"It Doesn't Matter"
by darthelwig
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I don't own Saiyuki. Stop pestering me!
Rated T. Just because.
This is just a little Ficlet I wrote to help me overcome a serious bout of writer's block I've been fighting for months now. Don't laugh!
There is a slight hint of slash in this story. If you don't wanna hear about it, stop reading this right now!
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He didn't know why.
He didn't much care, either. It didn't matter. Not really. They had more important things to worry about, to think about, and to do.
Not that his companions ever seemed to give much concern to that. They had a mission to complete, didn't they? They had somewhere they needed to be… in the west. But that didn't seem to matter to the three of them. No, they were too busy complaining about this and that. All the things they talked and joked about… they were all inconsequential. But what did that matter to those three clowns?
He stifled an angry sigh, trying to hold his formidable temper in check once again. Why did he let this get to him? Their seeming frivolity was just a coping mechanism. He knew that. Yes, even the mighty Sanzo understood the need to manage the hidden turmoil around them and inside of them by playing it down, making it seem smaller and less important.
Less powerful.
Still, it aggravated him to no end. He was too serious to really find the things Gojyo talked about humorous in any way. No, that damn pervert was only concerned with finding his next female companion and sticking next to Hakkai, whose damn ceaseless smile was enough to set anyone's teeth on edge. Sanzo found nothing at all funny about that.
Then there was Goku. The damn stupid monkey was forever whining about food. How long was it going to take for that idiot to finally get enough? His constant complaining was enough to make Sanzo really want to shoot him… or at least leave him behind somewhere. But that, of course, was out of the question. The Sanbutsushin had assigned these three as his companions for this mission. He felt no compunction to fail in this just because he wanted so badly to put them out of his misery.
Which brought him back to his original point, the entire reason he'd been drawn into this train of thought to begin with… he couldn't take his frustrations out on them. And he didn't know why he let them get to him in the first place. But figuring that out was a waste of his time. It didn't really make a difference, did it? Whatever the reason was that these three jerks could get under his skin when so many other people couldn't was irrelevant, no matter how it drove him crazy. He would just have to become stronger and learn to deal with it. After all, they still had a long way to go, and it seemed to be taking them absolutely forever to make any kind of progress.
Maybe it was all the constant interruptions…like saving people here and there. Certainly the assassins that had been sent after them weren't causing much of a setback. No, it wasn't their enemies who were delaying them. Sanzo gritted his teeth as his temper once again threatened to boil over.
Of course, he knew the real reason his nerves were strung so tight, didn't he? No one as self-aware as he was could hide things from himself for long, and Sanzo had never been very good at lying to himself.
It was all that damn monkey's fault!
Every time Goku looked at him with those big, wide eyes his anger just melted away as if it had never been. Every time he thought he'd had enough of that stupid monkey's irritating voice, those eyes fixed on him, like they had that first time. They were so huge and completely guileless. And focused on him, they had the power to soothe.
He'd tried to put it down to Goku's apparent youth, but that hadn't worked for long. He could barely tolerate children, much less one as annoying as that brat was. And Goku's idolization of him was trying, at best. He wasn't comfortable with that kind of admiration. After all, he knew very well that he wasn't really worthy of it.
He tried to let it go, tried to tell himself that the question wasn't all that important, but it bothered him. His mind wouldn't let it rest. And one day he'd finally hit upon the answer, and the truth of it was… he loved him.
It wasn't something he would ever feel comfortable saying out loud. In fact, he had admitted it to no one but himself, in his most secret heart of hearts. But Goku touched a part of him he'd long thought dead, something that he'd thought died the night his master was killed. It wasn't a pure, romantic, tender love like in all those supposedly 'great' stories. It was both more and less than that. No one had ever looked at him with eyes that held such complete trust. Not since his master had closed his eyes that final time.
But this was different even from that. Yes, he had loved his master with all his heart, had revered him above all other beings, but his feelings for Goku were more earthy somehow, more tangible. Like at any moment they could come rushing over him and bury him in that place of peace and acceptance. He had no idea of when this had begun inside him. It felt like it had always been there, just waiting for him to encounter Goku for the first time, to bring him into his life.
And now he was lost. Except that loving Goku wasn't as scary as love could sometimes grow to be. In Goku's eyes, he could always find himself again, and in this world that was more valuable than a blind, all-encompassing love. He knew that should he ever truly be lost, Goku would find him. His heart, which had once seemed like a dark, empty kind of place since his master's death was now slowly filling with a sense of security he had never before known.
It was… disconcerting. He had never liked feeling so thrown off balance. So he was… cranky.
And it was all that damn monkey's fault! Even worse, he couldn't tell anyone about this. It was much too private and he cherished these new feelings too much to share them with the world. But he was having difficulty maintaining his air of aloof disdain, and it made him irritable. And tense.
For the first time in ages, he didn't know what to do. So he concentrated on their mission, trying to distract himself from what almost felt like a growing dependency on the idiot monkey.
It didn't matter anyway, right? They had a mission to accomplish. Personal matters would only get in the way. There would be time later to think on these new feelings and consider taking action. For now, they had a job to do. He kept that goal firmly in front of his eyes these days, as much for his own benefit as for the sake of their task.
He would be better than his companions. He would not let anything interfere with his duty. It was….better that way, for everyone. What did it matter, anyway?