Lessons Learned

Author’s Note: This fic is a sequel to JessieDark’s “Kitchen Plans,” which in turn followed Kansouame’s “Ice Cream.” (both at http://community.livejournal.com/saiyukiyaoific/ ) This is my first Gojyo/Hakkai fic, and is dedicated to Kansouame and JD, with much affection.

Lessons Learned

“Oh my goodness, Gojyo, you don’t think we can keep doing this, do you?” Hakkai’s face was almost grim as he sat up, clearly aggravated and struggling with his clothes.

“Gojyo, would you please help me, you have me completely tied up here with my own clothing.”

In his haste to sample the tapioca he had spilled below Hakkai’s waist, and other things, Gojyo had made rather a hash of pulling down his long camp shorts and white cotton briefs, and had managed to turn the whole affair into a rather effective bondage knot around the disgruntled healer’s feet and ankles, the sticky soles of his new walking sandals providing the final glue for the whole affair.

Hakuryuu sensed his master’s distress as Hakkai struggled, and swooped from his perch on top of the refrigerator, flapping around Gojyo’s head and making concerned “kyu’s.” The small dragon hadn’t been too happy about the red-haired man pulling his Master to the floor and biting him in that way, and now he knew something was wrong.

“The fuck, Hakkai! Call off the flying rat!” His favorite moment of post-coital smug contentment ruined, and his happy visions of endless creative sexual romps with his roommate and best friend shattered, Gojyo’s mood went from bliss to bleak in three seconds. “How did this go so wrong so fast?” he puzzled to himself. “Two minutes ago I had him writhing under me and begging for more!”

Hakkai cooed something incomprehensible to Hakuryuu and he returned to his perch, settling in with a happy sigh that produced a tiny puff of white smoke. Muttering under his breath, Gojyo freed Hakkai from the tangle of clothing and footwear binding his lower body, and the healer immediately sprang to his feet, quickly pulling his clothes back in place, and doing everything short of grooming himself like a cat to put himself back to rights and make sure there was nothing remaining to let on to any observer that anything had just happened between them.

Gojyo watched Hakkai, from where he still sat with his long legs sprawled out on the cold floor, feeling stunned, and more hurt and, well… pissed, with every move the green-eyed man made. “What the fuck? I mean it’s not like I raped him,” he thought, “he didn’t exactly beat me off …er… I mean, struggle to make me stop!” He shook his head slightly, as if trying to settle out the muddled solution of thoughts and emotions floating around in there, “I mean ferchrissake, he attacked me the first time! He fucking started this thing, not me! I was just, well… returning the favor… yeah, that’s it.” He stood indignantly and dusted himself off, even though he knew damn well there was not a mote of dust to be found on Hakkai’s immaculately maintained linoleum.

“Look, ‘Kai…” he started, unable to completely train the rising irritation out of his voice. Shit on toast, he hated this.

Hakkai turned to face him from where he had been nervously puttering in the sink, a small but obviously strained smile on his face.“Gojyo, there’s no need to discuss this further. We each have shown poor judgement in these little… scenarios. I think if we want to be able to continue to live together, we are going to have to just put this behind us and make every effort to get on with our normal lives as friends and roommates, ne?”

Gojyo could have sworn there was a trace of sadness around the dark emerald eyes as Hakkai forced his mouth into his usual polite smile before turning back to the sink.

“It’s really for the best, Gojyo, trust me. My… relationships… in the past haven’t turned out that well.”

Gojyo scrubbed his face with his hand and ran his fingers once through his disheveled crimson mop, then scrunched his face up in a grimace of frustration.

“Jeez, Hakkai, I didn’t ask you to fucking marry me, but I thought we could… well, maybe have some fun once in a while. You keep your shit wired so tight, you’ve been through so much… you could use a little fun, y’know? “

“Ahaha, yes, and that is your area of expertise, isn’t it, ‘fun’?” Hakkai shot back quickly, sarcasm coating his voice like a thin brittle layer of dark chocolate.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” His pride already wounded by Hakkai’s abrupt change in attitude, Gojyo assumed the worst possible implications of his friend’s quip, envisioning his days on the streets in his youth, and worse, his years with his mother and her bizarre sexuality, which at that point he had not fully revealed to his roommate, only bits and pieces.

“You know what, Hakkai,” he retorted, hoping that he could come up with something scathing enough to vent the hurt and anger he felt building up inside him, “you can keep your precious stick up your ass – I won’t be bothering it. There are plenty of other people who are HAPPY to have Mrs. Gojyo’s red-haired boy in their bed – men AND women. So FUCK…” he said dramatically as he grabbed his leather jacket and opened the door, “…YOU!” he said and slammed the door behind him.

