Shouta always prided his rationality.
From the time he had been a cabin boy, Shouta's level headedness and self-discipline were his most valuable traits on a ship. Having been orphaned at a young age, Shouta acquired the necessary street smarts to survive the real world before grown men learned the same hard lessons. He'd been valued on various ships for his intelligence, often being consulted by much older and experienced officers for his strategizing. No one was surprised when the young cabin boy rose to the position of commodore shortly after his twenty-seventh year, becoming the pride of the royal court of Musutafu, and, in his ten year career of corralling unruly cabin boys, Shouta had never once met someone who could provoke him to abandon his reason.
The young lady rubbing at his ankle with her silk stockinged foot, however, was getting pretty damned close.
Shouta had told her to behave herself during dinner, that he would take her on the ship and present her with a gift or escort her into the city if she was a quiet little lamb. He knew she was capable of being quiet and very sweet when she wanted to be. He knew this dinner was going to bore her to death, and he had bargained with her for that very reason. For all Shouta had known, the two of them had reached an understanding.
And then she showed up to dinner.
Shouta had never been one to control her. After all, he made no secret that Yumi's wild nature had been one of the things that'd drawn him to her. He had little interest in a housewife that would want to sit around a manor all day and bear his children while he was being tossed about the sea. He'd always been keen on taking his wife with him whenever he sailed, and Shouta knew his lifestyle required a very special kind of person in order for a relationship to work. Yumi fit all of his qualifications very well since the day he'd met her, and, because of her suitability to him, Shouta had decided that he'd be willing to put up with her intense moodiness and the tumult that seemed to follow her wherever she went.
Shouta had given her vague qualifications for her attire that amounted to nothing more than please do not embarrass me only to find that their definitions of embarrassment couldn't have been more dichotomous. If she'd merely shown up to dinner exposing the breast she was oh-so fond of, he might have been able to laugh it off and make a joke about Yumi's reputation preceding her. She was funny after all, and he would have been able to work with that.
However, when Yumi stepped out of her carriage in that red silk dress, appearing so scandalous yet so innocent with its tapered hemline around her knees, Shouta didn't know how he was going to be able to get through the dinner. Surprisingly, only the top eighth of her breasts were on display, making an appearance if she shrunk her shoulders a certain kind of way. Nothing about the dress outright screamed improper. In fact, it was very suitable for her age: cute and mature all at once. What really drove him mad were the silken stockings she wore with the little white bows traveling up the seams that disappeared up right at the hem near her perfect thighs. He almost scolded her when he looked into her eyes and saw her mischief was clearly intended; moreso, as a reformed hellion, she was allowed to get away with this kind of behavior by society.
It only makes everything worse when she begins to rub his leg.
Shouta knew that taking a young woman who'd been educated on how to be a mistress to wife was going to be an interesting turn of events. He'd never met someone who was so well-mannered and yet still knew how to break all the rules of polite society. Upon agreeing to her father's request to see his daughter, Shouta had expected nothing more than a girl who'd had the life beaten out of her who would go to bed premaritally with him and could give him a child by the year's end. While Yumi was absolutely willing to do both of those things, she did them because she wanted them without ever factoring him into the equation. He liked that she was as wild and untameable as the ocean he'd been so well acquainted with since childhood.
Most of the time anyway.
"Yumi, there are other people here." Despite the words being hissed out through bared teeth, Yumi only titters, continuing to lift her little foot up and down his leg, her plump lower lip tucked neatly between her front teeth.
"They're not paying attention, Shou," she whispers, scooting her chair another centimeter over just as she'd been doing the whole night.
"They're paying more attention than you think," he replies gruffly, gently nudging her foot away from his leg. Yumi only frowns, throwing a quick look over at the rest of the table before reaching her hand over to him, resting the silken gloved hand on his thigh, her thumb tracing his dress pants. His breath hitches, his chest rising and falling with a deep breath. "Yumi."
