Sanzou first taught him muchimotsu on a cold winter day. It snowed over
two feet - rare in Chang'an; rare anywhere, really, as Gokuu was
beginning to realize - and they were stuck in the monastery, which was
irritating for Sanzou since there was a new batch of acolytes in from
the countryside and they were terrified of him, handing him his tea
with trembling fingers and tripping over their feet when he addressed
them. So he'd holed up in his room, and Gokuu, after being scolded by
the senior monks for tracking wet pawprints into the sanctuary,
retreated there as well with a blanket and a comic book a boy in the
village had let him have.
"Sanzou!" He tugged on Sanzou's sandal before it was drawn away and Sanzou's face peeked out from his newspaper to give him a narrow-eyed glare. "Sanzou, what does this say?" He thrust the comic into Sanzou's face and pointed to a panel with words. (This comic was mostly pictures, but Gokuu found himself occasionally perplexed by the seemingly useless intrusion of symbols that Sanzou said represented speech. He still hadn't figured them out - Sanzou was an impatient teacher.) "It looks like he's crying! I got what happened up till now, but I can't re-ead it!"
Sanzou sighed, a slight sound, really nothing more than a breath disturbing his bangs, and turned the comic right-side up. He squinted at the symbols (Gokuu had been similarly perplexed by his need for glasses, and was still fuzzy on the explanation, which Sanzou had dryly said was appropriate when he mentioned this), then turned it back around, tapped them and said, shortly, "His cousin left. Her mother is sick. She has to go home and take care of her."
Gokuu blinked, taking the comic back from Sanzou. He frowned down at the pictures, trying to make sense of them. "Oh. Why is she leaving? Can't her mother take care of herself?"
"Why, indeed," said Sanzou, flicking the newspaper back to cover his face.
"And why is the boy upset? She'll be back, right? It's not forever."
"For once you're asking good questions." Sanzou's fingers curled on the newspaper edge, and he ruffled the papers slightly, making the funny shuffly noise Gokuu liked to listen to in the morning. It had acquired the comforting tinge of routine, like the sound of coffee cups clinking on the table and matches being struck, the hiss of cigarettes burning. "It's stupid for her to go take care of her mother, the old hag is going to die anyway. But it's even stupider for the boy to be upset. This comic is going to rot your brain even worse than it already is, if you're not careful." Under his breath, he said, "I don't know why you read them."
"'Cause they're fun. But Sanzou, Sanzou! Is it like me and you, the girl and the boy?"
Sanzou's fingers stilled on the newspaper; he moved it slightly, just so that Gokuu saw the down-tilt of one eyebrow and a flash of violet-and-black before he moved it back up again. "The fuck does that mean, you dumb monkey."
"Well," said Gokuu, and floundered for a moment, caught - as he so often was, now that there was someone to talk to - without words. "I mean, like - I would be sad if you left, you know? More than sad. Okay, I wouldn't be sad probably, because I'd go after you!"
"Hm." Sanzou put the newspaper down, showing Gokuu a face set into straight lines, cold like the snow outside, and drew his cigarette pack out of his robe. As he pressed one between his lips and lit it, he continued, "And what if you couldn't follow me?"
It was cold in the room, Gokuu realized suddenly, and shifted uncomfortably on the floor, reaching up to rub his upper arms. (His nails were getting long, Sanzou would cut them soon, take Gokuu's hands in his and bend over them, cut them carefully and slowly into nice straight lines. Like a civilized human being, Sanzou said, though Buddha knows you're as far from that as you can get.) "That's dumb," he said. "I'll always be able to follow you. 'S'not like no one can stop me, you know?"
"Anyone," Sanzou corrected, and ashed into his empty coffee cup. He raised an eyebrow, crossed his legs. "Yeah? No one can stop you, huh? Maybe I'd stop you. Ever think about that, monkey?"
Gokuu wasn't confident about a good many things. He was still wary of the fact that he was well-fed every day, which made him steal food even though it got him in trouble and made Sanzou angry; he was skeptical of the warm clothes on his back and the warm place he slept in at night, and of the kind townspeople, who maybe, after all, would just disappear someday, or die like the little bird had up on the mountain. But this, this he knew without a fact - "You wouldn't," he said, turning the page of the comic and frowning down at the single picture. A boy holding a flower and crying.
"Wouldn't what?" There was a dangerous down-lilt to Sanzou's voice.
"Wouldn't stop me." Gokuu looked up at him, at his face made whiter by the snowy light coming in through the windows; not really colder, now, although he looked angry - just paler. More human. More vulnerable. That was a distinction Gokuu was beginning to understand: he was not-human, Sanzou was human. Sanzou was not fragile, not like the thin-limbed people in the town, but he was more mortal - like the bird on the mountain, its gold feathers the same color as Sanzou's hair, even its eyes looking sad and wounded like Sanzou's sometimes did in the dark. (When he thought Gokuu couldn't see his expression, always forgetting that Gokuu saw just fine with no light.) "You took me with you, remember? And you let me stay here, and you never left. If you did... why would you leave me behind? Besides," he grinned, "I'm useful, I knoooow I am."
"Brat," and Sanzou smacked him on the cheek, then turned away with a huff, shutting his eyes tightly. "Don't get so cocky. What you should think about is that I've got no reason to take you with me."
"Besides that you like me?" Gokuu said, hopefully.
