first off, thank u sooooooo much to the reviewers who gave critiques, it helps so much -.-
please feel free to be as mean as u feel needed, if u wanna point out every tiny problem PLEASE do so, really, I need the advice. As that weird old dead guy once said, "One can never find anything if they do not know where to look." Also, another big thanks to the reviews of other review…type…things……..yeah…
:hugs all around: from Plushi! And some the miss-spellings are for Eseme, I am purposely spelling things wrong to get her accent, and I apologize to any Dutch people reading this, please forgive me if I have butchered u'r beautiful accent
Ps. I applozies, yesh the last chapter was rushed, but I wanted to get it out of the way before I started working on this big paper for skool ( -hehe I spelled schul wrong) . but I pwomise I haven't rushed this one
The next morning when Mugen woke up it was by an annoying knock on his door. "Dammit what dya want?" He barked as he pushed himself up, trying to rub the haziness of sleep from his eyes. After receiving her answer Fuu entered the room, a warm smile on her face and a strange looking bottle in her hand. "Eseme said I should check up on you before we opened the shop."
Mugen glared at her. How she could be this happy in the morning was an uncanny and unknown fact. "I'm not dead if that's what the hag meant."
Fuu knelt down next to him in the same position she had taken the night before, and pulled a wad of what looked like cotton from inside her kimono. "Taken to stuffin' eh?" Mugen asked, staring at the round cotton ball with a teasing glint in his eye. "No you dumb-ass." Fuu growled back, momentarily distracted from her task of un-corking the odd blue bottle.
"What's that stuff?" Mugen asked, feeling a little curious about this new thing-a-ma-jig. "It's some kind of alcohol from Eseme's country, she said to give it to you." "Ha-ha, that's more like it." Mugen hadn't had a drink of anything stronger than green tea in almost a month, which was a bit too long in his opinion.
Fuu quickly snatched the bottom from his reach. "It's not for drinking, she said to put in on your wounds." "That sounds dumb…" Mugen said dryly, now having lost all interest in the bottle and it's foreran contents.
"Whatever, just hold still." Carefully, Fuu undid the bandages around his abdomen. They were stained with blood, but not badly. This relieved her a little bit, after playing the scene over in her head she had come to the conclusion that once again it had been her fault, what happened to Mugen. 'I'll have to re-wrap those with clean ones.'
Once this was done she tipped the bottle into the cotton cluster, just like Eseme had told her. Careful not to let any of it spill onto the floor. The clear liquid let off a deep, bitter smell, but Eseme said it would help prevent infection.
'Well, it sounds like a good idea to me. He never takes baths anyway.' This thought made her wrinkle her noise, not from any particular smell, just from the thought of the things that must have accumulated in his tangled mane of hair.
In this somewhat dazed state of mind she wasn't expecting what came next. When she pressed the wet, white ball on the cut along Mugen's chest he yelled and jumped a few feet away, well out of her reach. "WHAT THE HELL!"
Fuu blinked, stunned by his sudden actions. "What?"
He pointed at her, a deadly glare on his face. "You're trying to kill me aren't you? That damn bottle's full of poison or something." Fuu put a skeptical look on her face.
"Oh common, it can't be that bad…It's just medicinal alcohol, Eseme said it would prevent infection." "I don't care what it does, you ain't getting near me with that stuff again." In the back of her mind Fuu found the situation to be a little funny. Mugen was usually so tough, and though she knew he hated doctors she never expected so much trouble from him over something so simple. "You're just being a big baby." "I damn well am not!"
Fuu raised her eyebrows, she had to wrap this up soon and go help Eseme. "Aw common, just let me get it on the big one." "Fucking no, crazy bitch." Mugen had put up with various forms of pain, but this was a method of torture unknown to him. It felt worse then the hot water, maybe three times worse, and the stinging lingered.
Then Fuu did a strange thing, brave and strange. She pounced down on Mugen, holding him captive under her meager body weight. Positioning herself on his stomach, careful to avoid any wounds, she did her best to keep him down.
