Pathetic
By Yaone
I'm wrapped around your finger
Like that ring you always wear;
Whether I'm white gold or scratched coper,
You hardly seem to care.
Does it matter if I'm pretty?
You act like I'm not here
And twist your ring facelet side down
So you never see my tears,
Leaving me to wonder
If you're really so apathetic
While there's no question at all
That I'm that pathetic
"No, Lilin, not like that," I said, putting my hands over my students to stop her from wielding the spear the wrong way. "Your hand position is wrong. Like this," I slid her hands the correct distance apart, pried her thumbs up, and wrapped them around the spear shaft in the proper grip.
"Are you sure, Yaone?" Lilin looked up at me with a sulky expression on her face.
"Yes I'm sure," I replied with as much patience as I could. After all, which one of us had practically been born with a spear in our hands? Her or me? And I don't care if she's really five-hundred years older than me or what not! Her mental attributes are those of an eleven year old which is why I treat her so. "Anyone could have unarmed you the way you were holding the spear. Grip it this way and you'll hold onto it a lot longer."
"What if Sanzo puts a bullet through it? Or Gojo cuts it with that staff thing of his? Or Hakkai blows it up? Or Goku snaps it?"
"Then it means their aim is off, since their target should be the wielder, not the weapon," I responded.
"Why do I gotta learn to fight with all these dumb weapons?" Lilin demanded. "Yesterday it was Dokugakuji with that sword, today its you and this stupid spear, tomorrow it's some washed out old man with a chain, then Kogaiji's having me learn how to throw those stupid little star things!"
"Shuriken," I said absently. "And your brother wants you to be knowledgable in all types of weaponry. That way you'll be able to defend yourself better than people like me who can only use a small spectrum of weapons."
"Well I think that's a stupid idea!"
You would, I thought, shaking my head. "Maybe, but I wish that I'd learned to use other weapons when I was your age." Not really, but that sounds like the kind of thing a guardian or governess or whatever I'm supposed to me to my lord's brother, should give. I'm perfectly happy with my spear and can fight almost as well with a halberd or staff, or anything that resembles a spear. "Now show me that flower spin again, and use the right grip this time.
Instead of giving me half a second to back away, out of range, Lilin spun the spear quickly and sloppily, putting all her strength behind it and cracking me in the side of the head with the blunt end.
I'm not sure if I cried out or not. All I know is that the room seemed to spin in circles around me and there was the ringing in my ears. Suddenly everything went white. I mean really, really blinding bright white.
"Yaone? Yaone, are you alright?"
I groaned and opened eyes I was never aware of closing to find a pair of beautiful violet ones drilling into mine. Worry was painted all over Kogaiji's face and I felt his arms tighten around me. It always felt so good to be in Kogaiji's arms, even though it usually meant that I was beaten to a bloody pulp or had just regained consiousness or was incapable of movement. He was warm, and strong, and I'm pathetically in love with him.
"Kogaiji-" I coughed before I could add his title. My throat had gone dry.
"Shh," Kogaiji propped me up so I was sitting in his lap, leaning back against his shoulder. "You took a pretty hard blow to the head. Lilin could have killed you."
"Not with that kind of grip she couldn't" I murmured, vaguely recalling that my young and sprightly student had completely ignored everything I told her about proper hand positioning.
Kogaiji tightened his hold on me with one arm and reached to touch the side of my head with the other. "You're bleeding," he told me, showing me his red stained hand.
"Sorry," I whispered, trying to move my bleeding head away from his shoulder. I saw a large bloody blotch where I had rested my head. "Sorry," I repeated. "I didn't mean to get blood-"
"No, it's okay," Kogaiji said, hugging me tighter, after wiping my blood off his hand and on his shirt. "It doesn't matter. Are you alright Yaone?"
"Yes," I coughed again and wet my lips. "I'm tired. If I just slept, I know I'd be alright-"
"No," Kogaiji said flatly, "you will not go sleep."
I widened my eyes and Kogaiji must have seen my confusion.
"You might have a concussion," he said, putting a hand on the undamaged side of my head and gently pulling me back against his shoulder. "You're not supposed to go to sleep if you have a concussion."
"Really? Why not?" Lilin inquired, seemingly coming out of nowhere.
"Because... because... I don't know why!" Kogaiji snapped. "I just know you're not supposed to!"
I winced. His shout resonated in my head like thunder.
"How come?"
"I just said-"
"Hey Ko, I think your voice is paining your patient," Dokugakuji said, giving me a sympathetic look.
I tried to smile my thanks but my eyes dimmed.
"Yaone! Wake up!"
"Too loud," I moaned.
"Yaone, you can't sleep now! Stay awake!"
"No." I just want to sleep.
"Yaone! Wake up! Doku, I don't know what's gonna happen if she keeps sleeping!"
"Try ordering her to wake up," Dokugakuji suggested.
"Yaone! I order you to wake up!"
My eyes snapped open and I tried to bolt to my feet, my brain fogged in a strange sort of mist, my body responding to the obedience embedded in my subconsious. "Yes Kogaiji-sama!" I said without realizing I was speaking. Something held me back and I turned, ready to push whatever it was.
Kogaiji laughed but didn't let go of me. "Well, that worked well."
"Huh?" My mind was still in shambles and I couldn't make sense of what was going on at the time.
Instead of answering me, Kogaiji slid one arm beneath my knees and hugged me close with the other, then rose to his feet. "Let's get you to a healer," he said, resting his chin on top of my head.
I love Kogaiji. I've loved him ever since the day I met him, and I know I'll always love him, come what may. I love the way his eyes shine when he's happy and the way his mouth quirks slightly to the left when he's nervous and trying to hide it. I love how he's so damn nice to everyone, how he rarely ever barks out his orders, how he usually only outlines what he wants done and makes suggestions of what his followers should do, what ninety nine percent of the time we end up doing because we want to please him. The way the light glints off his hair making it look so soft and glossy that I just want to reach out and touch it, the way he's so devoted to all of us who follow him and the way he cares so much has twisted my heart around his little finger like a ring. I, and many, many others would give up my life in a heart beat for Kogaiji. I love him that much.
But what I love most about him is when he treats me as if I'm some precious flower made of spun glass. At times he's just as protective of me as he is of his sister. If he could he'd always keep me either locked in his wing of the castle where we live and the Empress' cronies aren't allowed, or at his side where he could watch over me. I love how he treats me so delicately more than anything else I love about him. But strangely that's also what I hate most about him. Actually, that's the only thing I hate about him. By treating me with so much protectiveness he makes me feel special. Like he needs me, or might actually love me back the way that I lovehim. But at the same time it makes me feel weak and helpless, utterly lost underneath his spell like a small, small fish in a very big sea.
I don't know what it is about Kogaiji. He's so... hypnotic. Charismatic. Kind. Not to mention incredibly gorgeous. I love him.
"Lilin? LILIN?!" I shouted. Great. I'd lost her AGAIN! It was the day after that little ordeal with the spear, after Lilin's chain fighting instruction, and I was supposed to have gone to the training room and gotten. Her lesson let out a few minutes before I got there, the old man (who was a yokai, I should add for any humans who might read this; everyone at the castle is yokai) told me. About five minutes before I got there, and she had just skipped off into only Kanzeon knows what kind of trouble! I would have been on time if Ni hadn't started coming onto me while I was on my way back from the lab. I don't help Ni and Fan in those gods awful experiments they do, but my parents are chemists and work there, so I go to see them from time to time.
Anyway, I had been on my way to get Lilin when Ni blocked the hall in front of me and kept side stepping whenever I did, asking me dumb questions, trying out a number of dumb pick up lines, and not so discreetly trying to look down my shirt. Damn that bastard and his damn bunny slippers to hell! I can't beat the living hell out of him since he's the Empress' head scientist and that would most likely get me executed, but next time we're both in the lab, I just might accidentally spill some highly concentrated hydrochloric acid on his bunny slippers.
"LILIN!" The little brat! Don't get me wrong, I love her to death, and I imagine if I ever have children they'll be a lot like her- which is why I never plan on having kids! She can be sweet at times, and she's funny, but at times she is a royal pain in the ass!
I hoped she wasn't in the main part of the castle. Kogaiji's forbidden me from leaving his wing unless I'm going to the lab, dining hall, or to meet him. "LILIN! LILIN!" I almost ran into Kogaiji.
"Yaone," he gave me an annoyed look, "Have you lost my sister again?"
"I'm sorry Kogaiji-sama," I said, casting my eyes to the ground as I nodded.
Kogaiji groaned. "Yaone, if she's gone after the Sanzo party again, I swear..." he trailed off, not bothering to finish his sentence, leaving me to wonder what my punishment would be if any harm came to his little sister. "Find her," he snapped, shoving past me, nearly knocking me to the ground. As it was I fell into the wall and leaned against it, watching him go. I don't think he meant to shove me so hard. I think it's just that Kogaiji doesn't know his own strength. Sometimes, especially when he gets mad, he lashes out.
"Dokugakuji!" Kogaiji called, stopping in front of his best friend's door and pounding on it.
Dokugakuji opened the door. "What is it, Ko?"
Kogaiji glanced over at me where I still leaned against the wall and narrowed his eyes. He glanced at Dokugakuji then jerked his head meaningfully toward me, then turned and began walking down the hall. Dokugakuji followed and I felt stung. Had I fallen from grace with Kogaiji? I thought rapidly, trying to figure out where I could have failed in my duties to my overlord.
Plenty of things came to mind. The time I tried to poison Sanzo and his friends, and nearly killed myself. When Lilin slipped out of my sight and went after the Sanzo party. That incident with Fang Lone, or whatever they were called. Dozens of other transpirations, failures, and accidents popped into my mind when I'd been unable to complete my mission or follow orders correctly, letting Kogaiji down.
Suddenly it felt like there were weights on my heart and I slouched slightly. No wonder Kogaiji didn't love me, didn't show any more affection for me than he did for any of his other subordinates. I was a failure. I could not think of one thing I'd ever done right to serve Kogaiji outside of the lab. I was a snivling, weak, pathetic, misfit, LOSER!!!
I couldn't find Lilin anywhere, and I did search everywhere- all of Kogaiji's wing, the dining hall, the kitchens. I even disobeyed orders and looked all over the main part of the castle. What did it matter if I disobeyed him one more time when I'd already done so many times before?
One of the dragons was missing. A long distance dragon. Kogaiji was not pleased when I told him the news. Within minutes I had mounted another dragon and was going out after the runaway Princess, praying to Kanzeon that I found her before she did something incredibly stupid like trying to take out the Sanzo Party single handed again!
Is it that I'm too weak
To even stand by you?
I know that I'm not strong enough
By myself to pull through.
I'm lost in wanderlust
And the vaguenes in your eyes.
Would it matter if I left you now
And never said good bye?
I know I'm pitiful and miserable
I know I'm lost and wretched
And though I'll never say it aloud,
I know that I'm pathetic.
I remember the first time I met Kogaiji. My parents had turned me over to some creep who was taking me the the Hundred Eyed Demon King to be his cocubine. For those stupid humans among you who might not be familiar with that word, cocubine is just a nice word for whore. Slut. Harlot. Prostitute. Take your pick.
Prince Kogaiji must have seen the misery on my face because he asked the yokai leading me where he was taking me. When my escourt/slave driver told Kogaiji the scariest look crossed the prince's face. For a brief moment I thought he was going to strike up both dead. Then he glared at my jailer and told him that he wanted me.
At this time I still had no idea who he was. I was one of those yokai who thought that Kogaiji was still sealed away like his father, and thought that my savior was probably not much better, if at all better, than the Hundred Eyed Demon King. Falling out of the frying pan and onto the dinner plate would be an appropriate description of what I thought had just happened to me. Even when Kogaiji gave a brief explanation while my jailer was still present of how the Hundred Eyed King used pretty girls and then threw them away or devoured them, I didn't trust him. It wasn't until we were alone and he smiled at me and told me that I'd be working under him, as a chemist not a whore, that I trusted him.
Kogaiji saved me from a fate worse than death that would have eventually ended in death. So I dedicated the remainder of my life to serving him, living for his cause, and doing as he bid me, whether it was right or wrong. I'll do whatever he tells me to. I love him.
Once I asked him why he saved me from the Hundred Eyed Demon King. He replied that the fate that had awaited me was pathetic. So pathetic that no one should be put through it. And now I wondered how much of a difference it would have made if Kogaiji hadn't happened to have been in the exact right place at the exact right time. Could my fate be any more pathetic there as it is here?
"Don't think like that!" I snapped at myself. "Of course this is better than being devoured by some lech demon with a hundred ugly eyes! Kogaiji needs me to look after his sister. Not that I've been doing a very good job at it."
You've done the best you could, Kogaiji knows that, another part of my mind told me. He's just having a bad day. He's not really that mad.
I hate that part of my mind. That stupid optimistic part of me that always tried to find the good in everything! Life's not a rose like that stupid voice in my head would have you believe. Life' the thorns on the stem of the rose. What kind a world do we live in where a woman would give her only daughter up to be a whore for some Demon King?!
A sob escaped my throat and I looked down. The dragon was flying high. Very high, and I had forgotten to fasten my safety harness. Or had I? I'm not debating over whether the harness was fastened. Who do you think I am, Goku? I didn't fasten it. I just don't know if I forgot or deliberately didn't hook the gods cursed thing. I'd been doing things like that more and more lately. Little things that seemed harmless enough but left the door open enough for death to creep in. Like leaving gaping holes in my defenses while fighting Hakkai. And taking a few too many pills at night to help me sleep.
I'm not trying to kill myelf. I'm just being careless, I decided and reached for one of the harness straps. One was within easy reach. The other... I leaned over the side of the dragon to reach it and focused my eyes on the mountains below. Would it really be so bad it I just... slept. And never woke up? Would it hurt a lot? It couldn't hurt anymore than that pain in my heart where it felt like an animal was truing to claw its way out.
