Warnings: Mild swearing.
Honeysuckles and Moonlight Shreds
By Eden's Epitaph
Chapter Seven: Sinking Into or Bottled Misery
Friday, the most wonderful word of the dictionary. It would lift one's heart, makes it soar and make them joyful. Even Yahiko could not escape the elation of the magical 'Friday'. A smile plastered on his face, the boy hopped down the yellow school bus, his black backpack dangling from his left shoulder, slightly heavier then usual with the load of summer work under which his teacher had buried him. He did not mind though. Summer vacation started right as he set foot out of the vehicle and, boy, he was set on enjoying it to the fullest... At least, what he would have left of it once the stupid grounding Sanosuke pinned on him a week ago will be lifted. It had not been as tough as he had first envisioned it, though.
The big guy was not that strong of a parental reinforcement figure, on the contrary he looked more like a big brother than anything else. This was probably the reason why discipline was short live in the apartment. Whenever the spiky headed man tried to act like a father he would never be, Yahiko could not help but laugh, seeing only the brotherly look of him, even when his eyes shown in fury. Not only that, the man was an eternal teenager, a rebel to a society that would not understand him. Still, even though Sanosuke was far from the ideal foster father, he was the only family the ten-years-old had left.
Shifting his bag over his shoulder, the boy pulled at the glass door of the apartment building and slipped inside. According to experience and observation, Yahiko knew that soon enough the burden of orchestral discipline would be lift and all would be back to normal. Grinning, the ten-years-old grabbed the doorknob and forcefully pushed the fake wood door to the small 4½ neglected apartment lobby, and froze.
"… no way I would do something like that again. You hear me?" roared the tall man, his back to his nephew.
In front of him stood a sombre looking man, dark, small eyes moved to look at the child who just busted into the room, the expression of his pale face on the verge of boredom.
"Good afternoon Yahiko… my you've grown the last three years. I can barely recognize you now."
The boy's eyes became slits as recognition slipped in. Hajime Saito, the hateful man that was, out of a shear evil twist of fate, his social worker. Yahiko had to suppress a growl of anger to the back of his throat. What was he doing here? Why now? Sanosuke never told him of a possible inspection any time soon. On the contrary, his uncle had told him that there has not been a word from them for over two months. Unless… Sano had been lying, but why?
"What are you doing here?" demanded the kid, his eyes moving suspiciously from Saito to Sano's face with a harsh glare.
"My job, Yahiko-chan."
Said boy's glare deepened and he griped the sash of his school bag, shivering in anger but remaining motionless.
"Yahiko, go to your room." uttered Sanosuke, not turning to look at him.
"But Sano…!" he was not about to be pulled away when what occurred obviously concerned him. Yahiko could simply not walk away without at least one protest, even if small and censored.
"I said to your room. Now!" His voice boomed throughout the room.
This time, the spiky headed man had turned a hard look that demanded immediate obedience to his charge. Yahiko stood there for a few seconds, and with a scowl and a dark glare, let his heavy backpack connect loudly with the floor, stepped out of his new running shoes, glared at both his uncle and the child protection agent before stomping toward his room. The wall seemed to tremble as the bad-tempered youth slammed the yellowish-white door close.
Sanosuke eyed Saito, his glare akin to that of a warrior ready for a deadly battle. Light amusement shown in the agent's slits of eyes.
"I see the temper has yet to be worked over…"
There was a faint growl and Hajime Saito smiled wolfishly, feeling satisfaction in the younger man's anger and frustration.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Kaoru was sitting on the edge of a desk facing the large windows of the classroom. The girl's blue eyes spied on the different anonymous lives that moved about near the school gate. Friends were saying goodbye, others left in different size of groups to some unknown destinations. Smiles, grins, laughter everywhere, on all their faces, in all of their hearts. The young woman sighed. She lowered her head gaze brushing over the floor and hands gripping the edge of the wooden desk.
