There are moments in life when a person hopes a problem will quietly solve itself if ignored long enough.
For example: unfinished assignments, unanswered emails, or the mysterious stain on the kitchen counter that you are fairly certain did not exist yesterday.
Or accidental marriages.
Unfortunately, as Nathaniel Rowan Clarke and I had just learned, marriage is not one of those problems.
It does not disappear if you glare at it long enough. It does not quietly reverse itself overnight, and it most certainly does not become less legally binding simply because the participants find it deeply inconvenient.
Which is why we were now sitting in Nate's living room with the red marriage booklets still resting on the coffee table like smug little bureaucratic trophies.
They had not moved. They had not changed. They simply sat there, perfectly calm, like official evidence that the universe had a sense of humor.
And between us sat Mira Shinzane Clarke.
The first witness.
The first potential leak in what was supposed to be the most tightly controlled secret operation in the history of accidental marriages.
Mira crossed one leg over the other and leaned slightly back into the couch with the calm composure of someone who had just been handed the most entertaining gossip of the semester.
"Alright," she said, folding her hands neatly on her knee. "What are your plans now?"
The question hung in the air like an academic prompt that required immediate and intelligent analysis.
Naturally, I responded with panic.
"Plans?" I repeated, gesturing toward the marriage booklets like they were radioactive. "The plan is obvious. The plan is correction. Rectification. Administrative reversal." I turned toward her with dramatic urgency. "Mira! You must help us think of a way to break this marriage."
Across from me, Nate did not move.
He had already reopened his laptop.
Because apparently some people process accidental marriage by calmly reviewing research documents.
The betrayal of academic professionalism was astonishing.
His fingers moved across the keyboard with quiet efficiency while the rest of my life was actively collapsing in the background.
Mira tapped her chin thoughtfully.
"Hmm," she said.
That was not the reaction I wanted.
That was the reaction of someone considering the situation with curiosity rather than urgency.
"Hmm," she repeated again, clearly enjoying the analytical possibilities of the situation.
Then she tilted her head slightly.
"Why do you want to break it in the first place?"
I stared at her.
"Why—"
My brain briefly stopped.
The question was so profoundly unreasonable that my thoughts tripped over themselves trying to respond.
Fortunately, Nate answered.
"Because it was a mistake," he said calmly without looking up from the thesis document on his screen.
Mira hummed softly again.
"Mistake," she repeated.
Then she leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on her knees as she looked between us with unsettling analytical focus.
"About that, Onii-san," she said.
Nate finally looked up.
"Yes?"
Mira smiled faintly.
"I don't think it actually is."
My soul tried to exit my body for the second time that day.
"WHAT?"
I gasped so loudly I nearly startled myself.
"Mira Shinzane Clarke," I declared with deep offense, placing a hand over my chest as if personally wounded by her statement, "how dare you imply such a curse upon this damsel."
She blinked at me.
Nate blinked at me.
I ignored both of them.
"This is not compatibility," I continued dramatically, pointing toward the red booklets again. "This is administrative sabotage orchestrated by a form that I did not read."
"Exactly," Nate said quietly.
"You are not helping," I snapped immediately.
Mira, however, had already shifted fully into analysis mode.
This was a mistake.
Because Mira Shinzane Clarke was a physics major, which meant she approached problems with the calm logical structure of someone who believed the universe made sense.
And unfortunately for me, she was now applying that same logic to my accidental marriage.
"Actually," she said thoughtfully, "when you look at it objectively, you two are very compatible."
I inhaled sharply.
"Objectively?"
"Yes," she continued, raising one finger like a lecturer preparing a list. "You have similar academic goals, similar work ethic, similar intellectual interests. You've known each other for years. You work well together under pressure."
"We compete," I corrected immediately.
"Healthy competition," she replied.
"Hostile competition," I insisted.
"Productive hostility," she said calmly.
This was unacceptable.
"And," she continued, raising a second finger, "you clearly understand each other's habits and personalities."
"I understand that he is extremely annoying," I said.
"I understand that you are extremely dramatic," Nate replied without looking away from his screen.
