Variations on a Theme
Checkout
"Have a good evening, Ma'am." She double-bagged the milk and slid it across the smooth aluminum counter. Their grocery bags were always that flimsy, translucent plastic, so you couldn't really be too careful.
The customer muttered a hurried response over her shoulder as she left. A tinny chime rang out as she bustled out the door, then Kaoru was left in silence. There weren't many who chose to do their shopping past midnight on a Tuesday, but the store boasted 24 hours and someone had to work the register. The job was something of a godsend for Kaoru, although she usually found herself cursing it in the mornings, when her phone alarm started buzzing from somewhere within the depths of her pillowcase. However, there weren't many jobs that could accommodate her hours: she spent most of her days in class, and most of her evenings running the family dojo.
After their father's passing, she and Sano had used most of the insurance money to fund an appropriate sendoff, then they'd pledged the rest to a college fund for Yahiko.
"Nah, I'm too dense for that kind of stuff. They wouldn't want me anyway," Sano had assured her. "You and the kid are sharp, though. You guys should use it."
Then he had disappeared to the military. Every once in a while, he'd remember to call, and then he'd keep them laughing long into the night with wild tales of his exploits. They usually ended with a visit to the medic. Based on his pleased tones, however, Kaoru had the sneaking suspicion that he was deliberately landing himself in the sick bay for whatever reason. Her free-spirited older brother was her dearest friend, and she knew better than anyone that he wasn't nearly as thoughtless as he made himself out to be. On the third of every month, without fail, he sent them a check just large enough to cover living expenses.
For her part, she had been fortunate enough to receive a full ride to the local university: schools were all too happy to bolster the number of females in their science programs. The fact that she qualified as an ethnic minority also helped. And she considered herself reasonably smart. While she was never the curve-buster, she didn't usually have trouble staying a standard deviation or two above the mean. Perhaps in another life, with money and parents and more free time, she could have topped the class. However, her top priority was to ensure Yahiko as carefree a childhood as possible. At ten, he was already doing most of the housework instead of wreaking havoc with his friends. When Sano had been his age, he'd already formed a band of playground vigilantes and broken several bones in the name of justice.
She sighed, drumming her fingers against the checkout counter. In some ways, the nighttime quiet was easier to handle than the evening rush, when people were hurrying to get home and prepare last-minute dinners. Tensions ran high, and not all customers were pleasant. It didn't change the fact that nights were boring, the kind of boring that could drive a girl to madness. In the absence of any other activity in the store, the quiet tick of the second hand of her watch filled her ears. She was pretty sure she disliked the sound more than Captain Hook ever had.
"Excuse me."
She jumped. How anyone could possibly have walked up to her counter without making more noise than her watch was beyond her.
"Kenshin!" She smiled now, not her hello-thank-you-have-a-good-day smile, but her genuine one, the kind that crinkled the corners of her eyes. "What are you doing here?"
He gestured to the conveyor belt in front of him, to the stack of boxes piled almost to his chin. "My section got the highest average on the Physics midterm, even higher than Professor Saitou's, so I'm bringing them donuts."
She grabbed the top box and looked for the bar code. "No way. The Professor Saitou?" Finding it, she passed it back and forth in front of the scanner until it beeped. "The one whose motto is Baka Soku Zan? I heard he has it tattooed on his bicep."
He laughed, the same quiet laugh that echoed in her fondest childhood memories. The teachers had never quite understood how big, boisterous Sano and small, sweet Kenshin had become a unit, but they had. Together they formed an inseparable and unstoppable team. With Sano's height and Kenshin's speed, they had earned a reputation for being particularly devastating on a basketball court.
"No, it's Aku Soku Zan." He snapped a bag open with a quick flick of his wrists. "Although I suppose idiots and evil are all the same to him." He paused to consider the bag and how to optimize its space. "What are you doing here?"
She slid the last of the boxes down the counter to him and joined him by the bags. "Working, of course."
He studied her for a moment, and she busied herself with his purchases to avoid his gaze. She had a love-hate relationship with those eyes. They were big and absolutely gorgeous, a rare and expressive tint of violet. They were also incredibly perceptive, and she wasn't completely comfortable feeling like someone could see through her so effortlessly.
"Kaoru," he said. The store was empty, but he still cast a careful glance to either side before continuing in a low tone, "Is Sano's paycheck enough?"
It was her turn to laugh. "Yeah, it's fine. But I thought we should have a cushion, you know? After Yahiko caught the flu last year, we had to pinch pennies for months. The night hours here work well for me, and it's only six days a week." She deftly knotted the last bag's handles and passed it to him. "You're all set."
