Categories > Anime/Manga > Saiyuki > Thank the Stars
Thank the Stars
0 reviewsGojyo recalls a when things began to change between him and the monk.
-1Cliche
Title: Thank the Stars
Disclaimer: All respect and honor goes to Minekura-sama, creator of these wonderful characters, without whom I would not have the pleasure and honor of creating these silly stories of mine.
Author's Note: This is actually the first fanfic story I wrote, and I can already see how my writing is changing. But this will always be my first baby and I have a soft spot for it, warts and all.
Thank the Stars
Steely Dan- Bodhisattva
http://www.seeqpod.net/music/?plid=d1d818ec72
Bodhisattva
Would you take me by the hand
Bodhisattva
Would you take me by the hand
Can you show me
The shine of your Japan
The sparkle of your China
Can you show me Bodhisattva Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva
I'm gonna sell my house in town Bodhisattva
I'm gonna sell my house in town
And I'll be there
To shine in your Japan
To sparkle in your China
Yes I'll be there
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva
Chapter One
Other than the fact that there seemed to be a helluva lot of stars in the sky, there was nothing really special about that particular mid-Autumn evening, as far as I was concerned. Certainly nothing had happened during the course of the day to lead me to expect it would be a night that I would look back on years later and see as a turning point in my life, that nothing would ever be the same again after that night.
The day had been like pretty much all the others since I had thrown in my lot with Sanzo, the heretic priest, Goku, the five hundred-year-old adolescent Monkey, and my best friend Hakkai (once a human and a killer, now he was a demon and a healer) – what a group, ne? If someone had told me five years ago that I, Sha Gojyo, was going to end up going on the road with this rogue’s gallery, wandering pillar-to-post all over Asia in a damn jippu that turned into a dragon when we weren’t using it, with the whole thing commissioned by three Floating Heads?! … Well…. hell, I would have sure have hidden the rest of the sake from that guy for the rest of the evening, that’s for sure!
The funny thing is by that then all this madness had become pretty much same old, same old, and that’s what it was on the day in question: I don’t remember anything unusual happening during the day that day, but I can pretty much guarantee you that Hakkai drove, and the rest of us rode. And rode… And RODE. Of course, as per usual some asshole demons showed up that we had to take care of, but at that point that was old hat, we could almost do it in our sleep. But you know, I have to admit I did wonder where that damn shakujou and nyoibo came from and where they went back to when we were done with them. I still don’t understand that one, but I guess I shouldn’t ask too many questions long as they keep on working!
Of course when we weren’t fighting demons, we fought and scrapped with each other like alley cats from the same litter. It was even worse if it was too hot or too cold, and it always seemed to be either one or the other, and if Sanzo or I ran out of smokies, then there would definitely be hell to pay. But deep down we had come to realize that no matter what happened, no matter how bad we were fighting between ourselves, we always had each other’s backs. We could be in the middle of the worst argument in the world and be ready to kill each other with our bare hands (not Sanzo, of course, the bastard would just whip out the Smith & Wesson,) but if some mob of crazed youkai or some other assholes decided to hassle us, it all stopped and we were spotting each other in the fight scene like nobody’s business. We all knew when it came right down to it we would each jump right in and take a bullet for any of the other three, no questions asked, and in one way or another, we all already had.
So like I said, it was strange how all this of this weirdness seemed pretty normal by the particular day in question … almost boring in fact. I have never been one to contemplate my navel – I much would rather contemplate some chick’s instead. Hakkai has always been the one “prone to an excess of introspection and self-analysis” as he puts it. He has a theory about me that he developed when we were roomies, and he is probably right (he usually is, dammit!) Hakkai used to say I would do just about anything to avoid thinking about myself, my history, etc. etc., and that my heavy habits where womanizing was concerned were so that I didn’t have time to think about “things” too much. Just like my other three companions on this little trip to the West, I had some serious baggage from my past that I preferred not to ponder too closely or too often. The scars on my face were reminders enough every day when I looked in the mirror to shave – thanks for that, Mommy Dearest.
Now those of you that are paying close attention to old Gojyo may have noticed that I said “my heavy habits where womanizing WAS concerned,” and you’re probably about to drop in a dead faint right now, ne? Well, now, let me explain… You see, it all started back when Hakkai moved in. Well, “moved in” is not quite accurate… more like when I dragged his sorry ass in out of the rain and shoved his guts back into his half-dead carcass. Anyway, in the process of nursing him back to health, for some reason I started to care about the guy, in a way I that I hadn’t cared about anyone since I got separated from my brother Jien a long time ago (there’s that baggage again, see?)
Hakkai and I are as different as chalk and cheese, but over those months as I took care of him and watched him slowly start to heal, both in his body and his heart, his continued well-being got to be really important to me. Maybe it was because it was the first time, since Jien and Mom, that I had ever put anybody else’s wants and needs above my own. (Well, at least for more than a half-hour to an hour at a time in the sack, that is - never let it be said that Sha Gojyo is an inconsiderate lover!) Maybe it was because he was so pitiful, especially when I started to learn the real deal about his history.
It just blew my mind trying to imagine how this quiet gentle guy could lose the woman he loves, go so fucking insane that he kills a thousand people, and then have to lose her all over again. I think I would just have gotten the biggest sharpest knife I could find and applied it directly to my wrists, end of story. And maybe it was just because he’s just one helluva nice guy. For whatever reason, Cho Hakkai, - which is the name the Talking Heads gave him as part of his sentence to a whole new life after his trial - has become the best friend I ever had, and I know in my kappa heart he will be my best friend till the day I die.
