Title:
ClockworkAuthor: Kagetsuya
Fandom: Gensomaden Saiyuki
Rating: G
Warnings: character death, faint angst, tense changes, blink-and-miss-it shounen-ai
Notes: originally written for 83 Day (3 August 2004). Except I don't really think it hits the point of 83 Day. --; Oh, well. I tried...?
===========================
by Kagetsuya
The newspaper still comes at the same time everyday, seven o 'clock on the dot. Hakkai is always up by then, in the midst of the self-appropriated task of making breakfast. Every morning, at seven, he opens the door for the boy that comes by, a half-asleep Hakkuryu on one shoulder as he takes the paper with one hand while giving the child a few coins' tip with the other.
The boy loves him for that tip, Gojyo knows, that and the fact that Hakkai always spares a moment or two for a little conversation. 'How are you doing?' As always. 'How's school?' Fine. 'You doing well in class?' Guess so. 'Guess so?' Dunno, sometimes there's stuff I don't get. 'Do you need a tutor?'
That always gets the kid. Did he need a tutor. Gojyo had been up early enough, once or twice, to catch their daily exchanges. That question always leaves the boy quiet, face slightly flushed. Perhaps he is annoyed that this stranger -- for he only brought the paper, did nothing else, and did not that make them strangers? -- would think that he needed help with his schoolwork. Perhaps he is flustered that Hakkai, a teacher at another school -- his school's rival, at that -- would offer his services as a tutor.
Or maybe the brat had a crush on the green-eyed man, Gojyo had once teased. Hakkai had only laughed, he remembers, laughed and shook his head. Like he always does when the redhead teases him, or complains that he was winning at cards too much, or mutters about his unnatural capacity for liquor, or picks a fight with Goku that turns into a friendly brawl.
After the newspaper boy leaves, Hakkai would go back to whatever he was doing. Cooking, setting the table, trying to wake Goku. The paper would sit on the island in the kitchen, silent, unread as Hakkai bustles about with his tasks. It would sit there long after he and Goku leave the house.
Gojyo rises in the morning because Hakkai insists they all have breakfast together. He has been able to deny his friend only a few things. Breakfast is not one of them. So he rises, has breakfast with his housemates, steals a sausage or a quarter of a hotcake from Goku to start their traditional morning squabble, then sees them off at the door like a good housewife does, and goes back to sleep.
When Gojyo wakes again, he makes a lunch out of whatever he finds in the kitchen and eats it there. He sees the newspaper in its place on the island, grabs it, skims the headline and a word or two on the front page. He has never cared for the paper. There was only ever one kind of news to him, and that was the news that he really needed to know. Who was dumped by their boyfriend or girlfriend, if there was a major storm coming-- that kind of news. If he had to read it from bits of shredded tree, it was not news.
But he takes the newspaper, because he knows that nobody else will. Goku is as uninterested in the paper as he is. After those initial moments between when Hakkai takes the paper from the boy and when he leaves it on the island, he pays it no mind as if it is not there.
Habit is a funny thing, and as hard to drop as people say. So Gojyo suspects that when Hakkai does not seem to notice the paper, it is because the paper is already gone in Hakkai's mind. Five after seven in the morning, Gojyo suspects (knows), that to Hakkai, the paper is gone.
Five after seven, on the dot.
The dining room furniture they had bought for the house came as a set. A rectangular table with rounded corners and six chairs, everything made of good maple, the chairs comfortably padded. Simple, functional, no designs carved in the wood like other people prefer. And good craftsmanship, no matter how plain it all looks.
Gojyo sits beside Hakkai, on whose shoulder Hakkuryu perches, on one of the longer sides of the table, while Goku sits opposite the brunette. It is the arrangement they had decided on in the beginning. To minimize disaster, Hakkai had said, smiling. Not that the plan worked. Gojyo's long reach, made longer by his chopsticks, is always enough to snatch something off Goku's plate. Goku had grown enough and was still in adequate fighting shape that he could get back at the redhead. And no matter how many times they fight in a day, no matter how long those fights last, they always have enough voice left at the end of the day to fight some more.
