Archive of Our Own

I.

Shino sat on the cushion beside him, legs tucked under her. She reached forward and Jin stopped her, a hand wrapped around her wrist. He could feel her pulse quickening under his fingers.

"You don't need to--"

She sat back. "I--"

Jin looked at her. He wanted-- He didn't know what he wanted. He wanted her, in some way more intimate than nakedness, something more than sex. Any dog could rut-- Mugen was evidence of that-- and Jin wanted to love her. He wanted the line of warmth between their bodies as she caught eels and he stabbed at them ineffectually with skewers. He wanted her hands over his, gently correcting the way he arranged the eel. He wanted the skin exposed by her kimono, just to explore with his fingers.

He shifted his weight, just a little bit, and he wondered if this was love. If this urge to trace his fingers over her collarbones and to press his face against her hair was love. If this want to hide that triangle of white flesh and keep it for himself was it.

"Shino-san--" he said, and he wished he could say more.

It was quiet in the room. He could hear raucous laughter downstairs, but the sounds drifted through as though they knew they did not belong. He could hear Shino breathing, a carefully controlled inhale-exhale. He could hear his own unsteady heartbeats, a sound he wished he could block. It reminded him of his own insecurity, and he couldn't--

Shino moved up against him-- their bodies touching-- and his heart quickened. She pressed her hand against his cheek, and Jin's eyes closed. The deliberate movement was dizzying, too much and too little, too warm. Too close.

"Jin," she said. Her voice was soft.

"Yes," he said. His mouth was dry, and he felt as though he was young again, young and stupid and not knowing.

She touched the side of his glasses and gently, so gently, began to pull it off. He inhaled quickly, and when she stopped, made a small noise in the back of his throat. He felt the slight catch of metal behind his ear, and turned his head in tiny motions to allow the earpieces to disentangle from a few strands of hair. Cool air breezed against him where Shino had been, and he heard the click-click as she folded the glasses and put them to the side.

Then the rustle of clothing as she leaned into his lab and put her hands on his cheeks, making him face her.

"Jin," she said again, a noise somewhere between helpless and longing.

He opened his eyes slowly. He saw the pink of her kimono, then the red, and then the exposed white of her neck. He saw the curve of her chin and her lips-- her lips, his heart stuttered with some unfamiliar want-- and her nose and at last her eyes.

He had never liked going without his glasses-- the world was softer then, warmer, naïve and wrong-- but with Shino's face looking up at him, he did not mind-- could not mind. He knew that he had his back exposed, that any decent swordsman could enter the room and kill him. He knew that with Shino's weight in his lap he would not be able to get to his feet fast enough. That his swords were downstairs. That he could die. That this went against everything he had lived by for this entire life.

Something heavy in his stomach told him that he did not care, and he felt his abdomen clench at the thought. It was wrong. So very, very wrong.

Jin looked at her, then brought one hand up against her back. It felt indecent, to touch this woman even through three layers of cloth, but when she closed her eyes and sighed just a little bit, and leaned against that contact, warmth threaded through him.

He leaned down and kissed her. She kissed him back.

"Shino-san," Jin said, and he wanted.

He touched her shoulder with his right hand. The beads around his wrist were cold against her skin and he pulled back, and he wished that he was someone other than himself. He had calluses, he did not deserve--

Shino opened her kimono and Jin wanted to tell her to stop because this was good enough, because anymore would be wrong, because she was something above this, because he could not love her, not like this.

Her shoulders gleamed in the lamplight.

"I love you," Jin whispered into the bend of her neck and shoulder, feeling her warmth against his chin. "I love you. I love you. I love you." And he could not stop, not even when she kissed away tears he did not know were his and pressed her white hands against his chest and pulled him out of his hakama and felt his heartbeat against her palm. "I love you."

"I know," she said, and she closed her eyes. "I love you, too."

--

In the days after leaving the town, Fuu and Mugen remained quiet around him.

He did not think of Shino because it hurt. He could remember her face and the way she was warm. He could remember the smell of eel and the way she looked into the canal. He loved her still, but it was almost abstract. He knew that before long, it would become something different, something like the way his master's blood had felt on his hands, some feeling lost to sensation.

"Oi," Mugen said, his walking slowed until he was even with Jin. "How was she?"

Jin felt a flash of hate.

"Was she good? She must have been." Mugen draped an arm around Jin's shoulder, making it seem easy despite Jin's height. "Come'n, you can tell me." He smiled against Jin's arm, a dangerous curve of the lips, and he clung just a little bit tighter.

Jin's hand drifted to the hilt of his sword and he clenched over it until he could feel the crisscross imprint in his palm. "Be quiet," he said.

"Ehh?" Mugen said. "She must've been special."

It was too easy to pull out his sword, feel the slide of metal against sheath and whip it towards Mugen.

Mugen leapt away and pulled out his sword in one easy motion. "Come on," he said, and his grin was a touch more lecherous than the conversation warranted.

He is trying to get me to fight, Jin realized. It is his way of--

"Hey hey," Fuu said, waving her hands. "You promised not to fight each other."

They're acting like it never happened, Jin thought. He sucked in a breath, then sheathed his sword. It was not worth it. Shino would not have--

He kept walking, and he forced his heart to settle, trying to convince himself that it hadn't changed.

"Where are we going now?" Mugen asked Fuu after a few moments.

Jin heard Fuu's subtle sigh of relief.

"We're looking for the samurai who smells like sunflowers!" she said. "Don’t tell me you forgot already!"

