*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"I kiss your neck,

I feel you breathing on my shoulder,

Still I'm perfect.

It must be 'cause now it's over,

I was so close... That was the

most I have ever been through..."

- "Fall" Something Corporate

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*



Chapter 3:

"Jokes About Serious Things"



"I don't think they're going to talk to us for a quite a while, Sano, that they won't," Kenshin concluded with a look in his direction as both beaten and sulking men stood in their quiet corners away from the rest of their reunited senior class party.

Sanosuke simply nodded, still rubbing his sore cheek from the huge wallop he received in place of where he thought he would get a kiss. And after all that trouble he went through and all the precious not-alone-in-bed time he wasted, he didn't even get a friendly 'welcome back;' it just didn't make sense to him.

At the same time, the two sighed as they watched Megumi and Kaoru across the park, smiling and laughing with everyone else, completely ignoring their presence.

"How long do you think it'll be 'til they let us outta the dog house?" Sanosuke asked, kicking at some dirt at his feet to let out some of his pent-up frustration. Agitated, he shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, putting his head down in shame when he saw his girlfriend shoot him yet another cold stare. "I dunno about you, Kenshin, but the couches in my apartment are bitches to sleep on..."

"Ours too," the redhead agreed. He found it wise not to mention to Sanosuke the fact that he and Kaoru actually had a spare bedroom for guests that he would most likely end up using instead of the couch. He didn't want his friend to think he was the only one going to suffer, especially since his fiancé happened to punch pretty hard... and frequently.

Taking a chance, Kenshin aimed a small apologetic smile at Kaoru as she turned in his direction, but she only brought her right hand up to her neck, her index finger pointing out as she brought it across her throat in a swift cutting motion. Kenshin gulped, not really sure what that would mean for later but he was positive that he didn't want to find out.

"Man... when're we ever gonna catch a break?" Sanosuke asked into the wind as he dejectedly leaned back against the tall oak tree that stood behind them and slid down until he was sitting on the ground.

Also tired of standing and in an effort to hide a bit from all of Kaoru's threatening mouthed words and hand motions, Kenshin followed suit.

"Hey guys!" Yahiko exclaimed happily as he made his way over to where the two going-to-be-dead-as-soon-as-they-were-out-of-the-public-eye men sat underneath the tree's shade. Taking a seat as well, Yahiko handed them each a cup of beer. "Here, thought you might need a few of these babies!" His friends merely grumbled a not-so-thankful 'thanks' under their breath.

"So..." Yahiko began, noticing his friends' current state of mind and injured bodies, "heard you had a bit of ass-whooping before the party started, Sano. Forget to put the toilet seat back down?"

"No," the taller man muttered in reply, pausing as he took a huge gulp of the drink and downed it all before he continued, hoping the alcohol might substitute as a temporary sedative for all the Tylenol pills he popped after all the yelling his poor head had to endure, "My stupid car broke down yesterday morning so I brought it into the shop, where Rich Boy Shinimori works now. After that got all fixed up I went to the construction site to make up some hours, but I fell asleep doing some desk work. I ended up not coming home last night. Guess the Fox thought something happened to me... I tried telling her what happened, but well..." Sano trailed off and pointed at the very Megumi-shaped hand print on his left cheek. "You can probably figure out the rest."

"Wait, Shinimori works at the car shop now?" Yahiko asked in surprise, "What for? That guy could buy some poor third-world country and name it after himself with all the money he's got! What the hell is he doing working at a car shop?"

"I read in the newspaper a year or so ago that most of the companies his father owned went bankrupt, that I did," Kenshin explained, lifting his own cup of beer to his lips for a drink, "and I suppose he lost most of his money trying to pay for that brand new Diablo he bought during the summer we stayed at Lake Biwa."

Yahiko made a low whistle as he remembered the sleek black car Aoshi had brought to the beach house three years ago. He couldn't buy a car like that even if he had sold most of his vital organs, let alone pay it off and live in a house like Aoshi's on the paycheck of a mechanic. Shaking his head in pity, Yahiko turned to Kenshin next. "And I already know what happened to you and Kaoru. Ugly, didn't take the whole Cindy thing too well, did she?"

