Brotherly Love:

Sunrise

 

   

“Kaoru-oneechan.”

The phrase echoed in his memory. He had mused over it since he had retreated to his bedroll the night before, trying futilely to link the image of Kaoru-dono with the concept of sibling. Family, perhaps. Sister? He simply could not think of her that way.

Did she really feel that way about him?

Restlessness drove him out of his room before the sun had risen completely. In his mind he replayed the scene. Over and over he saw Kaoru’s eyes as she told him that she needed him. Had he imagined that look, he wondered? For a brief moment his heart had leapt in his chest—a most unseemly thing for a man of his age, let alone a man with his blood-soaked hands—and he had been sure that she was going tell him she cared for him.

The sun’s first red-gold rays colored the horizon as Kenshin stood upon the porch. The wind blew in leisurely gusts, sending eddies of dust across the ground. The rain had vanished, leaving no trace of its passing save his imprinted memories.

He looked at the washtub, and the steaming kettle that sat beside it. He had already filled the tub partially with chill water from the well.

It was early, but he needed the tranquilizing repetition of washing to calm his mind.

“Oi!”

Kenshin looked up. He was up to his elbows in sudsy water. Sano didn’t seem to mind, strolling up and flopping onto the porch beside him.

“Aren’t you starting this a bit early today?” He motioned to the lines of laundry swaying in the morning breeze.

The rurouni took in the ex-gangster’s reddish eyes and rumpled clothing. He also noticed that the man reeked of sake. “You haven’t slept since yesterday, have you?”

Sano leisurely crossed one leg over the other. His eyes slid shut as he leaned back on his elbows. “You’re grouchy today. What’d I miss last night?”

Kenshin was silent for a moment, considering the question. Kaoru had called Sanosuke a brother.

It was a fitting analogy.

He wrung the water out of a gi, then placed it in the pile of clothes to hang up. “Kaoru-dono said that she loved me…”

Sano’s eyes snapped open, and his shout echoed throughout the Kamiya Dojo. “Finally!”

Kenshin’s hand was on his mouth in an instant. “Be quiet! You’ll wake her up!”

 “Wait a minute,” Sano said, eyes narrowed, as soon as Kenshin removed his hand. “If she said that she loved you, why are you out here doing laundry? You should be in there with her!”

Before Kenshin could gather his wits about him—a determined Sanosuke being a force to rival the fiercest of nature’s storms—he found himself being half-carried and half-dragged toward Kaoru’s sleeping room.

“Wait!” He said frantically, struggling to free himself from Sano’s iron grip. “I didn’t finish. She said she loved me… but like a brother!”

Sano stopped dead.

Kenshin closed his eyes in humiliation. He hadn’t meant to blurt the embarrassing truth out like that. He could still hear the echoes of the assertion ringing in his ears.

The gangster released his grasp on his gi. Kenshin caught himself just before his face hit the floor, bounding to his feet and trying to regain his lost dignity.

“I’m sorry,” Sano said gruffly. He thumped Kenshin on the back in a friendly, commiserating manner.

Kenshin forced himself to smile as he walked back to the still-waiting washtub. “Don’t worry, she didn’t really mean it.”

Sano nodded sympathetically, then did a slow double-take. “Wha?”

Kenshin forced a rurouni smile to his face, though inside he seethed with the raw emotion of the Battousai. The warrior that Kaoru’s all-too-blatant challenge had called shifted restlessly. Kenshin had spent the morning fighting his darker self, fighting the undisciplined soul within him that wanted nothing more than to charge the gentle Kaoru’s room and prove to her that he was, to her, the farthest thing from a sibling.

Sano had become very still, and almost pale.

Perhaps the Battousai wasn’t as firmly leashed as he had thought.

Kenshin frowned, and unwittingly increased the pressure he was exerting on Yahiko’s helpless hakama.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Sano asked. He folded himself onto the porch, sitting casually, but out of reach. Kenshin could feel the tension that coursed through his friend’s body. His brother’s body.

The sibling analogy did fit between them.

“… brother…” Kaoru’s voice rang through his memory, bright and cheerful, but edged with uncertainty. Her aura had pulsed…..

The Battousai growled – a subtle encouragement. The warrior liked the direction that Kenshin’s thoughts had taken.

Yahiko’s hakama split in the Rurouni’s hands.

“Damn it!”

Sano jumped at the curse, then scuttled backwards as Kenshin flung the ruined panels of fabric toward the broad wall of the dojo with near-lethal force. They hit with a wet splat, sticking to the wall for a moment before tumbling to the dirt.

Kenshin stared at wet trail that marred the otherwise dry wall of the Kamiya Dojo, and tried to regain some hold on the near uncontrollable rage that threatened to drown his senses. The Battousai’s bloodlust he could, after so many years, almost ignore. The dark, cold rage that boiled within him was another fight entirely. A fight made doubly difficult because his Rurouni side had been just as offended by Kaoru’s attempt to comfort him.

“Brother,” he spit under his breath, aware of his most un-rurouni like behavior.

Tough! If they don’t like it, they can leave, the Battousai spit.

“Do I act like a brother to her?” He asked Sano, pinning him with his eyes, demanding that his friend – his brother-by-choice – answer.

“Well,” Sano smiled in a sickening fashion, “You are awfully protective of her, and kind, and you… well… you don’t act all lovey dovey to her…” Sano gulped. “If I didn’t know how much you love her… I might have come to the same conclusion, I guess.” The lanky man shrugged apologetically.

