#meanwhile obi and shirayuki watch the mess unfold like 'how? how did they beat us to the altar?'

[kirayaykimura]

It was an unremarkable Tuesday afternoon. Spring had still not sprung in Lilias, so Yuzuri had dragged Shirayuki into a tavern beyond the walls to complain about her terrible date the night before. And also to get some lunch.  

“All I’m saying,” Yuzuri said as she claimed a table near the back of the tavern they’d ducked into, “is that I would like to be attracted to someone I actually like. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.” 

“It’s not,” Shirayuki agreed easily. She didn’t really understand how Yuzuri could be attracted to someone she didn’t like on a personal level, but clearly it was possible and Shirayuki didn’t want to invalidate that. 

Apparently Yuzuri had been on a date with the “hottest man anyone has ever seen,” but answered every question with a long, extended, “Uh,” and then ended the night by asking if she wanted to bring him back to her place because he was technically homeless at the moment. (“Obviously I said yes,” Yuzuri had explained. “I mean, he was indescribably attractive. But I would like my mind stimulated as well, you know?” Again, Shirayuki did not know, but she nodded all the same.)

“It’s like my body rebels against me,” Yuzuri said. “I could be talking to the dullest man alive, but somehow my vagina will perk up and say, ‘Hi. Hello. I would like to meet you.’” 

“Maybe you should train your vagina to stop jumping on people.” 

“Like, take Suzu for instance,” Yuzuri continued, in full rant mode. “Sure, I could fuck him, but can I have an actual conversation with the man that doesn’t end with one of us wanting to tear our own hair out? Absolutely not.” 

“Thanks.” 

It wasn’t Shirayuki who had spoken, but a man behind her. She turned to find Suzu leveling them both with an unimpressed stare. It made sense that she’d missed him: his back was to their table and the restaurant was dimly lit on top of them being slightly snow-blind from their walk over, but she still felt bad. Even if Yuzuri hadn’t been talking about him, she hadn’t said hello. It was impolite. 

Apparently she was the only one who felt bad, though. Sounding completely unashamed, Yuzuri said, “Oh. Suzu. When did you get here?” 

Judging from the papers spread all over the table in front of him, he’d been there the entire time. Suzu simply gave Yuzuri a long, quiet look, then turned back to his papers. 

“Anyway,” Yuzuri said, “my dating life sucks. How’s yours going? Let me live vicariously through you and your disgustingly perfect royal romance.” 

Right. She’d forgotten to tell Yuzuri. Oops. 

See, Shirayuki had meant to tell her basically the second it had happened. She and Zen had sat down for dinner in a nice inn down the road, eaten a bittersweet last meal as a couple before mutually agreeing that things weren’t really working out, and then she’d walked back to find Yuzuri and tell her everything, both because Yuzuri loved a bit of good romantic gossip and because Shirayuki didn’t really feel much of anything and she wanted to see if that was normal. But then she’d run into Obi first and was waylaid trying to console him about her break-up and it was all very distracting. 

“Oh no,” Yuzuri said, obviously semi-correctly reading Shirayuki’s face. “What happened?” 

“We broke up,” Shirayuki admitted. 

“Are you okay? Do you need to cry? Do you want me to kick his ass? I mean, I know he’s technically my prince but I’ll do it.” 

“No, no.” Shirayuki waved a hand to get her to stop. “I’m totally fine. It was all very amicable. It just…didn’t work out.” 

Yuzuri eyed her. “You do seem fine. Why aren’t you a mess?” 

Shirayuki shrugged. She had no idea how break-ups were supposed to go since this was her first. Maybe this was just how she reacted to them. 

“So are you stuck here?” Yuzuri asked, leaning her chin on a wrist. “Are you considered an enemy of Clariness?” 

“No!” Shirayuki said on a laugh. “We’re still friends. I think we both realized that we’d spent so long apart we didn’t know how to be together anymore.” 

“You’re so well-adjusted it makes me sick,” Yuzuri groaned. 

“Sorry.” 

“See, that would be nice, to stay friends after a break-up. But I can’t bone down on my friends so there’s no friendship to save in the aftermath. I mean, we already covered Suzu.” 

