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Best Buddy Jin tells him there's something he wants to discuss over some beers. Mugen's gut tells him he's about to get himself into some serious no-backing-away shit, partly because he knows Jin too damn well by now, but mainly because Jin hates beer.
They meet- Friday night, by the docks, right after Jin's long week of juggling criminal-lawyer paperwork-mornings and gym-owner-and-trainer afternoons ends. Mugen's knowledge of the quality of the pubs around is worthy, because his family owned a pretty sweet shipyard, (which he owns now all by his lonesome, because his folks were the live fast, die young kind of people).
They pick a seat by the window in the best seaside tavern around, where they can see the cobbled street lamp-lit in humid yellow through the wooden-framed glasspanes, and where the owner himself brings their pints over.
Jin can't drink for shit, and his first sip of beer has him discreetly pursing his lips at the bitter taste. Across him, Mugen smirks a knowing smirk and his glass earrings catch the dim light with a merry turquoise glistening.
'So, what's up, hmm?'. Asking and downing his beer are a simultaneous thing.
Jin gives up and pushes his own pint towards his friend. Calls the waiter.
With a steaming cup of green tea sitting now before him, laconic Jin begins his tale:
'About a month ago, a girl came to the gym, saying she wanted to train for this year's Bayside Marathon. Her will is impressive, but everything else about her is wrong. In few words, she's disastrous, she won't make it.'
Mugen is none the wiser, but he knows something is up because Jin fixes his glasses like he does when he's flustered. He raises an eyebrow.
'…so?'
'It breaks my heart', Jin says, setting the cup abruptly on the table, as if the admission discomfits him.
Of course it does. Mugen snickers.
'So what, bro? Ya got a chick already, what's all t'worry about?'
Jin sighs.
'If only it were that simple. (Mugen's 'Hah?' goes ignored) She's the daughter of one of the partners in the study, who passed away last year. She'd promised to run this year with him, and she wants to keep the promise regardless.'
It starts to drizzle outside, of course.
'Chivalry-obliged to charity, hmm?' slides Mugen, like he can find it funny because such would never happen to him.
'I'd like to help her, yes. All my trainers are full booked, though, and with my schedule, I can't dream of offering to take her up.'
Jin's serene eyes find his, and the message comes across clearly.
'Dude, no way!' roars Mugen, 'What do I look like? Mother fucking Theresa? I bet'cha there ain't even money involved in all this shit ye'r plannin'!'
'There's honor.'
'Fuck that!'
'Lower your voice…'
Mugen's glower would make lesser men cringe, but Jin is both mighty and used to it. He takes a sip of tea.
'I'll help you with the tax filings for that boat you're planning to buy.'
'Blackmail does not suit you,' Mugen spits ruefully, resenting how his interest is piqued.
'It's not blackmail; I was going to help you anyway.'
'Then what the hell…!?'
'It would be a nice gesture in retribution.'
'Well damn me,' Mugen says, and looks out of the window.
He spends the rest of the weekend pondering what exactly he's gotten himself into.
Monday finds him sizing up a petite, scrawny girl, who's out of breath right after running only two blocks at medium speed and he thinks, well, all he can think of are curses. He asks her question after question while she's honestly trying to catch her breath, and concludes that, for a 23 year-old, she looks like a wet dog of a pathetic high-schooler.
By the end of the day he's forgotten her name twice after she told him and he's given up trying to remember it, but he's also discovered she's got a temper that both amuses him, and irritates the hell out of him in equal parts.
'The hell kind of food ya eating, girlie?' he asks, on the second day. She gives him an unsatisfactory answer like 'what's around' 'what's in season' 'what gets done fast'; and he scolds the skin off her ears; and all the training she does that day is going scurrying to Jin's gym for a life-or-death appointment with one of his in-house nutritionists.
It rains on the third and fourth days, but, on the fifth, she kind of looks healthier; and Mugen's mind stomps fiercely on what had begun to feel like pride.
He makes her run ten times around the block, instead.
He's one damned hell of a trainer, he reckons, when by the end of week 2 she can run twenty times around the block without running out of breath or complaining a gazillion times about how he's gonna be the death of her (with a literary variation of curses). It's also about the time when he begins to kind of feel bad towards making her run, time and time again, around the same block.
By week 3, he changes blocks.
…a couple of times.
By week 4, he includes some calisthenics into the routine, and even jogs alongside her once. Or twice.
It's on week five he gets cursed at the most, when he has her run with a 10kg boulder tied to her waist.
'How's that, slowpoke? Humbled now?' he taunts.
'You'll see when I get my hands on you…!'
But at the end of the day all she can do is watch him untie the knot and sag to the ground. She doesn't skin him, like she promised about six times, nor claws at his face like she'd wished to before; rather sits on that damned boulder, and takes the energy drink he offers with a satisfied gleam in her eyes. He answers with a weary smile, and cannot think of anything to say but:
'You earned it, girlie'.
He's proud, he realizes by the end of week 6.
By week 7, he's had her join him in his morning jogs up the hill in the city's outskirts, and she can almost keep up.
By week 8, she's dumped her boyfriend. She swears to herself it's got nothing to do with Mugen, but she still phones Jin and thanks him from her heart for all he's done for her.
By week 9 she's wearing a colorful t-shirt that says 'Bayside Marathon, 42k', stretching like she's been taught, brimming with confidence and enthusiasm.
Look at me now, dad! She thinks, offering a quick prayer, It's like we'd imagined. I hope you're watching from up there.
Ready, set, go! Someone shoots. The roar of the crowd is like the waves.
She doesn't come first or second or third, rather comes one of the last when the crowd is already disbanding. But Jin and Mugen are waiting by the finishing line, two specks of blue and red mingled with the multitude she could see from the distance.
Jin gives her a bottle of water. Mugen ruffles her hair.
'You kept your promise,' Jin says -a veiled congratulation- smiling with his eyes way more than with his actual smile.
'Couldn't have done it without you,' Fuu answers, beams, she looks at Mugen. He can't hold the stare and looks away, but he's kinda flustered and the other two notice.
'Whatever. Come on now, you two, let's go grab somethin' to eat.'
So they start on their way, but she lingers behind, looking at the two unlikely friends, and the moonlight that starts to reflect on the still waters of the bay.
Mugen looks slightly over his shoulder.
'Ya coming, Fuu?'
'Yes yes!' she calls, and, though every muscle in her body complains, she skips till she reaches them, passes one arm around their shoulders, and makes them stumble.
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Author's Note:
I love AU Samurai Champloo stories.
Part 2? Maybe... give me love, or ideas, or both :)