The breakfast flow had slowed to a trickle.
Fuu wiped her forehead of a little sweat as she leant the platter against her hip and turned her face to the bright sunlight that left a dappled glow on the tables by the wide windows.
The latticework of sunlight on the wooden surfaces reminded her of forest canopies and mossy greenery. If she turned her face up, she just might see red-cloaked shoulders or a blue-clad back.
"No," she muttered, shaking her head of worn memories. Sighing, she mutely added, "Don't be dumb, Fuu. You're too cute for that."
The flaps opened to another customer, who took a seat further in, past the sunlit seating to where the light wasn't quite so garish.
Sometimes she liked to remember them. Sometimes, she liked to allow her mind to construct rosy scenarios where they would duck their heads under the teahouse entrance flaps and coolly request a glass of water or perhaps some tea - Mugen would ask for dumplings, even if he didn't have the money – and she would sit by them.
They would tell her how much she had grown, and how pretty she had become, and they would marvel at how self-sufficient she was, that perhaps she had never really needed them at all.
And she would take all of them in, and revel in the tingle of familiarity. They would always look almost the same – a new prayer bracelet and shorter hair for Jin sometimes, and for Mugen, an odd scar or another. Their mannerisms, though, would never, ever change. And after they had talked extensively about her new, quiet life, the conversation would turn to them.
Jin will have wed that Kohana lady and at the news Fuu would smile softly, because she supposed that he deserved happiness. He will have settled down in a nearby town and Mugen will have passed through his town and spotted him. They will have agreed to find her, and reasoned that she will have stayed by the ocean and that this had been the first town they'd looked in.
In her fantasies, Mugen always looked at her with an unusual kind of shine in his eye, and acted like he didn't care but really he was paying rapt attention. Mugen was never married.
Two more customers entered, settling into the table by the window. Cooked eel and miso smells and companionable dialogue about shougi strategy wafted through the teahouse.
Flights of fancy, Fuu thought bitterly, don't pay the bills.
It was true – romantic fantasies were nice, but they did very little in the ways of providing her with a small, but comfortable house a little ways away from the beaten path of the main road. That she had gotten with hard work – well, paired with one or two fibs about being a single mother of three with a dead husband and a deadbeat father. Tips were good for pretty girls with hard luck.
She sighed once more and, with the serving platter against her hip, walked to the customer, who had propped his legs up on the neighboring table and was picking his nose with an uncommon intensity.
"Your hair is longer than I remember," she said, smiling despite herself.
"Your tits are bigger than I remember," he replied.
She smacked him upside his head so quickly he was sent back in time, thoughts thrown to pink, the color he'd always associated with stinging head injuries.
"Fuck, Fuu, that hurts," shouted Mugen angrily, "Dumb broad."
The tingle of familiarity was present in her lips as she smiled.
The room briefly brightened as another customer wandered through the doorway, letting the light in. The ronin bowed shallowly and took a seat opposite the vagrant.
"Good morning, Fuu," Jin said politely.
Fuu no longer suffered from any rose-coloured delusions. In her head she knew this was not planned. Still, in her heart, she fancied his long, arduous journey to this tiny seaside port so near to Edo had been spent thinking of her and how he would first greet her and how she had changed.
She knew it wasn't true, but she liked to think it.
Sometimes the warmth of the sun wasn't enough – not when compared to the warmth of fancy.
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A/N: sup, guys. (: been real busy. hope this is enough for now. gonna get back on reflection eternal i swear. soon.