Oh! Who wrote vocab, I DID! :does a little dance.
* Stuff in stars is in English. *
Thoughts will be in italics most of the time.
: Actions are in colons. : (That's where all the fun is ^.^) I know, bu-dum chhh! [MJb is a yaoi fan- reow! NOT of RK yaoi though]
(this fic is based solely on the anime, and the Revenge arc basically has never happened)
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin, it belongs to Watsuki Nobuhiro and some other people like Jump comics and such. I'm not making any money off of this… unfortunately. :P.
Vocab for this chapter ^.^x :
Soushite- in this case it means: 'and- , and…?'
Aa- mostly masculine affirmative.
Shouji- paper door thing.
Hakama and gi- gi is the shirt/robe kenjustu people wear and hakama is the set o' pants that tie around the gi.
Ja matte ne- see ya' later, right?
You should know 'dono, san, kun, and chan' by now if you don't it's gonna be explained in earlier chapter rewrites.
I walked numbly up the steps of my home, open and shut the shouji, walked, turned a corner, walked, turned, opened my shouji and closed it behind me. Good, I had made it without being hounded and disturbed. I couldn't deal with that right now. How is it possible to be so tired and drained when it was only about noon?
I started to undress so that I could get into my hakama and gi and teach Yahiko. My mind kept flashing back to what had happened at the ship in only a couple of hours time.
Everything almost seemed like a blur then but it was clearer to me now, I thought. We were raised up into the ship and I was almost convinced he would take me right then and there. I realize now that I was delusional to think such a thing. However, it was made even more terrifying by the twist that the platform did when it locked into place loudly. Like the gate of a prison closing.
Soiya-kun then gave us all a tour of his ship and explained things as best he could in Japanese. When he was finally very exasperated with trying to talk correctly and not being able to he pulled out a large device called a *translator*. I put one earpiece in my ear and the wire led to a large box with many buttons. Soiya-kun put the other end in his ear and when he said the translator was finally working well he explained more slowly what was going on.
It was different this time. More was understood and the factor of doubt was gone since we were sitting inside the ship. When I translated back yet again for my friends I saw it easier to understand if split into parts.
"First, humans discovered *jump space*. The concept is that in space there is nothing, so substance. So, virtually, matter can be brought together simultaneously without interference." She didn't say anything about the universe expanding because it made no sense even to her. "So even if places are far away, the actual traveling distance is only the space between two substances and space doesn't count. He says it still takes some time to travel because there are bits of substance floating around and they slow down travel." Everyone understood the general concept pretty well. Sano mostly didn't care to understand and only wanted to know what was going on with the possibility of me leaving.
"The ability to travel quickly across space led to the discovery of trade routes between different sola shish'tems and other races of intelligent life. None of them had come to Earth because there is a law against introducing new technology to races that did not discover the trade routes."
"So what?" Sano asked.
Kaoru shushed him, "This is important, because since Earth was new to the *IGTF* or *Inter-Galactic Trade Federation*" she then did her best to translate, "we weren't making as much money as other races that were involved. Being the new guy, we were at the 'bottom of the food chain' so to speak. Instead of the long grueling process of working our way up while acquiring new technology we chose to explore the frontier of the IGTF territory.
"Like he said the other night, humans came across a devastated planet and set up a space station in its orbit to monitor it." Kenshin seemed to suddenly retreat into deep thought. "They found life energy in the soil and realized that it was the first material they found that they could make money from. It was also a form of energy that could revolutionize energy consumption. So a few explorations were done to find the planet that produces the energy. When the explorers sent messages to the planet that was found there was no reply. They decided to go down to the uninhabited planet's surface and when they did several enemy ships launched from the planet and destroyed all our explorer ships." Her voice faltered, "About 6,000 people died.
Sawyer then started rattling off casualties, which Kaoru repeated sadly, "They attacked the space station set up around End: 17,000 scientists and inhabitants killed. The fleet with them was completely obliterated: 60,000. They attacked the next close human space colony, 32,000 dead and 4,000 escaped. That's when their fleet split and they attacked another station with 12,000 dead and 2,000 escapees. They split once again and started skirmishes along the IGTF frontier. Since the last major attack there have been over 30 battles between human and ender and about 20,000 deaths. The death count is over 150,000 and climbing…"
150,000, I thought. My eyes started to water. 150,000 lives… just like mine, each individual… and for no reason.
