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Chapter 3: Lunchtime!!
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Everyone filed into the small dining room, crowding around the table that was now full of Kaoru's cooking. The group of travelers and Sanosuke all had lighthearted looks on their faces after talking and joking around all morning, mostly about Kyouri's acts of violence and Shousei's and Sachi's several pranks; even Yamainu had a shadow of a smile on his face. When Kaoru had gone to tell them it was lunch time she had found the group laughing loudly as Sanosuke practically rolled on the ground with hilarity (although she didn't know that was only because Kyouri had kicked him off the walkway in frustration when he wouldn't shut up after hearing about one of her misadventures).
"I hope you all like Miso soup!" Kaoru said happily as she began spooning out servings into the bowls.
"Oh, goodie!" Sachi squealed. "I haven't had a home cooked meal in forever!"
"Don't get your hopes up," muttered Yahiko as he poked at the soup, as if checking to see if it was still alive. As Kyouri was waiting for her soup, she realized that the residents of the dojo were doing some… questionable things. Kenshin was eating his soup without complaint, but he'd make a pained face every time he'd swallow and started looking slightly green after a while. Yahiko was fishing things out of his soup and secretly putting them in Kenshin's soup, although she was sure Kenshin noticed but didn't bother to say anything as he eyed Kaoru nervously. Sanosuke was eyeing his soup critically but didn't touch it, as if searching for bombs and other foreign objects. By the time Kyouri got her portions she was more than apprehensive.
She looked to her side and saw that Yamainu was also looking at his bowl of rice critically, but after a sniff he picked it up and began eating. The twins had also decided to eat some of their rice before facing the soup, and were casting nervous looks at each other from across the table. Kyouri picked up her bowl of rice and began eating as she glanced at Kaoru, who seemed oblivious to the proceedings around the table and was eating happily.
"Shousei-dono, could you pass the soy sauce, de gozaru?" Kenshin asked after a while of quiet suffering. The red head glanced at her sister across the table with the all too familiar gleam in her eye. She slammed her bowl of rice down on the table and gave Kenshin a furious look.
"Kenshin-san," she said in a forced calm voice, "Why would you think that I, Sachi, am that woman!" She pointed at her sister, who had a similar look on her face. Kenshin seemed at a loss for words, although his eyes were wider than usual.
"Kenshin-san," Shousei said through gritted teeth. "Are you implying that we look alike?"
"Oro?" Kenshin eeped.
"WELL?!" they both exclaimed at the same time, glaring at Kenshin, who's eyes were now bugging out.
"Oro?!" he squeaked again, "Um, well, gomen nasai, but, um… you kind of do… what this one means is…" He fumbled with his words as the twins kept giving him burning looks. By now everyone was deathly quiet around the table as Kenshin struggled, although Yamainu and Kyouri, who both gave each other exasperated looks, had small smiles on their faces.
After a few more excruciating moments the two twins broke out in smiles.
"Aww, Kenshin-kun, don't get so nervous!" Shousei said happily.
"Yeah, we were just kidding!" Sachi laughed. "Here you are, Kenshin-kun." She gripped the sleeve of her kimono delicately as she picked up the soy sauce with her other hand and handed it to Kenshin, who was still slightly pale but looked extremely relieved.
"Arigato, Sachi-dono," Kenshin said as he bowed his head slightly and took the soy sauce. Sachi nodded and began eating her rice again, in tiny portions so that she may as well have been eating it a grain at a time. Kenshin couldn't help notice the impeccable manners both girls sitting at his sides had. They seemed out of place in two girls who had just been yelling at him a moment ago, although that had obviously been a harmless prank.
At that moment someone else slammed their bowl down, except this time it was Yamainu, and it was his bowl of miso soup that had gone down while his rice bowl was empty. He had a slightly blue look in the face and seemed as if he was about to gag or throw up.
"Excuse me," he muttered as he quickly got up and bolted outside. Everyone had a concerned look on their faces, especially the twins who looked at their untouched bowls of soup as if they would get up and attack them. Kyouri also excused herself and went out to see if Yamainu was all right. She found him outside, hunched over the edge of the walkway and breathing deeply.
"Don't eat it," he gasped as she approached him. "I… I've never… I've never smelled anything so… foul." Perspiration mounted on Kyouri's forehead. Yamainu's hunches on food always seemed to be painfully correct.
"Aww, it couldn't have been that bad, could it?" she asked with cheerful apprehension. He gave her a look as if she was crazy.
"I don't see how any of those people are still alive," he said grimly. "Especially that red headed swordsman." Kyouri felt her stomach give an uncomfortable flip.
"Well," Kyouri sighed, scratching her chin. "We can't do much about it, I guess we just have to bear it." Yamainu groaned as the blue creeped back into his face.
"You go," he said, "I just need… a moment…" Kyouri cast him an apprehensive look before turning and going back to the table.
Kyouri entered just as Sachi and Shousei had finished making up an elaborate excuse to not eat their soup. Kaoru seemed slightly put out, but she quickly recovered.
