Ok! So I got to where I felt like it was a good stopping point. I needed something hopeful. Enishi seems to exist to torture himself and one of these times I needed to see him move past that at least a little bit. I can't imagine devoting my whole life to a revenge plot just to see it fail.

Thanks for sticking with this, I appreciate everyone in this tiny sliver of fandom.

Disclaimer: see part 1

Kaoru wiped sweat from the side of her face as she descended the stairs and wondered why she insisted on never taking the elevator when every bit of her body was exhausted after her three hour stint in the lecture hall. She had thought maybe at least keeping her blood flowing would keep all those facts stuffed in her brain, but as the weather changed from pleasant to sweltering in this old building Kaoru wondered if maybe she should just wait in line with the rest of her overheated class for her turn in the rickety elevator. It was already awkward being the oldest in the class, so she didn't want to spend an extra second with her 'peers' if she didn't have to.

Overall, she was grateful to slide into these summer pre-reqs considering they only came around once a year but those couple years she had on the rest of the class didn't compare to the difference in life experience and the discomfort was neverending. A few of them had jobs, part time, but none of them were paying a mortgage and at least half of them still had their car insurance paid for by a parent. It had been hard to find common ground with interests too, since Kaoru didn't follow popular music or internet memes and most of them weren't too into cooking shows.

But for once the material was really interesting. Kaoru went home to read ahead sometimes—unheard of when she was going through high school. It seemed like she had found her calling, even if teaching was trading physically demanding low wage work for mentally demanding moderate wage work. At least she'd have benefits and a retirement plan, likely. Her father had been a teacher, even if it was fencing and not K-12, and Kaoru wondered if maybe there was something in her genetics that fit with the profession.

Red faced from the heat, Kaoru dropped her book bag for a moment to drink deeply at the water fountain which was blessedly cold. It was tempting to splash it over her face, but she could see someone standing next to her and she didn't want to look any crazier than she had to in front of her classmates. At some point they were doing peer review of lesson plan designs and she didn't want to alienate anyone. Taking a deep breath and putting a professional server smile on her face, she stood up and told the gentleman he was welcome to the water when her words caught in her throat.

Enishi.

Here?

Angrily she pulled her book bag onto her shoulder. "Excuse me, I have somewhere I need to be," Kaoru tried to push past his tall form, clad in nostalgic white and blue athleisure, but he sidestepped into her path. Her words hissed out between her lips. "What is your problem?!"

He was the one who had ghosted her. Changed his number. Moved away. Six months ago she would have defended him to her best friends. Three months ago she would have punched him on sight. Right before her summer classes started she had a good cry and told herself that she needed to put even the memory of him behind her. Truly he was her bad penny, showing up when she least expected him to in moments she wasn't prepared for him.

"It occurred to me that my life, as it was, was unsustainable."

"Well woo-freakin'-hoo that you figured out how to start over or whatever then. I still have work to get to…" Kaoru stepped closer, expecting him to retreat to allow them some personal space but instead he wrapped his arms around her and leaned down to murmur into her ear.

"Your anger is warranted," He smelled expensive, and Kaoru remembered like a physical punch the way those arms had clutched her so desperately in the night. But instead of resting her forehead on his chest the way she wanted to, she glanced up at him as if her anger could shoot out of her eyes like a concussive force. "But I made the right decision."

"I'm sure you think you did. You probably think every decision you make is the right decision." That actually brought a smile to his lips, and Kaoru had to pull away and move past him before he could see how even a little smile like that made her resolve melt at the edges. She knew those lips, those fussy glasses, those sharp cheekbones, and she didn't hate him even a little bit which was the most enraging part of this encounter.

He didn't say anything else as she brushed past him, scrabbling to hold together her pride while her heart ached to go back and get answers. But it was when she looked behind her and he was following at a respectful but consistent distance that she sighed and turned around.

"Are you going to follow me to work?"

He pointed over to the parking lot beyond them. "There's only one lot next to the building."

