"Naoya," you mumbled under your breath to Maki, "he needs to slow down."
"Nah, let him drink! He's been real stressed out lately." She replied, making you shake your head. Naoya sat opposite of Satoru with legs crossed, drink setting down on the chabudai with a small clink. Surely your husband had showed him the liquor cabinets, something you had not seen yourself.
"This is shitty drink." Naoya grumbled, making Toji snicker beside him and warrant a death glare from your brother.
"Nonesense!" your husband said, looking over the rim of his own glass with a smile, "we have the best rye in the country, brother. Surely you can admit that the Zen'in drinks are inferior."
"I am not your fucking brother."
"Can I try some?" Maki asked next to you, and your mouth fell open at the barbaric question. Not only was she freshly seventeen, but she asked such a thing in the presence of Naoya. Nevertheless, your husband shrugged and reached for the intricate bottle sitting in front of him.
"Get me a few more glasses." Satoru ordered the servant standing by, and she scurried out of the room immediately.
"Gojo, don't you dare," your brother growled, "that rodent is not of age."
"Come on, Naoya, let 'em have a little fun." Toji argued, and Satoru nodded with another teasing smile before the servant girl set a tray of small glasses down on the table.
"Megumi! You want to try some?"
"No thanks."
"Not so fast," Toji said, sliding his glass across the smooth wood of the table, "just take a sip. It's rum. It's sweeter."
"No."
"Yes."
"Go ahead, Megumi." Maki jested, making him scrunch his nose in disgust.
A staring match commenced between the father and son, and you hid your smile behind your hand as Megumi picked up the glass with suspicion. Naoya was shaking his head while your husband wore a smirk, and the moment Megumi finally took a sip of the spirit, Toji was laughing at the face he was making. At fifteen, it was safe to say that Fushiguro Megumi was not a huge fan of rum.
His brows were furrowed and he tried to keep his face steady as possible, but it didn't really work out.
"Alright then..." Satoru trailed off at the angry teenager picking at his pork, "wife, how about you?"
"No." Naoya said again.
"Husband, I am expecting."
"So you can't drink?"
"No." Jun said as she passed by.
"Thank you, Maeda," Naoya threw his hands up and pointed to the lady exiting the room, "she seems to be the only smart one looking out for you."
"You should not drink either, Naoya-sama!" She called from the next room. You stifled a chuckle as your bother glared daggers at the doorway.
"Maybe you should listen to her, brother," Satoru teased, "you seem half drunk already."
"I am no such thing!"
The outburst did not affect your cousins or yourself, as you were all used to his horrid temperament. Toji however, was glaring at his lack of manners. "That is no way to act around women, Naoya."
"You can go to hell," he spat, "matter of fact, all of you can go to the deepest hell curated by the gods. All of you." Once again, his tongue lashing did not bother you in the slightest, since you busied yourself with eating some more chicken. Maki, yourself, Mai and Megumi did not dare reply to him, and awkwardness settled around the table.
Your husband did not look so pleased, eyebrows raised and elbows on the table. The mere definition of irked: "You think it wise to speak to me that way in my own home?" He grinned. A crazy one that left you worried of a fight. "I could kill you where you sit."
"You won't."
Satoru sat back in his seat, glass in his hand as he looked at you. You, who had a rather neutral countenance and dared not intervene in the spat between men. "Did you hear of the fire that broke out this past weekend at my distillery due to a Zen'in supporter's uproar? It cost me a great fortune in repairs," Satoru asked Naoya, who was now looking up in distaste. "You should consider yourself lucky it was not the steel mill, or my townspeople would be rioting."
"I don't care in the slightest of your people's opinions of me." Naoya growled.
"Well you should, because my wife is the one facing grief over it every day."
"Your wife? As in, my sister? Before she is your wife, she is a Zen'in."
"Should we go?" Maki murmured to you, noticing your eyes darting in between the two men with a nervous frown.
"I don't know." you replied.
"That title was relinquished the day she said I do." Satoru was smiling at Naoya's anger now. You sighed quietly. They were both far too drunk to bicker like this.
