ii.
Love is really nothing
but a dream that keeps waking me;
Rain pattered and dripped from the tombstone. Kneeling beside her grave, he felt heavy and small. It was only when he was here that he could remember distinctly the touch of her skin, the smell of her hair, and the faint, special smiles she spared for him. It was only when he was here that he allowed himself to ponder love.
For all of my trying
We still end up dying
In Kenshin's mind, love and pain existed together, intertwined, part of the same emotion, with fear an ever-present ghost to haunt him. He could not imagine a love that did not require pain to exist. He could not imagine loving a woman and it not ending in sorrow in the end.
How can it be?
Kaoru stepped behind him. She did not speak, but simply folded herself neatly next to him, where she nodded her head in prayer before his first wife's tomb. Kenshin watched her from the corner of his eye, feeling the love, pain, and fear together in one, palpable ache. She was too much, sitting there by the earth with her hair dripping down her face and her figure: too much for him to handle, and yet not enough to satisfy him.