Standard disclaimer applies.

A/N. Reviews are appreciated, petted and well-fed. You don't need to know the first piece (Vez's Eternal Sunshine), but it is good and explains Sanzo here.

±Each Wish±
by ChaosD

Hakkai's days are brimful with first things and second things, and extra things. Measured. He has someone to set an example for, right?

His hands are busy with new and old – three years are an epoch, bordering on eternity; there are no students before that, there's no past before that - most of the time. Disadvantage of having many children by your side is that, eventually, there are ones who remind; eventually, he tends not to think of what they remind. Other teachers are neutrally polite, and may be a tiny bit scared, they remind him of nothing. His eyes are not the same, so he doesn't seek for contact either.

His thoughts are now, he is sure of it.

But sometimes it's sweet wine, and to drink it alone is no burden. It's a reflexive wish, to have someone to pour it to. They all went along their own paths to the end, taught and learned their lessons, took their tests. Does it mean they have nothing to learn of each other, Hakkai wonders; and a sharp line of mouth, too pale, cuts him raw and heals in the same sentence. He has to drink then, to assure there's still wine in his cup and the bitter taste is an illusion.

In the familiar circle, he chooses to skip on regret. And even when he forgets a thousand times, he recalls in a thousand and first one.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Then it breaks with the chill of autumn threaded through rays of August. Hair, chocolate before like no bleach could do, grows black again. He steps on the same soil with a swarm of kids.

Guiding their orbit away to an assistant (sweet girl when she doesn't look at him, that's why he likes children), he takes a detour for a bag of fruits. It all has changed; it almost doesn't exist anymore, much less in his memory, if it weren't for the street pattern against his soles.

He breaks someone's path and his own, balances them both with a hand, but before he can admonish himself for getting used to a headlong stride, he doesn't need it, really, but his spine is tangled more than his brain sometimes, before that, he looks up. And Sanzo's widened eyes rest on his for the moment they both are in.

He doesn't break the smile, so fragile it trembles with effort, but he's oh so careful, too. His hand on the forearm lies still, and he doesn't question what Sanzo is doing covering it with his own firmly. And why the look on his face takes away three years too many, maybe eight, maybe he can't count.

Wave of noise rushes back overhead. Now, in the course of time, he almost can't believe that the skies are clear and smiles with it.

There are words, and words are returned, and some stay just behind the lips, prickly and bubbly. Perhaps he should take them in a greeting gift, Hakkai thinks. And if he is light-headed because of hunger, maybe they should go and eat somewhere. Win-win.

Sanzo lets him go, although he doesn't. Their direction is set for the time being.

±owari±