KINTSUGI ⊳jin sakai x yuna

し (four)

Jin awakes from a dreamless slumber when he hears the old cabin floor creak. Instinctively, he reaches towards his hip, where his katana would normally be. He finds nothing but his half undone hakama.

"It's me." Yuna speaks up as she approaches Jin's makeshift bed. He notices her carrying a pot, a sack of rice and a few apples.

"You returned fast." Jin says, then corrects himself. "Or was I out for long?"

Yuna shrugs. "A few hours. Not more than half a day."

Better than Komoda beach, when he'd been out for a few days.

Jin yawns, back cracking as he slowly moves to sit up. The sun is high in the sky, he realizes. He wonders why it hasn't woken him up sooner.

There's a few stains of blood on Yuna's shirt, and it luckily doesn't seem to be hers.

"Where did you get the food and supplies?" Jin asks.

Yuna doesn't look at him, only drops the apples and rice beside him, then starts setting up the pot outside, near the hot spring. Jin hadn't realized that it was quite that close to the cabin.

Yuna has already gathered and stacked firewood, Jin notices. While not too long, he must've still been out for a considerable amount of time. It unsettles him, he feels particularly dependent and useless.

"The mongols at Mamushi farmstead had more than enough food to spare." She finally clarifies once she manages to start the fire. "The slaves might get in trouble for it, though."

"Don't worry." Jin says. "The second I can run again, I'll take care of them. And of all the other mongols left on this island."

"The ghost never sleeps."

"He just did." Jin states. Yuna huffs in amusement.

He can hear the clank of the metal pot as she pours rice inside it, then water on top. "I don't think he'll make a habit out of it," she argues, a smile somehow subtle, yet very much present in the tone of her voice.

Silence falls over the both of them.

It doesn't take long until he can hear the water start to boil, and Yuna begins stirring the rice every once in a while. It's a peaceful sight: the way her dark brown ponytail slightly sways with the wind; how she appears so lost in thoughts of her own.

Jin treasures those little moments, subconsciously crams them into some faraway corner of his mind. Watching Yuna do something so domestic evokes an emotion similar to petting a fox, running his hand through pampas grass, or drinking hot tea. The world seems to be slowing down, somehow at peace.

Feeling like his gaze has rested too much on her, Jin glances at the apples she had also brought with her.

Suddenly, he suffers a pang of conscience along with a realization.

"I'm sorry," Jin speaks up. Yuna turns to look at him over her shoulder, a brow raised questioningly. "You had to go back in there by yourself," he clarifies. "I should have done that. Not you."

"The Mamushi brothers are dead. And the mongols don't scare me." Yuna doesn't look up from the pot, apparently too focused on the rice. Her hair hides her expression.

"I understand." Jin clears his throat and moves to sit. He finds his kimono nearby, hung up to dry. Yuna must have washed it, he realizes once he slips it over his uninjured shoulder. The material is still slightly damp.

Once his kimono is put on properly and his hakama tied, he reaches up to his to undo his messy topknot. He cards his fingers through his hair, untangling the knots that have formed over the past few days.

Yuna enters the house, careful to step over the broken doorframe. She holds only one wooden bowl, which she places on the ground in front of him.

Jin frowns. "What will you be eating?"

"Don't worry about me," she says. "The rice is enough for the both of us, but I only found one bowl. I'll eat after you." She nudges his portion of food towards him when he makes no move to pick it up.

"I'm not hungry," he insists.

"Don't tell me I have to pour it down your throat myself."

That leaves nothing to be argued with.

Jin sighs. He picks up the bowl, albeit unwillingly, and starts eating.

It's just plain rice, but he can't remember the last time he had anything that could be considered a dish that took much effort to cook. Besides, he has never been the kind to have rigid preferences for food. As long as it's not rotten, it's good enough.

Yuna fetches an apple for herself, and unsheathes her knife to start cutting it into pieces.

The sound of a blade digging into fruit sounds only a little more rigid and less wet than siking a blade into human flesh, Jin thinks. For a second, he can feel the grip of his tanto in his fist, and remembers Lord Shimura.

He feels like he's about to throw up half the portion he's already gulped down. Gripping the bowl more tightly, Jin takes a deep breath to steady himself.

His mind is playing sadistic tricks on him. He needs to get it under control.

His throat feels like it's being tied into a knot. It doesn't matter what he focuses his glance on, all that he can think of is his uncle. The warm blood on his hands. His unmoving, expressionless face. The leaves.

Yuna puts down the blade, taking a bite from one of the pieces. "Is something wrong, Jin?"

He shakes his head no, closes his eyes, and brings the bowl to his lips again.

Hin finishes the portion quicker than he thought he would, though he barely feels different from before. There's still an empty pit in his stomach, right below his diaphragm. However the knot in his throat is gone, just like the nauseous feeling, and he feels like he can focus on his surroundings once again.

"Is it true that they serve fish and seafood at every meal in the castles and estates?" Yuna asks out of nowhere. Blinking, Jin frowns, looking at the empty bowl in his hands.

"I...don't know." He says. "Depends on the castle, and on the servants. Where did you hear that?"

"It's what my mother always used to say when we would have fish with rice." Yuna smiles fondly, yet her expression feels somehow bittersweet. "Taka loved it. I learned to fish just to see him smile after he would eat even the last crumb of rice on his plate."

Jin can't suppress a lopsided smile of his own.

"Who taught you?" he asks.

"A fisher that lived near us. He had a soft spot for me and Taka, since his wife and son had both died during childbirth. Before I he taught me to fish, he would give me and Taka the scraps of what he couldn't sell."

"Sounds like an honorable man." Jin says.  He holds out the empty bowl for Yuna, she takes it and walks over to the pot to refill it.

He hopes that one day, he will be able to think of kinder, brighter things when he thinks of Lord Shimura too. Right now, however, even taking his mind off of him proves to be difficult.

"Do you know how to fish?" Yuna asks as she sits down in front of him. She holds the rice bowl in one hand, and holds out an apple for Jin in the other.

"No." He says, waving off her offer at the same time. Still, she sets the apple down in front of him in case he changes his mind. "I would sometimes watch Taichi, one of the men at the Sakai estate fish, but I never asked to be taught."

"Would you like to learn?" Yuna is careful with her words, but they require no reading between the lines. He likes that about her.

Jin nods. "We can go tomorrow morning. We're not too far from the coast."

Yuna huffs. "You can barely stand, Jin."

"We can take the horses and ride slowly," he explains. "But you need to teach me how to make a fishing rod, too."

Yuna smiles. "And here I was, hoping to see you catch them with your bare hands."