Terrible Idea Theater proudly presents...

[erogappa]

Who: Gojyo and Hakkai
What: Drinking. Telling secrets. Fighting?
When: the 5th of November
Where: Kinyobi Bar
Warnings: Almost certainly there will be self-harm talk, xenophobic slurs, and discussion of murder.



Sharak's gone. Sharak's gone, and Tsuzuki and Ayumu are probably not speaking to him anymore (probably: he doesn't want to call them to confirm it), and Hakkai's not who he thought he was.

He may have been wrong about everything. But without Sharak here, and still on the fence about Dokugakuji, that just leaves Hakkai to answer his questions.

Hakkai might lie to him again, but Gojyo's pretty sure he's found a solution to that problem.

Ring ring, Hakkai.

Comments

[reformedsinner]

The phone rings. The phone rings, and Hakkai, halfway through scrolling down today's entries on the BBS, flicks a glance at the caller ID, and drops it onto Bon, who's lolling on his feet and biting through a large bone of uncertain origin.

The dog tries to roll over, and Hakkai, after an intense few seconds spent diving for the still-ringing phone in an ocean of thick, moving fur, rescues it and picks up the call with a reflexive stab of his thumb.

He's having second thoughts before he even lifts it to his ear. But --

Well. He hadn't expected Gojyo to be the one to call him.

He's not making the least effort to hide the wariness in his tone as he says, "Hello?"

[erogappa]

He's not going to pick up. He's vanished; it's a wrong number. He's there, and staring at his phone, and he's thinking about all the ways Gojyo's fucked up every interaction they've had so far and he's decision whether he wants to let it go to voicemail or if he's just going to block the call while it's still in--

And then Hakkai picks up, and Gojyo's throat goes dry.

"Um. Hi. ...It's Gojyo."

[reformedsinner]

Hakkai closes his eyes, and leans back, all the way until his head hits the top of the sofa cushion with a soft sound of compressing foam. The phone is still against his ear.

"Yes," he says, "I know."

He's tempted to go silent after that, and see what else Gojyo has to say -- but his chest hurts, as though someone's grabbed a vital organ and twisted to see what happens, and he opens his mouth again before taking the time to think better of it.

"Did you remember something else?" He can hear the bitter edge to the question, but he refuses to regret it. Why else would Gojyo want to talk to him, after all? He doesn't sound hurt, and he hadn't called when he'd had his arm cut off with a chainsaw, so it's unlikely he'd come to Hakkai for help if he were hurt.

At least it's not a text at three in the morning, this time, he reflects, and opens his eyes again to stare up at the ceiling.

[erogappa]

Or maybe Hakkai will see right through his bullshit and call him out directly.

"That's not..." His mouth snaps shut. This isn't how this is supposed to go, dammit! He's supposed to invite Hakkai over, get him drunk, be in control, but here they are, not ten seconds into their conversation and Hakkai's already got him unsteady.

No wonder they've fought so much. Hakkai knows him too damn well, doesn't he?

"No." And, in a rush: "But I want to, and I want your help doing it."

[reformedsinner]

"No!" It's a snarl, instant and furious, and Hakkai sits up out of his defeated slouch so fast that Bon and the cat who'd been sleeping by his side disappear in furry streaks towards the door. His hand clenches on the phone, hard, and his voice drops to a harsh whisper.

"I'm not going to help you destroy yourself."

He's not. He can't; he's been terrified of it since he first saw Gojyo ask him for a boxed lunch without a flicker of recognition behind his smile. He can't believe what he's heard, can't believe, even after every stupid thing Gojyo has done, that he would dare.

[erogappa]

Okay, so. That probably wasn't the best way to phrase that.

"I'm not that stupid! Geez." He laughs, weakly, pacing the sticky floor. That was one hell of an intense response -- it's making him feel a little warm, actually. Warm and cared for.

Shit he's messed up.

"You can tell me about me when I was a god, though. Right? That's safe." And that will tell him about who he was when he had his memories, which is a loophole he's still proud of having discovered. "Say yes."

