Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ The Perfect Life of Kamiya Kaoru ❯ Chapter 1 ( Chapter 4 )

A/n- Wow, this fic has gotten more positive feedback than I could have hoped for... I'm so touched that you guys liked it! I believe I've put it on hold for long enough and I'd like to dedicate this chapter to my 6 wonderful reviewers. I hope this chapter meets your satisfaction ^_^...

 

There IS a generous time skip here and new readers who have just started this fic are welcome to start here, instead of with the prologues. The story will not be ruined for you, since Kaoru makes several references to her stay at the asylum, including a few flashbacks, but I digress... These will not appear until later chapters. Here we go! ^_^

 

 

Chapter 1:

 

Kamiya Kaoru gently dried the sweat from her forehead with a soft towel. Her pale skin was flushed from exertion as she placed her favorite bokken back on the wall rack. Her slightly worn-out training clothes clung to the dewy skin on her shoulders, outlining her lithe, athletic, 18-year-old figure.

 

"Kaoru!" A clear, feminine voice called through the door (deja vu anyone?). "There should be plenty of hot water now!"

 

"Okay!" Kaoru made her way out of the small training chamber into the rest of the house she shared with her two half-sisters. As she padded briskly down the hall, Kaoru passed all the old family photos. In these seemingly insignificant pictures was recorded the story of her family from almost twenty years ago to present day.

 

The oldest one consisted of her older sister, Megumi, as an infant, being held by a very beautiful, elegant woman with long waist-length hair, and their late father, Kamiya Koujiro. He was a tall, sturdy man whose hardened features were at least content when standing with his wife and tiny daughter. The second showed a slightly older Megumi clutching little Kaoru's hand as their stern-looking father sat behind them. The third featured three small girls: Megumi, Kaoru, and their baby sister Misao clustered around their loving, but solemn father and a short, brown-haired woman whose bright green eyes seemed to leap out of the picture.

 

The last and most recent photo always made Kaoru's heart give a painful clench. The three girls: Megumi; then 18, Kaoru; 15, and Misao; 13, stood posing alone for the first time. There was something not genuine about their smiles that may have had to do with the sadness radiating from in their eyes. It had been taken a mere month after their beloved father's death and a year after Kaoru had first been put in that God forsaken mental institution. She shivered.

 

Kaoru was not bitter about it, of course. Who was there to be bitter toward? Certainly not her father. 'Otouchan did what he had to do; I needed help back then...' she reminded herself mechanically. Besides, the doctors had truly been nice people. Megumi was even working at the asylum now, as an intern.

 

The only thing that had caused her to exhibit hysterical behavior --" GAH! I've been around shrinks too long!" --were the constant thoughts, images, memories of him. 'What was his name again?'

 

It had been a while since her last vision of the beautiful red-haired man; but every once in a while, she saw his kind smile and exotic lavender eyes in her dreams. 'Stop that!' she told herself firmly. 'What would father think?' Moisture gathered, but she forced it back. It was going on three years since his death, and she still couldn't think of him without tearing up.

 

It was just that... her father had been strong and fit for so long, it seemed impossible most of the time that he could be as sick as the doctors claimed he was.

 

Being the older one of two brothers, Koujiro inherited his family's old dojo as well as their ancient sword-style. His younger brother, Kaoru's estranged uncle, was compensated with the rest of the family's fortune.

 

Gradually, Kamiya-san saved up his meager earnings from giving kenjustu lessons, and was able to build a house around the dojo, adding rooms and floors over the years. He had turned it into the house his daughters now lived in and built a second dojo to conduct lessons in. Koujiro was one of the few in this modern age who had continued to train in the old ways. Kaoru had decided years ago to carry on that part of his legacy.

 

Koujiro first married his childhood friend, whom he had been engaged to through an arranged marriage. Watsuki Sakura, five years his junior, died of a brain tumor two years after Megumi was born. Devastated at the loss of his wife and best friend, he sought fulfillment in his swordsmanship.

