'Share your problems with the rest of us'

The next day, the Sanzo-ikkou were driving in Jeep, down a dirt ridden track. Hakkai was smiling; Sanzo was staring into the distance; Goku was trying to convey that he was hungry without speaking and Gojyo was watching the smoke from Sanzo's cigarette with a loving gaze.

One uneventful (due to the fact that all the usual arguments had been averted due to the NYR) journey later they were camped in a forest clearing with a fire crackling merrily. The flames from the fire sent dancing shadows over their faces and all four of them felt oddly relaxed.

The moon was high in the sky, grinning down at them all, when Hakkai went to sit down next to Gojyo.

"Hiya." Hakkai turned to face Gojyo who was determinedly facing in the opposite direction. "Oh, Gojyo stop being so stupid. You know I had to take your cigarettes away, or you'd just break your resolution within a few minutes."

Gojyo swivelled round to face him; "Yeah, but you didn't have to wrestle them off me."

"Well you didn't have to act like such a baby and not give them up."

Gojyo pouted and was silent, holding his fingers to his mouth, trying -and failing- to imagine smoking a cigarette. Hakkai stared at the stars, which blinked in a friendly way. Sanzo and Goku were asleep, or at least pretending to be, Hakkai couldn't tell, but he decided to talk anyway.

"Gojyo…"

"Nn." He grunted back, still upset about the empty cigarette shaped space between his two fingers.

"You know my resolution?"

"Uh huh."

"Well, can I share a few problems with you?" Hakkai looked deathly serious

"Sure thing."

"Umm, well I don't know how to put this, but…" There was a rustling in the bushes and Gojyo jumped up, remembering a similar incident when a doll from Chin Yisou had met them in the woods.

"False alarm eh…" Gojyo muttered as a fox scampered out from the bush and ran straight back as soon as it saw the group. "So, what were you saying?"

He flopped back down onto the ground and turned to face Hakkai,

"Well…?"

"Ummm…" Hakkai sighed, then completely unexpectedly in a garbled, babbling voice: "You guys never appreciate me, my hair sticks up all funny, my dreams are too disturbing, I always get stereotyped a the 'mother', I hate rain, I miss Kanan, my cheeks hurt from smiling all the time." He took a deep breath, then continued "I can never find matching socks, the last 3 dishes that I've cooked have burned, my eye is so itchy, I totally regret all the killing I've done, all Jeep can say is 'kyuu' which gets really irritating, centipedes really bug me, excuse the pun, this journey is totally pointless…"

"Erm…ok?" Gojyo was totally stunned at the sudden outburst and didn't really know how to reply

"…I've been wearing the same clothes for what is it now, half a year, my toes are wonky, I can never get drunk no matter how much alcohol I consume, I keep thinking about…"

"Hakkai…" Gojyo shook his friend's shoulders roughly, Hakkai stopped in the middle of his ranting and hoped for some thrilling, intellectual pearls of wisdom that would solve all his problems… "Get a grip man." Or then again he might have got his hopes up a little bit too high.

2 hours later, Hakkai was curled up by the fire, worn out from all the complaining he had just done. Gojyo, after half an hour of listening to Hakkai, had woken up Sanzo, who dearly wished for his fan (which had been confiscated) as he had just been woken up at 3 am to listen to someone else's problems. He then grudgingly listened to Hakkai for 2 minutes. Sanzo had then decided that the monkey would do a better job, woke him up and delegated the task to Goku, who couldn't complain about it, as no words were to escape his lips.

Sanzo had then gone back to sleep, leaving Goku to sit with Hakkai, who was giving a long speech about how unfair it is that he has a short lifeline.

By the next morning, it was evident that Hakkai was in no state to drive Jeep. He was a snivelling wreck and burst into furious tirades at every single thing that went wrong. It all started at 7 am. Hakkai had woken the rest of the group up, with his usual smile. For a minute, they thought that Hakkai was back to his usual self. How wrong they were.

"Morning, all." Hakkai was busy bustling around the camp, making breakfast

"So Hakkai, you feeling better?" Gojyo asked, whilst trying to catch the secondary smoke from Sanzo's morning cigarette.

"I really don't know what…" Hakkai had stopped in his tracks, looking down at the breakfast plates "I'm so pathetic!" He wailed, head in his hands.

"What?" Sanzo had put out his cigarette, getting annoyed at Gojyo who was doing something that looked oddly like a ballet inspired dance in order to breathe in the smoke.

"…There's a leaf on the breakfast plates." It would have been quite funny for them if Hakkai wasn't being so temperamental.

"And?" Sanzo's temper was even shorter this morning, after his sleep was disturbed during the night

"It's all ruined. I can't do anything right. I should just stop being a burden and curl up and die." Hakkai sat on the ground at that point and punched himself in the face, evidently trying to knock himself out.

Goku ran over to Hakkai and held his fists back, shaking his head furiously, as if to say 'Stop being such an idiot Hakkai, and stop trying to knock yourself out'.

"Stop being so melodramatic. We're in a forest. Unless it's new to you, leaves grow on trees and there are trees in a forest." Sanzo's voice was layered with sarcasm.

"I know that, but I'm so useless. I can't do anything right." Hakkai whimpered.

After what seemed like hours of trying to reason with him (it was in fact only 20 minutes) the –half- sane members of the Sanzo-ikkou, and Jeep, decided to have a talk, or mime in the case of Goku, as to what they should do with Hakkai.

"Lock him up."

"Hey Sanzo, that's a bit harsh." Gojyo said, glancing over at Hakkai who was apologising to a tree because he bumped into it by accident. "…Maybe it was best for him to keep his feelings all bottled up inside."

They were silent for a minute, thinking hard, but still listening to Hakkai's apology to the tree.

"What is it bakasaru?" Sanzo whipped round, as he felt a tug on his sleeve. Goku then tried to mime something, which to Sanzo looked like 'Please hit me', to Gojyo like 'Let's buy some cigarettes' and to Jeep 'We should get moving as we need to get Hakkai to a psychiatrist'. Funny how only a dragon can understand a silent monkey.

After a bit more debating, and a few rounds of rock paper scissors, it was decided that Sanzo should drive Jeep to the nearest town, Gojyo should navigate and Goku should sit in the back, making sure Hakkai didn't jump out. When I say 'decided', I of course mean that they gave Goku the least pleasant job, as he couldn't argue back. He, of course, was tallying up all these instances of injustice in his head, and was plotting revenge.

So, with everyone in place, Jeep set off down the bumpy track.

"Why aren't I driving?" Hakkai asked after a while.

"Ermm…You deserve a break." Gojyo lied quickly, as Jeep rocketed at an alarming rate down a bumpy road. The result? All of the Sanzo-ikkou were very sore by the time they reached the hotel, but that's later on.

"No it's not. It's because I'm rubbish at driving, just like I'm rubbish at everything else." Hakkai was fast turning into a manic-depressive. Sanzo sighed in complete frustration.

"YES! You suck at everything Hakkai, you do everything wrong and you are in fact so bad at everything that I feel like just dumping you off that cliff over there, but you don't even deserve to inflict yourself on that cliff, so sit still and shut up."

And after that little outburst, Hakkai was quiet…

Well, at least until they got to the next town over.