Disclaimers: Rurouni Kenshin is not mine. It belongs to Sony. Christina Aguilera's song is not mine either. It belongs to, ehrm, Christina Aguilera.
Somebody's Somebody
Wish I had somebody
Wish I was somebody's baby
Somebody's somebody...
Immersed on an illicit dream involving a couple alone on a storm, she rolled to her side, stretching her arms to embrace him. Finding nothing but air and her blankets, she woke up. Just another dream..., she thought, like every night since the day I found out he was gone. It had been five years ago, and the dreams insisted on haunting her every night. Dreams in which he would hold her tight and say he loved her, and then she would caress his messy dark brown hair and they would surrender to their passion...
Anyway, they were just dreams. And now the sun was already showing up by the gap of her bedroom shoji door. It was time to forget the dreams and put up with reality.
She took her bath and dressed her blue doctor's apron over her lavender kimono, then brushed her long, black hair, looking at her small bowl of crimson lipstick over the dressing-table. She hasn't worn it for some time... actually, she had stopped wearing it when she had gone to Aizu - precisely five years ago. She had said to herself it was because people would give her funny looks if she wore lipsticks on a smaller, more conservative city like Aizu. Was it really true? Then why didn't she wear it now that she was back to Tokyo? Hadn't she stopped wearing it because he wouldn't be there to see it?
Watchin' lovers walkin'
Hand in hand they pass me by
Wish I was one of them
Wish I had somebody wakin' up beside me
Looking into my eyes at night
Shooing her thoughts of him, she opened a window to see the movement in the streets. There was a small commerce near the clinic, so the streets were always quite busy. She liked to say good-morning to patients that occasionally passed by her window, like the Shimada couple.
Naoko and Ryobe Shimada were a nice couple who had visited the clinic a couple of weeks ago. They were young and had been married for just some months, and it was a great happiness when Megumi confirmed the reason of Naoko's frequent nausea. Then, seeing Ryobe-san's radiant face when he heard the good news, and now, watching them walking together, she felt a bit of jealousy. And she replayed the scenes of her dream again, those chocolate, piercing eyes devouring her, her fingers feeling his warm skin, running under his jacket--
I want a love to call my own
I want someone that I can hold
Want someone wanting me
Wanna feel how it feels to be
She blinked; she could have sworn she'd seen it, she'd seen that kanji he always used to wear on his jacket, that kanji that starred his enemies' worst nightmares and her best (though most frustrating) dreams, she'd seen it somewhere in the middle of the crowd! It couldn't be! Could it? With her heartbeats racing, she flung the door open and dashed off to the middle of the street, and found...
Somebody's somebody
Someone's someone
Some sweet lover's lover
I wanna be that one
Someone faithful to someone faithful
Someone kind to someone kind to me
Somebody to somebody who loves me
Nothing... just a trick of her unconscious. She stared blankly at the crowd, disillusioned, and went back to the clinic.
Spending all of my time
Spending all my time on me
"Here, take two cups of this a day. One when you get up, one at night."
That was her daily routine: wake up, change clothes, have breakfast, open the clinic. Then it was an incessant coming and going of sprained ankles, sore throats, bruises, burns, migraines, colds, pain here and there and everywhere. Ken-san had showed her the right way to atone for her sins, and she gave her best to save the more people she could from suffering. And that's one of the many reasons why she had accepted the invitation to work in her birthplace, Aizu, to treat people who had been injured in the past war. The other obvious reason was the possibility of finding her missing siblings, and perhaps even her mother. In fact, she was able to find a living brother, who told her that their mother had died five years after the beginning of Meiji Era. The poor lady had been inconsolable when she lost her younger child, her only girl, and she gave up life when they concluded the girl was probably dead. Besides, her other brother was alive as well, living in a small village on north of Kyushuu with his wife and children.
Where is that someone who
I can give my time to
Searching for that lover
With the love that will change my life
That had been the second reason. And the last one was... no, there was no other reason... was there?
Perhaps... to stay away from him? Just so that she wouldn't have to face him everyday, night, or any other odd hours when he would come to the office to have his hand bandaged? To run away, before the day she wouldn't be able to hide it anymore? Isn't it?
No, it isn't!, she wanted to scream into her mind, I went there to save people's lives, to go back to my city, to find my family! Besides, if I just wanted not to see him, I'd have come back when that letter arrived from the dojo, saying he was gone.
Well, she might not have returned when she found out he was gone. But then, why was she there now, in Tokyo again, helping doctor Gensai - or should we say being helped, as the old man was getting tired easily - at the clinic, leaving her brother, her family, all of that behind? She didn't want to answer. Specially because, even if she didn't know - or didn't want to know - why, she knew when. She had decided to come back the first time they got a letter from him.
I want two arms to hold me close
I want the thing I need the most
Somebody needing me
So I can feel how it feels to be
Then, for the first time in five years, she'd had hope... hope that he was coming back, hope that they would find comfort and happiness in each other's arms... hope that she wouldn't be alone anymore. But three months had already passed and he wasn't there yet. And her hopes were fading away...