"Kenshin!" she exclaimed happily. "You're all finished with yours! Would you like some more?" Kyouri watched as Kenshin's eyes bugged out again and he began explaining nervously that he was really too full to eat another bite, but soon became more preoccupied with her own soup. She eyed it nervously, ways of getting rid of it going through her mind, but none plausible enough.
Kyouri glanced at Sano out of the corner of her eye and noticed he was wolfing down his soup as fast as he could. Could he really like it that much??
Then she saw the fierce look of application on his face, and realized he was concentrating on passing it down his throat without tasting it, a skill that had probably taken a while to develop. He finished and put his bowl down on the table, then leaned back and hung his head as he clutched his stomach. No one noticed, as they were all busy getting rid of their own portions.
Well… he had been eating this stuff for a long time, right? And he had come up with a way to pass the stuff without even tasting it, although the effects it would have on his stomach were unknown.
So, a little more wouldn't hurt, right?
With speed rivaling Kenshin's, Kyouri switched her bowl with Sanosuke's before anyone (except perhaps said red-head) could notice.
When Sano sat back up and looked down, there was a full bowl of lukewarm, potentially poisonous, soup waiting for him. He grimaced at it, thinking the bowl must be possessed with some freaky voodoo to refill itself. Then he noticed the empty bowl in the seat besides him.
He glared at Kyouri, then at his bowl, then at Kyouri some more. She, however, just looked up at him with innocent reproach, as if wondering what all the filthy looks coming her way were for. He kept glaring at her, but her expression didn't change.
With a heavy sigh and a final glare at her, he picked up the bowl and began eating.
Just then Yamainu resumed his place at the table, his face set with new found resolution. He picked up the bowl of soup and began wolfing it down in a similar fashion to Sanosuke. After a few minutes he finished and put his bowl down on the table, looking satisfied with himself for conquering the roth, even if he was a pasty white tinged with green.
"Well!" Kaoru said cheerfully as she picked up the spoon. "Does anyone want seconds?"
"No!" everyone exclaimed at the same time, perhaps a little too eagerly.
"We'd better get started on cleaning the dojo, right guys?" Kyouri said hastily as she got up.
"Right! Can't keep putting it off!" Sachi said as she got up too, along with her sister.
"I think… I need to use the bathroom," Yamainu said as he got up and bolted out of the room for the second time.
"This one has to finish the laundry!" Kenshin squeaked as he got up and ran out the room.
"Gotta practice!" Yahiko blurted as he got up and disappeared. Sano was the only one left, and he cast Kaoru a nervous look as she picked up the spoon.
"Gotta… do stuff!" he exclaimed as he got up and left before she could say anything. Kaoru was left holding up the spoon dumbly.
"I guess, I'll just have to give this to the clinic, I'm sure some of their patients could use a good meal!" she said cheerfully as she closed the lid on the pot.
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"Okay, so, Kenshin, what is there to do around here?" Kyouri asked as everyone that had escaped the wrath of seconds stood in the yard (Yamainu's stomach was still acting funny, but he was sucking it up, and Sanosuke seemed to have built up an immunity to it).
"Well, there's the walkways that need to be cleaned, the practice hall, the pathways that need to be swept, dinner that needs to be cooked before Kaoru, and the laundry," he said, listing each thing off his fingers.
"All righty then," Kyouri said. "Shousei and Sachi can do the walkways and practice halls, Yami can do the sweeping and yard work, and I can make dinner and do the laundry."
"Wait," Kenshin said, "This one can do the laundry."
"Oh, it's okay, Kenshin," Kyouri replied cheerfully. "We're supposed to do all the work, you can just take the day off!"
"No, you don't understand," Kenshin replied, his voice losing some of its bounciness and his eyes flashing gold, "I'm going to do the laundry."
"Oookaay," Kyouri said, her eyes slightly wide and looking nervous. "Kenshin can do the laundry, and I'll just make dinner!"
"All right," Kenshin replied, back in his happy mode. Then he skipped off to the laundry tub happily, drawing strange looks from the group.
"Um, right," Kyouri said. Then she looked up at Sano. "What about you, Sano?"
"What about me what?" Sano asked, knitting his eyebrows.
"You just got a free lunch, are you gonna do anything?"
"Hmm…" Sano thought for a second. "Nope."
"Anything?"
"No, I think you've got it all covered."
"Kyouri," Yahiko said. "The day Sano starts working for his meals is the day Kenshin goes on a killing rampage with is laundry tub."
"Oh really?" Kyouri said, looking at Sano. "Does that mean you've never done anything to thank Kaoru-chan for all the free meals?"
"Well…" he began, but he trailed off as he avoided Kyouri's gaze. So much for the hard worker she knew ten years ago. Living on his own without Katsu or herself bossing him around must've made him slack off a little too much.
"Sano, you're gonna help Kenshin with the laundry," Kyouri said.
