cigsandbeer | IC INBOX

[...?]

Sure. I can be there in ten?

I'll see you then.

[THIS IS FINE AND NORMAL. He's certainly not panicking. Although, well, he is making it up to the upper deck with excessive speed, and finding a table, and making sure there are a few bottles of beer on it already by the ten-minute time limit Gojyo had suggested.

So maybe he is, slightly, nervous.]

This is so fine and normal, and obviously something very casual that can't wait until the next time they hang out together, or can just be asked over the Network. Gojyo can't say he's not apprehensive, but more than that he's worried. Did something bad happen?

He shows up on time, and has at least accepted the oppressive no-smoking-indoors rule that he leaves the cigarettes in his pockets.

"Hey."

"Hello, Gojyo." Hakkai does smile as he looks up - it's small and rueful, but not obviously fake the way his smiles are when he's genuinely upset.

He does look nervous, though.

He lifts his own beer, indicating the unopened one he'd gotten for Gojyo with a tip of the bottle, and takes a small fortifying drink. Sometimes, he does wish he didn't have to drink quite so much in order to feel it.

"When we leave," he says, at last. "I want you to stay with us."

Gojyo sips his beer, waiting for Hakkai to be ready to say... whatever is so hard to say, and increasingly regrets his lack of cigarettes for every second.

"--What, like... at your place?"

He's not so delusional as to have expected Hakkai to still want to stay in his house, and surely they'd get a place close enough to visit??

"Not necessarily. But, ah... Jedao and I don't want to go back to our world. Or his.

"We don't entirely have plans yet, but... somewhere with aliens, so he doesn't have to hide, and where living machines are normal, so that he can invite his best friend. And. I want you to be there, too."

So, there it is. Hakkai's hands tighten on his beer as he watches for a reaction.

Edited 2024-09-16 19:10 (UTC)

Gojyo stares for several long seconds, the beer forgotten in his hand.

Then he chuckles.

"...Man, and you say my jokes are bad." Flippant and he tries to sound, there's an obvious nervous edge to it. "Fuck off with that; that's not even a little funny."

"It's not a joke. I want to make sure that we make a deal for a way to travel between worlds, before we leave for good - Jedao might have to, because he's a much better warden than I am. I would want a way to visit Sanzo and Goku."

So, they wouldn't be leaving their other friends behind forever. Not that Sanzo would embrace the word 'friend.' But.

"... but I don't want to only see you on holidays and vacations."

"So... so what, seeing Sanzo and Goku only on holidays is fine? Goku?"

What the hell, Hakkai.

"... He's older now," Hakkai says, ducking his head. "After we got home from our travels, it's not as if he'd be coming all the way out to our house every day, and I think I've taught him about all the math he's willing to learn."

Things would have been different anyway, once the journey was done.

Quietly, Hakkai adds, "And... if I have the choice, I don't like our world very much, Gojyo. There are people in it who I love. But I would rather keep those people close, and see new places."

"Maybe I'm stupid, but as far as I'm aware there are options besides hanging out 'every single day' and 'a couple of times a year'!

You think Goku's gonna be okay with just a couple of times a year?! YOU'RE okay with that?"

"I'm okay with that."

He does care about Goku, but he's really never thought they would be close beyond visits, after they got back. If they all got back: through most of their journey he hadn't assumed that would happen, either.

Goku is Sanzo's foster-son, and as much as Hakkai likes him, he doesn't need to live nearby. He'll miss Sanzo, too, but a few times a year is really about right, for spending time with Sanzo.

He's still looking at his beer bottle, hands wrapped loosely around it as if holding a teacup.

"Well, that's fucking great to hear, 'cause I'm sure he'll be so happy when you tell him!"

Gojyo stands up, his chain making an awful scraping sound as he pushes it back.

"TWO YEARS together every day" -- and everything they went through together -- "and you're gonna drop them just 'cause our world isn't fucking perfect?"

"I'm not dropping them," Hakkai murmurs. He's still looking down at his drink, expression going carefully immobile by increments.

"I'm planning to move away, and come back to visit. That's all."

"Yeah? Sorry, but singling one of the group out as worth keeping around while the other two are unimportant enough to bother with like five times a year sure sounds like dropping them to me!"

Does Gojyo recognise Hakkai slowly shutting down as a sigh that he's likely to snap soon? Of course, and the smart thing to do if he doesn't want this to completely blow up would be to back down, but he's so fucking disappointed--

"But if putting it as 'just moving away' makes you feel better, then sure, go ahead!"

