Gift fic for Cicer: The Third Rail
So ages ago, I cottoned onto the marvelous fic " Silk Hits the Chrome" by cicer. I really loved it, and it sparked a kind of response in my brain. I did a bit of writing, but it never came to any real conclusions, so I was reluctant to put it up. It worried me on the one hand that the story kind of went nowhere, but it worried me more to be...taking things over. XD (As it is, I've given Hakkai a suitably tragic backstory, which may or may not have influenced his dealings with Gojyo.) You may want to re-read the original before you read this one. I hope I didn't muddy the waters too much!
I am currently making a real effort to clean up/set free some of the smaller pieces I started, and I think I'm ready to share this one, even if it doesn't have a solid ending.
Title: The Third Rail
Warnings: possibly dubious consent and slightly underage action between teacher!Hakkai and student!Gojyo. Also, references to the not-fun kind of teacher-student action. Sex and mild swears. Teenage angst. Flagrant abuse of italics. XD
Rating: erm. R? More than R? Not worksafe at any rate.
Word count: approximately 4000.
The poem contained within this story is Ezra Pound's "The Return."
=====
The next morning, before he caught the 6:00 train, Hakkai called Sanzo and Goku. The phone rang through, and he waited for someone to pick up on the other end. It gave him time to think.
Hakkai had met Sanzo in college, sophomore year. He'd been a few weeks shy of his seventeenth birthday, and Sanzo was just a little short of his nineteenth. Of course he lied and said he was the same age as Sanzo. It was odd how well they fit together despite their differences in, well, practically everything. Hakkai was on his way to a teaching certificate in English and the so-called Language Arts; Sanzo was the worst student the Divinity department had ever seen, displaying no faith in anything and having a clear bent for the sciences to boot. Hakkai shared a dorm room with three other freshmen; Sanzo had somehow netted himself a single, perhaps due to the sharpness of his personality. And although Hakkai knew a fair bit of Sanzo's academic life, he didn't know much of his personal life. In that mutual lack of exchange, they were similar. It did no good to make the past live, even in his memory. Hakkai's therapists had confirmed that it was better to let some things lie.
Strangest of all was how Hakkai managed to fit into Sanzo's sex life. At times he thought it odd that he (Hakkai) even had a sex life now. But in the relative privacy of Sanzo's room…What they shared was better than Hakkai had ever expected to have for himself.
Hakkai actually didn't know Sanzo was in a relationship, and Hakkai had naively assumed as such until, one morning at breakfast, Goku sat down across the table and introduced himself. At the time, Hakkai had been rather humiliated, and he'd apologized as best as he could, considering the circumstances. But Goku had just laughed and given him his blessing and an invitation. Goku hadn't been jealous or angry, and it took Hakkai a few weeks to figure out that Goku wasn't putting on a show, that he really meant it.
Hakkai found out even later that Goku was a grad student and older than both he and Sanzo, for all that he acted like the youngest of all. (He learned this when Goku ended up student-teaching one of his classes when the professor was out. And wasn't that interesting, calling his friend and by-then lover "Mr. Son." He'd been painfully aware of Goku the entire lecture, and when Goku smiled as he handed him back a paper with a sticky note that said Hakkai should go to Sanzo's dorm room after class, and he'd meet them both there…Hakkai had hardly been able to stand up at the end of the lecture for lack of blood flow to his extremities.)
The phone's purring cut off abruptly. Two clicks: two phones on the same line picked up.
"What the hell do you want?" said Sanzo. "Birds don't get up this early."
"Hey, Hakkai!" said Goku. "What's up? Stop being such an ass, Sanzo."
Hakkai explained what was going on, breathless with worry, senseless with guilt and fear.
"You're being an idiot," said Sanzo. "You're nothing like that."
"I dunno," said Goku. "If he tells, if someone finds out…"
"You know when his birthday is?" said Sanzo.
"November," said Hakkai. "November ninth."
Sanzo's breath crackled on the line. Hakkai heard doubt in that exhalation.
"Don't give anyone a reason to suspect," he said. "Play it safe. Wait."
"It may be too late for that," said Hakkai. "Not to avoid suspicion, but…Gojyo himself…"
"He's graduating this year, yeah?" said Goku.
"With any luck," said Hakkai, and he felt himself slipping into Mr. Cho's shoes. "I don't know how well I can motivate him to succeed. If he doesn’t do better the rest of the year, he won't."
"If he doesn't graduate, you're fucked," said Sanzo. "If he does…"
"He'll slip through the cracks," said Hakkai. "I gather from his file that his home life isn't the best of situations."
"Dude, you read his file?" said Goku. "Like…read it read it?"
Hakkai allowed himself a laugh.
"I assure you, my intentions were nothing but the best," said Hakkai. "I wanted to know more about the student the other teachers tried to warn me was a lost cause."
Sanzo grunted.
"Idiots," he said. "All of you. You never learned to be patient."
"Hey, Hakkai," said Goku.
"Yes?"
"Have you, y'know, talked to Gojyo about any of this?" said Goku.
Silence reigned over the lines for a full minute.
"No," said Hakkai. "I haven't."
"Idiot," said Sanzo.
And the dial tone sounded in Hakkai's ear. He hung the phone up, and ten seconds later it rang.
"Hello?"