Later that night, or more accurately, early the next morning, Gojyo was walking home through the deserted streets, alone, and a little the worse for the wear. He had hit his full circuit of the bars and pubs in town, consumed more than his usual amount of alcohol, lost in every card game he had played, and been unable to summon the least bit of interest in any of the individuals that expressed interest in him, regardless of their gender, beauty, or persuasive abilities. He just couldn’t stop thinking about certain eyes that reminded him of the color of the new leaves on trees in the Spring, and he kept finding himself picturing long elegant fingers covered with a suspicious looking viscous creamy white substance, and they were disappearing into a certain prim mouth that he now couldn’t stop thinking about as luscious.

By the end of the evening, the memories of the good parts of what had happened between him and Hakkai were tormenting him so that he was walking around half-hard most of the time. He thought about taking a shower and taking matters in hand in the privacy of the hot steamy bathroom when he got home, but he was just too fucking tired, and frankly, he didn’t think he could muster up the enthusiasm for even that. He and Hakkai had never had a fight before, and he really felt disoriented without his friend there as a center to his life, whether they were bed partners or not. As he thought back on their fight, the whole thing seemed kind of dumb, and he didn’t remember doing anything stupid enough to have pissed ‘Kai off so badly. But he knew he must have done something, he almost always did, sooner or later.

He knew then and there that in the morning he had to set things to rights, and resolved to apologize to his friend, and swear he would never touch him again … in that way. He knew Hakkai was a forgiving sort, and felt fairly confident that he could wheedle and cajole his way back into his good graces – saving their friendship was far more important than who was right or wrong in a dumb fight, or even than a good blowjob.

Thoughts of stupid fights, and apologies, and angry uptight roommates with overprotective flying rats were more than enough to take the wind out of his sails where his dick was concerned, which was kind of a relief as he approached the cabin. As he entered and smelled the normal barrage of scents he associated with his friend, combined with the lingering scent of Hakkai’s sex that the converted youkai hadn’t been able to cover up with his showers and cleaning and sandalwood candles, he cursed his treacherous organ under his breath as he instantly started to get a hard-on again.

Ignoring it as best he could, he was surprised to see Hakkai stretched out on the couch complete with sheets, pillow, and blanket – obviously intending to stay there for the night, and Hakuryuu curled-up behind his legs. Both of them were either sound asleep or doing a damn good imitation. “Well that sends a pretty clear message, doesn’t it?” he thought to himself.

Since the first rainy night he had dragged Hakkai’s nearly-dismembered carcass back to the cabin, they had managed to share the one bed in a platonic manner, without it being a problem. Apparently Hakkai now felt unable to do that any longer, and Gojyo felt a small painful constriction in his chest at the thought. He would miss the closeness of waking up with another warm body in the bed, the late night talks when one or the other of them couldn’t sleep, and the sheer animal security of other needing other, something he had been lacking since his short and brutal childhood, but hadn’t realized he had lacked until Hakkai.

Saddened, but accepting that if those were Hakkai’s terms he would have to deal with them, Gojyo quietly stripped off his clothes and crawled between the cold sheets. It took him longer than usual to get to sleep, despite the excess of alcohol in his system, but eventually he managed to fall asleep. The last thing he saw when he glanced over at the couch was a small tousled white head and two beady red eyes watching him carefully. He could have sworn there was a look of triumph on the small dragon’s face.

The next thing Gojyo was aware of before he even opened his eyes was Hakkai’s scent, very close, very strong, but somehow different. He was muzzy from deep sleep and figured he was dreaming and tried to follow the scent back into a dream, thinking it might be something appealing and erotic, but he was disappointed when that didn’t work. Next he became aware of a weight pressing against him here and there along the full length of his body, apparently skin on skin.” Hmm that’s interesting,” he thought, “maybe I am dreaming. I would think Hakkai decided to sleep in the bed again, but he never sleeps in the buff. “

Because it was so appealing, he opted for the dream idea anyway, and just relaxed and went with it, not opening his eyes. The Hakkai-youkai-scent got stronger but there was another added element now… “Woo-hoo!” he thought, “ I know that smell, Hakkai is getting turned on - this is really getting good.” Just as he determined what the added scent was, he felt the distinct poke of an erect cock jutting into his hip - there was no mistaking it, hot and hard. He thought to himself that it really was shaping up to be a great dream, even if it wasn’t going to make his apologizing and his no-touchy resolve any easier.

