A/N Ohisashiburi, ne? I am still busy with Tokyo's Shrew, a huge fic about Sano and Megumi, based on Shakespeare's Shrew. I just had to get this drabble of my brain onto my wordprocessor. This is another fic that shows a different part to their relationship. There is more than meets the eye? You could say that this is a sequel to Rumour Has It.

Please enjoy and don't forget to review. Your thoughts on this are highly appreciated. (konARTISTE owns nothing)


Tokyo, Meiji.


I

They were so childish, the two of them.

Constantly bickering, calling each other names, doing things just to spite the other, sending looks that infuriated the other.

Their friends did know their feelings for each other. Because between that bickering and name-calling, there were the looks they sent each other when they thought no one was looking. Or their conspicuous behaviour when the other was mentioned.

It was nothing special, thought Kenshin, Kaoru and everyone else. Yet, they wondered when the time would come that the doctor and the moocher would face their own feelings and acknowledge the others.

The oh so naughty grin that would appear on her painted lips whenever she spoke to him, was evident to everyone. Was it not evident to him?

The stolen look that made its appearance when he walked beside her, told everyone that, despite his harsh words and rough demeanour, he did not want to have any harm done to her. Had she not noticed the flicker of his eyes?

A unrelenting clash between their characters and their expressions, it had no end, or so it seemed to his gambling mates, her patients, his opponents, her neighbours and their friends.

Some even thought that their feelings would not result into a productive relationship. Only a friendship that hung on a fine, silk thread would continue to exist.

Would it break?


II

Many things were watched by many eyes, countless times. Yet a few moments went unnoticed. Moments in which nothing happened, nothing out of the ordinary and nothing new. Those few moments in fact were all that there was to their secret relationship.

When he showed up at her clinic's doorstep, her eyes met with his and he would give her that look that meant everything to her, while she was busy yelling at him for being an idiot. During the admonishing, he recognised her pain of seeing him hurt, again.

While wrapping his hand or any other body part that had gotten damaged by his lack of care, they would, if she was done scolding him, silently listen to each other's breathing. They both tried to remember every breath of the other person, because each breath was a precious word that should not be forgotten.

Their shadows mixed and mingled when they walked near each other. Sometimes he would walk next to her, sometimes in front of her and from time to time he would walk behind her. Whenever their shadows became one, she found out his need for her to be close to him. Whenever their shadows broke apart, he felt her ache at being away from him.

Everything around him told him that the time was not ripe to get closer to her. The main reason being his heart that desired the world and nothing less.

Her knowledge told her that she should wait until life was ready to turn onto a new road, because there was so much left to understand, things that she should recognise on her own.

They were so childish, the two of them.

Nevertheless, they saw each other's maturity in these few moments to their secret relationship. That was all to their relationship, until both would grow the need to have more that what life had allowed them to.

The two roads of destiny are separated.

Until then.


Owari.

So, that is how I view their relationship or how Nobuhiro Watsuki left it at. Drop a comment about your views on their canon ending, please O: ).