If it could only get worse
This isn't the first time Hakkai and Gojyo's activities caused Hakuryuu to fly the coop. But the dragon's reasons for leaving hadn't actually been their activities this time. Hakuryuu left long before Hakkai and Gojyo made up. He left because something about Hakkai made the dragon think it would be safer elsewhere.
Hakkai never wants his friends, big or small, to fear him.
He has been outside the inn, whistling and softly calling for the dragon for sometime. Usually Hakuryuu would have come by now if he was nearby. Hakkai heads for the back of the inn, looking up to scan the rooftop as he goes.
"Hakuryuu!" He calls. His steps are sloppier than normal, causing dirt to kick up at the back of his khakis. The dirt is fitting, he thinks, for how wrong everything feels this morning. Hakkai feels refreshed, clearer in the head, and because of that, he can look back on his behavior the night before, look back on his behavior over the past few weeks, and know there is something very wrong.
Gojyo hasn't said anything, no one has, but his friends are used to his thinly veiled mood swings. Last night, however, for a moment in the bar Hakkai was not holding back. The strength and focus to his anger makes him feel strangely nauseous now as he remembers it. He had been the thinness of a thread's pull away from hurting Gojyo or any of those at the bar. The fact that Gojyo only got a sore shoulder in the end was pure luck, because Gojyo was smart enough to obey right away.
"I don't want a slave…" Hakkai whispers absently, his eyes cast down at the dirt by his feet, forgetting for a moment that he should be checking the skies. "No one should bow to me. No one should cower. What has come over me lately…?"
As if to dismiss Hakkai's concerns, a long singing "kyu" echoes above him and he looks heavenward to see the familiar sight of silvery wings approaching.
"Goodness, friend, I thought I would be calling into the afternoon." Hakkai smiles, holding out his arm in offering. Hakuryuu latches on and climbs carefully up until finding his usual perch on Hakkai's right shoulder. Hakkai strokes the dragon's head with the pad of his thumb. "I hope you aren't cross for having to sleep outside. Were you cold?"
Hakuryuu "kyus" dissent and cranes his neck up towards the roof.
Curious, Hakkai walks further around to the back until the slant of the roof reveals the still sleeping figure of Goku, covered haphazardly by a purple scarf, his limbs akimbo from shifting during the night.
The sight disturbs Hakkai much as it warms his heart. He calls out. "Goku! Breakfast time!" He learned long ago that "Get up!" is not nearly enough to rouse the monkey.
Goku stirs. "Food…?" he blinks, arching into a sitting position before rubbing his eyes to ready them for sunlight. "Hakkai?" Goku looks around, confused. "Oh yeah. Roof."
Hakkai chuckles to himself as Goku wraps the scarf around his neck and uses a nearby tree to climb down off the roof. Goku is awake but not entirely sentient until he has something in his stomach.
The feigned smile Goku attempts when he is on solid ground does not fool Hakkai in the least.
"Usually people end up sleeping on the couch. But then I suppose none of us are in anything like a normal relationship, are we?" Hakkai smiles, trying for lightening what must surely be a dark topic.
Goku's smile falls. He fingers the scarf, catching the tassels in the spaces between them. "Oh. Well, uhh…Sanzo and I kinda…he thought—I mean, I thought it would be better to let him sleep alone last night, so I…" He looks up and sees that emerald is utterly skeptical.
"Goku, I doubt this is something you haven't heard recently already, but lying really doesn't become you."
Hakuryuu offers an affirming "kyuu".
Goku stares at his feet. "Sorry. Sanzo and I had a big fight over the Seiten Taisei thing. And then after I found—" Goku's head whips up, his eyes wide and frantic. "Meiyuu! You don't know! I found Meiyuu!" Goku cries.
The monkey continues to rant and Hakkai has to take Goku by the shoulders to calm him. "Please, Goku, slow down," Hakkai says, "I can't understand you if you talk as fast as all that. Now what's this about Meiyuu? Do you mean the Meiyuu from the dreamworld?"
"Yeah!" Goku bounces on the balls of his feet.
"Sanzo's mother?"
"Exactly!" Goku grips Hakkai's arms as they are gripping his shoulders. "After the fight I was hungry so I went to this shabu-shabu place and when I was waiting for the hostess—"
"Goku, breathe."
