” Yuri said, blowing me a kiss.

This is the moment. When I enter that room again, I’ll finally do it. Stay calm, stay calm. Everything will be alright. And even though our conversation wasn’t exactly going well so far, I’m sure that won’t impact what I’m about to do in any significant way, right?

I dashed toward the bathroom, doing one last check on my face. I felt my heart pounding like a jackhammer on overdrive. There really was no turning back now.

Slowly, I walked back into the room, closing the door behind me. I cautiously made my way to Yuri’s side of the table, with her gaze shifting toward me every step I took.

Then, I knelt down, still reaching slightly higher than her.

“Yuri Utsuro. The last four years have been the greatest of my life. I couldn’t have wished for a better partner guiding me through all my past struggles. You truly are the stars on my night sky, and the flowers of my garden. So, I ask you, Yuri, will you marry me?”

I revealed the ring box and opened it, pointing towards her.

“I…”, a few gentle tears rolled down her eyes, and she held her hand before her mouth.

She briefly closed her eyes and clamped together her fists.

“Of course I will, you dummy. Is that why you chose this place, and brought up moving together? I should have known. Come here.”

She grabbed the box and set it aside, instead opting for a hug, combined with a long kiss on the cheek, followed by another on the mouth.

She held back any further tears and gave me back the box, holding out her left hand towards me.

I took the ring out of the box and gently slid it onto her soft, thin finger.

Her hand immediately moved toward my cheek, gently brushing it with her thumb, before moving it back towards her.

Now, she was inspecting the ring.

“It’s truly beautiful, honey. The diamond sparkles in the light, no matter how I turn it. It must have taken ages to achieve this level of beauty.”

Her view shifted from the ring toward me.

“And that’s not the only true beauty I see around here. There’s something else not even this ring could possibly beat.” She pointed at me with her ring finger.

“You.”

With me now fully kneeling before her to stop my legs from shaking, and tears of relief rolling down my face, she scooted ever closer towards me, capturing me in her warm embrace, before laying my head on her thighs. She softly brushed through my hair, intently gazing into my eyes, filled with pure joy.

After leaning down to kiss my revealed forehead, she briefly collected herself.

“Now, should we get back to doing what we came here for? Which is eating a fine meal?”

“Yes, let’s.” I quickly rose from her lap and scuttled back to my side of the table.

As soon as we finally got back to eating, however, something weird happened.

Yuri suddenly began shaking uncontrollably, collapsing on the floor.

“Are you alright?” I asked. With no answer given, I quickly rose to the occasion. “Help, call an ambulance!” I yelled from the top of my lung, with multiple staff members immediately arriving.

“What’s wrong? Does she have any allergies?”

“Not that I know of, no.”

“Alright, an ambulance is on its way. Hold out for just a bit longer.”

While waiting for what felt like an eternity, blood began flowing out of her eyes. Her mouth and nose soon followed.

I, too started shaking, out of the pure shock I had just experienced.

Two paramedics hurried toward our seats.

One of them lightly shook me.

“Ma’am. You need to calm down. What happened? Can you describe to me what exactly happened?”

“I…, she…, we were just getting back to eating, and then she…”

“I see. Thank you, Ma’am. We’ll take it from here.”

The heaved her onto the stretcher and ran toward their ambulance, leaving me with only the name of the hospital before driving off with their sirens blaring.

I immediately ran out of the restaurant after paying, holding both her coat and the flower she just gave me in my hands.