“I thought my problem was that I was hot but insufferable,” Suzu drawled. 

“Why are you eavesdropping?” Yuzuri asked. She rolled her eyes at Shirayuki. “See? Insufferable.” 

“Sure,” Shirayuki said, “but maybe it’s different with sex involved?” 

There was a pause, then Yuzuri asked, “You never slept with Zen?” over the scraping of chair legs behind her as Suzu turned to their table. 

“I’m not going to pretend I’m not listening in,” Suzu said. “You dated this man for how long?” 

“Four,” Shirayuki said slowly, “years?” 

The deeply judgmental silence that statement was met with pushed her to say, “Not every relationship needs sex! We were perfectly happy to take things slow. It was nice. But then one day he showed up for a surprise visit and I couldn’t remember that last time I even thought about him, let alone wished he was there, and also I was kind of annoyed I had to stop what I was doing to go out to lunch with him which is probably not what you should think about your boyfriend and then he wasn’t anymore. My boyfriend, I mean.”

Yuzuri blinked. “Wait, so does that mean you’re still-”

“I’m not answering that.” 

Suzu whistled. 

“Anyway,” Shirayuki said, “maybe that’s why we’re fine. Maybe you only get one or the other; physical or psychological attraction.” 

“Or maybe one comes before the other,” Suzu said. “With your prince, the physical attraction never came so your relationship petered out. But maybe you’re out with a friend one day and they do something unexpected that catches your eye. For instance, they tuck their hair behind their ear but a little of it misses and sits just in front of their ear and you think, ‘I want to tuck that hair back properly,’ and then you’re left thinking about how it would feel to have your fingers in her hair, close enough to-” Suzu cut himself off abruptly. He cleared his throat. “Anyway, maybe this sort of thing takes time is all I’m saying.” 

Amused, Shirayuki said, “If all it took was being friends with someone and noticing things about them, I’d be dating Obi.” 

Yuzuri and Suzu stared silently at her for the few seconds it took to process what she’d just said. 

“No,” Shirayuki said. “That’s not how this works.” She liked Zen. Liked Zen, she reminded herself. Past tense. And look where that got them: her heading down one path while he headed down another in a completely different direction. When she thought about her future and what she wanted to accomplish in her life, Zen wasn’t the end goal anymore. Neither was Obi, for that matter, but that didn’t mean Obi wasn’t there every step of the way, in every scenario her mind could conjure up. He was there. He’d always been there. She couldn’t imagine her life without him in it, and she hadn’t been able to for a very long time. 

“I think I should marry Obi,” Shirayuki said after a lengthy pause. 

“Hot damn!” Yuzuri said, smacking the table lightly with her palm. “That was a hell of a leap, but I’m into it. Go get your man.” 

“This is a bad idea probably,” Shirayuki said, already standing.

“Only if you don’t mean it,” Suzu told her. His sarcastic edges softened just slightly when he smiled up at her. “Good luck.” 

Shirayuki nodded numbly, then took off for…Obi’s post? She’d never really had to go looking for him before. Mostly, he found her. However, on the rare occasion she did go looking for him, she always had to ask multiple people where he’d gotten off to because he was never where the last person had seen him last. It might be a good thing in this case, though. It would give her time to come up with a good argument for marrying her (which so far consisted of, ‘I don’t want to go through life without you and I just realized one (1) minute ago that I think maybe I think you’re pretty and maybe if we give it some time you could think I’m pretty in the same way?’ As arguments went, it could use some work). 

The moment she stepped through the gates and flashed her I-belong-here badge, she asked the attendant, “Have you seen Obi around?” 

“Sorry, ma’am,” the boy said with a slight bow, “I have not.” 

Another knight passing by slowed and asked, “You’re looking for Obi?” 

“Yes, have you seen him?” 

“Not in person, but I hear he’s on a hot date.” The knight winked. “You might have to fight her for him.” 

She stood, rooted in her spot, while the knight strolled on as if he hadn’t just upended her entire worldview. As far as she knew, Obi was single. Was he dating someone she didn’t know about?

