Fire and Ice
Disclaimer : I don't own Rurouni Kenshin.
If this seems familiar to anyone, it's cause I posted it a year ago under a different pen name. Anyway, read on!
Misao's PoV
Makimachi Misao, well respected engineer. I have to admit, those words sound very pleasing to my ears. It just puts a smile on my face. It's an achievement, my accomplishment, my moment of glory. And it just feels so wonderful. After all, I've only started working about a year ago.
Life has definitely gotten better.
A smile made its way to my lips as I absent mindedly reached for the ring enclosed around the fourth finger of my left hand. Shinomori Aoshi was definitely the one who brought luck upon me…..the way an angel would.
After I met him, everything was good. In fact, everything was great. And it kept getting better. People stopped picking on me, my self confidence boosted, I met great people who are now a family to me, I met my ultimate best friend—Kaoru, I graduated from university successfully and I am to be married to him soon.
People say that if I am fire, he is ice because we are so different.
But hey, I'm not complaining. He's so lovable and he really cares about me even though people always look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them that. You see, no one seems to believe that he is capable of loving and even if he was, no one thought that it would be with me, the total opposite of him. But what they don't understand is that he loves me for the noisy person that I am and that is what made him capable of loving. And I love him for that……as well as for a whole lot of other reasons too.
In fact, I think I loved him when he spoke to me for the first time. Yup, the times before that when I had laid my eyes upon him and tried to talk to him were probably a desperate cry of help.
Man, these heels are killing my feet. And I think the pain is creeping up to my head.
Anyway, let me continue…now that my shoes are off.
We were both high school students when we first met. Those glorious days...
I was a measly freshman while he was two years my senior. I was also probably the noisiest person in the school while he was the quietest. No one would have thought that we would actually acknowledge each other as we were like the South Pole and the North Pole.
Everyone goes through this awkward stage in their life when they are the most insecure right? Well, high school was my time. I was small-sized with a body like a boy's and people always seemed to tower over me.
My personality would never allow me to be intimidated by people like the group who were obsessed with themselves. But I can't pretend that I am not hurt by the remarks that they make about my femininity and size.
I knew that I was short….VERY short.
I knew that I didn't have the curves that they had.
I knew that I acted like a boy when I ran around and jumped about in school.
I knew that I didn't speak in inaudible voices that they did.
I knew that I didn't walk like I was on the catwalk.
I knew but I refused to become like that. Why? Because they were victims of media corruption and I will never be that !! No, I will not !! muahahahahaaa…
Okay, I guess my childish side is still present. Which is good, by the way. Because without it, I wouldn't know what to do with Aoshi when he gets too serious for his own good.
What was Aoshi like in high school? Well, he was pretty much the same as he is now. Except he smiles and laughs more often now. Before, he would show the same face EVERY where, EVERY time and to EVERY one.
He used to clam up and not speak more than 3 words at once, thus the quietness and coldness of and ice block that he was declared after. Now, he still does tend to keep to himself but he says more than a sentence and he really talks like a normal person …..that is, when he's talking to me.
Can you see me beaming brightly like the sun when I said that? No? Are you sure? Oh, I see, you have shades on. Well, okay, just so you know, I'm really proud of him.
He wasn't quite as tall as he is now, but he was still among the tallest students in school. And he obviously had those gorgeous ice blue eyes and his black hair.
The first time I saw him was in the school library, where I later learned that he spent almost all of his free time there. I wasn't hungry so I went around exploring the school. I did attend the orientation but I didn't really pay attention. And so my exploration ended up in the library.
And you know what I did after I met my Aoshi-sama? I signed up to become a librarian. I think that helped me a lot. It helped me make true friends. Yup, becoming a librarian helped me meet people like Megumi the-cunning-fox and Kenshin mr. mysterious. And from these two, I met Sanosuke the-chicken-brained-rooster-haired-gangster and Aoshi. In case you were wondering, I didn't befriend Megumi and Kenshin just so that I could get to Aoshi. I didn't even know that Aoshi had friends…no offense to him.
Besides that, the library became my sanctuary from the girls who used me to boost their ego. They thought of books as their mortal enemy, being the dumb-blonde type of girls that they were. They wouldn't dare step into the library as they were too afraid of being infected by geek germs.
But no one, absolutely NO one would ever dare Aoshi or Kenshin a geek. They both already had many people looking up to them in admiration when they were only 15. People labeled them as the greatest rivals. Which was actually true.
They competed in studies and kendo and unknown to them, some thought that they rivaled in popularity. But even I have to be fair to Himura and say that Aoshi lost to him in that department because Himura was friendly with people and was always a smooth talker even when he was going through a rough time.
It's because of this fact that I am glad Kaoru-chan wasn't in our high school. Imagine the pain and hurt that she would have to go through. Kenshin was a bit of a player back then but he wasn't the type of guy who would dump a girl by telling her that she was useless or unattractive or stuff like that and he would never leave a girl for no reason. It was usually because he had lost interest in them or occasionally because his uncle disapproved.
I thank the lords that Aoshi was the low profile kind of guy. It really saved me from going through that i-hate-myself, he-wants-someone-better kind of phase.
Somehow, I feel like a wimp sometimes when I think back on the times when I was picked on. I shouldn't have let their remarks get to me. I am a pretty hot tempered person and I guess I just flared up without second thought. It took me a whole year to realize that the only reaction that they wanted from me was anger and I gave it to them without a fight.
But I hate it when they open their lipstick covered lips to insult me. About what? No, it wasn't about my physical appearance. It was my family status that they made fun of. They made up their versions about my family life like I was an unwanted child who was left behind, that my grandfather—Okina or Jiya, as I call him, only took me in out of pity, that I was an illegal child , which I have to object as I am 100 percent legal and many other snide comments.
All of them were stereotypes. People who were afraid to be apart from THE group. People who were afraid to help those who were being made fun. People who were cared only for themselves.
They are people who know nothing about me and yet they think they do. My parents didn't leave me because of me. They left because they had a duty and their duty was to protect the people of our country from the dangers of war and other similar dangers. Their duty was to protect the very same people who insulted their daughter and they left me because of that.
And Jiya did not take me in out of pity. He took me in because he loved me as his granddaughter and because I was all that was left to remind him of his only child. He told me that I had the energy of both my father and my mother. It seems that my mom was like me from the way Jiya speaks about her, each time with fondness and love.
Jiya is truly someone who is important to me, despite his perverted ways. He is every bit my inspiration as Aoshi-sama is to me. He taught me to use the kunai and I laugh when recall the times when I almost killed him out of excitement. We were descendants of a ninja family and we will always be proud of it.
"We are the pride of ourselves."
That is Jiya's principle of life and I have learned to live by it.
How did Aoshi and me get together? Well, you see, it happened in the..
"Misao?"
Oh, I suppose that that part would have to wait. It's time for dinner with Aoshi. Guess where we're going?
The restaurant owned by our favourite red head,
"Fire and Ice."
A.N. looking back, I realized just how corny this is. Oh well.