Puppeteers

Chapter 2: Dust Yourself off v. 2

I don't remember getting myself home that night, but I woke up the next morning on my floor. Hell... I thought, trying to stand up, but promptly sitting back down when the room began to swirl around me and my head to pound. It had been years since I drank enough to give myself a hangover. Fortunately, it was still too early for anyone to be awake, so I staggered into the kitchen, my head violently protesting, and picked up a bucket filled with water. Stepping into the yard, I dumped the water over my head. The icy water worked to wake me up and restore some of my numbed senses. I had perhaps an hour before Kaoru woke and, in that time, I would have to dry off and get past my hangover.

My stomach churned, and I set the bucket beside the house. Oh... how I regretted the night before… but the sharp aching of my heart did not stop, and it still beat on. I would only have to put away my feelings and shut up. I hated the aching all over my body and found myself sitting on the porch, trying to place the blame of my miserable state on Hiro and—almost for a fleeting second—Kaoru. I sighed and dragged my leaden limbs up off the ground. It was my fault, and I knew I'd never be able to put the blame on someone else. Iizuka, curse his damned soul to hell, had at least taught me what to do when I was in such a position. I drew another bucket of water from the well and drank it slowly to relieve my headache and thirst before passively returning to my place on the porch.

"Don't we get up early?" Damn. Hiro was lucky my sword wasn't with me.

Amber flared up in my eyes before I turned around, a smile forced on my face as Battousai growled in anger at him. My head still hurt, and how dare he sneak up on me like that. "I never sleep much."

Hiro looked over me appraisingly. "I see..." He sat next to me, and I felt myself dreading his next words.

I must have looked completely ridiculous in my soggy clothes and soaked hair. I wrung my hair out carefully into the grass as Hiro watched.

"Kaoru told me a great deal about you."

I moaned inwardly. Just what exactly did she say to him? "Really. What did she say?" I smiled apologetically. "My life is boring... I'm just a samurai... Not even, just a rurouni."

Hiro's brown eyes snatched at mine rudely. "I was very frightened for her when she said you were Hitokiri Battousai."

Of course… I mused silently, but he continued.

"I was surprised at her open acceptation of you, and would have gone for you had she not told me of your recent actions."

How nice of you... I thought bitterly, my head pounding harder then ever. "I don't like to talk about it." I said, standing up. "If you will excuse me, I need to change and then I will start breakfast." My smile wavered for a moment as I went back to my room. My spare gi was a relic from my assassin days in the Ishin Shishi. Sighing, I pulled off my current hakama and gi, carefully setting them aside and replacing their places on my body with the navy gi and white hakama. It almost made me nostalgic, but only for a moment. I yanked on a spare set of white tabi and walked into the kitchen.

As I put together a simple breakfast of rice and pickled vegetables, I tried to get my headache under control. When I was finished, and stepped toward the table, I nearly recoiled and retreated back into the kitchen. I've mentioned that Life's a bitch before, but this made my heart sink further into the floor. I looked away like a proper man would, and waited for the moment of passion to end and the two lovers broke from their kiss.

I don't know why, but I felt as though my fuzzy heart disease had grown into a constant ache for Kaoru. I sat down, awkwardly avoiding her eyes.

"Kenshin?"

Be still, I told my fluttering heart. "Yes?" I looked up into her beautiful eyes.

"Where did you go last night? I heard you come back in really late." The girl misses nothing, I swear.

"What were you doing up so late, Kaoru-chan?" Hiro asked, as though interjecting on my behalf. Ha. My mind laughed cynically in thinking that Hiro would do such a thing for me… He didn't seem like a terrible man, really… I was simply biased because I was in love with his fiancée.

She flushed, and I spoke.

"Kaoru-dono, I was simply visiting Sanosuke. We lost track of time and when we realized, I came home," I silently made a note to remember to relay this story to Sano.

She smiled nodding to tell me my story was acceptable. I couldn't imagine what she would say if she knew I'd gone out drinking, and I didn't even want to fathom that horrible thought.

Yahiko's eyes swung over my body. "Nice clothes, Kenshin," He remarked.

I smiled and looked at the well-tailored gi. "It's a bit old though..." I smiled genuinely to him.

Yahiko nodded with his eyes returning to his meal. "I just don't remember seeing you with it."

I took a sip from my tea, praying that my head would continue to decrease in pain when a loud shout from the gate caught my attention.

Sanosuke.

He stepped up into the room and sat down across from me. "G'morning," He greeted cheerfully.

Hiro was onto my lie before I could signal to Sanosuke that I needed to talk to him. "So, what did you and Himura-san talk about last night that kept him out so late?"

Sano opened his mouth to ask what he was talking about when he caught the urgent look I sent him under my bangs. "Oh... you know... just stuff." Hiro obviously didn't believe him.

But I stepped in. "Sanosuke's a little embarrassed. But since we're all friends here, he won't mind," I was smiling with such forced brilliance it hurt. "He wanted to discuss the proper way to court a lady such as Megumi."

Sano choked on a pickled radish. "Kenshin!"

