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xparrotFF.net hates us, precious. Been trying to upload the penultimate chapter of Remembering to Breathe for the last couple days, only to be stymied by bizarre database errors. So, up it goes here, to be posted on ff.net whenever it starts to behave.
Remembering to Breathe
Saiyuki, gen, angst/suspense/drama
Chapters 1-19
Chapter 20
"Sanzo," Goku said, as the door shut.
Gojyo stopped him. "Don't bother," he said. "He's coming around. Just give him time."
Which Goku already knew. Sanzo was too smart not to understand. They didn't have any other choices; last week had proven that. Still, it was difficult not to go after him, not to make sure. If Sanzo took the challenge, decided to leave on his own, without them, without him--
Bu he wouldn't. Sanzo understood. It was why he was so angry, after all.
"See, Hakkai," Gojyo said. He was smiling, the smile he had had since Hakkai had woken up three days ago. Different from his other smiles--or maybe it had just been so long since Goku had seen Gojyo smile. But it seemed like something was there that hadn't been before. Or maybe something was gone away that had once been there. It suited Gojyo's face, anyway. Made Goku grin, too, to see it. "It's all set. Everything's okay."
"Okay?" Hakkai, staring at the picture of the cottage in his hands, raised his head, and a vague feeling in his green eyes snapped into sharp focus. "How can you say that and mean it, Gojyo? How can you imagine it's true?"
Gojyo blanched, not so much at Hakkai's as-always-polite tone as his expression, and Hakuryuu spread his wings and hissed anxiously. Goku was relieved, however. He had been a little worried, leaving Sanzo alone with Hakkai when Gojyo wouldn't want it, but it had been the right thing to do after all. Hakkai was talking with anger in his eyes, feeling where there had been nothing before. These last few days, Goku had feared that something in Hakkai really had been broken, or had left him, after what those red-haired twins had done to him. But it was still there after all, hidden deep inside under Hakkai's quiet. Sanzo had stirred it up again, like poking ashes with a stick; the fire flaring up was painfully hot, but sometimes pain is as necessary a sense as sight or sound, and Hakkai needed it.
Though Gojyo now was looking like Hakkai had gone and stabbed him with his knife. "You were right, what you just told Sanzo," Hakkai said. "There's nothing stopping you from leaving now--nothing except me. If you're worried about what I might do--what Gonou might do, if I--"
"Shit!" Gojyo cut him off. "That's not it--that damn monk's a lunatic, to say that--"
"Sanzo didn't," Hakkai said. "I said it first. Sanzo told me it couldn't happen. That I would be stopped, if it did, by him. By you," and he glanced at them like he was looking for confirmation.
He shouldn't need to ask, but Goku nodded, and Gojyo answered, "Damn straight!" though he didn't look mollified, obviously still cursing Sanzo out in the privacy of his head. Aloud, however, he just said, "We're not staying here to babysit you, Hakkai--what do I look like, a nursemaid? And you're no baby. We're staying because we want to."
"Because of me," Hakkai said. "Because it's what I need."
"Hell, maybe I'm just sick of being on the road," Gojyo said, too false to even be a joke, though he faked a laugh.
"Because it's what we need," Goku said.
"But it's as Sanzo said," Hakkai said. "We have a job to do--you have a job to do. Something too important to quit, just because you want to..." His fists closed, crumpling the sheet of paper, and his voice was barely louder than that rustle. "I know I shouldn't...If I were stronger..."
"Bullshit," Gojyo told him. "You were strong enough to survive what those bastards did to you--that's better than anyone else did, from what they said. It's not your fault that you need time to heal. Even the damn monk would have to take a few months off if he got shot through the heart--if he had one, anyway."
"Even so," Hakkai said. "If you truly believe I'm strong--you needn't be concerned with leaving me to heal by myself. Go on without me, and trust I'll follow if I'm ready."
"But we can't, Hakkai," Goku said.
Hakkai glanced at the dragon on Goku's shoulder. "If it's Hakuryuu, I can convince him--"
Goku shook his head, and said, carefully, so he would be understood, "It's not that, Hakkai. You weren't there, you didn't see what it was like, without you. I used to travel alone with Sanzo, but now there's four of us. And that's the way it has to be." He wondered how he had ever thought it could be just him and Sanzo. Wondered how only two could have managed this--they couldn't. Impossible. This was the only way it was right, they four on this journey. As inevitably necessary as sunlight, as food, as air. "Without you, it was like--like forgetting how to breathe. We knew we had to do it, had to go on, like you know your lungs need air, but we couldn't remember how. We couldn't until we found out you might be alive, and then we knew what we were doing again. How to breathe again.
"So we have to wait for you, Hakkai. Until you're ready, and it can be the four of us traveling again--the five of us," and he stroked Hakuryuu's narrow head as the dragon purred. "That's the only way it can be."
Goku didn't think he was saying it right; Sanzo could have said it better, with his understanding. But Sanzo wasn't here. And Gojyo didn't interrupt him, only nodded.
"That..." Hakkai swallowed, pale like he was forgetting how to breathe himself. Finally he looked away from Goku, his eyes falling to the floor, to the shards of the broken bowl at Gojyo's feet. "But what if...as you said, Gojyo; as Sanzo said. Some things can't be fixed."
"Then maybe our journey's over," Gojyo said. "And the gods will have to find new victims. Or maybe we'll find another way, but for now, don't worry about it. Ignore Sanzo's bitching; just relax and let go. You don't need to pick up anything again until you're ready to. Whatever you need, we've got it."
"Or will get it," Goku agreed. Then tilted his head up in a sidelong glance at Gojyo, and muttered, loudly, "Unless Gojyo goes and spills it," and he stared mournfully at the rice on the floor. "You gotta learn to ignore Sanzo, too--that was our lunch!"
"I thought even a monkey's clever enough to pick up its food," Gojyo shot back.
"Only a stupid cockroach would eat rice off the floor!"
Though as annoyed as Goku was making himself sound, he and Gojyo both were peeking at Hakkai instead of glaring at each other. And if Hakkai wasn't smiling, there was a relaxing of the lines in his brow that was worth any measure of lost lunch.
The inn didn't have room service, but Gojyo went to sweet-talk the maid into lending her broom and dustpan while Goku knelt to pick up the bowls and pieces of bowl. Hakkai got up to help him, still moving a little stiffly with his broken arm in its sling. He had been applying his healing energies to the bone and it probably would be all right in a day or two; now he helped Goku with one-handed patience. When Gojyo came back, with not only the dustpan but the maid to boot, Goku left to get a replacement meal.
And Sanzo as well. Who hadn't gone far. Goku found the monk outside the inn, standing on the curb under their window smoking a cigarette. He probably had been able to hear everything they said, with the window cracked to air out the room. Sanzo didn't say anything about that, though. Just remarked, not looking at him, "There's a ramen shop three blocks down."