The audacity.
"You see?" Mira said, pointing between us. "Communication."
"That was not communication," I said. "That was slander."
Mira leaned back slightly with the quiet confidence of someone presenting research findings.
"You two also spend a lot of time together," she added.
"Academic obligation," I replied instantly.
"You rely on each other academically," she continued.
"Strategic necessity," I corrected.
"You trust each other's abilities," she finished.
"Professional tolerance," I clarified.
Mira tilted her head thoughtfully.
"You see," she said gently, "some of your explanations don't actually contradict what I'm saying."
I froze.
This was unacceptable reasoning.
"They absolutely do," I insisted.
"Not really," she replied.
Across the room Nate calmly turned a page in the thesis draft, completely detached from the chaos. He looked like a graduate student reviewing a methodology section, not a man who had just been told his sister believed he was compatible with his accidental wife.
I stared at him.
Stared harder.
Then grabbed a pillow and threw it directly at his head.
"YOU," I declared.
The pillow struck his shoulder.
He caught it mid‑fall with the reflexes of someone who had apparently anticipated my attack several seconds in advance.
"Yes," he said.
"How can you be so carefree," I demanded, "while I am here actively trying to repair the catastrophic administrative error that is our lives?"
He placed the pillow beside him calmly.
"You caused it," he replied.
The words hit me like a sniper shot to the ego.
Silence filled the room.
Because unfortunately.
Technically.
Objectively.
Legally.
He was not wrong.
I turned away with dignity.
"Hmph," I said.
Then crossed my arms.
"Fine," I announced with wounded pride. "If that is your attitude, I will simply solve the problem myself."
Nate returned to the thesis document.
"That is acceptable," he said.
I pointed dramatically at Mira.
"Mira," I declared. "You and I will correct this situation."
She looked delighted.
"Alright," she said.
Which in hindsight should have concerned me, because Mira did not say it with the tone of someone helping resolve a crisis. She said it with the tone of someone participating in a fascinating social experiment.
We both grabbed our phones.
"Step one," I said with authority. "We research annulment."
"That sounds reasonable," Mira agreed.
Across from us Nate continued reviewing the thesis draft. Calm. Focused. Detached. Occasionally scrolling, occasionally typing, occasionally existing as if the legal structure of his personal life had not just been rearranged by paperwork.
Meanwhile Mira and I leaned toward each other like investigators working late on an unsolved case.
"Okay," she said, opening a search engine on her phone. "How to void a marriage."
"Good," I said immediately. "Direct approach. Efficient. Decisive. I respect the confidence of that search query."
Mira leaned a little closer to the screen as the results loaded. "It says here annulment requires legal grounds," she read.
"We already knew that," I said confidently, even though my legal knowledge currently consisted of approximately three minutes of internet browsing and several emotionally motivated assumptions.
"It also says filing fees," she added.
"That is offensive," I said.
"Court processing," she continued, scrolling down the page.
"Even more offensive," I replied.
"Legal documentation," she finished.
I leaned back slowly against the couch like someone who had just been personally attacked by the concept of administration.
"So the solution to paperwork..." I said carefully.
Mira nodded knowingly without looking up from the phone.
"Is more paperwork."
I stared at the ceiling in silence for a moment, contemplating the cruel elegance of bureaucratic systems.
"This is exactly how bureaucracies trap people," I muttered. "First they give you paperwork. Then when you try to escape the paperwork, they give you more paperwork."
Mira giggled.
"Maybe we should check other options," she suggested. "There might be alternative approaches."
"Yes," I agreed, leaning forward again with renewed determination. "The internet must contain creative solutions. Humanity has solved far more complicated problems using questionable search queries."
And so we began searching.
Thus began the most questionable research project of my academic career.
"How to cancel a marriage quickly," Mira read from another result.
"Promising," I said.
"This one says you must appear before a judge," she added.
"Unpromising," I replied immediately.
"This one says legal consultation."
"Expensive."
"This one says mutual agreement."
"We have that," I said quickly, pointing between Nate and myself as if presenting solid legal evidence.
