IN THE END
By: Chiki Yumeshisa

Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin………all original characters are mine to claim….

AN: Hello again, everybody! This is a story I have posted once before, but since my account was deleted this will be updated every week once again. I hope that you will enjoy it, and due to demands, I have decided to repost.

Enjoy!

>Chiki

Warnings: None.


Summary: Kenji is a rebellious teenager, and Kenshin has to raise him on his own. When Kenji's grades aren't the greatest, his teacher requests an interview. And the teacher happens to be Kamiya Kaoru. It's not easy being a single parent and even harder to forget. Then, what happens in the end?

CHAPTER 1
- Broken In Two -

The dishes were piled high in the sink, and a strange odor hung in the air. The kitchen, as usual was a mess. As I had predicted, last night's dinner plates were still on the table. A few coke cans were scattered about, two of them carelessly strewn on the floor. The dark liquid was oozing out of one of them.

With a sigh, I picked it up, holding it by one end. I was a meticulously neat person, and I hated mess. I thought I had told Kenji to clean up. It looked like he had ignored me all together and decided instead to hold a party. And he didn't clean that up either. The dining room was no less dirty, as I found the pizza boxes with half-finished pizza still sitting there.

I carefully placed down my pack. After having lugged it around all day, it felt like a ton of bricks and I was grateful to get it off my back. I placed it in the corner before starting to clean up.

Somewhere in the house, the sound of rock music played – that meant Kenji was home, and I hoped, without his friends. Luckily for me, there were no stains of pop or any more dirt littering the living room or the carpets. It would take me forever to brush those stains out if there had been any. I did, however, catch sight of a flower vase that was broken.

How wonderful.

I had half the mind to get mad – but that would do nothing. Even if I got mad at Kenji, he would brush it off. I had to admit, I wasn't the world's greatest father….not even an experienced one at that. It would be a long, tiring argument that would get no where, and it would just be easier to clean up. I had work to do.

It took a while to do that. Cut up glass had to be dealt with carefully. Just my luck, my vacuum cleaner had decided to die on me just the other week. Not wanting to take any chances, I used the broom and put all the broken glass into a bucket. It would not be pleasant at all for a piece to go right up one's foot.

The flowers were dead already, trampled, the petals shriveled, the stems broken in two. It was like a person lying on the floor, bleeding their life away, helpless as they lay in pieces…….

Mechanically, those went into the garbage can, and the mess was mopped up. Then the dishes were washed, each one with specific careful administering. They were to be washed first, then soaped carefully. Then, they would be rinsed. The counter would be wiped, and then the dishes were to be rinsed again to make doubly sure the soap was gone. And again, the counter would be wiped to be sure it was dry. Then each dish was dried separately and carefully.

My own father would laugh at my routine, saying that I was too careful and too neat, but that was the way I was I guess: particular about everything. I didn't like life when things were rushed.

Drying my hands on the towel slowly, I went to go find my bag. I had reports to fill out, and even though I was tired, I had to do those first. As I passed the living room, I caught sight of my mail box.

It was heaping with envelopes, half of which were probably bills to pay, and the other half were useless magazines and coupons. I picked those up swiftly, and gathered them into a pile to be tucked under my arm as I went downstairs.

As much as possible, upstairs was restricted, the kitchen the only thing used. The couches were rarely sat upon, and as there was no television or any electronic equipment there, Kenji spent his time downstairs in the basement.

At the moment, he was lying on the floor, on his stomach, facing the television that had its volume cranked up to almost its full peak. His legs swung in the air in time to the rhythm of the very loud rock music he was letting blare from the speakers of our stereo.

In front of him, sat a text, open to page thirty-four, and a book, with nothing yet written on it. He was accompanying the music with his voice at the same time watching The Simpsons. Homer was laughing as the dog tried to run after its tail.

"Kenji!" I called, putting the envelopes in my hand down on top of the low rise table we had. I sat down on the cushions surrounding it. "Turn down the music!"

