Title: Languages
Author: icefalcon

Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Saiyuki
Pairing: light Gojyo/Hakkai.
Warnings: None. Also, Saiyuki is hard to write. Also, short, but I can't coax it longer.
Disclaimer: Not mine.

To Hakkai, the real difference between Sanzo and Gojyo was slight.

It had nothing to do with appearances, with gold and red, nothing to do with sutra and youkai, nothing to do with enlightenment or earthy living.

Nothing to do with his love for Gojyo, or his respect for Sanzo that bordered on the same kind of love.

The difference was in the languages they understood.

Sanzo understood people by the words they spoke, tore those words and them apart and knew them better than they knew themselves. From there, Sanzo kicked people to places that they thought they couldn’t reach, and made them stand it.

Gojyo understood people from the ground up – from what they didn’t say and from what their body spoke, in such an instinctive way that he rarely listened to what lay underneath the spoken word. Gojyo was his reason for wanting to stand it.

The difference was in the languages they spoke.

Sanzo hit you in the teeth with the truth you needed, but didn't want to hear.

‘You’re only drowning in your own stupidity’ or a smack with a fan so rarely given to Hakkai.
‘You’re tainted – don’t behave like you’re not’ or an abrupt turning away.
‘That idiot kappa can't always save you’ a slow sneer.

Gojyo gently, softly, slid the silk blade of the lies you needed to hear – didn’twanttoneedagain - into your chest.

A punch on the back of the head and lack of a masking smile or 'You're strong enough for this.’
An arm slung across the shoulders pulling Hakkai closer than he did with anyone else or ‘There’s more to you, to us, than blood.’
A hand like an iron bar on the back of his neck or ‘I'm not going anywhere.’

Some mornings, Hakkai wasn’t sure which language he hated (needed) more – and if there was a difference between the two.