this irrational, imaginary wound

Wife. He had been married.

Of course. Of course! It made so much sense now. There was something about Kenshin that she couldn't quite understand. She knew that she could never really know Kenshin – not unless he allowed it, but he had been staying long enough at the dojo for her to at least know some truths about him. The rest, she had just assumed, based on what little she knew about the Hitokiri's past. Half-uttered, unfinished stories she'd heard from Aoshi, Saito, even Hiko. All of those, pieces of the puzzle that was Himura Kenshin. Rurouni. Ex-Hitokiri.

Kenshin had very few unguarded moments, and very rarely would she ever catch a glimpse of the depth of his sadness, his regret and now, everything clicked. She understood him now.

And as this revelation slowly sunk in, she felt a tiny hole inside her chest slowly opening up. Something vital seeping out. She fought the urge to place her hand against this irrational, imaginary wound. She felt eyes glancing at her, waiting, watching for any violent reaction from her part. She swallowed slowly, feeling her cheeks flush with embarrassment. Were they expecting that she'd pull out her bokken from somewhere and hit Kenshin in the head, screeching, "you were what?!", effectively stopping him from telling them more.

She could've. It would have effectively stopped him from breaking her heart. At least give her a few minutes alone to scream into her pillow at how foolishly she had imagined life with Kenshin at the dojo, with little red haired children running around, leaving dirty trails on the floor that Yahiko had just cleaned. They'd be a great team. Her and her red-haired children, fighting off Yahiko and his endless teasing and Kenshin, her sweet, sweet gentle husband would be watching them, quietly laughing into his gi.

And now that she knows the truth, she was horrified at how silly, how girlishly silly she had been.

As Kenshin continued his story, she could feel more and more eyes quickly darting towards her. Did they think (Megumi, in particular – she felt her stare, so distinctly feminine, boring into the side of her head) that since she hadn't brandished her bokken, she'd suddenly burst out crying instead?

She felt like doing both, actually. But she couldn't. Not in front of Kenshin. Not when he was finally telling them his story. He was now letting them all in – at the expense of her heart, unfortunately, but still, Kenshin was baring himself to them, something that was obviously taking a lot from him.

She could only guess how badly Kenshin wanted to flee this moment; she could sense it in the halting way he continued with the story – he and Tomoe-san now living together – and so Kaoru set aside whatever she was feeling. She folded it over and over, until it got smaller and smaller and she could conveniently tuck it away, hidden even from her. She could go back to that tiny little thing as soon as she had locked herself inside her room. She'd slowly open it up and wallow and drown in it.

Thankfully, she was good at this; she had a whole year of practice. This was how she survived her father's death. This was how she survived being a young girl teaching martial arts – prone to people judging her and thinking all sorts of things about her, about the inappropriate way she had chosen to live her life, how she had opened up her home to strangers, stragglers and orphaned boys and how she had tried to make a family out of it. So instead of blindly grabbing her bokken, she settled with pretending to not be surprised with the fact that Kenshin had been married. She concentrated on keeping her back straight, her breathing even, her hands resting on her thighs, primly clasped together. She kept her face completely expressionless, her facial muscles immobile. Frozen. Nothing. Not even a twitch of her eyebrows.

That she was still sitting down and not trashing the dojo seemed to convince her friends that she wasn't going to start acting all heartbroken and crazy. Kenshin wasn't the only one who can hide behind his masks. For a moment, Kaoru felt bitterly triumphant that she was capable of hiding her feelings too. This thought didn't last though. She felt guilty. She wondered how Kenshin could cope with such emotions everyday: keeping up his smiling, clueless, innocent rurouni façade, when on the inside, he was probably constantly battling his demons. His sadness and regrets. Those were awful monsters to deal with.

Kaoru wanted to reach over and hug Kenshin, tell him it was ok, but she wasn't sure if Kenshin would welcome her intrusion. He might be telling them about his past, but he sat there like he had an imaginary wall around him. He was there, his voice was strong and clear but he also wasn't there. He was far away from them. It was possible he was back in that very moment he was telling them about.

So she kept silent, calm on the outside, hiding a storm of emotion inside. She listened patiently, with an open heart, taking everything in, even when he had come to the horrible part when Kenshin had accidentally killed Tomoe-san. Even when it became more and more obvious how his whole world had been his wife and how he had devoted his remaining life trying live as someone worthy of Tomoe-san.

It felt like tiny little daggers were being thrown inside her chest. Kunais. A thousand kunais landing on their mark. It was so obvious: Kenshin loved Tomoe-san so much he had spent ten years mourning her.

All these, impossible as it may sound, made her feelings for Kenshin even stronger. She admired his loyalty. She appreciated how he loved. Too bad it wasn't for her though.