They all know the arrangement is only a token gesture. They all know that no matter what, Goku and Gojyo will fight; it is as natural for them as it is to breath. Just as it is natural for Hakkai to smile, to attempt to calm them down, and to keep on eating.
Two of the chairs are left unused for the most part. The housemates do not deviate from their set places, whether from habit or in accordance to their quasi-official seating arrangements, and so the extra places gather dust. Sometimes, they have guests, and the chairs get attention. Most of these times, though, the guests number more than two and Gojyo and the others receive them in their restaurant next door.
The last chair, alas, has not been used in a long time. Months, Gojyo counts as he thinks back. Nigh on two years now. Or was that three? He has not looked at a calendar in a while, only notes the passing time by the seasons and the occasional festival, and so does not remember. It has been long enough, though, that if no one cared to clean once in a while, the chair would have accumulated a thick coating of dust particles.
They have no such silent agreement about the chair, which is situated at what would be the head of the table if they believed in such things. It is more that each of them had made up his mind not to use it. Whether or not that was at the same time, one could only guess. It was the same decision for each of them, though, and so they do not pay it much thought. Their guests, the few that come by once in a while, must have made that same decision, too. Or perhaps, Gojyo muses, it is only that they are so familiar with the place that they understand where they are supposed to sit.
Sometimes, Gojyo gazes at their dining table. Not when anyone is home, usually right after he has lunch. Perhaps he would be on his way to bed. Perhaps he feels awake enough to help out at the restaurant and is on his way there; their place had become popular over time, so the staff is always happy to see him. Whatever the case, he stops in the dining room and stares. At the guest chairs, his chair, Hakkai's, Goku's. Then the one they never use. Stares, for a moment or two, walks off and goes on with his life.
Hakkai does it, too. There are times when Gojyo wakes early enough to catch Hakkai with the paperboy, and then there are times -- rarer times -- when he wakes even earlier, early enough to catch his friend in the dining room, staring. Hakkai is still a youkai, and he can still tell when Gojyo approaches, so all Gojyo can catch is the tail-end of an expression he would term 'wistful' if the word could cover everything in Hakkai's eyes. But 'wistful' is not it, is not enough, is never enough, so he has to settle for the dissatisfactory description of 'unreadable.'
Hakkai always smiles when Gojyo enters and pretends not to have seen anything. Even when they both know that he did. And Gojyo gives his customary, gruff morning greeting like he always does, because they both expect it. Laced in the moment after -- no, briefer than that moment -- Hakkai apologizes with his eyes and pleas with his smile. Gojyo shrugs, maybe, or flashes an almost-smile. Smile, not smirk, for he reserves smiles for moments just like this, when he wants no one to have even the slightest idea that he is joking. And Hakkai knows by that smile that whatever he wants, Gojyo will comply.
What are friends for, after all?
The moment of silent communion passes, and everyday life shifts into gear again.
It took an amazingly short time for them to stop setting four places at the table. Gojyo counts back and remembers, this time. Two months, it was. A little over, maybe. For him, anyway. Not because that numb part in his heart had disappeared. Never that. Until now, it still had not faded, not even a little bit. How could it, after what had happened in his life, after he had lived so long with it filled and not the empty shell it had become?
His hands used to twitch, he remembers. Once when getting the dishes from their drainer, after he reminds himself of the all-important number three. (He blinks, mind finding another significance of that number, and he is amazed that such a small, almost trivial revelation would affect him as much as it does.) Another when stepping out from the kitchen into the dining room, trying to shove away the feeling that he is forgetting something. One last time when nearing the table and promptly forgetting what that one, simple action makes him remember.
