In no way, shape or form do I take credit for creation or ownership of Rurouni Kenshin, or its characters.


Frustrated at not finding anything related to Sano and Megumi that wasn't AU or full of vampires, I popped open notepad and just started writing, and came up with this rather depressing bit of Megumi-angst. Oops?


Megumi sighed, her hands dutifully wrapping sanitized bandages into neat rolls as her mind wandered, her attention neither on her task nor on the scenery outside the window she stood at, staring outward. The clatter of the clinic doors opening without preamble caught her attention and her heart jumped - is he here? The bandages, forgotten, fell from her numb fingers without preamble as she ran the best she could to the doorway, finding herself face to face with...

...Gensai-sensei.

She visibly drooped, slinking back to the storage room where she had been working, noticing the abandoned roll of linen bandages that now littered the floor. Picking them up with a frown, she resumed her work, undoing the part that had become loose and wrapping the roll once more.

She should know better than to hope, anymore. It had been far too long since he had graced the presence of the clinic, since he had been a part of her life. And yet...

How many months?

How many months had he been gone, traveling the world on some grand adventure?

How many months since she'd truly smiled, watching foolish antics of the people she called friends at the Kamiya dojo?

How many months since her heart had fluttered in her chest against her will, merely because his fingers had brushed her palm just so when she was wrapping his hand in bandages?

How many months since her eyes had met his own chocolate ones, drowning in pools of unacknowledged emotions locked up behind them before being pulled back to safety by an interruption?

How many months had she nearly cried herself to sleep, her eyes red and raw as she stared at her ceiling, her tears long since dried up and no longer able to fall.

How many months had it been since his absence had forced her to admit to herself how much she truly cared for that stupid idiot?

How many months had passed since their awkward goodbyes as he boarded his boat, neither honestly telling the other what was on their mind?

How many months had blended into years since he left, her prime of youth fading with each cycle of seasons?

...Too many, as far as Megumi was concerned.

As much as she wanted to, it was impossible for her to hate him for leaving, for seeking what he did. It wasn't for lack of trying, to be sure.

Day in and day out, life had become a walking haze in recent months, nearly 4 years since he left, the ache in her chest gnawing at her more and more with each passing empty night.

He was always on the go, from what she gathered from the few letters that had been received. Never by her, but by Kaoru and the others at the dojo. He was able to send them messages far too infrequently and was never in once place long enough for them to send him a reply.

Her only hope, then, was that he would one day find he missed her as strongly as she did him, and that he would know the things she had never been able to tell him in person.

A slim hope at best, but the only one she had. It had lasted her these past years, and so it would continue to keep a spark of life in her.

Such was the way of things.