Summary: Kamiya Kaoru is the young owner of a flower shop. Every day of the week, her customer, Himura Kenshin, comes to pick up fresh white roses, a dozen of them, for his late wife. Kaoru can't help but fall in love with this mysterious customer. But how can things ever be if Kenshin's still grieving the death of his wife?
AN: I realize this took a very long time to update. I do apologize to everyone who so patiently waited for me to complete this story. And to all those people who spent the time to email me or review multiple times to tell me to hurry, this chapter is for you guys. I wrote this chapter bit by bit, each time I got an email saying "when are you going to update???" I would find the motivation to write a bit more. Thank you all for remaining faithful readers. I've tried numerous times to complete this chapter but have not found the heart to do so. Maybe it's because this story is my baby ( and I can't see myself putting it away forever. But whatever the case, it's just soo hard to finish! So this is the first half of the last chapter.
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Declaimer: I don't own Kenshin.
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As I Bloom Winds of Fortune
Chapter 8 – part 1
Your eyes glistened with tears, staring at me with all the anguish, frustration, and relief shining through. No matter how bad I felt before, I now felt ten times worse. But walking to you through the soft mist, I could only stop a feet away from you and slide to the ground. In the dead of the waning night, I sat with you.
I wanted to hold you, to brush away your tears and calm your fears, but I was not worthy to touch you.
I never expected you to be here.
For a long time, you did not make a noise except for the occasional sniff. Your tears splashed over your cheeks one after the other, no pause, a constant stream of salty drops.
You weren't supposed to be here. I never thought – never imagined that you would wait for me for so long.
Neither of us moved for an infinity of time. Slowly, you handed me the white roses, their petals unfurled in a half bloom. It was as though something in the silence broke, shattered. "Oh Kaoru," I murmured, reaching towards you, curling you into my arms. I let you cry into my shoulder, as we crouched there on the floor, the roses lay ignored, but not forgotten, on the side.
-------------------- Flashback
Her smile was something not often seen. It wasn't something that I missed, however. It was a reward given to me if I did something to please her. I was content with her mere presence. Her beautiful porcelain face did not need a smile to decorate it.
"Do you need help?" She spoke softly always. I watched her fingers pluck at flowers, arranging them in a vase. She watched as I attempted to fix the leaking pipe beneath the sink.
"No," I responded, as always in an emotionless voice. We rarely showed our feelings, and it amazed me to know she loved me as I did her. We were in harmony with one another, with nothing expressed but everything implied.
Together, in that room together, Tomoe and I remain in the sanctuary of my mind.
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"I couldn't come," I said after a long while, "do you understand?"
You nodded. "I know. I know, Kenshin, I've had the past few hours to think about it. And I did, I thought about it a lot, even though I didn't want to. A small part of me knew you wouldn't come but I couldn't, couldn't leave. I thought.. you had to come. Because you were Kenshin, and you did come."
Your stumbling words made complete sense to me for some reason. "Will you come with me now?"
"Where?"
I blinked into the pale mist of pre-dawn. "To visit Tomoe's grave."
---------------- Flashback
At some point in my life, I did laugh, though I never could recall a time when Tomoe and I told light jokes to one another. Where we lived, we could not afford to let our façade slip.
"Do you know," she asked me once, "that I love looking at you?"
She smiled, gently reaching a hand out to touch my hair. I grasped her hand in mine and smiled back. "And I you."
But at some point in my life, I realized my heart was bursting with all the love I felt for her.
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Death. The place reeked of it. I had not noticed much before, but as I led you to the grave, I felt it, the presence of the dead. "You don't have to show me," you had said, but I knew that I must. Even if it was just a small chip, I wanted to show you a piece of my heart, to show you where I was coming from. But at the same time, I wanted to set it free.
The grave was plain, a simple slab of rock, with the words engraved there, etched there as clearly as I saw it in my mind all these years. Where vegetation normally grew over old tombstones, there was none. Between the care provided by me and her brother, my wife's grave was clean, clear.
"My wife." I say, a piercing sound in the silence.