"No! No! No! I don't want to die!" I screamed. "I'm not trying to kill myself and I'm not going to!" Another sob escaped. "Kogaiji, I don't know how I can love you so much when you can hurt me this way! Or is it really love? Love's not supposed to hurt..."
Love's not supposed to hurt. So what was it that I felt for Kogaiji if it wasn't love?
"No, I love him!" I choked. I would have pulled out my hair but I had this bandage wrapped around my head like a head band and it would have probably fallen off. Then when I went back to the castle, if I made it back, Kogaiji would get all annoyed and do that protective bit and make me feel so helpless! So pathetic!
"Ya-O-ne!" a high pitched voice sing songed.
"LILIN?!" I looked wildly around and saw her racing toward me on her own dragon. "Lilin where have you been?! We were worried about you!"
"My mother knew where I was! She sent me to deliver a message!"
I breathed a sigh of relief. So Lilin was safe and it wasn't my fault that she was gone. Now maybe Kogaiji wouldn't be so mad when we got back. "Let's go home, Lilin," I said as she pulled up her dragon beside mine.
"Alright! Race ya!"
"You're on!" I tried to smile. Lilin's a great kid and being with her usually lifts my spirits.
"On your mark! Get set!" Lilin kicked her dragon into motion. "Go!"
"No fair!" I shouted. Or I started to shout, but Lilin's dragon's tail snapped back and hit me in the side of the head that Lilin had hit me the day before. "Lilin?" I asked, numbly. It got cold real fast, like standing in front of a really big fan. Air was rushing past me. I yawned. It was so cold. "AHHHHH!" I choked on water. COLD water! I couldn't see anything at all! Just shapeless blurrs. "Kogaiji!" I tried to scream but my lungs only filled with water again. My stomach turned over and I think I threw up. My lungs were burning and I couldn't breath! I needed to get to the surface but I didn't know which way was up! Something crashed into me- or rather I crashed into it, I think. A rock, probably. I crashed into another one before I realized what was going on. The third rock I managed to grab onto but I couldn't keep my grip. I hit another before I managed to hold onto the fifth one.
It was amazing how clearly I could think about somethings and how foggy my mind was when it came to others. The side of the rock guided me to the surface and I was finally able to get a breath of AIR!!!
Breathing had never been so wonderful! Slowly I pulled myself out of the water, coughed my guts out and sat back to puzzle things out.
The dragon's tail had hit my head, I remembered. And I wasn't wearing my safety harness. So I had gotten knocked off and landed in a river. A very fast flowing rock infested river. What luck!
You were lucky, the optimisctic part of my mind told me. You could have landed on hard dry landed and been splattered. Or the water could have been too shallow to break your fall and you could have broken you neck on the bottom. Or you could have hit a rock-
Who says I wanted to live! the cynical part of my mind snarled. Gods help the world if I ever develop schizophrenia.
I didn't want to kill myself. Really I didn't. Or maybe I did, but at that moment I was happy as hell to be alive. It didn't matter that my life was pathetically screwed up. I was breathing air- it's very important to put air there, if I were breathing water I would not be so happy.
For a long while I just lay there on the river bank, soaking wet, bruised, and bleeding, with a killer head ache, staring at the sky. I vaugely noticed that the sun had set and the stars had come out. By now Lilin knew something had happened to me. My guess was that she had circled around once, trying to find me then had shot like a bolt back to the castle to get Kogaiji.
Kogaiji's going to be so mad at me, I thought miserabley, sitting up. I immediately lay back down as pain blossomed in my back where a rock had hit me. Or I had hit the rock. Same difference! "Kogaiji," I moaned, putting a hand to the side of my head. I was so tired. My bandage was soaked and useless, and I had started bleeding from my head again. I needed medical help. But in the middle of no where it was very unlikely that I'd get it. Even if I'd fallen smack in the middle of a city I probably wouldn't have gotten any help. The stupid humans would have probably lynched me first- no offense to you stupid humans out there, of course.
So what was there to do? It hurt too much to get up. All I could do was lay there and wait to die...
No. That thought cut threw my pain like cold steel through flesh. I'd made a promise to Kogaiji. I'd promised him that I would serve him until my life had ended.
And even though I was freezing, bleeding, and soaked, I was not dead. I was very far from it! What had I been thinking about killing myself?! I'd made Kogaiji a promise and I never back down on my word! Since the day he saved me from the Hundred Eyed Demon King I've dedicated my life to serving him! And I will continue to serve him until I die from a freak accident, disease, old age, or in his service!
And now I had to get back to Kogaiji or die in the process. I forced myself to sit up, ignoring the scream of protest my back gave and pushed my hands underneath me. Slowly, very slowly, I got to my feet and took stock of myself. My legs and feet were undamaged. My left hip had hit a rock and was aching, but I doubted that it was fractured. My back had taken a pounding from the rocks How many times had I been hit? I thought back and tried to count. Five. Three hits to my back, two to my hip. And since I doubted I'd be able to stand if my back was broken, that meant that I would be fine... even though there have been cases of people breaking their vertibrates without knowing it, but if they didn't know then it obviously didn't hurt them!
My forearms were scraped from grabbing onto the rocks. Several of my claw-like fingernails had been pulled off and all the remaining ones were broken. My head was bleeding again and I was sore from head to toe. But I had no serious wounds that could keep me from traveling. But how far away was the castle?
I did a mental calculation and swore. Several hours by dragon. Which meant several weeks by car. Good gods, how long would it take me to walk that far?! A year?!
Kuan Yin have mercy! That's your job you know!
Kogaiji would probably look for me. In fact I knew he would look for me, but not for very long. The world's a big place and Lilin's horrible with landmarks. Not to mention she probably didn't know I'd fallen until at least five or ten minutes later. Most likely fifteen. She doesn't look back when she races. So Kogaiji would end up with a one hundred to five hundred mile radius of area to look for me in, if Lilin could remember where we started the race. Which was unlikely.
There was no way that Kogaiji would find me. It would be like searching for a certain drop of water in the ocean. And if he thought the chances of finding my dead body were slim, the chances of finding me alive would be an estimated .000000000000000004 percent. Four is a very unlucky number. I was literally alone in the woods.
"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," I reminded myself. I don't usually use those 'wise' quotes. In fact the only quotes I ever use around others are 'A bird in the hand can make an aweful mess,' and 'A little work never hurt anyone' said by some dead guy. "I'm cracking up," I muttered and took that first step-
-and fell flat on my face.
"Ouch."
Getting back up was just as big of a struggle as it had been the first time. This time I took a smaller step and held onto a nearby tree for balance. I knew which way to start walking. West. Putting the moon directly at my back.
I wasn't making much progress. I don't know what was wrong with me. Maybe it was my back. Or my head. But I kept falling in the dirt. After about an hour of hobbling I'd covered about half a mile and my knees were skinned open and filled with dirt. I could actually see my kneecaps! I wished I could have gotten ahold of some hydrogen peroxide. I knew it would hurt like hell but it would keep my knees from getting infected. A scary though occured to me. If they did get infected there would be nothing that I could do to clean them out. They'd turn green and have to be amputated and then I'd be completely useless to Kogaiji as anything! How could I watch over his little sister if I couldn't chase after her? How could I fight if I couldn't stand? I couldn't even be a chemist and work for him in the lab because a wheel chair would get in the way of EVERYTHING!!! A crippled yokai is worse than a dead yokai! Unless you're blind and have really good hearing. You can still fight that way and perform some tasks. If I lost an arm I could still fight open handed and watch over Lilin, but if I lost my legs... "Kogaiji," I whimpered.
Stop it! You're acting like a wuss! Kogaiji may make you feel weak with all that crooning over every little scratch but that doesn't mean you are! You can hold your own against Hakkai for the love of the gods! Hakkai who's killed over a thousand yokai! Now you can walk a couple hundred miles even if you are a little banged up and light headed! Your legs aren't going to turn green and fall off because you're not going to fall down anymore and at the next stream you come to you're going to wash out all the dirt. Then when you get back to the castle your going to dump some nice hydrogen per- okay, maybe not nice, but still you're going to dump some hydrogen peroxide on them to get all the dirt and grime out!
I took another step. And another. I let go of the tree that I was holding on to and took a tentative step without any support. There. I was walking, upright, without using anything for balance. "See, you can do it," I told myself.
I think I made more progress in the next hour but I'm not sure how far I walked. I think at least another hour passed, or maybe two, you know how they say time flies when your're having fun, before I heard it.
"I'm hungry."
"Shut up you dumbass ape!"
The sound of something being smacked followed.
"Oww! You know carrying a concealed weapon's illegal and that fan could classify as a wea-"
"I said shut UP!!!"
I froze. I knew those voices. I knew them. But I didn't believe it. Hallucinations. Or a mirage, or a dream. Not... not... not the Sanzo party... This was too crazy. Crazy! Crazy! Crazy! "I'm going mad," I whispered. Tears welled up in my eyes. I wouldn't be any use to Kogaiji if I went crazy! He'd hate me!
"No! No! NO!!!" I screamed clutching my head in my hands and sinking to my knees.
"Holy fuck!"
"Hey Sanzo, someone's out there!"
"Really?"
"Who's there?"
I pulled at my hair. "No! No! Kogaiji, help me! Help me!"
"One of Kogaiji's creatures!"
A what looked like blue fire lit up directly in front of me through a copse of trees.
"NO!!!" I screamed. My hair came out by the roots. "I'm going mad! Schizophrenic! This isn't happening! It's not real! Snap out of it bitch! They're not really there! EAHHH!"
"If you move an inch I swear I'll shoot you!"
"Go to hell!" I screamed. "You can't hurt me! You're not real! You're only in my head! Now get out! OUT!!! OUT!!! I can't be going crazy! What good can I do Kogaiji-sama if I'm crazy! KOGAIJI-SAMA! Help me!" I buried my face in my hands and sobbed.
"It's Yaone!" the ape's voice shouted in awe.
"Really?"
"Yaone?"
I stopped crying and looked up. He came toward me holding a ball of bright blue light in one hand, reaching out to me with the other. "No! Don't come near me! I can deal with hallucinations as long as they're not right up in my face!"
"Yaone... I'm no hallucination." Those brilliant green eyes looked at me with concern. "You guys, there's something wrong with her."
"Really?" Sanzo was quite the avid conversationalist that night.
"Does she have Mad Cow Disease or something?" Gojo asked, stepping closer to me.
"A head wound, I think," Hakkai said. "I can't tell in this light but I think that's blood on the right side of her head. That dark spot. And that ring of bandages that's fallen aroung her neck..."
"Who did this to you?" Sanzo asked.
"Kogaiji! I have to find Ko-"
"Talk about an abusive relationship," Gojo muttered, lighting a cigarette.
"Kogaiji did this to you?!" Hakkai shouted, tossing the ball of light into the air and springing forward. He grabbed my hands so tightly that all the bones in them pressed together.
"NO! Kogaiji-sama would never hurt me! I have to find him! I'm going crazy!"
"How do you figure that?" Gojo asked.
I stared at him.
"It's alright, Yaone," Hakkai said, pulling me to my feet. Come with us to our campfire and we'll help you."
"Help me?"
"Yes," he said, putting an arm around me. "We'll help you."
They took me back to their camp and Hakkai wrapped a blanket around me. He tried to get me to take off my soaking clothes and borrow some of his but I refused. Mainly because of the way Gojo's eyes lit up when Hakkai suggested that I take my clothes off. I shot him a glare then turned away and huddled closer to the campfire and told them what happened.
I didn't tell them about Kogaiji being upset with me. I just told them about the fall and the river. I didn't tell them that I might have purposely forgotten to fasten the damn saftey harness. That would have made Hakkai go ballistic and gotten me chewed out by the monkey.
"That doesn't explain why you flipped out whe you saw us though," Gojo said. Surprise, surprise. He'd been listening to my story. And there I'd thought that he'd only been trying to get a look at my cleavage through the blanket.
"I thought I was going crazy," I said. "Maybe I am. I don't know, but how sane would you be after falling thousands of feet off a damn dragon, into a freezing cold river, and being rammed into every rock from here to the Infernal Land?! You know most people who die of falls don't actually die from the impact itself?! They have a heart attack and die from that about three hundred feet before they hit rock bottom! And-"
"Okay, okay, okay! Point well taken!" Gojo shook his head. "Women."
"It's okay, Yaone," Hakkai put an arm around my shoulders. His warmth was reassuring. "We'll help you find Kogaiji and take care of you until we do."
"Why?" I demanded, fighting back shivers. "I'm your enemy! Don't you get that? If you were smart you would have killed me on sight-"
I was cut off by the laughter of the monk, Hakkai, and Dokugakuji's brother.
"Yaone," Hakkai said giving me a cute little smile, "remember that fight against the giant crab shikigami?"
"No," I snapped sarcastically. "It only knocked a huge ROCK on top of me."
"I thought you just said you didn't remember..." the ape sounded confused.
"Learn the art of sarcasm, child." Once more, I don't care if he's five hundred, give or take a few years older than me! He acts no older than Lilin!
"Finding Kogaiji will be the easy part," Gojo said, flicking ashes off his cigarette at the ape.
"Stop that Gojo!" Goku shouted. "What do you mean finding Kogaiji will be easy?"
"They always find us," Gojo stood up. "We'll go find your overlord, wench. You stay here with Hakkai and Sanzo. Hakkai will take care of you." He raised his eyebrows and I looked for something to throw at him. "Come on Goku, let's go find Kogaiji."
"What are they-"
"I don't know," Hakkai admitted. "But Gojo must have some kind of plan or else-"
"HEY KOGAIJI!!! WE'VE FOUND YOUR SUBORDINATE AND WE'RE GONNA KILL HER!!!"
I stared at Hakkai and inched back.
