I apologize for the long delay in updating. I'm afraid that school's been pretty hard on me as of late--it's fall break now, which is the only reason why I'm able to sit down and get some writing done!! But thanks to everyone who reviewed me--it was really a good push for me to get off my butt and write another chapter, realizing that there were actually people waiting to read it!
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and it is harder than you know
to let you learn, and make you leave
for though my heartbreak does not show
when you are sad, my lad, i grieve
-----------------------------------------------
It was somehow all the more disturbing for the pleasantness of the landscape; the oak tree that supported it was sturdy and thick with foliage; the fields to either side were well-tended and filled with rows of straight young shoots. Birds sang from the low hedges that clustered by the road.
"Maybe they couldn't afford a welcome sign. You know: Entering South LuoHu, Population 145, minus one."
There was just enough wind to sway the corpse slightly by the rope around the neck, and to carry the stench of it to where they sat staring in Jeep.
Gojyo went on. "I hope it wasn't a pretty woman, you know, that would've been a waste."
"Shut up," Sanzo said briefly, and Gojyo did, so quickly that Hakkai wondered if he himself were secretly relieved at not having to feign flippancy. There was certainly nothing humorous about the sight. The corpse was black-faced, the limbs swollen. Its clothing was in tatters, the ubiquitous blue color of homespun cloth. Scavengers had already been at it, and from here he could barely tell if it had been a man or a woman, much less an attractive one.
"About six days, would you say?" Sanzo glanced at him for confirmation.
"Five," Gojyo corrected absently. "It's been warm." He looked away when they looked at him, slightly surprised. "I lived in this city once where they had to scour the alleys of the gambling quarter for bodies in the summer months, to keep them from stinking up the place too badly." He muttered the words quickly, then turned his red eyes back on them almost defiantly. But he merely saved the information in his mind, then began unfolding the map as Sanzo asked, "What do you know about the town we're coming up on?"
"Not very much, except that it's in about six miles." All these little towns were similar, ragged shapes of land marked by the bounds of fields, clustered around a larger city where the province official lived. Some were poorer than others. This one looked to be in a good enough way; at least this year LuoHu would not be facing famine.
He could feel, without looking, the corpse hanging before them on the road. Now, for the first time, he noticed that it had been very quiet. This close to a village, they normally passed at least a few travellers on the road: traders or small farmers, on their way to market, students, travelling artists, visiting relatives, the odd prodigal son.
"Are there other towns nearby?"
"The next one on the map is about another hundred or so."
Sanzo cursed under his breath. Then he stood up and thrust his arms in his sleeves. "When we are in town," he said, staring straight ahead, "We are not going to ask questions. We are not going to go out of our way. We are NOT here to save anyone or anything, understand? We are NOT going to play Sherlock fucking Holmes. Is that clear?"
"Sanzo-sama, as much as I like staring at your ass, you mind if we drive on? That smell is starting to overpower my cigarette," was Gojyo's only response. Beside him, Hakkai turned the key in the ignition.
Surprisingly, Sanzo simply sat down and kept on staring straight ahead, arms folded.
Hakkai thought, as they rattled past the tree with its strange, grotesque fruit, that it was almost as if he were waiting for a protest. None were forthcoming, although as they passed the tree he couldn't help reading the words on the wooden plaque that hung around the corpse's neck: Justice Above All. They drove on in silence with the sunset sprawled before them, flooding the fields with bloody light.
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He was running. He was running, with leaden feet, after somebody, after a light that faded and faded despite his best efforts. He was falling...
He woke up and sneezed. The little action triggered off an avalanche of hurts in his body, and he gasped as he realized how stiff and cold he was. He'd fallen asleep, maybe for an hour or two. It had still been daylight then. He gasped again, as hunger screamed through the halls of his body, tearing the wallpaper as it went. By pure instinct he got to his feet, ignoring the pain in his legs, his feet, the dizziness that nearly brought him back to the ground. He staggered for a few feet before realizing that his throat was aching with thirst, and that there was water in his pack. Remembering the pack, he whirled around and saw it lying a few paces away. Now it came to him: there was food in it as well. He dove for it, almost ripping the sturdy fabric in his haste to get it open. He emptied the contents out on the ground, sifting through the contents in a rush. He tore open a package of dried beef and chewed on a long strip while scrabbling, feeling his shriveled mouth begin to water.