She continued translating for her friends, "After the attack on the fleet it took years for the Enders to attack the next colony. Within that time the concept of adepts was formed and adepts were gathered from all over… all two of them. Both went to the space colony nearest the last attack and helped the four thousand escape."
Just two adep'su could save 4,000 lives… only two. I imagined what I might be able to do.
Dom looked straight at Kaoru and seemed only to talk to her for a bit, "This is where we come in; this is where you are needed. New weapons that use life energy as the attacking agent are effective against Enders. Our main weapon against their ships and defense against their attacks is a large cannon that is created of amplified life energy and chemicals causing explosions. Our job is to be on call to fuel it with the life energy our bodies produce and to regularly store our life energy for the cannon to use along with us. If the necessity arises we must be able to face an ender head on and battle him with portable weapons fueled by our life energy.
"We-" she found it hard to translate, "We need your help. To this day there are only twenty-eight adepts, all of which are from the past. You would come to the largest protected colony on the frontier that has thirteen adepts of it's own and you would make fourteen. It's not as easy as it seems, thirteen may seem like a lot when only two can save thousands but they are constantly leant out to envoys and trade ships of importance. Soshite…" Kaoru did not translate the next part. She didn't want to worry her friends.
"Soshite," I said out loud, now that I could, "This is war… and people die." I felt better finally saying it, even if I was still keeping the statement to myself. At least I could say it, and it could hang in the air so I could face it without the comment weighing on my already heavy heart.
I could die there. Maybe I would only be gone years, but that is on the condition that I live through the war. Where would that leave my friends? Where would that leave Kenshin? What about Yahiko? What would happen if I died?
Sawyer noticed lack of translation but continued like he hadn't. Sawyer wasn't the only one who noticed. Kenshin was the first to prod Kaoru, "Soshite?" Sawyer quieted once more.
She played dumb as quick as possible, "Did I say something?"
There was a pause before the narration continued.
Why didn't I say anything? Its not like I have to worry about them knowing I might die, no one says I'm going. In fact I don't expect or want to go. And yet…
"We need every hand we can get. The help is necessary for human survival. We see that their goal is to push into the frontier and they are doing a good job. With only twenty-eight people able to fight against a whole race there's no way we can cover all the bases. The colony we would be going to is the most strategically important and both sides know it. In the event that the enders attack with full force, even with a full supply of life energy and thirteen adepts we would loose. We wouldn't be able to refuel fast enough and then everything would fall.
"Maybe you don't see the difference between thirteen and fourteen but if we do not recover every adept we can then the number will decrease instead of increase. Please concede to help us." Kenshin cocked his head up and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.
I could see, hear and feel the desperation of how I was needed and had a pretty clear picture of why. If I said no, and the next adept said no and so on, there would be no adepts. It would be nothing but unendingly selfish of me to decline but… what about my responsibilities here? I honestly didn't think I was strong enough to leave my whole new family to join a highly risky war and… and be alone again.
What am I thinking about? I thought with a refreshing smile. I'm in here to change so I can go and train Yahiko. I took two enthused steps and touched the shouji. I had touched that shouji so many times… I had lived in this house for so many years; plenty of them were alone. But this room I had always been alone in, only me. Now when I stepped out of this room I had a family to watch out for. I had a family once again.
My hand fell to my side and my pretend smile disappeared. But why? I'm not going anywhere. I told myself again. The thought gave me strength to open my shouji but that strength faded with that thought. Suddenly, even though my shouji was open I still felt alone, as if I was alone already…
My feet were feeling like lead and the step I took forward took as much effort as I could muster. Perhaps it would be better if I didn't teach Yahiko today. I didn't have enough energy. Yes, I resolved, that's what I would tell him. I felt more like thinking now then I did teaching.
It would be wrong of me to worry them all by looking so depressed so I put on the best smile I could and walked outside to talk to Yahiko. Yahiko had a broom in hand, but instead of cleaning with it he seemed to be thinking. He didn't notice me at first.
Being outside made me realize that the whole house had a melancholy feel to it. There was no sound of children laughing, food cooking, Sano and Megumi arguing, Kenshin doing laundry, Yahiko complaining (hearing him clean willingly would have been more disturbing, I decided), Sano and Yahiko arguing, Sano and Yahiko fighting or Sano complaining. I heard the sad swirl of wind and leaves and smelt the silence in the air with tangibility. Even out in the open with Yahiko there I still felt alone, everything creaked with loneliness: trees, home and dojo.
