Chapter Three
And if Hakkai was taking his time, that didn't necessarily mean anything, Gojyo reminded himself as he paced down the street, a thin whipping snatch of wind blowing at his trousers and ruffling his hair. And if he was being a little longer with the shopping than expected, perhaps that only meant that he'd found somewhere that sold cigarettes in this godforsaken dump of a dried-up town. And if Hakuryuu was sitting there quietly in his jeep form and wouldn't reply to anything he said to the little dragon, then that was probably a good thing too. Yeah. Sure.
And if Sanzou had told him to go out and find Hakkai himself if he was so damn worried about him, then that was Sanzou being Sanzou being a tight-assed bastard of a monk.
And if Goku wanted to stay and stare at Sanzou, or argue with him, or do whatever, then that was what Goku was going to do.
And it was damn quiet out here.
Gojyo clenched his fists, then carefully rejected the thought of summoning his weapon. There was nothing out here to be frightened of, after all. There literally wasn't anything to attack him, anybody to threaten him.
If only he could find Hakkai and be reassured that there really was nothing wrong.
Nothing grew here. Dust choked the dried remnants of weeds and sand lay thick around the roots of dried trees that curled in on themselves, senescent and hollow, without even the grace to rot properly and give something back to the earth. This whole town felt that way. If he prodded the houses around him, they'd fall over like a pack of cards.
And the worst of it all was, Gojyo tried not to recognise, was you began to feel that way yourself here. Swagger drained away and confidence trickled out and was lost. You started to feel like an empty shell . . .
He raised one hand to touch his hair. Blood, Hakkai had said. The crimson of his hair, his halfbreed hair, had been enough to hold Hakkai in the present, or Gonou as he'd been then, though it had been a while before he even knew the stranger's name. It had kept him alive. That had made it worth something.
There were no children here. Why?
His feet crunched in the sand of the street. The route he'd taken should have brought him round in a circle back to the inn, but the houses around him were unfamiliar.
That settled it. This wasn't just his imagination. It rarely was, after all. The others were the ones who had overactive imaginations, long periods of brooding, and conspiracy theories about mysterious manipulators and dark conspiracies and dubious Bodhisattvas. He was the practical one, the down-to-earth one. If he thought there was some weird shit going on here, then there was.
Yet all this time, she cries for her child.
Gojyo straightened, falling automatically into combat readiness as the shadow of a voice brushed the back of his mind, not quite heard, barely comprehended.
For her child.
He remembered the smell of wayside flowers. They couldn't grow here, of course. Nothing grew here. No children, either. Nobody to run out by the side of the road and come back with their hands full of flowers and their knees streaked green from the grass and . . .
"What is this shit?" he said aloud.
There had to be someone in all these houses. He'd have an answer if he had to shake it out of them. He was Gojyo, dammit, Sa Gojyo, big man, adult, able to take care of himself. He didn't need this shit. He was over it. It was gone, right? It was done with, right?
Gojyo realised that he had been speaking aloud for several minutes, and that his voice hung in the air like the sound of a dull bell, echoing and humming in the stillness.
Jien had put an end to that with his sword. He'd cut away any possibility of it going on, set Gojyo free from both his mother and himself.
With a sudden spurt of movement, trying to seize control of the situation again, Gojyo stalked across to a randomly chosen door, and beat against it with his right hand. "Hey! Open up in there, you! Open up!"
Muffled noises drifted through the door, as dim and vague as the voice of a forgotten lover heard in dreams.
you're my precious you're the only one I love
but you know she'll never say that
"Let me in," he whispered.
The door opened.
The flowers lay scattered on the floor, stems uneven and ragged as they had been when he picked them, leaves crushed from when he'd held onto them desperately tight. It had been a sudden swooping decision, a great feeling of rightness, as he'd pulled them from where they grew and gone running home with them. It had been so absolutely the perfect moment as he ran down the path with loose petals falling by the wayside, knowing that he was taking them home for his mother.
Didn't you want to be her child? Her child, her true child, the one she would have looked at the way she looked at Jien, the one she would have smiled at, have held close, have petted and told how good you were when you brought her flowers . . .
And some part of Gojyo's mind still tried to say, this is weird shit, get out now, but the rest of his thoughts said, yes, yes, I did, I wanted that, I still want that.
I know you do, the voice whispered, moving through him like the desert wind, as though he was a ghost stepped back from the future to walk in a past that had become present.
He knew what the sounds coming from the inner room were. He remembered hearing them. He still heard them sometimes in dreams.
Here you'll never have her. But here you'll never lose her.
"Stop it," Gojyo whispered, and his voice cracked like a child's.
This is the worst thing in the world. It's what you want. Don't stop listening. Don't look away. Simply exist. This is where you are punished for existing, taboo child. This is where the pain starts.
Because even through what she's saying, what she's gasping, you can still hear her crying, can't you?
---
The dry river is patient. The dry river offers what you have always wanted. It knows that in time you will accept the worst thing in the world and hold on to it.
The dry river does not listen to people who claim otherwise.
It knows what's best for you.
It keeps the little rooms all ready and swept and garnished, waiting for you to step back into your past, so that you will have no excuse to leave it. It polishes the stones on mountain peaks and it washes the monastery walls with rain and it lights the torches in the dungeons so that you will have no cause to complain.
The dry river wants you to stay. And never die.