"Sounds good," Goku said cheerfully, and headed in the direction Sanzo pointed. Sanzo put out his cigarette and followed, though Goku still had the gold card. But it was useful; with another pair of hands to carry the take-out back, he could order three bowls for himself.
"How long do you think it will take, Sanzo?" Goku asked as they started back to the inn, burdened with several bags of sloshing cartons.
"Who can say?" Sanzo shrugged.
"It's not that I don't want to do the gods' mission," Goku told him, hurriedly. "I don't want to stay here forever, I want to travel with you. I want to keep going West, and I want to fight Kougaiji again, and I want to know I'm strong enough to win. But this is important. This is more important. Isn't it?"
"Why ask me?" Sanzo said. "Haven't you already decided?"
Goku didn't say anything. He was practicing patience. Patience was important, with Sanzo. Sometimes Sanzo could take a long time to say things.
This time they were at the inn's door before Sanzo finally said, abrupt with irritation, "It's important. Too damn important," and Goku grinned, because only honesty could irritate Sanzo that much.
Five seconds later he lost that grin, as before he could toe open the inn door, it swung violently wide, almost knocking the bags out of his hands, and Gojyo stormed out. He ignored Goku's outraged yelp, threw them both a red-eyed glare and said, shortly, "He's sleeping." Before they had time to form any questions he had headed off down the street.
"Hey, I got you ramen, if you didn't just spill it!" Goku hollered after him, but Gojyo didn't look back.
With him in that mood, Goku imagined Hakkai's sleep had less to do with actual rest and more to do with putting an argument to rest--which wasn't really like Hakkai, to avoid a disagreement so bluntly, but then it wasn't much like Gojyo to back down from a fight. None of them had been acting like themselves. But Hakkai really was asleep when he and Sanzo got upstairs, curled up on the bed with Hakuryuu sitting on the pillow by his head, ruby eyes keeping watch.
Hakkai still looked tired, even after three quiet days in the inn. Goku doubted he was sleeping well. From the adjacent room he was sharing with Sanzo, he hadn't heard anything during the night, no crying out or whimpers, not like the noise he used to make the first year after Sanzo had gotten him out of the mountain. Recalling those old nightmares still made his skin crawl. Hakkai's dreams might not be as loud, but if they were anywhere near as bad, then he wouldn't be getting much rest even being in bed all night.
Sanzo guessed this, too; they were careful not to disturb Hakkai's sleep now, though Goku didn't like the way he lay there, so quiet and still. Not frightened or sad, but not happy, either; less calm than simply immobile.
They could have eaten their ramen in the other room, but they didn't, sitting on the bed opposite Hakkai's instead. Afterwards, when Goku suggested a card game, Sanzo didn't refuse, though they were both distracted, between watching Hakkai and watching out the window, trying to spot a tall redhead among the intermittent pedestrians. Two-person card games weren't much fun anyway; you really needed at least four people to play poker or whist. Or mah-jong. Living in the house they would be able to play it anytime, instead of having to wait for a tavern or an inn with a flat table large enough to set up the pieces.
Hakkai woke up on their sixth round of rummy. Twilight was falling outside the window and they had turned the lamp on low. Gojyo still hadn't come back, and Goku was staring out the window more than at the cards in his hand. Hakkai sat up with a start and a silent gasp, spun his head toward them. His eyes were wide and his face pale, but he didn't seem surprised to see them, and the flash of fear or grief in his face was gone before it was really identifiable.
He looked around the room, asked quietly, "Gojyo hasn't come back yet?"
"Not yet," Goku told him.
"I see."
"The damn kappa," Sanzo growled. "What'd you say to him?"
Hakkai looked momentarily embarrassed, or maybe more. Wounded; remorseful. Then it was gone again, his face smoothing out like a pond after a tossed stone sinks. "Very little. He said more to me."
"The damn idiot." Sanzo lit a new cigarette, held it between his fingers and watched the tip smolder for a moment. Then he said, tersely, "We almost lost him. Gojyo."
"What?" Hakkai launched to his feet. His eyes had gone wide again, white encircling the green.
"Not now," Sanzo said, before Hakkai could bolt from the room. "Before. With you gone--he gave up. Didn't want to go on."
Hakkai sank back down on the bed, slowly. "The journey?"
"That. Or anything else."
"Coward," Hakkai whispered.
"Yes, and we can't afford to drag along cowards. Not on this trip."
"So what are you going to do?"
"If I could do this alone," Sanzo said, "I would. But I can't. Goku and I wouldn't be enough, even with the dragon. So we're waiting, until there's enough. That's the only reason we're staying here."
"But the mission--"
"The holy aspects wanted four. Their decree. They can damn well learn patience."
"Sanzo..."
Goku couldn't sit any longer. He stood. "It's gotten dark. I'm going to go find Gojyo," he said, starting for the door. Then essayed a grin to counter the anxious guilt in Hakkai's eyes. "It won't take long. I know where all the bars in town are." Though he wondered which one might have let Gojyo back in. It had only been a week; they couldn't have forgotten so quickly, much less forgiven...
He was reaching for the doorknob when he heard the familiar tread on the stairs. Opened it in time to see Gojyo drawing back his leg for a kick. "Thanks," Gojyo said instead, and pushed inside, his hands full with a tray of steaming dishes. "The serving girl gave me this downstairs," he said. "Said you guys haven't eaten yet?"
"No!" The curry smelled delicious, but Goku hesitated before serving himself. "Where'd you go?" he asked. Gojyo didn't smell like he had been in a bar--no beer or liquor, just tobacco smoke, and the crisp clean scent of pine and crushed leaves.
"Around town," Gojyo said, vaguely. "The folks here haven't sounded too worried about youkai, I thought I'd check out their defenses. Looks okay, they've got a small standing guard always on duty, and the city wall's kept in good condition, inside and out. Pretty safe. I walked around the forest a bit, didn't see signs of youkai living in the area. There were those few that we took out last week, but they were probably transients, I didn't see any permanent hide-outs."
Goku nodded; it was a smart consideration. Maybe too smart for the kappa, because Sanzo's voice had a hard, suspicious edge. "No youkai?"
"Not any that I saw."
"Not even half of one? Or two halves, maybe?"
Goku, having picked up one of the bowls on the tray, set it down again. Gojyo met Sanzo's violet glare, willfully daring. "No crimson hair in those woods, except mine."
"But you were looking for them," Sanzo said.
Gojyo barely hesitated. "Yeah," he said. "But they're long gone."
"Idiot." It might have been Sanzo; it might have been Goku's own words; but Hakkai said it first. He stood up from the bed, hands in fists at his sides. Hakuryuu took flight with a startled squeal, as Hakkai demanded, "How could you be so foolish? Going after them alone, after what they did--"
"I wasn't hunting them," Gojyo said. "I was making sure they really were gone."
"And if they hadn't been?" Sanzo snapped. "If they'd been waiting in ambush instead?"
"I could've gone with you," Goku said. "Together we'd take them, two of us for two of them."