"Yahiko," his name felt dead on my tongue and disappeared into the thickness of air. I tried to put a scolding tone into my voice, "Yahiko, don't just stand around. If you're gonna clean, clean." Did that sound like me? I hoped it did.
"I was waiting for you to stop fawning over yourself so you could teach me," the way he said this made me think that maybe he was a better actor than I.
"Well that's too bad; you had better clean because I'm not out hear to teach you. I'm going for a walk."
"A walk?" Yahiko whined. "Why the hell'd ya wanna do that for?"
"Why would I wanna teach you for? I'm going for a walk to think."
"You think?"
Normally it struck me that I would have hit him with something, but I was too grateful to him for not saying anything and helping me pretend everything was okay. Of course, by not hitting him there was an awkward pause. What does one do besides hit the offender in this case?
Change the subject.
"Where's Kenshin?" I asked instinctively. He wasn't doing laundry and I didn't recall us needing anything from the market…
Yahiko sighed, "I think he went off to 'think'… or talk to that - guy." Now I could tell Yahiko was making an effort not to mention what was going on for my sake.
In any circumstance the best I could do was drop the conversation and leave. "Don't worry about cleaning, you can go to the Akabeko and help out if you want. Ja matte ne." I started walking out of the side of the dojo.
Yahiko was speechless; all he managed was a strangled and disbelieving, "A-aa." After I had continued walking away I heard the faint sound of a broom against stone.
I decided to walk along the small path in between the dojo and the river and woods. Now that I was alone my pathetic mask dropped like a stone. I walked along and soon became nostalgic. See, that was where I welcomed Kenshin home, and that was where my mother used to plant flowers, and there is where I met the first boy I had a crush on, and that's- that's the best place to watch fireflies in the summer. That was where Kenshin had said goodbye to me.
It didn't hurt as much to think of it now, but a fresh new wave of loneliness from the past joined the surf where loneliness already lay. It seemed strange to think of it now, almost as if Kenshin and I had switched positions. Is this what he felt when he had to choose between staying and leaving? What would I choose?
My mind laughed at me, You're even considering going?! Hah! You know that's not going to happen. However…
"150,000 and climbing."
To feel what Kenshin felt… is different than the conception of thinking I knew what Kenshin felt. I thought I understood how hard it was for him to leave… but feeling it was different. Kenshin had at least tried to hold us all at arms length while trying to seem like he wasn't, and he failed. I, a lonely, pathetic tomboy, orphaned and without family or students, had welcomed a 'rurouni' samurai, a street kid, and a gangster into my family and home with open arms. For the first time ever it occurred to me what a foolish thing that was to do, not that I regretted a second of it. But it was careless of me to put my feelings on the line for several strangers just to fill up the emptiness and suffering I was going through. Now my mistake came back and bit me in the ass.
Several times I had been afraid that Kenshin or Yahiko or Sano would die… those were times I realized how much it would hurt to live without them, whenever the idea that they were already lost crossed my mind. I had invested much of my love and devotion into my little bunch of warriors. It never occurred to me that I would be the one to be lost, the one to ever leave.
Sometimes it occurred to me that if I died, it would be a great loss to my makeshift family. But on the whole it never occurred to me that we would loose each other and I would be alone again.
Cold fear struck me at the thought of how Kenshin would react to something like my death. But there was a seeping disturbance in this new threat. Would my family hold out for me if I were gone? Would Kenshin stick around? No, I knew he would never leave Yahiko… he might even wait for me. What if something terrible happened in the meantime and he had to leave again? What would Yahiko do?
What would Yahiko do in general, with me gone? There would be no one to teach him Kamiya Kasshin Ryu and I knew Kenshin still would not take him as a student. He might get a job at the Akabeko to do what? Support Kenshin? When Yahiko takes on a job to support Kenshin, that is the day Kenshin would leave. Yahiko's skills with swordsmanship would be wasted and what would he amount to?
What would Sano eat?
I reconsidered… Kenshin's cooking.
But how would Kenshin pay for cooking ingredients? How would Kenshin pay for anything? Perchance he and Yahiko would go off wandering together, being unable to support themselves, instead of waiting for me to return? Megumi would go back to Aizu and Sano might go with her… and then I would once again be alone.
