Love Affair
DISCLAIMER: If I claim to own Saiyuki then you will know that I wish to
wake up looking like a polka-dotted guinea pig singing Elvis.
A very intimate observation from the shoureijuu's POV. I think that the S&W is Sanzo's one true love and the only thing that he trusts to get rid of himself.
***
I nestle close to him. Tucked between downy robes and sinewy muscle, cushioned by a battered pack of Marlboros (in that secret space close to his heart). For protection.
His breathing is slow, accented by long drags on a cigarette. But with jaggedness borrowed from heavy smoking.
He seems calm for the while. The flesh I rest on is: warm, yielding, without tension. Yet the mind seethes with unquiet. In transient horror?-- or just because of taciturnity? But. . . he takes it out on the cigarette. So strange. . . to want to poison himself. But I suppose that's one way to do it. But he's got me.
He speaks. An intimate rumble that echoes within his ribcage: soft and deadly as thunder in the desert. Most of the time, it would be a growl or something close to a roar of fury. It always starts like this, until it reaches a peak when I can feel the air ripple ferociously through his compact frame.
Then, he reaches into his--yes--the hidden pocket on the left and pulls out the paper fan. Another close travelling companion. But when it gets too much and his robes start to get all stuffy, his thoughts turn to me: pressing insistently on his sternum.
He even stops breathing when he draws me from my shielded recess. A reflex gets him to cock the hammer with lily-white digits. He could do it blindfolded. Shooting, I mean.
He just turns me sideways and sights down the offender--usually the redhead. His palms are damp. Tendons grinding--he squeezes the trigger. Silence as the chamber locks. And then--
I spit and scream at his command. I can feel the recoil shudder through the arm that caresses me. But his wrist is locked, tight. Controlled by adult confidence, but the child that chose me still hates to play.
Such an optimist: he is so sure that the shots will miss them.
But when it comes to the demons. . . . He is a pessimist. He empties several rounds into their pulsing temples before he is convinced. So clean-- even clinical. Not a smear on his dazzling white robes.
I have seen the look on some faces. Just before death overtakes them. Not fear, not anger, just. . . awe. They can't seem to decide whether to believe in deliverance or damnation. He seems capable of both.
My barrel is still smoking, yet he slips me back in again. I can feel the tremor of fatigue spasm through the hand that cradles me.
But I know--he will polish me again tonight.
A very intimate observation from the shoureijuu's POV. I think that the S&W is Sanzo's one true love and the only thing that he trusts to get rid of himself.
***
I nestle close to him. Tucked between downy robes and sinewy muscle, cushioned by a battered pack of Marlboros (in that secret space close to his heart). For protection.
His breathing is slow, accented by long drags on a cigarette. But with jaggedness borrowed from heavy smoking.
He seems calm for the while. The flesh I rest on is: warm, yielding, without tension. Yet the mind seethes with unquiet. In transient horror?-- or just because of taciturnity? But. . . he takes it out on the cigarette. So strange. . . to want to poison himself. But I suppose that's one way to do it. But he's got me.
He speaks. An intimate rumble that echoes within his ribcage: soft and deadly as thunder in the desert. Most of the time, it would be a growl or something close to a roar of fury. It always starts like this, until it reaches a peak when I can feel the air ripple ferociously through his compact frame.
Then, he reaches into his--yes--the hidden pocket on the left and pulls out the paper fan. Another close travelling companion. But when it gets too much and his robes start to get all stuffy, his thoughts turn to me: pressing insistently on his sternum.
He even stops breathing when he draws me from my shielded recess. A reflex gets him to cock the hammer with lily-white digits. He could do it blindfolded. Shooting, I mean.
He just turns me sideways and sights down the offender--usually the redhead. His palms are damp. Tendons grinding--he squeezes the trigger. Silence as the chamber locks. And then--
I spit and scream at his command. I can feel the recoil shudder through the arm that caresses me. But his wrist is locked, tight. Controlled by adult confidence, but the child that chose me still hates to play.
Such an optimist: he is so sure that the shots will miss them.
But when it comes to the demons. . . . He is a pessimist. He empties several rounds into their pulsing temples before he is convinced. So clean-- even clinical. Not a smear on his dazzling white robes.
I have seen the look on some faces. Just before death overtakes them. Not fear, not anger, just. . . awe. They can't seem to decide whether to believe in deliverance or damnation. He seems capable of both.
My barrel is still smoking, yet he slips me back in again. I can feel the tremor of fatigue spasm through the hand that cradles me.
But I know--he will polish me again tonight.
