Three Hakkai Drabbles
jadesword
Chocolate and Gloves
They drove into the town just after the beginning of the year, close
enough for the smells of birthday feasts to surround them. Goku was
drooling in the backseat long before Hakkai waved at the guards at
the gates.
All around them, startling against the midwinter snow, were the colors
of an anticipated spring: cherry-blossom pinks and new-growth greens
striped the paper streamers fluttering in every doorway. Their ends,
cut into extremely fine fringe, were being chased, worried and chewed
on by children and babies in their mothers' arms, all dressed in scarlet
and gold for luck in the coming year.
The smile on Hakkai's face had appeared as soon as they looked at
the map and found the town, and hadn't stopped getting wider.
Gojyo, watching him closely from his half of the backseat, felt an
answering grin fighting its way onto his mouth at the brunette's
expression, but turned it into a smirk at Goku's appetite when their
eyes met in the rearview mirror.
Sanzou and the innkeeper had a brief conversation about rooms, a
conversation that ended when the blonde put his hand in his sleeve
and partway pulled out the gold card.
The innkeeper shut up and led them upstairs.
Gojyo shook his head, muttered something under his breath, and lit
up a new cigarette.
Sanzou heard him anyway and, taking his comment for an insult,
smacked him with the paper fan.
Goku laughed for a while, until his stomach rumbled and he changed
directions to head for the kitchen.
The four of them had split up for the afternoon, and Gojyo had
managed to find a bar with a deck of cards in the back some three
houses away from the inn. His pockets were heavy with money and
some few trinkets when he emerged, three hours later.
The sun was setting, coloring the snow and the rest of the town a
deep orange, when he strolled into the market and spotted a familiar
green-clad back.
Hakkai was quietly bargaining for fruit preserves with a
friendly-looking middle-aged man; at his feet was the oversized
duffel bag they used for the groceries. It was bulging in a few
places, and he could see a couple of loaves of bread sticking out the
top, along with the short end of a vaguely familiar white carton.
The redhead hurried over and looked over his friend's shoulder; the
carton said 'Hi-lites'. Straightening up, he intercepted the paper bag
of preserves and grinned rakishly at Hakkai.
Hakkai chuckled and smiled gratefully in return.
Together they made their way through the early-evening shoppers,
stopping for whatever Hakkai deemed a necessity for the
still-snowbound journey ahead: extra blankets, a hand-knitted cap
and matching scarf for Goku, four pairs of colorful mitts – and he
promptly put one set on, a wine-like crimson pair that meshed
perfectly with his usual green and khaki – and, finally, two six-packs
of beer and a few packets of beef jerky.
Gojyo laughed at the last two purchases, but mostly he was enjoying
the contented expression on his companion's face.
Back to the inn to unload the groceries and take the beer, beef and
knits to Sanzou and Goku, then Hakkai allowed himself a grin – an
expression that closely matched those of the children who were
laughing and playing outside – and jogged out, Hakuryuu cheeping
happily on his shoulder.
Gojyo pulled the sea-green mitts from the shopping and put them on,
following curiously in Hakkai's wake.
Together the trio strolled through the snow-clad town, Gojyo making
comments about some home's decorations and the smell from some
shop's merchandise, Hakuryuu making 'pi-pi' noises at wide-eyed
newborns, and Hakkai looking in each window they passed with
interest.
Eventually the brunette stopped outside a toy shop and went in,
browsing idly; Gojyo leaned on a lamppost outside and looked around
at the other shops nearby. After a moment he walked into the
establishment on the left, absently jingling the coins in his pocket.
When Hakkai finally came out of the toy shop, Hakuryuu happy and
outfitted in a tiny, rainbow-colored hat-and-scarf set that had
originally been on a toy doll, Gojyo met him under the lamppost with
a paper cup full of steaming hot chocolate and a true smile on his
handsome face.
Hakkai smiled and held his drink with a careful hand – he held the
other one out to Gojyo.
They walked back towards the inn, red and green clasped together
for warmth.
What We Have In Common
Cho Hakkai faced the mirror, naked but for a towel wrapped around
his waist.
