Prolouge
"The true essence of love is freedom."
— Shelley (1792–1822)
★★★
In this country, spring is called "the season of love" because countless meetings and partings intertwine, giving birth to many romances. A simple, ordinary love story that could happen anywhere. But for someone, it’s a precious, one-of-a-kind love story. We are no different. Amidst the many voices of blessing, we overcame countless trials, and today, in this place, we are united in this white church, where the sound of bells resonates──
★★★
As the new school term began and the cherry blossoms, now in full bloom, started to fall, it was a lazy afternoon on the last day of Golden Week. I found myself swaying along with the rhythmic clatter of the green Yamanote Line train. My destination was the famous meeting spot, Shibuya's Hachiko Square.
Arriving at the station, I stood amidst the bustling crowd of young people, nervously waiting for a woman. Though we had been exchanging messages for a while, today would be our first time meeting in person. Checking my smartphone, I saw there were only two minutes left until our agreed time. Unable to calm my nerves, I glanced again at her photo.
We met on the matching app "TWINS." She was a 23-year-old with softly dyed light brown hair that gave her a youthful and adorable appearance. On my phone screen was a bust shot of "Sakuran," a name as sweet as her expression.
As I repeatedly looked between my phone and the people around me, searching for her figure, I suddenly felt a tap on my back. A voice followed shortly after.
"Are you Shuu-san?"
Startled, I turned around to see a girl standing there with softly dyed light brown hair and a cute, youthful face.
"Oh! You really are Shuu-san!" she exclaimed, spreading the fingers of her right hand with a bright and delighted expression.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Sakuran," she introduced herself with a sweet smile.
She was adorable, like a heroine straight out of an anime—so cute she could be a high school girl idol. She even seemed to radiate a faintly sweet scent.
(No, not just like... she...)
Sure enough, she looked just like the profile picture from the app. She was just as cute, but in person, Sakuran seemed much younger than the photo suggested...
★★★
It was a little over a month ago, at the end of March when the cherry blossoms had just started to bloom.
Late on a weekend night, just past 10 PM, right before bed, I was repeatedly taking selfies with my smartphone’s front camera.
"Hmm, not quite right..."
Something felt off about my bangs and smile. Adjusting my bangs with my hand, I tried smiling again and snapped several shots in rapid succession using the burst mode.
I picked one of the better-looking photos. "Hmm, this one should work." It had a bit of a subcultural vibe, with glasses making me look like a slight "ikemen" (handsome guy). After tweaking the brightness and contrast a little, I was satisfied with the result. "Yeah, this should do. Probably." It wasn’t so different from the real me, but it was definitely a better version than the one I usually saw in the mirror.
So, why was I— Shuugo Kizaki, a 26-year-old high school teacher— posing in the narrow hallway of my one-bedroom apartment against a white wall, doing something so out of character? The answer lay in the events of the previous Saturday night.
It happened during a drinking session at a private room in a chain izakaya with two friends, just three guys hanging out.
“Actually, I’m getting married,” Kamada announced right after the first toast, dropping a bombshell. Besides me, the others present were Kamada and Yanagi, or “Yana,” as we called him. Both were my college buddies from the same teacher-training program.
After graduation, we went our separate ways— Yana went to an elementary school, Kamada went to a middle school, and I went to a high school— but we still occasionally got together to catch up and share stories over drinks.
I didn’t even know Kamada had a girlfriend, so the news of his marriage left me momentarily stunned, my mind refusing to process it.
“You said you had something to tell us, but I never thought it’d be this… marriage?” Yana looked as shocked as I felt.
“Is she a fellow teacher? Or wait, did you hook up with one of your students' moms?” Yana teased, raising an eyebrow.
“Hell no!” Kamada shot back immediately. “I’m not into affairs or widows, unlike someone here. If anyone’s into busty widowed moms, it’s you, Yana!”
Kamada’s retort made Yana grin sheepishly.
