It was strange, Goku couldn't help but think, how everything could be so right and so wrong at the same time. They were eating eggs fried on rocks around a campfire, as they had a dozen times before, a hundred--or at least three of them were eating, while Gojyo watched from a couple dozen yards away, leaning against a tree and smoking his breakfast. Which was annoying in itself, because it meant there was no portion he could steal from the kappa...
Not that that would help much. It wasn't Goku's stomach that ached, when he peeked across the fire at the silent man sitting in Hakkai's body.
He had awoken to Gojyo's shouting. "Cho Hakkai, dammit, you're Cho Hakkai!" And then Sanzo had been there, pulling the half-youkai off Hakkai.
"Go cool your head," the monk had ordered, and after Gojyo had stormed off, he nodded to Hakkai, with that polished veneer of manners Sanzo could occasionally assume. "I apologize for that."
"That's...quite all right," Hakkai had said, and Goku had shivered, because it was Hakkai's voice, Hakkai's soft courtesy, but it wasn't Hakkai, the same way the man wielding the knife had not been him.
Gojyo returned as they finished breakfast, empty pack crumpled in his fist and a distance in his face that was more disturbing than anger or pain. "I'm sorry," he said formally, and Hakkai nodded polite acceptance of the apology. Afterwards Hakkai gathered their dirty plates without a word, and started toward the brook babbling down the slope. His broken arm was still in the sling and he moved carefully, a little hunched, and Gojyo snatched the stack of dishes from him.
"What are you doing? Sit down, you're injured, and you're not our servant."
"I..." Hakkai stared down at his hands. "I don't know...I thought I might..."
"Don't think," Gojyo said. "Just sit there." He marched down to the stream to do the washing himself.
Goku considered chasing after him, but he had to ask first, even though he could feel Sanzo's glare scorching him. "Hakkai--umm, Gonou? You really...don't remember us?"
"Should I?" Hakkai's head came up, so Goku glimpsed a flash of green, and then it dropped again, dark bangs falling over his eyes. "Excuse me...I don't know who any of you are."
"I'm Son Goku," Goku offered, not knowing how else to handle that empty tone.
"Aa." The brown head nodded, barely.
"And this is Sanzo."
"Genjo Sanzo," Sanzo said. "And the idiot housekeeper with the red hair goes by Sha Gojyo."
At that he looked up, seemingly only for an instant, but Sanzo caught his eyes and trapped him in a violet gaze. "And you'd just as soon he stayed away, wouldn't you," the monk said.
Under the black silk the shoulders twitched in a brief, automatic flinch. "I have no reason to..."
"You see that red, and all you can think of is blood." Sanzo snorted. "Pathetic."
Hakkai's eyes narrowed, and for an instant his placid expression shattered into something fierce and unforgiving. Then, as quickly as a pond's ripples die away after the thrown stone has sunk, it smoothed back into calm.
"Ch'," Sanzo muttered, drew up his robes and stood. "You'll have some freedom from it for now. The kappa and I are going back to that clearing where he saw the man the night before last. There might be something left around to find in daylight. Goku, you stay with our guest." His eyes flickered over the bandaged arm. "See he doesn't hurt himself further."
So Goku sat with his arms around his knees, and watched him. Hakkai looked so strange, the black silk wrapped around him making his long limbs look more slender than ever, and his skin even paler than Sanzo's against its darkness. Without the green of his shirt to bring out his eyes, their shades shifted, bright like grass in sunlight, dark as deep water in shadow. Living eyes, but lowered, unwilling to meet his, while Hakkai had never hesitated to face any of them.
For a while Hakkai just sat there, thinking, or maybe not thinking, but not asleep, Goku could tell by the stiffness of his frame. When he finally spoke, Goku almost jumped. "It's Goku-kun, isn't it?"
Goku shifted. "Not the 'kun'. Not with me."
Hakkai's brow furrowed. "I...see."
"You're our friend," Goku said. "Even though you don't remember."
"I think you might be mistaken," Hakkai said quietly. "I'm not who you seem to believe I am."
"No, you are. You're Gonou, but you're Hakkai, too. It's just, Hakkai has always been Gonou, but Gonou wasn't always Hakkai. So you're confused now."
That little breathy laugh might almost be Hakkai's, if it weren't so despairing. "I am confused. I won't deny that. But you, that priest, Genjo Sanzo..."