Three weeks out of school. She should be overjoyed, excited, at least smiling, but she could not. She could not pretend to be happy. Right now it was just too hard. This year, all that Kamiya Kaoru was left with was an empty feeling, an impression that she did not belonged, that she never would. Joy was drained from her heart and excitement completely absent from her mind.
A year ago, the girl could remember with a sad smile, Misao had burst into their homeroom shouting so loud that passing by students stopped to peak into the class, their surprised eclipsed when recognizing the braided girl, and then walk away an amused expression on their face. The free energy that was Kaoru's best friend was enough to chase away any brooding that might darken one's mind. No matter what the problem was, Misao reshapes it into anything a thousand times merrier and a million times more pleasant. That time, however, was in the past.
The young woman sighed, gripping her left shoulder with her right hand, a small ach tugging her chest. The green-eyed tornado was kilometres away. She should be cheering someone else up, probably Soujiro, and be making plans of beach trips and mall-slouching for the twenty-one days of practically nothing better to do than having fun. How she missed them all…
Closing her eyes, raven hair sliding down from her shoulder, she leaned forward and gritted her teeth. The girl could not help but feel an anger searing through her. Anywhere in the world would be better than to be in this stupid city with her erratic aunts and crazy ten years old spawns of hell shooting soccer balls into your face just for the 'kicks' of it. Why, in heaven's name, HERE!
"Miss Kaoru?"
Said girl's shoulder tensed at the sound of her name spoken so gently. Kaoru sniffed, suddenly aware of the tears that rolled down her cheeks and readjusted her position to make sure her teacher would not discover the trail of wetness that stained her face.
"Classes are over, why are you still here?"
The grip of her right hand tighten, the skin where her fingertips dove into her flesh turning bloodless white. Her muscles tensed on their own accord creating a dot of pain right between her shoulder blades. She was scared, uneasy and felt incredibly weak.
"Miss Kaoru…" he whispered taking a step toward her.
"It's alright Kenshin…" her voice was strained, rough with the ball of emotion that tightened her throat.
Stepping closer, he caught the shimmer of tears that still slid down the rim of her eyes.
"I don't believe you."
She became completely stiff, her eyes flashing open, greeted by the vision of the boring tiles on the floor. Azure orbs moved in their orbit, sliding to the left, trying to catch a glimpse of the redheaded teacher. Her vision, slightly blurred, melted forms together as the light distorted through the moist in her eyes. Kaoru could barely make out the small frame of the man behind her.
"One who is alright does not clutch themselves alone in an empty classroom, that they don't." Murmured Kenshin, his voice gaining volume as he walked closer to the young woman perched on the desk by the windows.
"How can you be so sure?" Kaoru whispered, her gaze turning back to the decreasing crowd that moved out of the large metallic school gates.
There was a moment of silence only disturbed by the amazingly soft and nearly quiet stomp of the worried man as he took the few final steps toward his student. Lavender eyes grazed the frame of the girl with a look of comfort and gentleness that one would think outstretched the boundaries of professionalism… or maybe not.
Hesitation gave his hand a faint tremor when he lifted it to delicately touch his fingertips to the curve of her left shoulder, head bowed and turned to the right, eyes half closed as memories came to him. He let out a small breath, the warm air smoothly gliding over the skin of her ear and blowing a few thin ebony strands across the sensitive flesh of her neck sending an unnoticeable shiver down her spine. Kaoru found herself holding her breath, her lungs filled with an amazingly soft and comfortable fragrance of sandalwood and honeysuckles.
"Maybe I can understand you..." He offered softly.
There was a certain widening to the girl's moist and shimmering sapphires as the teacher's word slid through her ears, bringing with them a river of compassion and an offering of help. Kaoru's hand slid down her arm, the girl's eyes moving slowly from the now nearly empty schoolyard to stare directly into the amazing amethyst of his gaze that gently examined the wetness over her face. There was a slight frown on his handsome face. He seemed somewhat displeased by Kaoru's very own displeasure, and there was a blatant will to make it all better somehow emanating from him.
