Death always catches you unprepared.

You can live in Her shadow for years. But when She finds you it's always too early, and unfair. No-one gets used to the thought of dying, no-one gets used to the sight of someone dying. We used to risk our life daily in this journey, but no-one ever talks about it.

I couldn't keep count of all the people I've killed, but surely they're a lot; I couldn't ever remotely think Death would still surprise me so.
GOKU POV:
It's some time since the last time I talked with you, or maybe I should say 'to you', it's not like you often grace me with an answer.

You think it's a waste of time, you think I'm a stupid ape. When it comes to heap insults on someone you are never at a loss of words.

Sometimes I don't really know if you do it on purpose or not. I hear, I understand, I 'feel' the things you say.

And I know that you are selfish, moody, standoffish, ungrateful, that you drink and smoke too much and openly despise other's feelings and weaknesses.

One would ask why I've never stopped to try reaching for you. Why I haven't ever thought to give up. To me it's the simplest of things, but I don't expect people to understand it.

My world starts and ends with you.

It's as simple as that.

Sometimes I feel pity for the ones who'll never met you. Sometimes I envy them. like I'm doing now.

Right now I wish you never climbed upon my mountain, and I have thought of it many times. Like when I try to approach you and you unfailingly chase me away. Maybe you don't know, but you hurt me so much.

I just wanted to be close to you. I wish I could have been 'in' you to protect you from yourself. But I'm just the stupid ape after all.

Hakkai. He's doing that again. His eyes have lost their expression, and he's staring at some point in front of him. I don't know what's that he sees when he's like this, I don't think I want to know.

Hakkai always said I didn't have to feel sad when you drove me away, he always convinced me. Hakkai has a way with words. I think he also came to love you, in his own way. It's because of this that he's acting like this now? I wish so much you could tell me. But you wouldn't anyway.

Hakkai once told me I shouldn't listen to you with my ears, he said he doesn't do it himself. I didn't understand what he was meaning by that.

Today I remembered when you told me I should live for myself; that you live only for yourself. Then I thought that if I left, you wouldn't ever bother to turn; now I'm not so sure, after all the time I've lived with you.

Gojyo used to say that what you think and what you say have not to be the same, I think it's what Hakkai tried to tell me that time, just with simpler words. I like Gojyo, I wish I had a brother like him.

Gojyo is still in his room, and it's 11 in the morning. I heard him cry even the last night, you know? I don't really know if you would care for it. He tries not to be loud, but I can hear him anyway. I think Hakkai hears him too. I suppose that when you lose something it's when you really realize it was dear to you.

Gojyo lost a brother, Hakkai lost a wife and a sister, I lost myself. You would say it's karma. I still don't understand how a single word can explain all this pain.

It's not true that I wish you never climbed up the mountain. I don't know why I thought of it, but I know it will not be the last time.

I remember these words, they sounded more or less like this: is it better not to have, or having and losing? How stupid. Why can't I just have you? Why does one always have to chose? And I really can't do it by myself, I can't do it without you.

I was so naive. After all, you were only a human. I thought you would never leave me alone, I was a fool. You were always right, since the beginning.

So frail...A wound that on me would have been nothing but a scratch. I watched the light fade from your beautiful eyes, they were fixed on mine all the time, you never looked away. You tried to tell me something, I think, but your face was twisted in pain, and all of a sudden your eyes weren't your eyes anymore. They were empty, you wasn't there anymore. I wake every night with that image before my eyes, dripping with sweat.

I'm afraid of forgetting your face, the colour of your eyes, the warmth of your skin. I'm clinging to memories as if there was no tomorrow, this is what Hakkai says, but he too knows perfectly well that for me there's no tomorrow. I know that he knows it. Gojyo knows it too.

I didn't keep anything of you, cause I know none of it had nothing to do with the real you. You never wanted a sutra, a gun, or a monk's robe.

When we buried you Gojyo went up to you a last time, he bent down; when he turned again he had something in his hand. He put it on my upturned palm without saying a word, because there was nothing to say. The sky was slowly turning red. At that very moment I knew that I wouldn't look at the sunset anymore.

So this is actually the only thing I have of you. The thing that drew me to you since the first time I saw you, that made me realize I belong to you. That I've always belonged to you. And that maybe someday you'll come back to find me.

It is my hope.

It's a simple blond lock.