"Sanzo," Goku told him. "It's just Sanzo."
"Sanzo, and that other man. Is it possible you're confused, too? That you think I'm someone, when I'm not? If your enemies...my enemies...if they are doing things to our mind, maybe they made you all imagine someone who's not real. Maybe this 'Hakkai' doesn't exist at all."
"No, he's real." Goku shook his head firmly. "I've known him for over three years. I've fought alongside him, eaten with him. He cooks for me, he takes care of all of us. He's Hakuryuu's master."
"Haku...ryuu?"
"The jeep they took. He's a dragon sometimes, and he's your pet. He really missed you, when we thought...he was really upset." Goku stared into the fire's embers until the glowing afterimages were burned onto his retina. "We all were."
"Goku-kun." He looked up, to find Hakkai looking back, with no recognition, but care nonetheless. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay. You're here now. And Sanzo will figure this out, how to get you all the way back." There had to be a way. Traveling without Hakkai...it didn't really work. Sanzo could drive and get them rooms, and Gojyo could shop and talk to people, and they all could fight, but they couldn't heal, and none of them cooked anywhere near as well. Hakuryuu seated four, and there had to be a reason for that.
Except that wasn't really it at all, because they could find other cooks, and other healers, but they wouldn't have Hakkai's warm understanding, when Goku woke late in the night from dreams he didn't remember. They wouldn't be able to say those quiet things that made Sanzo's eyes narrow in anger but his mouth twist in humor, and Gojyo would leave every night for drinks and women, rather than stay to play cards and talk. Someone else wouldn't be as good at mahjong, and wouldn't laugh when he and Gojyo argued and Sanzo yelled, and sometimes it was just a polite chuckle but once in a while it was a real laugh, and then it was one of the best sounds in the world.
This man Gonou in Hakkai's body didn't look like he knew what true laughter was, and his smile was an empty thing that hurt to see. That more than anything was why Gojyo wouldn't look at him, Goku thought. Gojyo hated Hakkai's false smiles the most, and Gonou's didn't even hide the pain as Hakkai's did.
Though Gojyo had known Gonou, more than Goku or Sanzo. So maybe it was something else.
"Goku-kun," said the man who wasn't Hakkai, "I really am sorry."
His voice had shifted as he moved. Goku looked up, saw Hakkai was standing, with his hand raised. He cartwheeled backwards as the blow came down, right where his head had been, and registered that it was only a fist, not the knife. Then he had tackled Hakkai around the waist, slammed him into the ground and straddled his chest, holding his wrists down. "What are you doing?"
Hakkai didn't try to fight him, only lay there limp, blinking up at him in perplexity. "You're...fast."
"So are you. Why'd you try that?"
"That man Sanzo told you to watch me...he couldn't blame you if I knocked you out before I left."
Which proved he definitely didn't remember Sanzo. "Where are you trying to go?" Goku climbed off Hakkai, allowing him to sit up, but didn't yet release his arm.
"Nowhere...I have nowhere to go. But here...it's not right for me to be here. I'm not who you hope I am."
"Yes, you are, or you will be--"
"You don't know who I am--if you did, if you knew what I've done--you're a youkai, aren't you, Goku-kun? Those eyes are too special to be a human's. If you knew what I did--"
"What?" drawled a voice behind them. "Hyakugan-mao's thousand bastards? Or the cowardly sons of bitches who handed her over to them? Or that she was your sister--what's left to confess?"
Goku had never heard Gojyo speak that way, not to Hakkai. The half-youkai stepped out from trees, his hair crimson flame in the dappled sunlight. "You don't have any secrets. They were laid bare to us years ago. All your crimes. Look at me, damn it!"
Hakkai had lowered his head, turning aside; now Gojyo crouched to grab his chin, wrenching up his head to force their eyes to meet. "I know what you're so damn scared of. Don't worry, Gonou, we're not here for that. We're not your fucking absolvers. We know what you did, we know your sins. It's not that we forgive them. We just don't care."
He pinned him for a moment longer, red eyes flickering over his face as if searching for some signal, some sign of Hakkai; but only Gonou stared back, transfixed by that scarlet glare. Gojyo snorted, a soft explosive, "Ch'," and released him, standing.
"Did you find anything?" Goku asked hesitantly into the resulting silence.