"Sorry," said Goku. "You know Sanzo."
Hakkai laughed politely.
"But seriously, just talk to him, yeah?" said Goku. "Things might not be so shitty; you never know."
Hakkai heard Sanzo's voice, muffled, in the background.
"Yeah," said Goku. "I mean, look what happened with us. Things turned out okay."
Hakkai froze.
"You there?" said Goku. "Hakkai?"
"You knew?" he said.
"Well, yeah," said Goku. "And you kinda confirmed it, that time."
It was, somewhat predictably, Goku who had actually asked Hakkai about his past. But Hakkai had known, from the way Sanzo shifted in the bed, that it was he who had put Goku up to it. Goku, being a glorified gopher for his advising professor, had partial access to student files, and when he'd come across Hakkai's suspiciously empty one, red flags had gone up in his head. He'd taken the puzzle to Sanzo who, after much reluctance, did a little digging online, which only gave him the barest facts: a student, name withheld because of age, assaulted a private music tutor when said music tutor had inappropriately touched another student-the sister of the first. After the tutor was out of medical danger, he had been transferred to the medical unit of a prison. A few months later, the tutor was found dead in his cell, and all signs pointed to some other prisoner killing him. The students had received state-mandated counseling.
Hakkai held his breath in anticipation of the questions that were sure to come about the whole sordid situation.
"What I want to know," said Goku. "Is what you clocked the bastard with."
This shocked a laugh out of him.
"I hit him with the metronome he brought to lessons," said Hakkai.
Hakkai laughed and laughed until he cried, and he still couldn't stop. Together, Sanzo and Goku distracted him, working his body into a frenzy until he could let his thoughts go, let the guilt and shame ease in good company. And every time he started to twist himself around again, the pair of them started over, until at last none of them could even move, let alone think. And Sanzo and Goku covered his trembling body with theirs, and Hakkai slept better then than he had for years.
"Oh," said Hakkai. "I didn't realize."
He felt an acute, posthumous embarrassment for his younger, stupider self. At the time he'd been too busy trying-unsuccessfully-to stave off a panic attack to realize that he'd given away information that allowed his lovers to pinpoint his age.
"Hey, Hakkai, I've gotta go," said Goku. "Talk to him. Bye!"
"Goodbye," said Hakkai.
The dial tone sounded again. Hakkai stood in the kitchen, one ear to the phone, for a long time, and it was only by chance that he looked at the clock and realized that he would be late if he didn't hurry.
***
Gojyo tried to think of something else the next day, but he really couldn't. When he'd brushed his teeth that morning, he tasted the toothpaste and tried not to think about Mr. Cho's hand.
Gojyo waited on the platform for the six-fifty. He took a deep breath and told himself to be cool. The subway was just the subway, right? He rode it every day, nothing special about it. He tried not to think about how his stomach lurched when he thought to himself that maybe Mr. Cho was running late this morning. They might end up standing next to each other again. He shook his head. He didn't want to ride and have to hide the fact that he was hard. Gojyo didn't think he was unlucky-lucky-enough for Mr. Cho to do something two days in a row…so…not thinking again. Not thinking was good.
When he'd seen his step-mom's to-be-returned dvd rentals stacked next to the OJ and lucky charms that morning, he'd cringed at the one on top. Notes on a Scandal. He didn't bother reading the back of the case, because the way the women stared up at him from the front side was more than enough, thanks. And besides, he'd heard at least half of it the night before when she'd watched it, volume blasting through the thin walls of the apartment, from the living room straight into his brain.
Though he knew he'd catch hell for it later, he left the movies behind instead of bringing them with to return, and he slipped out the door to school.
The six-fifty arrived and Gojyo got on, finding an empty spot in the middle of the car. He didn't have to stand, but he was too keyed up to sit down. He swayed along with the train as it jolted over the rails, not bothering with a strap because it brought a heat-thumping physical memory along of Mr. Cho's hands.
Gojyo remembered Mr. Cho's hands. Not just his hands on the subway in the not-so private darkness, packed in with fifty other people, but Mr. Cho's hands after that. When they went to his apartment.
It was funny, kinda, how he'd been all over Gojyo on the subway, but in his apartment Mr. Cho was strictly hands-off.
He'd offered Gojyo a soda, and Gojyo took it, popped the tab and pretended to drink it when what he was really doing was thinking about how Mr. Cho's fingers had just touched his while handing over the can. Kid stuff to get so worked up about, but here he was getting hard over it.
Gojyo wanted those fingers on him again. Maybe Mr. Cho had known it, too. Maybe Mr. Cho had wanted. They stood on opposite sides of the narrow, galley kitchen. Gojyo watched Mr. Cho, leaned up against a counter, rumpling up the white sleeves of his shirt as he jerked off like no one was watching. Except Gojyo definitely was.
Even though he was still buzzing from coming, Gojyo got achingly hard. Maybe he was half-wrong: Mr. Cho might've been an exhibitionist, but Gojyo was, right that second, a voyeur. He could have watched Mr. Cho do it a hundred times, a thousand times, and he still would have gotten just as turned on because it was Mr. Cho. Gojyo decided he wouldn't have done anything different, from the subway on, if he'd known, getting on that afternoon, where he'd end up. He didn't dare stare, but his eyes flicked from Mr. Cho's face to the toaster on the counter, back to Mr. Cho's busy hand, and away to the dripping faucet.