"But still court," she replied.
My shoulders slumped. I groaned dramatically and dropped my head against the back of the couch like a defeated strategist reconsidering the entire campaign.
Across the room Nate quietly said, "Your methodology lacks structure."
My head snapped upright.
"THIS IS NOT A RESEARCH PAPER," I shouted.
"It resembles one," he said calmly without even glancing away from his laptop.
"Stop supervising," I snapped.
He returned to reading, apparently satisfied that he had contributed enough commentary to the situation.
Meanwhile Mira continued scrolling through results with the focus of someone genuinely enjoying the intellectual puzzle.
"It says annulment requires evidence that the marriage should not have occurred," she said after a moment.
I immediately sat up again, energy returning like a spark of inspiration.
"Excellent," I said. "We have plenty of that."
"Such as?" she asked.
I gestured across the room toward Nate with absolute confidence.
"Him."
Nate did not react.
Not even slightly.
Mira laughed.
"That's not legal evidence," she said.
"The law lacks imagination," I muttered.
Still, I leaned forward again, elbows on my knees, determination returning to my posture. The operation was not over. The strategy simply required refinement.
Determined. Focused. Strategic.
"Keep searching," I said.
"I will," Mira replied.
And together we began the noble mission of attempting to void my accidental marriage using the most powerful legal research tool available to modern students.
The internet.
And that was how Mira Shinzane Clarke and I—armed with two smartphones, several questionable search queries, and absolutely no legal training—began looking for a way to erase Nathaniel Rowan Clarke from my marital status.
***
After approximately twenty-seven minutes of intense legal research conducted by two completely unqualified civilians armed with smartphones and emotional motivation, Mira and I reached a deeply concerning conclusion.
The internet was not helpful.
Not even slightly.
Every website, article, legal blog, and suspiciously enthusiastic forum post repeated the same cruel truth. Annulment required procedures, forms, verification, judges, evidence, and—most offensive of all—time.
All things that, quite frankly, felt extremely unreasonable considering the marriage itself had occurred in approximately twelve minutes because I trusted a government form.
"This is discrimination," I declared while lowering my phone slowly and staring at the ceiling like it had personally approved the legal system. "If the marriage can happen quickly, the cancellation should also happen quickly. There should be symmetry in these processes. Bureaucratic symmetry."
Mira leaned back against the couch beside me, staring thoughtfully at her screen as she scrolled through yet another legal explanation written by someone who clearly enjoyed long paragraphs about civil procedure.
"It does look complicated," she admitted.
"Complicated is a generous word," I replied. "This is bureaucratic revenge."
Across the room, Nathaniel Rowan Clarke turned another page of the thesis draft with the quiet calm of a man who had completely detached himself from the emotional stakes of the situation.
He was reviewing citations.
Citations.
As if our marital status had become a minor footnote in his schedule.
I stared at him.
Then stared harder.
Then sighed with theatrical exhaustion and dropped my phone onto the couch cushion beside me.
"Strategic pause," I announced.
Mira nodded immediately.
"Strategic pause," she repeated with the same seriousness one might use during an academic meeting.
There are moments in life when a crisis must temporarily be suspended because the human brain simply refuses to continue processing disaster without sugar.
This was one of those moments.
And so Mira stood up, walked calmly to the kitchen, opened the freezer, and pulled out a tub of ice cream.
My eyes widened.
"You have ice cream," I said slowly, as if discovering an unexpected miracle.
From the living room, Nate finally looked up.
"That is mine," he said.
Which was exactly when I stood up, marched into the kitchen, grabbed a spoon, and claimed the tub with absolute authority.
"Correction," I said while opening it. "That is ours."
Nate stared at me.
"No," he said.
I pointed the spoon at him dramatically.
"Nathaniel Rowan Clarke," I said with quiet gravity, "I would like to remind you that according to the legal documents currently sitting on your coffee table—"
I tapped the spoon against the ice cream lid for emphasis.
"—I am your wife."
Silence followed.
Mira leaned against the counter watching this exchange with visible interest, clearly enjoying the unexpected domestic dynamics.