“OK”, I hear you say, “what does this have to do with no womanizing?” Patience!! So as much as I didn’t mind having Hakkai there as a roomie, his being there couldn’t help but cramp my style in the babe department. We were basically living in a one-room cabin with one bed, and a recuperating Hakkai was taking up most of the bed. Plus I now had someone else I was almost completely responsible for, which was a new experience for me. All the little things like making sure he that had enough food, and tea (the guy lives on green tea), and silly little unnecessary things like toilet paper all became my responsibility, and that shit takes a big hunk out of your day, let me tell you. I couldn’t stop playing cards, because that’s where the money for all the stuff came from. But now that I had less time on my hands, and no place private take a woman, unless she was a real quick date with her own place, it just wasn’t gonna work out! And besides, I’m generally a guy who likes to take my time, if you get my drift.
As Hakkai recovered, he started taking over the shopping and the chores around the house, and I started to have more free time on my hands, but by then we had fallen into a sort of comfortable routine. We were spending evenings together playing cards, or doing projects to improve my shithole of a cabin (a real-estate agent would call it a ” fixer-upper” or “a handyman’s dream” - in other words, a dump!) I had never had the inclination or energy to do anything about it but with Hakkai’s direction, a few trips to the hardware store, and a lot of elbow grease, the place was starting to look pretty decent. Between how much nicer it looked, and the great meals Hakkai was fixing us, I was actually enjoying staying home instead of going out on my old “babes and bars” circuit, which was a new experience for me. Strange thing was, I didn’t miss the women all that much. If it got too bad, if ‘little Gojyo’ started talking to me too much, I’d just tell Hakkai not to wait up and head out and hook up with one of my regular squeezes from back in the era B.H. (Before Hakkai) and they would be so glad to see me, it would be like I was back from the wars or something. All three of them lived in rooms in the big boarding house up over one of the bars, so that, as they say, would be that- sweet and simple. And if that seemed like too much trouble, there was always a little quiet time in the shower with a little shower gel and Mr. Left Hand, my oldest and nearest friend in such matters – he never let me down!
So I was cruising along starting to feel pretty good about life: new friend, nice home, etc. I was better off money-wise than I’d ever been, thanks to Hakkai’s gift at pinching pennies and the fact that I was staying home more, and eating and drinking out less. Guess that good feeling should have been my clue to duck and cover. I should have known that any time my life starts getting too good something is bound to happen to screw it up, call it “the luck of the hanyou.”
Sure enough, there came a knock at the door one afternoon, blondie and the Monkey barged into our lives, and quiet definitely became a thing of the past. To make a long story short, Hakkai got hauled before the Sanbutsushin to account for his crimes. With Sanzo’s help (who won’t admit it but he vouched for Hakkai big time) they decided to give him a break and let him try out a new life with a new name. Being that dickwad Sanzo got a case of the ass and actually let me think ‘Kai had really been executed, dead, and buried for quite some time after his trial, you can imagine how glad I was to see Cho Hakkai afterwards, new name and all!
Hakkai and I were living together again after all that was over with when the Talking Heads called Sanzo in and gave him his assignment to go West to try to stop all the demon troubles being caused by the Minus Wave. They also told him he was supposed to take the three of us with him – some whoohaa about us all being stronger and less vulnerable to the Minus Wave because we were all three part human, and part demon. Sanzo likes to claim that he fought them about taking us along, which I can somewhat believe knowing how frosty his ass can be.
But then he also complained from the very beginning about having to look after Goku, and don’t you believe that one bit- I’ve seen the way he looks at that kid when he thinks no one is looking, and the worry that flashes across his face when Goku is in danger or hurt. Those two are every bit as bonded together as any blood father and son, maybe more so. They both are just such “guys”, neither of them have words for what they feel for each other, but it’s there, nonetheless. I know Goku doesn’t realize he thinks of Sanzo like a father, but when you think of all the ways Sanzo cares for him: teaches him, disciplines him, instructs him about right and wrong, makes sure he is safe… well, I know I never had one, but it sure sounds like a father to me.
We were all kind of family for each other by then, in a strange way and I suppose we always will be. I guess it’s a natural thing to happen when you spend this much time with people and go through as much shit as we have together. It was a strange thing about Sanzo and me, though. You would have thought he hated me, the way he picked at me, and whacked me with his damn harisen at every opportunity… but then this weirdness started to happen between him and me. It was like we couldn’t stand to be around each other, but at the same time we kept being pulled together, you know? And we actually had started to have some serious conversations, which we never had done before, on some of those nights around the campfire after Goku and Hakkai have gone to bed, or when we have ended up rooming in the same room together in an inn. Sure, I’d had conversations like that with Hakkai lots of times, but they didn’t leave me feeling so damn flustered like the ones with Sanzo did – like one of those dreams where you are in your old neighborhood and you look down and realize you are bare buck naked, and there is no place to hide. Freaky.
It was like there was this nagging little voice in the back of my mind, and it was one of those goofy angels (or maybe more like a devil) one somebody’s shoulder in a cartoon, saying “admit it, Gojyo, you want him, you know you do.”