"'S boring here, Shou," she mumbles, her big doe eyes looking up at him imploringly as her fingers begin rubbing in more concentrated patterns. "Can we go, please?"
"Soon, little one," he whispers, hoping the pet name would soothe her, but, when her hand traveled further up his thigh, he realizes it only satiates her the way her dress does him. "Yumi!"
"Please, Shouta?" she asks in that sweet voice that destroys every ounce of Shouta's self control.
Damn it all to hell.
"Swear to God, why are you so damn difficult?"
The words sound like an insult, but the two of them know better than that by now. He can never be annoyed at her, not if he tries, and he never, ever wants to be. She's sunk her claws too far into him by now for him to be anything other than inflamed by her, even if the things she's setting ablaze are his temper rather than his passions.
That's why, when he drags her by the wrist from the table, something that should be so keenly embarrassing, she only giggles. She throws her head back, sending a flurry of hair the color of the indigo he imports flying through the air like blue flames, and laughs because she knows exactly what she's gotten herself into, and she loves every second of it. Nothing can embarrass her anymore, even being dragged away from a very public ball by her not-yet husband only makes her writhe with joy, and it's one of the many reasons Shouta loves her. She's wild — no matter how hard he could ever dare to try, he will never be able to domesticate her.
And he loves it. It's single handedly his favorite thing about her.
"Because if I were easy, you wouldn't like me," Yumi chimes from behind him, and Shouta knows without a doubt that she's telling the truth. He no longer concerns himself with responding to her, knowing words are just inane babble now. His eyes are too busy darting everywhere, looking for servants or, even worse, gossipers. He finds the hallway clear and, fortunately for him, very dark. The party is confined to the main hallway, and Shouta wonders why no one ever attempts to lock the doors until he realizes that he's no different than anyone else. The doors remain unlocked for people just like him and Yumi who are impatient and would risk societal destruction rather than wait for the party to end. He even debates going back to the ship, a mere ten minute carriage ride away from the Todoroki's banquet hall, but he knows that by doing so he would commit a grave offense of manners. While infidelities and fornications can be forgiven and forgotten, insults are far, far worse, and Shouta can't risk insulting his potential future brother in law.
"I'm not even dressed badly, Shou," she argues as he presses her against the dark corner and shields her with his body before the first kiss is pressed against her mouth. Once more, Shouta knows that she's telling him the truth, but his own truth is that he would have been less scandalized had she shown up stark naked than looking so preciously indecent. Dressed in finery, she only reminds him of how beautiful she is and how pathetic and pointless his life was without her in it.
They can't have sex in the hallway. Shouta knows that's too much of a risk, but he buries his face into her neck regardless, hoping that her smell is enough to satisfy him. It never is though, her entire being is his aphrodisiac and his worst addiction wrapped up into one nice blue and red little package, adorned with pretty little bows all along her legs. His forehead hits the wall behind them, his arms forming a cage around her as though running away is anywhere in her thoughts.
If his self-control doesn't restrain him, though, something in Yumi's demeanor shifts at the very least, her little gloved hands tugging at the shoulders of his waistcoat. She wants to be held, and Shouta obliges by lifting her hoping that the tenderness of the proximity will do something to satisfy him until the night ends. She obviously doesn't want him exactly in that way right now or else she would have been trying to shove the coat off, and, once she's securely around his waist, she does nothing more than bury her face into his shoulder as her soft little breaths serenade him. He's almost annoyed really, knowing fully that her ruined status would have permitted her to sit in his lap after dinner when everyone had a few drinks brewing within them.
"All of this for an embrace, Tea Cup?"
Yumi grumbles at the nickname, grabbing fistfulls of his hair, and he chuckles knowing it's the one thing that he does that bothers her. They've been together for months, and, while she can draw maps for him and memorize star patterns, she can't make tea the way he likes. It's a miracle she even tries after she spilled boiling water on him during their first official meeting, and she doesn't like being reminded of it.
