The air was stale and the streets were slow. This was a small town, being crushed by the Minus Wave for sure. Even Goku could see it on their entry. A dried up fountain in the opening square, dusty roads, and worried, worn-out-looking townspeople... it was really quite sad. However, an idle smile slid onto his face as he watched smoke trail up from Gojyo’s nostrils with a laziness that only the hanyo could prove to be true.

“Think we’ll get four rooms this time,” the redhead said casually, instead of asking.

“Not likely,” Hakkai said, still smiling anyway. He didn’t mind sharing rooms with any of them, really. Not to any particular degree. He actually liked the company of someone else as much as he liked being alone. It was comforting to know for certain he was not totally alone.

Gojyo made a ‘Ch!’ of disapproval before placing the cigarette onto his lips and taking another long drag, “Two rooms. You watch! Another long night fighting over the bed with the saru then, while Sanzo-sama gets his lovely room all to himself…”

Hakkai gave his stilted laughter and smiled more broadly. “That’s more likely.”

“And I’m already bored. Not a girl in town worth looking at and the only bar they have is a total shit hole. I’m doomed to boredom tonight.”

“We could always play mahjong,” the youkai offered hopefully.

“Naw.” Gojyo shook his head, crimson tips of his antennae swaying, “That’s starting to get old. And you always win anyway. I wanna do something new.”

“Well, truth be told, I’m rather bored myself,” Hakkai agreed slightly.

Gojyo gasped in exaggerated surprise, the cigarette left bobbing precariously stuck to his bottom lip, “You?! The King of Calm and Collected and Eternally Bemused? Cho Hakkai?!”

Hakkai had to laugh at the picture he made. It was so ridiculous a face, heavily-lashed red eyes so wide and his jaw so slack, that only Gojyo could pull it off. A little burble of true amusement poured out of him and he leaned carefully back against the post, feeling Hakuryu trail down his back and into the pouch his layman’s sash made in the back to sleep. He gave a cool green glance back to Gojyo, “So what do you suggest I do? You’re bored, but you’re certainly content.”

“What do I do when I’ve got not-shit to do?” Gojyo clarified into his own words, his own speech tainted more with of that country accent and axioms. He shrugged. “I smoke.”

“Well, then, I’ll try that.”

While Gojyo’s look of faked surprise was always interesting, his true look of utter shock was always that much more fun. Hakkai saved his non sequiturs for that purpose alone. And as afraid as he was that someday that stunned look that Gojyo supplied him with from time to time was going to wear thin, it had yet to do so. The barely smoked cigarette almost fell completely from the hanyo’s chapped lips before he regained himself. He brushed a casual hand back through his hair and shook his head.

“You don’t wanna do that.”

“I think I know what I want to do,” Hakkai retorted, his voice almost childish in its playfulness, “Come on. Teach me to smoke.”

“Is this some sort of weird, twisted ploy to get me to stop smoking?” Gojyo raised an eyebrow and looked over Hakkai, as though scanning for sarcasm and humor. “It ain’t gonna work. If you really want, I’ll teach you how to smoke.”

He scrounged in his pockets for the box and lighter, a sudden purpose crossing his face and creasing his brow. Hakkai sat forward, leaning onto his knees and watched with mild fascination as Gojyo flipped his unfinished cigarette across the street and fish out two new ones from the carton. Placing one behind his own ear, he offered the other one to the youkai.

“First things first,” Gojyo pulled it back as Hakkai reached for it, “You have to know how to light it. There’s the smooth way and the pompous jerk way. Yanno, like the difference between the way I do it and the way Mr. No Luck with the Ladies Monk does it, and there’s a reason for that.”

Hakkai smiled lightheartedly and took the little white, paper tube between his thumb and forefinger, looking over it and then Gojyo, “So, tell me… how do I do this correctly?”

“All in due time,” Gojyo nodded sagely, then slipped the new cigarette between his dark lips, “You gotta practice The Flick, first.”

Long fingers surfaced with the zippo. The playboy hanyo held it casually and flipped his wrist out, throwing back the top with a soft 'chnk!' and before Hakkai could totally see how he'd did it, the flint had been rolled and a hissing flame stood only inches from his lips. It licked the air, waiting for something to consume... so the brunette leaned in a bit.

