Disclaimer: I don't own the computer I'm posting this on, the car I drive, the business where I work, o Samurai Champloo/its characters. Not only that, but I make no profit from any the aforementioned things. Drat. (I don't even own the title.)
Warnings: child molestation. I don't think anyone really-really likes it, but if you particularly don't, please do not read. At this point, you are forewarned.
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
There was a boy, once.
All the days were summer, endless and warm, time passing slow and fast. He spent hours scooping tadpoles from puddles, moments running in the grass. When the moon rose high and bright, he would be tucked away by his father and kissed by his mother. The boy slept with all the dreams of a happy child.
When they died, everything changed.
He remembers the smoke and the strong hands pulling him up and out, but he does not remember the flames, he does not remember seeing the burning house collapse on his parents. He is too young. It takes months to understand the concept of death, the finality of it. His parents are gone and forgotten by everybody else by the time the boy realizes they will never come back.
He is sent to the dojo, his relatives relinquishing guardianship of him. There, all the other boys are older. He hasn't cried, and he won't.
Nobody expects him to excel so. The older boys have homes and families somewhere. The other boys have allegiances.
Days pass slowly now, hours dragging out in the time it takes to be knocked off ones' feet, before hitting the floor.
The boy prays, and he practices. His life is study and meditation, his sword his only friend.
He is only nine years old when his Master visits him in the night. His Master tells his he is the best in the dojo, and rewards him, but the boy (a boy no longer) never thought rewards hurt, never though rewards made you feel sick inside.
His Master never touches him again, carefully instructing and always watching. They are in fact never actually close enough for their clothes to brush, so evident the boy cannot help but notice it.
The boy tries to forget everything, tries to throw himself away, tries to become the blade of his sword instead of the hand holding the hilt.
He is twelve when the nightmares begin.
The other boys stare at him in awe and shock, his Master looks on in concern.
The boy begins sleeping with his sword at his side, unable to forgive or accept the shame he's been forced to endure.
At age fifteen, the boy is not only the best at his dojo, but all the other dojos in the region. His master had made him like a son, (out of love? Out of guilt? What is the price of stolen innocence?) but none of it matters.
He acquiesces to honor, vowing to maintain the dojo when his master passes, but it is not what he wants. He loves the dojo, it has given him a new life, though it has hurt him as well. He wants to run away. He wants to escape forever the room where he shook and sobbed, a broken open and bloody mess. He wants to escape the memory, and he wants to escape his Master's plight for absolution.
As the years drag away slowly, it is increasingly harder to meet his Master's gaze without becoming perilously close to tears.
The boy (a young man now) never really thought the night would come when his blade would taste the blood it had so long awaited. No one could have survived trying to attack him at night, not now. Before he'd even woken, he'd jumped from his bed-roll, katana in hand, and dispatched his Master.
It was the blood splashing his face that woke him.
The moment Jin's eyes opened, it was horror, and it was serenity. It was the curse that had sealed his fate, and the blessing that would set him free.
After that night, though hunted everywhere he goes, his sleep is peaceful for the first time in years.
