Disclaimer - I don't own Rurouni Kenshin.
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Grocery Store
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Chapter 3 - January, February, March
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He called her on her cell phone a week into January.
"Hi, Kenshin." She was surprised to hear from him. They hadn't been in contact with each other for almost a month. The past holiday season had been one of the most distracting that Kaoru had ever lived through. It had seemed like every single one of her friends had thrown a Christmas or New Year's party. She'd gone to a few parties given by her coworkers as well. And, of course, she'd driven home.
"Hey, Kaoru. You're back in town, right?"
"Since three days after Christmas. We don't get much time off at work."
"That sucks. I just got back last night. Can I come over and make you dinner?"
Dinner. She'd been planning on ramen, but she had seven applications left to read tonight, and it would help if she had more to eat than just ramen. Still, she'd never invited Kenshin to her apartment before. "What's the catch?"
"Nothing," he said seriously. "I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I decided you're the first person I want to cook for this year. Are you up for it?"
Kaoru tapped her pen against the table. "Are you really serious?"
"As death."
Well it didn't get more serious than that. What the hell, she liked Kenshin. Hopefully he could actually cook. "I'm always up for free food," Kaoru decided, "I'm in 443."
"Great."
He knocked on her door ten minutes later. She opened it and he walked in, arms laden with two giant grocery bags. "Hey, Kaoru. Your hair grew."
"Yeah," she acknowledged. One hand drifted to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She was a little self-conscious about her hair, now that it wasn't quite pixie length, but wasn't quite long enough to style. "Just sit the bags on the counter," she said, locking the door behind him.
"Miss me since I've been gone?" he asked as he followed her orders. "I bet you were despondent." He leaned and elbow against the counter and grinned at her.
"I got on just fine," Kaoru said primly.
He only smiled, which frustrated her because he knew he was frustrating her.
"I don't know if anyone's told you this before, but the world doesn't revolve around you."
"Oh I know. If it did, I'd run things a bit differently. So how'd the holidays go for you?"
Kaoru shrugged and walked over to the table where she'd been whittling down the days stack of applications. "It was fun. I saw a lot of my friends and spent a couple days with my family-"
"In Virginia," he interrupted.
"Yeah, in Virginia. It was pretty much an alcoholic holiday season. I don't remember New Year's Eve at all, which was all Sano's fault for serving this seriously spiked fruity drink." She sat down in her chair. "And now work is taking over my life."
"Funny, because now that the Christmas rush is over, I've got a lot of free time."
"Way to rub it in."
"I knew you'd appreciate it. Listen, I know you're reading applications, so don't let me bother you. I'll have dinner ready for you in forty-five minutes."
As always when something was too good to be true, she felt the need to stop it from happening. Damn conscience. "You don't really have to do this, Kenshin. Ramen's just fine for me."
"Well I have standards. Maybe someday I'll rub off on you."
"God, I hope not."
He laughed. "I missed talking to you, Kaoru."
She shook her head and ignored the compliment, and he turned away and started pulling groceries from the bags he'd brought. It was no big deal, the fact that he'd said he missed talking to her, but it felt good to have him there, as good as the times when Sano and Megumi came over and it was Megumi standing over there cooking while she and Sano argued or watched TV or teased Megumi. She and Kenshin weren't friends yet, but maybe they would be sometime soon.
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A month later he opened the door.
"Hey."
"Hi, Kenshin. Listen, do you mind if I work here for a few hours? I'm driving myself crazy reading these applications in my apartment. It's not a bad time is it?"
"Nah," he held the door opened wide and stepped aside so Kaoru could walk in. "You're lucky I didn't have a date tonight. I was just watching a basketball game. Remind me to never apply for your job."
"It's a great job," Kaoru said, defending her livelihood as he shut the door behind her.
"Kenshin," he mimicked in a high pitched voice, "I'm driving myself crazy. My job gives me homework!"
"It's a great job," Kaoru repeated. "And since when are you dating anyway? You'd think the fact that you use more shampoo and conditioner on you hair than all the Victoria Secret models combined would turn off most women."
"I demand to know who told you my secret."
"My lips are sealed."
"Would you tell me if I told you how I met Larry?"
"You met fish lips Larry?"
Kenshin nodded. "His lips aren't that bad, more like a salmon's than a catfish or a trout."
Kaoru sank down at his kitchen table, dropping her files down as well. "When did you meet him?"
"Oh, about a week ago. I wanted to save it for ammunition. Sano introduced me. He mentioned to Larry that I knew you. Larry seemed interested."
Kaoru suddenly had a hard time swallowing. "Interested?"
"Interested," Kenshin repeated. "He asked if you were dating anyone. He remembered that Megumi had asked him to double date with you, but apparently you'd come down with a case of food poisoning that night. He hinted that he wanted to meet you."
Kaoru narrowed her eyes and glared at Kenshin, who was looking entirely too smug, perfectly conditioned hair and all. "What did you say to him?"
He pulled an invisible piece of lint from his sweater. "Oh, you mean he hasn't called you yet?"
"You gave him my number!" Kaoru shrieked, bolting up from the table and advancing towards her tormentor.
Kenshin backed away laughing. "Of course I didn't! Calm down."
"Rrr. Don't ever scare me like that again, Kenshin!" Kaoru fumed. "I only guessed about the conditioner anyway!"
He was still smiling. "I know you guessed, because it's not true. Have you ever even met Larry?"
"No! But I refuse to be set up with some stranger, especially not someone with fish lips! Every time I imagine it, I come up with the most disgusting images ever."
Kenshin rolled his eyes. "I think Megumi made up the fish lips part. He looked almost normal to me."