The blue-gray shadows, so like bruises, were deepening beneath
lined, worn green eyes. He fancied his own features aging visibly, as
he watched. Looking after his three companions on the Journey to
the West – /And a transforming dragon,/ he reminded himself – was,
well, looking after the others, and on some days it did become a bit
too much to handle.
His cheeks were hollowed out and gaunt, even as the skin over his
jaw seemed hard-pressed to cover that bone. He knew a lack of food
was responsible – he tended to eat little of their meals, preferring to
leave more to the two who tussled for it. The same reason perhaps
accounted for the visibility of his ribs, the ridges of his torso painfully
emphasized by the fact that he had always been wiry rather than
outright muscular.
And then, of course, there was the scar over his sunken stomach.
Perhaps, he thought, he thought of it far too much still, and the
wound so constantly picked at in his mind refused to scab over and
heal. That band of nerveless tissue slashed into his stomach glared
back at him from the mirror, a reality he denied to all but his other,
long-dead self.
Hakkai sighed then, a quiet exhalation in an equally silent room, and
turned away to don his nightshirt.
When the room was full of the sounds of man and dragon breathing
in sleep, Sha Gojyo tiptoed in, his boots slung by their laces over
one shoulder. The expression of shock still widened his crimson-blood
eyes, the aftershocks damping his movements.
He carefully picked up the room's only chair and set it down, his
head as it rested on an arm atop the back-rest located just above
Hakkai's moonlit face.
Gojyo sat down, leaned a little closer to the object of his
contemplation, and, almost unself-consciously brushed the left-side
fall of his hair away.
Almost.
The hanyou thought he knew what the other man had been
thinking about, and felt compelled to think about it as well.
Both of them took his scarlet hair and eyes for a reminder of blood,
but only he damned himself for his stepmother's death, and the
injuries she had dealt him before and after. Especially the hairline
scars beneath his eye, all the pain distilled into those two marks he
hid even from the others, and he kept them secret, as he thought
Hakkai hid all of his: his wounded eye, and that band on his stomach.
He wondered about the others then, and in that moment felt closer
to all of them than he ever had before. It was enough for a sad,
wistful smile, which his rakish features were unaccustomed to.
He caught the trailing edge of a dream and woke, to find himself in
shadow.
The voice in his throat stopped well short of expression. Above him
crimson was silvered, the lines of muscles – wiry like his own –
quietly limned in the night, the face unobscured and filled with peace.
Gojyo's scars were clear to even Hakkai's myopic eye, bared by the
fall of hair tucked behind one ear. To the green-eyed one they had
never been hateful or ugly, but rather a part of his life that changed
mostly without their influence.
It was a life Hakkai himself had become a part of, and which was
glad, somehow, of his coming, even him with his own set of scars.
He rose and took a thin spare blanket from their packs. Quietly he
let it fall open, gently he draped it over the sleeper's shoulders.
Hakkai kissed Gojyo over his unblemished right eye and lay back
down, promising him a good breakfast and a long talk in the morning.
He did not use his own blankets from that night on.
In his sleep, Gojyo smiled, and the scars folded themselves into the
lines of happiness that were etched around his eyes.
The Brothers West [with apologies to Louisa May Alcott and Minekura
Kazuya]
a/n: I've been watching too much Little Women on Animax, can you
tell? And for everyone who's not familiar with the book, the sisters
pair off as follows: Meg [Margaret] looks after Amy, and Jo
[Josephine] and Beth [Elizabeth] take care of each other. And yes, I
do believe that Hakkai's and Gojyo's correspondences make sense.
Deep winter had come again, and the Journey to the West had once
again been stopped by several feet of snow. The skies had turned
that leaden, uniform dark gray that signals snow a full ten days
gone, and the white stuff had started pouring – and the green-eyed
one shook his head once more at the truthful incongruity of the
word – the moment they checked into that particular small town's
inn, or so it seemed.
