"Oh my god, you look like shit."

Glancing towards the infirmary doorway I saw Laoise making a disgusted face, and I mimicked it perfectly.
"Oh my god, so do you." I jested back in a faux gasp, though my expression dropped when I spied Yonji trotting right on in behind her. "Why did you bring that?"

The youngest Vinsmoke scrunched up his nose, eyes scanning my bedridden form for a few moments.
"Uh, I live here? I can go wherever the hell I want? You better watch your-" His threat fizzled out into a quiet yelp when Laoise jabbed him in the side with her points little elbow. Grumbling, Yonji rolled his eyes. "How are you feeling?"

Oh. Wow. She has him whip whipped.

I was rightfully sceptical of Yonji's presence, so I knew I couldn't properly confide in Laoise the way I normally would have.
"Ah, you know, I feel amazing considering the fact I walked in on the man I love balls deep inside another woman's pussy, saw the ugly mugs of your brothers, then promptly passed out. I'm just peachy."

Yonji grumbled to himself as Laoise climbed up into the bed to lay alongside me without invitation. Of course, it was welcomed.
"Fuck Corbin. No, seriously, fuck him with something hard and sandpapery. He had the audacity to cheat on you? On you?! With some kitchen harlot he's hardly known...what? Less than a month?"

Yet again, Yonji slotted himself into the conversation without my consent, plonking himself down on the end of the bed, narrowly missing my poor feet.
"Princess here is engaged to Ichiji. How is it cheating if you're marrying someone else?"

I took comfort in the fact that Laoise joined the agitated glare I shot towards the mouldy looking Vinsmoke.
"Babe, do you have a vagina, or the capacity to feel something like this? No? Then keep that pretty little mouth shut, okay?" My dear friend spoke first, and in a much more polite manner than I would have started off with.

"Ichiji-" The second that name passed my lips my chest began to violently hurt again, though I tried not to bring much attention to it. "...I will never marry him. I can't. I won't." Yonji opened his mouth to argue, but another sharp look from his darling stopped him dead in his tracks.

"...Want me to beat him up for you? The other guy, not Ich, I mean." Oh, hey was for sure inly trying to appease Laoise since I was her friend, but it was still incredibly strange to witness him being so...nice.

I let my head fall back against my pillow, my hand rubbing at my chest as though it could ease the pain.
"Nah, you'd kill him." I sighed, turning to Laoise and getting a big face-full of her hair. "Actually, be careful if he hugs you. I told you about that poor baby hare he squished to death when we were kids. I don't want you to be crushed. Don't let him crush you."

Laoise laughed, but it soon petered out when she noticed my constant rubbing at my chest.
"Did the doctors say what's wrong with you? It looks so uncomfortable..." I had expected them to have at least some kind of remedy, even if it was just to alleviate the pain, but even the renound scientists and doctors on Germa had no clue what was wrong with me.

"Actually..." I glanced to the green lug who sat upon the end of my bed like some overgrown guard dog. His head was even tilted like one. I leaned closer to Laoise's side and lowered my voice to a whisper. "Ywhay isyay onjiyay erehay?"

"I'm not dumb, I can understand you." Yonji spoke up, crossing his arms across the chest in an attempt to look intimidating, but he just looked like a jacked toddler.
"Yonji, baby, would you mind giving us a few minutes? Girl talk. You wouldn't understand." Laoise batted her lashes, and I could see Yonji all but swoon before gathering himself again.

"If it's about the rejection disorder, I already know about it." I soon realised it had been a poor choice to jolt myself upright, my hand flying to grasp the canvassy gown over my searing chest. My joints hurt, my head hurt. It was awful.
"P..Pardon..?" I wheezed out, feeling Laoise patting me on the back.

"Rejection Disorder? I thought that was just a myth? Wait. Wait. Oh my go- Wait. WERE YOU AND CORBIN FATED AND HE REJECTED YOU?! I'LL RIP HIS STUPID HARLOT SCREWING BABY HOSE RIGHT OUT OF HIS-" With ease, Yonji slipped his hand over his mate's mouth, which seemed to calm her right on down.

