I know what you're thinking…. 'She said that she would make a quicker update if someone guessed the opening line.' And someone did, major kudos to S.J. Kidd for your cinematic intelligence. I sounded so friggin smart right there! BUT due to certain punishments from people who shall remain nameless wasn't able to make an update until now.
Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin.
All In The Name Of Cement Shoes: First Lesson In A Hormonal Overload
Aoshi squinted underneath the blinding light of the morning sun as Misao shuffled through his bedroom. Her early greeting and the fact that he had overslept had surprised him. It was unusual for the stoic man to sleep past the early signs of morning but the bright neon numbers on his alarm clock proved that he had slept in until eight o'clock. He lazily turned on his side; never once inquiring about Misao's presence in his room. He did, however, question her motives behind the small breakfast she had prepared for him. He stared at the food for a moment, taking in the warmth it created, before raising a masculine eyebrow.
"What is this for?" Misao hastily tied a sash around each of the curtains to keep them opened before plopping herself on the expensive looking mattress. Her large cerulean eyes widened at the softness of the bed and she lightly poked it in curiosity.
"This is nice. Is this the mattress that the Claymation sheep advertise?" Her inquiry was completely innocent, but Aoshi was able to see right through it.
"Misao…" She quickly sneaked a quick peek at him from the corner of her eye and sighed in defeat. She let her restless body sink into the numerous covers before speaking.
"It's my way of saying 'thank you'. I really enjoyed last night."
"It wasn't a date Misao." He was surprised to find how quickly Misao's mood was able to change in a matter of seconds as she bolted up from the soft fabric with anger quite clear on her face.
"I know that! I'm not incompetent! I can tell when something is a date or not!" A small grin played at the corner of his mouth. It was so easy to get this girl worked up over something so minimal. I might just keep her around for entertainment value. In all fairness, he did have a good time the night before and was hoping for more small adventures that only Misao could uncover. She hadn't moved from her spot on his bed and he quickly decided that the ominous cloud hanging over them had to go.
"So, what's on the agenda today?" Ever so slowly, Misao's head turned a complete 180, revealing her shock. When the question finally sank in, she jumped up excitedly, the angry cloud being lifted away almost too easily. Even Aoshi had a hard time keeping up with the numerous plans. But, at least she wasn't angry with him anymore.
-Kaoru's Apartment-
Kaoru frantically leapt up from her bed as the thunderous bashes from the front door interrupted her much needed slumber. She wrapped her nimble fingers around the metal baseball bat that Misao had given her after her apartment had been broken into. She claimed that with the sports equipment next to her bed, another break in would be impossible. Kaoru didn't have the heart to tell her that it was useless if Kaoru wasn't in her home to begin with. But at this particular moment in time, the silver bat proved to be quite useful.
Slowly, Kaoru tiptoed to the heavy door and peered out the peephole. To her amazement, a large brown eye was glaring back at her, oblivious to the fact that he was being watched. Kaoru jumped back for a moment and then returned to her station at the peephole. The pieces suddenly fit into the puzzle – the freakish brown hair, the tall stature, and the cocky look she was receiving from the peephole, it all pointed to one person – Sanosuke Makimachi.
"Open the damn door, raccoon, you know damn well who this is!" Kaoru sighed in relief and unlatched the lock separating Sano from her living room.
His disheveled look was enough to cause concern for Kaoru. Since grade school, the wedding planner had always been able to tell when the hoodlum was into trouble. He somehow would always manage to track either Kaoru or his sister down and contemplate an escape plan within their homes. Tonight was different though. Tonight, Sano appeared to be absolutely horrified. He bustled in through the open door and immediately began pacing while running a hand through his dampened locks.
"What's wrong Sano?" She placed herself on the couch and folded her hands. She had to keep a calm demeanor for Sano's sake. He paused in his movements to stare at his longtime gal-pal.
"Where's Misao?" In the15 years that Kaoru had known Sano, she had never heard him speak of his sister without the usual 'weasel girl' tag following behind it. Kaoru suddenly found more interest in her pale hands rather than the conversation. She promised Misao that she wouldn't tell anyone about the marriage arrangement, specifically, the man standing in front of her. But his concern seemed true enough. Perhaps she should tell him? A sudden flash of an angry Sano pulling Misao out of a large mansion flushed through Kaoru's mind. Okay, so that was a no.
"She's…on business."
"I know you're lying, but that's okay. As long as I know that she's safe." This peaked Kaoru's curiosity.
"Sano…what's going on? Is Misao in some kind of trouble?" He darted her a quick glance before pulling out a manila folder filled to the brim with paperwork out of his leather jacket. Kaoru quickly flipped through the numerous pages, her keen eyes scanning over hundreds of numbers and records. "What is all this?" It was then, and only then, that Sano finally took the time to sit down on the edge of the coffee table to face his childhood friend.
