Disclaimer : as you certainly guess, Saiyuki's characters aren't mine (have you heard their relief's sigh, here ?) and you have to know nobody earns money to write a fanfic (well, not me at least). But it's so much fun !!!!
Written by : SeaGull
2004
« Follow the green light …»
summary : a bored god(dess) has a glimpse of a kappa's mind, Gojyo thinks, Hakkai sleeps. Before a midnight chat. Set after Chin-Yiso's death.
Warning : yaoï possibly (certainly ?) slightly hinted.
Warning 2 : english isn't my language, so any help welcome to remove the awful mistakes…
Reviewers' corner : Thanks for the so nice feedbacks about « Awakened Soul » to Sanada (yhea, I'm a big gaiden fan, too, that's why it was fun writing the link between Tenpou and Hakkai ^^), Aaron (don't worry, this story is one of my most preeeeecious one, I'm already glad I have written it, so I won't die from the lack of review, but thanks anyway for your concern : I was very touched !) and about « Split Seconds » to Acern and Reiya (thanks to the both of you for the support, and you're right, there should be more Kou and Doku… Next loaded piece will be theirs…) and Incandescens (*bow low*)…
Follow the green light…
(a few hours before)
Kanzeon Bosatsu was bored… Anybody knowing hir could tell you it wasn't a good thing to be somebody se had an interest in during those times. Even when things were difficult (as if confront a psycho like Chin-Yiso wasn't enough to be called a day !), se liked very much add hir own spice in the events.
And in hir beautiful Paradise, se really missed three souls and an itan child. Today, she wanted to visit hir marshal and hir general, playing with the mortals they were now. Above all, se wanted to know wether se had been right to link them up again. While the former Kenren taishou was down, se decided to have a look inside his soul, and wait for the visitor which would surely come in it during the healing process…
***
Even if there was a few hours left before the sun setting down, they had all agreed to stop earlier than usual. A starving and broken-legged saru can really be a prick in the backseat of a car…
Random inn, in a random little town.
Two random rooms for the four of them (plus a dragon… who always chose all by himself where he would sleep, anyway).
The hanyou crossing eyes with the « holy » monk. Discreet agreement as the blond grabbed the saru towards their room, because they knew their driver had to take a well deserved rest after this freaky meeting with Chin-Yiso (and with the disturbing memories of his dark past) which is impossible with a snoring Goku in the same room. In other circumstances, Hakkai would have shared Sanzo's room. But he had spent three years as Gojyo's roommate, and maybe this familiarity would be better for him tonight. It was a rare occurrence, this mute understanding between « mister worldly monk » and the erogappa…
Hakkai had collapsed fully dressed on the mattress of his bed, and was already sleeping, lying down on his side, before Gojyo had the time to put down his own backpack on the floor. The sleeper's hand was turned into a loosely fist near his face. As if protecting the new thin line on his palm. At dinner time, the hanyou hadn't had the heart to wake him up.
For a few hours, his friend would be as good as dead to the world… That's why the half-breed left the green-eyed youkai in the room when the (as usual starving) saru came and brought him towards the dinner room of the inn. Coming back from downstairs, he was sure Hakkai hadn't even stirred in his slumber while he was gone. Neither the little white dragon, for that matter, in whom he had trusted to keep vigil on the sleeper.
Gojyo was now lying on his back on the narrow bed. He did what he always did before sleeping : he lighted a cigarette. He looked at the smoke's cloud almost invisible in the darkness of the gloomy room. He let his mind wandering around the events of the day. It had been a hard time. There was a lot to think of. But he was tired too, and was about to fall asleep. Reflection could wait until tomorrow, after all, when he would be bored like usual in the backseat of the jeep. His eyes were already closed when he heard the knocks at the door. He growled something, and the person out of the room chose to interpret it like an invite. It was Sanzo. A Sanzo with a very lame excuse…
« A lighter ? You've come till here to borrow me my lighter ? »
And the redhead couldn't quite hide the biting mockery in his words.
« And how have you lighted this cigarette ? »
« Ch' ».
