Chapter Text
Shinobu startles awake the instant she hears Giyuu arrive.
Well, it’s not like he’s trying to be quiet. No, far from it — the opposite, even; Shinobu can hear him thundering down the hallway, his footsteps uncharacteristically heavy as he draws nearer and nearer to her office, followed by the hurried patters of Aoi’s feet as she chases after him.
“Please, Mr. Tomioka!” She pleads, no doubt out of breath from trying to keep up with Giyuu, whose footsteps don’t even falter. “Please, just take a seat, at least!”
Shinobu hears him grunt something unintelligible, and she realises, with a start, that she can feel the vibrations of Giyuu’s hefty gait through the cold, hard wood of her desk — which, she notes with another start, half her face is still pressed against, from where she’d slumped against it in exhaustion and frustration.
She jerks upright, the sudden motion scattering sheets across the desk. Clicking her tongue, she hastens to reorganise them. Her study is a complete mess. She refuses to let Tomioka Giyuu of all people see it in its current state; aside from the mass of papers fanning across her desk, there are various unsuccessful poisons shoved carelessly into every corner, formula sheets hanging precariously off the walls, uneaten food congealing and filling the room with an unwanted stench.
Aoi had kindly brought her a meal hours ago when she’d holed herself up in here with full intent to get some work done… and yet Shinobu had the nerve to fall asleep instead!
She darts around the room with the force of a bullet, scrambling to tidy things before the Water Hashira barges his way in. From the sound of it, he’s close — and it’s only now that Shinobu realises that the incessant pattering she’d been hearing wasn’t the sound of her own brain rattling around in her head from Giyuu’s stomping, but rather that of rain; the heavy, stormy, suffocating kind that brought with it biting winds and rumbling thunder.
She stops hurriedly pouring all her failed poisons into the nearest waste bucket to listen as Giyuu rapidly approaches. She can hear a slight squelch with every step he takes, the rustle of wet fabric, and figures he must be soaked through.
“Mr. Tomioka!” Aoi valiantly tries again, her voice louder . “You’ll freeze and make yourself seriously ill at this rate, please! Oh, is it really that urgent?”
“You’re sure she’s in there?” His voice, as flat as usual, has a slight urgency and edge to it, which Shinobu knows well enough by now to recognise as Giyuu’s version of mild panic. “She hasn’t left, has she?”
“She’s in there,” Aoi confirms, and there’s a skidding noise as she halts herself before she can smack into him. “She never leaves without letting us know first.”
“Well then, excuse me.”
Despite Aoi’s protests, he pushes open the door, and Shinobu all but flies onto her stool, grabbing a writing brush and doing her best to gaze down at a random sheet of paper as if she’s deep in thought.
“Kochou.” He greets, eloquent as always.
Shinobu looks up after a moment, feigning surprise. “Oh, Tomioka, is that you?”
He blinks down at her, rainwater gathering in fat droplets at the ends of his hair and running in small rivulets down the smooth planes of his face, his eyebrows knitting together slightly.
“Kochou, you have ink on your face.”
“And you’re dripping wet.” Shinobu’s gaze rakes pointedly over his soaked clothing, wrinkling her nose as she reaches the steadily growing puddle at his feet. “Would it have killed you to dry off? It’s common courtesy, you know.”
Aoi scrambles forward at that, hurriedly pressing a warm towel into Giyuu’s grip before reaching into her pocket and pulling out a crumpled handkerchief, which she hands to Shinobu before bowing hastily and retreating from the study, closing the door behind her. There’s a momentary silence as the pair of them clean up, and it takes Shinobu three swipes of the cloth to get all the ink off her cheek before she tosses it on the messy expanse of her desk.
Giyuu pats himself down with as much grace as he can muster, rubbing the towel over his head without much success. He keeps trying, though, dragging the soft fabric again and again over inky strands to no avail — it’s only until Shinobu clears her throat pointedly that he stops, and places the towel unceremoniously around his shoulders instead, reaching for her spare stool and placing himself down on it with a heavy thud.
