Trapped in the Prison
By: Yummei-sama no Hanashi
Author's note: This is the second installation of my story. I hope you guys like it, I really worked hard on it. I have to keep it just this short though, any longer and it would be too much, I think. I like writing long chapters.
Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin. I wish I did though.
Part II: Breaking
I was shattered. I couldn't think. Everything made me nauseous. I walked like a drunk, swaying in my steps.
How could he! How could he! That was not him. That was a clone. It had to be. The hair and body were the same, but his eyes and smile and eyes were not. There was something malicious in his eyes, something I couldn't comprehend or even take in.
My angel… is not an angel… at all…
Suddenly, revelations came pouring into my mind. I saw things clearer than ever. I suddenly had a reason for everything strange that had happened since Kenshin had arrived. But I had an excuse for everything.
Sometimes, I smelled faint cigarette smoke.
I thought our neighbor was the culprit.
Sometimes, I smelled alcohol.
Dad drank sometimes.
When I logged onto the Net, I would find porn sites in the History.
I thought they could've been mistakes, like clicking the wrong link.
Almost every other night, Kenshin would go out for three or four hours.
I thought he just wanted fresh air.
I threw myself into my bed and started to let my tears flow.
I couldn't help it. It was just too much. Why couldn't have I noticed it before? Why had I been playing blind to these things? Why did I even trust him?
I'd never felt so betrayed.
Kenshin entered my room without knocking, something he didn't do before, a couple of hours later. "Go away!" I yelled from under my quilt.
"Why should I?" he asked, his voice even. He removed the blanket from over my head. I made to grab it, but he held it out of reach. He added, still calm, "You've seen the real me now. Or at least, a part of me."
"What does that have to do with anything!" I screeched, causing him to wince at the pitch of my voice. He didn't have the right to be calm, not when I wanted to storm and rage at him, not when I wanted to tear him to pieces and do other possible, horrible torture to him. I wanted him to fight me.
He smiled again at me, that same malicious smile he had been wearing since I saw him at the club. I tried to punch him, but he pinned down both my wrists. I struggled madly. "Let – go!" I cried in a strangled voice. All the while, his expression was calm. Oh, how I wanted to scratch his face and pull on his hair and subject him to all the physical and mental torture known to man. He still held me down, firmly, almost gently.
"No."
"You – you creep! You bastard! Let – go – of – ME!" I cried even louder, struggling at every stress of the sentence. "MOM! MEGUMI! HELP!"
"They're out of the house," Kenshin stated simply. "I won't let you go until you hear me out."
"I – you-" I sputtered angrily. "I don't need or want your excuses!"
"I'm not going to give excuses. You want an explanation, right? An explanation is what you get."
I stopped struggling, although I knew my face was still showing a lot of negative feeling.
"I've been doing this for a long time," he explained quietly, still quite calm, no smile on his face now. "I first smoked at eleven, first drank at twelve, had my first woman at fourteen, so I'm quite a veteran already. But I would've thought that you'd notice something at least." He smirked. "But you chose to be blind. I know you're not stupid, Kaoru, but, God! I think you deny things too much. You trust too much."
I felt so much terror and rage then. I knew that I had in my hands a very different Kenshin. It was like he had forgotten who he really was. But as he said this was the real him, I was terribly confused too. But I had no doubt this was a darker, more vindictive side of him.
"I felt so bored staying at your place. At home, I had servants and people I could abuse, but you people were so trusting and so convinced everyone had integrity I couldn't help but pity you. After all, it is your house," he breathed, tickling my ear. I absolutely refused to blush. But I was already crimson, not from embarrassment but from fury. "You guys were so easy. Especially you, Kaoru. You were the most trusting of all, warming up to me so quickly. At least Misao and Megumi still had some kind of distance from me. But you… I can't believe how incredibly naïve you are… So I decided to show you who I really was."
"I planned, of course. I borrowed a book especially for the occasion, and left it in my room on purpose. I waited in the street. For a while I thought you wouldn't come. I thought you finally saw through me." He smirked. "Even Megumi has some idea. When I called and told her what I wanted you to do, she teased me it was only probably to see you. She's partly right. But you came anyway. I wanted to confuse you, so I weaved in and out of the crowd. I was already in the club a few hours back, so all the evidences were there."
"You – you planned all this?" I whispered weakly.
"Yeah. Smart, right? It was so much fun to lead you on like that, but I had to show you sometime. Too bad I didn't wait a little longer-"
I couldn't take it any more. He had loosened his grip a bit, so I could reach his head. I butted my head against his.
