Chapter Text
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The area of the Zenin compound where Toji resided was sparse and neglected. The garden around his room was overgrown with weeds; it almost felt like a jungle expedition to walk through there. Mina with her unprotected sandal-clad feet was very wary of being scratched by thorns of thick knotweed. He didn’t touch her or grab her hand, he just walked ahead and looked back from time to check she was still following. A lot of questions spun through her head and yet it seemed physiologically impossible for her to open her mouth and pose them so she just followed him as they walked through the dark evening, nocturnal wings flapping and small animals rustling in bushes.
They arrived at his door, he swiped the Shoji with one strong push to reveal a room with a horrible, sour stench, bare-looking and yet unkempt due to the few things he owned not being placed neatly. She covered her mouth and nose with an arm automatically but tried to remove it when he turned over, trying not to step on a strewn shirt on the way. The bottle of soy sauce, a forgotten character by now, was placed near the door. He went over to his bed and sat on it, his broad legs wide apart and his hands by his sides, looking at her expectantly. “Well, come on,” he said lazily, tilting his head down. She gulped
“W-What do you want me to do?” she asked anxiously, she noticed the far corner of his room contained weapons, perhaps if she… But they were his and he probably had more experience using them. She was doomed?
He looked at her like she’d asked the stupidest question in the world, his eyes bored. “I already told you, clean this place up. Servants never come here and it’s a fucking bother to complain.” She scanned his face, he seemed wholly serious, her arms which had been clenched by her sides slacked down.
She took another glance at the room which seemed like it hadn’t seen sunlight for years. “No wonder,” she said before she could stop herself, he looked at her blankly for a moment, she thought she was in for it for a moment but he let out a short laugh, her mouth might have gone up a little too in response, then she tried to compose herself; he was still a Zenin. He looked at her expectantly. She awkwardly went up to to one of the other sliding doors that looked upon another side of the garden to let some air in. Then she was clueless. “I… don’t have any supplies, and I really haven’t cleaned a room here before,” she admitted after a moment, worried about the reaction.
He stretched and yawned. “Cleaning supplies? Maybe there’s some in the inventory, go and get some.”
He irked her, had he not seen what had happened to her earlier when she was out in the estate on her own? “Last time I was walking alone, it wasn’t exactly great.”
He snorted rudely and put his leg on his other one. “So what? Get over it and go.”
It was probably ill-advised, but she’d had enough of this guy’s demeanour even if he wasn’t the rapist type of Zenin. She snapped. “Are you kidding me!” she shouted, kicking a strewn shirt that landed right on his face. “I-I just nearly got assaulted, a fact you couldn’t even give a crap about and now you want me to go back out there! And all of this because you, a grown man can’t clean your own damned room!”
A pillow was launched in her direction which she dodged by about a hair. “Shut your trap! I didn’t bring you here so you’d complain to me about your stupid lady crap, if you don’t want to do it then get the fuck out of my room!”
She looked back at him for a long moment, eyes narrowed. For his part, his face didn’t seem to know what to do. She huffed. Then she stormed out, indignant. Once she was out she tried to press down her fear as she marched away, hoping she was going the right way.
“Stupid whatever his face, everyone here is so annoying, as if I haven’t suffered enough,” she mumbled trying to distract herself from the fear as she found her room. She knew this was risky, Akiko had sent her out for a specific purpose, the soy sauce, but both the head chef and that annoying buff dude could go screw themselves, she was tired. She didn’t cry that night, even though she wanted to. It reminded her of her first night with her friends after moving out. They played some kind of card game at the local izakaya, the beer and the chicken seemed to go down a lot harder when she thought about her family but she didn’t let out a single tear.
-///-
Waking up the next day, she was glad to be in the kitchen and not outside serving, considering the other day’s events. Akiko wouldn’t know about her failure at the task until the next time someone was fetched to go get the soy sauce so she was fine, probably just overthought it the night before because she was tired and hungry. She couldn’t wait for the afternoon where she got to eat, she kept watching the clock when the cook wasn’t looking and she wasn’t alone in this.
