Sashiko: The Darkest Timeline

[specialguestvillains]

Jigen's right arm ached, and that meant the weather was about to go sour.

Granted, it always ached, but it was aching in a very specific way right now, and also it was January in Paris so the weather was going to get fucked eventually. Everyone gave charitably around Christmas, but as soon as it flipped around to January 2 all that goodwill towards men dried up and the weather was even colder than before.

Jigen took up his usual position near the cafe and watched the patrons stroll by, eying them up to see who looked like a big spender. Men with dates sometimes liked to impress their girls, as did bachelorette parties. People on the way back from soccer matches were charitable, but only if their team won, and if they hadn't they had the risk of being mean drunks. Sometimes they'd be mean drunks anyway.

Okay, guy in a blue blazer, looked like a tourist from the back.

"Hey, buddy. Spare some change?" he mumbled, the phrase coming more naturally than most of his French. He said it enough these days for it to be nearly rote. The man turned and Jigen found himself unable to look the man in the face. Something about his pose said horror, maybe even disgust. He didn't have the energy to deal with that bullshit today.

"Don't worry about it," he said before the tourist could even speak, and turned around to trod off again. The battered hat he'd been using as a money bucket went back on his head. Behind him, he heard the man slowly back away. By the time Jigen looked at him again, the man in blue had run off into the crowd.

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[artoflaw]

There's another weary man in the crowd, but he has a full belly and a theromos full of coffee. He watches the man -- the blue jacket had caught his attention, but it was the the stumbling vagrant that held it. He watched from his seat at the cafe, before he flagged down the waitress and put in a second order.

Once he was done eating, he followed the path he'd seen the man wend his way through the crowd. A battered fellow with an unkempt beard? It stood out. He caught a glance of him, finally, taking up a spot near another bar, leaning and looking like he'd been sleeping rough for years. The glimpse of the cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass promised he hadn't had a proper meat in days. The thickness in the middle said most of what he got went to booze, putting on empty calorie carb fat even when times were lean.

"Hey," he he said, before he proffered two things: a new stainless steel thermos full of coffee, and a bag of sandwiches and waterbottles. "Can't give you money, but I can buy you a meal."

Or three.

[specialguestvillains]

Jigen went to bed and woke up with his face wet. So much for dreamless sleep. He didn't mind nightmares, you at least felt grateful to be awake once you came out of those. The dreams were so much worse because he woke up feeling unbearably, painfully, empty. The feeling that something was missing - lost, stolen, cut out with a knife - lingered after rousing, sometimes for hours. He didn't always remember what the dreams were but sometimes they felt more real than the world around him. Certainly they were always more beautiful.

This one...he'd been in a car, driving over a bridge somewhere in San Francisco, and the man had leaned over to light his cigarette

He lay still for a while, wondering if he'd woken his host up, until the sun rose enough to illuminate a note left on the coffee table.

Sorry. Work called me in early.

There were arrows directing him to the location of food, as if the fridge and coffeemaker were hard to find, and a spare room key taped to the paper. Jigen, again, considered whether he should just rob the place and get out, and what kind of idiot left a complete stranger alone in his hotel room. Idiot, or lunatic, or malevolant entity.

Still, robbing the guy just felt mean. And it was below freezing outside. Jigen lay on the couch for a while, idly watching tv and sipping coffee.

The dreams weren't too bad for the next few days. Barely a dull ache, sometimes not even there at all. Zenigata was always chatty when he came home but never about anything relevant. He seemed to want to just fill the air with chatter, any kind at all, to drown out...silence, maybe.

For his part, Jigen said nothing about his past beyond when he started living on the streets of Paris. No reason to ruin a good thing before its time, and eventually Zenigata would have to wise up and kick him out.

Eventually.