"YOU LISTENIN' TO ME?! WE'VE GOT ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE SUBORDINATES DOWN HERE AND WE'RE GONNA RIP HER PRETTY LITTLE THROAT OUT IF YOU DON'T COME AND STOP US!!!"
"We're not going to kill you," Sanzo said, tossing an empty beer can into the fire. "Don't have a heart attack."
"KOGAIJI!!! UNLESS YOU COME DOWN HERE AND FIGHT ME I'M GONNA KILL YOUR GIRLFRIEND!!!" the ape picked up on the lecher's cadence.
"That seems like the best way to get Kogaiji's attention," Hakkai looked at me ruefully.
"If you wanted me dead I'd already be dead," I said. "I know you're not going to kill me- today at least." My teeth chattered together as I spoke.
"You need to get out of those wet clothes," Hakkai told me.
"Not when Dokugakuji's perverted brother is within three miles of me!"
"Gojo went that way," Hakkai guestured to the east. He pulled some clothes out of a bag and handed them to me. "They'll be a little big, but their better than what you're wearing now."
"I happen to like this dress-"
"He means it will be more practical you stupid yokai!" Sanzo snapped.
"Oh. Sorry, I'm not thinking right.."
Hakkai pressed the clothes into my arms. "Go change. I'll make sure he doesn't come and look at you."
The clothes were too big. Hakkai was at least a head taller than me and I was practically swimming in his shirt. I had to keep my sash and wrap it around my waist so my pants wouldn't fall down. Not that I even needed to wear pants with that shirt! It fit me like a miny dress.
"You look nice," Hakkai gave me a gentle smile when I returned.
I blushed. "They're your clothes," I said, smoothing out the front of my- his- the shirt that I was wearing.
"Well you look good in them."
My blush deeped. "Where'd the Sanzo go?" I asked, noticing the blond monk's absence.
"He's sleeping."
"KOGAIJI!!! DON'T YOU CARE THAT WE'RE GONNA KILL YOUR SUBORDINATE?! SHE'S MORE THAN A SUBORDINATE TO YOU ISN'T SHE?!"
I'm glad that the fire light distorted all color. Other wise Hakkai would have seen how red my face had gotten. I glanced up at Hakkai and saw him frown slightly.
"SHE'S YOUR FRIEND, ISN'T SHE?!" Gojo continued. "AND IF YOU DON'T COME SAVE HER CUTE BUTT, WE'RE GONNA KILL HER!!!"
"YEAH!!!" the ape shouted. "COME SAVE YOUR GIRLFRIEND!!!"
"Are you..." Hakkai glanced at me then looked down.
"Am I what?"
"Never mind."
"Am I what?" I demanded.
"You and Kogaiji... are you two... seeing each other."
"Oh no, no, no!" I only WISH! "It's not like that at all! I'm Lilin's.. what would you call it... baby sitter, pretty much. I teach her spear fighting and try to keep her from running off like she did today. And I'm Kogaiji's chemist and friend. That's all."
"Oh," Hakkai smiled at me and I blushed yet again. Did he... did he... no, that was absurd! He was just a friend. Kind of. Well he was my enemy. Or not my enemy, but Kogaiji's enemy, making him my enemy by default because I'm sworn into service under Kogaiji.
What was Hakkai to me anyway? I tried to sort it out in my head. He was a nice boy. Or man. Whatever. Cute in a... geeky sort of way. Well, not really geeky. He was smart and he looked like it. There's nothing geeky about that. His eyes were as green as Kogaiji's were violet. No! I did not like Hakkai that way! He was a friend! Yes, I could allow him to be my friend We were just like friends who went to rival schools or something. We could be friends part of the time, but the rest of the time we had to be enemies. Unless Kogaiji gave the order to fight him, I wouldn't. There's no one who I really want dead- save Ni. But Hakkai was my friend.
"Your knees," Hakkai reminded me. "You said you were afraid they'd get infected.
"Yeah," I said, rolling up my pants legs.
Hakkai took a damp cloth and gently began cleaning them out. I winced and ground my teeth but didn't cry out and forced myself to hold perfectly still. "I'm sorry," Hakkai said softly.
"It's okay. Just hurry!"
After what seemed like hours Hakkai finally sat back. "I think I got it all out. Your knees shouldn't get infected now. They shouldn't anyway but..." I saw him looking at a bottle of wine and cringed. "You know about medicine and health procedures," Hakkai said, still looking at the wine bottle. "I won't though if you don't want me to."
Sweat dripped down the back of my neck. Or maybe it was the water still dripping out of my hair. I don't know. "Do it quick," I whispered.
Hakkai picked up the bottle and opened it. "I'll do it on three he said. One." He splashed the contents over my knees.
At first I felt nothing. Then burning, burning pain. This time I know I screamed. My hands flew instinctively to my head and I gripped my hair and pulled.
"No! Don't pull out your hair! Yaone!"
"What's the broad's problem?"
Hakkai pried my hands away from my hair and pinned my arms to my sides. "Help me Sanzo!"
I kept screaming and fought against Hakkai. Sanzo came and helped him to restrain me and finally, when the pain subsided, I calmed down. "Sorry."
"Yuck! Are those her bones I see?"
Great. It was the monkey again.
"Yes, Goku."
"That doesn't look very tasty."
My mouth dropped open. What kind of boy was he? How could looking at someone bleeding with bones showing stimulate thoughts of food?
"Shut up you dumbass ape! Can't you see the lady's in pain? She doesn't need you critiquing the edibleity of her bleeding legs. Even though I do happen to think they look very tasty..."
I stared at Gojo. Dokugakuji's brother was such a pervert!
"Give her a break, Gojo," Hakkai said, putting an arm around my shoulders and hugging me. "Yaone's had a long night."
"Bet she won't forget to fasten her seat belt again. Will ya, Yaone?"
"No," I shook my head vigorously. "Ow." I put my hand to the side of my head. it was bleeding again.
Hakkai got a roll of bandages and redid my headband.
"Thank you."
"Not at all."
"I'm going back to sleep," Sanzo announced, standing up and walking away without another word.
"He's not so bad for a monk," I said without thinking.
Gojo laughed. "You only say that because you don't have to live with him, woman."
"I have a name you know."
"Whatever, woman. I don't think your paramour will be coming tonight. If he was planning on it, that screaming bit you did will make him think you're dead. You're stuck with us for awhile. Now I'm going to bed. Feel free to join me."
I glared at him. He's Dokugakuji's brother, I reminded myself. And it won't make him too happy if I kill the pervert.
"I think I'll stay up and hang with you two for awhile," Goku said, plopping down on the other side of Hakkai.
"No you won't," Gojo said quickly, grapping the ape up by the back of his shirt. "It's past your bed time."
"No it's-"
"Shut up and listen to your elders you dumbass ape! Off to bed now! Shoo!"
Goku left muttering a great many obscenities about the kappa and I started to smile. Started to.
"Just don't get her pregnant Hakkai," Gojo said before melding into the shadows.
First all the blood drained out of my face. Then it came rushing back so quickly it made me light headed.
"Gojo!" Hakkai protested, standing up quickly. When he was only answered with silence, he gave a slight laugh and offered me an appologetic smile. "Gojo, he's... well..."
"I know," I said softly. "Dokugakuji talks about him sometimes. Apparently he's been a pervert since he was seven."
"It wouldn't surprise me," Hakkai sat back down. We sat in silence for a few moments. I stared into the fire and wondered what was going on back at the castle. It had to be after midnight now. Were they still searching for me?
If it were left up to Kogaiji he'd search without rest until he collapsed, in some vain hopes that I was still alive. But Dokugakuji, being the realist, wouldn't let him do that. He'd drill into Kogaiji's head that I was dead and make him realize that finding my body wouldn't be any good to anyone. I was glad Kogaiji had Dokugakuji. I didn't want him spending all his strength searching for me. I would be alright with the Sanzo Party. I hoped that Kogaiji had given up for the night and had gone home to bed- it was unlikely, but it was what I hoped. it was past Lilin's bedtime anyway, and knowing Kogaiji, he wouldn't have the heart to make her stay behind while he searched for me.
Kogaiji... I closed my eyes. Thinking about him made me feel better. His strength, his warmth, his smile... My eyes snapped open with an unsettling thought. Would he care that I was gone? I wasn't a very good subordinate to him. Everything I ever did ended up going haywire. Truth be told, I was a liabilty to him. I know that in every battle we've ever fought together, he's kept one eye on me the entire time to make sure I didn't get myself killed. He'd be better off if I were dead. I'm sure he knew that. He had to know that. Would my supposed death be a relief to Kogaiji?
"Yaone?"
"Huh?" I jumped slightly and turned to Hakkai. Firelight glinted off his hair bringing out the lighter highlights in it.
"You look like something's bothering you."
"I fell a thousand feet or more off a dragon, landed in an ice cold river, had my body thrown into five rocks at thirty or so miles an hour, ripped all the skin off my knees because someone told me it was fashionable to have your kneecaps showing, then got sake thrown over them while they were still raw. Is something bothering me? Let me think: Yes."
Hakkai swallowed. "I'm sorry."
My throat caught. Hakkai had never been anything but nice to me and here I was bitching him out for being concerned about me. "No, I'm sorry Hakkai. I... It's just..." Kogaiji's annoyed face flashed through my mind. "I've had a long day. I'm sorry for snapping at you like that."
"It's okay Yaone. You have had a long day. Maybe you should go to bed now?"
I should have said yes. I should have said I was tired. My eyes were starting to get heavy and I was tired but instead I declined. "I want to stay up a little longer. I need to think about what I'm going to do. How to get back to Kogaiji-sama."
"You're welcome to stay with us for awhile. Until Kogaiji finds out you're with us and comes to get you. He'll find you soon enough if you're with us."
"I'm sure he will," I gave Hakkai a tired smile. "But it might be longer than you think. Whenever one of Kogaiji-sama's closest friends die he either avenges their death or goes into a period of mourning in which he cares about nothing for at least a week." Would Kogaiji grieve for me? I didn't want him to be sad, but if he didn't grieve for me then that would mean I wasn't one of his close friends. I wasn't sure which would hurt more; Kogaiji grieving for me or Kogaiji not caring if I was dead or not.
Kogaiji, I clutched my head in my hands. There's nothing I understand less than you. Why do I feel so strongly about you? I never wanted to be so dependent or so in love with anyone. In fact I swore I never would. So why, what is it about you that twists me around your finger?
Hakkai's arm settled around my shoulders again. I tensed and resisted the overwhelming urge to shrug him off. What was wrong with me? Hakkai was my friend who'd saved and spared my life. He'd rested his arm around my shoulders before that night, so why was I so disgusted when he did so this time?
Because he's not Kogaiji, I answered my own question. He's not Kogaiji.
"It's okay Yaone. You can stay with us as long as you need to."
"I couldn't do that," I said quickly. "I have no money, no way to repay you-"
"You don't need to. We're using the Three Aspects' credit card.
I blinked.
"So you can stay with us as long as you need to."
"I don't think I could last very long with Dokugakuji's brother," I said honestly. "We'd be at each other's throats as soon as I got my strength back. And any way, I need to get back to Kogaiji-sama as soon as possible."
"You don't want him to be in pain," Hakkai said, understandingly.
I nodded. If he is in pain, I added silently.
"You care about him?"
Was it just me or did everything seem to be spinning in circles today? "He's my overlord and my friend. Yes I care about him."
"But not like..."
"We're just friends," I said. I don't know if Hakkai realized that I didn't give him a direct answer. I don't think he did because he pulled my closer to him so that I was leaning against his side.
"Are you warm enough?" he asked.
"Yes," I said, nodding.
Hakkai took one of my hands in his and I let him. His embrace felt good. Warm. It made me feel secure, something that I hadn't felt in a long time.
He likes me, I thought numbly as he reached out hesitantly and touched my hair. He likes me. Dear gods, Hakkai likes me!
I don't know why that meant so much to me. I know that plenty of other males like me. More than plenty, more than I know what to do with! Everyone from low born trashy humans to members of the yokai nobility. Disgusting guys mainly, people like Ni and humans with the same mentality as Gojo, ugly dogs whose mothers couldn't even love them and some pretty good looking guys. But they only saw the surface. They only liked me for my pretty face- when they were looking at it that is. Hakkai's infatuation with me wasn't like that. He actually knew me, as well as anyone save Kogaiji, Lilin, and Dokugakuji, knew me. Even better than my own parents probably since, even though I loved them, didn't speak with them about much. He may not have known all about my history and all that jazz, but he knew what kind of a person I was. And he liked me! I was flattered!
That was the first time I'd been flattered because a boy liked me in years. Maybe that was why I allowed what happened next to happen.
Hakkai released my hand and gently touched my chin, tilting my head up and toward him. I looked into his eyes. They were so green. He looked back at me with a question in those green, green eyes of his. If I'd pulled back or if I'd shaken my head no, he would have stopped dead. But I didn't. And Hakkai leaned in close and put his lips over mine. He kissed me softly and wrapped his other arm around my back, pressing his body against mine.
A meamory flashed through my mind of the first time I met Hakkai. It was in a bar a couple hundred miles east of where we were now. The Great Peaceful House Bar or something like that. I'd infiltrated the bar staff as a waitress to kill him and his friends by poisoning their food. A large, human, perverted male had started bothering me so one of the Sanzo Party, either Hakkai or Gojo I think, threw an ash tray and hit the man in the head with it. I did poison their food but before they could take a bite of it, that man grabbed me and started trying to- well he was... he was a pervert. Enough said. And so Hakkai stepped in to get him off me and his table ended up getting flipped, poisoned food and all.
I must have looked horrified because Hakkai told me not to worry, that the fight wasn't my fault and he wouldn't let that human get away with what he'd been trying to do to me. And the whole Sanzo Party got involved in the bar fight! Then I'd sprayed sleeping gas into the bar. I would have cut all their throats as they slipped into a drugged sleep. I know it would have been a cold thing to do but it also would have been very practical.
