Rurouni Kenshin Fic: you're barely superstitious
I have no idea, guys. Between the Sailor Moon fix and the rest of my anime revival love, I remembered someone asking about RK and something about middles and beginnings and AUs and stuff. Obviously this is too big to fit in a comment. I'm pretty sure this is either for hariboo_smirks or outragedy. This could definitely be a 'verse too. So here we go. Also I forgot Betty White was in Lake Placid with killer crocs. I'm going to bed.
you're barely superstitious
that one time you're already in a bar and all the players are waiting for you to play. they never have the right life lessons for this one.
rurouni kenshin | kenshin/kaoru | AU | 7,045 words, PG
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There should be a universal law that says: please, please don't cross any witchy looking old lady who is trying to cross the road. In fact, said universal law should be pinned to a billboard and written in flashing lights, set to a timer that will occasionally explode into glitter and confetti should you miss a chance to notice too.
Unfortunately Kaoru is having a day. Or a couple of days.
Call it semantics.
When she was six - so the story goes - the neighbor's cat decided that it would be a fantastic idea to use a six year old Kaoru as some kind of scratching post. It was really the psychotic neighborhood kids, if she remembers the moment correctly. It doesn't matter. The scar isn't too noticeable; the twin lines run over her cheek, thumbed thinly into her skin as if they were nothing more than accidental marker. It makes for a great bar story, over the third or fourth whiskey that some guy tries to get her pour and simultaneously hit on her too. Awkwardly, or whatever.
But she's worked at Layla's since forever, somewhere between wrapping up college and the tips, she decided that the odd hours were somewhat okay. Joe, the owner, pays well for rent and slow summers so she hasn't really left as it is.
Tonight's one of those days, one of those slow summer days, where the patrons are a mess of men, business and otherwise, skewed over the bar with their whiskeys and the sweat gathering at their collars. She's poured a couple of scotches too and stands at the back of the bar, glass in hand as she wipes it down and studies the news flickering on the television above everyone, set dead against a corner.
"Hey princess!"
Her mouth twists. She doesn't turn. "Sano," she greets. She barely blinks, sliding the glass onto the counter in front of her and reaching for the whiskey. He'll be her first dry. "It's a little early for you," she says. "You might actually make the kitchen too."
Sano drops into the seat in front of her, sighing loudly. He's joined by someone else; his companion hasn't ordered, so Kaoru doesn't pay attention.
"Girlfriend's made me promise to lay off the grease," Sano tells her. "I'm trying to be good this week. So we ate before."
She snorts. "I see."
Sano grins, reaching forward. He pokes her at her forehead, flicking her bangs away from her eyes. Kaoru draws back.
"You missed me, princess," he draws.
"Every day," she says dryly.
He shrugs. "Business is good," he says. It's then that he turns to his companion. Kaoru follows his gaze and she finds herself settling into a small, strange staring competition with another man. "Do that thing you do, Kaoru," Sano says.
She blinks. The man is an odd fixture in a bar like Layla's, and even against Sano's tall, hunkering form. He's well-dressed; the cuffs of his shirt are rolled to his elbows, the collar at his throat is sharp and creased, and his form seems longer that she can really settle on. His hair too is set back into a tight braid, hung loosely over his shoulder. When he smiles, it fits across his mouth with ease and his eyes flash with a lazy gold.
"Kaoru."
She looks back at Sano, flushing. He smirks, waving his hand.
"Do that thing," he says.
"I'm not a circus act," she mutters. True to form though, Kaoru sets a glass in front of the man and leans back to study him again. He's still said nothing and she wants to find that odd; instead, she feels relatively glad. There's this tension too, something she's not entirely sure is misplaced or something she's made up in her head.
It's still ice, then it's scotch, it's the bar's best scotch, and she's pushing the glass towards him. He reaches for her and grasps her wrist - it's fast, maybe too fast, and her eyes are wide. She flushes too and there is the slow, amused curl of his mouth.
"You look like you'd drink beer," she murmurs. "But only to shut this idiot up - you probably don't even like the taste. You're a scotch drinker because it's stable and you like stable. You also know the difference between the good stuff and the cheap stuff."
"Hey!"
The man laughs softly. "On the money," he murmurs.
He looks at her too, like looks at her. She feels like he's peeling back everything from her, each layer, each secret, and suddenly, she wants to bolt. She wants to bolt fast. But there's two hours left until closing and her shift and she's got to be so careful as it is. She manages to let her fingers curl around his hand, slowly pulling off each of his fingers away from her skin. He lets her, of course, and she swears, swears she feels his thumb run against the underside of her wrist, tracing those thin lines before she can take a deep breath.
Weird, weird, weird, she thinks.
The old lady factors into the story much later, after her shift and a couple hours of sleep, her last seminar class and Misao dragging her to breakfast when really she should be grocery shopping and stalking her fridge for the next time she remembers she's got to feed herself. But Misao is also paying and the smaller woman has been her friend long enough to take advantage of these bleary-eyed habits, walking with her to the diner.
"Eggs," Misao says. "I want eggs, greasy, greasy, greasy eggs."
Karou's nose wrinkles. "You're gross."
Misao waves her hand. "I'm a growing girl, and a growing girl, coincidentally who happily grosses my mother out upon any incidents or mentions of marrying me off to the first guy that bats his eyes at me. So this week, it's eggs. And bacon - I love bacon, Kaoru."
Kaoru laughs.
They share that last seminar class together and tonight is her night off from the bar. They walk down the path talking about a mix of school and the latest about Misao's mother and her friend's never-ending desire to one-up the older woman when it comes to her love life. Everybody knows that Misao's perfectly capable as it is.
But Kaoru sees the older woman first, struggling with one of those wire carts, bags and bags of groceries trying not to spill off the side. She bites her lip and pulls at her coat, stepping back from Misao and heading over to the woman, just as a bundle of fruit flies and slams into the curb. Kaoru tries not to wince.
"Here," she murmurs. She picks up the bag. The cantaloupe already has a large bruise on the side. She cradles it in her hands. "Can I help you with anything?" she asks the woman.
The woman's hands fly into face, then pull the offending cantaloupe out of Kaoru's, cradling it to her chest. Her eyes are wide. Her cheeks are flushed and Kaoru barely has any time to react to the strange reaction.
"No! No!" she says. The older woman grins with her teeth. They're a mix of white and yellow; her eyes are sharper too, a few strings of curls falling into her eyes. "No! You're perfectly sweet, you know. It's not your fault my cantaloupe didn't know where it was going."
Kaoru blinks. "Oh, okay."
"What's wrong?" Misao comes up next to them, arms folded against her chest.
"My cantaloupe," the older woman says seriously. "It's -" more fruit falls from the wire cart. Misao reaches for the oranges that seem to stumble onto the street, but Karou grabs her arm and holds her back. "And my oranges," the woman sighs. "Fruit these days."
Misao chokes. Kaoru squeezes her arm.
"I'm sorry," she offers awkwardly.
She doesn't know who backs away first, but they watch the old woman pat her collection of fruit, murmuring to the bags as if they were her children.
"Don't worry, dear." The woman's eyes are bright and blue, wide and seemingly endless. It makes Kaoru shiver. "Everyone gets restless," she says. "It's what lands you in the middle anyway."
The man comes back to the bar. She shouldn't be surprised; she isn't surprised, which is the weirdest part of all of this. It's late, towards the later hours of her shift again, and she's settling his drink in front with way too much of a practiced ease.
"Where's Sano?" she asks, and he scoffs, rolling his shoulders into a shrug. She leans against the bar, wiping the counter in front of her. "Can I get you anything else, then?"
His fingers touch her cheek. She jumps, wide-eyed.
"Where did you get this?" he asks. His voice is softer than she remembers. He rolls his thumb over her skin, tracing the long scar over her cheek.
"A cat," she mumbles.
His mouth twitches. She's frozen though. Usually she's good. Usually she's really good. It's all about timing and pulling away in the right moment; it's still, though, it's still the way that he's watching her, his eyes narrowed and his mouth slipping into that same smirk - the one that should be far and far away from her mind, but comes back and she's not entirely sure what to do with it as it is.
She finds herself reaching up, her fingers curling around his wrist. She doesn't tug. Her hair falls into her eyes and he pushes his scotch glass away from him for the moment.
