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My Life: Chapter 14 - Breakdown

by Fitz

There was always this strange feeling of detachment around that time of year. Running into Jordan just set the month off to a bad start. I had another dream that night. It wasn’t a bad dream. It was just... there. I woke up feeling this sudden urge to cry, which I did not do for fear of Uncle Hiko hearing me.

The rest of the day was odd. I couldn’t figure out what to do with myself. Uncle Hiko chased me downstairs, telling me to ‘work it off’ like he always did. It was his solution to everything. I ended up putting a video in and sitting on the couch to watch it. It was Mrs. Doubtfire. I fell asleep halfway through it.

The credits were playing when Uncle Hiko shouted down. I grumbled in complaint and opened my eyes.

“Pick up the phone down there, brat!”

I love you too, Uncle Hiko, I thought morbidly, reaching over my head for the phone on the table by the couch. I fumbled a few times, getting it on the third try. Sighing impatiently, I put the phone to my ear.

“I got it,” I said. I knew Uncle Hiko was listening. Usually, I shouted, but this worked sometimes. The phone clicked in my ear, signaling his departure. “Yeah?”

“Kenshin?” It was Kaoru. God, I didn’t want to talk to her. Too much cheer. It made me want to hurt someone. “Kenshin... I just talked to Sanosuke...”

She didn’t sound overly happy. That was odd. If she just spoke with Sano, then wouldn’t she be overjoyed for one of her friends getting married?

“And Megumi...”

Crying even. That’s what she had been doing. Okay then. Girls get excited, they start to cry. Fine. So she was happy.

“Megumi told me about... about Jordan--”

Goddamn her!

“A-and...” she was crying still.

“Stop it,” I snapped at her. I didn’t want her crying. How could Megumi have done this?! Of all people, I would have thought I did not have to tell that woman to keep her mouth shut. Now Kaoru knew. Then it would be Misao, who would tell Aoshi and everyone else with an open ear in this world!

“Kenshin, i-if you ever want to-to talk about it--”

“I don’t!” I interrupted her, too furious for words. Something just... snapped. The phone went flying, making this awful sound when the cord was ripped out of the wall. Everything was spinning around me, but I wasn’t moving. Uncle Hiko shouted, probably having heard me breaking the phone.

“What the hell is going on down here?!” he was in the basement with me before I realized he was coming downstairs.

Nothing was clear after that. I remember shouting. Uncle Hiko yelled right back. Then... a lot of movement. I might have tried to hit Uncle Hiko, which wouldn’t hurt him even if I did connect. The man was easily twice my size. Whatever happened, it ended with me on the floor, coughing, blood in my throat.

Son of a bitch!

If not for my uncle standing over me, I probably would have stayed as I was, curled around the hurt. The fact that he was still there was why I got up. My chest was on fire with the familiar sensation of broken ribs, and I reached for the arm of the couch to steady myself.

That blood bothered me. Really, it was never a good thing when a person started coughing up blood. It just was not normal. A damp cloth appeared in front of me, and took it, holding it over my mouth until I was finished coughing. My vision was swimming in and out of focus... a little odd. That, too, was not a good sign.

“Sit down, idiot,” Uncle Hiko growled at me. His hands were in my shirt, pulling me away from the couch. Who was the idiot? If I needed to sit, why was he pulling me away from the only chair around?

“I hate you,” I informed him, stumbling as he found better grip in my sweatshirt and hauled me up the stairs.

“No, you don’t.”

“You’re the world’s worst father,” I made a grab for him, and I managed to find a hold on the front of his shirt. It left a bloody smear on the white tee shirt. I hoped that stained.

“That’s because I’m not your father, moron,” he retorted. “Your father is dead.”

“I know he’s dead!” Asshole! That was not called for. I wanted him to let go, but no amount of squirming would get me loose. “Let go!”

“What’s your problem, kid?” he dragged me down the hall toward the rooms. “Do you want me to call the police on you?”