"Ah, ah, ah..." Gojyo drawled, pulling back the flame, "That's just how ya do it. Now, you gotta show me you can do it." He gave another snap of his wrist and closed the Zippo again, offering it to his friend.

"Oh. Alright."

Hakkai took it and flicked it open once, twice, four times before Gojyo decided that he'd gotten it down and tilted his head forward into the flame to light his own cigarette. He proceeded to repocket the lighter, while Hakkai looked a little confused.

"I thought you were going to teach me how to smoke?"

"I thought you wanted to learn to do it the right way!" Gojyo threw back at him. He then leaned forward, gently took Hakkai's chin between rough fingers and murmured around the obstruction between his lips, "So you gotta learn how to light it when there's no lighter around."

With wide, watchful eyes, the youkai let his mouth be drawn forward until the quavering tip of his virgin cigarette pressed lightly against a small cumulation of ash and embers. Gojyo smiled wolfishly at Hakkai's most innocent facial expression as they pressed together the tips. "Now... take a drag."

Doing as he was told, he saw little rivulets of fire teased into paper and tobacco, reddening and blackening as it went. Cool, harsh and bitter smoke filled his mouth and danced over his tongue before he let it bypass his lungs in favor of escaping through his nose. Hakkai sniffed a bit and drew his head back out of Gojyo's hold.

"See? That is called 'Monkey Fucking', and it's for when you're shit out of luck with finding a lighter," Gojyo said with a smile, and then a little shake of the head, "Thanks to Goku, the phrase's all but been ruined for me."

Hakkai chuckled, taking the cigarette from his lips delicately and looking at it as though it were a piece of fine bone china. Glancing up, he saw sanguine eyes cocked with curiousity. He contemplated throwing it out into the road for a split second, but instead put it back into his mouth and took a long draw on it. Closing his eyes, he let that baked earth taste fill his mouth again and travel ticklishly - but without a cough! - down his throat and thoroughly pollute his lungs.

"There we go!" Gojyo said, clapping theatrically, " 'Atta boy!"

Holding the smoke for another moment, Hakkai let it all escape out, smaller and thinner than he'd expected it to be as it poured out from his mouth and nose at once.

"Good, you got two of the techniques down with no problem. 'Course, I shouldn't be surprised. You're Hakkai, so you're automatically good at everything, huh?" Gojyo shrugged companionably, but seemed a little bitter that the youkai had picked up what he'd been doing and learning since age 5. "Eh, so now, we move onto to the poses, the gestures and the nuances of looking cool while smoking."

"Nuances?" Hakkai asked, a playful smile on his lips as he held the cigarette between his first two fingers, hand dangling at shoulder height.

"Yeah, you got 'em all wrong," Gojyo looked him over and all but clucking his tongue, "You gotta look cool while smoking too."

To prove this point, he leaned farther back into the steps and covered half his face with his hand as he took another drag. Hakkai had to admit that Gojyo made the dangerous habit look casual, smooth and light, with the cigarette perched between his middle and ring fingers and his strangely beautiful eyes half closed in Zen like ecstasy. The smoke ran in thin streams along the curved sides of the white paper tube and curled around his fingers, drawn by some invisible energy towards his mouth. With a moment's pause, Gojyo took half a breat, held it, and then let curls of smoke overtake and obscure the bottom-half of his face.

Gojyo hid a thin, piercing smile behind the two-second veil. He lowered the cigarette and made a little gesture with his hand, leaving behind a confused wake of circles in the smoke trailing upwards. "Your turn."

Hakkai looked unsure for a moment and then copied it, switching to hold the cigarette in the middle of his hand between the two middle fingers, and letting his lovely hands cover his face as he took in a meditative breath. The youkai only slipped a little on the finish, a silent cough rejecting the smoke hitching up his shoulders at the last moment.

Gojyo gave another pleased round of applause, his claps drawing strange looks from the residents that meandered down the streets. Hakkai shrugged a bit and resettled his monocle, "It's not hard, you know."

