Title: The Monday AfterAuthor: Lazaefair
Fandom: Samurai Champloo
Pairing: Mugen/Yatsuha
Table Prompt: Restaurant
Warning: Violence, crude language, half-hearted attempts to evoke Douglas Adams' writing style
1.
If this was a television show, the camera would linger briefly on the shadows just on the edges of the teahouse, the corners where shadowy strangers sit wrapped in shadows observing hapless people. The camera would focus on one particular corner just long enough for the viewer to discern a shadowy figure crouched there, long enough to raise the suspense, right before cutting to some hopelessly mundane scene, like that of a gangly young man pouring stupefyingly large amounts of alcohol into his face, for example, to reinforce the sense that There Is Something Afoot.
Except, of course, this is not a television show. This is Mugen's life, and he would quite a bit of offense were anyone to suggest that he is merely a fictional construct created for the entertainment of a vast, faceless audience that makes a habit of sitting in front of boxes with flickering screens every Tuesday at 11, or whenever the television channel gods deem appropriate.
Not that Mugen ever thinks about improbable scenarios like these. Figment of anyone's imagination or not, he has his definite preferences for thinking material, among which include sex, violence, and pouring stupefyingly large amounts of alcohol into his face - the other customers in the teahouse sat slightly poleaxed at the display. If there had been a camera, it would have flashed back to the shadowy stranger, who smiled with sparkling white teeth. Or...anyway, Mugen finished his sake in short order, wiped his mouth, and kicked his chair over when he staggered up to leave.
The server gestured at him frantically. Mugen failed to raise a scarred eyebrow in sardonic questioning, or drawl a scathingly superior reply, or indeed evince any kind of recognition of the gesture at all and instead lurched quickly towards the door. Whereupon one of the teahouse bodyguards, who doubled in his spare time as the owner's hulking son, appeared out of nowhere and tackled him, shouting something about "dine and dash." Mugen dove out of the way and into a long table, upsetting the drinks and the customers, some of whom continued the trend of diving out of the way in the true fashion of seasoned teahouse veterans, but many more apparently felt the need to defend their outraged drinks, and waded into the brawl.
Mugen drew his sword and started lopping limbs (and heads), like so many dollies in the hands of a gleeful, sadistic child. The shadowy stranger moved up into the ceiling to better watch and avoid being jostled. The ceiling might have been rather odd choice of locale, but ninjas are like that.
2.
"I see you don't need your friends to burn a teahouse down."
"Hey! Where do you get off...who the fuck are you?"
"Do you have any idea how hard it is to track one person down?" The stranger sounded disgusted. "You'd think the infamous Ryukyu criminal would be easy to find, but no. Hey! Watch where you wave that thing!"
He grinned. "Funny, women keep saying that." He waved the sword, she dodged. "You are a woman, right?"
"What, did the enormous tits tip you off?" The stranger's breasts were, in fact, not any particular size to brag about, though it was hard to tell through the dim streetlights and the unisex black clothing she wore what size they really were. Mugen pointedly leered at them anyway.
She had a knife out now. Which really isn't much help against a sword, unless...
"Ninja, huh?"
"What, did the mysterious black hood tip you off?" She was weaving erratically now, still dodging and trying to stab him with precise grace, though usually as far as Mugen was concerned, stabbing was stabbing and he didn't give a fuck-all about grace. Anyway, she was good, but still at a serious disadvantage, and soon the knife dropped and the sword dropped and he had her pinned to a wall by her wrists.
The ninja swore and struggled, but they both knew it was futile, which seemed to infuriate her more. "Fuck…fuck! I'm supposed to marry you, not fight you again!" She kicked at his shins.
"Huh...what?" Mugen absently moved a leg to avoid the kicks, being more occupied by the ninja's inexplicable statement. Something Is Afoot, he might have thought, but he was getting distracted by her breasts and the nice, clean sweat scent he could smell on her (nobody said Mugen was dainty in his tastes).
"Um...look, naked chick over there!"
In a move that Mugen would richly regret later - five seconds later, in fact - he turned and looked. The ninja kicked him very soundly in the nuts. The non-existent camera zoomed in on Mugen's agonized face.
It was a strange way to begin a courtship, though most would hesitate to apply the term 'courtship' to Mugen and Yatsuha. But then, this isn't a television show, so it's not like there was an audience to cheer when memory finally bashed Mugen over the head and he went hunting for the kiss he didn't get the first time around.