I had pieces of a second part to this story saved for years and finally finished it. This features short-haired Kenshin because I'm in the minority of people who actually liked it, even though the Hokkaido arc basically retconned it.


Kaoru stretched languidly as she sat on the engawa, both relishing in and cringing from the soreness of her muscles after spending the better part of the morning scrubbing the dojo floors. The chores had fallen to the wayside for the past couple of days or so, entirely due to a certain redhead who was avidly scrubbing a stain out of one of her haori at the washbasin.

Kaoru's tired eyes came to rest upon her husband—it still made her insides flutter to think that yes, he was her husband now—and she leaned against a post. It was the third morning after they had been wed, and they had been quite busy for the past couple of days, in fact, although none of it consisted of washing floors or clothes. Given the option, she might have chosen to exist in those moments forever, experiencing each other and sharing their love in ways she would never be able to put coherent words to.

Admittedly, it had been difficult to love someone from afar for so long, and to be content with kind smiles and an occasional warm touch—but if that was sufficient for Kenshin's happiness, then unrequited love be damned.

However, Kaoru was now convinced that there was nothing on this earth that could compare to this—that someone would see her for her boyishness, her lack of domesticity, her decidedly short temper, and her stubborn independence and love her; that pleasures that were hitherto inconceivable were now a regular occurrence and readily available. She'd been certain that a sword in hand and a dojo floor under her feet were the greatest physical pleasures this life had to offer—was she ever wrong.

They came up for air only to whip together a meal for some sustenance, or to share tea in their yukatas on the engawa, wrapped together in one haori, trading stories of swordsmanship and watching the sun sink into the horizon, until their preoccupation with each other left the tea to grow cold and forgotten.

Kenshin turned his head as she sat, giving her a warm smile that seemed to reach into the very purest parts of his soul. It was so different from the mask of the rurouni, and not unlike his expression when she'd agreed, emphatically and whole-heartedly, to be his wife. She liked to think that particular smile would only ever be just for her. Her answering grin spread across her face almost involuntarily, and for a split second she thought her heart might just burst from irrepressible joy.

So, this is love, she mused.

Kenshin confessed once—when they were tucked together in their shared, quiet space—that he truly could not fathom how she, someone so devoted to the protection of life, could ever love a man who had intentionally caused so much death.

"It's much simpler than you think," she'd said. "You saw worth in a naïve, foolhardy swordswoman. You saw worth in a brash, penniless thief. You saw worth in a reckless, disgraced fighter. You saw worth in a broken, fallen physician. You see people that the world has discarded and forgotten, and you fight for them. You protect them. After everyone who was supposed to love them has left or cast them away, you make them believe in themselves—and in so doing, you give them strength. How could I not have fallen in love with you? How couldn't anyone?"

She knew how hard he'd worked to atone for his past. She wondered what it had cost him, to claw his way back to humanity during those ten lonely years. Even at his most relaxed, there always seemed to be a taut tension that collected around his shoulders, as if he was constantly bearing the weight of the world upon his small back. It was as though he was always waiting for the ball to drop—for the ground below him to fall away and leave him broken and alone. She knew it would probably take years, decades even, for that disquiet to leave him.

Kenshin ran a damp hand through his barely shoulder-length hair, tucking a strand behind his ear and away from his face. It was still occasionally disconcerting to see him with such short hair, and Kaoru had to admit that she sometimes missed his customary ponytail. She'd grown quite skilled at analyzing a swordsman's technique throughout her time as an instructor, but Kenshin's unimaginable speed made that quite a task, in his case—sometimes, it was all she could do to follow the whip of his hair, the intense red that burned like fire in his wake. It had also given him an incredible presence; even those who knew nothing of his past were in momentary awe upon meeting him, due to the shock of color that demanded to be acknowledged. However, he seemed almost happier with it gone, as if it had freed him from an incredible weight that he'd dragged around for so many years.

He had cut it the night before their wedding day. They had just finished dinner, and Kaoru was fretting over the state of his hair, clucking her tongue in disapproval at how it would look during their wedding.

"Really, Kenshin, do you ever even brush it?" she admonished as she experimentally tugged her fingers through a knot at the end of his hair. "It's beautiful, but it's so tangled and damaged."

Kenshin offered only a sheepish smile in return, but a few minutes later an odd look came over his face and he excused himself to his room. After some time, she became concerned and followed him—and had to stifle a gasp when she saw him kneeling, sakabatou in one hand and a thick bundle of soft, frayed red hair in the other. He stared at the tendrils, his eyes full of indecipherable emotion. Kaoru walked into the room slowly and kneeled down hard, at his side, in utter disbelief. She reached out, tentatively, and touched the end of the severed ponytail, watching the strands slide through her fingers.

"Kenshin," she began quietly, unsure of what to say. "I never meant to insinuate that you needed to cut your hair off."

He laid the hair down carefully, as if it was a fragile treasure, and finally met her eyes. In his, she saw the same strength and assurance that he'd met her with on the beach of Enishi's island.

"There are things one had to let go of to begin anew."

And she'd understood.

Besides, he actually looked quite handsome with his haircut. It framed his jaw nicely, and somehow he looked even younger, if that was possible. He'd also taken to occasionally running his hands through it in thought for the past day or so, and Kaoru would never deny an excuse to see more of the face that so often hid behind long bangs.

His eyes caught hers again briefly as he rose to hang her haori on the clothesline to dry. He'd always been quite good at controlling his facial expression at any given moment. He could be boiling with rage or wrought with sadness and still maintain the same calm, contented façade. For those who knew him well, however, his eyes were truly windows to his soul, which explained why he tried so hard to hide them or to keep them closed. He may appear very young, but one good look into his eyes betrayed what seemed a lifetime of suffering. When Sanosuke told the story of her fabricated murder, he said he'd never seen a man's eyes look so haunted. She was grateful she'd never had to see that—though the many nightmares she'd woken him from shortly after her rescue came frighteningly close.

Luckily, these days, the shadows behind the violet were fewer and more far-between. Instead, his eyes were often warm with affection, twinkling with mirth, or aglow with love. And when they were overcome with ghosts, she would take his hand and they would sit together in the quiet, knowing that words are insufficient to heal some wounds.

A few hours later, the chores were finally done. Kaoru stood alone in their shared bedroom, her hair tied without a ribbon, smoothing the front of her mother's kimono. It had been hard to pack away the brightly colored furisode kimonos of her youth in exchange for more muted fabrics. For her, they were a representation of her defiant independence. A small part of her had always wondered if she'd ever have cause to don matronly clothing, the part that knew that very few men would be agreeable with their wife teaching kendo.

But now, she was a wife—a very lucky one, at that—and she ought to look the part. She left her room, trying to imbue her steps with the confidence of a powerful woman loved by a powerful man.

Kenshin stood near the front entrance of the dojo, waiting for her. They were headed to dinner at the Akabeko, their first outing as a married couple.

She slid the door aside and closed it behind her, suddenly a little nervous for him to see her. He looked up at her as she came down the steps, and another smile overtook him, almost as if by surprise, and there was no mistaking the look in his eyes. He offered her an elbow. "Shall we?"

She could very easily burn all of her furisode to be looked at that way for the rest of her days.