"It's Dad's financial records for the computer business he started." Kaoru crunched her eyebrows together, signaling her confusion over the situation. "They're fake, Kaoru. Inside those records are route numbers, times for when the boats would leave the docks, serial numbers…they're all listed within those records. Come to find out, Dad wasn't a computer geek at all, just a really smart, really sly businessman. He managed to gain some ties to a Japanese drug lord and traffic those drugs through the computer trade business. To make matters worse, in order to keep this whole thing under wraps, Dad created alliances with a few mobs with the understanding that they would be making a profit as well." Kaoru instinctively gulped. Misao and Sano's father? A mobster? "And now that Dad's dead, a lot of these guys are asking for their money. Some of the older families respected my father enough to leave his children alone and forget the whole thing ever happened. Others, however…" Kaoru weighed her options in her mind. On the one hand, Misao and Aoshi would be safe from Sano's brotherly wrath if he wasn't told about the arrangement. On the other hand, she could be putting her best friend in danger because of her promise to keep silent. She slowly lifted her eyes to young man sitting in front of her.
"How much danger is she in, Sano?" He didn't meet her gaze, but settled his eyesight on the floor instead. "How much danger, Sano?" Her patience was growing thin with her coworker's brother. Before too long, Sano sighed and ran a hand through his dampened hair.
"I don't know exactly. The less they know about her, the less danger she's in." Kaoru bit her lip in frustration, a quirky habit she had picked up when she was a teenager.
"I told her that I wouldn't tell anyone where she was…" She braced herself for a sudden outburst that had made Sano famous in the last few years. However, she received no verbal lashing or visual threats of any kind. Instead, the former delinquent nodded patiently.
"Good. Let's keep it that way. I don't want my little sister in any kind of danger." He finally stood to walk to the door. Before the friends reached the exit, Sano turned around to say one more thing. "By the way raccoon, I'd find a place to hide out at for awhile." He quickly left the front door and headed out into the night, carefully checking out his surroundings before taking another step.
"But Sano!" Her words drifted into the darkness and onto deaf ears. "I don't know anyone…who'd hide me out…" She clasped her hands together and prayed for someone to help her with her new found problem.
"They're really good kids, just a little lost." Those were the words that Kaoru's stepmother had spoken at dinner the fateful day that the Makimachi family had moved into abandoned house that seemed uninhabitable. The vile woman that Kaoru's father had married had spent the day with the new family and found out as much dirt as she could for later gossip with the PTA parents. She concluded that a single father with a wild son and a mouthy daughter would corrupt the neighborhood and had to be singled out from then on. At seven years old, Kaoru didn't understand how one family could be so bad. And then she met Misao.
She was the ideal cute kid, with her tight pigtails and her polite speech. She had everyone fooled. That is, until Kaoru caught her climbing over the schoolyard fence to sneak out. She had surprised Misao to the brink of falling on her rump. She scrunched her tiny eyebrows up in anger while running her behind.
"What the hell was that for! I wasn't doing anything illegal!" The words were harsh and filled with venom. Okay, so maybe her stepmother was right. But Kaoru had to give the kid some credit. She easily stood a good five inches over the blue eyed girl but Misao seemed to think she was a giant. There was no fear written on her face. "Could you just keep quiet about this? This one time? I'll owe you one."
"Only if you tell me why you're sneaking out of school…" Misao eyed the girl before deciding on an answer. But she didn't have to say anything. Limping up to the fence was a small mutt of a puppy, lightly yipping for something to eat. Both girls stared at it for a moment before Misao reached into her pocket and pulled out a neatly wrapped sandwich. The small meal was gulped up by the puppy in a matter of a few minutes. Kaoru could only stare at the scene before her. The loud ringing of the school bell interrupted her trance. Misao was nowhere to be seen.
It was after school when Kaoru spoke with Misao again. She had been taking the scenic route home and just so happened to be walking through Kaoru's front yard when she spotted her. Again, Misao was surprised. But what was even more astonishing was the black and brown flash running towards the ocean eyed child. The fast flash instantly met its target and pulled Misao to the ground, both forms of matter rolling a good ten feet.
"Misao! Are you okay?" Kaoru quickly ran to the girl's side, unable to comprehend what had just taken place.
"HA! That's for this morning, weasel!" The clump of brown and black arose to its full height to reveal a boy around the age of ten. Misao glared daggers into the boy but he could only smile.
"That doesn't count Sano! That was a sneak attack!" His response to her accusation was left silent as two police cars sped down the street and towards the trio. "Not again, Sano…" The boy saluted his sister and took off into someone's backyard. Delicate shades of red stained Misao's cheeks as she watched her big brother run from the cops. "He has issues with obedience. He's a good guy…just on the wrong path." And that's when Kaoru saw it: admiration, adoration, kindness, and love. There was nothing lost about this child. She was, perhaps, the only one in her family with a good head on her shoulders.