Hakkai didn't breath in any of the gas and needless to say, stayed awake. That was when I fought him for the first time. He beat me. I would have blown up the bar but while I was in the process of poisoning their food, Hakkai must have dismantled my explosives. So I was left with nothing else to do but kill myself.
And I would have but Hakkai stopped me. He pitied me, which I hated, and wanted to make sure that I was alright.
Tentatively, I raised my arms and wrapped them around Hakkai's neck, trying to keep my mind in the present. Not in the past and not in the future but right at that exact moment, in Hakkai's arms.
It turned out that the past was too strong and the rest of the meamory shone through. I would have killed myself after I jumped back and got away from Hakkai, but Kogaiji came and stopped me. I can still remember the words that we exchanged once we were out of the remnants of the bar.
"Are you hurt?" Kogaiji asked me.
"No," I said, hanging my head. I couldn't meet his gaze after my failure. "I'm alright. But I'm so sorry Kogaiji-sama! I failed... and then I was saved by you. I'm prepared to die for my failure-"
"DON'T YOU DARE SAY THAT?!" Kogaiji screamed.
My head snapped up in surprise as Kogaiji continued.
"I've never had any subordinates stupid enough to throw their own lives away before! Or are you trying to get out of your vow of service to me?"
"No," I said quickly. "I will stay by your side, Kogaiji-sama, until my life is exhausted."
Until my life is exhausted...
"No!" I shoved Hakkai away with both hands and jumped up. "No."
Hakkai stared up at me and started to rise. "Yaone..."
"I'm sorry Hakkai," I said, stepping back. My vision blurred with tears and I put one hand to my face. "I'm sorry, but... but... I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."
"Yaone, no," Hakkai faced me. "I'm sorry. I had no right to come onto you like that. Oh gods, you must think I'm terrible. No, Yaone, I'm not like that. I just... I don't know. I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault," I said quickly. "And I don't think any less of you, Hakkai. I know you're not like that. And it's not that... it's not that you're not a nice boy. It's just... I..."
"It's alright Yaone," Hakkai said. "I understand."
Did he really? Could he really? I looked at him, really looked at him, and into those brilliant green eyes and found myself wishing they were beautiful violet instead. Like Kogaiji's...
"I should go," I said, backing up.
"No. No Yaone, it's two in the morning. Please stay with us tonight. I'm sorry, Yaone. Please stay..."
I bit my lip and tried to hold in my tears. "I'll stay," I said finally. "But I have to leave tomorrow."
Hakkai nodded and pointed to several blankets that someone had laid out by the fire. "You can sleep there." He walked to the other side of the fire and laid down on a similar bedroll.
I walked to the blankets and laid down, pulling one over me. "Thank you Hakkai. And I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault Yaone. It's mine, and I'm sorry."
I buried my face in the blanket to smother my sobs.
It was Kogaiji who I loved. I knew that now more than ever. It had always been Kogaiji. I regret hurting Hakkai. I know I hurt him and I didn't mean to, but I can't make myself love someone else. Kogaiji's the only one there is for me, even if I'm not the one for him. Kissing Hakkai had made me realize that. And now I know my own heart, even if I don't know Kogaiji's. I could wallow in self pity because Kogaiji doesn't love me forever and it won't change anything.
So I'll go back to be by his side again, I told myself. If only as his friend. And I'll pretend I don't love him, even though he's got my heart in his hands, I won't let him know.
I lay there for several hours until I was sure Hakkai was asleep, then I stood and neatly folded my blankets, preparing to leave. Something made me look across the fire where Hakkai lay sleeping, one blanket thrown off him, dangerously close to the fire. I crept over to him and picked it up and covered him, then scooped up my stack of still damp clothes. "I'll return yours," I whispered to my sleeping friend. My sleeping enemy. "I promise." And then I left.
Traveling on the road that the Sanzo Party was taking took me to a large city, one which was awake at four oclock in the morning. I convinced the pilot of a small, personal plane to take me to the closest human city to the castle for free- no I did not sell myself. All I did was smile- and forget to button the shoulder snaps on my borrowed shirt, but why sweat the details. Oh yeah, so the humans wouldn't lynch me, I hid my ears under my hair and hid my claws.
From the human city I had a good three hours walk to the castle. I spotted some yokai dragon riders and tried to wave them down but they did respond. No way in hell Kogaiji or anyone else expected me to be this close to the castle this soon.
By the time I reached the castle my feet were blistering, my knees were throbbing, my back was aching and my head was killing me. I know I didn't look like much since I'd stopped caring about my appearance after I left the city. The guards tried to stop me from entering the castle.
"Halt! State your name and your business with the Great Empress Gyokumen!"
"I'm pissed off!" I snapped. "And you're going to get the fuck out of my way!"
They tried to cut me off with their spears but hey, they were only a couple of decades older than I was and I knew every spear trick in the book. Both my hands shot out, spinning their spears so that they struck their own wielders' heads, knocking them out.
"So back off!" I stormed past them and headed straight for Kogaiji's wing. "Stupid creatures. Only half a cut above humans. Why don't they just get a couple of orangutans to guard the doors if they want something ugly, weak, and humanoid?"
I didn't encounter many people between the main part of the castle and Kogaiji's wing. Those who did see me didn't pay me any heed. I don't really blame them. If I saw some scruffy, beat up girl hobbling through the castle halls I'd write her off as a servant and move on.
Kogaiji's wing was nearly deserted. My keen ears could pick up on noises coming from inside several of the rooms, but there was no one in the hall way. I limped to my room, closed the door, threw myself to the floor immediately, and slept, not caring that the shades were wide open and the sun was streaming, washing over my face. I was so tired, I could have slept on a bed of nails or hot coals. Only pure determination kept me from falling asleep by the side of the road.
Even though you know I'm down
You just act like nothing's wrong,
You might look my way and frown,
But then you smile and just move on.
Do you know another loves me?
Would you care if I were gone?
Even if I didn't love him
Stayed in his arms until dawn?
And drug myself back home to bed,
While you were still energetic
And said not a single word at all,
But screamed that I'm pathetic.
The sun was setting when I awoke. My first thought was of Kogaiji. I hadn't meant to sleep so long. I staggered to my feet and let myself out into the hallway. Where would Kogaiji be right now? I wondered. The training rooms seemed like a likely place. Often when he's under stress, Kogaiji likes to destroy training equipment. If he hadn't gone into his period of mourning or wasn't still out looking for me- if he ever looked in the first place- or in conference with the empress, he'd probably be there.
"Kogaiji-sama?" I asked, looking into his favorite training room. Empty. I checked the second one. Several of his lesser subordinates were practicing. "Excuse me?" I called. "Where might I find Kogaiji-sama right now?"
They looked right at me and gave me a disdainful look. "Prince Kogaiji has locked himself in his room and won't see anyone other than his sister or Dokugakuji. He certainly won't see riff-raff like you."
Riff-raff huh? I smiled sweetly. "Thank you for your time. I will go see Kogaiji-sama now."
They muttered a few choice words as I left, but I didn't care. I stumbled to Kogaiji's room as fast as I could and knocked on the door.
Silence. I knocked again.
"Go AWAY!!!" Kogaiji had never sounded more exasperated. My hand froze in mid-knock. Kogaiji was really upset. Over me? Was he really that upset over me?
I rapped the door again with my knuckles. "Kogaiji-sama?"
"I SAID GO AWAY!!!" Kogaiji screamed, his voice breaking. "If I have to tell you again, I swear to Nataku, I will KILL YOU!!!"
"Kogaiji-" I started then stopped. Kogaiji might just decide to blast the door and whoever was behind it. I glanced up and down the hall to make sure no one was watching, then I pulled a hair pin out of my hair. Surprise! I still had it after a million mile fall into a rock infested river and a fifty million mile walk! I slipped it into the key hole and pulled out a second hair pin, inserting it over the first. With only a slight twist of the second pin and a gentle push, the door clicked open. I opened it the rest of the way and stepped into Kogaiji's room.
Kogaiji-sama's room was shrouded in complete darkness. Light from the hall spilled in, announcing my presence. I saw him laying face down on his bed, fully dressed even if his clothes were slightly wrinkled, the long locks of his hair spilling off the side of the bed.
"Kogaiji-sama?" I asked again.
"I told you to GO AWAY!!!" Kogaiji screamed, sitting up very suddenly and hurling his pillow across the room. It caught me in the chest and sent me back against the hallway wall. I cried out as my injured back crushed into the stones and slumped to the floor. I am very, very glad that I did not grow up with Kogaiji. He must have been a terror in pillow fights even when he was a little kid.
"Kogaiji-sama!" I cried out, struggling to stand. After so much abuse my body finally stopped listening to my commands and I slumped back against the wall, next to helpless. All I could to was hold my hands out before me, preparing to fend off another attack. However, I did manage to get the damned pillow far enough away so that anyone who came upon the situation wouldn't know that I'd been slammed into the wall by a pollow. I still had my pride, believe it or not!
The next attack didn't come. I finally stopped cringing and looked up. Kogaiji was staring at me with a look of wonder on his adorable face. "Ya- Yaone?!" he asked, his voice cracking again. "Yaone, is that really you?!"
I opened my mouth to respond but choked, so I nodded instead.
Kogaiji stayed rooted to the ground for a moment longer, just staring at me, his mouth hanging open. Finally he seemed to come out of his trance and blinked rapidly. "YAONE!!!" he shouted even louder than he had for me to go away. The next thing I knew, Kogaiji had scooped me up in his arms and was crushing me in a bear hug. "Yaone! Are you alright? Where were you?! What the hell happened last night? Are you alright? Yaone..."
I hugged Kogaiji back the best I could, then tried to pull back and stand on my own two feet. "I'm alright, Kogaiji-sama," I said, brushing some of the hair out of my face. "Just a little bruised," I added as I nearly fell over. I would have fallen if Kogaiji hadn't caught me and scooped me up again.
"I thought I'd lost you... Yaone, I thought you were dead, or lying injured and dying somewhere where I couldn't get to you. I thought you weren't going to come back, I thought I'd never see you again..."
Good gods! Kogaiji was rambling! About me of all people!
"I told you Kogaiji," I said, suddenly feeling very tired again. "I will stay by your side, Kogaiji-sama, until my life is exhausted."
A few days later most things were back to normal. I was watching over Lilin again, much more carefully this time, and Kogaiji was treating me like normal again. Normal being over protective when he really noticed me and like excess baggage when he didn't.
"Hello, Yaone," I heard a nasal voice say.
I cringed, and without turning around muttered, "Hello, Ni."
"I haven't spoken to you in a while," he said, walking around in front of me. "I heard you had yourself quite an adventure."
"And maybe someday I'll tell you all about it," I responded cheerfully. When hell freezes over, of course. I haven't told anyone all about what happened. Not Kogaiji, not Hakkai. Neither of them knows the whole story, only me, and I'll never tell them. Hakkai doesn't need to know that it was my suicidal tendencies that led me to him that night, results of my obsession with Kogaiji. Kogaiji doesn't know that I allowed Hakkai to kiss me, what's more, kissed him back. I'm not sure how he would feel about it, but for some reason I don't think it would make him too happy. Maybe he does feel something for me, similar to what I feel for him, only not nearly as strong.
"Your prince seems quite happy to have you back," Ni said. There was something about the tone of his voice that I didn't like. He was setting me up for something.
"I AM his friend," I said pointedly. "If the situation had been reversed, I'd be very glad when he came home too."
"Yes, I'm sure Kogaiji would hate to a 'friend' like you. You're quite a unique one, you know, Yaone. Very beautiful. Smart. And spirited."
I was tired of Ni's round about ways of insulting Kogaiji and I and trying to get me in his bed. "What's your point, Ni?" I demanded.
"My point?" Ni asked innocently. "I was merely praising your finer attributes. With your talents and looks, you could advance much further you know."
"What are you talking about?" My patience was growing thin. "Advance further than what?"
"Than being Kogaiji's cocubine, of course," Ni leered at me. "Even his first choice as a cocubine. Really, you are much too good for Kogaiji, that Prince of Rabbits. Prince of Rabbits! That's a good one! I shall have to remember- AHH!"
I turned to walk away as Ni fell to the ground, grabbing himself. My knee hurt, but it had been worth it!
"What did you do that for?!" Ni whined.
"What did I do what for?" I asked, looking down at him with mock innocence. "You fell, Ni." I knelt down so that my face was inches from his and gave him my sweetest smile. "And every time you insult me or my prince you're GOING to fall down," I said in that same disgustingly sweet tone. I stood, turned on my heel, kicked a little bit of dust into the perverted, bunny slipper wearing, boil faced, parasite infested, greasy, sadistic, son of a bitch, bastard's face, and walked away, my thoughts turning to Kogaiji.
I love him. I really, really love him. I never even knew the meaning of the word love until I met him. And even if I can never be anything other than his friend, I will always love him, and I will always be by his side to help him in whatever way I can.
I remember when I asked Kogaiji why he saved me from the Hundred Eyed Demon King a few years ago. His response had been that what happened to the girls the Demon King went through was pathetic.
Pathetic. That's what I am now. I'm so in love with Kogaiji. And I'm never going to be truely happy because Kogaiji doesn't love me the way that I love him. Doesn't love me as anything other than a friend. And part of what Ni said was true. I don't mean to sound conceited, but I know that I am beautiful, and smart, and spirited. I have the potential to do almost anything I want to. But I'm also very loyal. And I'm also very in love. And when you're in love with someone as much as I am with Kogaiji, then whatever else you are, you're also... pathetic.
Once in awhile you treat me
Like I'm someone you could love.
Once in awhile you treat me
Like I'm some fragile dove.
Once in awhile you hold me
Like you'd hold me if you cared,
But you back away the moment
You see my heart is bared.
And even though you turn away,
Your heart is still magnetic,
I'm drawn behind you helplessly,
God help me, I'm pathetic...
