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The end of the Souma curse should be like a fairy tale.
The evil witch-queen Ren has been ousted at last, locked up in her tower to do no more harm for the rest of her days. Ren's supporters are weakened now, subdued, brought back into the family fold. Akira's daughter and heir has been restored at last to her rightful identity and her rightful throne. Akira's faction smiles to witness this justice done, and there is much rejoicing throughout the estate.
(If only.)
The curse is not a fairy tale, and the reality is far more complicated and messy.
Neither Ren nor her faction of the household staff are content to silence their poisonous mouths and keep their heads down. And that's okay. Akito knew this, when she chose. She knew she would have to fight them every step of the way and drag them scratching and biting into the sunlight.
(This is the price in blood that Akito repays, for the one she demanded from the rest of the clan for two decades. And she's hardly begun paying yet.)
But the opposition that Akito doesn't expect comes from Akira's corner. From the same faction of the family that clawed out Akito's position and power as family head in the chaos and infighting that followed Akira's death, the same faction that supported a child's every petty, callous ruling.
They never supported Akito.
They supported an institution, an abstract concept of The Souma. They supported tradition.
(And how dare Akito threaten that now.)
Akito can't stand it any longer. The lips pinched thin, the formal diction tight with disapproval, each honorific a censure and reprimand. The maids' hands every morning, tugging at the layers of the kimono (long-sleeved, feminine in color and pattern) that Akito has brought out, arranging and pulling brisk and precise and too-sharp, like every straight line is an offense against them, every perfect fold an insult to their own two hands.
Saying in everything but words that if Akito had any loyalty at all, any sense of duty to the clan, any appropriate familial feeling, any scrap of respect for the shame and embarrassment that she's bringing down upon the entire Souma--then she would shut up and live as a man for the rest of her days.
(The head maid has in fact said as much in actual words, on a number of occasions.)
Does it even matter which is the greater scandal? That the Souma family head, known to all their business partners as a man, has suddenly declared himself a woman? Or that the Souma family was deceived and corrupted and powerless to stop an outsider from forcing the entire clan to kneel to a filthy lie?
Shouldn't the family head be willing to sacrifice a little to let the rest of the family live freely from this humiliation?
It's so stupid. It's so stupid.
But at least Akito can seize a temporary reprieve from this fairytale beginning, can escape from those judgmental hands and mouths and eyes, by figuring out how to put on her own damn women's kimono.
–
Ritsu is kneeling on the floor of Akito's room, laying out perfectly-folded bundles of kimono and underkimono and collars and belts and under...belts…? and other various mysterious articles of clothing whose inscrutability made Akito look like a child who's never dressed herself before during her few attempts.
To say that Akito chose to ask Ritsu to help her learn proper kimono-dressing is misleading.
More accurately, it's not that Akito has burned all her bridges with her contemporaries in the Souma family, so much as it is that she's frequently strolled in front of said bridges, dangling a lit match carelessly between her fingertips, while declaring loudly and at length things like "Boy this sure is a nice interpersonal relationship, it'd be a shame if something happened to it."
Ritsu just happens to be one of the very few people that Akito hasn't tormented to that point, seeing as that would involve being in Ritsu's (loud, grating, incessant) presence in the first place.
Also, Ritsu has managed to dress in impeccable, Souma-expensive, long-sleeved feminine silk kimono every day for years without having to apologize to the maids for making them assist in putting it on. So.
So here is Akito, fidgeting through a private kimono-dressing class, listening to Ritsu go on and on about padding while internally cursing all the stupid, fiddly precision of tugging every layer and belt and crease just so. This is the kind of thing Akito's never had any patience for. This is the kind of thing Akito always pawned off on Kureno when he was her assistant.
(In summation: she's in a grudging mood.)
"I'll never understand how you, of all people, can stand feeling so ridiculous dressed like this," Akito grumbles to the painting on the wall.
Ritsu pauses in straightening the collar of Akito's under-kimono for the fifth time, hands going still against her chest.
(If Akito knew anything about Ritsu, she'd know how significant this is. That Ritsu is so startled as to be shocked out of the usual instinctive apology. That the statement is so absurd that all Ritsu can do is stare at her in bemusement and what Akito fails to recognize as puzzled concern. Which is probably for the best, since she'd be offended by the pity and snap back.)
"I don't feel ridiculous in kimono," Ritsu responds, plainly and slowly and with a bewildered crease of brows.
"Well, it's true that I apologize a lot," Ritsu adds, "I get anxious and I apologize too much. But, that's because other people feel ridiculous when they see me in kimono and I'm really not trying to upset them on purpose. I know I shouldn't blame myself for their reactions, but I still feel bad. But when I wear kimono, I feel…"
Ritsu pauses, looking up to the ceiling to try to find the words encapsulating that feeling written up there, presumably. Ritsu takes a deep breath in, and then slowly exhales, fingers steady and unshy and perfectly confident while checking that the belt hasn't loosened during the adjustment.
