Being the bread-winner and a woman at the same time wasn’t easy in the age of Meiji. She was expected to be skilled in other things, cooking, flower-arranging, all manner of domesticity. But that had never been her way, her hands were made to carry a sword and feel the callouses of it. To pass on ideals of peace to an age that still believed killing was the proper course.
Yet sometimes, sometimes she would try to be different. To try her hand at cooking a dinner that was often chastised, that involved her throwing a wooden blade across the room or whatever item she could find at the offender. No different than training, where she’d wait with a scowl on her face for her student to get up from the last match and ignore his taunts until it got too much. That brat Yahiko..still had so much to learn of her Father’s style. She wanted to believe earnestly that this boy would become great someday. He had many people to aspire to be, though she wondered if she were one of them.
A knock at the door set her hands lifting from the stew, taking note of the person who entered, tall and in white, carrying his own ingredients.
“Hey, Jou-chan, found some at a good price.”
She wrinkled her brows.
“You didn’t steal these did you, Sanosuke?” It was all in jest of course, and he feigned a hurt expression.
“You hurt me, Jou-chan! Oi, it smells kinda good in here. You been practicin’?” A demure sort of blush she rarely had, and a shy little nod, feeling a bandaged hand come on her head.
“Yeah? Well good work. Guess the real judge will come in soon enough."
Ah, that person. Out of the family she had made, he was different. He was…home.
“Tadaima. This one is a bit late, he is. Kaoru-dono it smells very nice, it does.”
She’d barely had time to wash her hands before he appeared, as if he had always been there, always should have been there..and her heart hitched a bit in her throat, warm and aching with an emotion they both felt — that they rarely had to put into words to get the feeling across.
"Does it….? I-I tried really hard to read the book exactly today so—so you better like it!” She blushed, earning a chuckle from both men.
Then, more quietly, her smile all but an aureole on her face…
“…Welcome home, Kenshin.”
—-
Kaoru Kamiya/Himura from Rurouni Kenshin. My first muse I ever played. She’s really precious to me.
