Summer Snow Rebirth

curiouzkatt:

Note: I made my character even before I knew Saiyuki… it's purely coincidental..

DISCLAIMER: (plays tape)I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. I do not own Saiyuki. ( I think it's broken… oh well… brings out claws)

Chapter One: Linlin Kazuya

"Linlin…" the voice was calling her again. The blond girl with cropped hair turned around, searching for its source. Unable to locate it, she started to walk through the dark hallway. For every sound she made with her steps, it was absorbed – swallowed by the darkness around her.

"Linlin…" sapphire-blue eyes searched the dark hallway once more, only to find nothing. She started to run, the sound of her footsteps unheard. She knew that voice… it was her brother Alex... Alex was calling her.

"Alex!" she called out, but there was no answer. "Alex!"

"Linlin…" the voice called once more. "Remember…"

"Alex!"

"LINLIN KAZUYA!"

Linlin jolted from sleep and came face to face with her teacher's pointer. She glanced at her Math teacher and decided to focus on the end of the stick instead. She knew her teacher was furious and she'd rather not face the fire of a scowling old lady directly. Math wasn't one of her favorite subjects, and at this rate, it never will be. The teacher finally flicked the pointer away and Linlin was forced to look at her. She was scowling darkly.

"I expected more from you, Miss Kazuya… why, you're not even in your uniform! You make yourself look like a boy!" the teacher ranted, starting to fix her things.

Linlin quietly brushed a hand through her short blond hair. "Technically, I am in uniform, just the male uniform." Her retort was met with angrier lines on the teacher's forehead.

"Your family is well-known around here… you shouldn't humiliate the name at all!" she gave an air as she stepped out of the classroom and gave one final look. "I'll see you in detention."

Linlin sighed. She didn't give a damn about school. It was only a formality. She now regretted being broken in early by her family, learning things ahead of everyone else. Given the choice, she would have chosen not to have the tutors. She was beginning to doze off again when her raven haired friend Mili called her attention.

"I guess we'll have to work on the project without you." She sighed sadly, looking at the parts of their miniature Coliseum. Linlin smiled apologetically at her friend. "I can catch up later after detention, if you two can wait for me.."

"You just love seeing others suffer, don't you?" Linlin looked behind, finding a fellow blonde in school smirking at her – Maria Ingram. The girl flicked her long hair over her shoulder, showing how annoyed she was with the turn of events with the Math teacher. "Little miss know-it-all!" Maria would've gotten the satisfaction she wanted if she got the blonde mad, but the girl was asleep once again.

Mayumi, Linlin's soft-spoken, red haired friend, laughed quietly. "Um, I guess she found you boring." She ducked in time when Maria threw something at her. "I don't think that's very nice of you."

"I don't have to be nice to anyone!" the girl declared, huffing off.

Mili stuck her tongue out at the girl. "Prissy bitch." She muttered. "I hope she steps on a lego barefoot."

"Now, now Mili, that is also not nice… but I do hope she does." Her statement made the other girl giggle.

"Our English teacher is here!" everyone else went back to their seats. Everyone knew there was going to be a blunder, and they knew it would be soon.

"Good afternoon class!" the Miss Mala greeted, swishing her hair with such exaggeration and ended tripping face first on the classroom floor with an ungraceful thud.

"I'm okay!" the teacher faintly said and the others laughed at this while the others were embarrassed with the spectacle. They watched as two of their classmates helped to get her to the clinic, with her nose bleeding. Their teacher was endlessly clumsy, and such instances was barely surprising. Once out of earshot, some students started to cheer. It was the last class for the day, and they just have to wait for the announcement to go home.

"Mayumi, maybe we should start on the model," Linlin suggested, bringing out the materials from under her table. "I have to be in detention in an hour."

Mili, Mayumi and Linlin worked in silence. Although they needed more time, they weren't getting as far as they wanted. For one thing, Mili was accident-prone and they seem to end up cleaning than actually working.

"Aaaa….." Mili muttered, trying to save the extra glue that was spilling on one side of the pillar she was constructing.

"Mili…." Linlin groaned, slightly annoyed with the slow progress. She then checked her watch. "I have to go."

Mayumi smiled apologetically at Linlin. "I'm sorry we didn't get as far as we should have."

"Don't worry! We'll finish this!" Mili interjected, her pigtailed curly black hair as bouncy as she was. She trailed off, realizing how much more work needed to be done. "I hope…." The two watched Linlin leave and continued their work. "You know, I kinda miss her actual smile… it doesn't show as often anymore."

"You can't blame her," Mayumi voiced out. "Her brother died and she blames herself for it. No matter what we say, she won't listen. She's even adamant in keeping her hair short nowadays, and wearing the male uniform." She glanced at their work. "I do hope we get to finish this in time.."