 

He met Houshi Hotaru in a kenjustu tournament and became attracted to her fiery spirit, despite the considerable age difference between them. A year after she gave birth to Kaoru, Hotaru became furious upon realizing Koujiro had no intentions of ever marrying her, and she left, cursing him and the child she'd given him.

 

Another year of despondent solitude passed. With his two young daughters to consider, one still in diapers, Koujiro finally sought professional help for his depression. He met and fell in love with his psychologist, Shiroi Hikari. Hikari gave up her job to be with him and quickly gave birth to his last daughter, Misao.

 

They all lived in the dojo for a few years, until Hikari began to regret leaving behind her career and family, all for her husband.

 

She had possibly reached a midlife crisis due to the financial strain that they had fallen under at the time, since both she Koujiro were nearly 40. Many arguments, sometimes trivial, sometimes severe, broke out and came between them, until finally, Hikari filed for a divorce.

 

Of course she had wanted to take the girls with her, having come to love Megumi and Kaoru as her own, but the judge could not have granted custody of three young girls to a woman with no home, little money, and a criminal record.

 

She had gotten romantically involved with one of her patients, defied the law, and married him. Distraught, Hikari committed suicide at the age of 44.

 

Koujiro was left to rear his three daughters and keep his sword school running. With the financial support of his reclusive brother, he was able to do fairly well for a single parent. Kaoru, Megumi, and Misao, themselves, had never set eyes on their uncle and were forbidden to ask to visit him. It never bothered them much as life went on.

 

Slowly, the three girls emerged almost as little miniatures of their mothers. Megumi grew into a brilliant and intellectual beauty. She ranked top in every class, and became very popular with the boys as soon as she came of age. However, to her credit, she had not dated anyone since her father's death; giving her limited free time to Misao and Kaoru.

 

When he accepted that he would never have a son, Koujiro decided to pass along the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu to Kaoru. He felt it was most fitting since both her mother and father had been champions in the sport. She became his personal apprentice and it was inevitable that the two of them would form a very close bond through their swordsmanship. If he ever treated Kaoru as a favorite, nobody had the heart to blame him.

 

Even as a child, Kaoru had utterly adored her father. It was a cruel blow to her in particular when he passed away. She had been sent to the institute and Koujiro had died before she'd had a chance to complete her training.

 

Misao, the youngest child of the family, had never been as close to their father as the other girls were. Curiously, she was also the one who least resembled her mother. The genki girl turned out, surprisingly, to be the artistic one in the family, and she was greatly intrigued with ancient Japanese culture. Koujiro sent her to private academy, run by an old friend, where she learned the arts of stealth and self-defense, and also used up some of her excess energy.

 

The year Megumi turned 18, legally an adult, was the year Koujiro passed away. His mental health had been declining for the past 12 years. Kaoru wasn't released from the asylum for another two after it happened. With the exception of short Christmas and New Year visits, it was hard for her sisters to come and see her during this difficult time.

 

However, they managed. In the end, this was probably one of the reasons they became so close. Closer than they ever were, even before the incident.

 

Luckily, the court did not separate them because of Megumi's age and high-ranking education. Not to mention it was always good news when their uncle sent them a generous check every few months, sufficient to cover Kaoru's medical bills and even helped for groceries and other things that would have been hard to buy with only Megumi's scanty income as an intern at the hospital.

 

There was never a return address with these checks, but always a note, wishing them happiness and health. After a bit of unsuccessful digging into their mysterious uncle's background, they had to content themselves with chalking it up to his solitary lifestyle.

 

Nowadays, although Megumi still received around the same amount of money, Kaoru was also earning a small paycheck by giving kendo lessons after school.

 

As far as the house itself went, Kaoru and Misao shared a room while Megumi slept in the study/den, so that she could do her work and go straight to sleep. It was an unspoken rule that their father's room was not to be touched, except when someone, usually Misao, had to dust and clean it once a week. Megumi's old room was currently being used a kind of storage area for all the junk that the girls couldn't fit (or were too lazy to fit) in the attic.

