Happily Ever After

Samurai Champloo

Rated: T

Mugen x Fuu

Buni-San

It was hard to believe that three years had passed since Fuu had last seen Mugen.

She knew that it was silly of her to even think that she would ever be seeing him again. Even though they were some sort of version of friends, all that they did was argue, steel each other's food and cause the other some kind of wound or headache. It wasn't even in his nature to be the visiting type. He was a free spirited vagabond that wasn't going to stay in the same place for very long. That is, unless he found himself working at a brothel and he had been paid in free women. Then she could see him staying in town for a while.

"Still… I wish he'd visit, even if by accident."

About six months after the group had split, Jin and come into town escorting a woman and her two young children, apparently, they had been robbed out on the road traveling from one village to the next and he had guarded them on the rest of their journey. As it turns out, the woman that he was escorting was the wife of the owner of the teashop she worked at. Needless to say, they met up. Fuu had insisted on him staying at her small house, just a two roomed plain looking house near the edge of the village. If Fuu had learned anything it was to stay away from large cities. There was always someone there who either wanted her dead or worse, to work for them in a brothel.

Thankfully, this village was too small to have a brothel.

She and Jin had caught up a good bit, as it turned out, he had run into another one of his master's vengeful students and ended up killing him as well. It was kind of depressing to her that Jin couldn't escape the violence that came along with being a skilled warrior when he would be so much more at peace you'd think as a school teacher or a book writer. Even though she wished that he could have that kind of quiet and certainly healthier lifestyle, she knew that he would be driven mad if he didn't get to fight every once and a while. Jin and Mugen had a lot more in common than they realized.

Mugen…

Since Jin's first stay, he had made a point to stop by and visit every once and a while not too often, but maybe once every two months. She had asked him if he knew anything about Mugen's whereabouts, and she was surprisingly more disappointed than what she thought she would be when he said that he hadn't seen or heard anything of him since they had gone their separate ways. Though, it would seem that he had made it his personal mission to find him, bringing news of where Mugen wasn't every time he returned, always from a different couple of villages and cities.

Eventually, about four months ago, Jin had taken a particularly long time to return, and it was worrying her until she remembered that the three years that he had been waiting for Shino to be freed had been up and he could finally return to her. When he brought her back with him two months ago, she felt nearly like a third wheel every time she saw them, always holding hands and smiling just because the other was so close to them. After a long talk with Shino and letting them stay in her house for a few weeks, They had each found a job, Shino working as a seamstress at the Kimono makers store just down the street from her teashop.

After Jin had returned nearly the whole town knew about him for returning her boss' wife, Mrs. Takeda and their sons from the nearly tragic robbery, he had taken up many a well paid body guard rolls to nearly anyone who needed to travel with goods of any kind to the neighboring villages. After a about a year of that he had saved up enough that he was able to buy a large house of his own with Shino's help and build a dojo onto it, after a few more months of fixing it up and buying all the proper equipment needed, he was planning to open it up to teach the villagers and their students, nearly doubling as a school, as there wasn't one in the village and Shino thought the idea of her being a school teacher was exciting. Later on she revealed that while she was at the sanctuary she along with the other women there had done nearly nothing but read and learn skills such as sewing, gardening and cleaning. Fuu cracked many a joke about her being a perfect wife.

"I think it would be a fine idea, Shino. Nearly none of the children in this village get any kind of schooling save for what their parents can teach then when they have the time, and the few that do have to go to and from the next village on carriages and horses, running the risk of being killed by robbers on the way. I think the village would be very happy to have someone willing and able to teach the children."

And with those encouraging words from Jin, Shino made it a point to save up what money she could spare to go towards buying large amounts of books, parchment and brushes.

Soon, the day had arrived that their school/ dojo would open, today. Jin, Shino and Fuu had gone around and told as many of the parents as they could about the school opening up, and whoever they couldn't find, word of mouth did. Tue, there weren't that many children that the parents could spare to go to school every day instead of helping with work, and those who had the time seldom had the money to pay for it, but after a week or so, and Shino's students went home to tell their parents about how much they learned and how nice of a teacher that Shino was, parents began to send their working children to the dojo as often as possible.

Fuu was very happy to hear that they were even bringing in children from the neighboring villages, as Shino's soft, kind and patient teaching methods were better than the other harsher, and more demanding methods of the other teachers. Soon, Shino was pulling in enough money by herself that she alone could afford to re-supply her own instruments and buy new things if needed.

Jin wasn't bad off either.

About two weeks after Shino's lessons began, so began the lessons of the dojo. There were robbers and bandits that pretty much camped out in the wooded paths between the villages and prayed on the hard working commuters, robbing already poor business', robbing wives and daughters of even the simplest of jewelry, and more often than not, they would beat the husbands and sons near death and sometimes to it. Jin had been asked more than once to take care of the woodland bandits, but even he couldn't take on that many enemies without knowing how many more there were hiding in the trees. Instead, he opted to give very low priced lessons on self defense and basics in martial arts and swordsmanship.

A year had passed sooner than Fuu had thought it would.

The economy of the village had gone up surprisingly, due to the teachings of Jin, more and more of the traveling traders and merchants had been able to defend themselves when going back and fourth to the other villages, and many of the shops in town that were at the brink of closing down and being ruined were flourishing. Because the businesses were flourishing, more and more jobs were opening up, and because of that, more and more children were being spared from working with their families and were able to attend school. It had even gotten to the point that Shino had to find a teaching assistant and move her classroom into the house because her classes had grown, as well as Jin's and he needed the dojo for more hours more days a week.

They were often joking about building an actual school house.

