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My Life: Chapter 12 - Happy New Year

by Fitz

Kenshin, would you stop that?”

“Hm?” I blinked at the girl who had complained so loudly. “Stop what?”

“Stop watching me!” Kaoru waved a stirring spoon in my face. A large clump of whitish... whatever that was fell off the spoon to plop to the tile floor.

“You just--”

“I can cook without having you make sure I’m not going to break!” she declared. “Go wash those dishes and stop staring at me!”

Staring at her? Was I staring at her? I hadn’t even seen her. Well, for a few seconds I looked at her, but to be honest, by the time she yelled at me my mind was off in some other place. At the moment, I was trying to figure out what it was that I was smelling.

“I think something’s burning, Kaoru.”

“Huh?” she looked back to the oven. “Oh, my god! The pizza!”

“When did you put in a pizza?” I wondered, watching her run around, frantically searching for an oven pad and, when she found it, opening the oven and yanking out the smoking pizza.

The fire alarm started wailing.

“What’s going on in there?!” Ms. Kamiya bellowed from the study.

“Nothing!” Kaoru shouted back. “Kenshin, the fire alarm!”

“No kidding!” I had my hands over my ears to block out the horrible sound. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“Here!” she shoved a magazine into my hands.

“Turn on the fan!” I looked at the magazine. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Get the smoke away from the sensor!”

For god’s sake! So, I stood under the sensor, waving the magazine back and forth to help the smoke dissipate. Finally, the alarm stopped. I went back to the kitchen island, dropping the cooking magazine in front of Kaoru. She was poking at the pizza. It was black around the edges, the cheese cooked a solid brown.

“That is inedible,” I told her. The girl couldn’t even make a frozen pizza. How hard was it? Oven on, pizza in, timer set, and ding! you’re done. The fire alarm usually did not enter as a factor.

“It was supposed to be lunch!” Kaoru retorted. “I’m sure it’s just fine.”

I poked at the charred edges. It crumbled like so much dust. It was kind of cool, actually. I’d never seen pizza burnt to that extent.

“Let’s just make sandwiches,” I suggested. “Unless you really want to choke that thing down.”

She whacked me upside the head for that one. I chuckled and went to prepare a more palatable lunch. Kaoru continued to stir that stuff and mutter under her breath. I brought her a turkey sandwich and sat down to eat my own.

“Dad’s picking up a movie for tonight,” she said after she was finished sulking. That was one thing I could always count on. Kaoru never held a grudge. Lucky for me, or I certainly would not have been in her home that winter. Although ‘lucky’ was entirely subjective. I still had no idea what that stuff in the bowl was, and it was, if I was not mistaken, to be part of our New Year’s Eve dinner.

^_^

Misao joined us that night. Kaoru told me she was not happy that no one had called her while Kaoru was in the hospital. I pushed the blame for that one as far from me as possible. After all, how was I supposed to know to call Misao? The girl wasn’t a close friend of mine, and at the time I was a bit preoccupied. So sue me.

She showed up around six. Just in time for dinner. We ordered out for pizza, actually. Whatever it was that Kaoru had been making did not turn out quite right (I avoided the kitchen for the rest of the week) so Mr. Kamiya sent out for two large pizzas.

We spent two hours over a game of Monopoly. Actually, I went bankrupt before the first hour ended, and when my piece--the top hat--landed in jail for the sixth time that game, I gave up.

“A life in prison doesn’t seem too bad,” I said, frustrated. “At least it’s an easy existence.”

That earned some giggles from Misao and Ms. Kamiya and a solid thwack atop my skull from Mr. Kamiya. Well, I guess that’s where Kaoru got that habit from. Apparently, he did not approve of my reasoning.

So I spent the next hour or so doing various little things. At first, I watched the game. That got boring really fast, and I wandered around the room, studying the pictures on the upright piano and the shelves around the fireplace. That lasted all of five minutes, and I sat down by the gas fireplace, which was emitting a pleasant amount of heat, to wait for the end of the game. Twenty minutes later, I was on my back on the floor, watching the ceiling fan turn slowly over us. Me? Bored? Nooooooo.

The next thing I noticed was a skinny girl sitting on my stomach. Misao shoved at my legs for a few seconds before I got the gist of things and bent my knees. She leaned back against my legs, perfectly comfortable sitting on me.

“There’s a chair over there,” I pointed out, folding my arms behind my head to better see her.