"Definitely not," Kenshin replied, taking an even bigger drink. Settling a bit and waiting for his eyes to come into focus, he finally realized what Yahiko just said. "I tried to telling her that I know no woman by that name, but she had me hitting myself over the head with the biggest book I could find, that she did. Several times! And who is Cindy anyway, Yahiko? I don't remember ever meeting a Cindy in my entire life, specifically not one as how Kaoru described her, that I don't."

Curious, Yahiko opened his mouth to ask Kenshin just how exactly Kaoru believed their caterer (and ONLY their caterer, I swear to god!) looked like.

Knowing fully well that Kenshin wasn't really one to start repeating Kaoru's "unique" descriptions of what she thought had been Kenshin's stripper, what with all the inappropriate details about her cup size, Sanosuke decided to step in and answer for the blushing groom-to-be.

"Huge jugs," he replied simply, already knowing what he was about to ask and Yahiko just made a soft, 'Oh' sound in understanding. After all, if Yahiko understood any two words in the English language, they would be, 'huge jugs.'

"Seriously though, Yahiko, who is Cindy?" Kenshin repeated with an edge in his voice to show his friend that if he had to repeat himself for a third time, he just might go on one of his crazy Hulk-like-yellow-eyed rampages and throttle the answer out of him if need be.

Laughing nervously, Yahiko quickly changed the subject, not wanting to let the redhead know that Cindy was actually just the woman who had hooked them all up with their drinks and Kaoru had simply jumped to conclusions all because of HIS misleading.

"Eheheh! So, Sano! What'd Megumi have you do?" Yahiko asked Sanosuke, curious as to whose punishment was worse so he could point and laugh at that friend before the other.

"Nothing yet, but I have a feeling she's gonna bring up that thing about fixing that hole in the bedroom wall again that I tried covering up with a poster," he groaned, lifting his head up from where it leaned against the tree trunk and slamming it back down a couple times to feign an injury, thinking it could increase his chances at a quicker pardon, "and how the sink's not working as great as when first we moved in... and how the pipes need cleaning... probably gonna wanna reorganize the furniture in all the rooms too 'cause apparently it always has to 'change with the seasons.'" Sanosuke made a face. "What's up with women and their 'spring cleaning hooblahs' and 'winter decors'? It's all just a waste of time and energy you could be spending doing other things if you know what I mean..."

This comment made both Yahiko and Sanosuke grin, chuckling to themselves lightly at Sanosuke's "sly" way of saying he'd rather have sex than rearrange furniture. Kenshin, however, found no humor in the matter.

"Like what, Sano?" Kenshin asked curiously, his head tilting to the right, as both of his friends stopped their laughter and gave each other a look that read, 'You have got to be kidding me...'

"Like.......... sex," Sanosuke answered after a moment as he realized that his purple-eyed companion's question wasn't a joke.

"Sex? Oh.... OH! Haha... I get it now, that I do!" Kenshin said with a laugh and he tried to join in with the joke, but all he received on the other side was an awkward cough from Yahiko.

"ANYWAYS! I'm just thankful that I'm not in your guys' shoes," Yahiko interjected as he stood up and dusted himself off, "You're never gonna see me pussy-whipped, baby! No way, no how, not me! THIS man hits himself for no woman!"

Kenshin and Sanosuke sweatdropped at that comment, quietly thinking to themselves that Yahiko usually hurt himself with or without a woman asking him to. Their sweatdrops going unnoticed, Yahiko continued in his tirade about himself.

"THIS man cleans no sink!"

"It's the pipes, you idiot!" Sanosuke corrected him with a roll of his eyes.