Nate blinked once.
Then leaned back slightly in his chair.
"You are eager to end that arrangement," he said calmly.
I froze.
Then narrowed my eyes.
"That," I said slowly, "is not the point."
"It is a relevant observation," he replied.
I lifted the ice cream tub slightly and took a deliberate spoonful.
"Temporary legal privileges," I said smoothly while eating it, "remain valid until the contract is dissolved."
Mira's shoulders began shaking as she tried not to laugh.
"Furthermore," I continued with growing confidence, "I am merely exercising the limited domestic benefits that this unfortunate legal situation has granted me."
Nate watched me for a moment.
Then said nothing.
Which meant I had won.
Mira grinned openly now, looking between us.
"Onii-san," she said cheerfully, "you just lost an argument."
"That was not an argument," Nate replied.
"It looked like one," she said.
"It was a misuse of legal logic," he corrected.
"Still lost," she replied.
I took another triumphant bite of ice cream.
Victory tasted like chocolate.
Eventually Mira grabbed another spoon and joined me, and the three of us returned to the living room like a very strange domestic arrangement that none of us were emotionally prepared to acknowledge.
For several minutes we simply sat there eating ice cream, contemplating life, and pretending that the red marriage booklets on the coffee table were not quietly controlling our legal identities.
Then Mira spoke again.
"Are you really sure you don't want to tell our parents?"
I nearly dropped the spoon.
My entire body snapped upright with the reflexes of someone who had just heard a bomb timer start ticking.
"Absolutely not," I said instantly.
Mira blinked.
"Why not?" she asked. "Maybe they could help."
"HELP?" I repeated with rising horror.
I stood up so quickly the couch cushion shifted beneath me.
"Mira Shinzane Clarke," I said with deep seriousness, "there are certain forces in this world that must never be awakened unless the situation has already become irreversible."
"Such as?" she asked.
"Parents," I said.
She tilted her head.
"They're not that bad."
"Your mother," I said slowly, "would plan a wedding reception within twenty-four hours."
Mira paused.
"That's possible," she admitted.
"My mother would escalate," I continued, pacing now because panic requires movement. "My father would demand explanations. My brother would arrive with a shovel."
"The shovel again," Nate muttered quietly.
"THE SHOVEL IS A REAL POSSIBILITY," I snapped.
Mira was now openly laughing.
"You are exaggerating," she said.
"I am being realistic," I corrected.
I stopped pacing and pointed dramatically at the booklets.
"If the parents discover this," I said gravely, "our lives will become a family project."
Nate nodded slightly.
"That is statistically likely," he said.
"SEE," I said, pointing at him triumphantly. "Even he agrees."
Mira looked between us again.
Then shrugged.
"Alright," she said. "Secret marriage then."
The phrase made me flinch.
"Please do not call it that," I said.
"But that's what it is," she replied.
"Temporary administrative confusion," I corrected.
"Secret marriage," she repeated.
I inhaled slowly.
Then exhaled dramatically.
Because some battles cannot be won.
Eventually the ice cream was finished. The crisis was still present, and my brain had reached maximum capacity for bureaucratic stress.
So I stood up, walked to the coffee table, and picked up one of the red marriage booklets with the solemn dignity of someone retrieving a cursed artifact.
"Alright," I announced.
Mira looked up.
Nate glanced up from his laptop.
"I will now be retreating," I continued, "to my personal domain."
"Your apartment," Nate translated.
"My domain," I repeated firmly.
I held up the booklet slightly.
"I will take this evidence with me," I said, "so that I may reflect upon the questionable life choices that led to this situation."
"You caused it," Nate reminded me.
"We are not revisiting that detail," I replied.
Then I turned toward the door with the quiet drama of someone concluding a royal meeting.
"For the next several hours," I continued, "I will be entering a period of strategic beauty sleep."
Mira giggled.
"Strategic," she repeated.
"During this time," I said, placing a hand on the door handle, "I will mentally prepare myself for the legal battle ahead."
"You're just going to nap," Nate said.
"Strategically," I corrected.