"But there wasn't two of them," Gojyo said. "There were none of them, and I was enough--"
"You were lucky," Sanzo growled, "too damn stupid to be unlucky."
"And what's smart, monk? Sleeping with your revolver in your hand--you're lucky you haven't shot your own nuts off, these last nights. Or put a hole in Goku's head. None of us were going to sleep easy unless we knew for sure they weren't out there--"
"But you didn't have to go alone!"
"You could've followed me, bakazaru, if you were that worried I can't take care of myself."
"I'm not worried that you can't take care of yourself," Goku shot back, hearing the anger rising in his own voice without any control, like he was listening to someone else speak. "I know damn well that you can't! You couldn't even walk home from a bar by yourself, but I didn't think you were this stupid."
"How could you do it?" Hakkai asked, and someone else might have mistaken that hint of a tremor in his voice as fear, but Goku knew better and took a step out of his way. "Knowing what they're capable of, knowing what they might do--how could you? If they took you--if they turned you against us--what if you came back here to kill us?"
Gojyo went white, stark contrast to the crimson hair hanging over his face, snow behind flame. But then he brushed aside that red curtain. His eyes were burning. "No problem," he said, "our blessed monk would've put a bullet through my brain before I got a foot inside the door. Right, Sanzo-sama?"
"I can put one there as easily now," Sanzo said, but his voice was stretched, uneven.
"He wouldn't!" Goku exploded. "Sanzo never would've!"
"If he had to," Gojyo said, malice lacing his words. "For the sake of the holy mission. He'd leave all of us in a flat second if he thought he could make it alone. Even you, monkey. Isn't that right, Sanzo-sama?"
"In a millisecond," Sanzo answered, that same cruelty echoed in his own tone. "I wouldn't have traveled a meter with even one of you idiots if I didn't need you. For the holy mission."
"You don't need us," Hakkai said, softly, but it carried over them as if he were screaming. "Without us, you would still find a way. To say that any of us is needed is a lie. If I had truly died then, when you believed I had--you were going on, weren't you? As you had to."
"No," Goku said, and Hakuryuu perched on the closet door frame whimpered, but no one heard them over Gojyo's furious, "But we don't have to. This isn't our damn mission; we're not some stupid bowing bastard monks. We don't have to go anywhere. If we want we can stay here, for as long as we want."
"But do you want to stay here, Gojyo?" Hakkai asked. "Is this really what you want, living in a small dull town, gambling for your daily bread?"
"Hell, maybe I'll get a real job."
Sanzo snorted. "Who's going to hire a halfbreed bastard whose only skills are drinking, seduction, and cheating at poker?"
"Better that than a corrupt monk who never learned any prayers," Gojyo returned, the old insult, but something flashed in his red eyes that made Goku cold to see. "I could fight for money. Seems like other halfbreeds can get mercenary jobs."
And Sanzo's sharp hiss made Goku colder. "Maybe you should find those twin bastards after all. Ask them for a job. You let them live; they owe you."
"I didn't let anyone live," Gojyo said, his baritone dropping to a growl. "They got away. But I should've let you go after them. Who cares if Hakkai needed us, if Goku did--you'd manage without them, if you had to. Would be easier that way. Maybe you should be looking for those two, Sanzo. You could hire them to erase all of us from your mind, and then you could go on your own way without noticing what was missing. Make life easier for you. Forget about me and Hakkai and the ape, and just do your duty."
Sanzo didn't respond, his violet eyes flaring with a heat greater than a blue gas flame, measured breaths hissing through his parted lips. Goku wanted to answer, couldn't. He felt like the air had been knocked from his chest with the butt of a sledgehammer. To forget, like it had never been at all--that was darkness worse than the mountain's.
Into that silence, Hakkai said, with fragile, careful, terrible calm, "Maybe that would be best for all of us. To forget everything--to not be bound by the memory of something we'll never get back, no matter how long we wait."
Gojyo made a small sound, not quite a word. "You know it's true, Gojyo," Hakkai said. "Maybe I'm not dead--but I'm not who I was before, either. I can't be that Hakkai again. I can put this behind me again, as I did before, eventually. But not the same way I did before. It's too different. Even if all I felt and did this time was nothing more than relived memory, it still is real to me. And clearer than it was the first time--I was so badly injured then, sick for so long, you know, Gojyo. But I'm well now, and there's nothing between me and what I know I did, except a name.
"And it's different for you, too, for all of you--you know it is. Even if I wasn't really dead, you still have the memories of it, of what happened after. It's not the same now, you know it isn't. To fight like this, to give up like this, to agree like this--what we had before is gone, and maybe we'd be better off forgetting it."
"No," Goku said. He still hadn't gotten his breath back, so it came out coughed and hoarse. But the other three turned and stared at him. "No," he said again, and it was harder than ever to speak with all their eyes glaring, but he had to. "That's not true. It wouldn't be better, ever.
"Maybe you're right--maybe you're all right, that something was broken. And it's true what Sanzo said; it's true, that once something breaks, you can't unbreak it. You can't make it just like it was, no matter how carefully you put it back together, no matter how long you take.
"But look at this." He picked up one of the rice bowls from the tray--still warm in his hands, though cooling. "Look, Gojyo, you recognize it?" He raised it up to the half-youkai's red eyes.
Gojyo peered at the pottery, then nodded. "It's the bowl I broke this afternoon. That maid must've glued it back together."
"Cheap," Sanzo sniffed. "Easier just to buy a new one."
"Yeah, but why should you?" Goku asked. Under his fingers he could feel the rough edges on the glass glaze, where glue had seeped out between the cracks. It sealed those fractures tight; the bowl wasn't leaking. "You can still use it like this."
"But it's cracked."
"And maybe it's better that way," Goku said. "Because now whenever you see it, the cracks remind you to be careful."
He looked at all of them, holding the bowl, for a long endless moment, until Gojyo turned away, turned back to glare at Sanzo, and for an instant Goku thought it was over. That the glue would melt and the fragments separate and it would all come apart in his hands after all.
Instead Gojyo just said, in a strong firm voice that sounded like a dare, "I don't want to forget." He made a wide gesture with his arm that encompassed everything. "Not any of it. There's too much I can't afford to lose."
Hakkai didn't say anything. Sanzo too was silent; Gojyo said to him, "Could you afford to, Sanzo? Take away the sutra, take away the robes and the chakra, and you're still Genjo Sanzo-houshi-sama, even if no one recognizes you. Take away the ape and everyone would still call you Sanzo, but would you still know who you are?"
Sanzo didn't look at Gojyo, or at Goku, or at anyone. "Take away the bakazaru, take away the smiling idiot, even take away the damn kappa, and I would still and always know who I am." For a long time no one spoke, and then Sanzo concluded, with quiet, ferocious anger, "But it wouldn't be who I'd want to be."