“But it’s so far away from the fire,” she retorted. Right. And apparently using my stomach and legs as a chair was more comfortable. I was feeling too lazy to make her move, so I didn’t complain.

“Did you lose?” I glanced over to the game, still ongoing. Misao shoved her lower lip out in a less than convincing pout.

“I landed on Ms. Kamiya’s Boardwalk,” she grumbled. “She had a hotel on it.”

“Ah.” Landing on Boardwalk repeatedly. The downfall of all great Monopoly players.

“So,” Misao grinned at me, stretching her arms over her head and legs out by my head, somehow forcing more of her weight into my gut. I winced and frowned at her in protest. “You like your Christmas present?”

“You knew about that?” I lifted my eyebrows at her.

“Of course I knew about it!” she stuck her tongue out at me in return. “It was my idea.”

“It was not!” Kaoru shouted.

I glanced between them. It really was not worth it to find out the truth behind that one, and I did not particularly care, so I let it rest.

“Look at you, lazy boy,” Misao let her arms drop again, folding them behind her--that is to say, around my legs. It was a little awkward, feeling her arms hugging around the backs of my thighs, but that laziness factor won out. The warmth from the fire and the evening hour had me rather lethargic. I didn’t make her move. She smirked at me. “You’re not going to make it until midnight.”

“I’ll be awake at midnight,” I countered. Of course, a nap or two between--what time was it? almost eight?--eight and twelve would help a lot.

Misao just giggled and squirmed a bit to get more comfortable. It didn’t help me at all in the area of comfort, but I’m sure she was thoroughly enjoying her new chair. She glanced over to the others, to check the status of the game, I guessed. She blinked and looked back at me. There was this odd look on her face... a smile, but not. It was weird, and kind of scary.

“Whaaaaaat?” I complained. I didn’t like her looking at me like that.

She burst out into hysterical giggling. The action brought one of her feet kicking up into the air, and she held her stomach as if it hurt. I jerked to the side as her foot nearly landed on my face.

“Watch it!” I warned.

The laughter didn’t stop.

“Misao, you jerk!” Kaoru hollered from the side. And why was she so angry?!

Suddenly, it was a war zone. Kaoru came barreling in, and there were two girls on me! I yelped in protest. Misao was one thing. But both of them got a little too heavy. Neither girl seemed to notice me in the midst of all this. Kaoru had an arm around Misao’s neck, and Misao tickled her side in retaliation. Kaoru yipped and jumped away, landing on my chest, knocking the breath from me. All this time, I was trying to get away, of course. No sane person would just lay there while two girls wrestled on top of them.

As luck would have it, Misao noticed me squirming away. She squealed loudly, making everyone wince.

“Kenshin, don’t leave me!” she cried in true damsel in distress manner. She flung herself onto me again, clinging to my shirt like she would fall off the edge of the world if she let go. Kaoru, in turn, sat on Misao’s back and smacked the girl’s head lightly.

“Misao!”

Misao lifted her head and looked at me, grinning broadly. No doubt my face showed my bewilderment, as I was trying to figure out just what the hell was happening. Why had Misao started laughing like that? And what about it had made Kaoru go and tackle her like that? It was obviously some sort of private joke, and I had the feeling it had something to do with me. I was even more inclined to believe that when Misao winked at me.

“Look at you! You’re so cute!” she announced, then kissed my nose and rolled over, toppling Kaoru to the floor.

“Misao!!!!”

I crawled away cautiously, hoping they did not notice me leaving, and stopped behind Mr. Kamiya. He chuckled and patted my back lightly.

“Don’t worry about it, Kenshin,” he advised, picking up the game pieces with Ms. Kamiya. “Kaoru and Misao have always been a little strange.”

He and Ms. Kamiya then exchanged knowing glances. Was I the only person without a clue as to what was happening? I sighed and handed Ms. Kamiya a stray hotel. Across the room, Misao and Kaoru were in a heap on the floor, panting and giggling and smacking each other occasionally. Weird girls.

^_^

The movie for the night was Lost in Space. If I had thought sitting in front of the fireplace doing nothing was boring, then that was nothing compared to this movie. It was the most pointless show I had ever seen. Twenty minutes into it, I was asleep, safely alone in the arm chair. That is, no giggly girls climbing all over me. But it was strange... I kept having these odd little dreams, like I often did when I napped during the day. At one point, I was in the dorm. I turned around to address Sano, and he grinned at me and said:

“Danger, Will Robinson!”

