Meiji Chronicles

Chapter One: To-san and His Laundry

The sun's mighty rays beat down on Tokyo. It was going to be a sunny day today, perfect for Kenshin's young son to go out and venture about his residential area. The shoji slid open soundlessly, and a young child of about six with flaming red hair bounded out, a grin plastered on his face. Violet eyes glanced over the space where Kenshin was supposed to dry and wash the clothes.

Perfect.

Aforementioned boy with the crimson hair was Kenji, in other words, Kenshin's son. He was quite a nice boy with an amiable personality, save for the certain outbursts of temper that he possessed. Now, we go back to out story. The young child's grin faded as he saw his father carrying a rather large basket of laundry, waiting to be done. Kenshin Himura smiled at his son.

"Up so early?" Kenshin asked with a gentle smile, placing the laundry down and held up a piece of white cloth, presumably for wiping the dojo floors. "Usually Kenji-kun isn't up this early," he continued, giving the cloth a few hard squeezes to get the water out of it.

Kenji nodded in response. "I can't sleep, to-san," the child replied, casting his eyes wistfully over to the main door and wishing that he was old enough to go out and play by himself, maybe with a few children his age. Whatever hopes of to-san taking him out for a walk had flickered away, seeing as Kenshin had plenty of work waiting for him to do.

"This one sees," the father responded, now washing Kaoru's kimono and checking for any spots that he might have missed. His wife was never happy with flawed cleaning, although she wasn't one who cleaned that well herself. "Why Kenji-kun doesn't want come over and help to-san with the laundry? Then Kenji-kun can hang them up," Kenshin offered, thinking that it might cheer his son who was down in dumps up.

The boy narrowed his eyes. First he wasn't able to play, neither was he able to go out, and now, to-san was offering him a chance to help with the laundry? Come on, Kenji thought with mild disgust, Does to-san think that I am a three-year-old who's easily cheated? Kenji shook his head, opening his mouth to compose a response. "I don't want to. I want to—" he replied, leaving his sentence hanging in mid-air as his father responded with a lucrative offer.

"Well, then Kenji-kun would miss out on helping with the onigiri," Kenshin said with a mild shrug of his, the smile on his face never fading or faltering even once. The man stood up, heaved the wet clothing over to the poles and began to hang them up. "Going once," the father of one said, smiling to himself, for he guessed what young Kenji was going to do.

The young boy ran up to his father and hugged him around the waist. "To-san…" he said in the best, loving son voice he could muster, "you know I want to help despite my words." The child smiled up at Kenshin, who replied with a kind, understanding glance. "Yatta!" Kenji cheered, his smile finally breaking into a grin that lit up his features. "To-san, lift me up!" He raised his arms, only to be lifted up and into his father's firm grasp.

Behind the Scenes

Hello readers. This is the first chapter of Meiji Chronicles, about some stories revolving around Kenshin and company. Well…there was no particular reason behind this chapter, save the factor that it was sunny out there. I used to like the sunshine when I was younger, because it meant soccer. And then it struck. So I made Kenji loving his dad, which meant that it wouldn't go well with some—but I like him loving his dad. Who wants a broken family anyways?

Glossary

To-san: Father

Onigiri: Rice Ball(s)

Yatta: Yay