The whole apartment smelled faintly of Mr. Cho's cologne, and it made it almost like Mr. Cho was still touching him, even though they stood apart.
Mr. Cho took out a handkerchief. Maybe it was the same one he'd held over Gojyo's cock. Gojyo felt his insides jerk at that idea. Mr. Cho draped the cloth over the head of his dick and Gojyo made a disappointed noise. He couldn't see half as well now, but he could see Mr. Cho's hand moving, kinda, could see how he watched Gojyo watching…
Gojyo shook his head and shifted his backpack off his shoulder. He held it in front of him for the rest of the ride to school and tried to think of something else again.
He did all right until an advertisement caught his eye as they pulled up to the station. Gojyo groaned.
He'd never look at that brand of soda the same way again. He would never forget how it tasted, mingled with the scent of Mr. Cho's cologne in the warmth of Mr. Cho's kitchen. Gojyo chugged he soda after Mr. Cho zipped himself back up and stuck the crumpled handkerchief in his pocket. He drank it so that his hands wouldn't do something dumb, like reach for Mr. Cho or go for his own zipper. He'd never been so hard in his life, and that was saying a lot for a teenage boy.
Gojyo put the empty down on the counter and he ran away before Mr. Cho could say anything, even though he wanted to stay, even though he needed so bad he thought he'd explode. Gojyo only made it as far at the alley beside Mr. Cho's building, and it took less than ten seconds with his hands down his pants, thinking of Mr. Cho and tasting the remnants of soda and cologne on his lips, for Gojyo to come. He did his best to ignore the stickiness on the long walk home.
The subway car jerked to a stop, and Gojyo elbowed his way out among commuters and other school kids like him. He made it up the stairs, still part of the crowd, and then the crowd split around him as he stood still at the mouth of the street-level entrance.
Mr. Cho hadn't chased after him, so Gojyo guessed splitting when he did was okay to do. Maybe that's how real grown-ups did things. Besides, if Mr. Cho really wanted to talk they'd see each other at school. Or, Gojyo swallowed hard, on the ride home.
His thoughts flew out of his head at the sight of his teacher standing next to the bike rack at the station's mouth. He was obviously looking for someone or something in the thinning crowd. Maybe for Gojyo? But that was a dumb idea. Teachers didn't do that, did they?
"Mr. Cho," he said.
Maybe he'd said it out loud, or maybe he'd only thought it, but seeing Mr. Cho on the platform hit Gojyo like lightning. He felt his whole body flush, and he knew his cheeks had gone pink. He hadn't wanted Mr. Cho to be there, because the sight of him made Gojyo's stomach lurch, but Gojyo was also weirdly happy at the sight of that white button-down shirt and the charcoal-gray pants.
Gojyo thought maybe he'd duck around and avoid his teacher, but their eyes met, and Mr. Cho's glasses flashed in the sun as he nodded. His feet feeling like lead, Gojyo trudged to Mr. Cho's side. He felt scruffy and awkward standing there next to him.
"Good morning, Gojyo," said Mr. Cho.
"Uh, hi," said Gojyo.
They walked themselves clear of the subway crowd, and Gojyo's heart started to pound with uncertain anticipation.
"I wanted to make sure you were all right, after yesterday," said Mr. Cho. "I trust you made it home?"
Gojyo checked reflexively that there wasn't anyone around listening in. Mr. Cho spoke close to his ear, but not so close that it looked suspicious. Not that there was anyone looking at them. Gojyo wondered if Mr. Cho's apartment had a window into that alley, because it felt like they weren't really talking about how Gojyo had backtracked a grand total of fifty blocks because he'd been too stupefied by what had happened when the subway had gone dark. Gojyo snuck a look up at Mr. Cho's face, but if anything was unusual about it, Gojyo couldn't tell.
"I'm fine," said Gojyo.
There wasn't time for more conversation because the school was in sight and Mr. Cho strode forward a few feet, making it look like nothing was going on, like they had just bumped into each other, two people on the way to the same destination. Gojyo's stomach twisted in knots, but he wasn't sure if they were the good kind or the bad kind. He had a feeling that they'd be talking more later. His mouth was totally dry at the thought of later.
Gojyo had an awful time concentrating that day. His mind kept going back to Mr. Cho's apartment. It'd been hot, but confusing. Why hadn't Mr. Cho…done something to him? That was what teachers who felt their students up did, wasn't it? Gojyo had known all along that Mr. Cho was different from the other teachers, so maybe he even did this different, too.
Perversely, he wondered if he'd done something wrong to make Mr. Cho not touch him. Maybe Mr. Cho really didn't like him, but that was a dumb thought because Gojyo knew very well that liking someone or not didn't mean you couldn't do sex stuff with them. He thought about that girl again, who'd wanted it to mean something when it hadn't. Gojyo didn't like to think that he was just convenient to what Mr. Cho wanted.
Gojyo drifted through history and math. He ate lunch in a daze. He nearly blew up the lab in chemistry, even though he wasn't trying to do it…unlike a few other unfortunate occasions. He got sent to the principal's office and sat in the lone, scarred chair across from the secretary, reeking of smoke and shedding soot all over the threadbare, industrial carpet. Even then, Mr. Cho was on his mind.
