Happy

Happy

Growing up Mugen knew words
like hunger, fear, and alone. As a teenager
lust and survive were words he became intimately
familiar with. A thief in the Ryukyu Islands didn't need a large
vocabulary.

He threw around profanities
like fists to accompany the thrusts of his sword. He let them know
that he was no one to be messed with. He let his fighting speak for
him, always impressed with how articulate a knife through the gut
could be. Violence didn't need as many words as peacefulness seemed
to. He never understood the need for idle chatter when there was
nobody to kill or rob. Those times were better used for drinking and
fucking.

Women were another story
altogether. Words seemed to be the only thing that could help him,
aside from his charm and roguish good looks, of course. He could
spew beautiful lies about a woman and use whispers and quiet
encouragement like soft weapons. The vocabulary required to fuck was
what he referred to as The Other Side of the Sword.

Fuu and Jin forced him to
talk. Especially her. All she did was rattle on and on about
sunflowers and samurai and food. His interest would peak at the
mention of anything edible, but he'd zone back out when he'd realize
she was just reminiscing again. His replies to her many questions
about his past were obviously unsatisfactory. He was a thief, not
and idiot. He could tell when she asked the same thing twice but
reworded her query. He foolishly did not think before he spoke with
her, often resulting in arguments and her calling him a jerk and
stomping off. But there were a few times when something he would say
would make her eyes all shiny and turn her cheeks pink. Times when
something he would say would actually make her silent. Try as he
might, he could never pinpoint what it was that caused this reaction.

After a while, he grew
accustomed to her rambling, even missing it when she was off doing
whatever (usually getting herself kidnapped). He'd learned many new
words from her about feelings and emotions. None of which he'd ever
utter aloud, but it helped him understand her better if he knew what
the hell she was going on about. When he bothered to listen, that
is.

Jin was the loudest quiet
person he'd ever met. Polishing his sword by the campfire, Jin would
look at him and silently talk a blue streak. Mugen's eyebrows would
furrow and he would feel his eyes crossing as he would concentrate on
deciphering the ronin's unspoken words. During their travels Mugen
became an expert at understanding which sighs meant that Jin was
annoyed but wasn't going to do anything other than sigh loudly, and
which sighs meant that Mugen had better duck if he wanted to keep his
head. The 'hm's' and 'mm's' and 'hn's' that were the most common
form of communication that Jin offered (to Mugen, at least) often
left him shaking his head and doing his own thing, regardless of what
Jin had just hummed about.

It wasn't long- quicker than
he'd like to admit- that Mugen spoke fluent Jin and Fuu. In the
beginning he'd picked up patience and share. Goodbye
was a word he was too familiar with but he refused to let it be part
of his FuuJin Dictionary. So in the end, as they parted ways, he
whispered his newest words like a mantra; trust and
friends.

Days later, sitting at a bar
muttering drunken slurs under his breath Mugen realized they had a
word. One word, one syllable, one word that he could actually read
and write. One small word that was a summation of his time with
them. Happy.