Disclaimer: All characters are property of Nobuhiro Watsuki. The song, “Missing”, was written by Ben Watt and performed by Everything but the Girl.

A/N: I don’t really know where this came from. I just sort of wrote it one night. Yaoi/shounen-ai. If you don’t like that sort of thing, don’t read! You’ve been warned so no flames please!

Rating: PG

Lyrics in bold italics. Told in Sano’s POV. A/U. Possibly OOC.

~*To Kuroiyousei, for being there…*~

~*Missing*~

I step off the train,
I'm walking down your street again,
and past your door,
but you don't live there anymore.

It's years since you've been there.
And now you've disappeared somewhere
like outer space,
you've found some better place,

and I miss you
- like the deserts miss the rain.

I cannot count the number of times I have made this trip. I lost track an eternity ago when I could still remember his touch. I often make it in the dead of night, sinking down onto the uncomfortable plastic seats of the train and trying to prevent myself from inhaling the lingering scent of body odor and an innumerable amount of other things I would rather not mention.

Once I am off the train, I can make the rest of the trip blindfolded. My feet crunch over the shattered glass bottles and scattered pebbles that litter the filthy streets of my old neighborhood. The nights are starless here. The smog is too thick. It obscures everything, even the moon.

Growing up, I remember lying on the roof of my old apartment building, staring up into the sky, watching as pigeons flew overhead like fat, black dots across a blue canopy. There was a man who stood on the corner, feeding them pieces of moldy, old bread. I ditched school often, instead walking to the park with him and watching as he fed the birds. It was peaceful there, as if we had found a small corner of the world untouched by the grime and violence of the area in which we lived. He was the only father-figure I ever knew. My real dad left when I was a baby. I don’t remember him.

Oddly enough, the old man’s name was Mister Raven. He let me call him Gramps. One particularly cold winter night, he had a stroke while walking down the alley on his way back to the shelter. No one called for help. He froze to death there, lying amidst the garbage.

I remember finding him the next morning. My insides felt hollow, but no tears left my eyes. I had no more to shed. My mother had driven them from me long before.

After that, school became even less important. I got involved with gangs. I started drinking and gambling. I didn’t care whether I lived or died. My life was meaningless, just gray hours that trudged by across the endlessness of time.

When I was sixteen, I let my friends convince me to help them steal a car. It turned into a near-fatal incident that changed the world as I knew it. That was the night I met him. I don’t remember it well. All I can recall is those amber eyes that burned into me as if they were searching my soul for something. He was a police officer then, rapidly on his way to becoming detective.

He visited me in the hospital and saved me from being placed in a juvenile detention center. He was only twenty-three, but his presence was such that it instantaneously demanded respect. I was in awe of him. He was amused by me. He called me an idiot and told me that the next time he would let me rot in prison.

I didn’t believe him. From that point on, I was his shadow.

At first it annoyed him, but he resigned himself to it after months had passed and I could still not bring myself to leave him alone. Back then, I could not give a reason for it. It was clear that he thought me little more than a street thug and a fool, but for whatever reason, I wanted to prove to him that I could make something of myself. It had suddenly become important to me to show him that I was not simply a wild child with an immense chip on my shoulder.

I went back to school. I forced myself to study. I graduated only one year later than I should have. My view of the world had changed. I had finally wised up.

He would never have admitted it, but I could tell he was impressed by the changes I had brought about in myself. The thought of his approval made me unexplainably happy.

On my nineteenth birthday, three days after my high school graduation, he took me out to celebrate. Hours later, I wound up with him in his apartment. It happened like many things have happened in my life--fast and hard. It was the first time I had ever had sex. It was the moment I was able to admit exactly why I had found it impossible to let him go after our first encounter. I, Sanosuke Sagara, had somehow fallen in love with another man. A man who could at times be so coldly infuriating and at other times seem so passionately intense. A police officer who was seven years my senior. Hajime Saitou.

Could you be dead?
You always were two steps ahead
of everyone.
We'd walk behind while you would run.

I look up at your house,
and I can almost hear you shout
down to me
where I always used to be,

and I miss you -
like the deserts miss the rain.

After that, I was with him as much as possible. There were times he would kick me out of his apartment in a frustrated rage. Frustration at my clumsiness, my hotheadedness…but he always took me back. I told myself that somewhere deep inside, he loved me, too.

I remember loitering outside his apartment building on warm summer days. He would come home from work, exhausted and sweaty, and call down to me from his window. I was always glad to run up the stairs and help him cool off…or help him heat up, as often was the case.

Although I was his lover, he seemed so untouchable to me, so beyond my reach. I always knew he was destined for greatness. I knew he would eventually tire of our affair and leave me behind. Still, I was far from prepared when that day finally came. It felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under me. I was left flat on my back, forcing myself to breathe.

He was twenty-eight, already a detective, and had been offered a high paying job in a crime-infested city down south. He had often told me about his sense of justice, his desire to dispose of the evil of the world. He had been given the chance of a lifetime. There was nothing to keep him here except for me.

I wasn’t enough.

Back on the train,
I ask why did I come again.
Can I confess
I've been hanging around your old address?

And the years have proved
to offer nothing since you moved.
You're long gone
but I can't move on,

and I miss you -
like the deserts miss the rain

“I think I love you.”

