Saiyuki - Within You chapter 4
Time went by as the location stayed the same and now only half of the Sanzo party was left in the rather…modest bar. The half-breed womaniser had left some time ago, stumbling along in a manner that was as unsteady and unfocused-yet-focused as only a real drunk guy could manage. It had Hakkai half-sitting on the edge of his chair, ready to rush over and help his friend as so many times before. Somehow Gojyo managed to stagger through the bar and up the stairs, though, and the brunette tried hard not to think about how he’d ever manage to actually unlock the door to their shared room. Otherwise, if he did think about it, he would most likely find himself going up there to assist.
Once more he could mentally hear the kappa snort. He’d probably tell him something like he shouldn’t be such an overly worried mother hen all the time and that the half-breed was capable of taking care of himself, thank-you-very-much. Most likely this would be delivered with a crooked grin that told the brunette the kappa didn’t mind that terribly much, when it came down to it.
Their ever-sour leader of an eccentric monk had disappeared upstairs as well, sometime before the redhead. Well, he had actually marched past the two brunettes, glared icy daggers at Gojyo’s back while passing and then stomped up the stairs to get to the room he and Goku was “forced” to share.
So now it was down to the former human and the monkey sitting a little way from each other at the same table. The boy was munching on a large portion of dessert the waitress had been kind enough to make - at Hakkai’s polite request.
After the monk had left, his charge had gotten up with the clear intention of following his sun. Concern and deep affection was very evident in those large irises of molten gold and that was part of the reason the healer had held him back with soft smiles and hands and a logical, reasoning tone of voice, which got him to sit down again, along with the promise of a large dessert if he was obedient. Always the insatiable monkey.
Though even when he was stuffing his face with more than should be possible for any living being to take in one mouthful, the eyes that marked him as a heretic kept darting towards the staircase, the concern, affection and utter devotion shining in them as clearly as if he had actually spoken out loud.
Hakkai sighed as he looked at the shortest member of their group. Sometimes he wondered how their high and mighty leader constantly failed to see what was to the healer so blatantly, painfully obvious that it should almost slam into your face on a regular basis. Then again, the monk had a rare talent for ignoring things that he didn’t like or didn’t know how to handle until they went away by themselves. Trouble was - Goku wasn’t going to go away. Not now, not ever. He was the most loyal thing ever conceived and Sanzo was his saviour, his guardian, his sun and he’d follow him to the ends of the earth, no matter how horribly the priest treated him or how much he was ignored. A very good example of this was this whole Homura-business they’d been through. If that didn’t prove his loyalty and what he’d do to make his sun happy, then what in the name of the Merciful Goddess would?
Speaking of loyalty…next to their dear monkey, the perhaps most loyal member of the group would be their kappa. Not that the other two weren’t loyal, when push came to shove and all that. It was more that the redhead had fewer qualms about showing his loyalty. Mostly it came in form of a rough pat on the back or an arm slung around one’s shoulders and neck, but it was there nonetheless - never spoken, but shown in a million small ways that was telltale to anyone who knew Gojyo even a little bit.
It was that loyalty that sometimes drove the healer to despair. Not because he didn’t admire it. He truly did - especially when one considered all the times that loyalty and the trust that went with it had been thrown to the wind by careless people and then, for good measure and something to kill time with, blown to smithereens.
It was more that when that loyalty and trust was directed at him, his insides started feeling very strange. All at once they started churning and fluttering, making it both cold and warm inside of him.
The churning was caused by the sinking feeling he always got when eyes of hope and trust and suchlike was turned his way - that he was in no way worthy of it. That he never would be and that he was being a deceiver and a devil by continuing to accept what was displayed in those eyes, whether they be red or golden or even purple on occasion. As for the fluttering…well…
Hakkai shook his head slowly as if to shake out the thoughts that swarmed inside it. That of course didn’t work. About all it accomplished was making Goku stop stuffing his face for a moment and look at him with the confused, inquiring expression that was so typically him when there was something he didn’t understand.
When the older man merely smiled at him, he outwardly lowered his eyes and went back to his dessert. Mentally, however, he cocked a brow and filed the scene under things that he would slip into a conversation with the other brunette when he didn’t expect it. It was easier to get a true response out of him when he was caught off-guard, after all.
Said older man still hadn’t succeeded in dispersing the thoughts he’d much rather deal with another time - like in another lifetime. Not so much because he was afraid of himself or anything. It was more that he was afraid of the consequences to others that his thoughts might lead to.
A small, wry smile appeared. Gojyo would probably laugh or snort and sling a tanned arm around green-clad shoulders with a wry comment of how it would always amuse him how the healer could put his own troubles and concerns in the background in order to let others’ worries come first - or simply just in order to suppress them as not to worry anyone.
The really amusing part about that? That the redhead was more right than he would ever know - and he wouldn’t change that for the world. As long as his friends was happy - or what passed as happy for those three, anyway - he could see no reason to destroy that happiness with…selfish things like that. After all, it would pass in time - as long as he didn’t encourage it in any way or let on to anyone that something was the matter, so to speak.
This time it wasn’t the voice of his roommate that sounded inside his skull. Instead it seemed like his own mental Sanzo decided to speak out - against him, as per usual.
