KINTSUGI ⊳jin sakai x yuna

にじゅうご (twenty five)

It's noon, leaves are falling all around him, and the familiar breeze is nowhere to be felt. Everything seems suspiciously quiet. Jin still can't bring himself to trust the silence.

"The boy's still asleep, isn't he?"

Yuna's voice disrupts the tranquility, and causes him to look up from the bowl of tea in his hands. He gives her a quick nod.

"He must be catching up to months, if not years of restless nights," Jin says. Benjiro should take advantage of his own fatigue while he still can; it doesn't do much for Jin's nightmares anymore. Even tiredness has its limits when it comes to keeping certain demons away.

Yuna hums affirmatively at his words, moving to sit down beside him. In her hands, she holds what looks like a old, worn roll of leather.

Stroking her thumb over its surface, she smiles. "I remember how Taka slept after we escaped from the farmstead. He could barely walk after midnight. I found an old, abandoned shack like this one, somewhere in old Yarikawa. The moment he laid down, he was out. I couldn't wake him until the next day's sundown."

In Jin's mind, her monologue only brings up another question. Is she going back into the slave camp not only for herself, but for Taka?

Facing one's own fears and mental scars not just for oneself, but to honor someone you hold dear is, in Jin's eyes, the absolute height of nobleness.

Which only makes himself look worse in his own eyes.

What had he done to honor his uncle? Yuna had given Taka a burial, and is planning on going back to the place that had haunted their nightmares to put an end to it. What had he done all this time, except for a succession of running and hiding? How will he ever keep his final promise to Shimura, how will he ever make sure his uncle is remembered, if Jin himself is a Ghost? Metaphorically before, and almost hauntingly literal way.

Yuna must have sensed the turmoil within him, she clears her throat to gain his attention.

"You should get some sleep too, Jin." She advises. "We'll attack after midnight, you'll need it."

Sitting cross-legged at his side, she's carefully unrolling the sheet of leather she had been holding, which contains a few tools: a needle, a pair of tweezers, a small pair of scissors, and a thread.

"What will you do?" He asks instead, then looks towards the shack. There's only one mat left, and she doesn't look like she's planning on catching some sleep.

"Removing the stitches on my wound, and then I'll see."

"Where did you get those tools?"

"A long time ago. Taka made them for me." She tells him. "He had just finished his apprenticeship, and wanted to try his hand at smaller tools too, not only weapons or armor."

Indeed, in spite of the small scratches on the metal that attest to years upon years of use, the scissors and the tweezers look undoubtedly well-crafted.

"Had you left these in Jogaku with our other things before I had gone to meet my uncle?" He asks, and she shakes her head no.

"I always keep them with me, just in case." When Yuna catches a glimpse of his questioning expression, she continues. "If you're wondering why I didn't stitch you up back when I had just found you, it's because it was an arrow wound, and also on top of bone. I'm not that good of a healer."

"It mended just fine." Jin assures, then lifts the hem of his kimono to peek at his shoulder, as if to confirm his statement. There's still a small scab left, and the skin around it does show signs of a scar. Luckily, mobility in his shoulder had remained mostly intact. But that's not what he had been curious about.