"Yeah, but your presentation's off a bit," the hanyo commented, pointing to Hakkai's hand, "You've got a bit of limp-wristedness there. That's a chick thing, man. Watch out. You're pretty and all, but I don't think you could get away with dangling your hand like that while you smoke..."

He had to laugh. How could he afford not to? Blunt and serious about the most ridiculous of things, Gojyo could point out something to him that made him feel as though maybe life could always get a little bit better.

"Alright, alright. What's next then?"

"Tippin' the ash." Gojyo leaned forward onto his knees and tapped his thumb against his forefinger, allowing a small tower of ash that had collected at the end of his cigarette to crumble and fall. He looked over at his green eyed friend with a teacherly smile and punctuated each point with a soft jab of his more tobacco-stained hand. "You gotta do it carefully. Yanno, like a backwards snap. And don't get it on you either... That's hella unsmooth."

The youkai - who was usually noted for his grace and beauty - copied the action almost awkwardly, using his thumb more to tip the cigarette than flicking it all. It took him almost three quarters worth of ash to get it to Gojyo’s satisfaction. Each time the hanyo felt the need to correct the arc of his hand, the stiffness of his wrist and the expression of detachment as he performed the whole short ritual. He could see how Gojyo could come to enjoy this, as impatient as he would be for any other kind of unaided meditation. The redhead was not patient in the least, but this was… fascinating.

There was something sublimely zen about the whole process. The way you let go and concentrated all at once, letting your thoughts wander off and nothing really coming back. Letting the flavors and motions be routine and calming, but being utterly different each time if only for time, place and company. It was like a miniature tea ceremony. Hakkai gave a little smile to that thought. Gojyo’s kind of tea ceremony.

Perhaps it was that the calmest seeming of the Sanzo-ikkou was too distracted in the ‘rite’, but the smile was wiped clean from his face as he watched an all-too-familiar teenager coming running up the dusty road. Goku was yelling excited about how one menu had really good looking spring rolls, but that the other place was all dumplings. With a bit of a bluster, he found himself not wanting Goku to see this.

As quickly as he could, Hakkai flicked the cigarette away from himself. Gojyo sported a rather conspiratory smirk as he noticed Goku’s eyes widen, despite the movement. He looked back and forth from the smoldering tobacco embers to Hakkai as though completely confused by who he’d just seen throw it away.

“Since when do you smoke, Hakkai?!” Goku had all but dropped the two take-away menus he held and goggled.

With his bright green eyes turned down — ah, he never wanted to be a bad example for the impressionable boy! — Hakkai shook his head slightly, “Gojyo was just showing me how to smoke correctly.”

“That’s not fair! I wanna do it, too!” Goku exclaimed spinning to Gojyo and glaring as though it were the man’s fault, his child’s spirit showing through.

“Babies don’t smoke,” Gojyo simply closed his eyes and took his final drag with a mocking leisureliness. By then, Goku was almost pitching a fit.

“Stupid Kappa!” gold eyes flashed and an angry pout decorated Goku’s lips, “You trying to pick a fight?! You can teach me, c’mon! You ‘n Sanzo BOTH do it and I have to live with the smoke all day and night! You can at least let me try? Pleeeeeaase, Gojyo? Please! Gimme one, I wanna tr-”

He was cut short with a wickedly hard smack from a large paper fan. A gruff voice said calmly, “The pervert was right for once, bakasaru. Babies don’t smoke. Now get your asses moving. I’m hungry.”

Hakkai stood with a self-satisfied smile, the whole world surrealistically in its right. Everyone was where they should be, even if he felt that he himself shouldn’t be on this trip. What with Sanzo walking on ahead of them all. The priest’s pet youkai walking next to him, excitedly explaining the best of both restaurants and suggesting that perhaps they should visit both. Himself tagging along, keeping his steps measured for the sleeping dragon in his sash. And Gojyo smiling softly as his wide-legged walk brought him to Hakkai’s side, only slightly behind the other two. He pushed his long and bright tresses back over his shoulder and gave Hakkai a once over.

“Not a bad ‘bad habit’, huh?”

“I suppose it’s something you could get used to,” Hakkai nodded and then leaned over, burned tobacco edging around the usually clean scent he produced, “If you did it for long enough.”