Goku had taken longer. Three months, almost four. Somewhere around there. And he never twitched. He just sort of froze, maybe for a second. Unnoticeable, really, until one remembered that Goku rarely froze. And that when Goku froze, it was usually in the face of a fight he might not win (freeze of anticipation) or when there was great danger (fear, mostly, but with anticipation lurking around the fringes). Gojyo ponders that and decides that it was quite possibly the former. Only Goku -- and neither Gojyo nor Hakkai, really -- had ever seriously expected such challenge to them.
'Expected' is not the right word, Gojyo muses (and is once again amused and dismayed by the fact that he rarely ever finds the right words). Because of course they had expected it; only a fool would not have. It is more that they had never given the expectation a serious thought. People tended to do that when they were young, think that time and the world had no bearing on them. Gojyo remembers hearing that particular thought from the old-timers that liked to frequent the restaurant and play mahjongg. And he knows that that is exactly what had happened to them. They had lived forever and a day, it had seemed, after all, in the old days, then lived another eternity when the dust of adventure and battle had settled.
Gojyo winces when he thinks about Hakkai. Hakkai, who, Gojyo knows with absolute certainty, still has that urge to set that fourth place. Who pauses, the same oddity that always got to Goku, as if time stops from one heartbeat to the next then hurls violently back into motion. Hakkai always pauses, then blinks as if that heartbeat had taken him into another world. Gojyo always catches it, and Goku sees it frequently. And before they can ever think to say anything, one more heartbeat away, Hakkai is already a millennium ahead of them and smiles or utters some platitude or stretches out a hand to pet Hakkuryu -- who has a habit of sitting in Hakkai's chair, as if saving it for him -- or escapes back into the kitchen.
Hakkai is the image of calm. The epitome of it. Perfection in relation to tranquility. Except, obviously, when he is pissed off, but that had not happened in years. Even then, you did not know it until it was nearly too late. Even Gojyo, who has known him the longest, still has a hard time seeing through those smiles. Hakkai smiles when he is happy, annoyed, tired, drunk, horny. Probably when he gets pissed off, too, but Gojyo has never seen Hakkai pissed off and thinks that he would never want to, ever, because hearing of it secondhand is definitely enough for him. Hakkai never smiled when he was depressed, though, but that only came about on rainy days, and the green-eyed youkai had eventually gotten over that damp, dreary brooding, too, even if it had taken years.
Hakkai always smiles, now. Always, no exception. Even when he is depressed. He smiles, and no one notices. Except Gojyo and Goku. After being thrown together by fate, then consciously deciding to stick together, of course they would have to learn to look past those iron smiles.
It only takes a heartbeat, after all.
Hakkai sleeps in the guest room downstairs, sometimes. Or on the couch, if he tires of sleeping in a bed. Gojyo not-knows this, just like he not-knows that Hakkai always has a pack of cigarettes and a lighter on him or somewhere in his immediate vicinity. But Gojyo says nothing because he does not know what to say, and knows that he does not have to say anything even when he has the words handy. Hakkai sleeps in his room upstairs frequently, anyway. Ninety-five percent, maybe, of a whole year. Even if Hakkai has stopped thinking of it as 'his' room and considers it nothing more than a place to store his things when he has no need of them.
Hakkai does not smoke. He never had, and he never will. Neither does Goku. The monkey-brat had tried a hand at cigarettes once, then never again. But Gojyo keeps to this little addiction. And Hakkai goes out to buy the little cancer sticks. Two brands, like he always did and like he always does. Hands Gojyo his supply, walks off with the other brand of boxes. But Hakkai does not smoke, and Goku does not smoke, and Gojyo only smokes his favorite brand. Gojyo never sees those other cigarettes again.
Hakkai takes his coffee with a little bit of cream. Sometimes, if he ends up grading papers late into the night, he will add a dollop or two of sugar. But, more importantly, Hakkai does not drink coffee. Not really, not often enough that anyone could call it one of his morning habits. He prefers his dose of caffeine in the form of tea, a calm beverage that nevertheless provides the drive to make it through the day. But Gojyo notices, because Goku had pointed it out once, that coffee is putting in more frequent appearances in Hakkai's diet. While that would not be anything strange, as people tend to change over time like that, the coffee tended to appear with the tea. Not milked and sugared coffee, either, but the black, unadulterated, liquid caffeine. And Hakkai's expression would change from bewilderment to some faint, faraway longing before settling on wry amusement. Before Gojyo or Goku can offer to take the cup of coffee off Hakkai's hands, the cup is drained and whisked to the sink to be washed.
