Kyandi: Hey everyone!
Yuai: We're back!
Kyandi: Okay here another chapter.
Yuai: We might have another here shortly.
Kyandi: My muse blew up in my face with this story.
Yuai: Meaning the chapters just keep coming out.
Kyandi: So we'll get on to it!
Yuai: Right. Enjoy and review!
Kyandi: I do not own Saiyuki. Hehe….I almost put Prince of Tennis.
Chapter 10 Brooding Buddies
"If you two don't shut up, I swear I will kill you!" Of course, as everyday did, the day started out with Gojyo and Goku fighting and Sanzo vowing to kill them if they didn't shut up.
"You think he'll ever actually do it?" Yuai asked Hakkai from where she was leaning on the back of his seat, her elbows sitting on the seat and her chin sitting in one hand. She was watching the other three as they argued and fought, Sanzo hitting the other two with a paper fan. Hakkai chuckled.
"I doubt it, but you never know with Sanzo." Hakkai told her. Kokoro, sitting on Hakkai's shoulder mewed before curling up in a ball where she sat and going to sleep. Yuai looked down at her. "She's really taken a liking to you, Hakkai. She doesn't usually like anyone other then me and children." Yuai remarked.
Hakkai smiled. "Hakkaryuu has taken a liking to you too." he told her. Yuai smiled. "Too bad their not of the same species." Yuai remarked idly as she looked at Kokoro. "Your parents weren't. If it didn't matter to them, I doubt it matters to Kokoro and Hakkaryuu." Hakkai told her with a smile.
Yuai smiled. "You're right. True love passes all barriers. Right as always." Yuai told him. Yuai turned her attention to in front of them. "Oh look, a village!" she said pointing ahead of them.
"Looks like we might not be camping out tonight." Hakkai said though the other three were still fighting and hadn't heard them. "How much longer do you think they'll keep this up?" Yuai asked draping one arm over Hakkai's shoulder as she half turned to watch the three.
"Until we stop, I suppose." Hakkai replied with a smile. "And then it'll start again?" Yuai asked raising an eyebrow at the man. Hakkai chuckled. "You're probably right about that!" he told her. "Just what's so funny?" Gojyo asked turning on the two.
"Oh nothing, nothing!" Yuai told him waving a hand in dismissal. "Just some idle chit chat." she added Hakkai chuckling at her. Before any of the other three could say anything Yuai pointed forward. "Look a village!" she told them giving them all a bright smile.
Thankful to finally reach another village the argument was dropped from there. Once in the village the five headed straight to the only inn in the whole village.
"Sorry, but we only have one room left and it only has two beds." the woman told Hakkai when they went to check in. "We can manage." Hakkai told her with a smile. Now it was going to be a fight on who got the bed.
Naturally as the girl, Yuai claimed one of the beds, Kokoro and Hakkaryuu watching from her lap as the boys argued on how to settle who got the second bed. "Why not a game? Cards or something else to decide?" Yuai suggested.
All four looked at her. "She's got a point." Gojyo said. Yuai already knew who was going to be sleeping in the other bed when they settled on a card game to decide. After all…..no one beat Hakkai at poker.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Gojyo said when, as Yuai thought, Hakkai came out the winner of the card game. "I figured that would be the case." Yuai said brightly making Gojyo frown at her. Goku popped up pushing Gojyo's head down as he looked at Yuai.
"Yuai, can I sleep up there with you?" Goku asked. "Get off me dumbass ape!" Gojyo said. "And she's not going to le-" Yuai cut Gojyo off. "I don't see why not. There's enough room for two." Yuai said brightly. The bed truly was big enough for two to lay in comfortably and not be laying on top of each other.
Even if Goku sprawled out like he always did, there was enough room that he wouldn't bother Yuai. Goku cheered, jumping up on the bed while Gojyo glared at him. Hakkai chuckled.
"How did it end up with me and the monk sleeping in the floor?" Gojyo complained. "Sorry, I would let one of you sleep up here with me but for one, you're both too big. There wouldn't be enough room. And two, Gojyo your reputation precedes you." Yuai told him.
Gojyo frowned at her. "And three, I don't want to accidentally bump Sanzo in his sleep and get shot." Yuai added causing Sanzo to turn a glare on her. "I will kill you." Sanzo told her. "See what I mean?" Yuai asked with a smile.
"And its your own faults. You should have known that if you choose a card game that Hakkai would win." Yuai added as Goku flopped back on the bed beside her. Hakkai smiled as Goku laughed at the two in the floor.
"After all, how can you expect to win when he counts the cards." Yuai added with a shrug. All four males looked at her. "Oh you didn't notice?" Yuai asked blinking innocently back at them. "My bad~!" Yuai sang before turning to slip under her blanket.
"Well night!" she told the others. "Hey! Don't just say things like that and then declare you're going to bed!" Gojyo snapped at her. Hakkai chuckled as Yuai stuck her tongue out at Gojyo. It was never a dull day that was for sure.