"Are you always this personal with people you barely know?" she finds herself asking too. Her voice catches and she feels his thumb roll into her skin. "Or are you trying to be as creepy as you possibly can?"
He laughs huskily. "You don't seem to bothered by me."
Her eyes narrow. He laughs again.
"Boundaries," she mutters.
"What of them?"
"Ugh." It's enough to let her draw back. She drops his wrist and grabs the towel. She eyes the rest of her customers; everybody seems way too preoccupied by the game and the scores, the assorted highlights and where, oh where, is Misao when you actually need her for a situation like this. "You're weird," she mutters too.
She doesn't know what to do, outside of forcing herself to go back to work. The man seems to content to keep himself in front of her, at the bar and with his glass. She tries not to pay too much attention to the fact that he's not drinking his scotch and then, then there was the time before that where she didn't notice him drinking at all.
Kaoru makes sure to stay close to the opposite end of the bar for most of the night.
The walk home is usually quick. They say that the city teaches you all sorts of things: you're a young, single woman, listen to your mother, carry something sharp and your keys in your hand, and remember to just be faster than fast. But Kaoru learned all she needed to know from a dead father and years and years of Kendo lessons, folded into her hands and fists and those awkward college frat parties for good measure.
It's happened once before, being followed out of the bar. Her instincts are sharp enough because of the copious amounts of coffee that she finishes her night off with; she keeps her hands at her sides, her back straight, and walks slow enough to show that she hasn't noticed anything. But it's still a twenty minute walk to her apartment and she cuts across the street, closer to the park because the lights are brighter on that side for whatever reason.
The city at night is a strange enough experience as it is. Her eyes move to shadows. The car lights cast over them, running fast and furious and hard. There are tire screeches and when she crosses to another open side of the street, she passes a few, stumbling co-eds heading back towards the university.
But she manages to catch the hit from the left side first.
It's a man, of course, sloppy and heavy. He slams her into the wall, wrenching her bag from her hand as he tries and gropes her arm to press against her back. She kicks him hard in the knee, breathless as she spins on her heel to turn and face him.
"You're an idiot," she snarls.
The man merely grins. The light catches and stumbles against his throat; she sees the all-too familiar tattoos crawling at his throat. Local gang, she thinks. All over the papers. This may or may not be the time to blame the universe for something.
She watches, eyes narrowed as he pulls a blade from his hip. The knife snaps into place and she curses under her breath.
"Really?"
"It's nothing personal, kid," the man says. "I gotta get a deadline and a fix in."
"Whatever that means," Kaoru mutters.
He lunges for her and she twists, ducking under his arm and shifting so that she rolls onto her back and her side. She barely has the time to think when he hits the wall and the barrette that is holding her hair back, cracks and her hair spills everywhere - into her eyes, into her face. She could run, she thinks quickly. But she's never been that girl.
Instead, she gathers herself and straightens on her feet. The man is wiping his mouth away with his arm. She finally sees his eyes too, wide and bloodshot and she's irritated, if anything, that she's the random girl set aside for some stupid initiation - that's what it has to be, she thinks. Totally random. Totally the universe. Of course, it has to happen to her.
She tastes the blood in her mouth too.
"So," she drawls, wiping at her mouth. She shifts out of her coat, tossing it to her bag. It's cold and the air curls against her skin, her throat and arms. Her sleeves are still rolled from the bar, the buttons a little wet from some scotch. "I guess it could be worse."
"You have no idea, kid."
The man shifts from foot to foot. Karou narrows her eyes. He's got to weigh a ton, she thinks. The bulk of his weight is favored on his feet and shoulders. She knows she's not going to have enough time to move fast enough.
"All right then," she says. "Here we -"
The blade comes out of nowhere. It lodges into his throat.
So maybe it comes back to that cat, that cat and six year old Kaoru, trying to do the right thing and save him from becoming the plaything of the creepy kids around the corner. Or maybe it was the old lady and her fruit. Maybe universal signs are just universal signs and she should probably get a job that gets her out early, so that she can pay better attention. Or something. This is the middle of it all.
She's not horrified by the blood. She watches with a strange fascination as the man's throat splits in half, the bulk of his body becoming nothing but weight as he falls to his knees. His head lolls to the side and then snaps of his neck, dropping into a nearby pile of trash. Kaoru is frozen and doesn't know what to do.
"Sorry about that."
Her hand claps over her mouth. A hysterical laugh threatens to snap out of her throat.
"I always keep to careful company." The man from the bar emerges from the shadows. He wears a dark trench, holding the hilt of a sword in one of his hands. He pulls the blade out of the body between them. "Or at least, I try the respectable dating thing first," he says casually. He wipes the blade over the body too. "I never know which works best."
"Of course," she says shakily.
She stumbles back, leaning against the wall. Kaoru's arms automatically fold over her chest. Her eyes are wide and she watches the man toe the body before returning the sword into the hilt. When he turns to her, she watches his eyes flash.
"You're bleeding," he says, and she can say nothing, keeping to the wall as he reaches her too. His fingers touch her cheek, over the scar pushed into her skin. His fingers feel sticky and cold and she can't help but turn into his touch. "I'm sorry about that too," he says.
"I don't know your name."
He chuckles. "We'll worry about that later."
"You seem way too comfortable for a guy that - " she frames her face with her hands, "ugh," she breathes. "Ugh. What even."
"I'll get your coat," he says.
"Do I even want to know?"
It seems like the most logical thing to do, blame everything else. But when he doesn't answer, she's not entirely angry either. Maybe it's because she just doesn't want to know. Maybe it's because she's crazy.
She should have stayed in bed today, she thinks.
He takes her to her apartment. Mostly because if he's going to kill her, she's going to die where Misao is going to find her body and because Misao is Misao, she's strangely comforted by the fact that her friend would extract the appropriate amount of vengeance or something like it. But she finally accepts that she's in shock too: her hands tremble when she gives the man her keys, when she lets him guide her inside, and when they head straight to her kitchen as he starts moving around to make her some tea.
He's beautiful, she thinks. Then she hates herself for the thought; it's something she can't help though, watching the way he moves, how there's nothing but effortlessness in the way he moves to the occasional, sharp turn of his mouth and the lazy gaze she gets when he catches her watching him. When he settles the tea in front of her, he touches her cheek again.
"Kenshin," he says.
"Kenshin," she repeats. She blinks. "What?"
He laughs. "It's my name," he says. He takes the stool at the kitchen bar with her, settling so that he's leaning back against it and standing between her legs. "I work with Sano," he says. "He kept saying I had to meet you."
"Shady bastard," she mutters, and Kenshin laughs again.
He's quiet though and it takes her another moment to realize that he's found the first aid kit that she keeps in the kitchen, the one that Misao and another friend gave her for Christmas, as a joke for her lack of kitchen skills. Kenshin's hand brushes over her hip and he drags her, just slightly, to the edge of her stool.
When his fingers brush over her scars, she flushes.
"Sorry about that," he says huskily.
"The cat." He blinks. She blushes deeper. "You didn't do this," she says pointing to her scars. "It was that stupid cat that I had to rescue when I was a kid."
"Had to?"
"It's a long story," she mumbles, turning her head away.
"I like stories," Kenshin says.
"I can't believe I just let you into my apartment."
He shrugs. "It was either that or mine," he says. "And you look like you wouldn't have been happy or comfortable with the latter."
"You're a strange man," she murmurs, shaking her head.
She winces too because his fingers catch over her skin, and she feels the familiar gesture of bandages being stretched against her skin. The adhesive is sticky and hard and she shudders, just a little, her hands dropping to her lap.
He works quietly. She lets him because she's not entirely sure what to say. She tries to remember if Sano told her what he did. She should know. She's a bartender; then again, that barely means anything as it is. She hears stories all the time. There are elaborate tales and then there are elaborate tales and there is no way, shape, or form that she'd forget someone like Kenshin and whatever story he told.
"There," he says. He draws back, but doesn't move from between her legs. "Drink your tea."
"Ass," she mutters.
He chuckles. "It'll make you feel better." His mouth curls too. "I promise."
"Is this the part where I ask you what you do and you do something inexplicably charming and confusing so that I get distracted enough not to ask you what you do again and you avoid telling me what you do anyway?"
