Disclaimer Proof through syllogistic logic: Nobuhiro Watsuki owns Rurouni Kenshin. My name is not Nobuhiro Watsuki. Therefore, I don't own Rurouni Kenshin. A little Aristotle for y'all. ;)
Summary: Cupid needs a vacation. Aoshi needs a lesson in love. So who better to solve both problems than the Iceman himself? Cupid's handed over his bows to Aoshi, and it's now Aoshi's job to bring together several couples and to get some insight (and appreciation) into the mystery of love. And, perhaps, to see what future Love has in store for him...
Couples: Showcasing Aoshi/? [I'll let you guess/harass me on this one ;)], Kenshin/Kaoru, Misao/Soujirou, Megumi/? [see Aoshi's comment], and various other couples.
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The day could not get any worse.
As usual, Aoshi had woken up at five in the morning to meditate in the shrine. He didn't actually like to get up so early, though he wasn't one to waste words, actions, or time. Five a.m. was the only quiet hour of solitude he could find all day in the busy, bustling Aoiya. Most everyone was either sleeping or hung over.
So imagine his surprise when today's early morning calm had been interrupted by an unnatural wail that hailed from the kitchen. His head had snapped up. With a single fluid movement, he had shot up and out the temple entrance. One hand hovered over his kodachi.
He had been prepared for anything—a robber, a murderer…heck, with the way the scream had pierced through the air, he wouldn't have been surprised if Makoto Shishio himself had risen from the dead and now stalked through the Aoiya stabbing people with a sharp rusty shishkabob stick in his barbequed hands…
He hadn't been prepared for what he saw as he flew into the kitchen.
Misao was on the floor, sobbing and weeping as though her precious Aoshi-sama had died, and the kitchen had looked like hell.
Literally.
Thick black fumes had risen from pots of viscous liquids that resembled crude oil. In the fireplace, something that had formerly been a large hunk of meat had been reenacting Shishio's death—it had burst into a pillar of flames and had been turning the fetching shade of blackened ash.
He could barely distinguish anything between the smoke inhalation, his migraine, and her frantic 'I'm sooo sorryy, Aoshi-samaaa!'s, but he somehow discerned that Misao had woken up early just to get breakfast ready for him.
How sweet.
Except for the rank smell. And the catastrophic mess. And the acrid smoke that stung his eyes.
Okay, so it wasn't really that sweet at all. But it was the thought that counted.
Right?
Feigning composure, Aoshi calmly asked the frazzled, coal-smudged Misao to wash up and rest before the Aoiya opened. Kicking open a window, he also told her to get Okon and Omasu to exorcise the possessed kitchen of the mess from hell. In significantly fewer and less descriptive words, of course. After all, despite the early hour and his headache, Aoshi had an image to maintain.
But he did allow himself a tiny chuckle at Misao's antics after she had fled the room, tearfully relieved that her beloved Aoshi-sama hadn't been furious at her. From all appearances (of the kitchen), she'd grow up to have all the cooking skills of Himura's friend Kamiya Kaoru.
In other words, none at all.
(In fact, her lack of skills could probably beat Kamiya Kaoru's.)
He had stopped smiling when he realized that one, Okon and Omasu were in the kitchen with him, chiseling the black, hardened mess off the walls, ground, and ceiling; and he, for one, made it a point never to smile when other people were around.
(Interestingly enough, he found out later that Okon and Omasu had used the pieces of charcoaled food to heat the kitchen and the Aoiya, and that it saved them over a months' worth in heating bills. In fact, the giant roast that Misao had unsuccessfully cooked—but successfully turned into fossil fuel—had provided the entire Aoiya with enough heat to last a week.)
Secondly, he had stopped smiling when he realized that the main cook and his assistants had all come down with the flu (personally, he suspected cases of massive hangovers; having seen Himura's friend Sagara in action, he was familiar with the symptoms).
Third, he had realized that the rest of the Oniwabanshu cooked like Misao; that is, they didn't cook.