[reformedsinner]

Hakkai doesn't say yes. His breathing is uneven, rasping against the receiver as he tries to claw back the surge of furious panic and leave enough space for him to think.

At last, low, he says, "It blighted you when I was sick." His recollection of that conversation is fuzzy at best, blurred by fever and confusion, but he remembers Gojyo in his hallway, remembers the purple smear on his neck as he backed away.

It should be safe to tell Gojyo about himself as a god-- but where's the line? What would make him think about things he shouldn't know, and what might Hakkai let slip?

It's not as obviously a request for suicide by best friend as it had sounded at first, but it might come to the same thing in the end.

[erogappa]

"I got blighted because I was feeling bad for naming that poor guy Asshole," he retorts. But it's a gentle retort. Gentle-ish, anyway. "I've been watching the phone chatrooms, and I've asked enough questions myself."

Does he have to prove to Hakkai that he's learned information about his past self and been unharmed for it? Fine, that's easy enough. Pride is for suckers. "I know I got so drunk that I disappeared once for two whole days and nobody thought anything of it." There. See?

This isn't going to work. He's not pacing any longer, standing at the pitted and bullet-shot bar, nails digging into the fake wood. Nothing's going according to plan, but Hakkai hasn't hung up yet. Maybe there's a chance?

"If you want to see if that blighted me, you'll have to come to Kinyobi."

[reformedsinner]

"That's not why you disappeared," Hakkai murmurs, and scrubs a hand over his face, briefly, hard. Gojyo wants to know. It might be true that there are things Hakkai can tell him safely, things that won't blight or destroy him. It's certainly true that Hakkai doesn't know which will, and which won't.

(Gojyo's face, surprised; Gojyo's throat, a welter of blood. He wishes he could stop seeing it.)

"I can't -- I won't tell you," he says, slowly, "without precautions. Let me name you."

He hasn't thought it through before the words are out, but it falls together when they are. It's how Gojyo had known, telling him about what was happening at home, when to stop. It would mean Hakkai would feel the sting the moment anything went too far.

"I'll release you, once you've heard enough. But I have to know when to stop."

Later, while Gojyo showers

[reformedsinner]

Hakkai has no idea what he's doing at all. It's a strangely freeing sensation, and, of course, also terrifying. The bathroom door shuts behind Gojyo, and he flees for the kitchen to check on dinner, because unlike the fact that Gojyo had accepted his invitation, cooking makes rational scientific sense.

The star anise and cinnamon are perfuming the air in the kitchen by now, over the richer scents of pork fat and cooking wine; he inhales deeply, and crouches to pull out a pot and start some rice.

He'd really expected Gojyo to say no. As awful as all their conversations have been, he can't imagine why Gojyo hadn't; and he's still afraid, deep down. He's not a brave man. In most situations, he's just a fearless one, and that is very different.

And yet, cowardice now would be the death of Gojyo as surely as it would have been if he hadn't let Sanzo shoot the seed out of his heart. There's no single bullet for this thorny problem, but if Hakkai doesn't face the need for action, it will prove just as deadly in the end.

Rice is too easy to prepare. He turns to chopping cabbage for a side salad.

disapproving son time

[kokuyoyo]

Even as Hakkai is turning, there's a quiet presence at the doorway... but Chikusa doesn't say anything yet.

All he does is stand there, mostly leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed and his eyes dark as he watches Hakkai bustle around. Ever since yesterday, it's been hard to ignore the heady smell of alcohol (and maybe something else) lingering in the air. Chikusa might not have Ken's nose (and how worse must it be for him?), but even he can smell that easily enough. It hasn't escaped his notice either that Asshole has been bereft of his usual haunting grounds.

And, even more noticeably... Well.

Neither of them were completely quiet during their "morning" talk, or the sound of Hakkai moving around with another set of footsteps following after him for a short moment.

Yet here Hakkai is, going about preparing their dinner as normal, as if there won't be a fourth seat at the table tonight. Chikusa isn't sure how he feels about it- any of it, from the cabbage being chopped up to their unexpected guest. Finally, however, the words come to him.

