I know, that title seems equal amounts of ludicrous and macabre. Hear me out, okay.
Everyone who knows me even moderately well, including my dear husband – let’s call him Satoshi – is uncomfortably aware of how obsessed I am with one Uchiha Itachi-kun.
Now at the time, Satoshi (my then-boyfriend) had read the Naruto manga, but hadn’t seen the anime. Travesty, I know, but I’d already used up my one ‘condition-you-must-fulfill-within-a-year-if-you-wish-to-continue-dating-me’ to make him watch and read The Lord of the Rings (he watched all three movies – extended editions, I may add – but gave up halfway through the first book; and the fact that we are still together speaks a lot about my generosity and open-mindedness as a person, I think).
So anyways, Satoshi hadn’t watched the Naruto anime. Which meant he was tragically uninitiated to the beautiful, heart-tugging, feels-inducing OST.
Now, I’m a bit high-maintenance, I admit. But with regards to the proposal, I didn’t have many expectations. All I wanted was the below:
- The One Ring to Rule Them All (or Galadriel’s ring Nenya) – if this was not possible, at least some sort of elvish inscription on the band
- A destination proposal
- An accompanying soundtrack, preferably from Naruto, preferably the slow version of the Naruto main theme that plays pre-Shippuden
Naturally, he knew none of this. That’s what girl best friends are for.
You see, once I’d accidentally-on-purpose discovered he’d bought me a ring (he sucked at lying and I could see the outline of the box pressing against his suitcase) my favorite girl friends happened to have a convenient little chat with him, where they told him about the soundtrack and whatnot. Or at least, that I wanted a soundtrack from Naruto.
And then we went on a convenient little holiday in Cyprus, where we visited this picturesque beach said to be the birthplace of Aphrodite – the Goddess of passion and pleasure and looove. The sun was setting. It was exactly 888 days after we’d begun dating (and you know how 8 = infinity). He had flowers, and a handmade book of reasons why he loved me. Not to mention, the ring – even if it wasn’t forged by Sauron – was stunning.
So really, +9385298539472398235 points to him for all of that. It makes me tear up now even thinking of it.
But then, Satoshi gets down on one knee… and strains of a familiarly creepy, haunting melody fill the air. One of those melodies that has been specifically composed to induce despair – with weird, jarring rattles and slashes (you know, of people being murdered).
Because yeah. It was the soundtrack that played when Itachi massacred the Uchiha clan. And my future husband was on one knee, asking him to marry him, and I basically died laughing.
And Satoshi’s eyes also grew comically wide because he realized that something about the vibe was off, and he clearly had the wrong soundtrack and I was cracking up – so he frantically tried searching for the right one, but then I told him it was okay, I didn’t need a soundtrack and he could just get on with it.
So I said yes. And then I laughed. A lot.
Turns out he’d been nervous and had forgotten he was supposed to have a soundtrack till the last moment. And then he hadn’t been sure what to use so he just typed “itachi soundtrack” or something along those lines into YouTube.
And Itachi doesn’t exactly have an official soundtrack named after him – it’s just that various users on YouTube attribute different soundtracks to him, and name them things like ‘Itachi’s theme’ or ‘Itachi OST’ depending on what soundtrack features heavily during his key moments.
And somehow one of the first options that came up (and the one that poor, unsuspecting Satoshi clicked) had been the one that played in the background as Itachi methodically killed off all his family members.
It was priceless, yes. A proposal to remember. I’m almost glad it happened – because everything else was a dream, so perfect – and this made it all 100 times more hilarious, and better.
For a moment, I thought of poking him on the forehead in response. Saying ‘Sorry, Satoshi, maybe next time’. But that would be ruthless and I did want to marry him.
So I did.
And then I made sure I had unilateral control over what songs played at our wedding, because I didn’t want to find myself walking down the aisle to the snake-y strains of Orochimaru, or the crescendo of Pein’s demonic choir.
Overachieving Otaku 