2026-07-13: Seishitsu and Sokushitsu
- Log: Seishitsu and Sokushitsu
- Cast: Yua Ijuuin, Miho Ijuuin, Tyrrha Ijuuin
- Where: Aoba - Penthouse
- OOC Date: 2026-07-13
- IC Date: Sat, Dec 08 2012 and Sun, Dec 09 2012
- Summary: When Miho arrives back home, after spending some time with Tomoki after her birthday party, she discovers she has two more gifts to unwrap... Yua's present, and Yua herself! It seems that Yua's feeling more secure in love than she was before, even after her assault, because Miho has proven her reliability as a protector. The next morning, Miho raises a point she's been mulling over to ask Yua if she'll be her 'sokushitsu' -- the home wife to her court wife, in the manner of the old Edo hierarchy, though of course without a man at its centre. In this way, perhaps they can lend some manner of legitimacy to their love... oh, and then Tyrrha interrupts their warm fuzzy romantic feelings by setting off the smoke alarm because they slept in too late and she decided to make breakfast.
- Content warning: Sexual references, implied nudity.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Once everyone heads home, Kimitake takes Yua and Tyrrha home -- and since he has to take them home in his own car, he wasn't able to drink, at that function. It makes him... a little less awful, Yua thinks. He at least keeps his thoughts to himself, though it's still a tense ride; even Tyrrha doesn't have much to say.
She does ask about Yua's kimono, though, once they're safely back and she's helping the girl out of hers. "Don't worry about that," Yua assures her. "Mimi will help me when she gets back... but that won't be for a while, so let's get you charging, okay? You can see her tomorrow!"
"Sure, sure," Tyrrha agrees, goodnaturedly, as she steps into her charging pod, and enters standby.
'Please wait... now charging... unit offline!' is displayed on a screen above it, informing them of her present status. Units offline, Yua's told, can't bring themselves back online; it's a failsafe of some measure, apparently.
It's time for Yua to recharge, too -- she turns off the light in the bedroom, and sets an alarm, and lays on her back to clear her thoughts and rest for a while. She does not, one notes, take off her kimono to do so; Miho's helping with that, she decided. ... that does mean it's a little rumpled, when she gets up from her nap at the beep of her alarm. Perhaps a little too rumpled... but Yua smooths it out, and Miho, she's sure, will understand. She has to make sure she's bright and bushy for when she gets back, even though she'd normally be getting back at bedtime!
She's left herself enough time to make things extra nice for Miho when she gets back, of course. She lights some nice scented candles for the bedroom (don't worry, they're safe!), and pours a glass of wine, to leave at Miho's bedside table; just the one glass, because Yua's used foresight to realise it's not the first she's had today. (Beside hers, she leaves a glass of pomegranate juice, instead.) She draws up a nice, steaming hot bath, complete with soothing bath salts, as well as a few more candles. Some baths are just for cleaning, but not all baths are created equal...
She even puts on some nice romantic music, to play quietly in the background.
Miho's the birthday girl, and that means she gets all the nicest things.
Including, as she steps inside -- Yua, in that kimono, a touch dishevelled from her nap but still tied perfectly well. (Her bun, as well, looks a little napped-on but is still wrapped mostly well at the back of her head.) "Mimi! Welcome home!" She chirps, as she embraces her as soon as her shoes are off; one of Yua's slipper-clad feet lifts from the ground as she looks up to her, imploringly. "Kiss??"
She went all party without any! She's bereft!
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
For Miho's part, she took her car with Tomoki back to his apartment for a while--a few hours, in fact. She had things to celebrate with him too, after the two of them being talked up all evening. Indeed, it's a 'while' before she gets back--but eventually, Seiji does drive her home...
Without Tomoki, of course.
So when the door opens, Miho is there opening it. She is in a crisp white shirt and brown slacks, more like her usual self--her kimono she already took off at Tomoki's. She is still both beautiful and handsome in this. "Yua," Miho says warmly and energetically. Her complexion is healthy--not quite flushed, but not the pallor of exhaustion or the particular flush of alcohol, either. And she embraces Yua, too, leaning down immediately.
"Kiss," she agrees, and kisses Yua with love and passion both.
It's been too long already!
