Piano music filled the sun-lit halls of Hoshizora Manor. The soft melody swayed through the hall, enchanting the new morning. The melody reached Hakkai's ears and his eyes slowly opened to see that he wasn't in the temple. He was lying in a rich four-poster bed draped with soft green linens and he was in the arms of his Kouryuu. The sunlight shone on Kouryuu's body, outlining his rich blonde hair. Then he remembered what happened last night after their battle with Asura.
"Kouryuu… Hakkai… Welcome to the council. Or should I call you Sanzo now, Kouryuu? You should have remembered that Nii and Komyo had left for their respective domains last night while you were asleep. Komyo's made you Sanzo while you were asleep. Happy to have you in the council, Genjo Sanzo, Cho Hakkai. You won't need your present identities now. You'll be eternal. So therefore, go back to your past identities. Go back."
The wind softly whispered as the melody from the manor's lounge continued to play. They were part of the council now and this was their base. The Hoshizora Manor purchased by Cho Hiro and owned by its real owner, Hoshizora Hibiemi. Hakkai snuggled against his lover's chest. He was so warm. Although last night's battle was fierce, Kouryuu was sleeping soundly with Hakkai in his arms.
"But you're not Kouryuu… You're Sanzo. My Sanzo… for eternity…"
Hakkai brushed away the monk's hair from his forehead and brushed his thumb against the chakra. Somehow, it was darker than it was when he first met him. His fingers trailed down to the mark of the immortal under his right eye. The black triangle pointing downwards to the middle of his cheek accented by a thin circle in the middle meaning 'Eternal' and 'Protector'. Sanzo's eyes fluttered awake at Hakkai's touch. He looked into the brunette's face filled with tender love.
"Ohayou… Hakkai." This deep voice softly greeted accompanied by a clear smile.
"Sanzo…" Hakkai's face turned pink with surprise, "You're smiling…"
His comment was answered by a surprise kiss. Sanzo's mouth left Hakkai's and brushed against his forehead, "That'll only be between the two of us…"
"OHAYOU!!" Goku crashed through the door.
"Baka saru!!" A folder full of sheet music came into contact with Goku's head, "Don't dare disrupt the music!"
"Damn… Hibi's in a bad mood today…" The cheery heretic rubbed his head. In contrast to the rest of the people in the manor, only he and Gojyo were mortals.
Fortunately he didn't see Sanzo smiling.
Meanwhile, as Goku and Hibiemi bickered over what's for breakfast on that day, Quietus stepped out of his room (which was formerly Tenshin Hoshizora's…) with his hair untidy, his emerald eyes still drowsy from being awakened by loud bickering noises, his pajamas randomly unbuttoned due to much tossing and turning in bed last night and his glasses forgotten. Being slightly near-sighted and his mind still fuzzy from being awakened, the oldest immortal accidentally bumped into Goku and thinking he was a chair, sat on him.
"This chair's quite fuzzy… Hibi-chan… Did you buy a new chair?" He said drowsily. Hakkai sweatdropped at the sight of his twin acting slightly idiotic.
"Please wait, Sanzo… I'll have to do a little favor for Qui-chan over there…" The brunette apologized, slipped on his glasses and went into his twin's room to fetch his glasses. As soon as Hakkai got his hands on Quietus' glasses, he slipped them on his brother's face and splashed a glass of cold water from the bathroom on his face.
"Eh? What's going on?" Quietus blinked as the cold water hit his face. He fixed his glasses and took at look at what he was sitting on, "GOKU!?!"
"Eternity has only started and it seems that we're all part of a giant house of idiots…" Sanzo murmured to himself as he watched the silly scene of Quietus apologizing to Goku, Hakkai negotiating what to have for breakfast and Hibiemi randomly changing her mind about the breakfast menu.
"Pancakes with blueberry syrup it is!" Hakkai laughed as Hibiemi finally made up her mind about what to have for breakfast.
***
Later in the afternoon, Hakkai and Sanzo bid Gojyo and Goku goodbye for the day. They knew that they were dead to the rest of the world and couldn't go back to their everyday lives. They would have to live in disguise and under alias so no other mortal would know of their existence as immortals.
"Ne, Sanzo…" Hakkai turned to his blonde lover, "How do you think will we live on eternity?"
