I forgot the disclaimer last chapter. Stupid me. Here it is:
Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin in this chapter or the last one. I won't own it in future chapters either.
Warnings: A bit of bad language on Kaoru's part and frog dissections.
Enemies Till The End
Chapter 3
The next day Kaoru handed in her math homework. She was happy to see that she had gotten every single problem right with Kenshin's help. 'I should thank him again later.' She thought when she finished looking over the work.
Their relationship was an odd one. She had grown up with him being her twin's best friend. They had seen each other at their best and worst. More often than not, their worse sides were bought out by the other. He was basically family, but there was a rivalry between them that had always existed. They knew just how to press one another's buttons to trigger any kind of emotion. Despite the rivalry between them, they had a habit of helping each other out when it was needed.
'Next period is what, AP Bio. I'll see him then.' Kaoru thought. Not many people knew of Kaoru and Kenshin's strange relationship. Kaoru wasn't even sure if her friends were aware because she had never verbally told them what really went on between the two. Not that she didn't think they had figured it out.
The bell rang and Kaoru walked through the halls to her classroom. No one was there yet, so she sat down, allowing her book bag to slide down her arm to land with a thump on the floor.
"What do you have in there, a load of bricks?" Questioned her teacher as she walked into the room, a large, rectangular bucket in her arms.
"No, just a lot of heavy textbooks." Kaoru replied, then asked, "What are we going to be doing today in class?"
"Well, since we just finished body systems and you guys are ahead with your chemistry work, I thought we could have a little fun and get an inside look at bodies. You're going to be doing frog dissections." Her teacher informed her, putting the bucket down on a desk near Kaoru. Inside she could see the stiff, very dead bodies, wrapped in clear plastic bags, of frogs. "I know that some of the students won't enjoy this, but the majority of the class will, so I'm going to demonstrate for those who don't want to do it themselves." Her teacher continued.
'I get really squeamish around frogs. This is not going to be good.' Kaoru thought to herself as she watched the teacher set trays out along the counter in the back of the room. Students started trickling into the classroom and filling up the empty seats.
The moment Kaoru felt a tug on her ponytail, she knew that he was there. But, when she turned around to yell at Kenshin he was calmly sitting in his seat. She glared at him until she saw him glance in her direction. "Jerk." She told him and slid around in her seat to face the front of the room, just catching his grin, out of the corner of her eye, that he gave in response.
The teacher gave out packets with directions for the students to follow and questions to answer. Then said, "Now anyone who doesn't want to do this themselves, come to the back with me. Everyone else pair up and go to work. The packets are due at the end of class."
Kaoru got up to follow the teacher. There was no way she was going to cut open a frog. Suddenly she was yanked in the opposite direction. "You're working with me." Kenshin told her and pulled her over to one of the trays.
"Get off!" Kaoru said forcefully and tried to shove him off. "There is no way I'm working with you! I refuse to go near that thing." She struggled, but could not break his iron grip.
"I know you won't go near it. That's why you're working with me. We're going to cure you of your fear of frogs. Even if you don't, I remember that time Sano and I left a frog on the middle of your bed. It was all damp from the pond water and it had left a smelly spot. We waited and finally you screamed so loud. You were shrieking like a banshee and running down the hall. Then you burst into Sano's room smacked us both so hard we were seeing stars and ran off to find your father." Kenshin recalled, as he pulled on gloves and handed a pair to Kaoru. "Here, you won't have to actually touch it with your bare hands." He explained.
"You just had to remember that particular incident, didn't you?" She said sarcastically. "At least you paid. I remember being so mad when I couldn't get the pond stink off my bed. It took months to go away. At least the punches hurt and then I got you back afterwards by putting salt in your water at dinner and dumping whatever that spice was all over your food. Your reaction to that was my absolute favorite." She smirked slightly, remembering the pained expression on Kenshin's choking face. "And I don't want to touch it anyway. You can do all of the cutting and poking and prodding. I'll just watch and take notes." She crossed her arms.
"I'll need you to hold it while I stick the pins through the skin flaps though." He told her, most likely enjoying the green color her face turned at the mention of flaps of skin.
"No way! I did not voluntarily do this! You forced me to do this with you so now you can do it yourself." She stated, belligerently.
"Is there a problem over there you two?" The teacher called from her station, a group of upset looking girls around her. The rest of the class stopped working to peer over at the two as well.
