It was the month the neighborhood would always remember, that impetuous June when the shallowest exhalation would sleek the flesh with a sheen of sweat, when the dango shop owner was three months pregnant with her first child and the father, a handsome, proud man, the descendent of a samurai who, in an age of unemployment, had sold baked goods with a warrior's dignity, suddenly up and left on "business"; the month the two strange men appeared and for three weeks the dango of Hokauramachi was burnt and molten. Perhaps, most importantly, it was the last month for many years that the local yakuza dared set foot in Hokauramachi, for fear of the deadly katana of the two strange men and the unbridled wrath of the pregnant dango maker scorned.

That summer, despite the heat, the mouths of Hokauramachi ran like a bubbling brook and the shop regulars would brave the suffocating dampness of the street to sip chilled sake and cautiously watch the owner, a slender, fiery woman in her mid-twenties, for signs of suppressed sorrow, anger or near mental breakdown. But despite the mysterious disappearance of her husband (who, when asked, she insisted was "on business in Kagoshima" – an assertion the neighborhood knew to assume meant anything from "seeing his mistress," to "captured by yakuza for his huge debt"), Fuu-san appeared to be healthier and happier than ever, her renowned generosity and kindness expanding with the slight swell of her belly. She was impervious to the various rumors that snaked up and down the block, rattling the tongues and imaginations of customers and neighbors, and in fact seemed to encourage them (all but the story that her husband was visiting an old lover; those she met with an icy glare that carried the rage of four suns), with vague remarks and silent smiles, for they brought business and company despite the intense heat. And, at times it was heard that as the last drunken customer would stumble away, as Fuu-san herself piled dishes and cleaned tables, she would lean over to one of her exhausted employees and sigh, "Oh, to be the center of attention is so tiresome," and suppress a huge smile. For despite all her generosity, moral dignity, and frugality, there was perhaps nothing Fuu-san enjoyed better (other than a good meal) than being admired.

*

Fuu sprawled across the table, exhausted. It had been a slow day, but the heat, and her first bout of morning sickness, followed by a dizzy spell and an irritableness that shadowed her all day, had the dango maker in a hot puddle on the smooth oaken surface, her second favorite yukata sticking to her uncomfortably. In a fit of aggressive consideration, Fuu had sent her two employees, kind broad-backed friends of her husband (the only two in Hokauramachi besides Fuu who knew the truth of his mysterious disappearance) home for the day, leaving herself an empty shop to sulk alone in.

The nights were leaving unsightly dark circles under her warm auburn eyes and an ache in her heart; she had not realized how accustomed she had become to dozing off curled up in the arms of her husband, the dull, constant throb of his heartbeat lulling her into dreams. Fuu would have welcomed even their worst arguments, those nights they curled against themselves stubbornly on opposite sides of the bed, to the cold futon next to her: the fear as new life kicked at her belly that, even though she knew where her dearest had gone, even though he had left the majority of his worldly goods and sworn to return, he was destined to turn into the Sunflower Samurai, to be gripped by some self-righteous quest or the wanderlust that had long lain dormant in Fuu's own heart. She saw it as a theme of her own life, a facet of fate that, although at times would bring her fortune and friends, would always tear away those dearest to her.

So there were many nights those first weeks that Fuu would lie awake afraid, the life within her not so much serving as company as a reminder of what could be: that she was destined to become her mother, and following the father, leave the yet-to-be-born child alone. At the moment, however, the beams of slowly setting sun were too warming, the lightest of cool breezes too refreshing, the street too silent, and Fuu, exhausted, felt her eyelids droop drowsily…

She was awoken by the lightest scuff of footsteps, the slightest of movements, the sound of commotion that wasn't there. In the golden light of the setting sun, Fuu registered a man standing against the thick canvas of the noren.

"Oh…a customer!" she chimed, instantly snapping to life. "Welcome! Come in, take a seat!"

The man did so soundlessly as Fuu moved across the room to boil water, listlessly preparing a pot of tea.

"Business has been so slow today, I really wonder why," Fuu mused drowsily as she measured out crushed leaves. "Second day this week. I sent the men home already, I thought to myself, 'No use keeping them here if there aren't going to be any customers.' I must've dozed off it was so warm and quiet! You surprised me, you know, you were so quiet, and I really wasn't expecting anyone else to come – oh well here I am chattering away, what can I get – "

As Fuu turned, teapot and cup in hand to regard the customer, the last ray of sunlight cast a white sheen across the lenses of the man's eyeglasses, catching the metal hilts of his katana and wakizashi, the deep indigo of his yukata. The teapot, tea cup, and their contents crashed to the floor as Fuu mouthed the word " – you." There was only one samurai she had ever met who wore glasses.

