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Young Again: Chapter 2 - Wishes Answered

by Fitz

At dawn, Kenshin opened his eyes in response to the light creeping across his room. He remained curled up on his side, staring at the thin line of yellow around the door for a few minutes, just enjoying the quiet of the early morning. For a blissful moment, he cleared his mind of all worries and pretended that he was just the average man, waking up for an average day.

Reality flooded back with the thought of all the laundry he had to do that morning, and he sighed softly, sitting up. Stretching his arms above his head, he smiled. Doing the laundry was something the average person would do--perhaps not men, but as a nonpaying boarder at the Kamiya dojo, he would not be picky over which chores he was asked to do.

Climbing to his feet and moving to fold up his futon, he promptly tripped over his yukata and fell flat on his face.

“Orooo...” he lifted his head and glanced toward his feet, wondering when he had gotten so clumsy. “Oro!”

He couldn’t see his feet. The yukata stretched down far below them, obscuring them from view. Well, that explained why he tripped over it.

“Wait a minute,” Kenshin frowned. His yukata may have been a little larger on him than a typical yukata should fit, but certainly not that large. Just to hazard an estimate on the fit, he would place this yukata on someone almost twice his size. Even his hands would not reach the sleeve openings.

What kind of joke is this? he wondered. The short jokes are all getting a little old now...

Gathering up the excess material awkwardly, he got back to his feet and looked down at his sakabatou. With his hands full with his clothing, he could not pick up the sword. Sighing in mild irritation--and intending to find out exactly who was behind this twisted little joke (no pun intended)--he walked over to where his clothes were neatly folded. Kicking away the huge yukata, he pulled on his gi--which was not pink, thankyouverymuch (it was magenta).

“Oro!”

The shirt, which should have reached somewhere down to mid-thigh length, hung to his ankles. Again, his fingers just barely reached the sleeve opening.

“What’s with this?!” he blurted to the empty room.

Deciding to get down to the bottom of this very quickly, Kenshin improvised with the yukata-sized gi by taking the sash from the yukata and using it to hold his gi closed around him. He looked ridiculous and knew it.

Of the prank-playing people in his circle of friends, Kenshin would first guess Sanosuke to be the one behind his oversized clothing. However, Sanosuke was in his own apartment, across town, and Kenshin could not walk over there dressed as he was. That left Kaoru and Yahiko. As Kaoru would never do anything this bold--at least, Kenshin thought she wouldn’t--he decided to approach the boy first.

As he pensively considered all of this, his fingers closed over the hilt of his sakabatou. That shocked him out of his trance, and he looked down at his hand over the sword. His fingers barely went around the sheath, his hand looking ridiculously small against the sakabatou.

Now, he was beginning to worry. There was no way to mess with his sakabatou like that. And when he looked closer, his fingers did seem smaller than usual. He reached back and ran his fingers through his ponytail, alarmed when the hair stopped at only just below his shoulders. Quickly picking up his sakabatou, he found the weapon to be at least as tall as he was, if not a bit taller. And as he muttered another anxious ‘oro,’ he wondered how he had overlooked the raised timbre of his voice.

Something was terribly wrong.

^_^

Yahiko was having a pleasant dream. He was walking through the woods, with Tsubame, just holding her hand. She said something to him which he did not quite hear, but it made him smile nonetheless. Turning, he held both of her hands. Tsubame closed her eyes expectantly, and he leaned forward. She murmured his name-

“Yahiko!”

Wait a minute. That did not sound like Tsubame.

“Yahiko, get up!”

Grumbling unhappy complaints, Yahiko pried open his eyes. It was far too early, in his humble opinion. He blinked away the sleep and looked at who had woken him.

...It was someone he had never seen in his life. A child of perhaps six or seven knelt beside his futon, small hands against his shoulders, still shaking him lightly.

“Hey, kid!” he sat up abruptly, making the poor child fall back on his bottom. Wide, blue-violet eyes stared up at him, and he scowled. “Where the heck did you come from?”

“Yahiko-”

“And how do you know my name?” he interrupted. He stood up and glared down at the boy--who, now that he looked closer, looked very much like a little girl. He decided that he did not care. He wanted this strange kid out of his room as of yesterday. “Look, kid, I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but you’ve got to get out of here. Busu’ll wake up, and you don’t want to be here when she does.”

“But-”

“Nope,” Yahiko caught the back of the kid’s shirt and dragged him forward, to the door. “Where do you live? I’ll take you home.”

“I live here, Yahiko,” the child insisted. “That’s the problem.”

“What are you trying to pull?” Yahiko demanded. “If you’re trying to freeload off of Kaoru, forget it. She already complains about having to feed me an’ Kenshin.”

“But I’m Kenshin!”

“Get off it, brat.”

“Yahiko.”

The soft growl brought the boy up short. He looked down at the child hanging by the back of his shirt. Beneath a fall of red bangs were narrow, blue eyes, glaring at him irately.

Come to think of it, Yahiko tilted his head and considered the kid. He could easily pass as Kenshin’s kid. He’s got the hair and eyes to match.

“Kenshin is a little bigger than you, kid,” he smirked.

“Imagine my surprise when I woke to find all my clothes no longer fit me,” the boy growled. “Let go of me, Yahiko. We need to talk.”

“Are you serious?” Yahiko stared at the child incredulously, releasing the back of his shirt. The redheaded boy smoothed the magenta shirt primly, obviously more than a little miffed.

“It’s impossible, I know,” the kid said. “Kaoru-dono looks to be in the same predicament. Yet you look the same as you always do. You don’t know anything about this, do you?”

“Are you serious?” Yahiko blurted again. He was grinning ear to ear. The child, who claimed to be Kenshin, frowned.

“Yahiko, this isn’t funny.”

“Are you kidding?” Yahiko chuckled. “This is hilarious! You look like you’re six!”

“Eight is probably closer,” Kenshin’s eyes narrowed. “Yahiko, we need to do something!”

Yahiko was too busy trying to contain his laughter to pay any attention to Kenshin’s words. The boy before him was, simply put, adorable. His shoulder-length, red hair was pulled into a low ponytail. Wide, violet eyes were set in a childish, delicate face--and no scar. The boy’s little hand frequently brushed over his left cheek, proving he was just as perplexed by the lack of the major facial scars as Yahiko was. His feet were bare, and as they probably did not fit into Kenshin’s sandals, that made perfect sense. And he was short. Really short. He was not all that much larger than Ayame, the elder of Dr. Gensai’s two granddaughters, which was the main reason Yahiko originally miscalculated his age.

“Yahiko!” the voice was a lot higher too. And by the way Kenshin said Yahiko’s name, he was whining, much like the child he was.

“This is too funny!” Yahiko snickered. He crouched down in front of Kenshin so that he looked up into the scrawny boy’s pleading face. “Don’t worry, Kenshin. We’ll figure this out. But first...” Kenshin scowled, looking ready to launch himself into a tantrum. “Did you really look like that when you were eight?”

“Yahiko!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Yahiko laughed. He stood again. “I’ll get dressed, and we’ll wake busu and get this straightened out.”

Kenshin swatted at Yahiko’s hand as the boy--now older than he--ruffled his hair on his way passed.

“You make a cute kid, Kenshin,” Yahiko commented.

“I’m flattered,” Kenshin deadpanned. “Now get dressed.”

“AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!”

A girl’s scream echoed through the dojo, making both Kenshin and Yahiko flinch. Kenshin sighed, looking cute with his lower lip pushed out in a pout.

“I think Kaoru-dono is already awake.”