"Thanks." Threading his hands through the loops, he lifted his bags off the counter. "When's your shift over?"
Her watch claimed it was five past one. "Hira was actually supposed to relieve me a few minutes ago, so I'll be free when he gets here."
His eyes flicked to the door and the darkness beyond its glass confines. "I'll wait for you, then."
Ten minutes later, Hira rushed in, apologizing profusely. Apparently a group of troublemakers had been hassling him and some friends at the bar and it had taken him longer than expected to get out of the situation. It didn't sound like the sort of thing he could have controlled, so she waved her hands in absolution and left him with a smile. Kenshin trailed after her, fumbling with his bags to find that perfect balance point where the boxes remained completely horizontal. He was meticulous about even the tiniest of details.
"Do you walk home?" He asked, studying the golden row of patches illuminated by the street lamps.
"Thank goodness, no. That'd be a long walk." It was about 30 minutes by foot compared to 9 minutes by bus. "I take the bus. Where are you headed?"
"Shishou's place is just around the corner," he replied absently, ushering her to the bus stop's bench. "Kaoru," his brows furrowed funnily, "the schedule says the next one doesn't come until 1:45."
"Will you lighten up? It's fine. Hira was just a little late today. Normally I can make the earlier bus."
After that, no matter how she tried to wave him off, he stayed at the stop until she was safely seated and the bus had pulled out of sight.
Wednesday night went a little faster. Misao had spent the past week knocked flat by a nasty cold. Under Aoshi's watchful eye, she had made a complete recovery, but now Aoshi was sick. Misao was thrilled to monopolize him while she nursed him back to health. So after he finally fell asleep, she stopped by the grocery to replenish their supply of nasal decongestants and canned soup.
"Do you think he'd like one of these?" Misao stopped by the counter and held up a sky blue Netipot, giggling. "It'd be so funny to see him dumping water into his nose to clean his sinuses."
Kaoru grinned at the mental image of Aoshi bent sideways over a sink, pouring water in one nostril and out the other. "I think he'd appreciate anything you got him. I hear they actually work. You should buy bottled water, too, if you get one."
"Perfect. What aisle?"
By the time Misao was done, she had more purchases than Kaoru thought was truly necessary for one sick person, but Misao was a generous soul and doing unnecessary things for people made her happy. And nothing she bought was impractical, exactly. She'd probably make use of everything eventually.
"Ta, Kaoru! Have a happy shift." She winked. "Between you and me, I love it when Aoshi's sick. I never see him so disheveled otherwise. Oh, hey Himura."
There was a dull thunk as Kenshin dropped several six packs onto the conveyor belt, nodding to both of them in greeting. "Good evening, Misao, Kaoru."
Kaoru eyed his choices dubiously as she waved goodbye to Misao. "Kenshin, that's a lot of beer for a Wednesday night."
"That it is," he agreed. "But it's a clear night, and Shishou never stargazes without some."
Now there was a man who could hold his liquor. His liver was nothing short of a medical miracle. Once Sano had challenged him to a drinking contest—he'd wanted to "man Kenshin up a little" by sneaking him to the local strip club, but Hiko had refused to entrust his ward's education to anyone less manly than himself—and had passed out without Hiko ever showing any signs of intoxication. And Sano was no lightweight. The next morning, Hiko had made him clean up all the puke puddles and informed him that a real man could get a woman naked without reducing the whole thing to a business transaction.
"I see." She started ringing him up. "ID, please?"
Kenshin already had it out and passed it to her. He was used to getting carded, even by people who weren't quite as strict about regulations as Kaoru.
"So how did your section like the donuts?"
He smiled. "I think I can expect some favorable reviews at the end of the semester."
He was as modest as ever. The last time she'd checked him on Rate My Professor, he'd had pretty high stats for a TA, including the hotness scale measured in chili peppers. She wasn't sure when that had happened, although he'd always been adorable, possibly pretty. When he was little, people had mistaken him for a girl constantly. His ponytail, which he'd insisted on because it matched Hiko's, hadn't helped matters. These days, he still looked somewhat delicate for a guy, but puberty had definitely been kind, very kind.
"How is Yahiko?" he asked, redirecting the conversation.
"That snot! You'll never guess what he did today," she groused. There was never a shortage of things to say about the little troublemaker. By the time her shift was over and Kenshin was escorting her out the door, she still hadn't finished.
Her Thursday shift passed uneventfully, until the door chime went off right before one o' clock. She looked up.
"Kenshin?" While she was always very pleased to see him, she was starting to get suspicious of his rather convenient timing. "What brings you here?"