They had noticed it turn 12, a slight atmosphere in the room changed when they all saw the clock reach that time, yet the head cook didn’t seem to acknowledge and no one wanted to be snapped at by her. So tortuous minutes went by, the other servants, sad to say, were cowards. “It’s time to eat!” announced one of the other maids finally cracking under the weight of jet hunger. It was twelve minutes after 12, those twelve minutes of waiting were like hell. They watched for her reaction.
Cook looked around with a grimace. “Alright then-“ she began, but before she could finish someone a kick opened the kitchen door, the kitchen once joyous/relieved at the expectation of food now went dead silent as a man built like a wall, appearing to just have woken up from his sleep barged in. He carried the bottle of soy sauce from earlier. Mina had been Idling stirring a stew she secretly wished to be eating, she hadn’t realised the weight of the intrusion until it was too late. When she turned and so Toji’s scruffy, large frame she tried to hide behind the frail Suki, whose spine bones could be felt from under her kimono.
Cook lowered her head, her ladle no longer brandished as a weapon. She was a large lady but next to Toji, she looked average and everyone else looked like beetles. “Toji Zenin,” she said, in a voice softer than Mina had ever heard her use before. “What are you doing here?”
He slammed the soy sauce onto the nearest table counter, the table vibrating, his gaze latched onto her. “You,” he called, letting all the eyes land on Mina, whose heart was beating faster and faster. “Forgot this last night.” She tried to not look at him, as if it would conceal the very obvious fact he was speaking to her. As if him approaching her wasn’t already enough.
The entire kitchen gasped, he went up to her and grabbed her wrist lifting her arm up, his face getting close to her own. “So, you get assaulted like you said you would?” He whispered close to her ear so only she could hear. She shoved him away, or tried to anyway, her hand only nudging against his well toned chest, his rough hand still coiled around her.
“Last night?”
“Did she and him-?” Someone began to whisper in the background.
“Well, checks out with the way she was dressed when she came here, those liberal folks-“
Toji scanned the room for a minute, Mina watched him wondering what his next move would. She’d rather not be manhandled. “All your assumptions right now are true,” he said blankly. The voice of that evil Toji called out audaciously, turning to her with a cruel grin, his hand still gripping hers. “Maybe,” he added with a smirk. Her blood ran hot, she wanted to jump at him and hurt him, she hated her thin arms and wished she had the strength of someone like him, someone like Aki, the kind people took seriously instead of her female body, which was toned but not exactly bulky.
She shook his hand off, he seemed to relent. “I didn’t! I didn’t do anything!” she called out desperately, tears springing to her eyes at faces that all seemed to contain the same accusatory expression.
In that moment she felt no one would defend her, she hardly expected Suki to walk up to her side from amongst the servants who were dying to spread the rumour that she, the new maid, had already done something with a member of the Zenin clan,. “Toji Zenin is not a member of the Zenin family whose orders you are not required to follow. He is of no consequence here, don’t follow his orders next time.” Mina looked back at Suki, surprised at her defence, still very Suki-like and yet much appreciated.
Toji stepped towards them with barely concealed viciousness. “Say that directly to me servant girl,” he growled, Suki suddenly reached out and took Mina’s hand, her face betraying her anxiety despite an obvious attempt to conceal it. The two girls looked back at him with no retort, his expression slackened again and he backed off. “Alright then,” he said, trying to sound bored. “Whatever. I’m leaving.” He looked back at Mina with barely concealed dislike. “One tip, servant girl, don’t misplace the soy sauce again.” He walked out, back hunched. The room suddenly took a breath.
“He might be of ‘no consequence’ as you so wittingly put it Suki, but I don’t want him blowing up in kitchen, nobody can save us then, not to mention the crockery.”
Mina and undoubtedly the rest of the staff were probably thrilled to hear that their lives were equivalent to that of a porcelain cup. They went back to work.