Truth in Painful Ways
"I know there's no reason for you to believe me, but I swear it's the truth," Meiyuu says, clutching her embroidered handkerchief while downcast eyes stare at the purple stitching around its edges, "Please, please believe me."
Hakkai, Gojyo, and Dokugakuji had remained behind with Meiyuu when Goku chased Sanzo out of the restaurant. She had succumbed to tears quickly, and led the boys into the back and up the stairs to the apartment she lives in above her business. The help could deal with her influx of costumers. She had just seen her long lost son and been shunned.
"I never could have imagined he would be Genjou Sanzo. Famous. Part of your group that saved so many from a fate they didn't deserve. I should have known as soon as I heard of his coloring. But the violet eyes…I didn't believe it until I saw for myself. No one else could have such eyes."
The young men listen intently, seated around her—Hakkai and Dokugakuji on chairs they pulled over and Gojyo on a footstool—as Meiyuu sits at the edge of her bed, face damp and body trembling. She has told them her tale, rushed and heartfelt, and even Gojyo who would usually have to add his own two cents at intervals, remained silent throughout.
Now, as her words drift, Hakkai leans forward in his chair and places a hand on Meiyuu's knee. "Miss Meiyuu, I know this is difficult for you, but your sincerity…I don't think it's possible to doubt that. I knew some of your tale already, to be honest."
"You did?" Meiyuu looks up, meeting emerald with wide warm brown, "But how?"
"A long story in itself. But me, Gojyo, Goku, and Sanzo even had already speculated that your reasons for placing a young child in the river was because you had no choice. Even before the minus wave we all know there were youkai factions that raided human towns. That yours was attacked, your husband killed, I can understand why you would think setting the child adrift might be the only way to ensure his survival."
"And Hakkai's right that Sanzo would believe that part too," Gojyo adds, scooting to the end of the footstool, hands awkwardly on his knees that are too high with the short height of his seat, "It's just…well…it's the rest of the story he's not too keen on, even if he doesn't know it all. I mean, you're alive."
Meiyuu's shoulders slump, her body shriveling in and causing Hakkai's kind hand to drop form her knee. "I know. I…I should have found him sooner. If only I had found him sooner. He just looked so happy. He didn't know me anymore. How could I justify taking him from the temple when he had found a new family?"
Dokugakuji straightens in his chair and looks to the others as a silent exchange passes between them.
Hakkai braves the question. "Are you saying you did find Sanzo at Kinzan temple?" he asks. Meiyuu had only told of the loss of her son thus far. "You did search for him," Hakkai says, leaning back to sit up straighter. He looks at Meiyuu's face, hidden by the shadows of her bent head, and knows without finishing his words what the answers are. "You searched, but by the time you found where he had drifted, he had grown, maybe only a year or two, but it was enough that you felt it was in his best interest to leave him in Koumyou's care." None of Hakkai's words are questions.
Lifting her chin at the mention of Koumyou, Meiyuu's eyes glaze and dim as if she were back at Kinzan temple now, watching from afar the happy face of her young son. "Koumyou Sanzo," she says, "I know the name, but I never approached him. It was a monk along the road that first told me. I asked about a boy that might have been found at the river, and he knew of Hikaru." Her eyes dart up and then down again. "Hikaru. That was the name…I gave him. The monk knew of my son," she goes on, "And I followed the path to Kinzan temple, asking the monks as I traveled through. They pointed me in the right direction, but when I saw Master Sanzo playing with my little boy like a father, really like a father, chasing him and laughing, I…I knew Hikaru wasn't my child anymore. It had been almost two years. He didn't know me. I thought I was doing the right thing…" Tears well up fresh within her and begin to stream.
Hakkai renews the touch of his hand on her knee. "Miss Meiyuu," he says, "We would never judge you for that decision." Out of the corner of Hakkai's eye he sees Gojyo give a twitch and knows the kappa is holding his tongue. "And as for Sanzo, just give him some time. We'll talk to him and you can tell him yourself your reasons. Maybe he will understand, maybe he will not, but I think you owe it to each other to take the time to find out."
That much at least, neither Dokugakuji nor Gojyo disagrees with.
When Meiyuu lifts her head to gage their reactions to her, she meets only pained understanding. These young men, friends of her son, earnestly hope she can find common ground with the man that is now Genjou Sanzo.