Goku takes a big breath as directed, but speaks just as quickly when he starts in again. "And then I saw her. Meiyuu. Not just a look-a-like. She's really her. The eyes, the smile, everything! I took Sanzo to see her but he's all mad for some reason and even though she said we could come for a free lunch he says he won't go. We gotta convince him to go!" With his unsurpassed strength, Goku shifts his hold on Hakkai's arm to one of the healer's wrists and starts leading Hakkai to the front of the inn.
"Goku, wait. You must calm down. This is a bit much this early in the morning." Hakkai stumbles over a collection of dirt as Goku tugs him along.
"We have to, Hakkai, we have to convince Sanzo to go."
"Goku."
Goku knows better than to disobey that tone. He stops, nearly to the door, and looks back to meet stern but compassionate emerald eyes.
Hakkai smiles, genuine now that Goku has heeded him. "We will do whatever you wish. After we wake up Gojyo and Doku-san and you tell all of us exactly what happened."
It is a wonder the world doesn't fall apart when Hakkai is sleeping.
Forcing his pulse to still, Goku takes one, two, three large breaths and releases Hakkai's wrist. He nods agreement and starts to follow Hakkai into the inn as the healer now leads him.
Halfway to the rooms, Goku stops in the hallway. "Doku?"
-----
"The monk's mother? You're sure?"
"I said I was sure, didn't I?"
Gojyo can't help being skeptical. He finds it much easier to chalk up the whole dreamworld experience to a what-could-never-happen world, and is merely thankful the few things that could happen have. If things like Sanzo having a mother start coming true Gojyo wonders how soon it'll take Yaone to get pregnant.
"Didn't think Sanzo's the type who would ever have parents." Doku says, smug smile in place as he sits on the end of the bed he crashed on the night before. He is eternally grateful for once again being able to avoid getting a hangover. This one would have been a doozy.
Hakkai and Gojyo are sitting on their bed looking at Goku, who is rocking steadily on the balls of his feet, too anxious to stand still. "Goku," Hakkai says, "You know Sanzo better than any of us. What do you think can be done to get him to accept Meiyuu's invitation?"
"Me?" Goku stops rocking. "Nah uh. You're the one who knows him best Hakkai. You're like…Sanzo's best friend." Goku nods. He has always thought of Hakkai as covering the friend part, himself as covering the deeper companionship and romantic stuff, and Gojyo as covering…
Well, he'll figure out which part Gojyo covers some other time.
"You know Sanzo best," Goku says again, "And you're a better thinker than all of us, Hakkai. What's a good way to trick Sanzo into going? He won't just do it coz we ask. He's real upset, and not just about me. I think…I think he's worried she doesn't love him or something." Goku shrugs.
The twitch of a larger smile catches Hakkai's lips. "Goku, you really do understand Sanzo better than you think. I would say you're right. Sanzo is worried. Wouldn't anyone be? He saw one version of us mother in the dreamworld, a mother who risked everything, searched for years, and finally found him to raise him as her own. And now he has discovered the real thing, only she is far from Kinzan Temple, and he is left to wonder whether she looked for him at all. As far as he knows, she might have set him adrift on the river because she wanted to be rid of him, not out of any necessity. Think about that, Goku. Would you want to see her if that is what you believed?"
Goku had been thinking the same thing, but wasn't sure how to word it. Hakkai is always better at making things sound simple. "I know. I figured that too. But we still gotta make him go," Goku says, "We don't know whether she left him coz she wanted or coz she had to, and it's no fair to assume. Sanzo deserves to know for sure. We just got to get him there."
"You guys are hopeless."
Hakkai and Goku turn their attentions on Gojyo, each with their own brand of scowl.
Gojyo looks over at his brother and winks and then gives his attention to his anxious friends. "What gets a guy into motion faster than anything? Doesn't matter if he's a womanizer, an addict, or an asshole like our holiness next door. Every man would sooner stuff his own foot down his throat than bow down over a matter of pride." Gojyo leans forward on his knees. He can feel his brother's gaze and he knows Jien is with him on this. Jien used to get Gojyo to do all sorts of things using tricks like this. "All we gotta do is call the monk on being a pussy. If he thinks we think the only reason he ain't running over to mommy's is coz he's scared, he'll be the one dragging us. I'd put money on it."
There are times when Gojyo's supremely simple and base logic astounds Hakkai to no end. "Gojyo, that is sheer brilliance."
"Thanks, baby," Gojyo grins.
Goku jumps a clean foot off the ground, his hands in tight fists near his shoulders. "Let's go, let's go!"