Kenshin closed his eyes. He had to force back the anger that was choking him, had to regain control. Somehow. He took a deep breath, consciously invoking the rituals of his training. He concentrated on his heartbeat, on the rush of blood through his veins.

The exercise reminded him of the night before, of Kaoru’s glowing eyes latched on him, traveling over him with an admiration, an interest, so strong that he could almost feel her touch.

She wanted you.

The Battousai was right.

It must be something of a record, the Rurouni thought. Agreeing with the Battousai twice in one morning… perhaps Kaoru’s statement had broken his mind completely….

“Lovey dovey,” he growled, focus switching from Sano’s pale-but-eager face to the already-drying smear on the dojo wall, then to Yahiko’s crumpled, ruined clothing and then back to Sano. “I am not lovey dovey.”

Sano nodded in agreement, pulling his knees up and regaining some of his normal color. “Exactly. Women… well, women just don’t understand sometimes. They don’t think the same way men do. With women, you have to… show them that you want them, that you’re interested in them.”

“Show them?”

Kenshin couldn’t believe that he was actually, seriously, listening to Sanosuke lecture him about women.

“Like with the fox,” Sano reasoned, “you have to touch her, to get close to her.”

Kenshin, who probably knew better than most how deep Sano’s feelings for Megumi really ran, tried to connect his friend’s advice with his own actions toward the doctor.

“I appreciate your help,” he stuttered, “but…”

Sano snorted. “You don’t get it. Here,” he stood up, towering over the shorter man. “Let me show you.” Sano slid his arm around Kenshin’s shoulder and leaned toward his ear. “You compliment them. They like that. I like to tell the foxy doctor that I like her ears, myself,” he frowned, “I don’t think that’ll work on Jou-chan, though.”

Kenshin shut his eyes. He felt a tremendous headache coming on. His palm itched to hold his sword, and the Battousai was laughing his ass off at the entire situation.

Things, of course, got worse.

Sano leaned even closer, his breath hissing in Kenshin’s ear. “You have to be physical, too.” He laughed. “I’m not saying you have to attack her or anything, though. In fact, if you’re going to attack Jou-chan, you’d better make darn sure that she doesn’t have that bokken of hers anywhere near her.” The ex-gangster shuddered theatrically. “She can be dangerous with that thing!” He cleared his throat. “And I might have to hurt you,” he confided, “so don’t attack her, huh?”

“Umm… Hai.” Kenshin scratched his head.

“So when you have Jou-chan all close, you lean into her ear and you tell her something sweet.”

“Something sweet?”

This is stupid. If you want a woman, you take her!

Kenshin silenced the Battousai. He didn’t agree with the hitokiri’s approach to romance, but Sano’s concept of seduction didn’t sound right either.

He wished that he had paid more attention to such things!

A hitokiri doesn’t need to know how to romance a high-born woman, the Battousai reasoned.

Kenshin mused over that fact. It was true – getting a woman for the night had been nothing more than a touch and a suggestive look. Sometimes it hadn’t even taken that much.

Kaoru was different, though. Kaoru was soft, and good, and kind.

“Yeah, sweet words,” Sano continued.

“Call her beautiful, you know.

“Compliment her.”

Sano frowned. “Right.”

“Heh.. you said that already…” Kenshin struggled to remember what Sano had been saying.

The ex-gangster waved his hand, dismissing… something.

“So then you go in for the kill,” he whispered.

“The kill?”

Visions of blood and sprawled bodies didn’t match with his hopes of gentle touches and, someday, sweet sensual pleasure.

“It’s a saying,” Sano growled. “You don’t really kill her!”

“Ah!”

“Do you really want to learn this?”

Kenshin debated his response, then bowed his head. “Maa, Sano.” He smiled. “I appreciate your help.”

Sano eyed him and grunted in satisfaction. He tightened his grasp on Kenshin’s shoulders, then grabbed the rurouni’s hand and held it tightly. “Okay, you lean in really close,” he demonstrated as he spoke, “and then…”

Kenshin stared up into the taller man’s eyes, everything in him focused on that moment, on the advice that, he hoped, would end the foolish circle dances that he had tied himself into with Kaoru.

“Oooh!”

Both men turned at the exclamation.

“I’m… I’m so sorry!” Kaoru blushed bright red and clapped her hands to her face, her eyes wide with surprise. “I didn’t mean to interrupt….” She trailed off, the blush deepening.

“What’s the hold-up, busu? Is he there?” Yahiko’s loud mouth preceded him onto the porch, where he ground to a halt.

Kenshin belatedly realized that Sano’s hand was clutched around his own, and he shook his fingers unobtrusively. Sano didn’t seem to get the message.

“You can let go now, Sano,” he said quietly.

Sano grunted in surprise, and dropped Kenshin’s hand.

“Whoa,” Yahiko whistled, his eyes as wide as Kaoru’s. “I didn’t know you two were…”

Kaoru slapped her hand over the boy’s mouth and bowed slightly. “Gomen nasai,” she murmured, dragging the boy from the room. She slid the shoji shut behind her, leaving the rurouni and the ex-gangster alone again. 

“What was that?” Sano wondered aloud.  

Kenshin finished his brief analysis of the situation. He looked at Sano, who still had one arm around him, and then at the hand that the bigger man had been holding. He blushed furiously. 

The Battousai summed it up in one succinct phrase.

Oh, shit!

“Oi, Kenshin, when’s breakfast?”

 

  *     *     *