Everything passes in time - even life…idiot. No doubt about it - that was definitely the voice of their always-distant, disdainful leader. Nobody else could sound quite as pissed and yet gruffly-caring as the monk.
The brunette had to admit the blond had a point, even if it in reality only was his own sometimes rather lopsided mind that was mimicking Sanzo’s voice to prove its point. He smiled turned more wry. Figure it would be him to make a mental stage show with his friends as the players. Perhaps he was the real puppeteer, when it came down to it.
He wasn’t going to act on what his inner voices, so to speak, said, though. He wasn’t even going to acknowledge anything had been proposed in the first place, even if nobody but he himself knew it. He wouldn’t.
The reason for this was connected to several things, which in turn was connected to something specific; something very central. First of all, there was the fact that Gojyo was a womaniser true and true. Had been for as long as Hakkai had known him and probably would be until he was lying on his deathbed - and probably even then he’d most likely try to smooth-talk the nurse attending him. Back “home” he always had at least two girls hanging on his arms whenever he went someplace that wasn’t their little house - and even then on evenings he’d more often than not have some girl on his arm. This made it simply impossible for the former human to ever imagine that the redhead could ever even consider anyone that was not female, let alone the brunette himself.
But there was another issue in the whole problem. The aforementioned loyalty and trust and how he was not worthy of it. Hakkai held no illusions about himself - though some would argue that he had one too many disillusions about himself - least of all about his own worth.
Not that he was suicidal or anything silly like that. His friends had effectively cured him of that, each in their own way. He could still remember being knocked down by Goku while he had been slowly plucking out his left eye all those years ago as well as the emotion flittering in those golden eyes.
Yet there was still things that made him feel very much unworthy of the trust shown him. Not only was he a demon that only stayed sane by the help of three, when it came down to it, small pieces of metal - and he had become like that by committing mass-murder of other demons. He was also capable of, and had proven on more than one occasions, that whatever madness had possessed him back then he could fall prey to once more. It was only luck - or a sadistic way of making sure he would be alive to “suffer” longer, whichever was the case - combined with the efforts of his travelling companions that…kept him more or less on the straight and narrow, so to speak.
Long explanation short - even if, on the odd never-in-a-lifetime-chance that the kappa really did like him, as more than a friend, that is, he was not worth all the trust he had been shown and even less what was usual to give a lover, not to mention all the other things and emotions that went with being lovers. He had betrayed his love, his Kanan by not being there when she needed him most. If there was one thing he couldn’t face, it was doing that again - and especially not to Gojyo of all people; the person who had experienced almost nothing but betrayal and distrust wherever he went, except for when there was lust. But even then, there was not the love, care and co-dependence the redhead needed even if he didn’t say it and perhaps didn’t even know it. He needed it like Goku needed his sun…and the healer couldn’t give it to him. Not like he deserved, anyway.
But then again, it wouldn’t be a problem, now would it? Because even if he could be attracted to the brunette, all it would ever be was just that. Attraction. Mutual pleasure that in the morning would cause nothing but awkwardness and worry. The green-eyed man could just imagine how it would be and he didn’t much care for it. Rather nothing at all than having to watch those red eyes flicker back and forth in an attempt to act like a friend and face it up in the best mate-manner possible. Mostly because he’d normally run before the morning after came. Trouble was, in those cases he’d run back to his home, but if it was ever just…mutual pleasure between the two roommates, there would be only outside to find a sort of sanctuary and that was…less than optimal, to put it mildly.
Even here on this rather tiresome journey it was not a good idea. As a matter of fact, it was even worse than if it had happened back home. Here there was nowhere to run and the tension of sitting in the same vehicle all day, day after day after such an ordeal would be unbearable, not only to the two roommates but, perhaps especially, to their ever-ticking bomb of a leader. He’d probably shoot them for real, though at least nowhere critical, because the tension they created disturbed and therefore annoyed him greatly.
On top of that there was the issue with attachment. Hakkai did not enter relationships lightly, or he’d have “gotten lucky”, as the kappa would have put it, a long time ago. There needed to be something other than just a passing attraction or simple lust Due to his past experiences, it was very unlikely for the redhead to venture any further than that, though. Not because he did it intentionally; the brunette would never believe that. More because it had become such a huge part of him over the years that it was almost instinctual by now. To commit himself to somebody was frightening, the healer suspected. It opened up the possibility that he could be betrayed again and as the incident at Homura’s castle had shown, his ties to the past was still much too strong for things like love. The most he could give was the love of a friend and even that had taken time for him to give. It would be cruel to expect more of him and while the green-eyed man could be called many things, heartless wasn’t among them.
The bottom line was that Gojyo would never; could ever love him. Therefore he would never ever mention it or let it slip it any way that he was in love with the hanjyuu. His friend had enough worries and troubles to be bothered with something as insignificant as that. Plus the friendship would always come before everything else, including personal feelings.
It was with heavy footsteps, though, that Hakkai at long last made his way up the stairs to the room he was to share with the redhead. Goku he had ushered to his room a little while earlier, to go and check up on Sanzo - for which he had received a very grateful smile before the boy had bounded off.
He, on the other hand, was off to another night of lying listening to heavy breathing and trying to calm his heart as best he could.
"Live without your sunlight
Love without your heartbeat"
TBC
I sense a lot of trouble and drama up ahead. Do you? Stay tuned