“Then you can explain how I broke my ribs!” I replied. He was not pulling this shit on me!

We reached my room, and he shoved me into it. I had a grip on his shirt still, but I released it. I didn’t want to be near him anyway.

“If you hadn’t jumped me, that wouldn’t have happened!” he pointed at the bed. “Sit down!”

I hated doing what he wanted, but when I felt as bad as I did, there was not much else I could do. He glared at me while I sat on the bed, and I scowled right back. No way was I giving in on this.

“What’s wrong with you?” Uncle Hiko demanded. He was angry, but so was I. He grabbed the hem of my shirt and yanked it up, over my head. “Your sister was never this difficult.”

“I’m sorry,” I said sarcastically, shuddering in the cool room. “Maybe if I pray really hard, God’ll let me switch places. Then I’ll be dead, and you’ll have a perfect niece to dote on.”

“Well, at least she would not have gone and mixed herself up in so many nasty habits!” Uncle Hiko replied sharply.

Go to hell! I shoved his hands away from me. I didn’t care that he was assessing the damage. I knew perfectly well what was wrong.

“Get away from me!” I was shouting again, but I didn’t care. Rolling away, I landed on the floor, putting the bed between us. He scowled at me, and I was a hair’s breadth away from going homicidal on him--so I thought at the time. “Get out of my room!”

He grunted and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him. And fuck him anyway. Life just wasn’t fair. Everybody knew that. Life under Uncle Hiko’s roof was a prime example. I had to live with him, and he had to put up with me. What was not to hate?

^_^

The week wasn’t over yet. In fact, it was just beginning. Tuesday came, and I was not ready to leave my room yet. The need for a bathroom drove me out for a few minutes, and I washed my face and brushed my teeth while I was there. Then, I went right back to my room.

I couldn’t lock the door. It used to lock, but a couple years earlier, Uncle Hiko had ripped the door knob out and replaced it with one that wouldn’t. Trust was not something that came easily between us. At this point, he trusted me about as far as he could throw me. Actually, he could throw me pretty far if he tried, so that said something, I guess. In return, I trusted him to give me a safe home. That flew straight out the window when he made me cough up blood.

The last thing he’d said got to me, though I tried not to let it. I knew we were both angry, but... did he mean it? Sometimes--a lot of times--I wished I could switch places. I wished Tomoe could have survived, and I died. No, I was not suicidal. That wouldn’t bring her back. But life would have been so much better for everyone involved if our places had been flipped.

That much was obvious by Uncle Hiko’s attitude. He hated high-maintenance kids, and apparently that was what I was. When Tomoe was around, he never had to deal with any of it. She took care of me more than he ever did. And Uncle Hiko was just this person who was there to pay for our food and clothes. He was like one of the people working behind the scenes in a movie. Things got put where they needed to be, when they needed to be there, and it never occurred to the audience that a real person did all that.

At the same time... he was the only father I’d ever had. And I didn’t hate him.

^_^

Tuesday flew away from me. I was amazed at how quickly the time passed when I didn’t do anything. Unless sleeping all day was considered a lot of activity. My chest still ached, but at least I wasn’t coughing up blood anymore. It might have been a good idea to have seen a doctor the day before, but wasn’t it just the previous Monday that I had left a hospital with Kaoru? I did not care to go back. They were not kidding when they said bad things came in threes.

At one point Tuesday evening, Uncle Hiko actually left the house. I knew this because he shouted loud enough that the entire neighborhood knew he was leaving.

I took the opportunity to spend a little time in the rest of the house. My appetite was zilch so I settled with a glass of water. After that, I grabbed some clean, comfortable clothes and took a shower. Standing in the tub, I decided I missed the shower in the dorm. I even missed the occasions when Kamatari decided to walk in on me. That guy knew full well that someone was in the shower. I had long ago figured out that he just liked to see my reaction. It was why I had stopped getting upset about it. For some reason, I got the feeling he liked that too.

