Business as Usual, XXIII
by Laura Bryannan

Jin refused! Mugen couldn't believe it.

“I'll cut you, but only if you choose something else,” he argued.

“Why not a pinwheel?”

“It's difficult to explain.”

Jin looked so guilty and uncomfortable, it made Mugen even more determined. “That or nothing,” he declared.

“Nothing, then.”

“Nope, that.”

“Why would you want a mark that means nothing to you?”

“It does mean something to me,” Mugen insisted. “It obviously means a hell of a lot to you, so that's why it's important to me.” Jin's resistance meant the mark would lose some of its power if it was shared, so that's exactly what Mugen wanted. He needed to steal that energy, diffuse it and claim what he could for himself.

“That's ridiculous,” Jin stated.

Mugen folded his arms across his chest, scowling back. “You either cut it on me or tell me why you can't.”

Jin growled, eyes angry, clearly unwilling to do either. Mugen was amazed. He'd asked for the mark as a game, to catch a little buzz and match Jin's energy, but Jin's response made it something else. Now it was serious, a Must Be. He decided some wheedling was in order.

“Look, I know you didn't wake up yesterday and decide to put this mark on yourself, you're just making the best of a bad situation. But you got that cutting cuz of me and I feel bad about it, so I want one too, on my ass in the same place you've got my name inked on yours. I don't know what it means to you, but it will mean its own thing to me cuz you got one too. Just do it, K?”

Mugen hoped his face didn't register any triumph when Jin's frown softened a fraction and the flashing gray eyes retreated into their usual thoughtful outlook. “All right, I'll do it." He sighed and shook his head ruefully. "Get me a marker so I can draw it first.”

And thus it was accomplished, on the bed with a few towels under his hips, and Mugen always wondered whether the time and care Jin took in creating the design was his way of getting him back for the request. Eight cuts. Shit! By the time Jin was finished Mugen was sweaty with the strain of holding himself silent and still.

“Sorry if I don't leap to drink your blood,” Jin opined dryly, bandaging the wounds.

“Mine's not good enough for you, huh?” Mugen laughed, definitely feeling endorphin drunk...and other things. Rising up on his knees, head still resting on the mattress, he stretched languidly like a cat. “How 'bout you kiss my ass instead?”

Jin snorted, but gentle fingers parted his cheeks and a warm, expert tongue delved, causing the purrs to erupt of their own accord. By the time that burn was quenched by something harder, slicked in coolness, there was only sensation remaining—the pain of Jin's teeth in his shoulder and his hips raking against the raw wound, the pleasure of being filled, stroked, and encouraged with indecent and flattering words.

The fiery sting of the knife had gone straight to his heart, and the current impalement was deepening and widening that wound. He could feel something dripping on his shoulders and didn't know if it was Jin's sweat or blood, but he could taste it in his mouth still, the scarlet pounding in his ears and obliterating his brain when the orgasm finally overwhelmed him.

“And you thought you weren't going to take it tonight,” a deep voice whispered later, apparently attached to the sheltering arms and cozy body curled around him.

Mugen had to gather a few brain cells before he could respond. “I'm always gonna want what you got to give, pretty boy.”

Jin sighed, kissing the back of his neck. “It's all yours...um...except when I need it.”

Mugen smiled, liking the sound of that. “You know the score,” he began. Intending to say something else but feeling sleepily impish, he was chuckling before he finished his sentence, “Spike'll put it to Ishida any time.”

He was still chuckling when his ass hit the floor.

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Jin walked into work smiling Thursday morning and his crew breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“You're looking like yourself again,” Yuki noted with satisfaction as he entered their office. “Mugen must have taken good care of you last night.”

“Yes he did,” Jin replied, sitting at his desk. “Tell me about Manhattan.”

Yuki's eyes shone. “It's something else, Jin! Crazy like Tokyo but...um...American. Okay, that's lame, but it's like nowhere I've ever been so I really don't know how to describe it. I wish we could have stayed longer, I barely got started and it was time to come home.”

“I'm glad you enjoyed yourself so much.” Jin arched a brow at the prominent bruise still gracing Yuki's neck.

His ex giggled, unconsciously raising a hand to rub there, but then his expression grew serious. “You really don't mind that I went?”

“No, of course not!” Jin replied sincerely. “I'm happy you had a chance to go...and keep an eye on Mugen for me.”

“Well, for your information, he didn't need any minding,” Yuki confided. “He was pretty much a wet blanket the whole time. Maybe he was missing someone.”

Jin liked the sound of that. A lot. But he decided it would be rude to gloat and changed the subject. “Life's not going to be the same after today,” he noted. “Fuu arrives tomorrow morning.”

Yuki harrumphed. “Why should your life change?” His ex gave him a pointed glance, but Yuki did not back down. “I don't get it, Jin, I just don't get it. Are you going to screw up your thing with Mugen for her?”

“I hope not.”