Akito's not sure what she feels here: jealous, maybe, of the way Ritsu's breath sighs out slow and easy and peaceful from a relaxed face. Which is ridiculous. It's the stupid late summer heat, making her feel sick and miserable and unreasonable and wrong, squeezing her chest and making her head light. Ritsu's never had the smallest scrap of self-composure, not a single day in an entire life. So why should the belt around her ribs feel as tight as envy?
Ritsu helps Akito slide the kimono on over the other layers, aligning collars, adjusting hems where under-layers should show and should be hidden, and finally wraps the obi around Akito's waist to model a few styles of knots for her.
And then Ritsu ventures, each word a slow and careful shuffle across an unfamiliar room in the dark of night, "Akito. Do you...feel ridiculous in this? Why would you wear kimono that doesn't make you feel right?"
(It's a good thing Ritsu is behind her, fussing with tying the obi. Otherwise, Ritsu would cringe and fly into a flailing of apology.)
It's a stupid question. A stupid question! This stupid kimono is what's right, of course it is. It's what Akito's always wanted. It's what Akito's always fought for.
To be a woman. To wear long-sleeved kimono with wide belts and ridiculous bows. To wear skirts, dresses, makeup, frilly things, things with--busts, and--long hair--feminine things. That's who Akito's supposed to be. Not god, not a boy, just--
(Akito.)
--a woman.
So, damnit, she's embracing her stupid birthright, her stupid family. She has to. She will.
(Although there's a part of her that hates dressing up in women's clothes--hates that she still thinks of them as women's clothes instead of just clothes--simply because she has to. The same way she resented all those pants and suits and men's kimono when she was forced to wear them.)
(She misses those outfits now.)
But that's beside the point. Those old clothes, those ones she's worn all her life--she's trying to break from that former person, now, to cast off her previous self. It's so easy to sink back into the temptation of comfortable old habits, stagnating in old wounds.
But she's going to change. She's going to be better. She's going to become a goddamn butterfly.
"I don't think you need to force yourself to be feminine to be a woman," Ritsu says. And then, "Ah, but, that's just my humble opinion! I'm sorry! I shouldn't have-- I mean, I know perhaps other people won't see it that way and, um, maybe you don't see it that way yourself, ah…"
(Ritsu is realizing that this may be a situation better equipped for Tohru's hand.)
(But--)
Ritsu's jaw tightens, hands falling away from the half-done knot, clenching tightly and twisting together where they're pressed into Ritsu's lap.
"I humbly apologize, Akito, but I won't continue to give you kimono-dressing lessons today. I--I want to find the clothes that make you feel like I do when I wear kimono! So!" Ritsu says, rising and jerking towards the door, eyes squeezed shut, "I most humbly beg your pardon but I am taking my leave and I will return shortly please don't go anywhere I am very very sorry for my presumptuous rudeness!!!"
(If Akito had ever bothered to learn anything about Ritsu, she would have known that fashion is Ritsu's one--un-impossible--eye-shining passionate fiery dream.)
(And she probably would have run, then, out of sheer reflex.)
An hour later, Akito has given up on the damn kimono and pulled out the family accounts to balance when Ritsu slams back into the room, out of breath and near-tears and carrying several shopping bags and not using an indoor voice at all, "Please forgive my horrific audacity but I believe these clothes are truly the clothes that suit you and I would be honored if you would try them on, I humbly request that you do!"
Akito raises a hand to throw Ritsu out of her room. And then Akito bites her lip, and scowls at the floor on the other side of the room, her fingers curling up against her palm.
"...Fine," she manages to grumble into the silence of Ritsu's catching breath. "I suppose it can't hurt to at least look at them."
(She misses the rapture on Ritsu's face. Which is fine by her.)
Akito does at least make the attempt to pay attention, her chin plopped sulkily in her palm, while Ritsu lays out various articles of clothing and chatters incessantly about outfit coordinating and accessorizing. These pants, with a feminine silhouette but a generous relaxed cut. That barely-shaped button-down blouse with the understated detailing. A nice cardigan, dark-colored, loose and fluid.
Androgynous things. A compromise, a style stepping-stone halfway between the men's clothes Akito used to wear (everything slim, everything fitted, everything that screamed she had no curves to hide) and the women's clothes Akito has tried to acquire in the meantime (everything slim, everything fitted, everything hugging soft feminine curves that Akito still isn't used to seeing displayed yet).
(Loose-fitting clothes with room for Akito to grow inside them, to get really metaphorical.)
They're a bit plain. A bit old, a bit housewife. Modest. Musty, or at least they would seems so if they weren't such expensive brands and high-quality fabrics and excellent tailoring. They hide the shape of Akito's body rather than showing it off.
But that, Ritsu thinks, is maybe what Akito needs right now. Clothes to hide in, someplace to be herself, just for herself. Maybe they aren't the best clothes for a high-level business meeting, and maybe one day Akito will really love wearing fitted dresses.
But for now.
For now.
Akito looks at the outfits for a long moment; she doesn't lift a finger to try them on. Then she turns back to the accounts on the computer. She's a busy head of the family.
She taps a finger on the table, though. "Leave the receipts here. I'll have the reimbursement deposited to your account. Goodbye."
(Well. It's a compromise.)