Of course that left me having this running argument with myself. Man…shit! Shut up! This is Sha Gojyo the ‘Ladies Man’ you are talking to – I told Hakkai when I took him in out of the rain that first day that it was the last time I was ever going to take a man to my bed, and I meant it!
Oh, sure you did it continued, … that’s why your heart does backflips every time Sanzo comes around you, and why you can never get to sleep for hours after you and he have one of your little talks!
If I had had Sanzo’s fan, I’d have whacked myself in the head right about then! I can’t be feeling like this! I kept telling myself over and over, but I couldn’t seem to argue it away either. And by then I knew that ‘Kai had started to noticed something, too – I had seen him giving me that “Oh, really?” raised-eyebrow and wiseguy half-smile of his on more than one occasion when I had gotten flustered by something the monk had said, or when Sanzo had been standing too close to me, or something like that. Goddess help me, every damn time that happened know my face used to turn as red as my goddamn hair, and I could just feel the heat rising up my cheeks… and sometimes that wasn’t the only place I was feeling heat, either. Shit! Bastard…
It couldn’t just have been my imagination – it really seemed like things like that were happening more and more often: I’d feel his knee leaning against mine under a restaurant table, or he would brush against me when we were standing around somewhere... But then if I looked at him when it happened he would always jump like he’d gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and real quick-like he’d say something sarcastic like “You got a problem, cockroach?” so I always just thought it was my over-active imagination.
If only Sanzo just hadn’t smelled so damn good. That was one of the things that really got me in trouble…all the goddamn time. Like a mixture of tobacco and silk and whatever that sandalwood-scented shampoo is he uses on that damn blond hair of his, and just the faintest hint of gunpowder underneath it all (no surprise as often as he fires off the damn thing.) It all jumbles together into one maddening smell that is totally and completely Sanzo, which I could not catch the merest scent of without starting to get the most embarrassing hard-on back then- hell, it still gets to me. I would be sitting behind him in Hakuryuu and if the breeze started blowing his “Eau de Sanzo” back towards me, before I knew it, I’d catch myself leaning towards the back of his seat more and more, to be more able to catch a good whiff of that fragrance that is nobody’s but his… but that I wanted for my own. Fortunately nobody caught me doing it, thank the gods. How embarrassing would that have been? Sometimes it’s no blessing having the super-good sense of smell that youkai have, let me tell you.
I was seriously starting to worry about myself. I mean, could you imagine what Sanzo would have to say about all this? Say? -- hell, he’d probably just pull out the Smith and Wesson and that would be it. I knew the chances of him feeling the same way about me were like 99,999 to one against me. I had no idea what kind of instruction about sex he might have gotten in that monastery growing up, not much I suspected. He never talked about sex, never even jacked-off that we could tell (of course ‘Kai and I had speculated about it – guys talk about things like that just as much as women do.) For all we knew the guy was still a freakin’ virgin – with both sexes.
But on the other hand… Every once in a while I would catch him staring at me with those damned purple eyes of his, under those droopy eyelids of his (of course they’re droopy – his eyelashes are a mile long!) When that happened I could have sworn he that didn’t have his normal everyday ‘fuck-the-world’ look… he just would look sort of … hungry, like the Monkey when he’s missed a meal and he’s looking at a table full of sukiyaki and meat buns. But then as soon as I would catch him the veil would come back down and the pissed-off look would be back again. Talk about frustrating…
I had started teasing him a lot more often, and more daringly, I have to admit. Sometimes it was just a way to let off steam even though I knew it was going to bring down the wrath of the bouzu on my head. Sometimes I did it when I was feeling those …longings… a little too much as a way to help convince myself that there wasn’t really anything going on. And sometimes – ok, I’ll admit it – there were sometimes when I teased Sanzo just to see what kind of reaction I would get out of old baldy. And I know that last one was really stupid of me, because even if he had had a raging heaving case of loinsweats for me, he would never, ever have given me the satisfaction of letting on in front of the rest of the group. But I got so damn bored sometimes, and he is so much fun to razz, so I just would just do it anyway. Still do!
So that brings us to The Night in Question, the one that changed everything. We were checking into the only inn we could find in this little sparrowfart of a town, called The Cherry Moon. The innkeeper, who was a thin scruffy little guy who looked like he had neither been laid nor had a decent meal in years, had to tell Sanzo - who was already acting pretty cranky- that there were only two rooms left for the night.
“Tch’. Guess we’ll have to settle for those, goddamit…” he growled. “ You three losers can take one and I’ll take the other.”
“WHAT!?” all three of us yelled in unison – it had been a long drive that day and none of us fancied sleeping on the floor tonight just to give the freaking houshi his privacy. So I let him have it.
“Sanzo, tenshi! Are you mad at me, sweetums? I’ll be just heartbroken if we don’t…”
But that was all I could get out before the pistol materialized out of his sleeve, plaster was falling from the lobby ceiling, and the poor little innkeeper was cowering on the floor behind the front desk. There went yet another strange expense on the Gold AnEx card bill for the Three Talking Heads to puzzle over!
‘Kai stepped in with his usual diplomacy and tact and smoothed everything over, and before long we were on our way to a little steak house down the street for some new kind of deal called an “all-you-can-eat special.” Sounded like it was the perfect thing for the Monkey, who by then, of course, was whining every three seconds about how hungry he was.