Gojyo gets up from the bed and puts his hand on Goku's shoulder. "Just follow my lead, monkey," Gojyo says, "And we'll be having lunch at Meiyuu's before noon."
-----
Sanzo didn't sleep last night but he hasn't left his room all morning. He figures the monkey has told the fearsome duo by now and as soon as he steps out his door, they'll be all over him. Sometimes it sucks having friends. Sanzo is reminded of why he never wanted any.
But even the basest calls of humanity get to the monk sometimes, and when it gets close to eleven o'clock, his empty stomach starts complaining to him almost as loudly as Goku. He never ate dinner. He didn't eat breakfast. Better to get an early lunch and teach those fools a lesson before they can drag him off across town. As if they could.
Emerging from his room finally, Sanzo peers down both ends of the hallway, pleased to find not a single monkey, kappa, or mother-hen in sight. Maybe he can go about his own business in peace after all. Sanzo heads down the hallway, intending to eat at the inn's restaurant. His robes hang off his hips, his eyes hang heavy from lack of sleep, and the only thing keeping him from pulling out a morning cigarette is knowing he will be filling his mouth in only a few minutes time.
Sanzo doesn't forget that there was a time in the past when that wouldn't have mattered. He tries not to think about how much he has changed. He wouldn't want to give any of those idiots credit for anything. Sanzo is almost disappointed that he guessed wrong, and that none of them come barreling at him from around a corner to bombard him with reasons to go see his mother.
Che. Mother. Where the hell has she been for the past twenty-four years if she's really who she seems to be?
As soon as Sanzo turns the corner into the restaurant, he is no longer disappointed. The deviants themselves, plus one not entirely welcome youkai, sit at a table in the center of the room, laughing and sharing rounds of orange juice and water. Someone if not all of them must have lost their mind.
Sanzo ignores them, though the heated flick of their gazes does not go unnoticed. He doesn't see them. They aren't there. Sanzo sits at a table as far as he can get from theirs and waits for the waitress.
"Figures. Good call, monkey." Filters over Gojyo's voice, sounding smug.
"Yep. Thought so," the monkey says back, "Looks like you guys owe me some cash after all. I knew Sanzo's be too chicken to go."
The napkin Sanzo had been unwrapping from around his silverware falls to the floor. Sanzo hovers before bending down to retrieve it. Idiots. They made a bet?
"Guess so," Gojyo says, "You do know the monk best. I just figured he had more of a backbone than that. Proves me wrong."
Sanzo's grip tightens so hard around the napkin after he grabs it that it's all but a crumpled useless mess by the time he throws it onto the table.
"I lost too," says Dokugakuji, "I don't know the monk as well as you guys, but I figured he had more balls than this. After facing so many youkai, one human woman is all it takes to prove how spineless he really is. Kinda sad really."
Sanzo reaches for his butter knife, if only to have something to grip that feels sturdy and solid in his hand.
"Now, now, that isn't very nice," mends the healer, "Sanzo can't be blamed for being a little skittish. He doesn't really know what to expect from her, after all. He has every right to be afraid."
"Don't think I don't know what you're doing," Sanzo spits in their direction, the butter knife held like a warning, with the "dangerous" end up. "So you keep your idiot mouths shut over there. It's not going to work."
Sanzo is most pleased to hear several minutes of silence from the other table as the waitress finally comes over to take his order. When she is gone, however, faint whispers begin to drift over to him.
"…really dumb…"
"Can't believe…such a spaz…"
"What…expect. It's Sanzo."
"…really freaked, I guess…"
"…can't blame him…being afraid…"
"…still think…a dumbass."
"Totally."
"And…thinks we don't know."
"Yeah."
"…so obvious."
"Way obvious."
"Definitely."
"Will you shut the hell up!"
The waitress jumps five feet, nearly losing Sanzo's tray of food on her way to his table.
Sanzo slams the butter knife down, the handle sweaty from how tightly he had been holding it, and stands, glaring in the direction of the others.
The waitress steadies herself but knows better than to move forward just yet.
"You want to test me? You want to see how far you can push me?" Sanzo seethes. "I knew the monkey wouldn't be able to keep his damn mouth shut. And I knew you idiots would act this way. If you really want to test me…I'm not responsible for what happens." Sanzo pushes back his chair so hard it flips. He dismisses the waitress with a wave of his hand. "Get off your asses. We're going."
