Anything can become an addiction.

Anything that numbs you, lets you forget who and where you are, changes your world for a time, can become the one thing that gets you through life.

Fuu was addicted. Not to food, since it's pretty hard to be addicted to something you never have. Not to gambling either; she was too good at it, and when you win all the time, gambling kind of loses the excitement element. Not alcohol; one cup of sake could lay her flat on her ass.

No. Fuu was addicted to something infinitely more dangerous, something that could break a person in more ways than one.

Fuu was addicted to Mugen.

She was addicted for the usual reasons – thrill, adrenaline, a few moments of bliss. He made her dizzy. She didn't love him, though. In fact, sometimes, she hated him. But when he came to her in the night, slid his hands into her kimono, she could forget. He drove away the world with his hard body and callused hands, if only for an hour or so.

And he loved her. Most people wouldn't think so, but Fuu could see it. She saw it in his fury when he fought the thugs that kidnapped her. She saw it in his jealousy whenever she spoke with Jin. She saw it in the hurt in his eyes when she cried Jin's name the first time they fucked.

She tried not to do that, anymore. Sometimes she'd bite through her lip, but it was okay. No need to be any crueler than she had to.

Fuu wondered if he knew her secret, if that slip of the tongue gave her away. It was a big secret, one that would crush him as it had crushed her…was crushing her.

She had held on to hope for the longest time. Maybe, if she was helpful, if she was optimistic, if she was patient, Jin might just open up to her, might just love her with the same heat with which she loved him. Despite his stoicism, his iciness, his apparent apathy to the world, she held on.

Then finally, it happened. Jin's cold mask cracked, and his heart was laid bare for all to see. Only…that mask didn't fall for her. All her hard work and Jin had fallen for an ex-business woman who was already married. Love at first sight, of all things. Damn her. Damn him.

So Fuu had given up, but giving up doesn't mean an ending. The desire is still there, the love, only there's nothing left to hold on to. After the quest, Jin would go back to that woman, and Fuu's heart would truly break.

But for now, she had Mugen, and she would learn to numb herself. She would take Mugen's love and use it to stitch her wounds. Yes, she was using him, maybe sucking the life from him, but she didn't care anymore. His heat, his energy as he fucked her, as he watched her moan with his emotions unshielded in his eyes, these things soothed her. So what if it was killing him, and killing off her heart as well?

It was an addiction. That's what they do.