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Yua murmurs, sweetly, into her lips; and there she's happy to stay, head tilted invitingly, until Miho decides it's time to come up for air. (BIG breath!) "Happy birthdaaay!" Yua chirps, happily, as she embraces her fiercely, rubbing her cheek against Miho's shirt-buttons. "Did you have a good time?"
She pulls back, as she tilts her head, and decides: "Nn, nn, it's are you having! Mimi hasn't got all her gifts yet! Here, here!" She tugs at her hand, for a moment, before she drops it and bustles off to the bedroom, complete with the lamp at a nice low light and those candles burning and --
OST: https:''www.youtube.comwatch?v=8yIHZCD6FEs Florence + The Machine - Bedroom Hymns
There's a wrapped present on the dresser. (And a blanket draped over the mirror.) And Yua whirls, clapping her hands together before she spreads them to indicate -- all of her -- before she lifts a heel as she bends over to pick that present up and hold it out for her. Sparkle!
"Maybe that's how you do it when you're fancy, but I think it's more fun when your presents are wrapped up! Like this! And this!" She's only holding one box...
... which, when examined, contains the kind of fuzzy pink cuffs which Yua definitely did not steal from her husband's place of work. For one: there's a latch on the side that releases them, key or no key. For another -- THOSE AREN'T FOR SOLVING CRIMES!
By the way she giggles, she knows that. She sure is feeling better about these than she was nine months back...
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho decides on air... eventually. It takes a little while, and Miho looks satisfied with her decision and her wife when she comes up. (She should be her wife). "Thank you," Miho says, like the cat who got the canary.
But she's deliberate enough that she doesn't answer Yua's question before Yua corrects herself, so she only answers the second. "I am," she says of having a good time. Miho accepts the invitation back, and there they go, a nice low light, and a wrapped present on the dresser...
"Mmm, I like my first present already," Miho answers as Yua gestures herself--but then... a box! An actual box!
"These are a different kind of fancy," Miho says. "It's lovely." The box and wrapping itself. But then--she opens it and--
Miho's eyebrows lift in surprise, but her lips curl into a smile. "My," she says, examining them, noticing the latch--
"This is a change," she comments. "What made your mindset shift...?"
She sounds pleased, though.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Well, of course she's got the canary, the canary's even blushing. And even more when Miho compliments her nice wrapping! (Yua tries very hard at it; it's the kind of art which goes well with her other household arts.) And not just her paper wrapping...
Yua's face is still a little flushed, as she smiles, a hand lifting to veil her lips in some effort at modesty. (It's a little overperformed; but everything's theatrical, when you're the kind of high femme Yua is. Perhaps it's easier to say that Miho's performance as a butch woman is more obvious, but there is a repossession to Yua's femininity, too, which defies the natural way of things. Besides -- with Miho being such a keen patron of the arts, why wouldn't Yua be a work of one?)
"Well... I know the first time we were messing around with that kind of thing after you got me out, it really didn't go very well," Yua says, her voice a touch softer, as she recalls it. "Not like before I disappeared at all... when I couldn't feel you any more, I got really scared. I was afraid you'd disappear, and I'd be stuck, and someone else would steal me away while I couldn't run!" It's the kind of anxiety one can see wrapped into her day-to-day life; in the anxiety she's held seeing Miho and Tomoki, for one. "That's why I wanted you to hold me down yourself... I needed to know you were still there."
"But... lately..." Her cheeks colour, a little more, and quite prettily. "You're kissing Yua-chan before you leave, and when you say you'll see me later... I believe you! When I'm waiting, I can be looking forward to you coming back, not worrying you'll like it out there better... I don't feel so, like... it's not as dangerous any more. Even though things got much more dangerous for me... you made it safe for me here, Mimi."
She smiles, as she looks up to her, again. "So... I guess what I'm saying is... I think it's easier to trust that Mimi will really make it okay," Yua ventures, a little shy. "Maybe it's weird when all these awful things are betraying it, but... you've taken care of me, Mimi. So... I want... I want to try... letting you have me like this," and now she's blushing, certainly. "Because... I trust you, Mimi."
She glances away, as she adds, with a little titter: "Besides! It's bound to work much better now we can buy real things and not just scarves, right?"
