Warning : Fluff. Still reeking of Sanzo/Hakkai, because using the others means dialogue.

Hakkai takes photographs. It’s just something that he picked up, in between his books and the thesis he’s been working on. He’s not sure why he does it either, but it’s become a habit whenever he’s out. He uses it as an excuse to get out of the apartment, and he grabs the Hasselblad 501CM off the shelf on his way out, just as anyone else would grab a knapsack.

He does enjoy walking, and there is a certain pleasure in uncovering something new or strange or different. He captures it on film, and there it lasts forever. The prettier ones -- sometimes a kingfisher in the light of evening, sometimes a doll in a store, or just the sunlight on the trees -- he sends off in his letters to his sister. She sends back more photographs, but these are of people, her friends, her colleagues, herself. And these Hakkai puts into a special album.

Sometimes the others join him, but Gojyo is usually occupied and Goku gets hungry too quickly to go for long strolls. So he walks with Sanzo, and they take the quiet roads and the dirt tracks and head out of town altogether. This time it’s the beach, and while Sanzo stares off at the waves, Hakkai busies himself trying to take seagulls on the wing.

Sanzo uses a Powershot G5, a digital camera to match Hakkai’s fully mechanical analog. But Hakkai likes his Hasselblad, one of the few things handed down from his father.

He snaps a seagull, bright white against the dark cliffs.

"Black and white photography?" Sanzo asks him.

"There’s something intriguing about it," Hakkai replies. "It’s harder to take a good black and white photo." He folds the tripod, and begins to wind the film. Photo taking is over for the day.

Sanzo fires off a few more shots into the distance. Hakkai has noticed a preoccupation with the sky and the sea in his friend. As Sanzo scans through his latest acquisitions, Hakkai flops onto the beach and stares at the bright blue sky above. He imagines patterns in the clouds -- there a sheep, there a gull, there a Sanzo blowing a large cloud of smoke.

Sanzo tsks. "I’m heading further down the beach," he says from somewhere above. "Angle here isn’t great."

"All right," Hakkai replies. The sand is warm at his back, and the wind gusting towards the sea is pleasantly cool. As Sanzo heads off, he closes his eyes and dreams of seagulls.

He comes awake to the feel of raindrops, and Sanzo’s hand on his shoulder. The sky has turned a dark gray. He scrambles to his feet, searching for his equipment bag. Sanzo thrusts it into his hand and sets off. They never bring an umbrella -- it’s just something that they never think of, so rain means a mad dash home, or at least a soggy tramp.

"I never expected it to rain," he tells Sanzo with an apologetic smile.

"We never do," Sanzo replies. "Come on, let’s hurry up."

But they don’t end up hurrying. The camera bags are waterproof, and they are distracted by little things -- the rushing of water through a drain, a tiny waterfall off the frond of a palm, a small terrapin trying to make its way back to the pond. Hakkai gives it a lift and Sanzo waits for him, irritably flicking wet hair out of his face. The creature is still and trusting in Hakkai’s hands, until he carries it to the edge of the pond. Then with a flurry of motion, it kicks off and vanishes beneath the surface with a plop.

"Rescuing terrapins," Sanzo says, shaking his head, and Hakkai smiles and shrugs.

They reach Sanzo’s house first, and Sanzo doesn’t say a word, just hauls Hakkai in. Hakkai stands in the living room and blinks, shedding puddles. The camera bag is plucked out of his hand, and Sanzo clatters upstairs for a moment. When he returns, Hakkai is watching the fish in the tank. He glances up, and Sanzo flings a towel and a spare change of clothes at him.

"The bathroom is that way."

"I was thinking of--"

"--you’d catch a cold. Then I’ll have to put up with your sniffling. Or worse -- I’d have to pick up your notes for you. No way I’m going to do that."

Hakkai concedes defeat.

He takes a long bath, filling the tub up to his chin. A flash of yellow catches his attention; there is a rubber ducky in the soap dish. He picks up, studying its flummoxed blue eyes over its bright orange beak. Then he lowers it onto the water surface. It bobs happily.

He comes awake to water gone lukewarm and a noseful of water. The ducky pecks his head worriedly. Hakkai stretches, then climbs out of the tub. He restores the duck to its soap dish.

When he emerges from the bath room, he finds Sanzo in front of the computer, a towel around his neck. Images of beach and sea and sky dance on the monitor.

Hakkai grabs the towel. "Go dry your hair."

Sanzo makes a half-hearted grab for the towel again, and misses. "Later."

"You’ll get headaches later in life if you don’t. Seeing how cranky headaches make you, I wouldn’t want you to get any more. Not if they’re avoidable."

Sanzo glances at him, and sighs.

As Sanzo dries his hair, Hakkai scans through the books on Sanzo’s shelves. He ends up in the coach with Wu Cheng En’s Journey to the West, and the towel around his neck. He only realizes when Sanzo grabs the towel and screams at him to dry his hair.

Hakkai ends up staying for dinner, eating with his nose still stuck in the book. Sanzo is still fiddling with his prints. One, the largest one, has an orange paper aeroplane inserted against the sky.

After that, Sanzo drives him home. Hakkai runs up the steps as the rain continues to fall, waving a hasty goodbye as he fumbles for his keys. Once inside, Hakkai tosses the camera bag on the shelf, everything forgotten as he continues reading.

He finishes the book as the sun begins to rise. Right between the last pages, he finds a photograph.

It is printed on printer paper, a digital photo. It shows him, fast asleep on the sand. Hakkai smiles, and looks for a brand new photo album.

--

End

--

A/N : I’m practicing, because I’m starting to feel that my writing style is going out of whack again. I’d like to get it back to something I feel comfortable with before I continue with my longer fics. Some constructive feedback on the style would be nice if you noticed anything -- is it different from my norm? Is the pace too jerky? Am I developing a Hemmingway complex -- ie : short. sentences?

Or is it just so mundane that you didn’t even notice it?

I did a little mental exercise with this one -- start with an image, and write a fic from it. For some reason, the black and white sketch of Hakkai carrying a camera popped into mind. The rubber ducky was inspired by events in the Gaiden. And the orange aeroplane... everyone knows about the orange aeroplane, anyway.

Special thanks to my dad, who introduced me to cameras. I still like the Hasselblad. It’s cute and cuboidal.