I want to thank Jasmine blossom625 for being my first reviewer, and also skenshingumi and Drailon97 for their support. ^.^
Carrying daikon radishes didn't require much effort for a man—unless that man went by the name of Himura. Mutliply one radish by one hundred and Kenshin found himself with one hundred pounds' worth of white vegetable. Their rooty green tops peeked out from the basket tops as he maneuvered his way unsteadily through the streets. By passers took one glance at the ex-samurai with his wobbling load balanced on the ends of a pole and walked a little faster.
It seemed that a sword and X shaped scar were not necessary if he had a hundred radishes.
Thankfully, he was almost at his destination. He wasn't sure how much longer he could miraculously avoid hitting a man in the face. As Kenshin neared the Dojo's entrance, he shifted the weight across his shoulders so he could open the doors with one hand.
"Kenshin!"
Maybe it was because the voice came from behind his back, or that it was far too close to his ear. Either way, Kenshin whirled around, momentarily forgetting about the radishes.
A mistake.
"Here, let me." Kaoru wrapped both arms around a basket as it swung a wild one-eighty degrees. The other end of the pole snapped up like a seesaw.
"Oro!" Kenshin grit his teeth as he leaned every ounce of his being into the opposite direction. He let out a sigh of relief as the swings became shorter and shorter. At last, the basket settled.
"That was close." He carried the other basket and held the door open for the mop of blackish-blue hair that bobbed behind the gargantuan radish harvest. "I'm sorry, Kaoru-dono, but I still don't see the purpose of buying a hundred radishes at a time, that I don't. Wouldn't it be easier if we spread out our purchases?"
"That would mean more trips. Besides, it's not everyday that we can find a sale. There!" With a satisfied grin, the young lady plopped her basket down on the earthen ground. A few clouds of dust puffed into the chilly cellar air and Kenshin coughed as he placed his basket next to hers.
"Thanks for getting a bargain, it's hard to make the money stretch as far as the food." She gave him a bright smile and he bashfully shrugged it off with the usual "you give me too much credit".
Kaoru hummed as she held a flower stem between her lips. Autumn wasn't the best season for flower picking, but considering that, the tanuki praised herself for making the best of it. She removed the last daisy from her mouth and stuck it in the middle.
Kaoru never imagined that the art of flower arrangement would require natural taste and talent. What colors were supposed to complement the white petals? Leaves or no leaves? How could she make the occasional blossom that poked up blend with the others without smothering it? What a pain...the very hobby tested her patience in every possible way!
Hey, for a first try, it didn't look so bad. If she could ignore the wilting petals and the less than uniform stem-length, she could call this attempt passable.
"It needs something…" Her brow knit in thought as she scrutinized the mediocre arrangement. "I think Megumi said putting 'pretty weeds' in the mix would help the actual flowers stand out."
Had Kaoru focused on the details of the conversation between her and the female doctor, she would have remembered that the 'pretty weeds' were just a slang term for long grasses or stalks of barley to insert here and there. But such petty flower terminology went in the right side of the tomboyish girl's head and out the left.
While flowers weren't in season, weeds definitely were. Kaoru had no trouble finding a particular species that looked like nettle, even a few puff-ball resembling plants that grew under the shade of neighboring trees. She poked them in randomly and lifted her hand away to admire her handiwork.
"That does the trick." She shut her eyes in bliss. "I hope Kenshin likes daisies."
"So what's on the lunch menu today?" The spiky-haired man leaned heavily against the counter, bouncing a fishbone up and down between his incisors.
"Well, we have a lot of radishes, that we do, so I was thinking of something simple, perhaps rice and boiled daikon." Kenshin tied a firm knot between his shoulder blades with the string that held up his sleeves.
"Aw man, not rabbit food!" Sanosuke eyed the oblong white lumps with unconcealed distaste. "At least you're the cook. God forbid, Missy cooking plus rabbit food, now that's a meal that'll make me run for my money."
"I don't see what's so bad about Kaoru-dono's cooking, that I don't." Kenshin smiled apologetically and scratched the back of his neck.
"Yeah, I suppose it really grows on you, like her gorgeous blue eyes and her fair, soft skin, and her charming personality." He rolled his eyes and spat out his fishbone. "If I'm not mistaken, Kenshin, you're a little lovesick. What you need is a good, hard smack to the head. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if you starting blabbering about her sensual kissing."
"Oro, Sano, don't you think that's stretching it a bit?" The rurouni laughed nervously. "For all I know, we haven't kissed—"
"What? You asked the girl to marry you and you haven't had a taste of her yet?" He clucked his tongue in contempt.
