Disclaimer : Me? Own Saiyuki? Surely you jest!
Summary : Before the revolver turns and discharge its bullet, meaningful things can still happen.
Author's Notes : Slight 83/38. First Saiyuki oneshot since March '03 (man, that long?). It's Saiyuki Reload that brought me back here – I love it! XD


Pre Revolving


He laid his shoulder to the stone wall and waited, though not in a leisurely style. Hakkai was tired, for he had been running; running away from someone who will surely hunt him down. In truth, he was half-afraid of what may come. He was physically unstable and the only thing that kept him from fainting was his shoulder on the wall. A striding thought also gave him a mental burden, as that 'person who will come' was indeed someone he knew. Someone that he, at least, respected, and still do.

He wondered vaguely wether he could defeat him or not.. he wondered what had gone wrong. What, where, and how? Perhaps, Hakkai thought, it was my fault. Yes, he had been careless then, at that one turning point. He had made the wrong turn, and now he is lost for life. There was no way he could go back.

Hakkai dragged his body across the wall, his hand guiding himself without any sense of direction. His fingers felt strangely numb against the cold surface, and it appeared that almost all his physical abilities were slowly going down in flames. His breaths were cut short and ragged and his eyes wouldn't focus due to the sharp pain that shot out through his broken arm, so he closed them, hoping for reality to go away. He heard Sanzo's voice in his head suddenly, snappy and irritated as usual; only a few days ago, they had been talking about what would happen if they were to fight an old friend..

I'd kill him on the spot. Sanzo had said. He'd be stupid to cross my path anyway. Look what happened to Shuuei.

But Shuuei wasn't really your friend anymore. He changed. Hakkai mused. But, what if he didn't?

I'd still kill him.

You'd do that, Sanzo? Without even listening to his side of the story?

I might listen, but I wouldn't care.

And why? Hakkai added. Apart that it isn't your business to care.

Sanzo had taken a whole minute to lit his cigarette before answering the question. I wouldn't understand, would I?

Hakkai had paused. You wouldn't?

I couldn't. And I'd be a stupid sodding liar to pretend to understand when I really don't.

Even Genjo Sanzo could become awfully wise at times. Hakkai smiled at the memory. Yet the statement he made then was grave in Hakkai's current case.

He continued walking blindly, following a route that was as effective as a wild jab in the dark. The pain from his arm was engulfing and he began to feel things he shouldn't feel, hear things he shouldn't hear.. at least not in a moment like this. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears and the blood boiling in his veins, fevering him like a bedsick little boy, and he felt a tightening around his heart as he heard a pound of feet that ended in a stop, on the ground just in front of him.

Hakkai's eyes flew open, his heart pounding. A figure in robes. He could positively guess who it was, "Sanzo—"

"You've been very careless, Hakkai." interrupted the figure, his pistol gripped tight in his hand and pointed directly at Hakkai. "Very careless indeed, the way you tried to escape me."

Indeed, it was Sanzo. Under the night his bright blonde hair looked as if shrouded in shadows, and his pale violet eyes seemed more menacing than simply droopy. Hakkai secretly felt glad in seeing him, but another part of him was intimidated by his appearance. He came to finish him off after all. Hence the weapon.

He took a deep breath, "Hello, Sanzo."

"Shut up." Sanzo said, and his gun fired the wall next to Hakkai.

Hakkai was shocked and taken aback, yet knew better than to say anything back. He kept his left hand on his broken right arm and waited for Sanzo's next words.

"I've been running low on bullets, Hakkai." Sanzo said, "This gun contained only two bullets. Two bullets that could break through your skull and kill you. I've wasted one on a fucking wall and that leaves me with one left. Surely you can guess what I'm about to do with it?"

Sanzo was at the angriest Hakkai had ever seen him. His face was contorted in the outmost fury and he was gripping his gun with both hands and with such tension that it might possibly break in two if he added a little more pressure into it. Hakkai reconsidered and took a cautious step forward. "Are you.. going to kill me Sanzo?"

"I have two choices—" Sanzo went on as if Hakkai hadn't spoken, "I could kill you now right away without wasting my time, or I could stop to reload my gun before killing you. But.. I don't really think the latter is a safe option. Why, you'd probably kill me the minute I turn my back on you."