Goku, Gojyo, Hakkai, and Dokugakuji are a little dumbfounded, and sit staring at Sanzo for almost a minute before an impatient stomp from the monk gets all of them out of their seats. Sanzo takes off for the door and they have to rush to keep up, Goku first in line, while the other three follow more closely together.
Gojyo can't help but smile, smugly and with all of the pride he just challenged in Sanzo. "Even easier than I thought," he says.
-----
Meiyuu's Shabu-Shabu, the finest eatery serving humans and youkai alike. If Meiyuu herself doesn't stop by your table at least once, the meal is on the house.
Goku and the others find the sign outside the restaurant reassuring. Sanzo does not.
It is the height of the lunch hour and Meiyuu's restaurant is all but packed, filled with a larger concentration of youkai than the group has seen anywhere outside of Houtou Castle. The humans in the restaurant, sometimes eating at the same tables as youkai, do not seem to mind this at all. In fact, they appear so at home that the atmosphere is friendly despite Sanzo's fowl aura trying to darker it.
"A table for five?" the young youkai woman at the front asks with a smile, showing fangs. She couldn't possibly be over eighteen and is therefore off Gojyo's map, to everyone's relief.
Hakkai steps forward to speak on the group's behalf. "Yes, please, if it isn't too much trouble. We can see how busy you are."
The girl bats pretty silver eyes in Hakkai's direction, swooning from his polite manner. "Not at all. We'll find you a table." A blush spread over her nose, but judging by the sweep of her eyes as she zips off to find said available table, the blush is coming from the combination of handsome men rather than just the healer. Hakkai decides to take it as a compliment to the group.
There is a good many people behind them by the time the girl comes back, but when she does she hands five menus to a young human waiter, and sends them off after him to a free table.
They are led, winding and dodging, through the restaurant, and almost lose sight of their waiter more than once. The place is small enough that they always find him again and when they reach their table set against the left wall, they look back behind them and wonder how such a short distance took so long. The wall to wall patrons might have something to do with it.
The waiter leaves the menus, smiles and bows politely, takes their drink orders, and hurries off. The room is so noisy it is easy for everyone to be distracted at first, and no one talks for a few minutes, busy looking over the menu of over their surroundings. The ceilings are high with find, old-fashioned moldings, and the walls, painted white with dark brown trim, make them feel as if they are in a welcome tavern rather than a restaurant. All of those at the table find comfort in this fact. A tavern suits them better anyway.
"Not much point in looking over the menu. You know we'll end up ordering at least one of everything, right, bouzu?" Gojyo leans Sanzo's direction. How the seating managed to put him next to Sanzo is beyond explanation. Goku is of course on Sanzo's other side, much as Sanzo is ignoring the monkey, then Dokugakuji, and Hakkai sits between the two brothers.
Sanzo scoffs at Gojyo's comment. "Get what you want. I don't care," he says.
"That's rather dangerous, Sanzo," Hakkai replies, "Knowing our companions."
Sanzo ignores this as he is ignoring everything else. He took the seat closest to the wall and in as much shadow as he could manage. It cannot possibly do the trick the darkness did last night, but he is certainly willing to try.
"There she is!" Goku calls, pointing none too discreetly across the restaurant.
Hakkai, Gojyo, and Dokugakuji look where he has indicated and get the chance to give Meiyuu the once over themselves. She is dressed in violet and lavender in a long-sleeved traditional dress that reaches down to her ankles. It hugs her slender frame but remains sophisticated despite her youthful figure. Her hair is done up neatly with wisps falling over her forward and a purple and gold comb is placed in the back.
Goku thinks she must have dressed that way to match the scarf, which he hid in his cape before Sanzo first found them in the inn's restaurant. She is beautiful like Sanzo, with the same drooping eyes in brown and with brown hair. The face is Sanzo's, if a little older and colored lightly with makeup. It makes Goku smile to think all those youkai and other goons were right. Sanzo is as pretty as a girl.
Gojyo whistles. "Talk about hot Momma. Whoa."
"Gojyo," Hakkai reprimands, for the kappa's own safety since Sanzo looks ready to reach for his gun on principle.
"I meant in the most innocent way, I swear. So she's hot. Can't I be honest?"
Gojyo really doesn't get it. "Gojyo," Hakkai says, and that single utterance is enough to shut the kappa up.