--

Just like that, days passed. Jin knew that the issues that sang loud between them were never discussed. Like the details of the Sunflower Samurai, Shino was his secret to keep. But there was Mugen, as there was always, and he broke rules, unspoken or otherwise.

Jin had found a small splot in the forest that would serve well as a spot to sleep. Fuu was sleeping on the floor, curled up in a sad pink bundle, while Mugen sprawled beside her. It was Jin's turn to keep watch, but Mugen was restless, filled with an urge to irritate.

"You haven't told me how she was," Mugen said. The moonlight leaked through the trees until only patches of his body were illuminated. His left hand was on his stomach and his shirt rucked up until Jin could count ribs.

Jin closed his eyes.

Mugen rolled onto his stomach and looked up at Jin, eyes glittering in the light. "Do you miss her?" he asked, voice lazy. "Do you miss how warm she is? I'm sure she was. Women are like that. They're soft, you know. And they made those sounds--"

"Shut up," Jin said softly. "I don't need to listen to your fantasies."

He heard Mugen shift again and he tensed just a little as he felt Mugen come closer.

"Was she like this?" Mugen asked, straddling him and wrapping his arms around Jin's waist. "Did she press her hands against your cheek like this?"

Jin could feel the ghost of Shino's fingers pressing against his cheek, just beneath the real of Mugen's fingers. His mouth twisted, and he whipped his arm up across Mugen's face. "Shut up," he said. Mugen's cheek was hard and the hairs scratched the back of his hand. It was a solid blow, and Jin felt a dark satisfaction as Mugen rocked backwards. His head thudded against the leafy floor.

"Ahh," Mugen said as he sat back up, rubbing his hand against his face. "So it was." He looked at Jin sideways. "I'm so glad that you found her," he said and smiled viciously. "I thought you were a homo." Mugen flopped on his back again and Jin exhaled quietly. "And--" Mugen said, his eyes still closed. "If you ever need any help with your women, you can ask me." He opened his left just eye enough to look at Jin. "My women would never leave me, given the chance. Certainly wouldn't go to monks." He stretched, then collapsed against the floor. He made a few noises in his mouth, then fell asleep.

Jin clenched his fist over his sword and gritted his teeth. Mugen wouldn't understand. He was nothing more than a vagabond.

Jin knew that there was every possibility of an ambush-- theives from the village could have waited along this path or perhaps other wanderers were desperate for money-- but he couldn't quite get himself to care. He took in a deep breath, then exhaled.

There would be no more thinking on his watch, he decided. He focussed on the sound of trees around him, the slight rustling of leaves, and the potential for attack.

Time passed and when a new set of stars peeked through the leaves, Jin dragged himself out of the preternatural calm. He tapped Mugen on the shoulder. It takes four tries before Mugen does anything other than groan and slap at his hand. But once Mugen gets up, he is on edge, always on the lookout for a fight.

It strikes Jin as he settles down in the same warm spot that Mugen had just occupied that two months before, a lifetime before, he would never have allowed this kind of man to keep watch.

Much has changed. He has changed.

He thought of Shino and what she could be doing. She might be sleeping, head tilted at that precise angle, hair curling around her shoulders. She might be awake, looking at the stars dancing on the water, thinking that, had she not met him, she would be looking up different lights, her hair down for different reasons. She might be changing, holding her kimono against herself demurely, exposing as little skin as possible because she was like that. Because she was a beautiful woman and because she was for herself. --and me, Jin tried to think, adding it on to the sentence before. She is for herself and me. He tried to ignore how that didn't seem to flow properly.-- She might be sitting with the monks, quiet and serene, learning how others searched for the chastity she embodied. She might be --

Jin could not think of what else she might be doing. She had so much experience outside of his own realm of knowledge-- like eels, he thought, something in him smiling at the memory-- and he did not know what she would do. What did women do? Other than fucking them for some unreasonable price per hour, Jin had no experience with them. None like Shino, anyway. No woman that he loved like that.

Jin felt sad, in a way he hadn't felt since he was very young. He did not regret things often, but leaving her was something that he turned over again and again in his mind.

He could not stay with her. He was all wrong for her.

But another part of him wondered about-- them. About Shino and Jin and how they would have been if they had stayed together.

He loved her, and she loved him, and they could have had so much more.

So much more than this. He looked at the black pattern of leaves above him, and he could see Mugen out of the corner of his eye, lazing against a tree.

No, Jin thought. He could not stay with Shino (Why not? that part of him asked. Why not?) and Shino did not belong in this kind of life. There were no children, no marriage, no more.

It had all ended when he pushed her away.

He closed his eyes and tried to think of something else.

--

They followed Fuu. She led them places, and after two days in the wood, they found a small town.

Fuu didn't ask much of him recently. He was allowed to wander while she searched for ways to get money. (Legally, she would add, looking pointedly at Mugen.) Of course, she let him go with as much tact as she could muster. She would give him an errand that could take half an hour, then not expect him back for hours.

He did not take it as a reason to be lax. He was productive, or as productive as he could be. He would do the odd job around town, but more and more often, he was drawn to the canal on the edge of town. It was dug for transportation rather than irigation, and the bridge across was high. When the sun settled beyond the thatched roofs of the village, the water would be flaming red and people would scurry across the bridge to their homes.

They were a predictable people; they slept early and rose early. Traffic stopped once the sky turned a deep blue and he was left alone on the bridge.

Jin stared down into the canal. Had the sun been a little higher, he would have been able to see his reflection. Instead, he saw flickers of his face dancing around each other, pale compared to the dark of his hair and the sky beyond.

Is this what Shino saw? he wondered.

