A/N: I promise to update Killing Me Softly… sometime, but I swear I WILL update. I'm too OC to not finish a story. This… this is just… maybe a break or hopefully, a release from writer's block. I'm really sorry KMS is taking so long… Please read this short (well, actually, it isn't so short) one-shot.
Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin and all characters concerned, blahblahblah, not mine, never will be.
214
Am I real?
Do the words I speak before you make you feel
That the love I lay for you will see no ending?
The rain pattered softly on the roofs of the dojo, lulling every occupant deeper into sleep. Every occupant except one restless redhead.
He walked down the dark corridor, silent as a shadow, listening for unusual sounds he might consider a threat to the peace he had now grown accustomed to. Passing Yahiko's room, he could hear muffled snores and a little smile tugged at his rigid lips, tight with worry. Instinctively, his feet stopped at a door he had come to know quite well. Every night, he placed his ear upon that thin door and listened to the woman he loved breathe. Sometimes, when his nightmares were particularly terrible, he would even slide the shoji a little bit and watch her for a few minutes, just to make sure she was absolutely safe and to convince himself that paranoia was something he had yet to overcome.
He would watch her sleep, her chest rising and falling to a silent pattern, her eyelids fluttering ever so slightly, evidence of her dreams. He wondered what she dreamt about and quite often, he would catch a hint. Kaoru had always been quite easy to read, even in sleep, as she had a habit of letting her emotions loose. Some nights, her eyebrows would crease and she would cry out softly and mutter slurred words. He could make out those words sometimes, and the things he heard didn't exactly please him. She would cry out in fear and whisper his name or toss and turn sighing and breathing heavily. When he saw her like that, he had to fight down the urge to step into her room and hold her in his arms and tell her not to worry about him like that. Bad dreams were for hitokiris, not for beautiful creatures like her. Besides, he didn't want her to have nightmares because of him. She shouldn't suffer for him. She shouldn't ever suffer.
He put his ear to the door and listened for her breathing.
Nothing. He couldn't hear her sleeping.
Trying to calm himself, he slid her door open and scanned her room for any sign of her. Her futon lay empty and rumpled but besides that, he couldn't see anything else in disarray. Kaoru had always been a neat freak.
He tried to stop himself from panicking, quickly assessing, from the room's condition, that there had not been anyone else there. If someone had tried to kidnap her, he knew the woman would have put up one hell of a fight and there would be things scattered about. He would have heard her struggling. There was no blood in the sheets, no torn ribbons lying around, no challenging notes from insane enemies. No kidnap.
But no Kaoru.
He breathed deeply and raced down the hall.
She could have been thirsty, he told himself making his way to the kitchen.
No Kaoru.
Nature calls, the rational part of his mind called after him. But she's never had to do that in the middle of the night…
He ran out into the porch, the heavy sounds of the rain echoing his footsteps, and stopped in his tracks.
For a moment he wasn't sure if it was Kaoru he was seeing. It was like a vision, an angel standing in the middle of the rain, in a pool of darkness, her long hair soaked and clinging to ivory skin. Delicate strands stuck to the sides of her cheeks, curling down her slender neck. Her eyes were closed and she was looking up to the sky. Her arms were raised and for that moment, he really believed she was an angel, getting ready for flight. He half-expected silver wings to suddenly appear behind her and she would fly and wave goodbye to him and he would run and touch the tips of her toes…
"Kirei…" he muttered absently.
She opened her eyes and turned abruptly. His voice had startled her and she was beyond mortified. Covering her body with her arms she stared at him wide-eyed and panic-stricken. For goodness sake, she was no worse than naked with her half-transparent sleeping yukata clinging to her most indecently!
"Kenshin!" she shrieked and he snapped out of his daze.
"K-Kaoru-dono! G-gomen! Y-you weren't in your room and I just-"
"What are you doing up so late?" she cried frantically, crouching a bit to try and hide her compromising situation from him. She hoped with all her heart it was too dark and misty for him to see more than he should.
"I was just… Goodness, Kaoru-dono! Get inside! You'll catch a cold!" his panic switched back to worry, having realized the rain pouring harder and harder. It was then that he also realized why she was acting so frantic. She was wearing nothing but her very thin and now very see-through sleeping yukata and his eyes roved involuntarily (and appreciatively) over her trembling form…
Wait… Trembling?
'For crying out loud, Himura! She's freezing and you're taking advantage of the situation! Save your lust for some other time!' he apprehended himself.
"Kenshin!" she cried indignantly. Oh, she had noticed that once-over. She groaned inwardly. Many times, she had tried to get his attention by wearing the prettiest kimonos she had and failed miserably. All this time, all she had to do was not wear anything at all. Oh, the cruel irony of things.
Kenshin blushed and focused on the task at hand. "G-gomen! I-I'll go get some towels!"
"Hentai…" she muttered, the blush on her cheeks growing redder by the second.
He returned with some towels moments later, still fidgeting.
"Well turn around!" she yelled irritably.
He blushed and turned abruptly, setting the towels along the edge of the porch. "O-Of course!"