I could leave with all the promises in the world of them waiting for me a couple of years, putting all their lives on hold for me… but then, then I would return to an empty house and a studentless dojo. Tears sprung to my eyes. Families shouldn't be this easy to loose. Then again, most families didn't go through everything we went through. But I had already lost my family twice: my parents and my students, and a third time was so uncommon it seemed like the world could very well be out to get me.
This is all not to mention how I would live in the future. In addition to possibly coming home to emptiness and bare rooms (and dirty laundry), I would have to live indefinite years in the future where no one knew my language, I understood nothing and I knew no one. I would be there for years… years of isolation and loneliness. Hadn't I suffered enough?
What if I wasn't there for months? I shielded my eyes from the sun's glare. What if I died there during the war? That cold fear I managed to brush away before bounded back. It seemed clearer now that Kenshin would find a way not to leave the dojo in order to keep a promise. But if I were to go, what would I tell him? 'Wait four years and if I'm not back by then forget about me'? I hadn't mentioned my own death before. If I died what would happen to Kenshin, would the uncertainty be more harmful than the knowledge of my death. How long would he wait before he gave up on my life, and how would he handle it? Would he wait forever and pine away or consider me dead and slip into a state of depression.
Something else that had never occurred to me, would it not hurt me more if he just forgot about me easily and continued with his life? After all, what did I mean to him? The way I thought, it made it sound like we were in love or something. I mean, jeez, Kaoru, the guy could probably live without you. He never said that you meant anything more than a good friend to him. The word 'sister' was never used but definitely implied. My bitter heart stung at that.
Isn't it horrible that I would feel better if he suffered a little? If I really loved h-
Nevermind. I can't think of that now, now I have to decide.
Would my own happiness mean more to me then the happiness of the entire human race? The fact that I value my families lives so much… should that mean that I choose their security over the lives of millions of others? Was it more about my own security?
"150,000 and climbing."
For what I could make of it, if the Enders pushed back the IGTF barrier and started to attack human settlements, that number could rise into the millions very quickly.
"We need every hand we can get. The help is necessary for human survival."
Could I be so selfish?
"150,000 and climbing."
The only reason the number wasn't higher was because more humans hadn't settled past the frontier. I noticed how the number increased as the Enders advanced. Every day that I took to make a decision took a day away from my being able to help. And the longer it took me to help, the longer Enders had to reach the next colony.
I was kidding myself if I believed I could lead a happy life after throwing aside my every belief on what is right for my own selfish reasons. And it wasn't as if everything would go back to normal. If I refused them, then everything Kamiya Kasshin Ryu accomplished would be tainted. Whenever I used it for good it would always be with the knowledge that it was because it was a good I could afford to do, and not because it was what was right. Would what little respect Yahiko had for me be lost?
What would Kenshin think of me?
But no, if I was going to make this decision, the consequences had to be on me. I couldn't blame my decision on Yahiko or Kenshin, and it certainly wouldn't mean as much if I were just throwing my life away for their approval. It was very tempting… to share the responsibility… to try and gain their respect and secure their love and loyalty with selflessness, but that wasn't selflessness at all. That was lying, and childishness, and the most selfish thing that could be done, for then I would be taking myself away from them just because I wanted their approval, and securing their love in the process.
I took a deep breath, when had I started crying? I wiped my tears away, but magically they would keep coming.
So I would suffer once again.
So I might loose everything.
But I just might, just might, make a difference.
If only the tears would stop.
Kaoru took some time to stop herself from crying before returning to the dojo but to no avail. She felt broken and used, twisted and rung out like a rag and utterly without the strength she seemed to be gathering in order to keep her mask on as she passed Yahiko.
She tried to pass him quickly and hoped he wouldn't ask her anything before she became numb once more and the tears would stop. Yahiko somehow took the hint, maybe from the air of depression and resistance Kaoru was giving off, not to say anything and stared very hard down at the spot he had been sweeping for twenty minutes when he could have gone to the Akabeko.
Kaoru walked briskly up the steps as she felt the familiar sting the unshed tears were giving her before they released. She thanked Yahiko for his silence and noticed that Kenshin was still not back yet. It was better that way. Kenshin would not have left her alone until she broke out into tears right in front of him and then he would not have left her alone until they stopped. That was no good; that gave her no chance to heal.