 

There was also the second, small dojo that Kaoru had just vacated, where her father, and now she, gave lessons. It was set apart from the main house in a separate building that had a path of garden stones leading the way from one doorway to the other.

 

Kaoru left the bathroom smelling heavily of jasmine in her wake. Megumi was downstairs in the kitchen, teaching an ecstatic Misao how to make brownies from scratch.

 

"Will you knock that off, baka itachi!" Megumi snapped playfully as her youngest sister continued to steal pieces of dough whenever she thought the doctor-in-training wasn't looking. Kaoru entered the fray by snatching some dough for herself.

 

Megumi, seeing that they were ganging up on her, sighed, dramatically fluttering her mink lashes. "How on earth can you two just sit there and stuff your faces with concentrated fat and NEVER gain a pound?!" Misao grinned thickly, through a big mouthful.

 

"Eashy! We don' sit in an awfice all day! We get offa ow butts n' EXERCISE." She emphasized the last word as she finally swallowed the raw chocolate confection. Megumi frowned with exaggerated anger.

 

"Don't talk with your mouth full..." Kaoru laughed and ate her own yummy, brown goodness.

 

From a stranger's point of view, each of them was good-looking in her own way. Megumi was tall and full-figured, Misao slender and petite, and Kaoru well-toned and slim.

 

"Earth to Kaoru!" Misao snapped her fingers in front of the dazed girl's eyes.

 

"Huh? What?"

 

"You kinda spaced out on us for a second there..."

 

"Oh, sorry," Kaoru giggled sheepishly while putting away her random musings for another day, preferably one where she was bored and had nothing better to do. 'Since when did I become such a deep thinker anyway? Oh crap, they're staring again. Why am I talking to myself? Damn it, I really AM crazy...' "I'm gonna head over to work. Don't wait up for me, okay?"

 

Her older sister nodded with a slightly concerned expression, but took the hint, for now in any case. Misao attempted to lighten the mood.

 

"Oh yeah, Kaoru, if you see the infamous, sexy Seta Soujiro, tell him Misao says hi! Only say it more like 'heeeey...'" Misao arranged her expression into a poor imitation of Megumi's seductive 'player-face', as they liked to call it. Kaoru giggled again and looked at her little sister fondly before searching her pockets for the car keys that were supposed to be there.

 

Misao had had a cute, secret crush on Kaoru's best friend Soujiro for about a year now, and although she had a feeling that he returned the sentiments, Kaoru wasn't into playing match-maker nearly as much as Megumi sometimes was. Other than that, she smiled because of her, Misao's, innate ability to turn any situation into a light-hearted one. 'That girl is seriously going to bring about world peace one day.'

 

Kaoru's was also grateful for Megumi's clear insight and perceptiveness, probably from all her medical training. Often, when Kaoru or Misao didn't feel like talking about something, they could just depend on Megumi's intuition to figure it out. Not to mention she was the first person you wanted on your side in a bad situation. She had a don't-mess-with-me attitude that drew respect even from her most stubborn patients.

 

It should not be concluded however, that they never argued and fought. Megumi had tendencies toward being haughty or even deceptive, Misao could sometimes be considered childish and annoying, and Kaoru easily became bossy or hot-headed.

 

Finally finding her keys inside her bag, Kaoru hurried out of the door, calling, "Love you, Bye!"

 

 

 

~~A/n- ...... -_-.... exceedingly sucky? After typing it, yesh, I think so too. This chapter mostly contained boring crap that I really just needed to get out of the way before the real story could begin (i.e. what happened to Kamiya-san, how the girls changed, etc...)

 

I know it must have been a real blow to some of you, which is why I have posted TWO chapters today! Dun dun DUN! So those of you who have not either fallen asleep or taken me OFF your favorites list, please continue on to the next chapter where I hope you will find at least a LITTLE consolation. (I use a lot of caps, don't I?) Oh, and does anyone know whether or not asylums actually take interns? -_-? ~ * ~ * ~Ali ~ * ~ * ~ Please R&R!