Hearts of boys.Trio.

GOJI

"I don't feel right about this..."

Kaoru grips my hand hard enough to get me to pause as I am pulled slightly back by her,I look from hands we have intertwined to her eyes that are playful.

"You don't feel right about holding my hand?Very hurtful,I can go and drive home now if my touch is so icky to you."

The expression she has is far from offended but too close to naughty for me to hold the eye contact before actually blushing,here I am a grown man in his forties and blushing!

Before she gets a chance to walk off in amusing anger I take her waist in my hands and swing her around,the sand beneath my feet is level enough for me not to fall unattractively and I can maintain the face to face that is preferred.
She is laughing while I do this.

It is strange how just a person,a moment can suddenly erase how I never really had an adolesence in typical sense.
Girls that I was odd and boring,boys did not think I was cool because I actually liked being around my parents instead of spending my time drinking.

I bury my head in her neck,her hair smells like green apples and the sea that we are currently walking by.
Kaoru whispers to me as my spinning her has slowed and my brain has gotten to slow down with  it,spinning is a young mans move I realize now.

"She will be fine,you can not help her in this but be there.You have that phone at the ready at the moment she were to call and if needed I would get a plane but we are only a few hours away,for only a day.She and the girl,Sokako?They are friends again you said.Kenshin I can't believe would let anyone push her or go further than say embarrassing things like the other night."

"She shouldn't have to keep having that happen to her though,she will not let that bad time fully go nor will she let that boy have a chance of healing it with her.I wonder if he knows I am not home?"

"Calm down..."

Kaoru is patting my head like I am a puppy whispering those words soon as my mind went to worrying over the thought of a teenage boy and an empty apartment.

Meanwhile,Kaoru stops patting my head and runs ahead of me laughing like she were sixteen herself again but without spotlights on her face,just the wind and a smile that makes what I can not believe I have in my pocket now more and more tempting to offer her quicker.

I walk behind her and enjoy watching her joy and check my phone to see a message from Yukihana.

"Uncle Goji.I hope you are having a good time!Bring me a gift and I am doing okay,only a dozen and another dozen photographers are around but nothing scandalous will be reported haha,anyway I am going out with Kenshin later,something about his grandparents want a break from his hovering so I may text later.Bye!"

My brain is starting that very unpleasant path to worry again but Kaoru pulls me by the wrist making me run after her because I can not worry too much,I know that and...

This woman is my destiny that is not able to be ignored.

KENSHIN

She looks tired.
It makes me wish I was just anyone else,anyone else at all so that we could go out without strangers gawking at what should only be just a normal thing.

I try to ignore that,try to drive and keep my attention to the task of enjoying a evening at the fair with someone more fair than such an event while keeping my other pressing thoughts quiet for a while.

I hope that Doctor Koigi is staying by,he promised me that they wouldn't be left alone tonite.
It is so hard to watch it.

The pain that is starting to show in both of their eyes ,moments after each other,like they are so deeply connected that one can not ignore the feelings of another so intensely that it is physical.

I want to know such deep love.
I hope she does too.

Words do not seem to be really needed right now,she simply, but to my hearts pace becomes a thumping machine.
Yukihana,my Lovely,puts her head on my shoulder without looking at me questioningly or with fear I wish was not there but contentedly.

She feels safe in my proximity.
My heart might just explode if this keeps up but there are worse fates than death by the heart thump.

When we reach a stop light,not far from the fair I am taking us too,I take a moment to kiss the top of her head.
Surprised to even find no one in sight to photo us,thank you GOD.

Yukihana smirks slightly,puts her head closer towards my neck and puts her arm around my free arm and whispers softly.

"Light is green Kendo boy."

If hearts could simply burst from a word or two from a beautiful girl I would have been thoroughly departed from the world happily.

So this is what Grandfather meant by it.
That feeling.
That knowing.

We are almost to the fair grounds now,I can see that when she realizes where we are heading that her excitement level has risen and I am forced to say something.

"Could you not have been this excited to see me arrive Lovely!?"

"You don't smell like cake and candy apples are not in your hand so,no."

She is off then,I follow along more than happily although more than a little jealous of the fair food that drifts her further from me but a fix for that can be arranged and it certainly will be.

ARATA.

Finally.
I did not think going to the convenience stores in my neighborhood would be the quickest path to you but now I think I have found you.

"What is this?"

I ask myself as I walk the neighborhood a few blocks down from where I and Yukihana live,This one is a bit rougher and men walk the streets like they have bad business to do while Oiha seems to walk in and around them like a ghost.

Nothing remotely like she is at school or with Yukihana

Her steps are calculated and in no time does Oiha reach somewhere I do not know,a old house that looks like it could fall apart at anytime.

The worst part is when I near the house and I hear it.
Fierce yelling,I can see through the window that she stands like a statue as a older man barks at her like she is nothing then before my anger takes over Oiha walks into some other room.

Sewing,all the fine clothes she wears to school.

She is making them.

Her hand though begins to redden.

"No..."