TEALEAVES
Estelle is getting married, which means that Yuri and Rita have some things to discuss. / Alternative title: That Time I Actually Finished a Piece?!
\\\
Yuri is standing when he gets the news, and by the time it has been fully delivered he has to sit down.
"Married," he breathes. He stares hard at the paperwork on his desk. It's been sitting there for weeks, as each stack has before it, and only when Yuri grows bored of pretending to make it through the legalities will he shove the responsibility onto someone else. It is a hard job he has for that unfortunate someone. "Estelle. Married." He can't seem to put the two words in the same sentence.
It is hard for him because he suspects that he has always expected Estelle to simply love and to never be in love. He always imagined her growing old in her modest Halure cottage, sipping tea and reading storybooks to her children - whom she procured, obviously, by Immaculate Conception. For some reason, a husband never seemed to factor into that picture, although there had been an instance early on where one of Estelle's imaginary children had dark hair and Yuri's charming grin.
"That's crazy, isn't it?" Yuri says. He laughs, jarred by the ordeal. "Tell me that's crazy, Captain."
Karol, the messenger, shrugs the shoulders he's finally grown into and sheepishly smiles. "It's a little unexpected, maybe. But it's great!"
"I mean - yeah," Yuri concedes.
"I'm happy for her," Karol says. "Really happy. She deserves it."
"It's not like I'm not happy for her," Yuri defends, carding his fingers through his hair. He lopped off a few inches last year, and it's just getting back to the length he likes it. "I'm happy for her. It just caught me off-guard."
Karol nervously bounces on his heels. His feet are bigger than Yuri's now, and with his hair coiffed, he's even an inch taller. Yuri is still trying to get used to physically looking up at his boss when his boss still figuratively looks up to him, but he comes more and more to terms with it each day. The news he's just received, though, is something that will take longer for him to stomach.
"Estelle's getting married," Yuri says, tasting the phrase for the first time. It's sour and bitter like tealeaves. "Wow," he says.
Karol looks like he wants to say something, doesn't.
\\\
Yuri goes to the tavern that night, but not because he's upset about the news. Really. The sole purpose for going to the tavern tonight is to unwind, because his job as a top guild member is taxing and he needs a few hours to himself every once in a while. He's earned that.
When he steps into Crimson Stars, he sees perhaps the last person he is expecting.
"Oh," says Rita Mordio when he takes the stool next to her at the bar. She studies him for a moment, looking young in the light. When her frown shifts to a smirk, she suddenly seems older. "Heh. I should've expected this."
"Expected what," Yuri deadpans. He gets the attention of the bartender and orders a scotch.
"You. Here." She's sipping her drink through a straw. It's a Bloody Mary, maybe. It would at least suit her. "Come to ease your pain, Lowell?"
"Lowell," Yuri snorts. "Wow, Rita, I didn't realize we'd become so impersonal."
The bartender sets a short glass filled with amber liquid before him with a clink. Yuri wraps his fingers around it, condensation wetting his palm, and takes a long sip.
"I haven't talked to you in years," Rita answers. It isn't meant to be a dig at either of them, just fact. Their schedules are busy and their paths rarely cross, not to mention that neither of them ever particularly liked the other. "Lowell seemed appropriate."
"You've never called me that," Yuri points out. He runs his finger along the rim of the glass. "Now, if I'd called you Mordio, that would've made sense. I called you that back when we first met. You never once called me Lowell."
Rita, in that infuriating way of hers, merely shrugs. "Hey," she says dryly, "at least I didn't call you another name."
"I'll toast to that."
Yuri angles towards her in the stool, holding up his drink. Rita rolls her eyes but humors him nonetheless, clinking her glass against his.
The pair falls into an amiable silence. Yuri finishes his first drink and orders both himself and Rita another. Turns out the one she's having is called the Love Potion.
"Really?" Yuri teases. He grins like a wolf, teeth pressed into his tongue.
"It tastes good," she says, but Yuri isn't deterred.
"What's it taste like, Rita? Melted candy and rose petals?"