His violet iris trailed up from the lingering traces of sadness upon the girl's rosy cheeks to the deep ocean of her eyes and Kenshin smiled gently, moving his head to the side. Kaoru could not help but let the corners of her mouth give into the nearly irresistible pull and turn into a pale smile. The adorably foolish expression that lit the red-haired teacher's face seemed to turn everything brighter around him and her smile grew subtly.
Kenshin's smile became softer as he witnessed Kaoru's mood starting to slowly slip away from sadness. The pressure of his hand became more present. As if, unconsciously, his fingers wished to transmit all the care he possessed for her, they became warmer. It caused comfortable warmth to spread from the point where his hand was resting on the girl's shoulder to the rest of her body. It warped her mind in much needed sooth. Unable to detach her gaze from his, her lips started to move forming words, giving voice to her thoughts.
"It'll be ok." She assured him.
Her birthing smile grew to a full-fledged one, brightening her face, illuminating her eyes. Nearly awestruck, Kenshin straightened up, hand sliding down her shoulder, and nodded. He turned his gaze to the window to admire the cotton like clouds that stretched wide across the ever so blue sky.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Now that he thought about it, gentle eyes tracing the smooth curves of the woman sleeping beside him, that moment in the classroom had been the trigger to it all. Of course, he had always thought the girl unusual and charming before that day. However, the smile she showed him, the truth in her eyes, such sincerity and innocence so beautifully mixed, he simply could not resist. That very particular smile was what pulled him tumbling down a first time… or was it more like soaring through the sky?
He smiled, eyes shut and a hand lightly trailing across the moonlit bath skin of her delicate shoulder. Since that day, he was willing to do anything to just catch a glimpse of the expression if only once more on her pretty face. Shifting, his nose touched the young woman's nape buried under the long silken strands of ink and took a lungful of her appeasing and fresh fragrance. His hand encircled her waist, one hand flat on her belly caressing the soft flesh, the other gripping gently her side, pulling the young woman closer to him as he nuzzled her neck. He sighed in contentment, that smile he would see again, and again, a thousands time over.
Memories still flooding his mind, the red-haired man planted soft butterfly kisses in the sea of raven water that streamed down the girl's lovely head to spill in lovely curves across the mattress and pillow. That day had held some none so pleasant memories as well…
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The silence stretched across the room, warping the duo of teacher and student into something not quite uncomfortable, but not entirely so either. Kenshin could feel that the young woman's mood had lightened but still he felt a knot at his heart. The moisture of her earlier depression was still faintly apparent on her pale skin in a bold trace of hidden pain, even though the smile that tugged at her lips told stories of brighter future. The young man once again turned his gaze toward Kaoru. She had absent-mindedly started to lightly swing her legs, blue eyes fixed on the courtyard and expression far however not as forlorn as it once had.
"May I ask what is troubling you?" He asked, hesitant.
Kaoru's head did not turn in his direction, azure orbs glued to the empty schoolyard.
"You may ask…" her tone had an oddly playful tinge which made her teacher flinch. She turned a somewhat amused face to him.
Kenshin frowned, watching the young woman swing her legs childishly and staring at him in secret amusement. Seconds passed, morphing into minutes, and the redhead was growing impatient. After a while, he angled his head to the left. Maybe if he physically changed his point of view he would be able to understand or maybe even trigger the arrival of an answer. But it did not work, Kaoru simply continued to look at him innocently, her face an angelic mask for her mischief.
When she noticed a slight movement of his lips, as if preparing to utter something, Kaoru slid down the desk. Her brown shoes touched polished floor with a small 'tap' that sounded much louder in the nearly perfect stillness of sound. The girl grabbed her worn out school bag, slid the lashes over her shoulders, her face never once changing expression. She gave him a gentle smile before turning on her heels, her long hair nearly hitting his face, and paced to the exit. As the blue-eyed girl approached the exit, she turned her head in his direction. Her hand on the doorframe, the other sliding it open, Kaoru opened her mouth.
