cigsandbeer | IC INBOX

[He types out like hell you do but is sober enough to delete it before sending it.

...]

yeah

[Is it meant to dismiss Hakkai's words, or accept them? He doesn't quite know himself. Gojyo was never much for staring at walls and unpacking his emotions.]

[It's not acceptance, but it's at least not obviously blowing him off: maybe that is the best that he can hope for tonight, Hakkai thinks, and closes his eyes for a long moment before typing.]

Yeah.

I'll see you tomorrow?

[He probably should go to sleep, yeah. Deal with this clusterfuck in the morning.]

yeah. sure

Night

Good night, Gojyo.

[... but he will text again the next morning, because he's realized that he forgot to ask an important question:]

Where is your room?

[He made a hangover breakfast plate that he's planning to bring as an apology, and possibly an excuse to talk if Gojyo doesn't slam the door in his face, but he doesn't know where to bring it.]

[Assuming Hakkai doesn't send it in the early morning when people like Hakkai are awake but people like Gojyo are not, it doesn't take that long before he gets a reply.]

3:2

[By complete coincidence right nextdoors to Hakkai's old cabin, not that Gojyo knows that.

Did he spend a few minutes contemplating pretending not to have seen Hakkai's question at all? Yeah. But that's not gonna fix anything.]

[So it is. Hakkai can't help the vague sense that it's a sign: of what, he's not sure. Perhaps that Gojyo is right to feel abandoned.

The text was sent at about the hour of the morning when, if Gojyo wasn't awake yet, Hakkai would have started vacuuming loudly, so he'll knock about five minutes later holding a plate of scrambled eggs with toast in one hand.]

It's the same shabby door Hakkai will recognise from Gojyo's house back home, opening to reveal the same hallway as always (because Gojyo does open it). Gojyo leans against the doorframe.

"...Oh yeah. He said you'd probably have leftovers."

Hakkai glances down at the plate, which is still steaming slightly, despite its journey from his kitchen upstairs.

"Ha ha, yes," he says lightly. "Besides, proper food helps with a hangover..."

Gojyo had been surprisingly coherent last night, so Hakkai doesn't think he had had too much to drink. But he'd been at least a little drunk.

Occasionally, Gojyo doesn't make the worst poor life decisions. Not often, but it happens. He has indeed had worse hangovers. (And he knows perfectly well Hakkai isn't bringing him leftovers.)

"Right." Shoving one hand even deeper into his pocket, he reaches out with the other to accept the plate. "...Thanks."

God damn fucking idiot, he thinks, just step out of the way and ask if he wants to come inside for coffee or something.

Edited 2024-05-21 14:33 (UTC)

Hakkai hands over the plate with only the briefest of hesitations. It's early in the morning (by Gojyo's standards.) It's perfectly reasonable that he wouldn't want Hakkai to come in: scrambled eggs aren't that good of an apology.

His shoulders pull in slightly, not quite a flinch, and he ducks his chin.

"You're welcome," he replies, and takes a step back, not quite yet leaving but giving Gojyo the space to close his door, if he wants to.

It is a very tempting thought to slam the door in Hakkai's face.

But... Hakkai's reached out twice now, trying to talk. Knowing Hakkai, there's unlikely to ever be a third attempt if Gojyo blows him off now.

Looking down on the floor as he runs a hand through his hair:

"...I, uh. I was about to put on some coffee? If you haven't had any yet."

(He knows perfectly well that Hakkai has had his morning coffee already.)

Edited 2024-05-21 22:16 (UTC)

Surprise flickers over Hakkai's face, and he ducks his head in a little nod.

"Ah... no, I haven't yet. I'd like that," he admits, a little warily, and steps inside.

The cabin strikes him immediately with its familiarity. His own is the main room of their house, with a bedroom attached, but he'd been an inmate when he came; it's not the whole house. This is, as if it had been picked up from the last time they'd been there, what seems like thousands of years ago.

Aside from Gojyo's jacket from yesterday thrown on the floor it's also tidy in a way it's only been since Hakkai moved in (which surely says nothing about what Gojyo considers 'home').

Gojyo puts the plate down on the kitchen table on his usual side, before silently going to put on coffee.

Hakkai, completely on reflex, picks the jacket up off the floor, shakes the dust off, and folds it over the arm of their elderly sofa before settling down in his own usual spot.