No, he would have told her. This had to be a first date. Like that time he was set up with that guy’s little sister. He wasn’t interested; this was just a favor to a friend. She forced her feet to move, one in front of the other, and pick up her pace. It wasn’t a real date, but if it was a real date, she should get in there sooner rather than later and stop things before they got too far. He deserved to be happy, absolutely, but she could make him happy too. They always had so much fun together. 

She asked another knight where Obi was and followed his directions into an unfamiliar wing with a lot of closed doors. Thankfully she wasn’t forced to knock on them at random until Obi answered because she rounded a corner and found him leaning against a doorway about halfway down the hallway. His back was to her, but she’d know that back anywhere. The toned lines of his body. The easy sprawl that hid his frankly alarming reflexes. The short hair that somehow always managed to be just slightly messy, as if, like the rest of him, it refused to be completely tamed.

She followed his gaze out to a woman at the end of the hall, too far away and gone around the corner too soon to make out more than lanky and brunette. 

Obi turned away once she disappeared, and his fond smile morphed into something more surprised and pleased when his eyes caught on Shirayuki. 

“Miss!” Obi said. “What are you doing in this neck of the woods?” 

There were a lot of things Shirayuki should start with, but instead she blurted out, “Don’t marry her.” 

“Okay,” Obi said easily. Then, “Who?” 

“The woman you were just with.” 

Obi cocked his head to the side and said, “What?” 

“The woman just now. Don’t marry her. Because-“ she took a deep breath, “you should marry me.” 

“What?” Obi yelped. 

“I know. I know you’ve never thought about it before-”

“Whoa whoa whoa. Hold on just a-“

“-I just realized it ten minutes ago, but think about it. Nothing has to change. We can stay exactly the way we are now. I just-” she paused to collect her thoughts. She really should have thought of a better argument on the way here. “-I don’t want to go through the rest of my life without you in it.”  

“Okay, I have no idea what’s happening here,” Obi said with a slight shake of his head, “but you never have to.” The smile he gave her was soft and small and made her feel like she was standing in the mid-summer sun in the middle of winter. “You don’t have to marry me to keep my by your side, Miss. I’m there no matter what.” 

“But it’s different with you than it is with Zen, or Yuzuri, or Ryuu. You don’t feel the same to me as they do. That means something, right?” 

Obi looked stunned, and for the first time she started to doubt herself. Maybe he’d only ever seen her as his friend and here she was pushing these other ideas on him. 

“I didn’t think any of this through on the way here,” Shirayuki admitted. 

“That sounds about right for you,” Obi said, amused. “Always jumping in before that big brain of yours can catch up.” 

“Right,” she said, wishing that big brain he swore she had would come back online and tell her how to immediately abort mission and save at least a little bit of her dignity. “So let’s just forget this ever happened.” 

“Do you want to see her?” Obi asked before Shirayuki could take more than half a step back. “The girl I was just with?” 

Not even a little bit. What the hell? 

“Come on.” He took her hand, and she pathetically found herself committing the feeling of it to memory. They rarely touched and she was sure it was going to happen even less now that she’d botched…whatever the hell she’d just tried to do, so she wanted to remember the exact placement of his callouses, exactly how much bigger his palm was than hers. He led her down the hall, then another before stopping just outside a small mess hall, where he pointed to a knight - Shaumaker, she thought, maybe - and a, well, girl on the far side of the room. She could only see their profiles, but-

“She looks young,” Shirayuki said before she could think better of it. 

“She is,” Obi said, clearly trying not to laugh. “She’s twelve.” 

Shirayuki turned to him with wide eyes. She hadn’t thought he was the type to-

“I was babysitting!” Obi clarified quickly. 

“Oh.” 

“Well, we called it hanging out. She’s getting to the age where she doesn’t want a babysitter, but her brother still didn’t want her running around a place with inattentive scientists and large men with dangerous weapons unsupervised.” 

“That seems wise.” 

“Yeah.” 

They stood quiet for a moment, watching as the girl and probably-Shaumaker chatted merrily. 

“So,” he said, casually leaning back against the wall and pulling her in until she stood toe-to-toe with him, “you wanna marry me?” 

She looked down at their hands - still entwined. That was a good sign, right? He’d said no before, but at least he wasn’t repulsed by her. They could get past this. 