He heard footsteps behind him, and noted, as he had for every other villager who had passed, that their steps were both like and completely unlike Shino's. If the steps were a little lighter, a little more delicate, than it could be Shino. But as much as Jin listened, it was-- it always was-- Fuu.

"You know," she said softly, barely talking over the sound of the water. "I don’t think that she--" She stopped. "Jin, you are-- I can't imagine that--"

They were silent. Fuu walked to his side, then watched the water of the canal pass under the bridge. At last she opened her mouth and said, "Jin, you are a good man."

This canal, a voice in the back of his mind said, is deeper than it looks. It would have been, would be, perfect.

"Aa," Jin said.

He did not need this from her. He did not need anything from anyone.

He turned away from Fuu and began walking.

Leaving another girl? a part of him asked ironically. Is that what you will always do?

"Jin--" Fuu said helplessly. Jin could hear the concern in her voice, the hopeless "he's gone" that Shino had--

Stop it, Jin told himself. Stop.

"I'll be back," Jin said to Fuu. And he kept walking.

II.

It was one of those anonymous fights, where people in dark cloths jumped out from behind trees and tried to steal your money.

Jin had been tired, tired of the relentless monotony, of the thinking that entailed, of the constant up and down of hills and bridges, of the backsides of Fuu and Mugen who always had enough energy to keep going. Shino was crippling him. Crippling him by making him think. He could not find the silence inside himself. Each day tightened his nerves like a spring, and he half-feared that he would stay cramped forever.

So when the thieves had attacked, Jin felt more relieved than afraid.

He flicked his sword as though it was as light as a bamboo skewer and he cut his way through his side of attackers with a controlled economy of movement. The ones who saw him before they died released short, aborted screams while the ones who did not see him merely grunted. His sword whispered through fabric and flesh and Jin allowed it to sing. For all he had wanted peace and obscurity, there was nothing that made him as alive as this.

Shino, some voice in the back of his mind chanted. Shino could not live like this. Shino shino shinoshinoshinoshino.

Jin watched dispassionately as one man fell to the ground, holding his stomach. Jin had been careless and the man would take a little time to die. The man's mouth opened and closed-- like a dying eel, the voice whispered-- and a sound more desperate than afraid came out, something between a whine and a groan. He was the last man on Jin's side, and Jin saw the man's eyes roll up, the whites gleaming strangely in the night. The man died.

"Arrya!" Mugen said, and Jin turned to see him grinning madly as he kicked in another man's kneecap. Mugen's leg whipped around, and he caught another man in the backlash.

Mugen could have used his sword, but Jin knew that Mugen wouldn't. He was too physical; he preferred the hot of heels and knuckles. Swords were an accessory that Mugen knew how to use in his own bizarre fashion, but they were only that: an accessory. As long as he had his body, he could protect himself.

With the same fascination as watching the man die, Jin's gaze followed Mugen as he leapt in the midst of three men and knocked two down.

I should help, Jin thought. But he didn't, instead allowing Mugen to knock down the remaining men, eyes taking in the details of that strange, scoping body.

When he went to sleep that night, nerves still humming, he thought of Mugen and how the man used too many movements as he fought.

--

"Jin," Shino said, voice bright. "Good morning."

Jin opened his eyes, and Shino's face was a few inches from his own The details were clear, even without his glasses.

"Aa," he said, and he touched her cheek with his fingers. They weren't callused, he noticed vaguely. Smooth against smooth.

Shino made a happy noise as she closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against his hand. Then she opened her eyes and said, "Jin, the children want to go to the festival. I told them we were going tonight."

"Did you," Jin said, lips curving into a smile.

"Well, I'll be making them breakfast." She got up, pressing one hand to her hip, the other pushing on Jin's shoulder. She walked out with the same pattern of serene footsteps as she had all those years ago.

Jin grabbed his glasses and put them on. His vision was still a little blurry; he would need to go to town to get new glasses soon.

He paused, and he looked at the sword up against the wall. Shino did not like to keep it around-- one day the kids would want to know stories about it, and Jin's stories were not the ones they would like to hear-- but he felt safer with it. He could protect them.

Jin stood up and took the sword in his hands. It was familiar, but it did not seem like an extension of his body as it had used to. He swung the sword experimentally, and it still felt strange.

"Jin and his sword," a voice called mockingly from behind him.

He turned around and saw Mugen, with the same red jacket and the same blue striped limbs. He looked just like memory, spry and young.

"Jin--!" Shino gasped, and Jin noticed that she was slightly behind Mugen, her wrist in Mugen's hand.

"Shino?" Jin stared. "Mugen, what are you--"

"Take your sword, Jin," Mugen said. "Kill me."

"You--"

"Kill me," Mugen said, and Jin could see how his knuckles turned white over Shino's wrist.

Jin reached inside of himself to find the fighting calm, but his shoulders were tense and his eyes darted to Shino's scared face.

Shino tried to pull her wrist away, and said, voice high, "Jin."

"Come on," Mugen said, and he yawned, mouth huge like a lion's. He jerked Shino's arm and pulled her in until he draped his arm around her neck, casual and dangerous.

Jin's breath came faster, and he couldn't find the calm, he couldn't find it, the sword felt wrong. Why was he like this? What was he doing? Why wasn't he fighting? Mugen was just a few meters away, Shino was there. What was Mugen doing?

"Don't you remember, Jin? You said you were going to kill me--"

Jin froze. Suddenly, he realized what it was that kept him from movement; it was fear.