"I will not sleep in class. I will not sleep in class. I will not sleep in class. I will not sleep in class. I will not sleep in class. I will not sleep in class. I will not…" Linlin paused from writing. This was making her sleepier.

"Why are you stopping?" the teacher demanded, breaking the silence in the room. "You are not yet done." Linlin wanted to reply, but her phone rang, which should have been on silent to begin with.

BREEEP! BREEEEP, BREEEEP!

She fumbled for her phone and answered it. "Hi Mom…"

"Hi dear!" she heard her mom say, amidst unfamiliar voices in the background. "Do you think you can excuse yourself from your friends? I need a few extra hands. Shun isn't here yet…"

"Give me…." Linlin glanced at her teacher who signaled 'thirty minutes'. "Thirty minutes… I'm in detention."

"Like there's anything new about that…" her mother said laughingly. "Okay, I'll give you forty minutes to get here. Bye! Love you!"

"Love you too mom." She locked the keypads and pocketed her phone. She could see from the corner of her eye that her teacher was pretending to hurl. Mrs. Techner hated mush. Those thirty minutes seemed to fly for her and soon, she found herself walking home.

She stopped to look at her own reflection on a shop window, passing her hand through her cropped hair. From her white polo, black tie, gold slacks, she did look like a boy. But also, she could see Alex in her reflection. Spotting painting materials in the shop reminded her of her friends, making her stop. I have to tell them something came up. She took out her phone to text them and continued walking, bumping into someone in the process. "I'm so sorry! I wasn't ….looking." she had bumped into a boy who, judging by his uniform, seemed to be a fourth year from her school, Lion Mane.

"No problem," the boy said, giving Linlin a smile. Even his coal black eyes seemed to smile. Her face felt hot, embarrassed to have bumped into him.

TAK!

Both of them looked down and found a small silver card. The boy bent down, picked it up and handed it to her. "Here, you dropped this." Linlin took it and realized it was a platinum credit card.

"Um, it's not mine," Linlin said, handing it back to the boy who looked at it for any identification.

"It reads Linlin Kazuya," he looked at her, bemused. "That's you, right?"

"Um, yeah… but…"

"Oh, my name's Jei by the way," he said then started to walk away. "See you around!" Linlin watched him leave, her argument stuck in her throat. She looked at the credit card in her hand once more.

"But it's not mine…." Linlin gave it another look. It had a strange label to it too, nothing like she'd seen around. Looking around, there was no one around to ask about it either. She shrugged and proceeded to walk home.

Watching the lotus pond not too far away, Kanzeon smiled.

"Linlin!" her mother exclaimed, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Five minutes late." She noted cheerily, heading for the second floor. She watched her mom's retreating figure, her blond hair swaying on her back. "Come, put your stuff in your room and help me fix the bedroom across…. That's where our guests are staying."

Linlin followed and looked around, noting a few "changes" on the walls. Bullet holes. She looked at her mom in askance. "Mom?" she called, sliding the door of her room open and placing her things beside the computer table, while her mother went in the guest room.

"Yes?" her mom replied, coming out of the guest room with used bed sheets. "What is it?"

"What happened to the walls?" she didn't want to sound like a curious kid, but she couldn't help it. It wasn't every day that you find your home full of bullet holes. If someone had raided the house, there wouldn't be this kind of atmosphere either. Unless she travelled into some parallel universe where this was normal.

"Um…" her mother trailed off and handed her half of the sheets to carry to the laundry room. "One of our guests has a short temper."

Linlin's eyes widened. "We have a madman for a guest?" she didn't know that the "madman" she mentioned was just sitting in the living room, reading the newspaper.

Gojyo smirked. "Hey, I guess I found someone who agrees with me." Gojyo took the liberty to take a peek at the hallway to sneak a peek at the girl and was confused when he spotted a girl in boy's clothes. "Huh, unique taste. I don't think she'd be your type."

Sanzo continued flipping through the newspaper and ignored the red head completely.

"Hey madman! I'm talking to you!"

BANG!

The shot was heard throughout the house and Linlin turned around, as if looking through walls and seeing Sanzo.

"I guess that was the madman."

"Linlin! That's not nice!" her mother scolded, getting the sheets and dumped them in the washer. "He's a monk."

"A WHAT?"

"He's a monk."

"No monk ever holds a gun!" Linlin argued, getting new sheets from the closet and bumped into monk robes. She stared at this strange outfit then adjusted her gaze upwards to look at the man, noting that he had striking blond hair like her but purple eyes like it had an inner glow. He arched an eyebrow.

