damned_institute | Day 21: Lunch

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Day 21: Lunch

Hikaru and Kaoru had been so caught up in their little game that they initially hadn't heard the intercom go off. The new "ding" system was far less jarring than the old SCREECH, and as such, wasn't as easily heard, even in a place as quiet as the library. All too soon, the nurses came to separate the twins and take them to the next activity--lunch.

It only felt like a few minutes since breakfast, somehow, and yet Hikaru was starved. The lunch selection was ridiculously Americanized food of the "Pan Asian" genre, as bad as when his family had wanted Japanese food in California and had gone to the "nicest" restaurant in the English language guidebook. He cringed visibly when the surly cafeteria worker poured sauce on his rice--which was supposed to be plain--but...food was food, and he wasn't feeling terribly picky right now. At least it smelled all right.

One of the good things about being the first one into the cafeteria was having his pick of the tables. Hikaru chose one of the larger ones, saving seats for Kaoru, Tamaki, and (in a fit of hopefulness) Haruhi.

He hoped they'd come soon. He hated being alone.

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"Not... entirely, no. There were extenuating circumstances." He gave Sanzo a somewhat ironic smile. No, Hakkai really wasn't that stupid. "I do believe we may have called each other."

At that, Sanzo blinked. If it'd been anyone else but Hakkai, the monk would've passed it off as them shitting him. Unfortunately, it was Hakkai, and he'd said it with about as straight a face as Sanzo'd ever seen.He didn't have any other choice but to take it more seriously into consideration.

There was obviously something going on here, and Sanzo had the ugly feeling it had to do with that moment of recognition when he'd first set eyes on Kenren.

"He called you," Sanzo repeated. The lunch was temporarily forgotten.

Like Goku called me?

The monk continued. He wanted to get a clearer picture before he started judging this.

"Can you describe how it was?"

"We called each other." That was an important distinction for Hakkai, so Sanzo would have to excuse him for belaboring the point.

"I'm afraid I was focusing on staying upright at the time, so you'll excuse me if my memory is perhaps a bit fuzzy." He was still picking at lunch because it was a convenient way to stall as he collected his thoughts. "Going down the hallway merely seemed like a very good idea. Something was waiting for me."

Another ironic smile. "Well. Someone."

Sanzo didn't say anything at first, just turned over what Hakkai had said in his head. It sounded familiar, except that Sanzo'd heard Goku's voice very distinctly, and been very aware that he was following it. What Hakkai described sounded even more frustrating than what he'd faced.

"So it wasn't just you who 'heard' it.... Or did he only bring it up after you did?" Sanzo pressed. There was a difference between the two times he could have mentioned it; one that separated Kenren from potentially having some form of connection to Hakkai, the other from him being a liar.

The monk didn't miss that comment about staying upright. Something had happened during last night, and whatever it was had affected Hakkai enough. If it affected his memory, it could've affected his judgment. Sanzo needed to know exactly what happened.

"And what happened to you before you met him?"

"Neither one of us brought it up. He named me first, though." Granted, it had been the wrong name, but perhaps that just showed the likelihood of Hakkai's idea. "It merely felt right. Surely you would understand that, Sanzo."

Hakkai hadn't intended for him to miss it. If he was gong to be of any use here, it was important that they were both aware of his new limitations. If Sanzo expected something that he was unable to give at a crucial moment, things could go very wrong, very quickly.

"Nothing overly serious. I overestimated my ability to control my chi here. It will be unlikely to happen again. It was something of an emergency, or I wouldn't have pushed it as far as I did."

Sanzo did understand it, all too well. Back in the mountains,he hadn't even been with the monkey for five minutes, but it'd felt right somehow. Despite the whining for food and breaking whatever peace and quiet the monk used to have...

It was like he'd found something he hadn't fully realized he'd been missing. He'd just felt something was decidedly off before then.

And now Hakkai was saying he'd felt something similar from Kenren. It was troubling, just what it implied. But there wasn't anything else the priest could say about Kenren right now, at least without talking with him or observing him. Sanzo wasn't looking forward to it. Too much of the other man reminded him of the kappa...

Sanzo had wondered whether Landels had managed to affect Hakkai's abilities, and he wasn't pleased to find out he'd been correct in his guess.

"How much has this place affected you?"

"Full of questions today, aren't we?" He smiled slightly at the idea of Sanzo being anything but suspicious. The suspicion just hadn't been directed so squarely at himself since, well, quite some time now. He supposed he really shouldn't have gotten used to the trust, but he had. Unfortunate. He'd have to watch that in the future.

"More than I would like." He sighed and dropped the smile. Not like Sanzo couldn't see through it if he wanted, anyway. The last thing Hakkai wanted right now was for Sanzo to think he was taking this lightly. "It's not unlike going suddenly blind and deaf. I find myself acclimating to the change, but slowly."

"If last night is any indication, my chi is unreliable as well." That was what really bothered Hakkai most. Lately, he'd found himself relying on his chi more and more, and suddenly it wasn't there. Most disconcerting.

The smile returned, as was inevitable. This time, though, it had a distinctly self-mocking twist, or perhaps just mocking. "To think how often I envied your humanity."

Sanzo had every reason to be drilling the other man with questions like he was. Namely, it involved staying alive, and that meant knowing what Hakkai could or couldn't do while he was in this place.