Well, we should have known that was a mistake. Never say “all you can eat” to the bakasaru. By the time we hauled him out of there, we practically needed a wheelbarrow to move him, and by the time we got him back to the inn, he was real physical pain. Goku the Indestructible had finally done what none of us would have thought was possible, he had actually eaten so much that he had made himself sick. Consequently, Hakkai and Hakuryuu ended up staying in the same room with Goku so that he could be tended to if he needed any nursing while he was sleeping off his wretched excess.
We were all amazed to actually find that there was actually an upper limit to the Monkey’s consumption abilities after all these years of dedicated hardcore eating. One of the topics of discussion at dinner had been the stories we had been hearing of contests in the far west to see who could eat the most of one item, such as watermelon or chicken, in a finite period of time. Even though that kind of a contest did seem kind of silly, (Hakkai says they are a “perfect example of the waste and decadence so typical of the Americans and Japanese,”) we had seriously discussed entering Goku in one of them if we ever encountered one during our travels – the gods knew he was a natural! But given how poorly he felt later that night, we reconsidered the idea. Even Son Goku the Indestructible apparently has his limits.
So, needless to say, Sanzo and I ended up sharing a room together after all… again. My disloyal heartbeat started racing faster even before we got back to the Cherry Moon, just thinking about having to deal with the spending whole night in close quarters with the monk and my …little problem. It had been a long, long time since I had last visited any of my old regular girls, and since we had been on the road I had only had a few opportunities to –shall we say – “spread my wings” with any ladies at all. To be honest, the more my fascination with the damn bouzu had grown, the less motivated I had been to go out and do all the tap-dancing one must to do to get any of the ladies worth having between the sheets. To make matters worse, circumstances lately had been keeping me from even having the privacy to jerk off in peace, so I was feeling pretty damn twitchy by the time Sanzo and I ended up sharing the room that night.
I really didn’t know what to do with myself after we said goodnight to ‘Kai and Goku and went into our room. Sanzo carefully rolled up and stored the sutra and stripped down to just his jeans and that damn sleeveless top and armwarmers. And you’d better believe he totally knows how fantastically sexy he looks in that get-up - don’t kid yourself. He settled down on the bed by the bay window, the bigger of the two beds of course, with his newspaper and a ciggie. The black top and sleeves were such a stark contrast against his pale skin, and they are so skintight, they give great definition of the muscles in his arms and upper body - it was all I could do not to just stand there gaping at him like a slack-jawed moron. The black window behind him silhouetted his regal profile and his gold hair like a photo backdrop. Gods, he took my breath away, he was so beautiful sitting there. There’s not an ounce of fat on Sanzo, but he’s not really thin, either – his narrow waist leads to shoulders that are surprisingly broad for his slender frame. I could have just stood and stared, admiring him forever, despite of all the hundreds of times I have seen him like that. But I will tell you a one small secret (just to keep the bouzu humble): he does have big feet. The holy man himself has big, broad, flat-as-a- pancake feet! The man must have been a duck in a past life. That’s why you’ll never see him without those black tabi socks of his, vain creature that he is.
I sat at the small table in the room attempting to play a game of solitaire, but of course I couldn’t concentrate for shit. Mostly I just studied Sanzo when I was sure he wouldn’t catch me looking because he was focused on his paper. After about an hour or so of this Sanzo looked up at me over the top of his paper, raised an eyebrow, and said drily, “You staying in tonight for some particular reason? Don’t let me keep you…”
I just looked at him kind of blankly, and answered, ”no, ah, if it’s all the same to you, with the Monkey sick and all, I just don’t feel like going out tonight. I mean, what if Hakkai needed to send me out for medicine or something? Besides, if the women I saw in that restaurant were any indication, it would be pretty slim pickings around here anyways, hardly worth the effort.” I was trying to give the attitude right back at him but probably sounded pretty lame. He gave his usual ‘who gives a fuck’ snort in response from behind his paper.
“I do need to make a little trip to the corner store for some smokes though,” I said. “ I’m just about out and I forgot to ask Hakkai to pick some up for me yesterday when he went for supplies.” Truthfully I was grateful at that point to have an excuse to escape from there for a while and try to clear my head.
Sanzo’s paper went down again, more quickly this time. “Could you pick up…” he halted suddenly mid-sentence, unwilling or unable to finish the thought. “I’ll go with you,” he said. “It’s a nice night and I could use the exercise.”
OH fuck me! Why did he suddenly want to go with me – I thought he was trying to get rid of me? What was up with that? Now, what do I do? I thought….. OK, get ahold of yourself, Gojyo, remember, you are the original Smooth Operator – why are you turning into warm jello now? So what is the worst-case scenario here? So what if you do have the hots for the monk? So, you turn the charm on him like you have on every babe from Chang’An to Tokyo - you have Sex Appeal, kid! Use it! Get over the self-doubt here – remember you ARE Sha Gojyo !!! What is the worst he could do?
Shoot me.
Well, yeah, there is that… but now, really, isn’t it better do die trying that to spend the rest of your life wondering “what if”? Isn’t that how you have always lived your life up until now?
True.
“Oi! KAPPA!” Sanzo had gotten up from the bed, put on his shoes and jacket, and was practically in my face. I had sort of spaced for a few seconds while having this little conversation with myself. “Are we going or not?”