Ramen. Canned corn. A bag of pretzels. It was getting dark, the sun starting to set. The light would probably stick around for another hour at most. He didn't know how far he was from a town. He didn't really know if he'd gone in the right direction. A kind of tofu-made snack that he didn't really like, but Hakkai did, so they always got some at every convenience store. A Snickers bar. Three tea eggs, looking the worse for having been lain on. Two boxes of Strawberry Pocky; there hadn't been any Almond. He was still on the road, still somewhere on the way. He wondered where he would sleep if he didn't come across the next town. He wondered if he could figure out how to start a fire without Hakkai's help. Rice balls in wax paper. A canister of jasmine tea. It was all woods, no fields to suggest that he was getting anywhere near civilization. And finally, the bag of meatbuns he'd requested from the innkeeper's wife. She'd stuck her sharp elbows out as she eyed him and said, "What do you want with that many? They'll spoil before you can eat them all." They wouldn't, he'd assured her. Her expression had softened a little as she said, "A growing lad, eh? I remember when ours was about your age...thought he'd eat us right into bankruptcy, I did..."
He'd been glad to find something that would make her more likely to give him the meatbuns. "He must've gotten pretty big, I guess, with all that food."
At that she'd stiffened slightly. "Dunno," she snapped, "He ran off when he was still a skinny little brat, like you." He was about to object to the skinny little brat part, but she interrupted him with, "You're all heartless, you kids," and stomped into the kitchen. When he'd come back with his groceries the buns had been waiting in a clean white cloth.
He bit into one now. It tasted better than anything he'd ever tasted in his life, better than even the chocolate cake he'd ordered that one time Gojyo had gotten ahold of the credit card and taken them out while Sanzo was stuck being welcomed by the local temple. That was one advantage of being just the stupid monkey. He was never welcome pretty much anywhere. It was easier to get out of boring ceremonies that way.
Maybe that was why Sanzo had decided to leave him behind. Maybe he wanted his companions to be more...respectable. It made sense, in a way. Sanzo was a high-ranking priest, even if he didn't act like one. He gnawed on his fourth meatbun, and drank half of his water in one swallow when they started to feel dense in his stomach. He'd promised Hakkai that he would try to eat more vegetables, so he took out the can of corn. Then he realized that he didn't have a can opener, that the can opener was in Hakkai's pack. It was probably sitting in Jeep's backseat right now. The backseat would have more space, with only the kappa sitting there, even if his legs were ridiculously long and he slouched all over the place.
He felt his throat beginning to knot behind his jaws and swallowed hard, trying to push it down. Now that he was chewing he found that the meat was a bit gristly, but he still wasn't about to complain. It actually hurt a little to chew. He flexed his arms experimenting, wincing when he rolled out his shoulders. Lifting up his shirt, he gaped when he saw the neat line of stitches peeking out of the top of the bandages. His left leg was also throbbing, and he ran one hand over his shin. Hakkai had tried to explain it to him before. "It's like...glue," he'd said. "When your bones get broken I sort of 'glue' them back together, but because the body still has to draw on its own reserves to knit them, you have to wait for the 'glue' to dry, or else it all comes apart again."
Just how long had he been out? He wasn't sure. Long enough for the glue to dry, he hoped, or Hakkai was going to be upset. He hated it when Hakkai was upset, because it was so hard to tell that he always just wound up worrying that Hakkai was upset. Not like Sanzo. It was obvious when Sanzo got upset. Probably Sanzo had been upset when he found out that he'd sneaked off on his own. Probably he'd been furious. Probably he hadn't cooled off for days. Probably he was still mad now.
