Thursday . April 21, 2016
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SAMURAI CHAMPLOO is a Japanese ANIME series. Developed by the Japanese animation studio and production enterprise, Manglobe Inc.
XO Bah! I'm not part of that. Blah-blah. I do not own Fuu, Momo the flying squirrel, Mugen, and Jin.
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Chapter One
" 102 Days and a Hundred Dumplings"
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At Day 100, he was going to remember. He just was. He knew it. He had to.
He would.
And so, on the hundredth day, did he remember?
Nope.
Maybe the 101st Day would be his lucky day?
Sure enough, on the hundred and first day - pffft - ha, nope. He did not wake up suddenly remembering.
But being that it was still so early in the day when he first opened his eyelids, he was hopeful. A hope fool, that was. Throughout the day, the lucky feeling he had grew, and as the day went on, so did his hope that something would come back to him.
But the feeling didn't last long.
Soon, the sun turned into the moon and the luckier luckness and hopes he felt that day went and vanished with the light of day.
Ha. Ha.
The so sure feeling, the luck feels he was having, it all turned out to be for nothing.
So stupid.
What FEELS Being out there thought it funny to allow his feels to get to feeling the way it did right then? Who did he have to blame? Some out of this world outside force somewhere that could mess with a person's memories and emotions anyway that amused them?
Himself?
Who? Who else was there to blame?
Was it really only him who let himself feel hopeful and lucky?
During what part of that day did he even have luck- at what point? What made him feel this way and why? How? It was an ordinary day. Nothing should have caused it. Nothing special or weird or different happened.
So what the hell?
Was something - powerful, that be - messing with his mood felts?
It hit him out of nowhere, this feeling. He hadn't felt this false luck during the other ninety-nine days previous. He couldn't remember a time he felt so hopeful and lucky for no reason. That wasn't him. It was irrational and should be illegal for anyone to have these kind of useless thoughts and needless feelings unless they were actually psychics and the feels were legit compatible with what was foreseen would happen.
The next day.
He couldn't help himself.
He couldn't stop it.
The lucky feelings of the hoping fool, the ones that died on the night of the 101st Day, came back and was strangely stronger.
What the f-ugh was wrong with him?
Day 102
Picking his left ear with his pinky, with his other hand, Mugen scratched his right butt cheek. "Surprise, surprise," he grumbled. "Still nothing."
He arrived in a small village. The plan was to find a place he could eat and run. Starving like a wild bear while also dirt poor like a wild bear, the pirate couldn't afford to pay for no meal. Sweeping the town for a tavern, a random sign on the street caught Mugen's eyes.
He did a double take. "What the - "
The sign read:
One Free Bowl of RICE and one Free DRINK for passing TRAVELERS
[ Ipto Village, I know who you all are and you all know I know who you all are. No lying to get free rice, please. ]
While free food was cool and all, that wasn't the most shocking thing that had Mugen jaw-gaping.
It was how he knew what the sign said.
The messy haired dude threw his head back and let out a laugh. "Huh. So I learned how to read, eh?" He snorted, shaking his head.
A hundred and two days ago, Mugen lost several months of his life.
Ho-ho. No, not in any way where his life expectancy was shortened and he was going to die way sooner than senior-aged. It was his memories, several months of it, that was gone. He actually wouldn't have noticed he even lost some of his memories if it weren't for the weather and suddenly finding himself on a different part of the country. As far as he knew three and a half months ago, it was suppose to snow. Yet, instead, the following weeks had gotten warmer and warmer. So not the chilly he was expecting. And many thanks to the little chit-chats of the villagers. They unknowingly answered his questions without him having to grill them for some. They talked about the seasons. He thought nobody talk about the weather these days. But they did. A lot. Like all these people had nothing else to talk about.
Sheez. What fun lives these people lived.
Apparently, winter ended a couple months before.
And the name of the village was mentioned quite a bit.
Having amnesia didn't bother him much. After all, nothing that rememberably and news worth probably happened in the months he forgot.
He'd be lying if he said it didn't bother him a little. Because it did. What if during those months, he slept with women with big tits? It's annoying not to be able to remember something like that, men.
That was only a minor part of his annoyance with forgetting if he were to be uttermostly truthful. Basically, he was just annoyed with the whole thing. It was a feeling that came along with it. He understood losing a few days worth of memory. It could happen to a lot of people. It could more than likelyly happen to him with the kind of life he lived. Mugen wouldn't bat an eye losing a few days. In fact, it's already happened to him a couple times.
But not remembering more than half a year... It can annoy anyone. It was months too many -gone.
Sighing, Mugen scratched his left calf with the front of his right slipper, picking his nose with the same pinky he used to pick his ear. "Well." He opened the curtain of the tavern's entrance and stepped inside. "It only took a hundred and two days after my amnesia to realize I learned to read." He meant it by saying quote-only-unquote because he could very will have gone several more months, if not maybe half his life if his memories never came back, never knowing he'd learned to read and write.
