Samurai Champloo (c) Shinichirō Watanabe

A/N: This will be a short story.

Epilogue. Part Two

Fuu couldn't help but give a small sad smile. Her younger self might have stood up, knocking over the tea and crashing the plates. She might even have yelled at Jin, telling him that he was lying. What didn't change were the tears that pooled in her eyes. Losing someone was always hard.

"How are you dealing with it?" Fuu asked, wiping her tears away.

Jin took a sip of tea, "I'm alright…but I didn't expect you to take the news so well." Carefully choosing his words, he continued, "I always thought you had a deeper bond with him."

"Not at all," Fuu replied without hesitation. "I've always considered the two of you as equals." She poured him more tea.

"That doesn't really fill in the gaps," Jin stared at her, testing if she knew what he was talking about.

All their time together, and possibly because of their age, both have developed a silent communication. A slight tilt of the head was a whole conversation… it was just a matter of reading the atmosphere.

So Fuu knew. Years back she was asked by a blind woman to choose either Mugen or Jin, leaving the other with her. Fuu had chosen Jin to go with the woman, and now, after all this years, he wants to know why.

"I'm not too sure myself," she answered him honestly. "I guess…I just thought it would be easier for you to bounce back than Mugen…but I know better now," she sighed heavily. "All three of us were a wreck without each other."

Jin didn't say anything, so she continued, "I was crushed that I made the decision, you know? I should have just shoved her and said told her no way. There really was no other than the three of us. Why did we all go different ways?"

Again, Jin didn't say anything, but he knew why. The three of them have been alone all their lives, alone in a sense that they had no one to depend on but themselves. For the three to be together, they needed a goal to have staying together make sense. But once that goal was gone, it seemed like there was no real reason to be together.

He had felt odd when they parted ways. Like this wasn't supposed to happen, or that they didn't understand that they needed each other…so rather than talking about their feelings… parting ways was seen as a better solution.

Fuu thought that she had understood as well, she just didn't want to admit that they all left because of such a simple misunderstanding.

"It's a little sad though," Jin suddenly said, "We only meet when one of us reached our end."

The room was silent again. Even then it was always like this. The nights that the three spent together was always in awkward silence, but something about it was comforting. It didn't feel so alone.

"You know what's interesting?" Jin broke the silence, "I didn't even plan on seeing you here."

"I think it's good to know, that our roads always lead to one place." Fuu said, she was a little hesitant, but she had to know, "So how did he pass?"

Jin chuckled, shifting his weight to his other leg. "It's a funny story,"

Fuu braced herself, ready to fill a twenty seven year gap of loneliness.