"I heard that."
Both men froze. Sano's arms were suspended in a ridiculous pose mid-air, Kenshin's knife hovered a hair above a fat radish. The swordsman's face almost matched the color of his hair, and he gulped even though he should have thanked the Gods the smoldering glare was fixated upon a very fidgety Sanosuke and not himself.
"You." She stepped forward. Kenshin would have laughed at the way Sano flinched if only Kaoru-dono did not have that I-am-going-to-kill-you-slowly look plastered on her face. "Are. So. Immature." The ends of her ink hair flounced as she poked the man in the chest. Then, in a brighter demeanor, she smiled a smile that almost made the swordsman melt into a Kenshin-sized puddle on the kitchen floor. She grabbed his wrist and tugged him towards the door.
"Great, just forget that you wanted to fry me alive and steal Kenshin. I see how it is." Sano muttered so she wouldn't hear. Any sane man could see that Kaoru was plain dangerous. He crossed his arms and sighed in relent. "Why do I have such weird friends? A bipolar raccoon and a pushover manslayer."
"Kenshin, I-I want to you to have this."
He stared dumbly at her flustered face, unlike the usual Kaoru who was so sure of herself, then looked down at the scraggly flowers that had been shoved into his hands.
The first things he noticed were the odd puff-balls.
The second things he noticed were the thorny nettles.
He tore his gaze away from the bouquet at the sound of a throat being cleared. A blush had traveled from the tips of her ears to the sides of her face. Kenshin decided it was time to do some fast thinking.
"It's very…Kaoru." Kenshin mentally slapped himself. He sneaked a glance at her, hoping she wouldn't wrongly interpret that he was comparing her to the daisy bouquet. Quickly lifting the flowers to his nose to cover up his blunder, he inhaled deeply.
The scent was strange. Tangy, mind dizzying, eye-watering. He couldn't help but think that in some ways, it was very Kaoru-dono. He smiled weakly and placed a hand on the small of her back.
"Do you…like it?" He heard the quiver in her voice and his heartbeat slowed. All along, she just wanted to be reassured that he liked it, and he had been making a fool of himself. The swordsman pulled her a little closer to him as they walked back to the kitchen, the subtle scent of jasmine wafting around him.
He placed a light kiss on her head. It was the only answer he had to give.
It was when the last radish was in the boiling water and Kaoru had left to train Yahiko that Sanosuke dared to give his opinion about the bouquet.
"That…thing looks like a booby trap. Admit it, Kenshin, she thought to put creepy puff-ball things and thorns in and all," he said skeptically.
"If—sneeze—you can—sneeze—get past the outer—sneeze—appearance—sneeze—it has a very nice smell."
"Oi, wear a mask or something. I don't want to find your snot in my rice!"
"Sorry, Sano. May I borrow a handkerchief?" He set his knife down on the cutting board to sneeze into the crook of his arm.
Reluctantly, Sanosuke pulled one from his shirt and threw it to him. The lean framed man tied the cloth securely around his nose and mouth. The brawny man squinted at the red rash that was beginning to appear on Kenshin's face. "You're not allergic to flowers, are you?"
"Nigh don'ft—sneeze—think so—sneeze-sneeze." He stopped stirring and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "You worry—sneeze—too much about this unworthy one."
Sano decided he would let the teasing slip this once. "My friend, I suggest you take a break. I'll take the radishes out when they are done." He gave the rurouni a rough push out the door in spite of the protests of "I'm fine", "there's noting wrong", and "I didn't know you cooked, Sano".
With the revered cook of the Dojo gone, the former street-fighter rolled up his sleeves and glared at the bubbling radishes. Time to get down to serious business.
Could Sano be right? Kenshin pulled the handkerchief down and dropped it in the washtub on his way to the well. Cupping a handful of water, he splashed his eyes and patted his face. It was probably just his imagination, but his cheeks did feel a bit puffy. Water trickled down his neck and dripped off his chin.
"Uncle Kenny! Uncle Kenny!"
He looked up in time to see Ayame and Suzume run towards him with their arms thrown open and their hands outstretched. Megumi-dono and Doctor Gensai tailed closely behind. Kenshin dropped into a squat to greet the two sisters.
"Uncle Kenny, you're as red as a tomato!"
"Oro?" He hoisted Suzume onto his shoulders and scooped Ayame into his arm. "Aren't I always?"