“Sure,” I said cheerfully. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained!”
“What?!?”
“Nevermind- let’s go.”
~TBC~
Disclaimer: All respect and honor goes to Minekura-sama, creator of these wonderful characters, without whom I would not have the pleasure and honor of creating these silly stories of mine.
Author's Note: This is actually the first fanfic story I wrote, and I can already see how my writing is changing. But this will always be my first baby and I have a soft spot for it, warts and all.
Thank the Stars
Steely Dan- Bodhisattva
http://www.seeqpod.net/music/?plid=d1d818ec72
Bodhisattva
Would you take me by the hand
Bodhisattva
Would you take me by the hand
Can you show me
The shine of your Japan
The sparkle of your China
Can you show me Bodhisattva Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva
I'm gonna sell my house in town Bodhisattva
I'm gonna sell my house in town
And I'll be there
To shine in your Japan
To sparkle in your China
Yes I'll be there
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva
Chapter One
Other than the fact that there seemed to be a helluva lot of stars in the sky, there was nothing really special about that particular mid-Autumn evening, as far as I was concerned. Certainly nothing had happened during the course of the day to lead me to expect it would be a night that I would look back on years later and see as a turning point in my life, that nothing would ever be the same again after that night.
The day had been like pretty much all the others since I had thrown in my lot with Sanzo, the heretic priest, Goku, the five hundred-year-old adolescent Monkey, and my best friend Hakkai (once a human and a killer, now he was a demon and a healer) – what a group, ne? If someone had told me five years ago that I, Sha Gojyo, was going to end up going on the road with this rogue’s gallery, wandering pillar-to-post all over Asia in a damn jippu that turned into a dragon when we weren’t using it, with the whole thing commissioned by three Floating Heads?! … Well…. hell, I would have sure have hidden the rest of the sake from that guy for the rest of the evening, that’s for sure!
The funny thing is by that then all this madness had become pretty much same old, same old, and that’s what it was on the day in question: I don’t remember anything unusual happening during the day that day, but I can pretty much guarantee you that Hakkai drove, and the rest of us rode. And rode… And RODE. Of course, as per usual some asshole demons showed up that we had to take care of, but at that point that was old hat, we could almost do it in our sleep. But you know, I have to admit I did wonder where that damn shakujou and nyoibo came from and where they went back to when we were done with them. I still don’t understand that one, but I guess I shouldn’t ask too many questions long as they keep on working!
Of course when we weren’t fighting demons, we fought and scrapped with each other like alley cats from the same litter. It was even worse if it was too hot or too cold, and it always seemed to be either one or the other, and if Sanzo or I ran out of smokies, then there would definitely be hell to pay. But deep down we had come to realize that no matter what happened, no matter how bad we were fighting between ourselves, we always had each other’s backs. We could be in the middle of the worst argument in the world and be ready to kill each other with our bare hands (not Sanzo, of course, the bastard would just whip out the Smith & Wesson,) but if some mob of crazed youkai or some other assholes decided to hassle us, it all stopped and we were spotting each other in the fight scene like nobody’s business. We all knew when it came right down to it we would each jump right in and take a bullet for any of the other three, no questions asked, and in one way or another, we all already had.
So like I said, it was strange how all this of this weirdness seemed pretty normal by the particular day in question … almost boring in fact. I have never been one to contemplate my navel – I much would rather contemplate some chick’s instead. Hakkai has always been the one “prone to an excess of introspection and self-analysis” as he puts it. He has a theory about me that he developed when we were roomies, and he is probably right (he usually is, dammit!) Hakkai used to say I would do just about anything to avoid thinking about myself, my history, etc. etc., and that my heavy habits where womanizing was concerned were so that I didn’t have time to think about “things” too much. Just like my other three companions on this little trip to the West, I had some serious baggage from my past that I preferred not to ponder too closely or too often. The scars on my face were reminders enough every day when I looked in the mirror to shave – thanks for that, Mommy Dearest.
Now those of you that are paying close attention to old Gojyo may have noticed that I said “my heavy habits where womanizing WAS concerned,” and you’re probably about to drop in a dead faint right now, ne? Well, now, let me explain… You see, it all started back when Hakkai moved in. Well, “moved in” is not quite accurate… more like when I dragged his sorry ass in out of the rain and shoved his guts back into his half-dead carcass. Anyway, in the process of nursing him back to health, for some reason I started to care about the guy, in a way I that I hadn’t cared about anyone since I got separated from my brother Jien a long time ago (there’s that baggage again, see?)
Hakkai and I are as different as chalk and cheese, but over those months as I took care of him and watched him slowly start to heal, both in his body and his heart, his continued well-being got to be really important to me. Maybe it was because it was the first time, since Jien and Mom, that I had ever put anybody else’s wants and needs above my own. (Well, at least for more than a half-hour to an hour at a time in the sack, that is - never let it be said that Sha Gojyo is an inconsiderate lover!) Maybe it was because he was so pitiful, especially when I started to learn the real deal about his history.
It just blew my mind trying to imagine how this quiet gentle guy could lose the woman he loves, go so fucking insane that he kills a thousand people, and then have to lose her all over again. I think I would just have gotten the biggest sharpest knife I could find and applied it directly to my wrists, end of story. And maybe it was just because he’s just one helluva nice guy. For whatever reason, Cho Hakkai, - which is the name the Talking Heads gave him as part of his sentence to a whole new life after his trial - has become the best friend I ever had, and I know in my kappa heart he will be my best friend till the day I die.
