Yesterday I post up chapter two online and most of you seemed to be shocked and confused about Kaoru's departure. If you're wondering, it has nothing to do with Kenshin. It has more to do with Kaoru. I'm sorry for yesterday, acting like a fool, being so depressed, but I wanted to say none of you made me feel that way, and the flames I received for this story didn't make feel that way either. In the next following chapters you'll learn more about Kaoru's secrets. For now please be patient and I bid you a farewell. Comments, suggestions, questions, and flames are all accepted. Oh yeah sorry for making Kenshin act like a jerk in the last chapter. He didn't recognize the girl for being Kaoru, since she changed so much. They didn't talk for a long time. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin series. I wish I did but I don't. : (
Love Truly Never Dies
Chapter Three
Watching from a distance, Kaoru could see everything. The leaves play it famous tune in the wind. The sun drifted off in the high afternoon. Clouds swirl one after another, clashing almost colliding into one another. The wind blew harshly against solid objects. Kaoru knew instantly it was going to rain. Nature truly decided to play with her feelings today. It decided to show the world what she really felt on the inside. It decided to play her game, in its way.
Standing from the distance Kaoru saw the young couple trailing into the park. She so badly wanted to say goodbye to Kenshin, to bid him farewell, but seeing him there with Tomoe, discouraged her every intention of walking up to him and facing him in person. She wanted to apologize to him for not being a very good best friend. She rejected him a whole month, mainly because she tried to get over him. But true love never dies. It stays within a heart, lingers within the soul, imagine within the mind. Both ways love exist and it will never die.
Kaoru brought a hand gently to her face to put a stray strand of her raven hair behind her ear. The wind blew harshly against her petite figure, as if warning her away from the couple. The cloud clashed against each other sending a dark eclipse into the park. Kaoru saw Kenshin bid farewell to his beloved Tomoe and stood waiting there for her.
When Kaoru and Kenshin were younger, he used to wait everyday under a big maple tree for her. Even if those minutes turned to hours, turned to a whole day, he still waited for her to come. Now those days were over. He found someone he waited for his whole life. He had someone to share the rest of his life with, to see him every morning, to see him smile, to have his children, to support him and to be supported by him. Kaoru wished she could be that woman, but she wasn't. It was time to leave, time to say goodbye, time to move on with life. She noticed Kenshin looked in her direction as if he recognized who she was. She smiled one of her best fake smiles and walked to greet her best friend, getting ready to say goodbye to him.
"Hey Kaoru! Where have you been? I heard from Sanosuke you've changed, but you don't look like you changed much," replied Kenshin eyeing her. Kaoru knew from yesterday's scene, things between her and Kenshin changed, or at least with her anyways. She changed back to her normal self, the normal Kaoru Kenshin knew so well. She thought he would forget this special day, the special day of their first meeting when they were kids, but he didn't. She hoped with all her heart he wouldn't bring up yesterday's event and would forget that it ever happened.
"Nothing much changed. I've been working really hard in school that's all," said Kaoru trying to act calm. Her sapphire eyes however refused to look into Kenshin's now violet eyes. Her body kind of trembled. Her nails bit into her palms with nervousness. She waited for his reaction.
"Kaoru you're always working to hard. You should truly rest once in a while." Kaoru backed off a bit when she saw Kenshin moved a step closer to her. As if somehow he knew she was uncomfortable he closed up the distance between them, and put his arms around her.
"Kaoru are you alright?" Kenshin stroked her raven hair ever so gently, as if she was so fragile, any hard pressure added on to her will break her so easily. Without fighting the resistance to get away from him, Kaoru raised her head to look into his violet eyes. 'So this is how it felt like to be Tomoe' her mind wondered. 'Did Tomoe feel the same warmth in heart? Did she feel the shivering sensation that traveled throughout her whole body? Did she feel the weakness in her knees? Did her memory go all fuzzy when she was held in a man's arms she knew where she felt safe and protected in? Did she?'
Kaoru closed her eyes, and leaned against his leaned frame. His crimsoned hair fell over Kaoru small shoulders. She smelled faint sandalwood and a hint of cool water (cologne) in the air. She felt drugged by his smell as well as his touch. She allowed herself to rest her full weight peacefully against his lean frame. Tears fell anew, both of happiness and sadness. Her love for Kenshin will never die.
"I love you," Kenshin whispered into Kaoru's hair. It was then Kaoru opened her sapphire eyes. She pushed him away with all her might. Her mind struggled to decipher the words he whispered into her hair. Her body felt so weak, that she leaned most of her weight against the old favorite maple tree behind her. Her blue eyes widened at Kenshin filled with shock. Her heart thumped ever so loudly.
"What Kenshin? What do you say?" asked Kaoru as she put a hand over her heart. Kami-sama did he really mean what he said? Did he truly love her, after all the time he spent being with Tomoe?
"Gotcha didn't I?" said Kenshin with a mocking expression on his face.
"That wasn't funny. You shouldn't do that."
"No I meant what I really said, but not to you. I was practicing on you, to see whether or not if I sounded serious enough to make you believe me. To the way you just acted, I did a good job."
Kaoru just stood her ground and glared at him, but deep down inside she felt the burning pain of betrayal, of so much endless sorrow.
"I want to tell Tomoe that I really love her, but I don't want to say it, and have her thinking I'm one of those stupid jerks who only said that for one thing."
