Author's Notes: I am of the belief that gonou is dead and with kannan in le great beyond, and that hakkai really is taking advantage of his new life—with gojyo.
I am also of the belief that gojyo always loved his stepmother in spite of everything, and still loves her, though she's probably burning in traditional hell right about now. poor child. .:hugs him:.
a piece of study
by Bethany Ten
As far back as Cho Hakkai can remember, there was Gojyo.
There was red hair and red eyes, and scars that were dark, canyon-like grooves on cheekbones. There were compact angles (not soft curves) and calluses on hands with one too many unnecessary sleights (not milk-white perfection, not the snowiest evenings of the year); there was censorship and lewd comments (no singsong, no offhand comments about seasonsbutterfliesdresses). There were no poems, aside from the occasional dusty tome with the dog-eared pages lying innocuously beneath the cot (just what are you hiding Sha Gojyo tell me please but only when you're ready) (please).
There were blankets, though.
There were blankets (sort of bedraggled, smelly-ish ones that were replaced the following Tuesday) draped over a prone form with a tenderness that was utterly, utterly new for both of them.
There were grease-stained fingers because Gojyo needed to fix the plumbing, which really had been broken for ages; only Hakkai had ever called it to his attention, and no plumber could have been accused of tending to the job so quickly. (There was Gojyo, stationed halfway beneath the sink, all manner of fungi and unattractive things assailing his fingernails as he twisted some pipes here and there; there was Gojyo, a little wet, but smiling like he'd just gotten roses for company of the female variety. There was Gojyo, who became acquainted with the inner fixtures of a household with unreasonable haste.)
There is Gojyo.
He's a bit out of sorts as of late, and his spindly fingers massage his own injuries like a wounded cat with wounded pride.
And his smiles are softer than feathers and warmer than sunshine, but Gojyo doesn't meet his eyes when he smiles. It's too intimate; Gojyo doesn't do intimate with anyone he knows knows. Gojyo is upright in bed and has a plate in his lap like a blank canvas with scattered crumbs and the rippled remnants of sauce. Gojyo smiles at Hakkai when Hakkai looks, but when he thinks Hakkai doesn't look, he just sits, and. Stares.
Goku, Hakkai has come to realize, is obnoxiously good at telling secrets, but he's even better at keeping them. His thoughts flare and dissipate in his mind as sporadically as fireworks; with kept promises comes a brutal variation of honesty. Gojyo's voice wraps twice around the room, but never around his mind: "Hey, uh, 'Kai. Could you hand me the saru's backpack?"
Hakkai obliges with a curious smile and a raised eyebrow, graciously taking the plate with him.
Gojyo pulls out a book.
Hakkai's eyes are emerald, pretty vortex of emerald-emerald-emerald, and they register his faint surprise, because that's not one of his books—he knows because he's always taken excellent care of his novels: angling books puts great stress on the structure of the book; always handle pages with clean hands; wipe from headcap to fore edge with a soft brush. Gojyo's books are always sheeted in dust perceptible to the youkai eye, and there are lilting corners. Gojyo's fingerprints are soft indentations on the leather, a pattern Hakkai is gradually coming to memorize, sharp arcs and all.
The book itself is nothing like Hakkai has ever seen. The binding is unprofessional and the scripting on the cover is unfamiliar and carved in jagged letters, not carefully painted on with gold edges or even ink like Hakkai is accustomed to; lace loops thrice in punctures along a flimsy spine.
Hakkai's eyes rise from the book—up, waltzing along the curvatures and moon and shadows on Gojyo's sculpted arms, up a tensing shoulder and to a set jaw and cold eyes.
Gojyo is stiff. Hakkai has seen this kind of stiffness more than once; it usually occurs when someone pokes his or her nose into business that really isn't his or hers. Gojyo clams up something terrible when his personal privacy (unphysical, thankyouverymuch) is intruded upon, and Hakkai—Hakkai knows there's something here far beyond his realm of comprehension, or maybe it isn't, and maybe Gojyo's just stubborn and doesn't want to risk the fact that Hakkai could understand.
Hakkai, being Hakkai, and not being Hakkai, takes ruthless advantage of the fact that Gojyo would tell him anything if he asked nicely, and shortly thereafter thinks he'll hate himself forever for it.
"Gojyo, what is that?"
Gojyo looks surprised, and surely enough, Hakkai wants to pitch himself off the nearest cliff, except there's no cliff in sight.