I was so confused that I woke up right then and there. I blinked at the TV, taking in the robot and panicking people in bad costumes. Shaking my head, I recalled that I had not taken my meds that day and decided that was as good a time as any to take them. I got up and wandered up the stairs to the bathroom, trying to shake off the sleep. After getting the pills out and swallowing them, I put the bottle away and went back downstairs.

It was just after ten, according to the grandfather clock in the corner. The movie looked to be winding to a close. It was about time.

Kaoru’s parents were on the love seat. Ms. Kamiya was leaning against Mr. Kamiya, her head on his shoulder while he stroked her hair lightly. It was kind of cute, actually. Enough to make a person’s heart warm. I tried to imagine Uncle Hiko ever doing that with a woman, but it would not come. Not the man whose only condolences when Tomoe died were to pat my shoulder and tell me he would cook dinner that night.

Kaoru and Misao were on the larger sofa, sharing the popcorn. That was how they had been before I fell asleep, anyway. At the moment, Kaoru was there, rattling the remaining kernels in the bowl lightly as she stared at the movie with glazed eyes. Misao was nowhere to be seen. She probably took a bathroom break.

Bored, I just sighed and leaned against the door frame. If I went back to that chair, I would certainly fall asleep again.

Kaoru looked up a minute later, blinking as if to clear her gaze, and she glanced over. I smiled wearily, and she smiled back at me and rolled her eyes. I chuckled. Okay, so I was not the only one who did not care for the movie.

“Hey, Kenshin,” Misao’s voice made me jump, and I glanced down to see the girl standing next to me. “Look.” She was pointing.

I looked up. In the darkness, I could just make out a slight shadow in the doorway. I groaned. Damned mistletoe.

“It’s not even Christmas anym--” And that was as far as I got because Misao had two fists full of my hair, yanking my head down to her. That ticked me off. A little kiss was fine. Pulling on my hair to make me kiss her was uncalled for. It was not necessary, and it hurt. I tensed up unhappily. It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to keep from shoving her away.

Finally, she let go. She did not even pause to look at me after that--just flounced off across the room to sit next to Kaoru again. I scowled after her.

My hair was damp where she’d grabbed it. It was nice to know that she washed her hands after using the restroom at least. Kaoru wasn’t looking at me anymore, her attention once again on the movie. That irritated me too.

Grumbling wordlessly under my breath, I went back to the chair in the den and sat down to watch the rest of the movie.

^_^

Kaoru left the room as the movie ended. It was a little strange, actually. All of the sudden, Misao was scrambling for the popcorn bowl, and Kaoru rushed out of the room.

When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go, I thought as I stared after her. Then, Misao dropped the bowl and chased after her, calling her name.

“Kaoru! Kaoru, wait!”

A few seconds later, Ms. Kamiya went too! The lights went on, and I looked over to Mr. Kamiya. He sighed and got up to put away the movie.

So something was wrong. Girls did not just run out of the room for no apparent reason. Okay, so I’d thought she had to answer the call of nature at first, but did it really take three people to go to the bathroom? And Misao had seemed a bit panicked.

Obviously, the wisest course of action would have been to stay as far away from the problem as possible. I didn’t know what was wrong. What if it was some girl thing? PMS or something? No thank you. Post Traumatic Stress? She did almost die a few days ago.

“Kenshin.”

I was already halfway to the stairs. I didn’t even notice I had been moving that way. Mr. Kamiya had spoken, so I looked back at him. He smiled.

“Just don’t assume anything,” he suggested. “Trying to understand women will only get you into trouble.”

Uh... yeah. Whatever. I nodded and ran up the stairs.

Kaoru was in her room with Misao and her mom. Once I got there, I hesitated. I was such a chicken. But... I could hear her crying. What was I supposed to do with a crying girl? And it sounded like Ms. Kamiya and Misao had it under control.

“Kaoru, I’m so sorry!” Misao was apologizing for something or other. Well good. That meant none of this was my fault. “Don’t cry! I didn’t think! I shouldn’t have done that!”

I sighed and sat down outside her door. Sometimes it was better not knowing about these things, so I let their words fuzz out into the background. I wrapped my arms around my legs and rested my chin on my knees.

It was awkward. Kaoru was in tears on New Years Eve, and it was not even eleven o’clock. So much for the whole party idea. While the night had been rather dull overall, it still beat the past few years.