"No no." Suzume grabbed a fistful of his cheeks in her small hands and pulled them apart. "Not your hair, Uncle Kenny, your face."
"Oh, that…" His chuckle took on an uneasy tone.
"Sir Ken—oh my, you look horrendous!" Megumi gasped and stopped abruptly in her tracks as the Doctor pried the sisters' fingers off Kenshin's face. She grabbed his chin and wrenched it to the side to get a better look. Kenshin started feeling a little worried himself as she inspected his face.
"Megumi-dono, is there something wrong?"
The female doctor did not reply. She placed a hand against his forehead, asked him to open his mouth, using a stern don't-talk-if-you-know-what's-best-for-you frown to silence his pitiful excuses. As she finished checking his pulse, something caught the kitsune's eye. Kenshin was alarmed when Megumi-dono suddenly decided to rip his kimono open on a whim.
She yanked out the bouquet, sniffed it tentatively.
"Well, Kenshin, would you mind telling me who gave this to you?" Her sweet smile did not deceive him.
Kenshin was beginning to seriously consider wearing a mask for the next few days until the "dreadful hives", as Megumi-dono put it matter-of-factly, went down. Frankly, he didn't care, but the expressions on Kaoru-dono's, Yahiko's, and Sanosuke's faces were enough to convince him to do just that. He didn't want to see everybody worry about him. A few allergies were nothing compared to the other horrors he had gone through during the revolution. But to his friends, it must have looked pretty bad.
What scared Kenshin the most was not his physical state, but Kaoru-dono's instant transformation.
The young lady had dropped her wooden sword upon seeing him. Her hands had fluttered to her mouth and her face had paled considerably. Megumi, who had squeezed the information from a threatened Sanosuke after no success with a tight-lipped Kenshin, had pulled the girl into the other room for a "much needed" conversation. Sano had nudged the swordsman in the ribs, whispering that he wouldn't want to be in Kaoru's position right now for a million beef pots.
The kitsune's voice traveled well through the paper doors. Kenshin grimaced at hearing some of the brutal reprimands.
"See, I was partially right. You were allergic to those poisonous weeds, but no, you wouldn't listen to my advice." Sanosuke grabbed Kenshin by the collar to prevent him from barging into the other room.
"Be a good person and let me go, Sano," he said as evenly as possible.
"What will you do, Kenshin? Save Missy from what she needs to hear?" A bushy brown eyebrow quirked up in question.
He narrowed his violet eyes. "You know as well as I do that Kaoru-dono had good intentions."
"Still, she should know better than to give you flowers with suspicious plants she doesn't know. You're much too soft, Kenshin."
Kenshin opened his mouth to come back with fierce counterargument when the shoji doors opened.
Megumi's calm aura had been replaced by an irritated one, and Kaoru, well Kenshin didn't get a chance to see because the black-haired girl dropped to her knees and bowed her head low at his feet. Her long, silky ponytail spilled across her shoulder.
"Forgive me, Kenshin—"
"Kaoru-dono!" His voice was pained with disbelief at her gesture. He bent down and held her shoulders, but her hands remained pressed against the ground and her forehead against her hands. Her mule-headed personality was one thing that had not changed. Kenshin turned to Megumi for an explanation.
The woman crossed her arms in a challenge.
"Well, Sir Ken, are you going to accept her apology or not?"
He tried to keep his voice light and level, but the usual rurouni humor was undetectable. "There is no apology to be accepted, that there isn't. When nothing has been done with intentional malice, there is no reason to apologize."
Her dark colored eyes blazed. "Oh really, Kenshin? I didn't want this matter to become a discussion of ethics, but so be it, if that's what you insist upon."
Kenshin allowed his normally placid temper to heat a few degrees. He had never gotten into a fight with Megumi-dono before, in fact, he had never gotten into a full-scale argument with any woman on that note. He was the ever polite, sometimes clueless rurouni. But he also held tight onto what he believed was right. He lived up to his master's annoying, but true nickname: Idiot apprentice. As Sano had told him many times, he could be the world's biggest pushover when it came to women and children, but Kenshin was no pushover when it came to morals.
Of course, one never knew whose morals were correct.
"Kenshin…" He felt a small tug on his sleeve and realized that Kaoru-dono was still kneeling. Slowly, she raised her head. He stopped breathing.
Her lively eyes had lost their twinkle.
"Kenshin, Megumi is right. Whether it was an accident or not, it was still my fault. Please." Her hair hid her face from his view as she ducked her head in submission once more. "Please accept my apology."