"I know what you mean. Besides you already have her love. She would believe you," said Kaoru softly. She turned around to hide the pain that she felt. She made a fist over her heart. Tears fell one after another. And as if nature knew when she was going to cry, rain came. Each rain drop fell onto Kaoru's petite form, drenching her in its wetness. It poured her own sorrow on her, drowning her in it. She stood her ground only a few more seconds, waiting for Kenshin to say anything, but when he didn't, Kaoru gathered her courage to face him once again.
"I'll see you in class this evening right?" she asked with a fake smile once again.
"Yes of course you're going to see me there," replied Kenshin.
Kaoru nodded her head, then turned around heading the opposite direction from school. What she wanted to do more then anything was to go home and cry her heart out.
In AP English class, the student chatted away with their friends, waiting for the teacher to arrive in the classroom. Kaoru sat with her friend Misao. Obviously she didn't tell Misao the news about her leaving as yet. She remembered early this morning she begged her father to go to school one last time to say good bye to her friends, and teachers. She didn't want to leave, without giving them an explanation, especially since she still didn't know why they were moving all of a sudden. Kaoru flinched when she remembered the way how her father's eyes pierced through her soul. They penetrated through her well so built defenses. As Kaoru threw herself in her dreaming world, she never knew when her English teacher walked in class with a student beside her.
"Everyone please settle down," said the teacher with a mannerly smile on her face. Her large brown eyes inspected the classroom and inspected on the dazed Kaoru. "Kaoru, will you please come up here."
Misao noticed Kaoru was still in her dream state. To not embarrass her further in the class, plus in front of Kenshin who walked in with the teacher, Misao elbowed Kaoru in her stomach lightly. At first Kaoru didn't respond, but after another elbowing from Misao, Kaoru broke out from her dream state to only find the class looking at her.
"Um, Mrs. Jackson, did you call me for something?" asked Kaoru with a squeak in her voice. She kept her eyes on the teacher, no one else.
"Yes Kaoru, I politely called on you, but you seemed to be in another world."
"Um, I'm sorry." Kaoru could hear the student's laughter around her. When she finally decided to peak around the room, she caught a glimpse of crimsoned hair. Kaoru's body stiffened. She knew when a teacher called on a student, the student had to walk to the front of the class and present his/her ideas. She got up slowly from her chair, with all the grace she possessed, she walked to the front of her class to face them. She lifted her chin, smiled an unusual smile and waited for the question from her teacher.
"I hope you all finished the book we were working on called Romeo and Juliet. Kaoru if you don't mid, I'll like you to give us a brief explanation on what's the book about and read your homework assignment out loud from last night."
"Yes Mrs. Jackson." Kaoru walked to the teacher's front desk looking for her paper. Her hands trembled slightly, she felt her cheeks grow warm, her palms became sweaty. When she found her paper, she turned back to the class, to only find people staring at her filled with amusement. She didn't feel comfortable. She felt more exposed then she ever felt. She wasn't so good in talking in front of people in class, because they intimidated her in ways.
'Don't let them get to you. Remember what Aunt Tokio said. Well now it's time to expose my soul to the class,' she mentally said to herself. She took a deep breath, to calm her nerves. She closed her eyes and began to speak to her fellow classmates, forgetting that they were in a classroom. She only thought of Kenshin as she spoke, remembering his amber eyes, the look he gave her when he threw her harshly against the hallway wall. She forever will be haunted by those moments.
"Let me see, Romeo and Juliet is all about love. It's all about a young couple who broke boundaries, who did everything they did, just to be together. Nothing more or less. All that mattered was their love for one another. Because their parents didn't approve of them to be together, it only made them rebel to be together. However in the ending through their separation, they united their love once again by killing themselves, because without one's love, the other cannot move on so easily," Kaoru said passionately. She then looked down at her paper and began to read her poem out loud in class for people to hear her heart.
Love it truly never dies,
Nor does it go away.
It stays forever within the heart,
Lingering within mind and soul.
It's presence is known to us all,
All we have to do is look one way,
Or forever miss its lane.
It strikes at whatever given time,
And forever leaves it forbidden mark.
It grants us our hidden desires,
Make us feel whole again.
It opens our heart,
Bring forth new consequences,
And blinding us from our surroundings once again.
From the hidden depths,
Brings sorrow,
Brings tears,
Brings forth a lost pain.
For it strikes one heart and leaves a next one incomplete.
The world so vast so open,
Ideas swirls,
Love flows,
But the ones with incomplete hearts,
Cannot move any further.
Incomplete hearts,
Without their fillings,
Can never go on,
For their love is not with them.
They suffer,
Yet they live.
They smile,
While inside their dying.
They see,
But in their hearts they still yearn.
Love it truly never dies,
Never goes away.
It stays within a person,
Until even death,
Can never make it go away.
Kaoru looked up from her paper. Everyone seemed so dazed, so astounded by her words. They wondered if she wrote those words. Kaoru smiled a sad smile, a few tears fell from her eyes, as she looked into violet eyes of her best friend she loved so dearly. Then quietly she set the paper down onto the desk.
"I'm leaving here for good Mrs. Jackson. I'm sorry, I must say today is my last day in this school. I wish to bid you all a farewell," Kaoru said quietly with a few tears escaping her eyes. She gathered her belongings and left class.
What she didn't know was Kenshin by then understood her true feelings. She loved him more then a friend. She loved him with a pure, true love that will never die.