But surely he wouldn't stay mad FOREVER. Presumably he'd once done something to make someone so mad that they'd locked him up for five hundred years. But even THAT wasn't forever, and besides, this time there weren't any chains. He said it out loud to himself, just to emphasize it.
"You can't stop me from coming back." He clenched his fists. "There aren't any chains. You made them break, remember?"
He muttered it again through the rest of the sixth bun as he massaged his sore feet. "You broke them. You came, so don't try to get out of it now!"
"What are you talking about?"
He was on his feet, Nyoibou held out before him warily, before the rest of him even registered that he was surprised. The speaker looked at him from ten feet away, eyes slightly wide. He lowered Nyoibou. "Don't sneak up on people when they're eating!" he shouted. "You scared me!"
"Well, you scared me!" she retorted, voice shaking. "Where'd that big stick come from? And I was NOT sneaking up on you, you were just too busy talking to yourself to notice!"
"Was not! Not even assassins can sneak up on me. Unless I'm asleep. And what's a little kid like you doing out in the middle of nowhere anyway?"
"I am NOT a little kid and I did TOO sneak up on you, dummy. Anyway you have to be quiet when you're catching birds, and that's what I was doing. And this isn't the middle of nowhere, we're only three miles from home."
Why did all females stick their hands on their hips like that? he wondered as he scowled at her. He'd only ever really known a few--there weren't any women at the temple for some reason, and with a few exceptions most of the ones he'd met on the journey had all been trying to kill him. This one would've reminded him of Lirin almost, except that they didn't look alike. Lirin was youkai and Gojyo had once described her as "the bouncy ball with teeth and legs." This girl was human and a little taller and looked like he could carry her in his hand if he needed to.
"Well?"
But they definitely had something in common.
"Well what?" He wished she hadn't startled him so badly. It was embarassing, being snuck up on by someone who came up to his chin. For the first time he was actually glad that he was alone. The others would never have let him live it down.
"Well, aren't you going to tell me your name?"
He picked up the piece of bun he'd dropped and tried to brush off the dirt, then gave up and stuffed it in his mouth. "Mm Gohu." He swallowed. "I'm Goku." He kept an eye on the girl as he bent down to stuff everything back into his bag. She didn't look like she could fight, but Gojyo said that it was always the cute little ones you had to watch for. He'd have to get going if he wanted to find a place to stay for the night. A town couldn't be far, if her house was only a few miles off.
"Okay." She turned on her heel and walked off a few steps, then stopped. "Well? Aren't you coming with me?"
He stopped re-screwing the lid of the canister, startled. "Am I?"
"That's why I had to ask you your name!" She was standing there looking impatient. "I'm not supposed to talk to strangers. Now you're not a stranger. Don't you want to come? We're going to be late. Lao Du always waits for me before eating, even if I come home when the owls are calling. But he doesn't like it, because he worries."
It didn't take long to make up his mind. She wasn't trying to kill him, even if she did sound like Lirin. "Hang on a sec," he said hastily, and resumed stuffing his pack. He only paused for a moment, when his fingers closed on a slightly crumpled pack of Marlboro Reds. Then he straightened, doing his best to ignore the pain in his leg and the stitch in his side. "Let's go."
Maybe they had a can opener.
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hey guys! it's been one month! didja miss me? ^^
Short chapter, i know. but i really wanted to post, just to prove that i was still alive.
thanks again to everyone who reviewed (and that one super-nice person who e-mailed--you know who you are!)
and thanks to all the great writers who updated their fics in the meanwhile...sorry i haven't been around to review, but you KNOW you have my undying admiration =)
is it getting too kooky? a whole slew of original characters coming up, i'm afraid--you didn't think i'd drag kougaiji and crew into this, did you? what's an epic without its own villain, after all? there might even be more than one...
in the meanwhile, school continues to slay me an inch at a time. i have so many ideas, including TWO 5x8 standalones, one quite short. i'll post them when i can, but i promise that i haven't given up on this story. (if i don't beat the crap out of the curve on the next accounting exam, that may change, but until then...!)