"You just got back."
Shouta knows that's what this is about before she even says it. Yumi never makes a secret of her distress when he's gone for long periods of time, and, truthfully, he didn't even know if he'd return in time to see his sister in law join society as an engaged woman. Yumi nearly knocked him from the pier when she heard he arrived, a reaction he's grown used to even if he doesn't fully understand it. The fact he's even engaged still feels so surreal to him, and what's even more bizarre is the fact that Shouta knows she genuinely cares for him.
He tightens his arms around her, rubbing her velvet back as best he can given the awkward position. "I'll be landbound for a month, Yumi," he assures her, "then it's one more trip, and you'll be coming with me after that. It's not much longer."
She pulls away, frowning — not in the spoiled sense like she's angry at him, but in the way that she's obviously trying not to cry. She looks almost cherubic when she makes that expression, like a sad little angel begging him not to sin with her imploring doe eyes and rosebud mouth. Shouta so badly wants a child with her features despite not being certain he could take a small being with her face and mannerisms asking him for anything. He already has a difficult enough time telling her no.
"I don't want to think about that," she whimpers into his shoulder, and Shouta wishes he'd never gone to sea for the first time in his life. He almost opens his mouth to say something else when the lights come on, and he freezes, turning his head in the direction of the now lit gaslight. The room is still shrouded in a thin layer of darkness, and Shouta knows if he presses Yumi further into the corner, the intruder won't entirely be able to see who they are. However, Yumi goes stiff in his arms, trying to obscure her face in his shoulder, a behavior uncharacteristic of her even when caught. Something is wrong. Shouta knows it.
"The party's down the hall," the intruder states, his voice mature but still young sounding, and Shouta realizes immediately they're roughly the same age. The man is dressed nicely, his auburn hair neatly styled on top of his head, but what strikes Shouta most are the three golden earrings occupying the man's left earlobe, the designs of them indicating a man who travels quite a bit. Shouta cranes his head over his shoulder and throws the man his best "Thank you, now I am currently occupied" glare to which the man only smirks.
"The Todorokis request your presence at the table. They're about to break open bottles of sake." Shouta sighs, realizing that they're caught as he drops Yumi down onto the floor and prepares to take her hand only for her to push herself flush against his body and cling to him for dear life. His suspicions are confirmed when he tries to urge her forward only for Yumi to press her slippers into the floor and shake her head when he tries to move her. He casts a look at the man, who stands there and watches the scene with mild amusement, his left eyebrow raised at her.
"We'll be there soon," Shouta assures their uninvited guest, who vanishes slowly down the hall, throwing a glance back at them every so often until he reaches the ballroom doors and opens them as a further flood of light enters the hallway. Shouta looks at Yumi's face only to find it distorted by either fear or darkness or both in the fleeting seconds before night fills the room again. She's heaving into his chest by then, his large hands coming to rest on her back before she allows him to lead her back down the hallway. Shouta knows he's not going to get an answer out of her for several hours, but that doesn't stop his mind from racing even as he leads Yumi back to the dining table and allows her to have a drink to calm her nerves.
However, even as her throat bobs with heaping swallows of alcohol, Shouta can't ignore the thousand yard stare in her eyes.
Stars illuminate the ship by the time they return to the boat, the celestial bodies gleaming like specks of white fire along a canvas of black as Shouta leads Yumi onto the ship. Their ritual is established by this point: he undresses, and Yumi receives whatever shirt he wore the day before. However, unlike other nights, this one is quiet, something that unsettles Shouta even more as Yumi quietly picks up the white cotton shirt from the ground and throws it over her head before dragging herself to the large canopy bed and sinking into its depths. Shouta trails her movements, gazing with concern as she disappears under the bed sheets after washing her face in his water bowl, her vague silhouette a mountain beneath the sheets.