As soon as the cock touched his hip, Gojyo started to feel these tickling feelings running across his skin in distinct lines, like little tiny ripples of electric current. It was like they would come in through where the cock touched him and spread through his body from there – not unpleasant, not bad at all, kind of nice actually, just … strange. “Ok, this is not my garden variety wet dream,” he thought. “I wonder where this one came from.”

Then the tiny ripples began to run in twos and threes down his arms and legs. As soon as the rivulets of sensation reached the tips of his toes and fingers, he felt his feet and hands being jerked hard by some unseen force, as if he was a puppet being pulled by invisible strings, and he was suddenly splayed out on the bed. This sensation was dramatic enough to cause him to open his eyes, and when he did he nearly had a heart attack – he was grateful he was a hanyou, gifted with a strong constitution – a lesser man might genuinely have died of shock. He realized it was actually dawn from the light creeping in around the cabin’s blinds, he was quite awake, and nothing he had been experiencing had been part of a dream.

Looming over him, grinning a wicked grin that did nothing to conceal his now quite lengthy and pointed canine teeth, was an indeed real, naked, and considerably changed Hakkai. Gojyo noticed immediately that his friend’s ears were longer and pointier as well, and were, in fact, sporting one less small silver limiter clip than he usually wore, and his eyes went wide with surprise, and no small amount of fear. He immediately remembered that he hadn’t even had a chance to make his apologies yet, and recalled with some anxiety what his pithy parting shot at Hakkai the day before had been. As he considered his current position his mouth went dry and his face blanched.

“Good morning, Gojyo,” Hakkai purred, even his voice altered by his change, now throatier and duskier in tone, and completely devoid of his usual automatic politeness. He saw Gojyo’s eyes dart to his limiters again. “Don’t worry, I won’t take the other two off. I’m not THAT insane.”

Something about the way he said “that insane,” caused Gojyo’s stomach to do flip-flops, and it was then he noticed that the little ripples he had been feeling were tiny vines, beautiful in their own way, emanating from Hakkai. He looked at Hakkai - the vines were all over him, actually, in random graceful swirling patterns all over his body, everywhere but his scar, they seemed to bypass that. He noticed Hakkai also had longer fingers now with some fairly scary looking claws, his hair had lengthened down to his shoulders, and his emerald eyes now had slits for pupils, and an intensity and glitter to them that made Gojyo want to both run and fall down into them at the same time. Gods, Gojyo thought as he looked at Hakkai, “if this is with just one limiter off, I hope to hell I never have to deal with him down all three, or at least if I do, I fuckin’ hope he’s not pissed at me at the time.. Holy shit!”

The vines actually tickled a bit, and it was only when Gojyo went to scratch where one made a spot on his belly itch a little that he realized what Hakkai had done. The youkai had somehow used the vines to stake him out to the rails of the bed, head and foot, arms and legs wide open. He tested the bonds - they didn’t feel tight until he started to try to slip them, and then they would instantly snap to, not painfully so, but more than tight enough to prevent any hope of escape. Apparently Hakkai had some sort of instantaneous control over them, it would have been fascinating if it hadn’t been quite so threatening at the moment.

“Ok, this is very cute, Hakkai, I’m impressed with what you can do with your foliage. It’s very nice. Now let me out.”

“I’m afraid not, Gojyo. It’s not going to be that easy. You see, you think you want to be involved with me, to continue to have relations with me, don’t you?” Hakkai was moving around the bed now, fast and lithe, looking at Gojyo from all angles, considering him as he spoke, kneeling by him, crouching over him, and it began to make Gojyo feel like he was the large piece of meat on the butcher block, and the chef was considering how best to cut it into small servable pieces.

“Uhmm, no, actually, ‘Kai, I was going to talk to you about that this morning, really.” Gojyo tried to sound as natural as he could while Hakkai kept looking at him with that predatory gleam in his eye, and that truly scary grin on his face, “I wanted to apologize about all that stuff, really – just a huge misunderstanding. Doesn’t have to ever happen again, never ever. And I was a jerk, what I said to you. Uhm .. Sorry. Really.” He coughed and hoped he had come across as sincere, and thought of how many people he would kill to have just one drag off of a cigarette right now, to kill the pounding in his head.

