« A Thousand Leaves » part 2/2
A midnight chat between Hakkai and Gojyo. Set after Homura's death, but before the wish upon a star (which closes up the second season)… Mainly Hakkai's POV. (unlike what we see in « Burial » – Reload manga- I assume Gojyo never saw Hakkai without his limiters)
oOoOoOo
Matte kudasai. My limiters?« How do you look like? I mean, with you limiters off? » you resume.
As if you were really expecting me to show you at once, you suddenly turn to face me again, and hold out your arm, lighter in hand, to light one of the old fashioned candlestick on the bedside table between us.
This is sick. Don't tell me you believe in these stuffs about the attraction of mystery. Don't tell me you were wondering how I'd look like without the limiters. Do you mean it makes you curious? I should know better though. I shouldn't be even remotely suprised. Children. Goku and you are children at times. And children always have a lot of questions. Most of the time, they don't even think they would be a lot happier not knowing some of the answers.
« Haven't you seen enough youkai already to know perfectly well how they look like? » I try to reply lightly.
« That's not the same. »
« How come? »
« It's you. »
Silence, while I'm pondering over your answer. Does it make such a difference?
I wouldn't have thought I would surrender so easily to such a demand, though. My hands fly to my face on their own. As if trying to hide the invisible traits my words are describing in a dreary enumeration:
« Longer hair. Split pupils. Claws almost like talons. Pointed ears. And tattoos… They're like… vine-patterned leaves. That's all. »
« Leaves? » You lean on your elbow to look up and down at me. You've jumped on the word like the owl on the mouse… Why are you so interested in that suddenly?
« So… How many leaves? » you dare ask. And you're already grinning from ear to ear. Maybe because you're so proud of yourself as you simply succeded in making me talk… about that.
« Do you think I've counted? » I retort. I've been harsher than intended, here.
But you're right. I did. I still do…
…five hundred seventy three, five hundred seventy four…The Three Aspects had told me to be Cho Hakkai, from now on, as Sanzo brought me to them. Cho Hakkai was a youkai, but I had been wearing the limiters all along. I didn't know at all what the beast in me would look like. It didn't mattered much at the beginning. I didn't care. In fact, there was a lot of things I didn't care about, the first times.
One day, though, I just had to know. So I took off the limiters… The whole day, I had felt this nagging feeling of incertitude gnawing at me from the inside. It's funny: I don't remember, but I'm quite sure it must have been a rainy day. Maybe somewhere deep inside I hoped the youkai in me would be gone and that by watching at the looking glass I would only see the human me. Quite childish, now that I think of it.
Maybe it was because you weren't home, too. It's not the same when I have to worry constantly about you: how would you not worry when you're living with a man who spends his time coming back home either totally drained because of any temporary work any time he could get one, or scratched if not wounded from numerous tavern brawlings, or even so totally drunk, to the point he can't walk straight? But I was alone that day, and I had an awful lot of time left to fill my thoughts with myself.
Hakuryu wasn't living with us yet, at that time. Of course, as I said, you weren't at home. I wouldn't have taken the risk in that case lest I could harm you. I was cautious enough to think it might not be a good idea anyway, so I enclosed myself in the bathroom, the door locked. One after the other, the three metalic limiters fell in the sink, and under my very eyes my own body began to blur. It's strange: the picture in the mirror didn't at all surprise me. As if I had known all along what I would behold, somewhere deep inside, but too far to be consciously aware of it. And for instance, even if I didn't know whether it would last, I could control it. The body was still mine, not turning in rampage-mode as I had feared.
I got rid of my shirt and other clothes, quietly, to have a better look. Almost with a detached scientist's look.
And then I felt the sudden urge to count those leaves. As if I had to know every little thing which could be known about the creature staring back at me, even to the extent of the unsignificant ones.
…nine hundred ninty eight, nine hundred ninty nine…The answer chilled me to the bones, even if I should have guessed before.
A thousand.
A thousand leaves.
For a thousand lives.
Of course.
oOoOoOo
You are suddenly so close, I don't know how I didn't feel you coming so near… I feel your weight on my bed, you breath near my face.
« Well… If you're too lazy to count all by yourself, put them off, clothes and limiters - I'll help you - and I'll do it myself! »
The worst being, I know you're able to do that. Hooo, no. Scratch it. The worst being you're about to do that… You're a lot more drunk than I thought and it could end up pretty badly… Remember what I am, damn it! Limiters aren't toys! Gojyo…
« Is there one here? »
Your grip on my wrist is firm but gentle as you try to lift my hand from my face. Your lips brush the skin of my palm. Electricity. The feeling crawled under the skin and burned the nerves with as much intensity as freed ki during a battle. So soft it hurts. I gasp.