Gojyo's conversation with the principal ended with a week of detention, to be served the following week. Normally Gojyo would've protested his innocence, would have tried to get the principal to make it less because it was an accident, but not today. The only thing Gojyo was thinking about was how late he was going to be to Mr. Cho's class. If he ran and didn't get caught at it, he might get there before the bell.
One of the things that made Mr. Cho different from the other teachers was what he did if someone came into the classroom late. The other teachers, beaten down by class after class of kids who didn't care, either ignored a latecomer or slapped detentions down. But Mr. Cho…
As it was, Gojyo suffered under the humiliation of being walked to his class by the secretary at a pace that made gridlock look like nascar. The bell had rung about three feet from the office door. It was too late. Gojyo knew what was coming and anticipation fluttered in the pit of his stomach.
Gojyo watched at the classroom door, for a bare second, as Mr. Cho, standing at the head of the class, read from a thick book that Gojyo couldn't see the spine of. Gojyo felt prickles sweep over the back of his neck.
The secretary rapped smartly on the door and, opening the door, shoved Gojyo in.
Mr. Cho broke off mid-word, and Gojyo felt all the eyes in the room turn to him.
"The principal sends his apologies for delaying Gojyo," she said, speaking from behind.
"Come in, Gojyo," said Mr. Cho. "Thank you, Ms. Green."
The door closed again, and Gojyo took step after step to the battered desk at the front of the class, the only desk that was empty. Not having a seating plan was another thing Mr. Cho did that wasn't like the other teachers. But that meant that Gojyo was stuck at the front of the room. He could feel everyone staring at him, burning holes in the back of his head.
Mr. Cho cleared his throat. The kids in back snickered. Gojyo looked up at him from underneath his bangs, but Mr. Cho's eyes saw right through him, he was sure.
"Page two-seventy-six, if you please," he said.
Gojyo dropped his lit book on the desk with a too-loud thud. He felt himself blushing under Mr. Cho's scrutiny. He fumbled his way through the tissue-thin pages, nearly tearing them out in his haste to obey. He just wanted to get it over with. Gojyo felt his blush deepen. Even though it hadn't been Gojyo's fault, even though he hadn't been late on purpose, Mr. Cho chose a poem that stung as he looked it over.
"If you please," said Mr. Cho, again. "I know it isn't a classic, per se, but that shouldn't stop you from reading it in my classroom."
Gojyo nodded, ignoring the snickering of the people around him. He took a deep breath and read aloud:
"See, they return; ah, see the tentative
Movements, and the slow feet,
The trouble in the pace and the uncertain
Wavering!"
The kids giggled some more and Gojyo glared all around. Could Mr. Cho have found a lamer poem? It was spot-on, yeah, but he'd never live this down outside the classroom. A pointed look from Mr. Cho had Gojyo scrambling on.
"See, they return, one, and by one,
With fear, as half-awakened;
As if the snow should hesitate
And murmur in the wind,
and half turn back;
These were the "Wing'd-with-Awe,"
Inviolable."
He stumbled over the word inviolable. Not because the other kids knew what it meant-because most of them didn't- but because he knew what it meant, and if he did, then Mr. Cho knew what it meant, and it all echoed back to yesterday's ride home. Mr. Cho approached Gojyo's desk, and Gojyo could feel the presence of him, like he gave off some sort of magnetic force. He swallowed hard and snuck a glance upward. Mr. Cho's stern expression was…softer around the eyes today than it usually was, but Gojyo didn't know if was because he liked the poem or liked the voice reading it. Gojyo wished he had some water to drink. He looked back at the book.
"Gods of the wingèd shoe!
With them the silver hounds,
Sniffing the trace of air!
Haie! Haie!
These were the swift to harry;
These were the keen-scented;
These were the souls of blood.
Slow on the leash,
pallid the leash-men!"
Gojyo clapped the book shut. At least the others had stopped laughing at him. He himself felt puzzled by the poem.
"You will write a page on what meaning you find in what you just read," said Mr. Cho. "And hand it in to me tomorrow."
"Yes, Mr. Cho," said Gojyo. And it was all he could say under Mr. Cho's weighty stare.
He didn't breathe until Mr. Cho returned to his own desk, where he perched, picked up his book and continued on with the lesson. Gojyo didn't pay so much attention as he usually would. He was distracted by the poem and by the way Mr. Cho's pants pulled and curved around his butt on the edge of the desk. Gojyo had an almost side-on view of him from this angle, and he tried to restrict his eyes to where pants met desk. He was very good about not checking out how the pants molded to Mr. Cho's crotch, because he was equally aware of how there were other guys around him, guys who wouldn't mind beating him down for being a perv. Not that he was one, but looking at a teacher-a male teacher-like he wanted to look at Mr. Cho was unforgivable in the world of the school. Gojyo flipped through his book, mimicking the other students around him and trying desperately to blend in. He blew his bangs out of his face.
He couldn't stand another year of school, even if he had Mr. Cho as a teacher again. He couldn't do summer school either, not with the way things were at home. If he didn't graduate, he'd have to drop out. Gojyo looked up from his book and caught Mr. Cho's eyes. He flushed and looked away.