Thankfully she reached her room, flung open her shouji, and in one movement closed it as he sank to her knees and sobbed into her futon. She hated crying although she did it frequently. It gave her such a strained, painful feeling in the chest. Her body racked with sobs, she thought of how crying in front of her father had scared her more than anything else for the first ten years of her conscious life. She cried when she really felt pained or depressed. It was different to sob then it was when only a couple of crystal beads rushed down her face. She had only sobbed twice in the time of meeting Kenshin: when she lost all her students right before she met Kenshin, and when Kenshin said goodbye to her.
She admitted the fact that she was a crybaby, so to speak, but that was only what people saw. Her heart felt sobs were a rare occasion indeed.
It didn't feel like a release, it felt worse.
Kenshin hadn't really let himself feel the consequences of anything that had happened the whole day. So he told Yahiko he was going to go and think about everything, and possibly go see "Soiya-dono".
There were two reasons that Kenshin needed to speak to Sawyer, and two reasons for him to need to think.
The first was that there were many holes in the explanation that Sawyer gave by Kenshin's understanding. Not all of them had immediate effects on the situation at hand so he would think of those later. The behavior of Sawyer sparked something in his mind. Sawyer was very passionate about his job in recruiting adepts. Passionate people don't just give up if something doesn't work out; they pursue it. Sawyer never once openly discussed Kaoru's choice in the matter. Supposedly she had a choice, but Sawyer only talked of what was to happen if she said yes. He had "given her the better of two days to answer".
Then there was the whole issue of what she would be doing there. He had caught her pause with the "soshite" incident and knew exactly what it meant. Besides all of the things Sawyer described, the death rate in general of adepts was high. NO, this was NOT okay with Kenshin.
This whole project to save the human race was founded by the government… and they were recruiting for a war. It was as simple as that. What scared Kenshin most was that he had been in this exact situation.
He had wanted to do what was right.
He wanted to make the difference, obey the greater good.
Given it was a little different this time. For one, it wasn't him; it was Kaoru. Two: he had had a choice in his idiocy, and even though he knew Kaoru would agree to go with Sawyer no matter how much they argued about it, Kaoru did not have a choice.
Kenshin knew what would happen then. She would be used in a war that was probably deep down about money, possibly killed, and she had no idea what she was agreeing to. That fact brought up unpleasant memories Kenshin decided had best be left alone. She would have to kill and he didn't think she realized it yet. This 'large cannon' that Sawyer talked about was able to destroy, what, several ships at a time? If the human fleet, which had been too small to put up the greatest fight, had a casualty rate of 60,000 deaths he wondered what a victory against an Ender ship meant in terms of lives. More most likely. 80,000? The thought made him nauseous. The death toll of humans is 150,000, what's the death count total?
Kenshin wondered about things left unsaid and assumed the worst, as is true in most wars. What were the 'other weapons' Sawyer spoke of? Hand to hand? What kind of weapons would that require for Kaoru to use and would she be fighting only Enders?
The whole cause of the war was mysterious. There was no information on the Enders except on how to kill them. What were the attempts for peace, and if there weren't any, why?
Kenshin expected all these answers before he let Kaoru leave, and once he had his answers he was pretty sure he wasn't going to let her leave. She would argue, possibly cry, they would fight, he might have to pull her hair or stop her from running off to leave during the night…
What the hell was he thinking?
What the hell am I thinking?
She wasn't… it wasn't… they weren't… It wasn't his choice whether she went or stayed. But it was! He always protected her! It was his job, his purpose! But then… to take away her freedom of choice wasn't lo-
Anyway.
He'd never gone that far before. Always he had warned her and tried to stop her once or twice- andthensheeitherbeathimtoapulp or she had fainted in his arms or he had just let her go and then went with her so nothing would happen to her.
There was nothing wrong/obsessive/protective/parenting about that. Nope…
Of course he cared for her a great deal. Significantly so. She meant a lot to him, and therefore, he protected her. Then again, Sano meant a great deal to him and he didn't need to protect Sano. On the other hand, he definitely didn't feel the same about Sano as Kaoru. Sano was like a brother. Kaoru was like… she was a- she had- there was a difference because, well… she was like a-
-a sister, he concluded. There was something wrong with this reasoning but he couldn't quite place it.
