Quiet
by: Lazuli
Saiyuki does not belong to me, I just have a little fun poking around in Goku's head and writing angsty introspective fics about him.
It was quiet...Goku stared outside, mind not really focusing on the empty yard. Silence always got to him--it was part of the reason why he talked to much, even if to the others it was only whining. He needed to hear not only his voice, but someone responding to it. Even if it was angry words, irritated replies--it didn't matter. Someone heard him.
Not like before, when there was nothing but the wind and the rocks. To see the sunlight stretching over the mountains beyond his prison, where he couldn't touch it. Like the blue of the sky was as unreachable, the sound of any voice but his was an impossible dream. He would scream and cry and complain--and no one heard him. His voice would echo off the stone walls of his prison, but no one investigated. No one told him to shut up and stop complaining. There were never angry eyes directed at him, to acknowledge him as the source of the annoying noises.
Now, a fan would smack him on his head, people would snipe back at him, or there would be someone trying to calm them all down. He enjoyed seeing people and their emotions and how they reacted. He needed to get the various responses, to see expressions change and they different way people reacted to him. If he was quiet, they were quiet--if he was loud and obnoxious, they turned and looked directly at him, seeing him, reacting to him, and he knew...just knew that he existed, that he was a part of these people that grew and varied each day. That they had their own routines and sometimes the days seemed neverending and relentlessly the same--but the scenery changed, the people they saw and even the food they ate. It was all different and he loved that.
When it was quiet like this and he the room to himself for a few moments, that's when he thought about the past. He didn't let anyone else see his real emotions. It wasn't as if it mattered. They didn't need to know what he really felt. No one cared about that. No one really cared at all--he saw it all the time. For years and years he screamed his frustration and loneliness. For years he cried alone--so he didn't let anyone see his tears anymore. Sometimes he even wondered if they would hear them, see him if he wasn't making a lot of noise.
He held onto his companions fiercely, determined to not let them go. For too long...he was without anyone. Only left with the vague memories that there had been someone before the cave--that someone might have possibly cared for him at one point. Nothing ever solid, nothing ever real...like pipe dreams, they vanished in smoke as soon as you tried to grasp them. When his diadem snapped and he lost control of his body and mind--that was when he caught a faint glimpse of people that he almost knew, almost remembered, almost could call out their names and hear them reply. But then...they were gone again and he was more frustrated than before after it.
The only name that stuck out in his mind was Konzen. The name that Homura always called Sanzo, the one that other gods referred to him as. It was painfully familiar, that name--but no real image to go with it, no memories to back it up and hold in his mind. Konzen was important to him, Konzen was... was....he didn't know. He just knew....he knew that Konzen was gone and Sanzo and Gojyo and Hakkai were here. That his stolen past was long gone--and possibly never able to be recovered. He shouldn't care so much about it, but he did. His past was the reason why he was locked away. He would rather know what happened, what he did to be hidden from the world, then to live on in ignorance and never know what his crimes were.
The only thing he figured was that it had to be when he went beserk, when his instincts were forefront--his anger and memories and base animal knowledge were the ones in the front seat. When the concious mind given to him by the gods...by the diadem were hidden and thrust into the dark space where there was no light. Where no one was there except him. Where he could only see and not change anything. To be witness to the blood...feel the excitement and be a part of it and all caught up in the blood anger fear killing...
Goku shook his head free of those thoughts. So easily he could be caught up in the mind of his original self. Of who he was before... of what he was before. Sometimes...in the darkest and quietest part of night, he could almost touch that other self of his...feel the resentment boiling beneath the surface. That the false self was the one in control.. That the idiot with only food on the brain was the one making all the decisions. The wimp that cried in the middle of the night when no one would be able to hear him. Sometimes he hated himself, too. He was a monster, an animal
...but on nights like these, when everything was quiet, he could almost picture a mountaintop and feel a fresh breeze surrounding him, the moon full above him as he basked in the pure freedom of just existing. Then the chains closed around him again and the memories of the past were silenced.