Hello, my readers! So, this little bit will be the last installment for this series. As such, it's quite a bit longer than the previous entries, and the style is a bit different. They speak to each other! I just realized that in all my previous chapters, they don't. Not quite sure how I feel about this last one because the end didn't come to me easily (a sign, perhaps?) but I hope you all like it. It's hard to believe that I've been writing these shorts for nearly a year now. It doesn't seem like that much time has passed, but when you work full-time, volunteer every weekend and crochet projects for Angels For Hope, I suppose the days can just get away from you.
Or maybe I'm a total slacker.
Well.
I hope you've enjoyed these as much as I've enjoyed writing them. I also have a larger project I'm sort of trying to work on…hopefully I'll start being able to post chapters for it soon – the expansion of The Right Man. AxK, of course! (PS, if anyone has the time and inclination to want to help me with some research for that, I'd be most grateful.)
Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin, Aoshi and Kaoru do not belong to me.
There is an old saying: lightning never strikes twice.
Sure, thought Kaoru, tell that to the man who was struck seven times by lightning. At least he managed to survive them all until he killed himself over unrequited love.*
Dear god, please don't let that be me.
Once, Kaoru would have said she was in love with Kenshin, without preamble or hesitation. It had been like a bolt from the blue, the sudden realization that she loved this wandering, wounded man. Still, her love burned brightly and determinedly. She had been doggedly devoted to a man who, at the time, would not, could not, love her the way she so desperately wanted him to. His dismissal of her love broke her, seared her, and for a time she thought it would be impossible to recover. Even so, she took the shards of her shattered heart and pieced them back together slowly, as best she could, whole again but indelibly scarred.
A mark like that never completely fades away.
So she threw herself into other things, keeping busy at the dojo, recruiting more students, fending off Tae's matchmaking schemes. Days passed, the months reeling away like an unraveling spool of thread. Kaoru knew she was courting spinster-status, but she simply couldn't bring herself to embark on the potentially embarrassing journey of finding a husband. If a man could not love her as she was, then he must simply be the wrong man for the job. Her match would be for love, or there would be no match at all.
The moment she realized that she loved Aoshi Shinomori had been no less electrifying than the first time she had tasted love.
The stoic ninja had been in town assisting the Tokyo police force for an unknown duration. Kaoru, ever generous-hearted, had allowed Aoshi to use Yahiko's old room. Thus, Aoshi had been spending quite a bit of time at the dojo when not at the police station. Not content with simply being a boarder, when he could, Aoshi did odd jobs around the dojo and ran errands for Kaoru, without even being asked to. As a result, she had been feeling odd for days; inexplicable pressure in her lungs, the staccato tempo of her heartbeat, the nearly-nauseating fluttering in the pit of her stomach. Every time he was within sight, her hands would get clammy and her breathing would hitch. She looked forward to seeing him for breakfast, and wondered when he would be back from the police station in the evenings. In seemingly no time at all, a routine had been established at the dojo; a routine including the presence of Aoshi Shinomori.
One morning, awareness shocked her system so thoroughly she actually stumbled while walking through her yard to the gate. Dear god in heaven, I have fallen in love with Aoshi Shinomori.
Aoshi saw her misstep and was at her side in a flash. Grasping one elbow and her lower back in his large hands, he leaned over her, asking, "Kamiya, are you all right?"
Kaoru's heart thumped in her throat at the feel of his hands on her. Speechless for a moment, she swallowed hard and managed to jerk her head in what she prayed looked like a nod.
"Yes! Yes, I'm fine."
Did she really sound as breathless as she thought she did? She hoped not. His gaze was intense on her face, but he straightened up and nodded, his fingers lingering for a moment just shy of what could be considered proper before releasing her. However, he stayed close to her, warm and reassuring and frighteningly overwhelming and most definitely within her personal space and too close for comfort.
"You do know that I will always be here for you, should you need me." His clear blue eyes were so penetrating that Kaoru had no doubt about his underlying meaning. Hope flared to life in her chest and she wasn't sure if Aoshi could hear her frantic heartbeat.
She knew, absolutely knew, that this time, she would not get burned.
*OK, so the lightning bit is anachronistic: Roy Sullivan was a U.S. park ranger in Virginia who was struck by lightning 7 different times and survived all of them. I remember reading about him when I was about six years old since I really liked reading everything under the sun at that age (to be honest, I still kind of do.) Sadly, at the age of 71 he committed suicide, reportedly inconsolable because of a one-sided love. I've always remembered that story, and it's been at least twenty years now since I first heard it and really, it doesn't take away from my short little story at all, I don't think. Look Roy up on Wikipedia. The statistics of being struck by lightning are staggering. But yes, since I don't actually mention the location or when the man was struck by lightning, I think it's just fine.