"Yes," he deadpans. His fingers touch her cheek and then her lips. She flushes again. "But I haven't even made you dinner yet," he says.
Her eyes widen. "Really?"
"I could kiss you," he offers.
"I might hit you then," she says. "No," she says too. "Scratch that, I'll hit you if you even think about trying. I can still do that."
His mouth twitches and he reaches forward, tucking her hair behind her ear. She feels his other hand rest at her hip and then he nods to the tea, still sitting in front of her.
"Drink it," he says. "We'll argue later."
There is a point where things are more about instinct than anything else. She calls out of work. Her shifts are covered. She calls Misao and tells her not to worry. She skips seminar and sends in her paper with an email that says something about flu-like symptoms, also known as the scariest thing ever to a professor these days.
Kenshin hasn't left. Sano shows up. Somewhere between a couple hours of sleep and Kenshin telling her to settle on her couch with the news and more tea, she's decided that he has to be some strange, strange, super secret agent or assassin or the universe's way of telling her that she's an idiot and really, really Kaoru you should've paid more attention the first time. She doesn't not give any indication to her relative unease either, showering and hiding with her blanket on the couch as he settles next to her.
"You kill people," she says finally.
There's something on the news about a dog rescuing a miner. The next story flashes across the screen and it's about school children and killer macaroni. Her nose wrinkles.
"Yes," Kenshin says. "I do."
"So." She looks up. "Are you going to kill me?"
He tilts his head to the side. Sano snorts, walking back into the room and she finally, finally remembers him being here.
"You'd be dead," Sano says. "No offense."
Kaoru shakes her head. "Whatever," she says. She ignores the heavy gaze of Kenshin; his eyes, she thinks again. His eyes.
They're still the strangest things she's ever seen. They're gold and way too warm; the flecks of violet are heavy and unsettling and all she can think about is the old woman and the repetition of the middle over and over again.
"You worried, princess?" Sano asks. She jumps and Sano is grinning. "Because you look worried, you know."
"Should I be?" she shoots back.
"No."
Kenshin's fingers brush over her knee and she blinks, watching his hand settling on the blanket. She shifts closer to the corner of the couch, straightening her back against the pillows.
"No," Kenshin says. "You shouldn't."
She manages to shake her head. "I have no idea what's going on."
"Call it," Sano drawls, eyeing Kenshin. "A strange twist of whatever - call it, Kenshin being unable to keep his curiosity from - "
"Sano," Kenshin cuts in. His voice darkens and Sano straightens, his mouth writing into a steadier amusement. He holds his hands up.
"Whatever," the man says.
Kaoru clears her throat. "So can we get back to the fact that you kill people," she says, "and I may or may not have seen something I shouldn't have?"
"Not quite," Sano says dryly.
Her eyes narrow.
"Look," he says too. "We can't really tell you. It sucks, sure. But it's for the best. And you held your own, princess. It's a good thing that you held your own."
"You sound surprised," she shoots.
"Nah." Sano waves a hand. "You seem like the type."
She has no idea what that means, but she's distracted again, again by Kenshin and his stupid hand, his fingers spreading over her knee and stroking the blanket and the slight curve of her leg. She tries not to jump or twitch or move because she likes it and it's weird, it's so weird, and she swears she's turning into Misao and subconsciously falling into what should be a bad idea without thinking. She saw the guy kill a man. He killed a man.
Kaoru finds herself looking up at Kenshin though. The slight turn of her mouth is heavy and she shakes her head too, biting her lip. He leans forward and it's then, then that she realizes that he's actually drinking tea too. Without thinking, she reaches forward and pushes his hair from his eyes, her fingers dragging against his forehead. Her hand jumps though and then draws back, falling over her tea cup.
"I think I'm in shock," she says out loud.
"Makes sense," Sano agrees.
She says nothing. She has to give him that.
The bar is on fire. It's on the news. Joe calls her just as Kenshin comes back, groceries in one hand and balancing against her hip. He talks about insurance and policies and she's not really paying attention because the only thing she can think of is oh and of course.
"It wasn't me," Kenshin still says when she looks at him, his mouth twitches and she really, really doesn't think he's funny. She leans back against her kitchen counter, watching as he sets the groceries on the side.
"I didn't say it was," she tells him. "I was going to sort of, okay, well, I - was going to ask why you're still coming around here."
He shrugs. "You're safe," he says simply.
It settles and unsettles her. She's not entirely sure how to process any of this, really. There's a lot of groundwork; Sano comes around, there are a ton of quiet phone calls, and she's back to rolling what happened over and over again in the back of her mind. The blade in the man's throat. The tattoos. That strange, practiced ease that Kenshin still walks around with. She's not entirely sure why he's staying.
It can't be just because he likes her, she had told Sano. But Sano had laughed and shrugged and looked at her like it was no big deal when he said it can.
But the bar is still on fire. It's just crazy enough to blame the old woman and her fruit.
"There goes my paycheck," she mutters, looking back at the television. The news flashes with speculation. When the reporter says gang related, Kenshin touches her shoulder. "I know, I know," she says. "It wasn't you."
"These things happen," he says.
"Says the man who … I don't even know."
Kenshin snorts. "Karou."
She waves his hand off, ducking under his shoulder and making a move for the grocery bag. She can't remember the last time she's seen fresh anything in her apartment, between work and school and work and school, it's kind of nice. She'll admit that much.
"I still don't know you," she mumbles, and when she turns, he's pressing her back into the counter. She pokes his chest and he laughs, the sound low and heavy. "I'm serious," she says. "I still don't know you."
"But you will," he says.
"You sound way too okay with that."
He grins. "I am."
"The bar is on fire," she points out. Then she looks at the television. "Er, it was. I need to get a new job. And you're sort of, maybe hitting on me?"
"You're beautiful," he says. His fingers slip through her hair. "And I'm a good judge of character, if anything but."
"Comforting," she says dryly.
"I know."
He's looking at her too, like really looking at her; it's strange and settling, the way his gaze kind of sweeps against her, over her and then his hands, the way the press against her face. He cups her jaw and his mouth settles against her forehead, then her cheek, and then at that spot where her jaw and her throat meet. Her sigh is sharp and she turns her head, just enough so that she's leaning into him and his mouth opens over her skin.
This is a stupid idea, she thinks. It doesn't matter because her hands are moving to his chest, her fingers curling in his shirt and he's turning them into the counter even more. It hits her hip and his hand curves along her back, along her waist and then her ass as his mouth opens just over hers and hovers.
"You're strangely okay with me too, you know."
"In shock," she murmurs. "I'm in shock," she says again.
He makes a soft noise, but he doesn't kiss her. "Uh-huh," he says.
She has dreams of men with gold eyes and bars on fire, the smell of smoke sticking to the roof of her mouth and the old woman with her fruit, talking about her and the middle of things, as if it were meant to explain everything and explain it fast.
It's how she wakes up, of course, over the couch and with Kenshin, settled in the chair across from, his eyes closed and the television on. Somehow, she wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't asleep. It wouldn't surprise her at all.
"So wait." Misao holds a hand up. "Wait, you mean you had one of those sexy dark alley encounters and you didn't tell me. Me," she breathes, eyes wide and clutching her chest. "Your best friend? Kaoru!"
Kaoru growls, covering her mouth with a hand. "Shut up," she snaps.
Sexy alleyway encounters aside, she can now not stop thinking about the way he cornered her in the kitchen and how barely, just barely, was there time enough for her to think about kissing him. Not that she wants to, Kenshin being a complete stranger and all. Or psycho, she thinks. Her money's on psycho with a sword.
The truth is now that this has been going on for weeks and she's supposed to be okay with it, or, well, her body's not giving her brain enough time to catch up with the fact that she is, most certainly not, okay with the way things are going. Between Sano and Kenshin, she's become too used to the fact that they are catching up into a pattern with checking up on her.
"Does he have a friend?" Misao asks brightly.
"You would," Kaoru grumbles.
The other woman shrugs. "Whatever." She reaches for her coffee. "I wouldn't be an awesome friend if I didn't ask. The point is though - and there's one - are you being safe? Because he could be a hot psycho too."
"I think he works for the government," she says slowly.
"That's a lazy assumption."
Kaoru shrugs. "Well, I haven't exactly crossed off super spy, super psycho, or all-around serial killer driven by a mad revenge scheme either. I think I'm still in some kind of shock too."
