Date finished: 15 November 2002
Title: Beautiful Stranger
Series: Saiyuki
Pairing: Hakkai + Sanzo
Category: Angst, Hakkai POV in the first part
Status: Finished
Warning: PG-13, shounen-ai
Standard disclaimers apply.
A/N: Another piece to satiate my penchant for angst fiction. This one had been hanging on to my mind for days, until I had the time to first make a scratch on paper and then finally transfer it to a monitor via the keyboard.
'—denotes thoughts—' || emphasized words are in italics
by Fall
I envy those who neither had the reason to lie and to be lied upon.
I always have to lie and hide behind my mask of an empty smile. It sounds like a simple gesture: easy and subtle. Not really. Gojyo once said that he never knew when I was really jesting or dead serious. Now I should say I never even fitted each part. True, there had been crystal pure moments of real laughter and total self-depreciation … a willingness to help and appreciate the good. But beyond that, I don't really know.
When I said, "Suki da" I meant that. It wasn't because I sympathized with fellows who had the same unfortunate conflicts that I had, nor was it because of the heaviness of the moment. It wasn't even an intention to fill the stark silence that threatened to cut off our breaths. It was for the release of my soul, my emotions, and my heart. Yet you accused me of lying. How accurate in a sense. How painful to me.
It's always like this, ne? You alone have the power to crush and conquer. The one who steers the rest of us to the path of discipline, an epitome of the connection between good and bad. I know you didn't want to have someone to protect. You told me this once. Having lost someone you felt you should protect was the rope that held your neck to the hook of self-imposed conviction. Losing someone you built your whole existence around for the second time would mean your death. And what did I say to you? "Someone always protects someone else, even if they're not aware of it." That is how things go between us. I protect you with as much as I could do; because I didn't want you to have the same wound that I have. Not the kind of wound that I had with Kanan. You had your fair share of the same pain that I had, of being helpless, staring at what was transpiring under your very nose, right in the view of your own eyes, within the very reach of your own hands, destroying you with the knowledge of being helpless in the face of tragedy.
I was thinking of the wound that destroys you with the mere knowledge of what you can do but simply can not, would not, and should not undertake.
Who am I to think of you like this when I don't even know the real you beneath all those scowls and the mark of the position that you hold? I only know your name, your habits, and a glimpse of your anguished past. You never told me anything besides a few serious words, bits of your wisdom, and a passion you wanted to consume with me. Every night that I watch you sleep, I trace your face with my eyes so that I may carve you in the recesses of my heart, a sad reminder of what I had that never belonged to me. Yes, I wanted you despite all your shortcomings, despite your coldness, despite of your treatment to me. Even though I had no knowledge of the real you, I content myself in the few fragments that you let me see in your unguarded moments. The violet eyes that glitters with confusion as you hold me. The intimate touches, the warmth of your lips. The way your voice melts almost into gentleness when you impart your brand of preaching to the innocent. A fleeting curve on your mouth signifies smile in moments of stark peacefulness. The traces of concern you inadvertently show whenever danger stalks us while at battle. With these I cover all the things that I desperately wanted to know about you.
I should stop thinking like this. In as much as I do not know you, the same could be said about me. When did I ever tell you something else besides the life that Cho Gono had and what Cho Hakkai should be? Of how I feel or what you mean to me? I never did, not once, and I should have even though you never asked. Giving a piece of your heart is a form of trust. Does that mean we do not trust each other? Maybe. I cannot give an exact answer to that. Yet. I trust you enough with my life, my heart, and my soul. You also trusted me in a way, laying your life in my hands at that crucial moment. Perhaps the barrier we built to protect our inner selves also serves to ward off the emotions that could destroy us.
You have no idea what you do to me. Every time you hold me in you gaze, touch me, kiss me, whisper to me incoherent words that suffices for the moment, you hurt me. It is not of the physical type with scars, but nonetheless, emotional scars that I carry. No, I am not forcing you to tell me that you love me, or something close to that. You would be lying to me if you do. No, make that, you'd be adding to the list of your lies that I desperately cling to as hope. I do not think you lust after me, knowing that another warm body, with more sensual lips and ethereal physique, can divert lust. I have no idea of what you really want from me, but I am sure it is not love you're seeking. Whatever it is, I am ready to give myself to you. I have already said that I cling to your lies as a means of sanguinity to the dark path ahead of me. I am stupid being that, I know. But I love you. That's reason enough for me to stay with you despite your apparent refusal to love and be loved. Despite all the lies that I told you tonight, I truly love you. It's for the best that you didn't know, that we continue our game of mutual seeking for a warm body to share, and that we must move on thru our masks and words of deceit.
Ai shiteru, Sanzo, even if you don't feel the same for me. You remain to me a beautiful stranger, whichever way I look at it.
A pair of amethyst eyes could only stare at the piece of half-burned paper in which they had previously read a disturbing passage. His troubled eyes traveled down to the fire consuming it and back to the sleeping form on the bed. He knew Hakkai wouldn't know that he chanced to read a part of his journal. It was scribbled at some stale bit of paper, probably the one that held together their grocery for the day before. The emerald-eyed youkai had tucked it inside his pockets, but it had unconsciously fallen in the midst of their foreplay. And of course, Sanzo just had to pick it up and return it into the rightful pocket if not for the last words that stabbed at him.
Right now, the paper was burning into little black embers and his heart throbbing with familiar pain. He pried his eyes from the hearth of the fire when the last remaining brown transcended from red to black. He sighed as he turned to sit down beside his lover, looking down into a slumbering form with beautiful hair scattered into a pool and lips slightly opened. It was an inviting sight, truly delicious to the senses and equally mesmerizing. Sanzo leaned down to gently kiss those cherry lips, putting all of his heart into the gesture. He hoped that Hakkai has forgotten where he had initially stuffed the crucial piece of paper. That he wouldn't notice the suspicious brittle specks that rested in the now cold fire grate. It wasn't because he would be ashamed to admit his inadvertent invasion into Hakkai's privacy. It was a matter of the pain that he knew his lover would feel when he learns of whose hands the paper has fallen into. That Hakkai's soul was bared to someone he wasn't ready yet to divulge it with, his lover yet a total stranger.
'A beautiful stranger,' Sanzo mused, remembering the term that Hakkai used to describe him. Taking a deep drag from his cigarette, he stole one long look from the slumbering youkai before stepping out into the cold hall of the inn. 'You're right, Hakkai. Until each of us willingly lets go, we'll stay as beautiful strangers whichever way we look at it.'
Further A/N: This. Is. Hanging. It's my style and I like it. I was wondering of what Hakkai was thinking after he closed the door to give Sanzo time alone to think [Episode 7, "Good Night"], and also when Sanzo said he knew Hakkai would never betray him [Episode 12, "Wandering Destiny"]. Add to that an idea of Hakkai writing his thoughts into some paper and a haunting title that came to my mind. This was the end result of those thoughts and I hope I was able to write Hakkai's journal, as he would have if he should write one.