« And here? »
My finger on your lips before you can touch my skin again. My other hand grabbing your own. It has to stop now. We can't let it go out of hand. Or rather I can't because I'm quite sure you're not in the state to think rationally, and you won't even remember anything tomorrow in the morning, anyway; alcohol's perfume still lingers on you.
« You're breaking all the untold rules, » I say matter-of-factly.
Untold, because we never talked about it, of course. Rules, because this is the way things have been and have to remain. It's easier dying tomorrow when you have nothing to lose. We don't think we're going to make it all of us alive (and if we had once, Sanzo's last injuries were the cold shower of sad reality…).
We aren't fools. We just try to remain blind as long as possible : it's a human disease (Ho, you call yourself human, now?). And even if I want to live a little longer than before now, there are some things left which need to be done, gods' order or not. That's why we need nothing standing on our way. Not even ourselves.
But only because of the journey? That's true. It's almost hard to remember there's been a « before the journey », these days. It's like we've always been on the road. However, three years ago, in the little house in the forest, we had no idea and the rules were already here. Messed up bloody pasts made us careful not clinging on to vain hopes and happiness' delusion?
Maybe. Or Sanzo's belief you shouldn't attach importance to anything, cold detachment from events of life, was already carved so deep in each of us? Who knows? I really don't know. And it doesn't change anything anyway, right?
« Yhea, it's what it means being a taboo child: our first intake of breath when we're born – our life itself - is already breaking an untold law… » you say with a bitterness where lays an ounce of wistful fatalism.
« So, we're quite a pair, » I reply. I, the human turned into a youkai by the power of the blood shed. « I'm a walking impossibility, too. »
I meant to be comforting, but my words came up incredibly harsh. That's why your look is a little lost, not knowing how to take the answer. Just enough for me to escape your grip. You let yourself roll on the mattress like a puppet whose stings has been cut off, as if all your strength had been suddenly washed away. Limp. Your lanky form is sprawled on the bed, so spineless you could look dead, if not the steady breathing and the vaguely reproachful and wide-opened eyes following my every moves as I stand up.
oOoOoOo
Time for revelations and intimacy is over. We don't need light any more. I lean forward and smother the little blaze of the candle between two fingers. Darkness falls on us, not oppressive, tonight. Just here, like a haven where you don't need to think.
A thousand leaves.
For a thousand lives.
Lives I have taken.
One, two, three…All over again, the numbers are running in my head, though. My body walks on its own in the narrow space of room, aimlessly. Towards the window. Then back towards the beds. And again to the window. Very slowly. My eyes are glued to my hands and my forearms whose pale flesh is almost glowing in the gloom.
I still can see all of them on the flawless seemingly human flesh… The leaves…
Or maybe it is only the shadows of the foliage which is brushing on the window pane, against the moonlight outside, and falling on my skin. It has to be that: the little dark spots are moving on the flesh… But I'm not really sure. Superstitiously, my fingers reach for the limiters, but their coolness is still here. I heave a relieved sigh, so deep that all is left of my energy leaves my body along with the warm breath. Tiredness. No… Exhaustion. I used so much ki today I must be… empty. Flesh and soul.
Suddenly, even my own body feels too heavy for me, my head is reeling. I realize my legs have given way under me only as I find myself vaguely sitting on the floor in a mess of limbs, as limp as a ragdoll.
I hear Gojyo's muffled call from my bed he still occupies.
« Hakkai…For my very life I wouldn't be able to leave this bed… » he almost whines.
I look up at him because he is talking, but I wasn't really listening. I don't know whether I even heard because my own blood is running furiously at my ears like a powerful wave which makes me strangely deaf. I stare at his face without understanding clearly what he means, but I can read the pain behind the red eyes looking darker, almost pitch black in the gloom. Years of habit tell me about his hangover. It explains why his words sound hollow as he keeps talking. As if it was difficult for him to speak, like having cotton in his mouth.
Concentrate. Try to listen, this time…
« Why? » He is angry. « Why did you put them off, before, if it's eating you that much? We would have found another way. »
Eating me. Exactly. As I say he always knows! And he never believes me… I don't know why it's such a shock though. It had to happen soon or later, me taking off the limiters. And the others saw what I was and it doesn't seem to matter to them…
He feels my stare locked on him, unnerving, but I can't help it. I think what he doesn't like, it this expressionless face of mine…But he has taken me utterly aback and he doesn't notice.