Mugen wrapped his fingers in Shino's hair, knotting them in the black and streaks of gray. Shino was almost hyperventilating, her eyes wide and staring at Jin. Help me, she was saying. Jin knew her too well to misunderstand. Jin, my husband, my love, help me.

"And I said I was going to kill you," Mugen finished, grinning. With one savage movement, he snapped her neck.

He stepped back, and Shino fell to the floor. Her body was limp and landed heavily. Mugen put his arms in the air and waggling his fingers. "Look, Jin," he said. "I'm helpless. Can you kill me now?"

Jin's vision flashed red, and he struggled to find that fighting spirit inside of himself.

"Look at you," Mugen said, after a long moment. "You can't even kill me. You liar."

"Papa?" he heard from outside. "Papa, are we going to the festival?"

No, Jin wanted to say. No, keep away from my children.

"I guess I will have to kill you again, then," Mugen said and headed out the door.

Jin's sword clattered to the floor.

--

Jin's eyes snapped open, wide awake. His breath came faster than usual. He glanced to his left, and Mugen was sleeping at angles to the mat. He turned to take stock of his swords at his side, resisting the urge to pick them up and slit the man's throat.

Don't think about the dream, Jin thought.

He closed his eyes and listened beyond Mugen's loud snores to Fuu's quiet inhales and exhales from the other side of the rice paper walls. He timed his own breaths to hers and felt himself relax. It was easy, he noticed. It was not hard to settle into that silence inside of himself.

It was not hard at all, he thought. He would be able to kill Mugen when the time came.

Jin fell back asleep, eyebrows knitted with concentration.

--

"Aaah, you bastard," Mugen gasped, his hands tightening painfully in Jin's hair.

Jin thrust and felt Mugen writhe like an eel. He grabbed Mugen's hands and shoved them above his head. Mugen struggled, and Jin's hands tightened over the blue stripes.

Mugen arched up and bit down on Jin's collarbone, his teeth flashing white and strong in the dim lantern light. "You bastard," Mugen said again, and then he laughed on a short, shuddering exhale.

"Be quiet," Jin said and angled deeper. He covered Mugen's mouth with one hand. Mugen closed his mouth on Jin's fingers and Jin felt the sharp, immediate pain. The blood was slick between his knuckles.

Mugen was nothing like Shino.

Jin gripped Mugen's wrists with his left hand until his tendons strained and he knew the blue of Mugen's tattoos would match the sick rainbow of blue yellow green of his bruises. His right hand strained to keep Mugen's mouth closed.

Mugen spat out swears and Jin's name past Jin's fingers. The words sounded the same from that mouth. Jin removed his hand-- ("Fuck Jin you're a sick fuck you need to get laid by a girl you-- fuckfuckfuck! I'm going to kill you one day and") -- then bent down and pressed his lips against Mugen's, feeling the words turn bitter underneath his tongue.

This was wrong, the way they joined together, hard and fast and ultimately right in the sheer wrong. Not like with Shino, nothing like it. He loved Shino, he loved her.

"Are you thinking--" Mugen breathed, groaning as Jin dug his teeth into his ear, "Are you thinking of her?" Jin felt Mugen's hot breath on his neck, and he bit down punishingly.

"Shut up," Jin said, and he was surprised to find that his voice was harsh and a little bit throaty.

Mugen's head dropped back, all of his muscles except those down there relaxing. He threw his head back, exposing a long line of neck, and laughed.

"You homo," Mugen said. "You fucking homo."

Jin thrust, then came.

--

When Jin woke up the next morning, he felt dirty. He shifted, and he grimaced. To his left, he heard Mugen moving. Jin glanced over.

Mugen stretched, his back arched and his toes curling with the effort of it all. In the instant after several bones in his back cracked, he flopped back down onto his mat. "Ahhh," he said, his breath easing out of him. "I wonder what we're doing today."

Jin heard the patter of footsteps outside his door and winced as Fuu slid the doors open with a flick of the arm. The sunlight was immediate against Jin's face, and he squinted, shielding his eyes from the glare.

"Wake up!" she said.

"You're in a good mood, aren't you," Mugen said, his lower lip jutting out as he draped one arm over his eyes. He sounded petulant.

"It's a beautiful day!" Fuu said.

Her hair was down, and it reminded Jin suddenly, viscerally, of what Shino had looked like that one morning they had together. Shino was taller and her hair was longer, but it was a woman's silhouette, slimmer, but different than the lines of Mugen. If he had stayed with Shino, than he would have been able to discover the curves of her body and get to know them like his own. They would have had mornings like this often, and they would have been happy. Jin felt something inside of him shudder at the thought. And they would have gotten soft, and they would have died. Died old and helpless.

This way was better, he thought. It was better. And he vowed to never think of Shino again. He couldn't. She was going to kill him.

He put on his glasses and realized that Fuu's hair was half-tied to keep it out of her face while the rest hung loose. Her sleeves were rolled up and he could see dustings of flour on her hands.

"Leave me alone," Mugen was saying to Fuu as she prodded him with her toe.

"I have food outside," Fuu said, singsong. "And it's delicious. Made with my own two hands." She shoved her hands in his face.

"It must be disgusting," Mugen said, and he flipped onto his stomach and shoved his face into his arms.

Jin waited for them to finish bickering, keeping his blanket subtly around his waist. When Fuu left, he got up.

"Sleep well?" Mugen asked, still sprawled on the floor. He lifted his head, just enough for Jin to see the leer smeared across his face. For one moment, Jin wanted to cut it off, and he clenched his hands in the blanket around his hips.

"Aa," Jin said instead, his face carefully blank.

III.

