Saito Hajime was not a romantic. He hadn't been with Tokio – the only flowers he'd ever given her were the ones he'd laid at her grave – and that hadn't changed for the moron that had stubbornly wormed his way into Saito's life.

Only…the weight in the pocket of his trousers said otherwise. A charm: some silly trinket he'd caught Sano eyeing in the market. It wasn't much, but as compared to the idiotic requests Sano himself had given, it seemed far more fitting a gift for such an occasion.

It was his second anniversary with Sanosuke – two years since the moron had finally worked up the guts to blabber out a confession – and though Saito maintained he wasn't a romantic, he wasn't ignorant to the importance of such a thing. A disturbance in Hakodate had taken him away from the last one; he preferred not to miss this one, on principle.

The moron, on the other hand….

He'd drifted by all his young lover's usual slums, but to no avail. Even the occupants of the Kamiya dojo, when he'd stopped by, had been no help. Given the occasion, it struck him as odd; they seemed the type to celebrate things like this, and Sanosuke was certainly not one to pass up free food and bad sake. The more he searched, however, from one end of town to the other, the more he came to realize that Sanosuke was nowhere to be found.

How irritating.

To add to his incense, he'd only just left the rundown shack that constituted Sano's home when the sky seemed to open up. He'd smelled the storm coming hours before, but he'd hoped to find his moron before it became an issue.

Clearly, he wouldn't be so lucky.

The dense, chilly rain soaked through the fabric of Saito's uniform in a matter of seconds, puddling on the streets as people hurried this way and that trying to escape it. Saito couldn't be bothered. This day had been troublesome, and with the last of his patience exhausted, Saito resigned himself to returning home. The moron would find him soon enough; he'd give him his gift then.

The rain gave no sign of slacking off as Saito neared his home. If anything, it had gotten heavier, so much so that he could barely make out the form sitting on the porch.

When he did, though, the corner of his lip twitched. There was no mistaking the comb of hair, so much like a rooster even after it had been subdued by the rains. The tall, lean figure leaning against the column by the stairs was one he knew by heart, in waking and in dreams.

It seemed he'd found his moron after all.

"You look like a drowned rat."

Hazel eyes blinked open, slowly rising to Saito's face with a glazed confusion that could only come from sleep interrupted. He blinked a few times, but to Saito's admitted supply, he didn't throw back a retort. Instead, he dragged a hand across his eyes, leaning his head back against the column to get a better look at Saito as he climbed up the stairs.

"Well?" Saito said. "Are you coming in, or not?"

That seemed to snap Sano out of his sleepy daze, and as Saito continued on into the house, he heard Sano pushing himself to his feet behind him. He left the door open for him, occupying himself instead with shrugging out of his wet coat and padding into his room.

Scowling, he peeled off his undershirt and gloves, each sticking to his skin with the rain infuriatingly. His socks hadn't escaped the fate, nor his trousers, and he had to hang each article of clothing over the tub. With any luck, they would dry before the next day. In the meantime, he changed into a dry set of trousers and a shirt. As an afterthought, however, he picked out another pair. No doubt they'd be too big for the beanpole fighter, but at least they'd be dry.

Clothes folded over his arm, Saito made it back into the main room, where he half expected to see Sano wringing out his soggy clothes all over the floor or something equally uncouth. But when he walked in…

The room was empty.

Beyond that, other than his own footprints, there weren't any traces that anyone had even stepped foot in the house. A frown pulled at his lips; perhaps Sano had decided to leave? But such a thing didn't make sense. Sanosuke was a moron, but he wasn't enough of one to come all this way, nearly to the other side of town, just to greet Saito on his front porch and leave. To be honest, Saito had somewhat assumed the rooster-head was going to at least bum a meal. That was more his style.

However, a few steps more into the room and his curiosity was sated. The door was still open, and standing outside it, still dripping from head to toe, was the moron himself.

Relieved as he was to see Sano hadn't left – not because it would've upset him, of course, but because it would've been a bother having to hold onto that charm any longer – his frown deepened as, for the first time, he took in the sight of his young lover.

It was bad enough that the man was drenched, but now bathed in the light from the candles inside, he looked rather worse for wear as well. Saito could see his left eye, once obscured by his sodden hair, was shaded with blue and green, and the white of it was nearly all red. A burst blood vessel, then. His jaw hosted a similar blotch of color, and to Saito's trained eyes, there seemed to be something off with his stance.

"Moron."

Sano barely seemed to rise to the insult, giving off more of a sulk than his usual righteous indignation. "Why am I a moron this time?" he muttered.

"An intelligent person would have come inside out of the rain," Saito said, laying the dry clothes across the table before he rose to approach his soggy rooster.

"I didn't want to get your floor wet."

That was…strangely considerate, for Sanosuke. It was enough to take the frown from Saito's face, and he let out a sigh that was almost fond. "Come here, moron."

When Sano made no move to do so, Saito grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him a few steps inside the door. He didn't pull him very hard, but Sano still stumbled, enough that he had to catch his shoulders and right him.

More and more, something about this didn't sit right.

With deft fingers, he reached for Sano's chin, taking hold of it even as Sano flinched back. A fighter's reflexes didn't lend themselves well to having a hand move quickly towards one's face, so Saito wouldn't take offense. Instead, he devoted his focus – and his other hand – to brushing some of the hair out of Sano's face.

"What're you doing?" Sano said, failing to keep the nerves out of his voice. Saito knew his gaze could be intense, but he wouldn't be deterred.

Brushing his thumb lightly over the bruised flesh around Sano's eye, Saito forced his mask of composure to stay in place. Someone had damaged what was his; someone had hurt Sanosuke, and that was unacceptable. "What happened?" His voice sounded cold, but there was a fire in his belly.

Sano's almond gaze faltered, but then he smiled that crooked smile that was just a little too carefree to be genuine. "Just a tussle with some nobodies," he said.

"You're lying." But Saito let go of his chin just the same and passed Sano to get his coat from beside the open door.

"Where're you going?"

Saito didn't pause in shrugging on his coat. "I'm assuming you haven't eaten."

"Well, no, but—" Sano scratched the back of his head sheepishly.

"Stop standing there soaking my floor and go change. I'll be back soon." And with one last glance back at the rooster-head, he picked up his umbrella and stepped outside.