He wasted the rest of Mr. Cho's class doodling in the margins and thinking in circles, and when the bell rang he made sure he was the first one out the door.
=====
Well! I didn't do what I had set out to do (maybe) but I hope what I did do was satisfactory! I had a good--if somewhat frustrating--time doing it. ^_^
~later
I am currently making a real effort to clean up/set free some of the smaller pieces I started, and I think I'm ready to share this one, even if it doesn't have a solid ending.
Title: The Third Rail
Warnings: possibly dubious consent and slightly underage action between teacher!Hakkai and student!Gojyo. Also, references to the not-fun kind of teacher-student action. Sex and mild swears. Teenage angst. Flagrant abuse of italics. XD
Rating: erm. R? More than R? Not worksafe at any rate.
Word count: approximately 4000.
The poem contained within this story is Ezra Pound's "The Return."
=====
The next morning, before he caught the 6:00 train, Hakkai called Sanzo and Goku. The phone rang through, and he waited for someone to pick up on the other end. It gave him time to think.
Hakkai had met Sanzo in college, sophomore year. He'd been a few weeks shy of his seventeenth birthday, and Sanzo was just a little short of his nineteenth. Of course he lied and said he was the same age as Sanzo. It was odd how well they fit together despite their differences in, well, practically everything. Hakkai was on his way to a teaching certificate in English and the so-called Language Arts; Sanzo was the worst student the Divinity department had ever seen, displaying no faith in anything and having a clear bent for the sciences to boot. Hakkai shared a dorm room with three other freshmen; Sanzo had somehow netted himself a single, perhaps due to the sharpness of his personality. And although Hakkai knew a fair bit of Sanzo's academic life, he didn't know much of his personal life. In that mutual lack of exchange, they were similar. It did no good to make the past live, even in his memory. Hakkai's therapists had confirmed that it was better to let some things lie.
Strangest of all was how Hakkai managed to fit into Sanzo's sex life. At times he thought it odd that he (Hakkai) even had a sex life now. But in the relative privacy of Sanzo's room…What they shared was better than Hakkai had ever expected to have for himself.
Hakkai actually didn't know Sanzo was in a relationship, and Hakkai had naively assumed as such until, one morning at breakfast, Goku sat down across the table and introduced himself. At the time, Hakkai had been rather humiliated, and he'd apologized as best as he could, considering the circumstances. But Goku had just laughed and given him his blessing and an invitation. Goku hadn't been jealous or angry, and it took Hakkai a few weeks to figure out that Goku wasn't putting on a show, that he really meant it.
Hakkai found out even later that Goku was a grad student and older than both he and Sanzo, for all that he acted like the youngest of all. (He learned this when Goku ended up student-teaching one of his classes when the professor was out. And wasn't that interesting, calling his friend and by-then lover "Mr. Son." He'd been painfully aware of Goku the entire lecture, and when Goku smiled as he handed him back a paper with a sticky note that said Hakkai should go to Sanzo's dorm room after class, and he'd meet them both there…Hakkai had hardly been able to stand up at the end of the lecture for lack of blood flow to his extremities.)
The phone's purring cut off abruptly. Two clicks: two phones on the same line picked up.
"What the hell do you want?" said Sanzo. "Birds don't get up this early."
"Hey, Hakkai!" said Goku. "What's up? Stop being such an ass, Sanzo."
Hakkai explained what was going on, breathless with worry, senseless with guilt and fear.
"You're being an idiot," said Sanzo. "You're nothing like that."
"I dunno," said Goku. "If he tells, if someone finds out…"
"You know when his birthday is?" said Sanzo.
"November," said Hakkai. "November ninth."
Sanzo's breath crackled on the line. Hakkai heard doubt in that exhalation.
"Don't give anyone a reason to suspect," he said. "Play it safe. Wait."
"It may be too late for that," said Hakkai. "Not to avoid suspicion, but…Gojyo himself…"
"He's graduating this year, yeah?" said Goku.
"With any luck," said Hakkai, and he felt himself slipping into Mr. Cho's shoes. "I don't know how well I can motivate him to succeed. If he doesn’t do better the rest of the year, he won't."
"If he doesn't graduate, you're fucked," said Sanzo. "If he does…"
"He'll slip through the cracks," said Hakkai. "I gather from his file that his home life isn't the best of situations."
"Dude, you read his file?" said Goku. "Like…read it read it?"
Hakkai allowed himself a laugh.
"I assure you, my intentions were nothing but the best," said Hakkai. "I wanted to know more about the student the other teachers tried to warn me was a lost cause."
Sanzo grunted.
"Idiots," he said. "All of you. You never learned to be patient."
"Hey, Hakkai," said Goku.
"Yes?"
"Have you, y'know, talked to Gojyo about any of this?" said Goku.
Silence reigned over the lines for a full minute.
"No," said Hakkai. "I haven't."
"Idiot," said Sanzo.
And the dial tone sounded in Hakkai's ear. He hung the phone up, and ten seconds later it rang.
"Hello?"
"Sorry," said Goku. "You know Sanzo."
Hakkai laughed politely.
"But seriously, just talk to him, yeah?" said Goku. "Things might not be so shitty; you never know."
Hakkai heard Sanzo's voice, muffled, in the background.