"No, Corbin and I weren't fated." I mumbled, unable to break eye contact with Yonji. I had always thought him to be brawn well and truly over brains, but maybe I had underestimated him.
"It's Ichiji, right?" Again, complete and utter shock. Was he psychic? With how strange the Vinsmokes were, I wouldn't have been too surprised.

"I..I-"
"I didn't really notice it until that dinner you walked out on the other night. You both looked like you'd been wounded. Since I now know a bit more about feelings and crap cuz of Laoise, it was easy to figure out it was something going on between you two." Yonji went on to explain without any prompting, shrugging his shoulders as though it had been so strikingly obvious.

So he could tell? Does that mean Judge and Niji could too? My parents? Wait...

"Earlier before, you said that he didn't have the capacity to feel something like this...Well, the pain of being cheated on...Just now Yonji said he now knows a bit more about feelings..." I glanced between the odd pair, furrowing my brow. "What, did you just...not feel before or some crap?"

Laoise made a very long, very guilty noise, turning to plead with her beau with her eyes. Obviously, she knew something I didn't.
"Do I have to tell her? Ugh, fine. My brothers and I don't have the capacity to feel emotions that are deemed weak. Fear, sadness, affection, guilt, love, all that kind of stuff. Genetic enhancements in utero. That was until I met Laoise. I started to feel weird things like that..."

I stared at him in disbelief, blinking one, two, three times before pointing a finger towards the tip of his nose.
"So...you and the other two are crimes against nature..? No, actually, that makes so much sense..!" I smacked my hands down against my legs, ignoring how it just made me hurt more. "You're all too strong and too fast to be normal! What the hell?!"

"Okay, crimes against nature is maybe a little harsh, (Y/N). Besides, it wasn't Yonji's choice." Laoise gently pushed my back to a partial laying position so I'd calm down.
"It wasn't Ichiji's either. I mean, it wasn't so bad not feeling junk. Besides, isn't this a good thing for you? It'd make the whole arranged marriage thing easier." Yonji added, oblivious to how very wrong he was.

"So you just expect me to forget all the bullshit Ichiji has done to me through the years? You and Niji, too? Oh, and don't get me started on whatever the hell your father was up to in the forest! Fire my ass!" I was getting far too agitated, which was exacerbating my poor condition. The strange monitors I was hooked up to began to beep a little faster.

"The forest..?" Laoise quirked a brow at Yonji, but ultimately stuck a pin in it for the time being when Yonji decided to address me first.
"If you want that pain to go away then you're gonna have to stop being stubborn. It's the only way, from what I've read. Kiss and make up, so to speak. At least just take back the rejection so you're not, like, actively dying."

"You READ?!" That was the most shocking revelation in his little speech. I had already suspected that taking it back would be some kind of cure, but as I was described, I was stubborn. Oxes and mules had nothing on me.

"He's not saying you have to actually love the guy. Just take it back for now so it stops making you sick." Laoise tried to sugar coat it, but it wasn't going to do the trick.
"I'm not taking it back. I'd sooner die." I huffed indignantly. "Does Ich...Does he know that you figured it out?" His name caused physical pain, so I refused to say it.

"No, because for one, he'd try to kick my ass, and two, that's not any of my business. I have my own stuff to worry about. He'd flat out deny it, too. He has too much pride. Way too much." Yonji really did seem like a neutral party, and I was kind of impressive by his slight improvement since meeting Laoise, but I was still sceptical. Vinsmoke was Vinsmoke.

I opened my mouth to speak, but that familiar scent of rich, subtle spice hit me like a mallet, causing my entire body to tense with some kind of painful internal contraction.
"Ugh, I can smell him over all the disinfectanty crap! Go away!" I groaned, almost missing the look Laoise gave Yonji.

"Fine, I'll go sort him out...You women are so much work."

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

***ICHIJI POV***

"Come to get revenge for the overboard incident?"

