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Wait, so it's -

[Yusuke blinks, then laughs, scratching the side of his neck sheepishly as he says:]

My bad. I was picturing a normal pie with dead pig in it.

Oh, good lord.

[She supposes she can't blame him, and it's not as if she knows anything about Japanese cuisine, but still.]

Meat pies are a staple of my country. I used to subsist on them when I was seventeen.

[Strange how he doesn't have to wonder what she was like at that age when he's already seen it for himself - or, at the very least, a snapshot of it. Yusuke mulls over this for a second before he replies.]

Did you buy them, or did your folks make 'em for you?

[He doesn't suppose she made them herself. She said she wasn't much of a cook.]

[She has rather an odd reaction, then: Rosalind stares for a split second, her eyes wide, before huffing a wry little laugh.]

Lord and Lady Lutece never stepped foot into a kitchen in all their lives, except perhaps to order the servants around. I doubt either of them even knew how to boil water.

[Mm. Rosalind takes another bite, buying herself a moment as she debates internally. But it doesn't take long for her to come to a resolution, and she soon adds:]

No, I, ah . . . I'd been disowned. At that point. Hence my buying street food.

[Oh. Shit. Way to step in it, Urameshi.]

...

Tsh. Their loss, right?

[He drawls, dismissive in a way that's clearly intended to express disdain for her parents rather than for her or whatever situation they'd left her in. That seems like the safest thing to say to her on this subject: it isn't pitying, it doesn't make him sound like he's implicitly pressuring her to give him any details, and it's the truth. He doesn't know what happened, but he does know that Lord and Lady Lutece got the short end of the deal.]

Yes, I rather think so.

[She smiles, and it's odd, isn't it, how much she resembles her student in that moment: it's the same wry sort of smirk he'd put on when she'd asked after him. It's not happy, precisely. It's bitter and angry and triumphant, all at once, and it only lasts for a few seconds.]

And I gained something far better than some inbred dullard of a husband.

Was that the bottom line? Get hitched or get lost?

[All right, so he'd already resolved not to pry, but. . . he recognizes that vehement sense of victory on her face: it's a look that says, to him, look where I got me; look how I survived and came out on top in spite of you. He recognizes it because he's often found himself feeling similarly, and so it's difficult not for him not to be curious about the circumstances that led her to wear those emotions on her face. Besides, it's natural to want to learn more about the people you care about, right?]

More or less.

[It's a difficult subject, but she wouldn't have brought it up unless she'd been prepared to speak on it. Rosalind pokes around her food for a moment, certain to get a bit of egg alongside the beef and rice for her next bite, before speaking again.]

I'd been rejecting potential matches since I was . . . oh, thirteen or so. My mother debuted me early-- that is, she began presenting me for engagement then. She hoped to utilize my intelligence, because I was already bright enough to master all the little accomplishments the ideal lady ought to. I could sing and play piano, I spoke French, I could paint and sew and even dance . . . and at thirteen, I was still eager to please her.

No one was particularly interested. I was still a child; I think she hoped someone would want me for my potential and my lineage. And then by the time the next season rolled around, I was already in university. I attended all the dances and parties on break, but while I was, ah, physically acceptable, I'd grown old enough to become disillusioned with the idea of a husband who wanted not me, but simply a woman to slot into a role he'd already imagined.

At seventeen, I graduated. My mother, up until then, had treated university as an indulgence. But when I informed her I had no intention of stopping, she demanded I marry by the season's end. I imagine she hoped a man might tame me, or I'd find joy in the domestic life. I refused, and . . .

[She shrugs. And then I was disowned, he knows the rest.]

... wow, and I thought my home situation sucked.

[Blithe as that response may be, he doesn't mean to be insensitive. On the contrary, it's clear that he's taking her quite seriously: his eyes are dark and narrow as he digests everything she's just told him. It isn't precisely shocking to hear what she's been through: he knew she'd had a rough time being a woman with brains and ambition in the 19th century, and this is certainly consistent with that prior knowledge. But still, to discover that even her mother treated her cruelly because of it...

I imagine she hoped a man might tame me. TAME her, she said. Like a dog. And for what, because she wanted to go to school instead of marry some random fucker who was twice as old and half as smart as she was? If he could fist fight an entire era right now, he would.]

