Disclaimer: If I owned Champloo or any affiliated characters, Jin would never wear all that hair in a damn ponytail.
It isn't often that Fuu has the energy to lay awake at night in the company of quiet musings. However; when things for the three of them settle down enough that Jin does not sleep with one eye open, she sometimes gets lost in selfish thoughts, to avoid sad ones of home and loss.
Casually, she glances to her sleeping companions, and quips inwardly at their inadequacy. She mulls over memories of abduction that she feels they should have prevented, and in the morning she and Mugen argue about how he is too reckless, and cares only for himself. In truth, if Jin's nature would allow a response to such accusations, she's sure she would spew them at him, too. (Because there is an uncomfortable lapse in her knowledge of his character, and she knows she has no right to judge his priorities as misguided.)
Sometimes, late at night, she wonders if she has picked the wrong guys. But sometimes, in those same late nights, riddled with loneliness and contemplation, she also ponders who she will marry, how many children she will have, and if love is even possible for a woman in a world too big.
Fuu knows somewhere inside of her that she is still a child, the child she should have been at 5, or 6, or 10 when her mother was sick indoors with only a daughter to care for her. She knows that late at night, and sometimes, to her own dismay, in the daytime company of Mugen and Jin, that she lets childish thoughts overtake her. But she is not a child, and the night sky not a vessel for her misplaced youth.
To the sound of Jin's soft, rhythmic breathing, and Mugen's violent snores, she realizes that has made the right choice from the start. She has been lucky enough to travel for nearly a year with two men who have not taken advantage of her, or left her for dead. She has found the watchful eye, and protective instincts of a once absent father, and harvested the sarcasm and laughter of an unknown brother.
She has found all that fate had done its best to deny her as a child, and she knows as their journey nears its end, that she would not have preferred to have any other men as such a part of her.
AN: I may do more with this piece at a later date, but for now its just a little something to put out there as food for thought (or constructive criticism.) All feedback is welcome and appreciated.