"Fuck," Mugen said. His stomach was sliced open and the blood spilled out heavy and thick between his fingers. "Fuck."

"What happened?" Jin asked, and he wondered how his voice was so dispassionate.

"Pickpocket with a sword," Mugen said, and the wash of blood on his shirt seemed to swallow up the white, propelled by each grunted word. "Didn't like me."

"How hurt are you?"

Fuu finally caught up with Jin and saw Mugen's wound. She clutched at Jin's sleeve, fingers convulsing, then she calmed and bent down beside Mugen. "Jin--" she said, eyes wide at the blood. "Give me your sword."

Jin did.

"Fuck," Mugen said with an incredulous laugh. "You can't let a girl kill me."

Fuu put the blade against the rip in his shirt and, with deft strokes, pulled the shirt off from around the wound. Her hands were strangely steady, shaking only when it didn't matter. Blood caked her arms up to her wrists and splattered as high as her elbow. She looked around, then said, "Is there anything we can use for a bandage?"

Jin took off his shirt and gave it to her. She used the sword to rip it into strips, then tied a swath across his abdomen. Gritting her teeth, she yanked it into a knot.

Mugen yelped and he clenched his teeth tight against the pain. "Are you trying to kill me?"

"That's for being an idiot!" she said, and Jin saw that she had tears in her eyes. "We have to get you to someplace where we can wash off the wound."

"I don't need to wash my wound," Mugen said. He struggled to lift himself to his elbows, the bandages around his stomach turning a lazy brown. "I need to find the goddamn pickpocket who stole my money!"

Fuu said, "Don't be ridiculous, if you get up, you'll die!"

Jin said, "You can't die here. I'm the one who's going to kill you."

Mugen stopped straining against Fuu's arms, the whites of his eyes bright against the blood and dirt caking his face. He relaxed. "Good," he said and hacked out a laugh. "Good." He closed his eyes.

"Great," Fuu said after a moment. "He passed out." She gave a short, shuddering laugh, then sniffed once. She wiped her face with her upper arm, making sure to keep her hands from smearing blood on her face. "It's so like him to make us carry him for his own injuries," Fuu said. "It was all his fault, anyway."

"Aa," Jin said. He picked up Mugen, and Fuu helped haul him onto Jin's back. Jin wasn't sure how to deal with an injured Mugen-- not injured like this-- and he hoped that Mugen would be stay alive. It would be inconvenient for him to die.

They carried him to a ragged inn at the edges of town. The innkeeper had stared at them and the dried blood smeared over all three of them.

Fuu hid her arms in her sleeves and said, looking helpless, "My brother was robbed and when he tried to defend himself, was almost killed! After four years of not seeing him, I came back and found him almost dead!" She almost started to cry, and Jin wondered how much of the tears were real.

"W-We have room," the innkeep had said. His wife had pulled at his sleeve and whispered in his ear. His eyes took in the two men and that fragile looking girl. "We have two rooms available."

"Thank you," Fuu had said. And Jin carried Mugen in, aware that his shirt was tied around Mugen's waist, and that he was covered in Mugen's blood.

--

"Here," Fuu said, holding a bucket of water. Steam rose from it. "You can wash off Mugen and yourself. I'll be in the other room."

"Aa," Jin said.

"The innkeeper's wife found some bandages, too," she said. She tossed them at Jin, and he caught it in one easy motion.

--

Shino had warm breath and it tickled against Jin's face. He relaxed his muscles and smiled, just a little.

"Jin," she said in Mugen's voice, rough and thuggish.

Jin opened his eyes and saw Mugen staring down at him, eyes wild like a horse's. Mugen had intruded on his personal space. Mugen was lying next to him, having crawled the way from his own mat on the other side.

"What are you doing?" Jin asked. "You are going to aggravate your wounds."

"They're nothing," Mugen said. "Hey," and his breath was heavy against Jin's face. It smelled of cheap food and the rust of blood. "Wanna go out and get the guys with me?"

"No," Jin said.

Mugen's chest heaved as he wheezed out a laugh. "It always hurts more the second day."

"It hasn't been a day," Jin said. "Just a few hours."

"Time is always slower when you are injured." Mugen collapsed beside Jin, and he flung his arms out to his sides. One blue-striped arm hit Jin's chest with a thud. Jin grunted.

There was a truth to that, Jin thought. Whenever he was injured, he would pass the days working stiff muscles and dreading a challenge. Not dreading-- not quite-- but not eager. What would come, would come, but he did not look forward to ripping open wounds just to show fools how foolish they were.

"You think too much, bastard," Mugen said, and the name was lazy.

Jin did not say anything.

"I thought you were going to let Fuu kill me," Mugen said as a way of starting a conversation. Jin wondered why they were talking, because it felt odd. He and Mugen did not-- talk. Especially when lying side by side in the dark. It felt strangely like the night that he had with Shino. Things were more intimate in the dark, he thought. And talking was for people who didn't regularly kill together. "I was going to kill you for it."

"I wouldn't let her," Jin found himself saying. "I'm going to kill you myself." And he remembered how Mugen had been sprawled on the street, leaking blood and frustration. Mugen couldn't move to fight and the roiling anger at being helpless hurt more than the wound itself. Jin could understand. They were both men of action, and the inability to act was maddening. Powerlessness was death, and Mugen did not want to die like that. It would be an act of mercy for Jin to kill him.

Jin could not see Mugen's face from the angle he was at, but he knew that Mugen was grinning wildly, like the crescent moon.

"Good," Mugen said. "But I'm going to kill you first."