"Eh." Misao reaches for her hand. Her fingers curl around her wrist and then she squeezes her hand. "I'll look into it," she says. "Not to worry," she says too. "And if he has a hot friend, even better. I dig hot friends."
Kaoru groans, rubbing her eyes.
"It wasn't a sexy alley encounter, by the way," she says. "It was an encounter and I'm not really a fan of reliving it all the same."
Misao snorts, but she doesn't push. She knows Kaoru well enough not to. All things aside, she can't help but think that she should start expecting Kenshin around more and more. It could be comforting. It shouldn't be. She brings her hand to her throat and for a moment, she can see the blade, the man, and the man's head starting to slide off his shoulders.
The universe, she thinks. It's starting to suck.
The next time happens in broad daylight.
You think she would have stayed in bed this time around.
The glass to her bedroom window breaks. It shatters loudly; she hears it from the kitchen, pausing in mid-tea as she can just picture the shards hitting the floor. She reaches for one of her knives, grabbing her blade and flipping the hilt into her palm. Kendo, kendo, kendo, she thinks. Dad would be proud.
She's careful enough, shifting behind one of the walls. She recognizes the sound of boots, heavy and hard as they patter against the floor. He must be big, she thinks. She can't take another large man and his head rolling over her kitchen floor - her nose wrinkles. So not okay. So not okay at all.
The television is on though. Her books rest over the coffee table. She knows her notes are open and her pen is uncapped. She knows that her pages are creased too.
She's ready for the fist when it comes.
The coffee table wasn't that big of a deal. But the cigarettes crush against her papers and it's blood, ugh, it's blood too. Kaoru skips to her feet.
"Okay," she breathes, her eyes narrowed. Her arm hurts and she's not okay with any of this. "Okay," she says. "Throw me a bone - what did I do?"
"The Battousai," the man drawls.
"The who and the what?"
The smile that the man gives her is all teeth, all dark and yellow teeth. His eyes flash and he even gives her a small, unrelenting shrug.
"It doesn't matter," he says.
He pulls out a double set of knives out and she's almost, almost close to sighing because well, at least there's some kind of consistency. But her arm really hurts and she's sure, so sure there are ribs that are out of place that shouldn't be. And maybe she's a little dizzy too; she can't tell, it might just be the adrenaline or something.
But the man doesn't answer and she doesn't have time to be surprised, ducking and side-stepping another lunge. He draws his arms back and then forward, slashing at her belly and then at her chest. He catches her side and she cries out, spinning herself into a kick. She hits his shoulder and sends him flying against the television.
He hits the television hard.
It falls into the wall and the wire snaps, a spark shooting against the wall and sending a sharp light into the room. The lights in the apartment snap too and everything goes dark.
Her back hits the wall.
"Silly girl." The low, heavy voice presses against her ear. She feels the fingers curl around her throat. "You're an easy message," the man says, and his breath is hot, thick against her skin. "The bar is just the beginning, throw in a pretty girl and -"
She chokes, clawing blindly at the man's face. Her vision is starting to blur. She tries and swings her legs into him, but her energy is starting to slip. It's bad enough that everything is dark and the only thing she can think about is how her dad would just be so irritated that she stepped one way and not the other.
"You're no one important," the man says.
The blade cuts across the man's throat. His head lobs too fast to the side, pulling off his neck with a loud snap. The hand around her neck drops and the body slips backwards, slumping to the floor as she stares at it wide-eyed.
This is how it hit her: the panic crawls right into her throat, out as half a sob, half a laugh as her hands cover her mouth and she's slumped, on her knees. Her hair falls wildly over her face, her eyes burning as she sort of rocks into her knees. The arm around her shoulders settles quickly, then another goes under her knees.
"It's okay."
"I'm no one important," she breathes; it comes out like this though, " - not me."
Her mouth presses against his throat and she's trying not to smell jasmine because she does not remember jasmine or something clean, something cleaner - or maybe it's just her. Her head is spinning and she can feel her tears wet his throat. She knows it's him.
Kenshin slides his mouth against her hair too and then her cheek and she swears, swears she hears Sano's voice barking orders too.
"Welcome to the club," Kenshin says.
It takes her awhile to stop throwing up. Somewhere between the car, another apartment, and Sano's voice snapping what happened, Kaoru comes to terms with the double body count and the fact, the simple fact that she is just that easy of a message.
There is no comfort to Kenshin's fingers in her hair, or the fact that she keeps playing his name over and over again, in her head, as he smoothes his hand against her head and drags her closer to the wall as she leans shakily against his lap.
She doesn't want to hear you're safe. She's sure that's why he stays quiet.
Her hands are still shaking. It may or may not be days later; it doesn't matter, she figures. Either Misao's figured it out and has bought her some kind of time, or, well, she can always use the bar as an excuse. She knows that she's at Kenshin's. Sano's here and there are too many high walls, clean walls, and not enough personal pictures. Everything is about the lines and it's too neat, too easy, and so like him, she guesses.
There is little comfort in her place in the living room. The chair practically swallows her; Kenshin sits at the coffee table in front of her, his hands resting against her knees.
"I wanted to hate that cat," she says quietly.
Kenshin snorts. Or maybe it's Sano; the kitchen is loud with pots and pans. She swears she hears a phone ring on top of everything else.
"I didn't, you know." Her lips twist. "It's not his fault that the neighborhood kids - or that one, particular kid was a sadist. Besides, the scars get me out of bad dates all the time."
"I'm sorry this happened to you," Kenshin murmurs.
Her eyes darken. She looks at him; his hand move up against her thighs and she pulls back, slowly drawing her legs to her chest. She leans against her knees.
"I can't even call it a bad date."
He laughs. "I don't do bad dates."
"I hate to think what good dates are with you." Her eyes flash and she rocks a little against her legs. "Do I at least get to wear heels?"
"Do you want to?"
Her mouth twitches and she catches herself in the middle of a smile. "I hate you," she mumbles, rubbing her eyes. "I don't even know you and I hate you."
She hides her face in her knees too. She's sure he's smiling.
"Is your employer going to buy me a new apartment?" she asks, muffled, and she should, of course, be serious about the whole thing. Her fingers tremble. She looks up again. Kenshin presses his hands against them and he pulls one of her hands off and away from her leg, pressing his mouth against her palm. "Is it a tax write-off, at least? These are important questions, you know."
She imagines all sorts of things, of course. Joe holding a front for something. Maybe it shouldn't surprise her. Maybe she's just used to the whole clientele or watching these movies with Misao - Misao hates to love spy movies. Complains about them being authentic all the time. Other things that don't surprise her anymore.
But she wants a new apartment, she thinks. She wants a new apartment and a couple of vacations and maybe free rent for a year - no, she thinks, two years and a personal chef. She thinks she's earned it.
Then it's the way she catches him looking at her, where she's back to being uncomfortable and not uncomfortable, completely and utterly confused by the fact that his hands are now moving to her face. His fingers are in her hair again - he likes her hair, she thinks - and he's pulling her closer, his mouth pressing against her forehead.
"You'll stay here," Kenshin says.
Her eyes roll. It's the least she can do. "Fine," she says. "But I want to be wooed."
"You're eating your words!"
Misao is wearing one of her shit-eating grins. She still hasn't told her who Kenshin is, or if that even matters, she reaches for her coffee. She points over her shoulder to the boys, to Kenshin and Sano and Kenshin and Sano's friend. Misao keeps eyeing him with interest.
"Don't think I saw him give you a ride to class this morning," Misao continues. She grins again, leaning against the table. "Or the fact that he has a friend."
"Sano?" Kaoru blinks. "He has a girlfriend."
"Ugh, no." Misao's nose wrinkles. "The other one -" they both look back over Kaoru's shoulder, to the other group. A lazy smile fits against Kenshin's mouth. She barely catches the guy that Misao's paying too much attention to.
Her cheeks still flush and she's back, into her mix of memories, thinking about names and things. The Battousai, she thinks. But there is nothing familiar about it. She shouldn't be surprised and if anything, Misao hasn't volunteered anything or said outwardly that she's found something. Maybe it shouldn't matter.
Her fingers press against her temple. She should chalk this all up to the universe and stupid coincidences, old ladies talking to her about being restless, whatever that needs to mean. She hasn't even touched her coffee either.
