Sanzo hates the rain.
It reminds him of things long past, of mistakes that can't be admitted, of things he's forgotten along the way. It's the little things, always the little things that everyone else overlooks and forgets and ignores. He left a lighter in a bar on the eighth day of the journey. For some reason, that's bothered him ever since. He bought a new lighter, but it couldn't replace the old one, which he hadn't been attached to and had been about to throw away anyhow. It had been nearly empty. He still misses it.
Sanzo hates how the rain hisses by his window in ominous grey threads, changing everything to dull shades of nothing. Sometimes he tries to follow a single raindrop in its suicidal plunge to earth, but they pass too quickly. He'll watch the clouds, sinister and dark and close-pressing masses that send little bits of themselves to fall mindlessly where they may. He envies them, their ability to go where the wind takes them. He goes West. He doesn't know what to do after that. Take care of the monkey, he supposes. Be nursemaid to a young man perpetually caught in childhood. He tries to feel upset at the thought, but the rain distracts him.
While it rains, Sanzo doesn't want to be a leader. He doesn't want to have to choose anymore, to decide whether or not he should pull the trigger. He doesn't want to hear the monkey and the kappa arguing, doesn't even want to hear Hakkai's serene voice murmuring platitudes. He doesn't want to see the riot of color and motion that his companions make. He doesn't want the light that hurts his eyes. He doesn't want to have to think. All he wants is to be alone with his thoughts, with the rain tapping impatiently at his window.
The only good thing about rain is that it does end, somehow. Eventually. But while it falls, he can't do anything. Can't stop it. Can't fight it. All he can do is watch it, and maybe get caught in the middle of it. He hates getting wet to the bone, chilled as if he'd lost all the warmth of his blood, as if it had all been washed away by thin lines of grey. He hates having to crouch in front of the fire to feel his fingers again, hates having to be reminded by Hakkai to change out of his wet things before he catches cold. He can't help forgetting stupid things like that. When it rains, he remembers everything else and there's no room for now or the future or anything, really.
Sanzo can't have his robes nearby when it rains. It hurts too much, too fiercely. It hurts more than tears, more than screams. He can't look at the robes, at the sutra, at any of his priestly things. They make him think of the dead, of regrets and things unsaid. They make him wonder what it must be like to care for someone so much that you'd give up your own life to protect them - but then he remembers that the ones you love can be taken away, so it's best not to care at all. Spare yourself the pain. Don't show how much it hurts when Goku tries to cheer you up, because it just means that both of you can be hurt in so many ways. Push him away before he gets attached, before you die and make his eyes as empty as yours are. Don't let him love you in that bright, careless way of his. It's alright to make him run from your cruelty, because it means he won't die inside when your too-mortal body can't heal one last wound. Sanzo knows he will die soon. He's injured too often, too slow to heal. The scars ache in the rain.
Sanzo hates the rain.