“OK”, I hear you say, “what does this have to do with no womanizing?” Patience!! So as much as I didn’t mind having Hakkai there as a roomie, his being there couldn’t help but cramp my style in the babe department. We were basically living in a one-room cabin with one bed, and a recuperating Hakkai was taking up most of the bed. Plus I now had someone else I was almost completely responsible for, which was a new experience for me. All the little things like making sure he that had enough food, and tea (the guy lives on green tea), and silly little unnecessary things like toilet paper all became my responsibility, and that shit takes a big hunk out of your day, let me tell you. I couldn’t stop playing cards, because that’s where the money for all the stuff came from. But now that I had less time on my hands, and no place private take a woman, unless she was a real quick date with her own place, it just wasn’t gonna work out! And besides, I’m generally a guy who likes to take my time, if you get my drift.
As Hakkai recovered, he started taking over the shopping and the chores around the house, and I started to have more free time on my hands, but by then we had fallen into a sort of comfortable routine. We were spending evenings together playing cards, or doing projects to improve my shithole of a cabin (a real-estate agent would call it a ” fixer-upper” or “a handyman’s dream” - in other words, a dump!) I had never had the inclination or energy to do anything about it but with Hakkai’s direction, a few trips to the hardware store, and a lot of elbow grease, the place was starting to look pretty decent. Between how much nicer it looked, and the great meals Hakkai was fixing us, I was actually enjoying staying home instead of going out on my old “babes and bars” circuit, which was a new experience for me. Strange thing was, I didn’t miss the women all that much. If it got too bad, if ‘little Gojyo’ started talking to me too much, I’d just tell Hakkai not to wait up and head out and hook up with one of my regular squeezes from back in the era B.H. (Before Hakkai) and they would be so glad to see me, it would be like I was back from the wars or something. All three of them lived in rooms in the big boarding house up over one of the bars, so that, as they say, would be that- sweet and simple. And if that seemed like too much trouble, there was always a little quiet time in the shower with a little shower gel and Mr. Left Hand, my oldest and nearest friend in such matters – he never let me down!
So I was cruising along starting to feel pretty good about life: new friend, nice home, etc. I was better off money-wise than I’d ever been, thanks to Hakkai’s gift at pinching pennies and the fact that I was staying home more, and eating and drinking out less. Guess that good feeling should have been my clue to duck and cover. I should have known that any time my life starts getting too good something is bound to happen to screw it up, call it “the luck of the hanyou.”
Sure enough, there came a knock at the door one afternoon, blondie and the Monkey barged into our lives, and quiet definitely became a thing of the past. To make a long story short, Hakkai got hauled before the Sanbutsushin to account for his crimes. With Sanzo’s help (who won’t admit it but he vouched for Hakkai big time) they decided to give him a break and let him try out a new life with a new name. Being that dickwad Sanzo got a case of the ass and actually let me think ‘Kai had really been executed, dead, and buried for quite some time after his trial, you can imagine how glad I was to see Cho Hakkai afterwards, new name and all!
Hakkai and I were living together again after all that was over with when the Talking Heads called Sanzo in and gave him his assignment to go West to try to stop all the demon troubles being caused by the Minus Wave. They also told him he was supposed to take the three of us with him – some whoohaa about us all being stronger and less vulnerable to the Minus Wave because we were all three part human, and part demon. Sanzo likes to claim that he fought them about taking us along, which I can somewhat believe knowing how frosty his ass can be.
But then he also complained from the very beginning about having to look after Goku, and don’t you believe that one bit- I’ve seen the way he looks at that kid when he thinks no one is looking, and the worry that flashes across his face when Goku is in danger or hurt. Those two are every bit as bonded together as any blood father and son, maybe more so. They both are just such “guys”, neither of them have words for what they feel for each other, but it’s there, nonetheless. I know Goku doesn’t realize he thinks of Sanzo like a father, but when you think of all the ways Sanzo cares for him: teaches him, disciplines him, instructs him about right and wrong, makes sure he is safe… well, I know I never had one, but it sure sounds like a father to me.
We were all kind of family for each other by then, in a strange way and I suppose we always will be. I guess it’s a natural thing to happen when you spend this much time with people and go through as much shit as we have together. It was a strange thing about Sanzo and me, though. You would have thought he hated me, the way he picked at me, and whacked me with his damn harisen at every opportunity… but then this weirdness started to happen between him and me. It was like we couldn’t stand to be around each other, but at the same time we kept being pulled together, you know? And we actually had started to have some serious conversations, which we never had done before, on some of those nights around the campfire after Goku and Hakkai have gone to bed, or when we have ended up rooming in the same room together in an inn. Sure, I’d had conversations like that with Hakkai lots of times, but they didn’t leave me feeling so damn flustered like the ones with Sanzo did – like one of those dreams where you are in your old neighborhood and you look down and realize you are bare buck naked, and there is no place to hide. Freaky.
It was like there was this nagging little voice in the back of my mind, and it was one of those goofy angels (or maybe more like a devil) one somebody’s shoulder in a cartoon, saying “admit it, Gojyo, you want him, you know you do.”