He struggled, but only after taking a few seconds to realize what had happened. This was something new, never before had she challenged his physical strength against her own. And Mugen intended to give her a challenge. If she wanted to play nurse with him he'd make her work for it. Their brawl on the floor soon became an all-out wrestling match, but because it still hurt to use his right arm Mugen was having a hard time winning.
During their moment of play they exchanged various names of affection, such as stupid bitch, dirty pervert, wimp, ect. Finally Fuu managed to pin down Mugen's left arm, holding it near his ear. In the moment it took him to push her back off she reached back for the forgotten ball of drunken cotton and pressed it into his wound. This time he didn't scream, but she noticed that he flinched when she picked up the white ball and moved it to another, un-touched piece of the torn flesh.
"There." She said, putting the cotton back down on the floor. Then she wiped some of the sweat from her forehead, which had accumulated due to the effort put into her victory. Mugen opened one of his tightly clenched eyes, mentally wishing a gruesome death upon the woman before him. He growled at her, but it was a small, almost pathetic sound, so she laughed. That smile, it was so close to his face, even her breath seemed close. He should have shoved her off of him, and he could have easily done it, but there was something about the feel of her knees pressing into the sides of his hips that made him feel numb.
Though they were both clothed--with the exception of the fact that Mugen was shirtless--it shouldn't have been anything sexual, if anything it was childish. He didn't have time to think much about such things, clearly she hadn't felt the same way, because not a second later did she remover herself.
As she attempted to straiten the room up some from their "excursion" Mugen pushed himself up on his elbows, then suddenly started to cough. Fuu turned her head and looked at him, one of her eyebrows raised. "What's the matter with you?"
Between gasping for breath and the continuous stream of violent coughs Mugen said, "I told you cough…it was…poisoned…" With this last word he fell back onto the floor, his head landing hard on the dark wood. Fuu snubbed this act off and continued folding his blanket. "Oh don't give me that, I know you're just faking."
But when she turned her head back to look at him a moment later he was still laying there, only his fingers on the left hand were moving. Then, they went still. "Mugen?" Fuu asked, her voice a little less confident then it had been in her prior words.
She put her hand on his immobile chest and shook him once. "You are faking right?" When he didn't move she got a terrible pang in her stomach. As if it's contents had preformed a back flip. "Aren't you?" She asked again, her voice raised and a little quivery.
Fuu shook him again, harder this time, her eyebrows furrowed in worry. "Mugen, common, this isn't funny!" It had been almost a minute, and his lungs hadn't expanded to take in any new air. "Eseme!" Fuu yelled over her shoulder, panic now creeping up on her. "Eseme!"
She continued to shake him, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. "Please don't be dead, you can't be dead!" In a last attempt she lifted his eyelid, to her horror the night black iris was rolled upwards, just like the eye of a dead body.
"Mugen…" A small tear rolled down the side of her cheek, and she bent over, her head pressed against her folded knees. "You just can't be dead, I can't go back all by…by myself."
While Fuu was talking she had heard a sound that sounded strangely like chuckling. She raised her head, the stray locks of hair had gotten in her view, but she could still see clearly. And she saw Mugen, sitting up and staring at her, a mocking smirk on his lips.
For a second she was relieved, relieved enough that she had the erg to throw her arms around him. But after that one second her anger at him overtook this feeling of relief.
"Haha, that was great. 'I can't go back all by myself.' You really fell for that?" He mimicked her, mocking her cruelly.
Fuu felt her previous tears of grief turn to hot tears of embarrassment, and anger. "You…" She reached out, and slapped him across the face. "You jerk!" She screamed, then got up, turned sharply and ran from the room.
"Fuu?" Eseme saw the girl run past her in what looked like distress. She had come to see what the matter was, why Fuu had called for her. The old woman peeked into Mugen's room, a distant and confused look in his eyes, and the white shape of a hand on his cheek.
