A/N: Yeah, this is an AU fic, but hey, they aren't students (except Goku)! I think I won't be very…original…if I were to write them all as students. Sanzo's an assassin (well aren't you surprised), Hakkai's a professor, Goku's still studying, and I made Gojyo *coughs* a part time DJ and Hakkai's friend. I didn't make an effort to change their names, sorry, but it's better this way—doesn't cause much confusion.

Much GojyoXHakkai and SanzoXGoku in coming chapters. In other words, there's yaoi, so if you hate it, just… go away.

Once Forgotten by real-circus

Prologue: Introduction to Characters

Professor Cho Hakkai settled down at the bar counter, ordered just a glass of plain water (which earned him a good stare or two from the customers) and turned to the TV in the corner. The sound of rock music was blasting in his ears, so the important announcements the newscaster read over the air couldn't be freaking heard. It didn't matter anyway to the young, energetic teens who were moving to the steady beat the DJ at the far end was playing. It was senseless to place a TV there, where no one would even register its presence.

"Crazy night, ain't it, Professor Cho Hakkai?" a man sat next to him, and a beer came up almost instantly in front of him. "Thanks!" he said to the bartender who waved it off with an impatient hand. Hakkai recognized him as the DJ who played his jam at five to seven every night. It didn't amuse him one bit.

"Mad, this is. You people let children listen to this—this—music?" Hakkai exclaimed, not facing the man properly.

The man chose to ignore this. "Anyways, what's someone as classy as you doing in a dump like this?"

The usual pick-up line, eh? He wasn't going for it. "Drinking a glass of water… and I'm not interested…"

"Hell! I wasn't thinking of anything!"

Hakkai blushed. Well, he knew the exact reason why he'd come to 'a dump like this'. It was because he worked here. Hakkai had an eye on him the moment he saw the man enter the club at five and retreat at around midnight. The man who was talking to him right now, to be exact.

"Bet you get those all the time, don't you?" the DJ leaned against the counter, scrutinizing the flushed professor. "I'm Gojyo. Sha Gojyo. See you've been around here for the past few days… wanna tell me why?"

"I was just thinking… just thinking…" Yeah, thinking of a certain redhead who was an inch away from him… Hakkai was unfocused and fidgety with him around. He felt like he needed to leave, but the man named Sha Gojyo made him talk throughout, bombarding him with meaningless questions that he could have answered himself.

Hakkai felt right like this, talking to him. He felt as though he had done this before, with someone similar, but he was a lonely man—he had no time to love. He was married to his work. Soon, he heard himself talking about his discoveries and experiments… and Gojyo was trying hard to look interested, and smiled or made a comment when it was appropriate. He spoke of his discovery of a certain valuable scroll he'd found in the lost city of Chou An a few weeks back, how he couldn't manage to decipher the writings, and how… how it seemed so very familiar.

In a darkened side of the noisy bar, a man in a sleek black jacket surveyed the two of them, who seemed to be deep in conversation, occasionally sucking in the nicotine of his finishing cigarette. Someone bumped into him, and he could've shot the person right there and then if he needn't have to keep his eyes on the professor and his new friend. The blond cursed under his breath, hiding the gleaming gun under his jacket which almost revealed itself when the idiot knocked into him.

Every ten minutes or so, girls he didn't even know would come up to him and ask him to dance with them. Hah! Like they'll succeed! Here one comes again, he thought, shoving the girl away roughly. He was going to go mad a minute longer in this shit hole for rock 'n roll hungry youngsters. Damn the professor, damn everyone in this fucking dump!

Another one of those bitches came up to him again, and that made him lose it. "I like your cool studs," she said, looking into his lilac eyes instead, when the studs she mentioned were on his left ear. Bitch. "They bring the color of your eyes out!" Grey? Hell, I didn't know my eyes were grey! The fucking bitch.

"Get the fuck away from me," he said coldly. He didn't have to shout it; the way he said it with that deep voice, laced with ice and hard stone, had enough effect on the young girl.

He blessed the gods above (if there were any) as he watched her retreating form disappearing into the crowd. He made his way to the bar counter before hastily ordering a beer. "And make it FAST." The professor was but two seats away, and his conversation with the unknown did not amuse him one bit… or did it?

"It had these weird writings all over, I couldn't read a thing!" Hakkai ran a hand through dark brown hair, slightly irritated. "It must have been over a thousand years old…"

The blond had his eyes set determinedly on the glass of foaming beer in front of him. The scroll the professor was talking about… why was he so interested? Genjo Sanzo felt a certain possessiveness when it was mentioned over the news a week ago, and couldn't help but feel a little weird about the whole scroll thing.

"A foreign friend of mine said it was called a sutra, or something like that…"

Sanzo's eyes flashed.

"Very, very valuable, it is…"

Sanzo set his beer down, making his decision. He placed the money next to it and left, his eyebrows knotted in slight worry and anxiousness. "Watch where you're going!" he snapped at a young boy, eighteen or so, who had just collided with him.

"S-Sorry…" the boy mumbled, looking up at him with those familiar golden eyes of his… fucking familiar? Get that out of your head, Genjo Sanzo. With that, the boy blended in with the crowd, away from his keen sight. Sanzo brushed that uncanny thought away, shoving his way to the back exit.

He had more urgent matters to attend to... more urgent than keeping his eye on a boring professor or eyeing a certain eighteen-year-old boy in the pack of rowdy youths.

A/N: How was it? How was it? Yeah, Goku had just a *little* part in this… *sobs* I promise more of him in the next chapter! Yes, it's Hakkai and Gojyo's first time meeting up… yaoi in later chapters *squeals in excitement* ^___^