*

Jin had left the floor of the shack on Ikitsuki Island with a rare smile on his face despite the ache in his joints, symptom of lying unconscious for a week, and the gingerness of slowly forming scar tissue lacerating his body. It would be a year and a day, crossing the large island of Kyushu, the Bungo Strait, the mainland of Japan, experiencing the sunrise and sunset from the greenest rice paddies to the blue of once distant mountain ranges to the deepest, most silent river valleys, before that smile would break the samurai's ever placid poker face again. His journeys were nothing like those before he had met Mugen and Fuu, where he had wandered, killed, and forever searched for an un-nameable thing; now, although Jin was not a woman, and thus did not consider himself a sentimental being, there was a new fullness in his heart that on calm nights, sandy beaches and in flower-dotted fields, ached for what was no longer by his side and wondered wistfully where they had gone, casting silent prayers for their good fortune. Jin had long ago learned to shut down the yearnings of his heart, and halfway across Kyushu he was logically able to reason with himself: they were far gone, they could never have been together forever, it was unhealthy and it would be impossible to go back now. So he steeled his thoughts away and looked forward into the rolling sea hidden beneath the horizon. It was the rain, those gray skies and impenetrable mists and thick sheets of pelting water that would soak a man to the bone, that brought memories of her. Jin had never forgotten, and a year and a day after he had fulfilled a cheated bet to the daughter of an exiled samurai, when the wounds inflicted by the Hand of God had scarred, the rains returned him on a borrowed raft to the temple across the river. Seeing him, Shino wept and threw herself into his arms; and Jin smiled.

*

He helped her pick up the shards of broken pottery and soak the puddles of scalding cha into old rags. All the while Fuu bustled away, words running at a clip of a thousand per minute, her movements humming-bird frantic and yet, in shock, completely unproductive. She danced back and forth, first vociferously acknowledging his identity and attempting to pull him into an awkward hug as he bent to pick up the pieces, Fuu insisting on doing it herself as it was her shop and he a guest and she owed him so much and he, abruptly, "You are with child," and she, momentarily flabbergasted, smoothing the cotton of her obi, "Mou, is it that noticeable?" then attempting to put together a batch of dango and boil another pot of water and make sure Jin was not a ghost by pulling at his robes and probing questions too numerous and rapid for him to answer at once. When he was finally done she successfully pulled him into a hug, her head, the same size and softness as that day she had wept against him by the river, falling against his chest.

"It's been so long!" she cried and released him.

He quietly, with the beginnings of a small smile, answered, "Hm."

When Fuu had finally calmed down, she insisted Jin stay for dinner, and on top of the hastily boiled dango and new pot of cha, she simmered white fish, chopped melon and root vegetables in a varnished steel pan, piled two bowls with rice, and sat them, Jin, and herself down at the small, flat mahogany table in the back reserved only for the owners and their guests. She lit a lantern and, for once unable to burrow directly into her food, gazed pointedly at Jin, as if at any moment he would disintegrate into a cloud of gray smoke. He seemed to have not aged a day since that morning they left Ikitsuki Island; if anything there was only something more stolid about the set of his jaw, and the beginning of the smooth cracks of frown (or, perhaps laughter, Fuu mused) lines had begun to form about the corners of his mouth. When it seemed that her silent stare had grown into an uncomfortable, pregnant silence, Fuu caught herself and shifted, moving the already set dishes around automatically.

"Oh, sorry! Please, do, go ahead and eat Jin, I didn't mean to keep you waiting! Please! It's just – " and in the time it had taken Jin to bow his head graciously and reach across the table for a carrot, Fuu had already plucked several into her mouth – "I can't believe it's really you!"

She chewed silently and seemed to be fighting a rush of emotion, salvaging from it the choicest of words.

"I tried so hard to be strong, to make my way without you guys after out trip…when I finally came back here, to Nagasaki, I had locked up and shoved a lot of our memories in the back of my mind. It wasn't that hard, after that first year…I grew up, a lot, and well, then I met Eiji," her fingers danced across the slight curve of her stomach.

"I had proved to myself I didn't need anyone. Maybe, not need…there's a lot of solitary people in this world, but maybe we all just want company. I met a lot of new people in my travels, but I never forgot you guys…in my heart I was always wondering where you were, and if Mugen was ok, and if I ever traveled through those old places, if either of you would be there," Fuu smiled at Jin, and there was something soft and otherworldly about her in the glow of the lamp.

"Jin, did you ever feel that way?"

He nodded. "Ah. You and him – it's strange. I told him that day, I had found what I was looking for. You're right, I think…it's a lot easier to be alone than to reach out for what one wants."

