Disclaimer - I don't own Rurouni Kenshin.

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Toy Store

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The Gym

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"Why if it isn't the little sister!" a female voice exclaimed. "Kaoru, wasn't it?"

She turned her head and there was Megumi, stepping up onto the treadmill next to her.

"I didn't know you went to this gym too," Megumi said in the same tone in which people say 'well isn't it a small world after all'.

Kaoru nodded and continued her workout. She couldn't think of anything else to do and she only had five minutes left before her treadmill time was up.

"Kenshin hasn't mentioned seeing you in a while," Megumi said, placing her water inside her treadmill's built in bottle holder. Kaoru wondered if Megumi was actually going to exercise or just stand there and rub her relationship with Kenshin in Kaoru's face.

"You are Kaoru right? We only met briefly at that party and it was so dark. I'm not just standing here, jabbering to a stranger, am I?"

Kaoru waited for the moment when she'd be able to say a couple words between her heavy breathing. She'd been exercising for the past hour and half. "I'm Kaoru."

Megumi smiled smugly. "I'm glad we met up then. I need to talk to you about Kenshin. He hasn't been himself since that break up with your sister. Is anything wrong with him?"

The woman really wasn't going to leave her alone. Kaoru slowed the treadmill speed to a fast walk. She might as well start her warm down. "You'd know better than I would."

"I can't see why I would," Megumi said lightly. "It's you he's falling over, not me."

This was worse than Kaoru had expected. He was stringing Megumi along in a relationship that was going nowhere and the woman was so stuck on him that she was going along with it! Men.

"You know what happened with him and my sister," Kaoru said. "Aren't you worried he'll do the same thing to you?"

"What are you talking about?" Megumi asked, looking confused.

Kaoru stared at her incredulously as she realized that the woman honestly didn't think he'd done anything wrong. Before today she'd been able to blindly hate Megumi, but it appeared that she was a victim too. She couldn't hate her anymore. There was no one to blame in this but Kenshin himself.

"Never mind," Kaoru said, stepping off the treadmill and grabbing her towel. "Nice meeting you again, Megumi."