I should have stayed

Author's Notes: Whew! This is getting harder to write. This is very short but I wanted to show you that there is progress. As I've said anyway, this is probably going to be in three parts. So, here's part two and the last part would be out when it's ready. hides under a table

 Whew! This is getting harder to write. This is very short but I wanted to show you that there progress. As I've said anyway, this is probably going to be in three parts. So, here's part two and the last part would be out when it's ready. hides under a table

This would be cross-posted at the 30kisses community over at LJ and at Rurouni Kenshin is Watsuki-sama's creation. I'm merely borrowing his characters for entertainment purposes.

30kisses themes used are: #4 – our distance and that person, #5 – "ano sa" ("hey, you know..."), and #15 – perfect blue.

Part Two

Weeks passed and they were seeing more of each other and less of Sano, as the latter was busy wooing the lady doctor at the end of the town named Megumi. And because no one was with them to continuously break the ice by cracking jokes and infuriating a certain tanuki, Kaoru and Kenshin slowly became closer and comfortable around each other. Especially Kaoru, who was now prone to hitting Kenshin when he does something stupid and the samurai would only mutter Gomen nasai and correct whatever it was that he did wrong.

It became inevitable then, that the two were bound to feel something deeper than friendship to each other. Kaoru began to have blushing attacks whenever Kenshin would accidentally (or was it intentionally) brush his fingers on her hand when he gives or accepts something, and when she catches herself being watched from afar. Kenshin, on the other hand, would start stammering whenever Kaoru starts focusing her eyes on him while he's saying something, and he'd start to stumble when she would grace him with a smile.

Tension was evident between the two when Sano began eating with them again. The taller man was the only one who was filling in the silence as they eat. Kaoru wasn't calling him rooster-head and he wasn't being whacked every other minute. Kenshin seemed only intent on focusing on his meal and finishing them. After several days of the same routine, Sano decided to ask.

"Did you two had a fight?" he asked, looking at Kaoru, then at Kenshin, and back to Kaoru who made a small noise. "So?" he prompted her.

""We... anou... we didn't have any fight," she said lamely, with a forced reassuring smile of sorts.

Unconvinced, Sano turned to Kenshin. "Is that true, Kenshin?"

Looking up from his bowl, the samurai answered softly, "Hai." But his eyes conveyed that the taller man ask no more questions or there'll be consequences.

But Sano paid no heed to the warning as he turned back to Kaoru. "Ne, Jou-chan, did you two hook up?"

That question made the person in question blush and Kenshin to choke on his food.

Glaring, Kaoru looked at the insistent guy. "Oi, Rooster-head, do you want me to cook for you?"

That made Sano pause in chewing and a grin from him answered her question.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Today was rest day for the week for all the farmers and other workers and Kaoru uses this day to clean the house, do the laundry, and practice kendo. She was humming to herself as she swept around the small backyard that she didn't notice somebody had arrived in her house. And that somebody watched her with a smile before disappearing inside the house, to reappear outside carrying all her dirty clothes.

She was methodically sweeping, walking backwards that she bumped into somebody with minimal impact. But it jolted her that she screamed and turned around to see startled violet eyes stare into her own blue eyes, before it widened and looked down. Following his gaze, she saw her clothes in a lump on the ground.

"Kenshin! What do you think you're going to do with my clothes!" she asked, forgetting that he scared her by sneaking behind her and just focusing on what the samurai intended to do with her clothes which he was now picking up.

Kenshin looked up to her stern face from his crouched position, pausing in picking up the clothes and answered, "Laundry?" in a way that sounded unsure yet still determined. He then continued gathering the clothes, looking back down that he didn't see blue eyes widen with disbelief and alarm.

"Kenshin!" Kaoru cried out, releasing her hold on the broom and hastily kneeling down, quickly collecting as much clothes as she can. "How can you even think that I'm going to let you wash any of my kimonos?" she grumbles, as she tugs hard at a yukata that she and the red-haired samurai reached at the same time. "I already let you cook since I obviously can't make a decent meal but I'm not incapable of doing the other chores," she continued, as she tried to get her garments from Kenshin's arms.

But he held onto them, not letting her get any. "But I want to help you," he reasoned out, reaching for the clothes she has managed to collect.

The tug of war continued, each trying his or her best to get a piece of clothing from the other.

"But you are helping," she said, her mind focused on getting back her dirty clothes, not on what she's saying. "You're keeping the town in peace. You keep the thugs away. You prepare food for me, even if you didn't have to because you're the administrator here and I should be serving you meals, not the other way around. You don't abuse your power and do what's just. You're really kind and I like that about you. You have this calming voice and your eyes would flash an amber color when you're feeling some intense emotion... like right now," she trailed off, finally noticing that their "war" has ceased and her arms were full, and that he was just staring at her. She swallowed, vaguely remembering what she has said. "Ano sa..."

"Your eyes are blue... the perfect blue," he said softly as his right hand reached out to touch her cheek.

Her heart fluttered at his caress. "Kenshin..."

"Hai..."

He was leaning closer, his nose filled with the scent of jasmine. He could already feel her breath on his lips...

Last Notes: So there. A cliffhanger of sort. Really short. Barely reached two pages. Oh, well.