Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin and its characters belong to Nobuhiro Watsuki. I own nothing.
This is my first time writing, please be kind. I tried to stick to the timeline as much as possible but varied when necessary.
Chapter 1: The Long Walk Home
The long summer day had been dry, causing brown dust to kick up onto her tabi as she walked down the sweltering dirt road. The sun was just dipping below the horizon as she made her way through the paths of Tokyo back to the dojo. Lost her thoughts as she threaded through the city's tight streets, she hadn't heard the thrumming strings of the evening cicadas begin.
Kaoru had been with Tae at the Akebeko for the last few hours, gossiping in the back office. Well, not so much gossiping since Kaoru didn't have much to offer to the conversation, she mused to herself making the last turn before the dojo. Tae had prattled on about so-and-so marrying this boy or that boy she's vaguely remembered from childhood, and Kaoru had tried not to think about her own diminishing situation. Tucking a wind-tangled piece of black hair behind her ear, she paused outside the wooden gates of the dojo.
No, she hadn't had anything to offer to Tae's chatter about the romance around town. Tae had listed off the names of girls Kaoru knew were a few years younger than her who already had children on the way. She's sunk into herself a little deeper at that thought. Being single at 20 wasn't looking promising, and she knew in her heart it wasn't likely to change any time soon.
It wasn't as if she hadn't had prospects. She came from a well-known family headed by a respected father and owned her own property, which was more than many other women in the city could say. She wasn't unattractive, if not a little muscled for a girl because of her kenjutsu practice. Certainly a boy's family or two had looked at the blue-eyed orphan girl all alone with land to her name and thought a match could be made. A few months after the mourning of her father around age 16, neighboring mothers had knocked on the dojo's gate, sons in tow, to make an introduction.
But those impromptu visits at stopped rather abruptly. Kaoru knew exactly why. Even if she hadn't already known, the occasional passing whisper on her way to kenjutsu instruction at the nearby dojos would have told her. She's taken in two boarders, one which was of marrying age but who had been deem quite unusual, and was often seen with another tall, bedraggled street fighter who frequented her home.
Kaoru cringed as she pulled on the gate's iron handle, still warm in her fist from the day's sunlight, and swung the door open perhaps a little too aggressively. Yes, Kenshin and Sano's presence in her dojo had stopped the pestering mothers dead in their tracks. At best, she was an oddity, a peculiar young woman not worth the effort of dealing with the men who accompanied her. At worst, and what she heard most often, was that she was a floosy, now deemed unmarriageable and sullied.
She knew Sano, Kenshin, her pseudo-son Yahiko, and perhaps even the vixen Megumi had heard these whisperings too. One day Sano had strolled into the dojo with an elbow in a sling looking for his typical quick meal. Kaoru had bugged him to no end asking how he's received it, poking and prodding him. In the dining room, she stood over him, pulling back the bowl of rice she'd been about to offer him, when he finally stood up with all his impressive height and bellowed, "Some idiots were talking shit and I got it defending you Kaoru, okay?!" Sano's cheeks reddened in his embarrassment at the brief outburst an his eyes wouldn't meet hers. "Now gimme me my rice!" She'd reached her arm out again handing him the bowl, staring tight-jawed down at the tatami. He's promptly plopped back down and scarfed down the rice with one hand, and they'd never mentioned it again.
And then there was Kenshin. Kenshin. Her boarder, her friend, her….
Not her anything.
Kaoru leaned against the closed gate, the wood panels digging into her back. She sighed, her breath fluttering her black bangs as she looked over her empty dojo yard contemplatively. She knew Kenshin had hear the whispers too. Especially because they were mostly about him. After Jin'e had kidnapped her and the police had shown up to collect the body, people on the street could hardly contain themselves to a muffle whenever the two walked to the market together. And then the rurouni had left her, and then returned again, and even the oldest grandmother hadn't been able to hold back a pointed finger as Kaoru passed. With Kenshin's keen hearing, perhaps he had heard even more than she had. His long, unusual red hair made him so distinguishable that everyone in Tokyo knew who the young single man living with the young female kendo instructor was. She shivered in the warm night, imagining the things poor Kenshin had heard about her reputation at his supposed hands. He was too polite to ever say anything to her, thankfully, but her cheeks flushed at the thought of what Kenshin may have heard… about her, about him. Perhaps the rumors embarrassed him, the thought that he would be with a sweaty, manish swordswoman who couldn't cook.
Just as she pushed off the gate door, she heard a deep, hearty male laugh. That was not Sano sharp laughter and was certainly not Kenshin's soft melodical chuckle. Picking up her pace as much as she could in her floral light yellow kimono, Kaoru crossed the flagstone path, rounding the corner to the dining room that glowed in the soft summer twilight. The shoji was pulled back, and Kaoru eyes flicked right to Kenshin's face, seated with a tea cup in his hands at the low table they used for family meals. Yahiko sat next to him facing the engawa, his giddy face pointed toward another seated at her table whose face was just blocked by the frame of the screen door. She turned and sucked in a deep breath as she faced the source of the laughter.
"Hey busu, you won't believe what Hiroyuki-san just told us about you."