"What? No way!"
"Yes way, you've been freeloading long enough."
"You don't understand, it's just the way things are around here. Kaoru's always a horrible cook, Yahiko's always complaining about her cooking, Kenshin never says anything, and I eat without complaining (too much) and I don't have to pay. You'll upset the balance if you make me work."
"Sanosuke," Kyouri hissed, using the glare that Yamainu was all too familiar with, although he was rather pleased to see it being used on someone else for a change. "You are going to help Kenshin."
"No, I am not," he glared back. They glared at each other for a while, no one saying anything as they waited to see who would come out as victor.
"Right, let's go." And without a second of hesitation Kyouri walked behind Sanosuke, grabbed the loose ends of his headband, and began pulling him away.
"Hey! What the…? Leggo!" Sano began to try and walk the other way, but found she was remarkably strong and he couldn't get his headband out of her death grip. He also couldn't slip out of the headband since she was shorter than him and pulling his head down.
"He should know that no amount of fidgeting will call for mercy from the Noneko," Yamainu said as they watched him being dragged away around the corner. Sanosuke tried to grab onto the corner and succeeded in staying in one spot for a few seconds, but was soon dragged down, deeper and deeper so even his wails of complaint began to fade. Yamainu couldn't help hide the look of amusement he had on his face as Sanosuke's cries ominously ended abruptly. "Sounds like she got him." The twins shivered with fear and Yahiko's eyes were uncharacteristically wide with horror.
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"I don't believe it."
"This one has never seen such a strange sight, even during the Bakumatsu."
"Does this mean Kenshin's gonna start whacking people over the head with his laundry bucket?" Kenshin and Kaoru gave Yahiko a funny look. "What?"
"Kyouri can truly create the impossible."
A vein throbbed on Sanosuke's head as he listened to their conversation. This wasn't that amazing.
"I can hear you, you know?" he muttered angrily as he cast the three a filthy look.
Kenshin, Kaoru, and Yahiko didn't seem willing to leave any time soon, as if waiting for the sky to fall or something else incredible to happen.
"When are you gonna leave me alone so I can finish this?" Sano asked as he roughly slipped a sleeping kimono onto the pole. He still had a whole pile of wet laundry to hang up before he finished.
"When Kenshin sprouts wings and flies away," Yahiko grinned. Sano shot him another filthy look as he shoved another sleeping kimono on the pole.
"Be gentle!" Kenshin exclaimed. "This one worked hard on that laundry!" At that moment Sano fumbled and a towel fell onto the ground.
"Oops," he muttered as he looked at it.
"Sano…" Kenshin hissed, his eyes slightly golden.
"Sorry, sorry! I've got it, Kenshin, see?" Sano said hastily as he picked up the towel and dusted it off, then hung it on the pole with uneasy gentleness.
"Well, we'd better get started on our practice, Yahiko," Kaoru said as she rested her shinai on her shoulder and began walking away.
"All right, busu," Yahiko sighed as he followed her. Kenshin listened as Kaoru yelled at her student and their argument faded into the background.
"We still have a long way to go, Sano," Kenshin said cheerfully as he went back to his laundry bucket and began to scrub.
"Y'mean there's more?!" Sano exclaimed.
"Of course," Kenshin replied simply with his usual smile. Sano groaned loudly as he continued to hang the various clothes items. Kyouri, I'll get you back for this, he thought grumpily. Then a vision of her scary face flickered through his mind, making him shudder. Okay, I'll let you go this time…But just… this. time.
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-Note: I kinda had fun writing this chapter, I actually enjoyed it a lot than the last one. I've never actually put my mind to writing anything deliberately funny… Hm, did it work?
(-SIGH!!-) These chapters are really taking a lot out of me. Argh, two things I have problems with: embarrassing moments and easy, happy-bouncy, laid back moments. Incredibly, I had both in the last two chapters. I do a lot better in tense situations and stuff. Okay, no more complaining.
Reviewer Responses:
WhiteRabbit5: Oh… Trust me when I say I really wasn't trying to make it seem like he was a "swooning schoolboy." I was trying to show that he was more surprised about her choice of clothes and long hair, not really that he was gaping at her for "those" reasons. I guess I'm trying to show that they're both in this mindset about each other from ten years ago, and that they don't really know each other yet in the present. I'll try to elaborate more on it later, and I hope this chapter helped a little with that. Ah, well, I have such a specific mental image about her that I really wanted to convey to the reader, and what better way than to have Sano describe it, ne? …Guess not, thanks for the advice, I'll definitely keep it in mind for future stories! NO!! I missed a grammar mistake?! WAH! My life is a lie! Thanks for pointing that out, seriously, I try so hard to keep my writing grammatically correct (for the most part), but I guess I'm no English teacher (-sigh-).
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I'm hoping to get back in my comfort zone soon (high tension situations), and I hope that whoever's reading this sticks around. But, if you are reading this, then leave a review!
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Please please review!
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