I missed being around people who at least acted like they cared.

This was the conclusion I came to while sitting on the floor in the bathroom. The mirror was fogged up, my old clothes in a pile on the floor across from me, my shirt still on the toilet seat. It was too cold to sit there in just my flannel pants, so I had the damp towel wrapped around my shoulders.

A knock on the bathroom door was all the warning I had before Uncle Hiko barged in.

“I brought home some Arby’s,” he announced. “I got a roast beef sandwich for you.”

That was the only thing I would eat from that place. The other stuff was probably fine. I just never tried it--never cared to.

“You haven’t eaten anything today,” he continued when I didn’t say anything. I stared at my knees. He sighed. “Are you going to pout all day?”

“I’m not pouting,” I grumbled. Okay, so I was pouting. I was justified, wasn’t I? For god’s sake, the man broke a couple of my ribs and all but told me I was the scum of the earth! Didn’t I have a right to be upset?

“I want you to eat something.”

“Like you would care if I starved to death,” I murmured. It was barely more than a whisper, but I should have known he would hear it.

“What?” he crouched in front of me, trying to meet my gaze, but I kept my eyes down. “What do you mean by that?”

I hugged my arms closer to my chest. It helped make it not so difficult to breathe. I wanted him to go away. Because I really was not sure of the answer to the question I had to ask.

“Do you really wish I would have died instead of Tomoe?” I whispered.

I half expected him to say yes, that it would have been less heartache for the family. Thinking this, I had to keep talking to keep him from answering.

“I mean,” I added quickly, still not looking up. I really didn’t want to see the scowl he always wore around me. “You’re always calling me an idiot or a moron, and I know I’m not always quick to learn things. I’m selfish and cold and a pain...” I sniffed. I was going to cry, and nothing was going to stop it this time.

“Stop it, Kenshin,” Uncle Hiko muttered. I didn’t want to hear it. A sob made its way up into my throat, and I bent over my knees, pulling that towel around me tighter. I wanted him to leave me alone, but he wouldn’t. “Don’t talk like that, kid. Don’t ever think that I would wish that on you. Ever.”

“I’m sorry.” It came out this awful whimper, and I wished I had never said it, but instead I said it again. “I’m sorry.”

Uncle Hiko made a sound of what might have been disgust. Whatever it was, he did something a little odd after that. He pulled the towel up, dropping it on my head and scrubbing at my hair like I was little again. Taking the towel away, he pushed my sweatshirt over my head, pushing at my arms until I figured out where they were supposed to go. Then, he pulled me to my feet and bent down to my height, his hands gripping my arms so hard it almost hurt. I looked at him reluctantly. He had an anxious frown on his face.

“You are an idiot, Kenshin,” he said seriously. For some reason, it didn’t bother me that he said it like that. “You’ve got people around you who care about you, but you don’t seem to notice. And if you suggest I’d rather see you dead again, I will hit you so hard you will have to go to the hospital.”

It was a strange way to say it, but it got the point across. I smiled shakily and nodded. He smirked and stood straight again, patting my shoulder once.

“Good,” he turned to leave. “Now wash your face and come eat. I rented a movie. We’ll watch that tonight.”

“What movie?” I asked, then cleared my throat because my voice was hoarse from crying.

“The Princess Bride.”

I looked at his reflection in the mirror. He smirked and nodded in the general direction of the family room. I sighed, and he left the bathroom.

For the time, everything was okay. I washed my face so I appeared somewhat human again when I looked at my reflection. Uncle Hiko handed me my sandwich when I went out to the kitchen, and we went into the family room. I sat on the couch next to him, and he turned on the movie.

He actually did get The Princess Bride. It surprised me, but at least it was a decent film. Sadly, I was still tired, and I fell asleep sometime shortly after the duel between the man in the mask and Inigo Montoya.