Of course that left me having this running argument with myself. Man…shit! Shut up! This is Sha Gojyo the ‘Ladies Man’ you are talking to – I told Hakkai when I took him in out of the rain that first day that it was the last time I was ever going to take a man to my bed, and I meant it!
Oh, sure you did it continued, … that’s why your heart does backflips every time Sanzo comes around you, and why you can never get to sleep for hours after you and he have one of your little talks!
If I had had Sanzo’s fan, I’d have whacked myself in the head right about then! I can’t be feeling like this! I kept telling myself over and over, but I couldn’t seem to argue it away either. And by then I knew that ‘Kai had started to noticed something, too – I had seen him giving me that “Oh, really?” raised-eyebrow and wiseguy half-smile of his on more than one occasion when I had gotten flustered by something the monk had said, or when Sanzo had been standing too close to me, or something like that. Goddess help me, every damn time that happened know my face used to turn as red as my goddamn hair, and I could just feel the heat rising up my cheeks… and sometimes that wasn’t the only place I was feeling heat, either. Shit! Bastard…
It couldn’t just have been my imagination – it really seemed like things like that were happening more and more often: I’d feel his knee leaning against mine under a restaurant table, or he would brush against me when we were standing around somewhere... But then if I looked at him when it happened he would always jump like he’d gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and real quick-like he’d say something sarcastic like “You got a problem, cockroach?” so I always just thought it was my over-active imagination.
If only Sanzo just hadn’t smelled so damn good. That was one of the things that really got me in trouble…all the goddamn time. Like a mixture of tobacco and silk and whatever that sandalwood-scented shampoo is he uses on that damn blond hair of his, and just the faintest hint of gunpowder underneath it all (no surprise as often as he fires off the damn thing.) It all jumbles together into one maddening smell that is totally and completely Sanzo, which I could not catch the merest scent of without starting to get the most embarrassing hard-on back then- hell, it still gets to me. I would be sitting behind him in Hakuryuu and if the breeze started blowing his “Eau de Sanzo” back towards me, before I knew it, I’d catch myself leaning towards the back of his seat more and more, to be more able to catch a good whiff of that fragrance that is nobody’s but his… but that I wanted for my own. Fortunately nobody caught me doing it, thank the gods. How embarrassing would that have been? Sometimes it’s no blessing having the super-good sense of smell that youkai have, let me tell you.
I was seriously starting to worry about myself. I mean, could you imagine what Sanzo would have to say about all this? Say? -- hell, he’d probably just pull out the Smith and Wesson and that would be it. I knew the chances of him feeling the same way about me were like 99,999 to one against me. I had no idea what kind of instruction about sex he might have gotten in that monastery growing up, not much I suspected. He never talked about sex, never even jacked-off that we could tell (of course ‘Kai and I had speculated about it – guys talk about things like that just as much as women do.) For all we knew the guy was still a freakin’ virgin – with both sexes.
But on the other hand… Every once in a while I would catch him staring at me with those damned purple eyes of his, under those droopy eyelids of his (of course they’re droopy – his eyelashes are a mile long!) When that happened I could have sworn he that didn’t have his normal everyday ‘fuck-the-world’ look… he just would look sort of … hungry, like the Monkey when he’s missed a meal and he’s looking at a table full of sukiyaki and meat buns. But then as soon as I would catch him the veil would come back down and the pissed-off look would be back again. Talk about frustrating…
I had started teasing him a lot more often, and more daringly, I have to admit. Sometimes it was just a way to let off steam even though I knew it was going to bring down the wrath of the bouzu on my head. Sometimes I did it when I was feeling those …longings… a little too much as a way to help convince myself that there wasn’t really anything going on. And sometimes – ok, I’ll admit it – there were sometimes when I teased Sanzo just to see what kind of reaction I would get out of old baldy. And I know that last one was really stupid of me, because even if he had had a raging heaving case of loinsweats for me, he would never, ever have given me the satisfaction of letting on in front of the rest of the group. But I got so damn bored sometimes, and he is so much fun to razz, so I just would just do it anyway. Still do!
So that brings us to The Night in Question, the one that changed everything. We were checking into the only inn we could find in this little sparrowfart of a town, called The Cherry Moon. The innkeeper, who was a thin scruffy little guy who looked like he had neither been laid nor had a decent meal in years, had to tell Sanzo - who was already acting pretty cranky- that there were only two rooms left for the night.
“Tch’. Guess we’ll have to settle for those, goddamit…” he growled. “ You three losers can take one and I’ll take the other.”
“WHAT!?” all three of us yelled in unison – it had been a long drive that day and none of us fancied sleeping on the floor tonight just to give the freaking houshi his privacy. So I let him have it.
“Sanzo, tenshi! Are you mad at me, sweetums? I’ll be just heartbroken if we don’t…”
But that was all I could get out before the pistol materialized out of his sleeve, plaster was falling from the lobby ceiling, and the poor little innkeeper was cowering on the floor behind the front desk. There went yet another strange expense on the Gold AnEx card bill for the Three Talking Heads to puzzle over!
‘Kai stepped in with his usual diplomacy and tact and smoothed everything over, and before long we were on our way to a little steak house down the street for some new kind of deal called an “all-you-can-eat special.” Sounded like it was the perfect thing for the Monkey, who by then, of course, was whining every three seconds about how hungry he was.