“Oh?… You’re ‘sorry’ are you?” the demon Hakkai laughed in a gravelly laugh, drawing a claw down Gojyo’s chest, leaving a long raised weal but not breaking the skin. “Gojyo, really now, do you think that’s enough … just saying ‘Uhm… Sorry’ like that? After everything you have put me through?” He narrowed his eyes at Gojyo, and suddenly straddled his hips, the vine from his erect own cock now twining around Gojyo’s dick.

Gojyo gasped at the contact. Just having Hakkai straddling him looking like this was enough to make him get hard, once he could get past the whole fearing for his life thing. Being Gojyo, of course, that edge was enough of a kink to make him get harder faster once Hakkai let the cat out of the bag by climbing on. When he felt the tickly little tendrils of the vine twirling around his and Hakkai’s hard cocks, tying them up next to each other, and he looked at this Hakkai-but-not-Hakkai as he hovered over him, leering and teasing at him with those damn claws… ye gods, it was almost enough to make him come right then and there.

Deciding to go for broke, Gojyo grinned up at the demon with his best seductive look. “Nope, I guess you’ll just have to teach me my lesson, ‘Headmaster-sama.’” He knew it was going to push some kind of buttons for Hakkai, either very good or very bad, but he figured, worst-case scenario, there were much worse ways to die than this.

The vines untwined around his dick and Hakkai shifted forward to hover over his face, gazing at him with the slit-pupiled emeralds dark and almost out of focus with lust. “Yes, I will, won’t I? And I am.” Hakkai ran his pointed tongue around Gojyo’s dry lips and slid it between them, teasing and taunting, encouraging the hanyou to surrender to him, and claiming his mouth and exploring it ruthlessly when he did. As they kissed he took full advantage of Gojyo’s bound state, running his claws all over his skin, sometimes lightly, just a whispering touch, sometimes slow dragging scratches that made Gojyo shudder and left long red welts.

He teased Gojyo’s arousal, letting vines cross from his fingertips around the redhead’s cock and balls, letting them snake across the tender skin of his perineum around to Gojyo’s ass. There was a vine from each of Hakkai’s fingertips, trailing off of each pearlescent claw, and Gojyo watched in fascination as Hakkai’s hand disappeared between his legs, his heart racing with no small amount of fear at the thought of what the youkai could do to him. He felt a tickle at his ass when the first vine entered him, and his eyes widened when he felt the heat coming from the first tendril inside him – he knew then that Hakkai was sending chi through the vines, and the gods only knew what he could do to his insides if he wanted to hurt him like that. Hakkai just kept flashing that damned enigmatic evil grin, the same one he had from the beginning, and Gojyo couldn’t tell if he was to be the answer to Hakkai’s wildest erotic dreams, or the dream item on his dinner menu.

A second tendril circled around his balls, caressing and teasing, and then entered his ass, adding its heat, and the two vines advanced and retracted inside him together, assuming a slow rhythm now that made Gojyo gasp, especially as the feathery hot leaves brushed by his prostate, curling hard against it knowingly. A third and forth vine followed, and then the fifth, and as the rhythm speeded up they began stretching Gojyo, gently and steadily, and the effect was mesmerizing to him. The heat he felt inside sent shivers straight to his cock, and it bobbed on his belly, aching and glistening with drops of pre-cum. He looked at it wistfully, wishing he could at least give it a few comforting strokes.

“Poor, poor kappa, can’t play with his favorite toy,” Hakkai intoned in a sarcastic purr.

Gojyo bit back a complaint and decided he would probably fare better playing along. He dropped his voice to a seductive drawl, and looked at his dick admiringly, “I know, but it’s such a pretty toy, wouldn’t you like to play with it?” His words were interrupted by a groan he couldn’t suppress as the vines caressed his sweet spot particularly well, and he took a quick deep breath and continued, “it’s SO lonely without someone to play with it… I would, but you have me,” he grinned at Hakkai, ”rather tied up at the moment.”

“Yes,” Hakkai replied, his fangs gleaming in his eerie smile, “I do, don’t I? But you must be taught a lesson, remember?” He took one last deep, almost savage kiss from Gojyo before he removed his hand and the vines from between Gojyo’s legs. Gojyo wanted to protest the loss of the hot stretching tendrils, but reminded himself again that he was not the one driving on this strange little trip, and resolutely clamped his mouth shut.