“Well, just remember who's waiting in the wings, mister,” he warned. “If Mugen turns to me because you're acting the fool with Fuu, I'm going to go for it.”

“I don't intend to act the fool.”

Yuki smirked, knowingly. “Your track record with the fairer sex is crap, so I've definitely got a shot.”

Even though he knew Yuki's teasing was good-natured, it still rankled, probably because he spoke the truth. Jin stood and approached his VP's desk, leaning near. “You keep your nose out of my love life, Yuki-kun,” he whispered, nuzzling then biting the bruise on the elegant neck, “and I'll keep my nose out of yours.”

Yuki hissed and Jin backed away, thunderclouds gathering, daring him to say more. Knowing he was treading in dangerous water, Yuki wisely chose to remain silent, holding up a printout brightly. “See, I'm working now. Paying bills, paying bills...don't mind me.” And with that he turned his back on his boss and began typing up an invoice, hoping the storm would pass. It did.

The call came in right before closing. “Jin!” Fuu enthused, “I can't wait to see you.”

“I'm looking forward to it too,” he replied honestly. Fuu was the only female he'd ever met who'd made any sense to him, and it had been almost six months since he'd seen her.

“What's our schedule tomorrow?” she asked.

“I'll meet your plane and we'll get you settled,” Jin told her. “The room at the B&B is very nice and I think you'll like it. My sensei has invited us over for dinner tomorrow evening, so we need to be at the dojo at seven. Other than that, the day is yours, hime.”

Jin was looking forward to the meeting between Fuu and the twins, knowing they'd find her adorable but unable to predict what she would make of them. He'd spent a fair amount of time with Fuu last summer but had kept her segregated from the rest of his life, so he had no real idea how she interacted with anyone but himself. It suddenly dawned on him he'd never shared her with any other man before—Yuki and the children she knew in high school didn't count—and the ambivalence he felt about that confused him.

He told himself it would be a good thing, a way to test her to see if she would waver or remain true. Of course, these thoughts brought further ambivalence, as he was unsure why he should test her when he was certain...well, almost...that his future didn't include her. The entire matter made no sense at all.

His cell startled him out of his reverie, face flushing as he noted the ID, feeling as though he'd been caught cheating. “Hello, Mugen.”

“Come over tonight, K? I invited Yuki too.”

Jin wanted to beg off, considering how busy the next few days would be with Fuu in town. But Yuki could gossip way too much if the two of them were alone together all night, so he decided it would be wiser to be present.

Unfortunately, Yuki arrived at Mugen's place before he did, and there was no denying the cool wariness in his lover's eyes as they ate dinner in front of the TV. Jin wasn't angry at Yuki about it and that was strange. He felt...exhausted. The whole complicated mess seemed totally exhausting, and his heart simply shut down.

So perhaps it should not be surprising that he chose not to join them when first Mugen, and then Yuki, left the room without a word and did not return.

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The evening didn't go as Mugen expected, heading downhill the moment Yuki walked in the front door. “So, it looks like your competition is arriving tomorrow,” he announced, grinning.

“Say what?”

“Fuu,” Yuki told him. “You know, little miss I'll sleep on your couch...or not. Jin's taking the day off tomorrow to collect her from the airport.”

“He never said anything about it to me.”

“Well, he just mentioned it to me this morning, so don't sweat it. He's always sneaky about his private life, and about her in particular.”

“Why? Is she a dog or something?”

“No, she's cute enough, I suppose, if you go for that style of girl. I like 'em tall, curvy and experienced, and she's none of those. Plus she's always been a bossy brat, so I....” He smiled conspiratorially then sighed. “....should shut up. Who knows? Maybe you'll actually get to meet her.”

“Why wouldn't I meet her?”

Yuki laughed. “Didn't you hear what I said? He's always kept her close to his chest. She was here practically all last summer and he never brought her to work, never brought her to the dojo, he didn't introduce her to anyone.”

“Is he out to her?”

“I have no idea. But if I know Jin he won't willingly bring the two of you together.”

Thus forewarned, Mugen began to plot. And if he graced his lover with a certain coolness during dinner it wasn't because he was angry, but because he was thinking about the situation and working out possible solutions to the problem that was Jin and the girlfriend.

Mugen felt bad that he seemed distracted every time he fucked Yuki and, unfortunately, tonight was no different. When it became clear that Jin was not going to join them, half of his attention was on the livingroom, listening for the front door to slam. When it never came he was certain he'd simply missed it during a loud or impassioned moment, so he was surprised but grateful to find his lover sitting lotus, meditating on the couch an hour later.

Kneeling on the floor in front of him, he grasped the cool feet gently and waited for Jin to open his eyes. “So your lady's coming in tomorrow, huh?”

“Yes.”

“I wanna meet her. Lemmie take you guys out to lunch.”

“No.

