Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ Curl ❯ Chapter 14

Sano smelled food. Rather, his stomach smelled it first. The man paced back and forth in his room, barefoot and topless, as he stared at his bedroom door. Just on the other side of that door was food. Hell, his stomach was already half way over there, but the rest of him didn't want to step foot out of that room.

The most obvious reason was because he could hear Misao take a shower, leave her room… and for the sake of everything unholy, cook. Misao was nowhere near as bad as her friend, Kaoru, but nevertheless. He wasn't quite sure of her current state of mind, and if it was anywhere near as warped as his, it seemed logical to stay clear.

His mind and his stomach were at odds, as if it wasn't bad enough that he was emotionally at odds with himself. Gripping the sides of his skull, close to walking a hole in the floor, he tried as hard as he could to forget everything that he'd done. What would he usually do in this situation?

"FUCK!" he cursed as he doubled over, having stubbed his toe on the corner of his bed. Curses spouted forth like the fountain of youth, new pain briefly overshadowing the old.

*-*-*-*

"Ao-ao…ao…" Her words failed her, and so did her gestures. Pointing at his chest, to his face, and back again, her eyes stupidly following the digit.

"Aoshi."

Misao simply nodded dumbly, as he filled in the blank. He slipped his hands out of his pockets and rested them on his hips. She could feel him breathing, how the hell had he… 'Damn, I need to start training again.' Then she found herself in an even more curious situation where the object of her fantastic horror had disappeared from her sight. Rather, he simply took his seat at the table, gently nudging her out of her clueless state with his chair. He didn't seem to make any attempt to inquire why Misao had just softly slapped herself to jar herself back to reality.

*-*-*-*

Aoshi's brow creased ever so slightly at the cracking sound of skin on skin behind him. Settling himself down, assuming all of that previous show was, for some reason, for him. He felt it was now his duty to sit down and submit to whatever ministrations this girl - woman had prepared for him. Oddly, it had been some time since he was the center of attention. Rather, welcomed being it. There was a distantly familiar feeling within him, which he couldn't quite place. It was a comfortable feeling that started somewhere in his chest. Well, whatever it was, he was vaguely entertaining the notion of getting used to it.

"Aoshi-sama!" Apparently, she'd come back to life from her doll-like state. "I made you breakfast!" Her voice was full of it's usual enthusiasm, although it seemed flawed somehow. He hoped, no - prayed - that Sanosuke had at least the decency to be discreet in his nocturnal venture. Aoshi closed his eyes briefly as flashes of cerulean eyes brimming with tears melted away to dead and dull… on a face where they didn't belong.

"Aa." His voice, nor actions (or lack there of), gave away of his pensive state. Since they had come into his life, and later, moved into his home… those eyes had made him feel things long since forgotten. Aoshi, in all of his pragmatism, deduced that due to a lack of maternal influence on the majority of his lifetime, he was naturally responding to the reintroduction of estrogen in his immediate vicinity. Of course, absolutely none of this had anything to do with the fact that he had yet to rid himself of the image of her in a towel.

Well, maybe just a smidge.

*-*-*-*

"This is some kind of a bad joke, right?"

"Aoshi-kun. I'll only be gone for a couple of minutes…"

"Can't you take her with you??" The frown on the old man's face was definitely showing signs of pointing to "no." Aoshi had no desire to watch a three-year old. However, it seemed he had no choice now, as he watched the door close behind his grandfather. 'Why me?' he silently cursed the gods. A small girl was buzzing around the room, imitating an airplane. Apparently there was something terribly amusing about spinning around in circles until one tumbled to the ground, only to get up to do it again.

He had hoped that he could stow away quietly to read his book, but no such thing happened. Just minding his own business, sitting quietly in a meditative pose against the wall… he found himself victim to a miniature vice grip on his thigh. The brightest blue eyes he'd known in his life, were now staring up at him, seeking entertainment. Or, at the very least, some attention. Aoshi wasn't trained in the art of baby-sitting, let alone being sat on by a baby.

The small girl placed herself in his lap, looking at the funny paper thing in his hands, curious to what was so special about it. Her chubby little hands pressed onto the pages, as Misao-chan brought her face closer to the funny little squiggles. The elder boy couldn't help but find some of this amusing, and struggled to keep the corner of his lip from quirking. With his short thirteen years of experience, he couldn't say he was terribly fond of the female species, but he was coming to the conclusion that this one specimen had yet to be tainted by the wily vices of her birthright.

"Ah…" He quirked his brow when she tried to speak. Taking note that she was possibly about to drool on his book, he rescued it from its watery fate by setting it aside. Once it was gone, the girl looked terribly perplexed as to where it had gone to. Her hands felt around grasping at air, then looked about crazily for it. Rolling his eyes ever so slightly, he was happy with himself for providing new entertainment for Misao-chan in the form of the great disappearing novel caper.

What had him less than pleased was the fact that she tried to poke her head under his shirt to continue the search, and her eyes began to brim with tears when he roughly pulled it back down and out of her grasp. "Ohhh wait nonono…" Aoshi mouthed as he waved his hands in front of her face as if this was somehow supposed to ward off the evil spirits of crying. "Look look look…" He quickly produce the book in front of her face, flashing the pages over her head. "See? It's fine, everything's >*fine*<…"

There was something a little more than humiliating about a little girl laughing at a boy whose voice just cracked. Aoshi instinctively looked over his shoulders to see if anyone was around. This was one of the reasons he avoided talking so much. In the interim of his paranoia, he unknowingly gave Misao-chan his book to hold on to.

