Sano wondered if he was the only one who’d noticed that Saitou’s attack stances recalled sexual motions; one of these days he’d just go up to him and ask if it had been deliberate. (#01 – Motion)

Sano actually liked it when Saitou greeted him a little coolly, as that just challenged him to see how far and how fast he could warm him up. (#02 – Cool)

Relative age was an inconsistent thing these days; sometimes it seemed that Saitou was far too old to be doing this, but at other times Sano made him feel like he was locked in his prime and utterly invincible. (#03 – Young)

He said, “Ahou ga,” and I screamed his name, and everything exploded between us — but since he’s always got to have the last word, I assume we’ll be meeting again. (#04 – Last)

It was not pleasant to realize he’d been so completely, stupidly wrong about something, especially something as meaningful as what he felt for someone, but the first kiss almost entirely made up for the embarrassment. (#05 – Wrong)

Saitou was gentle like lightning was gentle, but when the result was an orgasm like thunder, Sano had little to complain of. (#06 – Gentle)

He’d heard it said that there really is no such thing as a lone wolf, that they are pack creatures by nature and cannot change — so perhaps the thing with Sagara was, after all, inevitable. (#07 – One)

There were a thousand reasons Sano absolutely loathed Saitou, and a thousand reasons he adored him, and the problem arose when he tried to add them up: somehow he only ever managed to come up with a thousand reasons total. (#08 – Thousand)

“If you keep trying to use that ‘But I’m the king of the world’ line to convince me to let you top, ahou, I’m going to burn that paper crown.” (#09 – King)

He’d thought Sagara too simple, too shallow to offer him any surprises, but once he relented and allowed himself to look with a little less bias, he found there was something new to learn about the boy every time he ran into him — which, now that he realized how much he enjoyed this unexpected education, was happening more and more frequently. (#10 – Learn)

The memory of their first time was a hot blur of sweat and friction and the taste of cigarettes, a hazy line of pleasure like their bodies entangled so that his mind could not unravel it — but it meant more to Sano than the clearest recollection ever could. (#11 – Blur)

Sano stepped to the edge and shouted defiantly out over the ruin, “If you’re still alive, bastard, you’d better show up pretty quick, ’cause you know I don’t have much patience, and I ain’t waitin’ for your sorry ass forever!” — then, turning away, wondered if that line would fool anyone, let alone Saitou. (#12 – Wait)

Saitou took every opportunity he could to reiterate that Sano was a thoughtless, foolhardy, immature ahou, by which he meant, “Never change.” (#13 – Change)

Anything Saitou told Sano to do was spoken in an authoritarian tone that was a catalyst for instant perversity; but, really, daily life probably would have been a good deal less fun without all the violent refusal and insistence. (#14 – Command)

Such a restless, sprawling sleeper as Sano was made the brief spans when he lay still and Saitou was able to hold him without struggle that much more dear. (#15 – Hold)

Saitou had thought he could break things off before interest became obsession and want became need, but the transition was so unobtrusive that it had taken place long before he realized; and of course by then he was entrenched in the belief that Sano deserved a dedicated lover anyway, and couldn’t regret it. (#16 – Need)

Sometimes Sano would wake up warm and comfortable and find Saitou staring at him with what he could swear was a fond smile; he probably needed to get his vision checked. (#17 – Vision)

Just to know that he’d really gotten his attention this time, just to see him walking back this direction toward the cell and its decimated door, made that whole damn week worth it — death threats, bloody knuckles, and bittersweet sightings of the dead entirely notwithstanding. (#18 – Attention)

Sano wished there were some way to tell Saitou that he belonged to him, body and soul, without making it sound like some kind of sappy dramatic confession or kinky bondage suggestion; on the other hand, the latter didn’t sound too bad… (#19 – Soul)

He knew it was stupid to be jealous of a dead man, and even stupider to be jealous of a picture of a dead man, but sometimes the way Sano looked at that nishiki-e was enough to drive Saitou crazy. (#20 – Picture)

After a while it ceased to matter whether or to what degree Sano was a fool, as long as he was Saitou’s fool — which, perhaps, made Saitou the greater fool, but that ceased to matter at about the same time. (#21 – Fool)

Sano spent all day trying to decide whether it would be better to profess his mad adoration and see what happened then, to entice Saitou into mad sex first and confess his feelings afterward, or just to admit that he’d gone completely mad falling in love with someone like that in the first place and have himself committed. (#22 – Mad)

Sano’s careless living habits and reckless attitudes often made Saitou feel like he had another child, a very young son, but, as that would have been extremely incestuous and pedophilic, he tried not to think about it in those terms. (#23 – Child)

Saitou’s life was usually very well ordered, but often when it came to his impetuous and impatient lover, logic had to give way to spontaneity and in good time to now. (#24 – Now)

Saitou did not approve of any public display of affection, and Sano did not approve of hiding anything; eventually they reached the compromise of ducking into the deepest nearby shadow when the need for kisses arose outside their own home. (#25 – Shadow)

I said, “Ahou ga,” and he screamed my name, and everything exploded between us — but since neither of those was really a proper goodbye, I assume we’ll be meeting again. (#26 – Goodbye)

It took so much energy hiding it from themselves and each other that they had little left to spend on the rest of the world, which was why Kenshin always looked politely skeptical and Tokio always rolled her eyes whenever one mentioned the other; for a very long time they were deliberately blind to these reactions as well. (#27 – Hide)

