Welcome to the Revised Edition of Dark Jisushiku's I'll Be Home For Christmas. All short stories are angst and tragic. (Sorry, but that's my strong suit when it comes to writing.) Please, enter...
Title: I'll Be Home For Christmas
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: AU. Set in the 1990's, in a large city.
Couple: KENSHIN x KAORU
Disclaimer: I do not own anything, be it Rurouni Kenshin or the song "I'll be home for Christmas." If you haven't ever heard this song, then you really must not have a life. It is one of the greatest Christmas songs EVER! (If you want to hear a good version of it, you should hear Bing Crosby sing it! )
Author's Notes: This was orginally my second fanfic. After much disaster, I had to repost it... Sorry, to all those who have been waiting for the last chapters... Well, here it is! And it's finally finished! Thanks for waiting! Please, R&R! I welcome flames, because I want to roast s'mores tonight!
I'll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree
The calendar hanging from the wall read 1978, but it was really twenty years after that date. The wallpaper was coming down, desperately clinging to its glue like a starving leech. A two-foot tall book shelf had been knocked to the floor. Ants were streaming overhead, working through the cracks in the ceiling. The smell of beer hung in the room, mixing with the clouds of dust and the drops of rain. The only window was a wide, picture window with a hole in the glass, probably from a stray baseball from the alley. Several bullet holes also accompanied the baseball's puncture. It was a miracle that the whole window hadn't come crashing to the floor in a downpour of shattered glass, cutting the wooden floors and the wood walls. There was a large cavity in the far left corner of this tiny room, where you could see that the wood had been ate away by termites. Something (or even someone) must have fell through years ago, descending swiftly down to the second floor of the building.
This apartment building used to belong to the ritziest neighborhood in the 1970s. It was still in the same neighborhood, but things had changed. The alley below was now used for gun fights between rival gangs and the police department was always in the area. The rich heirs and heiresses had moved out the city. The retired millionaires had found better places to live. The city now reeked. Once in this inferno, you couldn't ever get out. In the winter, the snow was spotted with blood. The streets were ceaselessly defiled with cans and waste. Homeless people littered the metropolitan alleyways, their only guarantee was their short life span. Gun smoke was more common that city smog here. And the only pollution that people even cared about was their human morale. Everyone with some sense had left years ago... Everyone except...her.
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the lovelight gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
There was a television set on the floor of that apartment that was constantly playing. A voice could always be heard from the alley below, reciting the same words over and over. He said it, day and night, night and day: "Don't worry. I'll be back in a couple of weeks. I'll be home soon, in time for Christmas. I love you. Please, please, don't worry. I'm coming home." That promise was swore to her every day, every hour, every five minutes. But the only one who ever came and went from that apartment was a young girl with long, raven-black hair. The man who seemed to promise so much was never seen.
But don't be surprised - that man died twenty years ago.
The only piece of furniture in that room was a gray, dulling couch, eaten away by moths and time. And the dark-haired girl was usually found draped on it, lying as still as a corpse. Her chest barely moved as she inhaled and exhaled the tainted air. Her face was turned to the side, her red, swollen eyes watching the TV that laid on the floor, in front of the couch. The remote was in her hand at all times, and she rewinded that video tape every ten minutes, playing it day and night.
I'll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree
The man on the video was well-known by the police department, for he had been an assassin for the government years ago. But time had changed, and now they just referred to him as "the rebel." He had had years of dying men's blood stained onto his hands. His palms, over forty years ago had been white and clean, but in 1978, his hands were soaked in rich, red blood that had intoxicated him like wine. His long, fiery hair had always been tied back, and in the video he had made no exception. His large, blue eyes were joyful on the outside, but does she see invisible tears crawl out of his eyes and glide down his cheeks, some touching his old cross-shaped scar? Had he cried for her?
"Do not worry, Miss Kaoru, I will be back in a short time," he would say to her when she would restart the tape. "I've got some business in Kyoto, that I have. Don't worry. I'll be back in a couple of weeks, in time for Christmas. I'll be home soon. I love you. Please, please, don't worry. I'm coming home."
At midnight every night, the man would stop his flow of promises, interrupted by a long, sorrowful cry: "You - were - supposed - to - come - back - KENSHIN!" And the breaking of bottles could be heard in the streets. "YOU - WEREN'T - SUPPOSE - TO - DIE!" And then the sobs would be muffled for a second or two. Then... "KENSHIN, YOU BAKA! YOU WERE SUPPOSE TO COME BACK!" Then her cries would die yet again. And then... "KENSHIN! KENSHIN! COME - BACK - HERE! Y-OU C-C-CAN'T R-UUN FR-FROM ME!" And her screaming would continue, illuminating the city nights with despair and anguish until one-thirty in the morning. Then Kenshin's voice would play on, blending with the gunshots and police sirens from the malignant streets below, forming a bittersweet opera of despair, devastation, and death. And every now and then, Kaoru would join in the tune.
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the lovelight gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
The calendar hanging from the wall read 1978, but it was really twenty years after that date. The wallpaper was coming down, desperately clinging to its glue like a starving leech. A two-foot tall book shelf had been knocked to the floor. Ants were streaming overhead, working through the cracks in the ceiling. The smell of beer hung in the room, mixing with the clouds of dust and the drops of rain. Time had stopped in the dusty apartment when the liquor started its lethal entrance. Kaoru was trapped in the past by her own memories. Even though it had been twenty years ago since his death, three words still rang in her ears: "I'm coming home."
If.. only..in..my...dre...ams...