"Thank you. I…I would like to see him," Meiyuu says, "But his reaction to me…I…I know it is what I deserve. I would never think I had the right to ask anything of him. I just wish…I wish I could know him, anything of him. I don't think it is possible for a mother to be more proud of her son's accomplishments, but he is so much more than Genjou Sanzo to me. I only wish…to tell him that and ask his forgiveness."
It was several minutes later that the three men finally left Meiyuu. They had agreed to see what they could do about getting Sanzo to at least meet with her, which is all they could really offer in promise. They would try.
Walking back towards the inn, they are silent for blocks, their footfalls louder than their breathing or occasional sighs. But before the street of their inn has come into view, Gojyo erupts.
"I just…I just don't get it," he blurts out, hands raising in frustration as if he had been holding this reaction in since they left Meiyuu, "She's his mom. You don't just leave your kid. You find him, you love him, you raise him. Period. How could she just…I mean, I know why, and I get that it was hard and she's sorry, but I just can't, I just don't get how, I…I don't know."
A brief pause is then followed by Dokugakuji's laughter. "Bro, don't take offense huh, but you always were a bit oblivious when it came to knowing about parents." Despite the laughter, his words are honest.
Gojyo does not respond.
"You got this ideal of what you wished Mom could be, but she wasn't. You figure other Moms would and should be the same, but it's not clean-cut like that. We don't know what it was like for Meiyuu being there, seeing her kid with a new parent like she never existed. She thought she was doing the right thing for him, hard as it was."
"Yes, and foolishly thought that leaving was the right thing for a young child. Much as I sympathize with her, I do agree with Gojyo. Such inane thinking really is hard to understand." Hakkai keeps his eyes on the path ahead as he speaks, but his words are cutting and it does not go unnoticed who they are really intended for.
Gojyo tries to get Hakkai's attention with his eyes, but Hakkai will not meet the stare.
Dokugakuji says nothing, to defend or otherwise. It is only when they reach the inn that he turns to Hakkai, coming around to block the green-eyed youkai's path by standing in front of the inn door.
"Look, I can tell you it's not easy leaving a kid behind, but people don't always think clearly. Sometimes, we're just thinking about what would be easier. I was a kid then too. Fourteen ain't no adult. Don't think your double-talk bypasses me, coz I'm not stupid. I messed up. Maybe that's what we have to say about her too. But you don't know what it feels like to be in that position. Do you?"
The more sensible half of Hakkai wonders how on earth he could have been so tactless and bold. He has trouble accepting Gojyo's brother on account of their past and how Jien left an eight-year-old alone, but the truth is Hakkai doesn't know what it's like to be there. The only place he's been is one where getting to a loved one is all that mattered, not leaving them.
Gojyo wants to speak up, hating the stare between his brother and lover that won't disconnect. Neither says anything for so long, he fears they will turn to viscous blows if something doesn't break the tension.
And then Hakkai speaks. "You're right. I apologize. Though I will not deny that you baffle me, Doku-san. Finally you are saying the right words. But not to the right person." And though a small part of him thinks he should be kinder, Hakkai allows his tone to remain dark. He sidesteps past Dokugakuji and walks into the inn.
Gojyo and Dokugakuji remain outside, neither looking at the other. Thanks to his long time friend and newly acquired lover, Gojyo feels more awkward than ever around his brother. Hakkai just called Dokugakuji on something Gojyo had long ago decided to forgive and forget. It's just the way Gojyo is. He accepts that people are going to be who they are and do what's right by them, and as far as he is concerned, that is all he should expect from anyone.
His philosophy should make him more sympathetic to Meiyuu, he realizes, but right now his problems are bigger than dealing with Sanzo's messed up family. He has his own to worry about.
"He gets that way sometimes. Holier than thou and talking big. Feel free to ignore it," Gojyo says, speaking more to the door frame behind Dokugakuji than to the youkai himself.
Gojyo never was that good of a liar. "You think same as he does, way more than you let on. I'm not stupid, remember? And it's not like I don't know how awful it was for you, coz I do, I screwed up, and I…" Dokugakuji snaps his mouth shut. How does he say this?
Red eyes, red eyes he has always loved, are looking at him. Slowly they're focusing on him instead of the door, and he wants to be honest with them for a change.
"Gojyo," he says, "I'm sorry. I know we've danced around all this a million times since the last battle, but I am. I hated myself then. I could have tried to track you down and instead I found Kou. I didn't replace you with him, but somehow, I don't know, I thought I could make up for leaving you by being devoted to him. That isn't fair to you, I know, but…I know it wasn't right. And I am sorry."