---
And if Hakkai was taking his time, that didn't necessarily mean anything, Gojyo reminded himself as he paced down the street, a thin whipping snatch of wind blowing at his trousers and ruffling his hair. And if he was being a little longer with the shopping than expected, perhaps that only meant that he'd found somewhere that sold cigarettes in this godforsaken dump of a dried-up town. And if Hakuryuu was sitting there quietly in his jeep form and wouldn't reply to anything he said to the little dragon, then that was probably a good thing too. Yeah. Sure.
And if Sanzou had told him to go out and find Hakkai himself if he was so damn worried about him, then that was Sanzou being Sanzou being a tight-assed bastard of a monk.
And if Goku wanted to stay and stare at Sanzou, or argue with him, or do whatever, then that was what Goku was going to do.
And it was damn quiet out here.
Gojyo clenched his fists, then carefully rejected the thought of summoning his weapon. There was nothing out here to be frightened of, after all. There literally wasn't anything to attack him, anybody to threaten him.
If only he could find Hakkai and be reassured that there really was nothing wrong.
Nothing grew here. Dust choked the dried remnants of weeds and sand lay thick around the roots of dried trees that curled in on themselves, senescent and hollow, without even the grace to rot properly and give something back to the earth. This whole town felt that way. If he prodded the houses around him, they'd fall over like a pack of cards.
And the worst of it all was, Gojyo tried not to recognise, was you began to feel that way yourself here. Swagger drained away and confidence trickled out and was lost. You started to feel like an empty shell . . .
He raised one hand to touch his hair. Blood, Hakkai had said. The crimson of his hair, his halfbreed hair, had been enough to hold Hakkai in the present, or Gonou as he'd been then, though it had been a while before he even knew the stranger's name. It had kept him alive. That had made it worth something.
There were no children here. Why?
His feet crunched in the sand of the street. The route he'd taken should have brought him round in a circle back to the inn, but the houses around him were unfamiliar.
That settled it. This wasn't just his imagination. It rarely was, after all. The others were the ones who had overactive imaginations, long periods of brooding, and conspiracy theories about mysterious manipulators and dark conspiracies and dubious Bodhisattvas. He was the practical one, the down-to-earth one. If he thought there was some weird shit going on here, then there was.
Yet all this time, she cries for her child.
Gojyo straightened, falling automatically into combat readiness as the shadow of a voice brushed the back of his mind, not quite heard, barely comprehended.
For her child.
He remembered the smell of wayside flowers. They couldn't grow here, of course. Nothing grew here. No children, either. Nobody to run out by the side of the road and come back with their hands full of flowers and their knees streaked green from the grass and . . .
"What is this shit?" he said aloud.
There had to be someone in all these houses. He'd have an answer if he had to shake it out of them. He was Gojyo, dammit, Sa Gojyo, big man, adult, able to take care of himself. He didn't need this shit. He was over it. It was gone, right? It was done with, right?
Gojyo realised that he had been speaking aloud for several minutes, and that his voice hung in the air like the sound of a dull bell, echoing and humming in the stillness.
Jien had put an end to that with his sword. He'd cut away any possibility of it going on, set Gojyo free from both his mother and himself.
With a sudden spurt of movement, trying to seize control of the situation again, Gojyo stalked across to a randomly chosen door, and beat against it with his right hand. "Hey! Open up in there, you! Open up!"
Muffled noises drifted through the door, as dim and vague as the voice of a forgotten lover heard in dreams.
you're my precious you're the only one I love
but you know she'll never say that
"Let me in," he whispered.
The door opened.
The flowers lay scattered on the floor, stems uneven and ragged as they had been when he picked them, leaves crushed from when he'd held onto them desperately tight. It had been a sudden swooping decision, a great feeling of rightness, as he'd pulled them from where they grew and gone running home with them. It had been so absolutely the perfect moment as he ran down the path with loose petals falling by the wayside, knowing that he was taking them home for his mother.
Didn't you want to be her child? Her child, her true child, the one she would have looked at the way she looked at Jien, the one she would have smiled at, have held close, have petted and told how good you were when you brought her flowers . . .
And some part of Gojyo's mind still tried to say, this is weird shit, get out now, but the rest of his thoughts said, yes, yes, I did, I wanted that, I still want that.
I know you do, the voice whispered, moving through him like the desert wind, as though he was a ghost stepped back from the future to walk in a past that had become present.
He knew what the sounds coming from the inner room were. He remembered hearing them. He still heard them sometimes in dreams.
Here you'll never have her. But here you'll never lose her.
"Stop it," Gojyo whispered, and his voice cracked like a child's.
This is the worst thing in the world. It's what you want. Don't stop listening. Don't look away. Simply exist. This is where you are punished for existing, taboo child. This is where the pain starts.
Because even through what she's saying, what she's gasping, you can still hear her crying, can't you?
---
The dry river is patient. The dry river offers what you have always wanted. It knows that in time you will accept the worst thing in the world and hold on to it.
The dry river does not listen to people who claim otherwise.
It knows what's best for you.
It keeps the little rooms all ready and swept and garnished, waiting for you to step back into your past, so that you will have no excuse to leave it. It polishes the stones on mountain peaks and it washes the monastery walls with rain and it lights the torches in the dungeons so that you will have no cause to complain.
The dry river wants you to stay. And never die.
---
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