As Kaoru later found out, Sanosuke was indeed Misao's older brother. He had spent many a night in the juvenile detention center but only acted out in rebellion. He was usually picked up because he had gotten into a fight with someone who badmouthed his family. Misao's father was also quite kind. He loved his children dearly and would do almost anything for them, except plead with the authorities when they picked up Sano. He believed his son would never learn if he didn't face the proper consequences.
The years went on and Kaoru grew closer and closer to Misao. In middle school, they had the exact same schedule and shared life-changing experiences such as their first party and their first boyfriend- even if the relationship only lasted two days. In high school, they were connected at the hip. If one wasn't around the other then people worried. Kaoru was there when Misao broke up with her first serious boyfriend, and vice versa. Misao was there to celebrate with Kaoru when her father divorced her stepmother. And after graduation, Kaoru was there to help Misao move her father into the apartment that he would later die in. One year later, Kaoru was there to ease the pain of mourning the death of Misao's father. He had suffered a fatal heart attack and couldn't reach the phone in time to dial Misao's cell number. Soon after, Kaoru was the first person to agree put in effort for the dream of a wedding planning business. Now, more than ever though, Misao would need her friend.
"It only lasted two days and I still can't remember why we broke up, but it was still a very important relationship for me." Aoshi watched attentively as the woman before him gulped down another spoonful of Chunky-Monkey by Ben and Jerry while speaking of her first boyfriend. They hadn't even reached the one-week mark and she was still acting like it was the first night they had ever met. She was full of an enthusiasm not known to him. And it was incredibly exciting.
"I'm not going anywhere, Aoshi." The words from that night were still ringing inside his brain. No one had ever said that to him before. No one would ever sound like they meant it, either. But she did. Her words were honest and true and it scared him to death. Was this woman capable of bringing down his walls? Or the true question: would he mind? He slowly stood when Misao slurped down the last bit of ice cream and held out his hand for her to take.
"Come on, Misao. We're going home. I have a surprise waiting for you there." Her large blue eyes drifted from his hand to his eyes, trying to decipher some meaning from his gestures. She couldn't help it. The word stuck out like a gay guy at a biker rally. Home. It was as clear as day and it sounded quite nice coming from his lips.
-Shinomori Estates-
Misao surveyed the lush landscape as she waited for Aoshi's return. She could only hope that this wasn't a mean joke that he decided to play on her at the last minute. She was tactfully pulled out of her thinking state of mind by the neigh of what sounded like a horse. Wait…a horse? Slowly, the wedding planner turned to meet a beautiful stallion staring her in the face. And she wasn't even referring to Aoshi. He was a deep amber color with hints of crimson reflecting in the sunlight. His entire look was finished with the pockets of white floating over his skin. Misao was in complete awe. Behind him, atop an ebony horse was Aoshi, looking just as magnificent.
"His name is Othello. I hope you treat him well." Misao gawked at the man and horse.
"I don't know what to say…I've never…ridden a horse." Once again, a smile played upon his lips. He quickly came down off his own horse and hoisted the petite woman upon the grand stallion. Soon after, they began trotting down a trail that supposedly led back to the stables.
The small trip was relaxing for Misao at first. But something happened. She didn't know what had startled the young horse but he reared up, as if threatened by something. Misao frantically gripped the horse, hoping that she wouldn't fall off. The rearing stopped and for a dazed moment, Misao grateful to the horse. That gratefulness was short lived however.
He was like the mustangs she had seen racing down her hometown street, going from 0 to 90 in a single minute. Misao screamed out, first in panic and then in anger. Curse words flew from her mouth spaghetti from a baby. She knew that Aoshi was stampeding towards her but that mere fact wouldn't melt her dislike for the horse. She quickly looked behind to try to find the wealthy man, but amidst the bobbing, the yelling, and the speeding, Misao had somehow missed the large branch that had stuck itself out in her path. It grabbed her by the shoulders and swung her around before knocking her to the ground. Othello had been smart and kept running. Multi-colored dots took over her vision and she suddenly wished that she had an oxygen tank nearby. A cloud of dust gathered around her and Aoshi's head came into focus. He gently wrapped his hands around her sore head to check for any serious injuries.
"Misao?" Her usually large eyes were now only have opened in an attempt to black out the event that had just taken place.
"I don't like him." Aoshi pondered her meaning for a second before smiling warmly down at the braided beauty.
"I think the feeling is mutual." Tears flooded her eyes as she tried to speak.
"That stupid tree ruined everything!" Another smile lingered upon Aoshi's lips as he placed a silent kiss on Misao's forehead.
"It's all better now." His words were drowned out by the loud thuds in Misao's chest.