He watches her, wondering if he should even bother with questions and skip to demands. It was that man, something about him scared her to death and rendered her unable to function for the rest of the party. They'd left as soon as it was polite enough to do so, yet even escaping the ballroom did nothing to alleviate her nerves.
Her form cocoons into a little ball, and that's when Shouta decides he's had enough.
"What happened back there, Yumi?" he questions, and Yumi's body stills beneath the blankets, only daring to move after a second and only poking out enough to gaze at him from a hole in the sheet.
"Nothing," she replies, and Shouta offers an eye roll in response.
"Something happened," he argues, voice stern, "something with that man. I know it did." Her eyes widen in horror, as though she's genuinely shocked he's figured it out so quickly. His stern gaze continues to watch as Yumi pulls herself from her mountain of bedsheets, strands of her blue hair sticking up from the static while others cling to the sheets. Regardless, she's a sight to behold in Shouta's eyes, a damned piece of art he wishes he could replicate on canvas and attach to his wall. He's thought about having a painting done of her, but Shouta knows that absolutely no one else can see her the way he does, and he still doesn't know if that realization angers or relieves him.
"It all happened a long time ago," she finally admits, her fingers twiddling together in the familiar way they do when she believes she's in trouble, "really, I don't know why I'm behaving like this."
"That's not telling me what happened, Yumi," he presses, swiveling his desk chair around to face her. Usually, he would be curled up in bed with her, but the night has him so pressed he can't bring himself to relax yet, not until he knows exactly what has her so worked up. Yumi hesitates a moment, lying back against the pillows but never submerging herself beneath them.
"I'm afraid you won't like me anymore if I tell you." He contemplates the words, the realm of possibilities already narrowed down to a few options, none of which Shouta considers to be very good.
"I still want to hear it."
"His name is Kai," she begins, and, though her body is right in front of him, something about her tone and the look in her eyes is vacant. "He's a duke's son. I — we — he's the reason I went to finishing school."
The word choice is interesting, and Shouta notices it immediately: he's the reason I went to finishing school. The pattern is vague, but he nonetheless contemplates her for a moment before turning back to his desk, a sense of near relief washing over him as he reaches for a quill, believing he has this all figured out. "I see," he replies, offering her an out if she desires to avoid further conversation. Shouta knew of her reputation before he agreed to eventually take her hand in marriage. It never bothered him then, and it doesn't bother him now. "There's nothing for you to be scared of, Yumi."
"There's not?" she questions, her eyes returning to her body and, more importantly, to him. Shouta shakes his head, standing as the swivel chair squeaks beneath his removed weight and moving over to an armoire to collect a fresh vial of ink.
"I already know everything about you. He couldn't tell me anything that would bother me." He watches her expression to confirm that his suspicions are correct, and he's relieved when her shoulders relax some, her presence materializing in the room further. Shouta nearly asks her to come help him with his cartography, believing the issue to be over with until Yumi speaks again.
"Shouta, why is it that you ask so many questions whenever we have sex?"
It's a very blunt question, one that stalls his brain for a minute while he's thinking of an answer while also trying to interpret it correctly. His eyes furrow while his shoulders give a vague roll before he answers. "What do you mean by questions, Tea Cup?"
"The first time we had sex, you wouldn't stop asking me questions," she explains, her animatedness returning, "no one ever told me that men ask where they can expel their seminal—"
"Yes, yes, I understand what you mean now," he sputters, averting his eyes from her while also feeling shame that he's damn near thirty and gets embarrassed by how blunt she is about sex. He palms the back of his neck, her serenade of giggling reverberating in his ears and putting him somewhat at ease. He straightens in his chair, wondering why she's even bothering to ask such a question before gazing at his maps. "I want you to be comfortable with me."
His responses silences her again, and Shouta half expects to hear her crying as she usually does over what he deems as common sense answers to basic relationship questions. However, when no response comes to him, he looks only to find her staring at him as though she's in the middle of a realization. "No one else ever asked me questions like that."
