Chapter 11: Pale Moons and Dull Blues Pt 2: Dull Blues

The sun shown through the cream colored rice paper of the shoji. It cast rays upon the two figures sleeping figures...

Kenshin felt himself withdrawing from sleep's sweet surrender. This of itself was odd. Usually his nights sleep ended with a particularly gruesome battle and spirits of certainly dead soldiers tearing him limb from limb...

His arm unconsciously tugged the warmth at his side closer. His grip loosened on his saya as he tugged the shawl closer in an attempt for more warmth.The sword fell with a metallic "ching" forcing Kenshin to open his eyes. His gaze fell to the futon that still lay open but, unused. Kaoru snuggled farther into his side making him very aware of her presence. She tugged at the shawl seeking more of it's warmth herself.

Kenshin did his best to untangle their limbs without waking Kaoru. Having succeeded, he picked up...Tomoe's shawl... he fingered the worn blue material and with a bit of hesitation wrapped it around Kaoru's sleeping form.

He snuck out of the room to go make breakfast before there was a repeat performance of yesterday morning.


Kaoru awoke to the smell of miso boiling on the stove. Damn I fell asleep in the kitchen... I think maybe I should wake up to check the miso... She stood up in her half daze and started to pad in the general direction of the smell only to run into shoji. ...nani?...

Shaking her head to clear sleep's cobwebs, she opened her eyes fully and glanced about the room. What is this doing on the floor? She picked up the shawl, folded it neatly and tucked it in her obi for safekeeping. She then headed toward the pleasing smell of miso wafting from the hallway.


Kenshin stood in the kitchen absently cutting the tofu for the miso and tried to keep his thoughts away from Kaoru and his own damn advice. Shishou told me that my prying into the affairs of others would would only result in my own exploitation... It's funny that he told me that about going to go to war and here I am applying it to Kaoru...Tomoe wrote the same thing in her journal... she told me that she wanted me to be happy... What the hell does that mean?...It means she wants you to be happy. Plain and simple.... Conscious from hell...I'm the conscious from hell. Look who's talking... At least I actually do something to help. You just sit there and bug the living daylights out of me...The same could be said of you. Maybe we're alike in more ways then you care to think about... We are not alike! I'm a cold, blooded killer and you're a little runt who just likes to...

"Kenshin?" Kaoru just watched as he seemed to be warring with himself. His knife had paused in the path toward the tofu. The wood handled knife appeared to be cracking in his white knuckled grip.

"Kenshin, daijoubu ka?" The question hung uncertainly in the cool morning air. Despite the fact that she didn't have ki sensing abilities, the tension coming off Kenshin was grating on her nerves.

"Hai." his response was an inaudible sigh.

Kaoru let out a breath that she wasn't aware she was holding in the first place. Kenshin just resumed his chopping of the tofu as if nothing had happened.

"Do you want me to set up the table?"

"Hai, if you could Kaoru-dono."


Breakfast passed normally. Well, as normally as a meal with an awkward silence hanging through out the entire affair could. The day continued the same way yesterday would have. Kenshin sitting, scrubbing at the laundry and Kaoru unpacking her belongings and hanging her few new kimonos up in the closet they shared. Her hands lingered on the soft silk of the lavender kimono. Before, he hastily hung it up behind the more boldly colored articles. Nary a word passed between the two. Not even with the sudden appearance of the Gensai's did the silence between the two lessen...

Kaoru sat down heavily on the porch when the bell at the gate rang. Its happy chime seeming to sink Kaoru farther into her depression. Kenshin didn't stir at all from his kneeling position in the garden as it rang, so Kaoru assumed that she had to go get the door.

Stomping to the gate, she gave it a harsh tug to open it. Her scowl disappearing with the appearance of the two bouncing toddlers.

"Kao-nee! Me wanna play!"

"Yeah, play!"

The two looked at her with doe eyes. Her heart broke at seeing the happy and giggling Ayame and Suzume. It seems like something like it simply wasn't meant to be... How could i have been so stupid to expect something like that from a hitokiri? I don't even know if I love him... her musings were cut short when she felt two little hands pulling her toward the kitchen.