"I don't know that dreamworld as well as you four," says Dokugakuji, "But she sure looks like the monk, I'll admit that. Would have guessed at the relation even if you hadn't pointed it out, Goku. Guess there's no denying she's who we think. So the only problem—"
"There isn't a problem," Sanzo growls, "We eat and we leave. You fools leave me alone and the journey continues. The end."
Goku makes a face. "Sanzo," he says, "That's not the end. We gotta talk to her. We didn't just come for the food." Gojyo chuckles as if he might crack a joke at the monkey's expense, but Goku doesn't stop. "You have to talk to her. How else are you gonna find out what happened."
"I don't care what happened. I, unlike you, don't have to cling to other people to survive. Ow!" Sanzo's eyes dart in accusation across the table.
"Oh, my, did I do that?" Hakkai says sweetly, "I'm sorry, Sanzo, I think my right foot has a mind of its own."
Sanzo grumbles but turns away before any of the other idiots at the table can make the day worse.
The waiter comes back. "Ready to order?"
Sanzo grits his teeth as everything on the menu, two of page five, and extras from page 2 and three, are ordered. What does he care? The Goddess of Mercy deserves the bill anyway for making them take the long way back. It's her fault he's even in this situation. Bitch probably knew this would happen.
The Heaven's are silent, but Sanzo swears he can hear divine laughter mocking him from somewhere.
"Hey, she's coming our way," Goku says, bouncing in his seat like he had been bouncing all day. "She's really pretty, but she looks kinda older than the dreamworld, huh, Sanzo? Around the eyes?"
Sanzo turns his head to look at the wall. "Whatever."
Meiyuu is indeed moving closer to their table, and though she has a few places to stop at before reaching them, she decides on a more direct route once spotting Goku.
"I was wondering if you'd show up," she says, smiling warmly at Goku once reaching their table. She is carrying a carafe of sake and tops off each of their drinks, including Goku's though his had originally been water. "This meal's on me, remember. I thank the Sanzo-party personally for all my youkai patrons. It's about time we remembered how to be family again."
Meiyuu glances over the faces of everyone at the table, though she only gets the barest view of Sanzo's profile with how much he is staring at the cracks in the wall. She sees a sympathetic look staring at her from Goku and doesn't press the monk. Instead, she looks at Gojyo and Jien and puts one hand on her hip.
"Well, I'll be. Looks like we already have some family. You two must be brothers."
Jien just smiles but Gojyo is impressed. "How'd you know?" he says, looking over at Dokugakuji and down at his own body as if he might be able to spot the signs as obvious as painted letters.
"Oh, it's easier to tell than you might think." Meiyuu smiles, "More in the way you hold yourselves than your features, but it's there. I bet this past year or so has been especially hard on you two, hmm?"
Gojyo looks up from his brotherly perusal and laughs. "Lady, you have no idea."
"He caused more trouble than I did though," Dokugakuji puts in.
Gojyo gives an incredulous look but can't really disagree.
Meiyuu decides she likes these boys. She giggles to herself but doesn't hide it like most women might by putting her hand to her lips. She laughs openly. "I know not all the youkai lost themselves, but I sure am glad those that did are back to normal now. Too many people forgot how things used to be. Things were never perfect mind you, but in this town we never asked our youkai neighbors to wear limiters. We always did what we could to live the way Shangri La was intended to be. I like to think we can get back to that."
Hakkai, and all of his companions to be perfectly honest, were always of the belief that Shangri La fell short of paradise. Everyone said youkai and humans lived in harmony, but it wasn't really like that in most places. Youkai often got treated like second class citizens, made to suppress their natures with limiters, and sometimes even openly shunned. Hakkai for one is pleased to hear Meiyuu speak of how things could and really should be.
"I hope the rest of Shangri La will take your example, Miss Meiyuu," the healer says, "I'd like to live in that kind of paradise if it can be achieved. I think we all would."
The light glints off Hakkai's limiters and Meiyuu's smile stretches wider. She had wondered just how many of the men at this table were actually human. But she learned long ago not to question a youkai's choice to wear limiters, even if she would prefer they didn't feel the need to. She already knew the boy was youkai from his coronet, but now there is this man as well, their unlimited friend, and a hanyou too. Knowing that Genjou Sanzo is human makes her respect the man even more for his companion choices.
"Master Sanzo, sir, if I may say," she says, "It is more of an honor to meet your party than I first realized it would be. I can tell you understand what it is I hope to accomplish here, in my own little way, and that you are doing the same. Your choice of friends is enough to prove that. In the end, blood doesn't mean much at all."