The little girl curiously turned the book over, examining the textures and feelings under her searching fingers. It wasn't like her books that were puffy and soft and had lotsa pictures. Where were all the pictures? She nearly pouted as she turned several pages at a time, creasing most of them along the way.

Aoshi was jerked back to the girl in his lap when he caught the sudden movement in his lap. Her hand had suddenly jerked away from the book, and it looked as though she was going to cry again. "What…??" he grimaced. She got the book, now what did she want? Then he noticed her cradling one of her pointer fingers, gazing mournfully at its tip. A paper cut.

Now, Aoshi wasn't one to panic. In normal situations, but whenever anything seemed to involve the bundle in his lap, nothing came easy. What was he supposed to do now? He thought of the only thing he could do.

He kissed it better.

And he promptly received a standing ovation and the applause of an old man beaming with pride. 'One day…' Aoshi swore, as he glared at his grandfather. 'One day.'

*-*-*-*

One day, he would be at Jiya's mercy once again, baby-sitting. Although, here he was, and the alleged baby was serving him breakfast. To say this was "peculiar," would be quite the massive understatement.

Aoshi was old enough by now to have the picket white fences, and the 2.5 children. He could've had a wife by now, who shuffled around the kitchen and played with the kids. Where he'd go to work, and come home to a welcome dinner. He could have had all these things… if he believed in them, and if they weren't absurdly politically incorrect. None of these things had ever appealed to him, likely because he could barely recall having such a cliché in his own life.

Well, the 2.5 kids had happened, although not to the same man, and not all that legitimate. When Sanosuke was first born, Aoshi regarded him as a pair of shoes not worth spitting on. A bastard. Of course, he had grown up and he was an adult now and could logically conclude that Sano was, in fact, his brother, even if could still be a real bastard, at times. Aoshi had decided, not too far in the recent past, that Sanosuke - for better, or worse - was his brother. But then, there was the issue of his mother to deal with.

Honestly, Aoshi only spoke to his mother about twenty minutes out of the year. It had been this way since he was fifteen, and his father sent him to boarding school in Europe. 'Oh happy days,' the man thought sourly. Nothing like a trip half-way around the world, away from any support of any kind, to fix a broken heart of a broken home. His father, the genius.

There were few good memories of his parents after the age of six. He suspected this is when she started consorting with that… Sagara. He just seemed like a harmless looking guy who just happened to be at one of his father's business dinners. So harmless, indeed, he knocked up his mother two years later.

It wasn't much later that his father began drinking again. Apparently he'd had problems before Aoshi had been born, but of course the son didn't find this out until years later. He'd go to bed to the harmony of breaking glass, and vicious yelling. At first, Aoshi hadn't known all the details, of course. Parents never tell their kids when anything was wrong, because they, for some reason, thought their children wouldn't figure it out. Because we all know how all children are absolutely blind, right?

Right.

Two weeks after his seventh birthday, his mother disappeared from the house. Leaving him alone with his temporarily indisposed father. When he wasn't passed out from drinking, he was banging some secretary or maid. Aoshi could almost write his father's schedule for him - Mondays: scotch and bourbon, Tuesdays: brandy with a side of ass… he could go on for every day of the week, possibly for the whole year. He hated his mother for leaving him behind.

He hated her. Through all the murmured apologies, and all of the lame excuses. "I wanted to take you with me, I did…" Obviously, she'd tried so hard, she failed. All his father did was hit him. Bruises pain for not more than a few weeks, but his mother had succeeded in scarring him for life.

Every time he looked at anybody, any adult at all, he wondered in the back of his head if they cheated on their wives or husbands. Aoshi was curious if they were divorced, and if their children were harboring untold hate. Maybe, just maybe, that one woman at that one coffee shop was secretly apart of the upper crust of dysfunction. He constantly got told stories in school, of how this movie was so sad… the little boy was so lonely, and couldn't save his dog. Or they would chat about television specials where a broken couple would get back together. His classmates were all fools. They didn't know.

He wasn't a nerd. He wasn't a martial arts fanatic. He simply never wanted to go home, but nobody ever saw that. Aoshi never said anything, to anyone. Honestly, he didn't know if his mother even suspected of anything he was left with. Kempo worked well enough as an excuse for all the bruises and black eyes. No one knew the wiser.

… except for his grandfather. Jiya had retired from training kempo many years ago, so Aoshi was his only student. Though, he never said anything to Aoshi about it, nor did he ever ask any questions. Actually, Aoshi suspected that after figuring out, Jiya actually upped the ante. Training became harder, and more vigorous, and even better - time-consuming. As a man now, he realized what his wise old 'jisan had been doing: keeping him out of his house and away from his father. Not to mention, Jiya taught him how to take hits to minimize injury, and, the adult Aoshi suspected, was goading him to beat the living hell out of his father. Thinking back to those times, the only time he was ever truly happy was at Jiya's.

That note bringing him back to the omelet at hand. He made no motion to eat it just yet, simply surveying it with his eyes. Aoshi, although it wasn't obvious to any on-looker, was extremely suspicious of the risk factor involved. The only women that ever cooked for him were trained professionals.

*-*-*-*

"Aoshi-sama? Aren't you going to eat?" Misao had settled herself at her usual place with a couple slices of toast. Frankly, the smell of eggs had been getting to her, and she didn't feel like eating anything more than bread and butter.

"Aa." …

…

"Today?...!" She felt her anger start to rise. Her weasel instincts were slowly reforming as her fists clenched. Aoshi was pulling a Sano on her. … The thought of which caused her to back down, and after letting out a breath of frustration, she munched on her toast. 'Men.'

'Women.' And, with that final thought, Aoshi took his first bite.