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“A true samurai needs no clothes.” Jin uttered with the confidence and finality that could only come from too much sake. Kenji’s face went scarlet as he tried to breathe in between his own drunken laughter.
It had been two weeks since Jin returned from facing his Uncle, and Yuna had been trying to break through his emotional defenses the whole time. Stubborn man. She knew he needed time to process everything that had happened, but it didn’t stop her from worrying. Kenji had even picked up on her mood which led to him suggesting a night of drinking.
“Is that true?“ Norio was looking at Jin innocently, and Yuna’s mouth fell open in disbelief at the gullible monk. She promptly pounded Kenji’s back in an attempt to get air back into his lungs. He had slid down the log he was sitting on and was desperately clutching at the soft bark with tears streaming down his face.
Jin shot Kenji an indignant look and staggered to his feet, slurring. “Of course...of course it is!” He started untying the first two straps of his hakama and simultaneously tried to kick off his sandals. “Norio! Come! Grab a bow, you’ll see what I mean”
Yuna couldn’t take her eyes off of Jin as each passing second revealed more of his lithe figure. She heard Kenji laughing distantly, faintly, in the background. She followed Jin’s hands as he shrugged out of the top half of his clothes until he paused at his waist to shout something at Norio. He was loose-limbed in his drunkenness, surprisingly graceful, and now she could see exactly how the muscles in his abdomen flexed when he moved. Kenji coughed loudly and color flushed high on her cheeks at being caught out.
“Jin huh? ‘bout time you did something about that, Yuna.” Kenji’s voice was a teasing whisper, but when she turned to him the sharp rebuttal she'd readied died when she met his eyes—he was looking at her with a seriousness she rarely saw on him.
“What….” She startled as a nearly naked Norio and Jin sprinted off with two bows and a quiver of arrows between the two of them towards the small grove of trees nearby; both were clad only in their fundoshi. Kenji was giggling as he took another pull from his gourd. She shook her head and laughed at the ridiculousness of it all.
Kenji got to his knees and used the log as a crutch to maneuver into a standing position steadying himself with Yuna's shoulder. The relief she'd felt when she thought their conversation was over slipped into the night with his words. “Taka would be happy, you know. He wasn’t blind.” He handed her his gourd—what little was left—and heaved a sigh. “We all have to move forward, might as well find a bit of peace while we do it.” Yuna swallowed heavily, she couldn’t bring herself to respond quite yet so she knocked back the last of the sake. They both heard ecstatic shouting from the grove of trees Jin and Norio fled to.
“Come on then, Kenji. Let’s go make sure our friends don’t shoot each other in the dark.”
“You sure you can handle a naked ghost?”
She rolled her eyes. “You sure you can handle a naked monk?”
---
The next morning saw the return of Lady Masako and Ishikawa to the camp. Ishikawa gazed in horror around the site. A troubling amount of arrows littered the ground while...was that a quiver hanging from that tree branch?!
He heard Masako snort and followed her line of sight to the campfire where their compatriots were draped in various positions of drunken slumber. What he assumed were empty gourds of alcohol were everywhere. He was shaking with anger, until Masako clapped his back.
“Let the children sleep.”
He sputtered indignantly while she went about her business.