It was like a motto, the typical answer at every question for the monk. It was his trademark, like the harisen, the shoureiju and the sutra (put according to the scale of destruction's power of any of the items of course)…
« If you wanted to check on Hakkai, you just had to say it. But the great Sanzo-houshi-sama wouldn't do it, would he ? »
Some anger flashed in the monk's eyes, as he turned round to leave the room.
« Wait ! »
Gojyo couldn't speak too loud, not wanting to wake up the sleeper. But the monk heard the emergency in this single word. He stopped in his tracks, his back still facing the half-breed.
« What ? », he whispered back. And not too nicely, either. But it was forceful enough to wake up the little white dragon, who growled as a kind of reprisal. The kappa wasn't the only one feeling very protective of Gojyo's former roommate's slumber, this time.
« Can you… feel… him, any times he heals you ?», articulated Gojyo. It was obvious he was referring to their driver.
« What do you mean ? »
Sanzo didn't understand where this kind of chat would lead… But Gojyo tried again :
« When he heals you… Can you see Hakkai… doing it ?»
Sanzo glanced at him with a (very) nasty look.
« I am out cold most of the time ! How could I ?» spat the monk. He didn't like the reminder of such episodes. Each healing was a proof of his own weaknesses. If the kappa wanted to tease him, he would learn it wasn't really a good idea to…
« I didn't mean that ! » barked Gojyo, cutting Sanzo's internal rambling, sounding angry with himself and distressed not knowing how to explain what he wanted to, how putting it into words. It had been so strange… What happened when Hakkai had healed him ? Because he was sure something happened. It couldn't be a dream, could it be ?
The kappa was obviously lost in his thoughts. Sanzo wasn't in the mood to wait until God knows when for Gojyo remembering what he wanted to talk about. But the monk chose not to slam the door when he left. The noise wouldn't have been noticed by the redhead, anyway. He was far away already… Yes, it had been a very strange day …
***
(flashback)
Detonation
Pain – salty taste of my own blood in my mouth – coldness – darkness
And I am here. I can't see anything at all. Even myself. I'm floating. Like in a place looking like some kind of in between space. I know it, but I don't know how.
No women, no cards, no saru to tease, and NO CIGARETTES : this place was plain boring. He waited. He would be tempted to say he waited a VERY long time. But it's not as if he could know, anyway !
Then came something new. A pure blinding White Light. As if waiting for him at the end of a dark corridor. Well, it looked like a corridor, now. So he was dying ? It was just like that ? So cliché !
And behind him only pitch black shadows. No way home. No escape. And in the other side, the whiteness was so radiant ! So pure ! It's how he felt the calling, the promise of Peace… Soft sakura's fragance coming from there, like a foretaste of Paradise. He knew what it was, as if he had already smelt this perfume a long long time before. How come he couldn't remember ? For the first time, he felt the need to come nearer the Light. Why not, after all…
Stop. He was already pondering the fact to leave and never come back, here, he realized suddenly. Again he looked over his shoulder (not really, he had no shoulders any more… no consistency…), and he remembered the sound of the gunshot and the feeling of the bullet cutting through his flesh. So vivid it hurt again the body he wasn't any more. He could almost feel the coldness of his skin, now…
The truth was he wasn't so sure he really wanted to go back there. Because he was afraid of the pain of the body. The Light was Peace. No more hate and contempt of what he was. No more pain. No more vain hope. Only pure dreamless slumber. But Death ! screamed a voice in his head which he didn't want to listen to again. Why bother ? Who would miss him ?
I felt myself leaving… Can a soul bleed ? Maybe. Because I felt my very crimson essence pouring from me. I saw redness leaving me. I was Red. I couldn't be anything else, nee ? I had thought bitterly. Red is my color, after all. This is all that I am, for most of the people, anyway… Anybody but…
Green ?
Another being in the nothingness. Another colour. It was coming from the real world, from the life he was already half decided to leave. He could almost see the back door open behind this new presence. Green wasn't material either. Green was, that's all. Past the first surprise, Red was already looking towards the White Light again. The pulling was growing stronger, and part of him had already disappeared in the passage, he knew...
