KINTSUGI ⊳jin sakai x yuna

じゅうしち (seventeen)

He barely sleeps that night. Short-lived nightmares haunt him throughout it all, the kind of dreams that make him jump back into consciousness after a scarce few minutes of rest. In spite of the effect fatigue usually has on him, guilt finds ways to taunt him even in his sleep. Jin could probably call himself an idiot if he tried to recall any of his dreams, so he doesn't even try.

Instead, he tries to think of the nightmares as his good conscience, dragging him out of sleep when he's at the risk of being too far gone. Every time he wakes up, Jin ignores the guilt weighing down on his chest, and listens for Yuna's breath until he's lulled back to sleep by its continuity.

It's moments like these when he starts to think that he was never meant to carry so much guilt, so much sorrow, so much pain. It happens subconsciously, and sometimes, just sometimes, he wants to be selfish. He wants to be held gently, to be told that there is still something left to salvage among the pieces that make him, and he aches to revel in the warm touch of a lover that means it.

He shuts those thoughts down as quickly as they appear. Jin knows that thinking about affection will only leave him aching more once he stops and realizes that it's nowhere to be found except for his own mind. That's one part of the samurai code that he still lives by — putting the persistent longing back to sleep, and being ready to repress it when it returns.

What unfortunately can never be ignored is an impending sense of doom. Every exhale of Yuna's seems so fragile to him that he fears it might be the last, and every intake of breath proves him wrong. It's a back and forth of relief and remorse that seems to leave him even more tired than hours of riding through snow.

A thump against one of the shoji doors has Jin sure he's had another nightmare again, but as his gaze finds the ceiling, he's proven wrong.

"Lord Sakai? Are you awake?"

Judging by the voice it's Kenji, undoubtedly. With a sigh, Jun rubs at his eyes, then rasps a groggy: "Yes."

"May I come in?"

"Wait."

Becoming hyper-aware of the fact that, throughout the night, Jin had nestled closer to Yuna than what would be appropriate through the eyes of a bystander, he shifts away from her. He's barely in his hakama and she's almost naked under the blanket — it's a good thing Kenji has the manners to not barge in without permission.

Jin readjusts the blanket they had shared and makes sure it covers as much of Yuna as possible. There's nothing inherently wrong about the fact that he had slept right beside her, and yet, even though perversion was far from being his motive, Jin feels awkward about it.

He makes his way over to where he had discarded his kimono last night, with the intention of getting dressed. No such luck — it's in desperate need of stitches, and proper washing. Not only yesterday's blood, but also much older, red-brown stains are visible. At least he was wise enough to not take his immaculate white kimono with him. That one would have proven to be a challenge to restore.

While he folds the kimono into a neat square, the image of blood on white fabric persists in his mind's eye. It's strikingly familiar, and out of nowhere, his ribcage feels like it's far too small for his lungs.

Shimura's kimono had been white the day he had killed him. It's a detail that he hadn't even bothered to recall until this moment.

It was white, undoubtedly. The color of purity, of fairness, and of death. Honorable until the very end, but once stained, never as immaculate as before. Jin sits down beside the kimono he had folded, legs crossed, mind racing. He can't tell when exactly his heart started to ache, the pain in the middle of his chest seems to have been there for a lifetime.