She wondered if Gensai-sensei had something to make her sleep. Sleep would be wonderful. It would be a welcome respite from all the many thousands of thoughts running inside her head. They were countless, relentlessly branching out to more thoughts. Thoughts giving birth to more thoughts – these ideas, these wishful thinking, these many dream-like reimagining of Kenshin and his life with Tomoe-san, the woman who had captured Battousai's heart, who had held it on the palm of her hand, the woman whose existence may have even changed the course of history. If Kenshin had not met Tomoe, if he had not found peace with her – how different would their world be?

Impossible thoughts. More impossible to suppress them.

She wanted to go wandering around the house. Walking always cleared her thoughts but she decided not to indulge herself. The last thing Kenshin – or anyone in the dojo – needed was to listen to her trampling around the house. She would have to stay in her room, stay still, stay silent and hopefully fall asleep.

She had expected sleep to come easily. Months after her father had died, she discovered that she could fall asleep quicker if she cried until tears no longer came. Her eyes would become so heavy, drenched in tears, her heart a dead weight filled with sorrow, all she had to do was close her eyes and she'd slip away into darkness. Into unfeelingness.

She had gone back to her room after they had discussed their plans for tomorrow – which was pretty much nothing. They had no choice – or at least Kenshin sees it as that – but to wait for Enishi and face him head on. Finish his jinchuu once and for all. Kenshin didn't want anyone to leave. And no one wanted to leave anyway. She waited until everyone had said their goodnights and had stepped out of the room until it was just her and Kenshin and she silently berated herself for not having had the sense to go with Megumi.

They sat there for a whole minute of silence. She kept glancing at Kenshin, who kept glancing back at her and their glances were startling them both and it was pretty stupid so Kaoru finally decided to end her stupidity and asked Kenshin if he needed anything else because she was feeling pretty beat up (which isn't exactly a lie: she feels like a tender bruise) and she would like to get some sleep.

"I am fine, de gozaru. Please don't worry about me. And it's already late, so you should really go to sleep Kaoru-dono, that you should." In his same usual tone, as though they had just finished having a normal conversation about tofu.

That rankled Kaoru and she forgot that she was feeling sorry for him. She narrowed her eyes at him, "Well don't go patrolling the whole dojo all night, ok Kenshin?" she told him as sternly as she could, certain that it's exactly what Kenshin was going to do. His quickly mumbled "oro" confirmed it.

Kaoru narrowed her eyes even more until they were tiny little slits, she could barely see Kenshin and she was sure she looked really silly and not at all woman-like, or marriage-material-like or… and that was when the barrage of thoughts started bamboozling their way inside her head, so she quickly mumbled her goodnight before throwing one last, "you should get some sleep too!" and then scampering off to her room where upon closing the door, she had shoved her whole fist inside her mouth to stop herself from screaming. Or maybe whimpering. She wasn't sure which. Because the tears just suddenly flowed and that little flap of emotion she had patiently folded earlier, completely without warning, opened up and swallowed her whole.


Kaoru didn't know how long she had been crying all she knew that it wasn't helping. She was wide awake, hyper aware of her feelings. Of Kenshin's feelings. Which wasn't much, at least when it came to her.

Kaoru grimaced at the thought.

What was she doing?! What was this?! Why was she feeling sorry for herself all of a sudden? This is such – this is such a selfish reaction!

She sat up, tossed her blanket away from her body and furiously rubbed at her eyes. Very rarely was she ever angry with herself. Why should she? She was perfectly fine. She was a young, upstanding citizen of this country. She had a dojo she was running on her own – a little short on students at the moment, yes, but things are bound to pick up soon. She was a responsible adult. A woman who didn't have to answer to anyone. She was a good fighter. Maybe not the best yet, but soon enough, with more practice, she might be able to successfully thwack Kenshin in the head without him knowing it even before she had raised her arms. And not to brag and all, but a lot of good people cared about her, it isn't just the Kenshin-gumi. She had Tae-san and Tsubame-chan, Gensai-sensei, everyone at The Chuuetsu school Maekawa Dojo liked and respected her. She always tried to be honest and kind and mindful of everyone's feelings and circumstances. Those were all good qualities. Those were the things her father had told her to always remember.

How could she have forgotten about that? She was the daughter of Koshijiro Kamiya. She should not be selling herself short. She refused to be the kind of person who pitied themselves. She was proud of who she is and everything that she had accomplished.

Also, she didn't personally know Tomoe-san. Comparing herself to Kenshin's wife was not only pointless, it was also… hurtful.