You place the roses at the foot of the tomb. Carefully brushing your hair back from your face, you knelt. To my amazement, you knelt before the one thing keeping me from you and bowed. "Tomoe," you said, "I feel as though I've known you forever. Maybe it was all those times I felt your presence, your influence. You were always there, always there when I wasn't. Even in death, you have a hold on him."
I stood in quiet detachment a few feet behind you as you spoke to my wife's grave, to my past.
"We've both had the.. misfortune of falling in love with the same man. He's a hard man to love, isn't he? So uncertain, so different, so closed up upon himself. But I love him. I love him even if he has a past he regrets, even if he made mistakes in his life."
I place a hand on your shoulder, but I don't know if you even felt it for you did not acknowledge it. The words had begun to pour from you mouth and you were speaking woman to woman to a being that was not here, to the barrier that was erected around me, willing it to break down.
"Whatever it is that happened to him in the past…"
A few drops of tears splashed off your face.
"Tomoe, please, let him go. Give him to me; let me take care of him. Please.. just set him free."
-------------------- Flashback
She knew. Some small part of me could tell, although she never voiced her knowledge. Always, in each other's presence, we kept our eyes hooded, our lips sealed.
My hand brushed her hair in a soft gesture of love. I did not have to explain myself.
"Kenshin," she murmured to me, "whatever comes to pass.. I don't blame you."
She knew that at some point one of us will have to die at the other's hand.
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We were like ghosts hidden in the film of morning dew, kneeling in the dark graveyard.
"She was beautiful?"
"Yes."
"Was she good and generous and kind and loving?"
"Always."
"And was she perfect?"
"In every possible way," I answered.
You paused before asking me, "Will I ever be perfect?"
"To me, you already are."
------------------------- Flashback
My lavish apartment felt like a void to me. I paced back and forth, lounged on the sofa, then springing back to my feet I pounded my steps into the carpet. I was restless beyond belief, my own feet were telling me I was supposed to be somewhere. They practically screamed at me, "What are you still doing here? She's waiting!"
But I can't go. On one hand, I suffer the guilt of loving another after my wife has died. On the other, I fear your confrontation. I did not tell you everything about my past.
"You know," Shinomori said suddenly. I stopped my pacing to turn to him expectantly. "You weren't Tomoe's first love."
My mind stopped. All this time I spent worrying about her… I had forgotten.
Tomoe loved me with all her heart.
Even though I killed her fiancé, she managed to love me.
I sank to the floor in silence. It was true, she fell in love again. Maybe she was filled with guilt as I am now, but she did everything in her power to ensure a strong relationship. I never even suspected that her fiancé had died by my hand.
Was this what a relationship is about?
Have I been selfish?
"She would have wanted you to move on." Shinomori advised again.
I put my head in my hands. "But I owe her so much. I killed her, Shinomori. With my own hands – I first ruined her life, and then took it from her."
"She would not blame you."
In the deepest corner of my mind, the words echoed. The softest whisper of a voice, the ghost of a sound. I don't blame you, she had said.
Shinomori got up to leave. "I don't think there's anything I can do for you. Just get some rest, Himura. Sometimes, you think too much."
I smiled in gratitude to my old friend. "Perhaps I do."
Before she died she said to remember that I – what?
That I love her? That I am indebted to her?
... That I am not at fault for what happened?
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"Kaoru, there is something more that I need to tell you. I have not explained how my wife died, and I feel.. this is the sole reason I –" I broke off in confusion, unable to express my thoughts to you.
You sat patiently beside me, waiting for me to continue, your sapphire eyes blinking with quiet understanding.
"I killed my wife."
I held my breath as I uttered the words, fearful of your reaction. I did not even try to soften the blow.
Your eyes searched mine for a moment, shocked and saddened. But not afraid. You did not fear this side of me. For me, that was all I was looking for, all I needed.
"Why?" You asked simply. "What happened?"
And I told you.
:End part 1:
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AN: there probably won't be much left for me to write. Bear in mind, this chapter is not over yet! I just need to write it but didn't want ppl to wait forever. Hope you liked it.