Snow

by: Lazuli

I don't own Saiyuki, never claim to. This is my first fanfiction for this particular anime/manga. I've had ideas bouncing around in my head for this one, and I thought I'd try my hand on a little Goku perspective.

I know that the rain affects Sanzo. He gets depressed and thinks about the past—I guess I don't care about the rain so much. It was actually nice to listen to...The way it pattered against the ground, stirring up the dust and making the air fresh again, if only for a short while. It sometimes blew into my cave, my prison—not too often and I sometimes wondered if whoever put me there arranged it that way. It's the snow that gets to me. It's so...quiet. I hated the snow when I was locked away. I still don't like it.

The others probably stare at me, give me strange looks and make comments under their breath about the stupid monkey and his stupid fears. How would they like to be locked away for so long? Never feeling anything... only knowing that absence of sound, of sight. Everything is white in the winter. Do they know that? The whole world is swallowed up by that color. The sky, the ground---and the sounds are sucked up, too.

I've only been out of that place for not even a year now. It's so strange to me still. After you spend five hundred years behind stone bars, freedom isn't something that's really a part of your mind anymore. I never knew what freedom was really like, either. I can't remember anything but that prison. My entire world was that cave, those cold chains around me, and the fuda keeping me contained. For what? I never knew, I still don't know. All I know is that it had to be something horrible, something that made me such a bad person that they couldn't look at me, punished me by locking me away from the world. All I had was my name, Goku.

It was cold in the cave...then Sanzo came. I guess it's silly in some ways to cling to someone that obviously doesn't care for me. He told me over and over again the only reason why he took me out of that cave was because I wouldn't shut up. He said my voice kept on calling to him. I still don't know what he means by that. I never called out to anyone. I hardly spoke—who was there to speak to, besides the occasional bird? Sometimes somebody came by... but that was once in a hundred years. Or three hundred and sixty five days. I counted days... it was one thing to do. Practically the only thing to do. I'm not as dumb as Sanzo thinks I am. Sure, I don't know a lot—but I didn't have the chance to. I know how to count—how did I learn when I was locked away? I guess that was something that was from the 'before-time', from when I was...somewhere. I don't know where. There aren't even any real images.

Sanzo isn't the only one around anymore—there are other people that we ran into—they seem kind of fun. Even though I was supposed to stop the one person before. Hakkai... I think that's his name now. I remember that. It's not like I have a problem with remembering things. I do remember that they told me I had to forget. Because of what I did. The looks on their faces...anger, disgust, fear... All of it was directed towards me.

My mind runs in circles at these times—I try and remember what happened, but it never comes out of my locked up memory. When Sanzo yells at me to go away, to leave him alone—sometimes I wonder why I don't leave...but—that would mean being alone again. like in the cave. And Sanzo reminds me of the sun. His hair... and... I don't know. I can't explain it; it's just one of those weird feelings. Like it belongs in the past I can't-not allowed-to remember.

And it's snowing outside now...that emptiness, that quietness. I huddle under my blanket, eyes squinched shut. I don't like the snow.