"Whatever! You know what I meant!" Yahiko snapped, upset that his ego-boosting speech had been interrupted, "Now where was I?... Oh right! THIS man's furniture moves for no season! Yes sir, this man is THE man! "

____________________________



"That man is so dead..." Kaoru grumbled under her breath as she took a sip of her diet Coke. Standing next to her were a bunch of sympathizing and angry females, all nodding their heads in agreement to Kenshin's death warrant. "I mean, I..." Kaoru suddenly trailed off a bit as her attitude changed from angry to downhearted and she let out a small sniffle, "I thought he wanted me... just me, yunno?"

All the women nodded with pitying eyes.

"Hey, where's the ketchup?"

Turning, every woman raised an eyebrow at the shorter girl who stood among them with the large aqua blue eyes, blinking back at them with curiosity. Giving them all a weird frown at the strange looks they were giving her, Misao cleared her throat and asked again. "What? Do you guys know where the ketchup is or not?"

"Um... I think it's over at the table over there, Misao," Megumi claimed as she pointed in the direction indicated and smiling in thanks, Misao happily skipped over to the table to retrieve the red condiment she wanted to put on her hot dog, singing to herself the Oscar Meyer Weiner song on her way there. Turning back to the group of women who looked after the band camp girl as if she were a spectacle at the circus, Megumi waved her hand in the air to excuse their confused looks and said the two words that would explain it all: "Yahiko's girlfriend."

"Ohhhhhhhhh..." the entire circle replied in unison, nodding their heads as they all agreed that it all made perfect sense now.

"But getting back to this..." Tokio said at last, her perfectly manicured nails drumming along the side of her plastic cup, "I think we all know Kenshin enough to know that he wouldn't do such a thing to you, Kaoru." As if all controlled by one mind, all anti-penis agents whispered together that Saito's wife had a point, a very good one in fact. "I'm sure this was all just some big misunderstanding," Tokio reassured her friend with a small pat on the back, "just don't jump to any conclusions here before you know the real facts."

"Yeah," Kaoru replied with a soft smile, feeling a bit better about the situation after she had shared and at the beginning, conspired, with the girls, "I guess you're right. I should wait and find out a little more before I decide how he should be buried."

A few of the girls laughed at this, but the ones that knew Kaoru better only exchanged worried glances and quietly sneaked the cake knife away from her reach and hid it under one of the sandwich plates.

"Alright, Kaoru, I'm just dying to know now," Megumi finally spoke up, "what's all this fuss I keep hearing about you and some big news you need to tell everyone?"

"Oh yeah, that's right," Kaoru agreed, her smile growing wider at the thought, forgetting all about being upset for the moment so she could talk about her much-anticipated agreement she had made with her fiancé. Waiting until Misao finally flounced back over with her ketchup-covered hot dog, still on the lyric, "Oh I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner!", Kaoru continued.

"Well, as you all know, Kenshin and I are already engaged and we're gonna have the wedding in August, which isn't too far away now, and well... we decided that we can't really wait until then to start our family so.... we're gonna try and have a baby."

A loud and echoing, "Awwww!" was heard throughout the entire park as each woman stepped forward to congratulate Kaoru on her plans of a child, wishing her good luck and prosperity. All of the men, a good distance away, took a glance at the smothered pack of females all giving each other hugs and words of encouragement, and merely shrugged it off with a low mutter of, "Women..."

"That's great, Kaoru, I'm so happy for you!" Megumi exclaimed excitedly as she hugged her friend as tight as she could and after a minute pulled away, fox ears popping up from the side of her head as she stifled her laughter. "I guess this means that you and Kenshin won't be seen outdoors too much then since you'll be a bit 'preoccupied' with 'other things,' hm?" she teased with a playful nudge of her elbow, "Ohohohoho!"

_________________________

"Why hello there, ladies," a deep mocking voice interrupted from Sano and Kenshin's left, "Nice to see you haven't gotten yourselves killed yet..."

The two men turned to face the newcomer bearing a slight smirk on his lips, his golden eyes glinting in the sun. Kenshin scowled at seeing his future brother-in-law had actually made it to the reunion party which he was almost positive he had not been invited to before. Sanosuke growled, regarding the man more as something gooey and disgusting he had just discovered underneath his shoe than an actual person.

