Stupid, stupid him. Thinking that you'd be "easy." Naoya's a man of status, born with a silver spoon and that somehow couldn't fill that mouth of his. He never knew when to shut up. The heir to a cursed legacy and a superiority complex bigger than his ego forged from generations of misogyny; he never questioned his place at the top. Especially not when it came down to women.

Women, to him, were just decoration. Accessories, even. Something to sit and look pretty. Cook something up in the kitchen for him, bear a child or two. To stay quiet and say yes. Always say yes. That was the routine he had planned out, the one he had been imagining before marrying you.

Your marriage was him was supposed to be a routine. Politics, power consolidation, name value, and status. Nothing more. Another woman in a silk kimono doing what she's told and not thinking too much. But then you walked in, baring your teeth and your tongue sharp, eyes that were filled with boredom.

Which you were. You didn't bow at him. Only curtly greeted his parents. You didn't flinch. Hardly blinked when he tried to talk down to you. You had to be built of steel or something. Steel and spite, that is. And what else? He caught you holding back a yawn in the middle of his "lecture" of how you should learn your place.

That yawn of yours was the beginning of his downfall. You didn't let him get away with anything. The second he opens his mouth with that smug, dismissive tone, you shut him up just as fast as he started, if not faster. So fast it gives him whiplash. Your comebacks are so casual it's insulting. Even worse since you said them without the intention of ruining his day.

Naoya'll puff his chest, bark orders, act like the world revolves around him and you'' just blink with furrowed eyebrows, turn around and leave him standing there like a complete dumbass. It's maddening to him. It's definitely humiliating. But the other thing that he can't shake is the fact that he finds it extremely hot.

He never expected to be the one in a marriage who gets handled, roles reversed. He never thought he'd be biting back curses with pink on his cheeks because you told him to "Sit down and shut up" once like you're talking to a damn dog. He never thought someone would call him out on his bullshit and be right.

And yet, here you are, chewing him up like gum and spitting him right out, looking damn good while doing it. A man-eater in fine jewelry and a pretty face. Untouchable, unshaken, and somehow, already more of a Zenin than most of the clan though you married into it.

It doesn't matter how loud Naoya is. He'll snap, he'll glare, and most definitely act like you're beneath him. But when you two are alone? He will gladly shut up. Maybe that's why he started getting so quiet when you two were around other people. He was afraid of you checking him right then and there, making him look like a lose following the orders of a woman.

He'll just keep telling himself it's a "power struggle," that it's tension, that its's hate. But his hand keeps twitching whenever you roll your gorgeous eyes at him, the ones he'd kill to stare at forever. His blood runs hot when you unknowingly praise him when he listens to you. When you laugh at his threats. When you lean in like you know he won't push you away.

You quite literally have him wrapped around your finger and you don't event try to. He just seems to be naturally attached to you. He was supposed to make you submit, not the other way around! He's recently stopped telling you to get him tea and started getting you some instead. Started wondering about what you'll wear to bed. Pathetic.

He glances at you over his shoulder as you run your hands through your hair in preparation for bed. You're wearing red. Sexy on you, he thinks. "I swear, you're the most annoying woman I've ever met." He mutters, jaw tight as he shifts on the futon.