"Kaoru-chan, I'll be at clinic if you need me. Ayame and Suzume be good for Kaoru-chan and Himura-kun! I'll be around at dinner to pick them up!" Gensai-sensei called from the door.

"Hai, Gensai-sens..." Kaoru's response was cut off as the two giggling girls led Kaoru into house.

"Himura-san?"

"Hai, sensei?"

"Watch her, Battousai. She means more to your enemies then you may think."

Kenshin started at the old man's mention of the epithet. "Demo, I..." he paused, "hai, sensei."

"Your a good person Himura-san. I'll trust you with her safety."

"Gensai-sensei, why do you trust me?"

"Because Ayame and Suzume do! Take care Himura-san!" With that he closed the door.

Kenshin just went back to weeding the garden. His own thoughts twisting even farther.


Kaoru sighed as she watched the two playing with the rice. They seem so happy and carefree. I wonder what happened to me to make myself so bitter? I was like this once. Maybe I'll be like this again... but now...

"Kao-nee is sad!"

"Yeah, Kao-nee sad!"

Ayame's face scrunched up in concentration. Suzume just watched her elder sibling with great confusion written all over her chubby face.

"Ayame knows what to do!"

"Yeah, Ayame knows!"

"Kao-nee will go play with Ken-nii! Ken-nii makes everything better!"

"Yeah!"

Kaoru just watched the two girls come up with their miraculous cure for "Kao-nee." Kaoru let herself be led to Kenshin who was still in the garden weeding the far end. Kenshin appeared to be pointedly ignoring their approach and continued to bring the garden within an inch of its life.

"Ken-nii?" He looked up with his customary smile at the little girl.

"Hai, Ayame-chan?"

"Make Kao-nee feel better!" Ayame commanded, "Kao-nee is sad!"

"Ayame-chan and Suzume-chan can you guys be good girls while Ken-nii fixes Kao-nee?" He stood up dusting off his hands on his hakama.

A loud chorus of "hai!" came from the two sisters and they sat in mud effectively turning their kimonos brown.

Kenshin took Kaoru's elbow and led her around to the back of the furo.

"Kaoru-dono, daijoubu?"

"I should be the one asking that question."

"Kaoru-dono, if I've done anything..."

"Kenshin what was wrong this morning?"

"...this one was just thinking..." his bangs dropped to cover his eyes and his fingers seemed to be playing with the cuffs of his sleeves.

"About what?" She knew Kenshin was simply being evasive. She should have known that he would be just as good at dodging words as he was at dodging katanas.

"Just about what you told me last night..."

"What about last night?"

"You told me to quit hiding... What if I'm not? What if this was actually a part of who I am? I think we moved too quickly."

"What do you mean? All we did was kiss..." Kaoru blushed at her own statement. She had just made it more than obvious that she expected something out of the relationship...

Kenshin didn't how he was going to tell her this... Ever since last night he felt like he was warring with himself. How can I tell a girl everything... when I don't even know her?

"Kaoru-dono... I don't think that we should have gotten involved with each other."

Kaoru's eyes widened in shock, then narrowed in anger, then glazed over in confusion. Kenshin just watched the myriad of emotions play across her expressive eyes and face. He knew this would hurt her. He knew that she would hate him. They say that you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But, what about lovers? What about the ones who are the closest to your heart? Do you push them away? Do you forget about them? Was that what Tomoe was saying? Did she want me to push my memory her away? Is that what she meant?

Kenshin was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't realize that Kaoru had taken a step closer.

Kaoru slapped Kenshin.

She slapped him for using her and then throwing her away. She slapped him for fixing her and then shredding her into ribbons. She slapped him because he did the one thing that even the death of her parents couldn't do. He broke her heart.

Kenshin's head turned to the side with the force of the slap. He slowly turned back to look at the teary eyed young women in front of him. His arm slowly found it's way around her waist. Her eyes widened as a sharp tug brought her straight into him.

Kenshin kissed her. He kissed her slowly to prove that even though she hates him, he will always love her. He did it mainly for himself. He did it to convince himself that he really was doing the right thing in pushing her as far away as possible.


