Taking another drink, and then another, Sanosuke lets the jug drop from his hands and falls onto his back, hitting the floor with a soft thump. Like the sound of a dead body hitting the ground, only unfortunately, he is still breathing, and his heart is still beating. He is very much alive; it is evidenced by the churning sensation in his stomach, the sudden fatigue that sweeps over him much like a blanket covering his blurry eyes.

He reaches for the jug, fingers stretching till he admits defeat and lets his body go limp once again. He sprawls out like a forgotten doll on the floor, unable to move until someone pulls his strings or picks him up. Would that Kenshin were with him, or even Katsu, to force him to abstain, to play the voice of reason over and over in his head. Would that he had a voice of reason of his own, and could go on without someone leading him like the child he still admittedly is.

Sanosuke is a grown man, physically, but emotionally, that nine-year-old who watched his only family fall in pools of their own blood and heard the echoes of their last cries pierce his ears is omnipresent, irrefutable, and definitely indelible.

Another drink would certainly work wonders about now.

Sano opens his eyes wide, flinching at the glare that meets them, and he shuts them again immediately. This is supposed to be a bar, yet they dare to let their lanterns shine brighter than the light of day. It feels like the sun is glaring spitefully down at him, trying to melt him away. Trying to make him evaporate as though he were nothing but spilled saké on a dusty street.

If the sunny light is unable to make him disappear, perhaps someone like Saitou will come and step on him, or clean him up and toss him out with last week's garbage. It would only be fitting, Sano thinks. His normally white clothes are already staining darker; in his refusal to speak to Kenshin these past several weeks, he has lived every minute in them, and not had his best friend's strong fingers to scrub away the dirt.

He will never see those pale hands buried in a pile of white bubbles again.

Sano forces himself to rise, forces hazy brown eyes open, forces his muscles to cooperate, if only temporarily. For a moment, he hesitates. His hand hovers over the saké jug like a fly over a plate of food in summer. It travels gradually lower, at last brushing his fingertips against the beige stoneware surface. He grasps the jug like a lifeline, drawing it to him and taking another deep swallow. Gulping down the warm alcohol within, Sano feels the hot relief flood through him, becoming new blood in his veins.

He stumbles to his feet, still holding the saké jug desperately close, and assures the owner in a slurred voice that he can pay his tab next time. "Ja!" he calls over his shoulder, ignoring the man's hateful expression boring holes in his back, threatening to burn off the 'aku' kanji.

Out on the street, Sano fits in with the night, the only sign of his presence his white clothes. The rest of him is dark, like mud. His hair and his eyes are mud, his skin a lighter shade of mud, and all the rest of him - his heart, his soul, and most especially his mind - is mud. Were he that saké spilled carelessly over the dirt street, he would remain there, creating mud, till the sun's rays chased him away.

He would stain shoes and clothes, just as he has stained his friends' lives.

He would be a dark smear to be washed away, an irritating reminder of careless filth. He would be scrubbed away in the wash, and again thrown out with the water. Perhaps it would be Kenshin to throw him out and wait for him to evaporate, never to be seen again. To be forgotten, to drift away.

This is why he stays far away from Kenshin. His best friend must have the life that Sano could never give him. With Kaoru, Kenshin has no worries of being smeared with mud and smelling heavily of alcohol. With Kaoru, Kenshin can always be happy, can have children. He can have a life. Sano, on the other hand, will watch from afar, if he even dares to watch. It hurts to think of living the remainder of his life as a stalker, hovering outside walls to hear that sweet voice again.

It hurts to think of being scrubbed off Kenshin's laundry in favor of clean perfection.

Sano grips the jug tighter in his hands, glad that the stoneware is thick and not likely to shatter. He takes a drink, choking on the mouthful of saké. Some spills out over his lips, trickling down the sides of his face. It tickles slightly as it leaves wet trails, like tears down his jaw, curving over his neck and going on down to his collarbone and chest. Some is stopped when it hits his threadbare jacket, but the rest continues as long as it can. It is also like Sano, pressing on despite adversity, dripping further down until it hits rock bottom. There, it will disappear.

Another drink, and another, and another, and another, until Sano loses count and the drops on his skin have become tiny floods of warmed alcohol. He swipes at them in annoyance, wiping the wetness on his hand, which he in turn rubs off on his pants.

He makes his way back to his shack in this same manner, taking drinks every few steps. Before he knows it, Sano is out of saké. Time to go find another bar, a place where his tab is a bit lower. Hell, anywhere; he has tabs at probably every bar within the vicinity of his poor excuse for a home. The only place he doesn't owe money is probably Katsu's house, and even there, Katsu looks down on him for his need of alcohol and his tendency to drink it like water.

Forget Katsu. Everyone else has forgotten him, that old stain that they cannot even remember getting, but that they recall furiously scrubbing away till with time, it faded. That is Sano, even in the eyes of his oldest friend.

The next bar is dimmer, its lights more like the sun at dusk than the noon sun that accosted him before. He tosses himself down like a rag and takes the jug of saké that they offer him without a word; he grunts his thanks. The first drink is like heaven. He is invigorated again, and he rises. "I'll pay ya back when I get the money," he tells this owner. Unlike the earlier man, this one only nods solemnly. "Ja!"

Sano makes his slow way down the dark street, paying little attention to any people around him. This late at night, only those like himself - the unclean, forgotten ones - dare to step out on the streets. He feels better to know that perhaps, somewhere, though it is unlikely, there is someone worse than he is. Perhaps there is someone whose worth is so low as to be true eta-jin, rather than a pseudo eta-jin like himself.

Not likely. Sano gulps in another huge mouthful of saké, spluttering and spitting some of it back out to dribble out over his front. He swallows the rest in a rush, not wanting to waste any more of the precious liquid than he already has.

Now that saké has become more important than getting home for the night, Sano knows that he truly is better off as far away from Kenshin as can be.