Disclaimer: Characters of Gensoumaden Saiyuki belong to Minekura Kazuya.
Note: Some knowledge of the manga/CD drama required, up to Reload 2. Consequently, this fic contains spoilers for the manga/CD drama.
"So tell me," a thirty-ish man with a pale gaunt face said as he laced his fingers together. "Why is a character from a popular manga finding it necessary to see me?"
A smoky voice, debonair with just a hint of roughness at the edge, answered from the black leather couch in front of the man's imposing mahogany desk.
"A GP referred me to you, doc. Says I'm depressed, and might have this thing she calls 'repressed anger', whatever that means."
From his place in the dimly lit room, our hapless psychiatrist could see a flash of crimson from the back of the couch as the patient tossed his long hair flippantly. The couch had been placed such that whoever sitting (or lying) on it would be facing away from the psychiatrist's desk. Supposedly it would take away whatever inhibition patients would have in divulging their problems.
"We will be able to determine that, by…" The shrink started to say, and was interrupted by the man on the patient's couch.
"At least I'm not having problems attracting 'em babes."
"Well, I am sure you don't, Mr __" Dr Shrinkem glanced at the chart on his desk. "__ Sha. May I address you as Gojyo?"
"Sure, no problem, doc."
"As I was saying about attracting the opposite sex…"
"Oh, men are no problem too. Why, just the other day, Hak -"
Dr Shrinkem took a deep breath when he saw that his knuckles were turning white. Won't this patient stop interrupting him? He'll have a full, uninterrupted forty minutes to talk for the whole session. The psychiatrist half-wished he had listened to his mother and become a plumber instead.
Restraining himself from the cutting remark that had already risen to his throat, Shrinkem said, just as the patient reached the end of his discourse about his seduction of a certain man with a pretty face: "All right, Gojyo. Now, tell me what seems to make you depressed lately. Or anything that causes you to feel anger, however trivial they might have seemed to you."
"But there is really no such thing, doc. I'm just having problems sleeping lately, and …"
This time, it was Shrinkem who cut in, fully aware that he was breaking one of the golden rules of his profession: Never interrupt the patient. "Or anything on your mind at this moment? Anything."
Even from where he was, sprawling comfortably on the couch, Gojyo must have heard the irritation in the psychiatrist's voice.
"Okay," he said contritely. "Could we talk about my sleep problem?"
"Go on," Shrinkem replied, eyeing the clock on his desk. Thirty-seven more minutes to go.
"You see, ever since the incidence with the spider demon, we are not allowed our own personal activities anymore. The four of us have to… what's the word for it…erm…"
"Stick together?" Shrinkem offered.
"Yeah. We have to stick together, and that means I have no choice but to spend the night with Goku, you know, the kid, if we manage to get two rooms at the inn. Sometimes it is worse when all we can manage is one room, for all four of us. Can you imagine that, doc? All four men, three of them fully-grown, stuffed inside one typical room at the inn. Why are rooms so hard to get anyway?"
"Tourist boom, I guess," Shrinkem answered perfunctorily.
"Maybe. Well, that kid, he talks in his sleep, and you can practically hear him drool even from across the room. And the things he talks about - they never change. Food food food. He must have memorized the menus of every single restaurant we have ever been to. You don't know how morbid it gets after sometime, doc. There I was, one frustrated horny guy thinking about the wonderful lay he might have gotten if he could only get out for the night, and there was this retard calling out the names of all possible dishes in Tougenkyo in his sleep. Do you know how that feels, doc?"
"I see," Shrinkem responded. "If that's the sole reason you could not sleep, why didn't you ask for a change of rooming partner?"
"That's not all there is to it!" A fine crack showed on the suave facade for the first time since the patient stepped into the consulting room. "There are also these disturbing noises, which always come from the adjoining room. Aside from the moans and groans, there are also this racket which sounds suspiciously like paper hitting flesh, like, the sound you make when you hit someone in musical chair with a rolled-up newspaper, you ever play that game, doc?"
Shrinkem opened his mouth to answer, but Gojyo obviously was not expecting one, since he had gone on:
"Why can't Sanzo, you know, the monk, and Hakkai take some room at the other corner of the inn? Don't they know how thin the walls are at these budget inns?"
"The stick-together policy?" Shrinkem answered this time.
"Stick-together my ass!" A bitter laugh was heard from the couch. "Well, bad pun, I guess. So, now you see why a change of roommate is not feasible. And, shortly before the noises begin, the pet will make his appearance in our room." At the mention of the "pet", the patient heaved a heavy, sad sigh. Shrinkem recognized the significance of that sigh, and filed it away for reference. The patient's resentment is probably tied to the way his fellow travelers are treating him, but it also has a lot to do with the pet.
"How could Sanzo be so inconsiderate!" Gojyo had found a smooth track to run on now. "Shooing Jeep away from his place in the basket so that he and Hakkai could have their fun and disturb the occupants in other rooms as well! That man is so self-centered, so conceited. Always pointing his silly little gun at Goku and me. Always throwing insults about my intelligence. 'Is your head there for nothing but decoration?'" Gojyo mimicked his fellow traveler's sardonic tone. "Well, my head is fine, thank you, so what if it is also decorative?"
