Disclaimer: I don't own Samurai Champloo or any of its affiliated characters, which belong to Manglobe/Shimoigusa Champloos; neither do I make any profit from this work of fanfiction.

A/N: Part of the I'm roughly translating meiyo as 'honor', or 'glory'.

Written for barbaraa on LJ.

Meiyo

Jin is twenty and it's absurd, ridiculous, that he doesn't know enough of how the way the world is put together to be able to take the pieces of his life and make it into a whole.

(He wonders if there was a time his shishou told them how to do this and he missed it because he was practicing his kenjutsu.)

It seems like it should be easy enough — even he knew that Fuu's life wasn't going to be any better when she found the sunflower samurai, whatever the emptiness in her that she wanted to fill with revenge, she's not built for this much anger and he worries she's going to be as dead as he is now that she is there and he tries to warn her as best he can — but it's not, and then it seems like it's only easier when it's the way the world is put together for anyone not him.

(He knows Mugen is made entirely of broken parts, sharp edges rubbing together as the man strides through life; it's surprising — except not really — that he's cut none of them to pieces over the weeks.)

It's frightening because without them, he is nothing, and now that it's all over, he doesn't know what he's going to do. There could be other people who might need him, he supposes, but it's impossible that anyone would ever need as much as they did.

(The temptation is almost overwhelming, then, when he sees her add her unfinished rice to the other man's bowl; when she picks her way through a few bites before her chopsticks slow, her eyes gone to ashes, he wants to pick up where they left off in looking after her. But that time is finished and looking at the other man, he sees that he knows that too.)

What now, Mugen asks him, one afternoon as they watch her through the doorway as she talks to her father's old servant.

I don't know. What we did before, I suppose.

There is a snort. Don't know about you, but I wasn't doing anything. You gonna go back to nothing?

She hardly needs us.

So, we just leave her here?

There is of course no answer for this, and after a moment, Mugen makes a noise of annoyance and walks out into the sun where they are.

(Jin wonders when honor stopped being an answer and became a question instead.)