Hakkai shifted again to kneel between Gojyo’s knees, locking his dark-green saurian eyes with the crimson ones that were studying him intensely. “The lesson is: if you want to play with fire my friend, you have to be ready and willing to get burned. I am a demon, Gojyo,” he said as he loosed one of the redhead’s legs from it’s binding to the footboard and casually slung Gojyo’s long leg over his shoulder like it was as light as a doll’s leg.
“And even though I wear limiters, I am still a demon, and I will always be a demon, Gojyo.” With that he loosed the kappa’s other leg and snugged it up close to his hip, allowing him to move in closer to Gojyo’s crotch, pressing his own groin against him, the head of his cock now tight against Gojyo’s ass.

Quickly dropping the obligatory dollop of lube on his length, his voice was low and unequivocal, “this is me, Gojyo, is this what you want? Tell me now.”

His green eyes blazed into Gojyo’s, but even in their dark intensity and the pure carnality inherent in them, Gojyo could see a glimpse of the regular Hakkai, his friend Hakkai, both in the eyes and hidden deep in the question. He could sense that there was somewhere a merging of the two, and he knew at that moment somehow that even if all three limiters were gone, he could still trust his friend, that Hakkai would never really hurt him, that the… love… or whatever it was between them transcended the changes that happened when he removed the tiny silver clips.

Realizing this removed the last trepidation he had and he was so ready to get on with things he almost forgot that Hakkai had posed a question to him, he was simply looking at him, thinking how beautiful he was in this form, admiring the changes in his face, and the way the vines moved and shifted over his pale skin.

“Well, Gojyo?” There was impatience now in his voice, but also, if one listened carefully, a faint trace of fear of rejection was discernible as well.

Gojyo snapped out of his moment of reverie as if slapped, blushing from his nipples to his hairline to have lost his concentration – him of all people – at such a moment!

“Gods, yes ‘Kai, …please… fuck the hell out of me. Go to town.”

Hakkai laughed, a deep, dark, rich sound bubbling up from his chest, as he slowly sank his cock into Gojyo. The combination of hearing that very un-Hakkai-like laugh from his friend, and feeling his dick – and not a small one – sliding slowly into him was almost enough to make Gojyo come then and there, and he wouldn’t have regretted it one bit, it was such a fantastic moment. Pressed tightly against Hakkai’s hard belly, his cock was trapped between them, and each rolling thrust of Hakkai’s sex inside him, sliding and pressing it with each roll of their hips, took him higher and higher. He was lost in the feelings now, lost in the sensory overload far beyond anything he had ever experienced, feeling like his whole body was energized with this electrical energy centered at the base of his spine and was about to explode into a million uncontrollable tiny white-hot stars any minute, and at the same time, paradoxically, he was felt like he was just floating drifting… boneless, nameless, wordless… about to detach from his body altogether.

He knew he was very close to his climax, and he was torn, because part of him really wanted to go on like this for hours, never wanted it to end, and he was afraid when it was all over the spell that had brought on whatever this strange magic was would be broken, and it would never happen again. He felt Hakkai’s slender hand snake between their bodies and felt long elegant fingers wrapping around his cock, carefully keeping the claws out of the way. Never breaking the rhythm they had established, Hakkai started gracefully pumping him, but there was something…more, something that turned that kappa’s quiet moans into full-thoated growling groans of approval. There were hot vines loosely twined around his dick, and they were releasing little jolts of chi as Hakkai pumped. The idea and image alone were enough to put him over the top, but the sensation, like thousands of tiny hot gentle pulsing fingers massaging his cock while Hakkai pumped it, was too much and he started to come instantly. But there was something else about the chi, because he started to come, and he kept coming, and what would have normally been maybe two or three sharp waves at best became easily well over a dozen. He twined his arms tighter still around Hakkai’s shoulders and hung on for dear life, riding it out as it washed over him, slowly and relentlessly.

It was only as it started to subside that he realized he had been crying out “Oh gods, Hakkai…” over and over again while he was coming, and that Hakkai was coming too. He could feel the spasms of the Hakkai’s cock inside him and feel the claws of his other hand digging into his the flesh of his ass as he grasped it, his hand splayed out and his long fingers wrapped around the curves of Gojyo’s ass. The small soft vines spinning from the tips of Hakkai’s claws now as he came seemed to be moving much faster and felt much more intense to Gojyo than before, like hundreds of tiny little floggers were hitting his ass, and they all had a tiny little buzz to them. That intense sensation combined with feeling Hakkai coming inside him started another wave of climax washing over Gojyo again, leaving him gasping and his head spinning.