One eye slitted open and turned to him; then Sanzou snorted, quietly, and closed his eyes again. "I don't like you," he said, blowing a cloud of smoke in the direction of the window. "I don't like anyone. I don't need anyone, least of all silly little monkeys who trip over their own feet. Muichimotsu - there's nothing holding me here." He opened his eyes and stared at the window, brows drawn down, lips pinned together.
Gokuu didn't think this was true. He looked around, pursing his lips - Sanzou's room was mostly bare, with few personal effects ('A true Buddhist,' one monk admitted grudgingly, even though Gokuu didn't think this was very true, either) - then pointed triumphantly at the potted plant in the corner. "Not true! Your plant would die without you here, no way you can just leave it here and run off! You've been growing it ever since I got here."
Sanzou looked at him witheringly. "Fuck the plant. And fuck everyone in this place, while I'm at it. Everything can rot in hell - what do I care? Not my problem. Not yours, either."
"It is, too. I don't care about anyone else, but I care about you!" The crying boy's flower was violet, Gokuu realized, a shade darker than Sanzou's eyes but every bit as cloud-tinged and stormy. The flower looked like it could rain, could seep water out of its petals and make it run through the boy's fingers. "And that's why you would take me with you. I like you - so I know you like me."
"Your logic is flawed. Plenty of people like me. I don't like them in return. You're assuming that life is fair."
"I know life isn't fair," Gokuu said. "I know that. But it's - " He paused, frustrated, thwarted again by these strange words that Sanzou could use so well and that always tripped him up. "It's fair with you," he said, finally. "Because you came and got me. You made it better. You saved me. Even when you're mean to me, it's sort of right, you know?"
Sanzou looked at him a long time, eyes measuring, face flat. "I'm just keeping you here because if I unleashed you on the world, you'd cause a huge fuss," he said, and ground his cigarette out on the table. "I'm going to go meditate. Stay in here and don't run around. I've got a headache and if the monks scream at me because your stupid monkey self breaks something, I'll make you wish I'd left you in your cage." He kicked the chair as he left, maybe not on purpose - Sanzou didn't do things like that - but the grating sound still made Gokuu wince and left an angry feel that lingered in the room even after Sanzou had slid the screen shut and his padding footsteps had faded.
Gokuu looked around the room, at the potted plant, which was drooping, and at the books and clothes and some food Sanzou had gotten him. He half-stood, reached out and fingered Sanzou's pack of cigarettes away from the edge of the table, where they hung precariously. Then he set back down and turned the page of the comic.
He didn't get it, either. The flower was falling into what looked like a pool of blood.
----
Gokuu thought about muichimotsu a lot, after that. He watched Sanzou when he thought about it. He thought about it when Sanzou smiled, ever so slightly, when Hakkai said something perceptive or clever or when Gokuu did something Sanzou appreciated; when Sanzou touched his head, or his shoulder, or gave him the credit card to buy some more pocky and drinks; when Sanzou helped one of them during a fight and would look, for a moment, almost worried if Gokuu was hurt. And how he would act extra mean after it, calling them stupid and smoking more cigarettes than usual and hogging the beer from Gojyou.
Muichimotsu. It even sounded funny in his mouth, like it wasn't a real word. Just pretend.
Sanzou was good at pretending.
----
Years later, many days away from the ones where Sanzou guided his hand over paper to scrawl out his name, Sanzou's name, from the days where he could sit on the balcony of Sanzou's room and listen to the click of the lighter behind him as they watched it snow - even now, Sanzou was still good at pretending.
"It snowed here, huh," he said, looking up from his wallet and smiling at the vending lady.
Her face lit in return, wrinkles lifting so that he could see the spark of what she'd been once; he remembered her, she'd been a little girl on her father's knees learning his business when they'd left for the West, but she didn't seem to recognize him. Or if she did, it would be simply incomprehensible to her that the same boy she'd known so long ago could be standing here in front of her, unchanged. She was mortal; he was not-human. "Oh, yes," she said; "it's so strange! It hardly ever snows here. Butterflies in the West, eh?"
"Right." Gokuu handed her a wad of money and took the carton of cigarettes from her hands, sliding it into his shirt. "Thanks, old lady."
"Mind you don't slip in the slush," she called after him. "It's been raining lately as well."
Chang'an in winter looked like a glass city, all covered in white and frozen, like a god had snatched it out of time to keep it in its place. The monks moving within the gates were like the little figures in those snow-glasses; shake them, maybe, and they'd turn topsy-turvy and fall onto the walls and roofs of Chang'an. Gokuu put his hands inside his cloak, clasping his fingers to warm them and brushing against the hard edges of the cigarette carton.
(Cigarette smoke brings back Sanzou's face: his frown, most of the time, and only very rarely his smile. Gokuu doesn't like remembering his smile that often because it was so cherished when it came: such a small expression, just a tilt of the lips, and Sanzou would duck his head down so no one could see. No one but Gokuu, who sees fine in the shadows.)
"'Scuse me," he said to one monk who was sweeping the snow by the gate, his black sandals an inky spill against the white snow. "You have a Sanzou here, right? I need to talk to him."
The monk made a small, reverent gesture with his fingers, then continued his sweeping; he didn't look at Gokuu, only said, "Genjou Sanzou Houshi-sama does not receive visitors, I'm afraid. But please, feel free to talk with another of our order if you need to."
"He'll talk to me," said Gokuu, although he wasn't entirely sure it's the truth. Oh well. Not like he'd never lied to a holy man before.