“Anyway, she’s not a coworker,” Kamada continued. “She’s an office worker, the same age as me. She’s a system engineer— an SE.”
“A same-age SE? How did you meet her?” I asked, curious.
“Hold on,” Kamada said, grinning as if he’d been waiting for this question. He pulled out his phone and started fiddling with it. After a moment, he showed us the screen.
“I signed up for this,” he said.
On the bright screen, the word "TWINS" appeared, followed by a page displaying rows of women’s profile thumbnails.
Yana frowned. “Is this one of those escort services?”
“Of course not! It’s a matchmaking app!”
“A matchmaking app? Isn’t that just another name for a dating site?” Yana pressed. The screen changed to display male profile pictures instead.
“No, no, it’s different,” Kamada explained. “TWINS isn’t a regular dating site or just for casual flings. It’s more for serious matchmaking, like for people looking to get married. That’s how I met Hiro-chan.”
“Hiro-chan,” I muttered, repeating the name without thinking.
Apparently, Hiro-chan was the name of Kamada's soon-to-be wife.
“What kind of woman is she?” Yana asked, prompting Kamada to smirk.
“Wanna see?”
“Don’t tease us, just show us.”
“Alright, alright,” Kamada said, fiddling with his phone again.
Who could this woman be? Even though it didn’t directly concern me, I felt an odd sense of anticipation and nervousness.
“Here, this is Hiro-chan,” Kamada said, holding up his phone.
The screen displayed a photo of a man and a woman sitting close together in a park, taking a selfie with their faces side by side.
“Wow, you guys look like a real couple,” Yana said, voicing exactly what I was thinking. The picture practically radiated a couple vibes— overflowing with that “living the dream” energy. Honestly, it was the kind of thing that made you want to say, “Just explode already.”
“Also, she’s wearing glasses,” Yana added, squinting at the photo. “Kinda does give off SE vibes. And isn’t she your type? She’s got that loli face you’re into.”
“Well, yeah, she’s totally my type,” Kamada replied with a satisfied grin.
The woman in the photo had an adorable face, a ponytail, and glasses. There was a slightly rustic air about her, but knowing Kamada’s love for certain voice actors of this type, she was clearly right up his alley.
“We met six months ago,” Kamada explained. “She’s just as petite as her profile said—148 cm. When we met in person, she was tiny and cute. We hit it off right away since we both like games and anime.”
Apparently, Hiro-chan had been overwhelmed with work and had reached her limit. Feeling like she might fall apart, she decided to sign up for a matchmaking app, hoping for some kind of emotional support.
“And she wanted to get married, same as me, so everything moved along really smoothly.”
“You also wanted to get married?” I blurted out, surprised. I’d never heard Kamada say anything about marriage. I’d always thought of him as a hardcore otaku, completely devoted to fictional 2D girls, cosplayers, and voice actors—what some might call the 2.5D realm.
“Well, I’ve always liked kids,” he said, quickly clarifying, “and not in a weird way, okay?”
“No, definitely in a weird way,” Yana shot back without missing a beat.
Back in college, Kamada was infamous for loving young girl characters to the point where people joked he was a lolicon or obsessed with ship-girl characters from certain anime. He adored Sunday morning kids’ anime so much that we’d even joke he should never teach elementary or middle school.
“But then I became a homeroom teacher, got busier with work, and started thinking that at this rate, I’d never get married, let alone have kids,” Kamada admitted.
As a busy middle school teacher, chances to meet eligible women were scarce. Add to that the pandemic of the past few years, which had shut down social gatherings and mixers.
“Even those industry networking events— basically matchmaking parties— stopped happening,” Kamada said.
I didn’t go to those kinds of events, but from what I’d heard from other teachers, that was indeed the case.
“On top of that, most people in our generation who are married started dating in college or have childhood sweethearts. It’s always something like that,” Kamada continued.