But apparently Green didn't want it so. And Green was very determinate indeed, with its quiet force.
Green shielded him gently. And all of Gojyo's sensitive world changed at once. There was no pain here. As far as Green was here, everything would be alright. But then, strangely, he realized something else : on the contrary, it wouldn't be OK for Green… What he had lost, the warm green essence was replacing it with its own substance. The colour coming from there became part of him. And he was desperately thirsty of it. But in the same time, he was well aware Green put too much of « him» in the process.
He should have known before. Hakkai. Hakkai was healing him.
Of course. He had come here to have him back. The decision was so easy now that he had a place to come back, a place where somebody was waiting for him… Gojyo was ready to regain the normal stream of his life. He was already about to turn back from the White Door towards Elsewhere (wherever this place could be, anyway).
But then, came the Voice. It wasn't like Hakkai or Himself. It was so much more. It had no colour. It was everywhere and nowhere. Frightening and charming. They could feel it. But they couldn't grasp it. The Voice was talking, neither male or female…
« Why… »
…
« Why ? », it asked again.
In reaction, Green was already glowing brighter around him, in some illusion of protection. Gojyo was unable to know wether he could answer or not. Wether he had still a voice. And what kind of answer this newcomer could be seeking from him.
« Why do you keep him from leaving ? », still called the Voice.
So it was talking to Hakkai. Had the green-eyed youkai broken some rule by looking for him in here ? Gojyo had thought , suddenly worried …
« I am here to bring him back. »
But Hakkai wasn't speaking like the other entity. It was only pulsations of green, even if Gojyo could understand any nuance in the light's variations. He could almost imagine Hakkai's voice near his ear, in fact.
« Why ? »
Geez, this Voice's vocabulary was rather limited… But Green tried to answer at last.
« Because I owe him that and so much more… Because it's all my fault he is here… », Hakkai stated slowly.
Gojyo felt cold again. The answer had frozen him. Was it all that is was ? A question of reciprocity ? Of responsibility ? Suddenly, the White Door grew attractive again. And as if the disembodied presence was voicing his own doubts now, it kept on :
« Is that just a debt ? Is that why you do it ? To get at last rid of this debt so you don't have to care any more ? » taunted the Voice.
It stopped Red from leaving at last for a few seconds. Because Gojyo really wanted to know. Needed to know. His path had followed a strange way since he had crossed Hakkai's one. It was important for him to know wether his relation with the youkai was only built on gratitude, or something stronger like real friendship. Strange to think he had needed a timeless place to take the time to think about himself ! It would have surprised more than anybody knowing he could have moral dilemmas, too. He hid it daily with more skills than Hakkai and Sanzo, that's all.
Another part of him, somewhere, felt ashamed too, as if questioning his friend's motives was some kind of treason… The answer came with a strong feeling of relief for the hanyou. Because he felt it radiating from the green light which somehow was Hakkai : the distrust's feeling, the anger…
« How dare you… », kinda growled the green light. Gojyo felt the surge of power in this place devoid of masks. During that split second – which could have been an eternity, for all he knew - he felt the powerful and usually concealed force which was Hakkai. Something extremely frightening. No wonder he had been able to kill a thousand youkai even while being a mortal. He could see what the the green-eyed youkai tried so carefully to hide every day from the three of them with three limiters and a smile. It was a rare chance.
« Never thought he would like to die ? It must be hard to be always rejected. Taboo child. He shouldn't even exist… »
The green light faltered, as if something had hit Hakkai's essence. « No.» Just a breath. And the green light grew brighter again.
« No.» Green said again, louder. And Gojyo could almost fathom what would be the smile on Hakkai's face. Not the one which left others outside. The gentle one. The one for Hakuryu and Goku, and sometimes even for him or Sanzo. Confident and open.
« No, because he is so much better than me. I trust him. He promised. He said he wasn't going to die. He never gives up. »
The tone of Green was light, but powerful with the weight of the certainty put in these words.