*goes off to research paper on future applications of wireless technologies*
-----------------------------------------------
and it is harder than you know
to let you learn, and make you leave
for though my heartbreak does not show
when you are sad, my lad, i grieve
-----------------------------------------------
It was somehow all the more disturbing for the pleasantness of the landscape; the oak tree that supported it was sturdy and thick with foliage; the fields to either side were well-tended and filled with rows of straight young shoots. Birds sang from the low hedges that clustered by the road.
"Maybe they couldn't afford a welcome sign. You know: Entering South LuoHu, Population 145, minus one."
There was just enough wind to sway the corpse slightly by the rope around the neck, and to carry the stench of it to where they sat staring in Jeep.
Gojyo went on. "I hope it wasn't a pretty woman, you know, that would've been a waste."
"Shut up," Sanzo said briefly, and Gojyo did, so quickly that Hakkai wondered if he himself were secretly relieved at not having to feign flippancy. There was certainly nothing humorous about the sight. The corpse was black-faced, the limbs swollen. Its clothing was in tatters, the ubiquitous blue color of homespun cloth. Scavengers had already been at it, and from here he could barely tell if it had been a man or a woman, much less an attractive one.
"About six days, would you say?" Sanzo glanced at him for confirmation.
"Five," Gojyo corrected absently. "It's been warm." He looked away when they looked at him, slightly surprised. "I lived in this city once where they had to scour the alleys of the gambling quarter for bodies in the summer months, to keep them from stinking up the place too badly." He muttered the words quickly, then turned his red eyes back on them almost defiantly. But he merely saved the information in his mind, then began unfolding the map as Sanzo asked, "What do you know about the town we're coming up on?"
"Not very much, except that it's in about six miles." All these little towns were similar, ragged shapes of land marked by the bounds of fields, clustered around a larger city where the province official lived. Some were poorer than others. This one looked to be in a good enough way; at least this year LuoHu would not be facing famine.
He could feel, without looking, the corpse hanging before them on the road. Now, for the first time, he noticed that it had been very quiet. This close to a village, they normally passed at least a few travellers on the road: traders or small farmers, on their way to market, students, travelling artists, visiting relatives, the odd prodigal son.
"Are there other towns nearby?"
"The next one on the map is about another hundred or so."
Sanzo cursed under his breath. Then he stood up and thrust his arms in his sleeves. "When we are in town," he said, staring straight ahead, "We are not going to ask questions. We are not going to go out of our way. We are NOT here to save anyone or anything, understand? We are NOT going to play Sherlock fucking Holmes. Is that clear?"
"Sanzo-sama, as much as I like staring at your ass, you mind if we drive on? That smell is starting to overpower my cigarette," was Gojyo's only response. Beside him, Hakkai turned the key in the ignition.
Surprisingly, Sanzo simply sat down and kept on staring straight ahead, arms folded.
Hakkai thought, as they rattled past the tree with its strange, grotesque fruit, that it was almost as if he were waiting for a protest. None were forthcoming, although as they passed the tree he couldn't help reading the words on the wooden plaque that hung around the corpse's neck: Justice Above All. They drove on in silence with the sunset sprawled before them, flooding the fields with bloody light.
-------------------------
He was running. He was running, with leaden feet, after somebody, after a light that faded and faded despite his best efforts. He was falling...
He woke up and sneezed. The little action triggered off an avalanche of hurts in his body, and he gasped as he realized how stiff and cold he was. He'd fallen asleep, maybe for an hour or two. It had still been daylight then. He gasped again, as hunger screamed through the halls of his body, tearing the wallpaper as it went. By pure instinct he got to his feet, ignoring the pain in his legs, his feet, the dizziness that nearly brought him back to the ground. He staggered for a few feet before realizing that his throat was aching with thirst, and that there was water in his pack. Remembering the pack, he whirled around and saw it lying a few paces away. Now it came to him: there was food in it as well. He dove for it, almost ripping the sturdy fabric in his haste to get it open. He emptied the contents out on the ground, sifting through the contents in a rush. He tore open a package of dried beef and chewed on a long strip while scrabbling, feeling his shriveled mouth begin to water.
