The date had, in Kenneth's opinion, gone very well. He felt like he'd known Katie at least a hundred years, maybe more. He couldn't get enough of the way her eyes sparkled. It was rare to see anyone so cheerful; most people in this day and age seemed to complain as much as they felt they could get away with. Not Katie, who seemed instead to look for things to laugh about.
She'd insisted on driving him home, which he'd found cute and exasperating at the same time. Katie felt it was a dangerous world and even walking home alone at night in a safe neighborhood was asking for trouble, especially if you weren't a martial arts master like she was. Kenneth had the feeling he'd just acquired himself a new nightly escort home, but he didn't really mind.
The lights in the apartment were on when he got there. Kenneth breathed a sigh of relief. Rickie, his younger brother, had come home, then, and apparently stayed there, rather than go out and get himself into trouble. Rickie was a good kid at heart, but since their parents had died he'd gone a little wild. Shoplifting was his vice of choice, and Kenneth had been greeted by the sight of the cops, his brother between them, more than once. At least the police brought him home. Kenneth had made sure to make their situation clear. He was only twenty three; trying to raise a thirteen year old younger brother alone was not easy.
His brother nearly bowled him over when he came home. "Where have you been? I've been waiting all day to show you my report card!"
"Oro," Kenneth murmured. Rickie's hug had come complete with something very like a headbutt to the gut. "Your report card?"
"Look! 3 Bs!"
That was an improvement! When Rickie had first moved in a semester ago he'd been failing all his classes. Come to think of it Rickie had been home more, usually locked in his room. Kenneth had assumed he'd just been reading his comics. Kenneth beamed. "We should do something to celebrate."
Rickie grinned and stuck his report card on the fridge. He'd always wanted approval.
The brothers didn't look a lot alike. Kenneth had gotten his mother's coloring and build. Rickie was already tall for his age, though, and would probably tower over Kenneth given a few more growth spurts. He'd also inherited their father's darker coloring. His hair was black, spiky, and had a tendency to become a real mess if not cut short.
"Where'd you go?" Rickie demanded again.
Kenneth cleared his throat. "I went on a date." Rickie grinned. He was always bugging Kenneth to find dates. "Who?"
"The martial arts instructor who works next door to my shop."
"She's kinda ugly." Rickie grinned though. "Does this mean you'll let me go take her classes now though?"
Kenneth sighed. They'd talked about this and talked about this. Ever since Rickie had learned there was a dojo next door to Kenneth's shop he'd been constant in his requests to go train there. Kenneth had nearly folded on a number of occasions -- if nothing else it might keep Rickie from getting into trouble. But his innate dislike of violence had stopped him every time. There were police for protection. There was running away and turning the other cheek. Bloodshed only brought more bloodshed, and fighting only invited more fights. Even if one did not ever kill, even if protecting others and self was the only goal, violence birthed a small dark beast inside of the soul, and that beast became hungry and demanded to get out. Kenneth didn't know how he knew that, but he knew. He knew he wanted a peaceful life, a quiet life. If Katie didn't have that enchanting smile, he wasn't even sure he'd be able to live with what she did.
"C'mon, Kenneth, I got better grades," Rickie whined. At thirteen he still had an excellent whine, a weapon of self-preservation that the boy had honed to a razor fine point. "You said we should celebrate."
"I was thinking we could go to some baseball games, that I was." Kenneth said. He reached into his wallet, and withdrew the surprise he'd bought for Rickie months ago, just in case his brother did do better.
"Season tickets!" Rickie crowed, the dojo forgotten momentarily. "Bro, you're the best!"
Kenneth grinned at him and said, "Alright. First game is Saturday. Now I need to get the laundry done, so bring down what's in your room, ok?"