"At least you haven't changed," Kaoru mutters.
Misao whistles cheerfully. "What's in a name, right?"
The problem is: this is usually how these things start.
you're barely superstitious
that one time you're already in a bar and all the players are waiting for you to play. they never have the right life lessons for this one.
rurouni kenshin | kenshin/kaoru | AU | 7,045 words, PG
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There should be a universal law that says: please, please don't cross any witchy looking old lady who is trying to cross the road. In fact, said universal law should be pinned to a billboard and written in flashing lights, set to a timer that will occasionally explode into glitter and confetti should you miss a chance to notice too.
Unfortunately Kaoru is having a day. Or a couple of days.
Call it semantics.
When she was six - so the story goes - the neighbor's cat decided that it would be a fantastic idea to use a six year old Kaoru as some kind of scratching post. It was really the psychotic neighborhood kids, if she remembers the moment correctly. It doesn't matter. The scar isn't too noticeable; the twin lines run over her cheek, thumbed thinly into her skin as if they were nothing more than accidental marker. It makes for a great bar story, over the third or fourth whiskey that some guy tries to get her pour and simultaneously hit on her too. Awkwardly, or whatever.
But she's worked at Layla's since forever, somewhere between wrapping up college and the tips, she decided that the odd hours were somewhat okay. Joe, the owner, pays well for rent and slow summers so she hasn't really left as it is.
Tonight's one of those days, one of those slow summer days, where the patrons are a mess of men, business and otherwise, skewed over the bar with their whiskeys and the sweat gathering at their collars. She's poured a couple of scotches too and stands at the back of the bar, glass in hand as she wipes it down and studies the news flickering on the television above everyone, set dead against a corner.
"Hey princess!"
Her mouth twists. She doesn't turn. "Sano," she greets. She barely blinks, sliding the glass onto the counter in front of her and reaching for the whiskey. He'll be her first dry. "It's a little early for you," she says. "You might actually make the kitchen too."
Sano drops into the seat in front of her, sighing loudly. He's joined by someone else; his companion hasn't ordered, so Kaoru doesn't pay attention.
"Girlfriend's made me promise to lay off the grease," Sano tells her. "I'm trying to be good this week. So we ate before."
She snorts. "I see."
Sano grins, reaching forward. He pokes her at her forehead, flicking her bangs away from her eyes. Kaoru draws back.
"You missed me, princess," he draws.
"Every day," she says dryly.
He shrugs. "Business is good," he says. It's then that he turns to his companion. Kaoru follows his gaze and she finds herself settling into a small, strange staring competition with another man. "Do that thing you do, Kaoru," Sano says.
She blinks. The man is an odd fixture in a bar like Layla's, and even against Sano's tall, hunkering form. He's well-dressed; the cuffs of his shirt are rolled to his elbows, the collar at his throat is sharp and creased, and his form seems longer that she can really settle on. His hair too is set back into a tight braid, hung loosely over his shoulder. When he smiles, it fits across his mouth with ease and his eyes flash with a lazy gold.
"Kaoru."
She looks back at Sano, flushing. He smirks, waving his hand.
"Do that thing," he says.
"I'm not a circus act," she mutters. True to form though, Kaoru sets a glass in front of the man and leans back to study him again. He's still said nothing and she wants to find that odd; instead, she feels relatively glad. There's this tension too, something she's not entirely sure is misplaced or something she's made up in her head.
It's still ice, then it's scotch, it's the bar's best scotch, and she's pushing the glass towards him. He reaches for her and grasps her wrist - it's fast, maybe too fast, and her eyes are wide. She flushes too and there is the slow, amused curl of his mouth.
"You look like you'd drink beer," she murmurs. "But only to shut this idiot up - you probably don't even like the taste. You're a scotch drinker because it's stable and you like stable. You also know the difference between the good stuff and the cheap stuff."
"Hey!"
The man laughs softly. "On the money," he murmurs.
He looks at her too, like looks at her. She feels like he's peeling back everything from her, each layer, each secret, and suddenly, she wants to bolt. She wants to bolt fast. But there's two hours left until closing and her shift and she's got to be so careful as it is. She manages to let her fingers curl around his hand, slowly pulling off each of his fingers away from her skin. He lets her, of course, and she swears, swears she feels his thumb run against the underside of her wrist, tracing those thin lines before she can take a deep breath.
Weird, weird, weird, she thinks.
The old lady factors into the story much later, after her shift and a couple hours of sleep, her last seminar class and Misao dragging her to breakfast when really she should be grocery shopping and stalking her fridge for the next time she remembers she's got to feed herself. But Misao is also paying and the smaller woman has been her friend long enough to take advantage of these bleary-eyed habits, walking with her to the diner.
"Eggs," Misao says. "I want eggs, greasy, greasy, greasy eggs."
Karou's nose wrinkles. "You're gross."
Misao waves her hand. "I'm a growing girl, and a growing girl, coincidentally who happily grosses my mother out upon any incidents or mentions of marrying me off to the first guy that bats his eyes at me. So this week, it's eggs. And bacon - I love bacon, Kaoru."
Kaoru laughs.
They share that last seminar class together and tonight is her night off from the bar. They walk down the path talking about a mix of school and the latest about Misao's mother and her friend's never-ending desire to one-up the older woman when it comes to her love life. Everybody knows that Misao's perfectly capable as it is.
But Kaoru sees the older woman first, struggling with one of those wire carts, bags and bags of groceries trying not to spill off the side. She bites her lip and pulls at her coat, stepping back from Misao and heading over to the woman, just as a bundle of fruit flies and slams into the curb. Kaoru tries not to wince.
"Here," she murmurs. She picks up the bag. The cantaloupe already has a large bruise on the side. She cradles it in her hands. "Can I help you with anything?" she asks the woman.
The woman's hands fly into face, then pull the offending cantaloupe out of Kaoru's, cradling it to her chest. Her eyes are wide. Her cheeks are flushed and Kaoru barely has any time to react to the strange reaction.
"No! No!" she says. The older woman grins with her teeth. They're a mix of white and yellow; her eyes are sharper too, a few strings of curls falling into her eyes. "No! You're perfectly sweet, you know. It's not your fault my cantaloupe didn't know where it was going."
Kaoru blinks. "Oh, okay."
"What's wrong?" Misao comes up next to them, arms folded against her chest.
"My cantaloupe," the older woman says seriously. "It's -" more fruit falls from the wire cart. Misao reaches for the oranges that seem to stumble onto the street, but Karou grabs her arm and holds her back. "And my oranges," the woman sighs. "Fruit these days."
Misao chokes. Kaoru squeezes her arm.
"I'm sorry," she offers awkwardly.
She doesn't know who backs away first, but they watch the old woman pat her collection of fruit, murmuring to the bags as if they were her children.
"Don't worry, dear." The woman's eyes are bright and blue, wide and seemingly endless. It makes Kaoru shiver. "Everyone gets restless," she says. "It's what lands you in the middle anyway."
The man comes back to the bar. She shouldn't be surprised; she isn't surprised, which is the weirdest part of all of this. It's late, towards the later hours of her shift again, and she's settling his drink in front with way too much of a practiced ease.
"Where's Sano?" she asks, and he scoffs, rolling his shoulders into a shrug. She leans against the bar, wiping the counter in front of her. "Can I get you anything else, then?"
His fingers touch her cheek. She jumps, wide-eyed.
"Where did you get this?" he asks. His voice is softer than she remembers. He rolls his thumb over her skin, tracing the long scar over her cheek.
"A cat," she mumbles.
His mouth twitches. She's frozen though. Usually she's good. Usually she's really good. It's all about timing and pulling away in the right moment; it's still, though, it's still the way that he's watching her, his eyes narrowed and his mouth slipping into that same smirk - the one that should be far and far away from her mind, but comes back and she's not entirely sure what to do with it as it is.
She finds herself reaching up, her fingers curling around his wrist. She doesn't tug. Her hair falls into her eyes and he pushes his scotch glass away from him for the moment.
"Are you always this personal with people you barely know?" she finds herself asking too. Her voice catches and she feels his thumb roll into her skin. "Or are you trying to be as creepy as you possibly can?"
He laughs huskily. "You don't seem to bothered by me."