Hakkai used to hate rainy days. Well... maybe 'hate' was not the word, exactly (and here he goes again, Gojyo chides himself, picking the inaccurate, inadequate words). More that he had a strong preference for sunny days. Bad memories came with the rain, broken memories, bloodstained and guilty. And then it passed. Slowly, eventually. Until more of the smiles he gave on rainy days began to be real and not the facades he used to reassure everyone. Now, Hakkai confided to Gojyo once, now he prefers the rain. He gives no reason, but even so, Gojyo knows. Bad memories are rather appropriate for rainy days, and if one waits, long enough that the pain can fade, even if only a little bit, the rain can cleanse those memories, make them hurt even less. There is no such remedy for good memories and sunny days. If anything, Gojyo thinks, the sun, shining bright as it dances its way across the skies, can only make good memories happier, and so make them worse to remember.
After so many, many years of living with Hakkai, Gojyo gains certain bits of knowledge about his friend. Some that Hakkai does not notice, cannot notice, because it takes a discerning, outside view of things to see them. Gojyo can see the signs, bright as day, bright as the fluorescent lights that light the restaurant. So he knows, sees, as time passes, the changes that are minute and drastic, the changes heaven-spans wide and trivial.
Time passes, and Gojyo, bartender and gambler that he is, definitely not a technician or a mechanic, can see when the clockwork that is Hakkai gives its stuttering, little hiccups.
...It took me three months to decide this, to figure everything
out. Actually, I have to confess that I probably haven't
gotten it all worked out yet.
I know I don't have to tell you this, but don't follow me. Stay
home, stay with the restaurant. I'll be back in a while. You
two, of all people, should know that by now. And so you
don't ask me when I come back, no, I'm not heading west.
We've already covered that angle quite adequately.
I'll try to write once in a while. And I'll bring back souvenirs.
No goodbye, or any similar sentiment. Not even a signature. Gojyo passes the letter to Goku, even though they read it at the same time, goes to the kitchen for a beer and comes back. Goku is reading Hakkai's neat, precise writing again, not hunting for anything that could be playing between the lines, just reading for the sake of reading. Probably listening to the memory of Hakkai pronounce the words out in his head.
Goku looks up, meets Gojyo's eyes, shrugs. Gojyo shrugs back, because there is no other answer. Goku folds up the letter, to put in Hakkai's room later. Then he gives a little shake of his head, indicating the calendar pinned to the wall beside the door to the living room.
Gojyo does not have to look to see the little note written across one of the dates -- today's date, his mind supplies absently -- to know whose death the anniversary heralded.
"How long has it been?" he asks, and indicates the calendar when Goku gives him a confused look.
Goku blinks, pauses a moment as he counts in his head. "Three years."
He smiles, then, and Gojyo has to smile, too. "We'll have to tell Kou and the others," he says, the two of them already making plans in their heads. "Book the place for the party already."
Three years, Hakkai had waited amid domesticity last time, with Gojyo at his side. Three years he had waited again, throwing himself more fervently into his everyday tasks. It could only mean that this new grand adventure of his would last as long as their old one. In fact, it would very much be like their old adventures, sans three companions and a jeep; Hakkuryu had flown in that morning with the note, apparently instructed to stay behind, from the way he settled into Hakkai's room right after his delivery errand. Two and a half years, give or take a week or two, just like old times. Two and a half years, Gojyo would wait. He and Goku, and Hakkuryu, too. Two and a half years had taken them all from home, through hell, and all the way back to the steps of Chouan, those many lifetimes ago. Two and a half years will find Hakkai's reappearance here, back home.
Right on time.