Sanzou had spent the past week smoking and keeping mostly to
himself for the most part, staying in the room he shared with Goku,
who trod on eggshells around his guardian, and spent his time
either ravaging the kitchen or, as if in penitence, doing chores for
the matronly innkeeper. At night, after dinner, Sanzou would speak
quietly to his ward, Goku would ask a question or two, and then
they would be companionably silent until lights-out.
Sha Gojyo remarked on that unusual state of affairs over tea and
cookies on the third day. The redhead had been exploring the town,
and came back in the afternoon to find Hakkai reading in the
kitchen. 'Yo,' he'd said, pulling up a chair and taking a
chocolate-chip cookie from the plate at his friend's elbow. 'What
the eff's up with bouzu and the monkey?'
Hakkai sipped his tea, turned a page, before answering. 'Would
you be referring to how we haven't heard Sanzou yell at anyone
since we got here, and seems to be actually paying attention to
Goku? Or is your question about how Goku is behaving so admirably
at present, and seems to be fussing over Sanzou more than usual?
I believe he helped bake these cookies, in fact, and the innkeeper
gave him an entire jar for himself afterwards. He gave me some,
and told me the rest were for Sanzou.' At the sound of his voice,
Hakuryuu rustled white wings and curled back up in a doze; the
brunette stroked a finger down its back to calm it.
'All of it.' Gojyo blinked. 'Goku helped make these?' He finished
his second cookie, then turned to contemplate the kitchen fire,
allowing the answers to wash over him with the warmth.
'Yes. Now I don't suppose you've forgotten that last youkai
encounter, three days before we got here?'
The hanyou shuddered and downed the tea in Hakkai's cup; it
was refilled as he spoke: 'No, I haven't. I still have the
tooth-marks from that youkai witch...god, Hakkai, it was
everything out of our worst nightmares. Good riddance to that
insanity. So what about it?'
'Funny you should mention nightmares, Gojyo. I don't know if
you saw it, but at some point Sanzou pulled his gun on Goku.'
The redhead whistled. 'Bet the two of them loved that.'
The converted youkai chuckled quietly. 'At the last moment you
knocked out the witch and broke her spell, and freed all of us –
for which I'm very grateful, if I haven't yet told you. And Sanzou
shot her, and used the sutra.' He turned another page in his book
and chewed thoughtfully on an oatmeal-raisin cookie. 'I believe the
quiet you've noticed is the two of them working that particular
problem out.'
'Wow. Who'd've thought it?' Gojyo asked, as he lit a cigarette.
'Sanzou calm, the monkey quiet, it's just all too odd to think
about.'
'You could make an effort,' Hakkai teased him gently. 'We'll be here
for at least another day. You could try to enjoy the silence.'
'And you?' Gojyo asked after a few moments, during which he got
up to refresh the tea, since Hakkai was still reading. 'You've done
nothing but read since we got here. What's that?'
Hakkai showed him the cover of the book, one finger marking his
place.
'/Little Women/. What's it about?'
'Four sisters who grow up amid poverty and, apparently, their
mother's good moral values.'
'Ha ha ha. You tryin' to make fun of me?' Gojyo ground out his
cigarette butt and refilled the teacup.
'Oh not at all. The eldest is named Margaret, and she dreams,
simply, to be loved. After her comes Josephine, who's headstrong
and tries to act as the man of the family in place of her father,
who's fighting a war. Then Elizabeth, the responsible, caring one
who cheers up the family.'
'I can't decide over whether you're that one or the eldest.'
'Thank you. And youngest is Amy, who is blonde and has a rather
serious calling for art. I rather thought the description suited
Sanzou, except for the calling, of course.'
Gojyo thought about it for a moment; finally, he turned his chair
around and sat in it back to front, before regarding his friend
with a sober expression. 'I know. You're the cheer-up one, and
Goku's the oldest. And me....'
Hakkai interrupted him this time – he got up and stood next to
him. 'You know, Josephine finds love last of them all, but she
earned it too, eventually. And you deserve the same fate.' He
kissed his roommate on the cheek, and then made to leave the
kitchen. 'I think I'll finish this in the room. If you want to talk
about it....'
'Hold on. I'll go with you.'
