[ There's a part of him that wants so badly to be cheeky and say "so you and Sano-san can be together", but Shinpachi managed to get him to actually talk, so doing that now would seem like a cop-out.

His voice drops to a mumble, his tone falling flat, deflated. He doesn't like saying this stuff because he always feels like he'll do the wrong thing no matter what he does or says. ]

I told you. I'm not Shinsengumi any more. You don't have to trust someone to help them, it just means you're not a dick, but why would you want to have someone around that you can't trust not to stab you in the back and walk away?

[ Why should they trust him not to abandon them? He's done it once already, though it tore him to pieces to do it, and every minute after. He'd only just accepted Chizuru's offer of returning, only just said that she was what he would fight for, and suddenly he'd wound up in Zelien... and later, here. He'd never gone home in between, so didn't that technically mean he never went back to the Shinsengumi? Isn't he still their enemy? ]