Growing Season (Challenge #46, Seeds; Gojyo/Hakkai; PG)
Title: Growing Season
Author: opalmatrix
Warnings: Schmoop! And a few curses, because it's Gojyo.
Pairing(s): very early Hakkai/Gojyo
Spoilers: nothing much
Notes: Set maybe 6 months after the Banri Incident. Written for saiyuki_time, Challenge #46, Seeds; time allowed: 45 minutes; time taken: 60 minutes. Oops.
Summary: All Gojyo can do is plant 'em and hope.
Gojyo knows that Hakkai is not quite right, even after all these months. There's always something a little off about him. It's not too surprising, after all the guy as been through, but it's still a little creepy sometimes, even for Gojyo.
Or maybe especially for Gojyo, because the people in town don't notice it much. They seem to take all those smiles for real. And most of them aren't. There's the little, not-really smile that Hakkai uses in place of something like OK, or Yeah? There's the teensy frozen smile that means "heh heh - no." There's the kind-but-not-really-enthusastic smile that Hakkai gets out for Goku when he's finished his sums, and Hakkai can see they're all wrong (and really smudgy), or when Gojyo says he's swept the floor already, and Hakkai can see that there's still crumbs and bits of orange peel under that table. And then there the big, square-cornered frozen grin that means You have completely screwed this up and you're lying about it, too, and I will never, ever forgive you.
When Hakkai really smiles, though, it's completely different. And Gojyo's always been a fool for that stuff.
There have been a lot of wet days this March, which sucks. Hakkai gets silent and grim and can't even come up with fake smiles most days. And mud keeps getting into the house. Gojyo tries to wipe his feet off properly, but it doesn't help much. Hakkai washes the floor again and again. Gojyo even washes it a few times himself, but he's pretty sure Hakkai does it all over again the minute Gojyo goes out for the evening.
The first really sunny day, Gojyo wakes up pretty early. Part of it is the sun coming through the window - they really need to get thicker curtains - and part of it is Hakkai cleaning with extra energy and some really lousy singing. When Gojyo staggers out into the kitchen in his shorts, Hakkai is pouring a bucket of dirty water off the porch into the weeds, which seems to have grown three times taller than they were at the beginning of the month.
"Those don't look like they need more water, Hakkai."
"Well, actually, I was hoping the ammonia would kill them. They're quite unsightly. Something will have to be done about them."
Gojyo backs away from this idea as fast as he can and gets himself the breakfast Hakkai has left for him. But he's not a complete jerk - not really. He knows that Hakkai's had a rough couple of weeks, and now he's going to clean himself into a stupor to make up for it.
So when Hakkai tears himself away from the mop and the dusters and the laundry to go to the market - they're running out of cleaning supplies as well as food - Gojyo attacks the weeds. The air is nice and cool when he starts, but the sun is bright, and by the time Hakkai is back, Gojyo is damp with sweat, as well as the sticky juice from the weeds, and is feeling a lot less guilty about things. Hakkai is impressed, though.
"What on earth have you been doing, Gojyo? What a lot of work!" And he smiles, and for a moment, his hand comes out, like maybe he's going to do something about the hair hanging in Gojyo's eyes. And then he drops his hand and looks at his market basket.
"I'd better take this inside."
It wasn't quite the right smile, thinks Gojyo. And for a moment, he's really pissed, because he's been working his ass off. But when he looks at the house, things actually don't look any better than they did before. Now there aren't any weeds, but instead you can see the junk he's been kicking under the house for years, and the bare, cracked rocks supporting the place, and everything is kind of butt-ugly-naked.
He goes inside, and Hakkai has iced tea for him. He'd rather have beer, but he's thirsty enough to drink anything at this point. He downs two glasses before he says anything. Finally: "Looks like shit, doesn't it? At least the weeds were green."
Hakkai doesn't pretend, but he gives Gojyo a slightly better smile. This one says I'm sorry.
It's pretty much impossible to keep anything a secret from Hakkai. He notices everything. But mostly he plays fair, too. So he doesn't say anything about the way Gojyo always seems to be perched on the front steps, grimy and just lighting a cigarette, when Hakkai comes back from town on every dry day during April. And he rarely says anything about the ground-in dirt on the knees of Gojyo's oldest britches. Of course, he'd have to be be blind not to notice the seedlings, when they come up. The rows are kind of messy: Gojyo has no idea how other people manage to get some of those teensy seeds lined up so nice. But he's relieved that they're growing at all. Seeds don't look like squat: all you can do is plant 'em and hope.
"I suppose everyone is hard at work at their gardens these days," says Hakkai, innocently, one May evening. "Maybe we ought to put one in. Fresh vegetables would be nice."
Gojyo chokes on his rice and looks at Hakkai reproachfully. Hakkai smiles back. It's a sparky little smile: How long will you actually stick to this, Gojyo?
Gojyo smiles back. "Naah. Vegetables are boring."
In June, the days are so long and the morning starts so early that Gojyo is perennially short on sleep. Sometimes the east is even getting pale and glowy by the time he gets in. He tries to go back to sleep when he wakes up after only a few hours, but it doesn't always work. One morning he wakes up after a night rainshower to an apparently empty house. His head hurts - little throbby pains on both sides - and his mouth tastes like a garbage dump. He's finished with his rice and dumplings and tea, and is even thinking about sneaking a beer - it couldn't hurt - when it occurs to him that he ought to have seen Hakkai by now.
Especially because the market basket is sitting right there up on the shelf.
He slams the refrigerator door shut, tears open the front door, runs out on the porch in nothing but his shorts, looks around. Hakkai is hunkered down on the ground by the side of the house. The knees of his trousers are wet and muddy, and he's staring at Gojyo's garden.
Gojyo had noticed a couple of days that some of the shaggy little things he'd planted in the front had buds. Now they had a few little yellow-and-orange flowers, equally shaggy. And the medium-sized things in their messy rows have gotten wide enough that they're growing into each other, mosty hiding the underparts of the house. And the tall ones - he knows those are sunflowers, he's not quite that ignorant - could reach to Gojyo's waist, and they're still going.
Hakkai doesn't seem to notice as Gojyo walks up to him. He's touching one of the raggy-shaggy little flowers with a fingertip, carefully, like it's hot. Gojyo squats down next to him and and nudges him gently with an elbow.
"Nice, huh?"
"Very nice." And Hakkai turns and looks at him, and then there's The Smile. The real one.
And Gojyo thinks that maybe this could be the start of something really good.