When Kaoru and Kenshin returned home, Kaoru made a beeline for her room. Kenshin was left standing alone in the Kamiya courtyard with a tofu bucket that had seen better days and a curious expression on his scarred countenance.

When Kaoru had left the old woman's store, her breath had smelled of sake and her cheeks had been flushed with a rosy hue. He wasn't sure if the red tint in her cheeks was the result of the sake or of some other cause.

Kenshin burned with curiosity and it was with difficulty that he had resisted the urge to interrogate Kaoru on what that old woman had needed help with exactly. Kenshin was not well versed in the ways of women, his only experience having been in a semi-solitary farmhouse for some months with Tomoe. Only children had come to visit, there had been no female visitors to call upon his wife, and Tomoe had appeared to be unconcerned with the feminine pursuit of beauty enhancement. Though, she had always looked well groomed in their time together and now that he really thought about it, he tried to remember a time when her hair had not been perfectly neat or when she hadn't been impeccably dressed. She had always played the part of a well mannered samurai wife. Never had he seen her wake in the morning with knotted hair and sour breath.

He wondered now why he hadn't really noticed that before and why it had never occurred to him in the years after. She must have gone to some effort. It was impossible to look that put-together all the time without some preparation. Kenshin looked down at his dusty tabi and the layer of dirt that covered the hem of his hakama. He ran his fingers through his low ponytail and caught a snarl.

Clearly he had cared very little for his appearance and he felt guilty about that. It seemed unfair that the women he loved took such great care in their grooming and he had taken none. Kaoru, for all her active pursuits in sword training, always dressed herself in an attractive kimono outside of the dojo. Though they were somewhat thin and faded from years of use, she was well-turned with a matching obi tied expertly behind her fashionably. And she always smelled nice. Even after practicing for hours on end in the dojo, covered in a sheen of sweat and matted hair plastered to her forehead and neck she would excuse herself to her room and return with her hair perfectly combed and tied up neatly, clad in a beautifully patterned kimono, and smelling of fragrant flowers.

Kenshin resolved to take greater care in his grooming from this point forward. If he were to stand next to Kaoru he would do so in a way that she could take some pride in.

Himura Kaoru, and this is my husband Himura Kenshin. Isn't he just so handsome?

Kaoru, once she was safely secured in her room and the shoji shut tight against prying eyes, reached down the front of her kimono and removed the little containers that Cho-san had unceremoniously shoved into her cleavage.

She opened the tiny vial again, unrealistically hoping that this time it may smell a little nicer. It didn't. The old woman had insisted though, and obviously she would know. Kaoru placed the little glass container on her dressing table. She opened the little tin and there was a substance inside that looked like red paste. Kaoru did vaguely recognize that, she remembered something similar on top of her mother's vanity many years before. She uncovered the other container, and found that it contained the same kind of paste with a thinner consistency, not quite red but more pink.

Kaoru panicked a little. She had never used such things. Megumi always looked beautiful, and she habitually wore scarlet on her lips. It couldn't be that difficult, could it? Perhaps Megumi could teach her how to be as pretty as her? A trip to Aizu might be a welcome change of scenery.

Stupid, you're either beautiful or you're not. It's not like kendo where you can just practice every day.

Kaoru could never be as beautiful as Megumi and she feared that any effort to improve her face with makeup would simply look foolish. Inexplicably a tear welled up in her eye and she angrily swiped at it. She was silly to think that these stupid pastes and creams could somehow seduce Kenshin into her arms. Cho-san had simply been making fun of her.

Kaoru opened one of the little drawers in her dressing table. There was her mother's ivory hair comb. Kaoru had admired it as a little girl, watching with fascination once as her mother expertly placed it in her silken hair. It was something she treasured, though she didn't know why. It was nothing very fancy or expensive, not as intricately carved as some of the other hair accessories she saw the ladies in town wear. It was not inlaid with pretty stones or metal flowers. It may have fetched a few yen, but Kaoru couldn't part with it no matter how desperate she had been in the past. She always found a different way to put food on the table or pay for repairs to the dojo.

Kaoru swept the offending cosmetics that Cho-san had forced upon her into the drawer and slammed it shut. The little mirror on top rattled and Kaoru caught it before it could fall and shatter.

Ridiculous. You stupid woman.

