Prelude to a First.

"Is my hair right?"
"Does this make me look too frilly?"
"My feet are killing me,switching to the heeled boots Kaoru-San i am sorry,heels that are normal will end in my death before my first...date....oh wow.First..DATE!"

How do people just not freak out?
I am about to jump out of my skin that is so moist now i could soak a towel through and ringing it out will serve no purpose because i will soak it again.

Kaoru is attempting to calm me down.
(Her attempt is admirable but it is failing so much that if I were not full of the jitters I would feel guilty but this emotion is overriding all other emotions...maddening.)

Uncle Goji is trying his best to give me every good bit of happy feelings he can to be ready for my big night .
But i think i am to him like some movie creature that may attack if he says anything at all.So he instead stays by the kitchen and hopes maybe he can be of better use there than by me as I walk a hole in the main room floor by pacing so much.

My legs at least should be much more lean by the time he gets here.

By the time...He,gets here.

Kaoru simply sends my uncle a smile and she guides me to my room again and i try to study myself in the mirror with a fake air of calm.
She isn't buying it at all.

In fact,I think I would be more convincing if I had not put on the suddenly calm act at all and just remained a sweaty,pacing mess of nerves.

"What is scaring you?It can't be that dress,you gravitated to it on sight and I knew that would be the one to make Kenshin melt.
Honestly I wonder if...Are you afraid your parents will not approve of him?He is an absolute dream to me,I would be thrilled if my daughter won a boy like him..."

I don't miss the tone shift in Kaoru after that string of words.
How that she told me that was one of her only regrets of her youth was not having a child.

She also said that having a child with someone she loved more than herself would be her only way to a baby,not to have one because she could have a bed and a man anytime,she needed that completeness.
I admire her for that.

"I am afraid in a way of that,yes but I....I do not know if I will be...Enough.Do you know what I mean?I am not really pretty or even remotely social at all.I read,I write stories that have been my life since I was little and more so after the incident.A guy like him can get beauties,women who are smart,intelligent and better,In...lots of stuff, than a bore like me."

She walks towards me,pats my head like she would a little child and smiles like she can see some grand something or other in my face that I can not for the life of me notice.

My phone goes alarm goes off telling me that my parents are going to video chat me now,I only have five more minutes until Kenshin gets here!

"I will go,be brave.Enough of being an a back up character in your own world,be the heroine you and I both know you are and win over that hot sword boy...what?I am older but I am not blind."

She winks after that,calming me in the one moment and another feeling bubbles up too.

I watch her,my eyes are beginning to well up with tears and I can not afford to have my make up messed up after four retries to get it right.

I try to focus on just the ringing sounds from my phone,I pick it up and see the dual sides of my phone showing the faces of my dad and my mom.

I hear the new spouses in the respective backgrounds and my half siblings trying to poke in on the video chat,I laugh at them and wave,I even try to for my parents to wave nicely at the new spouses but I just barely get past one little wrist flick.

They notice though and it is a start.

My mom has her eyes about to bulge out of there sockets seeing me in this dress.
My dad looks a quarter sad,quarter happy on how pretty I look and a half like he is picturing how to kill Kenshin without the world being the wiser.

I haven't talked like this with them in a long time.
It is nice,this feeling of together again.
My mom catches it though,she sees that I have become alerted to the doorbell and it is right on time,not too late or early.

Kenshin sure knows how to make an entrance.My heart is beating double time and my sweat glands are working at triple times speed than normal.

"Do you believe he will be good to you?"

My dad asks me,my mom is nodding with him somehow together and not,just as quirky an agreement as ever.
I listen to Kenshin talking to Uncle Goji and Kaoru.He sounds like he is so excited and it makes my heart thump thump so much harder and so much faster.

"Yes,I kind of think..he is perfect for me."

My smile seems to put them both,namely my dad,at ease.

My mom gives me double thumbs up and blows a million little kisses with her youngest,Mieyoki following suit.I return the gesture too excited to be uncomfortable while my Dad just looks like I am about to fly away from him.

"I made him promise no touchy feeling,no kissy kissy on the first date.He will be good to me,if not you taught me a vicious right hook and a kick that will stop any attempt for him to have any offspring."

I say to comfort him but his eyes turn soft and somber.

"Have a good time,don't let us define the happy you could have.Promise?"

I hadn't expected that.
Makeup at risk now but I nod,wiping gently to avoid a makeup mistake.

"Go,punch if needed though for both of us!"

I laugh and nod comically.

My feet quickly propel me up and towards my purse,and I fetch my small notebook.
The reflection of myself I see as I leave is like me and not me at once.

I take a deep breath to steel my nervous heart.

"Be the heroine you are and will be.Conquer the first mission.First objective:
Woo the 'Prince Of Kendo'."