“...True enough,” Yana agreed with Kamada. This wasn’t just a reality for those in the teaching profession—it was an observable trend everywhere. The rising rate of unmarried individuals among younger generations underscored this societal shift.
“That’s why,” Kamada continued, “waiting around for some ‘fated encounter’ seemed pointless. Ten, twenty years could pass, and I’d just get older. The thought of that got me worried. Not just about marriage, but raising kids too— it’d only get harder as time went on. And honestly, I’d love to have two or three kids if possible. So I figured, the sooner I get started, the better.”
Now that I think about it, Kamada had always been fond of anime featuring family dynamics, even the make-believe kind. He often quoted ‘CLANNAD’ is life like it was his personal creed. I also remembered he was an only child, and his parents had divorced when he was young. Maybe the idea of family had always been something he deeply admired.
“So that’s why I decided to try out a matchmaking app,” Kamada said. “And let me tell you, matchmaking apps are the real deal. If someone like me can find the love of his life, anyone can.”
“How many people did you meet before finding your Hiro-chan?” Yana asked.
“Hmm, about ten, give or take.”
“So you went on dates with all of them?”
“Did you sleep with them?”
“Nah, I only ended up seriously dating three, and Hiro-chan’s the only one I slept with,” Kamada clarified. “If you count just messaging back and forth, then yeah, there were a lot more. I mean, according to some guides, some people marry the first person they meet through these apps. But I think my pace is pretty average.”
“Shuugo, are you interested?” Kamada suddenly asked, catching me off guard.
“Huh…?”
I had only been asking out of curiosity, but the question made me falter.
Was I interested? I couldn’t deny it entirely.
“Forget about Yana and his widowed-mother obsession. Do you have anyone you’re into? I’ve never heard you mention anyone.”
Anyone I was into...
“Not right now...not really,” I admitted. My last genuine relationship was way back in middle school. Since then, I’d barely had anything that could be called a romantic experience.
“Then you should give it a try,” Kamada encouraged. “I can walk you through it. It’s kind of like a modern version of arranged marriage.”
With a quick swig of sake, he added, “For example, TWINS, the app I used, has over 20 million members. I signed up after seeing a news report that said about 20% of married couples these days meet through matchmaking apps. It made me realize that dating methods evolve with the times. A hundred years ago, it was all about arranged marriages. Then we shifted to this ‘love-marriage supremacy’ thing, and here we are now.”
“Nice segue, history teacher!” Yana teased, but there was logic to Kamada’s argument.
Even in the subjects I taught— modern literature and classical Japanese texts— the concept of love and the journey to marriage varied widely depending on the era.
In the end, romance seemed inherently fluid, with no strict rules. It adapted to the times and the people involved.
Even Mary Shelley, the British author of Frankenstein, had once reflected on the changing nature of relationships. Or at least, that’s how I vaguely remembered it.
"But isn't a top-ranked app on the charts expensive?"
"If you use it normally, it's about 4,000 yen a month. You can afford that, right? It's about the same as one and a bit more ten-pull gacha in a mobile game," Kamada replied matter-of-factly.
"Well, when you put it that way..."
Back in my student days, 4,000 yen felt like a considerable amount, but now it’s not much. It's barely the cost of one night out drinking.
"Plus," Kamada continued, "they're running a campaign for the new fiscal year. No registration fee right now, and you can get a three-month plan for the price of one month. Basically, if you're going to do it, now's the time!"
"...The way you’re pitching this, it’s starting to sound shady. What are you, a cram school instructor?"
"I'm a middle school teacher, thank you very much. And there's nothing shady about it. Sure, you see all kinds of sketchy-looking stuff targeted at otaku on social media, but TWINS— the app I'm recommending— is legit. Proof? It’s how I'm getting married. Consider this me sharing the happiness, my friend!"
Kamada laughed loudly, brimming with confidence. His laugh was that of someone victorious in the battle of love—a triumphant, almost smug adult laugh.
"Come on, just download the app and sign up already. You're interested, aren't you?"
...I was.