He takes a deep breath, as if to prepare himself, wiping at his face one last time with the end of the towel before letting it drop back down.
“Let’s get married.”
He waits expectantly for Shinobu’s response, his posture relaxed as if he’s discussing the weather. Shinobu, for once, finds herself at a loss for words, her brain activity grinding to a sudden stop, only capable of staring back at him, dumbfounded.
“Married?” She echoes, once she’s had time to comprehend it.
He nods, all casual-like, the movement causing the large drop of water gathering at the tip of his nose to drip into his lap. She watches with a detached fascination as it soaks into the dark fabric of his trousers, before focussing her gaze back onto his face. He’s blushing, just slightly, and Shinobu’s certain she is as well, but he’s downplaying it well, holding eye contact with those ridiculous blue eyes of his.
“Yeah,” He answers after some time, clearly unsettled by her prolonged silence. “Married. We need to get married.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He leans forward slightly, forearms resting at his knees. Unfortunately for Shinobu, that puts him closer to eye level, which makes it much more difficult to hold his gaze, and so she redirects it instead to the steady drip of rainwater from his nose, resisting the urge to reach out and wipe it dry completely.
“Let’s get married.” He repeats simply. His voice is quieter this time.
She reaches for the torch on her desk — an expensive little thing that had been a gift from Mitsuri as a result of her never-ending fascination with all things modern — and shines it into his eyes without warning. He flinches away from it, bewildered, and Shinobu’s immensely grateful for the distance it puts between them as she tries to process what on earth it is he’s asking of her.
“Have you hit your head somewhere? Did you slip on a puddle and fall?”
“No,” He’s immediately defensive, looking almost offended at the notion. “No, I’m completely fine.”
He swats at her hand, but she’s so in disbelief of this sudden turn of events she doesn’t realise she’s blinding him and continues to shine the light directly into his face; he grabs it from her, blinking spots out of his eyes as he fumbles for the switch to turn it off, before setting it down again on the desktop and leaving it damp where he’d touched it.
“So?” He prompts, staring at her expectantly. “Should we go?”
“Go where?” She asks, eerily calm for someone who’s just been proposed to. She reaches out to pick her torch back up, wiping its handle with the cuff of her sleeve.
He rakes a hand through clumped wet hair in frustration, his movements uncharacteristically jerky. He’s panicking, she can tell, but she really doesn’t know why.
“What’s gotten into you?” She demands suddenly before he can answer her previous question, feeling her soul re-enter her body and bringing with it a matching bout of frustration. “What’s this all of a sudden? Have you gone mad? Have you lost your mind? You show up out of the blue, asking me to marry you as if—”
“Will you or won’t you?” He cuts in harshly, fisting his hand in his hair like he’s considering ripping a chunk of it out. “I need an answer, now.”
“What if I say no?” She drops the torch back down to reach out and pry his hand away from his head, startled to find that it’s trembling slightly. He must be desperate, she figures, though really, she’s at a total loss as for why.
“Then I’ll have to find someone else.” He relinquishes his grip, and it thuds uselessly into his lap, still encased by Shinobu’s own. “And I don’t know who else to ask. I can’t ask anyone else, it needs to be you, Kochou, see, you’re the only one who could possibly do this with me—”
“Slow down, slow down!” She almost squeaks, squeezing his hand hard to ground herself more than him. The moment is almost surreal, having Tomioka Giyuu sat small and desperate in her office, having made his way here during a thunderstorm because he wants to marry her, and something isn’t adding up, because Shinobu never gets what she wants, ever — not that she wants to marry him, not yet anyway, and she’d hardly consider this a romantic proposal and the pair of them haven’t even dated, and he’s going about this with all the wrong etiquette—
“Kochou.” Tomioka looks her dead in the eye, his other hand, slick with water, coming up to grasp hers between both of his. “Please. Please marry me. I need it to be you. If I need a wife, then it’s got to be you.”
“Tomioka…” She flounders helplessly for words of some sort. “You need to understand this is very sudden.”
“I know,” He replies, serious as ever. “But I need your answer, quickly. Will you marry me?”