Rickie ran off to go get his clothes. Kenneth began gathering those from his room. The apartment did not come with a washer and dryer, but it did have a common laundry room not too far from the actual apartment building. If one did not babysit the clothes one tended to find them, usually damp, strewn all over the room, the victims of some other resident who was in a hurry. So Kenneth had learned to bring a book and have a seat on whichever appliance he was using, staying put until he was done. Kenneth didn't mind. It was somewhat relaxing.
He was working his way through a book on Civil War silver patterns. There were a few sets that he was thinking of acquiring for his shop, as he'd had several members of the Junior League stop by and ask about them. He'd promised the ladies he'd find something for them within three weeks, but he was going to have to brush up if he was to be absolutely certain about what he bought and tried to pass on to them. There was a lot of fakery and trickery in the world of antiques; Kenneth prided himself on the fact that he took the time to verify every single piece that came through his door. He prided himself on learning a little about the stories behind each of them too, so that he could talk to his clients about them. He collected Rickie's clothes. Rickie was already deeply immersed in a video game (some snowboarding game, Kenneth was relieved to see).
He got the laundry started. He had a brief, nostalgic moment. The days before washing machines must have seemed far less hectic; laundry would have taken time. Arms would need to be plunged deep into soapy water and scraped against wash racks as one let the sun warm one's back. Kenneth often had these moments, not just about laundry. Modern technology sometimes made him feel a little adrift, but he supposed it was because he spent so much time around the old things.
He did a little leap, twisted midair, and got himself firmly seated on the washing machine. It was a small conceit, a quick joy in the fact that he'd managed to stay fit. Nothing he'd do in front of anyone else; he was certain such tricks looked ridiculous when a grown man pulled them off.
Not long after that, Gentle Reader, Kenneth Shane did something he'd never done before. He fell asleep, right there in the laundry room, the gentle motions of the washer rocking him to sleep with his book still open on his lap. Do you suppose that his sushi dinner with Katie Kamiya tired him so? Or was there, perhaps, some sinister magic behind this anomaly? It is ever so hard to tell, with magic. Magic is coincidence, wrapped up in happenstance, wrapped up in enigma which tiptoes quietly across your spine, laughing ever so softly when your neck hairs rise in alarmed response.
What I can say, for certain, is that Kenneth Shane had a dream.
The man was unassuming.
He was a towering stork, gaunt, tall, but somehow oddly handsome. He seemed to smile almost constantly, and if the smile held a bit of bitterness, it held, as well, a touch of magnetism. His nose was as patrician as his stance. Soft blonde locks, curling ever so slightly, touched his forehead. He wore wire rimmed glasses. White turtleneck, black suit jacket, blue jeans.
All he did was watch Kenneth. Kenneth found that a little curious. He found his clothing curious as well. He looked down, his historian's mind filing away the details: brown hakama pants, blue gi, tabi socks, sandals. The ghost of a katana, one that was longer than those traditionally carried by samurai, but lighter and quicker just the same. An excellent weapon for an assassin. Kenneth frowned the sword away. He did not want it.
Still the strange man watched, his smile going wider by a notch.
"These don't fit me anymore." Kenneth said, sternly. He could never recall wearing anything like it, so he was unsure why he said "anymore," but it was, after all, a dream. He willed the clothes away, turned them into something he could live with: cream colored Dockers slacks, brown loafers, one of his favorite turtlenecks, which had been red once but had turned something very close to pink (but was so comfortable all the same that Kenneth couldn't bring himself to quit wearing it).
"No," the man agreed, speaking for the first time. The watcher had a very ordinary voice. It was almost too high to be taken seriously, but Kenneth shivered just the same, aware on some level that to fail to take it seriously would be a very deadly mistake. "But they will."
The man struck a single match and held it high. The smile never wavered as the match fell. It hit stone. It went out.
When Kenneth burst into flames, he screamed.
He awoke with wide eyes and sweat drenched skin, knocking the book to the cold linoleum of the laundry room floor as he bolted upright.
The washer was done.
