Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin.
AN: This one is kind of a try-out.
Seriously, the man had a voice that could make even the most fanatic hyper-on-sugar caffeine-addict sleep like a newborn in less time than it takes to say 'basic physics I'. He even looked the part of boring old professor: a mop of tired, thin grey hair framing his wrinkled features, complete with standard-issue professor spectacles and a light brown suit with obligatory black tie. It didn't help that he'd closed the curtains, drowning half of the room in darkness and the other in shallow TL-light. The act of closing the curtains had indeed been accompanied by a great deal of dissatisfied grumbling among the students, but the professor simply had not cared: if the early spring sun was allowed to spill through the large windows that lined both sides of the room, it would just ruin the top-quality slides of his marvellous presentation he put so much work into (so he claimed). The man was probably a vampire, what with his sallow skin and great dislike for sunlight.
Another reason why Kaoru preferred professors that wrote on the blackboard: they didn't force their students to take notes in semi-darkness from slides that were –most of the time anyway- neither good-looking nor helpful.
For a moment, she stared up angrily at those damned TL-lights on the ceiling, then started counting the ones that were broken (flickering counts for half a point), but even that grew tedious quickly (there were sixteen and a half in total). She considered just laying down her head on the small desk and take a nap maybe. After all, it was past 17h30 and she'd had classes from 8h30 in the morning. They'd also just had a particularly nasty hour-and-half of Mathematical Analysis II, and though it was one of Kaoru's preferred subject –more than partially thanks to the spirited female professor- that didn't mean it didn't tire her out. She yawned widely.
Meanwhile, the old professor kept on babbling about conservation of angular momentum, stuck on the same slide for the past 15 minutes –hadn't they had a class last semester which had specifically warned against boring your audience like that?
At that moment, the guy next to her gave in to temptation and sank onto his desk with a long, tired sigh. Kaoru patted her cheeks in a last effort to stay awake and forced her attention back to her notes. That was a fine flower she'd doodled in the corner over there, but she doubted a page blank save for some fancy curls and rudimentary flowers would get her to pass the subject. Thank god for decent textbooks.
She cast out a glance for a sight of Aoshi, thinking maybe she could copy his notes –heavens knew the guy was a pro in that field- but the tall man had likely skipped –a wise decision, Kaoru realised, looking around once more; A decision shared by about half of the students. Kaoru wished she'd gone home also, she wouldn't pick up anything useful now anyway. But the thought of actually skipping a class truly horrified Kaoru. Whenever Misao would try and talk her into it she would reply that skipping (even though very few of her classes were mandatory) violated her most fundamental principles. Kaoru knew with unwavering certainty that, should she ever be convinced not to go to a class, the universe would make sure that particular class would have all the information vital to the exam. Better not to take chances.
A low, general snicker rumbled through the students –apparently, the old man had said something funny. He'd also moved on to a new slide about gyroscopes. She didn't particularly care.
She was just starting to nod off, her eyes slowly sliding shut and her head resting comfortably on her hand, when a stripe of red to her left caught her eye. Two rows of mostly empty seats in front her sat a student with bright red hair, so red in fact, she was surprised she hadn't noticed it before. It was long, kind of messy and tied into a loose ponytail. For a second Kaoru thought it belonged to a girl, but then the student turned his head to address the woman next to him and she could clearly see his face. Kaoru had never seen him before. Agreed, there were over 400 first-years in her study, but she was sure she would have remembered someone like him. Though Kaoru didn't have many close friends, she was generally well liked by everyone, occasionally (and gladly) lending a helping hand to this person or another and she prided herself on being able to recall faces easily and (perhaps more importantly) connecting it with a name.
When his conversation with the black-haired woman –Yukishiro Tomoe, unless Kaoru was very much mistaken- was finished, the mystery-man returned to scribbling fervently, but Kaoru could tell it wasn't notes he was taking –there was too much movement in his arm and pencil. Curious, she leaned forward and sideways a bit, and she was granted a look at a small portion of what seemed to be a drawing of dragon. A very well-drawn dragon. She watched him for a while, seeing only parts of the drawing at each time and putting them together in her head, until her neck started to protest and she reluctantly sank back into a less straining position. An idea popped into her head. It was a little silly and if she'd been less tired and less bored she'd probably have dismissed it without a second thought, but now she found herself carefully tearing off the lower half of her paper –the halve that was still devoid of doodles and wrote: "cool dragon :)".
She nudged the guy- Hira -seated one row in front of her and one to the right, passed him the folded piece of paper and made a meaningful gesture in the direction of the redhead –passing notes like that during class, how old was she? 14? Hira gave her a strange look, but handed the folded paper to the student in front of him, who passed it to the tall lady left to him, who slid it over two empty desks into the perfectly manicured hands of Yukishiro Tomoe, who handed it to mystery-guy, who eyed it suspiciously for a second. He opened it without looking back to see who had sent it and Kaoru couldn't make out his reaction. Then he turned almost completely in his chair, putting an arm over the back of it and smiled brightly at her.
Smiling back, Kaoru recognised him. Indeed, the cross-shaped scar taking up the best part of his left cheek was hard to miss. She didn't know his name, but she knew he hung out regularly with Sagara Sanosuke and with Takani Megumi from medical school. She was also quite sure however, that last time she'd seen him his hair had been raven black and not a flame-like red.
For a while, she watched him rummage through his papers.
Then Kaoru saw an envelope make its way back to her through the chain of students –who, surprisingly, didn't seem to mind the distraction (they were probably even grateful). Scar-guy had turned around again and was eyeing her, expectantly and obviously pleased. It made Kaoru a little wary about the content of the envelope. She raised an eyebrow at him. He nodded encouragingly.
Inside the envelope was a drawing, much in the style of the dragon he was working on now, but instead it depicted person, curled up on the windowsill with a textbook and a cup of coffee, surrounded by even more books scattered around. Kaoru felt her cheeks burn hot, knowing very well who it was, reading there in her favourite spot at the library. The drawing was dated December of the previous year.
She shot him a glare, starting to regret her little note. She did not generally enjoy people secretly watching her like that.
He noticed her discomfort and his smile faltered quickly as he motioned for her to turn around the page. It read –in an awfully bad handwriting, if she might say so:
Get coffee together sometime? Followed by a barely readable number.
Mildly intrigued, she found herself smiling and shaking her head as she jotted down: "real smooth" and held up the words for him to read.
The tension fled his face instantly and he smiled once more, waiting eagerly when she took down the paper and started writing again.
"What happened to your hair?"
He turned to grab his notebook.
"I stopped dyeing it."
She laughed, harder maybe than really appropriate during class, but the sound was lost in the sudden noise of two hundred or so students gathering their stuff and complaining loudly about the professor. Class had ended. She saw her surprise mirrored on his face. Then he pulled himself together and in one smooth motion, climbed over the two rows of empty chairs so he was right in front of her.
He had a young face, smooth but for the scar, almost feminine even. She might have expected him to seem a little nervous to talk to her –after all, she had no idea if the drawing in the library had been a solitary occasion or if perhaps he'd had his eye on her all this time-, but he was perfectly calm when he asked, casually: "So… what do you say?"
She'd never heard his voice before, a gently tenor that fitted his small posture and fine features quite well.
"I don't even know your name."
He extended a hand.
"Himura Kenshin."
AN: As you may or may not have noticed, English is not my mother tongue nor my second language, so this piece might contain horrible mistakes I've somehow overlooked. Should any of you spot them, please let me know: I would love to improve my English so any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
That being said, I hope you enjoyed this little story. It's a one-shot for now but I might add some chapters in the future.