Jin knew that in a way, Mugen knew what he was thinking. That if Jin was ever down like that, then Mugen would kill him to spare him a worse death. Except Mugen probably did not think of it in words, just actions and a deeper, animalistic knowledge.

They stayed silent, and Jin could hear Mugen's breathing deepen. He began to doze.

"Did you like that girl?" Mugen asked suddenly, breath still slow.

After a pause, Jin said, "Aa."

"Women are weird," Mugen said. "They want money to fuck but they don't want the fuck and they want gifts." Jin could almost see Mugen's map of women snap open in front of them. "And sometimes they don't even want that, they just want something you can't give them. Like--" Mugen waved one hand in the air, and Jin could barely make out the shape of his arm in the dark. "Like freedom. And love. And killing someone for them."

Jin stayed quiet. Mugen was talking and it wasn't to him.

"And sometimes they want you to follow them, but at a distance, but they don't want that either." Mugen's arm began to move more frantically. "I mean, how the fuck are we supposed to find some samurai who smells like fucking sunflowers? I'm from Ryuukyuu! I don't even know what a fucking sunflower is!"

Jin couldn't help it; he laughed.

"I don't understand them," Mugen said at last.

"Women are women," Jin said. He thought: And Shino is Shino.

"I guess," Mugen said. His arm dropped to his side with a thud, and Jin heard Mugen hiss in pain. "I'm going to sleep," Mugen announced. "And tomorrow, we're going to get my money back."

--

"I don't understand him," Fuu said one night.

The lamps were slowly burning down and the doors were shut against the cold. Jin sat by the opposite wall, sharpening his sword.

"Hm?" Jin said, more out of obligation than interest.

"Mugen. He's such-- such an animal," Fuu said. "He eats and sleeps and drinks and, you know, does things with women!"

"Yes," Jin said. He did not want to know where this conversation was going to go, and tried to think of ways to distract her.

"And yet he seems to forget that he is here to help me find the samurai who smells like a sunflower--" Jin noticed that she paused after those words and, as he had so many times before, he wondered who that man was to her. "-- and he gravitates around you. It's always fighting you or getting around you to sleep with some girl."

"Mugen is independent." And Jin could not see what she meant. Mugen was always doing what he wanted, when he wanted. He was no man's satellite, much less Jin's.

"Independent," Fuu repeated, her voice almost a scoff. "So independent he always has to come back to us for money and food."

"He knows how to fight," Jin said. "He could--"

"Be an assassin for hire," Fuu said. "Yes. But that is hardly anything to be proud of. And he'd be too stupid to do it without jumping on the man in front of everyone and challenging him to a fight. He has the tact of a bear."

Jin hadn't thought of Mugen being an assassin for that precise reason. But he was sure that Mugen could live independently if he so desired. It was just that Mugen rarely went against convenience (except in fighting) and being with the two of them was easy.

"And you hardly ever stop him," Fuu said, railing on. "It's always me and then you two, going off to fight some monster that always ends up being some sad old man who lost his family or something."

I couldn't stop him, even if I tried, Jin thought. Which is why I wouldn't.

"It's amazing, you know? I know that both of you like women well enough, Mugen with his-- paid women, and you with…" she faded off. "But sometimes it's like you don't realize that I'm a woman too. And Mugen acts like a pig around me and you forget I'm here. Between the two of you, it's like it doesn't matter if I exist. And it wouldn't be so bad if I knew you didn't care about women, but I know you do. I see you look at women who look a little bit like Shino and I see you shake it off. I know you miss her, and I-- Sometimes I wonder if you would miss me. And I don't mean it like that. Like if I got kidnapped or killed or something. You know. It's-- it's amazing, you know?"

"Mm," Jin said, and he tried to find something to say. "I think Mugen and I would notice if you went missing."

Fuu smiled, just a little, and she said, "Yes, and probably fight all of Japan to rescue me from my kidnappers."

They sat like that for a little while, then Fuu said, "I hope Mugen will come back soon. It is getting late."

"You should sleep," Jin said.

"I know," Fuu said. "But sometimes I worry about you two, and I want you to know that even though we're searching for someone of mine, I think that I-- that I don't mind you two." She looked up at Jin. "And I appreciate that you would be with me, even when you could be somewhere else. With someone else."

"Aa," Jin said and looked away.

A few minutes later, Fuu looked up at Jin. Jin had neatly polished down his sword and put it away.

"He's out drinking again, isn't he," Fuu said, and this time it wasn't a question.

"Aa," Jin said after a slight hesitation.

"Why didn't you go with him?"

Jin didn't know how to answer. Why didn't he? Because he preferred to not watch Mugen get himself fucked, mentally, physically. Because he wanted to stay here and be able to protect in case anything went wrong. Because he liked to pretend.

(Pretend what? a voice asked. Be quiet, Jin told it.)

"I wasn't in the mood," Jin said.

A little while later, Fuu got up to sleep in her room and Jin stayed up to wait for Mugen.

--

"You are," Mugen said, slurring his words, "a woman." He waved one hand in the air in front of Jin's face. "You stay up late for men, waiting, and you have long hair and you wear a dress and you have glasses."

Jin raised an eyebrow. "I don't know where to begin to correct you." Mugen stumbled, and Jin caught him.

"See? You always catch me," Mugen said, dipping into a tilted curtsy on "catch." He tore loose from Jin's hands and leaned against the doorway. "You fight like a girl. All pretty and-- and dance-y. You don't fight like a real man. You’re always there." Mugen put a strange emphasis at the end of each sentence, as though it would anchor it in reality. "You say you're going to kill me, but you never do." Mugen sauntered up to Jin, then poked his chest with his finger. "You say you're going to kill me," he said again. He leaned in on tip toe and blew alcoholic fumes into Jin's face, saying, "but you never do."