He shrugged, nonchalantly wending his way toward the tomato display. "I couldn't help but notice how fresh the produce looked yesterday. Some of these would be very nice in a stew." He inspected one, turning it over in his hands, before bagging some and nestling them in his basket. "You must have a good turnover rate."
There was only so much she was willing to suspend her disbelief that he was out shopping in the wee hours of the morning because of the irresistible call of fresh produce.
He had disappeared around a corner, but his voice drifted over. "The radishes are especially firm today."
She narrowed her eyes. It was a good thing the place was empty so she didn't have to worry too much about being professional or bothering real customers. She grabbed the loudspeaker.
"KENSHIN," she boomed. "I DON'T BELIEVE FOR ONE SECOND THAT YOU'RE HERE BECAUSE YOU DESPERATELY NEED VEGETABLES AT ONE IN THE MORNING."
There was a satisfying thud of something dropping in the distance, and soon Kenshin wandered back into view.
"Well, Shishou ensures that there is never anything I desperately need," he rubbed the back of his neck, smiling a little too brightly, "but I would very much like to purchase these for tomorrow's dinner."
He liked to hide it with smiles and silliness, but Kenshin had a backbone of steel—nobody could have survived Hiko's insane parenting without one—and it made him very difficult to deal with when he felt strongly about things. Chivalry was one such thing, although he wasn't one to make a big show of it. That was part of the problem with Kenshin. It was impossible for her to ever really hold anything against him because he was just such a good guy. She took a deep breath.
"Since you're already here, you can wait with me at the bus stop if you really want to." She knew how to pick her battles, and it wasn't as though she didn't enjoy his company. "But I just want you to know that it's completely unnecessary and uncalled for and that if you flunk out of grad school, it's not my fault. Are we clear?"
"Crystal." He handed her the bag of tomatoes. "Their code is 25480."
"Good." She punched it in and set them on the scale. "And don't bother coming tomorrow. It's my day off."
It wasn't.
Friday was actually one of their busier days. Since the store was so near campus, people tended to stumble in at all hours to buy drinks. Since they technically weren't on campus, the kids who were legal could buy liquor. Those that weren't would buy mixers. And a party without munchies was usually pretty lame, so the chips and pretzels and cookies sold well, too. It was all somewhat foreign to her, and sometimes she was a little sad to feel so out of touch with the rest of her classmates. Certainly not all of them went to crazy parties, but most did something fun together.
Not that she regretted a thing. On Fridays, Yahiko would always find some excuse to wait up for her since it wasn't a school night. They would play a quick round of Mario Kart—if they trained against each other, it was possible that they'd get good enough to take Sano down by the time he got back—drink hot chocolate, then go to bed. At this point, it was kind of sacred and she wouldn't trade their Fridays for the world.
It was the thought of this tradition that carried her through the rest of her shift, which ran a little late again. Hira mumbled his apologies as she tossed him the keys to the cash register, but she waved him off in her rush to get out the door. Unfortunately, her efforts came to nothing: she arrived at the stop just in time to watch the bus's taillights shrink into the night. The schedule confirmed that the next one wouldn't come around until 1:45.
As she saw it, she had three options. Her first option was to wait at the bus stop until 1:45, and probably get home around 1:55. If she were lucky, Yahiko would fall asleep on the couch before she got home. If she were unlucky, Yahiko would still be up and worried because she was late. Not that she could help it. They didn't have a landline at home that she could use to contact him. The bigger problem was that it was a Friday night. There were a lot of drunks out, and some of them would heckle anything with boobs and a pulse. Although she was fairly certain she could successfully fend off a normal attacker, drunk or sober, it didn't make the idea of hanging around any more pleasant. Anyway, an integral part of self-defense was avoiding situations that would require her to use her training in the first place.
Her second option was to return to the store and hang out there until it was time for the next bus. She'd be safe, although she'd still be late. She'd also be stuck with Hira for at least a half hour and she wasn't convinced she could stand it without killing him for being so inconsiderate. That went against her father's teachings. Realistically, the biggest danger was probably that she could easily miss the next bus. Then she'd be in even more trouble: she had to teach at the dojo in the morning.
Her final option was probably the poorest life choice: she could just walk home. She could walk pretty fast when she wanted to. If she left immediately, she could get back before the next bus even showed up. Once she reached a block or two away from campus, and she probably wouldn't have to deal with drunk people. Their home was in a reasonably safe neighborhood, too. Statistically speaking, the chances that she would run into the rare creep on the one night she needed to walk home were fairly low.
She decided to walk.
