thenearshore | won't you take me

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won't you take me

Who: The Li Tieguai clusterfuck
What: Well, we're out of a shitty haunted forest, who wants dinner?
When: November 16, evening
Where: Li Tieguai's Temple

Usually, when there's some big nonsense in Heaven, Chikusa can be found out cold or "away" in his own head for most of the following couple of days afterwards... but that apparently only counts for event which involve people. Spending an entire day trekking through a possessed forest filled with violent plant-life and cultists is manageable.... somehow.

No matter how exhausted or injured anyone in the temple is, food still has to be made, and Hakka is in no condition to make it. Thus, dinner is being arranged by the other cook in the house, and invitations have been sent out to the relevant people Chikusa thinks care- namely Nanako and Ayumu, along with anyone they seek to bring. That doesn't mean people checking in on the Li Tieguai temple can't just waltz right into the dinner as well....

There's a lot to do in the time leading up to dinner, after all, depending on when people show up (or, you know, realize there's smells coming from the kitchen). Bon, the resident enormous Tibetan Mastiff, demands attention in the form of bodily flinging himself at people. There's a goat in the garden, tied away from all the important medical herbs. At least four different nekomata wander in and out of the temple ground whenever they please, including Pookie, the most permanent resident, and never shut up.... Not to mention that a Kung-Fu movie has been put on the television for people to watch.

There's also a sign on all entrances to the kitchen that says: CHO HAKKAI IS NOT ALLOWED TO COOK. Presumably Chikusa put it up while making direct eye contact with him.

Either way, mess around until dinner, have dinner, crash in the living room where another kung-fu movie has been put on again... Have fun.

Oh, and before it can be forgotten.... The dinner menu for the night is fritto misto, meaty Amatriciana sauce with bucatini noodles, and all the garlic bread in the world apparently. For dessert? Cannoli again. That... might be all he knows how to make on the dessert front.

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Hey, so, what the fuck.

The sudden and unexpected laughter jerks Chikusa to a stop, blinking blankly at the redhead. That's... not what he was expecting, although he's not sure what the regular response is to an admission like that. At least it's... not negative. He guesses.

"....As long as you're not an asshole about what matters..." Which a few things could be named, with what Gojyo's done alone.

The punchline is that Hakkai's the biggest asshole of them all.

"Yeah, well..." He's making some good progress on this hunk of meat! Only, what, twenty pounds more to go? There's a lot of food here. "If I do, you're gonna call me out on it, right?"

That's... there's a lot of trust in that statement. More than Gojyo was expecting to express, but having said it, he realizes it's true. He can't put everything on Hakkai -- if he fucks up, he needs everyone to tell him about it. Hakkai, Chikusa, the dog... It's the only way he can be sure that he doesn't make another mistake like that time. He doesn't have so many friends that he can risk them like that again.

"I'll push you down the stairs, so. You'll know."

Such a reassuring promise, really. Still, Chikusa says it in the same lax tone as always, which Gojyo can take as he pleases. This isn't what he was expecting when he decided to speak to him... but he guesses it's the better route. The best route, maybe.

And if they're going to start now... "When Hakkai does something stupid... Try not to run off like an idiot..."

Guess it was too much asking the guy who kisses dog-people to use his words like a person, huh? "Great," Gojyo grumbles, but at least it's a promise.

"Does he do stupid things a lot?" This is an important question. He can't promise not to flip out and run after Hakkai if Hakkai is going to, say, exhaust himself and then try to heal everyone else on a regular basis. If it's a once in a while thing, that's different.

(It's not all that different.)

Does Cho Hakkai do stupid things a lot?

"It only took a little over a month of me knowing him," he starts, tone descending to the level of dry ice, "he almost turned into an ayakashi." Which was preceded by Chikusa testing a poison on him, but, listen. "So we had to force him into an ablution. Then he turned into a god with Ayumu as his shinki a week or so later... and they made each other miserable. A month later during Obon, he ended up taking all those cursed amulets and made himself sick..."

A pause.

