Insecure
By: Psychotic Tanuki
Chapter Three: Itoshisa no Kate
Sometimes I wonder what goes on inside his head. He gives off this friendly air, like there's nothing wrong in the world. He smiles as if it's the easiest thing in the world to do, but there's something amiss with that smile. It's too guarded, too perfect and too…fake. What must the world look like from his eyes? Is it different than how I see it? What must it be like to live the life he's lived—to be Himura Kenshin?
I guess I could claim that out of the Kenshin-gumi, I know Kenshin the best. However, if that were true then everyone else must know very little about him. I hardly know anything about him to tell the truth. Sure, I know about his life and what he did during his life—but I know very little about the man himself. Kenshin's a very guarded person so I'm not surprised really, just a little sad.
He hides behind his masks and I've never really been able to crack any of them. To keep his promise, to keep his friends happy, he is a happy, bumbling idiot of a wanderer. To keep the prosperity of the nation, of this era, he is a cold and merciless killer. I have no idea what he's like when he's alone, but I suspect that is when he is just simply Himura Kenshin.
What do I know about Kenshin? I know he's a pessimist who believes the glass is half empty and that the world is a bleak place. I know he believes that people can't change—his self guilt only proves that. I know that he really is a paranoid man—it's the only sane reason that he would keep that sword with him at all times even after the Enishi incident. I know that he's self reproaching, self hating and has an inferiority complex that's really, really, annoying. I know that under all of that, he's a kind person with a big heart whose been treated unfairly by life. I know he's human.
Despite what I know, what I see is completely different. I don't see a man with flaws, I see a man who smiles until the point of idiocy with a clumsy, almost comical friendliness. What I see is a man with flaming red hair which isn't natural for any known human alive—a small petite frame that's only slightly larger than mine, and a beautifully handsome face that is marred by two intersecting scars. I see a man with grace who emanates a feeling of loneliness and hidden vulnerability despite being strong. I see a man who can be brooding and depressed one moment, and then to please his friends, bright, happy and cheerful, and then to please his country, cold unfeeling and apathetic. Behind his facades, I can see someone different. I can see a calm, experienced man with a wish to live his life in peace. I don't think he knows that I can see his true self in everything he does. I see two men even though I'm talking to one.
Regardless of what I see and what I know, what I feel is even more different. Sometimes, when a little more flesh is bared, I feel my heart skipping or when he smiles, sometimes I have the urge to burst out into just keel over and smile like a buffoon while turning into a tomato. Most times, I want to just envelop him into a fierce hug and just squeeze the life out of him. That's when times are relatively happy. When times are relatively hard, I just want to sit next to him and hold his hand. I forget the giddiness and I just want to give him all of my support and to just smile reassuringly for him, to listen to whatever he has to say, to let him know I'll be there. Then, there are times when things are relatively peaceful, happy, hard, and melancholy at the same time, like now.
It's been a few months or so after Enishi's Jinchuu. There some things that haven't been said and I want to yell them out to him, to make him understand. There are times when all I want to do is just sit next to him without saying a word—enjoying the silence. Sometimes I just want to take his hand and do something silly. Other times I just want to cry and not let him see. But most of the time there's just this unsettling calm sense of tranquility that envelops the dojo and its inhabitants in a lazy happiness. I like this calm, its peaceful but sometimes I wonder if it means that my love for him has diminished now that I'm not giddy all the time. I wonder what it means when my heart doesn't beat like a maniac every single time I see him.
If you take what I know, what I see and what I feel, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. What I know, what I see and what I feel are three completely different things. If you look at each separately it's understandable, it's coherent. If I put them together it's so confusing and so blotched up that I don't know what I see, I don't know what I feel and probably the scariest thing is I don't know what I used to know anymore. How can a pessimistic man smile so innocently and make me—a relatively UN-romantic person—feel like I'm going keel over? How can a kind man be so depressed and miserable that it makes me want to hug him until he smiles? How can those two different men actually be different facets to the same man? How can those two very different feelings be traced back to one emotion?
Therefore, for the longest time, I've never really understood Himura Kenshin at all. What I knew him to be—from experiences, from what he's told us, from what I've heard and from what I've seen—was different from what I saw, which was all related to what I felt. It was so hard to understand. It caused me to act like a stupid idiot, and often I did unbelievably stupid things I didn't want to do just so he'd smile. I didn't understand why I wanted to strangle Megumi whenever she would hang off of him, and all of the sudden—I really didn't know why my tomboyish attitude bothered me or why my lack of skill in womanly departments left me in bouts of ashamed embarrassment. It hadn't before—when I lived with my father I could care less what be thought of my unladylike demeanors just as long as he would teach me kendo. I could care less about marriage, love or all that wimpy stuff. I was an adjutant master of my style, and I was damn proud of it. "Let girly women deal with womanly things. I am far beyond them." My father disapproved of that mentality and despaired that I showed no interest in housework. I liked to dress up in kimonos though, and that was probably the only girly thing I liked to do. I think that relieved my father a great deal.