Then there was the second reason that he needed to speak with Sawyer. In a way he really should have been speaking to Kaoru about it but that wasn't going to happen. If he would just stop lying to himself he would be able to get somewhere with this. He needed time alone to address this subject because no one knew about it, not even himself (because he continued to lie to himself).
He could live out his life a happy old bachelor, doing laundry and playing with other people's kids. He could. He had a family now, and as long as he could help it, he would like to retain that family. How nice would it be if he could grow old with Yahiko, Sano, Megumi and Kaoru at his side? Things could continue happily just the way they were. Thing was, that was impossible. Life didn't seem to work like that, especially for him.
For the first time ever he had been spending time settled down without any distractions. And openly! He had been trying very hard not to be distant.
How strange… he was failing and succeeding at the same time.
His major goal was for everything to stay happy a while longer. He tried not to worry Kaoru, and to keep Yahiko as a good kid, growing into a healthy man, and a good student. He went out to have fun more often with Sano, and for some reason hanging around Megumi wasn't as dangerous to his health as it used to be. Any changes in these things would result in the risk that things would lunge into a downward spiral.
By trying to keep everything the same, at the same time he seemed to be acting distant… especially with a particular member of the Kenshin-gumi, Kaoru. By trying not to worry her, he often times had tried to leave her out of things that would danger her. Most of all, he had tried to stop letting her know that he possibly, in any case, just might, perhaps, maybe had some feelings for her other than a sister.
There, he had said it.
Wait, no he hadn't.
Before the days of Shishio he had tried to stay relatively in a balance between distant and close with Kenshin-gumi. That's why it was okay for him to once in a while let small things slip out about Kaoru. He repressed it all to a certain degree, but back then it had been 'okay' for him to mess up once in a while because he was being distant anyway, right? So he had repressed a bunch of fond feelings he had for Kaoru that would have gotten his heart in a lot of trouble and every once in a while he found himself brushing against her, or grabbing her hand and holding it. It was hard sometimes since she was the only person he could talk to her openly to a certain degree without fear. He knew that if he talked with her about certain things then she wouldn't hold them against him.
That's where it all started, the talking. In the week or so that they were living alone they had had many a fine talk. Kaoru was an intelligent woman with a lot of insight and a trusting heart of gold. It was true that he didn't reveal that much to her because he hadn't much to talk about since the bakamatsu and he preferred not to talk about that in the early days, but he had found out so much about her and all her habits. He knew why she was a compulsive cleaner, and how she felt about her budo, she told him about her relations with Tae and her exploits with cooking. If you added up all the time they had spent in deep conversation together during that week it was probably a couple of hours, which is a lot, if you think about it, considering how talkative Kenshin was.
Then there was Yahiko, and Kenshin loved Yahiko dearly but the conversations with Kaoru stopped, at least the long ones. That's when the long moments of silence that spoke volumes started. When the house was quiet, which was rare, and Kaoru was free from teaching, and Yahiko was cleaning in another part of the house, Kenshin and Kaoru would spend a great deal of time just in each other's company rather than in conversation because on the chance that they would be interrupted by Yahiko, it was easier to commence being together in silence then to start and stop a conversation over and over. That's when Kenshin noticed other things about Kaoru, the way she moved, the sound of her voice, that she hummed sometimes when cleaning, that she liked to read and stay informed about current events, her speech patterns, how to tell if she was angry or hurt, sad or tired, what she liked to eat, that she wasn't a morning person, and when to recognize that she was feeling lonely.
Then Sano came. That was one hell of a time… still is. THAT'S when Kenshin really learned some things about Kaoru that he shouldn't of needed to know: how to dodge punches, when Kaoru was at the point where she would hit people, which inanimate objects hurt when they connected more than others and where it hurt more for them to connect, which position would make him the smallest target, how to bandage one's own head with one hand, he learned to carry around bandages and that Sano had no qualms about using him as a shield.
By that time Kenshin and Kaoru had become pretty close and Kenshin could say that he felt an undefined something for Kaoru but he had not idea what it was and chose to ignore it. The first time Kenshin let himself admit that he felt some affection for Kaoru was when Kaoru leant him the ribbon. It meant a lot to him that she didn't want him to leave and that she cared about him as part of her family. That's when he actually felt one spark of affection. One. He felt it even more intensely when she was suddenly gone. That was when he realized that in addition to her not wanting him to leave and caring about him the feeling was mutual. But by the time he realized that he also realized that he hadn't completely rid himself of being a hitokiri. So just when he could have admitted to himself that he liked her he had to repress that feeling because he was a danger to her. Maybe, just maybe he could have convinced himself to try to share the affection with her anyway but… then something that would change everything happened.
