1.

Yuya is beautiful, Kyo acknowledges privately. Still, he never admits this aloud, instead continuing to call her "dogface" and "ugly girl," because Yuya knows that he thinks she's beautiful, and that is enough.

2.
When Kyo is back in his own body, sometimes, on a quiet evening, Yuya takes to running her hands through his hair, fingering the surprisingly silky locks. He tolerates her ministrations silently, closing his eyes and allowing her to be close to him.

3.

One day Kyo is fed up with people always taking what belongs to him, so he goes around the camp with ink and a brush and labels everything that is his 'MINE.' When Yuya wakes up to find herself written on, she is less than pleased.

4.

The day that Kyo returns after three years, Yuya runs to him and throws her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. He is not able to pry her off until at least five hours later.

5.

Yuya has always looked fragile to Kyo, with her big green eyes and soft pale hair and creamy unblemished skin. The first few times he kisses her, he is gentle and so very, very careful – until Yuya finally snaps and tells him to 'be a man, dammit,' deepening the kiss herself.

6.

For the longest time, Yuya has wanted to be able to protect Kyo – to hold him in her arms and tuck his head under her chin and keep away everything and everyone that meant him harm. She cannot, however, but when she stands on the sidelines of his battles, she wishes.

7.

Protecting Yuya is something that comes instinctively to Kyo; every time she is attacked or in danger, he is suddenly there, doing everything in his power to keep her safe and unharmed.

8.

The strangest thing in the world, Yuya thinks, is that she always feels safest and most secure when Demon Eyes Kyo, the slayer of one thousand men, has his arms around her, holding her close.

9.

When Shinrei puts the water wyrms in Yuya, Kyo is initially not sure which angers him most – the fact that he is threatening her life by doing so, or that he kissed her to do it.

10.

Kyo is adorable when he wants attention, Yuya reflects. He will follow her around like a puppy, poking her and demanding that she entertain him. Sometimes it gets to be too irritating, however, and she turns around and kicks him in the shins.

11.

One of Kyo's favorite pastimes – another being drinking, of course – is bothering Yuya. He baits her, teases her, gropes her, steals things from her because she is prettiest and most amusing when she is angry, cheeks flushed and eyes bright and fists clenched, all shouted profanities and flailing arms.

12.

Yuya occasionally still has nightmares of her brother's death. She will wake in the middle of the night, gasping and shaking, only to be lulled back into a peaceful sleep by Kyo stroking her hair and trailing soft kisses along her jaw.

13.

Kyo remembers the day he met Yuya – how he encouraged the man holding a knife to her neck to stop bluffing and kill her. She had just been some silly little girl, back then. Now she is his most important person, and he would bleed and suffer and die for her. She only asks that he live for her.

14.

The three years after that final battle, when Kyo was missing and pronounced dead, Yuya traveled the country searching for him. Every day she would wake up to the hollow ache that she identified as the loss of him, the irreplaceable part of her that he had become. They were the loneliest, most miserable years of her life, but now they only make her time with him just that much more precious.

15.

Kyo listens as she whispers to the base of his throat, the palm of his hand, the underside of his jaw – I love you, I love you, I love you. I love you too, he wants to say, but the words get stuck in his throat, so instead he kisses her and promises himself that someday, someday he will tell her.

First SDK fic - yay! I hope I kept them both in character... Hey, does anyone know where I can read the complete manga online?

Disclaimer: Oh God, oh God, how I wish I owned Samurai Deeper Kyo.