The monk did look up now, frowning at Gokuu. He leaned on his broom, fingers absently twisting the beads looping around his wrist and around his palm. "And who would you be, young sir?" He was skeptical: probably didn't get many kids snooping around asking to speak with 'Genjou Sanzou Houshi-sama.'
Gokuu spread his arms, smiled, showing his canines. "Just a monkey," he said, and nodded at the temple. "Go on, tell him. He'll be pissed if you don't. And he's a mean bastard when he's mad."
The beads clacked against each other as the monk stared at him, body unmoving except for his fingers rolling the beads against each other. Then abruptly, his frown vanished, and he almost smiled. "One would never think that about a Sanzou," he says dryly, "that he experiences such worldly emotions, so you must know him. Come in, come in, it's cold for travelers."
"Lemme guess," Gokuu said as they shuffled through the snow leading to the main entrance, the monk graciously going ahead of him and clearing a path with his feet, "Sanzou's still a worldly guy, huh? The monks never liked him when I lived here, either."
The monk frowned, opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it. He tried again and said, "Sanzou-sama is a holy monk, one who has decided to stay attached to this world in order to save others. His experiencing emotions like you or I do only tells me that there are many people yet to be enlightened - myself included, of course."
Gokuu wrinkled his nose. Buddhist philosophy; he'd never liked it and that never changed, no matter how much he heard about it or saw. The whole enlightenment thing was bullshit; even Sanzou had thought so. Especially Sanzou.
"You are not a Buddhist, I presume?" said the monk, smiling. He slid open the door and gestured Gokuu in; they wiped off their feet, then stepped inside. "You've lived here. Does it look the same?"
"Yeah - " Gokuu paused and looked around: funny, he knew nothing had really changed, but everything looked... bigger. Less clean. Even the smell of candles from down the hall had changed. " - But, different, I guess."
"Such is life." The monk clacked his prayer bead and gave him a thoughtful frown. "You are Son Gokuu, aren't you?"
"Uh, yeah." Gokuu looked away from the scrolls on the wall (they'd looked so special and important when he'd lived here, but now he sees that the ink isn't the best, and the paper is cracked and fading) and back at the monk. "Hey, how'd you know?"
Smiling, the monk held a finger in front of him - Wait here - and, turning, disappeared down the hallway. Gokuu held his scent in his nose - it was strong, he wasn't going very far. But he felt weird anyway, standing there alone in the big hallway with its funny smells, trying so hard to be holy. Gokuu thought about fruit. It wasn't cute anymore for him to sneak into the gardens and steal their holy fruit, but his fingers twitched at the thought; it would be normal. Like a welcome back party, making this strange place back into what it used to be: home.
"Ah! Here we are!" Gokuu let out the breath he'd been holding and the scent as the monk hurried back towards him, holding a small, slim sheet of paper in his hand, folded twice. He handed it to Gokuu and said, "I'll leave you now - I should get back to my sweeping." And with a final clack of his beads and a smile, polite and removed, he left.
The paper was very old, yellowing like the scrolls. It was brittle as if no one had touched it in years. Gokuu ran a nail over the fold, gentling its hard edge, and carefully opened the paper.
'Gokuu' - and that word was so familiar, it was written in the same script that first showed him how to write his own name. Sanzou had drawn the symbols slowly, carefully, even though his writing was usually hurried and messy, so that Gokuu could see what he was doing.
' - Muchimotsu.
'I told you not to come back.'
Gokuu huffed, folding the note again and sticking it into his shirt, next to the cigarette carton. He sniffed the air, then turned west and headed down the halls towards the garden.
----
"Didn't you get my note?"
"I got it. Didn't care about it. It was stupid."
Sanzou's mouth quirked, but it wasn't a smile. It lifted the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth and gave an angry cast to his looks - god, he'd been intimidating thirty years ago, but that Sanzou was gone and in his place sat this old man, his cold lined face such a contrast to his dignified robes and the prayer-beads in his hands. He rolled them like the young monk had, clacking them together.
Gokuu sighed and stretched, his hands brushing the lowest branches on the tree. Up above him, the holy fruit sat plumply nestled with the leaves, but he wasn't hungry.
"You can hardly even read," Sanzou pointed out. "I wouldn't go calling my note stupid."
"Nope. It was stupid." He half-expected the fan to make an appearance in all its glory, but Sanzou just snorted and pulled a face at him. "What? It was. Aren't you the one always telling me, muichimotsu, muichimotsu, no attachments no ties no cares?"
"Apparently it's not something you took to heart."
"I did," said Gokuu, smiling. "I do what I wanna do, you know? And it's got nothing to do with you, so why don't you get over your goddamned self? You told me to leave - " practically kicked him out, more like it, told him there was nothing for monkeys to do with monks and to not come back until Sanzou was dead - "and I did, 'cause I listened to what you told me. I was stupid. I know that now."
"I wanted you to live for yourself," Sanzou said. His face was turned down again, placed into shadow by the fringe of his bangs, but Gokuu was good at seeing when things weren't clear. He saw the Sanzou he knew in that face: angry, scared, defiant. Still a kid in a weird way. Then Sanzou sighed and lifted his face to the sun, and Gokuu blinked and the old Sanzou was gone. "I didn't want you to be beholden to me. I don't want you to be caught and not have a way out."
"I am living for myself. I'm not stupid, I'm simple, and I figured it out. Living for you, living with you, that's taking care of myself, okay?" Gokuu squinted at Sanzou's face, but those eyes were clear and cold and his face wasn't telling any secrets. "You don't get it, do you."