Mugen frowned. There was no empty tables left. Shrugging, he made his way to a table where a swordsman about his age sat alone. Mugen plopped himself down across the man and a young waitress came over with a small bowl of rice and cup of beer Mugen had to scoff at. "That's one small ass rice bowl," he commented.
Fuu, the girl waitress Mugen had no memory of, stuck her tongue out at him, kindly reminding him with a low growl, "It's free, stupid." As she set down the small bowl and cup, she jumped back when Mugen made a move to spit on her feet, missing her foot by almost an inch. In a quick reflex, she smacked him upside the head with the tray she used to carry the hot rice and overflowing cool beer. She humphed, "Jerk." She stormed off.
Sitting cross legged, hands on his lap, hunched forward, Mugen calmly slurrrrped at his little quote-free-unquote drink as he watched the four-eyed guy sitting in front of him eating his food with his eyes closed. The silent man was holding an identical small bowl of rice. In front of him was a plate of dumpling and right next to the plate, the same cup and drink Mugen had. As fast and as silently as he could, Mugen helped himself to two of the dude's dumplings, shoving them in his mouth and not so sneakily chewing them loudly.
Jin, a guy Mugen also doesn't remember traveling with, opened his eyes.
Mugen froze, cheeks bulging.
They both got into a minor stare down that was more one-sided because the long haired ronin was the only serious one of the two.
In Jin's peripheral vision, he saw Mugen plainly and very obviously, slow as a sloth, reach for another one of his dumplings. With samurai speed and skill, Jin protected his sweet precious dumplings in time, halting Mugen's dirty hands from grabbing another.
Mugen glared.
Jin glared, his already narrowed eyes going even narrower.
The next thing Jin and Mugen knew, they were forced into butting heads by delicately small violent hands. The two fighters rubbed their heads.
"What the hell," growled Mugen. Seeing the scowl on the girl's face, made him stop. He felt the slightest twinge in his chest and strangely, he recognized the feeling was sorta probably similar to something like fear. Maybe. Though, why the frogpod he would even be having this kind of feeling towards this little girl before him, he knew jack shit. She looked like she could easily blow over with one blow of his breathe.
Fuu pointed to a new plate of dumplings in front of him.
Mugen furrowed his brows, staring at the brunette. Then narrowed his eyes at the dumplings, suspicious. Then back at the girl, questioningly. "I don't have money to pay for that," he let her know.
Fuu eye-rolled at that. "I bet," she scoffed.
"Is it - "
She shook her head, already knowing what he was about to ask.
" - poisoned?"
The girl paused. That was not the question she assumed he was going to ask. Shaking her head again, Fuu let out a snort. "What, waste perfectly good dumplings? Get real." She crossed her arms. "They're yours, okay?"
"Free?"
"It's the dumplings I owed you."
Mugen raised an eye brow. "You owed me-" he glanced at the yummilings, quickly counting them up. "-ten dumplings," he asked.
Fuu shrugged. "A hundred, actually." She looked around the crowded room. "But I don't have enough to give them all to you today. Come back some other time for the rest."
The ex-convict sniffed at the dumplings. Still not fully convinced they're not poisonous, he threw one at Jin. "You try it first," he ordered the older man.
Jin caught the thrown dumpling with his chopsticks before it could hit him in the face. He took a bite of the dumpling before dropping it on to his bowl of rice and quickly snatching another dumpling off of Mugen's plate and putting the whole thing in his mouth.
Mugen sputtered. Eyes wide, he pointed to Jin's jaws chewing on what belonged to him. "H-hey! My dumpling!"
For the first time since he made his order, Jin spoke. "Now, we're even."
Mugen grabbed his cup, plate, and bowl and turned his back to Jin. Looking over his shoulder once, he threw Jin the most messed up face he could make, followed by a split second warning glare before facing his back towards him once again.
Fuu sighed, walking away to greet other customers.
The sun low in the sky and about to set meant Fuu's shift at the tavern was over and two girls about her age were going to take over waitressing for the evening.
Fuu ducked under the curtains and was out of the tavern. She stopped. Before her was Mugen casually leaning against the wall, waiting for her. Hands unconsciously squeezing the straps of her sling bag tighter, she kept on walking, pretending she hadn't just seen him.
Mugen, bored-faced and suchly, openly stared at the back of her head as he nonchalantedly stalked her very obviously.
Moments after, the curtains to the tavern entrance and exit opened and out stepped Jin.
Jin stalked Mugen stalking Fuu, who cool as a collected cucumber, payed no attention to them and unbotheredly made her way to her place.
She sped up to create more distance between her and the ex-pirate.
Mugen sped up to keep the same distance.
Jin sped up to catch up..
Making the ex-convict speed up to have more distance between him and the ronin..
Having the girl practically running with her much shorter legs just to keep away from the breakdancing street fighter and the swordsman suddenly clashing swords and slippers behind her. She willed her feet to run faster. "Go away," Fuu yelled over her shoulder. She nearly tripped when she stepped on a rock and it rolled under her foot. Fuu made a sharp turn.
Which must have been a wrong turn because either it was, or some higher power being majig decided to put a cliff in the middle of the path to her home.
