Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. If I did, Kenshin and Kaoru would have been together for ages... and Kaoru would probably look like me. This is not fair! I want a Kenshin for myself! (but with my luck he would probably go Battousai and kill all my stuffed animals!). That fateful morning "Sessha will marry Kaoru-dono. It seems the right thing to do." "WHAT??" Her face was red from anger. "What makes you think that I want to marry you??" "Sessha only thought..." "Don't think! Get out of here! Right Now!" Kaoru yelled, raising her fist in the air. "Now!" Kenshin barely made it out of the room without being punched senseless. Outside, he was finally able to breathe. "Sessha should be the mad one... It was HER idea to drink the sake." He muttered, walking towards the kitchen. Kaoru just hung around the room, until she was sure Kenshin wasn't going to come back. She had built on her imagination millions of fantasies about Kenshin asking her to marry him. Her favorite was being by his side, watching a beautiful sunset. Kenshin would touch her hand and smile. Then he would say: "Aishiteru, Kaoru" Just plain Kaoru. She always hated that 'dono' suffix he always used. Then Kenshin would kiss her softly and say: "Would you give me he honor of being my wife?" Yeah, Kenshin definitely blew it. She wasn't angry with him. She was furious. 'How does he dare to make a marriage proposal to sound as if he got stuck with me?' Kaoru clenched her fist. She felt like strangling Kenshin to death, or at least hit him hard in the head with her bokken. Either option sounded rather appealing at that moment. She knew she had ruined the perfect chance to have Kenshin as a husband and he would never propose to her again, because of how she had reacted. Kaoru sighed. Even thought the rurouni had made her really furious, she was in love with him. If she ever wanted another chance with Kenshin, she would have to call for desperate measures: she was going to ask Sano for advice. *** Kenshin found that the kitchen needed urgent cleaning. There were onion pieces all over, besides of the broken broom and burnt food on the stove. He wondered how the building survived the night, considering how drunk he and Kaoru were. ‘Kaoru’, that day the thought of her wasn’t as happy as it always have been. Somehow, her answer that morning had broken something inside of him. He never thought of himself being worthy of her love, but just for a second, he thought he had been forgiven for all his sins. But then, Kaoru was angry. More than that, she was irate. With him? With what he had done to her? There was a missing piece on the puzzle and he couldn’t figure out what it was. "Ohayou" Yahiko came into kitchen. "What happened here? Did you fight someone?" "Iie. Nothing happened." Kenshin tried to remain calm. It seems that it was written on his face that he had done something he shouldn’t. "I don’t buy it." Yahiko said, picking up the Sakabattou over the table. "Did you fight an onion?" "It was an accident." Kenshin said, sweat pouring on his forehead. The damn kid was becoming somewhat like a detective. "An accident? With an onion?" ‘Wrong answer, Himura... Now, how am I am going to get out of this?’ Kenshin thought beginning to panic. He turned around, pretending he was cleaning something, so that Yahiko couldn’t see his face. "Ohayou, Kaoru" Yahiko said. Kenshin almost fell over. He felt his face growing red. If someone saw his face, probably wouldn’t know where his face ended and his hair began. "Ohayou." Kaoru said, her eyes wide open staring at the mess they had done in the kitchen. Kenshin had his back turned to them. Kaoru felt her face become hot. "Why is your face red, busu? Do you have a fever or something?" Yahiko, the most sensitive boy in the world, asked. Kaoru touched her face, her skin felt like it was burning under her fingers. Kenshin took advantage of the situation to try to run away. He would have succeeded if Sano hasn’t come to get a free meal. Kenshin ran into him and fell flat on the floor. "Sano! Are you trying to kill someone?" Yahiko said, looking at Kenshin and wondering why he looked red as a lobster. "Sessha apologize, Sano. I wasn’t looking where I was going." "What the hell happened here?" Sano looked at the kitchen. "Where is the sake?" Uh-oh, wrong question. Kenshin felt like running away and Kaoru thought her face was so red as it was about to explode. "I’m going to buy tofu." Kaoru and Kenshin said both at the same time. They looked at each other for a second. "I’ll go, Kaoru-dono." Kenshin said. "Thank you, Kenshin." Kenshin left as if he was running away from something. Sano kept looking for the sake, but found only empty bottles. "Hey, Jou-chan! What happened to the sake? Did you and Kenshin had a party just for yourselves last night?" Sano asked, on a mocking tone of voice. "WHAT?" Kaoru freaked out. She didn’t prepare herself for questions like that. "It was an accident!" "Kenshin said the same thing." Yahiko pointed. "You and Kenshin accidentally drank all my sake? My poor sake... I thought it was safe here..." Sano looked as if he was about to cry for his lost sake. "But if you guys drank all my sake, you must have gotten really drunk." "Why would they want to drink all that thing?" Yahiko shook his head. "Maybe Jou-chan wanted to get Kenshin drunk... and seduce him!" Sano teased. Kaoru just looked at the floor. Her cheeks were on fire. Sano stared at her for a moment before understanding