Sanzou squinted, one eye half-closing, the other focusing on him suspiciously. He shook his head and reached inside his robe, pulling out a torn, crumpled pack of cigarettes and retrieving a bent cigarette. He lit it quickly, inhaled hard and said - quietly, like he didn't really want to - "Why don't you just leave, damn you?"
Gokuu hesitated, then lowered his voice as well and said, "You don't wanna hear the answer. So why ask?"
That did get him an almost-smile. "Where have I heard that before?"
"I liked it," said Gokuu, and grinned at him. "So I stole it."
"Yeah," Sanzou sighed, leaning forward and propping his arms on his knees. Gokuu watched his hand as he lifted the cigarette to his lips: they were still young, skin stretched tight over the bones, muscles shifting as his fingers moved and twitched. His blunt fingers ashed the cigarette briskly onto the snow and then he stretched them, cracked his knuckles. "I'm old," he said. "Sitting out here makes my bones ache."
"You're not old. I've seen old people."
"No?" Sanzou raised his eyebrows and took another hard drag off his cigarette. The smoke spilled from his lips, little wisps trailing down his chin as he said, "And look at you, still the little monkey I picked up all those years ago. You'll probably look the same way when I've died and all that's left of me is bones."
Gokuu shifted and opened his mouth, but nothing came out. You don't look old, he wanted to say, but he knew, with a sudden startling realization, that it would be a lie. Genjou Sanzou of the smooth skin and fit body was no more; he'd never thought that would happen, had never been able to fathom a Sanzou grown older, but... here it was. So strange, to be seeing it like that. This was all that others saw, this cranky old man with a wrinkled, worn face and battered hands and body; they couldn't look at him and see what he'd once been. And that, he guessed, made sense in some weird Buddhist way: that person was gone, was no more and shouldn't be mourned.
"But," he said, speaking slowly, testing it out, "I don't care, because this is who you are."
"You'll care when I'm dead." Sanzou leaned down and ground out his cigarette against his sandal bottom. "You'll cry over this empty body and carry it with you all the rest of your days. If only he had lived, if only he'd died the way I remember him, and all the stupid thoughts people have about those they love. What about your muichimotsu then?"
"Beats me. Can I pass on that question?" Gokuu tried for a grin and quelled it at Sanzou's look. "It's still there! Why do you keep trying to argue me out of it? What about your muichimotsu?"
"Something less than I thought it was," said Sanzou. His lips twisted like he had something sour in his mouth. "All these years, it's bothered me. The thought of you out there thinking about me. Missing me. Wanting to be back with me. What that does to my muichimotsu... well, whatever. You're still dodging the question, monkey."
"I don't like thinking about you dead." The very thought was like a bad taste in his mind. He wanted something to clean it out, but it sat there like poisoned mushrooms in his head, black and smelly and heavy. Gokuu popped his knuckles, one by one, and stared up at the gray sky: the sun was gone, covered by clouds. "Muichimotsu... it doesn't go that far."
"Yeah? And what will you do, when I'm dead?"
('Sanzou always asks the uncomfortable questions,' Hakkai used to say, laughing in that weird half-real half-not way of his. 'He's like those sticker burrs - he gets in deep and he's hard to get out.')
"Not die," said Gokuu, "if that's what you mean."
Sanzou seemed satisfied; he nodded and reached for his pack of cigarettes again, shaking out a cigarette and lighting it. For a moment, again, his image blurred and he was young again - then Gokuu blinked and the fingers curling around the cigarette were wrinkled again, nails and knuckles cracked.
"Oh," Gokuu said, blinking. He took out the carton of cigarettes and handed them to Sanzou, pulling up a smile. "I got you these."
Sanzou turned the carton over in his hands, looking at the front with the brand name on it. He traced the raised letters with a finger. "I don't smoke Marlboro Reds anymore," he said, holding up his pack. "Lights."
"Oh," Gokuu said again. "Sorry."
Sanzou shrugged and tore the box open, drawing out a crisp, square pack. He held it up and squinted at it, and his lips quirked - that almost-smile of his. He tossed his cigarette into the snow and pulled one out from the new pack. "But," he said, "it'll be nice to taste these again. Just for a while."
----
Many years passed, and Gokuu kept visiting the monastery at Chang'an long after it had crumbled and the villagers had built new buildings on it: houses, stalls, another temple (which didn't last long before it was looted and burned and abandoned as a religious site; bad luck and all that), government center.
The holy tree still grew no matter what the site was used for, and Gokuu visited that. The fruits were still plump and juicy and always tasted sweet when he took one; it was a sturdy tree, solid roots and branches that barely moved even when it snowed and the storm winds howled.
(The first time he'd seen a storm, he'd cried and yowled like a wounded animal and hid under Sanzou's sheets, until Sanzou dragged him out of bed and sat him down by the window - pinching his ears and knocking his head all the way, of course. 'Listen,' he'd said, eye twitching irritably when Gokuu huddled against his side. 'What do you hear?'
'Monsters!' Gokuu cried.
'The only monster around here is you. Still still, shut up and listen. It's just nature taking its course. If you're scared of that, you're an idiot.')
There was nothing special about the place he'd buried Sanzou. Even nestled as it was under the holy tree, there was no holy glow around it, no strange noises in the night; it got rained and snowed on, and in the spring it grew grass and flowers. People sat under this tree to enjoy the shade and sweet smell, and they never knew that deep in the earth beneath them were the bones of Toua Genjou Sanzou the thirty-third. For some of them Buddhism was as foreign and distant as the lands across the sea.