“Sorry,” she said. She willed her hand to let go of his, but her hand wouldn’t cooperate with her brain. If this was all she got, she was going to savor it. 

“What brought this all on anyway?”  

“Yuzuri.” 

“That explains it.” 

When she gave him the quick run-down of what had occurred at the tavern, she’d expected him to laugh at her and the whole ridiculous situation, just like he’d been doing since she showed up in front of him. Instead, the thumb he’d been casually sweeping along the base of her own thumb stilled and his ever-present smile disappeared into something serious. Before she had time to be truly worried, he asked, “What do you notice about me?” 

His eyes were almost all pupil as they held on hers, and she felt a pleasant shiver run through her body. She had no idea it could feel this good to be wanted by a man. Usually when someone looked at her with such blatant desire, it made her want to run as far and as fast as she could. This still made her heart speed up, but, instead of running, she found she wanted to plant her feet on either side of his and lean in closer. 

“You’re attracted to me,” Shirayuki said before she could think better of it. 

Obi nodded once. 

Wait. Pushing through the chemicals currently making soup in her brain, she asked, “If you’re attracted to me, what’s the problem here?” 

That broke the spell. Obi laughed, and Shirayuki shook off the pull she felt towards him. She took a step back, finally releasing his hand. As long as he let her see him laugh - completely uninhibited, no walls up - she thought she could be just fine with however the rest of this conversation played out. 

Obi settled into his normal, fond expression as he said, “I didn’t want you to think you needed to do anything in order to keep me around.” 

“I didn’t think that.” Shirayuki paused. “Well, until I heard you were on a hot date from one of the guards outside.” At Obi’s raised eyebrows, Shirayuki said, “I now realize that was a joke.” 

Obi huffed out a laugh. 

“I was serious, you know,” Shirayuki said. Some of that earlier nervousness made itself known again, but it kept to a low, manageable simmer. She trusted Obi to handle her heart carefully. “I think I realized something today that I should have realized a long time ago. You’re my best friend, Obi. You’re my favorite person. This is more than enough for me.” She paused, watching him for understanding. When he nodded, she continued, “I know I sprung all of this on you, but if there’s a chance you might be open to more in the future, I would like to try, too.” 

Now that it was all said and done, she felt a blush steal across her face and…yep, there it was. The old urge to run away. 

“Okay,” she squeaked, “that’s it. I’m going to go now and let you think about it.” 

Obi snagged her wrist before she could move and hauled her into his chest. 

“Wha-” was all she got out before Obi said, “What if I told you I’m open to more right now.” 

She leaned back just far enough to look up at him and say, “I don’t want to pressure you or anything.” 

Obi laughed again, but quieter this time. She felt it more than she heard it, which was kind of a strange feeling that she wanted to experience again and again for the rest of her life. He raised the hand not gripping her wrist to cup her cheek and told her, “No pressure, and without being pressured, I am going to kiss you now.” 

“Okay.” Shirayuki nodded slightly. “Yeah, that-“

Obi’s lips cut off her nonsense ramblings, but that was honestly for the best. This was a better use of their time. Instead of overthinking everything, she let her mind go pleasantly blank aside from oh. She must have unconsciously mouthed the word too because suddenly Obi’s tongue was sweeping in through her parted lips and that should have been weird, but instead it made her shiver pleasantly again. It got even better when she tentatively flicked her own tongue out heard Obi lightly groan. 

He pulled back some time later. She hadn’t even realized she was leaning forward to not break the kiss until she felt him smile against her lips. She felt him rest his forehead against hers. 

“What made you think I’ve never thought about it before?” he asked. 

He expected her to think after that? To process words? 

Obi chuckled and pulled back just far enough that their faces weren’t touching anymore and waited, looking like he knew exactly how frustrated she was that she had to use her lips for something other than what she really wanted to be doing at the moment. 

“What do you mean?” Shirayuki asked. 

“Well, you keep implying you think I’ve never thought about marrying you before.” 

“Wait, have you?” 

Obi titled his head and made an enigmatic noise. 

“You have?” She planted her palms on his chest and leaned back. “How long?” 

Obi hummed. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll tell you in my vows.”