"Oh, for goodness sake Kenshin! Will you stop stuttering!"
Well, I never really expected to see the very beautiful woman I love out in the rain half-naked. So shoot me for being a man.
He could hear her splash her way towards him and he sighed.
"You make one wrong move, Kenshin!" she warned.
She removed her useless yukata and donned the fresh robe he had brought with the towels. Tying the sash around her waist, she turned around and faced Kenshin's tense back.
"Okay, I'm decent."
He pasted his clueless grin on his face and turned around to face her.
"Well?"
He looked at her in confusion, his violet eyes telling her that nothing in his brain registered what she wanted him to explain.
"Well? Why are you up this time of night?" she asked irritably. She had always had a mild suspicion that Kenshin made nightly rounds when they were asleep. She knew he did that sometimes, even before the kidnapping-Kaoru mania had begun. But when Enishi happened, the poor man had just gone paranoid. He wouldn't even let her go to the market by herself! And she had been walking around the place waaay long enough for worrywart standards.
"You've been checking on us again, haven't you?"
Well, technically, just you…
He bowed his head in shame and grinned sheepishly. "Would you like a nice warm bath, Kaoru-dono?" he asked.
"I'm fine, Kenshin! And don't change the subject!"
"Sessha was just worried, Kaoru-dono…"
"Mou! Kenshin, you're a class A worrywart," she said exasperatedly.
"Oro!" he cried in mock innocence, a playful chuckle rumbling from his throat.
Kaoru rolled her eyes and sat by the edge of the porch, starting to dry her hair with one of the towels. Kenshin followed suit, sitting beside her and maintaining a comfortable distance between them.
"What were you doing out in the rain in the middle of the night, Kaoru-dono?"
At this, she paused and blushed (quite cutely, in his opinion). "I don't know… I guess it's something like stress management…"
"You've been stressed?" he asked sincerely.
Great, now you've got him worried. Good going, Tanuki-chan, she thought irritably. "Just a little bit… Nothing to worry about, really."
"Kaoru-dono, you were out in the rain, alone, half-naked, in the middle of the night… and this is 'nothing' to worry about?" he pressed.
Goodness, this man is UNBELIEVABLE!
"I promise you, it's petty and stupid, ok?" Drop it. Drop it, Himura. Pleeeaaase drop it.
Kenshin sighed in frustration. When was this girl going to learn that he wouldn't let anything like this pass without his knowing?
"Kaoru-dono…" His tone told her that he wasn't going to drop the matter and she had better tell him everything now… Or at least something that would satisfy him for the moment.
"It's just… uh… you wouldn't understand…"
Well if you look into my eyes then you should know…
"Try me."
Kaoru sighed in defeat. "Just… problems of the heart, that's all…"
Kenshin felt a pang in his chest and winced. Problems of the heart… She's… she's in love…
"Is… Is he someone special?" he forced himself to say.
Kaoru looked wistfully out into the rain and smiled softly. "Very. He's a wonderful man."
"Have you… known him for a long time?" he asked. And why haven't you introduced him to me, he added mentally.
"Hai. We've been through quite a lot."
Through more than we have?
"I bet he's some man," he replied, trying to keep the sarcasm from his voice.
Kaoru didn't notice. "Yes, he is, actually. He's… amazing."
Kenshin flinched again and looked away from her face. Her expression… He could see she had deep feelings for whoever it was. He hoped, with all his heart, that the man Kaoru loved was someone worthy of her affections, someone… unstained, like her.
"He must be. To earn your respect like that," he forced a small smile to his lips.
She nodded and stayed silent, watching raindrops create ripples onto the puddles out in the yard.
"Tell me… about him," he forced himself to say. It was hard for him to ask her that, but he wanted to know what the lucky guy was like. If he himself had failed to earn Kaoru's love, he at least wanted to acquaint himself with whomever she chose to be with.
Kaoru paused, thinking. She was unsure of how to describe this man without giving Kenshin too big of a clue. She was choosing her words carefully, fearing that she might slip and end the nice little conversation.
"He… He is a bit odd," she said, chuckling slightly.
"Really? How odd?"
"Well… I like to think that he is just too considerate and selfless but, quite plainly, he's just a bit of a pushover."
He stayed silent, urging her to continue with a nod of his head.
"He is quite a character, you see- valiant and strong, and at the same time humble and gentle. I have never met anyone quite like him and I don't think I ever will."
"He does seem to be quite a character." A sinking feeling settled in Kenshin's stomach.
That there is nothing here to doubt, nothing to fear…
Kaoru nodded her head and continued, "He is cheerful… most of the time, but that is one thing about him that saddens me."
That sounds awfully familiar, Kenshin thought. He looked at her in confusion and waited for her to continue.
"You see, sometimes, I feel that he is holding back from me… probably because he fears I will not understand the things he has been through or perhaps…" she paused.
"Perhaps…?" he prodded her.
"Perhaps he just thinks I could not understand, could never be able to."