Hakkai's shoulders draw in slightly.

"All right," is all he says, at last. His voice is still quiet, as calm as his expression. He pushes the beer away, glass scraping on the wood of the table. "Thank you for coming."

It's not as if he can't understand that Gojyo is saying, I won't leave them, and how dare you. It's not as if he can't figure out that the answer is no.

He doesn't want to fight. He's not certain he could stand to.

"All right? THAT'S IT?

Damn it, Hakkai, you can't just--"

He can't just leave Sanzo and Goku behind, like they're some distant cousins you only see at family gatherings! He can't just spring this on Gojyo and expect him to choose -- he'd choose Hakkai, but why the hell does any of them have to choose?

"Fuck you!"

Hakkai folds his arms on the table, avoiding Gojyo's gaze.

"I'm sorry," he says, meaninglessly. A sinkhole has opened somewhere in his chest. He can feel himself teetering vertiginously over vast depths.

It's all right, of course. Gojyo is-- allowed to make his own choices. He's going to have to convince Jedao not to drag him anywhere by the hair, though.

He shifts his weight, rubs one hand hard over his face, and presses a shaky giggle back where it had come from.

"Oh yeah, I can TELL how fucking sorry you are", Gojyo shouts with an aggressive sweep of his arm.

"Well, congratulations on finding someone so great he's worth throwing everyone else away -- I hope you'll be EVER SO HAPPY living out your domestic life in whatever perfect world you choose!"

"I want you with me!" Hakkai's chair falls over backwards as he comes to his feet, his voice cracking on the last word. He swallows. Forces his voice even. Opens his mouth again.

"I don't want to live in our world." No world will be perfect. People aren't perfect. But living someplace where no one knows or cares what a youkai is, where he doesn't have to choose between hiding forever and being run out of town by fearful neighbors -- living someplace where no one cares he's married to a man of another species....

He's spent long enough away not to want to go back to the everyday routine of lies and fear.

"All that's worth keeping in my life is the three of you," he says, much more quietly, his voice flawing and fracturing around the admission again. "Sanzo wouldn't come. He has responsibilities, and Goku wouldn't leave him."

And, although he doesn't say it aloud, Gojyo is the one who Hakkai wants with him the most.

--Whoa, Gojyo wasn't prepared for the sudden emotional honesty. It takes him aback enough that it throws him off his anger somewhat.

"...Well, yeah, obviously they're not gonna come, that's why you-- we gotta go back home to them!

SO WHAT if it's not the greatest place in existence, it's still where--"

It's where they can all be together. It could be the objectively worst place in all the worlds, and it'd still be where they can all be together. Why does that matter so little to Hakkai?!

Gojyo hasn't had the luxury of years living in a less prejudiced place. And even back home he has, perhaps, had the dubious luck of most people not recognising on sight what an abnormality he is.

"What the hell is so awful about home that you'd be prepared to give those two up?!"

"... do you think," Hakkai says at last, "that if I took my limiters off in the market back home, I'd be able to go on living in Chang'an afterwards?"

Because he doubts it himself. And it's one of the largest cities around, one of the best protected, where youkai had been a regular sight before the Minus Wave.

"I don't want to keep hiding forever. I want to live peacefully, and I'm not youkai enough to live in a youkai village." And he wouldn't subject Jedao to that, but even without Jedao, it would have been... hard to fit back into that life. Familiar, but no less painful for that.

...Well, no, probably not, not with how things are now. But...

"And if the wrong person knew about my hair and eyes and spread it around I'd be a pariah, BIG DEAL. It hasn't happened, and if anything happens, we'll just figure it out!"

"I know it's the same for you," Hakkai says, after a moment, his voice low. "I don't... I've gotten used to it not mattering.

"I don't like it when it matters, anymore. That's what's wrong with home."

It matters to almost everyone there. Having Sanzo and Goku near enough to visit a few times a week would be... fine. Nice. But not really enough to compensate for a lifetime of isolation outside of the few people he's close to.

"But-- but once the Minus Wave clears up and the youkai go back to normal, things will--

It'll take some time, but things will go back to normal, and the humans won't be scared of youkai anymore."

He says, as if he doesn't know it'll likely take decades if not even longer, if things ever go back to normal. Gojyo's existence would still be taboo, but if people would at least be fine with Hakkai and Goku... His words sound like a little kid's pleading even to his own ears.

"Damnn it, Hakkai, even if it's not perfect, how is that enough to leave Sanzo and Goku??"

Edited 2024-09-18 06:14 (UTC)

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