"Yeah," said Goku. "I mean, look what happened with us. Things turned out okay."
Hakkai froze.
"You there?" said Goku. "Hakkai?"
"You knew?" he said.
"Well, yeah," said Goku. "And you kinda confirmed it, that time."
It was, somewhat predictably, Goku who had actually asked Hakkai about his past. But Hakkai had known, from the way Sanzo shifted in the bed, that it was he who had put Goku up to it. Goku, being a glorified gopher for his advising professor, had partial access to student files, and when he'd come across Hakkai's suspiciously empty one, red flags had gone up in his head. He'd taken the puzzle to Sanzo who, after much reluctance, did a little digging online, which only gave him the barest facts: a student, name withheld because of age, assaulted a private music tutor when said music tutor had inappropriately touched another student-the sister of the first. After the tutor was out of medical danger, he had been transferred to the medical unit of a prison. A few months later, the tutor was found dead in his cell, and all signs pointed to some other prisoner killing him. The students had received state-mandated counseling.
Hakkai held his breath in anticipation of the questions that were sure to come about the whole sordid situation.
"What I want to know," said Goku. "Is what you clocked the bastard with."
This shocked a laugh out of him.
"I hit him with the metronome he brought to lessons," said Hakkai.
Hakkai laughed and laughed until he cried, and he still couldn't stop. Together, Sanzo and Goku distracted him, working his body into a frenzy until he could let his thoughts go, let the guilt and shame ease in good company. And every time he started to twist himself around again, the pair of them started over, until at last none of them could even move, let alone think. And Sanzo and Goku covered his trembling body with theirs, and Hakkai slept better then than he had for years.
"Oh," said Hakkai. "I didn't realize."
He felt an acute, posthumous embarrassment for his younger, stupider self. At the time he'd been too busy trying-unsuccessfully-to stave off a panic attack to realize that he'd given away information that allowed his lovers to pinpoint his age.
"Hey, Hakkai, I've gotta go," said Goku. "Talk to him. Bye!"
"Goodbye," said Hakkai.
The dial tone sounded again. Hakkai stood in the kitchen, one ear to the phone, for a long time, and it was only by chance that he looked at the clock and realized that he would be late if he didn't hurry.
***
Gojyo tried to think of something else the next day, but he really couldn't. When he'd brushed his teeth that morning, he tasted the toothpaste and tried not to think about Mr. Cho's hand.
Gojyo waited on the platform for the six-fifty. He took a deep breath and told himself to be cool. The subway was just the subway, right? He rode it every day, nothing special about it. He tried not to think about how his stomach lurched when he thought to himself that maybe Mr. Cho was running late this morning. They might end up standing next to each other again. He shook his head. He didn't want to ride and have to hide the fact that he was hard. Gojyo didn't think he was unlucky-lucky-enough for Mr. Cho to do something two days in a row…so…not thinking again. Not thinking was good.
When he'd seen his step-mom's to-be-returned dvd rentals stacked next to the OJ and lucky charms that morning, he'd cringed at the one on top. Notes on a Scandal. He didn't bother reading the back of the case, because the way the women stared up at him from the front side was more than enough, thanks. And besides, he'd heard at least half of it the night before when she'd watched it, volume blasting through the thin walls of the apartment, from the living room straight into his brain.
Though he knew he'd catch hell for it later, he left the movies behind instead of bringing them with to return, and he slipped out the door to school.
The six-fifty arrived and Gojyo got on, finding an empty spot in the middle of the car. He didn't have to stand, but he was too keyed up to sit down. He swayed along with the train as it jolted over the rails, not bothering with a strap because it brought a heat-thumping physical memory along of Mr. Cho's hands.
Gojyo remembered Mr. Cho's hands. Not just his hands on the subway in the not-so private darkness, packed in with fifty other people, but Mr. Cho's hands after that. When they went to his apartment.
It was funny, kinda, how he'd been all over Gojyo on the subway, but in his apartment Mr. Cho was strictly hands-off.
He'd offered Gojyo a soda, and Gojyo took it, popped the tab and pretended to drink it when what he was really doing was thinking about how Mr. Cho's fingers had just touched his while handing over the can. Kid stuff to get so worked up about, but here he was getting hard over it.
Gojyo wanted those fingers on him again. Maybe Mr. Cho had known it, too. Maybe Mr. Cho had wanted. They stood on opposite sides of the narrow, galley kitchen. Gojyo watched Mr. Cho, leaned up against a counter, rumpling up the white sleeves of his shirt as he jerked off like no one was watching. Except Gojyo definitely was.
Even though he was still buzzing from coming, Gojyo got achingly hard. Maybe he was half-wrong: Mr. Cho might've been an exhibitionist, but Gojyo was, right that second, a voyeur. He could have watched Mr. Cho do it a hundred times, a thousand times, and he still would have gotten just as turned on because it was Mr. Cho. Gojyo decided he wouldn't have done anything different, from the subway on, if he'd known, getting on that afternoon, where he'd end up. He didn't dare stare, but his eyes flicked from Mr. Cho's face to the toaster on the counter, back to Mr. Cho's busy hand, and away to the dripping faucet.
The whole apartment smelled faintly of Mr. Cho's cologne, and it made it almost like Mr. Cho was still touching him, even though they stood apart.
