Adult-FanFiction.org : Anime

Hakkai's Secret	By : TsuzukiM Category: Gensomaden Saiyuki > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 3026 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Saiyuki, know the author, or make and money off this story. I do not own any of the characters except the ones I create.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
Chapter 12 Empty

People at the bar kept asking Gojyo what had happened to his face.

Gojyo smiled and said different things that were generally in the vein of “pissed off lover.” It had gotten a few laughs, but most people just took his explanation at face value.

Gojyo didn’t know why Hakkai had taken his lighter until he got home. By that time Hakkai had at least an eighteen-hour head start. He had no idea where the guy could have gone. As far as he knew Hakkai had ties to nobody, anywhere. The chances of him going to Sanzo were virtually nil. From the way Hakkai had looked, Sanzo had given him a good dose of what Gojyo had given him too. His voice had been hoarse. His face was going to be black and blue and he couldn’t heal himself the way he did others.

But Hakkai had taken worse. Gojyo knew that.

It was a test, that last moment I saw him. It was a test and I failed it. It was a test and I didn’t know it. The lighter was a test. The “I love you,” was a test. I failed it.

The image of Hakkai, standing sadly on that porch, palming his lighter, kept flooding Gojyo’s mind.

He took my lighter because he wanted me to come back and stop him from leaving. He told me he loved me to see if I would say it back. He asked me if I had meant what I had said, and I couldn’t deny that I did. I never said I was sorry for how badly I reacted.

They were all things Gojyo might never have the opportunity to take back. He had driven his green-eyed beauty away. His last sight of Hakkai had been through anger.

Okay, so I beat up on a pregnant person, how low does that bring me?

“He sure as hell got me back, though,” Gojyo said aloud. Even the alcohol didn’t drown out the ache in is face.

The apartment felt like a tomb. Hakuryuu wasn’t there to be a constant source of noise. Nothing had been cooked, or cleaned, except the closet.

The packs were gone. Some of Hakkai’s clothing was gone. The only thing that he took that could be a souvenir was Gojyo’s lighter. The things people collect over a lifetime had been left behind.

Hakkai had packed light. He could travel fast. He could have been hundreds of miles away already. He’d left behind most of his things. When Hakkai moved on, he meant it.

Gojyo couldn’t look at anything that belonged to Hakkai. He’d fought with Hakkai in the past-- badly, but in the end Hakkai had stayed.

Gojyo sat at the kitchen table and smoked his cigarettes. He had planned on going straight for the shower, but the ambition had left him for the moment. He’d left Hakkai once before, to go after Kami-sama. Or, you could look the other way. They had left him. Still, he was the one that disappeared at night from their hotel. Hakkai had come back for him then. Then again, Hakkai would have gone with him in the first place if it hadn’t been for that goddamned priest.

Even then, even for Gojyo, Hakkai had never gone against the priest.

It used to piss Gojyo off to no end sometimes. He lived with the man, took care of him, and even followed him on that journey but Hakkai always put the priest first. Not that Gojyo didn’t understand why. He had found himself following the monk too. Somewhere along the way, he’d become a follower without making the conscious decision to. He had realized it that day he met his brother.

He still followed the monk. Sanzo just had that kind of power and it wasn’t the title. He would have captured Hakkai had he been a peasant, and Goku would have still followed Sanzo to his own grave.

The thing that was so baffling, out of the whole thing was that Hakkai kept saying “I did it for you.” Just thinking about it brought back the anger.

What the fuck does that mean?

It had been that statement that had angered him the most.

First he shocks me with this out of the blue news.

Then, he breaks my nose.

Then, he leaves.

“I HAVE SO MANY FUCKING QUESTIONS YOU BASTARD!” Gojyo screamed at the empty apartment.

Eventually, Gojyo decided he was going to buy dinner at the market. He unearthed Hakkai’s books and leafed through the titles. He had to cough and wince at a few of them. “Only you would go off on your own in your condition, Hakkai,” Gojyo said. It still just didn’t seem right. Gojyo figured he might as well return the books and tell the library Hakkai would not be back.

He knew about the guy that had been harassing Hakkai. He knew why he harassed Hakkai. Hakkai had ripped him a good one at cards over a year ago and the man had always thought he’d been cheated.

The man had lost his entire savings to Hakkai, which didn’t amount to too much really. However, when he’d gone home, his wife had thrown him out and things had gone downhill for him from there.

Gojyo had heard about it all and just chalked it up as yet another little bit of karma Hakkai was going to catch sooner or later. Gojyo had a few detractors out there himself. He thought it was kind of funny at first, seeing how red-faced Hakkai would get when the man insulted him.

He never thought it would escalate to this:

“…Yeah, they found his body all mangled up in the woods outside of town…” he heard a woman saying.

“Really?” said a second woman, “The one from the cart that got trashed?”

Gojyo’s ears pricked.

“They think demons did it. He was a mess. His arms were broken, even his fingers were all snapped…”

“Oh, gross!”

Gojyo got a sinking feeling. Hakkai had a thing for snapping fingers.

Hakkai, what have you done now?