And then I left.
The hallway between our apartments felt unusually long, possibly because I was carrying legal proof that my life had been rearranged by paperwork.
I unlocked my door, entered my apartment, closed the door behind me, walked straight to my bedroom, and flopped face-first onto my bed.
The mattress absorbed my despair with impressive professionalism.
For several long seconds I simply lay there face‑down, completely motionless, allowing the emotional consequences of the day to settle over me like a very heavy blanket of administrative regret. My brain attempted to process the events in chronological order. Unfortunately the timeline kept collapsing at the same point.
The form.
That stupid, suspiciously official, deceptively harmless form.
Eventually the pressure building in my lungs demanded release.
So I grabbed my pillow, buried my face into it, and screamed.
The scream was muffled, contained, and therefore socially responsible for apartment living.
But emotionally effective.
"THIS IS NOT MY FAULT," I declared into the pillow with the conviction of someone who had already decided the legal narrative in advance.
I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling like it might provide a reasonable explanation for why my life had been legally reorganized in under fifteen minutes.
"This," I continued, gesturing vaguely around the room as if the walls themselves had participated in the conspiracy, "is clearly the government's fault."
I pointed a finger toward the ceiling, as though somewhere above my apartment a committee of civil servants was currently celebrating my downfall.
"Yes," I said firmly, building momentum. "Government oversight failure. Poor bureaucratic design. Inadequate warning labels."
I sat up slightly, warming to the argument.
"Where was the disclaimer?" I demanded aloud. "Where was the bold text that said Warning: This form may result in legally binding matrimony? That seems like information citizens deserve to know."
Pause.
"Possibly the form designer," I added thoughtfully.
I imagined a quiet office worker somewhere designing administrative paperwork with malicious efficiency.
"Who designs a marriage form that looks identical to academic paperwork? That is clearly negligent user interface design."
Pause again.
"Maybe society," I continued.
I nodded slowly to myself as the theory developed.
"Yes. Society created the conditions where students are forced to fill out so many documents that we develop automatic signing reflexes. This is a systemic issue."
I reached over and grabbed the red booklet from beside me, holding it up accusingly like a piece of courtroom evidence.
"Definitely this thing," I muttered.
The booklet remained smug.
Unapologetic.
Legally binding.
I squinted at it suspiciously.
"You knew what you were doing," I told it.
The booklet did not defend itself.
Which I considered highly suspicious behavior.
I flopped back onto the mattress and groaned, dragging the pillow over my face again.
"Why does paperwork exist," I mumbled dramatically. "Why do forms have consequences. Why can't forms just be suggestions?"
Silence answered me.
Which was extremely unhelpful.
Because unfortunately, buried somewhere underneath all my extremely reasonable accusations, there existed a small, inconvenient fact.
The only person responsible for the form...
Was me.
Naturally, I ignored that detail immediately.
Instead I turned onto my side, pulled the blanket over my shoulder, and glared suspiciously at the red booklet resting on my nightstand like it might attempt another legal maneuver while I slept.
"Listen," I informed it quietly, pointing a finger at it from across the bed. "This arrangement is temporary. Do not get comfortable."
The booklet did not respond.
Which was rude.
"We will fix this," I added.
Still no response.
"Tomorrow," I said firmly.
Eventually exhaustion won the argument my brain had been losing for the past hour.
And as my eyes slowly closed, one final thought drifted through my mind.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow we would deal with this marriage.
Tomorrow we would find a solution.
Tomorrow the bureaucracy would fall.
But tonight...
Tonight I would sleep.
And pretend that the government had not accidentally given me a husband.
*****
End of Chapter 12
Chapter 12 Report
Event Log:
*Secret Marriage Status Maintained
* Annulment Research Conducted (Internet Method)
*Legal System Confirmed Extremely Inconvenient
*Ice Cream Claimed Under Temporary Marital Privileges
*Parental Discovery Prevented (For Now)
*Strategic Beauty Sleep Operation Initiated
*Emotional Blame Assigned To Government, Society, And Form Designers
*Annulment Success Rate: 0.01%