"What-" She fantically looked around her surroundings in confussion. "What?" And just like that, the mystifiedly stumped look on her face turned into a glower to the dark outer space, shaking her fist in the air and questioning the star-filled skies, "Who put this darn cliff here, dangit?!" Her back was covered by tree branches and bushes.
As Mugen and Jin kept trying to see who could hit the other's swords the hardest, they bumped into Fuu, accidentally pushing her over the edge of the cliff.
Fuu grabbed and held on to Mugen's dark messy hair to keep herself from falling to mad raging waves below, Mugen hooked a leg around one of Jin's to keep himself from tumbling over with her, and Jin, trying to keep all of them from free falling to the sharp rocks and getting swept away by high angry waters, dug his feet and sword as hard into the earth as he could.
Upside-down and uncomfortable, Mugen grimaced. "Bitch, my hair," he roared. He pried her small hands off of his hair and let her dangle by his hands for a moment. Then with little effort, he had her flying ten feet up in the air above him and back on to the cliff some feet away from the edge somewhere behind Jin.
Fuu landed rather roughly face and chest first on the ground. She quickly sat up, rubbing the banged up and scratched cheek, letting out a relieved sigh. The girl knew Mugen wasn't going to drop her, but not seeing him and Jin for seventeen weeks was a long time. If some people could change and do something totally unexpected in a blink of an eye, foh sho the same could be said - probably even more so - for the people one haven't seen in nearly four months. She was utterly glad Mugen was still count-on-able to save her.
He was still her hero.
Soon after he threw swung her carelessly, Mugen listened to the hard thud of her fall before he made a move to right himself. Soon his feet was back on the ground, no longer was he hanging upside down at the side of the cliff. He came around to the clumsy girl's view and sat down in front of her.
"Mugen..."
Mugen tapped his chin in mock thoughtfulness, eyes closed, nodding. "You know my name. You owed me a hundred dumplings. Alright." The nineteen year old stretched. He interlaced his fingers behind his head as he lazy-boredly opened an eyelid, staring at her through the corner of that one open eyeball with laidback interest. "So who are you people?"
He was actually twenty at the moment. But going by the memories he last remembered, which was weeks before first meeting Jin and Fuu back in another village several months ago, Mugen was still nineteen in his head. And he wasn't as closely nonchalant on the inside as he was showing them he was on the outside. His insides were very chalant.
He had his hope feels reach the highest high yesterday for no reason. Only to be predictably disappointed for a reason. Almost a year was a pretty long time. About three season changes coming and going, and Mugen had no clue the first several days he woke up with amnesia that some time had passed. Practically a year of his life was a long time span erased from his memory. He was young. No kidding, a year was long for him.
And a hundred and two days, about three and a half months, was too long a time to not recall a thing that was wiped from his memory.
Now, he was going to get some answers. He was going to learn what he's been doing the past year. Who were these two and how did they meet?
Fuu gave him a look. "You know who we are."
"No," he frowned, scratching the inside of an ear. "'fraid not."
Twenty-one year old Jin understood what the other man was trying to say and asked, "What do you remember?" He didn't have to question out loud how long Mugen have had amnesia because Mugen was going to tell them either way. Whether that was asked or not.
"I remember my past. Up until apparently a year ago. I'm betting the day I woke up in an unfamiliar village a zillion miles from the last village I remember being in was when this memory loss thing started. That was fourteen weeks ago." Mugen's eyes were blank and hard and serious and his brows were all scrunched-uply furrowed as he scratch his head, looking back and forth between the two.
Fuu nodded. She moved to a more comfortable cross legged sitting position and pulled open her sling bag. She took out a dumpling and made a small gesture toward the swordsman, silently asking him if he wanted one.
Jin shook his head.
Mugen glanced at Fuu. Then he glanced at Jin. Then back at Fuu again. Mugen rolled his eyes, crossing his arms. "What, do you owe him a hundred dumplings too or something," he wondered.
Fuu shook her head.
Mugen glared at her. "Then why the hell ask him first if it's only me you owe?"
The younger girl leaned forward snobbishly, humphing, a dumpling fisted in each hand as she rested her knuckles on her hips. "Because, stupid, I know you wouldn't turn this down. I wanted some too, so I was going to half these between us if Jin didn't want any. But I wasn't sure if Jin wanted any. It seemed rude not to ask him if he wanted one so I thought it only polite to ask him first before I split this between you and me." Shaking her head, she dug out all dozen dumplings. She saved five for herself, handed one to her tiny flying squirrel friend, and tossed the remaining half of the dozen dumplings to Mugen. Fuu stuck her tongue out at Mugen. "That's sixteen dumplings. If you're not in a hurry to go anywhere, I'll eventually pay you back the rest of them by the end of this week."
Jin sat with his back to them, eyes closed as Fuu, Momo, and Mugen ate in silence.
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Thank You for reading!
xDxD
So the three are back together again, huh? What'll they be up to next chapter?
...hmmnnnnn..
TO BE Continued!