She woke up, back to real life, and the first thing she saw was a hand. With her head low, all she could see was the surface of her table and a big, bleeding hand, stretched out in front of her, asking for new bandages. Hopeful once again, she turned up her head, expecting to see his mischievous smirk...
Somebody's somebody
Someone's someone
Some sweet lover's lover
I wanna be that one
Someone faithful to someone faithful
Someone kind to someone kind to me
Somebody to somebody who loves me
Yet, the grin she found wasn't his grin, the face she saw there wasn't his face, the one she was looking at wasn't the one she had been looking forward to see all this years. To avoid any questions, she simply said she was a bit tired, then bandaged the patient's hand despondently and closed the clinic doors, heading to the Kamiya Kasshin Dojo.
What I'm looking for
Is someone to love me more
Than I've been loved before
With love so right
What I need to find
Is someone to hold me tight
What I mean is I want to be
Arriving there, she knocked the wooden gates. Soon Kaoru was there, with little Kenji-chan sleepy in her arms. Inside the dojo, Kenshin washed some clothes as he usually did. She remembered how she'd felt when they told her they were getting married. At first she'd been jealous; she even had cogitated not going to the wedding. After a couple days, though, she'd reconsidered. Kaoru had always had Kenshin's heart; she didn't have the right to interrupt such a beautiful relationship. After all, she'd never get the redheaded rurouni to love her.
But was that what she truly wanted? She'd never doubted it before, while he was there. But after those five years, she came to the conclusion that she didn't want Kenshin to love her the way he loved Kaoru. No, she saw in him a friend, an older brother to replace the ones she'd once lost. It had been just a mask to her true feelings for him... she'd never admit she loved him, a foul-mouthed, hot-headed, free-loader ex-gangster!! No, anyone else but him!! Yet Destiny plays jokes on us, poor mortals, and it seems that mocking with young hearts is its favourite game.
And there she was, wanting him of all people!! Not only wanting, but needing, aching, desperately loving him. And he wasn't there. He had been there when she didn't know she loved him, but now that she finally understood her feelings towards him, where was he? Miles, oceans away from her. Tears filled her eyes; she excused herself, shut herself up at the nearest room and, not being able to hold the whirlwind of emotions that rolled in her heart, she wept copiously. Kaoru, being aware of her friend's sorrow, offered a shoulder to cry on, but she refused it. She just wanted to go home.
Somebody's somebody
Someone's someone
Some sweet lover's lover
I wanna be that one
Someone faithful to someone faithful
Someone kind to someone kind to me
Somebody to somebody who loves me
Who loves me...
She let go a deep sigh, allowing herself to slump on the old Western chair, never caring if such posture would bring problems to her spinal column. To hell with it, she thought, why should I be worried? Then she changed her mind, adjusting her body. After all, no one would be there to rub her back if it was aching later. She had tried very hard to find a justification to her celibacy, saying she dedicated herself only to her job, saying she was too busy searching for her family in Aizu, saying she loved Kenshin, saying she was happy the way she was. But these were all excuses, deep inside she couldn't deny it, these were all but very lame excuses. The truth was that she had been waiting for him all that time. And now that she finally admitted it, what would she do? Nothing. There was nothing to be done... she was alone now, she didn't have anyone by her side, let alone him. She folded her legs, encircling them with her arms, and hid her face between her knees to continue what she had done at the dojo: crying.
Between her sobs, she heard a muffled sound of paper passing under her front door. A mix of apprehension and curiosity ran through her veins, forcing her to get up and see what was it.
There was a small paper laying in front of the door. Who put it there? It was probably just a joke, but, even with that in mind, she bent down to pick it. It was a bit creased and the corners were torn; probably the person who put it there was nervous or a bit unsure of what he was doing. And why did she think it was a "he"? Was she having another illusion that he was back? There was only one way to know. She unfolded it, and gasped.
Somebody's somebody....
Somebody's somebody....
(Wish I was one of them-- Wish I was somebody's baby)
Somebody's somebody....
(Wish I was one of them, baby-- Wish there was somebody baby-- yeah yeah-- comin' for me)
Somebody's somebody....
Scribbled on an almost illegible Japanese, there was a request, or an order:
"Kitsune,
Open the door.
Tori-atama."
She did.
Author's Notes: So, what did you think of the end? Is he really back? Or would it be just her imagination again? And do I have to say their names? I guess not ^_^
And it's the end. No, I don't plan on writing a sequel. I want to leave it to my readers to come to their own conclusions, to create their own epilogues. That's called "obra aberta" (a story in which you must imagine the ending) in Portuguese, I don't know the name for it in English -_-0
Her dream in the beginning of the fic was a reference to all "Blanket Scenarios" out there, as well as to all lemons involving storms... including mine ^_^ (but it's in Portuguese...)
Did all those "he" and "him" in italics irritate you? I hope not ^_^0
PS for readers who can understand Portuguese: this could fit as a prequel of "Instinto Maternal", another S+M fic I've written ^_^