Mr. Cho took out a handkerchief. Maybe it was the same one he'd held over Gojyo's cock. Gojyo felt his insides jerk at that idea. Mr. Cho draped the cloth over the head of his dick and Gojyo made a disappointed noise. He couldn't see half as well now, but he could see Mr. Cho's hand moving, kinda, could see how he watched Gojyo watching…
Gojyo shook his head and shifted his backpack off his shoulder. He held it in front of him for the rest of the ride to school and tried to think of something else again.
He did all right until an advertisement caught his eye as they pulled up to the station. Gojyo groaned.
He'd never look at that brand of soda the same way again. He would never forget how it tasted, mingled with the scent of Mr. Cho's cologne in the warmth of Mr. Cho's kitchen. Gojyo chugged he soda after Mr. Cho zipped himself back up and stuck the crumpled handkerchief in his pocket. He drank it so that his hands wouldn't do something dumb, like reach for Mr. Cho or go for his own zipper. He'd never been so hard in his life, and that was saying a lot for a teenage boy.
Gojyo put the empty down on the counter and he ran away before Mr. Cho could say anything, even though he wanted to stay, even though he needed so bad he thought he'd explode. Gojyo only made it as far at the alley beside Mr. Cho's building, and it took less than ten seconds with his hands down his pants, thinking of Mr. Cho and tasting the remnants of soda and cologne on his lips, for Gojyo to come. He did his best to ignore the stickiness on the long walk home.
The subway car jerked to a stop, and Gojyo elbowed his way out among commuters and other school kids like him. He made it up the stairs, still part of the crowd, and then the crowd split around him as he stood still at the mouth of the street-level entrance.
Mr. Cho hadn't chased after him, so Gojyo guessed splitting when he did was okay to do. Maybe that's how real grown-ups did things. Besides, if Mr. Cho really wanted to talk they'd see each other at school. Or, Gojyo swallowed hard, on the ride home.
His thoughts flew out of his head at the sight of his teacher standing next to the bike rack at the station's mouth. He was obviously looking for someone or something in the thinning crowd. Maybe for Gojyo? But that was a dumb idea. Teachers didn't do that, did they?
"Mr. Cho," he said.
Maybe he'd said it out loud, or maybe he'd only thought it, but seeing Mr. Cho on the platform hit Gojyo like lightning. He felt his whole body flush, and he knew his cheeks had gone pink. He hadn't wanted Mr. Cho to be there, because the sight of him made Gojyo's stomach lurch, but Gojyo was also weirdly happy at the sight of that white button-down shirt and the charcoal-gray pants.
Gojyo thought maybe he'd duck around and avoid his teacher, but their eyes met, and Mr. Cho's glasses flashed in the sun as he nodded. His feet feeling like lead, Gojyo trudged to Mr. Cho's side. He felt scruffy and awkward standing there next to him.
"Good morning, Gojyo," said Mr. Cho.
"Uh, hi," said Gojyo.
They walked themselves clear of the subway crowd, and Gojyo's heart started to pound with uncertain anticipation.
"I wanted to make sure you were all right, after yesterday," said Mr. Cho. "I trust you made it home?"
Gojyo checked reflexively that there wasn't anyone around listening in. Mr. Cho spoke close to his ear, but not so close that it looked suspicious. Not that there was anyone looking at them. Gojyo wondered if Mr. Cho's apartment had a window into that alley, because it felt like they weren't really talking about how Gojyo had backtracked a grand total of fifty blocks because he'd been too stupefied by what had happened when the subway had gone dark. Gojyo snuck a look up at Mr. Cho's face, but if anything was unusual about it, Gojyo couldn't tell.
"I'm fine," said Gojyo.
There wasn't time for more conversation because the school was in sight and Mr. Cho strode forward a few feet, making it look like nothing was going on, like they had just bumped into each other, two people on the way to the same destination. Gojyo's stomach twisted in knots, but he wasn't sure if they were the good kind or the bad kind. He had a feeling that they'd be talking more later. His mouth was totally dry at the thought of later.
Gojyo had an awful time concentrating that day. His mind kept going back to Mr. Cho's apartment. It'd been hot, but confusing. Why hadn't Mr. Cho…done something to him? That was what teachers who felt their students up did, wasn't it? Gojyo had known all along that Mr. Cho was different from the other teachers, so maybe he even did this different, too.
Perversely, he wondered if he'd done something wrong to make Mr. Cho not touch him. Maybe Mr. Cho really didn't like him, but that was a dumb thought because Gojyo knew very well that liking someone or not didn't mean you couldn't do sex stuff with them. He thought about that girl again, who'd wanted it to mean something when it hadn't. Gojyo didn't like to think that he was just convenient to what Mr. Cho wanted.
Gojyo drifted through history and math. He ate lunch in a daze. He nearly blew up the lab in chemistry, even though he wasn't trying to do it…unlike a few other unfortunate occasions. He got sent to the principal's office and sat in the lone, scarred chair across from the secretary, reeking of smoke and shedding soot all over the threadbare, industrial carpet. Even then, Mr. Cho was on his mind.
Gojyo's conversation with the principal ended with a week of detention, to be served the following week. Normally Gojyo would've protested his innocence, would have tried to get the principal to make it less because it was an accident, but not today. The only thing Gojyo was thinking about was how late he was going to be to Mr. Cho's class. If he ran and didn't get caught at it, he might get there before the bell.
