Stars and Surface
Samurai Champloo, Jin/Mugen, modern!au they are Fuu's bodyguards
Jin scans the room – his gaze settling on nothing, yet roving for a threat - his skin feels as if it's itchy, and he just wants Fuu out of here, but he lets nothing of his feelings seep to the surface. Of so he thinks, because there is a hand on his shoulder and Jin flinches for he had not noticed someone approaching from behind him – Fuu takes the seat against the wall, and there is no other place for him that would be seemly, save on the other side of her, his back to the room at large but his eye on the kitchen and the only public way out.
"Easy samurai…." Mugen purrs, and warm breath tingles the skin of his neck, and it's as if Jin has been given permission to breath, to relax, simply because of the reckless Mugen who thirsts for his blood, his death, yet is noble in his own right, holding his promises as sacred as Jin.
Mugen pays no mind to proper sitting, plopping right down beside Fuu and making room for himself at her side. Fuu only laughs at his outrageous behavior which is his norm, and the eager reporters flash their cameras and blab out questions; they expect Fuu to hear everyone of them, Fuu might not – but Jin hears a few that catch his ear.
"Miss Fuu, how successful do you feel your latest film will be?" It's in the standard range, but Jin lowers his eyes so they will not see his ire at how pressured Fuu must feel every time someone feels they must bring it up – the film failing or succeeding is not on Fuu's shoulders alone, though the reporters are certainly convinced of it – that is why Fuu needs them, she has the tendency to find trouble and the amount she has been kidnapped has been significantly reduced since Mugen and Jin had joined at her side in traveling with her tours.
"Fuu, the people need to know! Are you and Mugen in a relationship? He certainly is very friendly with you!" Jin's fingers tighten around his fork, and he wants to hiss, because Mugen is his – his partner, his lover, and they only follow Fuu because she is their cover, and as she is how they met in the first place – their friend.
"Fuu! Are your bodyguards your lovers?" Jin's lip twists, because Mugen is not overly friendly with anyone – he bitches and moans with them, even, but he is touch starved too – he touches Fuu anytime in public, not giving a damn, but when it's just Jin and him following after Fuu, Mugen's fingers reach to touch his, and they brush shoulders and arms as much as Jin allows, for Jin loathes touch, for it sends him on edge and into distraction quickest, there is no other's touch that he is more sensitive and attuned to wanting then Mugen.
Still, they are close to –if not the truth, a truth- and he does not like it. Jin only has to look at them for them to settle, Mugen snickers his open amusement at their stillness with his partner's glance, his arm slinging around the starlets shoulder at his side, he whispers something the reporters won't hear, but Jin will.
"We need to get out of here. I shouldn't have left Jin alone." Jin lowers his eyes and presses his lips into a narrow line, he should not be so obvious to anyone, but somehow only Mugen sees through his mask and it does not bother him as much as it should. Mugen was raised on the streets among the most criminal of people – prostitutes, thieves, murderers, and worse, and only his will to live and survive is all that has kept him alive until now, Jin has never been more grateful for that – without Mugen he would be alone, friendless, and without his lover.
Jin was raised without love of family or friends, for all that he was taught skills and excelled in them, and it was not enough to make him a whole person without Mugen. Fuu nods, smiling, as if Mugen has said something kind and romantic to her, which, in a way, Jin supposes Mugen has – though his words are for Jin. Not even Jin knows Mugen the way Fuu does, for it was Fuu who saved Mugen from the streets long before Jin took this job beside Mugen, just to be with him when Jin had been sure –like these people and their papers - that Mugen was her lover.
"The movie will be seen by the people who will decide if it is of worth, of course, and Mugen means much to me, having once saved me from kidnappers in want of a ransom they never got thanks to him – he is the white knight he pretends not to be, and I will always be in his debt – and no proper girl kisses and tells, ladies and gentlemen!" It is enough of an answer to keep the rumor mills going and not enough of an answer that Fuu will still be seen as she always has been. She thanks them for joining her in a meal, pays for it all - and then leaves with Mugen and Jin trailing after, and it is only when they are in the limo with tinted windows that Mugen is in Jin's lap and kissing him, soothing his nerves in the only way that Mugen can.
What the reporters do not know is that Mugen wrote Sunflower Samurai, the movie Fuu co-stars in, it's a movie about two male lovers traveling in the Edo Era with a girl searching for her father – Jin thinks that Mugen can be too obvious, but no one else save Fuu even suspects.