Jin could smell Mugen's rank breath and grimaced.

"I think you should go to sleep," he said.

Without warning, Mugen punched Jin in the face. Jin staggered backwards two steps, but he knew it was two steps too many. He brought his foot down to balance him, knees bent and ready. In the same flow of motion, Jin moved in low then shot forward and landed an uppercut in the hard planes of Mugen's stomach.

"Oof," Mugen said. He sat down heavily on the floor and wheezed. Jin remembered then that he managed to hit Mugen in the exact place where the pickpocket had sliced open his stomach. Even so, he watched Mugen warily, knowing that if Mugen wanted to fight, pain or even the lack of breath would not stop him. Sure enough, Mugen's leg shot out and Jin dodged it on light feet.

Like Jin, Mugen did not waste energy and turned his kick into a peculiar method of laying down. He snapped his arms out like an umbrella unfurling and his breath eased out of him in a lazy, "Aaah."

After a moment, Jin relaxed. Mugen always slept off alcohol and a good fuck. He would pass out soon. He was harmless. Jin sat down on the opposite mat.

Mugen tackled him then, all coiled muscles and elbows. Jin's head hit the floor with a crack and fireworks exploded in his vision. Mugen sat on his stomach, ripped off his glasses, then said in his ear, "You can't see, can you?"

"What--" Jin started to say, then he struggled against the lanky arm against his throat. Mugen leaned until they were torso to torso, faces almost touching. His knees clamped around Jin's knees and caught his right arm. Mugen's right hand dragged Jin's left on the floor above Jin's head, twisting it until the pressure almost hurt. The scent of alcohol was maddening.

"Jin is a wooooooooman," Mugen said. He pushed himself up, his right hand grinding Jin's wrist into the wooden floor. "You won't move, will you?"

Jin stared up into Mugen's eyes; they were wild and crazy, something he hadn't seen since the first day of their acquaintance in the face of the man who burned down the tea shop. Jin did not trust those eyes, not in a body as dangerous as Mugen's, and he said carefully, "No, I will not move."

"Good." Mugen grinned, then looked at his arm and pushed it to the side. "You won't move this hand either." He let go of his arm.

In a strangely enraptured movement, he touched Jin's hair, and Jin had to work to keep his breath steady. "Look," Mugen said. "You have long hair." He turned Jin's head to the side and Jin struggled to keep his free arm from grabbing Mugen's throat. Mugen was unpredictable, and the drinks would have done nothing to mellow him. Mugen slid his hand onto the tie that kept Jin's hair up, and slowly pulled it off. Jin felt the prickle on his scalp as his hair dropped out around his face.

"Like a woman," Mugen said, almost reverently. He brought his face close to Jin's and nuzzled, cheek to cheek. Jin could feel the scrape of his stubble and shuddered. Then Mugen bit at his ear, and Jin found himself pushing Mugen away with his free hand.

Shit, he thought to himself.

Mugen grabbed Jin's arm and slammed it down to Jin's side. Mugen shifted his knees to capture it. He sat down heavily, and Jin grunted.

He lost his wild card, spent it on the wrong moment.

Mugen leaned in again, and Jin watched as Mugen's lips dropped down on his own, hungry and tasting disgustingly, overwhelmingly, of cheap sake and rejected woman. It was wrong, a violation of private space and dignity, and Jin wished he had at least lost the freedom of his arm by punching Mugen rather than just pushing him.

"A woman," Mugen said, his lips now an inch away from Jin's.

Jin waited patiently as Mugen wiggled his hands inside of his shirt and touch the lines of bone and muscle. Once Mugen relaxed his guard, Jin could get control of his body, or his arms at least, and put Mugen down.

He wondered vaguely as Mugen's hands roamed over his nipples and as Mugen dragged his tongue down the line of his jaw to his neck if Shino had ever felt like this. She must have; she did this for a living. He hoped that she did not feel like this when he was with her.

Then Mugen shifted down his body and Jin felt a distant burst of pleasure as Mugen grabbed him through a layer of cloth. It meant nothing, really, only that his body acted on its own and that Mugen's idea of a woman was truly fucked up. And that Jin would never let him drink on his own again, even when Mugen grinned like a lecher and said slyly that he was going to "see the city."

Mugen breathed heavily against his neck, then bit down hard on Jin's collarbone.

"Haa," gasped Jin. The pain was startlingly real and brought him out of his haze. He could feel Mugen smile against his skin.

"So he finally decides to pay attention," Mugen said, and Jin thought, Shit.

Mugen left red marks down Jin's chest and Jin began to struggle. He could not fade away into the comfort of his mind if Mugen kept doing that. So he heaved until his arms sprang free and he yanked Mugen's face back, gripping his hair with the tendons in his wrist showing in parallel lines.

"Aggh!" Mugen said, his neck exposed. His teeth were gritted and the muscles along his jaw clenched like something obscene.

Jin dropped backwards as Mugen yanked at his shirt, still trapping Jin's arms. Jin pulled his arms out, as Mugen clamped his knees around Jin's ribcage, and shoved at Mugen's shoulders. Mugen rolled with the movement and they crashed onto the floor.

Oh no, Jin thought. And he heard the panicked steps of Fuu running towards their door. "It's nothing," he called out, then inhaled sharply as Mugen sucked at his nipple. "Are you still doing that?" he asked Mugen. Mugen hauled himself up and bit at Jin. Jin punched him in jaw.