One of the things that made Mr. Cho different from the other teachers was what he did if someone came into the classroom late. The other teachers, beaten down by class after class of kids who didn't care, either ignored a latecomer or slapped detentions down. But Mr. Cho…
As it was, Gojyo suffered under the humiliation of being walked to his class by the secretary at a pace that made gridlock look like nascar. The bell had rung about three feet from the office door. It was too late. Gojyo knew what was coming and anticipation fluttered in the pit of his stomach.
Gojyo watched at the classroom door, for a bare second, as Mr. Cho, standing at the head of the class, read from a thick book that Gojyo couldn't see the spine of. Gojyo felt prickles sweep over the back of his neck.
The secretary rapped smartly on the door and, opening the door, shoved Gojyo in.
Mr. Cho broke off mid-word, and Gojyo felt all the eyes in the room turn to him.
"The principal sends his apologies for delaying Gojyo," she said, speaking from behind.
"Come in, Gojyo," said Mr. Cho. "Thank you, Ms. Green."
The door closed again, and Gojyo took step after step to the battered desk at the front of the class, the only desk that was empty. Not having a seating plan was another thing Mr. Cho did that wasn't like the other teachers. But that meant that Gojyo was stuck at the front of the room. He could feel everyone staring at him, burning holes in the back of his head.
Mr. Cho cleared his throat. The kids in back snickered. Gojyo looked up at him from underneath his bangs, but Mr. Cho's eyes saw right through him, he was sure.
"Page two-seventy-six, if you please," he said.
Gojyo dropped his lit book on the desk with a too-loud thud. He felt himself blushing under Mr. Cho's scrutiny. He fumbled his way through the tissue-thin pages, nearly tearing them out in his haste to obey. He just wanted to get it over with. Gojyo felt his blush deepen. Even though it hadn't been Gojyo's fault, even though he hadn't been late on purpose, Mr. Cho chose a poem that stung as he looked it over.
"If you please," said Mr. Cho, again. "I know it isn't a classic, per se, but that shouldn't stop you from reading it in my classroom."
Gojyo nodded, ignoring the snickering of the people around him. He took a deep breath and read aloud:
"See, they return; ah, see the tentative
Movements, and the slow feet,
The trouble in the pace and the uncertain
Wavering!"
The kids giggled some more and Gojyo glared all around. Could Mr. Cho have found a lamer poem? It was spot-on, yeah, but he'd never live this down outside the classroom. A pointed look from Mr. Cho had Gojyo scrambling on.
"See, they return, one, and by one,
With fear, as half-awakened;
As if the snow should hesitate
And murmur in the wind,
and half turn back;
These were the "Wing'd-with-Awe,"
Inviolable."
He stumbled over the word inviolable. Not because the other kids knew what it meant-because most of them didn't- but because he knew what it meant, and if he did, then Mr. Cho knew what it meant, and it all echoed back to yesterday's ride home. Mr. Cho approached Gojyo's desk, and Gojyo could feel the presence of him, like he gave off some sort of magnetic force. He swallowed hard and snuck a glance upward. Mr. Cho's stern expression was…softer around the eyes today than it usually was, but Gojyo didn't know if was because he liked the poem or liked the voice reading it. Gojyo wished he had some water to drink. He looked back at the book.
"Gods of the wingèd shoe!
With them the silver hounds,
Sniffing the trace of air!
Haie! Haie!
These were the swift to harry;
These were the keen-scented;
These were the souls of blood.
Slow on the leash,
pallid the leash-men!"
Gojyo clapped the book shut. At least the others had stopped laughing at him. He himself felt puzzled by the poem.
"You will write a page on what meaning you find in what you just read," said Mr. Cho. "And hand it in to me tomorrow."
"Yes, Mr. Cho," said Gojyo. And it was all he could say under Mr. Cho's weighty stare.
He didn't breathe until Mr. Cho returned to his own desk, where he perched, picked up his book and continued on with the lesson. Gojyo didn't pay so much attention as he usually would. He was distracted by the poem and by the way Mr. Cho's pants pulled and curved around his butt on the edge of the desk. Gojyo had an almost side-on view of him from this angle, and he tried to restrict his eyes to where pants met desk. He was very good about not checking out how the pants molded to Mr. Cho's crotch, because he was equally aware of how there were other guys around him, guys who wouldn't mind beating him down for being a perv. Not that he was one, but looking at a teacher-a male teacher-like he wanted to look at Mr. Cho was unforgivable in the world of the school. Gojyo flipped through his book, mimicking the other students around him and trying desperately to blend in. He blew his bangs out of his face.
He couldn't stand another year of school, even if he had Mr. Cho as a teacher again. He couldn't do summer school either, not with the way things were at home. If he didn't graduate, he'd have to drop out. Gojyo looked up from his book and caught Mr. Cho's eyes. He flushed and looked away.
He wasted the rest of Mr. Cho's class doodling in the margins and thinking in circles, and when the bell rang he made sure he was the first one out the door.
=====
Well! I didn't do what I had set out to do (maybe) but I hope what I did do was satisfactory! I had a good--if somewhat frustrating--time doing it. ^_^
~later