"Sure does," Rita says. She's grown less flustered with age, which is depressing for someone that took a sick pleasure in riling her up. She's bolder, though, managing to fluster him a little when she coyly asks if he wants a taste.
"Yeah," he says, smirking when Rita's lips part and her eyes widen like a doe's. What can he say? He's always liked a challenge. "Pass it over."
\\\
Yuri has known for a long time that any romantic feelings he ever had towards Estelle were fleeting and squandered upon realization, but once he has five scotches and half a Love Potion in him, he's really starting to dislike the idea of Estelle getting married to anyone that isn't him. Or Flynn, maybe, but only because Yuri knows that Flynn would take care of her.
"I mean - how long have they been dating?" Yuri complains, cheeks and lips flushed red. "I've never met him. I haven't heard anything about him. If Estelle liked him so much, why the hell did she hide him?" Yuri bows his head and swallows, taking a moment to think.
"There's got to be something wrong with him," he decides.
"Nope," says Rita, embittered about the ordeal, herself. "He's apparently perfect."
She's had less to drink than Yuri, at least he thinks she has, but her tolerance is probably lower because she's swaying a little. Her lips are puffy from her constant and nervous biting, her cheeks pinked from the liquor, her eyes glimmering in the dim light. She keeps staring at the bar, as if she can see a reflection of herself in the woodwork. Maybe she's thinking about all the bad qualities Estelle's soon-to-be-husband has, and when she thinks of them she can tell Yuri so that he can hate the guy more. He's probably not a good guy - at least not good enough for Estelle.
Yuri refuses to believe that he's perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
"There's something," he insists. "He...he chews with his mouth open, or plans to overthrow the empire, or. He snores. That's gotta be it."
Rita shakes her head. Her hair, long enough now that the ends tiptoe across her collarbones, moves with her. Yuri makes an unhappy noise in the back of his throat, finishing off his sixth (and a half?) drink, sort of wishing for the glass to shatter when he sets it back down.
\\\
"You weren't the only one that loved her, you know."
Yuri blinks slowly, vision swimming. His head feels weighted down by his brain. He thinks there should be a way for him unscrew the top of his skull so that he could take his mind out for a while. He'd set it on the counter and watch it the whole time, he promises.
Realizing that his brain is fully intact, Yuri somehow manages to process what Rita just said.
"Wait a - what?" He swivels in his stool, heels balanced on the circular base, and dumbly stares at her. He isn't used to her being honest. "Did you just - ?" His brow furrows.
Rita nods. Yuri breathes out.
"Wow," he says.
"I figured someone should know. Even if it's you." Rita smiles wryly into a drink Yuri realizes is still three-fourths full. Something should be done about that sometime, but maybe not right now. "I think you probably already guessed that I...had feelings for her, but. There's a difference between assuming and actually knowing. Now you know."
"Now I know," Yuri repeats, at a loss.
"I'm not heartbroken, if that's what you're wondering." Rita stirs her drink, ice clinking against the glass and the other cubes. "I was fifteen and Estelle was the first person that was nice to me. Genuinely nice." Rita stops stirring, but continues to stare into the pinkish red color. "I haven't held onto that for the last six years, alright? Estelle and I grew apart, just like me and you. Just like you and her. It happens, and I'm okay with it. I've been over it for a long time." She pauses, briefly, gathering her thoughts. Her voice gets quieter. "It's just that...her getting married is like - it's like - "
"Jarring," Yuri cuts in. "Because it's all over. Any chance you had with her is just - gone."
Rita hesitates before laughing, stilted. She leans forward in her stool to take a sip of her drink through the straw. Her lips come off with a pop.
"That's pathetic," she says. "But - yeah. That's what it feels like."
Yuri can attest to that.
\\\
When the bartender tells them that the tavern is closing in ten minutes, Yuri pays both his and Rita's tab, then leads her out with his hand pressed into the small of her back. The fabric of her cloak bunches around his fingers, thin enough that he can feel the warmth of her sinking into the flesh of his palm. It's colder outside, overcast, but Yuri still feels warm even after he draws his hand back, placing both into his coat pockets.
