Summary: Everyone needs a meditation focus, and Hakkai's is cards.
Acknowledgements and Disclaimers: I do not own Saiyuki nor its characters, they belong to the magnificent Kazuya Minekura. I'm just sneaking onto her playground, making necklaces out of clover. Soundtrack is "Shape of My Heart" by Sting. It wasimpossible NOT to write this after hearing that song.
The cards were cool and smooth under Hakkai's fingers as he cut and shuffled in a seemingly endless cycle, the ruffling sound of the bridging cards siding through his mind like raindrops. He wasn't as skilled as Gojyo of course, but his hands seemed to fall into an unconscious rhythm that compensated for the lack of hours spent practicing.
Hakkai had purchased this deck in the last town, tucking it quietly in amongst the other items he'd brought to the counter. There was no particular reason for it; during the games on the road they always used one of Gojyo's many identical packs.
Gojyo's deck suited him quite well, in Hakkai's opinion. The cards were much like the man himself; bright colors in a vivid, abstract pattern designed for misdirection and distraction, a parlor trick of bluff and secrecy. For reasons he felt no need to examine, Hakkai was loathe to use Gojyo's deck unless they were playing together.
As he squared his new deck on the rough wooden table in front of him, Hakkai touched the back of this pack and wondered if the design, dark blue with a lighter blue, serpentine circle of dragon, spoke as eloquently about himself. Picking up the cards and dancing them through his fingers once more, Hakkai looked up at Sanzo sitting on the bed of the room they were sharing. "Would you care for a game, Sanzo?" he asked without raising his voice. Though Sanzo's eyes were on something outside, Hakkai saw no need to indulge the man's facade of indifference. Sanzo's attention was lazer-sharp, like heat across the skin and Hakkai often wondered if he honestly thought anyone could be unaware of it. With an inner smile Hakkai admitted it was more likely that Sanzo simply didn't care, and his reasons for subterfuge would always remain his own.
At Hakkai's question, Sanzo looked over. His eyes took in Hakkai's face, dropped down to the cards, then returned to study him once more. Hakkai sat unflinching under the scrutiny, though his fingers slowed. Sanzo's ruthlessly cool understanding was at once painful and satisfying to Hakkai as his roomate came to sit silently in the other chair.
"Gin, then?" Hakkai asked, and at Sanzo's curt nod he dealt; the new cards sliding across the cheap table as if eager to leave his hand, ending up in a haphazard pile. With a last, judging look, Sanzo picked up his cards and arranged them, leaving Hakkai in the shade of his casual regard. Setting the deck carefully in the middle of the table, Hakkai turned over the top card, laying it at a neat parallel. Four of diamonds. Picking up his own hand, Hakkai sorted them while Sanzo pulled the top card, placing it in his hand and discarding the six of clubs. Hakkai drew.
The jack of diamonds looked up at him with a rougish smile that reminded Hakkai at once of the grin Gojyo wore at his most outrageous.
Gojyo. In his darker evenings, when rage burned through his soul like the glint of steel on a knife, Hakkai had just enough self-possession left to be grateful he roomed with Sanzo. It was impossible to live with someone for as many years as he and Gojyo had been together without knowing exactly how to seduce them. Or to destroy them. And perhaps the two would be one and the same on those nights.
With deliberate gentleness, Hakkai lay the jack on the discard pile, his finger brushing its smooth face for the barest second before withdrawing.
They played another few mintues, Hakkai only partially keeping track of the hidden geometry of the game. The silken slide and muted tick of the cards whispered through the room, wafting in the air with the smoke from Sanzo's Marlboro.
Hakkai drew and his hand stilled with the weight of the ineviatable. The king of spades. In unconscious betrayal, his eyes flicked up to Sanzo's face for the briefest second before returning to the card. The serious eyes of the king regarded him without mercy. I know you, they said, you can conceal nothing from me. I will not allow you to hurt me, you cannot betray me. It was at once both a threat and a promise.
Slowly, Hakkai placed the card in his hand, though it matched nothing he currently held.
Three more draws and one of Sanzo's discards gave him the rest of the set. Unwilling to draw out the game any longer, Hakkai lay down his hand with a quiet "Gin", tossing the useless six of clubs onto the discard pile to complete his win. Sanzo flipped his own cards on top of the discard pile, scattering them across the table in a haphazard pattern of color and shape.
Hakkai swept them up in his hands, relaxing with the familiar click/inhale of a cigarette being lit and the somehow satisfying task of setting something straight. The cards were all in his hands, though still not aligned, before Sanzo spoke.
"Did you find what you were looking for?" Only Sanzo could manage that completely neutral tone, neither curious nor disinterested, as if nothing in the world existed but the the thoughts it took for the question to be answered. The edges of the cards suddenly bit into Hakkai's hand and he loosened his grip before they bent. The thought flashed briefly through his mind that one could still play perfectly well with a disfigured deck and he resisted the urge to laugh in bitter amusement at his own leaden symbolism.
"Not particularly." With slow care Hakkai folded the cards into each other, straightening them into a neat rectangle.
He had just cut the pack again when the door burst open, Goku spilling through it in a tumble of words. "Sanzoooo! Gojyo hid the blankets and won't tell me where. I'm gonna freeze tonight." The accused man himself strolled into the room right after, grinning around a cigarette. Without thinking Hakkai slid the cards into his pocket, out of sight, hand still holding them tightly.
"Hey, you never use 'em anyway," Gojyo drawled. "Ten minutes after you drop off they're all over the side of the bed and on the floor. Might as well do me some good." Gojyo flopped down on what he knew was Sanzo's bed and deliberately swung his booted feet onto the covers. The fan descended a heartbeat later.
Hakkai watched the usual interplay of his companions, warming himself at the hearth of the familiar. The ridges of the deck pressed into his thumb as Hakkai whispered in his mind.
Not what I was looking for. But perhaps a deal closer.