"We can't forget," Gojyo said. "Not when we've made it this far; going back now would be running away. I tried that before but it doesn't work. Not if you're all still here, because you'll always drag me back," and he glanced at Goku, a rueful apology for those nights at the bars before.
Goku nodded to him, I'd do it again, every time, and Gojyo looked past him to Hakkai. "Right, Hakkai?"
Hakkai didn't answer for some time, and the pain of all the unforgotten memories burned in his eyes, lowered to his hands resting in his lap. But at last he said, quietly, "I would rather be who I am now, than anyone I was before. And who I am now, I think...I think I would miss traveling."
With a soft cry Hakuryuu spiraled down from the door frame to perch on his shoulder. Hakkai put up his hand to stroke the dragon's belly. "Yes, I'd miss driving you," he said, and a small, honestly fond smile tugged at his lips as Hakuryuu nuzzled his cheek. "And more, too. And I did agree to do this."
"Yes," Sanzo said. "When you're ready for it. If you're not ready, you're a liability, not an ally, and we can't afford the risk."
"So we'll wait until you're sure," Gojyo said, and let go a long breath that made his shoulders droop, as if all his strength were exhaled with the air. Then he drew in more, re-inflating like a paper balloon, and Goku recognized the gleam in his red eyes even before he winked. "Now give me my dinner, ape," and he reached for the bowl in Goku's hands.
Goku hastily yanked the rice out of reach. "Get your own, there's three other bowls!"
"Yeah, but that one's mine," Gojyo said. "I'm the one who broke it, aren't I?"
"And I'm supposed to trust you with it now? Maybe I should go ask for a wooden bowl--"
"I'm not the kid here, you brat monkey!"
"Pervert cockroach!"
They both saw the warning glitter in Hakkai's eyes as they heard the whistle of paper whipped through the air. Together they ducked as Sanzo's harisen came down on their heads, sharing a conspiring grin even as the monk out-shouted them both.
When they finished eating, Hakkai put all the bowls on the tray outside the door for the maid, then without needing to ask picked up the discarded deck of cards, shuffled and dealt them all poker hands. As casually as if it were merely the next round of the game played a week before, in an inn now burned to rubble and ashes.
They played for low stakes, at first what pocket change they had, then beer and meat buns and cigarettes, and then they started betting chores--a week of dishes, dusting, cleaning the windows (how many did the cottage have?), sweeping, raking (how big was the yard?): promises scribbled on scraps of paper. Hakkai won the most, as usual, and when Gojyo palmed the ace, Hakkai caught him at it the next round; after that it was decided that all of Gojyo's chits counted for twice the written duties. He squawked in outrage but didn't quit playing.
It was well after midnight when Sanzo stopped them; Gojyo had been yawning more than talking, and Goku's eyes were shutting on his cards, so he kept forgetting his hands. And Hakkai was wan in the golden lamplight, but when Goku looked he was smiling, that small but sincere Hakkai smile that meant he wasn't bluffing this time (probably), as Gojyo counted through the paper scraps he had collected, groaning. "You won't have to cook for a year--that's not fair! I have to suffer through the monkey's cooking, just because he can't bluff to save his life?"
"Worse for him, cooking in a kitchen where you're to be taking out the garbage," Sanzo interjected. "I'm sure we'd have better luck asking the six-legged variety of cockroach to do it."
"You could attempt to win them back tomorrow," Hakkai suggested, with artlessly insolent challenge. Both Sanzo and Gojyo glared. Goku just laughed, thinking about cooking in a full kitchen, and a mah-jong table, and cleaning windows; and while he had already eaten in every restaurant in this town, and he understood how anxious Sanzo was to be moving again, for a little while anyway it wouldn't be that boring here.
They were supposed to sleep, but somehow they stayed talking instead; Gojyo insisted that Hakkai needed rest, but he didn't get further than getting into bed, with Hakuryuu on his lap and Sanzo pulling up the chair next to him to continue explaining some point or other from yesterday's newspaper. Goku, flopped down on the floor next to Gojyo with his eyes almost closed, wasn't listening to the words; he just liked the rise and fall of Sanzo's voice, the soft teasing tone of Hakkai's responses.
Gojyo was watching them, too, crimson eyes sleepily half-lidded and his smile an unconscious mirror of Hakkai's, and Goku knew that they were thinking the same thing, remembering how it felt to believe this lost, to believe this night could never happen.
"Hey, Gojyo," Goku asked, keeping his voice down to not interrupt them.
Gojyo yawned, stretching. "Yeah?"
"What happens if one of us does die? Really dead, so we can't just go and find them again?"
Gojyo paused mid-stretch, at last lowered his arms. "Then..." he began, and hesitated, and then shrugged. "Then I guess we'll have to wait until they come find us. Somehow or other."
Goku considered it. Nodded as he put his head down comfortably on his folded arms. "I'd find Sanzo. Somehow."
"Yeah." Gojyo reached down to ruffle his brown hair over the limiter's golden band. "I know."
"And then we'd come find you. Both of you."
"We'd be looking for you, too," Gojyo said.
"We'd find each other," Goku mumbled, yawning. "We did before, didn't we? We always will," and he let his eyes close, knowing the three of them would be there when he woke up.
to be concluded
The final chapter will be up in a few days. Thank you all for waiting patiently...these last few years, and all! (See, to those naysayers who rumor I've abandoned past stories - I do come through. I just take my sweet time about it.)
Remembering to Breathe
Saiyuki, gen, angst/suspense/drama
Chapters 1-19
Chapter 20
"Sanzo," Goku said, as the door shut.
Gojyo stopped him. "Don't bother," he said. "He's coming around. Just give him time."
Which Goku already knew. Sanzo was too smart not to understand. They didn't have any other choices; last week had proven that. Still, it was difficult not to go after him, not to make sure. If Sanzo took the challenge, decided to leave on his own, without them, without him--
Bu he wouldn't. Sanzo understood. It was why he was so angry, after all.
"See, Hakkai," Gojyo said. He was smiling, the smile he had had since Hakkai had woken up three days ago. Different from his other smiles--or maybe it had just been so long since Goku had seen Gojyo smile. But it seemed like something was there that hadn't been before. Or maybe something was gone away that had once been there. It suited Gojyo's face, anyway. Made Goku grin, too, to see it. "It's all set. Everything's okay."
"Okay?" Hakkai, staring at the picture of the cottage in his hands, raised his head, and a vague feeling in his green eyes snapped into sharp focus. "How can you say that and mean it, Gojyo? How can you imagine it's true?"
Gojyo blanched, not so much at Hakkai's as-always-polite tone as his expression, and Hakuryuu spread his wings and hissed anxiously. Goku was relieved, however. He had been a little worried, leaving Sanzo alone with Hakkai when Gojyo wouldn't want it, but it had been the right thing to do after all. Hakkai was talking with anger in his eyes, feeling where there had been nothing before. These last few days, Goku had feared that something in Hakkai really had been broken, or had left him, after what those red-haired twins had done to him. But it was still there after all, hidden deep inside under Hakkai's quiet. Sanzo had stirred it up again, like poking ashes with a stick; the fire flaring up was painfully hot, but sometimes pain is as necessary a sense as sight or sound, and Hakkai needed it.