He does realize what he's doing about halfway through setting the jacket down, but it's not as if he can put it back on the floor.

"Have you... had the chance to meet anyone else so far?" he offers, awkwardly, and folds his hands on the table.

"Yeah, uh, a bunch of people through that thing" -- the communicator -- "and I met that Xie Lian guy up on deck. He was your warden, right?"

Returning to the table with two mugs, Gojyo too sits down, pulling his plate closer to him.

"...Er. I don't have any food in here to offer."

Hakkai will have to settle for just coffee.

"Yes, he was," Hakkai agrees, settling his hands around the coffee cup. "This is fine, please don't worry about it..."

Although he may find some quiet reasons to bring actual leftovers by and fill Gojyo's refrigerator. Just in case, and since it'll be a long time before the next port.

"He told me he liked you," he adds a little ruefully.

"'Course he did. I'm super good-looking and the nicest guy around, what's not to like?"

You know, aside from the fact that he's complete trash who can't open his mouth without fucking things up with his best friend. No wonder he's worth shit when some perfect non-human guy comes around.

--He does at least accept Hakkai's Apology Plate in the sense that he digs into the scrambled eggs.

"That is almost exactly what he said," Hakkai agrees - colorful is at least sort of like good looking - and takes a sip of the coffee. He's more of a tea drinker, but since Gojyo made him excuse-to-stay-and-talk coffee, he will sit here and drink the whole cup no matter how vile.

"I really have missed you," he adds in a quieter voice. "Although not much else about home."

You have a funny as hell way of showing that, Gojyo thinks but doesn't say.

"......I mean. I can't really return the sentiment."

From Gojyo's perspective, they haven't even been apart.

"Guess that makes sense, though, about home." No matter what they say about coexisting peacefully together, there only ever was so much of that even before the Minus Wave...

"What's this place like, then, in comparision? It's already weird that there's no money."

"It's strange, the way time works here. When I first arrived - when I was an inmate - it was back when Sanzo had first arrested me. I didn't even have my eye yet--"

He waves a hand in the direction of his glass eye.

"I had an eyepatch for nearly my first year on board. Then I graduated and the ship sent me home, right to the time I left. I forgot having ever been here, spent five years living with you and traveling west, and then... woke up back here again. It had only been a few days on the ship."

It had required... some adjustment.

"But overall, I do like it here," he adds. "Maybe once a month or so, some inmate decides to cause trouble and we get a fight, but it's peaceful otherwise. Even the floods usually aren't so bad."

So basically, Hakkai also went through some weird inverse 'time has passed for one person but not the other and it's Weird', but the only one being all insecure about it is Gojyo. That's... great.

"...'Peaceful' sounds super weird, too."

When was the time they weren't two seconds away from getting killed at any given moment?

He'd been trying for, I understand how disorienting it is from your side, but--

"Isn't it?" he says wryly. "The really strange thing is all the people who complain about how out of control the violence is. No one even stays dead on board... ah, it's not like Hazel, if something happens you come back as yourself and remember it all."

"Still fucking creepy." He'd heard about the no dying thing, and sure it's an upgrade if it doesn't come with stuffing dead people's souls into other people, but even so...

"Maybe the Admiral should arrange, like, a field trip, like they do for school kids."

Send the fussy people to Saiyukiverse for a week for some perspective!

Edited (I can't English today apparently) 2024-05-23 12:28 (UTC)

"Well, I can't exactly complain about the results...."

Hakkai flashes him a wry little smile. He's died twice, himself. Not counting the time at home, where it had been wiped away by graduation.

"Do you know, we get regular field trips to more dangerous places, and it usually makes people complain more?"

Maybe they'd like a trip to Chang'an. Or, well... maybe not. Hakkai takes another sip of the coffee, the corners of his eyes crinkled wryly.

It takes a few moments for Gojyo's hungover-and-still-sleepy brain to catch on to Hakkai's meaning-- ahh, fuck. He was an inmate, he's died at and been resurrected at least once. Gojyo stuffs a bite of toast into his mouth and washed it down with a sip of coffee before he says anything else insensitive.

"So basically it's usually quiet and peaceful for so much of the time that people got nothing better to do than bitch about stuff?"

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