Gojyo would have told you before that morning that he was confident he was THE sex master, the Iron Chef of Love, etc, etc, that he knew how good it could be and was the one to show you, but that morning he was unabashedly breathless and awestruck, never before had he experienced anything like this – it was a whole new level of sensual pleasure he had not even known was possible. Gojyo was normally a humble man in all areas but one. That morning he became a truly humble man.

Some time later as they lay spooned up against each other in the bed, Gojyo marveled how a half an hour of time, a cigarette, and a little silver clip could turn a room from a bizarre supernatural extravaganza of fleshly delights back into his comfortable old bedroom in his cabin with his best friend. It was still a little new (and hot!) for them to be pressed up against each other buck naked, but still, in light of what had just happened, that didn’t seem to be that big of a deal anymore. Even though it hadn’t been nearly as much fun, watching Hakkai change back to himself after slipping the limiter back on had been almost as strange and fascinating as the sex had been. It had been a pretty weird morning so far, all things considered.

After he put out his cigarette – “in an ashtray, mother, not a beer can” – Hakkai turned him around in the bed so they lay face to face, their heads propped up on the same stack of pillows.

Gojyo caught himself checking his friend’s pupils and chuckled quietly, “I gotta admit, I’m not sorry to see your eyes back to normal Hakkai eyes.”

“You’re lucky you’re this close,” Hakkai smiled, “or you’d be trying to find my monacle for me so I could even see you at all.”

“Oh shit!”Gojyo exclaimed, running his hands through the his unruly scarlet tangle of post-sex morning hair, “I don’t even want to think about how the hell the pupil of the artificial eye changes too when the limiter comes off! That’s just TOO fucking weird.”

“Don’t ask me, I’m new at this too.” Hakkai reached out and unconsciously began tracing his forefinger over the scratches he had left on Gojyo’s chest, leaving little warm trails as he did, and the scratches immediately began to heal, leaving no evidence of their having ever been there.

“Uhm, Hakkai, how the fuck are you doing that?”

“Hmmm?” Hakkai had been lost in thought, his eyes absently following at what he was doing, but his mind elsewhere. “What, Gojyo?”

Gojyo pointed down to what Hakkai was doing, and they both watched two or three scratches disappear as Hakkai ran his finger over them, and looked up at each other, their eyes wide.

“Damned if I know,” Hakkai grinned, genuinely pleased that he was able to do such a thing. “Must be some variant of the skill I have been working on with the chi-gong cannon – I must be able to channel it into healing somehow…” He experimented with it again, making the chi a little stronger on a larger deeper scratch. Gojyo giggled.

“Kind of tickles. Pretty neat though. I imagine that kind of thing might come in useful at times.”

Hakkai pursed his lips, thinking about the possible ramifications, his mind racing as he considered what it might mean for his life. “Yes, I guess it might. I shall definitely have to investigate this matter further.” He looked at the beautiful crimson eyes looking at him with frank admiration, and smiled. “Ahaha. Some other time though.”

“Gojyo,” he said quietly, “I wasn’t kidding when I said I felt you needed to learn a lesson. I wanted you to understand something. I guess it was my reaction when you got my feet all tangled up that made me start to think of it.”

Gojyo grinned, “Not to yank your drawers down around your ankles before blowjobs?”

“No, Gojyo…”

“Well, I have to be able to get at your package somehow…”

”Gojyo, this is serious…”

“I suppose I could cut them off, but I never have scissors on me, and I don’t know about coming at you of all people with a knife, if you got THIS mad at just for getting your knickers in a twist…”

“GOJYO!!”

Of course Gojyo knew Hakkai had something serious to say, was fairly sure he wasn’t going to like it, so he was stalling for time because he was having such a good day so far, and he really didn’t want it to end.

“Ok, lemme have it,” he said, dejection in his voice. “Hit me.”

“I’m not going to ‘hit you,’ Gojyo. When I said I wanted you to learn your lesson I meant I need you to understand something. It’s just this: I’m not simply the nice polite man that you see here every day, cleaning and doing your laundry and cooking your food. It’s one thing for us to live together and be friends, but for us to be…involved… as more than friends, Gojyo, if we are going to be… lovers, I need to be sure you understand that I truly am a youkai. My dear friend, the only thing keeping me under control is these,” he pointed to his limiters and sighed heavily. “Gojyo, I’m sorry, but I can’t guarantee that there won’t be many more times that my control is going to slip.”

Gojyo forced the emerald eyes to meet his own. “My ‘dear friend,’ I DID learn my lesson,” he grinned mischievously, “and YOU have to know I’m ‘counting on it.’ Again. Soon. And as often as possible.”

~owari~