She felt a little ashamed, staring at her tennis shoes and collecting her thoughts when her head shot up. "You didn't answer my question!"

Enishi shrugged, amusement sparking at her canniness. "You know I like the food there. I can't find anything like it near my college."

"Your college?" Kaoru had to literally shake her head as if clearing cobwebs from her mind. He was baiting her, enticing her with a detail he knew she would want to tease out from him. "Nope. Nevermind. The point is that you aren't planning to leave me alone, are you?" She wondered about how less than a year ago he had been obsessing over Kaoru 'following' him and how here he was unashamedly doing the same to her. "Don't you understand how hard it is to come back from what you did? How could I possibly ever trust you? Stalking me isn't the answer."

There were no smirks for her now, instead Enishi pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses and then sighed and withdrew an envelope from the pocket of his pants. It looked a little wrinkled, like it had been clutched more than once before, and he handed it out to her.

"I can order for pick up before your shift." When Kaoru made no move to open it in front of him, he gave her a piercing look from head to toe as if memorizing her in the moment: red faced, messy ponytail, lopsided posture from carrying heavy books, in a ratty t-shirt and jeans. There was no indication on his face of what he felt, except a persistent intensity that told Kaoru he wanted to pick up where they left off. "I'll be leaving town the day after tomorrow. Before you continue to believe the worst, consider for a moment what staying would have meant. All of it."

This time Enishi walked ahead, making his way to the parking lot where Kaoru watched him get into a nondescript black car and drive away. He hadn't been lying about the parking lot, but then again he was more a lie by omission kind of guy. And the view from behind as he made his way to his car had been pleasant as always.

With a snort Kaoru tore open the envelope with more than a little force and out of it fell a plastic hotel key. There was a frozen moment of rage as she wondered what kind of girl Enishi thought she was, when she noted there was more than just a proposition in this envelope—other than the hotel key there was a piece of paper and two plane tickets. The plane tickets, business class, were for a date after her summer classes had concluded but before her fall classes would begin. The folded paper was on the hotel stationary for the same place as the key, and on it was written an address and a phone number. No sappy proclamations, no promises, no apologies.

Kaoru needed to make some calls.

"Don't you dare do it! You barely know this guy, you dated him for no time at all, and now he's not even groveling?! Kick him to the curb and tell him to shove his plane tickets up his ass!" Misao, during Kaoru's first break of the evening at the restaurant, had yelled her advice so loudly into the phone that Kaoru had to hold it away from her ear. It was still light out in the alleyway because of the long summer day, but humid from the kitchens at her back in a way that made Kaoru feel even less patient than usual with her boisterous friend.

In Enishi's long and sudden absence Kaoru had come clean about most of their association (at least about how he had been her stats tutor not her boyfriend, but that the relationship had gotten complicated). After confusion from Misao that she would hide something like that and suspicion from Megumi that that was in fact the full story, they had simply gotten used to periodic calls from Kaoru lamenting sleeping with him.

"Look, I didn't expect him to grovel. It's not like he proposed." Kaoru mumbled into the phone, not actually prepared for the level of anger that Misao was storing for a man she had never really met. Maybe Soujirou had told her he wasn't the kind of guy Kaoru should mix with and that would have been enough for her. Plus, the wedding was a few months away and Misao had been ramping up in both stress and excitement.

"My desire to see you nail his dick to a wall aside, that guy is dangerous. It's a good thing that he vaporized from your life. You should see if you can get a cash refund for the plane tickets and call it a day."

Kaoru snorted a laugh and tried to fan herself with a small piece of cardboard she had found on a pile of empty crates near the door. "Maybe if you hadn't picked out the most ridiculous bridesmaid dress I wouldn't need illicit ticket money so badly."

"You'll be gorgeous! Marigold looks great on you."

They had had this argument so many times that Kaoru's response was robotic. "It's yellow velvet, Misao. Yellow. I'm going to look like a couch."