Megumi. The presence of Megumi dispensed any chance Kenshin had of subtly courting Kaoru. He wouldn't have thought of it as courting then but that's what it would have been. Megumi, however, did not want to make this easy for him seeing as she felt love for him herself. In order to officially choose Kaoru over Megumi he would have to openly profess his affection or something and neither he nor Kaoru was ready for that. As a cautious man who was weary of endangering Kaoru already there was no way he would declare his love for her. He didn't love her, he felt affection towards her but that wasn't going to get him anywhere.
So now even though he knew he felt something for Kaoru, he worked hard to repress showing anything for her. Once he did that, once in a while his feelings for her would climb out of that dark grave he buried them in and pop into reality like daisies. That's why sometimes he would do stupid romantic things like grabbing her hand when there was no real need, or saying things that hinted a romantic relationship, or offered his hand to her, or offered to carry her on his back or otherwise. It seemed very chivalrous but it was actually just mistakes that he followed through with so that he didn't want to hurt her feelings… and he kinda wanted to do them.
The Megumi problem was replaced by his desire for nothing to change. There was one exception to this all: when he told Kaoru goodbye. He was leaving, so he didn't need to hold anything back. So… so he hugged her. When he thought of it afterwards it was a very selfish thing to do, to show some of his feelings right before he planned on leaving forever. Inadvertently that was the sign of affection that was needed for Megumi to realize that he felt things for Kaoru and not her.
Their parting was the first time he allowed himself to realize that as much as he had told himself he was fine to leave when he was needed, the whole family, especially Kaoru, had gotten under his defense and pried him open once again. He hated being pried open, for one thing it hurt a lot, but then again, he deserved every second of it. How dare he close himself off to his family for his own protection and then hurt them all, expecting them all to forget about him and thinking that he meant nothing to him. For some reason they all cared immensely about him. That wasn't too hard to accept but the fact that he thought he could control it all was his main mistake. He wasn't like that anymore though, he was open and accepted that he had a family.
There was no way he was letting his family go, not after all this. He would not loose Kaoru after everything they had been through together, he would not forget about her and if there was any whole for him to pick at, he would rip it open so that she would not have to go. She had proved so very long ago that she didn't want him to leave her and he was sure he didn't want her to leave. There was a way… there had to be a way.
End Part I
The reason for me needing a Part I and II is pretty funny, the chapter was so long that notepad refused to hold it and so I had to split it up. What makes it funnier is that I had originally made the chapter end before I had wanted it to because it had gotten so long. Maybe I'll end it how I wanted to with Part III. Lol... I'm insane. My devotion to writing is so confusing, it's not like I want to be a writer, well, my devotion continues, and so does this fic!
-MaraJadeblu ^.^
* Stuff in stars is in English. *
Thoughts will be in italics most of the time.
: Actions are in colons. : (That's where all the fun is ^.^) I know, bu-dum chhh! [MJb is a yaoi fan- reow! NOT of RK yaoi though]
(this fic is based solely on the anime, and the Revenge arc basically has never happened)
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin, it belongs to Watsuki Nobuhiro and some other people like Jump comics and such. I'm not making any money off of this… unfortunately. :P.
Vocab for this chapter ^.^x :
Soushite- in this case it means: 'and- , and…?'
Aa- mostly masculine affirmative.
Shouji- paper door thing.
Hakama and gi- gi is the shirt/robe kenjustu people wear and hakama is the set o' pants that tie around the gi.
Ja matte ne- see ya' later, right?
You should know 'dono, san, kun, and chan' by now if you don't it's gonna be explained in earlier chapter rewrites.
End Part I
The reason for me needing a Part I and II is pretty funny, the chapter was so long that notepad refused to hold it and so I had to split it up. What makes it funnier is that I had originally made the chapter end before I had wanted it to because it had gotten so long. Maybe I'll end it how I wanted to with Part III. Lol... I'm insane. My devotion to writing is so confusing, it's not like I want to be a writer, well, my devotion continues, and so does this fic!
