Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin is not mine.
This is just a balm for the long waiting, it's right after Akira's death... Soon, I'll be back.
A frozen moment in time
Somewhere between night and memory...
There was no light. Not really. Only a hushed gray that seemed to seep from nowhere and everywhere at once. It bathed the wooden floor, dulled the walls, and blurred the distance. The edges of the world were soft here — too soft to be real.
Kenshin sat on the floor, back curved slightly, hands limp in his lap. His eyes were fixed on the grain of the wood beneath him, as if the answers to every unsaid question were carved in its lines. He wasn't wearing his gi or armor. Just simple robes. They felt weightless. So did he.
Across from him, Kaoru sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, hugging them to her chest. Her face was angled just above them, chin hovering like a delicate tremor between retreat and reach.
She was watching him. Had been, for what felt like hours. Maybe minutes. Maybe none of this had time at all.
Neither had spoken yet.
The silence between them wasn't empty. It breathed.
"Kenshin," she said finally. Her voice was quiet, not tentative — just... careful. Like stepping onto cracked ice.
He didn't look up.
She swallowed, eyes scanning his bowed head. "I saw it," she whispered. "All of it."
He closed his eyes. Not in shame — he'd already passed that — but because the weight of her words shifted something in his chest.
"I didn't want you to," he said, just above a breath.
"I know," Kaoru murmured.
Silence returned, but it was warmer now. Like the moment after a storm, when the wind rests.
"I should've died in his place," Kenshin said. His fingers twitched against his thighs, the old wound beneath the bandages still pulsing, even here. "He had a future. A name. People who—"
"—You do too." Kaoru's voice cut in, gentle but unyielding.
Finally, his eyes lifted. He looked at her like a drowning man seeing shore — not because he could reach it, but because it proved the world still held something worth swimming for.
Kaoru didn't look away.
"I didn't stop it," he confessed. "I couldn't stop it. He asked me to..."
Her grip on her knees tightened. "He asked you to protect the people he loved. Not to die."
Kenshin's breath hitched. He bowed his head again.
"I still killed him."
Kaoru shifted, unfolding her legs slightly, though she didn't cross the space between them. "And I'm still here," she whispered. "Because you did."
Her voice trembled then, barely, like a candle flickering against wind. "So don't... please, Kenshin... don't vanish now."
He looked up again, slower this time, and found her eyes.
They were tired.
Red-rimmed.
Steady.
He didn't speak. Didn't have to. His body leaned forward until his forehead touched the floor, arms limp at his sides. The motion was more surrender than apology — as if he couldn't ask for forgiveness, but still offered the broken pieces of himself anyway.
Kaoru moved.
Not toward him — not yet — but she reached her hand forward, slowly, until it rested beside his. Palm open. Not pulling. Just waiting.
"I'm not angry," she said, barely audible. "I'm not disappointed. I'm not afraid of you."
Kenshin's fingers twitched again. Then — slowly — moved to touch hers.
Their fingers barely laced.
A breath passed between them.
Then Kaoru spoke again.
"I still believe in you."
Something in him cracked.
Not violently. Not loud. Like frost melting from a branch.
He didn't cry. Not here. Not yet.
He still wanted to know...
She didn't blink when he finally broke the silence.
"Did you know?"
His voice was a rasp, not from anger or accusation — but from a sadness so deep it barely had a name.
Kaoru closed her eyes.
"Yes."
There was no trembling in the word. Only a gentle surrender.
Kenshin didn't flinch. But something in his chest — something buried — pulled tighter.
"How long?" he asked.
Her fingers curled more tightly around her knees.
"Two years," she murmured. "Since before the sanctuary burned. I saw it… in pieces. Though the scenery changed. His voice. The blood." Her voice softened. "I never saw his face. Only his death."
Silence fell again. Thick. But different now — shaped like shared grief.
"Did you know it would be me?"
Kaoru opened her eyes.
"No. I never knew it would be you," she said quietly. "I swear it, Kenshin."
He nodded. Just once.
Then, after a pause, he asked, "Would you have told me?"
Her breath caught.
"I wanted to."
He looked at her then — really looked — eyes rimmed with the storm of things he couldn't say.
She lowered her gaze, and a tear slipped down her cheek.
"I didn't know how," she whispered. "I didn't know when."
Another breath.
Then a leap of fate.
"I will." Her voice broke. "I promise… next time we see each other, I'll tell you everything."
Kenshin didn't answer right away.
He only watched her cry — silently, without shame. Her eyes still holding his.
And then — as if something unspoken passed between them — he moved.
He stood up without a sound, walked around the space between them, and lowered himself beside her. Not close enough to touch. But close enough to breathe together.
He folded his knees like hers. Rested his arms on them. His body, small and quiet, curled beside her like a shadow.
The silence returned.
Only now, it felt like home.
Her hand relaxed against the floor between them.
His drifted toward hers.
Their fingers brushed.
Neither pulled away.
And for a moment — between the aching past and the unknowable dawn — they sat in the shape of grief, not to be saved, but to be seen.
Together.
...
Kaoru woke first.
Her room was silent, the hush of early Kyoto pressing gently against the paper screens. The dream lingered — not like a fleeting image but like warmth left in a seat, or the scent of someone gone.
She sat up slowly, one hand still resting on her knees, the other reaching for the air beside her.
Empty.
But she had felt him.
The way Kenshin's voice trembled when he asked her if she knew.
The grief in his eyes when she said yes.
The pain in his silence when she said she would tell him everything — next time.
She clutched her fingers together tightly, pressing her knuckles to her lips. No tears came this time. But the ache was raw and hollowing.
In Edo, far from her, the same sun rose over a different sky.
And there, in a dim room that still smelled faintly of medicine and blood, Kenshin opened his eyes.
He sat bolt upright. His hand reached out instinctively, as if expecting to find her beside him. It fell on empty futon sheets. Cold.
But something remained.
Not the vision itself — that was already slipping away like a tide — but the feeling.
The weight of Kaoru's promise. The echo of her voice.
He pressed his hand to his chest where her words still lived.
"Next time."
It had not been real — not in body. But it had been true.
Their hearts had met somewhere the world could not reach. And maybe that was enough — for now.
Outside, the wind carried the smell of wet earth, and both in Kyoto and Edo, two people stepped out of their dreams… changed.
A/N: Lately, I've been communicating more in English than in Spanish, which is why this time I posted first the English versión. This doesn't mean I'll continue to do so this way though.