Kaoru shook her head. "If Megumi said he has fish lips, then he has fish lips. She wouldn't torment me with empty threats, because she knows I might call her bluff. Every single time I've called her out, she's delivered. It's embarrassing." Kaoru sat down at the table again. The applications loomed in front of her. "I must be a masochist."
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"How about Jurassic Park?" Kenshin asked after dinner in mid March. Sano and Megumi hadn't stuck around to finish washing the dishes, and the other friends Kaoru had invited from work had left just as quickly.
"Can we watch the second one?" Kaoru asked, drying her hands on the dish towel. She didn't mind washing dirty dishes, because Kenshin had done her the favor of cooking for six people. The man must have been a five star chef in another life. She was glad he'd decided to use his powers for good. The good of her stomach of course.
"Where'd you get this Jeff Goldblum fascination?" he asked, knowing Jeff Goldblum's starring role was the reason the second Jurassic Park movie was her favorite.
"I don't know." She shrugged and found him in the living room, holding both DVDs in one hand each and looking at them as if he'd find the answer to his question that way.
She took the Jurassic Park2 DVD from his hand and put it in the DVD player. "It's cold in here. Get me a blanket? First door after the bathroom."
"Oh, sure," he said, absentmindedly handing her the other DVD and wandering off in the direction of her linen closet.
Kaoru put the DVD on the rack and sat down on the couch, kicking off her shoes and curling her feet under her.
He came back with a navy blue comforter big enough to fit a king size bed. "You want any popcorn?" he asked as he draped it over her, and, incidentally, the whole couch.
"Nah, I'm good. Sit down so we can watch."
"Alright," he said, lifting a corner of the comforter and sitting under it with her. "I don't like the part where the dinosaurs attack the little British girl."
"Well it's not like you're supposed to get off on that scene," Kaoru said as she pressed play.
He laughed. They had become friends after all, partly because they got along well, and partly because they lived in the same apartment and it was convenient. If he wanted to try out a recipe on her, hey, he'd never failed on a dish yet. They both liked basketball, and it didn't matter if she came over just to work on applications in a different setting. He'd keep himself busy with a game and only bother her on commercials or a vent on a ridiculous call made by a referee.
Mid March and reading applications for work was still driving her crazy, but Kenshin was one of the people in her life that made it bearable. And Sano and Megumi liked him. The wedding was in less than two months and Megumi was usually a wreck, but Kenshin's presence had an odd way of mellowing her.
"Kaoru? Hello? Kaoru, you're spacing out."
Kaoru jumped. "Don't pay attention to me, watch the movie."
"Were you thinking about Larry?"
"What?"
"Larry," Kenshin repeated patiently.
"Why would I be thinking about Larry?"
"Sano told me you were shopping with Megumi and you ran into Larry and she finally introduced you."
Kaoru suppressed a shiver. Larry did have fish lips. Megumi's smug smirk had been a fearsome thing to behold. She swore her best friend was a bit of a sadist. "So?"
"So you met him in the grocery store."
Kaoru knew she had a blank look of confusion on her face. "And?"
"We met in the grocery store. Over a year ago. Are you going to start hanging around Larry now?" He was teasing her, probably to distract himself from the scene with the little British girl. Granted, it was a disturbing scene.
"It's sweet that you remember, but stop teasing me about Larry and watch the movie."
"Did you think he has fish lips?" Kenshin asked. He pursed his lips in an imitation of Larry.
"Ew," Kaoru said, and rolled her eyes. She tried to pay attention to the television. The little British girl sure was dumb, feeding tiny dinosaurs a hot dog. What did she think they'd do when it was all gone, skip happily away?
"Are you still afraid he's going to kiss you?" Kenshin asked, drawing closer with his imitation fish lips.
Kaoru pushed him away. "You're twenty-six, man. Stop."
"But Kaoru," he said, imitating Larry's higher-pitched voice and tickling her under the blanket, "I thought you loved fish lips."
Kaoru immediately curled up into a ball and tried not to fall off the couch. She was ticklish. "Kenshin!" she said, trying not to laugh.
"No Kaoru, my name's Larry. I just want to fishy kiss you a fishy goodnight," he said, tone pitched toward a whine that imitated Larry's nasal voice. Kenshin tickled her harder. She jerked in violent spasms of laughter, the movie completely forgotten. Vaguely, she hoped she wouldn't fall off the couch.
"Fishy, Kaoru, fishy," he said, his Larry imitation suddenly getting better with practice.
"Kenshin!" she beseeched him, doing her best to plead with her eyes since she couldn't stop laughing. Mercifully, he stopped tickling her to let her recover, but when she looked up at him, he was still doing the fish imitation. Or the Larry imitation. They were pretty much the same thing.
"Please," he implored. He had the nerve to look sad. Where those tears swimming in his eyes? The man really was too much.
"Oh fine," Kaoru agreed. "Close your eyes."
He did, and she very carefully pressed the remote to his lips.
"I feel gypped," he said, and leaned in to kiss her for real. She leaned in too, because she'd been waiting to kiss him forever it felt like, and so what if dinosaurs were roaring in the background?
She closed her eyes and it was a good kiss, but it was a first kiss. Tentative. Light. Kenshin leaned forward, but she pulled away. Her heart was suddenly beating too fast, and when she opened her eyes he was staring at her. She felt her skin start to heat. She knew she blushed too easily.
"Let's not, Kenshin."
She liked Kenshin, she really did. But now she knew him, and he'd make the most infuriatingly possessive boyfriend ever, which was cute at first, and stayed cute only if one wanted to be possessed. And frankly, Kaoru didn't.
She thought he'd comment for a split second, but then he just shrugged and turned back to the movie. John Hammond was blackmailing Jeff Goldblum into going back to the island.