But he didn't hear me, continually singing along, his head of dark red hair swaying and bobbing with the beat of the drums.
I didn't particularly like rock music – Linkin Park, I do believe - but I couldn't tell him what to listen to and what not to listen to, so I tolerated it. Just not this loud….

I tried again, but my voice was lost as the guitars picked up a crescendo and drowned me out of awareness. Thus, I got up and crossed the room, lowering the volume a little, but not turning it off.

He looked up, with a scowl. By the look on his face, I could tell he did not know when I had entered the room.

"What?" He demanded, sitting up fully.

"Just turn it down." I said calmly, watching as his glare flickered over me briefly and then turned away abruptly. He never answered, and shrugged. I wondered vaguely what he could be thinking. He turned his attention away from me to watch as the little yellow characters ran around the screen.

Satisfied that at least he had listened, I went back to my seat.

Swiping my own mess of red hair back with my hand, I began to take out my books.

It had been a long day, and I hadn't known so many people could complain about one thing. Luckily for them, I had patience and I could be stretched. So long as I didn't snap, people were safe.

I had snapped once, and it had not been pretty.

I arranged the files in alphabetical order so I could get through them faster. It was rather onerous to do the same thing again and again, but I guess I had to do this.

Which reminded me that I had to do my bills too. I had been late paying them the other month, what with a tight schedule. I was probably penalized for it too, and I certainly didn't need to have that on my case.

After arranging everything, I sifted through the stack of envelopes. Yes, I had neglected many more bills than I had expected. My mind raced with all the payments I had to make. And where was all the money I was giving the government going to?

There were letters from my friends from up in Kyoto, asking me how I was doing. I put those to the side, intending to read them later before bed. I wanted to get the payments over and done with.

Just as I was about to start opening it up, another letter caught my eye. It was in crisp white envelope, "Himura" scrawled in scraggly characters at the top. I did a double-check: there was no return address.

For things like this, one had to be careful. God only knows what could travel by mail and I had heard of stories – the missing link was what they called it. They would have no return address and the person who opened the mail would get mysteriously sick and die in a couple of weeks if not days.

So I cautiously opened it, checking for anything suspicious.

There was nothing, only a single piece of paper that came out easily when I shook it. On the top, in that same scraggly writing were the words "To the Parents of Himura Kenji."

With alarm rising in my throat, I opened the rest of the letter. Did it have something to do with the courts again? Kenji's case was always so difficult, and I had had many sleepless nights trying to fix things up.

My fears were not confirmed and I was relieved to find out it was merely a letter from his teacher. It was signed at the bottom, Kamiya.

It was a parent-teacher request form, and the teacher was practically begging me to go meet with him. It didn't say why, it just said something that held urgency. I glanced at Kenji, who had fallen asleep to the sound of another cartoon. I think it was transformers or something. So he wasn't doing well in school again. I thought I had this conversation with him a long time ago.

I guess I really wasn't up to arguing with him that day. I just wanted everything to be over with and for me to go to bed and fall into a blissful sleep. Being a man that fell into depression at the strangest times, I could just feel it creeping up again.

Hurriedly I signed the sheet, and agreed to meet with this Mr. Kamiya the very next day. I placed it into a new envelope, sealing it shut, just in case Kenji decided to peek into it. He would get mad at me again, saying I was prying into his life again. Useless arguments with him was the thing I tried to avoid the most, and we had both settled into a comfortable agreement that we would both try not to piss each other off.

Now, the question was, would I be able to get him to give it to his teacher without throwing it out?

I got up from my seat again, to go put it in his book bag, but yet another letter caught my eye.

When I saw the person it was addressed to, I grew cold all over. A rush of adrenaline pumped through me, and for a moment, I didn't know whether to faint or to vomit. Since both were not on my to-do list, I snatched it up and shoved it into the closest drawer I could find. It belonged to the china cabinet I had set up.

The day needed to go by much faster than this, I realized.

Much, much faster than this.

To Be Continued…….

AN: As usual, I hope you enjoyed. This idea had been plaguing my mind incessantly and I thought to give it a try or else I'd go insane. I hope that I get enough reviews. Please do leave me a small one by

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