For some wild reason, Shinobu feels an overwhelming compulsion to say yes. But, unfortunately for her, she’s too reasonable for something so spontaneous, and so, with great reluctance, she forces herself to get answers first.
“You said, ‘if’ you need a wife,” She starts, slowly retracting her hand from between his. It’s damp now, so she wipes it against her pant leg. “Why would you suddenly need one? You’re only twenty, Tomioka, so what gives?”
“It’s not ‘if’” He brushes back soggy bangs from out of his face, avoiding eye contact now. “I do need one.”
Well, great, she thinks, trying not to fix him with a deadpan stare. Because that’s helpful.
“I know I tease you about being old and worn through all the time, but surely you’re being hasty?” She tries again valiantly, trying not to let her irritation show through her smile. “You haven’t even got any friends, and now all of a sudden you want me as your wife?”
“I have friends.” He snaps back automatically, before he even realises it.
“Right,” She nods, clearly unconvinced. “Thank you for correcting me with that compelling argument.”
“We’re straying from the point,” He waves a hand as if to dispel the momentary change of topic away. “So, will you do it? Marry me? We have to do it tomorrow morning, probably after we get the mission briefing but before we set out.”
Ah. It hits Shinobu with an awful, bittersweet clarity. Mission briefing. Suddenly, it all makes sense.
“So it’s for a mission,” She leans back casually in her chair, trying not to sound disappointed. “You couldn’t have led with that?”
He falls quiet, tilting his head slightly as he considers it.
“You’re right,” he muses, after a moment of deep thought. “I should have clarified. We need to get married for that two-man mission I’ve been assigned.”
“It’s absolutely necessary for us to be married?”
“It’s the only way it’ll work. The Master told me to find someone suitable and capable, and I could only think of you, which is why I came to ask.”
Not for the first time this evening, Shinobu wonders if he’s hit his head.
“That’s what you’re panicking about? Finding a wife for this mission? That’s what’s so urgent you rushed all the way here and didn’t even change out of those clothes?”
He hesitates, as if it’s only just dawning on him now how ridiculous he’s being.
“Well, I needed to know.” He says, almost petulantly. “It’s not just urgent, it’s also a big decision to make.”
Ah, so he understands that, does he?
“So, you’re asking me because we work well on missions, right?” She asks tentatively — just to be sure, because with Giyuu, you never really know.
He hesitates some more.
“Yeah, that’s part of it,” He gazes with a newfound interest at an ugly stain in her desk from when she’d had a mishap with one of her solutions. “But it’s not just that.”
She’s silent, urging him telepathically to continue.
“I just thought that, if I have to get married, it could only be to you,” He says, all matter-of-fact, but the slight pink flush in his cheeks betrays him. “You’re the only reasonable choice.”
“Reasonable,” She scoffs, rolling her eyes. “You’re anything but, Tomioka. I’ve always known you had a few screws loose but this is really unbecoming of you. Aren’t you supposed to be intelligent?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be intelligent?” He straightens, indignant now. “What aren’t you understanding, Kochou? We need to get married, otherwise the village head won’t let me enter and I already put that down payment on our house! And Master already told me to proceed which is why I did it, and if I don’t have a wife by tomorrow before I set out then everything is ruined, and I did try to politely suggest to the Master that maybe someone else was more suited to this mission but he insisted it be me and—”
Shinobu cuts him off by abruptly standing, reaching for the damp towel resting loosely around his shoulders and yanking it harshly over his head to shut him up.
“Get changed,” She tuts, thoroughly disgruntled. “Then you can explain what this is all about.”
She stalks out of the study, a smile drawn painfully taut over her face. She seethes all the way to her private quarters, irrationally annoyed as she sits down heavily in front of the fish tank, watching her goldfish swim in an effort to calm herself down.
“Stupid Tomioka,” She mutters furiously, watching Fugu weave aimlessly between ribbons of swaying green fronds. “Barging in here and demanding I marry him! Who does he think he is?”
Fugu doesn’t respond, drifting peacefully in his tank.