Kaoru was unusually quiet for the rest of the day and Kenshin found himself unsettled by this. When Yahiko returned from his shift at The Akebeko they sat down for dinner. Normally a noisy affair punctuated with "busus" from Yahiko and "bakas" from Kaoru, it had been awkwardly silent instead. At one point Yahiko had tried to goad Kaoru into losing her temper, as this was a great source of entertainment for him but Kaoru didn't take the bait. She had simply appeared to gaze through Yahiko for a moment and then continued to push the food in her still-full bowl around with her chopsticks. Frustrated, Yahiko had pushed away from the table after only his third helping and mumbled something about how depressing this place was starting to get and that Sano should hurry up with whatever he was doing and get back home to finally clear his name.

Kenshin barely heard, almost entirely focused on Kaoru. He debated with himself if he should ask her what troubled her so. Would it be impertinent of him to do so? If he did, would she tell him just to avoid being rude? Perhaps she would lie so as not to worry him. And, honestly, what place did he have in her heart to expect that she would open up to him? She had kept many secrets from him after all. He wasn't so simple-minded (despite the facade he put on at times to ease the tension in others) as to be unaware of the financial struggle that owning a dojo with only one student entailed. He cooked the meals. He would often thin out the soup, or after serving tea to Kaoru he would reuse the tea leaves to brew himself a weak cup. He would use the laundry soap so sparingly that getting their clothes clean took twice the time and effort it normally should.

Kaoru would go to teach at various dojos around town, claiming that she did it less for financial gain and more to hone her skills in kendo. Kenshin knew better. Perhaps her fencing technique was a small bonus, but it was obvious that what she really wanted was to master her father's sword style. Kaoru never complained about this, cheerfully heading across town in the morning and returning home with a smile even though she was exhausted in the evening.

Yahiko brought home meager pay from the Akebeko, and gave Kaoru a mere pittance for his room, board, and lessons. He saved the rest, for what Kenshin didn't know, nor did he ask. Neither did Kaoru, she accepted what Yahiko deigned to give her each week without demand for more despite their chipped teacups, worn tatami mats, and overly mended, thinly padded futons.

Perhaps Kaoru was troubled by this tonight. She normally wore a brave face, only bringing up how much they struggled to tease Sanosuke, and even then she didn't let on how bad off they really were.

Kenshin wondered if Kaoru was upset because she had wanted something from that old woman's shop, and had been unable to afford something that she considered frivolous. She had been perfectly cheerful that morning, her behavior nothing to be concerned about. When they had returned home that day was when she appeared to be plagued by melancholy. At this realization Kenshin felt as if he had been punched in the gut by Sanosuke.

This wouldn't do. When it came down to it, he was nothing more than a useless freeloader. He did most of the chores, sure. But was this not to be expected of him, even if he did pay the bills too? After all Kaoru worked around the dojo, occasionally trying her hand in the kitchen if Kenshin wasn't fast enough. He would hang the clothes to dry and more often than not she would take them down after they had dried and fold them neatly, despite Kenshin's efforts to beat her to it. Though her stitches were not quite as neat as Kenshin's they were serviceable and she mended Yahiko's oft-worn hakama (really, he only owned two pairs) and her own clothing frequently.

If Kaoru lowered herself in status to accept him, if he would marry Kaoru and become the man of the house, then he ought to act like it. A man should support his wife in all ways and Kaoru deserved such a husband. She should have nice teacups to drink strongly brewed tea out of and a comfortable and luxuriously padded futon to sleep on while curled up next to a husband that provided well. She should have all the things she needed and all the pretty things she wanted.

Now that everything had finally started to settle, it was time he pulled his weight around here and eased her burden.

Kenshin would look for a job in the morning.

Author's note:

Okay, so there will be a part four after all. It was silly of me to think I could summarize this mess in only two or three chapters like I originally intended. I'm already writing the fourth installment of this little side quest, but I was just too excited to post this and didn't want to wait.

I hope you're having as much fun reading this as I am writing it. I was obsessed with the manga over twenty years ago (yes, I'm aging myself a little here), and after recently watching the live action films on Netflix it reawakened my love for these characters. This series doesn't seem to be as popular to write fanfiction about as it was back in the day, but from the amount of KK fanfiction that's archived here I can see that others must have been as dissatisfied as I was with the lack of exploration into Kenshin and Kaoru's love story. It was a manga mostly marketed to teenage boys and young men, so that's to be expected I guess. So, it's up to us.

To the few of you that have bookmarked this story I sincerely thank you. It warmed my heart to see that someone out there is reading what I wrote. I set out to write a story that I would like to read myself, and if other people enjoy it too I'm glad.

Coming soon, the conclusion of How We Got to Now and the continuation of our Kenshin and Kaoru romance. What does Tae have up her very practical kimono sleeve? Will Tsubame spill the plan to Yahiko, and what exactly are Ikeda-san's intentions?