^_^

Wednesday, I spent recovering from the previous two days. It still hurt if I breathed deeply, but that would not go away for several weeks. The stress had gotten to me, and I found myself fighting a cold. I took some cold medication and settled down on the couch with a box of tissues beside me. I slept there while Uncle Hiko went to work.

He was a consultant of some sort. He never told me what he really did, and I never bothered to ask. I doubt he would have told me anyway. As long as he could afford to keep himself fed and in decent clothes and shelter, I suppose it did not much matter to me.

Uncle Hiko woke me late that afternoon. Time to choke down some dinner, I thought, but he didn’t say anything about that. He just put his hand on my forehead, checking for a fever, I guessed, and sat back on the couch when he finished.

“There’s a couple kids here to see you,” he said. “You want to talk to them?”

I frowned at him. Normally, he would have just sent any visitors in to wake me themselves. I wanted to question that, but he had been nice to me the past couple days, and I did not want to risk it. So I just nodded and stared up at the ceiling when he left, trying to make myself sit up. Well, willing myself to be upright was not good enough, and I did not have the desire to put forth the effort, so I stayed on my back.

It was Sano and Kaoru. Sano hung back with his hands in his pockets, but Kaoru rushed right to me. She solved my problem of not being able to sit up when she hugged me. I hugged her back, letting her pull me upright.

“Kenshin, I was so worried!” she said, just a little too loudly while her face was right next to my ear. “I didn’t mean to push, but... what happened? The line just cut off, and it sounded like something broke.”

“Hmm...” I sighed. “That was the phone. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“Kenshin, why didn’t you say something?” Sano asked, sounding irritated. “We could have worked this out.”

“I didn’t want to talk about it,” I admitted, wincing slightly when Kaoru squeezed a little too hard. “Ow...” That hurt. I was in an odd position, my ribs grating against each other unpleasantly.

“What’s wrong?” Kaoru jumped back, but one of her hands stayed on my arm, her other moving to my face. I looked at her and smiled a bit.

“Broken ribs,” I explained. I frowned then. This was not going to be fun. But if they both knew about it already... I had to make sure I knew exactly what they did. Also, it was better to get it out then so I wouldn’t have to talk about it again. “What did Jordan tell you?”

“She told Megumi,” Sano shrugged, finally settling down enough to join us. He sat on the coffee table across from me and Kaoru. “Not a lot. Just that she saw the accident. Jordan thought you were uncomfortable with her because she was there with you when your sister died.”

Oh. Was that all? That wasn’t much, really. There was so much more to it.

“That’s it?”

“Megumi said you were hurt, too,” Kaoru added. “But that’s it.”

“Oh...” That meant I was going to have to go into a little more detail. Goody.

“What happened, Kenshin?” Sano asked quietly. I glanced at him, saw his serious expression, and looked back at my lap. Kaoru reached for my hand, and I gladly accepted the gesture. I focused on our hands on the dark blanket while I considered what to say.

“Jordan... was there when it happened,” I said finally. “It was dark. There was a snow storm that night, and the roads were icy...” my throat tried to close on me when I continued, but I stuttered through it. “A car... it couldn’t--couldn’t stop in time.”

I took a deep breath and let it out shakily. Kaoru squeezed my hand, and I nodded to show I was okay. I even smiled a bit.

“It’s okay... it was a long time ago,” I murmured tiredly.

“Did you ever talk to anyone about it?” Kaoru asked.

Who was there to talk to? Uncle Hiko? The psychiatrists? I shook my head.

“No wonder!” Kaoru hugged me again, and I groaned softly in protest. “You dummy! Doesn’t it feel better now that it’s out?”

No. Not really... Maybe... just a little. I sighed and leaned against her. Even what I had told them was not all. There was so much more to it. I idolized Tomoe--loved her more than anything. She was my mother, sister, and best friend. How did a person go about filling the void left when that was taken away? Four years, and I had yet to figure that out.