Her eyes narrow. He laughs again.
"Boundaries," she mutters.
"What of them?"
"Ugh." It's enough to let her draw back. She drops his wrist and grabs the towel. She eyes the rest of her customers; everybody seems way too preoccupied by the game and the scores, the assorted highlights and where, oh where, is Misao when you actually need her for a situation like this. "You're weird," she mutters too.
She doesn't know what to do, outside of forcing herself to go back to work. The man seems to content to keep himself in front of her, at the bar and with his glass. She tries not to pay too much attention to the fact that he's not drinking his scotch and then, then there was the time before that where she didn't notice him drinking at all.
Kaoru makes sure to stay close to the opposite end of the bar for most of the night.
The walk home is usually quick. They say that the city teaches you all sorts of things: you're a young, single woman, listen to your mother, carry something sharp and your keys in your hand, and remember to just be faster than fast. But Kaoru learned all she needed to know from a dead father and years and years of Kendo lessons, folded into her hands and fists and those awkward college frat parties for good measure.
It's happened once before, being followed out of the bar. Her instincts are sharp enough because of the copious amounts of coffee that she finishes her night off with; she keeps her hands at her sides, her back straight, and walks slow enough to show that she hasn't noticed anything. But it's still a twenty minute walk to her apartment and she cuts across the street, closer to the park because the lights are brighter on that side for whatever reason.
The city at night is a strange enough experience as it is. Her eyes move to shadows. The car lights cast over them, running fast and furious and hard. There are tire screeches and when she crosses to another open side of the street, she passes a few, stumbling co-eds heading back towards the university.
But she manages to catch the hit from the left side first.
It's a man, of course, sloppy and heavy. He slams her into the wall, wrenching her bag from her hand as he tries and gropes her arm to press against her back. She kicks him hard in the knee, breathless as she spins on her heel to turn and face him.
"You're an idiot," she snarls.
The man merely grins. The light catches and stumbles against his throat; she sees the all-too familiar tattoos crawling at his throat. Local gang, she thinks. All over the papers. This may or may not be the time to blame the universe for something.
She watches, eyes narrowed as he pulls a blade from his hip. The knife snaps into place and she curses under her breath.
"Really?"
"It's nothing personal, kid," the man says. "I gotta get a deadline and a fix in."
"Whatever that means," Kaoru mutters.
He lunges for her and she twists, ducking under his arm and shifting so that she rolls onto her back and her side. She barely has the time to think when he hits the wall and the barrette that is holding her hair back, cracks and her hair spills everywhere - into her eyes, into her face. She could run, she thinks quickly. But she's never been that girl.
Instead, she gathers herself and straightens on her feet. The man is wiping his mouth away with his arm. She finally sees his eyes too, wide and bloodshot and she's irritated, if anything, that she's the random girl set aside for some stupid initiation - that's what it has to be, she thinks. Totally random. Totally the universe. Of course, it has to happen to her.
She tastes the blood in her mouth too.
"So," she drawls, wiping at her mouth. She shifts out of her coat, tossing it to her bag. It's cold and the air curls against her skin, her throat and arms. Her sleeves are still rolled from the bar, the buttons a little wet from some scotch. "I guess it could be worse."
"You have no idea, kid."
The man shifts from foot to foot. Karou narrows her eyes. He's got to weigh a ton, she thinks. The bulk of his weight is favored on his feet and shoulders. She knows she's not going to have enough time to move fast enough.
"All right then," she says. "Here we -"
The blade comes out of nowhere. It lodges into his throat.
So maybe it comes back to that cat, that cat and six year old Kaoru, trying to do the right thing and save him from becoming the plaything of the creepy kids around the corner. Or maybe it was the old lady and her fruit. Maybe universal signs are just universal signs and she should probably get a job that gets her out early, so that she can pay better attention. Or something. This is the middle of it all.
She's not horrified by the blood. She watches with a strange fascination as the man's throat splits in half, the bulk of his body becoming nothing but weight as he falls to his knees. His head lolls to the side and then snaps of his neck, dropping into a nearby pile of trash. Kaoru is frozen and doesn't know what to do.
"Sorry about that."
Her hand claps over her mouth. A hysterical laugh threatens to snap out of her throat.
"I always keep to careful company." The man from the bar emerges from the shadows. He wears a dark trench, holding the hilt of a sword in one of his hands. He pulls the blade out of the body between them. "Or at least, I try the respectable dating thing first," he says casually. He wipes the blade over the body too. "I never know which works best."
"Of course," she says shakily.
She stumbles back, leaning against the wall. Kaoru's arms automatically fold over her chest. Her eyes are wide and she watches the man toe the body before returning the sword into the hilt. When he turns to her, she watches his eyes flash.
"You're bleeding," he says, and she can say nothing, keeping to the wall as he reaches her too. His fingers touch her cheek, over the scar pushed into her skin. His fingers feel sticky and cold and she can't help but turn into his touch. "I'm sorry about that too," he says.
"I don't know your name."
He chuckles. "We'll worry about that later."
"You seem way too comfortable for a guy that - " she frames her face with her hands, "ugh," she breathes. "Ugh. What even."
"I'll get your coat," he says.
"Do I even want to know?"
It seems like the most logical thing to do, blame everything else. But when he doesn't answer, she's not entirely angry either. Maybe it's because she just doesn't want to know. Maybe it's because she's crazy.
She should have stayed in bed today, she thinks.
He takes her to her apartment. Mostly because if he's going to kill her, she's going to die where Misao is going to find her body and because Misao is Misao, she's strangely comforted by the fact that her friend would extract the appropriate amount of vengeance or something like it. But she finally accepts that she's in shock too: her hands tremble when she gives the man her keys, when she lets him guide her inside, and when they head straight to her kitchen as he starts moving around to make her some tea.
He's beautiful, she thinks. Then she hates herself for the thought; it's something she can't help though, watching the way he moves, how there's nothing but effortlessness in the way he moves to the occasional, sharp turn of his mouth and the lazy gaze she gets when he catches her watching him. When he settles the tea in front of her, he touches her cheek again.
"Kenshin," he says.
"Kenshin," she repeats. She blinks. "What?"
He laughs. "It's my name," he says. He takes the stool at the kitchen bar with her, settling so that he's leaning back against it and standing between her legs. "I work with Sano," he says. "He kept saying I had to meet you."
"Shady bastard," she mutters, and Kenshin laughs again.
He's quiet though and it takes her another moment to realize that he's found the first aid kit that she keeps in the kitchen, the one that Misao and another friend gave her for Christmas, as a joke for her lack of kitchen skills. Kenshin's hand brushes over her hip and he drags her, just slightly, to the edge of her stool.
When his fingers brush over her scars, she flushes.
"Sorry about that," he says huskily.
"The cat." He blinks. She blushes deeper. "You didn't do this," she says pointing to her scars. "It was that stupid cat that I had to rescue when I was a kid."
"Had to?"
"It's a long story," she mumbles, turning her head away.
"I like stories," Kenshin says.
"I can't believe I just let you into my apartment."
He shrugs. "It was either that or mine," he says. "And you look like you wouldn't have been happy or comfortable with the latter."
"You're a strange man," she murmurs, shaking her head.
She winces too because his fingers catch over her skin, and she feels the familiar gesture of bandages being stretched against her skin. The adhesive is sticky and hard and she shudders, just a little, her hands dropping to her lap.
He works quietly. She lets him because she's not entirely sure what to say. She tries to remember if Sano told her what he did. She should know. She's a bartender; then again, that barely means anything as it is. She hears stories all the time. There are elaborate tales and then there are elaborate tales and there is no way, shape, or form that she'd forget someone like Kenshin and whatever story he told.
"There," he says. He draws back, but doesn't move from between her legs. "Drink your tea."
"Ass," she mutters.
He chuckles. "It'll make you feel better." His mouth curls too. "I promise."
"Is this the part where I ask you what you do and you do something inexplicably charming and confusing so that I get distracted enough not to ask you what you do again and you avoid telling me what you do anyway?"
"Yes," he deadpans. His fingers touch her cheek and then her lips. She flushes again. "But I haven't even made you dinner yet," he says.
Her eyes widen. "Really?"
"I could kiss you," he offers.