"OW! Hell!" he cursed, his calm demeanor gone. "You damn bitch!" He held me in his viselike grip even more tightly so that I felt that welts were being dug into my wrists.
"Get off me, you bastard!" I shrieked. "Don't you dare get near me again! Don't you dare hurt my family! Don't you dare hurt Misao and Megumi! Stay away from Ayane and Soujiro and Sa-"
And that was when he shut me up.
He kissed me.
It was mind blowing. Tears of anger welled up my eyes as soon as I had realized what was happening. Hate began to explode in my body. I was paralyzed in shock and fright. I fought back the urge to kiss back. It was tempting, but the numbness of my body prevailed.
He released me with a leer of satisfaction on his face. "That was your first, wasn't it?" he asked me, grinning. In temper I kneed him in the groin. My anger abated a little as he turned blue in pain.
When he had recovered, he whispered in his softest, most dangerous voice, "You do know I can make your life a living hell, right?"
"Get out of my room," I said through my gritted teeth.
To my surprise (and suspicion), he obliged. "Let's keep it between us, okay?" he suggested, winking. It seemed that his former self had come back.
"What makes you think I'm not going to make Dad and Mom kick you out of the house?"
"I could always make your family's life a living hell," he said nonchalantly. "I have the means."
Oh, how I wanted to wring his hateful, no-good face.
"So, is it a deal?"
I nodded, much to my despair. He gave me the peace sign and sauntered out of my room casually. Before he could turn the corner, I threw my alarm clock at him, which didn't hit him, but bounced off the doorframe harmlessly and fell to the floor, its insides probably shattered into pieces. I didn't give a damn.
It was anything but peaceful. War was on.
The more I thought about his atrocities, the more I despaired. I had never felt so betrayed and dirtied. My trust in him was totally gone. In fact, I had become more and more paranoid. I knew what was under his cheerful façade now, which made me question others' cheerfulness. I knew what he could be thinking, and what he might if I told on him.
I also knew that he had stolen my first kiss.
Others might think stolen first kisses might be romantic in some way, but considering the circumstances, I felt like I had just been raped.
His pattern of living hadn't changed since, but I didn't allow him to associate with me whenever possible anymore. I locked my door every time he was in the house. I would go the other direction if I saw him coming toward me. I hardly talked to him. I couldn't let him or anyone else manipulate me anymore.
But I still pitied him, to my self-frustration.
"Kenshin! Kaoru!" my mother called. "Why don't you kids go out of the house today? It's not healthy for young people to be cooped up in the house during the summer."
As soon as summer had come, I began to regret my decision of asking him to stay over for the summer. Kenshin, however, was having the time of his life.
"Of course, Aunt Tae!" he said cheerfully. "In fact, I was planning to go out for a while with Kaoru." I gasped, ready to believe he was up to something. He put an arm around me, all jokey and friendly. "Right, Kaoru?"
Mom had her back to us at that moment, so he took the chance to look at me with his dangerous amber eyes, which practically shouted, "If you breathe one word about what happened, I'll make sure your life would become hell."
I gulped and managed out, "Yeah… Kenshin was planning on taking me out today." Struck by sudden inspiration, I said, grinning to my Mom and Kenshin, "We might eat lunch out today, and probably shop for everyone with his gold card, right, Kenshin?"
Kenshin grinned back at me, which I knew was an act. "In fact," Kenshin said, pushing me to the stairs, "we were just going to get dressed, now that you mentioned it."
Mom nodded and smiled. "A nice date for the two of you, I see. How wonderful! Have fun, you two!" And with that, she went back to her ironing.
Kenshin pushed me all the way back to his room, which was nearer. As he closed the door by leaning on it, he sighed and said, "Oh, she knows how to play, my little tiger-lily."
I sat down on his bed with a flomp and pouted. (People say I pout prettily.) "I am not your tiger-lily," I said with a whine in my voice. "In fact, I'm not yours at all." I acted casually and almost cutely around him, but my hate and anger had not abated from my heart.
He moved toward me so fast that I only had to blink to find him in front of me. He pushed me down on his bed, almost gently, but in my opinion I didn't think he could be gentle with anyone at all. I glared at him.
"You do know I could knee you in the groin again," I muttered dangerously, narrowing my eyes.
"You do know my yell could tell people downstairs what's happening," he breathed in my ear. I could see the sparkle of his golden gaze from my point of view.
"But if I yell-"
"I'll just have to make you shut up with my own mouth, right?"
I knew my eyes were probably spitting sparks already. "Whatever hell you can give us, we can take."
"You don't have the money, I do," he shot back, smirking. Anger flared in my nerves once more. I took a deep, shuddering breath to calm myself.