By Yaone
I'm wrapped around your finger
Like that ring you always wear;
Whether I'm white gold or scratched coper,
You hardly seem to care.
Does it matter if I'm pretty?
You act like I'm not here
And twist your ring facelet side down
So you never see my tears,
Leaving me to wonder
If you're really so apathetic
While there's no question at all
That I'm that pathetic
"No, Lilin, not like that," I said, putting my hands over my students to stop her from wielding the spear the wrong way. "Your hand position is wrong. Like this," I slid her hands the correct distance apart, pried her thumbs up, and wrapped them around the spear shaft in the proper grip.
"Are you sure, Yaone?" Lilin looked up at me with a sulky expression on her face.
"Yes I'm sure," I replied with as much patience as I could. After all, which one of us had practically been born with a spear in our hands? Her or me? And I don't care if she's really five-hundred years older than me or what not! Her mental attributes are those of an eleven year old which is why I treat her so. "Anyone could have unarmed you the way you were holding the spear. Grip it this way and you'll hold onto it a lot longer."
"What if Sanzo puts a bullet through it? Or Gojo cuts it with that staff thing of his? Or Hakkai blows it up? Or Goku snaps it?"
"Then it means their aim is off, since their target should be the wielder, not the weapon," I responded.
"Why do I gotta learn to fight with all these dumb weapons?" Lilin demanded. "Yesterday it was Dokugakuji with that sword, today its you and this stupid spear, tomorrow it's some washed out old man with a chain, then Kogaiji's having me learn how to throw those stupid little star things!"
"Shuriken," I said absently. "And your brother wants you to be knowledgable in all types of weaponry. That way you'll be able to defend yourself better than people like me who can only use a small spectrum of weapons."
"Well I think that's a stupid idea!"
You would, I thought, shaking my head. "Maybe, but I wish that I'd learned to use other weapons when I was your age." Not really, but that sounds like the kind of thing a guardian or governess or whatever I'm supposed to me to my lord's brother, should give. I'm perfectly happy with my spear and can fight almost as well with a halberd or staff, or anything that resembles a spear. "Now show me that flower spin again, and use the right grip this time.
Instead of giving me half a second to back away, out of range, Lilin spun the spear quickly and sloppily, putting all her strength behind it and cracking me in the side of the head with the blunt end.
I'm not sure if I cried out or not. All I know is that the room seemed to spin in circles around me and there was the ringing in my ears. Suddenly everything went white. I mean really, really blinding bright white.
"Yaone? Yaone, are you alright?"
I groaned and opened eyes I was never aware of closing to find a pair of beautiful violet ones drilling into mine. Worry was painted all over Kogaiji's face and I felt his arms tighten around me. It always felt so good to be in Kogaiji's arms, even though it usually meant that I was beaten to a bloody pulp or had just regained consiousness or was incapable of movement. He was warm, and strong, and I'm pathetically in love with him.
"Kogaiji-" I coughed before I could add his title. My throat had gone dry.
"Shh," Kogaiji propped me up so I was sitting in his lap, leaning back against his shoulder. "You took a pretty hard blow to the head. Lilin could have killed you."
"Not with that kind of grip she couldn't" I murmured, vaguely recalling that my young and sprightly student had completely ignored everything I told her about proper hand positioning.
Kogaiji tightened his hold on me with one arm and reached to touch the side of my head with the other. "You're bleeding," he told me, showing me his red stained hand.
"Sorry," I whispered, trying to move my bleeding head away from his shoulder. I saw a large bloody blotch where I had rested my head. "Sorry," I repeated. "I didn't mean to get blood-"
"No, it's okay," Kogaiji said, hugging me tighter, after wiping my blood off his hand and on his shirt. "It doesn't matter. Are you alright Yaone?"
"Yes," I coughed again and wet my lips. "I'm tired. If I just slept, I know I'd be alright-"
"No," Kogaiji said flatly, "you will not go sleep."
I widened my eyes and Kogaiji must have seen my confusion.
"You might have a concussion," he said, putting a hand on the undamaged side of my head and gently pulling me back against his shoulder. "You're not supposed to go to sleep if you have a concussion."
"Really? Why not?" Lilin inquired, seemingly coming out of nowhere.
"Because... because... I don't know why!" Kogaiji snapped. "I just know you're not supposed to!"
I winced. His shout resonated in my head like thunder.
"How come?"
"I just said-"
"Hey Ko, I think your voice is paining your patient," Dokugakuji said, giving me a sympathetic look.
I tried to smile my thanks but my eyes dimmed.
"Yaone! Wake up!"
"Too loud," I moaned.
"Yaone, you can't sleep now! Stay awake!"
"No." I just want to sleep.
"Yaone! Wake up! Doku, I don't know what's gonna happen if she keeps sleeping!"
"Try ordering her to wake up," Dokugakuji suggested.
"Yaone! I order you to wake up!"
My eyes snapped open and I tried to bolt to my feet, my brain fogged in a strange sort of mist, my body responding to the obedience embedded in my subconsious. "Yes Kogaiji-sama!" I said without realizing I was speaking. Something held me back and I turned, ready to push whatever it was.
Kogaiji laughed but didn't let go of me. "Well, that worked well."
"Huh?" My mind was still in shambles and I couldn't make sense of what was going on at the time.
Instead of answering me, Kogaiji slid one arm beneath my knees and hugged me close with the other, then rose to his feet. "Let's get you to a healer," he said, resting his chin on top of my head.
I love Kogaiji. I've loved him ever since the day I met him, and I know I'll always love him, come what may. I love the way his eyes shine when he's happy and the way his mouth quirks slightly to the left when he's nervous and trying to hide it. I love how he's so damn nice to everyone, how he rarely ever barks out his orders, how he usually only outlines what he wants done and makes suggestions of what his followers should do, what ninety nine percent of the time we end up doing because we want to please him. The way the light glints off his hair making it look so soft and glossy that I just want to reach out and touch it, the way he's so devoted to all of us who follow him and the way he cares so much has twisted my heart around his little finger like a ring. I, and many, many others would give up my life in a heart beat for Kogaiji. I love him that much.
But what I love most about him is when he treats me as if I'm some precious flower made of spun glass. At times he's just as protective of me as he is of his sister. If he could he'd always keep me either locked in his wing of the castle where we live and the Empress' cronies aren't allowed, or at his side where he could watch over me. I love how he treats me so delicately more than anything else I love about him. But strangely that's also what I hate most about him. Actually, that's the only thing I hate about him. By treating me with so much protectiveness he makes me feel special. Like he needs me, or might actually love me back the way that I lovehim. But at the same time it makes me feel weak and helpless, utterly lost underneath his spell like a small, small fish in a very big sea.
I don't know what it is about Kogaiji. He's so... hypnotic. Charismatic. Kind. Not to mention incredibly gorgeous. I love him.
"Lilin? LILIN?!" I shouted. Great. I'd lost her AGAIN! It was the day after that little ordeal with the spear, after Lilin's chain fighting instruction, and I was supposed to have gone to the training room and gotten. Her lesson let out a few minutes before I got there, the old man (who was a yokai, I should add for any humans who might read this; everyone at the castle is yokai) told me. About five minutes before I got there, and she had just skipped off into only Kanzeon knows what kind of trouble! I would have been on time if Ni hadn't started coming onto me while I was on my way back from the lab. I don't help Ni and Fan in those gods awful experiments they do, but my parents are chemists and work there, so I go to see them from time to time.
Anyway, I had been on my way to get Lilin when Ni blocked the hall in front of me and kept side stepping whenever I did, asking me dumb questions, trying out a number of dumb pick up lines, and not so discreetly trying to look down my shirt. Damn that bastard and his damn bunny slippers to hell! I can't beat the living hell out of him since he's the Empress' head scientist and that would most likely get me executed, but next time we're both in the lab, I just might accidentally spill some highly concentrated hydrochloric acid on his bunny slippers.
"LILIN!" The little brat! Don't get me wrong, I love her to death, and I imagine if I ever have children they'll be a lot like her- which is why I never plan on having kids! She can be sweet at times, and she's funny, but at times she is a royal pain in the ass!
I hoped she wasn't in the main part of the castle. Kogaiji's forbidden me from leaving his wing unless I'm going to the lab, dining hall, or to meet him. "LILIN! LILIN!" I almost ran into Kogaiji.
"Yaone," he gave me an annoyed look, "Have you lost my sister again?"
"I'm sorry Kogaiji-sama," I said, casting my eyes to the ground as I nodded.
Kogaiji groaned. "Yaone, if she's gone after the Sanzo party again, I swear..." he trailed off, not bothering to finish his sentence, leaving me to wonder what my punishment would be if any harm came to his little sister. "Find her," he snapped, shoving past me, nearly knocking me to the ground. As it was I fell into the wall and leaned against it, watching him go. I don't think he meant to shove me so hard. I think it's just that Kogaiji doesn't know his own strength. Sometimes, especially when he gets mad, he lashes out.
"Dokugakuji!" Kogaiji called, stopping in front of his best friend's door and pounding on it.
Dokugakuji opened the door. "What is it, Ko?"
Kogaiji glanced over at me where I still leaned against the wall and narrowed his eyes. He glanced at Dokugakuji then jerked his head meaningfully toward me, then turned and began walking down the hall. Dokugakuji followed and I felt stung. Had I fallen from grace with Kogaiji? I thought rapidly, trying to figure out where I could have failed in my duties to my overlord.
Plenty of things came to mind. The time I tried to poison Sanzo and his friends, and nearly killed myself. When Lilin slipped out of my sight and went after the Sanzo party. That incident with Fang Lone, or whatever they were called. Dozens of other transpirations, failures, and accidents popped into my mind when I'd been unable to complete my mission or follow orders correctly, letting Kogaiji down.
Suddenly it felt like there were weights on my heart and I slouched slightly. No wonder Kogaiji didn't love me, didn't show any more affection for me than he did for any of his other subordinates. I was a failure. I could not think of one thing I'd ever done right to serve Kogaiji outside of the lab. I was a snivling, weak, pathetic, misfit, LOSER!!!
I couldn't find Lilin anywhere, and I did search everywhere- all of Kogaiji's wing, the dining hall, the kitchens. I even disobeyed orders and looked all over the main part of the castle. What did it matter if I disobeyed him one more time when I'd already done so many times before?
One of the dragons was missing. A long distance dragon. Kogaiji was not pleased when I told him the news. Within minutes I had mounted another dragon and was going out after the runaway Princess, praying to Kanzeon that I found her before she did something incredibly stupid like trying to take out the Sanzo Party single handed again!
Is it that I'm too weak
To even stand by you?
I know that I'm not strong enough
By myself to pull through.
I'm lost in wanderlust
And the vaguenes in your eyes.
Would it matter if I left you now
And never said good bye?
I know I'm pitiful and miserable
I know I'm lost and wretched
And though I'll never say it aloud,
I know that I'm pathetic.
I remember the first time I met Kogaiji. My parents had turned me over to some creep who was taking me the the Hundred Eyed Demon King to be his cocubine. For those stupid humans among you who might not be familiar with that word, cocubine is just a nice word for whore. Slut. Harlot. Prostitute. Take your pick.
Prince Kogaiji must have seen the misery on my face because he asked the yokai leading me where he was taking me. When my escourt/slave driver told Kogaiji the scariest look crossed the prince's face. For a brief moment I thought he was going to strike up both dead. Then he glared at my jailer and told him that he wanted me.
At this time I still had no idea who he was. I was one of those yokai who thought that Kogaiji was still sealed away like his father, and thought that my savior was probably not much better, if at all better, than the Hundred Eyed Demon King. Falling out of the frying pan and onto the dinner plate would be an appropriate description of what I thought had just happened to me. Even when Kogaiji gave a brief explanation while my jailer was still present of how the Hundred Eyed King used pretty girls and then threw them away or devoured them, I didn't trust him. It wasn't until we were alone and he smiled at me and told me that I'd be working under him, as a chemist not a whore, that I trusted him.
Kogaiji saved me from a fate worse than death that would have eventually ended in death. So I dedicated the remainder of my life to serving him, living for his cause, and doing as he bid me, whether it was right or wrong. I'll do whatever he tells me to. I love him.
Once I asked him why he saved me from the Hundred Eyed Demon King. He replied that the fate that had awaited me was pathetic. So pathetic that no one should be put through it. And now I wondered how much of a difference it would have made if Kogaiji hadn't happened to have been in the exact right place at the exact right time. Could my fate be any more pathetic there as it is here?
"Don't think like that!" I snapped at myself. "Of course this is better than being devoured by some lech demon with a hundred ugly eyes! Kogaiji needs me to look after his sister. Not that I've been doing a very good job at it."
You've done the best you could, Kogaiji knows that, another part of my mind told me. He's just having a bad day. He's not really that mad.
I hate that part of my mind. That stupid optimistic part of me that always tried to find the good in everything! Life's not a rose like that stupid voice in my head would have you believe. Life' the thorns on the stem of the rose. What kind a world do we live in where a woman would give her only daughter up to be a whore for some Demon King?!
A sob escaped my throat and I looked down. The dragon was flying high. Very high, and I had forgotten to fasten my safety harness. Or had I? I'm not debating over whether the harness was fastened. Who do you think I am, Goku? I didn't fasten it. I just don't know if I forgot or deliberately didn't hook the gods cursed thing. I'd been doing things like that more and more lately. Little things that seemed harmless enough but left the door open enough for death to creep in. Like leaving gaping holes in my defenses while fighting Hakkai. And taking a few too many pills at night to help me sleep.
I'm not trying to kill myelf. I'm just being careless, I decided and reached for one of the harness straps. One was within easy reach. The other... I leaned over the side of the dragon to reach it and focused my eyes on the mountains below. Would it really be so bad it I just... slept. And never woke up? Would it hurt a lot? It couldn't hurt anymore than that pain in my heart where it felt like an animal was truing to claw its way out.
