Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin.

A/N: I came up with this story when my best friend Ashleigh and I baked a cake for her dad's birthday. The cake turned out really bad, so we called it a Kaoru cake. The recipe I use in this story is a real recipe I borrowed from my mother's cookbook. I wouldn't try making it if I were you. I dedicate this story to Ashleigh and her poor father who had to eat the thing.

Kenshin's Birthday

"Megumi, come here," Kaoru yelled from the kitchen. Megumi entered to see piles of papers with recipes on them, ingredients spilled all over the floor, and a distressed Kaoru in the middle of it.

"You poor thing, what's the matter?" Megumi asked as she pushed some of the papers to the side so she could reach Kaoru.

"I just found out that Kenshin's Birthday is tomorrow. I have nothing planned, so I thought I'd bake a cake and well...this happened."

"Here, I'll help you clean this place up and then we can bake one hell of a cake." Megumi and Kaoru spent the next 2 hours cleaning up what took Kaoru 10 minutes to make. "Alright, now that things are all clean, what kind of cake do you want?" Megumi questioned.

"I was thinking just a chocolate cake," Kaoru said as a tear of joy ran down her face.

"Don't cry I know a great recipe. I'll get a fire going, you can get the ingredients. We need 2 cups of cake flour, 1 ¼ cups sugar, ¾ cups cocoa, 1 ¼ cups milk, ¾ cups shortening, 3 eggs, 1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda, and 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, and ½ teaspoon double- acting baking powder."

"That's a lot of ingredients. I usually use two or three," Kaoru thought as she searched for the ten ingredients. "I can't find the vanilla extract...I'll just use milk instead. Well what do you know we don't have double-acting baking powder either? I guess I'll just have to substitute it for some flour." Kaoru now had all the ingredients lined up. Megumi came in with a mixing bowl and a wooden mixing stick, but failed to notice the change in ingredients.

"I'm going to go and get the baking pans. I want you to mix the entire ingredients together," Megumi said as she set the bowl and mixer down, only to quickly leave.

Kaoru casually thrower all the eggs (shell and all) into the bowl along with all of the other ingredients into the bowl and began to stir.

"Something doesn't look right," Kaoru thought as she stared at the batter which had turned the normal dark brown color.

"I think it needs some pepper...and maybe some salt," Kaoru said as she poured about 1 cup of salt and pepper into the batter. The batter was now a now slightly orange.

"That looks about right," Kaoru said triumphantly as she seemed to think she had fixed the problem.

"Is the batter all stirred?" Megumi asked as she peaked her head through the door. Karou nodded.

"Follow me then," Megumi said. She led Kaoru to the fire she was tending and pointed to two baking pans.

"Pour the batter into the trays, then put the on the rack above the fire," Megumi said, again not noticing the sickly orange color of the batter. Kaoru poured the batter unevenly into the pan and put it over the fire to cook.

"Leave it on there till the sand goes to the bottom," Megumi said, not looking at the cake, but instead turning a half hour sand timer over.

Half and hour later Kaoru went to check on the cake. She knew you were supposed to stick a toothpick down into the cake to see if it was cooked. Only, she couldn't remember if it was suppose to have food on it or not, but she stuck it down anyway.

"It has food on it and it looks cooked, so I guess it's done," Kaoru said as she called over Megumi.

"Did you do the toothpick check?" Megumi asked. Karou nodded as Megumi put out the fire.

"Let the cake sit cool for awhile. (Ten minutes) Now where's the icing,"

"I'll go find some," Kaoru said as she ran inside in search of icing. All she could find was some left over pink icing from a pass event. Deciding it was enough, she ran out side to find Megumi.

"THE CAKE'S ORANGE!" Megumi yelled as she finally looked at the cake. Kaoru came running with the icing.

"We can hide the color with the icing," Kaoru said holding up the container of pink icing.

"It's pink."

"It's the only one I could find."

"Don't you know how to make icing?"

"No, do you?

"No."

"Well then, Kenshin will just have to deal with it!"

Kaoru and Megumi tried to scoop the cake out of the pan and onto the plate for icing. While doing this the cake started to break. When the cake was finally removed it was mostly in pieces. Kaoru and Megumi tried to fit the pieces together to form a round cake. Now they had to frost it.

"I'll hold the cake up and you can put the icing in the middle,' Megumi said as she lifted the top half of the cake.

Kaoru dumped half of the icing into the center. While tiring to spread the icing she began to shred the bottom layer.

"Here, I'll do it," Megumi yelled as she took the icing out of Kaoru's hand and started to ice the top of the cake.

"We're out of icing. HOW MUCH DID YOU USE IN THE MIDDLE KAORU!" Megumi yelled as she examined the middle of the cake.

"I can improvise," Kaoru said pulling out sprinkled and whip cream. The cake looked like a mound of pink, white, and orange with some sprinkles in the form of a smiley face.

"It doesn't look that bad," Megumi said tilting her head to the side. Besides, you made it and it's the thought that counts.

"Let's face it, I can't cook Megumi! The cake's a disaster. Kenshin's going to hate it and get sick from it. He'll never like me now, and, and," Kaoru began to cry.

"No use crying over a bad cake," Megumi said as she bent down to comfort Kaoru. Kaoru refused the comfort and ran off. Megumi picked up the cake and left with it.

It was Kenshin's birthday, and with nothing to give him Kaoru just sat by the river. Kenshin noticed her and walked over.

"I loved that cake you and Megumi made for me yesterday,"

"But it was terrible,"

"You must have forgotten that you added the most important ingredient, love," Kenshin said as he hugged Kaoru.

"Happy Birthday, Kenshin"

THE END!!!!