Oh, no... they were teenagers once...
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho is a little flushed, too, but doesn't draw attention to it--it's not quite the same as a ladylike blush. Miho enjoys Yua's performance--that theatricality. Their roles are drama; Miho takes up hers as the dashing butch, and she enjoys it all the more when Yua is aggressively feminine. One might expect Miho to prefer butches the same way she favors men--
But that would fail to understand everything about the difference between men and butches.
And Yua is a work of art.
But Yua explains... "It didn't," Miho recalls well. It's not as if they hadn't tried it when they were younger, after all. But she remembers those things; she saw the anxiety...
And lately? Miho looks down with interest at that pretty coloring. "Yes. I come back because I want to come back," she says. "I want to come home to you."
She smiles. Safe...
"Mm. If that's the case... then I won't let you down. I think... we can indeed have fun with these," she says.
"I'll prove your trust is warranted, Yua."
Then she laughs a little harder than she meant to. "True," she says. "Very true."
She leans down to kiss Yua again--
And then, "...Let's see the other, mm?"
It'll be a very exciting night.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Miho's interest always draws the stage in sharper definition, for Yua. "Mm, mm," she hums, happily, her smile widening. "It's Yua-chan you want! And Yua-chan wants you, too!" Even in a charged conversation like this, she's still laying on the super-cute third-person Yua-chan...
... but of course, her cuteness is part of her performance, the particular way a sensitive woman like Yua hyper-expresses her femininity.
She's always cute!
"And Mimi always keeps her promises~" Yua adds, singsong, when Miho pledges to prove it.
It's not unlike the lyrical little note she pronounces, into her lips.
Miho has much more fine manual dexterity than Yua, who, for all her grace, has never managed to entirely make her hands work as artfully -- so the wrapping surely won't present an issue, even rumpled.
Here's the best part: the next day is Sunday. Miho doesn't have to work, and neither does Yua, and that means they can even decadently do a little sleeping in. Under her covers -- Yua is still more fond of blankets than she was -- Yua no longer has to worry about tangling her kimono, while she's trying to get some shut-eye. Her long hair pools over the both of them as a second blanket, with theirs pulled up to cover Yua as she sleeps in the crook of Miho's arm, laying on her side beside her, legs hooked in and one arm squished between them as the other's thrown loosely over to rest at her opposite shoulder.
Really, that hair of hers is impressively long. Outside of its braid, curled up into a tight bun, it flows down to her thighs; she hasn't cut it since high school, when Miho first expressed that she loved her long hair, and it was long before she made that resolution. It's the one thing she managed to keep safe through those four years of hell... and it takes a remarkable amount of upkeep.
But, of course, Yua's favourite thing is Miho brushing her hair, and brushing her fingers though her hair, so she likes to keep it loose while she's sleeping even knowing the dangers of infinite tangles...
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"That's right."
Miho likes Yua this way. It's part of the performance, part of the experience, and Miho drinks in all aspects of it. Because Yua is always cute.
"Yes," Miho says then. She wants to keep this promise. And she will! Her hands work artfully indeed, and she will do more than that...
But the next day, Sunday, Miho is willing to sleep in a little bit. It was her birthday, she's allowed. And indeed, there is no tangling of clothes required, though the covers can tangle some. Miho has one arm around Yua and one up, hand by her head on the pillow. But soon enough...
Miho awakens, her eyes opening languidly to see the ceiling of her penthouse bedroom. She doesn't move immediately, instead enjoying Yua's presence in silence and stillness.
But after a few long moments...
Her hand slides down from by her head to start running through Yua's hair, instead. "Mm..."
If Yua happens to wake up, she'll receive: "Good morning."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Miho is always so sure of herself at times like this...
Yua likes that confidence, too.
The stillness shifts, as Yua feels the touch of Miho's fingertips; she shifts, in her waking, sleepily hugging herself to Miho a little tighter. "Mm," she mumbles, back, in the incoherentness of half-light. A little more mumbling, and she finds her voice, to murmur, "... that's nice..."
Her eye flutters open, tilting her head to look to Miho, when she hears her welcoming her to the waking world again. "Memimiiii," she murmurs, quite blissfully, her hand lifting from Miho's shoulder to trace her regal cheekbones. "Hi."
