A/n: This is the revised version. Meaning my two typos (record for me that one is) are fixed, as is the mixup between where everything happens to be situated on Hakkai's face. I always get things confused like that...must remember that it's from the character's point of view. Kind of like stage direction's in theatre...

Disclaimer: If I owned Saiyuki SanzoxHakkai would be cannon, and they'd both belong to me...oo

The Fortune Cookie Incident

-Hakkai-

What does it mean to be yourself? The dictionary defines 'yourself' as 'a form of YOU used as an intensive, as a reflexive, or with the meaning "your true self". The last part of that definition is what I have been pondering on all evening. Isn't it strange how a simple after-dinner fortune cookie served in the dining room of a inn can start some people thinking about these things?

I have my reasons for this, more than most people. I had been sitting there, attempting to tune out the normal argument between Goku and Gojyo over food---really those two would get us kicked out of so many places if I didn't clean things up afterward---holding the cookie in my hands. Sanzo was fuming and reaching into the sleeves of his robes for the gun that would ultimately silence those across from us. I suppose it's a very good thing that we always share a room. If we didn't either Gojyo or Goku would probably wind up severely injured, and that wouldn't be good at all. Besides, the rain outside wasn't helping Sanzo's temperament. It wasn't helping mine either.

I was right about the gun. Out it had come and the trigger had been pulled, startling more than just the two across from us. The whole room went silent, and three bullet holes smoked in the wooden roof. I sighed a murmured a "yare yare desu ne," keeping the facsimile of a smile plastered on my face.

That's all it is. A mask to keep my true clandestine emotions and problems away from others for I'd be a burden if any of them knew what was going on in my mind half the time. Sanzo once told me that he wouldn't take on any 'excess baggage', and that's what I'd be if I let the smile slip. If I let what I really feel show I would become a problem to him. A hindrance. I don't want that. It would really hinder all of them, Gojyo, Goku, and Sanzo, but I feel as if I really owe it to Sanzo to not die. I owe it to both of them, Gojyo and Sanzo. Then again, I feel my debt to Sanzo is quite a bit more these days. After all, he did intervene with the Sanbutsushin to let me start life over again three years ago.

How is this all connected to a fortune cookie?

Well returning to that seen in the now silent room, silent minus the quiet sounds of Sanzo eating next to me and Goku smacking away across the table, I had cracked open the fortune cookie. Out fell the little slip of paper with a 'fortune' on it. Picking it up delicately I held it up to read it:

Be yourself that others might know the real you.

It was just a fortune cookie, I knew that. That's all it was. Yet for some reason something in my heart jerked, and the smile fell. The facade fell, and for one evanescent moment my face was bare with a flash of the turmoil I still felt inside added to current turmoil assaulting my soul. Something that really needed to remain a secret. Something concerning the priest who had stopped eating and shifted a single violet orb in my general direction.

Feeling uneasy, I put the laid back smile back up. This was a calm time after all. The look in Sanzo's eyes told me that he didn't believe any expression on my face at all. He could see right through me, just as Gojyo could. I get the feeling that Goku might be able to see through it as well.

See through the fallacy that I present to the world.

It is not always false, my smile. There are plenty of times when it's real. Not now. Not as the rain falls outside, some dripping on the table from the bullet holes in the ceiling. Sanzo didn't look like he was handling it any better either, and I had the feeling that my slip up didn't help things either. For all his claiming to not worry about any of us, I know he does.

I pocketed the small fortune, giving the halves of the cookie to Goku and notified everyone that I was tired and would like to get some rest to prepare for the next day's journey.

Away I went, striding off at an apparently calm pace, shutting the door to the room Sanzo and I shared quietly. It was dark in there except for the occasional flash of lightning form the storm outside. I sat slowly on the bed, it caving under my weight a bit. It really was a nice soft bed compared to the ground we had been sleeping on for the past few days. At least we didn't have to be outside in the rain.

Be yourself that others might know the real you.

What is the real me?

The rain happened to have brought back many a painful memory, and the reminder that I was no longer a human being and hadn't been for three long years. It brought along the thought that I really was a monster for striking out like I did with my ego. No...that wasn't right. The blood on my hands from then though...Kannan's blood, the blood of Hyakugen Maoh's clan, the blood of all those I slaughtered, still haunted me.

She had been my world then, but I found a new one now. I had reason to live, and I couldn't let the rain arouse such feelings in me.

Would Sanzo accept me more if I was still human?