This really isn't Gojyo's area of expertise. He's done all the tearful revelation shit with Hakkai, a little with Goku, and hell, maybe even a very little bit with Sanzo, but now his brother too? His life's become a regular soap opera. Or he's becoming a woman. He's not sure which. Best thing to do in situations like this are to act cool and brush it off.
After one, small thing.
"Never needed to hear it," Gojyo says, "Just needed to know it. And…I know. You don't have to ask forgiveness Jien, you've always had it." A hug would be too much. Definitely. So Gojyo just steps forward and squeezes his brother's shoulder tight, giving.
Dokugakuji grins. "Don't cry now, huh? You're an adult now."
"Hey. Who said anything about crying?" Gojyo pouts, "And I didn't cry back then either, asshole. I—"
"Save it for someone who believes it, runt."
Gojyo is about to retort yet again when Hakkai pushes back out of the inn and nearly runs headlong into Dokugakuji. His expression is grim.
"What is it?" Gojyo asks.
Hakkai's eyes dart around the area outside the inn before turning to Gojyo in answer. "Well, Sanzo's locked in his room, much as a surprise that is," he explains, "But we have another problem."
The nervous biting of Hakkai's lip is not a twitch the healer allows often. Gojyo doesn't like this. "What is it?" he says again.
"It's Goku. He's gone."
-----
"You sure it's okay, Ra-mama?"
"Yes, dear, it's lovely. It suits young Sanzo quite well, I think. May I ask what inspired it?"
Lirin looks down at the quilt covering her and her step-mother's lap. It is growing larger now with more filler patches along with the newest one for the Sanzo-ikkou. The others will come later, but Lirin wanted to start with her favorite "perch".
The square she has designed for the monk and that Rasetsunyo is currently stitching, is deep violet with gold around the edges. In one top corner is a version of the monk's gun, in the other top corner is a cigarette. Together they almost look like eyes, especially with how the monk's sutras is being displayed like a smiling mouth along the bottom of the patch. It's perfect.
"All the things that remind me of baldy but made like a smile, coz he's not so bad even with all the dangerous stuff. He just tries to make you think he is. And the colors are good. I like it!" She exclaims.
Rasetsunyo smiles, adding another stitch to the black bits of "lettering" on the sutra. "I'm glad, dear. You'll have to think hard about the other boys now too. Who should we move onto next?"
"Mmm…probably Goku. He should be next to Sanzo, since they're all couply and everything. Oh!" Lirin's eyes light up and Rasetsunyo has to hold down the quilt to keep the girl's movement from disrupting her current stitch. "Goku needs a meatbun on his. A bunch of 'em." She nods to herself, certain of her revelation.
Like any good and patient mother, Rasetsunyo knows to simply nod in kind. She resettles the quilt on her and Lirin's lap and hands Lirin an orange square to begin preparing for Goku's.
After a few minutes of silent work—something very rare with Lirin around—the young youkai speaks up. "Hey, Ra-mama?"
"Yes?"
"I don't want to tattle or nothing, but…sometimes when I walk by Nii-chan's room," she looks side to side, like checking for eavesdroppers, "I hear noises."
Rasetsunyo tries not to giggle. "Noises? What kind of noises, Lirin dear?" she asks knowingly.
Lirin isn't quite as easily deceived as one might think. She makes a face. "You know what kind, Ra-mama. All sorts of low breathy noises and little yips and stuff. And it's not just Nii-chan in there. I hear Yaone too. Don't think I don't know what they're up to in there. I'm almost sixteen you know."
"True. Though I hope you don't know what they're up to by personal experience just yet."
The quilt gives another little jump and Rasetsunyo nearly skewers her finger with the needle. "Course not," Lirin huffs, "I mean I've done stuff, just not all that stuff."
Rasetsunyo raises an eyebrow and gives Lirin a sideways glance.
"Just kissing stuff." Lirin qualifies, feeling about ten years old and in trouble. Of course, she actually doesn't fear Rasetsunyo, not the way she feared her own mother. But reprimand out of love can be very scary when it wants to be. "Don't worry. Nii-chan always scares boys off anyway."
"Really?" Rasetsunyo considers this. She does another stitch before adding, "We'll have to do something about that."
Lirin grins to herself. It really is great having a real mother for a change.
-----
Another knock sounds at Sanzo's door. He has ignored the last ten, he can ignore this one too. The damn door is locked for a reason.