I have no choice. "I accept your apology, Kaoru," he murmured, and finally, he was able to detach the tanuki from the ground. Their faces were few inches apart, and Kenshin could feel the warmth and sweetness of her soft breath on his scarred cheek. He remained still when her fingertips faintly trailed over the irritation, ignoring the tingles that shot across his already heated skin.
Glazed sapphire eyes now took on a look of indescribable despair.
"Oh, Kenshin!"
Kenshin was not prepared when her slender body sagged into him, and for a second he wasn't quite sure what to do with his arms. The famous Battousai started panicking when her small frame shook against his. And why couldn't he remember what his arms were for in times like these?
Eventually, he settled with wrapping them around her waist as to support her in case she became so overcome with grief that she could not stand. It was the most un-Kaoru-dono thing he could think of, but Kaoru-dono had never acted this way before. Yesterday, it had been doubt. Today, it had been shame. Mou, with all her emotions gone berserk, Kenshin felt lost at his inability to predict what was on her mind.
"Shhh, Kaoru, I'm fine, it's just a small allergy that will go away in a day or two. Don't blame yourself. Megumi-dono, did you have a specific reason to do this?" His vow to protect those close to him was not one to be broken.
It hurt him to see his Kaoru like this.
The kitsune rolled her eyes. "Men." She glowered at both Kenshi and Sano. "You men are so oblivious sometimes. Women are not as easy to read as you like to think they are. Practice. It takes practice."
"Wait, why are you talking to me? It's not like I'm getting married anytime soon, or that I want to," Sano snorted.
"Like any woman would want to marry you, you penniless oaf." Megumi smirked and tossed her hair.
"Oh yeah? I—"
"That's enough." The two stop in their bickering and gaped at his cold tone. Without a word, Kenshin turned around to leave, carefully holding Kaoru-dono close to his chest. Their heartbeats mingled.
He would always, until the end of his time, protect the one most precious to him.
The cool, afternoon air felt good on his face. A peaceful calm returned to Kenshin as he watched the two sisters run around in the courtyard, naïve and young, much too young to understand what had gone on in the room just now.
The rurouni's skull was not as thick as it sometimes came across to be. Kenshin had an inkling that Kaoru-dono's distress only partially resulted from his allergies. There was something else that she was not telling him.
Women are not as easy to read as you like to think they are. Practice. It takes practice. Megumi-dono's words ghosted in his ears.
Did he understand Tomoe's heart as well as he should have? Kenshin sought the sky for an answer.
No, he didn't. It took her death and a few months of contemplation to truly feel what she must have felt during those six months living with him, what she might have wondered, feared, loved in a Hitokiri.
Kenshin blinked, feeling her blue eyes on him. To his immense relief, they were dry, with not a shred of evidence that hinted tear-shed. He was a seasoned swordsman, having endured the crude facets of human blood-lust, having walked the black streets of Kyoto with eyes on the back of his head to watch for assassins—yet the tears of a woman were more than enough for turning battousai to rurouni to an amorphous heap of goo.
Kaoru seemed to realize their proximity and flushed pink, but when she decided to stay in the crook of his arm, Kenshin decided that no matter what, he was still a happy man.
"Kenshin, I'm so sorry-" He placed a gentle finger to her lips and motioned with his eyes for her to look up ahead. A flock of geese flew in V formation against the sun. With winter chasing close on autumn's heels and the temperature dropping every night, it was wise to get away from the cold. The two fell into a content silence as they watched the birds fade into the distance. Moments like these were tokens of simple beauty that nature gave mankind.
"Do you remember," the wind stirred his untidy bangs, "that February of 1878?"
"Yes." Kaoru placed a hand on his chest, over the area that contained his rapidly beating heart. Her voice had shed its thickness, recovering some of its girlish charm. "When you fell through the roof, I knew I had nothing to fear."
Someday, Kaoru-dono, we will have a family. By then, I will make sure I understand you completely and make myself worthy of such happiness.
I started off in a light tone, but as expected, my usual serious tone caught up with my writing :P Please forgive any typos, I can never catch all of them. Right now, I have a total of five chapters planned, no less, maybe more. It really depends on how I pace the story and if people like it or not. By clicking on the "Review" button below, you are making my day ^.^ Update schedule: once a week
Glossary (I myself hardly know any Japanese, so forgive me if I define some words inappropriately):
Kitsune: fox - Rurouni: wanderer - Battousai: master of drawing the sword - Tanuki: raccoon - Mou: exasperated or frustrated expression - Shoji: rice-paper doors with bamboo framing that can slide open