Nothings


Disclaimer: I do not own Samurai Champloo, nor do I claim rights to any of the affiliated characters.

Warnings/Notes: Snippets of Jin, Fuu, and what could have been.


"How could you do this? You promised!"

"Forgive me."


She is kneeling by the river, sniffling softly and wringing her hands against her kimono. He can hear the rustling of fabric from several feet away. Wordlessly he advances, watching her body grow rigid at his sudden intrusion.

"Forgive me." His thoughts are heavier than his tired body.

"No." She laughs to disguise the pain, swiping at her running nose with her sleeve, "don't be silly."

For a moment the world is dizzyingly still, water running over the rocks a harsh invasion of his ears, which are straining to make out the little noises in her throat as she tries to swallow. "Perhaps I should…"

"No." She says quickly, "if you did, that jerk Mugen would…" She stops, but does not meet the elder's eyes, because she is lying. Because she is too meek to be truthful and say what she feels, which is whorish and ugly and jealous, because somewhere there is a woman stepping off a boat, waiting for Jin.

He rests a hand on her shoulder in comfort, as if to reach out to her, but she is jilted and insecure. She cannot measure up in maturity or physique to the elder he almost abandoned her for. Things happen for a reason, she tells herself, it is meant to be this way.

They are meant to part ways.


He returns to her, a savior clothed in vulnerability and guilt. There is no armor glistening in the sun, there is no white horse to carry her away to safety. There is only the ugly truth of an assassin and the body between his sword and her.

"Jin!"

She calls his name more times in the next few weeks than she can remember calling anyone's. On the afternoon he later awakes, she lets the ugly truth come seeping through her veins, onto her tongue, across her lips, "It's stupid." She says to his sleeping body, which she prays everyday will not soon become a corpse, "I just wanted…to matter."

He lays awake for hours in the shack before he has the courage to emerge, silent. Contemplating.


"Catch you later."

Even as she calls this over her slender shoulder, deep down he knows he will never see her again. And he wonders if, just this once, he should listen to the impulsiveness urging him to turn back to her. He pauses for a moment and listens to her footsteps follow the dirt, setting his gaze on the ground. The boat pushes away from the dock, into the sea mist, and she is clothed in pink regret against the setting sun. He sets his own feet to keep from stumbling, to keep from finally making a move, because it would be selfish to do so now, once she's moved on from all this.

Her form is dissolving into the horizon when he finally braves a glance. Things happen for a reason, he tells himself, he is meant to let her go, just like Shino.

They are meant to part ways.

Chuckling softly he straightens himself and heads off into dusk.

[No more fantasies and facades.]


AN: Because I am a Jin / Fuu Fan deep down, because things have always been messy and muddled between them, and because the series is so damn nostalgic. Ugh... Anyway, thank you for reading.