Kenneth slid slowly off of the machine and transferred the clothes over to the dryer. He picked up his book and laid it on top of the dryer, staring at the intricate silver spoon that graced the volume's cover.
He did not sit on this machine. He'd never had a dream so vivid before, so real; most of his dreams were confused and jumbled. His dreams had always been pretty standard, as well: he'd had the dreams of flying and falling, being naked on the bus and being late for important meetings. When he had nightmares, he had nightmares of car accidents, like the ones that had killed his parents. He'd certainly never changed anything in a dream, or woke up in a cold sweat from one.
Sudden impulse made him push one of his sleeves up.
His skin was very pink, as if he'd scalded himself. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," he whispered.
He let his sleeve drop. Maybe he'd just better check on Rickie. That was it. Kenneth would check on Rickie, verify that everything was alright, and then come back for their clothing. He left the book; maybe someone would realize he was only gone for a moment or so and he'd be lucky enough to find all the clothes back in the dryer.
The moment he consciously made the decision to go back to the apartment, fear raced through his bones.
He went back to his apartment a run.
The Shane apartment was on the second floor. He leapt stairs like a bird; three at a time, moving at a dizzy pace. He was vaguely aware of a strange hissing sound coming from somewhere, and a sweet, cloying smell that he, in his state of near-blind panic, could not identify.
He burst into the door of the apartment, chest heaving. Rickie looked up from his game (the snowboards were gone, replaced by people getting shot in a grisly orgy of destruction) in shock, and scrambled to turn off the television. Kenneth frowned. Rickie hadn't expected him for another forty-five minutes.
He was clearly fine, though.
"What's the matter, Ken?"
"Don't call me Ken," Kenneth said absently. Something was tickling at the edges of his senses. It was like he could feel another person, a person who should not be there. Next door, but the apartment next door was currently vacant, and had been for three months. Why would he think there was someone next door?
In Kenneth's mind's eye, a match fell.
Kenneth moved.
He was across the room in a streak, grabbing Rickie, leaping over the couch, tucking himself into a ball around his brother, and jumping, again, not for the door, but for the window. The window broke seconds before he got to it, but not from anything Kenneth did. Every window in the building shattered as one as a ball of fire engulfed the hallway and raced through the door into what had been, seconds before, the Shane's living room. It seemed to chase them out of the window as they fell.
Kenneth twisted his body around, still holding tight to his brother. He twisted without knowing why he twisted, and his foot pushed off the hot brick of the building midfall. They sailed across the sidewalk, into the shrubbery surrounding the next building over. The bushes beneath their own window were on fire.
As were their clothes. Panting, they beat the small, hungry flames off of one another's backs.
"How did you know?" Rickie asked, his soot streaked face highlighting just how wide his eyes were.
"Smelled the gas," Kenneth gasped. For it was true, he had smelled gas, as he'd run through the hallway. "One of the gas lines must have been broken."
And that gave him comfort. Somehow it was the gas that had put him to sleep. The gas had tickled his subconscious, he decided, and given him that dream. He sent prayers to God, thanking Him for the warning, and checked the cars. There were four apartments per building. The cars that normally sat in front of his were missing. Kenneth sincerely hoped that meant there was nobody left in the building. He staggered out of the bushes, hearing sirens arrive.
Rickie started to laugh.
"What's funny?" Kenneth asked.
"Well, I was just thinking for once I'm glad you're so anal about the laundry. All our clothes are safe!" Rickie pointed at the laundry room, which was still just fine.
"All our clothes are safe," Kenneth agreed, cracking a grin, and hugging Rickie very tightly, shaking all over. A second later...one second...and he'd have lost his last remaining family member. Rickie hugged back very tightly, his laughter taking on the strained quality of someone who had a lump in his throat.
Author's Notes: You know all us Kenshin fans have to have our giggle about him and the laundry right? Right! ^_^
Chibi Binasu-chan: Ok, impatient one, here you go! Another chapter!
nannon: Arigato!