Cover Girls

An alternate universe Rurouni Kenshin Fanfic

 

Chapter Eight

"Tea at Tae's"

 

*********************************************

 

"Bye Shura!" Kaoru called out to the school gymnastics coach as she walked out the main gates of the school.

 

"Bye Kaoru-chan, I'm rooting for you!" The beautiful, green-haired woman replied before heading in the opposite direction.

 

Kaoru smiled at Shura's encouraging words for a moment before finally turning down the street again to begin a slow, and thoughtful walk home. It had been exactly a week since Misao's debut, and although both the judges and the crowd seemed to love the "twist", the real reason behind her younger sister's performance still gnawed away at the back of her mind. Misao was a talented singer, even more so than Kaoru, but as with all natural gifts, there was a catch.

 

Misao could only sing like that, when she was too upset to actually speak.

 

A chill wind blew down the street, tugging most of her bangs loose from the plastic headband that was supposed to keep them out of her way. Kaoru pulled her jacket more closely around her with one hand while the other reached up to brush the offending strands away from her eyes. Once her line of vision was cleared, she found herself just across the street from the park where Misao and Aoshi had parted ways a little over a week ago. There weren't many people about due to the winter chill; just a few couples who were too much in love to mind the biting cold.

 

"God bless them." Kaoru thought to herself with a gentle smile playing across her attractive features. Absentmindedly her eyes glanced over each of the benches as she passed, her mind only coming to attention when she noticed that one of them only seated one occupant wearing a long white winter coat, and the most forlorn expression in creation on his face.

 

 

He never noticed the dark-haired woman as she crossed the street and casually made her way over to his side. He only sensed something was amiss when she came to stand next to him but made no motion to share his seat. Curious, he turned his gaze upward to meet a beautiful pair of eyes, much like the ones he was missing so badly at the moment. Her hair was slightly tousled and the cold had turned her cheeks a flattering shade of pink, but most comforting to him, was the kind smile that graced her lips. Whatever she had in mind for him, it wasn't of any bad intention.

 

Kaoru's smile widened slightly as she read the uncertainty in Aoshi's usually expressionless eyes. When she spoke, her voice was a match for that smile, measured and kind without a hint of the judgment that he deserved. Extending a gloved hand to the lonely man, she said the one thing that could make the situation any better.

 

"You look like you could use a cup of tea."

 

***************************************************

 

The teashop a block away from the park was small, but cozy. Kaoru and Aoshi were seated in a traditional type setting on a low table made only for two. It soon became obvious to Aoshi that the owner of the establishment was familiar to the elder Kamiya, as she herself had brought the tray of sweetbreads and tea to their table.

 

"Thank-you Tae." Kaoru said with a genuine smile to the woman who simply returned the smile while giving Aoshi an approving look that made him want to squirm in his seat. Kaoru, oblivious to Tae's predatory glance, simply began to sip her tea lest it grew cold.

 

Without a word, Aoshi copied her, letting the fragrant liquid swirl over the surface of his tongue before slipping down his throat to warm his chill form. With his head still slightly tilted over the cup, he looked up through his bangs at Misao's older sister, who seemed to be totally focused on the cup of tea in her hand.

 

"How have you been?"

 

If he had been a jumpy person, the cup of tea would have slipped down through his fingers and crashed on the tabletop below. Kaoru had asked the question with both eyes closed in contentment over the emerald surface that swirled in her cup. Only when a few moments had passed with no answer, her deep indigo eyes slowly opened, seemingly pinning him to his seat with their intense stare.

 

Carefully, he set the cup down on the polished wooden surface, averting his eyes as he did so that he could see his reflection on both the gleaming table and the jade surface of the tea. Gods he looked a mess. Unconsciously, one hand crept up to his cheek where dark circles had begun to form under his eyes, a testament to the fact that he'd slept all of five hours in the week that had passed. The hand left his cheek, running upwards to his scalp where its fingers threaded through his lackluster hair and held it tightly enough to cause tension at the roots.

A bitter smile pulled the corners of his mouth as he finally answered her question.

 

"Miserable." He whispered.

 

Kaoru's placid expression did not change as she set her cup down next to Aoshi's with a light "chink" and reached for the platter that lay between them. "Misao's not been herself either," she observed before taking a tiny bite of the sweet she'd selected.