Arriving only a brief second later with a hotdog in hand, Yahiko only looked about suspiciously at seeing his friends' evil glares towards the other man before he spoke up, "Uh... did I miss something here?"

Saito chuckled, slapping the new arrival on the back, "Ah, Yahiko, I was wondering where the best customer of Mr. Sticky's Super Glue was hiding at."

Yahiko frowned at hearing Saito's comment and checked to make sure the asshole hadn't gone and done something sneaky like put anything in his food or put a 'Kick me!' sign on his back. Realizing he was fine, he too copied Sanosuke and Kenshin's decision of trying to shoot arrows at the man through their eyes.

"Yeah, nice to see you haven't lost a lung yet, Saito," Sanosuke shot back, his arms crossed tightly over his chest as he nodded toward the ever-present cigarette hanging from the ex-captain of the lacrosse team's mouth, "Just what the hell are you doing here?"

"As a matter of fact, I ran into your girlfriend not too long ago and she invited Tokio and I, moron," Saito replied, his smirk deepening as Sanosuke smacked himself on the forehead and muttered something along the lines of, 'She's trying to kill me... My girlfriend's trying to kill me...' The Ass of Mibu chuckled lightly to himself before finally turning to the redhead that had been trying to innocently sneak away when he had had his back turned. "So Shitbreak... have any bladder problems lately?"

"If you are referring to that little laxative prank you pulled on me senior year, I believe your SISTER, a.k.a. my soon-to-be WIFE, would let you know," Kenshin said through gritted teeth, keeping his usual rurouni smile plastered across his face so no one else would notice his inner desire to gouge Saito's eyes out.

Saito only narrowed them at Kenshin's emphasis on the words 'wife' and 'sister', knowing fully well that he was just trying to push his buttons and unfortunately for him, it was working pretty well.

"You know, Shitbreak, one of these days someone is really gonna...!"

"Ohhhh Hajime!" Tokio's voice hollered from across the park.

"Aww, shit..." Saito swore under his breath as the woman happily flounced over to where he had been about to deliver a somewhat anonymous threat to his sister's fiancé's life, a small child in her arms sporting some very familiar golden narrow eyes. Wiping the frown off his face at the interruption, he turned and smiled at his wife. "Yes, dear?" he asked, his voice completely different than the one he had just used to practically bulldoze Kenshin with.

"Could you hold onto Shinji for a minute? I need to go get something from the car," she asked, handing her husband the little two year old boy she had been holding in her arms, his nose covered with a small brace.

"Sure, I got him," Saito answered earnestly and he brought the boy up and onto his shoulders, holding onto his waist so he wouldn't fall, "Do you need the keys?"

"Oh, no, I have mine," Tokio replied, pulling them out of her pocket to show him and reaching up, she gave him a small peck on the cheek before she walked off, "Thanks, Snook-ums!"

Inwardly, Saito cringed at the affectionate nickname his wife used for him, which he had repeatedly told her not to use in public or at all for that matter, and he let out another silent swear as he heard Yahiko make a loud snort at the name from behind him. Turning back around, he found all three men snickering quietly to themselves: Kenshin biting his bottom lip to keep from bursting into a fit, Sano trying to cover up his laughter with a very fake and exaggerated cough, and Yahiko trying to hide his grin from behind his hand.

"So you were saying, Saito?" Yahiko prodded, chuckling softly to himself at seeing the scowl on the taller man's face, "Or is 'Snook-ums' a little tongue-tied at the moment?" He let out another snicker. "So who's the kid? You baby-sitting now or something?"

"He's my son, you moron," Saito stated matter-of-factly and as if on cue, the boy atop his shoulders squealed with laughter and threw his hands up in the air, reaching out towards Yahiko's spiky hair because he believed it looked like a plant his mother had in her garden.

"Look, Dada! Cactush! It'th a Cactush!" Shinji cried, pointing at Yahiko's head with his tiny little fingers, "Mowron look like a cactush!"

