Disclaimer: I don't own Samurai Champloo.
Warning: None.
Ten Years
It had been nearly ten years, after they all had split and gone separate ways. Parting had never been so difficult, yet also so easy and relieving at the same time.
For awhile, he was mildly surprised that he had forgotten the journey. It had left him changed so completely and utterly that he felt no actual change occur within him. He was not alone anymore. Fuu and Mugen had somehow joined in his search for something and found that the something was friendship. They did not suffer anymore, even if they parted hastily after the whole Sunflower ordeal. They walked easily and did not look back.
But now, Jin stood, amidst of a busy street in Edo. Ten years had gone by.
He stopped abruptly in front of a well-kept inn, observing a young woman sweeping the entrance with a thick straw broom. She was so consumed with the simple task that she had not see him halt before her, only a few meters away.
Random travelers and busybodies hurried by and past Jin's unmoving form, and the woman did not notice a thing. She brushed away a loose strand of hair behind her ears and used the broom effectively and forcefully. Every now and then, she would place her hands behind her to calm a distressed child that lay wailing on her back. A couple of toddlers and older children ran in and out of the shop, appearing quickly, then gone before Jin's widened eyes.
She did not look old. She was only a woman of her mid-twenties, yet she had three children crowded around her. They were all boys, who seemed to get in her way and cause innumerable difficulties for their troubled mother. The way she dealt with her children, however, was rather mature and motherly. It was strange sight to behold, after having left the girl ten years ago. Jin walked away swiftly, noting that Fuu had also changed. She had become a woman.
Fuu caught a sight of a familiar figure through her messy, falling bangs. Once again, she placed them behind her ears, and unconsciously patted the child behind her. Ten years ago, she might have called after him and scolded him for being so distant. After all, they still were friends, weren't they?
Fuu thought about it a while, carefully, but dismissed it as soon as it came. Her husband called drunkenly from the inn, and she smiled at the thought of him. He was a traveling man, who had come to visit his wife, Fuu, for a short while.
A terrible lout, she thought, but smiled ruefully. As she straightened up from her job, she wished that Jin had stopped by for a formal greeting. But she understood and so did her husband that lay lazily inside the inn, that Jin had his own ways of greeting his friends.
A/N: I don't actually know if Jin would have stopped by. Perhaps he was in a hurry? . ;; I'm not sure. He seemed rather aloof to me, throughout the whole series. Hm. In any case, Jin still cares about Fuu and Mugen. I'll just say he didn't feel like dealing with a drunken Mugen and didn't want to meet Fuu's annoying kids. XD Hope you enjoyed the drabble.
-Mouseichigo