Yet another knock. Persistent bastard. Finally, a voice filters in too.
"Sanzo, I know you're in there, and though you refuse to acknowledge that I would like to speak with you, it really would be in your best interest to hear me out."
Sanzo does not reply. Hakkai can talk all he wants. Sanzo has no intention of leaving his spot in the window. Robe down around his waste and his second cigarette of the day lit and hanging from his mouth, proves that he is in a position he plans to stay in for as long as possible. He doesn't need lunch. He won't need dinner either. He's survived on less. He doesn't need anything.
"Sanzo, you can't do this. We've come so much farther than this. I know you're angry, and you have every right to be, but you didn't give her a chance to explain. She had her reasons. It wasn't abandonment in the way you're thinking, Sanzo, you must believe that."
It doesn't matter. Sanzo doesn't want to hear this. His mother is alive. She set him adrift and lived. She should have found him. Everything would have been different. Maybe Sanzo is glad things are not different, but that doesn't mean he can let her off the hook for leaving him.
Hakkai knocks again as he continues to speak. "Sanzo, I am not leaving this spot. I can break the lock you know, I am only respecting your choice so that it can be your choice to let me in. I won't feel that way forever."
Sanzo takes his gun from out of the folds of his robe and points it at the door. "Come through that door and I shoot." He says.
Nothing. No response. Maybe Hakkai is actually thinking clearly for once.
The next moment Sanzo no longer thinks that, because Hakkai has carried through with his threat, and a concentrated bolt of chi bursts open the lock. Hakkai steps in and closes the door behind him again, his face blank and serious.
Sanzo does not pull the trigger.
"An empty threat. How surprising," Hakkai says, and his tone is not at all amused, "That you would resort to such a thing at all after the strides we have made, honestly, Sanzo. Are we not beyond this? Or does one small misstep in your reality revert you back to the weaker version of yourself that needs to aim bullets at friends?"
The gun fires. A bullet is now unhappily lodges in the wall just off the doorframe.
Hakkai has not flinched. "Dangerous ground, Sanzo. I've warned you before."
But Sanzo is not listening. He is not taking notice of the shift in Hakkai as he should. He lowers his gun, his glare hard but not really looking at Hakkai. "Get out. I'm not in the mood for your bullshit. I'm not interested in being convinced to better my soul and how I should be forgiving of that woman when I clearly meant nothing to her. Keep standing there and the next bullet won't miss."
Because Sanzo is not interested in Hakkai's words or presence, he turns back to the window, his gun limp in his lap, expecting that once ignored Hakkai will heed him.
The healer is not in a heeding mood.
Sanzo feels the pressure of a too firm grip on his shoulder without having sensed Hakkai's movement. He spins back to face the brunette, angry, ready to fight if he has to, but is still surprised when the grip increases and another to match it grabs his other shoulder and pushes his back against the window until he is held firm. It hurts, the grip, the feel of glass pressing into his back. He already feels the bruises that will be there tomorrow and looks up into strangely dark, jade-colored eyes.
"What the fuck," Sanzo growls. So much from shooting bullets at friends.
"You like things this way?" Hakkai asks, and his voice is lower than it should be, "You like being this selfish bastard who thinks to hell with others who might suffer when you shut down, when you shut everything out? What do we matter, right? What difference does it make if it hurts us that you do this every time. We're not your friends. We're convenient or inconvenient. You're such a petulant child," Hakkai scoffs, and the eye that is real quivers as if trying to find a different form, a thin slit to better suit its true nature, "Things are tough for you, you've been hurt, so why not hurt everyone else. Goku is gone. I don't know where. And your mother, who only wants to know you, has been abandoned in turn by you. Yes, that's adult, isn't it? And what of what I go through? I'm the one who has to deal with you. I'm the one who has to time and again strike you until you remember you are not alone. Sometimes I swear I could just…"
Hakkai never finishes the thought.
Backing away, his grip released from Sanzo's shoulders, Hakkai's darkness vanishes like a layer peeled away to drop and land on the ground. He stares, gaping at his own actions, and backs away from the still stunned Sanzo.
"I…I don't know what came over me, I…I apologize."
Sanzo only stares, feeling the burning in his shoulders from where Hakkai gripped so maliciously.
"I shouldn't have. I…I'm sorry. I…I'll leave you, if that is what you want."
Hakkai is nearly to the door when Sanzo finally reacts. He isn't in the mood for any of this. He isn't in the mood for Hakkai losing it. His own problems are enough. Whatever strain is on the others they can deal with it themselves.