As Kamada had pointed out, my free time had dwindled since becoming a teacher. Next term, I'd be taking on a homeroom class, which would only make things busier. And the truth was, opportunities to meet new people had been few and far between in recent years.
The only woman close to my age at school was a beautiful teacher a year older than me. But to me, she was unattainable— a flower on a high peak. On top of that, our fellow gym teacher, Kaito, who had started around the same time as us, had fallen for her at first sight. I’d lost count of how many times I’d had to listen to him gush about her.
I wasn’t about to interfere, but even if Kaito weren’t in the picture, I couldn’t imagine myself dating her. (Not that I think Kaito has much of a chance, either...)
Other women around me were limited to students’ parents, which was a minefield I had no intention of stepping into. While I wasn’t hung up on the idea of my first partner being a virgin, I wasn’t ready for a relationship with a single mother or a widow either. It felt too heavy a burden for me to take on at this stage in my life.
"Honestly, you can only have genuine, carefree relationships when you're a student. As adults, it inevitably becomes about calculations and trade-offs," Kamada mused.
He had a point. Once marriage was on the table, doubts crept in— uncertainties about whether the other person felt the same way or shared the same goals. That hesitation often held people back from pursuing love at all.
But according to Kamada, matchmaking apps bypassed that uncertainty.
"That’s the beauty of TWINS. Both parties are explicitly looking for a relationship, so there’s no guesswork involved. They’re open about what they want and their basic stats, so things move fast."
It made sense.
I wasn’t getting any younger. And, truthfully, I did want to lose my virginity.
The manga and light novels I used to read now had sequels where the protagonists' kids were the main characters. It was a harsh reminder of the passage of time.
Seeing someone like Kamada, whom I’d always considered a hardcore otaku trailing behind me in life, suddenly leap ahead was definitely lighting a fire under me.
"By the way, Hiro-chan says public servants are still considered desirable in the dating market. Stability is everything these days, and teachers, even with declining birth rates, aren’t going anywhere— though AI might change the landscape. But for now, it gives you a solid advantage in the marriage arena. So, Shugo, just download the app already—"
"Alright, alright, I get it," I said, cutting him off.
Fueled by alcohol, I downloaded the TWINS app.
"Alright, I’ll give it a try too," said Yana.
"Seriously?!" Kamada and I exclaimed in unison, caught completely off guard.
"Why not? I might match with an older widow or something, right? Better than messing with a student’s mom," Yana shrugged nonchalantly.
...Well, he wasn’t wrong. That scenario would at least be problem-free.
"Alright then, once you’ve both downloaded it, it’s time to register. By the way, do either of you have a Facebook account?"
"I don’t," I replied.
"Same here," Yana added.
"In that case, email will work. Just follow the guide to sign up."
"Right now?"
"Of course right now. If you wait until you’re home, you might put it off. Do it now, while I’m here to help."
"...Alright, it’s downloaded," I said reluctantly.
"Great! Start filling out your profile."
Following the instructions, I began entering my name and date of birth.
"So, for the name field, I can use a nickname instead of my real name, right? You know, for privacy reasons... I am a teacher, after all."
"Yeah, most people use nicknames. If you used your real name, someone could just Google you and find out personal info. Using a nickname won’t make it harder to match either, so don’t worry."
Reassured, I set my nickname as "Shu." It’s a name I often use in games, derived from my real name but vague enough to avoid easy identification.
"...Wait, you even have to input your height?"
"Yep. Some apps also ask for your income, occupation, whether you smoke, and if you live alone. You know, the usual stuff people care about when they’re dating. Think about it— there are women out there who’d avoid a kodo-oji or a no-rights hobbit at all costs."
Kodo-oji? Hobbit?
For the uninitiated, kodo-oji refers to a man still living in his childhood bedroom, and a no-rights hobbit is internet slang mocking men under 170 cm tall who still live at home.
