Realization.

Attention.
So much of it.....

Feet propel like I am a boat in the river as far and as fast as they can go to the  door into school.
"Hurry friends, hurry!"I mutter to my feet as they seem to only pick up in speed when another dozen people suddenly appear in the drive path and I am starting to look as I am feeling.

Frantic.

It has been only two days since we had the last demonstration and I thought would be quiet on my end here,I honestly believed like the idiot I feel like I am I would be left alone and that Kenshin would be the star of this whole situation and I would fade back away again.

But.
They all warned me.

Uncle Goji,Arata,Kenshin.
Even Kaoru Orange warned me.

KAORU ORANGE!!

TWO DAYS AGO

"Did you really believe that you would be left alone after making your heart a seen by the world and when the world can see just how beautiful it is."
I try to not look his way.

My hands busy themselves with mangas,art books.Anything else to occupy myself than to hear the words I am hearing.
It seems like too much,so much heart flutters from two people too suddenly.

Too much of too much for me.

Arata beats me to the end cap of the art book aisle,halting my steps.I keep my head low and try to keep my heart level as well.
Arata though,always persistent stands pat and I am tired of not knowing what to say.Just tired of it and I raise my head intending to do what a heroine should but rarely does.

"I don't know how to answer you.I said I would think about....You,like...that but I-I can't seem to escape this pressure feeling when you keep asking me."
"Is it wrong to want an answer?"

I shake my head and try to walk away and with next to no one in the store today it isn't an issue for him to beat me around the next aisle.

"What is it about him that you are so 'Into'?What can it be that compares to over a DECADE of friendship and trust?Is it because he fits this dream of yours?Is that it....."

I look at him head on at that point,my eyes he seems to hold onto the attention of matching me for long seconds until he seems to feel my feelings before I get to say it.

"I truly do not know.I wanted to give you a chance but no matter the times I tried to let the thought bloom I couldn't.Kenshin...It is like-Like I had that moment that people write about.You know?Like everything I felt became alive that day and it scared me so much I couldn't think about letting anyone in.You are my friend,I shouldn't have said you turned out so nerd hot,I had no idea it would be so much on you or the weird it would bring about for us."

His eyes,they look to be burning somehow and I hate it,I hate as well that Oiha finds that the best time to stalk the store and torment m as per every other week here but she stops cold on the words of Arata.

"You say us in a friends way,a way I wanted to keep for a long time because I figured there would be no other but now I can't keep that and I refuse to pretend anymore.Go and have that rich and future of Japan man but remember this:
You will have no peace from yesterday on,never have any quiet and your past will not be staying only at school or local internet chats.It will be world over and his family will fight you and that will strain any feelings you have for him.Guess what to?That guy loves his mother and men rarely do men go against there mothers over a girl who will not open up for anyone....Anyone."

Arata left so quickly,Even Oiha watched standing beside the audio books in surprise at the fury he held.
Her eyes went straight to mine and I can't deal with it right now ,so I walk further away to take my too large armful of books to the history shelf and she follows me putting those strawberry pink lipstick lips close to my ears,whispers.

"You are really a fool.You know that.I wish and wish for that boy to love me and look at me like you do so I can finally leave my awful home,be loved and safe.But you have got all the best of everything and will never,ever realize or accept it.Stop being so greedy!Stupid witch"
Oiha leaves like a gust of wind straight out of a manga panel.

I feel so out of sorts right now,terrible timing for more customers to come in and I greet them but try hard to avoid eye contact with anyone ,no harm intended.
Yet.

"It is her!Hi,we have to have all the details!"

They both rushed in on me,so close to me that I can barely breathe for the smell of the intense flower scented perfume this girls are wearing.I fight the urge to sneeze while looking at them quizzically.
They squeak in unison pulling out there phones and scroll until they flip two separate but linked articles and a show me them.

"Prince of swords,Lady of words and dark acts together for more than public relations or more intimate relations?!?"
Below the caption is a picture of Kenshin just after he gently lifted me onto his feet,guiding me softly as we(He)danced.

I take a hold of the phone and really look at it.
That photograph and think on it,how I look in this picture.
How he looks.
Life is so different to view from another's eyes.

So very different indeed.
We look...

Happy.
Like a 'We'.
Like a 'Us'.

"That is why you are so upset.Oh Arata...ugh I am sorry."

PRESENT

The day is almost done and I know just where to go to find him.
It is only a short turn away now and I can see them through the doors glass window,Kenshin and his uncle talking quietly over something I can not hear and Sensei seems to be very angered by whatever it is Kenshin has told him though that anger does not appear to be at Kenshin at all.
Sensei catches sight of me and lets me in though I hadn't prepared myself to actually BE in here, WITH him ,ALONE.

But alone i am in here with him.
Kenshin has eyes on me like a puppy that is expecting a treat.Those sparkling eyes seem more alight than ever with mischievous energy but that energy also has a air of something else.

He looks so happy at my sight,so happy just like in the picture when we(He)was dancing while I looked down to make sure i wasn't murdering his toes he looked down at me with that same goofy type of happy face.

Just like now.

"What if I tell you something now?What if I open up to you?What if I try,really try not to be sickened by your constant flirtations and make an attempt to like you a bit more than for your looks?What do you think about that?"

My words sound so biting but he can see through it so cutting like he were slicing my sarcasm with a sword.

All I am really saying somehow he knows is this.

'I like you but I am scared'.

He smiles,so broad I do not honestly know how his jaw is still together somehow ,but he is up in a flash ,and with the lowest mumbled request for consent in the history of man did he reach me and shocked me.

He.
That bold,bold,BOLD young swordsman of my dreams and to be honest with myself my stories too.

Kissed me.

Kenshin Ito.
A swordsman prodigy.
Heir of the most prestigious dojo in Japan.
Heir to the fifth largest conglomerate that consults the larger ones.
The most gorgeous sight I have ever seen in my whole life.

Kissed me.

"You are much too bold for your own good Ito."
"You prefer it I am noticing.Let me hear the words..."

I smirk when he asks me,he all but heartily confirmed more than ably how he feels to me.

"I like you.Mischevious,Bold,Strange and never full of food.I like you."

Can a smile get any bigger.
Kenshin somehow just proved it that yes,yes indeed they can.