He is right… Why did I? This is the important question.
I remember myself standing in the high-roofed room, these ragged youkai-gods all around us, lunging out at us, and me calling Sanzo to tell him what I wanted to do. The feeling I felt, then… The feeling I felt was… Certainty? It was the perfect thing to do at that time. The perfect thing. The fact was, I had so much more to lose than a fragile sense of reconstructed ego…There was something else I didn't want to lose… To any price… Which mattered so much more than a sutra to retrieve, or a new world's birth to stop.
Some people.
It's surprising how things are really simple sometimes… Revelation dawns on me like the sun raising after a stormy night.
A thousand leaves to give me the power to protect my beloved ones.
Enough strength to be able to care again.
A thousand leaves for three lives, now.
Three living and breathing people.
Hakuryu hisses suddenly from the far corner he has chosen to shelter his sleep tonight (half buried in my travelbag, as usual), making me flinch. He arches his long neck and glares at us (or rather me, especially) with burning ruby eyes. Either he is pissed off because we keep him from sleeping by talking and moving in the room in the middle of the night, or the dragon is able to read my mind as I suspect sometimes and is a little offended. He is right, of course…
Summimasen, Hakuryu…
Four people.
OOo Le mot de la fin : Gojyo oOo
Damn you… What's the matter with you, now?He just remains sitting on the floor, staring at me with his empty eyes, as if he was so far away of anything happening right now in this room. It scares me as only he can… I'm not even waiting for an answer, now. A single reaction would be enough...
But I can't let you like that, right?I sigh.
The things you make me do, I think as I drag myself from the bed, very slowly. Very laborously. Very painfully. Wounds and alcohol. Hate that mix.
Hakuryu makes a sound from the corner, and Hakkai looks at the little lad fondly, as if jerked up abruptly out of his thoughts. Good. Tomorrow, I'll let the dragon stealing a little more food than usual from my plate. But not too much. It would believe I'm fond of it, after…
After an eternity to cross the tiny room, my hand falls on his shoulder. He looks at me inquiringly, then at the bed, as if it was an imposssibility me being right beside him.
« For your very life, you said… » he points suddenly, as if remembering only now.
Oh. Please. That's not funny.He is unable to stand up, his limbs remaining unresponsive. Here we go again. Me dragging him to bed. Recall me never even trying counting how much times I have done that…
I don't know why I put up with you…« That is far more important… » I answer gruffly. « You okay? »
He just smiles. He doesn't say « I'm fine ». Whenever he says that he is usually lying. So paradoxically, it's reassuring. But this man… He is used to feed me with half-truths or deceptive appearences, and I have myself quite a reputation to be very stubborn (even if Sanzo tends to call it being a pain in the ass).
« How do you feel, really? » I need to insist.
« Nothing more to wish. »
Strange answer. But tonight, it will do.
We stumble as « gracefully » as we can towards the other end of the room, none of us in a better shape than the other, I'd say. One second everything was almost alright, the following one, I lost completely my balance. As I said I couldn't do it! I never should have left my (his… whatever…) bed. We both crash loudly on one the beds. So tangled in each other I don't know what is mine and what belongs to him. Ok. This time, I don't move any more. Not even one inch.
Anyway, the whole room is rocking already enough according to the taste of my poor throbbing head. I can't believe I tried to absorb again as much alcohol as Hakkai usually do, tonight. I must be stupid. And broke now (since the namagusa bouzu wasn't here with this blessed from the Gods golden card of his to join me in my willing boozing in the late hours).
« I don't move, » I warn my bedmate, though. I wouldn't be able to, anyway. But he doesn't have to know…
He sounds already pretty asleep himslef as he answers, his voice muffled against the fabric of my T-shirt :
« As you like it. Neither do I. »
A last deep sigh and his head falls slowly on my shoulder. I think he was sleeping long before me. A quiet slumber in the stead of the nightmares I was half-expecting after his tonight's tormented behaviour.
« Oyasumi nasai, » I tell to the emptiness of the gloomy room.
Hakuryu growls, this time. I wince, not only because of my unfortunate hangover. It sounded like an aggravated reptilian curse for daring interrupting his sleep again…
He is right. It was a hard day.
### Owari ###
A/N: Gojyo and the chameleon thing… I've not made up the story, it's that some people think really about the chameleon. I don't remember where… Maybe Madagascar…They say they've got two independant eyes : while one is looking forward, the other one can look backward. That's why some people say they're able to see past and future in the same time… (And maybe even living in-between, out of present time! Who knows? I have thought…)