“You don’t want me.”

Hakkai froze, hand hanging in the air, halfway to Sanzo’s cheek. The monk was looking at him — just looking, in that calm, assessing way he had, where all his thoughts were hidden away behind secretive violet eyes. It was more than a little eerie.

And all Hakkai could do was stand there, hand frozen in midair, other hand already on Sanzo's hip, and wait for the bottom to return to his stomach.

His heart beat out a slow, sickly rhythm as Sanzo just kept looking at him; finally, thin, white-clad shoulders rose and fell in a soft sigh.

“Get out.”

Not angrily spoken, or even sympathetically — just flat, dull. Dead. Hakkai obeyed almost instantly, turning sharply on his heels, wanting only to obey the lifeless command and flee out into the empty air, where maybe he could breathe again.

When he had gone, when even the sound of his quickly retreating footsteps had faded, Sanzo slumped down onto his bed, bending his head into his cupped hands.

A week, and still no sign from Sanzo, no anything to let Hakkai know what had gone wrong, to help him figure out what had happened. He, who was usually so wise when it came to emotions, was lost in Sanzo’s murky, silent world.

That hadn’t been true, before. He’d known where he stood — the ground beneath him then had been firm, and hard, as solid as Sanzo and his wild emotions could ever be. But he’d pushed, and now the whole world was off-kilter. There was mud beneath his feet now, where before there had only been packed earth.

He couldn’t live this way. He had to know. So at this new inn, in this new room he shared with Sanzo, he pushed again.

It was no attempted touch, this time. No one touched an unwilling Sanzo twice and lived to tell the tale. But he spoke, softly, instead, and if the look Sanzo gave him was any indication, that was almost worse.

“Sanzo,” he whispered again, and this time the glare was even harsher. Still, natural self-confidence reasserted itself, and he spoke much more calmly than he felt.

“You’re wrong about me.” Those violet eyes were narrowing in warning, but Hakkai only stared into them all the deeper as he plundered recklessly on. “I do want you. I don’t know when I gave you any indication that I didn’t-“

“Shut up.”

Those eyes were icy, and getting icier by the moment — something he’d said had obviously rubbed Sanzo wrong-

“Stop looking at me like that, goddammit.”

Hakkai blinked, uncertain, and Sanzo’s next words rushed over him, burning by like the glare of the sun as they rode in the jeep.

“Stop looking at me like I’m her.”

He hadn’t been able to answer that. Had just walked out instead, and slept uneasily and for mere minutes at a time in front of the inn’s fireplace, the fire banked through the night and giving off very little warmth to heat his freezing bones.

He had no idea what Sanzo had meant, what he’d been thinking, bringing up Kanan. But he’d run from it, from her name on Sanzo’s lips, all the same.

He returned to their shared room when dawn began to break over the horizon, a dawn they seemed to spend all their lives running from. Running from the daylight into the dark — there was symmetry in that, a metaphor he did not need.

He was surprised to find Sanzo sitting up in bed, already awake — if indeed he had slept at all. The rings under his eyes hinted that maybe he had not.

Whenever Hakkai was nervous, or sad, or angry, or really anything that required his emotional reaction, he smiled. Better to smile than to go on a murderous rampage, he thought. He smiled now. Sanzo’s eyes darkened almost imperceptibly in response.

“Did you sleep well?” Hakkai asked, the very soul of companionship and helpful concern. “If we get down to breakfast early, perhaps we can get some bacon before Goku eats it all-“

“Will you shut up?”

He froze, fake smile still plastered on his face. Goaded by the sight of it, Sanzo went on.

“Will you use your fucking brain? You don’t want me. Get over it.”

A pause, then the finisher, the thing that socked him in the gut.

“Get over her.”

Red pulsed in Hakkai’s eyes — the red of blood, of Gojyo’s hair, of redemption and sin. Red splattered on his skin, on the sheets when he first made love to his Kanan, on her chest when she plunged the knife deep inside, where a lover would never go-

He had to force the red away. It got harder every time.

Trust Sanzo to know where those buttons were. He knew where everyone’s were. And for a moment, Hakkai hated him for that, hated him for knowing him. That was part of Gojyo’s instinctive loathing of this man, Hakkai thought, because one who kept himself so aloof from his many lovers would not want to be known by such as him...

But Sanzo was still staring at him, eyes so vivid a violet it was almost painful to look at him. He should have red eyes, Hakkai thought. Not Gojyo.

“I am as — as over her as I could possibly-“ He spluttered, came up short. One last argument to make, as much a lie as the first.

“You don’t know.”

Sanzo shook his head, bending it, lowering his gaze — if Hakkai didn’t know better, he’d swear Sanzo was deliberately hiding his eyes...

“You idiot.” No rancor; just simple, unvarnished. This was one of Sanzo’s Truths. “You are such an idiot. You don’t even see.”

Just keep smiling, was the motto Hakkai’s face had adopted; so that was what he did. He didn’t scream out ‘see what?!’ like Gojyo would have, like Goku would have. But he thought it. Harshly. Quietly.

Even though Sanzo didn’t hear it, couldn’t possibly have heard an unvoiced thought, he answered it all the same.

“You’re so fucking blind. You saw her die, but she’s not dead to you. She’ll probably never be. After all, when she starts to fade in your memory, you have but to look at me.”

Violet eyes met his again, pointedly — was this a statement of some sort? A statement of what, exactly?

“You look at my eyes,” Sanzo said with that raspy, cold whisper he had perfected, “and you see hers. The same ‘droopy’ eyes. It shouldn’t be enough of a resemblance, but it is to you.”

Sanzo stood, and suddenly Hakkai felt very small.

“You’re a desperate man, Cho Hakkai.”

He was beside Hakkai, long-fingered hand — so like hers — reaching for the doorknob when he spoke again.

“And I do not take desperate men who long for their dead sisters to my bed.”

He was gone before Hakkai could form a reply, gone with only the hint of his scent having touched Hakkai at all.

And yet, Hakkai felt touched. Felt strangely violated, spread open for all to see.

Genjo Sanzo could be a cruel man, even to his ‘friends’.

It’s not the only resemblance, Hakkai thought numbly, staring at the place where he’d seen those violet eyes last — so pretty they were, and shaped so like hers.

She stabbed me in the heart, too.