Title: Replacement

Fandom: Saiyuki

Pairing: 85

Theme: #26 "I never say the truth."

There were children playing in the park. Every day, there were children in the park, laughing as their feet touched the sky on the swings, dizzy with glee on the roundabouts, crawling through brightly-coloured spaces and slides.

The parents were there too, of course, watchful and delighted, wary eyes on the strangers, joyful eyes on the children.

And usually, for a few minutes a day, so was Hakkai, leaning on the sturdy wooden fence that separated the park from the rest of the world, indulging his nostalgia and his masochism at the same time, lost to the rest of the world. He got some strange looks, but he had established himself as a kindly and warm sort of person in town, and nobody bothered with his occasional quirk.

'Hey.'

He started.

'Gojyo?'

'Figures you'd be here,' Gojyo snorted from the pavement.

'Oh?' he said, intrigued. He thought he'd kept his visits random enough to confuse Gojyo, who could occasionally be startlingly perceptive, but apparently not.

'Man, you sure like your pain, dontcha?'

'I'm not sure I know what you mean, Gojyo.'

''I'm not sure I know what you mean, Gojyo,'' the redhead mimicked. 'You know damn well what I mean.'

Hakkai didn't reply.

With a huff, Gojyo leaned on the fence next to Hakkai, sprawling on his elbows and propping his head on them instead of resting elegantly, as the other man was doing. 'You miss it, huh.'

'Hmmm?'

'The brats. Miss teaching them, yeah?'

'Sometimes,' Hakkai admitted.

Gojyo huffed contemplatively. 'Huh,' he said again, and left it at that.

A few weeks later, Gojyo sidled up behind him in the kitchen when he was cooking dinner. 'I was talking to that lady last evening at the grocery. You know, the blond chick who runs the preschool. She was saying she was still short of two teachers, so I said maybe–'

'No,' Hakkai said firmly and laid the ladle down.

There was a short silence from behind him, and then Gojyo echoed him incredulously. 'No?'

'No,' Hakkai repeated, consciously unclenched his fists, turned off the stove, went into the bedroom and locked the door loudly behind him.

He emerged three hours later, the plastic smile fixed firmly in place over the equally visible menace. Gojyo knew better than to begin any sort of conversation, and the evening passed in a dangerous sort of silence.

Gojyo was nowhere to be found when Hakkai finished clearing up, and he darted thankfully back into the sanctuary of the only room in the house with a lock. It clicked soundly, and too late he sensed the other, vaguely not-human presence in the room.

'I thought you'd try to do that.'

Hakkai crossed to the bed, not looking at the redhead perched in the window, fully visible now that he'd switched on the light. 'I would appreciate it if you left me alone right now, Gojyo.'

'What got you so pissed off?' Gojyo asked, sounding curious and a little hurt.

'Why, nothing at all.'

'Hakkai, I thought you liked teaching. I see the way you look at those kids, and how you enjoy telling me or Goku about weird things and–'

'Gojyo.'

'No, I won't stop,' he snapped. 'What's so wrong with it, huh?'

'That part of my life is behind me,' Hakkai said flatly.

'It sure didn't look behind you when you were moping over those kids last evening,' Gojyo said and immediately regretted it as emerald eyes flashed.

'No, I'm sure it didn't,' Hakkai said mildly, darkness gathering palpably about him. 'Gojyo, if you don't mind, I would like to sleep.'

'Why are you so afraid to do anything that makes you happy?' Gojyo burst out, and everything in the room stopped dead.

'Stop.'

'Why should I?'

'Stop it, Gojyo.'

'You like it so much and you won't–'

'Stop it, I said!'

Gojyo laughed bitterly. 'Yeah, that's your trump card, ain't it. Ignore everything that doesn't suit you.'

'As pushing others towards what you dare not want is yours?'

There was a long silence. 'That,' Gojyo whispered, 'was a cheap shot.'

It probably was, Hakkai knew, but it had served its purpose, hurt Gojyo as badly as Gojyo's attempt to create a replica of Hakkai's…former life…had hurt him. Rationally, Hakkai knew that that had not been Gojyo's intent, that he understood the difference between replacing a life and replacing an emotion; rationally, but she had always made him less than rational. He should have known, and the fact that he hadn't…that hurt a little, too.

He said nothing after that, and they readied for sleep as if the other didn't exist, moving around each other with the fluid ease of those who had shared rooms for years. Gojyo wriggled around in bed until he found a comfortable position, further away than he usually slept from Hakkai even in midsummer heat, and pointedly turned his back on him instead of wrapping his arm loosely around Hakkai or snuggling into his throat. Hakkai let him, and turned away so they were back to back.

The clock on the bedside table ticked abominably loudly, Hakkai decided, and it was impossible to properly hear Gojyo breathe at this distance. He had grown used to falling asleep to that sound.

Gojyo tossed and turned and squirmed, and Hakkai was vaguely irritated by that; it was probably what prompted him to say, 'If I'd wanted to teach, I'd have done it.'

Silence for a while, and then the redhead turned over. 'No, you wouldn't,' Gojyo contradicted, and raised an eyebrow when Hakkai made to speak. 'I'm telling the truth and you know it. You don't choose happiness.'

'That's not always true,' Hakkai murmured.

'So prove it.'

Because Gojyo had somehow transformed the quarrel into a challenge, and Hakkai detested losing, he smiled brilliantly at him, making Gojyo instantly suspicious. 'But of course I do,' he said, both sincere and secure in the knowledge of his victory. 'I chose to live. And you, Gojyo. I chose you.'

Game, set, match. Gojyo's eyes widened helplessly with emotion. ''Kai,' he whispered, and Hakkai couldn't see his face crumple in the dark, but from the suddenly young tone of voice he knew. 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, so sorry…'

'It wasn't you,' he cut in. 'It wasn't.'

'I'm sorry,' Gojyo said again, and he was across the bed and on Hakkai and everything felt so much better.

'It's okay,' Hakkai said patiently, and relaxed as Gojyo pressed nonsense words and kisses full of relief and love into his skin, let the sudden ugliness that had sprung up between them die a natural quiet death.

'Why are you so afraid?' Gojyo asked, and all that unconscious courage he bore, the courage that allowed him to seek happiness and give of himself and laugh and live so intensely – it shone from him then, he glowed with its calm certainty, with pure hope, and Hakkai was almost blinded by it.

'Gojyo,' he whispered, and reached for him.

In the morning, Gojyo didn't speak much, still wary of saying the wrong thing. Hakkai was as placid as ever, making coffee, drinking tea, preparing breakfast, sorting the laundry and otherwise allowing Gojyo to grow uneasy as he wondered just what reactions were brewing in the his brain. Finally, just when Gojyo was about to burst with repressed anticipation, he smiled.

'So when did you say you'd let her know? You really must provide these details, Gojyo. It wouldn't do to keep a possible employer waiting.'

Then he swept out of the kitchen before Gojyo could pull his jaw back up and headed for the shower with a satisfied expression.

Cho Hakkai was not to be trifled with. Even when he was wrong.