Ramen. Canned corn. A bag of pretzels. It was getting dark, the sun starting to set. The light would probably stick around for another hour at most. He didn't know how far he was from a town. He didn't really know if he'd gone in the right direction. A kind of tofu-made snack that he didn't really like, but Hakkai did, so they always got some at every convenience store. A Snickers bar. Three tea eggs, looking the worse for having been lain on. Two boxes of Strawberry Pocky; there hadn't been any Almond. He was still on the road, still somewhere on the way. He wondered where he would sleep if he didn't come across the next town. He wondered if he could figure out how to start a fire without Hakkai's help. Rice balls in wax paper. A canister of jasmine tea. It was all woods, no fields to suggest that he was getting anywhere near civilization. And finally, the bag of meatbuns he'd requested from the innkeeper's wife. She'd stuck her sharp elbows out as she eyed him and said, "What do you want with that many? They'll spoil before you can eat them all." They wouldn't, he'd assured her. Her expression had softened a little as she said, "A growing lad, eh? I remember when ours was about your age...thought he'd eat us right into bankruptcy, I did..."
He'd been glad to find something that would make her more likely to give him the meatbuns. "He must've gotten pretty big, I guess, with all that food."
At that she'd stiffened slightly. "Dunno," she snapped, "He ran off when he was still a skinny little brat, like you." He was about to object to the skinny little brat part, but she interrupted him with, "You're all heartless, you kids," and stomped into the kitchen. When he'd come back with his groceries the buns had been waiting in a clean white cloth.
He bit into one now. It tasted better than anything he'd ever tasted in his life, better than even the chocolate cake he'd ordered that one time Gojyo had gotten ahold of the credit card and taken them out while Sanzo was stuck being welcomed by the local temple. That was one advantage of being just the stupid monkey. He was never welcome pretty much anywhere. It was easier to get out of boring ceremonies that way.
Maybe that was why Sanzo had decided to leave him behind. Maybe he wanted his companions to be more...respectable. It made sense, in a way. Sanzo was a high-ranking priest, even if he didn't act like one. He gnawed on his fourth meatbun, and drank half of his water in one swallow when they started to feel dense in his stomach. He'd promised Hakkai that he would try to eat more vegetables, so he took out the can of corn. Then he realized that he didn't have a can opener, that the can opener was in Hakkai's pack. It was probably sitting in Jeep's backseat right now. The backseat would have more space, with only the kappa sitting there, even if his legs were ridiculously long and he slouched all over the place.
He felt his throat beginning to knot behind his jaws and swallowed hard, trying to push it down. Now that he was chewing he found that the meat was a bit gristly, but he still wasn't about to complain. It actually hurt a little to chew. He flexed his arms experimenting, wincing when he rolled out his shoulders. Lifting up his shirt, he gaped when he saw the neat line of stitches peeking out of the top of the bandages. His left leg was also throbbing, and he ran one hand over his shin. Hakkai had tried to explain it to him before. "It's like...glue," he'd said. "When your bones get broken I sort of 'glue' them back together, but because the body still has to draw on its own reserves to knit them, you have to wait for the 'glue' to dry, or else it all comes apart again."
Just how long had he been out? He wasn't sure. Long enough for the glue to dry, he hoped, or Hakkai was going to be upset. He hated it when Hakkai was upset, because it was so hard to tell that he always just wound up worrying that Hakkai was upset. Not like Sanzo. It was obvious when Sanzo got upset. Probably Sanzo had been upset when he found out that he'd sneaked off on his own. Probably he'd been furious. Probably he hadn't cooled off for days. Probably he was still mad now.
But surely he wouldn't stay mad FOREVER. Presumably he'd once done something to make someone so mad that they'd locked him up for five hundred years. But even THAT wasn't forever, and besides, this time there weren't any chains. He said it out loud to himself, just to emphasize it.
