Shades of Reality
Chapter 4 : Fragile
Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin. That is the property of Nobuhiro Watsuki, and various other entities, and I profit from this is now way, shape or form. It's just entertainment, and a time waster. Get over it. Or small references to the book, I Am the Messenger, by Markus Zusak.
- - - - -
Kaoru looked up his address in the phone book, now that she had a last name to go on. She glared disdainfully at the copy of "The Pianist" sitting on the table beside her. Her hands were getting sweat all over it, fingerprints shining under the lamp. A feeble cover if there ever was one. Red- he- Kenshin is never going to buy me saying I just had an extra copy lying around…
Hell, she didn't buy it herself. Even if it was true.
She picked up the phone once, twice, three times.
Kaoru finally decided on walking there. She could use the exercise.
Saying goodbye to the empty house as usual, her dead mother, the father that was never there, the little brother a state away with her aunt (who had gotten complete custody), she left.
She let her feet carry her. Block after block. Street after street.
It gradually got slummier. The graffiti increased. She could feel the leers. She kept walking. An automaton.
- - - - -
Her feet eventually carried her to her destination. 37 Himmel street. By what definition of heaven? It was a small houseish-apartment looking place, without a front yard, tossed between two larger complexes. The sidewalk was cracked in eclectic spider webs, weeds growing through the splits. As opportunistic as any human. The house ached, sagging, moaning. Old. Tired. Beaten.
A battered car rested out front, messily parked on the shoulder of the street, rusting slowly away while its owner abused it.
Her courage failed her. She retreated to the alleyway. Go hide. Retreat. As usual.
She was such a coward. She disgusted herself.
- - - - -
Kaoru collapsed, letting the shadows envelop her. A comforting, unjudgemental black. She allowed her eyes to shut, the gloom complete. She shivered slightly in the cool damp. It smelled of mold and fungus. Garbage. Rot.
I'm never going to be able to do this… what was I thinking? What would I say if some relative stranger suddenly showed up on my doorstep with a DVD? Probably, "Get the hell off my lawn." There was no point in procrastinating. She might as well go home. At least she had gotten a nice walk out of it.
She opened her eyes. Onto a corpse.
- - - - -
Kaoru gave herself a small theoretical pat on the back for not totally losing it right there. She didn't move, didn't breathe. Time slowed down, oozing past the girl, taking it's sweet, well, time.
She watched the corpse's chest rise and fall minutely.
Ah. So maybe it wasn't a corpse. Insert cease of holding breath here.
She crawled part way across the alley. She didn't trust her legs to support her. "Umm… are you alright…?" She reached a tentative hand towards the comatose figure.
The body shifted minutely. The head lifted, as though the weight of the whole world was upon its shoulders. A pair of violet eyes stared into her soul. She shook, drowning in the infinite sadness. The misery. Falling into those violet pools. Dieing a violent violet death, slowly, slowly…
And the face covered in blood surrounding them.
"…M-Miss…K-K-Kaoru…?"
And just as abruptly, it was gone. She resurfaced. Just her, the alleyway, the garbage dumpster, and some boy she had met at a concert, giving her a crimson smile.
She wrapped her arms around him. She didn't know why. She just did. "What happened?" She whispered.
He cringed away, scuttling to the edge of the sunlight, shying away from the brightness, a discarded, broken toy of some higher power.
"…Kenshin…"
Fragile.
- - - - -
She remembered half-dragging him to her house. His silence. Bandaging the new slice bisecting his existing scar. Wiping the blood away. The fear in those violet eyes. The way he flinched every time she touched him, even for a moment.
- - - - -
That was over a year ago. He had been living in the room down the hall ever since. Her father didn't care. He was never there anyway.
They spent their days in one another's company, both shooting one another glances under their long bangs when they thought the other was not looking. A perfect irony. Watching people. And each other.
She spent her nights making insane plans to fix that empty smile, to make him realize just what a kind person he was, how much he meant to her. Dreaming of a happy future, without dead people (and those that might as well be) haunting her, where one could live out their life in peaceful days, with little red-haired children running about with grins on their faces. A smile filled with something besides pain.
He spent his outside her door. Contenting himself with listening to her slow breathing. It was all he could ever hope for. He was not worthy. A truth drilled into his skull for as long as he could remember. And they were absolutely right. He was not worthy of this beautiful girl, who opened her home to him, rescued him, stayed. She deserved so much better than one as damaged, tarnished, worthless, as he.
- - - - -
"Kenshin, tell me about your past. …Please?"
"Oh, Miss Kaoru, this one's past is quite boring. Surely yours in much more interesting. Where did you grow up?"
- - - - -
Another night alone, just the two of them.
"I'll cook dinner."
She was ignored.
The Ignorer was summarily hit upside the head for his insolence.
He collapsed onto the floor, swirly-eyed and "Oro"-ing dramatically. "Give me a break. What the heck does, 'oro' mean anyway? You say it all the time. I think I'm entitled to an explanation."
He gave a playful grin. Not near as empty as usual. Her heart fluttered. "That is for me to know and you never to find out… that it is, Miss Kaoru."
"You added that on just to annoy me, didn't you? Fess up, or I shall take a hammer to the washing machine."
He only hummed slightly, stirring the wagon-wheel noodles, making a valiant attempt to control the look of horror on his face. But! I like doing the laundry!
She didn't really expect an answer anyway. Making a face, she settled herself at the counter disgruntledly, eyeing her history homework with distaste. Set the lasagna on fire once and you get persecuted for it until the end of bloody time…
"Kenshin, when did William the Conqueror conquer England?"
"BATTLE OF HASTINGS, 1066!" He shouted, waving his wooden spoon for emphasis, water flicking off every which way. "Really, Miss Kaoru, how could you forget that? Mr. Page made us chant it for a full minute, that he did."
"Yeah, but I just wanted to hear it one more time. From you."
- - - - -
He felt so happy around this girl. Really, he shouldn't. One such as him should not feel happy.
And yet, as he watched her sip her milk, lick her creamy mustache away, he wanted nothing better than to be that glass.
He returned to stirring what were to become buttered noodles. With garlic, and parmesan.
Nah. That was too plain.
Mizthra.
Yeah. That was just the ticket, that it was. Kenshin gave an inward grin. She was right about one thing. The extra "that's" were just to tease her. But he could never leave the Miss.
- - - - -
"No… Daddy… Daddy… pleasestoppleasestopdaddydaddydaddystoppleasestop… stop… stop… it hurts…" The pleas subsided into sobs, then silence.
"No." The reply was simple, concise.
Why should he? He was worthless. He deserved it. Punishment. For being him.
- - - - -
They watched "The Pianist" together. She sobbed into his shoulder.
Humanity was cruel.
Few knew it better than those two.
Neglect, violence, death.
And far worse. Those left behind.
- - - - -
A/N: Aha! I finally get around to something resembling a plot! The battousai-less Kenshin is explained… Keh heh heh. I really hope you guys keep an open mind concerning him. I love Battousai as much as the next person –drools- but I think that people really go to outlandish lengths sometimes to make him fit in an AU story. Any thoughts?
Adrian Brody rocks my socks.
And a shout out to all my reviewers! Reignashii, ItachiMer, gabyhyatt, xI'll Cover Youx, LilBrokenDolly, Silent Tears of Agony, luvHaru7, missy-oa, bbzacharia, Lasairfhionia, & ChildlikeEmpress! I love you all dearly!