This meant, he had recognized, heart sinking, that he would have to cook.
It wasn't that he couldn't cook. Okina, in hopes of impressing the ladies, had taught him how to cook when he was five-years-old. He had learned to make delicious miso soup and delicate Japanese pastries while enduring the coos, unexpected cheek-pinches, and suffocating bosoms of Okina's loud lady-friends (despite being letcherous, Okina had been quite a lady charmer in his prime). It had been a torture that no one should have been forced to suffer, even if they weren't five, especially if they were five, and whether they were Oniwabanshu or not. It was probably why he hadn't cooked since then; he preferred not to relive those terrible memories.
But, he learned to endure the agony without a single word.
Admittedly, learning to suffer in silence had been invaluable to him during the Bakumatsu and his service to Kanryuu. So he supposed that someday, maybe when Okina was really, really old—on his deathbed, for instance—he would thank him for putting him through the tortu—ahem, cooking sessions, instead of giving Okina the evil eye every time the old man mentioned them.
Aoshi had gotten very good at the evil eye. He had perfected that during the Bakumatsu, too.
But Aoshi had soon realized that he couldn't escape reality through endless flashbacks of cooking lessons and the skills he had honed during the Bakumatsu (which was, in fact, a lot). So he had resigned himself to his fate and went to work preparing breakfast.
To his luck, the only apron he had been able to find was a particularly pink, overly embellished apron, the ones Omasu and Okon wore to impress Hiko Seijurou whenever he came to drop off a new supply of pottery. Being a stickler for precision and cleanliness (or as Okina often grumbled, obsessive-compulsive), Aoshi didn't want to risk getting his dark onmitsu garb (freshly washed and ironed!) dirty, which was inevitable when one was working with flour, sugar, and boiling, sticky messes. So with a stoic face and his inner self banging its head against a nice, sturdy corner of his brain, Shinomori Aoshi, onmitsu extraordinaire, donned a severe frown and a frilly pink apron and started to cook.
In the darkest corner of the room possible.
He wasn't really hiding, per se, just merely trying to conceal his presence, like the onmitsu that he was. Yes, that was it. Just practicing his technique and meditating on a nice, peaceful corner in the kitchen; just contemplating the meaning of Life, the Universe, Everything, and its relation to miso soup.
Shinomori Aoshi was not afraid of being seen cooking.
Shinomori Aoshi was not afraid of being seen in an overtly feminine apron.
Shinomori Aoshi was not afraid of anything!
Ri-ight.
Ahem. On with the story.
Of course, when the day could get no worse, it went and decided to be downright depraved. For lo and behold, Okina in his great (read: lecherous) wisdom (read: perverted ideas) decided to hold a tour of the Aoiya for female guests. A tour which, incidentally, included the kitchen.
Whose dark corners were really not that dark at all, thanks to an open doorway and scenic panoramic windows.
Whose former-onmitsu-now-all-around-nice-guy-albeit-kinda-frigid owner, thanks to his height and his striking appearance, could not have blended in with the walls even if he tried with all of his Bakumatsu-honed onmitsu skills.
Ah, to have had the legendary god-like speed of the Battousai! But, Aoshi, despite his mad skills, did not have such an ability. By the time he had spied the first of the unusually large tour following after a prancing Okina, it was too late. He was doomed.
In poured the guests of the Aoiya, and all had frozen in shock of the respectable former okashira. Cooking. In a pink apron. Okina's head popped into view, and Aoshi would have laughed at the contortions and colors Okina's face was taking on—if he hadn't been the cause. Aoshi wasn't a man who was particularly concerned with appearance (otherwise, he would have trimmed his bangs in order to better showcase his exotic azure eyes). But it had been unsettling seeing the eyes of many ladies and Okina gawking at him. (After all, one does not usually gawk at the former okashira of the Oniwabanshu. Drool, yes. Gawk, hell no!) The memory of those infamous cooking lessons had been rushing back…
Not to mention the fact that, as a hotel owner, businessman, and former cutthroat, Aoshi had been afforded a certain amount of respect. Once word got around (which was inevitable, seeing as the audience was all female), respect would be thrown out the window.