I can't help thinking that, and I don't know just how I managed to develop these feelings for the man in the first place. Maybe because we both shared a similar loss in our pasts, and both knew that helplessness, more than even Gojyo maybe, that we could do nothing to protect the ones we loved. The guilt that came from that, and the feeling that you are stained with blood.

Blood of those I killed. Demon blood.

It's because of that time that I wear the facade that I hide everything I really feel for the most part. I'm not sure if I really know the real me anymore.

What am I?

Be yourself that others might know the real you.

"How?" I asked the piece of paper having pulled it from my pocket earlier. How could I be myself if I wasn't even sure about who I really was.

It had to have been the rain doing that to me. I don't normally think on these things. I don't normally pay much attention to fortune cookies either. I felt alone, and felt as if I deserved it at that point.

My reflection caught the corner of my eye in a mirror placed on the opposite wall above a small basin for washing one's face within the privacy of the room. Shuffling over to the mirror I rested my hands on the small table to each side of the basin. I stared at the mirror for quite sometime.

A young man with emerald eyes troubled by random, stupid, thoughts within his head stared back at me, the bit of light in the room reflecting off the monocle over his right eye, and chestnut hair tousled from a day in the jeep. My hand drifted to my leftt ear and ran over the silver ear cuffs in place there.

My fingers tightened around the first one.

Be yourself that others might know the real you.

Was the real me the demon that I become when those ear cuffs are removed? Was the fortune telling me that? Should I really let something like that bother me? No...

The rain poured outside and the fortune cookie's message lingered in my mind affected by the rain.

-Sanzo-

He was troubled, not like it was my business or my problem. Then again, we'd have a problem if the rain were to drive him into the despair as it normally does. Not like it was doing anything for me either. The damn weather and its decision to rain was really getting on my nerves and putting me in an increasingly foul mood. The last thing I needed was for Hakkai to loose his composed mental state.

He didn't drop that fake smile of his all evening until he read his fortune cookie. Mine sat untouched on my plate still. I never believed any of that shit anyway and I really wouldn't expect Hakkai of all people to either. Maybe the rain was getting to him more than usual? Still not my problem, and I really could care less...

I say that, but something nags at me about it regardless of what I try to tell myself. No use lying to myself. I don't lie to anyone, least of all myself. I broke the cookie open with more force than normal, figuring that I really shouldn't let the damn thing go to waste. Not like it would anyway. I knew the moment I left the table, the monkey would be on it instantly, that or the hentai kappa. Or both at the same time, and they'd start that bickering which annoyed me more than the nagging feeling that I should go do something about Hakkai.

"Che," I snorted, regarding the stupid fortune that had been baked inside.

This person is serious and true and deserves to be respected.

Figures. And at a time like this when I was already in a bad enough mood. Removing a cigarette from an almost empty pack, I rose from the table, cookie and fortune still clutched in one fist. Might as well deal with it so that nagging feeling would go away.

At least it was Hakkai. Hakkai was one that I really didn't want to loose the company of, seeing as the other two seem intent on making my head implode with their stupidity. Maybe there is more than just the two of us sharing the annoyance of those two idiots, and not to mention a disturbing similarity to the deaths of our 'precious' ones.

Goddamn fortune cookie. Made me think of Hakkai. I suppose deep down I respect him. It irks me how the other two tend to not really do much to help the man out with a great deal of things. I respect him for being able to put up with everthing in the jeep without running off the road.

That's beyond the point.

I lit my cigarette and stalked off to the room I was sharing with Hakkai due to shortage on rooms for us to all have a private room. Inhaling deeply, I opened the door in one fluid motion. I blew out a long string of smoke upon clicking the door shut with an annoyed grunt to see Hakkai bent over the table under the mirror.

Thunder cracked outside and the rain came down harder, stabbing at wounds in both of us. I clenched the hand holding the fortune and the cookie it came from. This was going against my policy of 'leave me the hell alone when it's raining.'

"Oi Hakkai," I intoned indifferently to get his attention. Something was eating away at him. I still had the feeling something on the damn fortune cookie had upset him, just like mine had aggravated me.

Well...maybe not. I knew something inside wanted to be near him. It was always that way. An outsider could call us friends, and I suppose that's true. At least I know that I will never fail to protect him, because he can take care of himself. That's how they all are. Then again, he saved me quite a few times. I have yet to pay that debt off.

His head turned quickly to me as if he hadn't heard me come in. Maybe he hadn't. Judging by the look on his face I knew he hadn't. The fact that he looked so distraught and hadn't even tried to slap that fake thing he calls a smile upon his face proved to me he wasn't prepared for me to suddenly be there.

