Scars and Dirt
"No fucking way!!"
Kougaiji opened his eyes and shook his head, dust and chips of stone falling around his face, and frowned. Then he looked over at the man a few paces away, whose outburst of rage had snapped him back to reality. Sha Gojyo. Covered in dirt and awkwardly crammed between two slanting walls of rock. As was he.
"I cannot believe we are fucking stuck down here!!"
Kou looked upwards. High above, the edge of the narrow canyon was a band of blinding white, with a few clouds of dust twirling across it and sending more rocks and dirt raining onto their heads. He was unable to see any of his comrades, though he knew they were there, battling it out with the rest of the Sanzo party while he and the half-breed had taken their sparring to an unlucky place and taken an unlucky step.
They were good and stuck.
"Calm down!" The youkai snapped. "Wasting your energy on that incessant yammering won't get us anywhere."
The red-haired man turned to face the prince, with his face caked in dirt and a dangerous twitch in his left eye.
"Oh yeah?? What's your bright idea then??"
"I will tell you as soon as you quit your shouting and I can think."
The other growled but quieted down. "Fine. So?"
"I'm thinking."
Kougaiji twisted as far as he could and inspected the walls around him for any holds that he could use to climb upwards. There were a few slabs of ragged stone sticking out of the sandy rock above, and he tried to pull himself up far enough to reach for the closest one – he grabbed at the hold, but as soon as he put any weight on it, the rock broke loose from the crater wall and showered him in a hail of dust and sandstone as he dropped hard back into the uneven crack of earth.
"…Damn."
The other man grinned, tossing back his telling red hair.
"Maybe if you let it out once in a while like I do, you wouldn't have such a stick up your ass."
The slanted violet eyes narrowed.
"Be careful at whom you address your insults."
"Oh yeah?" The half-breed leaned over, his body producing an uncomfortable crunching noise against the walls of rock, and brought his dirty face too close to the demon's. "What'cha gonna do?"
The corner of Kougaiji's mouth twitched into an almost-smile as he balled his hand into a fist; but his swing was cut short as his arm got neatly stuck halfway through.
The red-eyed man burst out laughing, and kept shouting "Ow!" in between the waves of his merriment whenever his amused convulsions twisted his body against the walls of their prison.
"Oh, shut up!" Kou yelled, blood rushing to his face and into the tips of his pointed ears.
Sha Gojyo calmed down and wiped his eyes. "See, feels good doesn't it!" He grinned.
Pointedly, Kou turned his head in the other direction and scanned the walls of stone ahead for any sign of a possible escape route.
"There! There is a ledge further down and the crater widens above it. If we can make it there, we can pull ourselves up and climb out."
"Lemme see!"
Kou felt irritation snap across his face as the other man shifted even closer and tried to see around him, their respective red hair mingling in pools of dirty wine-colored strands on their shoulders. He leaned back against the side of the gorge as far as he could as Gojyo squinted past him.
"It's really high up," Gojyo frowned.
"We will have to help each other."
"Tch."
The prince took a deep breath to stop himself from pummeling the other man into the crater wall. However, since his chest was so confined, the deep breath was cut off and became a very shallow breath instead. Which made him even more uncomfortable, and very, very annoyed. But he was not the leader of Thousands for nothing.
"There is no way either of us can get out of here by himself," He said through clenched teeth. "The only way is to work together. I will help you onto the ledge, and then you will pull me up."
High above, the sounds of the battle carried on as if no one were noticing the two men's absence. Kou could hear Dokugakuji shouting, and the telltale, sandy boom of Yaone's bombs exploding. He pressed his lips together.
"Listen," He said impatiently, "We can kill each other down here where no one will ever find our corpses, or we can get back up there and collect our respective parties. Personally, I favor the second option. I don't intend to lay my life down for you."
Gojyo smirked and rubbed some of the dirt off his face. "I'm not the worst person to lay down for, you know."
Kou's nose wrinkled like that of an irritated cat as the innuendo bounced off the crater walls and sent a little more blood to his cheeks.
"Are you in or not?!" He barked, and immediately regretted his choice of words.
The red-head chuckled, and Kougaiji fumed. But then Gojyo held out his hand, as nonchalantly as was possible in the confined space.
"I'm in."
As he hesitantly shook the offered hand, the demon prince searched the other man's face. This was the closest he had ever been to Sha Gojyo, and if he could help it they would never be this close to each other again. But he had to admit that he was surprised by the expression in the man's red eyes that could only be seen in close proximity, the expression that was blurred with every foot of distance behind the half-lidded smirk and the cocky eyebrows.
Close up, Sha Gojyo looked more serious, more mature, and somewhat vulnerable. Kou was not a poet by any means, but he was straightforward enough to use whatever description came to his mind for any given circumstance. Like in this instance.
Sha Gojyo's eyes had scars on them.
The red-head flinched under the prince's stare.
"Changed your mind or what!" he demanded, with a jerk of his chin.
"No. Let's go," Kou muttered.
As they made their way toward the ledge, cursing at the sharp rock tearing at their clothes and skin, Kougaiji found himself unwillingly pondering his opponent's eyes. He had never expected Sha Gojyo to wear his heart on his sleeve like that. How could a man who acted that tough be so transparent?
Or maybe there was some other reason he could see it? Something more personal… Kou frowned again as he suddenly thought about Dokugakuji. Sha Gojyo's older brother. Dokugaku had made allusions about brothers before… maybe…
He flinched at the memory of their red hair lingering in front of his face. So similar, how ridiculous. Half-breed. For some reason, Kou found himself wondering which one of Sha Gojyo's parents had been human, and which one a youkai. Dokugaku had never told him anything about that. His mother… yes, it seemed to him like he could almost see the shadow of a woman in those scarred red eyes, a shadow that only one woman could leave on a man.
A shadow that was burned into his own eyes as well.
"Gojyo-san."
He could hear the man behind him draw in a surprised breath.
"What?"
"Your brother. Why do you fight against him?"
"I thought that was clear, your Highness. We're on different sides of the fence here."
"You could join us."
"You could join us!"
Kou ignored that comment.
"I doubt that you have any bond, of friendship or otherwise, to Sanzo, that is as strong as the bond you have to your brother, and Dokugakuji has to me."
"I don't have any bond with that asshole. And you don't know shit about me and my brother."
Kou had no idea why he said out loud what he said next.
"I know that he's with me because of you."
The shuffling behind him halted.
"What?"
The prince didn't stop. His eyes glued ahead, he continued on squeezing himself between the slants of ragged rock, his white coat getting mangled in the process, dust covering his hair, hair that was red for no other reason than that it was his mother's hair color.
"I remind him of you."
"He said that?"
"No."
"Then where do you come up with that bullshit?"
"I never did, before today."
~Fin~