Not Alone
Disclaimer ~ I do not own Saiyuki
*The one where Goku realizes he's not alone anymore*
It was a cold feeling. Being alone. It felt like hopelessness and despair, wrapped in longing and desperation, then completely frozen in unbreakable ice. Goku hated that feeling. He hated being alone.
He spent five hundred years trapped in that cage. Completely and utterly alone. The only friend he had was a little bird. But that bird died, leaving Goku alone again.
Goku used to think he knew what it was like to be warm. To have people who cared about him with their whole being. People who he loved just as much, if not more. But whenever he tried to think of those people all he would feel is a sadness so overwhelming that he almost preferred the cold feeling. Almost.
But then Sanzo found him. He reached out a hand and the chains keeping Goku in the cage withered away. The shackles remained but Goku was free to go with his sun. Because that was the only thing Sanzo could be. He was so warm. Then Sanzo introduced Goku to Hakkai and Gojyo and Goku felt a kindred spirit in both of them.
Hakkai knew what that overwhelming sadness feeling. The one that left you frozen and all you can do is cry for something just out of your reach. Goku knew that the second he laid eyes on him. That was why he was so insistent that they help him. Goku didn't want Hakkai to feel that any longer. He tries to get Hakkai to do things he enjoys. He likes it when he gets to teach Goku new things. He always feels amused when Goku and Gojyo start fighting too. Goku suspected that Hakkai used to be a teacher. But he won't ask. He'll wait for Hakkai to open up on his own.
Gojyo knew what loneliness felt like. He was hated for what he was. Something he couldn't control. Try as he might, Goku could always see through the masks he put up. That's why he fights with him so often. He wants Gojyo to feel genuine emotions. Happiness at having won the last piece of food or at something Goku says that makes him smile, even though he really didn't want to so he covers it up by starting an argument. Goku always argued back, waiting for the day that Gojyo will stop hiding his smiles.
It took a long time for Goku to realize that the cold feeling had disappeared. He was sitting in the back of the jeep, watching Gojyo and Sanzo arguing for a change and Hakkai trying to calm them down and not crash at the same time. It was when watching them that he realized he didn't feel cold anymore. The sheer realization had stunned him. It was all to easy too get lost in his head, trying to find that specific moment of when things started to feel warm.
He never noticed when Gojyo and Sanzo stopped their fighting to stare at him with hidden worry, or when Hakkai pulled the Jeep over to see if he was okay. It was Sanzo who pulled him out of his head, crouching in front of him and staring straight into his eyes. Goku blinked as he focused on Sanzo, illuminated by the sun just as he was when he first found Goku.
It was Sanzo that had made him feel warm. He was the sun. Melting away the cold and never letting it return.
And done! Okay, I'm going to be completely honest here and say that I was supposed to be working on the first chapter to my Voltron oneshot collection but I couldn't figure it out at all. So….yeah. I looked through my new idea list and decided to do this because I really love Saiyuki and thought that this would be easier. I'll get back to the voltron one soon!
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