I can't do anything if he doesn't want me to. And this sentence, Gojyo knew he was the only one who had heard. He felt awfully guilty to have this glimpse of Hakkai's soul without him to know. It was enough. Even better : he didn't need any more to listen to the Voice. He didn't care. He was going back in his body no matter what. In the end, he was almost the one pulling Green towards the real world.
« Hey ! Don't leave me like that ! »
The Voice sounded almost upset. But Red was already long gone with his friend.
As Gojyo opened his garnet-red eyes, they met the stony ceiling of a cave. The throbbing pain in his chest was still here but bearable. Sanzo was reading. Hakkai looked like he was sleeping… Only that, he hopped. And Goku and Hakuryu were nowhere to be seen.
« You've taken your time to wake up, sleeping beauty ! », had spat the monk without lifting eyes from his paper, his voice dripping with thick irony.
You could put it that way, indeed.
« Konzen… You never change… », had said for hirself the presence let alone in the darkness, in a thrill of laughter, and looking at them from far away…
***
« I failed you twice, today… », I tell to the darkness of the inn's room.
« Gojyo ? »
Oh, gods ! You have to stop doing that ! Just the way you're calling my name I know you're already worried ! And well awake, too… I cringe : I could almost hear Goku's voice shouting a sounding « Baka kappa ! » in my ears…
And you go on :« Is something the matter ? Are you alright ? »
And I feel myself beginning laughing hysterically on my bed. Am I alright ? What a silly question ! My hands leave the bed's sheets they were holding convulsively to hide my face. And I still can't stop laughing. The sound is echoing in the whole room, growing like a kind of broad wave coming out of my body. Whoever listening would think I'm going slightly mad. Well, Hakkai, you must be thinking I'm going slightly mad…
« Gojyo… What do you mean ? Are you talking to me ? »
You ask gently from the other side of the room.
The laughter subsided. « Awake, I see… », I tell you through the gloom.
Ruffling sound of sheets. You're now sitting on your bed. I can see your slender shadow with the blue moonlight coming from the curtainless window. The sigh escapes my lips against my will. The words flow without my agreement. Hakkai talks, you answer. It's been the rule for three years, now. It's called not being alone any more.
« I doubted you. » I say.
« While Chin-Yiso thought he was pulling the strings, I have doubted you. »
I stand, leaving my own bed to walk towards yours. « Even before we saw Sanzo on the ground I was afraid you might just … snap. »
You simply push yourself aside on the mattress to let me enough space to settle down . The considerate Hakkai. « How could you not have doubted ? Even I wasn't sure of myself ! » The understanding Hakkai.
Yes, but even the monk and the saru had more faith in you than me. And that is the thing bugging me… Even Over There, I didn't believe you were here for me…
« I thought we nearly lost you there, Hakkai ! »
Is that emergency I hear in my own voice ? I wish you could understand, just understand…
« Stop worrying so much. I'm fine, now. »
You tell me that again. I know you're better than before, you said you came to term with your past, but… It's what you always say. Stop worrying ? Listen who is telling me that ! Since when the world had suddenly turned upside down ? And stop being so « gentle » ! It's what I'd really like screaming towards your face… Too late, you're talking again.
« And we nearly lost you, too. And it was all my fault ! »
« Yhea, yhea… And it's all your fault, that I'm still alive, too… »
I answer in a tone I hope sounding careless. While More than you would ever think, runs in my mind instead…
« And I'm not so sure the monk is so happy with that. So, we're even, OK ? » I keep on.
You frown. Teacher-mode Hakkai speaking. « Don't tell nonsense Gojyo, you know it's not the truth about Sanzo! Anyway, you can't change him : he is used not to let show anything » Like you ? « It's a lost cause, for the two of us, at least. »
Ok. I don't think of what you say just now. I'm sure it's interesting, I'm sure you're right, but I don't care about the namagusa bouzu right now. I give up. You're hopeless. We can as well stop the talking.
