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Hakkai did everything, for that night. Well, he tended to do everything anyway, but this night he did everything again, from arranging their schedules, to booking the tickets, to ironing their suits, to whipping up a suitably fancy dinner to go with their suitably fancy night.
“Hakkai, my man, do I ever tell you that you are seriously too much?” Gojyo said halfway through the candlelit dinner, cheeks stuffed with rice and meat.
Hakkai smirked at him over his chopsticks. “Often, but I suspect, not enough.”
“Oh. Well. You’re too much, Hakkai,” Gojyo said, as if it would reset the count. Maybe it would. Gojyo had a talent for re-writing the rules where Hakkai was concerned.
After dinner, Hakkai washed the dishes and Gojyo dried. When everything was loaded into the dishwasher, they got dressed, hopped into the car (a rental BMW, because Jeep wasn’t fancy enough) and drove off to the Harman Theater.
It was Gojyo’s birthday, and Hakkai had tickets for the opera.
As far as operas went, Hakkai had on Sanzo’s recommendation chosen something classic that they might both enjoy: Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Sanzo had begrudgingly assured him that it was something that even someone with less brain cells than a monkey would understand. Hakkai hoped very much that Gojyo would enjoy himself.
Gojyo laughed when Hakkai expressed the sentiment as they were walking up the stairs. “Dude, don’t even worry about me, just worry about yourself.”
“You make it difficult, Gojyo,” Hakkai said with a gentle smile, and not even Gojyo could argue with that.
“Whatever,” Gojyo said, flapping his wrist about. “I can handle myself.”
“Sometimes,” Hakkai corrected, and the glint in his eyes suggested he wasn’t talking about operas anymore.
Snickering, Gojyo said, “Dude, keep it in your pants. We’ll scandalize the guests.”
They both looked around.
“It doesn’t appear anyone is paying attention to our conversation,” said Hakkai.
Gojyo rolled his eyes. “Some of us have shame left,” he said.
“Yes,” Hakkai agreed. “Some of us do.”
When they reached the top of the staircase, an usher stepped into their path. “Tickets please,” she said, eyes and voice equally dull.
Hakkai favored the young woman with his blandest smile as he showed her their tickets. It didn’t seem to affect her, but then, she also didn’t seem particularly perturbed by their conversation. Small wonder opera was declining quickly, Hakkai thought, as she led them by the nose to AG13 and AG14. Unsophisticated muppets were considered common.
“Here’s your seats,” she said, pointing her flashlight at the row. “Thirteen and fourteen.” She looked very much like she wanted to add something, but thought better of it.
Not in the mood to entertain outsiders, Hakkai swept past the usher to his seat, nearly causing her to drop her playbills. Gojyo stayed behind to offer her a smile. “We’ll be good,” he assured her, plucking two playbills from her hands.
She raised an eyebrow but said nothing, walking off to help her next guests.
“That wasn’t very nice,” Gojyo admonished, sliding into the seat beside Hakkai.
Hakkai shrugged. He wasn’t very much in the mood to be nice.
Gojyo seemed to understand, because he rolled his eyes and shoved at Hakkai’s shoulder. “Keep it together, man. The show will start soon enough, you just gotta hold on until then.”
Hakkai leaned over and dropped his forehead onto Gojyo’s shoulder, his short fringe brushing against Gojyo’s neck. “And what if I can’t hold on?”
Laughing, Gojyo pinched Hakkai’s earlobes, hard. “Yes, you can. You’re the prim and proper one, here, Hakkai. Don’t ruin your image, or we’ll get kicked out.”
Hakkai whined, high and low in the back of his throat. It made Gojyo laugh, but not enough to relieve Hakkai from his plight.
“You are a cruel man, Gojyo,” Hakkai sighed into Gojyo’s shoulder.
Gojyo hummed. “Sure,” he said. “Whatever you say.”
Gojyo’s touch kept Hakkai together until the lights finally dimmed and the loudspeakers projected the usual message about exits and smoking.
A hushed anticipation came over the auditorium. Maybe it was genuine excitement, or possibly just the result of pretentious posturing, but either way the result was the same: it was an anticipation for something other-worldly, something beyond their earthly bodies. They were promised magic, and as if they knew magic would not be accessible to them in the physical realm, they worked to open themselves as much as possible to the world beyond their bodies.
And then the music began.
Hakkai didn’t pretend to understand. The opera was sung in German, and although their program included a summary of events so they could follow the storyline, trying to read the words in the dim lighting was headache-inducing.
Mostly, he watched Gojyo. Ignoring the lighting, Gojyo brought the program up to his eyes so he could read it, and mouthed the words of the summary to himself as he went along, glancing up at the stage periodically as if to check the summary’s correctness. He smiled, laughed out loud, and frowned. The glow from the stage light danced across his face.
When the first half ended, Hakkai turned to Gojyo. “How are you holding up?”
Gojyo rolled his eyes. “I toldja not to worry about me. Just sit your pretty little butt down and let me worry about myself.”
Hakkai paused. “You think I’m pretty?”
“Focus,” Gojyo reminded. He stood up. “I’m gonna go take a piss.”
“Language.”
“Thought you were the one who said no one’d be listening.”
“Perhaps I thought I should behave more in-character.”
Gojyo gave him a weird look, but ignored Hakkai’s idiosyncrasies in favor of leaving for the bathroom. It was one of the things Hakkai appreciated most about Gojyo – Gojyo was infinitely tolerant of everything but himself. It was something that often worked in Hakkai’s favor.
Hakkai rearranged himself in his chair and pasted a benign smile on his face.
It wouldn’t do to scandalize the guests.
Gojyo returned after about ten minutes, and the second act began soon after that. Hakkai hadn’t read the program and he couldn’t remember the plot. Instead, he leaned deliberately against Gojyo’s shoulder, fixed his eyes on the stage, and just let the cacophony of sounds pull him under.
Hakkai came back to himself when Gojyo started shaking his shoulder. “You alright man? You zoned out hard. Were you sleeping with your eyes open again?”
Hakkai blinked. He looked around. The audience lights were back up, and all around them the other audience members were standing up to leave.
“Ahaha, I suppose so,” Hakkai said.
Gojyo laughed. “Sorry,” he said. “I know you ain’t into this artsy shit.”
“That’s quite alright,” said Hakkai. “I should think I should enough self-restraint to sit through four hours of opera to at least allow you one cultured night.”
Gojyo extended his hand to Hakkai, and Hakkai took it as he stood up. “Seriously, though,” Gojyo said as Hakkai started to put on his coat. “Weren’t you supposed to be a teacher ‘n shit?”
“Being an intellectual does not automatically bestow me with an appreciation of the fine arts, Gojyo,” Hakkai said primly.
Gojyo rolled his eyes in a way that suggested he didn’t really believe Hakkai, but couldn’t be bothered to argue. It made Hakkai smile.
“And besides,” Hakkai said, toying with the clasp of his silver earrings. “I was never much of an intellectual anyway.”