Of course, that is exactly the kind of thinking that made Hakkai so angry, but although Sanzo recognizes that, he doesn't care enough to change that thinking. So he's selfish, so he wants to wallow for awhile. It's his right, damn it.
"Just go. Find the stupid monkey, he's not far. I'd know if he was. I'll come out when I'm damn well ready."
"Yes. Of course." The passivity in Hakkai is startling, but Sanzo is too eager to be alone again to care.
Hakkai is almost out the door when Sanzo adds, "And don't ever touch me like that again."
Hakkai has nothing to say. He leaves.
Sanzo, turning to stare back out the window and wishing away the ache in his shoulders, decides he is surrounded by idiots that are growing more idiotic by the day. Goku running off, Hakkai snapping, Gojyo making sense half the time. He shouldn't have to deal with this shit.
A mother is enough.
-----
Something within him is wrong. Something at the core where he no longer has control is being chipped away at piece by piece, small at first so that he has not noticed until now. How could he snap like that so easily? Sanzo is frustrating, the monk got him to slap him once before, but this is beyond that. He isn't himself. But if not, then what is he?
Hakkai leans back against the wall outside Sanzo's room. Gojyo and Dokugakuji went to search for Goku. There isn't anyone around. It's just him and his pounding heart. His head pounds with almost the same rhythm, throbbing from his temples. There was something so liberating in confronting Sanzo that way rather than reaching the issue underhandedly or with his usual passive-aggressiveness. And it scares Hakkai how much he enjoyed it.
Calling Dokugakuji on his past actions is one thing. Getting angry with Gojyo for shamelessly flirting is one thing. But physically attacking one of his companions with fierce intent is bordering on monstrous.
He is not the beast within him. He is not. His limiters are in place—he checks self-consciously and half expects them to be burning. They are cool and normal to the touch. It isn't the limiters. It's him.
"What is happening…?" he breathes.
Closing his eyes, he envisions something soothing, a forest of deep purples and greens with a river. His friends camped out beside it with a fire, and no threat around them to fear. That is the life he wants. That is what they have earned. Why is something else pushing through instead?
Hakkai resolves to fix this. He has to fix this. He is not the beast. He is not the beast.
Moving with quick, assured steps, Hakkai crosses the hall to his and Gojyo's room, enters, and closes the door. He goes to the bathroom and closes the door behind him there as well. Instinct reaches his hand for the faucet and he splashes cool water over his face, feeling it drip into the longer strands of his hair.
For a moment Hakkai is startled. His hair looks so long in the mirror. But then he reminds himself that he has been allowing it to grow since the first dreamworld encounter. It has grown longer on its own, shaggy and past his ears now and dipping down his neck. Not to his shoulders by any stretch, not past them like his full youkai form, but in this state the longer strands remind him only of viciousness.
He stares hard into his eyes, past the monocle to his false eye and compares it to the left. There is nothing slit or narrow. Except for the slightly duller color of his right, the eyes are identical. Behind the monocle even the color is hard to tell sometimes so that someone who didn't know the truth would assume both eyes are his. They are his. Not the beast's.
But what of a moment from now? What of Gojyo's next joke taken wrong or Sanzo's next regression? Little by little the horror in Hakkai is rising and he knows it, but a part of him believes firmly that it can only be his imagination. Anyone can lose their cool. He deals with rather unorthodox people; it isn't all that surprising that he would occasionally snap. And it's not as if he has hurt anyone.
"I'm being foolish. It's nothing," Hakkai tells the mirror, touching his face and watching the image copy him, "There is no reason for me to be feeling this way. I am wearing my limiters. He can't get out on his own. He isn't that strong. I'm stronger. I'm…strong." But even as he says it he isn't sure how much he believes it.
There's only one way to know. He has to feel the difference. To remind himself of the difference. He is human and in control. His limiters ensure that. Only when he removes them does he become the beast.
Beast. When did it stop being his other form and become what Seiten Taisei is no longer?
"I have to…see it. Feel it. I have to know." Hakkai reaches up to his left ear and grabs onto the limiters with anxious fingers. One tug. That's all.
As Hakkai plucks each limiter away and the clink of metal hitting the floor sounds in three separate chimes, he knows that he is being much more foolish right now. For a moment, even as his body transforms, he wonders about sabotage. How deeply is the beast inside his mind that he can convince himself it could ever be a good idea to remove the one thing holding the breadth of the monster at bay?
