It's always four-eyes to go to her when she cries. It's funny, in a way. The bastard is never around when she needs rescuing, but the second the waterworks come on, he's at her side, winning her over. Mugen slits his eyes open even though his back is to them, listening, and he tries to ignore the way his chest tightens when the fish-faced bastard practically proposes to her. But then:
"If you did, then... that jerk Mugen would..." She chokes on her own words. "I'm sorry," she begs her would-be fiancé. "Forgive me."
He should be ecstatic. He's finally won. Even as she leans into fish-face for comfort, even as the bastard lays his hand on her shoulder, it's Mugen's victory.
But as she rejects the ronin's offer with his name on her lips, he finds himself thinking, for once, about everything. A slow realization dawns: She knows. Perceptive brat, she knows, and she just told fish-face, just justified her refusal with it. What he can't admit even in his own mind, what he can't acknowledge for fear of making it real, all of it - she knows.
Doubt seeps into his bones, chills his skin. She must know, then, that he won't propose to her. He won't give her soft words or nice gifts or even a name. He won't give her anything she wants. Then, he reasons with half-lidded horror, she must be rejecting four-eyes out of some twisted sense of obligation, out of some bizarre, girlish need to protect his "feelings." How pathetic. How insulting. How sentimental.
He convinces himself to believe this, to be resentful of this, to revel in this, but as his body grows heavy and his eyes droop, as that fish-faced bastard keeps standing there passively with her head on his shoulder, he confesses that he is only afraid of what he knows to be true:
She deserves better. None of them deserve what they're getting.
It's just like the ronin to disarm him with the one thing they both love. One moment, he's set to fight four-eyes, the other guy be damned, because fuck it, it's his turn to do the rescuing around here for once. It's his turn to actually work for her affections. But the fish-faced fucker gets that far-off look in his eyes, the one that means he's thinking too hard, and suddenly he says:
"Take care of Fuu."
And Mugen can only stare. They all stand there, the other guy looking bored, fish-face looking resolute, and him gaping at them both like they've sprouted wings.
"Take care of Fuu," four-eyes says, like it's nothing to trust a man you hate with the only meaningful thing in either of your sorry existences. Like he's talking about just this one moment, instead of her entire future. Like he isn't tacitly giving her to him, even though just last night he more or less proposed to her.
And it occurs to him that maybe fish-face is thinking of that, too.
The bastard's always one step ahead of him.
Originally, these two scenes were going to be part of much larger series called "Reflections." However, I was dissatisfied with most of the other pieces I wrote and thought I'd upload the best of what I had written.
My interpretation of the riverside scene in 24 was always that Jin was offering a proposal to Fuu out of a sense of duty; I expect many of you will have a different view, and that's fine.
Tell me what you think, and as always, thanks for reading.