Jerked Under

I do not own Rurouni Kenshin.

Start Scene One: Confession

She had never really noticed it before, but he had a musical voice, one that rose and fell in each sentence. It even sounded a bit like a girl's, if you thought about it. But it just added to his whole allure, and gave his enemies all the more of a shock when he beat the crap out of them, to put it bluntly. It was hard to believe that this guy who looked so much like a delicate young lady, with his long, luxurious red hair, gentle lavender eyes, sharp nose, slender physique, and delicate, pale, high-boned features, was the terror of the numerous gangs that roamed the streets.

Rumors said that he had once killed someone, but she personally knew it not to be true and nobody had ever come forth with proof. He had come close to doing it, though, when his girlfriend left him for another gang (or more accurately, one of its members). And, naturally, it was his main rival: The Juppongattana. What ticked him off even more was that she didn't even hook up with their leader; instead, she chose one of the grunt work people. It was a major insult to his pride, and he took off after the gang member, threatening to give him a beating, beginning to make good on his promise, and stopping only when Tomoe begged him to. She even offered to come back, but he severed all ties with her then and there, his message a whiplash that cut deeper with every word, telling her to do her best never to come within his eyesight again.

Kaoru had been there for him, but he had grown distanced from her since then, hurting them both unconsciously. She was his best friend, his confidant, and removing himself from the last true link he had with another person pronounced his feelings of loneliness more than any other time in his life. And now, she had finally cornered him here, in his apartment, and was forcing him to confess. Not anything in particular, but just to ask him why he had been the equivalent of a mother grizzly bear in accepting any company at all lately. He was pacing in front of her, his voice a controlled rant, enjoying actually being able to release all the pent up rage.

"...and yes, I know I was wrong for attacking him, it's entirely my fault, but she actually said she would come back and it pissed me off even more."

Kaoru nodded, understanding. If she had been anyone else, his language would have been much harsher, but he always toned it down around her. Constant use of profanity irritated her, and she had informed him of that years ago.

"Why didn't you tell me any of this, Kenshin? I could have helped somehow."

He grinned at her, a little sheepishly. "I didn't want to get you involved in any way. The gang wars around here can get pretty serious, believe it or not. I couldn't allow myself to cause you to get hurt."

"Even though you know perfectly well that I practice kendo and carry around a bokken whenever I'm in your area?"

"Yeah."

"Why, then? I'm capable of protecting myself."

"For one..." he sighed, stopping in front of a window and pressing his forehead against the cool glass for a second. "You're more important than just a girlfriend. I know you can protect yourself, but there are a lot of people in some of these gangs, and the only one I have friendly relations to has five people in it. If six, seven of them surrounded you, you could most likely fight them off, but it depends on how good at fighting they are. But eight, nine ten – numbers do count. They could capture you, hurt you, use you to hurt me, and I'm not allowing that to happen, ever."

She stood and walked over next to him, placing her hand near his on the windowsill. "But what about you? It sounds like you've had experience with that type of thing – don't they corner you alone?"

"Just once."

"And?"

He grinned, something like pride faintly filtering into his voice. "They know not to do it again."

End Scene One

Okay, this is my latest and perhaps favorite story ever. It is not going to really be a continuous, connected story – more like a series of scenes that show what the character's lives are like in this. Different, but I've wanted to do it for a while. This chapter is probably going to be the shortest of them all. More info on the setting is that it's close to post-apocalyptic. Years after nuclear war that almost ended all life except cockroaches.

As a note...

This is my last post for at least two weeks. I'm off to writing camp on Sunday, so I should get a chapter or two done there, but probably won't be able to post it, just write in my notebook...

Domo arigatou for reading!

matthias208

I know that sentence where I describe Kenshin is a little long, but I see it more as a list, anyway.