"What you do now potty mouth!" Eseme yelled at him, her eyes stern and chastening. Mugen shook his head in an attempt to wake himself up. "I didn't do anything, that bitch just flipped out!" Eseme glared at him, knowing there was obviously more to it. "You just wait here, I be back for you at lunch brake."
For the next few days Fuu wouldn't have anything to do with Mugen. Eseme had to tend to his wounds, as Fuu was refusing to. When she caught a glimpse of him in the hallway she would snap her head the other way and bolt for the nearest exit. Dinner and other meals were eaten in silence, cold silence. Or Fuu and Eseme would talk, while Mugen was ignored.
On the third day Eseme was starting to get to the end of her rope with these two, this quarrel was very silly. Fuu had told her what happened, about how Mugen pretended that the alcohol had killed him, then mocked her for believing it.
"It was humiliating…" Fuu said as she wiped the last tear from her eye. "I know girlie, but it will be oky. From what I know of dat Mugen boy I'm sure he didn't want to scare you so badly." Fuu let out a huff of air, showing her disbelief in this theory. "Oh he knew exactly what he was doing…" She turned her head, and Eseme was sure she was looking at her hands, now free of bandages. "He likes teasing me, and making fun of me… It's what he does."
'I've got to set that boy strait, she'll not be forgiving him anytime soon if he doesn't make first step…' Eseme thought detrimentally as she marched towards Mugen's room. She found him picking at the bandages around his stomach. The cut on his chest had healed quickly, not even leaving a scar. Though the slice along his side was still scabbed over, not quite healed completely yet. She was glad to find him there. Since his quarrel with Fuu had began he had taken to been out for long amounts of time. She wondered if maybe he was looking into the whole Blackbird issue, but that would have to wait. She had more important things to deal with first.
"Mugen!" Eseme said, her voice raised and scolding, having come to be accustom to using this voice on him, as he was usually doing something he wasn't suppose to. "Listen to me boyo, you're going to apologize to Fuu whether you want to or not. You own it to her."
First he gave her a confused look, then his eyebrows furrowed downward in obvious disapproval. "Oh freakin' no way, I didn't do anything to that crazy little bitch." "Dat is no way to speak of peoples you care about."
"Who says I care about her?" Mugen snapped back, this Eseme woman was starting to get on his nerves. Between her nosiness and her being a doctor it was almost too much.
Eseme gave him a look he couldn't read, then coolly replied; "Says you rushing after her into de field after you said you don't care about sunflowers." "I'm her bodyguard, I'm suppose to do that." He argued. "Says de fact that you won't let me anywhere near you wit-out a fight, but you let her take care of you." Now she put on a sly look. "Says you treating her hands." At this Mugen jolted up, and with words full of passion yelled, "How the hell do you know about that!"
Eseme just gave him a calm smile, keeping the face a person who's plan is going exactly as they want it to. "You don't tink I can tell? Fuu couldn't have done dat herself, have you ever tried tying someting on your own hand? Is difficult ya?"
Mugen couldn't understand why he was suddenly so angry. What did he care if she went around yapping to other people about their adventures? It meant nothing to him, and it sure as hell shouldn't. But somehow, even with this reasoning, he couldn't deny the small feeling of betrayal that tugged at the bottom of his hard criminal heart.
"I ain't apologizing, gimme one good reason hag." Eseme shot him a glare, and shacking her finger at him said, "Fine den, if you don't I'll make you take bath in de rubbing alcohol. Un if you drink it you die for real. Got it?"
Mugen opened his mouth to yelled something obscene at her, but chose not to. "Fine…" Under his breath he muttered "Fuckin' crazy old hag…"
He slunk from the room, a dark cloud of annoyance hanging over his head, and a deep wishing he could threaten someone else into doing this for him. "Damn it, apologies ain't my thing." He thought out loud.