He could see them laughing now.
In fact, there had been someone cackling. It had been Okina, who rushed the women out of the kitchen quickly and returned alone to giggle at him. It had been unnatural and frightening; a sound no man should ever hear. But as usual, Aoshi had borne it with Bakumatsu-taught patience.
He had decided then and there that he would never, ever thank Okina for the cooking lessons.
Not even at Okina's deathbed.
After enduring so much, the day should have gotten better.
But nooo. Whatever gods were above had decided that the day would (once again) be "Pick-On-Shinomori-Aoshi Day." Everyone around him had been gifted with abilities to rub his nerves raw. And he had been cursed with the inability to avoid it all.
He had stepped in a puddle of vomit.
He had found an inconsistency in the hotel finances and spent two hours trying to fix them, only to realize that there had been no mistake in the first place.
Misao had a "woman problem" and conveniently, Okon and Omasu were away stalking Hiko.
A guest had sent his food back to the kitchen four times.
The kid who had vomited on the floor vomited on him.
A woman guest had lectured him for half an hour for Okina's wretched behavior.
He had to lecture Okina for half an hour on how to behave towards women. Okina retaliated by telling him that if he knew so much about women, why didn't he "use it and make some grandchildren, huh? huh? huh? Ha! Got you there!"
Misao had been on a crying jag and insisted on clamping onto his leg. This had made it very hard to walk—much less walk with dignity. His ears also hurt.
His migraine had returned.
Hiko Seijurou had come back with lovesick Okon and Omasu in tow, and lectured him for an hour on controlling his "women." This was followed by an hour of lamenting the sorry state of his baka deshi and by the depletion of seven bottles of good sake.
Okon, Omasu, and Misao had commiserated over their "women problems", and they had decided the best place to talk about it was wherever he was at the moment—partially because Misao had still been stuck on his leg. Needless to say, he had learned too much.
Finally, Aoshi had gotten a chance to go back to his most precious meditation shrine—at twelve at night. After such a nerve-racking day, he didn't care; as the saying goes, better late than never. He could finally meditate.
But the heavens above just wouldn't give him a break.
For now, in front of Aoshi, stood a young man with golden hair and a spotlight shining perpetually down on him. Not just any young man, but a half-naked boy wearing what Aoshi could only describe as a sumo outfit or a baby diaper. And not just standing, because the man was floating outside his shrine, ten feet in the air. And unlike Himura, he wasn't dropping back down to the ground.
Not to mention the fact that on the man's back was the most garish pair of wings Aoshi had ever seen in his life.
"Hi!" the thing said, more cheerfully than Misao on a sugar high, with a bigger smile than Soujirou on drugs. It waved a loaded golden bow at him. "I'm Cupid. And you're going to be my replacement."
There are some things that even the strongest men in the world cannot endure.
This was one of them.
Aoshi blacked out.
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Don't ask me where this came from. I just got this weird idea of Aoshi "the Iceman" Shinomori being Cupid, and starting cracking up. So, I ended up with this nice mess. : P
About some of my lovely wording…hehe:
"shishkabob stick", "Aoshi didn't want to risk getting his dark onmitsu garb (freshly washed and ironed!) dirty": yes, I realize there were no irons or shishkabobs back then. But it's kinda funny in an anachronistic way, ne? Or not…
"coos, unexpected cheek-pinches, and suffocating bosoms of Okina's loud lady-friends": you know how your aunts and relatives love to pinch your cheeks, baby-talk to you, and crush you to their chests in hugs? Imagine chibi Aoshi in that situation. Oh, the humanity!
"just contemplating the meaning of Life, the Universe, Everything, and its relation to miso soup.": an indirect tribute to Douglas Adams, who was the King of Sarcastic, Non-Sequitur comedy.