"Marigold really pops and it will work great with all the fall colors. You'll look amazing."

In a way Kaoru supposed she was lucky that Misao hadn't picked the avocado option of the same dress, as the only thing worse than yellow with Kaoru's complexion was greenish-yellow. The sales person at the bridal salon had seen Misao march in with dollar signs dripping off of her and practically fell over herself spinning a tale of her bridesmaids following her like leaves drifting off the tree in autumn. And now Kaoru was paying installments on an ugly dress and some heeled red shoes she knew were going to give her blisters. Misao swore up and down that it was going to be the best party ever so Kaoru swallowed her misgivings for the most part and forked over the money with a smile. There had only been one blow up when they had stayed up all night together gluing crystals onto invitations to give them 'that special extra something' and Kaoru had overturned a small fortune in Swarovski onto the carpet accidentally when she had been reaching for her beer.

Megumi was always too busy for arts and crafts, maybe Kaoru should have taken a page from her book. Then again, Megumi guarded her private time closely and Kaoru wasn't good at saying no like that to friends even when her life was consumed by work and school now. Maybe Megumi would have been a better person to call about something like this. Misao was too high strung, too polarized, and her first reaction was always to attack a problem instead of think about it. Kaoru like to attack problems as well, and maybe that was the problem.

Think about what staying would have meant. Enishi's words had stuck with her on the drive to work in her alarmingly sputtering but mostly now functional car.

"Hey look, my break is almost up, we'll talk later ok?"

Misao vibrated with worry from miles away. "Don't do what I think you're going to do. He's not a hungry stray that needs a meal and a pat on the head, he's a gangster."

"Come on, have a little faith in me! I know what I need to do. Bye!"

Kaoru did not in fact know what she needed to do. All she could think of as she discarded her makeshift fan back on top of the crates and walked through the hot kitchen was how Enishi's life's work had fallen apart around his ears and that maybe his escape to another city was about rebuilding instead of continuing to fall apart here. Half a year ago he was too thin, too tired, too angry and the man who had stood in front of her today hadn't seemed like any of those things.

Making change for the third time from the money she picked up from one of her tables, Kaoru glanced up as Tae snagged some mint gum from behind the counter from where she usually stashed it next to the register. It was so hard to concentrate between the heat, her mind being full from the class today, and Enishi turning everything topsy-turvy.

"You ok? You seem out of it today." Tae smiled at Kaoru, and waited for the response even as she filled a pitcher with water for one of her tables. The ice crunching as Tae grabbed a scoopful was what broke Kaoru's reverie.

"Yeah, just have a lot on my mind."

Tae nodded, brushing brown bangs out of her eyes, and then let loose with some wisdom that hit Kaoru like lightening. "When that happens to me I take a couple deep breaths and then do the first thing that occurs to me after." Then she laughed to herself. "Or I just ask my sister. She loves telling people what to do."

"Thanks, Tae. That was more helpful than you know."

As the other woman wandered away, Kaoru finished making change as she took measured breaths. What did she actually want to do?

Yesterday had ended with more turmoil than she wanted but less than she expected given Enishi's stunning return to town. Thanks to Tae's excellent advice, Kaoru finished her shift at the restaurant and then went home to eat ice cream and watch bad TV. It was relaxing, it was normalizing, and it was just what Kaoru had actually needed so that she could sleep on her options. It had helped to wake up to Megumi's texts, too, because she had had a different perspective from Misao in some respects. They both thought Enishi was scum, but Megumi knew Sano was no catch and yet stayed with him so she understood better than Misao how someone's worth could be more complex than surface values.

If you don't talk to him you'll regret it, Megumi had written. And I don't want to hear you whine for another six months about how you should have asked him questions while you had the chance.

Of course, her foxy friend also knew the pitfalls of spending time with handsome reprobates.

Just make sure you meet him somewhere public. No matter what you say, if you go to his hotel room you might as well go buy condoms first.