But Gokuu sat, and knew, and listened. Around him the wind whistled, and the plants died, and new ones grew in their place.
Muichimotsu: he did not cry.
"Sanzou!" He tugged on Sanzou's sandal before it was drawn away and Sanzou's face peeked out from his newspaper to give him a narrow-eyed glare. "Sanzou, what does this say?" He thrust the comic into Sanzou's face and pointed to a panel with words. (This comic was mostly pictures, but Gokuu found himself occasionally perplexed by the seemingly useless intrusion of symbols that Sanzou said represented speech. He still hadn't figured them out - Sanzou was an impatient teacher.) "It looks like he's crying! I got what happened up till now, but I can't re-ead it!"
Sanzou sighed, a slight sound, really nothing more than a breath disturbing his bangs, and turned the comic right-side up. He squinted at the symbols (Gokuu had been similarly perplexed by his need for glasses, and was still fuzzy on the explanation, which Sanzou had dryly said was appropriate when he mentioned this), then turned it back around, tapped them and said, shortly, "His cousin left. Her mother is sick. She has to go home and take care of her."
Gokuu blinked, taking the comic back from Sanzou. He frowned down at the pictures, trying to make sense of them. "Oh. Why is she leaving? Can't her mother take care of herself?"
"Why, indeed," said Sanzou, flicking the newspaper back to cover his face.
"And why is the boy upset? She'll be back, right? It's not forever."
"For once you're asking good questions." Sanzou's fingers curled on the newspaper edge, and he ruffled the papers slightly, making the funny shuffly noise Gokuu liked to listen to in the morning. It had acquired the comforting tinge of routine, like the sound of coffee cups clinking on the table and matches being struck, the hiss of cigarettes burning. "It's stupid for her to go take care of her mother, the old hag is going to die anyway. But it's even stupider for the boy to be upset. This comic is going to rot your brain even worse than it already is, if you're not careful." Under his breath, he said, "I don't know why you read them."
"'Cause they're fun. But Sanzou, Sanzou! Is it like me and you, the girl and the boy?"
Sanzou's fingers stilled on the newspaper; he moved it slightly, just so that Gokuu saw the down-tilt of one eyebrow and a flash of violet-and-black before he moved it back up again. "The fuck does that mean, you dumb monkey."
"Well," said Gokuu, and floundered for a moment, caught - as he so often was, now that there was someone to talk to - without words. "I mean, like - I would be sad if you left, you know? More than sad. Okay, I wouldn't be sad probably, because I'd go after you!"
"Hm." Sanzou put the newspaper down, showing Gokuu a face set into straight lines, cold like the snow outside, and drew his cigarette pack out of his robe. As he pressed one between his lips and lit it, he continued, "And what if you couldn't follow me?"
It was cold in the room, Gokuu realized suddenly, and shifted uncomfortably on the floor, reaching up to rub his upper arms. (His nails were getting long, Sanzou would cut them soon, take Gokuu's hands in his and bend over them, cut them carefully and slowly into nice straight lines. Like a civilized human being, Sanzou said, though Buddha knows you're as far from that as you can get.) "That's dumb," he said. "I'll always be able to follow you. 'S'not like no one can stop me, you know?"
"Anyone," Sanzou corrected, and ashed into his empty coffee cup. He raised an eyebrow, crossed his legs. "Yeah? No one can stop you, huh? Maybe I'd stop you. Ever think about that, monkey?"
Gokuu wasn't confident about a good many things. He was still wary of the fact that he was well-fed every day, which made him steal food even though it got him in trouble and made Sanzou angry; he was skeptical of the warm clothes on his back and the warm place he slept in at night, and of the kind townspeople, who maybe, after all, would just disappear someday, or die like the little bird had up on the mountain. But this, this he knew without a fact - "You wouldn't," he said, turning the page of the comic and frowning down at the single picture. A boy holding a flower and crying.
"Wouldn't what?" There was a dangerous down-lilt to Sanzou's voice.
"Wouldn't stop me." Gokuu looked up at him, at his face made whiter by the snowy light coming in through the windows; not really colder, now, although he looked angry - just paler. More human. More vulnerable. That was a distinction Gokuu was beginning to understand: he was not-human, Sanzou was human. Sanzou was not fragile, not like the thin-limbed people in the town, but he was more mortal - like the bird on the mountain, its gold feathers the same color as Sanzou's hair, even its eyes looking sad and wounded like Sanzou's sometimes did in the dark. (When he thought Gokuu couldn't see his expression, always forgetting that Gokuu saw just fine with no light.) "You took me with you, remember? And you let me stay here, and you never left. If you did... why would you leave me behind? Besides," he grinned, "I'm useful, I knoooow I am."
"Brat," and Sanzou smacked him on the cheek, then turned away with a huff, shutting his eyes tightly. "Don't get so cocky. What you should think about is that I've got no reason to take you with me."
"Besides that you like me?" Gokuu said, hopefully.
One eye slitted open and turned to him; then Sanzou snorted, quietly, and closed his eyes again. "I don't like you," he said, blowing a cloud of smoke in the direction of the window. "I don't like anyone. I don't need anyone, least of all silly little monkeys who trip over their own feet. Muichimotsu - there's nothing holding me here." He opened his eyes and stared at the window, brows drawn down, lips pinned together.
