Disclaimer: Not mine!

Clean Clothes

Shunrei hangs her laundry on the line. She is always doing laundry. She smiles more now, after Gojyo and the others. She smiles instead of crying. Pretty girls shouldn't cry, Gojyo said. And after Jien, he was the happiest memory she had.

A sheet catches the wind, flies away from her, she frowns, runs to catch it. It catches on a tree branch and tries to pull it down. She will have to wash it again, but that is ok. The sheet is stuck, and it won't come down. She pulls harder, and suddenly, it is down, as if someone had helped her…

She turns around, to thank the person who helped her.

Shunrei gasps. It can't be, he left, it can't be him. The sheet falls to the dusty ground, forgotten. Jien. Eyes wide, she touches his face, a face that is familiar and different at the same time. He is real, solid against her hand. She hugs him, laughing and crying all at once.

Jien came back, she knew he would, she always knew he would. He was ragged and dirty and scarred, but he was here and he was back. His clothes were little more than rags, and were stained, but it didn't matter. She had faithfully washed his clothes all these years; he would always have clean clothes, always. Jien, startled a moment, swayed. Then he hugged her back, hard and sad. He, too, is smiling and laughing and crying all at once.

She never thought she would see him again. She had hoped, and she had wished, but after several years it become a hopeless hope, something she wanted so badly but didn't think would ever happen.

Jien cries. He never wanted to leave, but he felt the change, and he would never hurt Shunrei, not his Shunrei, and not the villagers. Better to leave them safe than to kill them all and to see their faces when they realized he had betrayed them. He had been crazy over the years, had killed many, but he never stopped thinking about Shunrei. He had thought that she would have forgotten him while he was gone, had moved on rather than remember that she used to love a youkai. He had returned though, to see her, to see what she was doing with her life, and had met Pin. The old woman had cried too, had told him that Shunrei had never forgotten him, washed his clothes every day, and that if he didn't go see Shunrei right now, she would make sure he never walked again.

Jien smiles at the thought, buries his face in Shunrei's hair. She smells clean, not like he does. He knows he smells terrible, like blood and sewage and sweat, but she is still hugging him. And that makes him the happiest man in the world.

Shunei breaks away and kisses him, as if he had never been away at all.

"Come Jien, I have some clean clothes for you."