It took Mugen a while to actually find Fuu, she had gotten so good at avoiding him over the past few days that he eventually came to the conclusion that as he looked she was hiding. He went outside to look for her, and when he discovered she wasn't there either he cursed in exasperation. This was getting more troublesome by the minute. 'If I ever do find that stupid little--Huh? Aha!'
His thoughts were interrupted by an all too familiar laugh, it was coming from the kitchen. Mugen followed the sound of her laughter, and found her sitting on the floor, surrounded by different vials and baskets. All of them containing pieces or parts of the four sunflowers they had harvested. At the moment she was playing with Momo, who he knew as 'that damn little bastard'. Momo was jumping around and around, every once and a while pausing to take a sunflower seed from her hand.
For a moment Mugen just stood in the doorway, watching her. As much as he hated it, that smile made him feel better then he had been for the past three days. Although Fuu wasn't aware of his presence Momo was, and the small squirrel was keen on making it known. He paused in his play with Fuu, and scurried towards Mugen, his ears back in disapproval.
"Momo? Where are you…" Fuu followed her beloved pet with her eyes, but when he came to Mugen and her eyes locked with his her mood changed completely. The smile faded from her pink lips and her eyes turned cold. She got up to run away from him again, but before she could make her way out of the room he caught her around the wrist with his right hand.
Eseme had let him go without wrapping his injured arm that morning, saying that he could start using it in moderation now. 'Whatever the hell moderation means…'
"Let go!" She screeched, pulling hard to get away. "I'm thinkin, no." He said, not letting the sudden pain caused by her resistance get into his hard voice.
"I don't want to see you!" Fuu yelled again, this time moving to slap him again, but he was too fast today, his senses not dulled by sleepiness, and he caught her again by the wrist.
Fuu was shocked to realize that he was using both his hands, and for a moment she froze. Momo, having done his part, stayed back but alert should he need to help his favorite human.
Mugen used her moment of confusion to his advantage. In one breath, with his voice just below a yell and very rushed, he said "I'm-sorry-I-made-you-cry-now-go-tell-the-old-hag-you-forgive-me-or-she's-gonna-drown-me-in-that-alcohol-shit!" Fuu blinked, it took her brain a second to register what he was trying to say.
"Mugen…did you just apologize?" To this Mugen groaned, mentally cursing everything about this moment. "Yeah whatever, now are ya gonna forgive me or not? That old bitch is crazy!" Fuu sent him a glare, not believing what she was hearing. "So you're only sorry because Eseme told you she'd do something to you if you weren't?"
Mugen, unaware that he was still holding a tight grip on her thin wrists, glared right back. "Pretty much yeah, that's it." Tears of anger swelled again in Fuu's eyes. Mugen had done, and said some mean things to her before, but never had it effected her like this. She didn't think she would have minded it if he had just pretended, but on top of that he had to mock her. And not just anything, but the words she was suppose to be speaking to a dead corps. For god sakes she could have said anything! And it wouldn't have mattered to him if it whether it true or not, he would have mocked it anyway.
"You're such a big jerk! I can't believe I was worried about you!" These words of hers did something to Mugen, and his actions were like that of a man who had just been shot. His grip on her loosened, the hot emotion in his eyes seemed to lessen, and even the natural scowl on his lips seemed to have slackened.
They started replaying in his head, over and over. 'I was worried about you…' Since before he could remember Mugen had been on his own, alone to fight the cruel world with nothing but the cloths on his back and the weapon in his hand. He wasn't used to having people care about him, take care of him, or worry about him.
Almost twenty years he had gone without this kind of human assurance in his life, and in the past week he had received so much of it from Fuu that he must not have realized what it was. After all, give a starving man, who has eaten nothing but berries and other wild things all his life, miso soup and he won't know what it is. All he will know is that it's a hell of a lot better then acorns.
"You were…that worried?" Fuu's fists clenched in his grasp, and she turned her head so that she didn't have to look at him. "What do you think…" She muttered, and Mugen was sure he could hear the hurt in her voice.