"So. Was alcohol all you needed for him to 'calm down'?"

And that's what makes him so aggravated, he thinks. It's the same reason why he warily glances to the purple scarf still waiting in their living room.

[reformedsinner]

"I think incarceration and regaining a few memories have made more of a difference," Hakkai says, and brings the heavy knife down straight through the middle of the cabbage head.

Frankly, he'd rather alcohol hadn't been involved. It's awkward enough having said everything he said to Gojyo already without also wondering how much of the morning Gojyo even remembers. Or how much of it he'd meant. But Gojyo had been working his way through the beer before Hakkai even arrived, and he knows better than to refuse a bottle when they're talking about dangerous topics and Gojyo's indulging.

He turns one half of the cabbage cut-side-down and begins slashing it to ribbons with quick blows of the knife.

"He may be staying with us for a little while. I don't know how long."

Please don't make it too unpleasant, he doesn't say aloud, but he thinks Chikusa can read between those lines.

[kokuyoyo]

A very faint scoff comes from Chikusa's direction, barely able to be heard over the sound of cabbage violence. "I don't think the incarceration did anything at all," Chikusa says dryly. As someone who got to have a front row seat to Gojyo dealing with the two of them while in a prison cell, he likes to think he would know particularly well.

But then this sounds like Gojyo remembers something.... and Chikusa isn't convinced that it's entirely a good thing yet. Perhaps it shows in the way he doesn't give an immediate answer to Hakkai, and instead listens to the sound of his knife at work.

"....Is this actually going to be good for you?"

[reformedsinner]

"I don't know yet."

Cabbage, unfortunately, doesn't fight back, which makes it too quick and easy to shred. Hakkai scoops the half-head of it he's chopped to the side and considers the other half. Chopping is not therapeutic enough to waste a full head of cabbage making king-sized salads for four, though, and so he bends to find some plastic wrap for it instead.

He doesn't know if it's going to be good or disastrous, and too much of the answer relies on Gojyo. These days, he's gotten very bad at predicting what Gojyo might do.

"It's better than leaving him alone," he adds, at last, pulling out the right box and ripping off a length of plastic long enough to swathe the leftover cabbage. "If he goes back out there and keeps trying to find criminals to fight...."

He'll get himself killed, and the odds are good that he'll get others hurt first.

[kokuyoyo]

That's really not the answer that he wants to hear right now, and Chikusa's fingers dig slightly into the curve of his own arm. Then again, what is he expecting? Hakkai thinks so carefully on so many things besides, apparently, this shit.

Well, no one can't say he's a dishonest person. "It's a stupid idea." Plain and simple, right there in the open where Hakkai can't dance around it. "Why does it have to be here that he's staying? There's that shinki sanctuary, or something, isn't there? There are other gods."

But having him stay here, for who knows how long, when apparently booze is being Hakkai's bane recently and all their conversations are hardly good ones...

[reformedsinner]

Hakkai stares unseeing at his heap of shredded cabbage.

"I think," he says, "it's here or I'll never see him again, right now."

Chikusa might have his own opinions on which of those would really be a better idea, but Hakkai doesn't really care what they are. Some things he's not willing to accept a second opinion on. Still-- he jolts back into movement, taking down a few bowls from the cupboard and beginning to portion out the cabbage. Still, Chikusa's not entirely wrong.

"But if it doesn't work," he concedes, "there's the shinki sanctuary, and there are other gods."

And if it's been long enough that Please don't stay in my house doesn't sound to Gojyo like You're right, you're not the person I love anymore, and they need space, then that's fine. As much as he wants to protect himself, he's not stupid enough not to guess how it would sound if he tried.

[kokuyoyo]

Frankly, Chikusa can understand Hakkai's thinking- willing to take whatever blow if the alternative was never seeing Ken again. but then, him and Ken never had to go through this sort of ordeal. They had their rough patches, moments of fumbling where Chikusa especially didn't know what to do, but they've managed far better, he thinks. Seeing this sort of thing, where Hakkai's exhaustion and pain are obvious even to him...

