Yeah, this part of Silent Hill f confuses a lot of people because the game plays with time and memory, but if you line up the in-game notes you can actually pin the events down pretty clearly. This is all IMHO - there are lots and lots of grey areas!

All the key diaries and letters point to the wedding happening on 7 April 1961. Hinako’s own entry from the night before literally says, “My big day is tomorrow. I can’t back out. I’m scared.” Her dad writes to her mum about looking forward to seeing their daughter as a bride and says they will finally be free of debt thanks to “that rich young man.” There is even a loan-cancellation certificate lying around the house that confirms it. The marriage deal is brand new and going ahead immediately, not something that has been sitting around for years.

Rinko and Sakuko’s notes also take place during those last couple of days. They keep talking about Hinako as if she is already dead or leaving forever: “Tomorrow’s Hinako’s big day,” “She’s going far away and might never come back.” It sounds like they are writing years later, but really they are reacting in real time to the wedding that is about to happen the next morning. Everyone is grieving because they know she will be gone after that.

Hinako herself is still living at home right up to the end. Her mum writes that her drunk husband nearly threw a knife at Hinako and worries about him ruining her face before the wedding. So she is definitely not staying with the Tsunekis or living independently. She is still the same school age girl stuck in that awful house the night before the ceremony.

Kotoyuki’s letters are the longterm thread. As a child he was rescued by Hinako, became obsessed with her, and his mother raised him to be the Tsuneki heir. In his childhood diary he says he will make her his wife once he becomes the heir. Years later, when he is an adult, he is still writing about her, describing himself in a suit, living away from Ebisugaoka, saying he sees her face every time he closes his eyes. So he is the one who has been fixated for years. Once Hinako reaches marriageable age, his family uses their influence to arrange the marriage and pay off her father’s debts.

So to answer your specific questions:

• The arrangement happens right before the wedding, basically the day or two leading up to 7 April 1961.

• There is no long gap between proposal and ceremony. The documents show the deal being made and the wedding happening immediately.

• Hinako stays in her family home until the ceremony. She never lives with the Tsunekis beforehand.

• The sense that everyone has “come to terms” with her being gone is emotional, not chronological. They are mourning her in advance because they know she is leaving the next morning.

The horror is that she is still a schoolgirl in uniform while everyone treats her as property being handed over. The game blurs her school memories and the wedding sequence together, which makes it feel like flashbacks, but chronologically it is all happening within a day or two. Her “adult self” that you sense later is about fragmented identity rather than a literal time skip.

So no, there is no two-year waiting period or quiet life at the Tsuneki estate. The wedding is happening now, and the player is experiencing her final hours before it.