So.
He waits (and stares, and wants, and mostly wants).
Outside, even though it was bright and dusky and damnably cloudless, it begins to rain; inside Hakkai's mind, there is a chill breeze, winter's ice-crackling tongue lapping at the insides of his skull, and he is sorry, but it's too late to back out now. Even if he did, Gojyo would answer anyway, because Gojyo always keeps his promises and stuff, even half-alive and not outside drinking his brain cells away or making some random woman (women, if he's feeling adventurous) the happiest on the known Earth (if only for a little while).
So.
He waits.
His skin tightens, and inside Hakkai's mind he is cold.
● ● ●
"Because," Gojyo tells him, "why die when you can live?"
Gonou turns on his side; the blackness in his veins is liquid hatred, and it recedes.
He really does want to hate himself, and he wants to hate Gojyo, because the weakness is starting to make sense.
● ● ●
"My mother wrote poetry."
His answer is short and simple, and his eyes are studying the wall with a vigorous intensity of a student, and Hakkai is trying to pretend he isn't looking for weakness there when it is laid bare in front of him; Hakkai's curiosity never fails him, and he hates himself for the way the blankets shred faintly in Gojyo's fisted hands.
He swallowed and reopens his throat and says, "A shitl… A lot. She was…"
Gojyo's hair shadows his eyes. (ohgoddon't)
"…good. Real good."
The kappa draws his knees to his chest, the book sliding down his thighs to rest somewhere at his waist; the blankets knot somewhere at his toes, and Hakkai just doesn't know what to do when the sun is down and the lights are flickering, the light (singular) is flickering and dimming, and Hakkai doesn't want that to happen because what if that light never turns back on again? So Hakkai trembles like a mid-autumn leaf, and tries to open his mouth to say stupid things, like, It's okay, Gojyo, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, except ohwait that is useless; Gojyo doesn't let anyone go back on their word if he can help it.
"…so fucking stupid," Gojyo is saying and standing on traitorous legs. "God, 'Kai, stop—stop shaking, sheesh, I'm so sorry, Hakkai—"
The book is a rectangular lump beneath the discarded backpack, on the floor, like stashed evidence; Gojyo's hands are solid weights on his shoulders, gently massaging the shaking muscles and stilling them all at once, and Gojyo kisses his forehead and who exactly needs comforting here, anyway? Those are Gojyo's hands stroking his cheeks, that is Gojyo's voice whispering wordless nothings and comforts, and Gojyo's breath in his ear. Gojyo. Gojyo, Gojyo, Gojyo, smelling like immorality, and this is Hakkai in the cradle of those arms, and Hakkai is so lightheaded it's not even funny; okay, rewind, rewind: Gojyo, stiff, melancholy; Gojyo, despairing; Gojyo, holding him—
—oh.
…Oh.
The pain in Gojyo's eyes is Hakkai's suffering, and when the kappa tilts to Hakkai's temple to brush another feather-light kiss there, Hakkai's thought processes just sort of…freeze up.
Gojyo had probably intended on just standing there and holding him for the rest of the night, but Hakkai, in a rare thrust of impatience, pulls his hand up in the space between them, and pulls gently at Gojyo's collar and…kisses him. Not the nice, not-quite-friendly-like kisses Gojyo had been kind enough to treat him with thus far—no, because Gojyo respected him too much to go for the lips and so forth.
Luckily, Hakkai's inhibitions are things he is comfortable with, so he can…bend them. A little.
And, if all goes well, a lot.
Just as their faces are a good two centimeters apart, Hakkai looks at Gojyo, whose eyes are more bugged out than—well—ever, and smiles. Not a crafty kind of smile, because that would insinuate Hakkai was taking advantage of both their vulnerabilities, but a smile, slow and genuine and just so damn hopeful—and his tongue slips out of that smile, assails Gojyo's lips.
There are ashes, but that taste fades a little bit, and he feels some vindicated measure of satisfaction when he thinks that Gojyo's mouth, after a few repeats of an incident very similar to this one, ought to taste like Hakkai. There are red eyes and red hair and green eyes and black hair and masses of scars on either body; there are no poems (for now), and there are other days.
And there are blankets.
Author's Notes: yeah, um, this one turned out a bit weird. as it were, I am better with present tense than I am with past tense, and I really am too orderly to keep switching between them, though I'll probably keep doing that anyway, because I am the biggest prick ever.