Satoru didn't ever drink anyway, but Shoko did tell you that he was a lightweight.
"Should my father have had half a brain in his head, he wouldn't have wed her off to the likes of you. He'd have forced a marriage to the eastern shogun," he sneered as he stood up, "and had I known you to be this arrogant, I would have sided with the union of that Sasaki kid. You would have preferred that, would you not?" Naoya pointed a finger to you and for the first time, you stared at him with a fiery anger. The other times you only looked at him with annoyance but now, you felt rage.
How dare he bring up another man in front of my husband?!
"Oh, Sasaki? I know that name..." Satoru trailed, "the oldest son's name was what, wife? Haru?" He gave you a look with his head rolling to rest on his shoulder but you were still eyeing Naoya. He finished off the rest of his drink with a long gulp, nearly throwing it down onto the table before pushing further. "You and Haru, huh? How'd that work out for you?"
"Ignore them," Maki mumbled, "they are not in their right minds."
"You were rather adamant of acceptance," Naoya said, "everything would've been fine if you moved to that pisspoor estate but no, someone's father had to go on a power trip."
"My father was not the one on a power trip, Naoya. Zen'in Naobito is always the criminal in that respect."
"You shall not speak of him that way."
"I would not have to," Satoru said with that smirk on his face, "had he not given me more bills than I'd like, a shithead brother-in-law and an easy wife."
That was when you stood up and left the dining room, hearing shouting and clashing dishes over the blood roaring in your ears. Your chest was constricting, stabbing you and making you feel nausea on top of the heaviness in your heart. Hands shaking, you ignored the footsteps trailing behind you as you carried yourself to your chambers, the room you had not occupied since your first night at the estate.
You could tell that it was Satoru following you. You knew his footsteps all too well. He called out your name, slurring it and nearly stumbling into the servant that passed by. "Shit," he murmured after regaining himself, "wife, stop," However you kept walking and allowed yourself to be angry just this once, finally opening and shutting the door before locking it and retreating deep into the large room. "Hey--y/n," Satoru's muffled voice, "can you come out? Please?"
"No, leave her alone--woah!"
Clamors sounded outside the room, and your head shot up as you heard Megumi's surprised shout followed by fumbling feet and unintelligible words. Your breathing quickened at the silence and you let a whimper fall from your lips as you fell to your knees on the carpet. After a month and a half, your husband held no romance for you as you did for him, saw you as both a chip in a bargaining game and a whore, and you still had to face him tomorrow.
Him, your Satoru, beautiful Satoru who would never hold care for you...perhaps not even the baby.
You leaned forward, forehead pressed against the carpet as you wheezed in shaking breaths. Worry for yourself, for your child who would be only a pawn in a political scheme, who would only have you to hold him.
Satoru, for the first time, was the reason for your sadness.
"Hey, open up, it's me and Megumi," through your quiet sobs, you could still make out Toji's voice, "here, you try."
"y/n, let me in, okay? Just me."
Leave me, you wanted to say, I wish to be alone, Jun.
But you didn't speak another word for the rest of the night, not even when Maki was knocking frantically and not when Naoya was insisting you speak with him. Instead you ripped your hair out of the tight bun it was in and stripped to your undershirt, too hot and angry to do anything else except grieve in the unfamiliar, cold bed.
No, for as long as I desire, I will be alone. This is the one choice I can make for myself.
"y/n, my wife," Satoru called during the dead of night, waking you from only your thoughts, "come out. The bed is far too cold without you."
His voice could lure you from the depths of the sea, it could convince you to wander into darkness, it could make you believe everything he said but for once, you could not stand to hear it.
"Wife, I am serious. Please come back to me. Please, please, pleasepleasepleaseplease!"
You ignored him, curling into yourself tighter with free flowing tears.
You were once again eleven, having been caught with Haru doing something you shouldn't have been doing and paid the steep price for it. And at the same time, you were eighteen being told by your own father that you had less shame than a town's whore. Then you were twenty, stuck in a one-sided romance that hurt worse than everything put together.
He cannot love me. Satoru does not love me and he never will.