"Summer break just started…" her smiled faded slightly, the light drained from her face as she sobered, her expression a gently sad one, lost in memories of what once was. "...They must be all planning what to do for every second of the break. All, I'm sure, very excited and heads full of outing projects and possible dates." Kaoru's eyes lowered, turning to look at the hand on the doorframe. "I just realized that a year ago, I was just as them…" Her voice had turned to a whisper long before the last word escaped her lips.
Kaoru walked away, the clapping of her shoes as they hit the floor the only tale of her presence in the building. Kenshin stared at the door for a long moment, amazed, before he breathed out a soft, mirthless chuckle.
"Yes… Maybe I can understand you, that I could."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The two men were facing each other in deafening silence. The tension was thickening the already heavy atmosphere. So thick, in fact, that one would not be able to walk around the room without feeling resistance in the air. A war was out going between the two men, violent in its invisible presence. Hatred seeped through every pore of their skin. An unspoken treat planed aloft the room, killing the warmth, the temperature dropping. The battle was about to begin.
"Your stupid inspection's over." growled the spiky headed man, fixing the thin man in front of him with a deadly glare. "Now… Get the hell out of here!" he spat.
In his room, Yahiko kept quiet. Very, very quiet. So quiet actually, that the boy could hear the hypothetic fly circling his bedroom. The nerve wrenching insect buzzed around his head and landed on his skin sniffing about in a not so long quest for food. If one took a peek on the desk they would discover a three days old, crusted and hard as rock peanut butter and jelly toast, it was hard to miss. Growling in irritation, Yahiko wondered how the fly could have missed it and choose instead to bother him.
Forcing his concentration back on the venom seeping conversation going on in the living room, the boy tried to register every little bit of information the men could give. And knowing the damned wolf man, there will be few. Yahiko knew that his comfort and happiness was at stake right at that moment. All he prayed for was that Sanosuke would be cleaver enough to get them out of that mess -- a mess, the spiky-headed kid was sure, his uncle had created himself.
His ear pressed -- more like crushing it -- to the door, the ten-years-old could barely catch a thing. He could pick up the hatred and anger dripping from his caretaker's mouth, but the words were so well hushed, and the sound of his voice muffled by the wood of the door turned the words into different tones but nothing intelligible. However, Yahiko was never one to give up.
"Sagara…" Saito's voice was a chill to the bones. "You're a pathetic moron, and even you know that. And if you think your senseless masquerade can hide your true activities, than you're more of an imbecile than even I thought you were." He smirked hearing the younger man's growl.
"You have no proof to that."
The child protection agent laughed a cold laugh, his bright brown, nearly yellow, eyes stared at him as if he could see through him. "That's where you're wrong."
The man turned and reached for a nicely kept mahogany briefcase. He flicked the locks open with a light push of his thumbs, the clicking of the metallic pieces echoing about the room. Shifting through the mass of piled paper, Saito pulled out a voluminous file with the name Sagara Sanosuke written in bold, black characters. With a light twist of his wrist, the man tossed the lot on the time worn wooden table, a few sheets sliding out.
"I did some little research lately and I found some… very interesting things about you…" Saito quirked an eyebrow, watching shock spread over Sano's face with devious satisfaction.
"This proves nothing!"
The man smirked. "You think so? Well, I think I'm going to let you give these a look over and allow you the pleasure of finding out for yourself." He said, closing his briefcase and turning toward the door. "I'll be back in a short while… and next time, the brat will be coming back with me."
Sano growled deep in his throat, anger eating his rationalism away.
"What's it gonna give you?" He asked. "What's it to you that the kid's with me or not? Why do you keep on trying to take him away from here?"
Turning his head in Sanosuke's direction, hand on the doorknob, Saito chuckled.
"Why would you want to keep the brat anyway? I heard you say it yourself, he's much more trouble than he's worth." Twisting the knob and pushing the door, he added. "It's nothing personal, Mr. Sagara. I have my principles. If the airhead that used to be the boy's social worker had done her job the right way, we wouldn't be here today."
Walking into the hallway that led outside of the apartment building, Hajime Saito turned around and gave what he thought was a pleasant smile, scaring the living light out of his interlocutor.