Yahiko, Kenshin, and Sanosuke all sweatdropped at the obvious similar choice of words, or rather, nicknames, Saito and his son decided to use for them. Saito, however, looked horrified.

"Shhh! Shinji, don't say that! You remember what Mama said about using those kinds of words!" he warned and his son immediately put his head down in shame, sniffling at his father's raised voice, "Oh crap... No no no! Don't cry!" Shinji sniffled harder and the other men quickly began backing away, not wanting to have to deal with a crying baby. "Hey! Come back here, you pussies!"

"WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

"Ah, shhh! Sorry! Dada's sorry, Shinji, he didn't mean to yell and use bad words!" he recovered quickly, desperately trying to quiet the shrieking child in his arms, "Shhh! Shinji, if you don't stop crying, Mama's gonna hurt Dada!"

"Keep crying, Shinji!!!" Yahiko shouted a little distance away, his hands cupped over his mouth like a megaphone as an idea formed in his head, "Hey Shinji, listen to me! Fuck, shit, piss, cock, bull, ass! Hahaha! Hey, this is kinda fun... Boobs, bitch, fart, cun..! Mmph mmph!" Kenshin clamped his hand over Yahiko's mouth, bleeping out the rest of his obscene shouting that had been disturbing the entire park.

"Shh, Yahiko! You shouldn't be using such foul language in front of children, that you shouldn't!" Kenshin instructed as he pulled Yahiko down from where he had stood up on a park bench to better level his voice.

"Hey! He doesn't even understand half the words I'm saying!" Yahiko defended himself and he tried to wrestle away and yell some more. "MASTURBATION!" he managed to shout again and this time, was rewarded with a bonk to the head from Sanosuke, silently shaking his head at him from behind.

"Pipe down, you idiot!" Sanosuke said as both he and Kenshin dragged the kicking man off to another end of the park so he couldn't corrupt any more innocent minds.

Setting him down on a bench, or rather tossing him, they sat for not even one measly minute before they were interrupted again.

"Kenshin?" Kaoru called, approaching them slowly from where she, Megumi, and Misao had been talking a short distance away, "Can I talk to you for a second?"

Gulping loudly, he turned to his friends to give them one last final look of 'good-bye' before he got up and followed his fiancé to where she had started to walk towards the park's bridge, something he noted was farther out than other areas and he tried to forget the fact that if they were going out that far, no one would be around as a witness.

'Quick, check if she's holding anything sharp behind her back!' he thought to himself and carefully leaning back his head as he walked beside her, he did as his brain said. 'Phew! Nothing there! Now all you have to worry about is if she decides to throw you off the bridge... You do remember how to swim, right?' To answer his thoughts, Kenshin outwardly shook his head. 'Great... well, I'm outta here...' his brain said and Kenshin could swear he heard a dozen tiny footsteps in his head walking across some kind of ground before the sound of a large door was slammed.

"Guess I'm on my own with this one, that I am..." he said quietly to himself, not really realizing he had just spoke his thoughts out loud.

"Did you say something, Kenshin?" Kaoru asked curiously, watching him as his eyes grew big and swirly.

"Oro? Uh... no! I... I didn't say anything, that I didn't!" he responded quickly, smiling his stupid smile to assure her he wasn't losing his mind... yet, "So then... what did you need to talk to me about?"

'Yeah, smart move, you dolt... go ahead, ask her more questions you already know the answer to,' he thought to himself sarcastically, 'Yeah, ask her what her name is why don't you! Or if you like bikinis or not! Ooh, bikinis... What? No, this is a very serious matter, that it is! You can think of bikinis later!' Somewhere in his head, Kenshin heard himself curse.

"I just... I wanted to clear up this whole 'Cindy' thing once and for all," Kaoru answered at last and she tightly grasped her hands together in front of her as if in prayer, "I had a little talk with Yahiko a while ago and he... well, he explained everything to me."

'Uh oh... Yahiko? Explaining?' Kenshin thought, preparing himself for Doomsday, 'That combination of things is definitely not good... Man, I knew he had taken a while to go get that hotdog earlier but I just thought he went to the can! Oh God, I hope he didn't tell her about that dress we found in her closet that we used to wipe up the puke on the floor...'