^_^

*FLASHBACK*

I had never liked winter. It was so cold, and the ground got so slippery, and it was so embarrassing when you slipped and fell in the snow. But my sister adored it. She loved to sit in the bay window and just stare at the falling snow. For hours at a time, she would sit there and gaze into the yard when it snowed.

Tomoe was the best thing in my life. I looked up to her more than I ever did to Uncle Hiko. She was perfect. Her grace and beauty, her intelligence--she got straight A’s through school--and her selflessness.

When we were little, she would torment me, as most older sisters do. She and her friends would pull me around and make me play house and dress up with them. At the age of five, I would do anything to be around ‘Tommie’ so I put up with the treatment.

One of her friends was mean to me once. The ten-year-old got mad and pushed me, yelling at me.

“Get away from us, annoying brat!”

I landed hard on my bottom, more startled than hurt. Naturally, I began to cry. And Tommie got mad.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked angrily.

“Why do we always have to let him hang around?” her friend whined. “He’s just a crybaby.”

“He’s not a crybaby,” Tommie bent down and wiped at my tears. She smiled at me and lifted me off the floor. She was a lot bigger than me, my big sister. I didn’t care. “He only cries when you hurt him.”

“You should just make him hang around your uncle when I’m over,” the other girl told Tommie.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Tommie glared at the mean girl. “Why don’t you leave? I like my brother more than I like you.”

Although I did not fully understand it at the time, Tomoe had really gone out on a limb defending me then. At that time, I was just happy that Tommie agreed to play cars and Barbies with me. Yes, I played with the cars, and she played with the dolls. Unfortunately, my Matchbox cars rarely held up under the dolls that were ten times too big for them.

^_^

Years passed, and both of us matured. I grew from a giggly boy to a cheerful and frequently self-righteous adolescent. My sister changed from my Tommie, the protective older sibling, to Tomoe, the beautiful young woman who was engaged to be married the summer of her twentieth year. Her fiancé was good man of twenty-two who she met in one of her classes. I liked him well enough. He was nice and never patronized me, like most adults tended to do to fifteen-year-olds.

Tomoe took me shopping one winter afternoon, along with her best friend--also her maid of honor. I wasn’t overly excited about dress shopping, but Tomoe had promised dinner and a movie after we finished. Since she had been gone over Christmas break, visiting her fiancé’s family, I was happy to have some time with her. Well, that and I got a free dinner out of it.

It was an all-day affair. We went to the typical bridal shops, where I had to sit in a chair while Tomoe and Jordan swooned over the pictures and tried on dresses. It was boring.

“What do you think of this one, Kenny?” Jordan asked me, twirling around in some frilly pink thing. I hated it when she called me that, but since the girl was not otherwise offensive, I let her get by with it.

“The blue one was better,” I replied, barely paying attention. I sighed and ran my hand through my hair, pushing it out of my eyes. It was almost long enough to tuck behind my ears--a sure sign I needed to get it cut soon. If I let it grow too much, the boys at school made fun of me for looking like a girl. They didn’t so much now that I was in high school, but after years of being teased and tormented over my girlish looks, I was a little leery of it.

“Kenshin?” Tomoe came out of the fitting room, looking gorgeous. She wanted my opinion, but my opinion was she would look good if she traipsed down the aisle wearing a plastic garbage bag.

“That’s pretty too,” I mumbled.

“Do you think this makes my bust look too big?” Jordan asked then, smoothing down the stomach of this awful green thing--the sales lady called it sage. It looked like a big, green, lacy candied mint. I didn’t know anything about girls and boobs, but that big bow in the back made her butt look like it had its own zip code. Of course, I did not say this. Only someone who was a complete idiot would ever say that to a girl. I have said some dumb things in my life, but never would I have been so blatantly stupid.

“That bow is hideous,” I announced.