"I don't know…" Sanzo looked into the emerald eyes of his beloved, "But we have each other. I don't think those elders you have for relatives will help much…"
Hakkai chuckled as Sanzo finished his remark. Although Hibiemi and Quietus have replaced Komyo and Nii as the new immortal elders, they were still his relatives, no matter what life or century did they come from. But strangely, he felt an immortal's aura nearby.
"Hakkai…" Sanzo looked at the brunette next to him who scanned the area for where the aura was coming from.
"Come out…" Hakkai asked calmly, his voice loud but calm.
Sanzo realized whose aura was felt, "It's Toki."
"Toki?" Hakkai asked, "I haven't seen him for about six hundred years."
"Let me correct that… It's supposed to be five hundred ten years." Toki appeared behind the two immortals.
"Why five hundred ten?" Sanzo asked.
"Time distortion made by Nii Jen Yi." Toki said, "It happened during the time of the 'sorrow' shikigami. Or in other words, Nii's puppet, Hoshizora." Toki began to explain.
"Ah! So that's why Nii called Hibi-chan 'puppet'! But why?" Hakkai asked.
A soft plush bunny doll was thrown into the scene.
"Hibi-chan?" Hakkai spun to see who threw the doll. The young brunette stood at the gates of the manor with a smile on her face.
"The shikigami was inside the doll. The shikigami amplifies sorrow and creates illusions. During Homura's tournament back when you were a Hoshizora, when your team entered Homura's hall, the shikigami created a time distortion to bring the illusion of Kanan. The time warped and Destiny thought all four of you were dead, so they overlapped time. In your time, it looks as if a century had passed since the death of your former life, but in truth, it was only ten. You were twelve years old when your other life died." Hibiemi explained.
Hakkai threw the doll back, "So that's why my life fell apart when I was twelve." Sorrow was evident in his emerald eyes.
"If so, I guess Sanzo's tragedy happened when he was thirteen." Hibiemi closed her eye.
"But I don't want to linger on the past." Sanzo muttered with impatience, "What are you here for, Toki?"
"Hakkai." Toki looked at the older brunette holding back his sorrow, "I want to know if you still love me."
Hakkai's eyes grew wide at the question. The wind stilled. Sanzo looked at his lover, afraid of the words he might spill forth.
"I… I care for you, Toki… But my heart belongs to Sanzo and nothing will move that…" Hakkai broke softly. Sanzo closed his eyes and hid his relief.
"Aa. I see. Arigatou, Hakkai." Toki nodded as he disappeared.
"Hm?" Hibiemi blinked as the wind began to stir from its slumber, "I don't get what's going on…"
***
Evening finally fell upon the Togenkyo town of Nijiyama. Dinner was a treat-out in celebration of the start of 'eternity'.
"KAMPAI!!" Gojyo cheered as everyone clinked their fancy glasses together.
"Wai! The food here's so rich! How are you able to afford this?" Goku looked hungrily at the banquet before him. The four immortals together with Hakkai's old buddies were dining out in the fanciest restaurant of all Nijiyama. The band played a slow jazzy melody as the six dined.
"My dad was an old customer here." Hibiemi smiled, "I made them believe that I was his great-grand-daughter, so they gave me a great-grand-discount."
"But they did say that we looked exactly like his children." Quietus laughed as he took a sip of his champagne, "The only difference was that Hakkai and I were twins!"
"Shh! You wouldn't like them knowing what our real identities are!" Hakkai nudged his brother.
"Mind you, it wouldn't hurt if I said you were Hakkai the second!" Quietus laughed again, feeling giddy thanks to the champagne.
"Right." Hibiemi sighed as she looked at a dessert cart passing by, "Monsieur! One blueberry cheesecake, please! Ne, Sanzo, would you like to grab something sweet? You know it'll be Hiro-niichan here paying for EVERYTHING."
Sanzo eyed the giddy Quietus unmoved by Hibiemi's remark and sighed, "Okay, I'll have the chocolate mousse then."
"I'm having chocolate mousse, too!!" Goku cheered.
"Carrot cake!!" The twins said in unison.
"I don't care, just give me an Oreo cheesecake." Gojyo ordered.
The party soon ended with Hakkai driving the sleek Chevy, Sanzo sitting shotgun and the other four cramped up in the back. The two immortal siblings looking through their windows while Goku and Gojyo argued drunken.
"I wonder how Toki's doing right now…" Quietus murmured.
