A Name

By hye-kyo

Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply.

Author's Notes: Whoever finds my missing muse will get a reward, is what I want to say. But of course I can't. But I've said it anyway. Anyway, this is one very short one-shot. I was on my bed reading books when I noticed the kanji reviewer tacked on my wall. I was reminded that I have to take my grad school's language proficiency exam very soon.

I know I had been slacking. I just can't seem to get my rhythm back. I changed jobs the previous year and I think I left my muse hanging somewhere above my swivel chair at my last job. I'll be going back to that job this coming year and I'm hoping I'll get my muse once again as soon as I get my swivel back. Haha.

So this one-shot is...I don't know…it is some sort of writing exercise I think. An exercise on symbolisms I believe. Oh well, not really sure if you will understand what I'm trying to say here. But do read and review. And watch out for the continuation of the stories I have left hanging for the past year.

Title: A Name

Rating: K+

She had not really known how to write his name, for there were a hundred kanji read as ken and a hundred more for shin. But of course she knew the characters for the meaning of his name. She had seen his name printed on letters and papers before but had never really associated the strokes with the person. She was too preoccupied with the many things she thought she should learn first about him—his hobbies, his likes, his fears, his past—writing his name became the least of her priorities. He had not really divulged much about himself (even after five years of living together with him) and she had put it upon herself to do some sleuthing on her own to discover things which would make him more familiar to her. For a sense of familiarity brings some sort of sense of possession.

She had not really realized that the two kanji characters for his name meant sword and heart (she knew of course but it was some sort of a blurred knowledge if there was such thing, as if she would know if she were to try to recall it but the significance of knowing she did not really comprehend); it only registered to her when she thought he had forgotten to write down the strokes for field above the strokes for the second kanji of his first name; she thought she was going to write the character for to think (and idly she thought that kanji was read not as shin but shi). She had thought at first that the character for the mind suited him more, for he was rather the thinking type because he seemed to be always weighing the costs and benefits of things (including the costs and benefits of formalizing a relationship with her), but as she watched him slide the brush on paper to complete the character for heart, it gave her an odd sense of completion. Besides the other reading for the kanji for shin was kokoro which meant mind. So somehow, if she were to stretch it further, his name would mean both the heart and mind of sword. Fitting, yes.

Tae had come to ask them to register for a local lottery and had asked them to write their names on lottery stubs. It was only then that she had watched him write his own name down. She realized it was her first time clearly discerning which kanji he uses for his name, and the first she would see him write it down, and a queer feeling of possessiveness sprung in her throat and she had wanted to make him stop writing then—why should she and Tae share the same first? But she held her own childish feelings in check and watched in fascination the seemingly slow motions of his strokes. They were firm, but not automatic, as if his every stroke was calculated, precise and controlled. There was a strange feeling of tenderness in the pit of her stomach as she watched him make that last stroke on the right side of the character for shin, her heart rose to her throat as she held her breath. Complete.

Tae had then left, oblivious to the whole thought-process she had undergone. Why was she so affected by mere words? By a mere name? She had wanted to grab that sheet of paper to hide with her most important treasures but reason prevented her to. She had felt a little too insecure, a little too unsure. She had not known the single most basic thing about him and she claims to understand him the best!

She excused and secluded herself in her room until Kenshin came and knocked on her doors asking her to come out for dinner. She feigned sickness and told him to just let her rest.

She laid awake looking at the ceiling, counting on her fingers the bits of information about him she could claim only she knew. The slide of blankets echoed her sigh when she suddenly sat up as she realized there was none. She was as ignorant about him as the members of her makeshift family! And probably, more ignorant than, say, Sano. Could Sano know more about him than her? Perhaps, they were both males and there were things one could easily say to someone of one's own sex.

She could not really understand her feelings. She was feeling mad at herself for letting such an information slip past. Of course she had studied her kanji, and she of course had seen his name somewhere in Saito's records or on letters from Hiko so that she knew more or less how to write his name. It was just…it was just that when he wrote down his name, with those slow, long and careful strokes, the characters for his name seemed to have taken a new meaning, a meaning that went beyond the separate meanings of the characters to mold into something resembling him. And she wanted that paper containing that something resembling him; at least she could have him even just in paper.

"Are you alright Kaoru-dono?"

She had not really noticed him coming in, she had almost screamed if not for the lump of something in her throat preventing any sort of comprehensible sound. He was suddenly there, the back of his palms against her forehead, against her cheeks and she felt a flush coming to her face. "Kenshin?" she croaked, managing a sound at last.

"Your temperature is a bit high Kaoru-dono. Might you be running a fever?" he asked, his brows furrowing. He sat on the edge of her futon and she noted his other unoccupied hand settling too close beside her left hip, a rather becoming-familiar heat spreading from the point of contact on her hip and from her face where his other hand was. The heat settled on her belly and there was a slight humming in her body; she grew tense and a sweat broke on her forehead.

