Author's Note: As always, glad to have you reading! Just a heads up - there is a somewhat graphic description of sexual acts done with dubious consent. If you find that kind of thing upsetting, you can skip this chapter without missing any essential plot.
Walking the village's sleepy side streets in late afternoon, Risa could imagine herself transplanted back to her late teenage years, when her future felt full of possibility. Ko's lanky shadow trailed hers by several feet, as it did during their hundreds of walks along the same route.
With Neji deployed on back to back missions over the past week, she found herself smiling with the same ease as before her dreaded betrothal. Next to Ko, she could smile into the orange sun without fretting that Neji might undercut her fragile equilibrium with a few scathing words.
"I still think about what you said, Risa," Ko admitted softly.
Pink spread across her cheeks and she returned a feeble laugh. Risa still remembered the exact words she used, and the exact moment when she said them.
Her teenage fantasy, finally expressed in the days before her wedding, now seemed silly.
"I've said many things to you," she replied, voice shaking. "Please be more specific."
"I wish it could be you," Ko echoed Risa's confession back to her. "I'm sorry I left you without saying anything back, but it broke my heart that...that was on your mind the entire time."
A suffocating heat rose to Risa's eyes and nose. She paused midway across one of the village's many footbridges to stem the tears. Closing the distance between them in two steps, Ko nestled her face against the shoulder that comforted her countless times. His hands found their familiar places at her neck and lower back. The Hyuga frowned on open displays of intimacy, but half a mile from the compound, neither cousin looked over their shoulder.
"Oh...yes, that was me," she whispered into the chest pocket of his green shinobi vest.
Her best friend never failed to make her feel safe.
On nights when she stayed with his parents as a child, Risa always slipped off her pallet to find Ko's side. They'd fight sleep together by making shadow puppets in the glow of his nightlight or spinning stories one sentence at a time. Occupying the same bed as married adults felt like a natural progression of their childhood spent sleeping, sparring and playing side by side.
Risa found small comfort that Neji couldn't steal those memories.
"Congratulating Neji on your marriage…seeing how miserable you looked behind the makeup. I thought of your words over and over, Risa."
Burrowing her face into Ko's body, Risa shook her head.
"You know I don't drink," she choked out. "You know that wasn't me."
Ko's chest vibrated with sad laughter.
"Of course, I know you. Certainly better than he does."
Of the last four clan marriages Ko remembered, all occurred between cousins whose families already had close ties. None were strangers, and none finalized their union while both husband and wife loudly objected.
At least within the compound walls, no Hyuga openly remarked on the unorthodox nature of Neji's marriage. Ko's mother silenced his tentatively ventured concerns by snapping that Risa knew her duties to the clan.
"Don't tell him that. He assumes he knows everything he needs to know about me," Risa said.
Lifting her head for air, she forced a smile and gazed at the shimmering river below her feet. Ko's palms traced circles across her back.
A whisper in the back of Ko's mind questioned what kind of family destroyed one of its own members from the inside out for the "greater good." And what reward would the clan gain from Risa's pain? Neji Hyuga on a leash, a spiteful cornered animal ready to lash out. He considered the prize hardly worth the great cost.
"What's it like? Living with him."
Risa thought of sparing her best friend the truth. But her selfish side wanted to confide in one of the few people who would acknowledge her unfiltered emotions without judgment.
"The way he speaks to me. Looks at me with hate…well, even he treats the servants with more courtesy."
She covered her face with both hands. She could at least spare Ko the sight of her reddened face twisted by despair.
"I'm grateful he hasn't tried to come into bed yet. I'm...I-I suppose I have ways of coping if he does," she continued, her voice laced with defeat. "So far, I'm certain he still goes to the Sato girl to gratify himself between missions."
Risa's allegations of infidelity hardly registered to Ko – no, his mind latched onto the terrible choice his cousin would likely face soon. He thanked the gods that he hadn't been born with a woman's body.
Neji Hyuga had the most powerful Byakugan seen in their generation, and the clan expected him to pass it on.
That was Risa's unspoken duty to the Hyuga.
The questionresurfaced in his mind, and Ko could no longer suppress it by telling himself to ask another time. Or telling himself that asking a question so fundamental to her well-being would spit on her dignity.
"And...what would you do if he did?"
He steeled himself for Risa's answer, tightening his grip on her shoulders.
Uncovering her swollen tear-stained eyes, she shook her head.
"The children, they'd be mine. I'd love them like I've always intended."
The children would be hers, even if she lost ownership of her body the day she married him, Ko thought. She belongs to him now.
He then reconsidered – Neji didn't own her body, or his own. The clan owned both of them.
Ko briefly concluded that the clan owned him as well, but pushed the unwelcome implication from his mind.
"Tell me you wouldn't go quietly, Risa."
She stood silent for what felt like hours, letting Ko's breaths warm her skin against the chill wind that swept across the river.
The "helpful tips" she'd received years ago flooded through her mind. After one conversation she had at 16 years old, she couldn't think of herself caressing a man's bare skin or taking him into herself without rolling pulses of revulsion.
That afternoon, she found herself awaiting an audience with the third hokage next to an older chunin, a konoichi from a civilian family who introduced herself as Yoshini. Following 10 minutes of silent staring down the corridor, Risa asked a question about her latest mission – one she soon regretted.
