KINTSUGI ⊳jin sakai x yuna

にじゅうはち (twenty eight)

She hasn't said anything from the second they had stepped into the shack. Yuna lets go of his hand, remaining frozen in place, and Jin proceeds to do what he knows needs to be done while he lets her deal with her own emotions.

All is quiet while he rummages through the chest in the side of the room, then continues pacing around it. There's not much to be taken, aside from a bow, a quiver filled to the very brim with arrows, and a few dull knives. Jin figures he should also take two bowls with him since Benjiro and his brother will be staying with them for a little while longer.

"I think I've found everything there is to find here. We should go." He concludes, slinging both the bow and the quiver over his shoulder. Benjiro should get the bow, he thinks, but he'll talk about it with Yuna. Just as he's about to ask, Jin stops beside the exit and turns to glance over his shoulder. Yuna's nowhere close to him; she's still crouching beside the dead fire in the middle of the room, staring at the pot above it.

She's looked like this before. Not that she gets lost in her head as often as Jin does, but when Yuna does start to wander through her own thoughts for too long, he starts to get a sense of uneasiness. His best bet are the tactics she used when he was too far gone in his own head. A simple, soft question is usually just the right amount of grounding and gentle.

"Yuna? Is everything alright?"

She pauses for a few more seconds, but she's not emptily staring away anymore. Jin takes that as a small victory.

He quickly understands just how wrong he was about that assumption when she looks up at him for less than a heartbeat. Yuna's expression is gut-wrenching, and Jin starts to panic.

It's not his lack of experience when it comes to dealing with other people reliving some of the most awful parts of their lives, nor is it his lack of empathy. The problem is somewhere between his brain and his mouth, he feels what needs to be said to make things a little better, but sometimes, he has no idea how to translate it into words.

"This place smells the exact same," She tells him, voice a meek, strangled croak. Jin tries to hide the sigh of relief when she starts talking. "Like burnt wood, and sweat, and—" She exhales shakily, then buries her face in her palms. Jin can't tell if the sound she lets out is a sigh, or a whimper, but he knows he can't let Yuna go through this by herself.

He approaches her slowly, moving into a crouch once he reaches her side. "It may smell the same," He begins, pondering his words. "And some things may look the same, but nothing else is. You are not the same as the person you were all those years ago. And whatever happened here, it will not happen again."

She swallows, slowly lowering her hands. Her eyes fixate on the pot again; Jin wonders why. "For it to happen once was enough," She whispers, but she doesn't sound meek anymore. She sounds angry, spiteful. Her hands turn into fists, she frowns. "And when I got the chance to put an end to it, I didn't...I didn't face them, Jin. I made you do it, and ever since then I've felt like...such a coward." She spits out the last word like it burns her tongue, and Jin feels something in his heart clench.

It's vital, now more than ever, to help her understand that none of what happened is her fault, and that he wants to help, always has. Always will.

"I've never known higher honor than the one I experienced when you let me deliver your vengeance." Jin hesitates on whether he should touch her or not, he fears any kind of contact could bring back memories she doesn't want to recall, or worsen what she's already remembering. So he decides to just sit beside her crouching form, to be right there in case she needs physical contact to ground her, but still far enough to be cautious. "You are not a coward for not wanting to relive terrible things that happened to you. Sometimes surviving means...running from something. And that makes you no coward, Yuna."