"Although he apparently didn't know they were cursed... So his luck just sucks." So, you know. The meat pile has grown while the uncut meat is at a low point, so they should be done soon... Inspecting what they have left, Chikusa considers things for a moment before adding quietly, "He took me on when Axel-sama disappeared."

Gojyo listens, horrified... but not one of those truly terrible things Chikusa rattles off sounds like it ended up with anyone else wounded or dead, so for all his fucking up, Hakkai's still doing better in his bad life decisions than Gojyo is.

Still. He's glad for the opportunity to chnge the subject, because he absolutely will not promise not to run off and do something stupid if Hakkai gets himself blighted half to death again, or passes out in the road again from too many magic charms... or gets hit with a truth serum and confesses his life's indiscretions to his amnesiac ex. In fact, if anything, Gojyo sees his future time with Hakkai as one long serious of running after the man.

There are worse things.

"That guy really meant a lot to you, huh." Don't worry, he's not looking for a recap of the other night's fuck your -sama argument. There's nothing but sympathy in his tone, and he's carefully watching the knife move through the meat instead of looking at Chikusa as he speaks. "To you and Ken both."

A good plan. Chikusa had been prepared to, if not move his knife through an entirely different sort of flesh, at least destroy Gojyo's foot. As it is, there's apparently no need for that, and Chikusa dissects the tone in his head for a moment before deciding it's acceptable.

"He was our first god, and the one we met under, when we couldn't remember one another." There's a lot more Chikusa could say about that. How Hestia's temple felt far too nice for both of them, but it was warm, a place to return to. How Axel told him he was worth something, took notice of the things he found important.

But he's not Ken. Chikusa keeps most of that story quiet, hidden close to his chest.

Instead, he continues on plainly. "We've had two other gods before Hakkai, but he's the only one who's stuck around so far."

"Doesn't that worry you?" He tosses the last slice of meat onto the pile, and reaches for the next chunk. He hasn't thought about Ekko in a long time, he realizes. Not really -- he'll think about the kid from time to time, but it's mostly just to feel sorry for himself for having lost a god. He hasn't thought about Ekko, the person, in... god, weeks? Longer? He'd been a slob and a brat and a big pain in the ass, but isn't it important to remember him as he was?

Not that that was really Ekko though, right? That was just the ghost puppet with Ekko's memories. Annoyed at the path his train of logic's taken, Gojyo shoves the pile of meat to the other side of the board and turns around, leaning back against the counter. "If you two really have memories from the same place, isn't it dangerous that he could remember something you don't, and spill it, and turn you into an ayakashi?"

"No."

There's no rush to the answer, no haste, but it comes completely without hesitation. Reaching for a paper towel, Chikusa wipes down the knife he was using. Cleanliness is the most important thing in a kitchen, no matter what important conversations are otherwise going on. Even as he cleans it, he continues to talk. "If that happens, I guess I'd just have to kill myself before the transformation finishes." Certainly, they were able to kill that serial killer before he became an ayakashi, although his catalyst for transformation was different.

Ignoring how it might be more than a little worrying for him to say that so calmly, Chikusa puts his knife to the side and reaches for Gojyo's. "Besides... the alternative... That's keeping away from Ken, isn't it?"

He can't help but admire Chikusa's certainty. Admire, and pity, just a little.

"Only if he's really Ken." Arms folded, Gojyo's addressing his questions to the floor on the far side of the room, totally ignoring Chikusa and the knives. "If he's really Ken and you're really you, then yeah, I guess it'd be worth it." For them, anyway. If he were really Sha Gojyo and Hakkai were really Cho Hakkai then the things Gojyo's done -- in this life and the last -- would be unforgiveable, and there wouldn't be enough space he could put between himself and the man he's spent the last six months maligning.

"But we're not us. We're just puppets, dead things with somebody else's memories, and if we get too many memories back, we break and turn into monsters." What? It makes perfect sense, just think about it. "Seems like an awfully big risk to take for somethin' that's not even real."

"Okay."