"You are sweating Kaoru-dono. Should we change your clothes?" there was concern in his eyes and the corners of his mouth set into a thin line, his brows still furrowed in concentration. The wan light from the lantern had bathed him in a hazy glow and he seemed almost unreal and it made her wonder if she was really unwell.

"I…I am fine," she whispered, almost inaudible. She prayed that he had not noticed the hitch in her breath when his hand on her hip travelled to cradle her hands. Kenshin had been more touchy in the course of the five years they spent together, but had never touched her this openly before, deliberately showing her he was touching her; she must have looked too sick for him to be touching her like this (to reward her like this). All those touches before she had initiated, and he had willingly complied but only within the boundaries of propriety. "I am…I am not sick…" the last words she said almost too breathlessly.

There was a long pause and Kenshin's brows furrowed further, before they arched up, as if in enlightenment and his mouth tilted to show a slight grin.

"W-what?" she swallowed hard and she stole a glance at his face before turning away to hide her embarrassment.

"Is this about earlier?" he suddenly asked, the grin on his face he did not bother to hide. He seemed amused at her discomfort. He dropped his hand from her face to rest on the other side of her hip and he leaned forward, his nose almost brushing hers.

"Earlier?" she whispered, tilting her face further to the side to avoid looking straight into his eyes. "And what are you doing?"

He chuckled. "What do you think Kaoru-dono?"

"D-don't speak!" she reprimanded him in an effort to avoid his teasing. He had grown bolder when it comes to teasing her, but only in the company of others, when jokes would surely be taken only as jokes, and teases as literal teases and nothing more. But they were alone now and it was very easy to fall into his eyes and his voice and it was very easy to mistake his teasing for something else. For something like love.

"Should I write my name for you?" he asked suddenly, his voice dropping an octave.

"W-what?" she blushed some more, raising one hand to put a distance between them but ended up clutching the material of his gi.

"Earlier. You were jealous because of that paper."

"O-of course not. Why would I be jealous because of a paper? A paper!" she resorted to violence and punched him but she seemed to lose strength as her knuckles hit his chest.

"Then why are you like this?" concern crossed his face and he clutched the hand on his chest.

"I told you I wasn't feeling well."

He grew silent, her labored breathing the only sound. His gaze bore deeply into her face and she tried hard to free herself. She felt unable to speak more for she knew her words would eventually betray her; and words would only come out as strangled, childish attempts to make him understand these seemingly superfluous feelings. Jealous? Jealous because of a paper! Because of a paper and a name? But she knew her jealousies and her insecurities run deeper than that and she would not want him to discover, she would not want him to be bothered; besides she had bothered him more than enough already and she was afraid that she was getting more bothersome by the day and he was beginning to tire of her whimsicality.

"You don't tell me things about yourself." She was surprised at her own betrayal against her own commitment to stay silent.

A small understanding smile spread across his lips.

He was urging her to speak some more and since this was her last chance (for she knew after hearing all that she had to stay he would decide to leave her; she was fickle after all, just a child and unable to comprehend more important things), she looked away and began to say, "I don't know much about Kenshin. I am always estimating. And I guess I was just…surprised to see something I had never seen before."

"Like me writing my own name?" he teased, a grin kicking up the corners of his mouth.

She frowned, embarrassed. "You know that's not what I mean!" She playfully hit his chest and scrunched her nose. "I mean," she swallowed hard, "There are things that I want to know about you…things that I want to have exclusive knowledge of…"

"Like the kanji of my name?" he proffered, unable to hide the mirth in his voice.

"Mou Kenshin!" She looked away, exasperated, her eyes stinging from all the emotions in her chest. She squinted her eyes to blink back the tears threatening to fall. How can words escape her at this most crucial time? "It is unfair," she whispered, "You know how I feel about you and yet you…yet you…for five years…" she shook her head, "You leave me so unsure of myself."

He smiled, his hand reaching to tilt her chin towards him. "Hmmm." He rubbed small circles on her cheek as she furrowed her brows, confused, "Is a name that important?" He watched as her eyes widened in silent remonstration. "I think," he drawled the words, emphasizing them, "One can easily change his or her name for another."

She was about to protest how much he does not seem to understand what she was saying when she saw the look in his eyes. She inhaled a breath and did not release it, anticipating what he was about to say. There was a tightness in her belly and a shiver in her spine; she had an inkling that after what he was going to utter, things would change between them.

"Do you not want to trade your Kamiya for my Himura?" his voice was languid, his eyes half-lidded and there was heat in his skin and fire in his touch and something more and she almost melted. He inched closer, one hand closing around her forearm, the other reaching to rest against the small of her back.

"I think that," she whispered, releasing the breath she was holding, a breath she had held for five years, "I am amenable to that change."

A/n: So what do you think?