Though Gojyo now was looking like Hakkai had gone and stabbed him with his knife. "You were right, what you just told Sanzo," Hakkai said. "There's nothing stopping you from leaving now--nothing except me. If you're worried about what I might do--what Gonou might do, if I--"
"Shit!" Gojyo cut him off. "That's not it--that damn monk's a lunatic, to say that--"
"Sanzo didn't," Hakkai said. "I said it first. Sanzo told me it couldn't happen. That I would be stopped, if it did, by him. By you," and he glanced at them like he was looking for confirmation.
He shouldn't need to ask, but Goku nodded, and Gojyo answered, "Damn straight!" though he didn't look mollified, obviously still cursing Sanzo out in the privacy of his head. Aloud, however, he just said, "We're not staying here to babysit you, Hakkai--what do I look like, a nursemaid? And you're no baby. We're staying because we want to."
"Because of me," Hakkai said. "Because it's what I need."
"Hell, maybe I'm just sick of being on the road," Gojyo said, too false to even be a joke, though he faked a laugh.
"Because it's what we need," Goku said.
"But it's as Sanzo said," Hakkai said. "We have a job to do--you have a job to do. Something too important to quit, just because you want to..." His fists closed, crumpling the sheet of paper, and his voice was barely louder than that rustle. "I know I shouldn't...If I were stronger..."
"Bullshit," Gojyo told him. "You were strong enough to survive what those bastards did to you--that's better than anyone else did, from what they said. It's not your fault that you need time to heal. Even the damn monk would have to take a few months off if he got shot through the heart--if he had one, anyway."
"Even so," Hakkai said. "If you truly believe I'm strong--you needn't be concerned with leaving me to heal by myself. Go on without me, and trust I'll follow if I'm ready."
"But we can't, Hakkai," Goku said.
Hakkai glanced at the dragon on Goku's shoulder. "If it's Hakuryuu, I can convince him--"
Goku shook his head, and said, carefully, so he would be understood, "It's not that, Hakkai. You weren't there, you didn't see what it was like, without you. I used to travel alone with Sanzo, but now there's four of us. And that's the way it has to be." He wondered how he had ever thought it could be just him and Sanzo. Wondered how only two could have managed this--they couldn't. Impossible. This was the only way it was right, they four on this journey. As inevitably necessary as sunlight, as food, as air. "Without you, it was like--like forgetting how to breathe. We knew we had to do it, had to go on, like you know your lungs need air, but we couldn't remember how. We couldn't until we found out you might be alive, and then we knew what we were doing again. How to breathe again.
"So we have to wait for you, Hakkai. Until you're ready, and it can be the four of us traveling again--the five of us," and he stroked Hakuryuu's narrow head as the dragon purred. "That's the only way it can be."
Goku didn't think he was saying it right; Sanzo could have said it better, with his understanding. But Sanzo wasn't here. And Gojyo didn't interrupt him, only nodded.
"That..." Hakkai swallowed, pale like he was forgetting how to breathe himself. Finally he looked away from Goku, his eyes falling to the floor, to the shards of the broken bowl at Gojyo's feet. "But what if...as you said, Gojyo; as Sanzo said. Some things can't be fixed."
"Then maybe our journey's over," Gojyo said. "And the gods will have to find new victims. Or maybe we'll find another way, but for now, don't worry about it. Ignore Sanzo's bitching; just relax and let go. You don't need to pick up anything again until you're ready to. Whatever you need, we've got it."
"Or will get it," Goku agreed. Then tilted his head up in a sidelong glance at Gojyo, and muttered, loudly, "Unless Gojyo goes and spills it," and he stared mournfully at the rice on the floor. "You gotta learn to ignore Sanzo, too--that was our lunch!"
"I thought even a monkey's clever enough to pick up its food," Gojyo shot back.
"Only a stupid cockroach would eat rice off the floor!"
Though as annoyed as Goku was making himself sound, he and Gojyo both were peeking at Hakkai instead of glaring at each other. And if Hakkai wasn't smiling, there was a relaxing of the lines in his brow that was worth any measure of lost lunch.
The inn didn't have room service, but Gojyo went to sweet-talk the maid into lending her broom and dustpan while Goku knelt to pick up the bowls and pieces of bowl. Hakkai got up to help him, still moving a little stiffly with his broken arm in its sling. He had been applying his healing energies to the bone and it probably would be all right in a day or two; now he helped Goku with one-handed patience. When Gojyo came back, with not only the dustpan but the maid to boot, Goku left to get a replacement meal.
And Sanzo as well. Who hadn't gone far. Goku found the monk outside the inn, standing on the curb under their window smoking a cigarette. He probably had been able to hear everything they said, with the window cracked to air out the room. Sanzo didn't say anything about that, though. Just remarked, not looking at him, "There's a ramen shop three blocks down."
"Sounds good," Goku said cheerfully, and headed in the direction Sanzo pointed. Sanzo put out his cigarette and followed, though Goku still had the gold card. But it was useful; with another pair of hands to carry the take-out back, he could order three bowls for himself.
"How long do you think it will take, Sanzo?" Goku asked as they started back to the inn, burdened with several bags of sloshing cartons.
"Who can say?" Sanzo shrugged.
"It's not that I don't want to do the gods' mission," Goku told him, hurriedly. "I don't want to stay here forever, I want to travel with you. I want to keep going West, and I want to fight Kougaiji again, and I want to know I'm strong enough to win. But this is important. This is more important. Isn't it?"
"Why ask me?" Sanzo said. "Haven't you already decided?"
Goku didn't say anything. He was practicing patience. Patience was important, with Sanzo. Sometimes Sanzo could take a long time to say things.
This time they were at the inn's door before Sanzo finally said, abrupt with irritation, "It's important. Too damn important," and Goku grinned, because only honesty could irritate Sanzo that much.
Five seconds later he lost that grin, as before he could toe open the inn door, it swung violently wide, almost knocking the bags out of his hands, and Gojyo stormed out. He ignored Goku's outraged yelp, threw them both a red-eyed glare and said, shortly, "He's sleeping." Before they had time to form any questions he had headed off down the street.
"Hey, I got you ramen, if you didn't just spill it!" Goku hollered after him, but Gojyo didn't look back.
With him in that mood, Goku imagined Hakkai's sleep had less to do with actual rest and more to do with putting an argument to rest--which wasn't really like Hakkai, to avoid a disagreement so bluntly, but then it wasn't much like Gojyo to back down from a fight. None of them had been acting like themselves. But Hakkai really was asleep when he and Sanzo got upstairs, curled up on the bed with Hakuryuu sitting on the pillow by his head, ruby eyes keeping watch.