"Kaoru-dono… I do not see why he would think that. I know for one that you're not shallow…"
She smiled bitterly, confusing him and continued. "To a degree, yes, maybe I am. Maybe I will never be able to understand fully what his mind and heart hold. But you know, all I want to do is try. He never even shares anything with me- how am I supposed to help him then? I do not ask for him to be so profound. I just want to help him carry his burden, if not remove them."
"Why don't you tell him all this then?" he asked her, his brown eyebrows narrowed in confusion.
But I am, she wanted to tell him but stopped herself. "Because… he holds me on a pedestal. The problem with him is that he has never, even once, asked me what I want." At this, she pounded her fists lightly on her lap in anger. "He just assumes I want to be admired and protected from afar like… like an expensive little porcelain doll!"
And you can lay your questions down 'cause if you'll hold me…
"He regards you highly," he told her, a bit defensively. I know how he feels…
"But I don't want him to keep me so far away, don't you see?" her voice was rising now. "I'm not made of glass, you know. I want him to stop treating me like a fragile princess. I want him to treat me like a person, like a friend. I don't need special treatment. I need him to let me be his friend, if not lover."
"He just cares for you, too much, I think," he said. At that point, he didn't even know if he was speaking for himself or the guy.
"He cares for everything too much and never enough for himself, that's his problem," she growled.
Kenshin chuckled, sincerely this time. She looked at him in annoyance. "What?"
"Well, in spite of all these frustrations and his, if I may say, cluelessness, you still love him?"
"Well… yes…" She almost laughed at the unknown implications he was making but cruelly reprimanded herself.
"Then what is the problem?" he asked again. "I presume he's a rather nice man, judging from the way you talk about him… He would not hurt you, would he?"
Kaoru sighed and her smile fell into a frown. She stared at him sadly, a faraway look to her blue eyes. "He does," she said. "Everyday."
We can fade into the night…
Anger and compassion burst into his eyes and his hand sought hers out, squeezing softly. The action seemed to make her more miserable and she looked about to cry, her blue eyes glistening with a thin blanket of moisture. Kenshin wanted to beat the crap out of him, whoever he was, for gaining her love and hurting her like this.
"Why?"
"Because… I don't know… I told you…"
He grasped her chin with his two fingers and tilted her head so that she was looking at him. She pulled away and bowed down, staring at her stiff fingers.
"Why…" he paused. "How does he hurt you?"
"He… might not love me. You see, it is… very complicated."
What! Who the hell is this idiot? When a wonderful woman like Kaoru loves you, damn right you should love her back!
"That's all right, Kaoru-dono," he said, embracing her tightly. I'm here…
She sighed softly, blinking her tears back. Oh, Kenshin, you don't know what you're saying. 'That's all right' you say… Feh. You have no idea… Clueless baka…
When he finally let go, he kept her hand in his and hesitated a moment before asking, "Does sessha know him?" Tell me who he is and I'll give him one hell of a beating with the good side of my sword…
She took a moment before answering, like she was figuring out how to tell him, possibly, what to tell him.
Take my hand
And gently close your eyes so you could understand
That there's no greater love tonight than what I've for you…
What's so hard to tell? Just give sessha his name and I'll fix him up for you, Kaoru-dono. Sessha will fix him up good…
"Yes, you do… Quite well, I believe," she managed to say.
"Who is he?" he asked, perplexed. I KNOW this guy? Sano? No way… Let's see… Aoshi… Saitoh (shiver)… SHISHOU???
She stared at him pointedly, as if expecting he knew the answer, or should know by then. She lowered her eyes and gave an understanding, but sad, little smile. She sighed and looked back out into the rain. I guess that would be too much to hope for… And she sighed again.
Somewhere, in a tiny corner of Kenshin's brain, something clicked and realization dawned upon him. That look… That look that just passed over her face… She…
"I think you're mistaken, Kaoru-dono," he said.
Kaoru stared at him blankly, her wide eyes unblinking.
"I… I do not know him as well as you might expect or as well as I should."
Well, if you feel the same way for me then let go
We can journey to a garden no one knows…
She shook her head softly, a slight smile playing on her lips. He knows…
He took her hand and held it up to his scar, pressing his face into her palm. "But you do…" he said, raising his eyes to meet hers and leaning slowly towards her for a kiss.
Life is short, my darling, tell me that you love me
So we can fade into the night…
His lips moved slowly against hers, as if trying to prolong the moment. She responded gently, a soft smile playing in the corners of her mouth.
The rain didn't stop pouring when they opened their eyes and time didn't pause in its flight, but suddenly, the world didn't seem so complicated anymore.
And you'll know…
The world could die
And everything may lie
Still you shouldn't cry
'Cause time may pass
But longer than it'll last
I'll be by your side…
Forever by your side.
Owari
A/N: I particularly liked this… Well, the bold and italicized texts are lyrics from a song. It's called "214", thus the title of this one-shot. It's by a band here in the Philippines called Rivermaya and they are like, the greatest band ever. Try listening to this song. It's one of their best. Rivermaya is like… musical legend to me. I entitle my stories with song titles or lyrics because I just love music and I think that every feeling, or every story, every idea, always has a song made about it.