At Hakkai's last remark about humanity, the monk's lips twitched into a humorless smile. It'd come off as both a jab at himself, and at the priest, and it was lucky that it was Hakkai and not anyone else who'd said it.

Hakkai, thanks to Gonou's crimes, had gained something not usually meant for a human. The change resulted in the loss of a part of himself in exchange for the new power. Sanzo'd wondered now and then if the healer was slowly forgetting what it was like being human.

Judging from his words, it might not be too far off the mark...

"Being human isn't as bad as you make it sound," he replied. "I seem to manage."

"Of course, Sanzo, of course. No offense was meant." Or was it? Sometimes even he wasn't quite sure just how many buttons he intended to push and how much was merely chance. Gonou, and later Hakkai, had never been one to sit quietly without testing his boundaries.

Which was part of the problem. Those boundaries, the physical ones that limited him and said 'this is Cho Hakkai' had suddenly grown quite a bit tighter and smaller. It really wasn't that different from losing a sense.

He was, after all, rather well-versed in sudden loss of sense organs, as well.

"I don't mean to imply that humanity in itself is bad. After four years, though, one perforce becomes somewhat accustomed to what one is." He hadn't forgotten what it was to be human as much as he had learned what it was to not be human. "To again become something else, even if just to return to the original form..."

He reached up to run a finger lightly over the ear cuffs that he still wore. Where they had always before been a comforting presence, now they seemed tight, uncomfortable, as if they were compressing more than just his other half.

Hakkai was a resourceful man. Sudden imitations or not, Sanzo had no doubt that he'd figure out a way to deal with it and adapt.

Still, if he couldn't use his chi...

"We need to get you armed." Actually, Sanzo needed to get armed as well, but in the worst case scenario - that this wasn't Hakkai - the other man didn't need to know that the monk was relatively defenseless. A tantra might work to keep a youkai at bay, but there wasn't any way he could use it on multiple targets, much less even kill anyone with one. It was why he preferred having the Smith & Wesson at his side.

"Even without my chi, I'm hardly defenseless. Besides, I have rather limited experience with weapons, if you'll recall. I'd likely do more harm than good." Sanzo should know that Hakkai was more than just his chi techniques. Qi-gong was a complete discipline, for all that it had its flashier elements.

Not that anything short of a chi blast was likely to stop something like the monster they'd run into last night.

Something else occured to him, bringing the amused and mocking smile back. "I also wouldn't have thought weapons would be so common in a place like this. You speak as if they could be found around every corner."

Sanzo already knew that Hakkai had more than enough experience in hand-to-hand, but he also didn't see how much good it would do against some of the creatures here. Especially if the number of nurses that night had been anything to go by.

Damned near perfect imposter or the real thing, Hakkai's special brand of sarcasm was something else entirely.

"One wouldn't have also thought that the doors unlocking at night would be common either," Sanzo replied wryly. "But it does allow you free reign at night. One of the other patients here mentioned something about looking for a tranq gun in the medwing here."

Sanzo didn't mention the run-in with the group near the Sun Room several nights ago and getting a hold of that pistol. It would lead to too many questions, one of which would result in him giving away the fact that he no longer had the gun anymore.

Hakkai's special brand of humor was a thing to be marveled at, if only in horror that he actually finds it funny.

"No, and one wouldn't think anyone would go to this much trouble to convince people they were crazy. This place is just full of surprises, isn't it?" Surprises that seemed to enjoy cornering them in dark corridors at night.

He considered that. "A tranq gun? I'm afraid guns are more your department than mine. The scorpion we encountered last night, though... it would take more than one hit to take something like that down."

"I never got the chance to get to a tranq gun. We were surrounded by these...things," Nurses wasn't even close to doing them justice. Just the memory of those vacant eyes, the lids stapled upon was enough the make Sanzo's mouth tighten with distaste.

"A scorpion?"

The last scorpions he remembered seeing was back in that desert where the bitch poisoned him. But those things had been small; a single stomp would have been enough. A gun would be overkill.

"Surrounded? So the things here run in packs, too. That could complicate things." He had years of experience at reading Sanzo, so he could pick up on the fact that there was something worse involved than just being attacked. Sanzo hadn't so much as batted an eyelid at some of the things that had attacked them. Whatever he'd run into here must be bad.

"A scorpion, yes. One the size of a large dog. Fortunately, it didn't seem to enjoy bright light very much, so a simple shield deterred it for a short while. Long enough."

And then he'd felt the pull. He'd left the others behind, but they'd been starting to run last he'd seen them. On some level, he should probably feel bad for that. Ah, well, he'd just add it to the pool of guilt later.

A scorpion the size of a fucking dog? A tranq gun probably couldn't have taken it down, even if someone'd managed to get in more than one shot. Sanzo had doubts that the pistol would have brought it down in time either.

And Hakkai's chi had been weakened. It was just a guess, but Sanzo was willing to bet that over-exerting himself like that was the reason for the foggy memory and unsteadiness.

Sanzo frowned,"You were lucky."

"Oh, quite. Then again, luck does tend to follow us around." Usually bad luck, granted, but who's counting?

He laughed, whether in true or feigned embarrassment it was hard to tell. It all went back to pushing boundaries. Somehow, Hakkai had never quite understood that he should be as worried about himself during fights as he was about his friends.

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Day 21: Lunch

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