The kitchen they left was warm, and so was the room they
locked after themselves.
jadesword
Chocolate and Gloves
They drove into the town just after the beginning of the year, close
enough for the smells of birthday feasts to surround them. Goku was
drooling in the backseat long before Hakkai waved at the guards at
the gates.
All around them, startling against the midwinter snow, were the colors
of an anticipated spring: cherry-blossom pinks and new-growth greens
striped the paper streamers fluttering in every doorway. Their ends,
cut into extremely fine fringe, were being chased, worried and chewed
on by children and babies in their mothers' arms, all dressed in scarlet
and gold for luck in the coming year.
The smile on Hakkai's face had appeared as soon as they looked at
the map and found the town, and hadn't stopped getting wider.
Gojyo, watching him closely from his half of the backseat, felt an
answering grin fighting its way onto his mouth at the brunette's
expression, but turned it into a smirk at Goku's appetite when their
eyes met in the rearview mirror.
Sanzou and the innkeeper had a brief conversation about rooms, a
conversation that ended when the blonde put his hand in his sleeve
and partway pulled out the gold card.
The innkeeper shut up and led them upstairs.
Gojyo shook his head, muttered something under his breath, and lit
up a new cigarette.
Sanzou heard him anyway and, taking his comment for an insult,
smacked him with the paper fan.
Goku laughed for a while, until his stomach rumbled and he changed
directions to head for the kitchen.
The four of them had split up for the afternoon, and Gojyo had
managed to find a bar with a deck of cards in the back some three
houses away from the inn. His pockets were heavy with money and
some few trinkets when he emerged, three hours later.
The sun was setting, coloring the snow and the rest of the town a
deep orange, when he strolled into the market and spotted a familiar
green-clad back.
Hakkai was quietly bargaining for fruit preserves with a
friendly-looking middle-aged man; at his feet was the oversized
duffel bag they used for the groceries. It was bulging in a few
places, and he could see a couple of loaves of bread sticking out the
top, along with the short end of a vaguely familiar white carton.
The redhead hurried over and looked over his friend's shoulder; the
carton said 'Hi-lites'. Straightening up, he intercepted the paper bag
of preserves and grinned rakishly at Hakkai.
Hakkai chuckled and smiled gratefully in return.
Together they made their way through the early-evening shoppers,
stopping for whatever Hakkai deemed a necessity for the
still-snowbound journey ahead: extra blankets, a hand-knitted cap
and matching scarf for Goku, four pairs of colorful mitts – and he
promptly put one set on, a wine-like crimson pair that meshed
perfectly with his usual green and khaki – and, finally, two six-packs
of beer and a few packets of beef jerky.
Gojyo laughed at the last two purchases, but mostly he was enjoying
the contented expression on his companion's face.
Back to the inn to unload the groceries and take the beer, beef and
knits to Sanzou and Goku, then Hakkai allowed himself a grin – an
expression that closely matched those of the children who were
laughing and playing outside – and jogged out, Hakuryuu cheeping
happily on his shoulder.
Gojyo pulled the sea-green mitts from the shopping and put them on,
following curiously in Hakkai's wake.
Together the trio strolled through the snow-clad town, Gojyo making
comments about some home's decorations and the smell from some
shop's merchandise, Hakuryuu making 'pi-pi' noises at wide-eyed
newborns, and Hakkai looking in each window they passed with
interest.
Eventually the brunette stopped outside a toy shop and went in,
browsing idly; Gojyo leaned on a lamppost outside and looked around
at the other shops nearby. After a moment he walked into the
establishment on the left, absently jingling the coins in his pocket.
When Hakkai finally came out of the toy shop, Hakuryuu happy and
outfitted in a tiny, rainbow-colored hat-and-scarf set that had
originally been on a toy doll, Gojyo met him under the lamppost with
a paper cup full of steaming hot chocolate and a true smile on his
handsome face.
Hakkai smiled and held his drink with a careful hand – he held the
other one out to Gojyo.
They walked back towards the inn, red and green clasped together
for warmth.
What We Have In Common
Cho Hakkai faced the mirror, naked but for a towel wrapped around
his waist.
