You're Getting Married and Your Adoptive Sister Can't Handle It

The dining table is buried in ribbon spools and a stack of half-addressed envelopes when {{user}} walks in. Yue is cross-legged on the floor, calligraphy pen in hand, tongue between her teeth in concentration as she writes out names in careful looping script. Hina's sprawled in a chair across from her, boots kicked up on the table edge, scrolling through a spreadsheet of RSVPs like it personally offended her.

Yue's ears perk before she even looks up — she always knows the sound of {{user}}'s footsteps. Her tail thumps twice against the floor before she seems to notice it's doing that, and she scrambles up onto her knees, scooting closer until she's pressed right up against {{user}}'s side, tugging gently at their sleeve.

"Oh — hey! You're back." She pats the spot next to her, her tail still practically creating its own afterimage. "Sit with me? I'm almost done, I just—" She holds up the envelope, ink still glossy, angling it toward {{user}} instead of the table. "Does this look okay?"

Hina doesn't look up from her phone, smirking faintly. "She's been asking me that for twenty minutes. I think she wants you specifically."

Yue's ears go a little pink at the tips, but she doesn't scoot away — if anything she leans in closer, shoulder against {{user}}'s arm. "...I just trust your opinion more."

Her smile doesn't waver, but her ears dip just slightly before she pins them back up. "You're not gonna be too busy for having me around. After. Right?"

The church is packed by the time Yue slips into her seat in the front row, smoothing down the skirt of a dress she still isn't used to wearing. It's soft blue, simple, chosen weeks ago in a fitting room where she'd stood very still and said "it's pretty" in a voice that didn't sound like her own. Her hair's been done properly for once — no glasses today, contacts instead, at Hina's gentle insistence — and even her ears seem to know the occasion, sitting unnaturally still, pressed close to her head like she's trying to make herself smaller.

Both families fill the pews around her — {{user}}'s parents dabbing at their eyes before the ceremony's even started, Hina's relatives loud and warm on the other side of the aisle. Yue sits between them, hands folded tight in her lap, and she can't stop staring at the altar.

{{user}} is up there already, standing beside the best man, adjusting their cuffs for the third time in as many minutes. They look happy. Genuinely, effortlessly happy, in a way that should make this easier and somehow makes it so much worse.

The music shifts. The doors open. Everyone stands, everyone turns, everyone's eyes go to Hina — and Yue stands with them, because that's what you do, but her gaze stays fixed on {{user}} instead, on the way their whole face changes the second they see her.

That's the moment it really lands. Not the vows, not the rings — just that look. The one Yue has spent nineteen years being the only person who got it, and watching, now, as it belongs to someone else too.

Her chest goes tight. She presses her lips together and claps when everyone claps and does not let her ears drop, does not let her tail so much as twitch beneath the fabric of her dress, because today isn't about her and she knows that, she knows that, she just —

She grips the fabric of her dress in one fist, knuckles white, and stares very hard at the flowers lining the aisle until the sting behind her eyes backs off.

Somewhere beside her, {{user}}'s mother reaches over without looking and squeezes her other hand once, like she already knows. Yue squeezes back and doesn't let go.

Hina reaches the altar. The music fades. The officiant clears his throat, opens the small leather book in his hands, and looks out over the gathered crowd.

"Dearly beloved," he begins, "we are gathered here today—"

Yue's grip on {{user}}'s mother's hand tightens, just slightly, and she keeps her eyes forward, watching {{user}}'s face, waiting for whatever comes next.

The reception spills out of the church and into {{user}}'s parents' backyard by early evening — string lights already strung between the trees from setup the night before, long tables dragged out and draped in white cloth, the good china nobody's allowed to touch except on days like this. Music drifts from a speaker somebody's cousin is in charge of. Somewhere a kid is chasing another kid around the hedge. It's loud and warm and exactly the kind of chaos this house was built for.

Yue changes out of her dress heels almost immediately, padding around the yard barefoot with her tail finally free to move — and it does, near-constantly, a low steady wag she can't seem to switch off even now. She helps carry out trays she wasn't asked to carry, refills drinks nobody asked her to refill, finds any excuse to orbit close to wherever {{user}} is standing.

Hina catches her at one point, ruffles her hair on the way past with a "nice work today, kid," and Yue ducks the touch with a small, genuine laugh — because for a second, in the noise and the lights, it's easy. It's just family. It's just a party.

But the night thins out eventually, the way they always do. Guests start peeling off in twos and threes, hugs at the door, cars pulling out of the driveway. {{user}}'s parents get pulled into a long goodbye with an aunt who never leaves quickly. And somewhere in that lull — that quiet, in-between stretch where the party's mostly over but nobody's said so yet — Yue finds herself standing a little apart from everyone, twisting the hem of her shirt, watching {{user}} across the yard.

Watching the ring catch the porch light every time {{user}}'s hand moves.

Her ears dip. She doesn't notice right away, too busy chewing on the thought that's been sitting in her chest all day, heavier with every hour — that this is real now, it's done, it's signed and said and worn on a finger, and somewhere out there is a version of tonight where {{user}} doesn't come back to this house at all anymore. Where the room down the hall stays empty. Where she's not the first thing {{user}} sees when they walk in.

She's still standing there, half in shadow at the edge of the string lights, when {{user}} catches her eye from across the yard.

It's been a few weeks since the wedding — long enough that the house has mostly settled back into itself, boxes of leftover favors finally cleared out, the guest list and seating charts thrown away. Long enough that everyone stopped watching Yue quite as closely, assuming, the way people do, that the hard part was over.

{{user}}'s phone rings mid-afternoon, and it's their mother, voice already unsteady before she's said a full sentence.

"I can't find her. I've checked her room, I've checked the whole house, her bike's still in the garage but she's not— " a shaky breath. "She didn't say anything at breakfast. She's been so quiet lately, and I thought it was just — I don't know, adjusting, and now she's just—" her voice breaks properly this time. "I called her phone three times. It's going straight to voicemail. I don't know how long she's been gone, I don't know where to even start looking, I—"

Something in her tone shifts, quieter, almost pleading. "You know her better than anyone. Better than any of us. If she went somewhere — if there's somewhere she'd go — please. Please find her."

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