"Have a nice day, Mr. Sagara, and enjoy your readings… as I did."
The door was swung shut, the walls slightly vibrating from the force of the impact. Frustration swelled within the spiky-headed young man and exploded in one forceful punch to the table. The old thing shook unsteadily, the morning's forgotten coffee cup slid off the edge and shattered on the hard floor.
"Shit!"
Life was great!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Kenshin was greeted home by the irritating shriek of the telephone. Quickly, the teacher discarded his shoes and dropped his keys and briefcase near the lobby's desk muttering 'Wait' and 'Coming' to the persistent communication device. With a twinge of irritation, the red-headed teacher picked up the receiver and took a short calming intake.
"Himura…"
"The rooster was warned, Himura. But that's all I can do." Said the voice on the other side.
The young man frowned. "What do you expect me to do with that? I'm a teacher, not a lawyer, Saito!"
"I'm putting my neck on the line doing that, Himura. I just can't do more than that without risking more than I'm already putting at stake. You're a cleaver man, you'll think of something. You have a week." With that, the line dropped dead.
Kenshin blinked, staring at the light grey receiver in complete confusion. When he asked Saito for his help, the redhead had not expected him to even react at all. However, this… this was not what the teacher had in mind. Maybe if Tomoe was there, things would have turned out differently. She was, after all, the one who permitted Sanosuke to win Yahiko's guardianship. But his wife was away and would not be back before mid August, of that he was mostly certain.
Kenshin never understood why his best friend had been so vehement in taking care of Uki's son. The redhead suspected it had much to do with the reason why none of the Sagara children ever talked to their father anymore. Uki had been the only one to do so once a year. It used to make Sano so angry. How he hated his father was beyond Kenshin's understanding. The two men were so much alike, maybe too much alike.
Shaking his head, the Writing and Literature teacher shoved a hand through his thick crimson mane, fingers taking hold of the black elastic band and slid it out of his hair. He had not imagined his summer break to turn out this way. Kenshin shrugged, it was not as if the previous plans had been very exciting either. His godfather had requested -- those where his almost exact words -- for his 'dumb ass' of a god-'brat' to possibly show his 'girly' face to the familial house, 'for once'. The young teacher's eyes narrowed for a mere second, the -- that was Kenshin's exact thoughts -- egocentric 'thick head' was not a pleasant person to visit. Though he would never utter the thought, it still felt good to confess his opinion to someone, even if it was himself.
Kenshin was about to walk into his bedroom when the phone rang once more. A sad smile curved his lips. He had ideas about who that might be. The teacher returned to the book table on which rested the device and answered.
"Sano?"
There was a moment of silence on the other side of the line before a slightly gruff voice, mixed with sadness and laughter, was heard.
"How did you know?"
"I had a feeling you'd be calling sometime soon." Was Kenshin's simple explanation, and Sanosuke knew he would not say more.
"They're about to figure it out, Kenshin… They're gonna take Yahiko to someone else, or worse… to the old man."
The spiky headed man's voice was not exactly calm, but it was not panicked either. It sounded oddly like a dosed mix of resignation and a fierce will to keep on fighting. Kenshin knew, this was not over yet.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I once thought this chapter was only a filler one, but re-reading it I realized that it is actually a rather important one as well. That's when Kenshin actually starts to develop stronger feelings for Kaoru. There is also a little hint to Kaoru's past in this chapter, but I'm not telling where… I actually had to add it anyway. It's also in this chapter that the idea of a trial came to me and I had the pleasure to use Hajime Saito for the first time in a fan fiction. I appreciate that character for many reasons, but the most important are the possibilities of reactions and interaction between him and Sanosuke. I have to apologize as well for an inaccuracy in the story. Summer break in Japan is three week long, however they take place in the end of July and beginning of August. I thought I might be able to re-arrange everything but it would have taken two real filler chapters for that. I hate filler chapters and this story is already long enough as it is. I hope you understand my choice.
Eden's Epitaph
Edited by Guardian Forever