Kaoru gradually stopped feeling sorry for herself. This wasn't like her at all. She should start acting like an adult because, Jinchuu is coming and they better be prepared for it. Crying like a little broken hearted girl isn't going to help anyone.

So what if Kenshin had been married? So what if he had loved someone else? That was all part of the past and everything that had happened to Kenshin, both good and bad, had shaped Kenshin into the man that he was now. Kind and gentle and caring and honorable and brave and quiet and introspective and silly and she could go on and on. And she loved that about Kenshin. That was one of the reason why she had felt an absolute certainty that Kenshin was the kind of man her own father would admire and respect. The kind of man her father would have wanted for her to grow old with, to build a life, a family… a legacy with.

She hadn't expected to develop feelings towards the rurounin. He wasn't even her type. Seriously. When she was younger she had looked up to her father and how strong and sturdy he had been. That was what she had thought were attractive qualities. And then came Sano and that pretty much ruined tall, dark, strong and sturdy for her.

And anyway, Kenshin was older than her, even though unfairly, he looked nothing like his real age. Still, her first impression of him had not been at all romantic. She had immediately sensed how lost and wounded and tired he was. There was something about him that seemed broken – not visibly, not at first glance anyway. But the longer he had stayed at the dojo, the stronger her feelings of wanting to protect and take care of him grew. The thought of making him feel better, wanting him to smile more often, laugh louder had filled with her a sense of purpose. Nothing made her happier than helping people (see bunch of free loaders staying at the dojo). And at first, it really had been just that.

Everything had changed with that horrible man Udō Jin-e. When he had cast a spell on her that made her want to claw out her own throat just so she could breathe. Something had shifted between her and Kenshin that night. It could not have been just her because Kenshin had been willing to break his vow to save her. A vow he had made to his beloved dead wife.

Wife.

Kaoru hadn't understood that depths Kenshin's pain until tonight and she felt the same kind of ache in her chest when he had said good bye and left for Kyoto. It reminded her how she had realized, in between her sobs and the fireflies dancing around her, that she needed Kenshin. Needed him in ways that even she couldn't yet understand. And all she knew was that he was gone, he had left her and she was utterly lost. She couldn't imagine living a life without him by her side.

She had made quite a mess by falling in love with an older man who had a penchant for wandering. Kaoru didn't regret it. Not one bit. It was a good kind of mess.

And sometimes, she's certain that he felt something for her too. Something definitely not sister-like. Something that could change in time. That if she tended it with devotion, it will bloom into something stronger. All that Kenshin really needed was to realize that this is where he should be. Where he should stay, forever. With her. Always.

She wasn't the most patient person, but she had, to the best of her ability, waited for the anvil to finally drop on Kenshin's silly red head. Nothing of that sort had happened yet. Kyoto almost, almost pushed him towards that direction. And then this whole wife thing came crashing down on her and Kaoru momentarily felt like the anvil intended for Kenshin had floated towards her and whacked her soundly in the head.

That was probably shock, more than anything. Now that she had had the whole night to think about it, she realized that it wasn't really very complicated. He was married. He loved Tomoe-san. He can still love others too. Maybe not more – not in the same exact intensity but it would be a different kind of love. One that belonged to her. One that she would treasure and be thankful for.

And because of that, she was going to make sure that Enishi wouldn't ruin her future with Kenshin. If she had to knock some sense on that vengeful little cretin, she would do it. Her trusty bokken would be ready for him. Maybe she wouldn't try to be violent at first. After all, Enishi had lost someone dear to him. This was the whole point of his jinchuu, but all of them had lost someone important to them, and maybe all he needed was someone who understood his pain. She'd lost her father and her mother but she wasn't posting notes all over town announcing her wish for vengeance. If she could only make Enishi understand.

There has a way to let him know that it doesn't have to be like this, that blood spilled will never be the answer.

Kaoru closed her eyes, took a deep breath and cleared her mind. She will find a solution. She always has. Whatever adversary had plagued her, she had always found a way to overcome it. All she needed was to think, figure everything out and have some sort of plan. And then, everything will be alright.

- end -


Author's note:

Still something from way back. I have not written any new RK stuff which makes me sad.

Anyway, I hope Kaoru doesn't sound OOC. I've always felt that sometimes fans forget that's barely 18 in the manga. I think she's allowed to act and feel her age. Kaoru is my absolute favorite character and I think she's easily one of the most complex characters in the series especially taking into consideration the way she had been living her life before meeting Kenshin. I mean she's all raging tomboy and sunshine smiles but I think she's just as lonely as Kenshin at the beginning of the manga and that it had taken her a huge leap of faith welcoming strangers into her life. Ah my tanuki girl. I love her so much.