DISCLAIMER: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin.

My author's notes are at the end of the chapter with answer to reviews following. Be sure to read all of it, please. Reviews are for every chapter since I had not answered any reviews yet. Thanks for reading and enjoy.

7/26/04

Sunlight drifted in through the window, gently touching the face of the man on the couch.

His eyes twitched and he tried to roll away from the offending light, but found that impossible. Lying on his back, he had tried to turn on his side, facing the couch, but couldn't because of the girl lying on his stomach.

Her head rested on his chest with his arms wrapped around her waist. Her hands were holding his in place.

Finding himself unable to roll over, Aoshi cracked one eye. Noticing his unfamiliar surroundings, he began to stiffen.

Aoshi's memories from the night before came rushing back. Her name was Misao. They met at Liquid Ice. He slept over at her house. Nothing happened. 'Oh, thank God!' As he realized this, Aoshi began to relax.

Sitting up, Aoshi cradled Misao in his lap. He leaned back against the couch and held her comfortably.

Soaking in the peace and quiet, he watched Misao sleep and listened to her light breathing.

Misao began to stir, but tried to bury her head in Aoshi's chest.

A deep chuckle rumbled around in Aoshi's chest, disturbing Misao's sleep even more. Misao raised her eyes to glare at Aoshi for disturbing her.

"Some people are trying to sleep around here!" Misao exclaimed, softly.

Aoshi chuckled a little more, waking Misao up a little more until she was completely awake.

Misao stuck her tongue out at Aoshi and grinned. "That wasn't fair!" she jokingly whined.

"Good morning to you too," Aoshi smarted back.

Misao crawled off Aoshi's lap and headed for the kitchen.

"Ya know, I could sure use some help," Misao hollered back to Aoshi after a few minutes.

Aoshi smirked and finally got off the couch. He had been waiting for that comment.

On the way to the kitchen, Aoshi got lost a couple of times. One time, he opened the door to a closet and, the next; he walked into the laundry room.

Finally making it to the kitchen, Aoshi just observed Misao for the first few minutes. When she slipped on some spilt pancake batter, Aoshi rushed forward to catch her.

As Misao slipped, she accidentally threw the spatula in her hand. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for impact with the floor. When Misao never hit the floor, she opened her eyes in surprise.

She was staring directly into Aoshi's eyes. One of his muscular arms was wrapped around her back and his other hand was holding the spatula she had thrown.

"Um...thanks?"

Unemotionally, Aoshi set her back on her feet and began to continue her work on breakfast. He turned the pancakes, stirred the eggs, and checked the tea pot on the stove.

Misao, noticing that Aoshi had everything under control, plopped down on a seat at the island in the middle of the kitchen. She watched him make the breakfast she had started and called out instructions as to where utensils were when he asked.

After a good twenty minutes, breakfast was completed. After watching Aoshi cook for a while, Misao had set two places at the island, complete with napkins and drinks.

Aoshi stole both plates and heaped them with food while Misao poured the tea for both of them. She also retrieved a tall glass of milk to go with her breakfast.

Sitting down, Aoshi simply sat there and stared at his food. "Do you often just stare at your food?" Misao quipped. Silence greeted her in reply. "Hello? Earth to Aoshi." Misao began waving a hand in front of his face.

With swift reflexes, Aoshi captured her wrist, stopping all movements of her hand. He turned and stared at her. "Syrup?" he questioned. "Ooo! Damn! I knew I was forgetting something," Misao said. Hopping up, she obtained the syrup from a cabinet.

Resuming her seat, she passed Aoshi the syrup. He added the syrup to his pancakes and began to consume the meal he had just prepared. Misao claimed the syrup next, drenched her pancakes with it, and dug in.

So the morning went, with Misao oblivious to the fact that she was far later for work than she had ever been.

AUTHOR'S NOTES Well, that took longer than I thought it would to write. I wrote it a couple times and was not pleased with it at all so I waited to post it until I wrote something I was satisfied with.

I can't believe that school starts in about 3 weeks. I can't believe this summer has gone by so fast. I hope to have at least one more chapter out before we head back to school. I will be happy to be done with babysitting for the summer. A little warning though; I'll be a senior and being the idiot I am, I'm in pretty much the hardest classes offered. I've been told that I will have so much homework it isn't even funny, so my writing be slowed way down if not all together stopped during the school year. I'm hoping that this won't be true. But, I have this feeling that because of my honors English class, all the writing I'll be doing will be for that class.

Again, I hope everyone liked this chapter. I think it turned out pretty good, but I may be biased about my own writing. Please REVIEW! And I'm still looking for an editor if anyone is interested. Thanks.

REVIEWS

I'm really sorry that this is the first time I have answered reviews.

First off, I'd like to thank the following people for reviewing:

Supreme Neo slytherin Countess
Minsada
A.K.
InuFan17
Sin
KenshinLover45
len
erica
gaby (hyatt
am1289

Thanks so much everyone. Your reviews have meant a lot to me. And, so far, I have yet to have a flame. Yay! I just hope I haven't spoken too soon.

Now for the other reviews I want to answer.

Zerianyu: I'm surprised, number one, that this fic doesn't seem rushy like the rest of mine and, number two, that an author whose work I admire so much has read my story. But, thank you and hope you continue to enjoy it.

Neross-qod: Thanks for the concern. Mostly, I'm just there to referee any fights and take them places. They are both old enough to take care of themselves. I just try to know where they are from time to time, which is what their mom told me to do.

Misao-The-Weasel: The dated chapters really were because I always want to know how much time there was between updates. I understand that it helps. I've went to read a few stories that hadn't been updated in a while and wasn't sure what chapters I had read and what ones I hadn't.

AngelsAngel: I was probably just as worried about the lemon. I had no clue what I was going to do about it. I was SO glad when I got an idea of how to get past that.

kitty-jinxx: I love those movies so much! And the songs! Not only did they seem fitting for the chapter, but I absolutely loved both.

Misao Mei Mei: Wow! An request to submit my story to a website. I was rather surprised by this. I would love to do so and sorry I haven't yet. There have been problems with our internet about it only pulls up certain pages and then I was grounded from the computer, but everything's working now and I'm definitely not grounded. I'll try to get it taken care of a.s.a.p.