"No! No! No! I don't want to die!" I screamed. "I'm not trying to kill myself and I'm not going to!" Another sob escaped. "Kogaiji, I don't know how I can love you so much when you can hurt me this way! Or is it really love? Love's not supposed to hurt..."
Love's not supposed to hurt. So what was it that I felt for Kogaiji if it wasn't love?
"No, I love him!" I choked. I would have pulled out my hair but I had this bandage wrapped around my head like a head band and it would have probably fallen off. Then when I went back to the castle, if I made it back, Kogaiji would get all annoyed and do that protective bit and make me feel so helpless! So pathetic!
"Ya-O-ne!" a high pitched voice sing songed.
"LILIN?!" I looked wildly around and saw her racing toward me on her own dragon. "Lilin where have you been?! We were worried about you!"
"My mother knew where I was! She sent me to deliver a message!"
I breathed a sigh of relief. So Lilin was safe and it wasn't my fault that she was gone. Now maybe Kogaiji wouldn't be so mad when we got back. "Let's go home, Lilin," I said as she pulled up her dragon beside mine.
"Alright! Race ya!"
"You're on!" I tried to smile. Lilin's a great kid and being with her usually lifts my spirits.
"On your mark! Get set!" Lilin kicked her dragon into motion. "Go!"
"No fair!" I shouted. Or I started to shout, but Lilin's dragon's tail snapped back and hit me in the side of the head that Lilin had hit me the day before. "Lilin?" I asked, numbly. It got cold real fast, like standing in front of a really big fan. Air was rushing past me. I yawned. It was so cold. "AHHHHH!" I choked on water. COLD water! I couldn't see anything at all! Just shapeless blurrs. "Kogaiji!" I tried to scream but my lungs only filled with water again. My stomach turned over and I think I threw up. My lungs were burning and I couldn't breath! I needed to get to the surface but I didn't know which way was up! Something crashed into me- or rather I crashed into it, I think. A rock, probably. I crashed into another one before I realized what was going on. The third rock I managed to grab onto but I couldn't keep my grip. I hit another before I managed to hold onto the fifth one.
It was amazing how clearly I could think about somethings and how foggy my mind was when it came to others. The side of the rock guided me to the surface and I was finally able to get a breath of AIR!!!
Breathing had never been so wonderful! Slowly I pulled myself out of the water, coughed my guts out and sat back to puzzle things out.
The dragon's tail had hit my head, I remembered. And I wasn't wearing my safety harness. So I had gotten knocked off and landed in a river. A very fast flowing rock infested river. What luck!
You were lucky, the optimisctic part of my mind told me. You could have landed on hard dry landed and been splattered. Or the water could have been too shallow to break your fall and you could have broken you neck on the bottom. Or you could have hit a rock-
Who says I wanted to live! the cynical part of my mind snarled. Gods help the world if I ever develop schizophrenia.
I didn't want to kill myself. Really I didn't. Or maybe I did, but at that moment I was happy as hell to be alive. It didn't matter that my life was pathetically screwed up. I was breathing air- it's very important to put air there, if I were breathing water I would not be so happy.
For a long while I just lay there on the river bank, soaking wet, bruised, and bleeding, with a killer head ache, staring at the sky. I vaugely noticed that the sun had set and the stars had come out. By now Lilin knew something had happened to me. My guess was that she had circled around once, trying to find me then had shot like a bolt back to the castle to get Kogaiji.
Kogaiji's going to be so mad at me, I thought miserabley, sitting up. I immediately lay back down as pain blossomed in my back where a rock had hit me. Or I had hit the rock. Same difference! "Kogaiji," I moaned, putting a hand to the side of my head. I was so tired. My bandage was soaked and useless, and I had started bleeding from my head again. I needed medical help. But in the middle of no where it was very unlikely that I'd get it. Even if I'd fallen smack in the middle of a city I probably wouldn't have gotten any help. The stupid humans would have probably lynched me first- no offense to you stupid humans out there, of course.
So what was there to do? It hurt too much to get up. All I could do was lay there and wait to die...
No. That thought cut threw my pain like cold steel through flesh. I'd made a promise to Kogaiji. I'd promised him that I would serve him until my life had ended.
And even though I was freezing, bleeding, and soaked, I was not dead. I was very far from it! What had I been thinking about killing myself?! I'd made Kogaiji a promise and I never back down on my word! Since the day he saved me from the Hundred Eyed Demon King I've dedicated my life to serving him! And I will continue to serve him until I die from a freak accident, disease, old age, or in his service!
And now I had to get back to Kogaiji or die in the process. I forced myself to sit up, ignoring the scream of protest my back gave and pushed my hands underneath me. Slowly, very slowly, I got to my feet and took stock of myself. My legs and feet were undamaged. My left hip had hit a rock and was aching, but I doubted that it was fractured. My back had taken a pounding from the rocks How many times had I been hit? I thought back and tried to count. Five. Three hits to my back, two to my hip. And since I doubted I'd be able to stand if my back was broken, that meant that I would be fine... even though there have been cases of people breaking their vertibrates without knowing it, but if they didn't know then it obviously didn't hurt them!
My forearms were scraped from grabbing onto the rocks. Several of my claw-like fingernails had been pulled off and all the remaining ones were broken. My head was bleeding again and I was sore from head to toe. But I had no serious wounds that could keep me from traveling. But how far away was the castle?
I did a mental calculation and swore. Several hours by dragon. Which meant several weeks by car. Good gods, how long would it take me to walk that far?! A year?!
Kuan Yin have mercy! That's your job you know!
Kogaiji would probably look for me. In fact I knew he would look for me, but not for very long. The world's a big place and Lilin's horrible with landmarks. Not to mention she probably didn't know I'd fallen until at least five or ten minutes later. Most likely fifteen. She doesn't look back when she races. So Kogaiji would end up with a one hundred to five hundred mile radius of area to look for me in, if Lilin could remember where we started the race. Which was unlikely.
There was no way that Kogaiji would find me. It would be like searching for a certain drop of water in the ocean. And if he thought the chances of finding my dead body were slim, the chances of finding me alive would be an estimated .000000000000000004 percent. Four is a very unlucky number. I was literally alone in the woods.
"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," I reminded myself. I don't usually use those 'wise' quotes. In fact the only quotes I ever use around others are 'A bird in the hand can make an aweful mess,' and 'A little work never hurt anyone' said by some dead guy. "I'm cracking up," I muttered and took that first step-
-and fell flat on my face.
"Ouch."
Getting back up was just as big of a struggle as it had been the first time. This time I took a smaller step and held onto a nearby tree for balance. I knew which way to start walking. West. Putting the moon directly at my back.
I wasn't making much progress. I don't know what was wrong with me. Maybe it was my back. Or my head. But I kept falling in the dirt. After about an hour of hobbling I'd covered about half a mile and my knees were skinned open and filled with dirt. I could actually see my kneecaps! I wished I could have gotten ahold of some hydrogen peroxide. I knew it would hurt like hell but it would keep my knees from getting infected. A scary though occured to me. If they did get infected there would be nothing that I could do to clean them out. They'd turn green and have to be amputated and then I'd be completely useless to Kogaiji as anything! How could I watch over his little sister if I couldn't chase after her? How could I fight if I couldn't stand? I couldn't even be a chemist and work for him in the lab because a wheel chair would get in the way of EVERYTHING!!! A crippled yokai is worse than a dead yokai! Unless you're blind and have really good hearing. You can still fight that way and perform some tasks. If I lost an arm I could still fight open handed and watch over Lilin, but if I lost my legs... "Kogaiji," I whimpered.
Stop it! You're acting like a wuss! Kogaiji may make you feel weak with all that crooning over every little scratch but that doesn't mean you are! You can hold your own against Hakkai for the love of the gods! Hakkai who's killed over a thousand yokai! Now you can walk a couple hundred miles even if you are a little banged up and light headed! Your legs aren't going to turn green and fall off because you're not going to fall down anymore and at the next stream you come to you're going to wash out all the dirt. Then when you get back to the castle your going to dump some nice hydrogen per- okay, maybe not nice, but still you're going to dump some hydrogen peroxide on them to get all the dirt and grime out!
I took another step. And another. I let go of the tree that I was holding on to and took a tentative step without any support. There. I was walking, upright, without using anything for balance. "See, you can do it," I told myself.
I think I made more progress in the next hour but I'm not sure how far I walked. I think at least another hour passed, or maybe two, you know how they say time flies when your're having fun, before I heard it.
"I'm hungry."
"Shut up you dumbass ape!"
The sound of something being smacked followed.
"Oww! You know carrying a concealed weapon's illegal and that fan could classify as a wea-"
"I said shut UP!!!"
I froze. I knew those voices. I knew them. But I didn't believe it. Hallucinations. Or a mirage, or a dream. Not... not... not the Sanzo party... This was too crazy. Crazy! Crazy! Crazy! "I'm going mad," I whispered. Tears welled up in my eyes. I wouldn't be any use to Kogaiji if I went crazy! He'd hate me!
"No! No! NO!!!" I screamed clutching my head in my hands and sinking to my knees.
"Holy fuck!"
"Hey Sanzo, someone's out there!"
"Really?"
"Who's there?"
I pulled at my hair. "No! No! Kogaiji, help me! Help me!"
"One of Kogaiji's creatures!"
A what looked like blue fire lit up directly in front of me through a copse of trees.
"NO!!!" I screamed. My hair came out by the roots. "I'm going mad! Schizophrenic! This isn't happening! It's not real! Snap out of it bitch! They're not really there! EAHHH!"
"If you move an inch I swear I'll shoot you!"
"Go to hell!" I screamed. "You can't hurt me! You're not real! You're only in my head! Now get out! OUT!!! OUT!!! I can't be going crazy! What good can I do Kogaiji-sama if I'm crazy! KOGAIJI-SAMA! Help me!" I buried my face in my hands and sobbed.
"It's Yaone!" the ape's voice shouted in awe.
"Really?"
"Yaone?"
I stopped crying and looked up. He came toward me holding a ball of bright blue light in one hand, reaching out to me with the other. "No! Don't come near me! I can deal with hallucinations as long as they're not right up in my face!"
"Yaone... I'm no hallucination." Those brilliant green eyes looked at me with concern. "You guys, there's something wrong with her."
"Really?" Sanzo was quite the avid conversationalist that night.
"Does she have Mad Cow Disease or something?" Gojo asked, stepping closer to me.
"A head wound, I think," Hakkai said. "I can't tell in this light but I think that's blood on the right side of her head. That dark spot. And that ring of bandages that's fallen aroung her neck..."
"Who did this to you?" Sanzo asked.
"Kogaiji! I have to find Ko-"
"Talk about an abusive relationship," Gojo muttered, lighting a cigarette.
"Kogaiji did this to you?!" Hakkai shouted, tossing the ball of light into the air and springing forward. He grabbed my hands so tightly that all the bones in them pressed together.
"NO! Kogaiji-sama would never hurt me! I have to find him! I'm going crazy!"
"How do you figure that?" Gojo asked.
I stared at him.
"It's alright, Yaone," Hakkai said, pulling me to my feet. Come with us to our campfire and we'll help you."
"Help me?"
"Yes," he said, putting an arm around me. "We'll help you."
They took me back to their camp and Hakkai wrapped a blanket around me. He tried to get me to take off my soaking clothes and borrow some of his but I refused. Mainly because of the way Gojo's eyes lit up when Hakkai suggested that I take my clothes off. I shot him a glare then turned away and huddled closer to the campfire and told them what happened.
I didn't tell them about Kogaiji being upset with me. I just told them about the fall and the river. I didn't tell them that I might have purposely forgotten to fasten the damn saftey harness. That would have made Hakkai go ballistic and gotten me chewed out by the monkey.
"That doesn't explain why you flipped out whe you saw us though," Gojo said. Surprise, surprise. He'd been listening to my story. And there I'd thought that he'd only been trying to get a look at my cleavage through the blanket.
"I thought I was going crazy," I said. "Maybe I am. I don't know, but how sane would you be after falling thousands of feet off a damn dragon, into a freezing cold river, and being rammed into every rock from here to the Infernal Land?! You know most people who die of falls don't actually die from the impact itself?! They have a heart attack and die from that about three hundred feet before they hit rock bottom! And-"
"Okay, okay, okay! Point well taken!" Gojo shook his head. "Women."
"It's okay, Yaone," Hakkai put an arm around my shoulders. His warmth was reassuring. "We'll help you find Kogaiji and take care of you until we do."
"Why?" I demanded, fighting back shivers. "I'm your enemy! Don't you get that? If you were smart you would have killed me on sight-"
I was cut off by the laughter of the monk, Hakkai, and Dokugakuji's brother.
"Yaone," Hakkai said giving me a cute little smile, "remember that fight against the giant crab shikigami?"
"No," I snapped sarcastically. "It only knocked a huge ROCK on top of me."
"I thought you just said you didn't remember..." the ape sounded confused.
"Learn the art of sarcasm, child." Once more, I don't care if he's five hundred, give or take a few years older than me! He acts no older than Lilin!
"Finding Kogaiji will be the easy part," Gojo said, flicking ashes off his cigarette at the ape.
"Stop that Gojo!" Goku shouted. "What do you mean finding Kogaiji will be easy?"
"They always find us," Gojo stood up. "We'll go find your overlord, wench. You stay here with Hakkai and Sanzo. Hakkai will take care of you." He raised his eyebrows and I looked for something to throw at him. "Come on Goku, let's go find Kogaiji."
"What are they-"
"I don't know," Hakkai admitted. "But Gojo must have some kind of plan or else-"
"HEY KOGAIJI!!! WE'VE FOUND YOUR SUBORDINATE AND WE'RE GONNA KILL HER!!!"
I stared at Hakkai and inched back.