exactly what her reaction meant. "Yahiko, why don’t you go with Kenshin to buy the tofu?" Sano asked. "I need to have a little chat with Jou-chan." Yahiko opened his mouth to say something, but he realized Sano was dead serious. "All right. I’ll only go because Tae-san already gave me breakfast." Yahiko said, and then left. Kaoru was more than embarrassed. Sano kept looking at her with the same expression her father used to use when she had done something wrong. "So..." Sano started. "Did you get Kenshin drunk?" "Sano!" "Don’t give me that look. I’m only trying to figure out what happened here." "We both got drunk..." Kaoru said, as if she was looking for someplace to hide. "And..." "Please don’t ask me this... I’m too embarrassed." Kaoru covered her face with her hands. For a moment there was silence. "I’ll kill him." Sano said matter of factly. "NO! Are you crazy?" "Then I’ll just make him marry you! Who does he think he is? Behaving like a f###### kid, not taking responsibility for his own actions!" "No! I don’t want to push Kenshin into something! And if you must know, he said he would marry me." "Oh! Why didn’t you say it before? Congratulations!" Sano turned from angry to happy in just a second. "I said ‘no’." "What the hell?! Are you crazy, Jou-chan? Don’t you love him?" "Like I said, I don’t want to push him..." "I can see that you love him, but what are you going to do? If you don’t do something about it... Well, you know Kenshin, he will probably go back to his wandering days." "Do you really think so?" "Yeah. It’s up to you to make him stay. I’m sure he wants to marry you." "Why would he want to marry me? I’m not a lady... Sometimes I behave..." "Like a tomboy. We all know that. And you are aggressive. Men usually don’t like women who can kick their butts. But still... Do you think Battousai would allow you to beat him unless he liked you?" "But I’m not beautiful enough..." "Well, a new kimono and a nice hairstyle can do wonders. And you are not ugly. You are actually very pretty. All you gotta do is dress up. There is no way Kenshin can ignore you." "Thank you for helping me, Sano." "No problem, Jou-chan. You and Kenshin are like family. You deserve to be happy." *** Kaoru left home shortly after Kenshin came back from the market. She thought there was something wrong with her, that she was loosing control over her body. Every time she saw Kenshin that morning she turned red and walked away. But her talk with Sano had built some confidence on her. She decided to fight for Kenshin. With that on her mind, she went to Akabeko. Kaoru knew she needed woman’s advice, but she wasn’t going to ask Megumi even if her own life depended on it. Specially when Kenshin was the topic. Tae would be her best choice, then. When she arrived, long before lunch, the restaurant was empty. "Hi, Kaoru." Tae greeted. "There is something different about you... Don’t tell me... Did you cut your hair?" "No..." "You are blushing." Tae noticed. "Actually... I came here to ask for your advice... On Kenshin." Kaoru said, looking at the floor. "Oh, I see..." Tae said, trying to control her face and not laugh of pure joy. ‘Finally one of those two have decided on doing something!’ "Ano... Sano said I should buy a new kimono, but I don’t actually know what would look good on me..." "Oh! So we are going shopping! Wait a minute, I’m going to get my purse. I’ll be right back." ‘That was a little easier than I thought..." Kaoru thought, as she watched Tae come back. *** Kenshin had finished chopping vegetables for dinner. He was washing his hands. As he dove them into the water, his mind was drifting far away. Kaoru had left right after he came back with the tofu and spent most of the day out. When she finally came home, she locked herself in her room. It was obvious to Kenshin that she didn’t want to see him at all. He definitely had ruined everything. She probably didn’t want him to stay anymore, but she was too polite to say so. Kenshin sighed, walking to his room. Maybe he should save Kaoru the trouble of asking him to leave. He packed the few things that he owned. "Hey, Kenshin? Why isn’t dinner ready?" It was Sano, standing by Kenshin’s door. "Huh? What are you doing?" "Sessha is going away." "Away where?" Sano stared Kenshin. "I’m going to wander once more." ====================== Hi everybody! This is my Christmas present for you (I know it’s late, but my presents are always late!). Anyway, you finally know why Kaoru doesn’t want to marry Kenshin. I hope you enjoy and please forgive me for taking so long to update. It’s just that I had to change everything that I had wrote... Some people said they liked it funny, so I had to change the chapter (I don’t know if I succeeded... I guess I’ll know when you review it). I thank you all that reviewed this so far. I guess I can say now that are the reviews that keep the story going. I even found a friend to help me with the plot (Thanks Kathie, you are the best), and I listened to my brother’s advices on what should happen next (if you have a brother like mine... He always keeps saying that Kenshin is gay and I try to strangulate him for that... But he always makes me laugh with stuff like: "why don’t you make Kenshin has to disguise himself as a geisha and have that Sano guy make a pass on him?") I hope you all got what you wanted for Christmas (I got my PS2!!!!!!! I’m so happy!!! You have no idea how expensive this thing is here in Brazil). And a Happy New Year for everybody!