Tales from the Bakery: Ransom
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters used in this fiction.
"Hello?" Kenshin blearily answered the phone and hoped that whoever it was would hear the sheer exhaustion in his voice and just bug off.
"K-Kenshin?" came the watery and very strangled reply.
Kenshin immediately recognized the voice however and sat up, instantly awake. "Kaoru? What's wrong? Why do you sound like that?"
He heard a heavy sigh from the other end of the phone. "I—I need y—your h—" Her voice cut out abruptly and Kenshin nearly crushed the phone in his bare hands when he heard her yell out and a man cackle menacingly before roaring at her to shutup.
"Himura," this time it was a man's ragged reply followed by heavy breathing. He sounded as though he'd just done something very physically taxing; Kenshin strained, but he could no longer hear any sign of Kaoru in the background.
"Who the hell is this and what have you done to my girlfriend?" Kenshin growled dangerously.
The man laughed this time. "Boy you're a riot, Himura. If you don't know who this is, then maybe you shouldn't be dating the little tanuki, eh?"
Kenshin's eyes narrowed. "What exactly do you want, you bastard?"
"Hey man! I'm being nice to you right now, so don't call me names, damnit. Now we can do this the hard way or the easy way, it's your choice."
Kenshin sighed resignedly. "Fine, I'll do whatever you want. Just please, don't hurt Kaoru."
"Hurt—that's rich!" The man on the other end of the phone guffawed loudly. "Look, Himura, just get your butt over here, NOW!"
"Okay," Kenshin sighed, trying to stay calm so that the man on the other end would stay calm as well. "Just, please calm down."
"Look, man. I am calm, but you're pissing me off!! Now just hurry up and get over here or you'll be sorry." The man was most definitely not calm, but Kenshin wouldn't dare point him out. All he needed was for him to fly off the handle and do something to hurt Kaoru.
"Okay, okay. Where are you?"
"At your girlfriends."
"How did you know where she lived?" Kenshin gasped, already having gotten up and put on his shoes.
"Don't worry about that," the man sneered. "Look, when are you going to stop asking all these pointless questions and get over here?! She ain't gonna last much longer without ya, lover boy."
"Yes, I'm coming," Kenshin suddenly paused though. "Don't you…you know, want something?"
The man laughed again. "Of course I do! Bring everything you got, Himura."
"You know how much that is?" Kenshin deadpanned as he impatiently waited for the elevator to get to the garage floor of the condo building.
"Yeah well, I'm a man with big dreams, what can I say?" the man laughed loudly, and somewhere, very small through him taking deep gulps of breath, Kenshin could hear Yahiko, Kaoru's younger brother yelling at him to hurry up. "Shut your damn mouth, kid!"
"Look, Himura, my plans don't include entertaining you over the phone. Hurry up. Oh, and of course I need to tell you that if you contact anyone about this you'll severely regret it, right?"
Kenshin grimaced as he barely slammed the car door and raced out of the parking garage. "Got it," when he heard the click of the phone, he threw it into the passenger seat and headed to the bank.
"Mr. Himura. That's a…large amount of money." Kenshin gave the woman an icy glare that told her to promptly shutup and do her job. "Right, well, I'll get that for you straight away." He was glad that he had managed not to waste too much time there, for he was never actually told how much time he had.
Now, standing in front of Kaoru's door, he mentally prepared himself for whatever was on the other side. Yanking it open, he was greeted by a very tall man with dark hair that actually looked vaguely familiar. He looked up, surprised by the sudden intrusion and then saw the keys in the door and smacked his forehead in aggravation. "Well, well, look what the cat dragged in,"
Kenshin walked into the apartment and gave the man a cold glare. "Where is she?"
"Oh, back there somewhere," the man shrugged casually. He then studied Kenshin's person for a while and turned around, going into the kitchen. "You didn't bring it,"
"Yes, I did! It's right here in this—"
The man spun around and clenched his fists, his eyes blazing with anger. "No you didn't, Himura! Now you'll be sorry for sure,"
He tried to move, but Kenshin slammed the suitcase onto the granite countertop in front of him, blocking his path. "Just open it up. I'm sure that it'll be more than enough to satisfy whatever plans you have," Kenshin muttered coldly.
The man gave him a questioning glance and looked back down at the black briefcase. Both men suddenly looked up at the sound of shuffling feet on the ground. "Ken—Kenshin?"
There stood Kaoru in the doorway of the kitchen, a heavy blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a tissue box tucked firmly under her arm. Kenshin rushed forward and clasped her around the shoulders, holding her to his body tightly. "You're okay! You're alright and your—" he suddenly pulled back and took a good, long look at her disheveled appearance before giving her a concerned stare. "You're sick."
She only nodded before suddenly whipping her head around so that she could sneeze. "Sorry," she murmured apologetically, sounding stuffed up. However, Kenshin didn't relinquish his hold on her. Instead, he turned and faced the strange man, who was gaping at the briefcase full of money as if he'd never seen so much green in his life.
"Kaoru, love? Who is this man?" Kaoru turned and looked up at the man with red-rimmed eyes.
"Oh, that's just my—KATSU WHERE DID YOU GET THAT?!"
The man, now identified as Katsu grinned stupidly. "Your boyfriend brought it with him,"
"Only because you asked," Kenshin fired back, keeping a protective arm around her shoulders.
Kaoru looked thoroughly confused. Then she turned a blazing glare on to the man and put one of her hands on her hips. "I told you to ask him for his grandmother's recipe book!"
"I did!" Katsu yelled in his defense.
"No," Kenshin corrected slowly, beginning to see where all the confusion was leading. "You told me to bring all I had. You never said anything about baking cookies."
"So, wait. What? Is this—RANSOM MONEY?!" Kaoru burst into peals of giggles that she could barely control. Katsu looked at the money almost longingly, before shaking his head and bursting into laughter himself. Kenshin stood in the middle of room, looking not only put-out, but also embarrassed. "Kenshin, what would make you think that my cousin had kidnapped me?!"
"Well, but…you sounded all upset over the phone—"
"I should be! I caught this nasty cold all of a sudden and I couldn't be trusted to finish baking for the fundraiser,"
Kenshin nodded. "Well, but then Katsu snatched the phone away and I heard you yell and he was yelling at you,"
"That's because Yahiko had put an ice-pack on her forehead and she was whining like a little baby," Katsu said.
"But you kept teasing me and wouldn't tell me who you were!!" Kenshin yelled accusingly.
"That's because you should know who I am! I'm Kaoru's first cousin Katsu. We've met, like, five times, dude." Katsu laughed, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes.
"Well why did you keep telling me I needed to hurry and all that other stuff?! You had me really worried!" Kenshin had since snatched the briefcase away and was holding it to his chest.
"Because the fundraiser is in two hours and we need to bake way more cookies than we have time for, idiot! Besides, I didn't want anyone to know that we had called you for help." Katsu groaned.
Kenshin face-palmed in embarrassment. "So I was supposed to bring my grandmother's recipe book?"
Nods.
"And we're supposed to be baking cookies?"
More nods.
"Oh, Kami,"
Poor Kenshin! This is my first posted Rurouni Kenshin fiction, and it is a result of reading a lot of fairy tales! The basis for the series is Little Red Riding Hood. And I'm thinking that there will be four or five of these things. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. As always, read and review and I hope the second one won't me as long to formulate as the first one did.