The previous year, Uncle Hiko had been short-tempered with me. We had just gotten my grades in the mail, and I had just barely passed Biology. He was not happy. I spent the week either at work or locked in my room, avoiding him. New Year’s Eve, I spent on my bed, drifting in and out of sleep while listening to the radio. I missed the countdown.

Before that, Uncle Hiko was just irritated because he had to watch me. Over a year had passed since I went to any parties or did anything illegal, and he didn’t yet trust me. Come to think of it... I doubted he trusted me even at this point in my life.

And my junior year in high school, I spent the holidays in the rehab clinic. Yes, celebrating the new year with a bunch of drug addicts had been a joy.

“Kenshin?”

“What? I wasn’t doing anything!” Oooookaaaaaay. I hadn’t meant to just blurt that out, but it was too late to do anything about it. I just looked up at Ms. Kamiya, my hand over my mouth--of course, after I had said all that--my face feeling very warm. She smiled and shook her head.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked.

“Ummmmm...” What was I doing? Nothing. Just sitting there feeling pretty stupid. “Nothing?”

“Why don’t you go in there?” Ms. Kamiya suggested. “I’m sure she would not mind having another friend with her right now.”

So, I went into Kaoru’s room. Sort of. Well, I stood in the doorway for a long time, watching Kaoru and Misao. There was a tissue box on the bed next to Kaoru, and she took one and blew her nose loudly. That made me cringe, and I stepped forward, just as Misao climbed off the bed. The girl blinked at me, then glared at me. She looked more like she was pouting than angry, but I could not be certain.

“This is all your fault!” she declared as she walked past me. My fault! What did I do?! My level of panic was up as I looked back at Kaoru, still sniffling and trying to wipe away the tears.

“K-Kaoru?” Whoooo, that was bad. Way to sound confident, old boy. I walked toward her slowly.

“Sorry,” she apologized when I stopped next to her bed. She sniffed and wiped her nose again. “I’m ruining everything.”

The appropriate response would have been: ‘Nooooo! You’re not ruining anything!’ What did I say? Nothing. I said absolutely nothing. I mentally kicked myself for being twice the idiot. I hated it when girls cried.

I sat on the bed next to her, leaning back against the wall. Despite my aversion to the idea, I took the tissue from her hand, tossed it into the nearby trash bin, and handed her a clean one. I was going to have to wash my hands when this was done. She sobbed again and wiped at her eyes with the tissue.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’m such a baby.”

“Everybody cries, Kaoru,” I muttered. Hadn’t I just been crying a few days before? Not that I’d say that.

“I’ve never seen you cry,” she said, sniffing loudly. “Misao... Omasu... Sanosuke... but never you.”

Ohhhhh... I didn’t want to go there. I sighed and leaned against her lightly. She got the idea and leaned back, resting her head on my shoulder. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, kind-of hugging her.

“What makes you cry?” she insisted.

“Ahhh...” I cleared my throat uneasily. “Um... I, uh...”

“That’s okay,” she broke in. I glanced down at her. She wiped at her face, drying her tears, and she smiled a bit. “You don’t have to tell me, Kenshin.”

I frowned at her. She didn’t mean that. She really wanted to know, or she never would have asked. Crud. I was going to have to tell her.

“When I’m afraid,” I said quickly. There. That wasn’t so bad.

“Huh?” she blinked at me, her eyes still wet and bloodshot. “But--”

“When I’m really scared...” I bit my lip in embarrassment. I never told this to people. “When I’m frightened... then I cry.”

Kaoru smiled, a soft giggle escaping her. At least she could be amused by my stupid ways.

“I’ve never seen you really afraid,” she murmured.

“That doesn’t mean it’s never happened,” I countered. She was not going to make me explain it all. I refused to let that happen.

“Ohhhh, really?” she smiled, shifting against me, then shaking her head and pulling away. She moved to the head of her bed, fluffing up the pillows there, and looking at me again. I knew that look. She wanted me to hug her again. Shoot.

Silently protesting all this crying stuff, I followed her, leaning back against the pillows and trying to be patient while she made herself comfortable against my side.

“I think that’s really sweet, Kenshin,” she said finally.

“What? Crying?” I grimaced. “I don’t like it.”

“But sometimes it can make you feel better,” she pointed out.

Sure, but if I ever felt the need to cry, then it was a situation that I might have been happier never having been in. I could count the times I’d actually broken down in the past eight or ten years on one hand. None of those times had been pleasant experiences. In fact, they had all been extraordinarily frightening or upsetting, and if I could forget about them, I would. Of course, this did not include how I’d gone off on Okita the previous week. That was something else entirely. And I had not really cried. Just... sniffled a bit.