"Hm?" Hibiemi's face turned at the sound of her brother's murmur, "What did you say…?"
"Nothing…" The brunette shook his head and went back to looking out the window.
"I suppose you're thinking about a certain someone…" Hakkai said softly to his twin, "I murmured like that when Sanzo was in search of the sutras…"
"It's nothing like that!" The older immortal shook his head and blushed, "I was thinking about that crested ibis in the zoo!"
"Crested ibis?" Gojyo looked at the immortal curiously, "Why don't you just say 'to-'"
"Urusai…" Quietus glared at Gojyo with his dark reaper's eyes.
"You're scaring him…" Hakkai chuckled.
Time passed and soon, by midnight, everyone was asleep and Goku and Gojyo had gone back to their apartment. No one decided to go out to hunt demons. But although all the lights in Hoshizora Manor were off, the blue light in Quietus' room were still on.
The ex-reaper was still awake, bothered by a certain need at the back of his head.
"Where is that damned instrument?" He muttered looking through his closet and drawers. He knew he had hid his old violin somewhere in the drawers of his room. Strangely, although he hadn't played the instrument ever since he found his sister, he felt a certain need to go back to playing the old instrument. Finally, after an hour of looking for the damned thing, he found it inside its sturdy leather case. A violin purchased during the long six hundred years he wandered across the globe looking for his lost family. The violin was slightly used, reminiscent of the days he used to perform to fund money for his travel. He held the instrument to his shoulder and bowed a single elegant note on it. He smiled and teleported to the roof.
"This is where I want to be… A fiddler on the roof…" He sighed, remembering a scene when he was still mortal. His brother, the flute player and artist and his sister, the pianist and composer, "We used to play so many tunes together… We're whole again. Can't we play that old music?" He smiled and thought of something for the upcoming September that year. He began to play a sweet tune remembering his old mortal life. A whole family of musicians who played for their own entertainment. He smiled and heard someone clapping beside him.
"Toki-san?" He blinked, looking at the golden-haired man who applauded him with a face as sarcastic as Sanzo's, "Ahh… What brings you here?"
"Bored." Toki grumbled as he took a seat on the roof, "Would you continue playing? I'm getting tired of all this damned silence. I'm getting tired of this modern world… For once, I'd like to go back to the past."
Quietus hesitated as he brought the instrument back to his shoulder, "Ha-hai…" He began to play a tune that reminded himself of his hidden feelings for Toki. The notes played like a cradle, Toki's eyes becoming heavier with the slow melody of the violin. Suddenly, the brunette immortal stopped playing and tapped the drowsy Toki on the shoulder with the violin's bow.
"You're sleepy, aren't you?"
"No… I'm not!" Toki huffed.
"I can tell when someone feels sleepy. Why don't you take one of the guest rooms tonight? I'm sure no one would mind…" Quietus smiled. Toki looked at the immortal's face with astonishment. The tone of voice and the kind smile were so close to Hakkai. If only his aura wasn't so cold and detached, then that would be the Hakkai he knew. His mind began to play tricks on his sleepy mind.
"Hakkai…" Toki murmured as his hand met Quietus' own, "Why are you so cold?"
"That was what I was going to ask, Toki-san…" Quietus smiled at the strange fondness Toki had for Hakkai, "Why are you so cold? So unlike your brother…" Strangely, his hidden feelings for the drowsy immortal had seemed to melt the coldness of his aura, "Why can't you be warm like the sun you are?"
"I'm alone…" Toki murmured, unaware of whom he was really talking to, "And I just want to be loved…"
"Oh Toki…" The emerald-eyed brunette's eyes glistened with fresh tears as clear as crystal, "If only I could be yours…" he whispered as he held back his tears of sympathy.
***
"Oi, Hakkai…"
"Yes, Sanzo?"
"Do you hear someone on the rooftop?"
"No one, Sanzo… It must be your imagination…" Hakkai chuckled as he squeezed his lover's hand and pecked him on the cheek, "Now, go to sleep… We have eternity before us…"
"And Hakkai…"
"Yes, Sanzo…"
The golden-haired drew Hakkai close to him and kissed his lips.
"Why are you so warm?"
"That's because you're my sun… My golden sun…" Hakkai held Sanzo closer and closed the distance one more time before falling asleep with his head buried in his lover's golden tresses.
Eternity will continue… Never ending like a circle It will never stop So I will forever love you…~Owari