Hakkai looked astonished. "Sanzo, I-I would never do that."

"Yes you would. You'd kill me the second you find the moment. Just like how you tried to kill Goku and Gojyo."

"I.. I swear I don't know why I did that." And that was true. Although he did, in fact, attack Goku and Gojyo without reason. It was unusual, as he merely felt that he wanted to when that incident happened. He looked up at Sanzo, "Are they.. okay?"

"Don't ask."

"But—"

"You said you did that intentionally."

"I did, but—"

"Then why ask of it?" drawled Sanzo.

Hakkai sighed. "I worry them."

Sanzo snorted. "You half-butchered them, Hakkai."

"I wasn't myself. I thought you'd realise that."

"I didn't."

Hakkai stared at him. Then he smiled; like a smile of someone who has accepted forgiveness. "Then kill me if you must. I understand."

Something flickered and went behind Sanzo's eyes. He paced forward with the gun still aiming Hakkai's face, and Hakkai closed his eyes. He prepared himself for a raging rain of bullets, or a violent act, but he did not, however, prepare for more words from Sanzo.

"If you were a normal youkai, I would have already killed you by now." Sanzo's voice was tense and desperate, and that alarmed Hakkai.

Hakkai opened his eyes and glanced at Sanzo's gun, then at both his hands which held it. "You're holding your gun with both hands.. that's not like you. You're hesitating. Why? You never did."

"I thought I understood you." Sanzo said in a half-whisper, and Hakkai's eyes shot up to him. "But I was wrong to think I did."

"I thought I did too." Hakkai whispered back, "But I didn't think I was ever wrong."

"Don't talk so recklessly in front of a fully loaded gun!"

Hakkai looked strangely amused. "Fully loaded? Really? And you said you only had a bullet left."

Sanzo's reaction was almost immediate. His hand shot out so quickly Hakkai barely had time to react; he seized his arm, yanked him down on the floor, and fell over on top of him, his hand grasping his throat, his other hand pressing the snout of his Smith & Wesson's above the other's heart. "Since when did you become such a sarcastic, annoying fuckwit.. Hakkai?" he hissed, glaring down at him.

"You're being very violent, Sanzo—"

"You fool," Sanzo said angrily, his face closing in to Hakkai's. "You think it's easy for me to kill you? You're so selfish it's unbelievable. You don't know anything. You make every damned thing so hard to do, I..."

As Sanzo rambled on, Hakkai didn't really hear him. His mind had stopped on the second sentence Sanzo had spoken, and after that everything was like hearing from underwater. Liquid and blurred. His ears seemed to fail him, like the way his sense of touch and eyesight had almost failed him before. Sanzo's form in front of him got fader everytime he tried to squint them in sight. And an unknown pain that succumbed inside his chest, as if his very heart and bones were being crushed and burnt from the inside. As if something lived inside of him only to torture him.

It was a pain so terrible.. he'd rather die.

Sanzo's voice continued to ring in his ears, although the words were unheard to him.

"—you barely know what you're dealing with. You talk as though you're playing a game, but this isn't some god damned game.—"

Please kill me

"—There isn't much time left, Hakkai. For both you and for me, and I need you to understand that. Not much time.—"

Kill me now

Hakkai closed his hand around Sanzo's that was holding his throat, and he saw the violet eyes that reminded him so much of a field of mourning lilacs suddenly widen an inch. Surprised, perhaps, at how cold and damp his skin was right now. Or rather, why he still dared to touch the hand of the bastard who would surely and utterly kill him.

"Sanzo.. maybe you can kill me after all. I don't feel very well now, see.. a bad illness, I think.. it's very painful.."

"What are you raving about? Stop that."

".. and my arm's broken. I don't think I can hold on any longer. And there's your hand on my throat.. suffocating me.. only slightly, though.."

"Hakkai, shut up." Sanzo snapped.

".. I swear I didn't mean to attack you or Goku or Gojyo. I don't know what happened.. it didn't feel like I was being controlled.. it was my own will, but different.. I certainly wouldn't think that way.. I'm sorry.. please, Sanzo. It hurts. Please let me out.."

Sanzo now looked alarmed, and very angry. "Stop that, god damn it – STOP!!"