Gokuu didn't think this was true. He looked around, pursing his lips - Sanzou's room was mostly bare, with few personal effects ('A true Buddhist,' one monk admitted grudgingly, even though Gokuu didn't think this was very true, either) - then pointed triumphantly at the potted plant in the corner. "Not true! Your plant would die without you here, no way you can just leave it here and run off! You've been growing it ever since I got here."
Sanzou looked at him witheringly. "Fuck the plant. And fuck everyone in this place, while I'm at it. Everything can rot in hell - what do I care? Not my problem. Not yours, either."
"It is, too. I don't care about anyone else, but I care about you!" The crying boy's flower was violet, Gokuu realized, a shade darker than Sanzou's eyes but every bit as cloud-tinged and stormy. The flower looked like it could rain, could seep water out of its petals and make it run through the boy's fingers. "And that's why you would take me with you. I like you - so I know you like me."
"Your logic is flawed. Plenty of people like me. I don't like them in return. You're assuming that life is fair."
"I know life isn't fair," Gokuu said. "I know that. But it's - " He paused, frustrated, thwarted again by these strange words that Sanzou could use so well and that always tripped him up. "It's fair with you," he said, finally. "Because you came and got me. You made it better. You saved me. Even when you're mean to me, it's sort of right, you know?"
Sanzou looked at him a long time, eyes measuring, face flat. "I'm just keeping you here because if I unleashed you on the world, you'd cause a huge fuss," he said, and ground his cigarette out on the table. "I'm going to go meditate. Stay in here and don't run around. I've got a headache and if the monks scream at me because your stupid monkey self breaks something, I'll make you wish I'd left you in your cage." He kicked the chair as he left, maybe not on purpose - Sanzou didn't do things like that - but the grating sound still made Gokuu wince and left an angry feel that lingered in the room even after Sanzou had slid the screen shut and his padding footsteps had faded.
Gokuu looked around the room, at the potted plant, which was drooping, and at the books and clothes and some food Sanzou had gotten him. He half-stood, reached out and fingered Sanzou's pack of cigarettes away from the edge of the table, where they hung precariously. Then he set back down and turned the page of the comic.
He didn't get it, either. The flower was falling into what looked like a pool of blood.
----
Gokuu thought about muichimotsu a lot, after that. He watched Sanzou when he thought about it. He thought about it when Sanzou smiled, ever so slightly, when Hakkai said something perceptive or clever or when Gokuu did something Sanzou appreciated; when Sanzou touched his head, or his shoulder, or gave him the credit card to buy some more pocky and drinks; when Sanzou helped one of them during a fight and would look, for a moment, almost worried if Gokuu was hurt. And how he would act extra mean after it, calling them stupid and smoking more cigarettes than usual and hogging the beer from Gojyou.
Muichimotsu. It even sounded funny in his mouth, like it wasn't a real word. Just pretend.
Sanzou was good at pretending.
----
Years later, many days away from the ones where Sanzou guided his hand over paper to scrawl out his name, Sanzou's name, from the days where he could sit on the balcony of Sanzou's room and listen to the click of the lighter behind him as they watched it snow - even now, Sanzou was still good at pretending.
"It snowed here, huh," he said, looking up from his wallet and smiling at the vending lady.
Her face lit in return, wrinkles lifting so that he could see the spark of what she'd been once; he remembered her, she'd been a little girl on her father's knees learning his business when they'd left for the West, but she didn't seem to recognize him. Or if she did, it would be simply incomprehensible to her that the same boy she'd known so long ago could be standing here in front of her, unchanged. She was mortal; he was not-human. "Oh, yes," she said; "it's so strange! It hardly ever snows here. Butterflies in the West, eh?"
"Right." Gokuu handed her a wad of money and took the carton of cigarettes from her hands, sliding it into his shirt. "Thanks, old lady."
"Mind you don't slip in the slush," she called after him. "It's been raining lately as well."
Chang'an in winter looked like a glass city, all covered in white and frozen, like a god had snatched it out of time to keep it in its place. The monks moving within the gates were like the little figures in those snow-glasses; shake them, maybe, and they'd turn topsy-turvy and fall onto the walls and roofs of Chang'an. Gokuu put his hands inside his cloak, clasping his fingers to warm them and brushing against the hard edges of the cigarette carton.
(Cigarette smoke brings back Sanzou's face: his frown, most of the time, and only very rarely his smile. Gokuu doesn't like remembering his smile that often because it was so cherished when it came: such a small expression, just a tilt of the lips, and Sanzou would duck his head down so no one could see. No one but Gokuu, who sees fine in the shadows.)
"'Scuse me," he said to one monk who was sweeping the snow by the gate, his black sandals an inky spill against the white snow. "You have a Sanzou here, right? I need to talk to him."
The monk made a small, reverent gesture with his fingers, then continued his sweeping; he didn't look at Gokuu, only said, "Genjou Sanzou Houshi-sama does not receive visitors, I'm afraid. But please, feel free to talk with another of our order if you need to."
"He'll talk to me," said Gokuu, although he wasn't entirely sure it's the truth. Oh well. Not like he'd never lied to a holy man before.
The monk did look up now, frowning at Gokuu. He leaned on his broom, fingers absently twisting the beads looping around his wrist and around his palm. "And who would you be, young sir?" He was skeptical: probably didn't get many kids snooping around asking to speak with 'Genjou Sanzou Houshi-sama.'