Thus, soon after Kenshin moved in, I found myself unbelievably conscious of my bad cooking. I found myself extremely embarrassed when Sano or Yahiko proclaimed my food was horribly bad or proclaim that one day I would kill my future husband with food poisoning. Megumi's biting comments about a sweaty tanuki girls really bothered me and I found myself wearing more and more complex kimonos to make up for it. It felt as though even if I was poor, I was dressing up because if I dressed up, maybe no one would see what I really was. Perhaps that is why Yahiko's teasing "busu" comments made me angry. I tried to pretty, but apparently it just wasn't in my ability to do so. That frustrated me.
My appearance around my friends became utterly important to me. I don't know why, but I started paying more attention to my hair. I wore it in a swordsman's hairstyle—and any other hairstyle would not suffice if I were to continue kendo. Although my repertoire for hairstyles was limited to one, I refused to be scruffy. That ponytail just got neater and neater and my ribbon collection just grew larger and larger. I tried desperately to get my skin prettier and my hands less calloused—both attempts failed miserably. At the same time, I tried to act the same around everybody but the way mirth filled their eyes, I could tell they knew something was up. Except for Kenshin, who just smiled and pretended not to notice—which for some reason, made me extremely relieved.
I even made a tiny cloth doll of Kenshin. It ended becoming a birthday gift for Ayame—who was euphoric to have her own little Kenshin—and I demanded that she never tell anyone, especially Kenshin that it was I who had made that doll. If I hadn't let my embarrassment get the better of me, I probably would've kept that doll too. At least it wouldn't look weird if Ayame had that doll. It would look absurd if I had that doll though. It would imply that I had more than friendly feelings for him and I refused to believe that.
One day I just dropped everything I was doing, and asked myself, what is wrong with me?
I tried asking Tae. She just got a maniacal glint in her eyes, a devilish smile and told me not to worry—to just leave it all up to her. That resulted in an embarrassing encounter with a false engagement ring (which only confused me even more with my disappointment that it had only been a false engagement ring). I turned to Megumi for advice because she was smarter in matters such as these, and she just shook her head, proclaimed she had a lot of work to do and left. Dr. Genzai just teased me until I was pinker than his laughing face. At that point, I didn't bother to ask anyone else.
The answer to my question came really suddenly. I—the most tomboyish, unromantic and unladylike person-- was in love. I, Kamiya Kaoru, who in the days of my childhood proclaimed that I would never become a lady, was turning into the ladies that I scorned. I, Kamiya Kaoru, who in the fervent fear that my father would never teach me kendo had renounced my claim to the female sex, had done exactly what my sex was famed for—I fell in love. I was in an incredibly humorous—at least to Sano—state of denial. This is why my father never tried to teach me the womanly ways of life. The man knew this day would come someday, and in some hidden mirth, he decided that he would humor me. He would wait for the day that I became a lady on my own. I really hated that he was right.
From that day forward, I threw myself into training Yahiko. I had to prove to my dead father that I would keep practicing kendo. I would not turn into a lady. I really didn't intend in falling in love with Kenshin when I asked him to stay—far from that. I only wanted a friend—not a lover. Now that I had found my answer, I had no clue what I wanted from Kenshin. I found myself daydreaming about absurd things and flirting with him. Only afterwards did I realize what I had done, and in a rage, I beat my head in at night.
I suppose that after Kyoto, I decided it didn't matter what I was to Kenshin, as long as I was someone important. That didn't mean that I didn't want him to love me as much as I loved him. I dreamed day after day that he would drop everything and uh, do the romantic stuff that people are supposed to do. I really didn't know what he was supposed to do…or what I was supposed to do. In some sick way, I didn't really want him to be my prince—it would be so degrading that even though I am a female swordsman, I cannot take care of myself. It didn't matter though, I had already played damsel in distress more than I cared to do so. It seemed things were progressing at a steady rate, and I was euphorically happy.