Feeling that powerful jaw, Yua smiles, still quite sleepy. "Love yooou..."
Terrible news: the cat is boneless, and Miho's going to need to cut her sleeve off to escape.
"Love when you come home... just wanna stay right here..."
(It's got to be when she comes home, doesn't it, when they have to pretend they're something they're not out there?)
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho smiles silently when Yua says it's nice--until Yua actually wakes up enough to look at her. Miho closes her eyes briefly as Yua touches her face, but only for a few moments, like a cat slow-blinking. "Yua," she answers.
"I love you, too," she says. Then... coming home. Miho doesn't intend to escape just now.
"Let's stay here," she says, because for a long time she thinks they can.
"I'm home now. ...I love being here, with you."
But Yua might notice--that she sounds contemplative already. That she's thinking about something...
She keeps stroking Yua's hair.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Mm, mm, mm-hmm," Yua hums, affirmatively, her cheek sinking in against Miho's shoulder again, in that way which puts Miho in her entire field of vision when half of it's covered by that eyepatch. (She likes sleeping with her right side pressed into Miho, because one night she fell asleep on her the other way and her eyepatch was pressing in all night and left a terrible red patch. Besides, this way, it's her right hand she's keeping hidden -- even now she's taken her jewellery off, up to and including the wedding ring that's on her bedside right now. What? Has her right arm gone to sleep? No, it's fine. She's fine. She's way too comfy to move.)
"Nice comfy home for Mimi," Yua murmurs, contentedly, eye half-lidded as she idly runs her index finger up and down the line of Miho's jaw. "I can make that... I'm happy..."
For a few long moments, Yua's languishing in her bliss, the morning sun shining onto their fine four-poster bed and providing her with the sunbeam that is her right and triumph. (But it's Miho, really, who's warming her.)
At length, though, her sleepy brain does move past the warmth of Miho's words, and her nice warm fingertips, to wonder about how thoughtful Miho sounds. "Mm... penny for your thoughts?" Yua ventures, her finger curling as she tilts her head to look at Miho properly again. "Even if you give your gold coins to a cat, she'll still appreciate them, Mimi...!"
Oh, no... Yua's mixing the American and Japanese proverbs...
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Miho is not looking at the wedding ring. She is not looking at anything in particular, really, because she is focusing on her sense of touch, not her eyesight. And this, for Yua. Yua, who murmurs contentedly about the home they share. "You do," Miho agrees, not just can but do. "...I'm happy, too."
Miho is content to lay there for a while, stroking through Yua's hair, lingering in the moment. But eventually, Yua asks her thoughts...
Miho laughs softly. "Well, I'll give my coins to you," she says, "And that will be good."
And maybe the cat will come back, too.
"I was thinking of... how to formalize our relationship," she says. "It is easy, to formalize with a man. If Japan allowed us to marry outright, that would be easy. But these things don't apply to us. ...How, then, to give us something that we can hold onto, that is 'secure', if only for ourselves...?"
"...I've consulted a lawyer on certain legal documents. But that's not what I mean, either. I mean... a way to think of it, that we are not simply... adrift, between relationships finding time..."
"Did you know that in the Edo period," Miho continues, "The highest-ranking of men had multiple women? This was to ensure the birth of an heir, one way or another. It dates back some time..."
"The 'seishitsu' had the highest status--the highest-ranking of wives. And the 'sokushitsu' had an ordinary amount of status, subordinate to her. There are more details that are potentially relevant but... This is enough to say, for now."
"Now, we do not share a husband, and never will, nor do we wish to. But I am a woman of some standing, and we... should be wives. Of each other. So perhaps we can be 'wives' together, in considering a system like this."
"...I, your 'court wife'; you, my 'home wife'."
"...Perhaps it's nothing. But I'd like... to find something in history, something in my culture... to bind us."
"...Something more than 'lover', though you are the one I love above all."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"Yay," Yua purrs, though it's a soft yay, the promise of energy which is presently held fast.
She giggles, too, as Miho laughs, soft and warm. But then... Miho's thoughts, and her cat hums, in vague affirmation, as her hand drops to curl at the side of Miho's head, as Yua refocuses her own attention from her fingertips to her ears.
