I knocked on the door, holding my breath. A part of me wished he was not home, and another part did. Thankfully, Sano did not come. He was patiently waiting in the car…if my brother was ever 'patient'. I told him that there was a café on the corner, and he could chill there. I also gave him money through my debit microchip; I loved these things. You could instantly send money from one to another. Sano was always asking me for money for food, or to pay off his tab at the Akabeko.

Just as I was about to go back to Sano, thinking he was not home, he opened the door. His face was still groggy, and he was dressed only in black boxers. His hair shone and dripped with moisture, and he was drying it with a towel. When he saw he, he frowned. However, he didn't slam the door in my face.

I walked in after him, closing the door behind me. "Enishi…"

He spun on me, his face furious. "What? What do you want? Do you want to rub it in my face that you're having that bastard's child?" He shouted, gesturing at my swollen stomach.

I reached out for him, and at my touch, he quieted. His chest was heaving, and he looked away from me. "I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you, but Megumi had me sign this privacy thing, and then I realised how much you'll be exposed to Kenshin and I didn't want him to find out…"

He scoffed. "And yet you spend almost every day with him." He shook his head in disgust and walked to his couch. He sat down and propped his elbows on his knees, and lowered his head into his palms.

I followed at a slower pace and sat opposite him. "I never meant to."

He laughed humourlessly. "And I never meant to let you go." He then looked up at me, his dark eyes piercing mine. "Life never works out the way we mean for it to, does it?"

I shook my head. "It doesn't."

He looked away from me, his hand over his mouth. Removing it quickly, he said, "You know, I've wanted to call you every single day since I dropped you home from the Akabeko."

"Why didn't you?" My voice was soft.

He shrugged and leaned back, his arms crossed over his chest. "I guess I was scared that you'll turn me down. I did not, and still don't, know how to deal with you being pregnant."

"I admit, if you had called me I may have hung up on you. But that was only the first week. Any time after that, and I would have seen you again. I wanted to see you again," I admitted, shocked at how true the words were.

He leaned forward abruptly and grasped my hands in his. His face was earnest, and I found I could not look away. "Would you take me back? You've been the only thing I could think about for the last few, agonising months. I really want us to try again."

I hesitated. Technically, I was single, and free to date whomever I wanted. And while I was still attracted to him (and him being in boxers alone wasn't helping my thought process), I knew I was falling for Kenshin…that I had been falling for Kenshin for a long time.

But was it still possible between us? He was courteous enough to me last night, but I knew there were still unresolved issues between us.

Enishi's face fell into a guarded expression. He leaned back, his eyes as cold as ever. "It's Kenshin, isn't it?" Even though he stated it as a question, it was more of a statement.

I nodded, refusing to meet his eyes. I then gave him a weak smile. "Maybe in another life."

He grunted. "Maybe."

"I want to say 'let's be friends', but we both know that it won't work that way."

"So, is this it?"

I bit my lip. "I don't want it to be," I said, "but I think it should be."

He nodded glumly and then gave me a half smile. "If it doesn't work out with Kenshin, call me."

I laughed as I stood up. "Sure." I extended my arms for a hug, and he seemed to be wavering between the decision to leave me hanging, or to hug me back. He decided on the latter. He crushed me to him and tilted my chin up so I met his eyes. Before I could react his lips were on mine and he kissed me, hard. Then, faster than I could return the kiss or even think he released me.

His grin was mischievous. "I couldn't resist."

I wanted to be angry at him, but I smiled back, giving him a playful whack on his arm. "I'm irresistible."

He moaned in agreement, placing a stray strand of hair back in place. As he did that, his fingertips stroked my face and I stiffened. I was joking, but Enishi seemed to have moved into a serious arena.

I backed away, and the hungry look in his eyes faded. He gave me a rueful smile. "Sorry, Kaoru. You should probably go now before I lose myself."

I nodded and gave him a half wave. "See you around, Enishi." I said as I walked out.

His smile was sad and he closed the door. "No, you won't."

While I was sad that I was leaving him, I also felt as if a large weight was lifted from my shoulders. I came downstairs and, as I had thought, Sano was in the café, wolfing down what looked like the remains of a chocolate croissant. Suddenly hungry, I grabbed the rest of it from his hand. He scowled at me, but wiped his hands on his jeans without an argument.

"How was it?"

I swallowed. "Depressing."

He smiled and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "Well, one more to go!"

I groaned. If anything, this would be the harder one.

The drive to Kenshin's was shorter than I had hoped. I wanted to think of some brilliant speech, but I couldn't think of anything. All I could think of was Enishi's sad face when I had left. He looked so heartbroken…

Before I knew it, we were there.

Sano took one look at me and sighed. "Ok, I'm coming in for this one."

'What? No, no, it's ok, I can live…"

He glared at me. "Kaoru, I'm not sitting in the car the entire time. I'll go and entertain the weasel."

I stared at him. "You know she doesn't like being called that."

His grin was devilish in its mischief. "I know. That's why I call her a weasel."

I rolled my eyes at him and opened the door. Sano slammed his door a few milliseconds after I did, and we walked up to the house together.

As I raised my hand to knock, Hiko opened the door almost instantly. It was one of those cases of he's leaving when I'm now entering thing without knowing the other was on the other side of the door, so it scared the crap out of me. As in, I jumped a foot in the air and screamed.

Hiko…wasn't much better. If anything, I think his scream was higher pitched than mine. He caught himself faster than I did, and he was laughing as I clutched my chest to stop my heart from hammering against my chest.

"Kaoru! Nice to see ya," he shouted (does he ever speak in a normal tone of voice?). He thumped me on my back and stared at me. "You've gained a lot of weight. Exercise and diet, that's what I always say!" He gave me a huge grin and I stared at him incredulously. He then looked at Sano, a look of distinct dislike upon his features. "Who're you?"