"It's okay Sano," I assured him with false kindness. "They won't tell her." I didn't want to think what Sanosuke would do to me for this… An amused smiled crossed Kaoru and Yahiko's faces. I stood, pretending I hadn't seen their expressions, and picked up the now empty rice bowls. "Excuse me." I carried them back into the kitchen and began to quickly wash the dishes, before unbinding the sleeves of my old gi. I took a basket from the corner and stepped back out into the room. "I'm going to go buy dinner," I announced clearly, holding up my basket and shooting Sanosuke a glance that told him plainly that he should accompany me.

Sano stood. "Yeah... I'll come too. I'll see if I can convince you to buy something I really like." His words alone conveyed a certain frustration and eagerness to get answers out of me and, when we were just down the street, Sano turned on me. "What the hell was that for! What did that mean!" He bellowed.

I put my hand to my head, closing my eyes. "Please Sanosuke. My head still hurts."

Sano looked stunned. "Kenshin." I'll give him credit; he's not as stupid as he acts sometimes. He looked into my eyes and I looked down, unable to meet them. "What the hell were you doing... you can't... it's not like you..."

"I haven't done it in a long time," I confessed, taking a few steps toward town.

"You've done it before?" He asked disbelieving.

"A little bit after Tomoe died." I didn't really want to go into that time.

He let out a low whistle. "I guess it didn't go over well with you."

"Obviously not," Was my curt retort.

I could tell that he would have smiled if I were so miserable. "So you do care." I made my face unreadable. "I'll take that as a yes." He continued, looking up to the sky and saying no more until we reached the market. Sano stopped me again. "Come with me," He urged, leading me to an obscure little shop.

The elderly woman's face crinkled with a smile. "Another hangover, Sanosuke?" She laughed. "You should have learned by now."

Sano scowled and jerked his thumb toward me. "Not me. This one doesn't know how to drink."

"I can so. My head just hurts," I interjected, mildly injured.

The woman bobbed her head and reached under her counter. She handed me a small bag of assorted herbs, then reaching over and pouring me a small bit of water into a glass. "You only need to put a pinch or so in, dear." I nodded and complied, taking a small sip of the vile concoction.

The woman pushed the glass forward and shoved it back, pouring unnecessary amounts of water down my throat. I choked when it was all down and bent over, coughing violently. She looked proudly down at me. "You'll be feeling fine soon, boy."

I nodded slowly and bowed politely as I turned away, lifting my basket from the ground. "Thank you..." I mumbled, but my head stopped pounding several minutes later, and the dizziness I had ignored passed away. "Thank you, Sano."

He nodded sympathetically. "Keep that medicine in case you ever go drinking again."

We stopped at a vegetable stand and I calmly conversed with the kind man who owned it. He and I had become good friends over the months since I had come to stay with Kaoru, and I calmly set a radish into my basket when we were finished. Thanking him, I stepped through the market, carefully choosing the ingredients for dinner.

Something caught my eye, and I looked over the river wistfully to the blooming trees. The wind blew fatefully over, pulling the seasonal scent of white plums towards me.

I stopped and closed my eyes in remembrance. "Oh…" I murmured.

Sano watched me and looked at me in confusion. "Kenshin...?"

It felt as though Tomoe was trying to speak to me. I took in a long breath, inhaling her scent as it blew in my hair. I stepped forward and set down my basket.

"I should go see her again..." I whispered, thoughts set on my dead wife. "She... could have the answers." I shook the dream-like state off, and smiled to Sano, the smell lingering in my nostrils as we walked.

"Kenshin?"

"Yeah?" I looked over at Sanosuke, who was staring ahead, hands shoved into his pockets.

"What was she like? Your wife, I mean." He looked uncomfortable, as though he felt the subject would upset me, but I'd been over it for perhaps seven years by then.

"Tomoe?" I asked unnecessarily, though finally speaking her name aloud seemed to break a silent spell I'd cast on myself to prevent myself from thinking about her. "She was quiet and reserved; conservative, I suppose, and she'd been raised in a traditional family," A smile played on my lips. "She smelled like white plums, always… She had an overwhelming amount of endurance and determination," I looked distantly into memories. "Not like Kaoru... She had patience, is what I mean."

Sanosuke watched me, faintly smiling at my nostalgic expression. "Not at all like Kaoru... Why the change in taste?"

"I was different then, just as I am different now." A nod and we returned to our silence.

Then, "Kenshin?"

"Yes?"

"Am I that obvious?"

"What?" I stared at him in bewilderment.

"With Megumi," He clarified. "Am I really that obvious?"

I laughed. "Yes, Sanosuke... you are." Walking back to the dojo, late morning sun pressing onto backs, I could have sworn that everything was back to the way it had been before Hiro had come. I thought for a moment that I could come back to the dojo to find Kaoru giving Yahiko a sharp reprimand for some misbehavior, and I would simply laugh, and do the laundry, and cook for them. They'd come to the table, still fighting over something entirely ridiculous, and Sanosuke would somehow get in on it, pushing Kaoru to grow even more agitated, and I would only laugh and ask them to calm down. Everything would have been so normal, so peaceful and calm for me.

If Tomoe could have seen my life as it had been the day before that heavy, dark day, with a smile on my face and true happiness achieved… I knew she would have been proud.

End Chapter Two