"YOU LISTENIN' TO ME?! WE'VE GOT ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE SUBORDINATES DOWN HERE AND WE'RE GONNA RIP HER PRETTY LITTLE THROAT OUT IF YOU DON'T COME AND STOP US!!!"
"We're not going to kill you," Sanzo said, tossing an empty beer can into the fire. "Don't have a heart attack."
"KOGAIJI!!! UNLESS YOU COME DOWN HERE AND FIGHT ME I'M GONNA KILL YOUR GIRLFRIEND!!!" the ape picked up on the lecher's cadence.
"That seems like the best way to get Kogaiji's attention," Hakkai looked at me ruefully.
"If you wanted me dead I'd already be dead," I said. "I know you're not going to kill me- today at least." My teeth chattered together as I spoke.
"You need to get out of those wet clothes," Hakkai told me.
"Not when Dokugakuji's perverted brother is within three miles of me!"
"Gojo went that way," Hakkai guestured to the east. He pulled some clothes out of a bag and handed them to me. "They'll be a little big, but their better than what you're wearing now."
"I happen to like this dress-"
"He means it will be more practical you stupid yokai!" Sanzo snapped.
"Oh. Sorry, I'm not thinking right.."
Hakkai pressed the clothes into my arms. "Go change. I'll make sure he doesn't come and look at you."
The clothes were too big. Hakkai was at least a head taller than me and I was practically swimming in his shirt. I had to keep my sash and wrap it around my waist so my pants wouldn't fall down. Not that I even needed to wear pants with that shirt! It fit me like a miny dress.
"You look nice," Hakkai gave me a gentle smile when I returned.
I blushed. "They're your clothes," I said, smoothing out the front of my- his- the shirt that I was wearing.
"Well you look good in them."
My blush deeped. "Where'd the Sanzo go?" I asked, noticing the blond monk's absence.
"He's sleeping."
"KOGAIJI!!! DON'T YOU CARE THAT WE'RE GONNA KILL YOUR SUBORDINATE?! SHE'S MORE THAN A SUBORDINATE TO YOU ISN'T SHE?!"
I'm glad that the fire light distorted all color. Other wise Hakkai would have seen how red my face had gotten. I glanced up at Hakkai and saw him frown slightly.
"SHE'S YOUR FRIEND, ISN'T SHE?!" Gojo continued. "AND IF YOU DON'T COME SAVE HER CUTE BUTT, WE'RE GONNA KILL HER!!!"
"YEAH!!!" the ape shouted. "COME SAVE YOUR GIRLFRIEND!!!"
"Are you..." Hakkai glanced at me then looked down.
"Am I what?"
"Never mind."
"Am I what?" I demanded.
"You and Kogaiji... are you two... seeing each other."
"Oh no, no, no!" I only WISH! "It's not like that at all! I'm Lilin's.. what would you call it... baby sitter, pretty much. I teach her spear fighting and try to keep her from running off like she did today. And I'm Kogaiji's chemist and friend. That's all."
"Oh," Hakkai smiled at me and I blushed yet again. Did he... did he... no, that was absurd! He was just a friend. Kind of. Well he was my enemy. Or not my enemy, but Kogaiji's enemy, making him my enemy by default because I'm sworn into service under Kogaiji.
What was Hakkai to me anyway? I tried to sort it out in my head. He was a nice boy. Or man. Whatever. Cute in a... geeky sort of way. Well, not really geeky. He was smart and he looked like it. There's nothing geeky about that. His eyes were as green as Kogaiji's were violet. No! I did not like Hakkai that way! He was a friend! Yes, I could allow him to be my friend We were just like friends who went to rival schools or something. We could be friends part of the time, but the rest of the time we had to be enemies. Unless Kogaiji gave the order to fight him, I wouldn't. There's no one who I really want dead- save Ni. But Hakkai was my friend.
"Your knees," Hakkai reminded me. "You said you were afraid they'd get infected.
"Yeah," I said, rolling up my pants legs.
Hakkai took a damp cloth and gently began cleaning them out. I winced and ground my teeth but didn't cry out and forced myself to hold perfectly still. "I'm sorry," Hakkai said softly.
"It's okay. Just hurry!"
After what seemed like hours Hakkai finally sat back. "I think I got it all out. Your knees shouldn't get infected now. They shouldn't anyway but..." I saw him looking at a bottle of wine and cringed. "You know about medicine and health procedures," Hakkai said, still looking at the wine bottle. "I won't though if you don't want me to."
Sweat dripped down the back of my neck. Or maybe it was the water still dripping out of my hair. I don't know. "Do it quick," I whispered.
Hakkai picked up the bottle and opened it. "I'll do it on three he said. One." He splashed the contents over my knees.
At first I felt nothing. Then burning, burning pain. This time I know I screamed. My hands flew instinctively to my head and I gripped my hair and pulled.
"No! Don't pull out your hair! Yaone!"
"What's the broad's problem?"
Hakkai pried my hands away from my hair and pinned my arms to my sides. "Help me Sanzo!"
I kept screaming and fought against Hakkai. Sanzo came and helped him to restrain me and finally, when the pain subsided, I calmed down. "Sorry."
"Yuck! Are those her bones I see?"
Great. It was the monkey again.
"Yes, Goku."
"That doesn't look very tasty."
My mouth dropped open. What kind of boy was he? How could looking at someone bleeding with bones showing stimulate thoughts of food?
"Shut up you dumbass ape! Can't you see the lady's in pain? She doesn't need you critiquing the edibleity of her bleeding legs. Even though I do happen to think they look very tasty..."
I stared at Gojo. Dokugakuji's brother was such a pervert!
"Give her a break, Gojo," Hakkai said, putting an arm around my shoulders and hugging me. "Yaone's had a long night."
"Bet she won't forget to fasten her seat belt again. Will ya, Yaone?"
"No," I shook my head vigorously. "Ow." I put my hand to the side of my head. it was bleeding again.
Hakkai got a roll of bandages and redid my headband.
"Thank you."
"Not at all."
"I'm going back to sleep," Sanzo announced, standing up and walking away without another word.
"He's not so bad for a monk," I said without thinking.
Gojo laughed. "You only say that because you don't have to live with him, woman."
"I have a name you know."
"Whatever, woman. I don't think your paramour will be coming tonight. If he was planning on it, that screaming bit you did will make him think you're dead. You're stuck with us for awhile. Now I'm going to bed. Feel free to join me."
I glared at him. He's Dokugakuji's brother, I reminded myself. And it won't make him too happy if I kill the pervert.
"I think I'll stay up and hang with you two for awhile," Goku said, plopping down on the other side of Hakkai.
"No you won't," Gojo said quickly, grapping the ape up by the back of his shirt. "It's past your bed time."
"No it's-"
"Shut up and listen to your elders you dumbass ape! Off to bed now! Shoo!"
Goku left muttering a great many obscenities about the kappa and I started to smile. Started to.
"Just don't get her pregnant Hakkai," Gojo said before melding into the shadows.
First all the blood drained out of my face. Then it came rushing back so quickly it made me light headed.
"Gojo!" Hakkai protested, standing up quickly. When he was only answered with silence, he gave a slight laugh and offered me an appologetic smile. "Gojo, he's... well..."
"I know," I said softly. "Dokugakuji talks about him sometimes. Apparently he's been a pervert since he was seven."
"It wouldn't surprise me," Hakkai sat back down. We sat in silence for a few moments. I stared into the fire and wondered what was going on back at the castle. It had to be after midnight now. Were they still searching for me?
If it were left up to Kogaiji he'd search without rest until he collapsed, in some vain hopes that I was still alive. But Dokugakuji, being the realist, wouldn't let him do that. He'd drill into Kogaiji's head that I was dead and make him realize that finding my body wouldn't be any good to anyone. I was glad Kogaiji had Dokugakuji. I didn't want him spending all his strength searching for me. I would be alright with the Sanzo Party. I hoped that Kogaiji had given up for the night and had gone home to bed- it was unlikely, but it was what I hoped. it was past Lilin's bedtime anyway, and knowing Kogaiji, he wouldn't have the heart to make her stay behind while he searched for me.
Kogaiji... I closed my eyes. Thinking about him made me feel better. His strength, his warmth, his smile... My eyes snapped open with an unsettling thought. Would he care that I was gone? I wasn't a very good subordinate to him. Everything I ever did ended up going haywire. Truth be told, I was a liabilty to him. I know that in every battle we've ever fought together, he's kept one eye on me the entire time to make sure I didn't get myself killed. He'd be better off if I were dead. I'm sure he knew that. He had to know that. Would my supposed death be a relief to Kogaiji?
"Yaone?"
"Huh?" I jumped slightly and turned to Hakkai. Firelight glinted off his hair bringing out the lighter highlights in it.
"You look like something's bothering you."
"I fell a thousand feet or more off a dragon, landed in an ice cold river, had my body thrown into five rocks at thirty or so miles an hour, ripped all the skin off my knees because someone told me it was fashionable to have your kneecaps showing, then got sake thrown over them while they were still raw. Is something bothering me? Let me think: Yes."
Hakkai swallowed. "I'm sorry."
My throat caught. Hakkai had never been anything but nice to me and here I was bitching him out for being concerned about me. "No, I'm sorry Hakkai. I... It's just..." Kogaiji's annoyed face flashed through my mind. "I've had a long day. I'm sorry for snapping at you like that."
"It's okay Yaone. You have had a long day. Maybe you should go to bed now?"
I should have said yes. I should have said I was tired. My eyes were starting to get heavy and I was tired but instead I declined. "I want to stay up a little longer. I need to think about what I'm going to do. How to get back to Kogaiji-sama."
"You're welcome to stay with us for awhile. Until Kogaiji finds out you're with us and comes to get you. He'll find you soon enough if you're with us."
"I'm sure he will," I gave Hakkai a tired smile. "But it might be longer than you think. Whenever one of Kogaiji-sama's closest friends die he either avenges their death or goes into a period of mourning in which he cares about nothing for at least a week." Would Kogaiji grieve for me? I didn't want him to be sad, but if he didn't grieve for me then that would mean I wasn't one of his close friends. I wasn't sure which would hurt more; Kogaiji grieving for me or Kogaiji not caring if I was dead or not.
Kogaiji, I clutched my head in my hands. There's nothing I understand less than you. Why do I feel so strongly about you? I never wanted to be so dependent or so in love with anyone. In fact I swore I never would. So why, what is it about you that twists me around your finger?
Hakkai's arm settled around my shoulders again. I tensed and resisted the overwhelming urge to shrug him off. What was wrong with me? Hakkai was my friend who'd saved and spared my life. He'd rested his arm around my shoulders before that night, so why was I so disgusted when he did so this time?
Because he's not Kogaiji, I answered my own question. He's not Kogaiji.
"It's okay Yaone. You can stay with us as long as you need to."
"I couldn't do that," I said quickly. "I have no money, no way to repay you-"
"You don't need to. We're using the Three Aspects' credit card.
I blinked.
"So you can stay with us as long as you need to."
"I don't think I could last very long with Dokugakuji's brother," I said honestly. "We'd be at each other's throats as soon as I got my strength back. And any way, I need to get back to Kogaiji-sama as soon as possible."
"You don't want him to be in pain," Hakkai said, understandingly.
I nodded. If he is in pain, I added silently.
"You care about him?"
Was it just me or did everything seem to be spinning in circles today? "He's my overlord and my friend. Yes I care about him."
"But not like..."
"We're just friends," I said. I don't know if Hakkai realized that I didn't give him a direct answer. I don't think he did because he pulled my closer to him so that I was leaning against his side.
"Are you warm enough?" he asked.
"Yes," I said, nodding.
Hakkai took one of my hands in his and I let him. His embrace felt good. Warm. It made me feel secure, something that I hadn't felt in a long time.
He likes me, I thought numbly as he reached out hesitantly and touched my hair. He likes me. Dear gods, Hakkai likes me!
I don't know why that meant so much to me. I know that plenty of other males like me. More than plenty, more than I know what to do with! Everyone from low born trashy humans to members of the yokai nobility. Disgusting guys mainly, people like Ni and humans with the same mentality as Gojo, ugly dogs whose mothers couldn't even love them and some pretty good looking guys. But they only saw the surface. They only liked me for my pretty face- when they were looking at it that is. Hakkai's infatuation with me wasn't like that. He actually knew me, as well as anyone save Kogaiji, Lilin, and Dokugakuji, knew me. Even better than my own parents probably since, even though I loved them, didn't speak with them about much. He may not have known all about my history and all that jazz, but he knew what kind of a person I was. And he liked me! I was flattered!
That was the first time I'd been flattered because a boy liked me in years. Maybe that was why I allowed what happened next to happen.
Hakkai released my hand and gently touched my chin, tilting my head up and toward him. I looked into his eyes. They were so green. He looked back at me with a question in those green, green eyes of his. If I'd pulled back or if I'd shaken my head no, he would have stopped dead. But I didn't. And Hakkai leaned in close and put his lips over mine. He kissed me softly and wrapped his other arm around my back, pressing his body against mine.
A meamory flashed through my mind of the first time I met Hakkai. It was in a bar a couple hundred miles east of where we were now. The Great Peaceful House Bar or something like that. I'd infiltrated the bar staff as a waitress to kill him and his friends by poisoning their food. A large, human, perverted male had started bothering me so one of the Sanzo Party, either Hakkai or Gojo I think, threw an ash tray and hit the man in the head with it. I did poison their food but before they could take a bite of it, that man grabbed me and started trying to- well he was... he was a pervert. Enough said. And so Hakkai stepped in to get him off me and his table ended up getting flipped, poisoned food and all.
I must have looked horrified because Hakkai told me not to worry, that the fight wasn't my fault and he wouldn't let that human get away with what he'd been trying to do to me. And the whole Sanzo Party got involved in the bar fight! Then I'd sprayed sleeping gas into the bar. I would have cut all their throats as they slipped into a drugged sleep. I know it would have been a cold thing to do but it also would have been very practical.