He looked back over the books in his hand. This was going to be one screwed up kid! Dammit, Hakkai needed him, he knew Hakkai needed him yet he was gone. Not only that, it looked like he was burning bridges as he went. If he’d killed that man, he wasn’t coming back.

This wasn’t like the time during the minus wave. Youkai were no longer murdering people all over Shangri-la. A murder didn’t go uninvestigated, and youkai were now as likely to punish human killers, as humans were. Youkai weren’t as nice about it. If they got wind that Hakkai’s disappearance, and the incident at the market were linked they may even hunt him. Bad publicity for youkai was frowned on these days.

Hakkai had been hunted before.

That alone made Gojyo stop and think about what went on in Hakkai’s head again. He’d always wondered why Hakkai could seem so cool on the surface, but still harbor an insanity that could surface in both subtle and egregious ways. Outwardly he always made sense. He always said the logical thing, analyzed the situation, spoke softly and reasonably, yet he could also do something like mangling a man who had harassed him. He had killed two whole tribes of demons, woman and children included. Hakkai tended to erupt.

It was so easy to forget Hakkai was a murderer— no, a mass murderer. He didn’t think Hakkai realized how much he got away with because he looked nothing like what he really was. Gojyo had killed, but he’d never done it outside combat or self defense. He’d never murdered someone for personal reasons. He didn’t lose it like Hakkai did. It always struck Gojyo as ironic how Hakkai was in reality the more impulsive one, yet people generally perceived them differently.

I hit him twice. Isn’t that losing it?

Hakkai needed him. He was out there alone, he was in trouble and he had run from Gojyo. Hakkai did need him, didn’t he?

Didn’t he?

Gojyo went to visit the library.

“Sanzo, get up already!”

“Leave me the fuck alone, monkey.”

“SAAAAN-ZOOOOOOOOOO!” Goku planted himself on all fours over Sanzo’s body and bounced the bed as hard as he could to rattle the monk.

Sanzo drew the blanket over his head. “You wanna die?”

“Anything's better than sitting here watching you be depressed.”

“GOKU! Go the fuck away.”

“I have nothing to do!”

“Go find something.”

“What?”

“ANYTHING! For the love of god, just leave me alone.”

Goku plunked to the edge of the mattress and watched Sanzo through the blanket. “Man, I’ve never seen you stay this way when it wasn’t raining. Get over it already!”

“What the fuck do you know, monkey.”

“C’mon, this is all about Hakkai right? Just call the guy and make up.”

The fan smashed Goku across the back of the head hard enough to leave a welt.

“Goddammit Sanzo! When are you ever going to stop hitting me with those?”

“When you stop being a monkey,” he groaned. He was hung over.

Goku had only seen Sanzo in one of three states since they got back to Chang’an.

1.      Stumbling fall down drunk

2.      Passed out

3.      Hung over

At the moment he was hung over and Goku figured that was probably the best of the states to try to get through to him in. It was also when he sent Goku out for more booze. It had its benefits. Sanzo generally bribed him with the use of the card, and Goku was sure the three aspects were going to cry when they got Sanzo’s next bill. Goku had been able to eat all kinds of stuff.

Still, food notwithstanding, Goku was starting to miss the usual Sanzo, more or less. He knew Sanzo had to break out of it and make up with Hakkai soon.

Goku leaned over Sanzo and pulled the blanket down off of his head. Violet eyes turned up at him. Goku dropped a kiss onto the side of Sanzo’s neck. Sanzo turned his head up and Goku could plant one on his mouth. He pushed his tongue into Sanzo’s mouth and the priest opened for him.

Goku was still getting good at this. He hadn’t had as much practise as Sanzo’s more experienced lovers, but at least Sanzo had stopped complaining that he was too sloppy.

“You act like a monkey but you kiss like a cow,” he used to say.

Once inside, Goku had second thoughts. He pulled away just as Sanzo was beginning to get into it. Goku realized he must have puked not too long ago.

“What?” the priest said.

Goku ran his tongue along his lips. “You haven’t brushed your teeth in a while, have you?”

Goku made a small sound when he caught the look the monk was giving him. He pulled away before Sanzo could bite.

“Look, you’ve been in here for, like a week. Just go make up with Hakkai already.”

“You realize at this point Hakkai is your competition?”

Goku laughed, “Like I’m worried about him.”

“Awful confident, Goku.”

“Really, though, why are you so pissed?”

Sanzo glared at Goku, “Have you stopped to think about any of this? This whole thing is freakish.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve been freaks all along so I guess this isn’t that surprising.”

Sanzo stared at Goku, “Hasn’t anybody ever told you about the birds and the bees?”

Goku laughed, “Sanzo, I’m not a little kid!”

“You can say that again.”

“I’m not a little kid!”

“Ha ha- move on.”

“What I mean is, Hakkai isn’t exactly like anybody else.”

“I see your point— kind of. Goku, unless this is some kind of clone, who do you think the father is?” Sanzo hoped it was a clone.

Goku pondered, “Well, one of ours I suppose!”

Sanzo’s head snapped around. “Ours? Goku, you didn’t? He didn’t?—??”

“Huh? Oh! No! No no!”