Meiyuu does not see how Sanzo's hands are shaking beneath the table. "No," the monk says, his head still turned away but also lowered now, staring at where the wall and the table are connected, "blood doesn't mean much of anything. Does it?" And Sanzo turns, his chin lifting as he brings his burning violet eyes to stare into brown.
Meiyuu's carafe of sake falls to the floor and shatters.
Sanzo rises from the table. "Blood didn't mean anything then, why would it now?" he says, and though his voice is even it is low and dark, like his expression.
Hands reaching up to tighten into a single fist near her heart, Meiyuu stares in disbelief. The face, the coloring. She had heard Genjou Sanzo was not like other monks so she expected the hair. But those eyes. No one else could have those eyes.
"Hikaru…" she says, and it fills the air like a whispered prayer.
Sanzo's expression remains cold. "You can keep your hospitality," he says, ignoring her stunned whisper. And then he is walking towards the door before Meiyuu or his companions can say anything.
"Sanzo!" Goku calls anyway, and the others jump into action alongside him.
"Sanzo, wait!"
"Sanzo!"
"Yo, monk, get back here!"
But Sanzo doesn't stop. He is halfway to the door when the broken cry of, "Hikaru!" reaches him. Like in the dreamworld, like those first images of Meiyuu's face, Sanzo recognizes the name, if only faintly. Had a mother called him that, tenderly even, for that first year of his life?
It doesn't matter. The years after that did not belong to her.
Sanzo turns back, walking only enough towards the table so that the woman, pleading eyes and shocked expression, can hear him without him raising his voice. The tables nearest them have silenced, however, and Sanzo's words resonate after he speaks them.
"My name is Koryuu," Sanzo says, and the hesitation in saying the name he might have shown a year ago is not at all present, "The name the man who raised me gave me." And Sanzo turns again, and despite the cries that follow him all the way out the door, he acknowledges none of them.
-----
When Meiyuu broke down in tears, sobbing out apologies and details Goku couldn't focus enough on yet to hear, Hakkai had looked to him, told the monkey to go, and Goku listened without another thought.
So now, running through the streets and knocking shoulders with several people he passes, Goku is chasing Sanzo, wildly looking down streets to see where the monk has gone. Goku finally finds Sanzo heading towards the inn, but using back alleys Goku had to search for to find. If not for Goku's faster pace, he wouldn't have caught the monk before Sanzo reached the inn and more than likely locked himself away for the next week.
"Sanzo, wait!" This is unfairly like déjà vu. "Stop! Sanzo, please!"
The difference is that this time Sanzo turns around and faces Goku, not at all like how he avoided the monkey the night before. "What do you want?" he says.
Goku will not let Sanzo's smoldering eyes get the better of him. "I only wanted you to talk to her. You didn't even let her say anything. She's your Mom, Sanzo. And she recognized you for sure back there. She even called you a name, your real—"
"Shut up."
Goku has never listened to Sanzo so quickly in his life. The words were like bullets.
Sanzo holds himself as a pillar, cold and solid. "I don't need to hear anything from her. She lives here. She lives for other causes. She doesn't live for a son. Why should I care if she is my mother when she already decided long ago she doesn't have a son?"
"But…but Sanzo, you don't even know if—"
"Shut. Up."
Goku flinches. A bullet to his heart that time, clean through.
"Don't talk to me about family," Sanzo continues, his voice cold like ice, colder than his eyes, "What do you know of blood? What do you know about having a mother at all, let alone one that never wanted you? You were never someone's child. Be thankful someone never had enough claim on you to throw you away."
And as Sanzo turns and leaves Goku in the street, the monkey has to wonder, pale and trembling, if Sanzo is right. Does nothing have claim on him like family? Like love? The words wound deeper than bullets, as if by saying them Sanzo has relinquished the claim Goku gave the monk, and left Goku with nothing.
tbc...
A/N: Ouch. Sanzo, you're a dick. But the real test here is going to be Goku's. You'll see soon how he handles that. Hope this was okay, and sorry for the wait. I am now in the throngs of a Death Note fic as well, crazy as that sounds, if you want to check it out. As for this fic, it will continue, hopefully more quickly. Thanks again, everyone, for your readiness to accept where the boys get thrown. I'm not done tossing them around just yet. ;-)
Crim