"She's right though. We should go to bed." Hakkai remarked. Goku was already snoring from where he lay on his half of Yuai's bed, his limbs already sprawled out all over the place. "See you all in the morning." Yuai told them before laying down, pulling her blanket up.
Hakkaryuu and Kokoro curled up together on Yuai's pillow right next to the girl's head. Yuai gave both a smile before laying down and pulling her blanket up. Hakkai reached out and turned off the lights as they all laid down to sleep.
That night a storm passed over head and it rained hard.
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A shudder wrack her small body as another crack of thunder boomed over head shaking the very stone beneath her. She let out another whimper as she covered her ears.
"Hush, little one. It'll be alright. Its just thunder. Just noise." a soothing voice told her as a soft hand pet her hair careful not to touch the scarred and bloody back. Another crack of thunder had her wrapping small arms around the comforting person holding her. "It's alright. You're a warrior remember?" the woman told her. Yuai nodded but couldn't help the small whimper as another crack of thunder sounded.
"Yuai, remember what I've told you. Remember our oath. As long as you have that you have a reason to face the world. A little thunder and rain isn't going to hurt you." the woman told her soothingly. She pet Yuai's hair soothing the child as she shook from fear of the thunder and rain. "Just calm down. It'll all be alright. I promise." the woman told her, rocking Yuai as she hummed lightly to the frightened child.
But everything wasn't alright. The very person who comforted her, soothed her when she was scared and hurt, died before her eyes. Left the world and Yuai behind. The only person she had left was gone. Once again….she was alone. A loud crack of thunder rang loudly in her ears, drowning out all other noise.
Yuai bolted up in bed as a real crack of thunder sounded. She looked around the room hoping it wasn't thunder but maybe Goku rolling out of the bed. No such luck. Goku was sprawled out on the bed next to her, snoring his head off.
Gojyo was in the floor on a pallet spread between the two beds, Sanzo on the other side on another. Both were asleep, Gojyo snoring. Hakkai was asleep on his back, on the bed across form her. No one moved or mad a sound besides snoring.
Yuai pressed a shaking hand to her face. She hated the rain and thunder alike. It was only a reminder of the two worst days of her life. When another crack sounded from outside Yuai jumped in her skin. She needed to get out of the small room before she really freaked.
Yuai climbed out of the bed, careful not to wake Goku or the two little occupants of her pillow. She slipped past Sanzo and Gojyo and out of the room. She made her way out to a balcony where she sat in a corner, watching the rain from under the cover over the balcony.
She pulled her knees to her chest. On second thought it probably wasn't the best idea to go outside but she didn't want to wake anyone else. So she clamped her hands over her ears trying to drown out the pounding of the rain and the crack of the thunder.
Though she probably look a lot like a little child trying to drown out something they didn't want to hear, she didn't care. She really did hate the rain and the thunder didn't make it any better. In fact all it did do was make it even worse.
"Clamp your hands any hard and you might bust your ear drums." Yuai was surprised out of her thoughts and brooding state when she heard Sanzo's voice. She looked up to find the male sitting at the table not ten feet from her, smoking a cigarette.
She hadn't even sense him arriving. She stared at him in shock for a moment, like she had never seen the blond before, before she turned her head away her arms wrapping around her legs. "I hate the rain." she said in disconsolate tone.
Having never heard that tone from the girl before Sanzo looked at her. She was staring out at the rain. Her usually bright silver-white eyes looked dark gray like a cloud heavy with rain as she stared out at the night.
Sanzo was sure it was the lighting playing a trick on his eyes but her eyes at the moment reminded him of storm cloud. Dark, heavy, so dark gray they were almost pitch black. He found that it was a look….that he didn't like on her.
Or maybe it was because he wasn't use to seeing her like that. A girl who looked better when she had a smile on her face and a bright, supportive tone to her voice. Someone who accepted the darker sides of people just to get to know the brighter sides of them.
Someone who gave and didn't take unless they had to and even then, grudgingly. That was Yuai. This dark, depressed, brooding in darkness girl before him didn't fit the girl he knew. No it was his job to be dark and depressing at times. Not hers.
"Join the club." Sanzo told her taking another drag off his cigarette. "You know the brooding and gloom is my job. Not your's." he added. That put a ghost of her usual smile on her face, but it lacked the bright, warm feeling that usually came with it.
"Everyone has their darker sides, Sanzo. Not even I can be cheerful and bright all of the time." Yuai told him. "And I…I detest the rain. To the very core of my being, I hate the rain. If I hate nothing else in the world, at least I can say, with every fiber of my being, that I hate the rain." she added.
"Heavy words coming from you." Sanzo remarked. Yuai gave a curt laugh. "The feelings match. I have a very good reason for hating the rain." she told him. "You're not the only one." Sanzo replied gruffly. "I suppose we all have reasons for being the way we arm. I know I have mine." Yuai said heaving a sigh.