But it doesn't mean he's particularly happy about it as he leans there, shoulders hunched in on himself.

"....If he says anything stupid while we're eating," he mutters, "I'm not going to stay quiet."

Dinner from hell, table for four

[reformedsinner]

[Gojyo'd said he'd be down in a minute; Ken and Chikusa should be showing up at some point. The table is set, the pork butt is carved, and -- even if there's a guest to dinner -- Hakkai has pointedly avoided putting out any alcohol. Water glasses at each plate will be enough.

He's not going to play any games with anything that loosens inhibitions, not when he can feel Gojyo's pained roil of feelings on one side, and the flickers of seething resentment from Chikusa on the other.

And then there are his own feelings, of course. He's planning to ignore those.

Hopefully, the others will be down soon, and he won't have to ignore them for long. He sits heavily in his own chair, elbows on the table, arms crossed as he watches the steam curl up from the serving dishes.]

[erogappa]

[ This is a terrible idea.

He's washed -- and de-blighted, again -- dressed, and feeling alive for the first time in at least a week. There's not much he can do about his clown puff of hair -- it grows fast, apparently, and making it lie down looks even worse than letting it stand up -- and his shoes are downstairs somewhere, but other than that, he's doing a very good impression of a reasonable person. Hakkai's clothes fit him perfectly, the long sleeves neatly covering the tattoos on his wrong arm, and the slacks (sans underwear, because he can't. He just can't, they're Hakkai's underwear, he can't) are soft and comfortable. He's out of excuses to keep cowering in the bathroom.

Finally, head held high and with a deep, calming breath, Gojyo opens the door and heads toward the smell of dinner.

Keep it together, he warns himself as he heads down the hallway. Aside from poor Tsuzuki, Hakkai is literally the last person in the world who gives a shit about him, and the only one who knows what he's really capable of. If he's going to do any good here, if he's going to make up for his past mistakes and manage, somehow, not to get any more of his friends hurt or killed going forward, then he's going to need help. He's going to need Hakkai on his side. They're going to be assholes, just let them talk. The only one who matters is Hakkai. Keep him happy.

This is such a terrible idea.

He finds the dining room eventually, and pauses in the doorway. ]

Hey. ...Smells good.

... as I remember we were doing prose in this post...

[reformedsinner]

Hakkai glances up, caught off guard for a moment between a hesitant smile and a wary stare. Gojyo doesn't look any less exhausted, but he looks better, at least: his hair, when clean, is standing on end. It hadn't been short enough to do that by the time Hakkai had been Hakkai, the last time Gojyo had cut it.

It looks very soft. He squelches the absurd urge to pet it, as though Gojyo is one of the temple's cats, and summons up one of his standard, social smiles instead.

"Thank you," he says. "With Ken in the temple, I've been cooking much more meat... sit down, please."

[kokuyoyo]

"Or at least get out of the way..."

Hey, Gojyo, don't mind that voice just... apparently coming out of nowhere. Right behind you.

Even at his most aggravated, Chikusa is quiet, after all. Some assassins can give themselves away by their killing intent, especially if their target is particularly skilled enough or used to attacks on their lives. But Chikusa's best trait is that he's essentially dead inside, and in no hurry to ruin his footsteps...

Which means he tends to catch people by surprise, especially if he's trying.

....And he has to admit that he's sort of trying.

Chikusa has already made it clear to Hakkai that he's not fully behind this whole.... Whatever this bad life choice could be called. He understands, he really does. If it were Ken, hating him so vocally and trying to spread unpleasant truths on the network, he'd.... probably care less about whatever unsavory aspects of his life were out there and more that Ken hated him at all, upon which he'd probably fall into a depression spiral that would leave him face down on the floor for months.

That still, somehow, seems like a better choice of what to do than getting together with an incredibly drunken ex, while possibly drunk as well, and then dragging him home of all places.