"Look, things are going to look suspicious if they see us like this," I said, trying my darndest to speak rationally.
He let go of me. "Fair point," he said cheerfully. It was a wonder he could revert personalities so fast. As I stood pondering, he removed his shirt.
I only realized what he was doing when he was already unbuttoning his pants. He noticed me, apparently, because he laughed and said, "You certainly have no plans of leaving while I undress," he murmured, his slightly eyes roving my body (though I was quite dressed. I honestly don't know what goes on in that mind of his.)
I said, heat creeping up my cheek, "It's not my fault you undress while I'm still here!" I looked away, but he tilted my chin to look in his eyes, now amber and lavender swirling in their depths.
"It's not my fault you keep staring at my ass either," he whispered in my ear, his hand resting on my hip. I blushed harder.
"I was not staring!" I cried indignantly, my hands balling into fists, though I knew full well that my eyes had traced the outline of his butt in the course of his undressing. I couldn't quite look in his eyes, though.
"You were." I was now very interested in staring at the tiny mole on his chest.
"Arrgghhhhh!" I screamed when what he had said registered. Frustrated, I pushed him away from me, feeling the warmth of his chest under my fingers for a fraction of a second. "Forget it, okay?" I stomped away, slamming the door behind me.
I could still hear his voice. "Your eyes were tracing the outline of my ass!"
"This hair clip would look good on Misao," I said, examining a glittery butterfly hair clip. Like all girls, I liked to shop. I could see Kenshin staggering under the weight of the things I had bought. We had already been in the plaza an hour, and now we were in a jewelry shop. I giggled and asked him, "Don't you think so?"
"How much does it cost?" he asked in a long-suffering voice.
"Only 30,000 yen," I replied, showing him the price tag.
"ONLY!" he yelled. I could've sworn the packages he was carrying tilting to the edge at the sound of his voice. "Is that REAL rhinestone?"
"You must be real rich to know your jewels," I said, nodding.
"Are you going to make me buy that?" he asked weakly.
"Why not?" I asked, grinning. He groaned. "I mean, we only spent, what, 6000 yen on all these stuff! I'm a bargain hunter, you know."
"For your information," Kenshin told me, "I did all the spending, and currently I have spent 6,600 yen. You're going to add 30,000 to all that!"
I laughed and put back the clip on the counter. "Silly, of course I wouldn't make you buy that. I know how to budget, too." Kenshin sighed in relief.
To ordinary passersby and to the saleslady, we might have looked like a cute, bickering couple, but I knew we were only putting on a façade. I tried to be honest in everything I was doing though. I didn't know if Kenshin was truly enjoying himself.
Then something else caught my eye. "Oh…" I pointed to a butterfly-cut sapphire ring from under the glass case. The saleslady took it out for me. "Wow…" I murmured softly. "It's so… pretty…" Kenshin put down our packages.
"Let me see," he said. He nodded as he examined the ring with a trained eye. "This is a really exquisite sapphire. And the cut is so very fine." He held it up so that it was level my eyes. "Yeah, it matches your eyes. They're the same shade." I reddened a little.
Once I had gotten over the compliment (pretended or not), I rummaged through my wallet. "I want to buy it."
"It costs 50,000 yen," the saleslady said. My jaw dropped, my mouth suddenly feeling dry.
"Kind of cheap for such a nice ring," Kenshin said as the lady nodded. I sighed, disappointed.
"I guess I still have to save up for it…" I said, the disappointment in my voice evident.
"I can buy it for you, if you want," Kenshin offered. I smiled and shook my head.
"Nah. Don't bother. Let's just go and eat lunch." Ipciked up some of ourpackages and went out of the door.
Kenshin hung back a bit and I waited at a bench for five minutes. He emerged from the store five minutes later.
"What took you?" I asked.
"I liked that skull earring I saw back there," he replied casually. He was wearing the said item on his ear.
"Ah." I noted subconsciously how good it looked on him. I pointed a finger to a burger restaurant I saw nearby. "Let's replenish our energy. We still have a lot of shopping to do."
As I marched him towards the burger restaurant, he groaned again, possibly at the prospect of shopping even more.
But I missed the slight platonic smile on his face.
As we ate, I couldn't help but feel happy, even with the man I hated most (unless you count Enishi Yukishiro, who is not a man but a total pest.) I mean, wouldn't you be, if you were in the company of a man who is at least pretending quite nicely to be friendly? He almost appeared to be enjoying himself.
He talked incessantly. He ate his food with gusto, and even bought us a second meal. He kept smiling at me. It was like the angel of the early days was back.