"Meaning?" Sanzo asked glancing at the girl as he lit another cigarette. "I am as accepting as I am of others' darker sides because I know what its like to have a dark side you can't run from. One that no matter how hard you try to bury it, to move on from it….it just keeps coming back." she remarked.
"I know what its like to be pushed aside, left out, excluded…denied, the comfort every living being needs. It hurts and its not a pleasant feeling. I am the way I am because I want to spare as many people as I can, human and demon alike, the same feelings I had." Yuai told him.
"We all have changed and been molded into who we are because of our thoughts and feelings towards our pasts. No matter how much you want to deny it, you're the same, Sanzo." she added.
"No one can run from their past." Sanzo said gruffly. "No they can not." Yuai agreed. "But everyone can carry on. Others can find others to face the world with them, to help to continue with their existence." Yuai added.
Sanzo looked at her as she stared out at the sky. "No one wants to face this world alone." she said lowly. Sanzo turned his eyes from her. It was a true enough statement. "No one wants to be alone period." Sanzo said.
"Does that include you, Mr. Monk?" Yuai asked looking at him out of the sides of her eyes. Sanzo didn't look at her and didn't answer. "You're just like Hakkai." he said finally. The faint, ghost of a smile that had been on Yuai's face slipped away.
"No….no I'm not. I'm not in the least." came Yuai's low voice. It almost sounded as if her voice had trembled for a moment. Sanzo looked at her.
She was staring out at the night, her head bowed enough for her bangs to hid her eyes from him. "Hakkai is a far better person than I. Whatever sins he may have committed in his past, could never amount to the ones that dirty my hands." she said lowly.
Sanzo stared at her, taking another drag of his cigarette. Did Yuai even know about Hakkai's past? So far none of them really knew much about hers, except what she had told them. "That's a load of…" Yuai cut him off.
"You can say it's a load of crap until you're blue in the face, but its not. Not to me. Despite everything that's happened to me or around me….I haven't even begun to atone for my sins. And to be honest….I doubt I ever could in this life time or even twenty. My wounds may look healed, Sanzo, but they never will fully heal." she told him.
Sanzo watched her as she continued talking. He hadn't seen her this open before and he doubted she even realized she was saying half of this.
"I suppose the main reason I took my oath was as a form of minor atonement. A way to try to make up for some fraction of the wrong I've committed. That and I'm a chicken." she remarked. Sanzo raised an eyebrow, despite the fact that she couldn't see it.
"I had nothing left at that time. I could have died then with no qualms, nothing to bind me to this world. But I was a chicken. Too scared of death to accept my fate with pride. So given the chance, I clung to the first thing to give me a reason to continue." she added.
"Do you regret your choice?" Sanzo asked her. Yuai flinched before she looked up at him, her eyes wide in the dark, what little light from the moon that shined through the clouds, reflecting in her eyes. "I regret a lot of things, Sanzo, but I could never, never regret him." she told him.
By 'him' Sanzo assumed she was talking about the man that her oath concerned. "I may have wished for death at one point, no matter how painful it was, but…until he is truly happy, until he has what he's looking for, I will cling to this life." she told him as she looked away.
"As I said…I have my reasons." she added. Sanzo thought that over. "Is he really that important?" he asked gruffly. A faint smile curved Yuai's lips. "Yes, he is. He was the only light, when I was lost in the dark. He deserves everything that I can't have. It's the least I can do." Yuai replied.
Silence fell between the two before Yuai looked up at him. "Sanzo." she said softly. "Say something stupid and I'll kill you." he warned her. Yuai smiled a bit more. "Its not your fault you know." she told him. Sanzo's head snapped around so he could look at her.
She met his eyes squarely. "Whatever it is that you feel so guilty about, that drives you to be broody all night when it rains…its wasn't your fault. Deny it all you want, but you really are a good, kind hearted person." she told him giving him a soft, if not sad, smile.
Sanzo stared at her for a moment before finally looking away snuffing out his cigarette in the ashtray he had brought with him. He wanted to curse her for being able to pick up on his feelings like she did. She acute that was for sure.
He was silent for a moment, only the sound of the rain sounding around them. For a moment he listen to the rain as he replayed her words in his head. When he spoke it was enough to put a true smile on the girl's face, lighting her dark features.
"See that was stupid….now I have to kill you." he told her. A small laugh sounded from the girl, putting a small, faint smile on Sanzo's own face. "Just promise you skim Gojyo with the shot." she told him. "Deal." Sanzo replied as he lit another cigarette.
He got to his feet to finish his brooding in the inn's lounge downstairs. "You might want to come in before you get sick though." he told her. "Is that concern, my monk friend?" she asked over her shoulder. "Die." was Sanzo's only reply.
END:
Kyandi: Sanzo really is a gloomy person.
Yuai: He's not so bad.
Kyandi: That you had to say he's not so bad, proves he's bad.
Yuai: How?
Kyandi: …Just drop it.
Yuai: Okay.
Kyandi: Anyway enjoy and review.
Yuai: We'll be back soon.
Kyandi: Bye, bye!