I had whispered those words to him one balmy night that was indistinguishable from the next. He did nothing more than hold me close and press a brief kiss to my forehead. I remember wondering what exactly that meant.

I never got to ask. He left two days later. He never said good-bye.

I cannot give a reason for my coming here some nights just to lean back against a light post and stare up at his old apartment window. The paint on the building is cracked and peeling. I remember how it looked after it had been freshly painted. I ponder about what he would think if he knew I lingered around his old address. If he asked why, I could not answer. There is nothing left here for me. He is gone.

And yet…I can’t bring myself to move on.

I step off the train,
I'm walking down your street again,
past your door,
I guess you don't live there anymore.

It's years since you've been there.
And now you've disappeared somewhere
like outer space,
you've found some better place,

and I miss you -
like the deserts miss the rain

After he left, I enrolled in a local community college. I worked construction during the mornings, bused tables in the afternoons, and went to classes at night. It was hard. There were times I wanted to give up, times that I missed him so much it was like physical pain. Something prevented me from quitting, though. I don’t know what it was. Maybe the memory of him…or the image of Mister Raven’s face after he died…or the life my mother continued to lead. Maybe it was a combination of all those things. Whatever the reason, I stayed in school until I graduated two years later. I have an Associates Degree in computer science. It’s not much, but it’s enough for me.

I work nine to five every day. I have weekends off. I live in a nice apartment in a decent part of town. Still, I remain unsatisfied. All of the relationships I have had since him have felt so empty. He rarely smiled. Often his grin was little more than an arrogant, condescending smirk. But when he did smile…it completed me.

I wonder why he never asked me to go with. I question why I never offered. I would have left it all behind to be with him. He knew that I had nothing. Over the years, he had become my everything. He was the living incarnation of all my dreams and desires.

I think about him when the nights are dark and loneliness threatens to overwhelm me. Is he well? Is he married? Happy? Does he think of me?

It feels like those questions will never be answered. I cannot describe the agony that thought causes me.

I suppose that is why I come here. It eases the pain, floods me with a bittersweet sort of happiness. It’s been years and years. He is long gone. But I can still hear his voice when I am here, the way he said my name.

Tonight is colder than most. I hunch my shoulders under my jacket as I turn away from his old apartment, telling myself for the millionth time that I will never come here again.

He told me once that I am beautiful in the morning. I wish I could tell him the same. I wish I could tell him that I didn’t only think I loved him. I always did. I still do.

My feet carry me back towards the train. The world seems dead, so unnaturally quiet. Or maybe it’s just me. I can’t stand to be here, I can’t stand not to. I know I’ll be back tomorrow. The memories are all that I have left.

“Sanosuke.”

My footsteps still. That voice. For a second, I am convinced I am only hearing an echo from the past.

“Sanosuke?”

And there it was again, that deep tone that seemed to roll over his tongue and sent a shiver down my spine.

I turn slowly, a thousand thoughts crossing my mind, all of them meaningless and incoherent.

He is standing several feet behind me. His face is harsher, the lines more deeply etched. He is thinner than I remembered, but his eyes are the same. They burn into me like they did that first night and suddenly it feels like my heart has stopped.

“Hajime,” I breathe, unintentionally whispering the name I had never called him outside of bed.

“It’s been a long time,” he says slowly and I cannot tell from his expression whether or not he is glad to see me.

I force myself to stop gawking at him and straighten my shoulders. “Yes, it has. What are you doing here?”

He shrugs nonchalantly, glancing up at the window of his old apartment.

“I thought I would never see you again,” I murmur, uncomfortable in the sudden silence. “You left without saying good-bye.”

“I’ve never liked prolonged farewells.”

His voice holds no emotion and my spine stiffens. “I see.”

“Why are you here?” he asks abruptly.

For a moment, I search my mind desperately for an answer. I don’t want him to know how I’ve missed him. This is not what I had imagined our reunion would be like. When I finally do answer, my tone is bitter, “I am saying good-bye to my demons.”

He says nothing after I reply, merely continues to gaze up at the building.

I turn away from him. I long for nothing more than to run to him, fling myself against him, and never let go. Instead, I push two words out around the barrier that has suddenly formed in my throat. “Good-bye, Saitou.”

I have taken no more than three steps when his voice stops me once more. “I never answered your question.”

“What question?” I ask without looking back.

“About what I am doing here.”

“Oh,” I say, bowing my head slightly. “I didn’t think you wanted to answer.”

“Ask me again.”

I close my eyes briefly. I cannot look at him. If I turn back, I will beg him not to leave. I will make a fool of myself when it is quite obvious he has not spent all these years thinking about me. “What are you doing here?” I finally say, my voice thick.

“Yearning for a memory,” he replies quietly. “I came to right some wrongs…and to find someone I love. This boy that I once knew.”

I swallow hard. Surprise fills me. My heart is racing. “And did you find him?”

“No.”

Suddenly, he is behind me and I find myself being pulled back against a hard chest. He holds me to him tightly and I let my eyes drift shut, allowing my head to fall back onto his shoulder, exhaling shakily.

“Then what did you find?” I ask, a tiny smile coming to my lips as I reach back to touch his face.

“I found the man that he became.”

~*OWARI*~

Thanks for reading! Please review me! This is my first time writing for this pairing. My first time writing any yaoi for RK, actually, although I read any that I can find. Hope you liked!

~Midori^_~