He doesn't say anything on that, although the way he stares down coolly at Gojyo might be a hint.... an expression that might seem different from his usual blank and distant stares if not for the adorable Kappa hat that said expression rests under. Fortunately, a little bit of rudeness is all Gojyo will have to deal with from Chikusa. The second he can make his way past, he does so, slump worse than usual and his hands shoved into his pockets. Excuse him as he finds his seat.

[junkyarddog]

"I'm hungry, byon," comes a whine from behind Chikusa. The smell of Hakkai's cooking is agonizing for Ken, who can smell it no matter where he is in the temple even more acutely than any of its other residents, and his patience in waiting to eat once the food is finally ready to be eaten is, if not nonexistent, then at least too small a thing to be accurately measured.

Unlike Chikusa, he's warily tolerant of Gojyo's presence right now. He wants Hakkai and Gojyo to make up so Hakkai will be happy, so even if Gojyo is a stupid jerk, Ken's willing to indulge him for the sake of his god. He doesn't intend to provoke him or even bother him, so long as Gojyo doesn't insult or attack Chikusa or Hakkai. With some small leeway for counterassaults if Chikusa starts something, because Ken knows his partner quite well and he expects Gojyo will defend himself if Chikusa hassles him. While there's only so much Ken will allow in that vein, he can't entirely blame him. Doing what helps his god be happy is, Ken feels, part of his duties as Hakkai's shinki. Besides, he likes Hakkai. Hakkai accepted Ken on Chikusa's behalf, so Ken can accept Gojyo on Hakkai's.

But Gojyo can be present somewhere that's not blocking him from food. Ken's indulgence is pretty reliant on his being comfortably fed.

[erogappa]

Gojyo's mouth, which had been opening to ask if Ken was going to join them, slowly settles shut as first Chikusa, and then Chikusa's dog, saunter past him. The last time he saw these two assholes they mocked him, cuffed him, and then somehow knocked him out (he doesn't entirely remember what happened at the jail, but he's one hundred percent certain that everything he suffered was the fault of these two dicks).

He takes a visibly deep breath, and heads to the table himself. Don't say anything. Don't take his bait. "Thanks for the stuff," he murmurs, settling into a chair as far away from Chikusa as possible. He plucks at the shirt's collar, then smooths it flat, carefully ignoring both Chikusa and Ken. I'm not here for you assholes. I'm here for Hakkai. "I'll get it back to you as soon as I can."

[reformedsinner]

Is Chikusa wearing a kappa-face hat? Is he really -- Hakkai closes his eyes for a moment, thinking very seriously about his own life choices, and then opens them and smiles with an effort. Yes, he can already see how this dinner is going to go.

"You're welcome, Gojyo -- are your clothes still back at the bar?"

He'd cut ties with Sharak before she disappeared, but he'd been assigned to Genjo after that, and Hakkai has no idea where he'd been keeping his belongings. Genjo Sanzo, after all, had vanished too. It seems to be just the two of them, of the group, who can't stop sticking around no matter how miserable it is.

He reaches out to grab the serving fork in the pork dish, and lift a slice of it onto his own plate.

"How much did you want?" That's to Chikusa, and he's offering his exemplar the fork next, hoping that food will distract him, or that serving Ken food will distract him, at least.

[kokuyoyo]

Gojyo isn't the only one who wants to sit far away; Chikusa makes sure to keep Ken inbetween him and the redhead as best as he can as he sinks down into a chair. If this goes quietly, even if tensely, then he'll be surprised. That they're starting off like this is almost better than expected... but it doesn't miss him that it's something only accomplished by him and Ken being completely ignored.

That's fine. He can deal with that.

He stays quiet during the brief exchange, elbow digging into the table and his cheek cradled in his hand, and only shifts when Hakkai holds out a fork to him. Right- Without so much as a breath, he accepts it. Ken is going to be miserable if he goes without food for much longer.... So, with that said, he start to dig the fork into the pork and fetch out one slice... and then another...

If no one stops him, he may just keep putting the whole damn thing onto Ken's plate, save for a slice for himself. Whether this is an act of love or petty spite is up in the air.