Sano, instead of backing down, rose to the challenge in Hiko's voice. "Sanosuke Sagara."

I rolled my eyes at him. Ever since he had heard about the great fighter, something-or-the-other-Sagara, he has been calling himself thus ever since. "No, he's my twin brother, Sanosuke. No Sagara. He's an idiot."

Sano bristled but Hiko cut off his angry retort. "You're here for my daughter?" There was a dangerous glint in his eyes, and I placed a hand on Sano's arm to caution him.

Sano, as usual, ignored me. "So what if I am? Kaoru is here for your son, I'm here for your daughter. What are you gonna do about it, Gramps?"

Man, I really wanted to whack him. And, I'm sure, Megumi and Misao would have joined in. I almost giggled at the thought of three girls beating the crap out of the teenage boy, but my giggles would have been seen as highly inappropriate at this point of time.

Thankfully, Misao traipsed down the stairs and saw us. "Kaoru!" She yelled, launching herself at me. I barely caught her, nearly toppling over. Sano's hand automatically shot out and caught me, as did Hiko. The two men glared at each other, and it was only then that Misao realised my brother was there. "Sano, what are you doing here?"

He gave her a smug smirk. "To tease you, you little weasel-girl."

I couldn't stop it, and I really didn't want to. Both Hiko and Misao's fists shot out, hitting my brother square in his jaw. It's only because Sano has an unusually hard head that he didn't fall unconscious right then and there.

"Stop calling me a weasel!" Misao shouted, pummelling him further with an umbrella. (Don't ask me from where, I have no idea. The thing just appeared in her hand, I swear.) Hiko stood behind her, cheering her on. I rolled my eyes at the trio, momentarily forgetting why I was here.

That is, until I heard his soft chuckle behind me. I froze instantly and stiffly turned around. "Kenshin, I'm so sorry about last night-" He shushed me, and gently took my hand. He led me into the house and up the stairs to what I assumed was his bedroom. It was sparsely furnished, but he had a great collection of CDs and books. Even though I was interested in his archaic collection of CDs, I was more engrossed in his bookshelf. Books had long ago been replaced by electronic readers, such as the Amazon Kindle (which was still as popular today as it was when it was first introduced), the Barnes and Noble Nook (which died off a few years afterwards), and so on. Real books, the books that got published on paper and bound, were rare. And this man had the largest collection I have ever seen, outside of an antiques store.

I ran my hands on their spines, some of them in mint collection, but the majority were cracked from use. A faint smile decorated my face, and I turned to face Kenshin. "This is amazing."

He looked away from me, his face flushing. "It's nothing."

"No, this is truly extraordinary…I have a few of my parents' books, but I mostly read from my Kindle."

He laughed nervously. "You may think I'm weird for saying this, but I prefer paper books."

'They're beautiful," I admitted, "but why?"

He shrugged, absently tracing a particularly worn book. "I dunno. It feels so much better when I'm flipping through the pages myself, and I love the smell of the paper."

I smiled, looking at the collection again. It included a variety of topics and authors, stretching from fiction to non-fiction, from fantasy to science fiction, from textbooks to bibliographies. They were organised, from what I can tell, by genre, author and then title.

"Wow." I whispered. This was the last thing I expected of the red haired man. Then again, Kenshin surprised me all the time. My thoughts became serious, and my hand dropped from the books to rest on my stomach. "Kenshin, about last night…"

He sighed, but he looked at me expectantly. "I figured you were here to talk about it. And I'm done talking. I don't want to know."

"But I want you to know."

He was angry, I could tell. His shoulders were tense and he refused to look me in the eye. "What else is there to talk about? You're having my child, and you knew all this time, and didn't tell me. End of story."

"No, not end of story. I could hide behind Megumi's privacy agreement all I want, but I didn't want you to know."

"Why? So you could just give our baby up without feeling guilty?" He seemed to have finally snapped. He laughed humourlessly. "He would have Megumi as a mother. Great. But what about his father? What if he had finally asked Megumi where he had really come from, and she couldn't answer him? What then? Did you think anything through?"

I pursed my lips, trying as hard as I could to not shout back at him. "No, I guess I didn't."

"Exactly. If you haven't realised, these last few months, the bunch of us have gotten really close. Did you hope to have the baby and that we would all disappear? If you haven't realised, Megumi and Sano – your twin! – are dating. You and Misao are best friends. And you and I…well, I don't know about you, but I had hoped after you had the baby, we could be together."

I blushed scarlet, both from his confession and the truth of his words. "I didn't plan for any of this to happen, you know." I said softly, tears brimming in my eyes. "And if it's anything to you, I had hoped so too."

He growled in frustration and began to pace. "What do we do now?"

I sunk to the floor, holding my face in my hands. Tears were now falling freely down my face. He was right; I hadn't thought anything through at all. This was all my fault. If I hadn't appeared on his front door, if I hadn't listened to my hormones that night, we wouldn't be here now. I would probably be at home, eating cereal and watching my cartoons.

I didn't hear him, but I felt the heat from his body as he sat next to me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and I turned my face into his chest. If Kenshin had any sense, he should have kicked me out.

But Kenshin always did what I didn't expect.

He kissed the crown of my head and leaned his head upon mine. "I'm sorry. I know you didn't want it to turn out like this." I heard the smile in his voice. "If I know you as well as I think I do, I suspect that you came to check me out again. You're such a curious one."

I hiccupped as I nodded into his chest. "So, any ideas of what we should do?" My voice was thick with tears.

He sighed. "I guess the old cliché really plays in well here: we just take it a day at a time."