He’s my enemy. And I need one. I need a good, strong enemy to gather up the people who wish I didn’t exist, - C. J. Cherryh

And I still like you, damn you. You don’t shake one of us, you don’t fling our liking away because your man'chi says otherwise, you can’t get rid of us when we like you, Banichi, you’re stuck with me, so make the best of it.”
There wasn’t a clear translation for like. It meant a preference for salad greens or iced drinks. But love was worse. Banichi would never forgive him that.
[…]
Breath failed him. Self-control did. He flung it all out. “Banichi, I’d walk a thousand miles to have a kind word from you. I’d give you the shirt from my back if you needed it; if you were in trouble, I’d carry you that thousand miles. What do you call that? Foolish?”
[…]“That would be very difficult for you.”
“So is liking atevi.” That got out before he censored it. […]
“Don’t joke.”
“I’m not joking. God, I’m not joking. We have to like somebody, we’re bound to like somebody, or we die, Banich, we outright die. Like, like, like–get off the damned word, Banichi. I cross that trench every day. Can’t you cross it once? Can’t you cross to where I am, just once, to know what I think?

Pizza, that food of sociality and good humor, had been the very thing

He ventured into the security station to fill in his staff on what he’d learned, and Banichi was there, looking like death.
“You, nadi,” he said to Banichi, “ought to be asleep.”
“A superfluous habit,” Banichi said. “Conducive to ignorance.