When he thought back to it he remembered the way she had shaken him, called out his name, and even called with a desperate tone for Eseme's help.
'What the hell…' He had never felt this warm before, not even the hot beaches of Ruyoko seemed to have ever reached this temperature. "Why the hell would you do that?" He asked, doing his best to sound mad again, though he wasn't succeeding.
Fuu couldn't help it. She was sure that all the crying she had done between those three long days would have dried up her eyes, but no, the tears still fell. "Because that's what friends do!" She yelled, continuing to refuse to look at him. "They worry about each other!" "Eh?"
Damn it, why was this so hard? Why did he having to think about the things she said. True, even he had to admit it, they had been acting more like friends then they ever had. Maybe even-'No! Not goin' there!' Mugen thought, fighting off the things the new 'instinct' told him.
"Chir chir chir!" Momo cried from the sidelines, the fur on his tail was unusually fluffy and he was standing on two legs. Perhaps attempting a threatening posture. 'Stupid rat…' One of these days Mugen would do something about that little bastard, but right now he had more things to worry about.
Fuu was trying to pull away from him again, and she looked mad, though none of these things meant anything to him. No, what really shook the fear in his bones were the big tears that had started rolling down her cheeks, each at least thirty seconds behind the other.
Not those tears again, anything but her tears. Why did they have to effect him now? Fucking why? Mugen refused to belief that all it took was a week alone with Fuu to turn him into some softy who crumbled when he saw a woman's tears. "Damn it don't do that!" He blurted, not sure of anything else to say.
Fuu's wet eyes widened. 'What?' She lifted her head, her cheeks glistening with salty water droplets, and she found herself so very close to that cold, dark face. 'Too close…' He sounded angry, and he looked angry, but there was something inside her that told Fuu he wasn't. 'What doesn't he want me to do?'
The confused look he read on her face was an annoyance. She should have known what he was talking about. "I'm sorry alright? Just knock it off." With these words he released her previously captive wrists.
As soon as he did this he excepted her to run away again, or at least pull herself quickly outside of his reach. But she didn't do either, she merely stood there, her knees shaking the tiniest bit.
Two more great tears came down the sides of her face, and without thinking he reached up and caught them on his thumbs. "I said stop!"
She flinched on his touch and the volume of his voice, or so he thought. He quickly removed his hands from her face, and continuing in a more hushed, but still ruff tone said. "Ain't no reason to waste tears a guy like me. 'Guess nobody ever told you criminals and murderers don't get friends."
Once he had said it part of Mugen wished he could take it back. The look on her face, and what she did next was enough to do that. Fuu clutched her kimono, somewhere near her heart, and into his shirt started crying again.
At first the feel of her head against his chest startled him, and all Mugen could do was stare down at her. But somewhere between her incomprehensible words and the time when his shirt started to feel damp one of his hands found it's way on to her head. Applying just enough pressure to let her know it was ok, what she was doing. Her brown hair was soft, just like her skin had been. 'God damn stupid…stupid…'
"Now what're you crying for?" He heard a small hick-up, and thought it some sort of an answer until she turned her head and mumbled "You're such an idiot."
Mugen wasn't sure what that meant, but the warm feeling from before told him that some, if not most, of those tears were for him, and for a few seconds he allowed himself a genuine smile. It felt kinda good, being cried for.
'But it ain't stayin' warm, and all good feelings gotta come to an end sometime…' He reminded himself. Mugen knew he had to say something to her, something that the 'real' Mugen would say. The smile faded from his stubble edged lips, and his eyebrows furrowed downward once again with the air of a person who was annoyed with the insignificance of the world around them.
"Fine, get all that sentimental shit out of the way now. But you better not cry again 'til we leave. Ya got that?" He barked at her, hoping to restore the "natural balance of things".
Fuu lifted her head from it's deep burrow in his red shirt, wiped her cheeks, and when she looked back up at him she forced a small smile on her lips. "K." She said, her voice was soft and almost innocent, like a child's.
