'Cause Kenshin strikes me as the kinda guy that goes crazy when the people in his life hide things from him.
The lamp was out. Again. Kenshin resisted the urge bare his teeth.
Last night he had rebelled and tried to light the lamp. Kaoru had distracted him quite effectively,but not before he had formed the unpleasant suspicion that Kaoru was deliberately, and literally, keeping him in the dark. Kenshin frowned at the shadow of his wife in their bed. Why would she be concealing something from him? What could possibly be so bad? Bruises or scars or... what was she hiding?
With quiet purpose, he strode to the chest and struck a match.
"Kenshin? You'll wake the baby," her voice was quiet, "blow that out."
"Kenji-chan could sleep through a canon blast, that he could." The baby's ability to sleep was only rivaled by that of a cat. Kenshin began to undress for bed.
"...I'm tired, Kenshin, put out the lamp so I can sleep."
"No."
"Mou!" Kaoru sat up, glaring at him. "Kenshin! Put out the lamp!" He slid under the covers with her.
"No," and he pulled his frowning, angry wife into a kiss. With a bit of effort he could tell she began to soften and he pressed his advantage, his hands in her hair, crowding her with his body. She was responding now, making soft little sounds and stroking her hands over his shoulders. He began to guide her down under him, smiling into her mouth as he reached for the ties to her yukata.
She yelped, slapping his hands and leaping half off the futon onto the floor. "Pervert!" She had the yukata clenched closed at her neck with both hands. Shocked, Kenshin closed his open mouth with a click, and stared. His wife began to blush and avoided meeting his eye.
"Kaoru?"
"I'll.. I'll just turn out the lamp." She began to rise, her face crimson.
"No." He caught her arm, pulling her down and back onto the futon. "...What are you doing, beloved?" She kept her face turned away, her cheeks still red. "What is it that you don't want me to see?" Her response was sub audible. "Kaoru. Tell me." Whatever she was covering up was important, and she was hiding it from him. He squashed down his worry and his anger and waited.
"It's just.." she twisted her sleeves, arms crossed protectively across her stomach. "Things are... different..." she was whispering now, "since the baby." He blinked, and stared.
"Different."
She nodded, and peeked at him from beneath her bangs.
"You've been hiding from me because -because things are different?"
"Mou!" She looked angry now, and Kenshin was far more comfortable with that than the shy stranger of a moment ago. "I had a baby, Kenshin, of course things are different!"
Of all the... "Kaoru, beloved." What on earth was he supposed to say? "Why would you-"
"Because I've gone all, all soft and, and... fat." She'd hidden herself and frightened him silly because she thought... A semi-hysterical laugh wanted to be set free. Kenshin ruthlessly squashed it.
"Kaoru," his voice was firm. "You are not fat. Not by any definition." She shucked her sleeping robe in a quick, firm motion, tossing it angrily into a corner, and he sucked in a rapid breath through his nose. She pinched some little bit of loose skin on her belly, presenting it as though it were a worm in a flower.
"Look!"
"I am looking." And he was, his mouth gone dry and his blood supply rapidly relocating south.
"My belly is soft, my hips are even wider than they used to be, my breasts are just huge and Megumi-san said that I'm not to exercise more than an hour a day yet-" But Kenshin had long ago stopped listening. He pulled her down underneath him and proceeded to win the argument of her attractiveness rather definitively.