Sanzo spoke from the shade of the oak opposite. "Not enough."
"There were footprints, at least. It's more than ghosts." Gojyo shook his head. "Maybe they'll make an appearance tonight. To reclaim their prize," and he cocked his thumb down at Hakkai.
Hakkai blanched. "If they want me...perhaps it would be best if I surrendered myself..."
"Don't flatter yourself," Sanzo replied, coolly. "These bastards are after our heads as well."
"Though they were using him to do their dirty work...think they can fight at all?"
"Maybe they don't believe us enough of a threat to bother with directly."
"Maybe they'll figure different after tonight." Gojyo's smile was all teeth, gleaming like his scythe.
But Goku hesitated. "What if they do what they did before? With the drugs or whatever?" He wanted to fight them, he wanted to fight them badly, whoever it was that had done this, but if they kept using their tricks and pawns...
"We have one advantage," Sanzo said. "We have something we know they want."
Goku didn't get it right away, but Gojyo immediately snapped, "No. No fucking way we use him as bait."
"We don't even know what we're up against. Every damn thing we have over them we need," Sanzo said flatly.
"Sanzo-san." Hakkai climbed to his feet, bowed his head. "I'll do whatever you think is necessary."
Sanzo regarded him, almost impassive, but Goku could see hesitation in his stillness, that brief paralysis that meant Sanzo was thinking so hard he wouldn't even waste energy on motion. At last he took his cigarette from his lips, flicked off the ash. "Don't be so eager to die, asshole."
"And what if they just mess with his head again?" Gojyo demanded. "Send him after us again?"
"Then we'll defend ourselves again."
Gojyo's growl was almost too low to be intelligible. "I told you already, monk--if you kill him..."
"Gojyo-san," and Goku was sure Hakkai didn't see how Gojyo flinched at that address, "if I turn against you, if you have no choice but to--"
"There's a choice," Gojyo snarled. "There's always a choice, and it'd be worth it. But work out your plan, you bastard monk. Nothing stopping you. He doesn't care about Hakkai any more than you do." And like he had done too often of late, he turned and strode into the forest.
Goku started after him, since Sanzo was here to watch Hakkai. But the monk extended his arm to stop him. "Leave him alone. You can track where he's going?"
Goku nodded. As long as Gojyo didn't wander too far he could listen for him, or follow the smoke from his cigarettes if necessary.
"If he's not back by nightfall we'll get him then. We may need him."
"But, Sanzo..."
"Let him be, Goku."
There were more demons than youkai in the gloom under the trees. But Sanzo knew that as well as Goku. And Gojyo could fight as well as any of them, else he wouldn't have survived this long.
Still, Goku kept half his attention on the half-youkai, tracking him as Sanzo had asked, keeping his distance but watching to see he did not become too lost in those shadows.
to be continued...
--I just have to say - Reload? With Sanzo looking almost as hot as Minekura draws him, and Gojyo with red - not fuschia - hair, and the new pants? THE sexxxy!! *this moment of shallowness was brought to you by X-parrot's libido. We now return you to your regularly scheduled angst.*
Heh...well, it couldn't end that easily! There's a bit of story to tell yet...glad y'all are enjoying it! sf - you're far too perceptive. ^^ To be honest I have a devil of a time writing Hakkai - of the boys, only Gojyo really comes easily to me, but Hakkai is the hardest. So while I don't especially set out to exclude him, subconsciously I might be avoiding him... SeaGull - are you sure you're not secretly ghostwriting this story? No? Just checking - you've called my Gojyo to a T. ^^ Nightfall Rising - just, thank you for that review, it's one of the nicest yet (and there's been a lot of great ones). Long insightful comments make my nights ^_^ Of course, the one problem with getting them on an ongoing fic is that it's, mmm, daunting - can I keep the story up to that level? I suppose all I can do is try! M-chan - my favorite stories are about friendship, and I do believe that kind of love can be as deep as anything sexual. That being said, I admit I don't see the Saiyuki boys' relationships as entirely platonic, but I like writing in the same vein as the manga itself - nothing explicit, one way or another. The one problem I have with Saiyuki yaoi is that emphasizing pairings can downplay the tight bonds between all four of them (tho' I am a OTP girl, and I have a feeling my biases show now and again...)
Hmm, my authors' notes are going to be longer than the chapters, if I keep this up...
