Crossroads by stungunbilly Samurai Champloo slash

[stungunbilly]

This is for aylex13, who wanted Samurai Champloo.
Takes place right after the last episode of the anime. Mugen/Jin with a Fuu tag, approximately 1200 words.

Crossroads

By stungunbilly

 

Mugen surprised Jin in a whirling red-black tumble of elbows and metal-shod sandals and wet grass. He’d just reached the crossroads on the highest hill of the island, and all around him was a sea of green topped with blue sky. The insects whined a melody like tiny folk singers, and Mugen flew from nowhere with monkey howls and clacking teeth. Jin’s sword was heavy today, for the first time in three years. He fell onto the chalky road with his limbs pinned and no whisper from his sword arm at all.

It was hard to see Mugen’s face, just a black circle blocking the sun, and a flash of what might have been a grimace or a smile. He remained still in the fresh silence, breathing a little loudly, resting on Jin.  After a time the grasses sang once more.

Jin could feel that his glasses were askew on his nose. They itched, as did the dust settling on his exposed skin. He didn’t move.

“Why aren’t you fighting me?” asked Mugen. Jin wished that he could see his eyes.

When he replied, he smiled a little, because Mugen was whining like Fuu.

“I am tired. And I know you; you will only fight me long enough to wear us both out, then we will sit and be hungry, with no energy to get food. I will kill you later, when I am rested and fed.”

It was a lie. He did not know why he wouldn’t fight. It had something to do with how comfortable he felt listening to Mugen breathe. Maybe it had a little to do with the solidness of the ground below him, or the softness of the air all around them both. And it seemed as if the ronin in his belly was asleep, as if something else was waking there, warm and alive.

Mugen laughed. “You’re never too tired to lift a sword, and here! I have this food. If you’ll fight with me you can eat it.” He produced a small bundle of rice balls, sticky and old. They smelled good, but Jin had never seen Mugen share anything before, and waited without speaking for a moment to see if it was a trick.

It wasn’t. Mugen rolled off of him, face appearing with a smile and his familiar, slightly crazed eyes. Getting nimbly to his knees he handed the food into Jin’s cautiously outstretched palm. “There! Now you’ll have to fight me!”

He took the food and straightened his glasses. It looked edible, if squashed and a little dry. Because he had eaten nothing for three days or more, since Fuu and Mugen and he had all gone their own ways, he ate quickly.

“Thank you very much,” he said. And then he brushed white dust off his clothing, and picked up his sword.

“That’s more like it,” said Mugen. He squatted in the road like some red bird about to crow, stretching his neck out to wait for Jin to show a weakness. For a moment Jin thought that they would fight, a pattern of blades in the still air to match one of their earlier battles, only maybe with one of them dead afterwards. Blood on Mugen’s clothing would hardly show against the red cloth.

Jin’s arm fell to his side, the heavy sword slipping to the ground. It shone, bright and clean and blue as the sky. Mugen was on him again in a moment, two swords flashing a sunny arc around him. They clattered onto the road as Mugen pinned him again with arms and legs. This time he could hear the confusion in Mugen’s stuttered breaths.

He waited, listening to the gentle thumping of Mugen’s scabbard against his back, the whisper of the breeze, his own heart beating. It was warm, there in the road, and Mugen pressed down harder on his thighs, started to speak. Stopped. Leaned forward, and let his lips touch Jin’s ear. Jin thought something might be said, but there was nothing, just Mugen’s mouth on his ear and then his throat, biting, worrying at him like a dog. 

He sighed and stretched, pushing upwards against Mugen’s softening grasp, tilting his head back and smiling as easily as he had at six, when he’d made his first worthwhile tea bowl. He felt as if he had made this moment, everything he had ever said or done had sculpted them into this time and place, and that he might rest and enjoy his creation.

Later, he would straighten his clothing and re-tie his hair, shake off his sandals, pick up and polish his sword before they went to find shelter from the rain that he could smell on the wind even as Mugen pulled and pushed and bit at him, wetted his skin and reddened his mouth. Mugen would lie spread out in the middle of the road covered in dust and scratches, smiling as does any dog on a good day.

They would walk together. Jin might even ask Mugen why he had returned. But for the moment he was at ease in their combined motion, and content to know that what he had made was sweeter than rice wine.

 

Epilogue

Fuu had been working at the inn for a week, happy for the time being with plenty of food, a warm bed, and the attentions of the innkeeper’s handsome son. She had grown somehow more coordinated in the last few months, though she thought she was even taller. It was as if her body were a house she had grown to love, and begun to move through with ease.  Now she found it simple to command others, having practiced on the most stubborn men in existence, and also to command herself.

Every morning she walked to the market to buy the fresh ingredients for the inn’s menu. Today called for fish and cabbage, and perhaps also mushrooms and ginger, which she bought from shopkeepers who knew her by name, saying “Good morning, Miss Fuu!” or “Try some of this fresh eel, my son caught it not an hour ago!”

She was testing a small basket of mushrooms for freshness when she saw a streak of red flash by, and heard shouting across the street at the stall of the poultry seller. Birds squawked indignantly and someone shouted, “Stop Thief!”

It was so familiar that she wasn’t surprised to see an elegant man dressed all in blue soothing the feelings of the poultry dealer and asking if anyone at the market needed a temporary bodyguard. She was, however, shocked that afternoon when the two made their way into her inn, both smiling like children. They sat at a table and called for food, and she served them, as if they were strangers. But after the inn had closed she let them remain, and they all sat at the table for hours, talking about nothing while the innkeeper’s son watched her warily from behind the kitchen screen.

They couldn’t remain long, she knew. But when they left, it was at the same time, and from her tiny garret room she watched them climbing the white hill road, comforting shapes beneath the moon.

~