content warning: eating disorders
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You were no stranger to staring.
Growing up in a powerful feif, from a young age you had to have your privacy broken countless times. Waist measurements, thigh measurements, chest measurements and the like were not strange to you. Normalcy was being judged by the women fitting you in your kimonos and commenting on your body as if you were not in the room.
"She's got a little fat still." One seamstress told your mother, who sat in the corner as all the women in the room stared bullet holes into your naked body.
"Just baby fat," she waved her off, "she'll lose it in no time."
"We'll have to lower her intake...I shall tell the head of the kitchens."
You were eight.
You stared at yourself in the mirror day after day, that damn measurement tape feeling like a binder every time it touched you. Bad food mixed with too small of portion sizes for you to feel full became your good friends. Forced fasting and endless comments by the women of how a certain material would look hugging your body which, to you, looked fine.
Until it didn't, until you looked at yourself along with them and scrutinized every inch of your skin. In your early adolescence, your body underwent changes and grew into itself, into womanhood and you freaked out.
"Oh, you're getting big." The same seamstress you've had since childhood clicked her tongue, her name Takara.
Mother had since died, but you were sure she would agree anyway. Naoya was always her favorite.
"I am." you agreed, hand on your hip and squeezing the flesh.
"Why are you eating so little?" Naoya asked with unease one day. "It's disrespectful not to finish it."
"They are saying I need to lose weight."
"Well, I don't think you do."
"They are adamant." you shot back, continuing to cut the fish in front of you and lay it flat to have something to do.
"Father, she is not eating."
"Again?" he sighed.
"I can't eat it," you reasoned, "Takara informed me so."
"Eat it or I'll shove it down your throat."
"But-"
Naoya jumped in his seat when his father reached over him and grabbed you by the chin, pulling your mouth open and stuffing it with the fish fresh from his hand. You gasped and struggled as his fingers worked the meat down your throat, choking so bad that your teeth clamped down on his fingers.
Naobito released you with a snarl, uncaring of your heavy breathing and borderline choking. Everyone's eyes avoided you.
You, however felt guilty and felt like a failure.
I am not supposed to have this much. How will they perceive me now?
"Your belly's a little distended," Takara commented a few days later, "have you been following the diet we talked about?"
"I'm trying." you said nervously, not daring to look at her disapproving countenance.
"How much are they giving you?"
"As much as Naoya gets?"
"Damn servants!" she grumbled, "I shall talk to them about the portion sizes, again." Just thinking of your father gripping you like that and shoving food down your mouth made you want to throw up.
No matter how much or how little you ended up eating, you were subject to growth and changes that every child endures, and you were no longer that piece of paper thin kid struggling to wake up in the morning. You were seventeen, grown into a woman with curves and fatty flesh because at the end of the day, you were born to incubate a child. Your body grew into such, and you became okay with yourself every morning.
The stares never ceased.
In the social eye, you were deemed one of the most beautiful women in all of the fiefs, nobles included. At gatherings, you felt the leering eyes of older men and their sons, jealous girls and stage mothers. You saw it all one way or another. You did not give it much thought, finding it unimportant, until it was none other than Zen'in Jinichi and Ogi leering at you.
You would walk by, and they would stare silently as you passed, holding your breath and staring straight ahead as a signal to be left alone.
You knew how dirty men were, Zen'in men especially, how they saw women as an ass on legs, how rough and vile they were with their wives and daughters and nieces. Your family was no exception, judging the women in the estate not by intelligence or amiability, but instead by how nice of a face they had. Why they did not like Maki or Mai, because for some unknown reason, they found them repulsive and unappealing.
Granted, they never said anything outrageous or gross to you, but by the way their gazes lingered on you for far too long, how they quit speaking when you passed, how they watched you eat, it was clear they were full of nothing but foul thoughts.
"You know, I do not like you. I just had to say it."
"Oh..."
Nineteen.
You blinked away the confusion when the girl spat those words at you. She was one to always stare at you when yourself and your cousins would walk the fief, eyeing you with a venomous sneer. Eyes sharp and hair down around her face, she was the embodiment of hatred. She was beautiful.
You hated her.
"Excuse me?" Maki stared her down, but she seemed not to care about titles at this moment.
"You heard me," she said, "I hate you."
"Yoko! Quit!" another girl beside her tugged her arm, only to have it ripped away. "Zen'in-sama, please excuse her-"
"Shut up!" she--Yoko-- yelled back at her, "you're almost as insufferable as her."
"I have never spoken to you before." you said cautiously.
"Right, but the statement still stands. You, with your perfect face and body and perfect life. You get handed everything and I have to work like a dog to pay for your estate," You stared at her, Maki with her mouth open in shock and you avoided her gaze. "You know nothing of real pain, real fear and dread. You know none of it, Zen'in-sama."
More stares from the gathering townspeople.
"I-"
"It isn't fair!"
"That's not our damn fault." Maki spat, steering you away from the hateful teenager with nothing but bad perceptions.
"Yeah, walk away the second someone tells you the truth!" she laughed at your back, "your biggest burden is figuring out which silk yukata to wear to bed!"
"It is not true," Maki assured, "she does not know you or your struggles."
"She struggles more than I."
"That does not mean she is allowed to discredit your own pain."
You shrugged it off. Avoided it. Avoided the thought that no matter if you had spoken to them or not, people hated you for your very existence. Both men and women hated you, and that was a downfall of living with a noble family. Everyone hated you, and you hated yourself that day.
"I am gaining weight." you murmured to yourself.
"Well, wife," Satoru chuckled from the washroom doorway, "you are pregnant," He looked at you in front of the mirror, how you eyed your arms and belly with contempt. "Your body is supposed to change. That is part of motherhood, is it not?"
Who knew Gojo Satoru would have wise words?
"I know..." you forced yourself to smile before turning to your husband, who gave you a lazy grin in return.
"Do not tempt me by standing in the nude, y/n."
"I am not tempting you!"
"You tempt me by merely standing there," Reaching out for your arm, he pulled you out of the washroom and pressed you onto the bed, halfway undressed before you even opened your eyes. "Can't wait to see you further along. You're already just so pretty."