Katsu hadn't come back.
Again.
Sano paced impatiently and looked out on the street every two minutes, looking for a familiar silhouette coming up the path. Jus' a few more minutes, he said to himself. Jus' a few more minutes, 'n then I'll go in. Jus' a few more minutes.
The lucky thing about "in a bit" was that it was exactly like "tomorrow" in at least one respect: it never came. Soon enough – and it was soon, because it couldn't have been more than an hour or two, but that was wrong too, because Katsu had been gone for hours, multiple, as in many, and somewhere, somehow, that didn't add up quite the way it should have – it was dark, and lanterns replaced the sun as his source of lighting.
That Aoshi man was there too, standing quietly in the shadows, but otherwise making no move to hide himself, and Sano realized he was probably there for the same reason he had been last time – to make sure he didn't do anything "stupid." Sano frowned. It was ridiculous, really – why did they always have to assume that he, Sano, would do something "stupid" just because his best friend (well, maybe not his best best friend, because there was, after all Kenshin, but Katsu had been around for years before Kenshin, and Katsu knew Sagara-taichou, and Katsu had been with the Sekihoutai, and Katsu had been Katsu, but just call them even and be done with it) hadn't come home?
Sano growled, a growl that was abruptly cut off as he stumbled and had to right himself, or fall flat on his face right in front of Aoshi. He caught himself easily, but it didn't seem to matter, as the man suddenly appeared near him anyways.
"Look, I don't need any—" Sano began to growl, but was caught off when the damn ninja interrupted without really seeming to.
"You are falling asleep on your feet, Sagara. You need rest." Sano was skewered with a green-eyed gaze that was almost as sharp as that sword had been, when there had been a wolf on the other end. Then, in what Sano would swear was a miracle, those frozen chips melted just the slightest bit, and Aoshi added, in a somewhat softer tone, "I will wait for your friend, if you wish."
"Y' … well …" Sano sighed, feeling exhaustion smack into him a thousand times harder than that Shishio bastard ever had, and – reluctantly – gave into the inevitable. "Would ya?"
Aoshi bowed his head, and it was a measure of Sano's exhaustion that he thought he saw a ghost of a smile flicker across those thin lips. "I will. Now," the eyes were frozen again, and that almost smile had definitely been an illusion. "You must sleep."
"Y-yeah," Sano turned to the dojo, stumbling slightly again. "Yeah … you … you wait for him, y' hear me, ninja-man? You … you wait for him." He stumbled up into the dojo, not bothering to wait for Aoshi's response to his mumbled threat.
In the dark, Aoshi turned around, and sat on the steps so he faced the road. His eyes closed for a moment, then opened again. He knew there was no one to hear, but that did not matter.
"I will."
This seem familiar to anyone? 17 chapters left.