After her cheeks was cleared of tears she soured her face once again in annoyance. "But I'm still mad at you." Mugen let out a sigh of exasperation, and came to the conclusion that women were impossible to please.
"Fine, what'dya want me to do? Nothin's worse then that Dutch shit." He said, finally giving up on any hope he had of coming out of this without any casualties. But Fuu shook her head no. She didn't want him to do anything. After all, it was his words that had hurt her most, so she would make him say something else to make up for it.
The confused look on his face almost made her laugh, but she wouldn't let herself. She had to stay serious, or he wouldn't take it seriously either. "You gotta promise you'll never make fun of what I say ever again."
Mugen snorted. Leave it to Fuu to make some stupid request like that. "Ya know, promises ain't really my thing." He said in a tease. "The last time I made one I got stuck with this big pain in the ass who was lookin' for some bastard she knew, though the idiot had no idea what he looked like."
Fuu glared at him, not amused with his teasing. "Mugen…" He glared back, then sighed sarcastically. "Fine." "Thank you."
Now that that was settled Fuu could move on to more important things, like yelling at him. "Did Eseme say you could use your arm already?" Mugen snorted, a small voice in the back of his mind had told him she was going to ask this. "She let me go without wrappin' it that's what you mean."
She poked him near his chest bone. "So it doesn't hurt anymore?" Mugen flinched from the small shockwave created by her touch. "Oh no, just when you do that!" He growled. "Sorry."
Her eyebrows furrowed again with a trace of worry written in them. "What about your other wounds? Has Eseme been--" "Annoying the hell outta me? Yeah!"
Fuu almost laughed, in her mind imagining Eseme trying to make Mugen hold still while she wrapped him up with bandages. "Well, that's what you get."
She turned back to the sunflowers on the floor, previously forgotten, picking again at the one she had dropped. "Now, are you gonna help me?" Mugen looked at her with a 'say what' expression. "With what…"
"This." Fuu held up a half plucked sunflower head, sitting back down on the floor. "Eseme wanted me to finish getting these sunflowers ready so she could make medicine and stuff out of them." Mugen raised his eyebrow, and reluctantly sat down next to Fuu, staring at the other three un-dissected sunflowers.
"What kinda shit can ya make out of flowers?" Mugen wanted to know. The idea seemed ridiculous to him, as the old flower products he had ever come in contact with were either perfumes or poisons. Fuu continued plucking out the seeds and throwing them in a large glass jar. Next to that was a blue pigmented one full of the large dried petals.
"I don't know, she said something about oils from the seeds, lubricants from the stems, and painkillers from roots." Mugen eyed the head nearest him suspiciously, then plucked one of the seeds from it's place. "So that rat eats these things?"
Fuu didn't look up from her work, but she smiled and said, "He's a squirrel and yup, he loves sunflower seeds. People can eat 'em too ya know." Mugen snorted, as if he didn't believe her about that one either. Fuu noted his show of disbelief and scowled at him in response. With a slight snap in her wrist she plucked a seed pod from the glass container with it's companions and shoved it in his face. "Here, if you don't believe me then go ahead and try one yourself.
Mugen looked at the small pointy thing for a few seconds, then, finally decided to play along, he took it. "Do ya eat the whole thing? Most seeds got shells to take off." He asked, an amateur question obviously, but you couldn't be too careful about nuts.
Fuu almost couldn't stop herself from laughing. The question was so silly. "Of course, it's just the inside that's good."
Mugen, after a few failed attempts, freed the white edible from inside it's hard casing, and popped it in his mouth.
She watched his face as his taste buds discovered the new food, and was highly amused by the final result: a look somewhat between boredom and disgust. "That didn't taste like nothing." "Well I didn't say they tasted great."