It's a wordless noise which sounds a little sad, as Miho reflects on how they're not allowed to marry... but Miho's been thinking of a solution, too, hasn't she?
It isn't unusual for Miho to give Yua these history lessons; now, as ever, she listens attentively, knowing that Miho's roots are so important to her. The birth of an heir... her cheek tilts, against Miho's shoulder, as her attention drifts to her belly for a moment.
She's carrying Miho's child, after all.
And so, the seishitsu... and the sokushitsu. Yua's had enough of these history lessons to realise the meaning underlining the words. ('Sei', what is correct; 'soku', standing to the side.) "It was... a way of organising women, wasn't it?" Yua posits, as she pieces it together. "So there'd be hierarchy..."
There is a part of her which is apprehensive, of course -- but it isn't a proposal which alarms her as much as it might have, if she came from more distant shores. In Japan, concubines were lawful wives, given their own rights and standing in the household.
It's not... the kind of thing Kimitake would call her, when they're alone.
"You want... to be my seishitsu, Mimi?" Yua asks, and her words are slow from the consideration of them; ponderous not from rejection but from her running analysis. "Then... how does it sound when you call me that...?" 'Sokushitsu', she means, just as she spoke the other with all her devotion.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Yay.
Miho does have thoughts; it is sad, that thing that they can't do... but she's thinking of it. She's trying to find solutions, solutions that don't require going to Father and receiving... Well. Father did his best for them, but it didn't get her what she wanted, precisely. Just some of what she needed.
Miho knows Yua's Okinawan culture might have different ideas on some things, but she's come to appreciate her own when paired more harmoniously, rather than simply superseding hers, as many would prefer.
"It was," Miho says. "A hierarchy, yes. But only between the two of us--only what we already have."
"I think I do," Miho says. "...Sokushitsu," she calls Yua, and she says it tenderly; it in her mouth is more a term of endearment than a term of organization.
"...You see," she says, "You are already carrying my heir," she says, and it's fond, the way her hand around Yua squeezes her. "Our Hiroki. ...A strict reading of the tradition would have him call you something different... but you are his mother with me, not someone else."
"...To be clear," Miho says, "The men do not enter into this. ...There would be no involvement of Kimitake or Tomoki in this relationship. We are married to... ourselves, I suppose. To the idea of our love."
"...So, Sokushitsu, how does it feel? How does it sound? ...I like hearing you call me seishitsu."
"...Though I love your name, most of all."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Well, it might still be nice to receive recognition from their Father. It's important to Miho, and it matters to Yua, too!
(Papa's a lot more laid back about this sort of thing... he even offered to adopt Miho, way back when Yua was trying to find a more modern solution to this problem, but Yua knew that Miho would never be happy leaving her family to join Yua's register.)
It's only for the two of them, though, and...
And Yua sighs, hearing Miho say it so tenderly. She is soft, beneath Miho's hand, the curve of her belly at her hip; she is gentle.
"So I'm still mama?" She presses into it, tilting her head to consider Miho. "Even though it's tradition? It's important, Mimi..."
Yua couldn't accept being her son's aunt, after all this heartache; but of course the meaning of the tradition is to allow another woman's sons to be recognised as legitimate heirs to the shogun, which is why they would call that court wife their mother. And while Yua is Miho's surrogate, it's a role with two faces without a man in the middle.
That there is no man in the middle is important, for Yua, too; another point of apprehension, eased under Miho's thoughtfulness. "Married to ourselves..." Yua muses, and she, too, is thinking.
She smiles, in that gentled way, as her own fingers find Miho's shorter hair. "I do like hearing that," she murmurs, because of course shitsu has a particular meaning, and it's the wife of a high-ranking man. Well, Miho's not a man... but in a way, the dual mirroring has a way of elevating her, too, just as they call each other King and Queen.
Because Miho cannot be the official wife of a high-ranking person without suggesting certain things about Yua, either. (Back home, she mostly remembers this sort of thing in the royal dynasties, so it's not a difficult association.)
"Seishitsu... my seishitsu..." And it's tangible, the way she's winning her over with the romance of it, because it wasn't quite what she wanted but it's still a way of calling her her wife. And that -- that, she has wanted for long years. But of course, it's not complete until she clicks into, "mii seishitsu..."