 

Aoshi's first urge was to lunge across the table and demand to know the extent of Misao's "not being herself". However, his greater sense of logic pinned him to the cushion on which he sat. The picture of the petite woman burying her face in her hands on stage in the instant that the overhead lights went out kept replaying itself in his mind. The look of absolute sadness that crossed her face had hurt him more than anything else ever could. It was the knowledge that he was the one who caused it in the first place that was responsible for his lack of sleep at night. The fingers buried in his hair tugged even harder, how could he be such a jerk?

 

"Aoshi, do you like Misao?" Kaoru asked while licking the tip of her index finger clean.

 

Aoshi looked up so fast that the bangs around his forehead lifted off completely for a moment, revealing the finely sculptured beauty of his face. His blue eyes were wide with surprise and his lips parted slightly as if to answer all on their own, but the moment the stray hairs fell back into place; it was as if the look had never been there at all.

 

Kaoru picked up her tea once more, patient blue eyes waiting for the young man's response to her question.

 

"I'm miserable without her."

 

Kaoru searched his eyes for a moment more before letting her hand curl around her cup once more. "Hm…" she mumbled as if thinking. "You know Aoshi, Misao might be cute and bubbly now, but she wasn't always that way."

 

Aoshi's ice blue eyes widened slightly in question, "What do you mean?" he asked.

 

Kaoru's eyes never lost contact with his, only intensified in their piercing blue gaze to read every reaction he was about to have to the story she told.

 

"Misao had…a problem growing up." Kaoru said, "It affected her ability to communicate with the world and the fact that few people understood her, or even seemed to care what she was thinking. Many made the mistake of thinking they knew what was best for her, just because it was practically impossible to say what she wanted for herself. That made her angry. She got into fights, slid back in school and generally attracted trouble like a magnet."

 

The tea in Aoshi's cup was soon forgotten, it's motionless emerald surface solemnly reflecting the pallid face that hovered above it. His entire being hypnotized by the tale that the blue-eyed woman recounted.

 

"So," Kaoru continued, "When Misao was fourteen, my mother decided to stop listening to all the specialists and experts and took matters into her own hands. She turned to the one place she could, her first true love…music."

 

Kaoru's eyes left the bewildered man's, their gaze growing soft at the scent of nostalgia, "When Misao came home with that first drum set, her eyes were brighter than I'd ever seen them before and my Mom just had this…smile…on her face. Before we knew it, the problem disappeared without us even noticing and the real Misao came shining through." With that, she stopped talking altogether and brought the remainder of her tea to her mouth.

 

Aoshi found himself staring directly into his liquid reflection, searching his own eyes for some clue as to how he should react. "Kaoru-san," he asked quietly without looking up, "What…what exactly was wrong with Misao?"

 

Kaoru set down her empty cup with a sympathetic smile. "Well," she replied, "Let me put it this way, it took Misao a whole hour to tell me why she came home crying last week."

 

Aoshi looked up in surprise, but all he saw were a few yen notes tucked neatly under her cup. Kaoru had already pulled on her coat and purse and her tiny feet now slid easily into the pumps that awaited her just outside of their little booth. She turned smoothly on her heel to face him again.

 

"I really hope that you guys work things out," she said inclining her head in his direction, "Goodbye Aoshi-san."

 

She turned again to leave but something about the last threads of conversation he and Misao had shared made him call out to her sister again.

 

"Kaoru-san…" he asked, "Misao introduced me to someone, a Tanaka-san. Tell me, did he have anything to do with helping Misao?"

 

Kaoru's eyes brightened at the mention of the violinist's name, "Tanaka did have a lot to do with it I suppose. You see, my Mom had a problem of her own growing up, and Tanaka-sama was the one who taught her to deal with it through music…" A strange expression took over her face, caught between sadness and awe, "He…he was the only one who could."

 

Aoshi now looked utterly confused, and said just as much.

 

Kaoru blinked once in disbelief and then the previous expression grew stronger, "Misao never told you did she?" she asked quietly.

 

"Told me what?"

 

"Aoshi," Kaoru said in a gentle voice, "My mother was blind."

 

********************************************

 

                                 

  next                               main