Hakkai still looked tired, even after three quiet days in the inn. Goku doubted he was sleeping well. From the adjacent room he was sharing with Sanzo, he hadn't heard anything during the night, no crying out or whimpers, not like the noise he used to make the first year after Sanzo had gotten him out of the mountain. Recalling those old nightmares still made his skin crawl. Hakkai's dreams might not be as loud, but if they were anywhere near as bad, then he wouldn't be getting much rest even being in bed all night.
Sanzo guessed this, too; they were careful not to disturb Hakkai's sleep now, though Goku didn't like the way he lay there, so quiet and still. Not frightened or sad, but not happy, either; less calm than simply immobile.
They could have eaten their ramen in the other room, but they didn't, sitting on the bed opposite Hakkai's instead. Afterwards, when Goku suggested a card game, Sanzo didn't refuse, though they were both distracted, between watching Hakkai and watching out the window, trying to spot a tall redhead among the intermittent pedestrians. Two-person card games weren't much fun anyway; you really needed at least four people to play poker or whist. Or mah-jong. Living in the house they would be able to play it anytime, instead of having to wait for a tavern or an inn with a flat table large enough to set up the pieces.
Hakkai woke up on their sixth round of rummy. Twilight was falling outside the window and they had turned the lamp on low. Gojyo still hadn't come back, and Goku was staring out the window more than at the cards in his hand. Hakkai sat up with a start and a silent gasp, spun his head toward them. His eyes were wide and his face pale, but he didn't seem surprised to see them, and the flash of fear or grief in his face was gone before it was really identifiable.
He looked around the room, asked quietly, "Gojyo hasn't come back yet?"
"Not yet," Goku told him.
"I see."
"The damn kappa," Sanzo growled. "What'd you say to him?"
Hakkai looked momentarily embarrassed, or maybe more. Wounded; remorseful. Then it was gone again, his face smoothing out like a pond after a tossed stone sinks. "Very little. He said more to me."
"The damn idiot." Sanzo lit a new cigarette, held it between his fingers and watched the tip smolder for a moment. Then he said, tersely, "We almost lost him. Gojyo."
"What?" Hakkai launched to his feet. His eyes had gone wide again, white encircling the green.
"Not now," Sanzo said, before Hakkai could bolt from the room. "Before. With you gone--he gave up. Didn't want to go on."
Hakkai sank back down on the bed, slowly. "The journey?"
"That. Or anything else."
"Coward," Hakkai whispered.
"Yes, and we can't afford to drag along cowards. Not on this trip."
"So what are you going to do?"
"If I could do this alone," Sanzo said, "I would. But I can't. Goku and I wouldn't be enough, even with the dragon. So we're waiting, until there's enough. That's the only reason we're staying here."
"But the mission--"
"The holy aspects wanted four. Their decree. They can damn well learn patience."
"Sanzo..."
Goku couldn't sit any longer. He stood. "It's gotten dark. I'm going to go find Gojyo," he said, starting for the door. Then essayed a grin to counter the anxious guilt in Hakkai's eyes. "It won't take long. I know where all the bars in town are." Though he wondered which one might have let Gojyo back in. It had only been a week; they couldn't have forgotten so quickly, much less forgiven...
He was reaching for the doorknob when he heard the familiar tread on the stairs. Opened it in time to see Gojyo drawing back his leg for a kick. "Thanks," Gojyo said instead, and pushed inside, his hands full with a tray of steaming dishes. "The serving girl gave me this downstairs," he said. "Said you guys haven't eaten yet?"
"No!" The curry smelled delicious, but Goku hesitated before serving himself. "Where'd you go?" he asked. Gojyo didn't smell like he had been in a bar--no beer or liquor, just tobacco smoke, and the crisp clean scent of pine and crushed leaves.
"Around town," Gojyo said, vaguely. "The folks here haven't sounded too worried about youkai, I thought I'd check out their defenses. Looks okay, they've got a small standing guard always on duty, and the city wall's kept in good condition, inside and out. Pretty safe. I walked around the forest a bit, didn't see signs of youkai living in the area. There were those few that we took out last week, but they were probably transients, I didn't see any permanent hide-outs."
Goku nodded; it was a smart consideration. Maybe too smart for the kappa, because Sanzo's voice had a hard, suspicious edge. "No youkai?"
"Not any that I saw."
"Not even half of one? Or two halves, maybe?"
Goku, having picked up one of the bowls on the tray, set it down again. Gojyo met Sanzo's violet glare, willfully daring. "No crimson hair in those woods, except mine."
"But you were looking for them," Sanzo said.
Gojyo barely hesitated. "Yeah," he said. "But they're long gone."
"Idiot." It might have been Sanzo; it might have been Goku's own words; but Hakkai said it first. He stood up from the bed, hands in fists at his sides. Hakuryuu took flight with a startled squeal, as Hakkai demanded, "How could you be so foolish? Going after them alone, after what they did--"
"I wasn't hunting them," Gojyo said. "I was making sure they really were gone."
"And if they hadn't been?" Sanzo snapped. "If they'd been waiting in ambush instead?"
"I could've gone with you," Goku said. "Together we'd take them, two of us for two of them."
"But there wasn't two of them," Gojyo said. "There were none of them, and I was enough--"
"You were lucky," Sanzo growled, "too damn stupid to be unlucky."
"And what's smart, monk? Sleeping with your revolver in your hand--you're lucky you haven't shot your own nuts off, these last nights. Or put a hole in Goku's head. None of us were going to sleep easy unless we knew for sure they weren't out there--"
"But you didn't have to go alone!"
"You could've followed me, bakazaru, if you were that worried I can't take care of myself."
"I'm not worried that you can't take care of yourself," Goku shot back, hearing the anger rising in his own voice without any control, like he was listening to someone else speak. "I know damn well that you can't! You couldn't even walk home from a bar by yourself, but I didn't think you were this stupid."
"How could you do it?" Hakkai asked, and someone else might have mistaken that hint of a tremor in his voice as fear, but Goku knew better and took a step out of his way. "Knowing what they're capable of, knowing what they might do--how could you? If they took you--if they turned you against us--what if you came back here to kill us?"
Gojyo went white, stark contrast to the crimson hair hanging over his face, snow behind flame. But then he brushed aside that red curtain. His eyes were burning. "No problem," he said, "our blessed monk would've put a bullet through my brain before I got a foot inside the door. Right, Sanzo-sama?"
"I can put one there as easily now," Sanzo said, but his voice was stretched, uneven.
"He wouldn't!" Goku exploded. "Sanzo never would've!"
"If he had to," Gojyo said, malice lacing his words. "For the sake of the holy mission. He'd leave all of us in a flat second if he thought he could make it alone. Even you, monkey. Isn't that right, Sanzo-sama?"
"In a millisecond," Sanzo answered, that same cruelty echoed in his own tone. "I wouldn't have traveled a meter with even one of you idiots if I didn't need you. For the holy mission."