Gokuu spread his arms, smiled, showing his canines. "Just a monkey," he said, and nodded at the temple. "Go on, tell him. He'll be pissed if you don't. And he's a mean bastard when he's mad."
The beads clacked against each other as the monk stared at him, body unmoving except for his fingers rolling the beads against each other. Then abruptly, his frown vanished, and he almost smiled. "One would never think that about a Sanzou," he says dryly, "that he experiences such worldly emotions, so you must know him. Come in, come in, it's cold for travelers."
"Lemme guess," Gokuu said as they shuffled through the snow leading to the main entrance, the monk graciously going ahead of him and clearing a path with his feet, "Sanzou's still a worldly guy, huh? The monks never liked him when I lived here, either."
The monk frowned, opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it. He tried again and said, "Sanzou-sama is a holy monk, one who has decided to stay attached to this world in order to save others. His experiencing emotions like you or I do only tells me that there are many people yet to be enlightened - myself included, of course."
Gokuu wrinkled his nose. Buddhist philosophy; he'd never liked it and that never changed, no matter how much he heard about it or saw. The whole enlightenment thing was bullshit; even Sanzou had thought so. Especially Sanzou.
"You are not a Buddhist, I presume?" said the monk, smiling. He slid open the door and gestured Gokuu in; they wiped off their feet, then stepped inside. "You've lived here. Does it look the same?"
"Yeah - " Gokuu paused and looked around: funny, he knew nothing had really changed, but everything looked... bigger. Less clean. Even the smell of candles from down the hall had changed. " - But, different, I guess."
"Such is life." The monk clacked his prayer bead and gave him a thoughtful frown. "You are Son Gokuu, aren't you?"
"Uh, yeah." Gokuu looked away from the scrolls on the wall (they'd looked so special and important when he'd lived here, but now he sees that the ink isn't the best, and the paper is cracked and fading) and back at the monk. "Hey, how'd you know?"
Smiling, the monk held a finger in front of him - Wait here - and, turning, disappeared down the hallway. Gokuu held his scent in his nose - it was strong, he wasn't going very far. But he felt weird anyway, standing there alone in the big hallway with its funny smells, trying so hard to be holy. Gokuu thought about fruit. It wasn't cute anymore for him to sneak into the gardens and steal their holy fruit, but his fingers twitched at the thought; it would be normal. Like a welcome back party, making this strange place back into what it used to be: home.
"Ah! Here we are!" Gokuu let out the breath he'd been holding and the scent as the monk hurried back towards him, holding a small, slim sheet of paper in his hand, folded twice. He handed it to Gokuu and said, "I'll leave you now - I should get back to my sweeping." And with a final clack of his beads and a smile, polite and removed, he left.
The paper was very old, yellowing like the scrolls. It was brittle as if no one had touched it in years. Gokuu ran a nail over the fold, gentling its hard edge, and carefully opened the paper.
'Gokuu' - and that word was so familiar, it was written in the same script that first showed him how to write his own name. Sanzou had drawn the symbols slowly, carefully, even though his writing was usually hurried and messy, so that Gokuu could see what he was doing.
' - Muchimotsu.
'I told you not to come back.'
Gokuu huffed, folding the note again and sticking it into his shirt, next to the cigarette carton. He sniffed the air, then turned west and headed down the halls towards the garden.
----
"Didn't you get my note?"
"I got it. Didn't care about it. It was stupid."
Sanzou's mouth quirked, but it wasn't a smile. It lifted the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth and gave an angry cast to his looks - god, he'd been intimidating thirty years ago, but that Sanzou was gone and in his place sat this old man, his cold lined face such a contrast to his dignified robes and the prayer-beads in his hands. He rolled them like the young monk had, clacking them together.
Gokuu sighed and stretched, his hands brushing the lowest branches on the tree. Up above him, the holy fruit sat plumply nestled with the leaves, but he wasn't hungry.
"You can hardly even read," Sanzou pointed out. "I wouldn't go calling my note stupid."
"Nope. It was stupid." He half-expected the fan to make an appearance in all its glory, but Sanzou just snorted and pulled a face at him. "What? It was. Aren't you the one always telling me, muichimotsu, muichimotsu, no attachments no ties no cares?"
"Apparently it's not something you took to heart."
"I did," said Gokuu, smiling. "I do what I wanna do, you know? And it's got nothing to do with you, so why don't you get over your goddamned self? You told me to leave - " practically kicked him out, more like it, told him there was nothing for monkeys to do with monks and to not come back until Sanzou was dead - "and I did, 'cause I listened to what you told me. I was stupid. I know that now."
"I wanted you to live for yourself," Sanzou said. His face was turned down again, placed into shadow by the fringe of his bangs, but Gokuu was good at seeing when things weren't clear. He saw the Sanzou he knew in that face: angry, scared, defiant. Still a kid in a weird way. Then Sanzou sighed and lifted his face to the sun, and Gokuu blinked and the old Sanzou was gone. "I didn't want you to be beholden to me. I don't want you to be caught and not have a way out."
"I am living for myself. I'm not stupid, I'm simple, and I figured it out. Living for you, living with you, that's taking care of myself, okay?" Gokuu squinted at Sanzou's face, but those eyes were clear and cold and his face wasn't telling any secrets. "You don't get it, do you."
Sanzou squinted, one eye half-closing, the other focusing on him suspiciously. He shook his head and reached inside his robe, pulling out a torn, crumpled pack of cigarettes and retrieving a bent cigarette. He lit it quickly, inhaled hard and said - quietly, like he didn't really want to - "Why don't you just leave, damn you?"