“And if it’s for a mission,” She continues, pinching a small amount of feed between her fingers and scattering it into the water. “Then why is he acting so serious about it? He’s acting like he needs to get married for real! Is he stupid? The point of an undercover mission is that you pretend, surely he’s aware of that, right?”
Fugu darts upwards, snapping up the food with soft popping sounds.
“He does realise standard protocol when doing a double mission means he briefs me first, right?” She pours a little more, just because she’s feeling generous. “And what idiot puts a down payment on a house? Is he joking? I want to believe he’s joking but truly he doesn’t know what a joke is.”
“I’m not joking,” The sliding door whistles open, catching Shinobu thoroughly off guard; her hand slips, and she knocks the open tin of fish feed over, spreading it all over the tatami floor. “And I do know what a joke is.”
“Don’t you know how to knock?” She huffs, coughing as she inhales an unfortunate amount of the dust kicked up from the mess. “Look what you’ve done!”
“Sorry.” He mutters immediately, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. He does have the decency to sweep the mess away, so there’s that, at least.
Once he’s done, he sits opposite her, his legs neatly crossed over each other. He’s changed into a spare uniform, his haori gone, presumably left to dry with the rest of his clothes. It’s hardly the first time he’s been in her room, but it’s different today, and he seems more awkward and sheepish than usual – gee, whether it’s because he’s asking for her hand in marriage, or because he’d spent the last few minutes on his hands and knees sweeping the floor, she can’t decide.
His hair is still slightly damp, curling up at the ends, all tangling together because naturally, he didn’t think to brush it.
She sighs. He merely watches as she reaches into a drawer for a comb, gesturing at him to come closer.
“You don’t have to.” He tells her, but he’s moving anyway, shuffling until he’s situated himself right in front of her.
She hums in response as she kneels behind him, grimacing as she pulls the tie free. She’s tempted to yank the comb mercilessly through his hair and catch it on all the knots, but she (narrowly) resists the urge, sectioning it off and gently working her way through. She starts at the ends, smoothing through them before making her way up, dragging it against his scalp slightly because she knows he’ll like it.
He visibly relaxes, his perfect posture deflating just the slightest bit. He leans unashamedly into her touch, which (admittedly) brings the smallest, genuine smile to her face, because for all his standoffishness, Giyuu always ends up accidentally telling on himself in moments like these.
“This is why I keep my hair short,” She remarks, running her fingers through the silky chunk that she’s just combed through. “It’s practical, quick, and doesn’t get like this.”
He makes a noncommittal noise, clearly not listening. His eyes have fluttered close, and if Shinobu leans just a little bit more forward she could probably count every dark lash of his, thick and long and stubbornly straight just like the rest of his hair.
“You’re lucky, you know, because if my hair was ever in a state like this I don’t think even Aoi would be able to get all the knots out,” She starts on the next section, pushing the detangled part over his shoulder to keep it separate. “Mine’s all wavy and tangle-prone, and I’d hate to think about how much maintenance would have to go into it if it ever got as long as yours.”
He cranks an eye open at that, tilting his head backward so he can squint up at her.
“I am lucky,” He replies simply. “When my hair is tangled, you comb it for me.”
And, once again, he’s managed to miss the point, but Shinobu understands the sentiment regardless. Because it’s true, of course it’s true, but he doesn’t need to go and say it and make it all weird.
“If I don’t comb it for you, then nobody will.” She shoots back, but it comes out less sarcastic than she’d intended and more fond.
“I know,” He mumbles, closing his eyes and facing forward again. “That’s why I said I’m lucky.”
She doesn’t know how to respond to that, so she continues to work in silence, dutifully combing through his hair as his head lolls slightly as he fully relaxes. Once she’s done with it all, she gathers it all and ties it up neatly into his usual ponytail near the base of his head, and she smooths any stray hairs back habitually before tossing the comb aside and shuffling around him so they’re sitting opposite each other again.
“Now,” She claps her hands together, putting on her best business-as-usual voice to try and dispel the soft atmosphere she’d accidentally allowed into the room. “You, Tomioka, have a lot of explaining to do.”