He closed his eyes and the ghost of a smirk seemed to tug the smooth creases lining his mouth. "Comrades. It's why I'm here today."

Fuu tilted her head, inquisitive. "Ano…Jin, I have to ask, what are you doing here?"

"Traveling. It seems, I couldn't stay away from the two of you forever."

Fuu's mouth gaped but the questions at the tip of her tongue were stolen by three precise, heavy knocks against the heavy wooden oodo.

"Shit," she blurted, face falling as her eyes darted across the room hastily. She rose from the table and rapidly began sifting through a small flat chest in the corner. "It's the 13th…god, where did he put…"

"What is it," Jin's voice cut cooly through her feverish searching.

Fuu's head snapped up. "Ahhh iie it's nothing, nothing just…" her fingers latched on something within the chest and relief washed her face. "Business. I'm sorry, I'll be right back, Jin."

"Wait – "

He watched her, moving with the urgency of an irritated ant into the main room. There was the sound of the oodo sliding; Fuu's voice, painfully polite; the low rumble of a man's voice; Fuu, then –

"Bitch, what the hell is this?"

"It's the tax money – that's enough, isn't it? That's all my husband left, I – "

"It's eight mon. What do you take us for, stupid? Think just 'cause your husband ain't here we're gonna take pity on you? Shame, you know what the penalty is for reneging on your payments to the Nakamura-gumi."

"I'm sorry, if you could just…please, next month, we'll have it all, it's just business is so bad these days and my husband hasn't been here to help me with the shop and the bills and…"

"Next month? You think we're the goddamn lords of mercy?"

The low, ugly laughter of a few men.

"But I see, things have been hard on you…maybe we'll do you a favor. This month you can make it up to us, call it a trade…"

Uneasy, heavy silence. Then a forceful scuffle of feet, a shriek, the crack of bone against skin…

"Don't you dare touch me!" Fuu was screaming as Jin flew into the room, whirling the man against the wall, pinning his arms sharply across his back. There were two other men, their faces obscured by the shadow of the doorway, the glint of drawn katana in their hands.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"I should be asking the same of you. Does your boss pay you to assault pregnant women?"

"Stay the hell out of this, do you know who we are? We're the – "

A great crack was heard. The captive man suddenly screamed.

"Nakamura-gumi. I'll remember that," Jin's voice flowed with a dangerous calm. "A gang that thinks it's honorable to assail an isolated mother in her own home, in payment for an illegal tax. How disgusting. Men like you should not be allowed to carry katana."

The leader again cried out in pain.

"But, I'll do you a favor. I won't break his other wrist -" the man was gasping frantically against the wall. "- if you leave this woman in peace."

"You," the first man in the doorway growled and with a shout lunged forward, katana cleaving through the air. In a flash the leader fell to the floor with another splintering crack and, with a crash of steel, Jin had parried the man's attack, sweeping to the side and slamming the butt of his hilt into the man's side. Winded, he fell to the floor. The third man had backed into the street, the leader, hands limp at his side, crawling out behind him.

"Bastard!" the man on the floor spat, scuttling to his feet, katana shaking before him. "No one fucks with the Nakamura-gumi, remember that! We'll be back!" and with a mad scuffle of geta and a cloud of dust they fled into the night.

Jin sheathed his sword. A frown twisted his mouth.

Fuu watched him in silence from where she had stood, frozen, her knuckles ringing from the blow to the leader's face. At a length she approached him, her face pale.

"I'm so sorry this had to happen, I should have…I shouldn't have…you saved my life again, Jin. Thank you."

Her eyes scraped the floor, and as Fuu moved to close the oodo Jin wondered if he imagined the glint of moisture in her eyes.

*

That night it was said a stranger slept in the spare room the young couple kept above the dango shop. Old Matsuo-san, the frail gray-haired lady that lived in the building behind the restaurant, swore she saw it through the open window: Fuu-san, setting out the bedding, leaving the room; he, slightly older, dignified, and yet without a distinguishing ka-mon, cleaning his swords in the soft light of the lantern. Matsuo-san, ever nosy, waited long through this ritual for something outlandish, something scandalous to happen. It was a little past midnight when Fuu-san slid back the paper shoji and, strangely jejune in the man's presence, plopped down across from him, watching him with wide eyes. Their voices thrummed well into the night as the lantern light dimmed and Matsuo-san, bored and unable to catch the soft whispers of their conversation, closed her eyes and lay back against the cool futon.

TBC

Glossary

noren: door hangings

oodo: "Great door"

mon: denomination of copper coins used in the Edo period

ka-mon: family crest

teppanyaki dango: rice dumplings grilled and served on a skewer

A/N: I found the majority of the romaji terms used in this story on Google, so the credibility may be debatable.

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