"I might hit you then," she says. "No," she says too. "Scratch that, I'll hit you if you even think about trying. I can still do that."
His mouth twitches and he reaches forward, tucking her hair behind her ear. She feels his other hand rest at her hip and then he nods to the tea, still sitting in front of her.
"Drink it," he says. "We'll argue later."
There is a point where things are more about instinct than anything else. She calls out of work. Her shifts are covered. She calls Misao and tells her not to worry. She skips seminar and sends in her paper with an email that says something about flu-like symptoms, also known as the scariest thing ever to a professor these days.
Kenshin hasn't left. Sano shows up. Somewhere between a couple hours of sleep and Kenshin telling her to settle on her couch with the news and more tea, she's decided that he has to be some strange, strange, super secret agent or assassin or the universe's way of telling her that she's an idiot and really, really Kaoru you should've paid more attention the first time. She doesn't not give any indication to her relative unease either, showering and hiding with her blanket on the couch as he settles next to her.
"You kill people," she says finally.
There's something on the news about a dog rescuing a miner. The next story flashes across the screen and it's about school children and killer macaroni. Her nose wrinkles.
"Yes," Kenshin says. "I do."
"So." She looks up. "Are you going to kill me?"
He tilts his head to the side. Sano snorts, walking back into the room and she finally, finally remembers him being here.
"You'd be dead," Sano says. "No offense."
Kaoru shakes her head. "Whatever," she says. She ignores the heavy gaze of Kenshin; his eyes, she thinks again. His eyes.
They're still the strangest things she's ever seen. They're gold and way too warm; the flecks of violet are heavy and unsettling and all she can think about is the old woman and the repetition of the middle over and over again.
"You worried, princess?" Sano asks. She jumps and Sano is grinning. "Because you look worried, you know."
"Should I be?" she shoots back.
"No."
Kenshin's fingers brush over her knee and she blinks, watching his hand settling on the blanket. She shifts closer to the corner of the couch, straightening her back against the pillows.
"No," Kenshin says. "You shouldn't."
She manages to shake her head. "I have no idea what's going on."
"Call it," Sano drawls, eyeing Kenshin. "A strange twist of whatever - call it, Kenshin being unable to keep his curiosity from - "
"Sano," Kenshin cuts in. His voice darkens and Sano straightens, his mouth writing into a steadier amusement. He holds his hands up.
"Whatever," the man says.
Kaoru clears her throat. "So can we get back to the fact that you kill people," she says, "and I may or may not have seen something I shouldn't have?"
"Not quite," Sano says dryly.
Her eyes narrow.
"Look," he says too. "We can't really tell you. It sucks, sure. But it's for the best. And you held your own, princess. It's a good thing that you held your own."
"You sound surprised," she shoots.
"Nah." Sano waves a hand. "You seem like the type."
She has no idea what that means, but she's distracted again, again by Kenshin and his stupid hand, his fingers spreading over her knee and stroking the blanket and the slight curve of her leg. She tries not to jump or twitch or move because she likes it and it's weird, it's so weird, and she swears she's turning into Misao and subconsciously falling into what should be a bad idea without thinking. She saw the guy kill a man. He killed a man.
Kaoru finds herself looking up at Kenshin though. The slight turn of her mouth is heavy and she shakes her head too, biting her lip. He leans forward and it's then, then that she realizes that he's actually drinking tea too. Without thinking, she reaches forward and pushes his hair from his eyes, her fingers dragging against his forehead. Her hand jumps though and then draws back, falling over her tea cup.
"I think I'm in shock," she says out loud.
"Makes sense," Sano agrees.
She says nothing. She has to give him that.
The bar is on fire. It's on the news. Joe calls her just as Kenshin comes back, groceries in one hand and balancing against her hip. He talks about insurance and policies and she's not really paying attention because the only thing she can think of is oh and of course.
"It wasn't me," Kenshin still says when she looks at him, his mouth twitches and she really, really doesn't think he's funny. She leans back against her kitchen counter, watching as he sets the groceries on the side.
"I didn't say it was," she tells him. "I was going to sort of, okay, well, I - was going to ask why you're still coming around here."
He shrugs. "You're safe," he says simply.
It settles and unsettles her. She's not entirely sure how to process any of this, really. There's a lot of groundwork; Sano comes around, there are a ton of quiet phone calls, and she's back to rolling what happened over and over again in the back of her mind. The blade in the man's throat. The tattoos. That strange, practiced ease that Kenshin still walks around with. She's not entirely sure why he's staying.
It can't be just because he likes her, she had told Sano. But Sano had laughed and shrugged and looked at her like it was no big deal when he said it can.
But the bar is still on fire. It's just crazy enough to blame the old woman and her fruit.
"There goes my paycheck," she mutters, looking back at the television. The news flashes with speculation. When the reporter says gang related, Kenshin touches her shoulder. "I know, I know," she says. "It wasn't you."
"These things happen," he says.
"Says the man who … I don't even know."
Kenshin snorts. "Karou."
She waves his hand off, ducking under his shoulder and making a move for the grocery bag. She can't remember the last time she's seen fresh anything in her apartment, between work and school and work and school, it's kind of nice. She'll admit that much.
"I still don't know you," she mumbles, and when she turns, he's pressing her back into the counter. She pokes his chest and he laughs, the sound low and heavy. "I'm serious," she says. "I still don't know you."
"But you will," he says.
"You sound way too okay with that."
He grins. "I am."
"The bar is on fire," she points out. Then she looks at the television. "Er, it was. I need to get a new job. And you're sort of, maybe hitting on me?"
"You're beautiful," he says. His fingers slip through her hair. "And I'm a good judge of character, if anything but."
"Comforting," she says dryly.
"I know."
He's looking at her too, like really looking at her; it's strange and settling, the way his gaze kind of sweeps against her, over her and then his hands, the way the press against her face. He cups her jaw and his mouth settles against her forehead, then her cheek, and then at that spot where her jaw and her throat meet. Her sigh is sharp and she turns her head, just enough so that she's leaning into him and his mouth opens over her skin.
This is a stupid idea, she thinks. It doesn't matter because her hands are moving to his chest, her fingers curling in his shirt and he's turning them into the counter even more. It hits her hip and his hand curves along her back, along her waist and then her ass as his mouth opens just over hers and hovers.
"You're strangely okay with me too, you know."
"In shock," she murmurs. "I'm in shock," she says again.
He makes a soft noise, but he doesn't kiss her. "Uh-huh," he says.
She has dreams of men with gold eyes and bars on fire, the smell of smoke sticking to the roof of her mouth and the old woman with her fruit, talking about her and the middle of things, as if it were meant to explain everything and explain it fast.
It's how she wakes up, of course, over the couch and with Kenshin, settled in the chair across from, his eyes closed and the television on. Somehow, she wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't asleep. It wouldn't surprise her at all.
"So wait." Misao holds a hand up. "Wait, you mean you had one of those sexy dark alley encounters and you didn't tell me. Me," she breathes, eyes wide and clutching her chest. "Your best friend? Kaoru!"
Kaoru growls, covering her mouth with a hand. "Shut up," she snaps.
Sexy alleyway encounters aside, she can now not stop thinking about the way he cornered her in the kitchen and how barely, just barely, was there time enough for her to think about kissing him. Not that she wants to, Kenshin being a complete stranger and all. Or psycho, she thinks. Her money's on psycho with a sword.
The truth is now that this has been going on for weeks and she's supposed to be okay with it, or, well, her body's not giving her brain enough time to catch up with the fact that she is, most certainly not, okay with the way things are going. Between Sano and Kenshin, she's become too used to the fact that they are catching up into a pattern with checking up on her.
"Does he have a friend?" Misao asks brightly.
"You would," Kaoru grumbles.
The other woman shrugs. "Whatever." She reaches for her coffee. "I wouldn't be an awesome friend if I didn't ask. The point is though - and there's one - are you being safe? Because he could be a hot psycho too."
"I think he works for the government," she says slowly.
"That's a lazy assumption."
Kaoru shrugs. "Well, I haven't exactly crossed off super spy, super psycho, or all-around serial killer driven by a mad revenge scheme either. I think I'm still in some kind of shock too."
"Eh." Misao reaches for her hand. Her fingers curl around her wrist and then she squeezes her hand. "I'll look into it," she says. "Not to worry," she says too. "And if he has a hot friend, even better. I dig hot friends."
