Heya everyone,

No Junket Quest as of yet. My real life reared up and bit me—again. So…here's a Gojyo angst fic. I wrote it mostly to vent on a subject that is sore to me still, and still hurts. But I think everyone's best stories come from things close to the heart.

Special thanks to Caribbean Blues, and memy for pulling a very short notice beta reading on it.

Disclaimers: All Gensomaden Saiyuki characters belong to Kazuya Minekura-Sensei and not me, or I'd not be in university, ne?

Ratings: PG-13 for shounen-ai, personal angst and alluded sex talk. This is GOJYO that's talking after all.

Edit: Here's a better version, clearing up the last paragraph or so a bit more. Less confusion on all our parts is a good thing!

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Not Enough

By AliasOfWestgate

I know he mourns for her still, but goddamnit. Just once I would love it if he would look at ME. I'm here now, not Kanan.

She's been long dead, and he still goes on…grieving for someone he'll never see again. I do everything to make sure he stays stable, and alive. Take the first hit in a fight or stay awake the nights when I know he's got nightmares again. Just to comfort him after.

He doesn't scream much either, after these horrors I know he still sees. He's the one man I know that can't put his regrets aside. But no screams, not of grief, no tears…nothing. Just another fake smile to face the world with, when he goes on in the morning. Yet I'm still by his side. Getting him something, just distracting him in some small way, to get his mind off that grief.  If it means badly made coffee or tea, I do so…if it means some kinda tossed together meal while he cries softly, and then hide it again, I do so. 

I don't know why I keep doing so. Not like he thanks me much for it all, even the man with the constant smile forgets his manners.  Even in this lousy quest we've been sent on. It's hard to tell. He's there, I know he's awake….and has somehow begun to move on a little bit. But he still doesn't see me. She's gone, never to come back again. I'm standing here, doing everything in the world to make him see that there is someone here for him.  But it's not enough, is it? It's never enough for him. He's got to grieve and pine for a dead woman, that for all she was sweet and graceful, is now dead.

I've got my own scars in the past, but living in the now, finding the joy in it is a bigger and more important thing for me. I've never been able to simply mask it like he does, yet still hold it close to my heart. If I have to live, I'll live in the now.  The past will always be there, even with me. My Mother's grief and her death will never leave my mind. But life is NOW, not then. Even if it's with a thousand easy women, and a million taverns reeking of liquor, I still go on. It's all that I can do, really.

Even screwing that lousy monk isn't enough though. Sanzo-sama walks in like he owns the place and tries to take over something that I'm an expert in. He'd love to think he's in control of me, and the sex. It never works! But he's not the one I want. For all the sex is great with that bouzu, it's not what I want. I don't want rough, tumbling hot climaxes. I want what was promised in a kiss long ago.

That kiss was happened a couple of months before we even started on this damned journey.  I'd approached Hakkai shyly about it, and he accepted. Yes, I was shy…the only man that has to look at a woman to bed her, was shy!  Needless to say it was something I'll never forget. My quiet friend outdid more women in that simple act of kissing than I care to admit too. It was sweet, it was intense and it was some of the best feelings I'd ever had for anyone. Yet now he ignores me, goes on smiling again. His words were "I'm not quite ready for this, Gojyo. I do want it, but I'm sorry, but I don't want to move that fast yet. I'm not ready for that level of attachment again." He told me in light voice that still echoes through my mind, because he masked that statement like all the others, with yet another plastered on smile, and a quiet happy tone.

Well…it's been nearly a year and nothing has come from that. I may as well not exist to him anymore, not in that way. We're friends, I'd die for him. Yet I'm still not enough for him.

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Owari ^_~

AliasOfWestgate