Hakkai didn't breath in any of the gas and needless to say, stayed awake. That was when I fought him for the first time. He beat me. I would have blown up the bar but while I was in the process of poisoning their food, Hakkai must have dismantled my explosives. So I was left with nothing else to do but kill myself.
And I would have but Hakkai stopped me. He pitied me, which I hated, and wanted to make sure that I was alright.
Tentatively, I raised my arms and wrapped them around Hakkai's neck, trying to keep my mind in the present. Not in the past and not in the future but right at that exact moment, in Hakkai's arms.
It turned out that the past was too strong and the rest of the meamory shone through. I would have killed myself after I jumped back and got away from Hakkai, but Kogaiji came and stopped me. I can still remember the words that we exchanged once we were out of the remnants of the bar.
"Are you hurt?" Kogaiji asked me.
"No," I said, hanging my head. I couldn't meet his gaze after my failure. "I'm alright. But I'm so sorry Kogaiji-sama! I failed... and then I was saved by you. I'm prepared to die for my failure-"
"DON'T YOU DARE SAY THAT?!" Kogaiji screamed.
My head snapped up in surprise as Kogaiji continued.
"I've never had any subordinates stupid enough to throw their own lives away before! Or are you trying to get out of your vow of service to me?"
"No," I said quickly. "I will stay by your side, Kogaiji-sama, until my life is exhausted."
Until my life is exhausted...
"No!" I shoved Hakkai away with both hands and jumped up. "No."
Hakkai stared up at me and started to rise. "Yaone..."
"I'm sorry Hakkai," I said, stepping back. My vision blurred with tears and I put one hand to my face. "I'm sorry, but... but... I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."
"Yaone, no," Hakkai faced me. "I'm sorry. I had no right to come onto you like that. Oh gods, you must think I'm terrible. No, Yaone, I'm not like that. I just... I don't know. I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault," I said quickly. "And I don't think any less of you, Hakkai. I know you're not like that. And it's not that... it's not that you're not a nice boy. It's just... I..."
"It's alright Yaone," Hakkai said. "I understand."
Did he really? Could he really? I looked at him, really looked at him, and into those brilliant green eyes and found myself wishing they were beautiful violet instead. Like Kogaiji's...
"I should go," I said, backing up.
"No. No Yaone, it's two in the morning. Please stay with us tonight. I'm sorry, Yaone. Please stay..."
I bit my lip and tried to hold in my tears. "I'll stay," I said finally. "But I have to leave tomorrow."
Hakkai nodded and pointed to several blankets that someone had laid out by the fire. "You can sleep there." He walked to the other side of the fire and laid down on a similar bedroll.
I walked to the blankets and laid down, pulling one over me. "Thank you Hakkai. And I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault Yaone. It's mine, and I'm sorry."
I buried my face in the blanket to smother my sobs.
It was Kogaiji who I loved. I knew that now more than ever. It had always been Kogaiji. I regret hurting Hakkai. I know I hurt him and I didn't mean to, but I can't make myself love someone else. Kogaiji's the only one there is for me, even if I'm not the one for him. Kissing Hakkai had made me realize that. And now I know my own heart, even if I don't know Kogaiji's. I could wallow in self pity because Kogaiji doesn't love me forever and it won't change anything.
So I'll go back to be by his side again, I told myself. If only as his friend. And I'll pretend I don't love him, even though he's got my heart in his hands, I won't let him know.
I lay there for several hours until I was sure Hakkai was asleep, then I stood and neatly folded my blankets, preparing to leave. Something made me look across the fire where Hakkai lay sleeping, one blanket thrown off him, dangerously close to the fire. I crept over to him and picked it up and covered him, then scooped up my stack of still damp clothes. "I'll return yours," I whispered to my sleeping friend. My sleeping enemy. "I promise." And then I left.
Traveling on the road that the Sanzo Party was taking took me to a large city, one which was awake at four oclock in the morning. I convinced the pilot of a small, personal plane to take me to the closest human city to the castle for free- no I did not sell myself. All I did was smile- and forget to button the shoulder snaps on my borrowed shirt, but why sweat the details. Oh yeah, so the humans wouldn't lynch me, I hid my ears under my hair and hid my claws.
From the human city I had a good three hours walk to the castle. I spotted some yokai dragon riders and tried to wave them down but they did respond. No way in hell Kogaiji or anyone else expected me to be this close to the castle this soon.
By the time I reached the castle my feet were blistering, my knees were throbbing, my back was aching and my head was killing me. I know I didn't look like much since I'd stopped caring about my appearance after I left the city. The guards tried to stop me from entering the castle.
"Halt! State your name and your business with the Great Empress Gyokumen!"
"I'm pissed off!" I snapped. "And you're going to get the fuck out of my way!"
They tried to cut me off with their spears but hey, they were only a couple of decades older than I was and I knew every spear trick in the book. Both my hands shot out, spinning their spears so that they struck their own wielders' heads, knocking them out.
"So back off!" I stormed past them and headed straight for Kogaiji's wing. "Stupid creatures. Only half a cut above humans. Why don't they just get a couple of orangutans to guard the doors if they want something ugly, weak, and humanoid?"
I didn't encounter many people between the main part of the castle and Kogaiji's wing. Those who did see me didn't pay me any heed. I don't really blame them. If I saw some scruffy, beat up girl hobbling through the castle halls I'd write her off as a servant and move on.
Kogaiji's wing was nearly deserted. My keen ears could pick up on noises coming from inside several of the rooms, but there was no one in the hall way. I limped to my room, closed the door, threw myself to the floor immediately, and slept, not caring that the shades were wide open and the sun was streaming, washing over my face. I was so tired, I could have slept on a bed of nails or hot coals. Only pure determination kept me from falling asleep by the side of the road.
Even though you know I'm down
You just act like nothing's wrong,
You might look my way and frown,
But then you smile and just move on.
Do you know another loves me?
Would you care if I were gone?
Even if I didn't love him
Stayed in his arms until dawn?
And drug myself back home to bed,
While you were still energetic
And said not a single word at all,
But screamed that I'm pathetic.
The sun was setting when I awoke. My first thought was of Kogaiji. I hadn't meant to sleep so long. I staggered to my feet and let myself out into the hallway. Where would Kogaiji be right now? I wondered. The training rooms seemed like a likely place. Often when he's under stress, Kogaiji likes to destroy training equipment. If he hadn't gone into his period of mourning or wasn't still out looking for me- if he ever looked in the first place- or in conference with the empress, he'd probably be there.
"Kogaiji-sama?" I asked, looking into his favorite training room. Empty. I checked the second one. Several of his lesser subordinates were practicing. "Excuse me?" I called. "Where might I find Kogaiji-sama right now?"
They looked right at me and gave me a disdainful look. "Prince Kogaiji has locked himself in his room and won't see anyone other than his sister or Dokugakuji. He certainly won't see riff-raff like you."
Riff-raff huh? I smiled sweetly. "Thank you for your time. I will go see Kogaiji-sama now."
They muttered a few choice words as I left, but I didn't care. I stumbled to Kogaiji's room as fast as I could and knocked on the door.
Silence. I knocked again.
"Go AWAY!!!" Kogaiji had never sounded more exasperated. My hand froze in mid-knock. Kogaiji was really upset. Over me? Was he really that upset over me?
I rapped the door again with my knuckles. "Kogaiji-sama?"
"I SAID GO AWAY!!!" Kogaiji screamed, his voice breaking. "If I have to tell you again, I swear to Nataku, I will KILL YOU!!!"
"Kogaiji-" I started then stopped. Kogaiji might just decide to blast the door and whoever was behind it. I glanced up and down the hall to make sure no one was watching, then I pulled a hair pin out of my hair. Surprise! I still had it after a million mile fall into a rock infested river and a fifty million mile walk! I slipped it into the key hole and pulled out a second hair pin, inserting it over the first. With only a slight twist of the second pin and a gentle push, the door clicked open. I opened it the rest of the way and stepped into Kogaiji's room.
Kogaiji-sama's room was shrouded in complete darkness. Light from the hall spilled in, announcing my presence. I saw him laying face down on his bed, fully dressed even if his clothes were slightly wrinkled, the long locks of his hair spilling off the side of the bed.
"Kogaiji-sama?" I asked again.
"I told you to GO AWAY!!!" Kogaiji screamed, sitting up very suddenly and hurling his pillow across the room. It caught me in the chest and sent me back against the hallway wall. I cried out as my injured back crushed into the stones and slumped to the floor. I am very, very glad that I did not grow up with Kogaiji. He must have been a terror in pillow fights even when he was a little kid.
"Kogaiji-sama!" I cried out, struggling to stand. After so much abuse my body finally stopped listening to my commands and I slumped back against the wall, next to helpless. All I could to was hold my hands out before me, preparing to fend off another attack. However, I did manage to get the damned pillow far enough away so that anyone who came upon the situation wouldn't know that I'd been slammed into the wall by a pollow. I still had my pride, believe it or not!
The next attack didn't come. I finally stopped cringing and looked up. Kogaiji was staring at me with a look of wonder on his adorable face. "Ya- Yaone?!" he asked, his voice cracking again. "Yaone, is that really you?!"
I opened my mouth to respond but choked, so I nodded instead.
Kogaiji stayed rooted to the ground for a moment longer, just staring at me, his mouth hanging open. Finally he seemed to come out of his trance and blinked rapidly. "YAONE!!!" he shouted even louder than he had for me to go away. The next thing I knew, Kogaiji had scooped me up in his arms and was crushing me in a bear hug. "Yaone! Are you alright? Where were you?! What the hell happened last night? Are you alright? Yaone..."
I hugged Kogaiji back the best I could, then tried to pull back and stand on my own two feet. "I'm alright, Kogaiji-sama," I said, brushing some of the hair out of my face. "Just a little bruised," I added as I nearly fell over. I would have fallen if Kogaiji hadn't caught me and scooped me up again.
"I thought I'd lost you... Yaone, I thought you were dead, or lying injured and dying somewhere where I couldn't get to you. I thought you weren't going to come back, I thought I'd never see you again..."
Good gods! Kogaiji was rambling! About me of all people!
"I told you Kogaiji," I said, suddenly feeling very tired again. "I will stay by your side, Kogaiji-sama, until my life is exhausted."
A few days later most things were back to normal. I was watching over Lilin again, much more carefully this time, and Kogaiji was treating me like normal again. Normal being over protective when he really noticed me and like excess baggage when he didn't.
"Hello, Yaone," I heard a nasal voice say.
I cringed, and without turning around muttered, "Hello, Ni."
"I haven't spoken to you in a while," he said, walking around in front of me. "I heard you had yourself quite an adventure."
"And maybe someday I'll tell you all about it," I responded cheerfully. When hell freezes over, of course. I haven't told anyone all about what happened. Not Kogaiji, not Hakkai. Neither of them knows the whole story, only me, and I'll never tell them. Hakkai doesn't need to know that it was my suicidal tendencies that led me to him that night, results of my obsession with Kogaiji. Kogaiji doesn't know that I allowed Hakkai to kiss me, what's more, kissed him back. I'm not sure how he would feel about it, but for some reason I don't think it would make him too happy. Maybe he does feel something for me, similar to what I feel for him, only not nearly as strong.
"Your prince seems quite happy to have you back," Ni said. There was something about the tone of his voice that I didn't like. He was setting me up for something.
"I AM his friend," I said pointedly. "If the situation had been reversed, I'd be very glad when he came home too."
"Yes, I'm sure Kogaiji would hate to a 'friend' like you. You're quite a unique one, you know, Yaone. Very beautiful. Smart. And spirited."
I was tired of Ni's round about ways of insulting Kogaiji and I and trying to get me in his bed. "What's your point, Ni?" I demanded.
"My point?" Ni asked innocently. "I was merely praising your finer attributes. With your talents and looks, you could advance much further you know."
"What are you talking about?" My patience was growing thin. "Advance further than what?"
"Than being Kogaiji's cocubine, of course," Ni leered at me. "Even his first choice as a cocubine. Really, you are much too good for Kogaiji, that Prince of Rabbits. Prince of Rabbits! That's a good one! I shall have to remember- AHH!"
I turned to walk away as Ni fell to the ground, grabbing himself. My knee hurt, but it had been worth it!
"What did you do that for?!" Ni whined.
"What did I do what for?" I asked, looking down at him with mock innocence. "You fell, Ni." I knelt down so that my face was inches from his and gave him my sweetest smile. "And every time you insult me or my prince you're GOING to fall down," I said in that same disgustingly sweet tone. I stood, turned on my heel, kicked a little bit of dust into the perverted, bunny slipper wearing, boil faced, parasite infested, greasy, sadistic, son of a bitch, bastard's face, and walked away, my thoughts turning to Kogaiji.
I love him. I really, really love him. I never even knew the meaning of the word love until I met him. And even if I can never be anything other than his friend, I will always love him, and I will always be by his side to help him in whatever way I can.
I remember when I asked Kogaiji why he saved me from the Hundred Eyed Demon King a few years ago. His response had been that what happened to the girls the Demon King went through was pathetic.
Pathetic. That's what I am now. I'm so in love with Kogaiji. And I'm never going to be truely happy because Kogaiji doesn't love me the way that I love him. Doesn't love me as anything other than a friend. And part of what Ni said was true. I don't mean to sound conceited, but I know that I am beautiful, and smart, and spirited. I have the potential to do almost anything I want to. But I'm also very loyal. And I'm also very in love. And when you're in love with someone as much as I am with Kogaiji, then whatever else you are, you're also... pathetic.
Once in awhile you treat me
Like I'm someone you could love.
Once in awhile you treat me
Like I'm some fragile dove.
Once in awhile you hold me
Like you'd hold me if you cared,
But you back away the moment
You see my heart is bared.
And even though you turn away,
Your heart is still magnetic,
I'm drawn behind you helplessly,
God help me, I'm pathetic...