“I still don’t like it,” I grumbled.

She giggled, and I held back a relieved sigh. I was even about to suggest that we head downstairs, but Kaoru spoke before I could.

“Do you think... we could just sit here for awhile?” she asked quietly.

“...Okay.” I didn’t care. But it seemed to me that she had a friend over, and Misao was the odd one out if we stayed in Kaoru’s room. However, stay in the room we did. Kaoru didn’t say anything, so I kept my mouth shut. There was no need to start a useless conversation after that.

I dozed on and off while we sat there on Kaoru’s bed. I really was more of a morning person, and these late nights just killed me. By keeping busy, I was fine, but just sitting there... not a chance.

Later, I had a vague impression of someone speaking to me. A girl, whispering.

“Happy New Year, Kenshin.”

But it could have been another strange part of a dream, so I let it be. I just shifted a bit, getting my head onto the pillow. I mumbled some sort of reply, and I declared it time for bed.

^_^

“Kaoru?”

I couldn’t find her. The place was unfamiliar, filled with doors and rooms. I wandered through the rooms, glancing at the people in them and continuing on when I did not find the one I was searching for. Kaoru had been crying, and I was supposed to go sit next to her.

“Kaoru?” I glanced in a room. Sano looked up from a deck of cards and grinned at me. He flung the cards out, one by one, shooting them around the room messily. I shook my head and left the room.

Pausing by the next door, I looked in. Misao waved at me and pranced around suggestively. I quickly left that room.

Okita was waiting in the doorway of the next room. He smirked at me as I passed, and Soujiro poked his head over Okita’s shoulder, waving around a piece of mistletoe. I started running.

“Kaoru?”

I ducked into a room down the hall, only to stop two steps into it. Bleached blond hair and a manic smile greeted me. Enishi started walking toward me, and I ran out again.

This made no sense! Why were all these people here? I thought I could go back to that first room. Sano might know where Kaoru was. But to get there, I had to go past Okita, Soujiro, and Misao. So I went the other way. Up some stairs and out into a huge room.

Kaoru was waiting there for me. She wasn’t crying though. She was smiling--laughing even.

“Kenshin, you weirdo!” she announced. Was this the thanks I got for being worried about her? How did that work?

Her expression changed to alarm, and I stepped toward her.

“What’s wrong?”

She yelped and slammed her hands out into my shoulders. Shocked, I could do little more than fall back... into the stair well. I stumbled and fell...

“Oooooof!” Falling off a bed was definitely not on my list of favorite ways to wake up in the morning. For one, it was rather disorienting. More importantly, it hurt. “Ow!”

“Oh, my god! Kenshin!” Kaoru looked over the edge of the bed at me. “Are you okay?”

I squinted up at her, trying to catch my breath and figure out what the hell had happened.

“I didn’t expect to see you still here,” she admitted, climbing off the bed to help me up. I was still wheezing as she pulled me to my feet, and I coughed a few times before I fully recovered.

“So you pushed me off the bed?!” I gasped.

“I’m so sorry!” she grabbed my face at that point, pulling me around to look into my face.

“It’s fine,” I assured her. My words sounded funny with how she held my face, but I attempted to smile nonetheless, looking into her anxious eyes. I coughed again lightly and nodded to get my head away from her. “I’m fine. I’ll just remember to stay on the side by the wall next time.”

Although she pushed me so hard that if it happened that way, she might have given me a concussion. I had to chuckle at that thought. Kaoru blinked at me, probably confused by my laughter, then giggled with me.

“I really am sorry,” she tried again.

“And it’s really okay,” I replied, rubbing my side tenderly. It was no small distance between the top of Kaoru’s bed and the floor.

She was still giggling. I glanced at her curiously.

“What’s so funny?”

“You... your hair,” she reached up and ruffled my bangs lightly. “It’s all over the place.”

“Is that all?” I glanced at the clock, wondering what time it was. It was ten-twenty. Ten-twenty... that seemed really late for some reason.

My stomach did interesting little flip-flops then.

“Kenshin, you just went really pale,” Kaoru said worriedly.

“I’m supposed to be at work in ten minutes!” I said, dashing out of the room. “I need a phone! I need the number!” What the hell was the store’s number anyway? “Kaoru, where’s the phone book?!”

She just laughed at my panic and ran off to get the book for me.

^_^