That's both a borrowing of the English 'me', and the sound a kitten makes.
"Mimi, Miimimi," she adds, a touch lyrically, and just as warmly. "Mimi will always be Mimi! And Mimi's Miimimi!"
"If it's official," Yua wonders, "would our family accept that...?" Because of course it's not just Miho's family, any more.
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
It would be very nice. But the rest of the family...
Well, that gets harder. Miho does not want to leave her family, but she's found them difficult in some ways, as she goes further into adulthood--becomes more Different.
"You are," Miho says. "You're mama. That's very important to me... And we're only using the tradition as inspiration, in any case. If we were to use it directly, it would be... different."
"Yes. To ourselves."
But Miho smiles back. It is a mirror. And yet...
Miimimi. Miho smiles warmly when Yua gets to it. The kitten noise...
"That's right," Miho answers, warm, fond.
"But..." She considers. "Hm. Maybe..."
"But 'official' is for the lawyers, too. I've been looking into ways that we can have more legal rights to one another--even without official 'marriage'. As to our family..."
"I know Father will accept us. The rest.. we'll have to figure out."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
Yua smiles, to hear Miho call her mama, too. "Mm, mm!" She hums, happily, when Miho underlines that it's important for both of them. "It's different," she agrees, "since I don't want to marry Tomo-kun!"
(And it's Tomoki she invokes, not Kimitake... but perhaps that's just because she can't precisely unmarry Kimitake.)
Marrying themselves, though... well, that's okay.
"I do worry about that," Yua admits, with a touch of sadness. "Mm... I mean, Kimi-san is pretty good about giving those decisions back to you, but... they're asking him about that stuff, like -- like at hospital. So I worry about... what if something happens with the birth, and there's no time for him to ask you, or..." Or what if he decides he doesn't want to, she doesn't say.
Yua shakes her head, against Miho, smiling to her again. "... but you knew that, right?" She guesses, because of course Miho is very smart and Yua is not subtle. "That's why you're looking...! Then... I'm counting on my seishitsu to lead the way!" Having tried it in a natural sentence, Yua naturally sparkles with the attempt.
"I want to do something," she insists, her hand slipping to Miho's shoulder so she can tug at it. "To make it official... even if it's just with Father and Papa. Okay?"
It's a lovely smile that she turns up to Miho, cheeks warm. "Because... Yua-chan likes it when Mimi's taking care of things! Yua-chan wants Mimi to be in charge... Yua-chan feels safer when Mimi's taking care of me! So... it's good if you can go first! If you're in front, you can protect me!"
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
Mama! "Yes," Miho says. "Which is fine; I don't expect you to. ...I think I wouldn't want you to, actually. I don't want him to be the center of 'us'."
Kimitake, well... he wouldn't want to be, would he?
Yua worries... Miho nods, her hand stilling for a few moments. "I understand," she says. "I'm concerned about the same. I know that he understands my wishes--and I'm sure that he will work to fulfill them--but... The more failure points there are, the weaker your plan is," she says, in that way of hers. "And it is theoretically possible that he would fail."
But indeed--she knew that. "Yes," Miho says. "That's precisely why I'm looking." She smiles. "...I'll guide you then," she says, gently. Confidently.
But something...
"I'm not sure we can do something official to the world," she says. "But Papa, Father... Mother. Them, i'm confident we can do something with to recognize us. So I'll work on that, all right?"
She smiles back. "I'll protect us both," she assures Yua. "That's what I want most."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
"I'm just for Mimi!" Yua insists, fiercely. "Mimi's the only one I want to be in bed with!"
Which is, at least, an improvement over her abjuring her other connections entirely. It's entirely fair for Yua to only want bedroom bonds with her wife.
(One day, Yua is going to say the phrase 'bedroom bonds' to Shiryuu, and there'll be no survivors.)
Yua nuzzles her face into Miho's shoulder, feeling her hand still. "... even if he was doing his best, something could happen," and even if Yua had a unicorn, maybe she still couldn't do magic, but the theoretical nature of it at least makes her able to say it with sincerity. "You're the one I really trust, Mimi..."
That special kind of trust she's offered her... of course a man couldn't earn that.