Shrinkem congratulated himself silently. He had hit the bull's eyes with his guess about the main source of the patient's 'repressed anger'. He understood that Gojyo's last question was rhetorical, and let the man rant on.
"I saved that smelly monk's life once, and do you know how he thanked me? The skin on my hands had been scoured when I pulled him from the cliff, so I couldn't light my cigarette with them. He let me lie there, on the ground, with an unlit fag on my lips while he grilled me with his "why-did-you-save-me" routine before condescending to light my cigarette for me! And before I was even halfway through it, he kicked my poor 'decorative' head and ordered me to get up." As he went on, Gojyo was sounding more and more sardonic, but his was a sad kind of sarcasm, not the Sanzo's contemptuous brand of sarcasm.
"… Then there was this incidence at the river. We had fallen off our boat in this skirmish with those water demons. So everyone clung to whatever was cling-able… and that monk had to choose the same trunk I was clinging on. He told me I could go and sink and not come up again for all he cared, and at the same time he was… groping me. I mean, I don't mind being groped by a pretty lass anytime, but this smelly monk, not to mention all the times he had lorded it over us… Have you ever been sexually harassed by your superior, doc? A professor, a supervisor, whatever?"
"I have not been that unfortunate, Gojyo," Shrinkem answered neutrally.
"I feel like smoking now. Can I light up here?"
"I'm afraid this building is a non-smoking area, Gojyo. You can go outside though. However, I must remind you that you have __" a discrete glance at the clock, "__ eighteen more minutes left in this session."
"Ah, all right. I can do without a smoke for now, I guess," Gojyo said resignedly. "My, when you said that, you did sound like my best friend, Hakkai, you know, the driver of our group. He is always like, 'Don't put your cigarette butts in beer cans, Gojyo, please make good use of the ashtray.'" Gojyo's imitation of Hakkai was less successful than his earlier impersonation of Sanzo. The reason was a fact that could not be gouged out of Gojyo's lips, not even with the best thumbscrews in the world: He was more similar to his erstwhile fellow traveler the smelly monk than he would ever care to admit.
"Well, Hakkai never cusses and he ain't no fan of physical 'correction', but he is capable of mental cruelty all the same. He can nag so. 'Please separate the flammables from the non-flammables before you take the garbage out, Gojyo, you know the mayor has complained about this many times already', or 'Don't put your feet up the table', or 'Don't flick ash on Jeep's seat'… I can go on and on. And he was such a gossip. Chumming around with the old wags of the town we used to live in, he took in all the gossips about my escapades with the ladies, and repeat them to the group during our rides on Jeep. He purposely does that to embarrass me."
"And why do you think he might want to embarrass you?" Shrinkem shot a question at random, after an interminably long pause.
"Urgh, I don't know. To get back at me for all the times I mixed up the garbage, I guess." There was a pause again after this statement as the patient fidgeted with his ornate lighter. Although Shrinkem could not see the fidgeting, he could sense the hesitation. Ah, he thought, the final straw, I guess. Would the so-called pet feature in it, I wonder? Shrinkem stole a glance at the clock again. Time was almost up, and he was wondering if he should make his bye-bye speech and usher this patient out of the office. Before he could decide, though, the patient had spoken up:
"I can put up with all that I have told you, doc. But I can't, just can't put up with the fact that, in my best friend's estimation, I am worth less than a car, even considering that the car is also our pet, Jeep. I keep hearing his voice in my mind 'We didn't even have this much trouble when Gojyo disappeared' - that was what he said the night Jeep went missing."
"I think I can tell you this, Gojyo: Your sleep trouble is rooted to depression and resentment, which in turn are due to the fact that you don't think you are appreciated enough by your comrades," Shrinkem begun, but was interrupted by a shrill shriek from the couch. The patient had stood up in his agitation, and was shouting hoarsely:
"You know nothing! You know nothing! You have never been compared to a… a… car before, and so adversely too. 'Resentment'? 'Depression'? These are nothing compared to how I feel right now!"
These were the last words Shrinkem heard before he passed out from fright at the sight of the menacing blade-and-chain contraption that had suddenly materialized in the patient's hands. When he came too again, the madman had disappeared, but his office was a mess, courtesy of Gojyo's tantrums. Nurse Shooem was hovering over him in concern.
"Are you all right, Dr Shrinkem?" she asked judiciously, dabbing his forehead with a damp towel.
"I'm fine. But, this… this…" he looked wildly around him at the damage. "How much are we going to have to pay for this?"
"It's okay, sir. That man, he seemed sorry when he walked out. Just handed me a gold credit card and asked me to charge whatever amount I think would cover the repairs… so I thought of a number, doubled it, and doubled it twice more."
"I trust in your judgment, Nurse Shooem. And if any of his friends, especially the two he mentioned, wants to come in for consultation, you tell them to admit themselves into the nearest mental institution. A.S.A.P."
"Right Dr Shrinkem, if you'll just give me their names."
The EndNote:
I am wondering if there is anyone out there who is interested in doing the versions for the other characters (or another version of Gojyo's visit to the shrink, too). If you would do one, would you consider emailing me? Why? Because, if you allow it, I would love to archive all the "shrink" fics together at my site, with links to your site/fanfics of course.
*Please ???*
*Stands up on hind feet, front paws dangling helplessly, panting cutely, eyelashes batting*