Sanzo wiped at his brow and dropped his head back to the pillow. “You had me going for a minute. Don’t you care who’s it is?”

“But we all know who’s it is— it’s Hakkai’s! Actually, Hakkai told me it was a boy.”

Sanzo groaned and covered his head again. “I really didn’t need to know that.”

“So are you done being depressed yet?”

“I think so. At least I’m done drinking for now.”

“Oh good, cause you’re no fun like this.”

“I’m no fun anyway.”

“Yes you are! You’re always fun, Sanzo!”

“I am?”

“Yeah, like when you get all pissy at the other monks, or you give someone a hard time at the ramen stand. Or how about the other day when the little kid monk tried to tell you you couldn’t smoke?”

Sanzo ran his hand up the back of Goku’s neck. Goku giggled and smiled. “See, I knew I could get you out of it! Now, let's go see Hakkai!”

“Don’t push your luck. I meant it when I said I never wanted to see him again.”

Goku looked troubled. “But Hakkai’s our best friend.”

“Not any more.”

“Ah, C’mon Sanzo! You miss him.”

“How can I miss someone I have only seen twice in six months?”

“This is different and you know it.”

Sanzo was temporarily defeated. “Yeah, it’s different.”

He couldn’t see the demon again. No matter how he wanted to, even if he hadn’t done it on purpose, Sanzo couldn’t go near him. Notwithstanding fact that nobody had any reason to suspect something like this was even possible, maybe even Hakkai, Hakkai had hidden it from him. He obviously intended on going through with this insanity to the end.

What was the most galling was that Sanzo deeply suspected, and even believed that Hakkai had done it all on purpose. It had to have been on that night. It just made too much sense; it clicked. The demon had been throwing off major pheromones that had been affecting Sanzo for days after. Any animal that did that was advertising fertility. He probably hadn’t known what he was doing.

Except that Chang’an was an awful long way to come if you don’t know what you're doing, and there is a willing hanyou down the block.

Did Hakkai come all the way to Chang’an because that stupid sterile hanyou couldn’t do the job?

It had something to do with those limiters being off.

I have lost one of the few friends I have.

Sanzo squeezed his eyes shut against the thought. It stung him too deeply. Every time he addressed the loss, a pang ran through his body that made him want to scream. He’d been either thinking about everything over and over or he was extinguishing the thoughts with liquor. The liquor was beginning to damage his body now; he had to slow down.

He was supposed to be above shit like this. Sanzo didn’t advocate suffering over petty attachments. Sanzo simply didn’t care about anyone, even his demons. Cutting Hakkai off should not hurt him.

He was my friend.

-PANG-

As it was, he couldn’t get the strength to get out of bed.

“Goku,” Sanzo said.

“Yes?”

“Help me up.”

Goku pulled him up to sitting, and then to standing. Sanzo wobbled a little on his feet before he got a handle on his spinning head.

“Goku, I need cigarettes.”

Goku nodded. “Yeah, is that news?”

“Just get them for me, I’ll be showered by the time you get back.”

“Good, cause you stink.”

Sanzo gritted his teeth. It was probably true— binge drinking didn’t do much for one's hygiene. He also knew Goku had a very sensitive nose. It was probably a curse.

Hakkai didn’t know how much time he had before Gojyo got back. He packed as few things as possible as quickly as possible and drove. He drove straight through the night and into the next day. After napping in the back of Hakuryuu in the afternoon sun, he resumed his journey. It was cold going, and Hakkai could barely maintain his body temperature with his heaviest clothing on. Hakuryuu could only take so much cold weather as a vehicle.

About the time Gojyo was coming home to an empty house, Hakkai was standing at a crossroads.

“Four different directions, Hakuryuu? No set destination! If it points back the way we came, should we go back?”

“Kyuu Kyuu!” the dragon on his shoulder chirped.

“I didn’t think so either.”

Hakkai had a tall staff with him. It was one of the ones some monks carry. Clipped to his belt he had his dagger. It thrummed softly once in a while. He’d gotten used to it doing that and often he didn’t notice it any more. It was like the other constant presence that was with him. Hakkai was not alone. He suspected that somehow, the dagger had channeled Kanan. With it, she was somehow with him, closer to him. He could feel her in it.

Hakkai stood at the center of the crossroads and closed his eyes. He spun around, taking care to not leave the center spot. He planted the staff and held it as upright as he could and stepped away from it quickly.

Once he’d skipped as far as he dared with his eyes closed he opened his eyes to watch it slap against the crushed stone road. Hakuryuu spat and complained, digging in to Hakkai to keep his balance. Hakkai looked in the direction the staff was pointed in. He smiled. Freedom was a good thing.

“There we have it, Hakuryuu! Exciting isn’t it?”

The dragon purred when Hakkai scratched the serpentine neck. Little red eyes— eyes that reminded him of the color of his lover, winked at him. Hakkai stretched and began walking down the road, leaving the staff in the dirt. Although it was large, his pack weighed lightly on him. The sun was shining. It was cold but beautiful. Hakkai had the world stretched out before him with infinite possibilities.

There was nothing to holding him back.
- 11
- 12
- 13
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Hakkai's Secret