It was galling but Yuki was right, Jin refused to allow it. “I'll introduce you eventually, Mugen, I promise. But I'm not going to shove you in her face on her first day here, so tomorrow cannot be.” There'd been no arguing with him either, and when Mugen continued to insist Jin had whipped himself out, grabbed him by the ears and occupied his mouth with more useful endeavors.

Even then, Mugen continued to scheme. The task didn't require much thought, after all. He decided that to approach Jin and Fuu alone would not be wise. It would appear too threatening and could possibly force Jin to out himself, so no go. He needed a ruse, a prestige, a plausibly innocuous scam that would keep the girl's guard down. In other words, he needed a woman by his side, and that meant Yatsuha.

He'd met her at sixteen, the moment he opened his eyes in the hospital after the Nakasone gang intervention. She'd been nineteen, a rookie just out of the police academy and one of the four officers dispatched to the scene when neighbors reported a gunshot. He'd given her a memorable but humiliating first impression—naked, unconscious, and bleeding from places you didn't want a good girl to think about, but that hadn't scared her off.

And Iga Yatsuha was nothing if not a good girl, which was why her interest in him while he was in the hospital was baffling, as she visited almost every day—at first, to take her reports, trying to get him to rat on Mukuro, but later just to hang. She called him to have lunch or coffee every so often after he got out, too, which continued to mystify, not that he was complaining since she was totally hot. Unfortunately she was a goddess, so resolutely virgin he'd never tried to bed her once and, of course, she'd never jumped him.

She was the woman he wanted on his arm at office parties, weddings and such, for she was respectable, funny and smart, and Kohza was...not. To become Yatsuha's mate, however, seemed an unattainable goal. She was older, intimadating and so focused on her career, it seemed too far fetched to imagine her as anything more than a great partner in crime when either of them had to attend boring office or family functions.

“Hey,” he began when she picked up. “I gotta favor to ask.”

“Another swanky lunch with your boss? The last one was fantastic, and you know I can look at Okuru-san all day!”

“Nope, sorry. I wanna spy on my lover.”

“O ho! Why are you spying on him?”

“He's meeting with this girl he's known since he was a kid and maybe she's gonna be trouble. I wanna stake out the scene, then possibly approach. I'm not sure. Wanna come, Ms. Almost Detective?”

“Sure, sounds right up my alley. I can split at noon for lunch. I'm in uniform, though, is that going to cause problems?”

“Nah, that'd be great, actually.”

And so it was arranged. Li-san had discovered through her uber-secretarial means which B&B near OU campus Seizou-san was rooming at. Mugen and Yatsuha camped out across the street and only had to wait ten minutes before Jin and the girl exited the building. Yatsuha moved to intercept, but he grabbed her arm. “Wait. I wanna check her out first.” Almost as if by request, Jin and Fuu stood on the stoop talking, her hand never leaving his elbow. The way Jin smiled at her twisted Mugen's stomach into knots.

She wore pink, that's what he noticed first. And not that garish, hot pink Kohza and the gang bitches would wear sometimes when they ventured out of their uniform black dreck, but a soft blossom pink that seemed delicate and innocent. And, to complete the virginal picture, she wore white bicycle shorts or tights under the mini sundress insuring no panties would ever see the light of day.

More cute than pretty, just as Yuki said, of undetermined height due to the platform sandals. Her hair was an interesting color, though, lighter than usual and not bleached to get that way. He couldn't tell how long it was because it was tied up and held in place by old-timey sticks girls hardly ever used anymore. She was wearing one of those girly backpacks, he could see the straps around her shoulders, but when she turned slightly his blood ran cold. Sticking out of one of the zippers was a pinwheel.

“Holy fuck!” he gasped.

“What's wrong?” Yatsuha asked.

“Uhhh, nothing,” he lied. The wound on his ass began to itch as if it were laughing at him. Thankfully Jin and Fuu started down the steps and his self-abuse fest had to end, as he and Yatsuha ducked through an alley so they could walk innocently down the street from the opposite direction. The shocked expression on Jin's face was almost worth the ongoing freakout he was experiencing.

“Mugen, what are you doing here?” Jin asked, not hiding his displeasure.

“Shopping,” said Yatsuha.

“Snooping,” said Mugen.

“We are?!?” Yatsuha squeaked. “Oh right, we're snooping.” She laughed and elbowed Mugen in the ribs. “I forgot who I'm dealing with here.”

“Snooping?” blinked Fuu, clearly confused by Jin's glower.

“I'm Ryu Mugen,” he ventured, bowing, “a friend of Jin's. This is Iga Yatsuha, a friend of mine. We were hoping to meet you but Jin wasn't sure you'd want to be social, so we were sneaking around instead.”

“Oh, that's just like him!” Fuu sighed. “I'm so glad you were persistent. We're heading out for lunch and it would be lovely to have company. Won't you join us?” She was even cuter close up, her eyes a sparkly, honey brown.

Mugen peeked at Jin and took a few daggers to the heart before turning back to the yummy peach. Smiling sincerely, he enthused, “Sure, that'd be great!”

to be continued