-----
He remembers the sound of her voice. The low tone, the gentle lifts and pauses, the smooth phrases that always flowed. He remembers her face, younger then, looking down at him with a longing and a sorrow he knows he has felt in his own life, and has seen on others, but that seemed a hundred fold more heartbreaking in her eyes. He remembers her touch. Her presence. Her love.
Sanzo scoffs. Love. What does that woman know of love if she can leave what she should cherish like unwanted laundry in the river to be swept away? And what does it matter if she has a story, a reason? She is alive, meaning that if she had ever looked for him she must have given up. A mother should never give up on her child. Koumyou, though deterred from time to time, never doubted Sanzo. Koumyou would not have left him for dead.
The whole story is not known to Sanzo but he has made up his mind not to care what the truth might be. She should have been there. Sanzo has been abandoned enough for one life. Meiyuu in the dreamworld was more of a reminder than he needed.
Sanzo shifts in the window and his cigarette falls and hits his ankle. His boots protect his skin but he still jumps and when the smoking stick hits the wood of the window seat and rolls, it snuffs itself out. Sanzo kicks it off the seat onto the floor with a sneer. That was his last one too, damn it.
Leaning back against the alcoved wall, Sanzo stares at the glass, not seeing anything. The sky is growing cloudy but he knows it won't rain. These clouds are rolling in softer and that only annoys him more.
As if there isn't enough to annoy him right now, what with this damn mess and Goku running off and Hakkai flipping out. Goku is supposed to be grown up. The inches he has been starting to make up for apparently aren't enough to get that across to him.
Sanzo at first found it disturbing when Goku looked him a little squarer in the eye than normal. He soon found it intriguing since the boy doesn't have to strain his neck quite as much, but now thinks of it as an unfortunate joke. The monkey is even more of a brat than ever.
If he had just told Sanzo what he wanted to hear yesterday than maybe today instead of sulking separately Goku would be in the room trying to console Sanzo. Perhaps then it is a blessing that they had their fight. Sanzo doesn't want consolation, he wants isolation. Locked doors aren't enough to guarantee that, however.
Seeing as how Hakkai broke the lock on his entrance, it isn't all that difficult for Goku to push open the door and come into the room. Which he does, slowly and cautiously, watching Sanzo like a hunter watching prey that could just as easily make prey out of him.
Sanzo knows Goku has come back, feels the presence of him enter. He doesn't look at the boy, but he says, "I've been bothered enough by you idiots. Leave me alone."
Goku finishes closing the door behind him, but doesn't speak at first. He stands, back against the door, eyes drifting up at Sanzo and back to the floor, and waits. "I know," he finally says, his voice dim, "I know that's what you want, but I think you need more."
More? This is much more than Sanzo at his most patient can handle, and today is not a patient day. "Just leave," he says again, turning fierce violet on gold and refusing to be moved by the dampness in them, "I don't want your convincing or your soothing or any of that shit. If you want to be useful and get me something I need, run out for a fresh pack. Don't spew self-righteous bullshit at me about how I should be forgiving. It's my mother. I can handle this however the fuck I want."
"I know. You wouldn't be Sanzo if you didn't feel that way."
Sanzo's eyes narrow. Something in Goku's voice is different, resolved but greatly saddened by it, and Sanzo doesn't think all of that has to do with the situation with his mother. "What's with you? Am I not living up to your expectations? Hmm? Finally realized I'm never going to be the kind, gentle, loving partner you hoped for? That's not me. If you want that then—"
"I don't want anything but you, Sanzo," Goku says, but even that is touched with pained resolution Sanzo doesn't understand.
"What then?" the monk says.
The golden eyes that have been lifting and falling, never lingering too long on Sanzo, finally take anchor and meet the blonde's gaze directly. Goku's feet shift, his arms twitching though his hands are tightly clenched into fists. He simply says, "I'm ready."
Sanzo doesn't understand. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm ready, Sanzo. If it can help, and I don't know if it can, but I'd rather risk it so you at least know the truth. And I'll tell you. I'll tell you the truth now."
The weight of Goku's resolve begins to dawn on Sanzo and he turns out of the window to face Goku fully. The monkey is serious.
"I'll tell you the truth," he says, "About everything."
tbc...
A/N: So sorry. No time for comments. But good cliffhangers all around in this one that are going to be so much fun. Hope this was okay and I'll try to be faster. Love you all!
Crim