Then Hakkai heard that clicking sound usually made by Sanzo's gun. The trigger was being pulled. The revolver was about to turn. The bullet was about to discharge. That last 'click' Hakkai heard sounded so much like a death signal; like a 'tick' that echoed before a bomb went off, or a 'swish' that resonated before an arrow plants itself inside one's heart. It must've been last sound all youkai that faced Sanzo heard before they died. Irony laughed at his face. He was about to die the same way as them.

But that hasn't happened. Not yet.

As long as he still had that one miniscule second of life, things could still happen. In that fraction of a second, Hakkai raised his hand and reached out for Sanzo, wanting desperately to touch his face, to caress his hair, to contact him in every way .. he wanted to grasp the one person he could see now, just to remind himself that he once existed near him, to remind himself that he had lived. He wanted to grab him and bring the memory to his grave.

"Sanzo.." he breathed.

And the pistol fired.

There isn't much time left...

Hakkai, arrested in mid-motion with his arm reaching halfway out, understood that fact as well as the other man opposing him. There wasn't much time left, and now the moment is gone. Everything came to a sudden comprehension the second he heard that blast of a gun. Everything that was in pieces suddenly glued back altogether. He understood that his death was necessary – he had been a threat and he took it in willingly.

Something painful scorched in his chest, and Hakkai felt himself drowning into a whirlpool of eternal darkness. He thought he heard Kanan calling his name..

***

It was noon, and the sun was already up in the radiant blue sky when Hakkai slowly opened his eyes and saw a shabby ceiling. He stared at it, and took a fairly long moment to recollect his memories and wondering wether everything that had occurred in his recollections were true or just a horrific nightmare. A sharp pain from his right arm convinced him that it was true. Yet as far as he was concerned.. he was already very dead.

Hakkai raised both hands and stared at it as if expecting to look through them. He turned his head sideways and saw a figure's arching back, sitting on a chair and reading the newspaper while the tea on the table beside him puffed several breaths of smoke.

"Sanzo..?" he called, but was surprised to hear how weak his voice was.

Sanzo merely glanced at him and continued reading his papers, as though dead people returned to life every single day. "Hmm."

"I.. I thought you killed me."

The blonde man grunted. "I meant to, damn it. If only I had enough bullets."

Hakkai resisted the sudden urge to smile at Sanzo's abrupt remark – but he was still highly confused. He never expected to see Sanzo again. "Why am I still alive? Am I not a threat to you anymore?"

"Shikigami."

"What?"

"It was a shikigami that crawled inside your body and made you sick and act like a madman. That was the threat, not you."

"But you shot me.."

"Yes, I destroyed it when I shot you in the chest. A huge hole on your torso isn't a big price to pay compared to losing your life. Be thankful and consider it an ornament."

Hakkai didn't know what to think. His head was still heavy from everything that happened. "A shikigami.." he voiced aloud. He raised his eyes back to Sanzo and smiled, "I owe you my gratitude, Sanzo. Thank you. I didn't know it was your business to care."

"It's not," retorted Sanzo gruffly, turning a page. "But who else's going to keep Goku and Gojyo from crossing the lines of stupidity. I refuse doing that myself."

"Are they okay?"

"You didn't kill them (pity). They're already lounging in the next room, getting in my way and on my nerves as usual." he turned another page. "The stupid oafs."

Hakkai, although still in bed and in pain, touched his chin with his hand in a manner of thinking. "But Sanzo," he started. "If it was a shikigami, then I'm quite sure it didn't act by its own will. Do you know who did this?"

"That's what we're going to find out.. as soon as you get better." Sanzo folded his newspaper and tossed it to Hakkai, who caught it. "You might want to read it." he said before standing up.

"Thank you, Sanzo." Hakkai smiled as he watched him walk towards the door and out of it. "For understanding."

He could almost hear a miffed 'you're welcome' before the other man closed the door behind him.

End.

Thank you for reading! I finished this exactly at 2:04 in the morning, when I was very tired so I'm sorry if there were some parts you find irregular. You know, I actually was going to kill Hakkai off, but then reconsidered, and didn't. Because he is still my #3 most favourite male on Saiyuki, after Sanzo and Kougaiji! Tis the most unforgivable sin to murder a loved one. XD Please tell me how I did – feedbacks, comments, flames, and just-checking kind of reviews are always welcome!