“You think so?” Jordan held up her brown hair and looked at her backside in the three-way mirror. She wrinkled her nose at her reflection. “You could be right.”

“Aren’t you two hungry yet?” Translation: “I’m starved. I’m bored. Let’s go eat.” Tomoe was good at figuring me out like that. She smiled, looking rather silly with her hair floating around and sticking to her face with static.

“You know, I am pretty hungry,” she said. “Jordan, let’s take a break. We can look more tomorrow--without the moody teenager sitting in the corner.”

I rolled my eyes and slouched down in the chair impatiently. Jordan and Tomoe giggled and finally went back to change into their normal clothes.

There was a TGI Fridays across the street from the shopping center. Jordan insisted upon walking so we would not have to hassle with Saturday evening parking.

“Besides,” she smiled as we zipped up our jackets and headed toward the exit. “It was really nice outside today.”

That meant the temperature had risen to above freezing that afternoon. The roads were all water and slush, and my feet were protesting the damp. They had finally dried out, and I was not looking forward to walking through puddles again.

I didn’t have to. The instant the sun dropped below the horizon, the temperatures plummeted. It was bitterly cold outside, and snowing. I was all for driving, even though it was just across the street. Tomoe liked walking through the thick snowfall, and she just tugged on my hat so that it covered my ears and smiled, turning away to head the direction opposite of the car. Dang it.

So we plodded through the slippery snow to the main road. I hated driving on that road. Even just being a passenger in the car, it was kind of intimidating with the traffic flow. It was not very busy at this point. The weather was bad, and most people stayed home for the night.

Tomoe caught my hand as the light turned, and I scowled at her. I wasn’t a kid anymore. For god’s sake, I was fifteen! I didn’t need someone to guide me across the street.

“It’s slippery, Kenshin,” Tomoe told me. “If I fall, I’m taking you with me.”

“Thanks, Tomoe,” I looked at her suspiciously, trying to decide if she was telling the truth or just saying that to pacify me. It did not really matter, and I promptly forgot about it because I had to concentrate on keeping my feet beneath me.

I never saw the truck. To this day, I don’t remember anything about that vehicle beyond the sudden flare of headlights. What I do remember is the shock of my sister being propelled into me with horrifying force.

Tomoe hit me, and my first thought was of the last thing she said.

“If I fall, I’m taking you with me.”

She had not been kidding. I was not immediately aware of the severity of the situation. It took awhile for me to realize that it was not normal for us to be flying through the air like that. In fact, the only thing I thought to do was curl myself around Tomoe, taking most of the impact when we hit the ground. We rolled a few feet, then slid a long distance--I didn’t know how far. My arm and side hurt, and I couldn’t breathe well. It was so dark outside that I couldn’t tell if my vision was going out or if it was just the night. All I could think of was how cold it was and that I wanted to ask Tomoe if she was hurt.

“Tomoe?” My arms were still around her, and I could not move to look at her. I wanted to know what had happened, but more than that, I needed my sister to respond to me. “Tomoe? Are you okay?”

I could see her face, but it was all shadows and dark silk. One of my arms did not hurt so bad, and I lifted my hand to her cheek. Her black hair was warm and wet. I closed my eyes and bent my head to rest against hers, even though it hurt to move.

Jordan was screaming, hysterical and loud. Then, she was there, sobbing and calling out our names. Opening my eyes, I looked up to see the girl, silhouetted by some car’s headlights. She was still crying, but she saw me move.

“Kenny?” she touched my face, rubbing her hand over my cheek. “Kenny, are you okay?”

“I don’t know...” my words were thick, and I tasted blood in my throat. “Tomoe... won’t say anything.”

“Kenny, don’t worry,” Jordan said, her voice hitched and watery. “You’ll be fine. You’re going to be just fine.”

“Tomoe?” I asked again, brushing back that glistening, wet hair. It was not natural, that warmth. And it occurred to me that it was not snow. I started to cry then, panic welling up in me. “Tommie?” I even went so far as to shake her, although my arm was not strong enough to move her much. “Tommie?!”