Then Tomoe's story surfaced from the dark depths of Kenshin's past. I'd like to say that I was completely accepting and understood with a great forgiving. Perhaps that's what I looked like on the outside. That was far from the truth. I was insanely jealous and insanely paranoid. I wanted to scream that it wasn't fair and I wanted to kill Kenshin. Well maybe not kill, but severely maim. How could he lead me on like that? If that whole bullshit about soul mates were true then obviously it was clear as to whom Kenshin's soul mate was. All my outrageous efforts to be a lady—just for him—were wasted and insignificant. I was of no importance—and clearly he wouldn't speak of me in that tone of respect if I had died. He'd spent ten years moping over her and I'd probably get a month or two at most. It wasn't fair. I wished that Tomoe was alive—maybe that way I stood a chance.
But no, she was dead. In death, she was immortalized. There was no chance that something would screw up in their relationship because she was dead. Nothing he felt about her would change and I would be forced to walk in her shadow—to never feel the light. I was very bitter—but I didn't show it and threw myself once again, into teaching Yahiko the succession techniques.
I'm still bitter, though not as much. The heavy feeling of inadequacy still looms over me like a dark shadow. I don't think that I'll ever lose all of that horrible feeling. That's okay, I've accepted Kenshin's past. There's nothing I could do to reverse it and even if I were magically sent back into the past, would I have had the heart to deny Tomoe the little time she had with him? She has his past, and I have his future. I've already had more time with him than Tomoe did and in a way, it's not fair to her either. I want him to be happy, and for just one day, be without a care in the world.
I love Kenshin. I love him a lot. I know I'm important to him, how important doesn't really matter, but sometimes I wish that he would just forget his shyness and tell me what I am to him. It hurts to be left in the dark, and sometimes hope is the only thing you can cling to. Sometimes hope is a burden, like now. It's pointless to hope for something that'll never come true. He'll never really be carefree anymore. It's emotional suicide to keep hoping for that.
"Are you crying? What's wrong?" I've been crying. I've been doing that a lot in the past two years. Not just about Kenshin, but about other things too. I never used to cry.
"Its just sea spray, its nothing." I lay a hand over his eyes and play with his hair. I'd prefer for him not to see me cry. We went to the beach today with Yahiko, Tsubame and Tae. Somewhere during lunch, Kenshin had begun to use my lap as a pillow. I really didn't complain, I rather like it—and even so, I've begun to think morbid thoughts again.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."
I don't really need him to say anything about my feelings for him. I really don't need to make a move or do anything romantic or ask me to marry him. I'm satisfied to love him alone, just as long as I have what I need from him; his friendship and his trust. There is only one thing I want from Himura Kenshin in this complicated web of deceit, hiding and fragile happiness.
Please be here with me, I am here with you.
AN: Would you believe that for a month and a half, that I had writer's block about how to write Kaoru's feelings about Kenshin? Do you know how retarded that is? The final result was this, but I don't think I really portrayed what I wanted to and in the end, I think If I have enough time later on, I'll redo this chapter. ; hope that it wasn't too painful to read…gah…I can't believe that this was the best I could do about this…oh well…if I don't rewrite this chapter, I'll try and post another chapter that's more…un-wishy washy. GAH…*locks herself into closet and bangs head against her baseball bat*
Itoshisa no Kate is the ending song to the Seisouhen and inspired this chapter. I had to replay this song over and over again just get the feel of this chapter right—although I think I started to sing along rather than write after a while…If you read the lyrics, you'll notice some similarities…^-~
To my reviewers…I love you all…XD
And I hope you won't kill me with the crappiness of this chapter…*falls over*
Shiomei-XD…I didn't like the second chapter too much and I was wondering if my point had come across the way I had wanted it too…YAY! Obviously it DID! ; Even if people portray Kaoru as a person who can easily figure out her emotions, you can't write a good fanfic without thoroughly knowing the characters you write. In a way this is sort of an experiment of mine to see if that theory is true…
Marstanuki- eh…what I can I say? Megumi's intentions are never quite clear (contradicting advice/hanging off of Kenshin/ all that weird kitsune stuff) but to be fair I'd have to portray her impartially even though I'd like to throttle her sometimes…As for Tomoe—eh…I had a HUGE Tomoe-avoiding/hating period before I realized how stupid that was…; I don't know…something about her rubbed me the wrong way first time I watched 1st OVA.
Infinite nemo- I liked the first chapters better than the second and third one too…I dunno…that chapter was easier to write than the rest. : gahhh I just hope I can write a better fourth chapter because I reeeaaaaaaaaallly didn't like how this one came out…
Poppy- XD…I'm glad you like it…although I didn't have very happy writing in trying to express what I wanted in this chapter… *sigh* I guess you can't win 'em all. I do agree that Kaoru is an ordinary girl—with the only things different about her being kendo, forgivingness, pride and loyalty. XD…