The blue-gray shadows, so like bruises, were deepening beneath
lined, worn green eyes. He fancied his own features aging visibly, as
he watched. Looking after his three companions on the Journey to
the West – /And a transforming dragon,/ he reminded himself – was,
well, looking after the others, and on some days it did become a bit
too much to handle.
His cheeks were hollowed out and gaunt, even as the skin over his
jaw seemed hard-pressed to cover that bone. He knew a lack of food
was responsible – he tended to eat little of their meals, preferring to
leave more to the two who tussled for it. The same reason perhaps
accounted for the visibility of his ribs, the ridges of his torso painfully
emphasized by the fact that he had always been wiry rather than
outright muscular.
And then, of course, there was the scar over his sunken stomach.
Perhaps, he thought, he thought of it far too much still, and the
wound so constantly picked at in his mind refused to scab over and
heal. That band of nerveless tissue slashed into his stomach glared
back at him from the mirror, a reality he denied to all but his other,
long-dead self.
Hakkai sighed then, a quiet exhalation in an equally silent room, and
turned away to don his nightshirt.
When the room was full of the sounds of man and dragon breathing
in sleep, Sha Gojyo tiptoed in, his boots slung by their laces over
one shoulder. The expression of shock still widened his crimson-blood
eyes, the aftershocks damping his movements.
He carefully picked up the room's only chair and set it down, his
head as it rested on an arm atop the back-rest located just above
Hakkai's moonlit face.
Gojyo sat down, leaned a little closer to the object of his
contemplation, and, almost unself-consciously brushed the left-side
fall of his hair away.
Almost.
The hanyou thought he knew what the other man had been
thinking about, and felt compelled to think about it as well.
Both of them took his scarlet hair and eyes for a reminder of blood,
but only he damned himself for his stepmother's death, and the
injuries she had dealt him before and after. Especially the hairline
scars beneath his eye, all the pain distilled into those two marks he
hid even from the others, and he kept them secret, as he thought
Hakkai hid all of his: his wounded eye, and that band on his stomach.
He wondered about the others then, and in that moment felt closer
to all of them than he ever had before. It was enough for a sad,
wistful smile, which his rakish features were unaccustomed to.
He caught the trailing edge of a dream and woke, to find himself in
shadow.
The voice in his throat stopped well short of expression. Above him
crimson was silvered, the lines of muscles – wiry like his own –
quietly limned in the night, the face unobscured and filled with peace.
Gojyo's scars were clear to even Hakkai's myopic eye, bared by the
fall of hair tucked behind one ear. To the green-eyed one they had
never been hateful or ugly, but rather a part of his life that changed
mostly without their influence.
It was a life Hakkai himself had become a part of, and which was
glad, somehow, of his coming, even him with his own set of scars.
He rose and took a thin spare blanket from their packs. Quietly he
let it fall open, gently he draped it over the sleeper's shoulders.
Hakkai kissed Gojyo over his unblemished right eye and lay back
down, promising him a good breakfast and a long talk in the morning.
He did not use his own blankets from that night on.
In his sleep, Gojyo smiled, and the scars folded themselves into the
lines of happiness that were etched around his eyes.
The Brothers West [with apologies to Louisa May Alcott and Minekura
Kazuya]
a/n: I've been watching too much Little Women on Animax, can you
tell? And for everyone who's not familiar with the book, the sisters
pair off as follows: Meg [Margaret] looks after Amy, and Jo
[Josephine] and Beth [Elizabeth] take care of each other. And yes, I
do believe that Hakkai's and Gojyo's correspondences make sense.
Deep winter had come again, and the Journey to the West had once
again been stopped by several feet of snow. The skies had turned
that leaden, uniform dark gray that signals snow a full ten days
gone, and the white stuff had started pouring – and the green-eyed
one shook his head once more at the truthful incongruity of the
word – the moment they checked into that particular small town's
inn, or so it seemed.