"Nothing's wrong at all ma'am. Kaoru here is just a little squeamish, but she's over it now." Kenshin said, slinging his arm around Kaoru in a friendly way, knowing that that would only serve to annoy her further.
"Keep your voices down. Don't make me have to treat you like children and have to tell you to use your inside voices." The teacher said and turned around.
"Yeah, you heard her Kamiya. Use your inside voice." Kenshin snickered. Kaoru whacked him over the top of the head and turned away muttering under her breath.
"Lousy, good-for-nothing, arrogant asshole." So maybe it wasn't under her breath because Kenshin could hear her clearly.
"Don't let your father hear you talking like that." He reminded her. He grabbed her hands and put them on the frog. "Hold that." He took up a pair of small scissors. "Remember when he heard you that one time you got mad at Aoshi for taping the handle on the sink and instead of the water coming out down, out of the faucet, it sprayed you right in the face? The got you grounded for two weeks." As he spoke he cut a line down the middle of the frog's belly, ignoring the queasy look on Kaoru's face. When he was done, she immediately took her hands away and glared at Kenshin.
"You are so high-handed. What makes you think you can make me do this?" She said, angrily.
"Because you would do anything for me. You're helping me get a good grade in this class right now." He told her absently. "Hold the that flap there so I can stick the pin through." He grabbed her hand again and guided it towards where he wanted her to hold it. She complied making a face at him. "Just look away when I do it. You don't have to look, though you should when we get to the organs. That's going to be the best part." At that Kaoru immediately looked away from the frog, but maintained her hold on it.
"At the rate you're going, you're going to be hearing a lot more colorful phrases than that one." She told him briskly.
"Okay, I have the pins through. You probably won't have to hold anything else. The pins will do that job, but you should look 'cause we have to draw diagrams of the organs." He told her.
"Oh, great." Was her sarcastic reply. She still hadn't turned.
"I'll just cut through the muscle and you can answer some of those questions, how about?" He asked her. She nodded and leaned on the counter next to him, keeping her shoulder in the way of the sight of the dead frog. It was silent for a little while, both of them working intently. "You sure you don't want to help me clear away some of this fat?" Kenshin disrupted the peacefulness. Kaoru just glared at the paper in front of her, not wanting to turn and risk seeing the frog.
"You are just so funny." She said acidly and kept her head down. He laughed at her comment and continued pulling bits of fat away from the organs. When he was done, he nudged her side.
"Come on Kaoru. Just look. It's actually kind of interesting. You're probably not as squeamish as you think." Kaoru could tell he was attempting to be nicer to her. He had called her by her first name. They had done that when they were younger, but as they got older and started to get on each other's nerves all that they either called the other names or by their last names. So, she peeked.
It wasn't a very pleasant sight, but it was a little interesting. After learning about body systems and how they worked, it was neat to be able to see actual organs. She held off the nausea long enough to draw the organs and examine the frog slightly. She did so with what appeared to be clinical detachment.
They handed in the lab work they completed and the bell rang soon after. Kenshin caught up to Kaoru in the hallway. "See that wasn't so bad after all."
"Whatever you want to think. Just because you're a boy and are apparently faultless doesn't mean that the rest of us are." She told him.
"You think I'm faultless?" He asked, an eyebrow raised.
"NO! What I meant was that you appear so to other people. I know what an idiot you really are." She answered.
"Whatever. Did that help you to cure your fear of dissecting things?" He asked.
"No. I have to go. I see Megumi and Misao waiting for me." She ran off with that statement, unaware that Kenshin stopped and stared after her until she disappeared into the crowded hallway.
And that's where I'm going to end this chapter. It took me a little while to update. I've been extremely busy lately. We had a week of vacation and then school started and it is relentless. Sports started, spring track for me and after practice ended I was going directly to play rehearsal because I play in the Pit orchestra and that doesn't end until around ten at night. That leaves me up till twelve, trying to finish all my homework. I'm also preparing a solo for an All-state audition and my teacher also wants me to start preparing pieces for collage auditions. That's two years away for me! Anyway that's what's going on in my life right now. Not that you needed to know all that.
So, the chapter. I got the inspiration for this from the frog dissection we did in Biology class last week. I hope that you enjoyed it. I was tired when i revised this, so I apologize for any major or noticable mistakes. So, leave a review because I love them and I like knowing what everyone thinks!
Keta Himura