Kaoru had put her phone down with a blush. That was not what she wanted from Enishi. Probably.

But like a child with oppositional defiance somehow she found herself knocking on the door to his hotel room after she got off her day of work at the fencing school. It was around dinner time, and she wondered if he was out as she shifted her weight from side to side in a nervous swaying dance. She knocked again, this time more firmly and a weary Enishi answered the door with an expression that shifted from deeply annoyed to instantly wary when he spotted her.

He was in a suit, like any of the other expensive suits she had seen him in in the past but a pale tan for summer. Whatever tie that had gone with it had been long discarded, and the collar was open of his pale blue buttonup so deeply she could see the white undershirt. The business he had had to conduct today was surely over and he was relaxing, she supposed, and it was at least a little gratifying that her appearance was a surprise. Even Enishi had thought she wasn't going to show up. Well, she had surprised them both.

"Are you going to invite me in?" She said with more rancor than she actually had in her heart. Kaoru's severe tone was attempting to hide her nervousness.

"Are you going to come in if I invite you?" He responded, but instead of waiting he turned around and left the door open so Kaoru could make her own choice. It seemed more like a dare than an invitation.

Wishing she had worn something besides her casual office clothes, Kaoru wondered if Enishi noticed what she wore at all. His own clothes were expensive armor so he clearly understood the usefulness of nice clothes, but his sense of style seemed to be more in line with a rich housewife who spent all her time at the gym when he wasn't in a suit. How could anyone own so many track suits and tight exercise clothes?

"Drink?" Enishi offered, and Kaoru saw a couple mini bottles of alcohol sitting on the table. She cast a dark look in his direction that he saluted before he drained the glass. "If I told you this was the first drink I had in months, I wonder if you'd believe me."

"S'not my business. You aren't my business." She wanted to sound gruff, but she knew it leaned on the side of wistful.

Enishi seemed to think about her words a moment before he began to unbutton his shirt, seemingly encouraging her to run from the room. "How long until it would have fallen apart? The time we spent together was the fantasy, and the reality wasn't something I was about to let you see. It takes time to establish a new life and I know no one could do it faster than I have."

"And what did you do, exactly? Go to college?"

"I should graduate in a year or so. Ivies have pretty interesting transfer requirements, but I eventually found one that would accept a Chinese transcript with minimal questions given my willingness to pay tuition in full." His matter of fact delivery had Kaoru wondering if he actually went to a Chinese college for a while or if he had forged a transcript. Either outcome could be true given his fluency in the language and largely unknown background.

Since he didn't seem worried about paying for the contents of the mini-fridge, Kaoru wandered over next to him and pulled out a bottle of water. She was proud that her hand had no visible tremble. "So I guess you'll graduate around the same time I do. What's your major?"

"Finance."

Kaoru tried not to spit water through her nose, so instead she swallowed it partially down the wrong pipe and began coughing. A large, hot hand made slow circles on her back as she braced her hands against her knees. She would think he was doing it to spite her, but she knew he was a math genius with a background running a business so this was probably both intentional and coincidental.

Once she had her breathing under control she took a step away from him, which backed her up against the drawers below the enormous wall mounted flat screen TV. If they were friends, she might have suggested turning on the AC and watching a movie, but what she felt right now wasn't very friendly. Every nerve was telling her to flee. She thought she had come here to question him, but instead she could feel a pull to push that unbuttoned shirt off his shoulders and run her fingers over the muscles of his back.

"Once you finish school, what's your plan?"

He sat on the bed, and ran a hand through his hair to mess it up a bit and loosen whatever product he had put in to stiffen it for the day. "Possibly investments, possibly banking. Easy to get lost in a large corporation for a while until they pay for my MBA. Consulting would be familiar." There was that drifter look again, the one she knew from winter. The fact that he didn't actually have a plan took her by surprise, but that he would admit that he didn't have a plan to her was even more disarming.

Then came the question she was almost too scared to vocalize. "And what about me? What's your plan for me?"