Thankfully, I narrowly avoided hobbit status and retained my "rights." I also lived alone, so I wasn’t a kodo-oji either. Selecting "living alone" felt good.
"There’s also a section for marital history and when you want to get married," Kamada added.
Naturally, I selected "single" for marital history. As for when I’d like to get married, the options were:
- "As soon as possible"
- "Within 2–3 years"
- "If I meet the right person"
- "Discuss with my partner"
- "Not sure"
After some thought, I went with "Discuss with my partner." It wasn’t something I could decide on my own, after all. It felt best to adapt to the other person’s timeline.
"No smoking..." I entered into the next field.
"Same here," Yana chimed in.
"Good choice," said Kamada. "Fewer young women smoke these days, so that’s a plus for you."
With that, I continued filling in the rest of my profile. It felt surreal, but for the first time in years, I was stepping into the world of dating again.
"You're so annoying. What are you, my teacher?"
I couldn't help but smile at Yana’s words. They were spot-on, after all.
"Anyway, my part's done. Now it's time to choose the type of woman you prefer. You know, age range, where they live, that kind of thing."
For the lower age range... "18" seems to be the minimum.
(Is 18 okay? Maybe I should go with 20...)
I hesitated for a moment, then decided to ask.
"Can I change this later?"
"You can change it," Kamada assured me.
In that case, I set the lower age limit to 18 and the upper limit to one year older.
"What about you, Aoyagi? What age range did you pick?"
"35," he replied casually.
Wow, nearly a ten-year gap.
I couldn't help but think that Aoyagi, or rather, Maison Aoyagi, was setting his sights wide.
Next, we selected where we wanted the women to be from. "Tokyo suburbs" seemed like a reasonable option...
After some more back-and-forth with the choices, we reached the final step.
"Alright, just need to upload a photo, and we’re done."
"Then, peace sign!" Yana said, holding up a hand to flash a peace sign.
"Not a peace sign," Kamada immediately retorted.
"Double peace then?" Yana raised both hands, doing the exaggerated peace sign with a goofy expression.
"...Seriously, cut it out. Your face photo is the most important part, you know? There was that book, '90% of People Are Judged by Their Looks,' right? You can't just slap a drunken selfie up there."
"You're being really serious about this."
"Well, I'm your sensei, after all."
He smiled proudly, clearly pleased with himself for being the self-appointed "teacher."
"You two don’t need to worry about privacy. Just take a good, proper photo tomorrow and upload it. Neither of you are ugly, so you'll do fine. Also, remember to submit a verification photo, like your driver’s license. You both have a license, right?"
According to Kamada, without verifying our identity, many of the app’s features would be locked. It was a way to prevent abuse, he explained. In other words, we wouldn’t be able to fully use the app until our identity was verified.
So, that was the extent of the conversation from the previous night’s drinking session. Now, I was at home continuing the app setup.
"Alright, photos uploaded..."
I had already submitted a picture of my driver’s license for verification via my smartphone. Now, I was just waiting for approval (apparently, the photos also get checked).
(...Wow, it’s already this late?)
It was nearly 11 PM. After drinking too much the previous night, I had slept through most of the day (I’d completely forgotten about the app until Kamada messaged me on LINE around the afternoon, reminding me of what we had talked about). I wasn’t particularly sleepy, but tomorrow was Monday, and I had school to attend. I couldn’t afford to oversleep or show up tired and rubbing my eyes.
After all, it was the first day of the new semester. I would be standing in front of my students as a homeroom teacher.
"Remember, the most important part is meeting face-to-face. Keep that in mind for your first date," Kamada had said during the drinking session.
I figured that advice applied just as much to my first day as a homeroom teacher.
(As expected of a winner in the marriage market...)
I was impressed enough by the wisdom in that statement that it could’ve been a life lesson.
For now, I decided to wrap things up and prepare for tomorrow.
"Rushing won’t help. The path of marriage is not one that’s walked in a day."
That, too, was advice from Kamada, the successful "sensei."