« Thanks about the healing, anyway… »
But I shouldn't have said that. You're are already remembering. I can read it on your face. So far from me, suddenly...
« I had to be quick… I had only a few seconds to stop the bleeding.»
« It lasted only a few seconds ? » I ask. Really ?
« Yes, but I don't know how much time you have been out cold… »
You nod again, almost begging my pardon, looking at me, obviously clueless…
You don't know why I look so surprised, do you ? You have no idea of what really happened ? No idea of how vulnerable you were, how much your walls have been down… How much I have seen inside of you.
Time for a twist in the conversation. Let's see, what could I say ?
« I wish I could have killed the bastard myself .» And it's true, believe me.
« Ma, ma… »
So typical of you…
« Too bad. Got it first. Anyway… Technically, he was already dead. » I'm not really listening.
« What happen if one day you don't remember who is Hakkai ? », I ask again.
Kami-sama ! What kind of question is that ? Oh boy! I've really said that ? I was thinking out loud, I think. And you, bastard, you just chuckle while I'm speaking about the thing which has scared me the most today !
« I can't ! You'd shake me until I remember ! »
I'm still sitting near you. You grab familiarly a red strand of my red hair between two pale long fingers. Then you let it go, like in an afterthought. Still smiling a bit dreamily.
Is that the only thing I am ? A reminder ? Am I the only reason of Hakkai's existence instead of Gonou's rebirth (if you admit you aren't the same person…). I feel a chill running through my body. THIS is a scaring thought. Wow. And THIS is the day I realize I might not be living only for myself (which some days felt not enough to justify my presence Here, before You) from now on, but for somebody else's sake as well… How do you call that, sensei ? Hooooo… It looks like it's your turn, Hakkai, for the twist in the conversation. Hiding behind humour, like usual. Tonight, I don't mind. It almost reassures me. Keeps me from thinking too much. Of us.
« Too bad that Goddess didn't come down from Heaven to kiss you again during your healing, nee ? » I hear the smile in your voice. Hakkai in a better mood than me ? When the things had turned round ? But I can't help answer the tease…
My most seducing voice whispers huskily while I lean towards you :
« Demo… You could comfort me yourself, instead ! »
The erogappa in all its splendour ! I'm good at it, am I not ?
In the same second, I feel myself kissing… your pillow which has brutally landed on my face. I grab the thing and answer falsely menacing:
« You shouldn't have… I keep it now! »
And I leave your bed with my prize where I still can find the smell of you. And I still can talk, even if (or because) I'm not looking at you any more :
« Swear me… », but the sentence has no end, the last word trails in the air, leaving us in an awkward silence. Swear me what ? What could I say ? Don't die ? Don't leave ? Don't let me out ? Never ???
« I swear. »
Hakkai ?
« You haven't let me finish… », I tell you.
« Were you about to add something ? » It sounded like sarcasm, Hakkai. Soft, gentle, even patient, like your usual way of speaking, but sarcasm for good…
Are you making fun on me ?
« Ano… » But once again, you cut through my embarrassed attempt of elaborating something with a meaning, God bless you !
« Oyasumi nasai, Gojyo. » And you turn your back towards me, while crawling under the sheets. Time for talking is over.
« Kyuuuuu. » agreed quietly our little white dragon.
In Heaven, somewhere, a god(dess) smiled.
Some things never change…
« Hakkai, you should have taken off your clothes now before sleeping again… », I feel the need to point...
« Too tired. » answers your muffled voice from the other bed.
I need a smoke. Again.
***
« Oyasumi nasai… », whispered a third disembodied and a little too much familiar voice in the room, after a while.
The scarlet eyes of the little white dragon blinked. He stirred on the comforter and arched his long neck as if tying to hear better. He had the feeling it was a very well-known voice, but a memory from a long time ago. Well, it wasn't so important in the middle of the night, anyway. Huddled against the green-eyed youkai, he chose to hide again his little head under one of his wings to plunge again in the draconic dreamland…
Gojyo prefered acting as if he hadn't heard. Hakkai was already asleep.
Fin.