_______________________________



Left behind with his ever-fuming girlfriend, Sano's usual 'we're fighting again' smile dropped as he stood with his own Miss Judge of No Mercy and it turned more into a sheepish grin.

"I guess I have some explaining to do, huh?"

"You bet your ass you do!" Megumi scowled in response, her arms falling to her sides so she could place her hands on her hips instead, her other intimidating stance she liked to use on him, "Because if you don't want to spend the next couple weeks restoring our roof, I suggest you start explaining just why you didn't come home last night."

"Aw, Fox! Anything but the roof!"

"Fine, then talk," she implied, gesturing for him to begin and he sighed, scratching his head before he gestured for her to follow him over to a nearby bench and he patted the space next to him where he intended her to sit.

Megumi prissily walked over, complying with what he had asked her to do, and she sat next to him on the wooden seat, her hands now unconsciously playing with her hair.

"So go ahead."

"Okay, well it all started the other day when I was heading over to the construction site for work and the jeep decided to break down on me..." Sanosuke began and in seeing Megumi's raised eyebrow, he decided to get more technical with his last sentence and correct himself, "well, I mean, when the jeep decided to break down on me... again... for the third time... this month... But anyways, I took the piece of scrap metal into the repair shop to see what was wrong. And, baby, you're never gonna guess who I saw in a mechanic's apron..."

_____________________________



"So... that's about it, that it is," Kenshin finished, finally able to catch his breath from his seemingly endless explanation or maybe it just seemed that way because he hadn't allowed himself any time to pause between words. In realizing this, Kenshin sighed at the thought of having to repeat the whole damn thing over again. Fortunately for him, Kaoru had heard him the first time.

"So Cindy was just the girl Yahiko hired as your... caterer?" she asked for what seemed to be the fourth time throughout their entire conversation, "That's it?"

"Yes, that's all, Kaoru, I swear it!" Kenshin agreed quickly, his thought process being: 'The faster I explain, the faster she forgives', "And the bachelor party was not my idea either that it wasn't! It was all Yahiko and Sanosuke's! I had nothing to do with it! I didn't...!"

"Kenshin, it's alright," Kaoru said softly, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, "I believe you."

"You... you do? Why? I mean... Yes, actually... why?" he asked curiously. After all these male-on-female fight stories he'd heard about from Sano, there didn't seem to be very many survivors on the male team so Kaoru forgiving him this quickly seemed a bit... well... easy. Easy and suspicious. Again, he made sure they were far enough from the bridge before turning to her.

"Because I love you, that's why, silly!" Kaoru exclaimed with a laugh, "I just overreacted about something that wasn't even true and I should've known better than to accuse you of such a terrible thing..." Pausing, she lifted her hand up to gently touch his face. "How's your head?"

"Oh, it's not so bad anymore," Kenshin replied sheepishly, "that book was quite heavy though, that it was..."

"Hm..." Kaoru sighed as she set her head down upon his shoulder to rest and she yawned as another indication that she was just about ready to go home. But Kenshin still had one thought on his mind that he just needed to let out.

"Um... Kaoru?"

"Yes, Kenshin?"

"When did Saito have a baby?"











A/N: Wow, never thought you'd see anything from me again now, did you? Haha. Yeah, that's right, I finally made another chapter, and the next one is in progress. Sorry it took me so long to do so. Anyways, time to explain the story line! But first, a trip down memory lane: The first Japanese Pie story was basically about the guys getting laid, the second was for all the couples to get together, and now this one is about them growing up and seeing if their relationships can withstand trouble. And just to clear things up, I haven't seen the movie American Wedding yet so this story is NOT based off that movie. I repeat, this story is NOT based off that movie. This story is all my mind's notions so if it's not as good as the other JP stories, you now know why. So as usual, reviews are welcome. They happen to help lots in the making-the-next-chapter process so go ahead and click the little button at the bottom of the page!