"You don't need us," Hakkai said, softly, but it carried over them as if he were screaming. "Without us, you would still find a way. To say that any of us is needed is a lie. If I had truly died then, when you believed I had--you were going on, weren't you? As you had to."
"No," Goku said, and Hakuryuu perched on the closet door frame whimpered, but no one heard them over Gojyo's furious, "But we don't have to. This isn't our damn mission; we're not some stupid bowing bastard monks. We don't have to go anywhere. If we want we can stay here, for as long as we want."
"But do you want to stay here, Gojyo?" Hakkai asked. "Is this really what you want, living in a small dull town, gambling for your daily bread?"
"Hell, maybe I'll get a real job."
Sanzo snorted. "Who's going to hire a halfbreed bastard whose only skills are drinking, seduction, and cheating at poker?"
"Better that than a corrupt monk who never learned any prayers," Gojyo returned, the old insult, but something flashed in his red eyes that made Goku cold to see. "I could fight for money. Seems like other halfbreeds can get mercenary jobs."
And Sanzo's sharp hiss made Goku colder. "Maybe you should find those twin bastards after all. Ask them for a job. You let them live; they owe you."
"I didn't let anyone live," Gojyo said, his baritone dropping to a growl. "They got away. But I should've let you go after them. Who cares if Hakkai needed us, if Goku did--you'd manage without them, if you had to. Would be easier that way. Maybe you should be looking for those two, Sanzo. You could hire them to erase all of us from your mind, and then you could go on your own way without noticing what was missing. Make life easier for you. Forget about me and Hakkai and the ape, and just do your duty."
Sanzo didn't respond, his violet eyes flaring with a heat greater than a blue gas flame, measured breaths hissing through his parted lips. Goku wanted to answer, couldn't. He felt like the air had been knocked from his chest with the butt of a sledgehammer. To forget, like it had never been at all--that was darkness worse than the mountain's.
Into that silence, Hakkai said, with fragile, careful, terrible calm, "Maybe that would be best for all of us. To forget everything--to not be bound by the memory of something we'll never get back, no matter how long we wait."
Gojyo made a small sound, not quite a word. "You know it's true, Gojyo," Hakkai said. "Maybe I'm not dead--but I'm not who I was before, either. I can't be that Hakkai again. I can put this behind me again, as I did before, eventually. But not the same way I did before. It's too different. Even if all I felt and did this time was nothing more than relived memory, it still is real to me. And clearer than it was the first time--I was so badly injured then, sick for so long, you know, Gojyo. But I'm well now, and there's nothing between me and what I know I did, except a name.
"And it's different for you, too, for all of you--you know it is. Even if I wasn't really dead, you still have the memories of it, of what happened after. It's not the same now, you know it isn't. To fight like this, to give up like this, to agree like this--what we had before is gone, and maybe we'd be better off forgetting it."
"No," Goku said. He still hadn't gotten his breath back, so it came out coughed and hoarse. But the other three turned and stared at him. "No," he said again, and it was harder than ever to speak with all their eyes glaring, but he had to. "That's not true. It wouldn't be better, ever.
"Maybe you're right--maybe you're all right, that something was broken. And it's true what Sanzo said; it's true, that once something breaks, you can't unbreak it. You can't make it just like it was, no matter how carefully you put it back together, no matter how long you take.
"But look at this." He picked up one of the rice bowls from the tray--still warm in his hands, though cooling. "Look, Gojyo, you recognize it?" He raised it up to the half-youkai's red eyes.
Gojyo peered at the pottery, then nodded. "It's the bowl I broke this afternoon. That maid must've glued it back together."
"Cheap," Sanzo sniffed. "Easier just to buy a new one."
"Yeah, but why should you?" Goku asked. Under his fingers he could feel the rough edges on the glass glaze, where glue had seeped out between the cracks. It sealed those fractures tight; the bowl wasn't leaking. "You can still use it like this."
"But it's cracked."
"And maybe it's better that way," Goku said. "Because now whenever you see it, the cracks remind you to be careful."
He looked at all of them, holding the bowl, for a long endless moment, until Gojyo turned away, turned back to glare at Sanzo, and for an instant Goku thought it was over. That the glue would melt and the fragments separate and it would all come apart in his hands after all.
Instead Gojyo just said, in a strong firm voice that sounded like a dare, "I don't want to forget." He made a wide gesture with his arm that encompassed everything. "Not any of it. There's too much I can't afford to lose."
Hakkai didn't say anything. Sanzo too was silent; Gojyo said to him, "Could you afford to, Sanzo? Take away the sutra, take away the robes and the chakra, and you're still Genjo Sanzo-houshi-sama, even if no one recognizes you. Take away the ape and everyone would still call you Sanzo, but would you still know who you are?"
Sanzo didn't look at Gojyo, or at Goku, or at anyone. "Take away the bakazaru, take away the smiling idiot, even take away the damn kappa, and I would still and always know who I am." For a long time no one spoke, and then Sanzo concluded, with quiet, ferocious anger, "But it wouldn't be who I'd want to be."
"We can't forget," Gojyo said. "Not when we've made it this far; going back now would be running away. I tried that before but it doesn't work. Not if you're all still here, because you'll always drag me back," and he glanced at Goku, a rueful apology for those nights at the bars before.
Goku nodded to him, I'd do it again, every time, and Gojyo looked past him to Hakkai. "Right, Hakkai?"
Hakkai didn't answer for some time, and the pain of all the unforgotten memories burned in his eyes, lowered to his hands resting in his lap. But at last he said, quietly, "I would rather be who I am now, than anyone I was before. And who I am now, I think...I think I would miss traveling."
With a soft cry Hakuryuu spiraled down from the door frame to perch on his shoulder. Hakkai put up his hand to stroke the dragon's belly. "Yes, I'd miss driving you," he said, and a small, honestly fond smile tugged at his lips as Hakuryuu nuzzled his cheek. "And more, too. And I did agree to do this."
"Yes," Sanzo said. "When you're ready for it. If you're not ready, you're a liability, not an ally, and we can't afford the risk."
"So we'll wait until you're sure," Gojyo said, and let go a long breath that made his shoulders droop, as if all his strength were exhaled with the air. Then he drew in more, re-inflating like a paper balloon, and Goku recognized the gleam in his red eyes even before he winked. "Now give me my dinner, ape," and he reached for the bowl in Goku's hands.
Goku hastily yanked the rice out of reach. "Get your own, there's three other bowls!"
"Yeah, but that one's mine," Gojyo said. "I'm the one who broke it, aren't I?"
"And I'm supposed to trust you with it now? Maybe I should go ask for a wooden bowl--"
"I'm not the kid here, you brat monkey!"
"Pervert cockroach!"
They both saw the warning glitter in Hakkai's eyes as they heard the whistle of paper whipped through the air. Together they ducked as Sanzo's harisen came down on their heads, sharing a conspiring grin even as the monk out-shouted them both.