Well, we should have known that was a mistake. Never say “all you can eat” to the bakasaru. By the time we hauled him out of there, we practically needed a wheelbarrow to move him, and by the time we got him back to the inn, he was real physical pain. Goku the Indestructible had finally done what none of us would have thought was possible, he had actually eaten so much that he had made himself sick. Consequently, Hakkai and Hakuryuu ended up staying in the same room with Goku so that he could be tended to if he needed any nursing while he was sleeping off his wretched excess.
We were all amazed to actually find that there was actually an upper limit to the Monkey’s consumption abilities after all these years of dedicated hardcore eating. One of the topics of discussion at dinner had been the stories we had been hearing of contests in the far west to see who could eat the most of one item, such as watermelon or chicken, in a finite period of time. Even though that kind of a contest did seem kind of silly, (Hakkai says they are a “perfect example of the waste and decadence so typical of the Americans and Japanese,”) we had seriously discussed entering Goku in one of them if we ever encountered one during our travels – the gods knew he was a natural! But given how poorly he felt later that night, we reconsidered the idea. Even Son Goku the Indestructible apparently has his limits.
So, needless to say, Sanzo and I ended up sharing a room together after all… again. My disloyal heartbeat started racing faster even before we got back to the Cherry Moon, just thinking about having to deal with the spending whole night in close quarters with the monk and my …little problem. It had been a long, long time since I had last visited any of my old regular girls, and since we had been on the road I had only had a few opportunities to –shall we say – “spread my wings” with any ladies at all. To be honest, the more my fascination with the damn bouzu had grown, the less motivated I had been to go out and do all the tap-dancing one must to do to get any of the ladies worth having between the sheets. To make matters worse, circumstances lately had been keeping me from even having the privacy to jerk off in peace, so I was feeling pretty damn twitchy by the time Sanzo and I ended up sharing the room that night.
I really didn’t know what to do with myself after we said goodnight to ‘Kai and Goku and went into our room. Sanzo carefully rolled up and stored the sutra and stripped down to just his jeans and that damn sleeveless top and armwarmers. And you’d better believe he totally knows how fantastically sexy he looks in that get-up - don’t kid yourself. He settled down on the bed by the bay window, the bigger of the two beds of course, with his newspaper and a ciggie. The black top and sleeves were such a stark contrast against his pale skin, and they are so skintight, they give great definition of the muscles in his arms and upper body - it was all I could do not to just stand there gaping at him like a slack-jawed moron. The black window behind him silhouetted his regal profile and his gold hair like a photo backdrop. Gods, he took my breath away, he was so beautiful sitting there. There’s not an ounce of fat on Sanzo, but he’s not really thin, either – his narrow waist leads to shoulders that are surprisingly broad for his slender frame. I could have just stood and stared, admiring him forever, despite of all the hundreds of times I have seen him like that. But I will tell you a one small secret (just to keep the bouzu humble): he does have big feet. The holy man himself has big, broad, flat-as-a- pancake feet! The man must have been a duck in a past life. That’s why you’ll never see him without those black tabi socks of his, vain creature that he is.
I sat at the small table in the room attempting to play a game of solitaire, but of course I couldn’t concentrate for shit. Mostly I just studied Sanzo when I was sure he wouldn’t catch me looking because he was focused on his paper. After about an hour or so of this Sanzo looked up at me over the top of his paper, raised an eyebrow, and said drily, “You staying in tonight for some particular reason? Don’t let me keep you…”
I just looked at him kind of blankly, and answered, ”no, ah, if it’s all the same to you, with the Monkey sick and all, I just don’t feel like going out tonight. I mean, what if Hakkai needed to send me out for medicine or something? Besides, if the women I saw in that restaurant were any indication, it would be pretty slim pickings around here anyways, hardly worth the effort.” I was trying to give the attitude right back at him but probably sounded pretty lame. He gave his usual ‘who gives a fuck’ snort in response from behind his paper.
“I do need to make a little trip to the corner store for some smokes though,” I said. “ I’m just about out and I forgot to ask Hakkai to pick some up for me yesterday when he went for supplies.” Truthfully I was grateful at that point to have an excuse to escape from there for a while and try to clear my head.
Sanzo’s paper went down again, more quickly this time. “Could you pick up…” he halted suddenly mid-sentence, unwilling or unable to finish the thought. “I’ll go with you,” he said. “It’s a nice night and I could use the exercise.”
OH fuck me! Why did he suddenly want to go with me – I thought he was trying to get rid of me? What was up with that? Now, what do I do? I thought….. OK, get ahold of yourself, Gojyo, remember, you are the original Smooth Operator – why are you turning into warm jello now? So what is the worst-case scenario here? So what if you do have the hots for the monk? So, you turn the charm on him like you have on every babe from Chang’An to Tokyo - you have Sex Appeal, kid! Use it! Get over the self-doubt here – remember you ARE Sha Gojyo !!! What is the worst he could do?
Shoot me.
Well, yeah, there is that… but now, really, isn’t it better do die trying that to spend the rest of your life wondering “what if”? Isn’t that how you have always lived your life up until now?
True.
“Oi! KAPPA!” Sanzo had gotten up from the bed, put on his shoes and jacket, and was practically in my face. I had sort of spaced for a few seconds while having this little conversation with myself. “Are we going or not?”
“Sure,” I said cheerfully. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained!”
“What?!?”
“Nevermind- let’s go.”
~TBC~
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