Rurouni Kenshin doesn't belong to me.
I didn't even ask his name.
Kaoru stood in the middle of the bar. She was very tired – she really should have fallen into a dreamless sleep already – but somehow she couldn't sleep. It was after midnight and she had finally managed to get rid of the last two stragglers – Yahiko and Sanosuke.
Kaoru knew why she wasn't sleeping. It was because of him, that stranger who had come to the bar a few nights ago.
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Kaoru had been in her room, above the bar, taking a few minutes, hours really, of well deserved rest. She had left the bar in the care of Sanosuke and Yahiko although knowing them as she did – especially Sanosuke's carelessness, she probably shouldn't have done it.
Three men walked into the bar and began tearing up the place. Throwing things everywhere and generally terrorizing the clientele. Sanosuke tried to stop it but the men were too many and soon he and Yahiko were lying on the floor unconscious.
Kaoru was asleep in the bath tub when she heard the loud crash and headed downstairs. She couldn't believe her eyes, her beloved bar was in shambles, the picture of her father that had hung above the counter had been torn to shreds and her new jukebox had been smashed.
She rushed at the man nearest to her, quite forgetting that she was only wearing a bathrobe. The man slapped her and she fell to the ground her head hurting. She was in pain but she couldn't let the hooligans just destroy her bar without a fight. She stood up slowly, trying to recall all the moves had father had taught her.
One of the men saw her stand up and pulled up her by her hair. Kaoru screamed in pain. The man pulled out a knife and said, "Normally I don't like hitting women, especially a pretty little thing like you, but you're just asking for it."
"Put her down," a voice said.
The men turned and looked at the newcomer; he was tall, slender, handsome man with red hair and an X-shaped scar on his left cheek. He smiled at her and said, "Don't worry this will all be over soon."
"Oh yeah?" one of the men asked.
The stranger had a lasso and he pulled the knife out of the man's hands, hit the other two men and managed to hold Kaoru before she fell to the ground. "I never did like bullies," he said, "especially bullies with knives." Kaoru was just looking at him in shock and awe.
000
An hour later, Kaoru, Sanosuke, Yahiko and the stranger had set the bar to rights and Kaoru offered him a drink – tea, which he said was the only drink he took.
The stranger stood up, smiled at all of them, "thank you for your hospitality. I best be on my way."
"I should be the one thanking you," Kaoru told him; "you saved my bar, not to mention my life."
"It was my very great pleasure, Kaoru," he replied.
It wasn't until the man had disappeared from sight that she realized that she hadn't even asked him his name. How could she have forgotten that small piece of information? In the few hours he'd been in her bar, she'd told him all about herself - her father, her work and even her friends but she hadn't even bothered to find out his name.
'I wish I had at least found out his name,' she thought to herself for the tenth time as she locked up for the night and walked to the room.
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