It was a nice night. The sky was clear again, and the moon was bright. While it wasn't exactly warm out anymore, the crisp air was refreshing. It also gave her a chance to wear her favorite indigo scarf. As she made her way down the quiet street, she realized she didn't have as much time to herself anymore. When her father had been alive, meditation had been an integral part of her practice. But life had gradually gotten so busy. She barely even spent time with her friends anymore. Not like she used to.
She was sufficiently deep in thought that it was a block or two before she spotted the tip of a shadow on the ground to her right. She approached the next streetlight and it receded, as did her own. As she passed the lamppost, she watched her shadow pool at her feet, then lengthen before her. Soon enough, the extra shadow reappeared slightly to her side. Either she was paranoid, or there was someone behind her. Casually, she checked her watch then sped up, as if she had suddenly realized she was late for something. The person behind her sped up, too: though still quiet, the footfalls grew audible as she increased her speed. Her pursuer had to be onto her by now, so she stopped pretending to be oblivious and broke into a run. A hand shot out and grabbed her shoulder, and she ducked and whirled to face her attacker. Only, there was nobody there.
"Fear not, my lady," murmured a voice by her ear. "For it is I, the Batt."
She froze.
"I stalk the night, protecting the righteous and punishing the wicked-"
She was going to kill him.
"-and making the babes swoon." He tugged insistently at her ponytail. "All the babes."
"Kenshin," she said, "I hardly think Zanza would approve of his trusty sidekick running amok without him."
"And I hardly think Zanza would approve of his only sister wandering the streets, scared and alone, after dark."
He had a point and he'd gone to unusual lengths to demonstrate it. She deflated a little, and readied herself for the inevitable lecture. However, it never came. He simply offered her his arm.
"I'll walk you home."
It wasn't long before they reached her street. From the corner, she could see that the light was still on in the front room and that the TV was blaring. Whether or not he was awake, Yahiko clearly hadn't made it to bed yet.
She was still curious about one thing. "Kenshin?"
"Hm?" He was scanning the street again, focusing on nothing in particular but taking in everything.
"How did you know I worked today?"
"Ah," he said. "It was just a hunch. You said you worked six days a week, but I didn't see you there on Monday."
"Oh." Somehow, his response didn't surprise her at all. "You know, you don't need to feel obligated to go out of your way like this just because Sano isn't here."
He turned to her, bemused at the suggestion. "I don't."
They reached her step and she unzipped her purse to fish out her keys. "Thank you, Kenshin." As her fingers hooked around the familiar key ring, she decided to try once more. "But I really don't want to be a burden to you."
There was a heavy silence, then he shoved his hands into his sleeves and gazed up at the sky. "Would you feel like less of a burden if you were my girlfriend?"
She looked at him in wonderment, unsure if she was hearing what was really coming out of his mouth or if her brain was arbitrarily filling in words that she might wish to hear. She didn't want to read too much into anything and get her hopes up. It was too dangerous. Still, he seemed similarly unsure of himself.
"If it's something that would make you happy," he offered, "Sano has already expressed his approval."
"Yes." She said it firmly and definitively, then watched his wistful, faraway eyes widen and rush back to earth, to her. "I can't think of anything that would make me happier."
Slowly, a smile crept across his face. It was that breathtaking, guileless smile that made him look so young…
A muted scream pierced the night, followed by the staccato of machine gun fire.
She twisted the keys and yanked the door open with a growl. "He knows he's not supposed to watch those sorts of things!" One foot in the door, she paused long enough to press a shy kiss to the side of his jaw.
Then she fled.
A/N: I'm out of town for the weekend, so I'm leaving you all with this (my first romance, hooray!) instead of dumping a bunch of Memoria drabbles on you. While it was interesting writing something a little less minimalist and rather fluffy, it took so long! I might just be slow, though. Still, I started this without any particular ideas in mind except that Kaoru was going to work at a grocery store. I was amazed to find it wrote itself...with Memoria, it's important that I wrangle each drabble to a specific endpoint.
They say you need to know the rules before you can break them, which is why I decided to make Kenshin a physics major. Social work was in the running for a while, too. I couldn't pick one for Kaoru, though, so hers remained unspecified. Also, coming up with summaries is a blast. There was a part of me that wanted to make "He knows he's not supposed to watch those sorts of things" the tagline, but it seemed a little rude to mislead you guys. So instead I just sat in front of my computer and chuckled to myself...
In my opinion, the fun thing about AUs is that it gives you the freedom to tweak the characters (within reason). Without the same background events or the same cultural context, it's perfectly fine if they're not quite the same as in canon. However, that also posed my main challenge: how do I keep Kenshin recognizable as Kenshin without relying on his verbal tics and honorifics during the dialogue? Anyway, let me know how I did ^_^
I hope you enjoyed this one!