"So I'll be okay," Yua sighs, happily, hearing that confidence in Miho's voice. "I love you, Mimi..."
Still. Even if it isn't official to the world... "Maybe... I can make them tea?" Yua supposes, and one may immediately think of the way tea ceremony is part of a traditional wedding, too. "I can... prove I'm worth that status."
Having that tradition is important, to Miho... so it's important to Yua, too.
Maybe that's what they mean, when they say mainlanders join their partner's family...
"I really do feel safe with Mimi," Yua decides, heedless of the reason why they had to repair that bed just a month prior. "I want... to make you a home worth protecting. A place where Mimi can be safe to be Mimi, too..."
<Pose Tracker> Miho Ijuuin has posed.
"And I only want you in bed with me," Miho says. It's not fair, exactly, since Miho has a second partner... But it's how she feels. It is an improvement, too. Bedroom bonds... are important too!
But Yua doesn't voice the truth of Kimitake, so Miho continues not to know it. "Right," she says to 'something could happen', instead. "That's how I feel."
Yua wil be okay. That's good. "I love you, Yua."
But to make them tea... Hmm. It is part of a wedding, traditionally. "You are worth it," Miho is quick to say, "But showing your skill and devotion is a worthy offering to our parents..." Papa, too. "But I'll have to think of what I should do, too."
It's both of them, after all, asking this bond. Miho wouldn't hear of it only being Yua who has to do the work.
Miho will think about that later, and brood. The reason they had to repair the bed. But for now?
"I'm glad," Miho says. "...This home is precious to me. And so are you."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ijuuin has posed.
They have, at least, worked out some system of exclusivity. As a barineko, Yua's never going to turn the tables and top Miho, except by certain stone definitions; the grasp she has on her isn't something she'd share with Tomoki, even if they do share a bed.
See, it's rock-paper-scissors. Miho wins against Yua, who wins against Tomoki, who wins again Miho...
... Kimitake, one presumes, is the move of taking rock and revealing it's a fist. He's really not playing the same game as the others.
But Yua is still too scared to reveal what he has done. She's safe when Miho's in charge, but... when Yua's trying to handle things on her own... well, she's doing the best she can, for Miho and Hiroki.
What's important, Yua thinks, is that Miho loves her.
Miho, though, insists that she prove herself, too -- and perhaps it's that creeping poison of the patriarchy that has Yua looking surprised, for a moment. "Mimi... Mimi too!" She declares, though, when she realises how much better that is. "Mm! Mimi too!"
When Miho says she's precious, it doesn't feel backhanded, like it does from the men in the Order; for Miho, she shines and glitters happily. "Ah, I'm so happy," Yua murmurs, nuzzling Miho's shoulder again. "Miimimi... mii seishitsu..."
She gets to luxuriate in those warm, happy feelings, willingly under Miho's hand, for a few long moments, before --
PIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPIPI
"FIRE?!" Yua yelps, as she scrambles up, hearing that fire alarm screaming through the house. "Aaaah, fire--!!"
Still wreathed in the blanket she ripped from the bed, she scrambles up, scrambles to the door, unlocks it, runs out --
-- to find --
-- the kitchen, smoking, Tyrrha looking quite proud of herself.
"Yo, Yumama!" Tyrrha grins, waving a pan at her. (There is sham ham stuck to the bottom of it, clearly overcooking.) "You're finally up! You guys were soooo lazy today, I'm makin' breakfast now!"
"You -- but -- Tykko awake?!" Yua gapes, pointing at her, pointing at the -- "Fire????"
"No worries!" Tykko assures her. "There's no fire! If I saw a fire, I'd eat it! That's just delicious, delicious fryin'!"
"Tykko???? Awake?????" Yua starts, again, point, point, point--!!
"Oh, yeah!" Tyrrha puts the frying pan back on the stovetop, to rub at the back of her head. "I guess it got so late, Welwetes decided to go on an' wake me up!"
"Rah," the autonomous little robosaur opines, initiating tailwag.exe.
"Oh," Yua sighs, as she swoons backwards, perhaps just in time for Miho to catch her.
Luckily, Miho's the more effective mother in situations like this, even if Yua's just fainted.
Let us hope she does not need to negotiate with firefighters as the Grecian statue she is.