What with the ahou’s excessive eating out, impulse purchases, and general carelessness, Saitou had never actually noticed the salary increase he’d gotten at around the same time Sano had moved in; he’d also never even thought to consider it a bad trade. (#28 – Fortune)

There was a kind of safety that had nothing to do with physical threats or circumstances beyond his control and a lot to do with his heart and happiness and the future of these: a kind of safety that Saitou would never have thought existed, nor that he would need or care at all to have; something that Sano unexpectedly provided and made invaluable. (#29 – Safe)

Saitou would chide Sano about his belief in the supernatural; at which point Sagara-taichou would inquire, again, what, exactly, Sano liked about Saitou; at which point Sano would tell Sagara-taichou to stop being a pervert hanging around in their bedroom; at which point Saitou would ask Sano who he was talking to; at which point the entire thing would start all over again. (#30 – Ghost)

Saitou answered dutifully when asked how to spell “asshole,” “bastard,” “arrogant,” and “antennae,” but when Sano announced he was writing a romance novel about him, Saitou took the paper away. (#31 – Book)

Saitou was giving him that eye that sometimes meant I’m going to kill you and sometimes meant Time for sex; and trying to guess which it was before the actual deed was almost as much fun as when it turned out to be the latter. (#32 – Eye)

Now he would never defeat him, as he would never see him again — not that it mattered, as he could never be good enough for him anyway, never have the kind of strength or be the kind of person who could capture his interest — but he would never forget him, would never love anyone as much, or in the same way; and he would never know why it had taken him so long to realize… (#33 – Never)

Sano couldn’t carry a tune in a sake jug, though he tended to try to carry both at the same time; Saitou only wished there were some way to make him understand, once he sobered up, just how bad he was, in order to blackmail him into elaborate sexual favors. (#34 – Sing)

When Saitou first told him he loved him, it struck Sano as being simultaneously sudden and unprecedented, and also something he’d been waiting for not merely since they’d met, but his entire life. (#35 – Sudden)

Saitou’s reply of “Ahou” to Sano’s question, “When are you going to stop calling me ‘ahou?'” was the same answer he gave to, “When are you going to stop loving me?” — so Sano was satisfied. (#36 – Stop)

When it started to seem like there just wasn’t enough time during their accidental encounters to say everything he wanted to say or give his eyes their fill, Saitou reflected it might be about time to start running into him on purpose; and when it seemed to Sano that there just wasn’t enough time during these ever-more-frequent, carefully unorchestrated meetings to do everything he needed to leave satisfied, he reflected it might be about time to move in. (#37 – Time)

The only problem with bathing together was that by the time they got finished with everything washing each other led to, they needed another bath; on energetic days, this cycle could continue indefinitely. (#38 – Wash)

Saitou couldn’t help thinking it just a little inconvenient that he found himself torn every single morning between getting to work on time and giving the snoring young man at his side some good wake-up sex. (#39 – Torn)

He’d known for quite some time that this was more than mere infatuation, and now that things had calmed down and he wasn’t required to run around the country chasing this or that corrupt or megalomaniacal lunatic, it might be a good time to say something — but, whether it was the sword through the shoulder or the carriage roof or the cold manner of parting and lack of contact, or some other aspect of their somewhat dubious history, something always held him back until eventually the intention to speak turned into nothing more than a secret dream. (#40 – History)

Sano was deeply conscious of the great responsibility that rested on his shoulders — being almost the only thing in all existence that could drag Saitou Hajime away from a hot bowl of soba and keep him distracted until it cooled was not a power to be taken lightly. (#41 – Power)

After a few years, Saitou was no longer much bothered by even the most immature of Sano’s foibles, nor Sano by the most callous of Saitou’s — but neither ever bothered to inform the other of this. (#42 – Bother)

His apparently one-sided infatuation was getting so maddening that Saitou at one point considered trying to locate a shrine to the god of roosters and offering up a few prayers there. (#43 – God)

There was undoubtedly a wall between them, and whether it was made up of the stubbornness of one, the austerity of the other, or some combination of these and more didn’t much matter — they were evidently determined, if only subconsciously, to get through or over or around it somehow, in which endeavor the stubbornness of one and the austerity of the other might actually prove rather useful. (#44 – Wall)

Saitou never left the house on the rare occasion when Sano was doing laundry, because Sano washed all the clothes he owned at the same time, and Saitou simply couldn’t get through an entire workday with that thought in his head. (#45 – Naked)

Sano had an intense drive to improve himself, in some part so that Saitou would like him; this was actually one of the things Saitou liked about him, but to say so seemed a trifle self-defeating. (#46 – Drive)

Even pain they caused each other was pleasure: neither of them let many people close enough to hurt them, so in a way it was just further proof of love — and beyond that, the make-up sex was always good. (#47 – Harm)

Knowing he would only be mocked for it, Sano didn’t mention out loud that there could never be gold so precious to him as what he woke up to every morning. (#48 – Precious)

The hunger of an unrelenting and single-minded wolf is not easily sated; the one who feeds him must be strong, persistent, resilient, and good enough tasting to keep him coming back for more. (#49 – Hunger)

He’d thought that the sight of the charred and chaotic wreckage of the battle platform below would break his heart, but found now, looking down, that he was almost smiling — because he simply didn’t believe it. (#50 – Believe)