And I loved every minute of it.
And I loved him that day.
But a day can't last forever.
"Did you buy the whole plaza?" Mom asked, aghast as she looked at the mountain of packages we had brought home.
"That's okay, Kenshin has a gold card," I replied, grinning.
"Oooh," Misao murmured. She admired her feet again, clad in pink platform sandals. "You really have good taste in footwear, sis!"
"Nah," I said. "Kenshin has the good taste. He says the minute he sawthat pair of sandals the first one on his mind was you."
Misao hugged Kenshin. "This is really good." She sighed. "I would love to have you as a big brother." She looked slyly at me, and heat crept up cheek. "But maybe that isn't such an impossible dream."
Everyone laughed, including Kenshin. "You're both so cute together!" Mom said, giggling.
"Yes," Megumi chortled. "I mean, Kenshin is such a great guy, after all. He's nice and kind and cute and-"
I stood up abruptly. All my good feelings were gone. Tears were welling up my eyes, as they were wont to do these days. My temper was, yet again, reaching uncontrollability. My clenched fists were shaking in anger. (Now that I looked back on it, I never knew my emotions could revert so quickly and easily.) "Megumi," I said, my voice faltering, "you have no idea what you're talking about."
My family stopped laughing. "Huh?" Megumi asked. "What are you talking about? What's wrong, Kaoru-chan?"
How little they knew, every one of them. They were all so naïve and trusting that Kenshin could manipulate them without even trying. He could twist around the strings that bound their lives so easily that I couldn't stand the sick sight of it anymore.
"He's not that great a guy. If you only knew… oh if you only knew…but you! You guys trust so much… you're all naïve… he's broken everyone… you let him twist around your strings… and I haven't even begun saying anything… If you just knew… filth… If you only knew…"
I was babbling, I knew. But I was so angry at this display of naiveté that I could only string half-formed sentences together.
Kenshin flashed me a look of warning with his amber eyes. A shadow of a glare was on his face. I realized then that I had said too much. I took a deep breath and mumbled, "I think I'll take a bubble bath."
I left the room, leaving people staring in my wake.
I undressed in my bedroom, still seething. But I knew deep in my mind that Kenshin was going to let me have it. He was waiting to ambush me in the bathroom, no doubt.
Sure enough, when I entered the dressing room , which was right outside our bathroom, he was waiting there, leaning against the wall. I blushed, realizing how little clothing I had on.
"What are you doing here, you pervert!" I hissed. He only smiled.
"I prepared our bath, aren't you happy?" he asked good-naturedly.
"What do you mean 'our' bath?" I asked angrily. "Whatever gave you the idea I would enjoy a bath with you?"
He just put his hands behind his head. "I didn't say anything like that."
"You said 'our' bath," I sputtered furiously. "You had every intention of getting into the bath with me," I added accusingly.
"Wouldn't you like that," he sneered.
"Yeah, I bet you would," I spat back.
"Anyway," he said, circling me, "you came so close to revealing our little secret. You know what I might have to do."
"What?" I asked. "Bribe my Algebra teacher to flunk all my A's? Oh, I'm so scared," I added sardonically.
"I could," Kenshin replied silkily. I watched his eyes gown up and down as he looked at my towel-clad body. I clutched my body with my arms as I went even redder. "I could also make your parents jobless and you three sisters prostitutes." He stopped and looked at me in my eyes. Honestly, if my eyescould produce real fire, I could have fried him to crisp at that moment. "Or we could always keep everything secret." I shuddered as he ran a finger across my lips in a teasing manner. His finger went lower to my neck, stopping at my collarbone, then continuing down to my arm. I bit back a moan of… disgust. Not pleasure. Pure disgust. "Mmm… you got goose bumps…"
"Shut up," I muttered heatedly. "I wouldn't tell my parents anything because, fortunately for you, I pity your pathetic hide."
"Are you calling me pathetic?" he asked quietly.
"I think I am," I replied coolly.
"I seem to recall goose bumps crawling your skin when I… ah… touched you," he said just as coolly. "You get so aroused so easily. Doesn't that count as pathetic?"
"I wasn't aroused, I was disgusted. I think your head is getting too big for you." I sighed exasperatedly. "Look, get out. I'm going to take a nice, relaxing bath without you." I pushed him out of the bathroom before he could do or say anything.
I wish he didn't see through me.
TBC…
Author's Yammer: Well, this is longer than the other one, I think. Anyway, I'm almost done. Only one more chapter to go. Yay!
You know, one of the things here has a hidden symbolization. You wanna give a guess? Place it in a review! Then I'll give the answer in the final chapter.
Please review!
