Stop thinking.

Two weeks have passed on as though a wound in the process of healing  and hurting to the touch,school is lackluster and with fall weather beginning to come around i usually am in better spirits but I am most certainly not.

Not even a little bit.

Oiha is speaking to Arata now,i pass them down the hall and the glow she has is speaking volumes while Arata seems to be becoming the boy i thought he was all along.

Sokako finds me and takes my hand,see spots every escape point to avoid more eyes and cameras but i do not run from them now.
The interest in me has passed on to an extent being that Kenshin and i have not been seen together or ,in fact,I have not seen him at all except for one day to visit his Uncle here and i have not seen him since.

He barely looked at me but still spared a glance my way as it were to do less would wound us both and he was right.
That alone should of got me running to him but it didn't.

Even at work i started feeling signs of change,not only in weather either.

"You really are shameful!You were kind of a hero to us you know,someone who rose to fame without any loss of integrity and got a dream of a man which you seem to have thrown all that out for being seen in underwear?Get over it you idiot!"

That i have heard in various forms all throughout the last few weeks even though all that footage they referred to has been erased from all the news sites i have checked.
Including even some social media Kaoru told me as well.

Speaking of Kaoru.....

Her song "Right back".
Is the number one song in the country now,Her comeback is doing wonderfully but her condition was only local performances and lives online so that way she can still be around for Uncle Goji,he has more than ever people at the arcade waiting for her to perform every week.

The bookstore manager will not forgive my customer evading move(In his mind anyway.Due to what I am doing and because of  what i did with Kenshin somehow made it a move against his money gains.) and  am now fired ,so was i writing more into my fifth volume of a another samurai story but it feels...

Lacking.

All i have playing in my head is another story.
A flirtatious young man wielding a wooden sword and a grumpy maiden swinging a book at him and failing to resist his charms.

That  story will not leave my mind.

For all this though.
I did not pick up the phone to call Kenshin and feel like me again.

No.

I am here in front of Kenshins grandparents house for another reason entirely,enough to bring me out of my fear.

A phone call got me into my senses,just this morning.

"Hello?"
"My name is Gotori Ito,do you know who I am?'

I was so stunned.

"Of course,Kenshins Grandfather.Is something the matter?Do I need to find someone?"

How should I answer?I thought,Kenshin said he was very unwell but he sounds so clear and together I would have thought this a business call but it was not.
Not at all.

"No,I do not need anything like that.You really do sound lively,I hear I even in your voice why Kenshin is so in love with you..Your heart is in that voice of yours."
"Th-thank you Mr Ito-S"
"Call me Gotori,I am a dying man and like a pretty voice calling me by my name.My wife is laughing now at me from heaven for calling me such a old person name.Honorifics be tossed.Understood?"

I sense he knew I nodded,stunned enough as I sat in front of the fireplace at home with notebook and pen all forgotten about now.

"Do you know why I am calling you?"
"I assume it is about the weather and your grandson?"

That man has a laugh like a thunderclap but I see the appeal it would have had to any number of women back in his day.

"That boy...he is so crazy about you,he will not even talk about you for fear he will get upset in front of us.My beloved wife is gone to GOD now,I am calm only in the fact I am joining her soon but I can not let go yet,I need to know that boy is cared for by you.Don't you pretend to not love him,every social media thing I see that I make the nurses show me gives me all I need to know you love him,miss him.He is not himself if you are not in his orbit Yukihana."

I felt almost scolded but how do I respond to a dying stranger?One that is so near to Kenshin and I was so...far in a way.

"Do you want a man to go to GOD in peace then get here,if more importantly you know you love my grandson,you being the light of his life.Be here.You are afraid of being what you are not so enough with it!
Time never feels like long enough to be together ,so be together while you can,inevitability can not be fought so don't.Don't!I am going very soon and he will not handle it well,if you are not here he will lose some part of himself that will not just scab over and heal.He is not his father who got everything he wanted and still became hard anyway.That boy needs just a small hand to keep him upright and it is yours.Do you love him or not?"

My eyes are welling up with tears.

"Of course I do,I love him..."

My voice cracked and I felt the strangest sensation that I can not name for the life of me.

"Get here then.Love that boy like he loves you,that little bracelet is a memory of his grandparents argumentative,fighting and reserved love that we waited three years too long to accept and now we both regret that we did not spend that extra time we knew better together.Do not make that same mistake,You both deserve a happy ending.Now,hurry...."

I could hear it in his voice,the timed release pain killers kicking in and losing consciousness...

Before I hang up,I feel like i should stay on the line,the moments went by in slow motion as I borrow Kaorus phone to her confusion to call a taxi and I hear it.

Kenshin, over the sound of the beeping machines and the nurses who are yelling at him to go and throwing the phone Gotori had in his hand down to the ground.
I hear him,his voice sounds so hoarse and raw.

He is fighting tears.
That is all I hear before the phone drops the call and after all the traffic I passed through and all the wreaks happening that feels like each one is a fear in my head trying to keep me from going but...

Enough of that.

By the grace of GOD, enough of that.

Now I am here,in front of his grandparents house.
Signs of the emergency vehicles around but all is quiet with no one in sight anywhere.

I almost freeze standing in place and staring up at this house that looks like a castle to me but one that Kenshin told me was more warm than a fire and safer than any other place in the world to him.
I stand in front of this place and wonder if it is my place to even be here after what I did out of fear but fear got me away from him,me away from my family.

Not anymore.

I go up to the door and press the doorbell and hope I am answered by a tall,kendo prodigy with flirty eyes and a big heart.