Kaoru groans, rubbing her eyes.
"It wasn't a sexy alley encounter, by the way," she says. "It was an encounter and I'm not really a fan of reliving it all the same."
Misao snorts, but she doesn't push. She knows Kaoru well enough not to. All things aside, she can't help but think that she should start expecting Kenshin around more and more. It could be comforting. It shouldn't be. She brings her hand to her throat and for a moment, she can see the blade, the man, and the man's head starting to slide off his shoulders.
The universe, she thinks. It's starting to suck.
The next time happens in broad daylight.
You think she would have stayed in bed this time around.
The glass to her bedroom window breaks. It shatters loudly; she hears it from the kitchen, pausing in mid-tea as she can just picture the shards hitting the floor. She reaches for one of her knives, grabbing her blade and flipping the hilt into her palm. Kendo, kendo, kendo, she thinks. Dad would be proud.
She's careful enough, shifting behind one of the walls. She recognizes the sound of boots, heavy and hard as they patter against the floor. He must be big, she thinks. She can't take another large man and his head rolling over her kitchen floor - her nose wrinkles. So not okay. So not okay at all.
The television is on though. Her books rest over the coffee table. She knows her notes are open and her pen is uncapped. She knows that her pages are creased too.
She's ready for the fist when it comes.
The coffee table wasn't that big of a deal. But the cigarettes crush against her papers and it's blood, ugh, it's blood too. Kaoru skips to her feet.
"Okay," she breathes, her eyes narrowed. Her arm hurts and she's not okay with any of this. "Okay," she says. "Throw me a bone - what did I do?"
"The Battousai," the man drawls.
"The who and the what?"
The smile that the man gives her is all teeth, all dark and yellow teeth. His eyes flash and he even gives her a small, unrelenting shrug.
"It doesn't matter," he says.
He pulls out a double set of knives out and she's almost, almost close to sighing because well, at least there's some kind of consistency. But her arm really hurts and she's sure, so sure there are ribs that are out of place that shouldn't be. And maybe she's a little dizzy too; she can't tell, it might just be the adrenaline or something.
But the man doesn't answer and she doesn't have time to be surprised, ducking and side-stepping another lunge. He draws his arms back and then forward, slashing at her belly and then at her chest. He catches her side and she cries out, spinning herself into a kick. She hits his shoulder and sends him flying against the television.
He hits the television hard.
It falls into the wall and the wire snaps, a spark shooting against the wall and sending a sharp light into the room. The lights in the apartment snap too and everything goes dark.
Her back hits the wall.
"Silly girl." The low, heavy voice presses against her ear. She feels the fingers curl around her throat. "You're an easy message," the man says, and his breath is hot, thick against her skin. "The bar is just the beginning, throw in a pretty girl and -"
She chokes, clawing blindly at the man's face. Her vision is starting to blur. She tries and swings her legs into him, but her energy is starting to slip. It's bad enough that everything is dark and the only thing she can think about is how her dad would just be so irritated that she stepped one way and not the other.
"You're no one important," the man says.
The blade cuts across the man's throat. His head lobs too fast to the side, pulling off his neck with a loud snap. The hand around her neck drops and the body slips backwards, slumping to the floor as she stares at it wide-eyed.
This is how it hit her: the panic crawls right into her throat, out as half a sob, half a laugh as her hands cover her mouth and she's slumped, on her knees. Her hair falls wildly over her face, her eyes burning as she sort of rocks into her knees. The arm around her shoulders settles quickly, then another goes under her knees.
"It's okay."
"I'm no one important," she breathes; it comes out like this though, " - not me."
Her mouth presses against his throat and she's trying not to smell jasmine because she does not remember jasmine or something clean, something cleaner - or maybe it's just her. Her head is spinning and she can feel her tears wet his throat. She knows it's him.
Kenshin slides his mouth against her hair too and then her cheek and she swears, swears she hears Sano's voice barking orders too.
"Welcome to the club," Kenshin says.
It takes her awhile to stop throwing up. Somewhere between the car, another apartment, and Sano's voice snapping what happened, Kaoru comes to terms with the double body count and the fact, the simple fact that she is just that easy of a message.
There is no comfort to Kenshin's fingers in her hair, or the fact that she keeps playing his name over and over again, in her head, as he smoothes his hand against her head and drags her closer to the wall as she leans shakily against his lap.
She doesn't want to hear you're safe. She's sure that's why he stays quiet.
Her hands are still shaking. It may or may not be days later; it doesn't matter, she figures. Either Misao's figured it out and has bought her some kind of time, or, well, she can always use the bar as an excuse. She knows that she's at Kenshin's. Sano's here and there are too many high walls, clean walls, and not enough personal pictures. Everything is about the lines and it's too neat, too easy, and so like him, she guesses.
There is little comfort in her place in the living room. The chair practically swallows her; Kenshin sits at the coffee table in front of her, his hands resting against her knees.
"I wanted to hate that cat," she says quietly.
Kenshin snorts. Or maybe it's Sano; the kitchen is loud with pots and pans. She swears she hears a phone ring on top of everything else.
"I didn't, you know." Her lips twist. "It's not his fault that the neighborhood kids - or that one, particular kid was a sadist. Besides, the scars get me out of bad dates all the time."
"I'm sorry this happened to you," Kenshin murmurs.
Her eyes darken. She looks at him; his hand move up against her thighs and she pulls back, slowly drawing her legs to her chest. She leans against her knees.
"I can't even call it a bad date."
He laughs. "I don't do bad dates."
"I hate to think what good dates are with you." Her eyes flash and she rocks a little against her legs. "Do I at least get to wear heels?"
"Do you want to?"
Her mouth twitches and she catches herself in the middle of a smile. "I hate you," she mumbles, rubbing her eyes. "I don't even know you and I hate you."
She hides her face in her knees too. She's sure he's smiling.
"Is your employer going to buy me a new apartment?" she asks, muffled, and she should, of course, be serious about the whole thing. Her fingers tremble. She looks up again. Kenshin presses his hands against them and he pulls one of her hands off and away from her leg, pressing his mouth against her palm. "Is it a tax write-off, at least? These are important questions, you know."
She imagines all sorts of things, of course. Joe holding a front for something. Maybe it shouldn't surprise her. Maybe she's just used to the whole clientele or watching these movies with Misao - Misao hates to love spy movies. Complains about them being authentic all the time. Other things that don't surprise her anymore.
But she wants a new apartment, she thinks. She wants a new apartment and a couple of vacations and maybe free rent for a year - no, she thinks, two years and a personal chef. She thinks she's earned it.
Then it's the way she catches him looking at her, where she's back to being uncomfortable and not uncomfortable, completely and utterly confused by the fact that his hands are now moving to her face. His fingers are in her hair again - he likes her hair, she thinks - and he's pulling her closer, his mouth pressing against her forehead.
"You'll stay here," Kenshin says.
Her eyes roll. It's the least she can do. "Fine," she says. "But I want to be wooed."
"You're eating your words!"
Misao is wearing one of her shit-eating grins. She still hasn't told her who Kenshin is, or if that even matters, she reaches for her coffee. She points over her shoulder to the boys, to Kenshin and Sano and Kenshin and Sano's friend. Misao keeps eyeing him with interest.
"Don't think I saw him give you a ride to class this morning," Misao continues. She grins again, leaning against the table. "Or the fact that he has a friend."
"Sano?" Kaoru blinks. "He has a girlfriend."
"Ugh, no." Misao's nose wrinkles. "The other one -" they both look back over Kaoru's shoulder, to the other group. A lazy smile fits against Kenshin's mouth. She barely catches the guy that Misao's paying too much attention to.
Her cheeks still flush and she's back, into her mix of memories, thinking about names and things. The Battousai, she thinks. But there is nothing familiar about it. She shouldn't be surprised and if anything, Misao hasn't volunteered anything or said outwardly that she's found something. Maybe it shouldn't matter.
Her fingers press against her temple. She should chalk this all up to the universe and stupid coincidences, old ladies talking to her about being restless, whatever that needs to mean. She hasn't even touched her coffee either.
"At least you haven't changed," Kaoru mutters.
Misao whistles cheerfully. "What's in a name, right?"
The problem is: this is usually how these things start.