beautiful one, sharer of my longing

25: Misfortune upon the Zen'in siblings

"You're...what?" you asked, "Naoya?"

Your older brother was currently sitting in the estate gardens with fingers tapping against his leg and eyes focused on the expanse of grassy land. It was dying with the season. You stared at him with worry etched all over your face. The news was surprising and sudden.

Sudden in the sense that you found him waiting out here when you arrived back from the ryokan, glaring at you before you even said a word.

Marriage? To a woman not of a noble family?

You had never heard of Zen'in Naobito allowing such a thing.

"Naoya."

"You heard me." he said. You shut your mouth. In times like these, Naoya just needed someone to listen and not interrupt his train of thought. And so you sat back with him, watching Satoru, Jun and the teenagers wave to you from the bank of the pond. They were smiling. And it was then that you saw yourself exactly as you were now, watching all of them from the garden bench with a baby in your arms.

Maybe you would let Naoya hold him.

"Her name is Miura Yoko."

Thoughts interrupted, you looked at Naoya. With a thick swallow you nodded in acknowledgement (you knew the woman), "have you met her?"

"Father has," he said, "and yes, I'm fucking furious."

"I was as well. The anger passes."

"It's different for you," your brows raised at this, cautiously awaiting an explanation. "All you have to do is have kids, keep the estate homely and not ruin our reputation. Men have way more to do."

"Yes because, those are all easy tasks," you said, a little breathless with disbelief. "It is easy to have children, and keep the hated Zen'in name out of a deeper hole, when both men and women hate me just for existing. Rather easy, isn't it?"

"Easier than being on the front fucking lines," he snapped, "watch who you're talking to."

With a quiet scoff and the shake of your head, you ignored the comment as best as you could.

"I am talking to my brother. My brother who is supposed to care for me."

"As I said before the shit show started, it is only to keep you out of harm's way. Besides the fact that it is now Gojo Satoru's duty."

"You also said it was yours in spite of it being formally taken from you."

Naoya clenched his jaw with an angry, shaky exhale. He was about to grill you, even though your words were light in tone yet vicious like the cut of a katana. Your words were a showcase of a little sister pleading for her brother's understanding.

"You can ask your damn husband. I'll bet he wasn't too happy either, to be married to a bloodsucking power leech, as all women are. Only there to have our fucking kids and look nice, y/n. That's all you are."

"To you, perhaps."

"To every man in this world, that is all you are." his words were venomous. Low in your ear and it dawned on you that no matter how much you drilled kindness and calming words into Naoya's head, he would never see you as anything other than a woman. A lowly woman, barely a sister to the amazing (spoiled) Zen'in Naoya.

How did it get this bad?

All of that emotion he'd shown to you in the past two and a half months were gone? Down the drain?

Has father been hurting him again?

"However do you mean, Naoya-sama?"

"It's time you realize it. Gojo Satoru is using you as a prize, just to knock you up and forget about you the moment that Kamo woman steps foot on this estate."