It's times like these that Shouta feels the most badly for her, these moments when he's reminded that she's been chewed up and spat out by society's standards. He could kill her reputation just as easily as all the other bastards had; after all, they have done much worse than what got her expelled in the first place. But it's when she's vulnerable and honest with him that Shouta is reminded that she wants nothing more than to be loved — a base, human desire that got abused.
He sets the vial of ink back onto the table and settles onto the edge of the mattress, and Yumi wastes no time coming to lie her head in his lap as he begins a steady rhythm of stroking her hair. "Listen to me, Yumi," he murmurs, "I know this doesn't matter right now, but I'm telling you this in case something ever happens to me—" She stops him right there, her head lifting from his thigh with an offended, unsettled look.
"Don't say things like that."
"No, this is important," he argues, "I want you to be taken care of if something ever happens to me." She looks ready to argue but lowers her head and allows him to drag his fingers across her hair. "Not every man is going to ask you questions like I do. Most of them don't care." She nods from her place on his thigh, rubbing at the skin exposed from where his nightshirt doesn't cover him entirely.
"I know," she murmurs almost in a bored way, "I had a man ejaculate on my breasts after I told him not to." Shouta's fingers stop threading in her hair, never daring to remove themselves and only staying stationary. This is different than all the other times she's been blunt with him even if she isn't fully aware of it. He assumes the worst but quickly attempts to push the thoughts away. He's sure it's nothing, sure that it was just an accident, so sure that he keeps his voice remotely steady when he asks:
"When did this happen?" She shrugs, as if it's no big deal.
"Right before I went to school."
"Was it with that man?" It's then that she begins to hesitate, her own circular rotations of her finger against the coarse hair of his thigh coming to a halt as she shrugs again.
"Yes," she responds in an uncomfortable, awkward kind of way, "it was the last time we ever did anything, though. Please don't worry about it."
"I am worrying about it," he mutters, "just not for the reason you're thinking." Something in her demeanor switches at that point.
"I told him not to. We snuck away from a party, and…and he wanted to see my breasts, so I let him." Her fingers start brushing his thigh again, but the movements are more intense and unfocused. "Then he wanted to put his…cock between them, and I said yes as long as he didn't finish on me." Her fingers stop moving again and instead choose to grasp at the hem of his shirt, and Shouta notices her voice beginning to crack. "It was so gross and sticky, and it got all over my dress, and everyone knew, Shouta….He said he didn't want to get it on himself."
He's seeing red at that point, blood pounding in his ears, the tempo of his heartbeat reverberating in his throat so intensely that he's almost positive he's going to blow a vessel in his neck. The image in his head is so palpable he swears it's manifested in front of him, and all he can picture is his fiancee in her pretty little red dress, humiliated to death with that bastard's seed staining the front of her gown. It's disgusting. She's ruined in the mental picture in front of him, ruined with tears running down her pale cheeks, creating trails in the makeup and raccoon patterns under her eyes.
And Shouta wants to kill him. It's the only thing that can sate his brain right now — allowing the violent images to run through his head calms him down a little, but the relief is temporary. Someone needs to do something, do something before someone else gets embarrassed and sent away for his behavior.
He needs to do something about it.
His rage must be obvious, for, when he feels a slight tug at his shirt and looks down, Yumi's gazing up at him with wide eyes. He already knows that she assumes he's angry at her, and the realization that his rage isn't without consequence to her chills a little of his anger. His hand loses itself in her long blue hair, and he swallows down the swelling in his Adam's apple before pressing a kiss to her face. He can't say anything to her —- bless her little heart, but Shouta knows Yumi can't keep secrets, particularly when they involve her. Her nervousness abates when his mouth touches her, and she sits up further into his chest, resting her head against his right pectoral just mere inches from the sound of his pounding heart beat. "Are you angry at me?" she questions as his large hand clamps down on the side of her head and brings it to rest against his collarbone.
"Not at you." Never at you.