Something akin to shock ran through my system to see the light lines of a vine marking tracking their way across his face, and the slightly elongated ears. I raised an eyebrow and took in the two power limiters laying on the table next to the basin. Ashes fell from my cigarette after a long moment.

Silence except for the drumming of the rain filled the room for a good ten minutes.

"Just what the hell were you doing?" I demanded. I didn't care about the heat of anger in my voice, I never do. And whatever he had been doing it had to have been stupid seeing as two of his damned power limiters were off. If a fortune cookie had driven him to this, then he wasn't as smart as I thought he was.

Like hell I'd ever admit to the feeling that ripped through me at the utter transformation of his face. I had thought there was dejection there before, but this was going beyond that. No tears, after all I hadn't seen him cry ever. We both don't cry. But in his face...in his eyes...

A voice crying from inside. Nothing was said out loud, but I could 'hear' him screaming inside with doubt. Screaming from his eyes. Screaming for help, confirmation of something.

"S-sanzo..."

I knew I was scowling. I was very aware that I stomped over to him after throwing the now useless cigarette to the ground and grinding it out with my foot. Grabbing him by the shirt I yanked him close, our faces inches away from each other. My free hand fumbled for the power limiters, knocking over the basin in the process. I found the damn things, and ignored the loud shatter of the basin and pitcher. Crumbs from my own, now crumbled, cookie littered the floor, and the fortune fell with the crumbs.

This person is serious and true and deserves to be respected.

--Hakkai--

I was caught entirely off guard when Sanzo burst into the room. The instant he saw me there, halfway through reverting to my 'true form,' that look upon his face, I could see what he was thinking.

He was right.

I was being stupid. We all have these kinds of moments. When we become so desolate, or hold back our emotions to the point of breaking behind that mask. That's where I was then as he held me up by the collar of my forest green over shirt. I was expecting to get bereted, hollered at, or anything that might have brought me back to my senses.

Instead he returned the ear cuffs to my ears, and I felt those revert back to their human state. Why had he done that?

"That was stupid," he stated in his infamous monotone.

I nodded, ashamed of myself. The rain continued, and the fortune cookie's message mocked me. The real me.

Be yourself...

"You let a stupid thing like a fortune cookie's fortune get to you?"

"The rain..." I whispered in meek defense. It wasn't even a good defense at all.

Sanzo had released my shirt after replacing the ear cuffs, so I took a step back as nonchalantly as I could manage at this point. I couldn't bring myself to truly meet that phlegmatic stare.

Wait a minute...it wasn't phlegmatic. There was emotion there. Directed at me.

"I like you the way you are Hakkai. With the power limiters. Don't go thinking that the form you took on after that incident in your past is the 'real you'. The 'real you' is the magnanimous person who bears the idiotic chatter of the two idiots we have traveling with us. The 'real you' is the one who hides most of the pain he has for the sake of this field trip."

...That others might know the real you.

I stared at him, my amazement showing plain on my face. That was not anything like something Sanzo would normally say. Not at all. The rough way in which it was said yes, but the words were off. "San...zo..."

It really didn't matter.

He stood there glaring at me, but no anger reached those eyes. For the first time ever they were softened slightly. Ever so slightly. I smiled a genuine smile. The first genuine smile I had used in months.

"Thank you," I whispered, feeling the bond between us grow stronger.

Slowly, I came closer to him, attempting to think of a way to express part of what had been bothering me before Sanzo cleared up my doubt with his little speech.

"Sanzo..."

"Hm?" was the deep reply as he met my eyes with his stare.

Be yourself...

I didn't embrace him like I wanted to. That would have gone to far.

"Ah, never mind," I chuckled nervously. The intimate moment was broken, but I was left with a warm certainty. That even though I hold back what I really feel, he still accepts me. Even though I became a youkai that time.

For that is I. Cho Hakkai.

I turned and prepared to go to bed and try to get some sleep in spite of the rain falling outside, and even whistled to myself. Even though I couldn't tell him what I thought had developed over the past few months in my heart, I was content.

It came as a great shock when I felt his arms encircle my waist, stiffly at first, but then relaxed and strong. I dropped the corner of the sheet I had been about to pull back from the bed and shot my gaze over my shoulder at him. I opened my mouth to say something, but was cut off by a curt,

"Don't say anything."

I don't know why he did something so out of character, I'm sure he had his reasons, but his arms were warm in that cold night in which the fortune cookie had disturbed me so much. It had led to this moment, leaning in his arms no matter how out of character it was for him or myself.

I was truly happy.

All because of a fortune cookie and the rain.

...so that others might know the real you.