....And. Just. Just that. Nothing else. Chikusa says it with absolutely zero emotion as he finishes up the second knife, inspecting it for any meat that might have gotten caught in some nook or cranny, before he puts down the paper towels to move on towards where the stove is. The pans are already there, so he doesn't have to get them out, it's just a matter of the oil....

Yeah, he's apparently not bothering to say anything else in response to Gojyo's theory.

What, really? Gojyo raises an eyebrow as Chikusa totally ignores his accusations that his boyfriend isn't a real person. He'd honestly been expecting violence for that one. Violence or insults, at the very least.

"You're just gonna let that one lie there, huh?"

"Yeah, because it's stupid." There you go, Gojyo, there's an insult, at least. Still, he guesses he won't be allowed to just ignore it... So, with a sigh, Chikusa turns back to Gojyo with a dead eyed stare and a bottle of extra-virgin olive oil, the top of which he uses to nudge his glasses back up.

"For the record... It's not stupid because it's impossible... It's stupid because it doesn't matter." He narrows his eyes at Gojyo. "Are you actually going to help or not...?"

No, he's not going to help. He's going to argue.

"Of course it matters!" He pushes away from the counter, ostensibly to get out of Chikusa's way, and stuffs his hands deep into his pockets. He's not going to swing his fists, but that doesn't mean he's not looking for a fight over this. He's bad at talking about things without fighting, okay? Just fight him. C'mon!

"Either we're the people we remember being, or we're not." And the Sha Gojyo he remembers being was a monster. He doesn't want to be a monster. He'd rather be dead than be a monster. "And if we're not them, then we can change things. We don't have to make their mistakes."

At least he's out of the way. Chikusa can argue with him so long as he's working at the same time. Sighing, he slouches his way back over to the meat, socks squeaking against the floor. "That's if you feel any guilt for it," he says simply, piling some slices onto a plate for ferrying back. "It's a lie to say I don't care... but that's too much complications for a simpler answer."

Meat plate in hand, he glances over to Gojyo. "It doesn't matter if Ken and I are real or not. I like being with him now. That's more important."

It's got nothing to do with guilt, he wants to protest. You wouldn't like him if you didn't 'remember' liking him. But fuck that, that's just cruel. He can't do a thing like that, not even to a shithead like Chikusa.

And really, what's it matter if the kid believes he's in love with the other idiot? No skin off Gojyo's nose if their junior-size hormones had...

...oh shit. The realization actually jolts him out of his previous (depressing, never-ending) existential crisis.

"Maybe you're right." He can't believe that he didn't realize it before. Hakkai's feeling the emotions of two horny teenagers.

This might be the funniest thing ever.

"Maybe that is more important."

He's going to rupture something if he doesn't laugh. Oh shit.

.....That is an immediate turn around. A turn around so suspicious for how immediate it had been. The only thing more suspicious, in fact, is the way Gojyo's face contorts as he very clearly tries not to laugh. Chikusa pauses, plate on the counter besides the stove, and squints at him.

Hakkai's taste in men is really quite atrocious. It's a little embarrassing, honestly.

"Are you having some sort of attack.... to explain how weird you're being..."

His eyes might be watering slightly from how hard he's trying not to laugh. Hakkai's being nagged by horny little asshole teenagers. How can he stay mad at anything right now?

"Yeah, I'm... I should let you get back to it." Where's Ken? Where did he last see Ken? He's gonna sic the kid on Chikusa, see if he can get Hakkai's brain to melt. This is going to be hilarious.

He can't remember the last time he found something this funny.

"I'm gonna go check on Hakkai."

...It never needed to be made official, considering everything else leading up to this moment, but now is as good a time as any to say that Hakkai's taste in men is atrocious. Chikusa adores Ken, who he knows is a hair from ending up an actual cannibal and doesn't bathe, but he's certain he can still say this.

Well. Whatever. Rolling his eyes, Chikusa turns his attention back to the pan. He has meat to sear. "Make him stop doing the laundry, if you're going to care about him so much."

It'll save Chikusa to grumbling.

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won't you take me

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tw for casual talk of suicide

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cw: suicidal ideation

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