Standard disclaimer applies.
No warnings for the following, because there is Sanzo and there is Hakkai, but there isn't any -ai things.± Ultimate Journey ±
by ChaosD
Three years passed by and the time carried Cho Hakkai on. Just as he thought he was getting better, it took no more than a glance, a dream, a momentary atmosphere distortion to skew the world.
He pushed his chair from the table, abandoning the tea and the half-eaten breakfast.
His fingers danced from drawer to drawer of a plain but neatly made desk, searching for a piece of paper - it should be rather worn out by now - amidst files and brochures. He was browsing through a battered notebook when the phone on the desk rang. Hakkai reached out to spare an absent-minded Yes? not ceasing his activity.
The speaker sounded hesitant, as far as the word could be applied, not used to phone conversations.
"Hakkai?.. Am I distracting you?"
The remaining pages slipped from his fingers almost soundlessly, opening to show a yellowish scrap torn out of a newspaper margin. Numbers in a row.
"No, not at all." Hakkai hastily searched for the next remark. By the sound of it, "Why are you calling?" wasn't safe, while "Glad to hear you" lacked sincerity. So he opted for –
"How did you find my phone number?"
- which wasn't the best choice either, but at least served the purpose of satisfying his curiosity; he was sure he hadn't -
"Did you really think disappearing without a word would've been enough?"
Hakkai looked out of the window across a grassy field at a roadmark casting its shadow on the cobblestones.
"Um, no, but it seemed to work until now."
"..I take it you're busy."
"Actually, I've taken a break... yesterday, and -" Hakkai leaned over the desk and pulled a map from under a pile of assorted papers, knocking them over to the floor. Fingers expertly measured it for a couple of moments. "- And I think I could be at Chou An by tomorrow evening."
Pause on the other end felt somewhat stunned, but undoubtedly quickly recovering.
"Fine." Click. Silence.
Hakkai carefully replaced the receiver, sigh and chuckle concurring, called for Hakuryuu and was off to charm the headmistress into agreeing with his sudden urge to leave. After picking up the papers, of course.
The day was long and the night was short like any other day and night before.
WwWwWwWwWwW
Sanzo sighed and inspected the windowframe by a slow tap-tap of water.
Perhaps, boredom figured in his life too much sometimes. He certainly didn't need to make the temple library his business, to break havoc among younger monks over a worldly matter, and sure as hell didn't need Hakkai here.
Well, Goku mentioned he kinda missed the youkai when he met him the previous week. And Gojyo might hit him over the head on meeting. He'd like to see that, Sanzo thought. Gojyo didn't say anything, of course, even though his general attitude towards Hakkai's tour de force was clear; he didn't try to search for him either, as far as Sanzo knew. It was Goku who had been disappointedly going "But I want good times, too, Sanzo! -"
A cigarette pack soaked in a small pool of rain on the windowsill, but the ground steamed already.
His name was fireworks from Goku's mouth. Fascinating to watch how it shoots across the sky, glittery with colours, or illuminates clouds in the distance by the glow of unseen fire.
With Gojyo.. he would never tell it anyone, but he preferred bouzu. Sanzo didn't like his name when it was like a stream of tar from Gojyo's lips, nor when it was splitting the air akin to kappa's own weapon, meaning danger. Bouzu meant the world was breathing, kicking and nowhere near its end.
It was when he met Hakkai he suddenly realized his name had a certain lovely ring to it. Although he couldn't tell whether he had acknowledged it for the first time in his life, or it had floated from under seas of his memory like a piece of bizarre algae washed ashore by a storm.
"Good evening, Sanzo."
He was standing on the other side of the window and blinking as water dripped from his hair into the eyes.
"M-mm. Good weather today."
Hakkai smiled, a tad reproachfully.
"Um. I have spare clothes. May I change?"
Sanzo flickered the ash off his cigarette and stepped back from the window.
With a snickerish gleam in his eye, Hakkai grabbed the windowsill to pull himself over.
"Go on. They know now's not the time to bug me."
Sanzo motioned him to drop off the bag and returned to his observing post, occupied by Hakkuryu now. Glancing at the wet footprints, he wondered how with this climb, agile and smilingly awkward at the same time, Hakkai returned into the rightful place in the cosmos like he hadn't left it.
"So, if you would be so kind as to enlighten me on the matter that brought me here?" came a muffled inquire.
He tried to silently reclaim his finger from the teeth of one happy dragon. "Books."
WwWwWwWwWwW
Silence and a special kind of dry loneliness of bookshops and libraries set Hakkai drowning in a sweetish state of meditation. So when Sanzo told him that the temple had received a gift consisting of few hundreds of scrolls and bound texts which required sorting out (It's not that I care or anything, he said, looking straight through his papers), he was quite mindlessly pleased.
Especially if he would be able to have a couple to himself.
It might have been why he had picked out the book, an action he would've certainly liked to think over at any other time. He ran his fingers over the thick brownish cover, gave a translucent smile, and put it on top of the other trophies of his hunt.
For all the indifference, Sanzo had been methodically smoking the library through and out for the last hour, browsing random books and chatting idly. He opened the volume.
Sanzo positively hated things boredom could do to his life.
He stared. And breathed evenly. And didn't choke. And turned a page with steady fingers. Names over names stared back at him. He calmly put the book down.
"Hakkai. What is that?"
"..Ah."
"So you know."
Hakkai bit his lip.
"It seems to be a folklore story, retold by a writer long ago. I began to read it as a child." He paused. "Later, I often thought I had dreamed it up."
The youkai fell silent, caught by that incredible dumbfolded look on Sanzo's face which Gojyo, pretty good with imitations, could never reproduce.
Sanzo, in turn, was more surprised with the way You could have told me tried to wiggle its way into the conversation. Then he tried again.
"Began to read?"
Hakkai picked up the book and weighted it in his hand, then retrieved a cigarette pack and a lighter Sanzo left on the table.
"You know how those small libraries are? They had the first volume, but not the following."
He gave the pack to the monk and sat beside him.
"Perhaps, I've always wanted, -" The smile wasn't quite focused on this reality, but bright, "- to know how it ends."
Sanzo lighted a cigarette off the smoldering cover, then shared a speculative look with the ceiling. The man and his ideas.
"We haven't. Hang around some more."
±owari±