Mugen grinned, baring his teeth, and said, "Better than a woman."

"Jin-- Mugen!" Fuu yelled. She halted outside the door, hesitant despite Jin's attempt at reassurance.

"It's just Mugen, aah-- being Mugen," Jin said.

"Are you sure?"

Jin hissed, then skittered out of Mugen's grip. "Yes," he said, more calmly. "Go back to sleep, Fuu."

Mugen stared at him, a dark and dangerous smile lingering on his face. "A girl said she'd give me something amaaaazing if I would follow her into another room," he said. "But all that ended up happening was fighting." His smile widened until Jin could see the dark of blood outlining his teeth. "I like this better, fucking and fighting."

Jin's face twisted into something ugly and he said, "No."

Mugen launched himself at Jin and everything started up again, all scrabbling hands and biting teeth. Mugen knotted his hands in Jin's hair and Jin clawed at Mugen's skin with his too-short-to-damage fingernails.

--

"Fuck," Mugen gasped. Jin bit on the line between Mugen's neck and shoulder and he had a flash of Shino would never do this and somehow that made him harder and he jerked and thrust against Mugen's thighs and Mugen swore and it was so wrong but so obscenely, humanly real. Mugen's fingers scrabbled against his back and he breathed heavily and his heartbeat was loud, so loud that Jin could swear he heard an echo in his own body and they moved like they were fighting, except they were fighting each other. It was normal and wrong and Jin thought between each slap of flesh against flesh that he was going to kill Mugen. Then Mugen brought his mouth down crashingly on Jin's and Jin bit back and they struggled against each other.

--

They lay together like that, tense and breathing hard. It was like an extension of fighting, and Jin did not know how to stop. It was all hard angles and lanky muscles, relaxed like cut tendons and broken arms.

Jin, chest rising up and down with consciously slow breath, imagined what it looked like. The two of them on the floor, covered in bruises and pain. Fucking, but not, and fighting, but not.

"Fucking women," Mugen from his side, cheek against the floor. He was on his stomach, arms spread eagle at his side, his legs bent at angles that would have looked unnatural on anyone else. "They're not the same."

Jin thought of Shino, and her sweet warmth and compared it to the soreness in his wrist where Mugen struggled and the ache on his collarbone where Mugen had clamped down with his teeth. He thought about how Shino was soft and Mugen was hard and how Jin left Shino behind. He thought about how he did not know what he was doing anymore, except that fighting Mugen and fucking Mugen was something that set his blood in fire and how he settled into his calm but always lost it. He would never have been like that with Shino, he would have lost his edge and gotten soft like her. They would have had children and Jin would have taught them to reach into themselves and attain that stillness and when they got bored they would run to Shino. Maybe one day Jin would have tried to find himself and he would not have been able to, finding instead Shino and several children.

So domestic, Jin thought. This would never have fit in that life.

"Aa," he said.

He imagined them in a different setting, and he said, "You are the first person I was not able to wound. What is your name?"

And Mugen didn't look at him, just pressed his face against the floor and mumbled, "And they said I was drunk…"

Jin closed his eyes and said, "I'm Jin."

"Fucking weirdo," he heard Mugen say, and he knew that the next time Mugen closed his eyes, it would be to pass out into the heaviness of aftersex sleep. Mugen slept like the dead, and only a good fight would get him up again. A good fight and maybe good food. Mugen was like that. Simple. Animal.

Jin shifted slightly, then realized how dirty he felt. There was sweat and blood and spit and-- he didn't want to name it. He would need to wash. He picked up the sad scrap of blanket and wiped off what he could. There was a canal nearby, and he could clean himself there.

--

"What happened to you two?" Fuu asked.

"Nothing," Jin said. "It was nothing."

Mugen staggered along and there were dots of bruises and red marks along his skin. He was hungover and Jin knew that he ached. Jin felt an answering soreness in his own limbs, but it was nothing worse than a good fight. The only marks on him was a bite mark on his collarbone that showed when his shirt gaped and a bite on his ear. The bruises on his hands were dark against his skin, but could be attributed to a million things. His clothing covered the rest.

"I heard noises and it was--"

"Ehh," Mugen croaked, his voice dry in his throat. "Do you have any water?"

"The innkeeper's wife gave me some," Fuu said, and she stopped to open up the package she had received. "Here." She gave the canteen to Mugen.

Jin watched Mugen's Adam's apple bob convulsively as he downed the liquid, and he realized that he wanted to touch it. Not the same carnivorous lust of the night before, but one more similar to Shino. Not love-- definitely not that-- but something different.

He thought about it and wondered if perhaps he was losing Shino the way he had lost his master at the dojo; drained emotionally until they were nothing more than their inverse, a blank space for someone else to fill it.

And Mugen didn't fill in for Shino; he wasn't the right shape or temperament. He was wrong. All wrong.

Jin watched as Fuu slapped Mugen for drinking all the water and as Mugen hobbled away with a bump growing on his head.

Shino couldn't have lived like this, Jin thought. And he could not have lived with Shino. He couldn't have lived without this.

"Stupid girl," Mugen said, and he gave Jin a dark look, for not helping him or for contributing to his pain Jin didn't know.

"You should drink in moderation," Jin said.

"Yeah," Mugen said. "If you can't hold your drink."

"At least I can avoid--"

"I hate you," Mugen said, not bothering to listen to the rest. He walked ahead of them, every sloped curve of his body showing his displeasure.

Yes, Jin thought. I hate you too. He knew he did not mean it. Not like that.