He took off his glasses, a move which Kaoru knew meant he couldn't see her at this distance. She wondered if it was a way to protect himself from her expression as he spoke. "If all I wanted was sex, I wouldn't have bought you a plane ticket." And because he possibly knew that wasn't enough of an explanation even under good circumstances, he added. "And I feel like out of everyone in this rotten world, you're with me instead of against me."

It wasn't romantic, but it still felt like a confession of sorts. Kaoru's heart pounded in her chest all the same.

Megumi had been right, or course, she usually was. Kaoru should have in fact brought condoms with her, but luckily for both her and Enishi he had had the forethought to plan for the eventuality in which she actually did come to his hotel room. It had been a bold enough offer, and given Kaoru's rage at his abandonment he had figured the chance to be slim but he was also a planner. So some time after her pounce, when Kaoru peeled her body off his long enough so that he could remove his belt he also took the time to pull the still plastic wrapped box out of his leather designer suitcase.

Only his shirt and undershirt were fully off him as Kaoru pulled him out of his pants and rolled the condom down over his length because before she could get much farther he was pulling at the hem of her casual baggy navy pants. Both the pants and the dark underwear came down as she tried to prevent his eagerness from ripping anything, but in the end their haste didn't shift all their clothing because she still had a white shirt and bra on when he pushed her onto her back and she pulled him onto her front.

The entry would have been rough if Kaoru's body hadn't been preparing for it the moment he answered that door looking like he needed to be fucked. Maybe he had been too pent up because her body was just starting to feel like it was reaching for something incredible when he mumbled some truly bilious curses near her ear and came hard enough to scoot her all the way to the headboard with his last thrust. They sat there panting for a moment before he withdrew and threw away the condom, but Kaoru hadn't even had enough time to form much more than the barest outline of a thought when she found him crawling back to lick a path up her sweaty thigh to her center.

By the time Enishi had coaxed an orgasm from Kaoru that had her arching her whole body off the bed, she thought that it was possible that even if the relationship didn't work out that this memory alone would sustain her through however many bad blind dates her friends threw at her. A little bit sore from round one still, she saw that her enthusiastic enjoyment of his persistent tongue had gotten him ready for more so this time she pulled off the rest of her own clothes and his before they unwrapped another condom.

In the aftermath, Kaoru actually did get to watch most of a bad movie on that giant television with the AC on, but the casual touches of his fingertips against her naked calves while she lay next to him on her stomach and Enishi checked emails on his phone was much more enjoyable than the bland dialogue on screen. She didn't stay the night this time, partially because actually sleeping next to him again felt too intimate, and partially because he had an early flight the next morning.

It was past midnight when she unlocked her door and wandered into a house that was too hot having not been aired out in the evening as per usual. There would be hell to pay when Misao and Megumi found out about her visit to Enishi, and there would be even more hell to pay when she got on that plane in a little over a month for her impromptu vacation.

The way he had described it, it sounded extremely normal. Could something be abnormally normal?

"I'll show you my campus, the town. There's museums, supposedly. Do you like the theater?" He had sounded like a man searching for an answer to a question Kaoru hadn't asked. Their time together had never been normal, and possibly no part of his life in general had ever been typical. Maybe the vacation was proof to him that life didn't need to be violent posturing and schemes. Then again, life in ivy leagues sounded quite a lot like it had plenty of posturing and schemes just in a slightly different context.

"I never thought about it before. Do you like the theater?"

Enishi's voice had been firm but distant in tone when he replied. "My sister did."

The way he closed his eyes after he mentioned his sister had made Kaoru's heart ache in a way that reminded her that love endured even in terribly broken people. If Enishi could love his long dead sister then surely there was capacity for more. She knew he had already burrowed into her own soft emotional side, otherwise she never would have appeared at his door six months ago.

"Let's try it out then, what do we have to lose?"

It was a mantra she should think about cross stitching and hanging in her living room.