Yoshini told her of a monthlong seduction mission to gain information from a diplomat sent by the wind daimyo. Posing as a prostitute sent to sate the older man's needs while he stayed in the Land of Fire. Snapping her fingers or digging nails into her palms to keep herself grounded while he took liberties with her body. Pleasing him with her lips and fingers to shorten her ordeals. Yoshini's gratuitous details made Risa feel as if thousands of tiny insect legs crept under her skin.
The longer Risa listened, the more she could detect a cruel note in the chunin's voice. When Risa finally declared that she'd heard enough, Yoshini sneered I suppose a spoiled Hyuga brat shouldn't have to worry her pretty mind.
Lord Hiashi wouldn't permit any Hyuga konoichi to debase herself with seduction missions. Yet Risa now faced an analogous charge, spread over however long she needed to conceive at least one child.
"He promised he wouldn't hurt me," Risa said, to Ko's raised brows. "The morning after the wedding."
"Neji?"
"Yes, him."
Ko frowned and tilted his head. He noted that she refused to answer his last point about going quietly. Yet he didn't want to distress her further by pressing the issue.
"I wish things could be different. I wish I could have spared you. I'd marry you tomorrow if I could," he whispered into the side of her face. His rattling breaths fell hot on Risa's cheek.
"I-It's a stupid, pointless thing to want," she muttered.
Unfortunately, Ko agreed. Ko's parents – Risa's aunt and uncle – reminded their son of his place every time they mistakenly assumed his best friend was on her way to becoming more.
Ko mentally listed all the reasons a union between him and Risa could never have occurred, even if Neji had married Natsumi Hyuga at the intended time. Raised to believe lineage and blood defined fate, she could list every one as well as he could. The reasons dooming Risa's dream were out of her control or his.
Ko was born lucky. As nephew to Hiashi Hyuga's wife, he enjoyed status Risa would never know. No matter her skill with children, the Hyuga patriarch would never have entrusted Risa with his eldest daughter.
"But I would...I'd give years of my life to have it."
Risa faced Ko with a straight face, her crisp voice unmuffled by tears.
Risa knew Ko didn't desire women in the same way as the men lining up down the street to buy tickets for Makeout Paradise: The Movie. Part of her preferred him for it. She could trust that he wouldn't demand she use her mouth, hands and breasts in disgusting ways. He could trust her to shield him from the village's scrutiny and let his secret die with her.
"Oh...no, Risa," he answered. Now she buried her fingers in his freshly clipped black hair as he cried for her.
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At least two nights of the week, Risa asked Neji whether she should expect him in bed.
"No," he would reply without fail, as the muscles around his eyes contracted into a scowl.
"Alright," she would say, and tried to contain her relieved sigh.
Those were always their last words before he greeted her the next morning with "I see you have breakfast ready" or "I don't have the entire day to wait for breakfast."
One night after dinner, Neji lingered at the table to watch her clear the kitchen counters and load the dishwasher. She glanced at his smirk before turning to attack a stubborn stain on the pan with enough force to fragment the scrubbing pad in her hands.
"You can always use your hand," he remarked at Risa's turned back. "I know there are also adult items specifically manufactured for frustrated women."
"I-I didn't even ask," she snapped. "Perhaps you are the frustrated one."
Has your lover tired of you already? – she finished silently. Risa barely bit back the rejoinder to her taunt, reminding herself to stay above his childish bullying. Red spots blossomed on her cheeks regardless.
"Still, I'm not the one who asks," he countered, voice maddeningly monotone. "And I wouldn't care if you took Ko into bed one of these nights. You could easily pass his children as mine, too."
Neji's flippant comment about her best friend released the well of anger that accumulated in her stomach with every one of his slights.
He really thinks so little of me. To assume I would use Ko to pleasure myself in the most vulgar way… she thought.
She continued scrubbing with the disintegrating pad until its pieces clung to her fingers. The stain remained entrenched.
"I ask because I want to know whether to expect you. So I can mentally prepare myself," Risa spat, locking her jaw and clenching her hands into fists.
"Hm."
Neji had no biting answer. Only a touch of pity for his wife, who shared his duty to sire the clan's next generation of slaves. With his pity came a bit of respect. Despite the demure image she projected before their wedding guests, Risa didn't intend to accept her fate with a blushing smile. He pictured her shoving him from the bed at the conclusion of each joyless act. Throwing a pillow in his face. Then occupying the shower for the next hour to cleanse herself of him.
His head spun with momentary nausea at the notion of pursuing intimacy with a woman who mentally resisted every touch.
"But you're welcome to flatter yourself, Neji. Tell yourself I want you spreading my legs while you think of the Sato girl."
Risa's mockery sent adrenaline through his veins. He wanted to say that he couldn't see himself completing the deed otherwise.
Before answering, he cleared his mind of the clever retorts he had lined up like a row of shuriken. He at least owed her a straightforward answer in exchange for her honesty.
"I suppose we have an agreement. I'm even letting you take our bed," he said.
"Yes, our agreement works well."
He suspected he heard his wife say thank you. Thank the gods – words certainly not intended for anybody's ears but her own.