Fuu was very happy for her friends, and was very proud of how the village was able to grow and prosper nearly just because of them. It was no surprise when the small village actually grew enough to be called a town, and thus, it was no surprise then when Jin had almost instantly been appointed as the head of the village.

And yet still, though Fuu was happy to have Jin in her life, not even seeing him as a friend anymore, but as a brother… it wasn't perfect…

…Mugen wasn't there.

"…I wonder if he's even still alive…"

Even though four years had passed, and Fuu had grown into a beautiful young woman, with a body that would make Mugen have a nosebleed she still didn't put any effort into finding herself a boyfriend or husband. It wasn't because everyone in the village was hideous either; there were a lot of hunky guys that had asked her out on more than one occasion...

But none of them are Mugen…

Fuu wasn't going to deny it, she had a pretty bad crush on the loud mouthed, womanizing, violent, foul tempered idiot…not that she was in love with him or anything, but what can she say? She missed seeing his know-it-all grins, hearing his crude jokes, his scent, his face… his voice.

Oh, how she missed him...

Eventually it came the time that Shino announced her pregnancy in late spring; Fuu couldn't remember a time that Jin had ever smiled so often. With the passing of time eventually the child was born, a girl as it were.

Jin named her Yuka.

Life once again went back to the dull routine that it worked itself into, she grew older, as did everyone else, and at the nice age of twenty one, a good friend of hers from town proposed to her. She sat there for a moment, somewhat dazed. It was then that she was forced to rethink her life. She was twenty one years old, still a virgin (thank god) and single. Everyone around her was happily married, having children of their own and moving on with their lives. Was it her fate to be the old maid, alone at home with no husband or children when she was an old woman? She looked up at Genju's face, the man who proposed to her.

He wasn't ugly, nor was he handsome, just plain. He wore a red jacket, left open for the summer heat. His eyes were a beautiful honey brown color, and his hair was a somewhat unruly dark brown, he was a good match for her, she knew that he would love her and that he would take care of her for the rest of her life if she were to say yes… a nice, simple, quiet life.

And all the while she looked into his eyes, she imagined that she was staring into the narrowed, wild black eyes of another man. She found herself replacing Genju's face with another man's and imagining that the words weren't said in Genju's voice. Her heart began to flutter and she bit her lip, catching herself before she actually whispered a yes.

"I'm sorry."

It was a quiet day in spring only a few short months later that Fuu was sitting on her front porch, sewing the hem to a Kimono she was making in her spare time. The day had been painfully dull, nearly no life to the town at all. She really should have seen it coming. Wasn't there even a saying about it? What was it… ah, yes.

Calm before the storm.

It was the sound of a dull metal scraping against the gravel leading to her front door that first caught her attention, the sound moving in time as though to someone's footsteps. Her hands froze. Second, it was a scent on the breeze, musky, like dirt, sweat and ocean water. Her heart fluttered. Third, a whistled tune that she only heard when she was a young girl of fifteen, traveling with two reckless idiots that wanted nothing more than to run off and kill each other every chance they got. Her breath hitched.

The footsteps stopped, and turning her head slightly, she could see a pair of weathered geta standing a mere three feet away from her. And inch or so further, and the tan skin of two dirty feet reviled a pair of ankles with blue tattoos. A pair of legs with oddly cut off hakama, looking like shorts. A red open haori and a strap over a lean chest with green and brown patterns on it. She dare not look up any more, her heart wouldn't be able to handle it of it somehow weren't him.

"Hey, girly."

"Hey…"

"…sup?" He asked after a pause, Fuu remained silent for a long moment. Not moving. For what seemed like hours. Truly only a few short minutes. Eventually, the stiff silence wore on Mugen's nerves, and he turned to leave, only getting a step before he heard the hitch of a soft voice, and he felt two small arms encircle him from behind. The grip was weak, but still somehow powerful enough to keep him rooted to the spot.

"Please… don't leave… not again…"

And he didn't. He never did, not after two years.

The first night that he came back to her, Fuu cooked up a great dinner, and even bought sake just for him. They spent most of the rest of the night catching up on what the other had been doing the last few years, she waitressing, he, still killing people. She couldn't expect any less from him though. The rest of the night, on the other hand, they spent together under her blankets.

Fuu gave herself to him that night, knowing that he wouldn't refuse her, she knew that she was taking a huge risk, for Mugen had never been the type to stay anywhere for very long, much less to one woman for more than a night. Still, when she turned Genju down for his proposal, it was then that she realized that she was so deeply in love with Mugen that she would only share her bed with him, and no one else for as long as she lived. Even if he didn't want to stay with her, and no matter how many times he left her, he would always be able to call her home his home.

It was the morning after their first night together that she told him those exact words, and he hadn't left since.

Eventually five hectic years passed by, and Fuu found herself with a four year old son and a two year old daughter. She had never thought that Mugen would be the fathering type; in fact, she was paranoid when she first found out that she was pregnant that he would turn tail and run from it, and she would never see him again. Instead, he proposed.

Fuu was settling into bed with her husband on a chilly October night after just putting the children to sleep when she worked up the nerve to ask him why he didn't leave her, why he didn't do what she thought that he would do and run away. His answer brought tears to her eyes as he whispered them, his quiet breath caressing her ear.

"Guess I love ya too much."

And that night, that once quiet night of her completely crazy life, while lying in the arms of a half crazy, violent murdering criminal from the Ryukyu Islands…Fuu had never felt safer, secure and at peace that she did at that moment.

"That's the first time you've ever said that to me."

"Yeah, well don't expect it much. Ya know I hate all that mushy shit." He mumbled as he lazily reached across her waist and groped he backside. Fuu couldn't help but giggle.

"I know, I know… I love you too Mugen."