I'm guessing your old man didn't step in?

Women's business.

[Naturally he hadn't stepped in. Why would he? The world of courtship and engagement and marriage was for Rosalind's mother to fuss about. Oh, no doubt he'd been informed of his daughter's stubbornness, but it was hardly on for him to offer any advice or stern commandment.]

My father . . . he was fond of me. Certainly he indulged me by allowing me to attend Girton. But I think both of them imagined I would come crawling back within a year.

[Her gaze flickers down for a moment before she meets his eyes once more. There's something in his expression that keeps taking her off-guard. It isn't that she finds his sharp anger unpleasant or inappropriate, but . . . she hadn't really expected the sudden seriousness. Oh, she hadn't thought he'd joke, he's not nearly that flippant, but she'd thought . . . what? That he'd hastily change the subject, perhaps, or simply slip past it with a slight shrug.

But he hadn't. He's angry, visibly so, on her behalf. And she doesn't quite know what to do with that.]

Sounds like Pops had a pretty convenient excuse not to stick his neck out.

[Women's business... Yusuke scoffs, furious and derisive, and picks at a loose splinter of wood on the table as he launches headfirst into a fiery tirade fanned by the injustice of what Rosalind's described.]

I'm not a historian or some straight-A honor student with a bankroll, but back then, it was the men who called all the shots, right? So why the hell didn't he stop your mom from givin' you the axe? If he cared so much about you, he should've told your mom to get over herself and let you get a degree or do whatever the hell else you wanted. It's guys like him who see screwed up things happening and don't do anything about it that really piss me off!

[God. God, he'd been like this when she'd told him of her murder, too. He'd been so furious on her behalf, and he'd barely known her then. Did he suffer, Urameshi had demanded to know, despite the fact all she was to him was a friend of a friend.

It isn't just that he identifies with her as someone who doesn't fit in. Certainly that must be fueling his fury, but it doesn't explain all of it. Rosalind really, truly doesn't understand right now why it is he's looking at her so furiously, when all this happened years and years ago.]

. . . I didn't fit in. That's the long and short of it. Women weren't supposed to be intelligent, and I was, and so I stuck out even as a child. They wanted . . . they wanted what everyone else wanted: an ideal, not the reality. A docile daughter and a pretty little wife, stupid and vain and domestic.

. . . is that what was expected of you too, at home? A role, not the reality?

Tch.

[Yusuke grunts and tips his head back to eye the ceiling thoughtfully as he considers his answer. He doesn't typically talk about this stuff with anybody; in his experience, talking about stuff is the same as admitting that it bothers you, and that's about as good as covering yourself in raw meat and throwing yourself to a pack of wolves and trusting them not to eat you.

But it wouldn't be fair for him to ask the doc to spill her guts and not reciprocate her efforts, and furthermore, he realizes she isn't going to crucify him for discussing more personal matters. So, gruffly, he tells her:]

Not exactly. If you asked them, I bet you every yen I don't have on me right now that they'd save face by telling you they just want me to clean up my act and be good and respectable like some of the other brown nosers my age. Between you, me, and that facehugging flowerpot over there, though, what they really want is for me to disappear.

[He isn't unaware of how grim that is. That's precisely why he doesn't let it linger, instead shooting her a sly, humorous sideways glance a second later and adding:]

Funny thing about me, though: I'm a pretty hard guy to get rid of. Not even death by bumper got me outta their hair. Really got their 'roids raging when I showed up at school a month after snuffing it.

I should imagine so.

[Robert's face would have turned pitying, but while her gaze is soft, Rosalind's expression is carefully neutral. That's a particularly dark thing to hear a young boy say, but she doesn't doubt he's telling the truth. God, she knows he is; Kurama had told her that weeks ago. They didn't have a place for him in the afterlife, and she still can't imagine how embittering that must have been.]

They're wrong. They want you to disappear, yes, and I'm sure to that end they've called you a thousand awful names and ascribed behaviors to you, and they're wrong, but of course, you know that. That isn't the frustrating part.

The worst part is that no matter what happens, no matter what you do or accomplish or say, they'll never, ever acknowledge it.

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