Mugen shrugged off the topic, not interested in another attempt at liking these 'sunflower seeds.' Instead he picked up one of the other flowers and started vigorously plucking each seed from their pouches, making sure to glare at each one as he threw them into the jar. This amount of effort made Fuu laugh.
Meanwhile Momo let his gray coat smooth down again, and had taken to sitting on Fuu's knee, with a begging look on his furry face.
An hour or so past like this, mutual silence,--with the exception of the occasional chirp from Momo--and the plucking and plinking of the seeds into jars setting the rhythm.
After a considerable amount of time had passed Mugen's senses perked, and he turned his nose to the window, smelling a familiar sent gathering in the air outside. All the while they had been working it had slowly grown darker with the condensing of large storm clouds. "Don't scream." He said coolly, keeping his eyes on the sunflower he was torturing. Fuu lifted her head, a look of confusion written on her face. "What's that 'spose to mean?"
Not a second after Fuu had asked her question a loud clap of thunder shook the old house, causing her to jump, and, as Mugen had predicted, scream.
Mugen smirked at his success, and almost chuckled at the startled look on her face, which had quickly replaced the former one of confusion. "'Told ya."
Fuu, after collecting herself, stuck her tongue out at him. Not amused by his sudden knowledge of when or when not a loud noise would occur. Having done this, she returned to her almost bald flower, still a little shaken.
A moment of silence passed before Fuu spoke again, she asked. "Did you learn how to do that on Ruyoko?"
Mugen didn't look up at her, he didn't like talking about his past on the island of sinners—except in a brag—, but eventually he answered. "It's on the ocean, so you get to knowin' the signs when a storm's comein' in. And the thunder was just a lucky guess."
"What about that trick you pulled on me, did you learn that there too?" Fuu was getting curious, curious about how many questions she could ask before he yelled at her for it. Mugen snorted. "What do you think?"
Fuu thought about this for a second. "I think you figured out how to do that so you could get away from authorities and stuff." Mugen looked at her out of the corner of his eye with a skeptical air. "You don't know much do you? If ya' play dead for those bastards they'll make sure you're dead." "Like throwing him in a river?" Fuu asked, her imagination running loose.
"Heh, they'd probly skewer the guy first, make lots a blood run down the road, then thrown him in a river."
A couple minutes were spent in silence once again after his some-what gory sentence. Then Fuu got up and went to the door, sliding it aside. Outside she found a heavy downpour of water, millions of droplets crashing to the cold valley dirt, running as if for their lives from the clouds from which they came.
After a moment's debate with himself, Mugen joined her in the doorway, keeping a small distance between them. 'Ain't seen it rain like this in a while…' He took another minute to stare at the violent wall of water, and for a second he noticed Fuu shiver, though he chose not to act on it.
"I guess you had a pretty rough time growing up, huh?" Fuu said as she burrowed her hands deep into the folds of her kimono beneath her arms. Mugen looked down at her, seeking an answer to this new interest in his past on her face, though he found nothing. When in doubt pretend you don't care. That was his motto.
"'Depends on what you're idea of rough is." He said, slumping against the doorframe in a show of boredom with the subject.
Fuu thought about this for a minute, drying to pick from a long list of thoughts the best answer. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of Eseme's purple flowers getting tossed around by the constant bombardment of raindrops, and got a brilliant idea.
She turned ran back into the kitchen, quickly dumped the seeds from one of the jars in a pile on the floor, and ran back out onto the porch again with the empty glass jar. Without a moment's hesitation she stepped out into the cold, getting drenched fast.
Mugen wondered what the hell she could be doing. 'Collecting rain water?" But it came as a large surprise to him when she knelt down, keeping her knees out of the mud, and placed the jar face down into the dirt over the puny flower. With a wet clump of hair winding down the middle of her face she turned her head back to him, and smiled. "I guess my idea of tough is not having anybody to help when you need it."
to be continued!
X3 ok, um, so this is suppose to be some kinda pathetic cliff hanger……cuz ima pick it up right from that line de next chappie.
