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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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