Yonji approached me from the end of the corridor, where (Y/N)'s infirmary suite was. I caught her scent, and my entire body felt like it was about to melt from my bones.
"It would hardly be worth it considering her poor condition." I muttered in response, really not wanting to have to deal with conversation, especially with somebody who could read me so well.

"Awww, is someone worried?" Yonji's lips stretched into a shit-eating smirk as he finally reached me, beginning to circle a little like a vulture. That was usually more Niji's style, but monkey see monkey do, especially when it came to the youngest.

"Very amusing. You do realise that if she kicks the bucket, our plan is dead in the water, right? Have they figured out what the issue is yet?" Yes, that's right. Focus on the mission, and if that includes information about (Y/N), then it's just a bonus.

"No, but it kind of reminds me of something I read in one of the medical journals in the library a while back." Yonji hummed, crossing his arms and coming to a halt beside me, facing the direction (Y/N)'s room was located. "I think it was called Rejection Syndrome? All the symptoms line up. Must have been an issue with someone she was fated with, and now it's gonna keep getting worse until they both drop dead. What a shame."

I already know it's Rejection Syndrome...I just assumed our doctors were smart enough to have some kind of medical cure for it...or at least create one...

"Huh. Shame indeed." I hummed, folding my arms across my chest in the hopes the slight pressure would stop my heart from exploding from my chest and burning to ashes, which it seemed to desperately yearn to do.

"Yep. It looks as though the guy, whoever he is, is just as stubborn as the Princess is, since there hasn't been some poor idiot bursting in to grovel on his knees for her to take it back." Yonji added, feigning a solemn nod so well that it looked near genuine.

"What a pathetic sight that would be." Again, I kept my response short. I could tell exactly where she was in that room somehow, and I was struggling not to become the very man my brother had concocted in his hypothetical.

"Pathetic, maybe, but I guess kind of necessary, if they don't want to be in super mega agony for the rest of their short lives. But hey, such is life. It's their choice." Shrugging again, Yonji glanced to me, motioning towards the infirmary suite. "Not gonna go check on your missus to be?"

"Why would I? I'm not some gushy, lovestruck fool like you are with that little village girl you picked up. I'd suggest being a touch more subtle, by the way, unless you want father to find out and put an end to it." I felt Yonji stiffen, even through the space between us. I knew he and that villager were fated, because I had felt the same pull towards (Y/N). I was just far superior at hiding it.

"You're right, so let me repay that piece of advice with some wisdom of my own." Yonji took a few steps back towards the room, glancing over his shoulder with an expression that I had never seen on him before. Something that gave me a sense of warning. "I'd suggest being a touch less subtle, unless you want to keep dealing with that."

Perceptive little fuck.

I waited for him to re-enter the room, then another few moments for him to get settled, and then a further few more because my legs refused to connect to my brain before I turned and sprinted to the closest bathroom, nearly shattering the porcelain bowl when I doubled over it and released a surge of bile from my churning gut.

My skin was hot and clammy, near sticky to the touch, and I was properly dizzy for maybe the first time in my life. That hammering pain was relentless, and ever-intensifying, especially when she was so nearby.

She's going through all of this, and yet she still rejects me..? She hates me that much..?

That seemed to hurt in a way I was even less familiar with. It wasn't physical, but something deep and intense that reached my very bones. It was something that I wasn't built to be able to really comprehend, but I knew it was natural to the normal kind of person. I had read of it once in old, dusty books found throughout the years.

Heartbreak.

It sounded so nonsensical, to pine for somebody else. To be so attached to someone who had the ability to make or break every part of you. To care what they thought, or how they were, to have you laying awake at all hours of the night, staring at the ceiling and drowning in thoughts of them.

I was stronger than that.

I had really, truly considered myself stronger than that.

Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I had to try to focus on the unusual task of catching my breath, staring at my unsightly, warped reflection in the face of the cistern.

I won't break. I'm a Vinsmoke, for God's sake. She'll be the one crawling back to me...I'll make sure of it...

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
***Just bone already, like, damn.

Next Time: Crawling Back To You***