"But, Aoshi, despite his mad skills, did not have such an ability.": two talking points. 1) I just felt like using the words "mad skills", so I put it in there. Not particularly eloquent, but I happen to think it's mad funny. Heh. I'm getting into slang, yo. Word. ;) 2) I know that Aoshi has his Ososugi de Ugoki (aka the whole I-move-like-water deal), but it really just helps create multiple images of him, not to make him disappear quickly. And multiple images of him in a pink apron would not help the situation. Could Aoshi possibly have just run away? Yeah, and the average person in the audience probably wouldn't have been able to see him. But one, Okina could, and two, Aoshi cares too much for his miso soup to do that. :)
"Okina's head popped into view": yes, technically, he was leading the group. But he would have wanted to make sure all the lovely ladies went into the kitchen, and would have personally went to the end of the line and ushered everyone in. ;)
"Aoshi wasn't a man who was particularly concerned with appearance (otherwise, he would have trimmed his bangs in order to better showcase his exotic azure eyes).": Heh. I was imagining Aoshi on one of those makeover shows. "But this color goes so well with your gorgeous blue eyes!" "But Dawn, that doesn't go with his coloring at all!" Heh.
"(After all, one does not usually gawk at the former okashira of the Oniwabanshu. Drool, yes. But gawk, hell no!)": for all the fan girls. Although we sort of gawk too. Just not the "what is he doing?" gawk, more like the "I wish he were real and my husband" sort of gawk. Who knows? Maybe some of the ladies in Aoshi's audience were also gawking at his lean, toned body, his gorgeous eyes, his chiseled feature….droool, squeal…now I'm gushing. ;)
"He had found an inconsistency in the hotel finances and spent two hours trying to fix them, only to realize that there had been no mistake in the first place.": I've done this before, except with math and physics problems. It's really annoying.
"Misao had a "woman problem" and conveniently, Okon and Omasu were away stalking Hiko.": I've always wondered how Aoshi would hold up if Misao came to him when she starting having "woman problems". I love to torture him. ^_^
"Misao had been on a crying jag", "with a bigger smile than Soujirou on drugs": I think I borrowed these phrases from Angrybee, so feel free to praise her for the brilliance of these phrases. I just thought the word "jag" was great, and Soujirou on speed? What a pun…is it a pun? Anyway, thank you, sensei! *bows*
"And unlike Himura, he wasn't dropping back down to the ground.": when Kenshin jumps, he looks like he's flying. Except for the fact that he drops right back down to the ground and doesn't stay up there. ^_^
""I'm Cupid"": Cupid in my story is Cupid from the Greek myths. I'm portraying him as a teenager. As for the anachronism, is there really such a person as Cupid? Of course not. So technically, I can put him any where and any place, including Meiji Japan. ^-^ I love rationalizing things.
"Aoshi blacked out.": I know he doesn't faint easily. He doesn't faint period. But give the poor guy a break! After all the torture I put him through…;)
And an extra tidbit I decided not to include (goes in the section where the women are in the kitchen gawking at him):
Despite his apparent aplomb, Aoshi had started to feel slightly uncomfortable. So he took a lesson from the ostrich: if you can't see them, they can't see you. Aoshi shifted his gaze to a blank wall, and immediately felt better.
I decided that Aoshi was a little too cowardly the way I portrayed him, and Aoshi is NOT cowardly. So this part came out. I do like the alliteration of "apparent aplomb" and the whole ostrich thing though. ^_~
All comments, flames, constructive criticism are welcome!
Sidenote to Mij: I was going to go for the whole "thinking-it-was-a-badass-assignment-then-realizing-it-wasn't" deal, but I really liked the idea of Cupid just dropping a bomb on Aoshi and Aoshi blacking out. So I couldn't really use your idea…but I'll definitely incorporate it into the next chapter somehow. Maybe we'll pretend Aoshi misunderstood or something. ~_^ And I really liked your ideas about the haiku and sakura petal throwing—the whole Japanese feel—so that will definitely be included. Thanks so much for your help!
…until we meet again…
~Tru