The weeding got done and dinner was being prepared. Up till this point Kenshin had been doing his best to forget that Kaoru had not comeback from her "walk". He forgot by keeping his mind occupied with more trivial pursuits such as the weeding, the laundry, cooking a meal for a wife he wasn't sure was going to return...

The Gensai sisters disappeared when Gensai-sensei came by just before Kenshin started to make dinner.

The suns fading orange rays as the gate closed behind the departing trio had Kenshin just a tad worried. Okay he wasn't just a tad worried, he was really worried. That didn't stop him from making dinner though. The wooden dishes were laid out and filled. Their covers put on top. He went back to his room and brought out a straw hat from his still packed trunk. His hands absently picked out loose thread and tied the 2 loose leather threads together to hide his face and hair. It never occurred to him that nobody here would actually recognize him.

Finally ready his went out into night. Not to notice that he had forgotten a simple purple shawl to guard against the evening's chill.


The search was a fruitless waste of time. I should have known I wouldn't be able to find her. Being a hitokiri doesn't mean that you are guaranteed to find the girl. That too in her home town... Shishou had a word for this... he called me a "baka" and the more that I think about, he was right. Sighing out of frustration, he headed to the dojo. The one place that perhaps he could work out his irritation with his own uselessness. Looking for her, he decided, would be a waste of both time and energy.

He slid the shoji of the dojo open, and began his walk to the center. When his nose picked an alien, coppery scent...blood.

He turned toward the source only to see several plaques hanging from the dojo walls each lovingly inscribed with the word "Jinchuu" in crimson ink. From Kaoru's place there hung a partially blue ribbon which led small red rivers down the pale white wall...


Author's Notes: Don't kill meeeeee! I haven't updated in like five whole weeks... and then I leave a cliffy! I won't update for another 3 weeks if I don't get 5 or more reviews! The lack of reviews I get really bums me out...

Disclaimer: I do not own RK. It and and all it's characters belong to Watsuki-san!

Read This!

I'm going to start a new story when this one is over! I want people to vote on which one so I'm going to put up. Please vote by either sending me an e-mail or putting your vote in a review. Here are the 4 choices:

Kei: Thrown into the future, Kenshin finds himself in the country he worked so hard to build. Kaoru an agent of Chronos has a job to do: Send Himura the Battousai back to the past. But, what she finds is a man fighting for his life between 2 rival gangs on the streets of Tokyo. KK traditional pairings.Alt-Universe

Fragile: Thought to be Immortal. Known to be a Monster. Said to be the Devil. The Battousai is all but fragile. One girl proves to him otherwise. Songfic BK traditional pairings

It's not me, It's you: Kenshin Himura is the most wanted guy in school. The only problem is he can't seem to hold onto any girl longer than 2 weeks. They always throw themselves at him, then they break it with him. Leaving him the most confused boy in the universe. Their favorite break up line: It's not me, It's you. Songfic KK traditional pairings Alt-Universe

The Hackley School: The Hackley School is known all around the country for its excellence in both academics and athletics. Kenshin is a shy new senior. Kaoru a hotheaded junior. Together they discover the mystery behind the schools haunted history.KK traditional pairings Alt-Universe (Hackley is a real place people!)

Voting Ends when this fic ends! Please Vote!

The Votes So Far are...

Kei: 4 votes

Fragile: 3 votes

It's Not me, It's you: 1 vote

The Hackley School: 3 votes

Japanese to English Glossary

kei-criminal punishment (I was wrong but... I'm still keeping the title.)

jinchuu-earthly justice

sensei- honorific given to doctors and teachers

chan- little

san- Mr., Mrs, Ms,

kun- endearment of sorts given from elders to youngsters

nii- shortened kiddie version of "oniisan" or brother

nee-shortened kiddie version of "oneesan" or sister

shoji- rice paper door

baka-idiot

shishou-master

daijoubu- are you okay?

dono- honorific like -san only more formal

furo-bath house

hai-yes

iie-no

ki-spirit/aura

nani- what

THANKS FOR ALL THE REVIEWS!

REVIEW PEOPLE! I LIKE COMMENTS AND CRITICISM! PLEASE VOTE TOO!