"Is that so?" he said. "You haven't met that many monks, then."

"You have to take into account that you really aren't within the norm of what constitutes as a monk.." a kindly voice interjected from the other room, but did not show up.

Linlin just glared at him. He was handsome, no doubt about that, but she didn't like him at all.

Sanzo took the glare as a challenge and glared back. Moments passed and he found it quite silly so he brought out his fan and tapped her on the head. "Stupid girl."

"WHAT DID YOU SAY? YOU DROOPY-EYED MONK!" the girl yelled, as if flames surrounded the two as sparks were exchanged. The girl tore her gaze away and walked off to her room.

As this ended, there was a loud thunk nearby, and a figure of a confused boy rose up from the floor. "Huh? Wha?"

"Goku!" Mrs. Kazuya exclaimed. "Where did you come from?"

The brown haired youth still seemed to be in a daze. "Uh, who's Goku?"

WHACK!

"Hey! What was that for, meanie Sanzo!?"

Mrs. Kazuya was unsure how to respond to the turn of violent events. "At least his memory's back…" she looked up the ceiling. Finding no possible place that Goku could have fallen from, she turned back to the boy. "Goku, where did you come from?" When the boy pointed to the ironing board, she assumed that the boy must've been covered with clothes unintentionally. "Well, since you're up, do you mind helping me?"

The boy smiled at her with cheerfulness and got on his feet with a leap. "Nope!"

Linlin turned her computer on and opened the Typing Tutorial with a vengeance. "Asshole…" she muttered. She worked in silence when the door adjoining hers and her brother's rooms opened. She turned, half-expecting her brother to be there. Of course, that was impossible, and to her disappointment, it was only one of the guests. This one was black haired with emerald-green eyes. She turned back to her lesson then addressed the guest. "No one's allowed in that room… (but me)."

"Oh, I'm sorry…" the man said apologetically. His voice sounded very kind. He sounded like the same man who commented about the monk a few minutes earlier. "I was just looking around." He let his eyes wander about the room and looked back at the girl. "I'm Hakkai by the way, Cho Hakkai."

Linlin stopped typing and scrutinized Hakkai. "It's a weird name, but it's okay, I guess… I'm Linlin." Silence ensued after that exchange and only the soft tip-tap of Linlin's typing was heard. Hakkai decided to break the ice again.

"Er, who occupies that room?" he decided to ask. "It looks well-kept."

"Alex did." was the frank reply.

"Did?"

"He died."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…" Hakkai now regretted asking the question. Linlin stopped abruptly with her typing and looked at him with hurt in her eyes.

"You didn't mean to…" Linlin repeated. "You didn't know…. You shouldn't have asked." The girl stood up and went to the wooden balcony. Hakkai followed her. "Look. I don't want to talk about it…" Linlin's voice was slightly trembling. To avoid talking any further, she jumped on the overhanging tree branch, climbed down, and ran deep into their tree-filled backyard.

"Oh dear…" Hakkai muttered. He thought he'd call out but since it was in vain, Hakkai sighed. He seemed to have gotten on the wrong side of everything.

"Let her be…" Hakkai turned to see Mrs. Kazuya by the doorway, her blue eyes seem to reflect a similar sorrow as her daughter.

"But…"

"Let her be, give her time alone.." she told him simply. "Talk to her when she gets back."

Hakkai looked back to where Linlin had run off to, then sighed. "If you say so…" Feeling Goku's presence, he looked around for the boy. He was down below, playing with the family dog, Sniper. He and Linlin would be about the same age and it reminded him of something. "Mrs. Kazuya?" he looked but Mrs. Kazuya had left the room.

"Yes?" her voice called out from somewhere outside.

"Um, will Goku be going to school with Linlin?"

Goku, hearing his name, jumped up to the balcony. "School? Is that a restaurant?" he looked at the room. "Eh? Where's the girl? Sanzo asked me to watch her."

"She left."

"Uh-oh…. Sanzo's gonna be mad at me…" the boy said, shifting to a cross-legged sitting position, his chin resting on his hands and a pout on his face.

Hakkai laughed. "Then don't tell him," he suggested.

"What's a school?"

"It's a place where you learn things," Mrs. Kazuya answered, entering the room and placing a bag down. "Since you're staying with us for a while, you're going to school with Linlin."

The boy pondered it for a moment. "Hmm, it sounds kind of boring, but I guess I'll give it a shot." He smiled at Mrs. Kazuya just as another thought entered his mind. "When are we going to eat?"

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

A/N: rewriting this and checking the references, I realize how dated it is with phones with no ringtones and keypads instead of touch screens. I'm keeping things as is to keep in line with the timeline. But damn does it make me feel old.