The sirens were really loud. I had not heard them before. But suddenly, there were people there, moving us--taking me away from my sister.

“Tommie!!”

Everything went black.

*END FLASHBACK*

^_^

I did not want to tell them all of that. An abridged version of the events would be enough.

“It hit both of us,” I explained. Kaoru still had her arms around me, and I was getting uncomfortable. I pulled back a bit, bending my knees in attempt to ease the pressure on my chest. Kaoru wouldn’t let go. It seemed wrong, somehow, to push her away, so I sighed and tolerated it. “Tomoe first, actually. She took most of it... she died on the way to the hospital... massive hemorrhaging.”

“But you weren’t hurt?” Kaoru asked softly. I shook my head in response to her question.

“I had some broken and bruised ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a concussion, and some internal bleeding...” In fact, I had almost missed the funeral. I had barely been able to walk. “But it didn’t kill me. Jordan narrowly missed getting hit...”

Damn it all! I was getting teary-eyed again. After blowing up at Uncle Hiko the previous day, I thought I was over this. I coughed, trying to blink away the tears.

“Oh, Kenshin,” Kaoru whispered. “It’s okay to cry... everyone cries.”

Despite the tears, I chuckled. She was repeating my words. Though she had a point. I turned my face into her shoulder. I was gasping, still trying not to cry in front of them, but it didn’t really work.

So, I cried. And Kaoru was decent about it, rubbing my back and rocking back and forth slightly.

“I miss her,” I admitted. “It’s not fair that she died and I didn’t.”

Kaoru just hugged me tighter, and I stopped talking. Sano sat on my other side--behind me, actually, as I was still half stretched out on the couch--and rested his hand on my shoulder. He didn’t last that long, being so distant, and suddenly both Kaoru and I were crushed against him. That hurt, and I had to protest.

“Owwww!” it came out a little oddly--part groaning, part crying, and part laughing. I was caught somewhere between being sad, amused, and in incredible pain. Kaoru let go when I stiffened in the little group hug, and I whined again when Sano didn’t. “Sanooooo... let go.”

He dropped me, and I wrapped my arm around my chest while I took a couple deep breaths. Broken ribs were such a pain... so to speak. I coughed, and Kaoru handed me a tissue. Although I wished I didn’t have to, I took the tissue and blew my nose. Then, I dried my face and leaned back against the couch cushions, turning so I could put my feet on the coffee table.

“So...” Sano said awkwardly. “Now what?”

I smirked, and Kaoru laughed.

“Let’s do something,” she suggested. She glanced at me and frowned. “But not like this. You look awful.”

That startled me. She usually didn’t just announce something like that. Kaoru, in general, had always been a little more delicate about these things.

“Thanks, Kaoru,” I muttered.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” she protested. “It’s just... you’re really pale... your hair’s a mess... and you look kind of tired...”

“In other words,” Sano snorted. “You look like shit.”

Wow. Good to know.

“I know what’ll make you feel better!” Kaoru stood up and held her hands out to me. There was not much else to do, so I put my hands in hers and let her pull me to my feet. “We’ll take you out to dinner.”

“Dinner?” I echoed.

“Go shower,” she pushed at my shoulders lightly, urging me out of the room. I shook my head and changed directions. “Kenshin?”

“Shower’s that way,” I pointed to my new destination. She had been guiding me to the kitchen.

Kaoru blushed, then shrugged and giggled.

“Put on something nice and comfortable,” she ordered. “Where do you want to eat? Embers? Baker Square?”

“Pie?” How could I turn down dessert? Kaoru laughed at my response and nodded.

“Baker Square it is,” she agreed. “Go on, now! Sanosuke and I are waiting.”

I had to smile. Sometimes... sometimes all of Kaoru’s cheer was kind of nice.

^_^