"You can't stop me from coming back." He clenched his fists. "There aren't any chains. You made them break, remember?"
He muttered it again through the rest of the sixth bun as he massaged his sore feet. "You broke them. You came, so don't try to get out of it now!"
"What are you talking about?"
He was on his feet, Nyoibou held out before him warily, before the rest of him even registered that he was surprised. The speaker looked at him from ten feet away, eyes slightly wide. He lowered Nyoibou. "Don't sneak up on people when they're eating!" he shouted. "You scared me!"
"Well, you scared me!" she retorted, voice shaking. "Where'd that big stick come from? And I was NOT sneaking up on you, you were just too busy talking to yourself to notice!"
"Was not! Not even assassins can sneak up on me. Unless I'm asleep. And what's a little kid like you doing out in the middle of nowhere anyway?"
"I am NOT a little kid and I did TOO sneak up on you, dummy. Anyway you have to be quiet when you're catching birds, and that's what I was doing. And this isn't the middle of nowhere, we're only three miles from home."
Why did all females stick their hands on their hips like that? he wondered as he scowled at her. He'd only ever really known a few--there weren't any women at the temple for some reason, and with a few exceptions most of the ones he'd met on the journey had all been trying to kill him. This one would've reminded him of Lirin almost, except that they didn't look alike. Lirin was youkai and Gojyo had once described her as "the bouncy ball with teeth and legs." This girl was human and a little taller and looked like he could carry her in his hand if he needed to.
"Well?"
But they definitely had something in common.
"Well what?" He wished she hadn't startled him so badly. It was embarassing, being snuck up on by someone who came up to his chin. For the first time he was actually glad that he was alone. The others would never have let him live it down.
"Well, aren't you going to tell me your name?"
He picked up the piece of bun he'd dropped and tried to brush off the dirt, then gave up and stuffed it in his mouth. "Mm Gohu." He swallowed. "I'm Goku." He kept an eye on the girl as he bent down to stuff everything back into his bag. She didn't look like she could fight, but Gojyo said that it was always the cute little ones you had to watch for. He'd have to get going if he wanted to find a place to stay for the night. A town couldn't be far, if her house was only a few miles off.
"Okay." She turned on her heel and walked off a few steps, then stopped. "Well? Aren't you coming with me?"
He stopped re-screwing the lid of the canister, startled. "Am I?"
"That's why I had to ask you your name!" She was standing there looking impatient. "I'm not supposed to talk to strangers. Now you're not a stranger. Don't you want to come? We're going to be late. Lao Du always waits for me before eating, even if I come home when the owls are calling. But he doesn't like it, because he worries."
It didn't take long to make up his mind. She wasn't trying to kill him, even if she did sound like Lirin. "Hang on a sec," he said hastily, and resumed stuffing his pack. He only paused for a moment, when his fingers closed on a slightly crumpled pack of Marlboro Reds. Then he straightened, doing his best to ignore the pain in his leg and the stitch in his side. "Let's go."
Maybe they had a can opener.
--------------------------------------
hey guys! it's been one month! didja miss me? ^^
Short chapter, i know. but i really wanted to post, just to prove that i was still alive.
thanks again to everyone who reviewed (and that one super-nice person who e-mailed--you know who you are!)
and thanks to all the great writers who updated their fics in the meanwhile...sorry i haven't been around to review, but you KNOW you have my undying admiration =)
is it getting too kooky? a whole slew of original characters coming up, i'm afraid--you didn't think i'd drag kougaiji and crew into this, did you? what's an epic without its own villain, after all? there might even be more than one...
in the meanwhile, school continues to slay me an inch at a time. i have so many ideas, including TWO 5x8 standalones, one quite short. i'll post them when i can, but i promise that i haven't given up on this story. (if i don't beat the crap out of the curve on the next accounting exam, that may change, but until then...!)
*goes off to research paper on future applications of wireless technologies*