Sanzou had spent the past week smoking and keeping mostly to
himself for the most part, staying in the room he shared with Goku,
who trod on eggshells around his guardian, and spent his time
either ravaging the kitchen or, as if in penitence, doing chores for
the matronly innkeeper. At night, after dinner, Sanzou would speak
quietly to his ward, Goku would ask a question or two, and then
they would be companionably silent until lights-out.
Sha Gojyo remarked on that unusual state of affairs over tea and
cookies on the third day. The redhead had been exploring the town,
and came back in the afternoon to find Hakkai reading in the
kitchen. 'Yo,' he'd said, pulling up a chair and taking a
chocolate-chip cookie from the plate at his friend's elbow. 'What
the eff's up with bouzu and the monkey?'
Hakkai sipped his tea, turned a page, before answering. 'Would
you be referring to how we haven't heard Sanzou yell at anyone
since we got here, and seems to be actually paying attention to
Goku? Or is your question about how Goku is behaving so admirably
at present, and seems to be fussing over Sanzou more than usual?
I believe he helped bake these cookies, in fact, and the innkeeper
gave him an entire jar for himself afterwards. He gave me some,
and told me the rest were for Sanzou.' At the sound of his voice,
Hakuryuu rustled white wings and curled back up in a doze; the
brunette stroked a finger down its back to calm it.
'All of it.' Gojyo blinked. 'Goku helped make these?' He finished
his second cookie, then turned to contemplate the kitchen fire,
allowing the answers to wash over him with the warmth.
'Yes. Now I don't suppose you've forgotten that last youkai
encounter, three days before we got here?'
The hanyou shuddered and downed the tea in Hakkai's cup; it
was refilled as he spoke: 'No, I haven't. I still have the
tooth-marks from that youkai witch...god, Hakkai, it was
everything out of our worst nightmares. Good riddance to that
insanity. So what about it?'
'Funny you should mention nightmares, Gojyo. I don't know if
you saw it, but at some point Sanzou pulled his gun on Goku.'
The redhead whistled. 'Bet the two of them loved that.'
The converted youkai chuckled quietly. 'At the last moment you
knocked out the witch and broke her spell, and freed all of us –
for which I'm very grateful, if I haven't yet told you. And Sanzou
shot her, and used the sutra.' He turned another page in his book
and chewed thoughtfully on an oatmeal-raisin cookie. 'I believe the
quiet you've noticed is the two of them working that particular
problem out.'
'Wow. Who'd've thought it?' Gojyo asked, as he lit a cigarette.
'Sanzou calm, the monkey quiet, it's just all too odd to think
about.'
'You could make an effort,' Hakkai teased him gently. 'We'll be here
for at least another day. You could try to enjoy the silence.'
'And you?' Gojyo asked after a few moments, during which he got
up to refresh the tea, since Hakkai was still reading. 'You've done
nothing but read since we got here. What's that?'
Hakkai showed him the cover of the book, one finger marking his
place.
'/Little Women/. What's it about?'
'Four sisters who grow up amid poverty and, apparently, their
mother's good moral values.'
'Ha ha ha. You tryin' to make fun of me?' Gojyo ground out his
cigarette butt and refilled the teacup.
'Oh not at all. The eldest is named Margaret, and she dreams,
simply, to be loved. After her comes Josephine, who's headstrong
and tries to act as the man of the family in place of her father,
who's fighting a war. Then Elizabeth, the responsible, caring one
who cheers up the family.'
'I can't decide over whether you're that one or the eldest.'
'Thank you. And youngest is Amy, who is blonde and has a rather
serious calling for art. I rather thought the description suited
Sanzou, except for the calling, of course.'
Gojyo thought about it for a moment; finally, he turned his chair
around and sat in it back to front, before regarding his friend
with a sober expression. 'I know. You're the cheer-up one, and
Goku's the oldest. And me....'
Hakkai interrupted him this time – he got up and stood next to
him. 'You know, Josephine finds love last of them all, but she
earned it too, eventually. And you deserve the same fate.' He
kissed his roommate on the cheek, and then made to leave the
kitchen. 'I think I'll finish this in the room. If you want to talk
about it....'
'Hold on. I'll go with you.'
The kitchen they left was warm, and so was the room they
locked after themselves.