When they finished eating, Hakkai put all the bowls on the tray outside the door for the maid, then without needing to ask picked up the discarded deck of cards, shuffled and dealt them all poker hands. As casually as if it were merely the next round of the game played a week before, in an inn now burned to rubble and ashes.
They played for low stakes, at first what pocket change they had, then beer and meat buns and cigarettes, and then they started betting chores--a week of dishes, dusting, cleaning the windows (how many did the cottage have?), sweeping, raking (how big was the yard?): promises scribbled on scraps of paper. Hakkai won the most, as usual, and when Gojyo palmed the ace, Hakkai caught him at it the next round; after that it was decided that all of Gojyo's chits counted for twice the written duties. He squawked in outrage but didn't quit playing.
It was well after midnight when Sanzo stopped them; Gojyo had been yawning more than talking, and Goku's eyes were shutting on his cards, so he kept forgetting his hands. And Hakkai was wan in the golden lamplight, but when Goku looked he was smiling, that small but sincere Hakkai smile that meant he wasn't bluffing this time (probably), as Gojyo counted through the paper scraps he had collected, groaning. "You won't have to cook for a year--that's not fair! I have to suffer through the monkey's cooking, just because he can't bluff to save his life?"
"Worse for him, cooking in a kitchen where you're to be taking out the garbage," Sanzo interjected. "I'm sure we'd have better luck asking the six-legged variety of cockroach to do it."
"You could attempt to win them back tomorrow," Hakkai suggested, with artlessly insolent challenge. Both Sanzo and Gojyo glared. Goku just laughed, thinking about cooking in a full kitchen, and a mah-jong table, and cleaning windows; and while he had already eaten in every restaurant in this town, and he understood how anxious Sanzo was to be moving again, for a little while anyway it wouldn't be that boring here.
They were supposed to sleep, but somehow they stayed talking instead; Gojyo insisted that Hakkai needed rest, but he didn't get further than getting into bed, with Hakuryuu on his lap and Sanzo pulling up the chair next to him to continue explaining some point or other from yesterday's newspaper. Goku, flopped down on the floor next to Gojyo with his eyes almost closed, wasn't listening to the words; he just liked the rise and fall of Sanzo's voice, the soft teasing tone of Hakkai's responses.
Gojyo was watching them, too, crimson eyes sleepily half-lidded and his smile an unconscious mirror of Hakkai's, and Goku knew that they were thinking the same thing, remembering how it felt to believe this lost, to believe this night could never happen.
"Hey, Gojyo," Goku asked, keeping his voice down to not interrupt them.
Gojyo yawned, stretching. "Yeah?"
"What happens if one of us does die? Really dead, so we can't just go and find them again?"
Gojyo paused mid-stretch, at last lowered his arms. "Then..." he began, and hesitated, and then shrugged. "Then I guess we'll have to wait until they come find us. Somehow or other."
Goku considered it. Nodded as he put his head down comfortably on his folded arms. "I'd find Sanzo. Somehow."
"Yeah." Gojyo reached down to ruffle his brown hair over the limiter's golden band. "I know."
"And then we'd come find you. Both of you."
"We'd be looking for you, too," Gojyo said.
"We'd find each other," Goku mumbled, yawning. "We did before, didn't we? We always will," and he let his eyes close, knowing the three of them would be there when he woke up.
to be concluded
The final chapter will be up in a few days. Thank you all for waiting patiently...these last few years, and all! (See, to those naysayers who rumor I've abandoned past stories - I do come through. I just take my sweet time about it.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2006-11-26 04:23 pm (UTC)My favorite bit - the one that sent the tears down my face - was Goku's speech that ties into the title. "Without you, it was like--like forgetting how to breathe." It was just so perfect.
Then again, this description of Gojyo - "Gojyo went white, stark contrast to the crimson hair hanging over his face, snow behind flame" - just killed me too.
And I love how you followed up on all the symbolism with the broken bowl.
I can't wait to read the conclusion to this. Wonderful job. Six years into reading you, I still am awestruck at your ability to paint word pictures.
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Date: 2006-11-27 10:09 am (UTC)Goku's speech - so pleased it worked for you. I had that line in mind since I first titled the story. Though oddly it was supposed to be Gojyo's line; it was only when I actually got there that Goku decided to speak up.
The bowl, on the other hand, was a spur of the moment thing that I attribute to watching too much J-drama. Wackily overwrought symbolism is the name of the game. Love it.
And thank you so much. The ending will be up soon!
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Date: 2006-11-27 09:09 am (UTC);o; It's wonderful. It's been a long while since I last read or watched any Saiyuki but this just brings the warm fuzzies all back...
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Date: 2006-11-27 10:13 am (UTC)and good luck with your SSBB - I gotta get cracking on mine myself! ^^;
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Date: 2006-11-27 10:14 am (UTC)Well. This is just what I needed today! *spazzes gleefully*
(And how have you been lately? :D)
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Date: 2006-11-27 10:20 am (UTC)And I've been peachy! Well, right now may be coming down with a cold. But overall - JAPAN! WHEEEE~~!! How are you? (where are you right now, btw? back at CU or...?)
(and is that Akanishi Jin in your icon or am I seeing things? *spazzes right back at you*)
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Date: 2006-11-27 10:36 am (UTC)WHY YES. YES IT IS. And that right there answers any questions about the state of my recent fandom activity. Yeah, just a few short months ago I was leading a peaceful existence that in no way involved the letters 'r', 'p', and 's' in any sort of meaningful combination, but, uh. *coughs* ANYWAYS. When I meet Jin I know he'll understand that we were meant to be together.
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Date: 2006-11-27 10:41 am (UTC)(and I'll give Matsumoto Jun some icon love now, since I've been shamefully neglecting him for a while.)
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Date: 2006-11-29 09:49 am (UTC)BWAHAHAHAHAH RPS? You fell to KAT-TUN? (though Jin apparently isn't part of it anymore...? Oh noes! Will they have to change their name to KT'TUN?)
Me, I'm not RPSing...we're just watching way too much J-drama than is healthy. Ahhh, Nagase Tomoya!
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Date: 2006-11-29 07:05 pm (UTC)although I'm not too inclined to complain about anything that gets me to write 40,000 words in a couple monthsAnd don't listen to those naysayers, it's totally just a hiatus like he said and he's coming back after he's done studying abroad lalalalala. *fingers in ears*J-dramas. So
goodbadbadly good. (Nagase. So hot.) I'm guessing you guys watched My Boss My Hero? ^_~ And are you watching anything good this season?no subject
Date: 2006-11-29 07:11 pm (UTC)Well. If you're ever curious about the aforementioned KAT-TUN related activities. That account is where they're at. *smacks self in face*
Oh well, separation of accounts is mostly to keep my high school friends away from the slash once I started writing, since they're not quite ready for that yet. XD Maybe I should just consolidate everyone into fandom in one place, since I don't care if y'all laugh at my sad, sad fangirling of real people or not. ♥