"I'm glad I ran into you," he blurts, breath leaving his lips like smoke. He wonders if he ever imagined saying that about Rita, then remembers that he hasn't imagined Rita in a long time. The thought strikes like a venomous snake; inwardly, he recoils. "I daresay that I missed you," he says, and it's a shit attempt at lightening the implications swirling in the air around them, but Yuri is still a lot drunk and doesn't yet process the weight of it all.
"I'm glad, too," Rita replies, a little breathy. Her cheeks are pinked from the alcohol and the warm and the cold, yes, but Yuri also thinks they're a touch pinker now that he's credited value to her in his life. He doesn't think he's done it before and it's high time he did.
"And I'm happy for Estelle," Yuri says, because he thinks that someone needs to say it, whether they believe it or not.
"Yeah, me too," Rita agrees, nodding like a bobble-head. The smile on her lips is small but significant; Yuri can tell she means it.
This is about more than Estelle, though, and Yuri can tell that, too. He steps closer to Rita, the distance between them less. She's the same age as he was when they first met, but she's still a head and shoulders shorter. He still has to stoop a little when he winds his arms around her shoulders, drawing her into a meaningful, if not slightly awkward, hug. Her body stiffens for a moment, and he's fleetingly terrified that he's ruined this before it could start, but then her arms wind around his waist and she buries her face into his chest, breathing him in.
Yuri thinks that Love Potion might finally be kicking in.
\\\
"You two certainly look cozy," Judith says faux-innocently, lithe fingers wrapped around the stem of a wineglass. They are at Estelle's engagement party and Judith is wearing a dress that is entirely too short to be appropriate, much to Flynn's chagrin and Raven's pleasure.
Rita tenses underneath Yuri's arm, but he merely raises a brow, nodding towards Estelle and her groom - Ioder, of all people - whom Judith's eyes are trained on. Both Yuri and Rita know that her ambiguity is purposeful, but they're happy to pretend that she hadn't at all been referring to them. Estelle, of course, is naïve enough not to account for Judith's trickery; she blushes a petal pink and shies away from her fiancée, who chortles embarrassedly into a loose fist. Judith smiles serenely and saunters over, her gaze flickering to Rita and Yuri on the couch only once as she goes.
For the sake of Rita's sanity, Yuri pulls his arm off of the back of the couch and leans forward to scratch Repede behind the ears. Karol, also underfoot, joins him in the undertaking. Repede whines in the back of his throat like he's annoyed, but he's getting older and less apt to snap at Karol as long as he only pets him where Repede likes it.
"Estelle looks really happy, huh?" Karol says conversationally, twisting to look over his shoulder at Yuri. He seems to be searching for something, so Yuri gives him a grin and a nod. Satisfied that everyone is okay, Karol hoists himself to his feet, offering to get Yuri and Rita some punch. He doesn't wait for an answer before walking over to the snack table, where Raven is fruitlessly trying to charm one of Ioder's friends.
Yuri tilts his head sideways to glance at Rita, smirking at how pale she's gone.
"What?" he asks. "Are you that ashamed to be seen with me?"
"No," she scoffs. "I just - when are we going to say something?" She has a little trouble meeting his gaze, but once they lock eyes she is fiercely determined to hold his attention. Yuri is placated by how little she's actually changed over the years.
"Well?" she presses.
Yuri shrugs a shoulder, prompting her to roll her eyes and mutter something about him mocking her.
"It's just," Yuri says, then lowers his voice, ducking his head so that he can be closer to her. "I think it's only fair we wait a respectable amount of time, since our hearts were just broken and all."
Rita rolls her eyes, fighting the smile that tugs on her lips.
"Besides," Yuri continues. "This is about Estelle's happiness. And we want her to be happy, remember?"
"Yeah, I remember," Rita says, giving him a halfhearted glare, the beginnings of a smirk tugging at her mouth.
He can tell what she's going to say before the word, "Lowell," parts her lips, and by then he's already reminding her, with a kiss, of how personal they've gotten since then.