Gokuu hesitated, then lowered his voice as well and said, "You don't wanna hear the answer. So why ask?"
That did get him an almost-smile. "Where have I heard that before?"
"I liked it," said Gokuu, and grinned at him. "So I stole it."
"Yeah," Sanzou sighed, leaning forward and propping his arms on his knees. Gokuu watched his hand as he lifted the cigarette to his lips: they were still young, skin stretched tight over the bones, muscles shifting as his fingers moved and twitched. His blunt fingers ashed the cigarette briskly onto the snow and then he stretched them, cracked his knuckles. "I'm old," he said. "Sitting out here makes my bones ache."
"You're not old. I've seen old people."
"No?" Sanzou raised his eyebrows and took another hard drag off his cigarette. The smoke spilled from his lips, little wisps trailing down his chin as he said, "And look at you, still the little monkey I picked up all those years ago. You'll probably look the same way when I've died and all that's left of me is bones."
Gokuu shifted and opened his mouth, but nothing came out. You don't look old, he wanted to say, but he knew, with a sudden startling realization, that it would be a lie. Genjou Sanzou of the smooth skin and fit body was no more; he'd never thought that would happen, had never been able to fathom a Sanzou grown older, but... here it was. So strange, to be seeing it like that. This was all that others saw, this cranky old man with a wrinkled, worn face and battered hands and body; they couldn't look at him and see what he'd once been. And that, he guessed, made sense in some weird Buddhist way: that person was gone, was no more and shouldn't be mourned.
"But," he said, speaking slowly, testing it out, "I don't care, because this is who you are."
"You'll care when I'm dead." Sanzou leaned down and ground out his cigarette against his sandal bottom. "You'll cry over this empty body and carry it with you all the rest of your days. If only he had lived, if only he'd died the way I remember him, and all the stupid thoughts people have about those they love. What about your muichimotsu then?"
"Beats me. Can I pass on that question?" Gokuu tried for a grin and quelled it at Sanzou's look. "It's still there! Why do you keep trying to argue me out of it? What about your muichimotsu?"
"Something less than I thought it was," said Sanzou. His lips twisted like he had something sour in his mouth. "All these years, it's bothered me. The thought of you out there thinking about me. Missing me. Wanting to be back with me. What that does to my muichimotsu... well, whatever. You're still dodging the question, monkey."
"I don't like thinking about you dead." The very thought was like a bad taste in his mind. He wanted something to clean it out, but it sat there like poisoned mushrooms in his head, black and smelly and heavy. Gokuu popped his knuckles, one by one, and stared up at the gray sky: the sun was gone, covered by clouds. "Muichimotsu... it doesn't go that far."
"Yeah? And what will you do, when I'm dead?"
('Sanzou always asks the uncomfortable questions,' Hakkai used to say, laughing in that weird half-real half-not way of his. 'He's like those sticker burrs - he gets in deep and he's hard to get out.')
"Not die," said Gokuu, "if that's what you mean."
Sanzou seemed satisfied; he nodded and reached for his pack of cigarettes again, shaking out a cigarette and lighting it. For a moment, again, his image blurred and he was young again - then Gokuu blinked and the fingers curling around the cigarette were wrinkled again, nails and knuckles cracked.
"Oh," Gokuu said, blinking. He took out the carton of cigarettes and handed them to Sanzou, pulling up a smile. "I got you these."
Sanzou turned the carton over in his hands, looking at the front with the brand name on it. He traced the raised letters with a finger. "I don't smoke Marlboro Reds anymore," he said, holding up his pack. "Lights."
"Oh," Gokuu said again. "Sorry."
Sanzou shrugged and tore the box open, drawing out a crisp, square pack. He held it up and squinted at it, and his lips quirked - that almost-smile of his. He tossed his cigarette into the snow and pulled one out from the new pack. "But," he said, "it'll be nice to taste these again. Just for a while."
----
Many years passed, and Gokuu kept visiting the monastery at Chang'an long after it had crumbled and the villagers had built new buildings on it: houses, stalls, another temple (which didn't last long before it was looted and burned and abandoned as a religious site; bad luck and all that), government center.
The holy tree still grew no matter what the site was used for, and Gokuu visited that. The fruits were still plump and juicy and always tasted sweet when he took one; it was a sturdy tree, solid roots and branches that barely moved even when it snowed and the storm winds howled.
(The first time he'd seen a storm, he'd cried and yowled like a wounded animal and hid under Sanzou's sheets, until Sanzou dragged him out of bed and sat him down by the window - pinching his ears and knocking his head all the way, of course. 'Listen,' he'd said, eye twitching irritably when Gokuu huddled against his side. 'What do you hear?'
'Monsters!' Gokuu cried.
'The only monster around here is you. Still still, shut up and listen. It's just nature taking its course. If you're scared of that, you're an idiot.')
There was nothing special about the place he'd buried Sanzou. Even nestled as it was under the holy tree, there was no holy glow around it, no strange noises in the night; it got rained and snowed on, and in the spring it grew grass and flowers. People sat under this tree to enjoy the shade and sweet smell, and they never knew that deep in the earth beneath them were the bones of Toua Genjou Sanzou the thirty-third. For some of them Buddhism was as foreign and distant as the lands across the sea.
But Gokuu sat, and knew, and listened. Around him the wind whistled, and the plants died, and new ones grew in their place.
Muichimotsu: he did not cry.