Once he had headed out, made it to work, and made it through work, he headed to the bridal store. He licked his lips and finally went inside before he lost his nerve. He moved over to a salesclerk and explained what he wanted, all the while blushing bright red.

“A wedding dress? For you?” the salesclerk asked, as she smiled, “Well, at our store it’s never been done, but come on, let’s go find you the best dress for you,” she said and held out her hand. “So, who is the lucky… um… well, honey, are you marrying a man or a woman?”

“A man,” he whispered, looking super shy about what he was doing.

The sales clerk nodded, “Who’s the lucky man?” she asked as she had Akira stand up on a pedestal so she could take a good long look at him.

“H-his name is Edward,” Akira said, with a small smile as he thought about the man he loved.

The woman smiled with Akira as well and nodded, “Well, then, we are just going to need to get something super special for this Edward guy, aren’t we?” she said and nodded once more “okay, you stay here, I’ll be right back.” The sales clerk quickly ran off and came back with three dresses. “Okay, so… these will probably be the best fit, literally. Unfortunately, most of our dresses are strapless, but you don’t exactly have anything to hold them up,” she laughed and showed Akira the way to the dressing room. “In here, we have to go with the strapped dressed, which really narrows down the choices, but that’s okay. I’ve found three that are quite beautiful, I’m sure they’ll look great on you.”

Akira gave a small nod and headed into the dressing room, changing into the first dress, only calling the lady in to have the dress zipped. He looked at himself in the mirror and blushed, “Oh… wow,” he said and moved his hair a bit.

The sales clerk smiled, “you look amazing. Let’s try these other two on and see if there is one you prefer okay?” she asked and pointed to the other ones before leaving the room and waiting for Akira to finish trying on the next dresses or to be called in to help.

Which she was multiple times, it was clear that Akira had never worn a dress before, at least not one that he had to put on by himself. After each dress was finished and they both looked at him. She asked him a few questions, what design he liked best or what he didn’t like about each dress.

He settled for the fact that she was incredibly right about the strapless dresses, he needed to keep straps, but then came to the point of what kind of straps he wanted. Akira had never realized how many types of straps could come on a dress, let alone that he would have to pick just one. He looked at the sales clerk completely hopeless. “I- I have no idea.”

She gave an apologetic smile, “okay, well, let’s see if we can narrow your choices down some. Is there a price range you need to stay in?” she asked.

Akira nodded “yeah, I’m looking at staying under 1,000. I heard that wedding dresses were expensive, but I really can’t afford more than that.”

She giggled, “that’s okay. We’ve got a nice selection of wedding dresses that range in all prices. However, your budget actually helps you a bit, as it narrows your choices even more. We can’t do anything super fancy with the straps that way. Let’s see… that would leave you with these three selections. An off-the-shoulder design, the classic puffy princess, and the single strap,” she explained and pointed to a picture of each. “Oh! Or this, a tank-like top.”

Akira looked, “I don’t like the puffy princess thing. It looks kind of stupid,” he said, “Maybe the single strap. I like that one,” he explained.

She smiled “okay, single strap it is, now since you are on a low-end budget, we need to keep the design simple as well,” she explained, “so nothing too fancy with that either. We can have this one, this one or this one.” all were a very simple single strap design, one had no flair at all but looked like it was made entirely out of satin. The next one had a little bit of lace on it, and the last one had sparkly jewels that went up the strap and looked like they outlined the breasts.

“Um… not that one,” he said, and pointed to the one that outlined the breasts, “don’t have anything for that.” He chuckled, and looked at the last ones, “I like the lace,” he said and pointed to the dress with the lace.

“Lilly Lace it is then. Hold on, I think we have that one in stock right now, might just be your size. If it is then you can just get that, if not we’ll have to see about adjustments,” she explained and headed off to go see.

While she was gone Akira looked around at other dresses, hiding his face whenever he got a strange look. He didn’t think he would actually get that strange of looks, he could be here with a wife to be, after all. Then again, wasn’t the groom not supposed to see the bride or something like that? He sighed and was glad when the sales clerk came back.

“Okay, so we do, but this one looks like it might actually be a bit big for you, let’s go try it on.”

Akira nodded and went back into the fitting room. He tried on the dress and it turned out that the salesclerk was correct, it was a bit too big for him. He called the clerk in and she looked at the dress, “Okay, we’ll order it in one size down and then do the alterations from there,” she said, “that usually costs some money, but our owner is rather intrigued by you, so she’s decided that as long as we can get some pictures of you in the dress, she’ll do the alterations for free.

Akira turned quickly, “What? Oh no, I couldn’t. Let you do it for free, I mean.”

The salesclerk shook her head “Really, don’t worry about it, it’s out of your price range and plus, this is fun,” she said, “we get to see you for fittings!” she laughed and smiled at Akira, “what do you say Mr. Nakamura?” she asked and held out her hand.

Akira bit his lip but before he knew it he was shaking her hand and agreeing to the terms. “I’ll be excited to take pictures for you,” he explained.

“Goody! Let’s get this set up for you and we can do a payment plan, or you can pay in full today.”

Akira nodded and got everything set up and then headed out and hurried back home. He hadn’t realized the time and he felt bad for his fiancée that was most likely sitting back home and waiting for him. He was really late because of the meeting with the sales clerk. He really hadn’t planned on it taking that long but trying on dress after dress took forever.