Gensomaden Saiyuki Fan Fiction / Saiyuki Reload Fan Fiction / Saiyuki Reload Gunlock Fan Fiction ❯ Episode1: Truly,Madly,Deeply ❯ Negative Energy ( Chapter 4 )

IV. NEGATIVE ENERGY/ THE LAST PROMISE

 

In which we digress with the story of Ranpa, the demon-painter, and his last promise to Rinran, the village doctor. But more importantly, Sanzo gets sick. Hehehe…

 

A.

 

The camera pans for a close-up of a haggard Sanzo with bluish circles under his eyes. The camera zooms out to reveal the ikkou on the jeep continuing on their journey west. They are in their usual positions - Hakkai in the driver's seat, Sanzo beside him, and Goku and Gojyo at the back. The kappa, naturally, is behind the priest.

 

Sanzo coughs.

 

“So… even the great Sanzo Houshi isn't immune to the common cold, eh?” Gojyo teases.

 

“'Ch.”

 

Gojyo leans close to hug him from behind, rubbing his cheek against the priest's tenderly. “Poor tenshi…” (tenshi = angel)

 

Hakkai turns and tuts disapprovingly. “Gojyo! I already told you that Sanzo is contagious! Now please listen to me and keep your hands off him for a while!” Gojyo withdraws with a pout, and sticks a naughty tongue out at Hakkai. The healer glares, then turns and addresses Sanzo. “And Sanzo, I wish you'd stop encouraging him! Yare yare… you two are giving me a damn migraine…”

 

“What?” Sanzo coughs weakly. “I'm feeling too miserable to even think of encouraging anything…” he sniffles, then sneezes.

 

“Does this `cold' really make you that miserable?” Goku asks interestedly.

 

“You'll never know in your whole life…” Gojyo mocks. “You know what they say… fools never catch a cold.”

 

Goku clobbers Gojyo.

 

Gojyo throttles Goku.

 

“A person who calls someone a fool IS a fool, FOOL!”

 

“Then you really ARE a fool, FOOL!”

 

“You're the fool!”

 

“YOU ARE!”

 

“Cockroach!”

 

“Ape!”

 

Hakkai grinds his teeth as his migraine escalates. “You two are really making a habit of this…”

 

Sanzo clutches his pounding head weakly. “Urusei, I say…”

 

“Lovesick erogappa!”

 

“Brainless bakazaru!”

 

“URUSEI!!!” Sanzo jumps up and points the gun. He sways… and collapses.

 

“Sanzo!” Goku catches Sanzo, finds the harisen, and fans him frantically.

 

The jeep wobbles crazily. They run over assorted rabbits and snakes and plants and rocks, as the kappa panics and chokes Hakkai in a frenzy. “HEAL HIM, HAKKAI!!! Heal-heal-heal…” Gojyo wails.

 

“Yare yare… I should have just chosen life imprisonment in a nice, quiet jail cell…”

 

 

B.

 

Lunch at the inn.

 

“Aren't you eating anything, Sanzo?” asks Goku.

 

“Eating properly is very important during illnesses, you know,” Hakkai agrees.

 

“See? You heard them… Now open up,” cajoles Gojyo as he holds up a piece of meat with his chopsticks in front of Sanzo's mouth.

 

“You guys… people are staring!” Goku hisses between mouthfuls.

 

Sanzo swats away the food. “I told you I don't want it!” he glares. He lights a cigarette instead, and coughs hard.

 

“Why not lay off the smokes while you're sick?” Gojyo rubs Sanzo's back.

 

Hakkai stands up abruptly. “Attention, please. Since the two of you are so hardheaded -“ he gives pointed looks to Sanzo's untouched plate, the confounded cigarette and the kappa's close proximity to the invalid - “you can take the consequences. Hai?” Hakkai smiles coldly.

 

“Nani, Hakkai? I don't get what you just said…” says Goku, wide-eyed.

 

“It means that I, Cho Hakkai, erstwhile healer of this madcap ikkou, am officially on strike. O - N S - T - R - I - K - E. Wakaru? My chi is all out of whack anyway, with the stress of nursing a big baby and keeping a pig-headed cockroach away from the patient… not to mention feeding a bottomless pit, and playing goddamn chauffer to boot!” Hakkai sits down, swallows two aspirins, and props open a newspaper.

 

Goku shrugs. “Ja, Sanzo, then you don't mind if I eat this?” He gestures to the spring rolls on the priest's plate.

 

“(Cough Cough!) Suit yourself… (Puff) (Cough)”

 

“Lucky!!!” Goku crows, and reaches eagerly for the food.

 

Quick as lightning, Gojyo seizes the spring rolls and pops them into his mouth.

 

“Are!? You greedy cockroach! Those are mine!”

 

“Didn't see your name written on them,” Gojyo drawls around the mouthful of food.

 

Goku glares murderously. “They were Sanzo's, baka!”

 

Gojyo raises teasing eyebrows. “Exactly. And what's mine are my Sanzo's, and what my Sanzo's are, are also MINE!”

 

“I thought you had a pre-nup!”

 

“Naahhh… when you really love someone, pre-nups don't even cross your mind…” Gojyo offers his plate of spring rolls to Goku instead.

 

Hakkai peeps from behind his newspaper. “Oh? I didn't know you two eloped,” he joins in.

 

“Eh. My Sanzo is a priest, remember? We got hitched by ourselves.”

 

The diners stare. Gojyo tilts his chair and grins cheekily. Goku happily finishes off the spring rolls. Hakkai hides a grin behind his newspaper.

 

Sanzo staggers to his feet, coughing weakly. “Gang up on me, why don't you…” He glares at everyone, fires a shot overhead. “Urusei! …” he mumbles, and blacks out.

 

Gojyo panics. “I told you not to push yourself!”

 

 

C.

 

Sanzo is treated by Rinran, since Hakkai claims that the board of directors is still out on his strike. Thankfully, Sanzo recovers. But someone else gets sick…

 

In their lodgings for the episode, a very miserable kappa moans and groans in bed, the covers drawn up to his chin, with a sweetly concerned monkey holding an icepack to his head.

 

“Damn you… how dare you infect me…” Gojyo groans weakly.

 

“Baka! Who was it who crawled into bed with me last night?!” Sanzo gives Gojyo a worried frown.

 

Hakkai stops pacing and explodes. “Yare yare! You two are just incorrigible! Didn't I tell you to lay off the hanky panky while either of you are sick? Didn't I?!?” Hakkai snarls.

 

“But we didn't… I just wanted to play doctor…” Gojyo coughs pitifully.

 

Sanzo anxiously jumps off his bed to go to Gojyo, but the healer's freezing stare halts him in his tracks.

 

“It doesn't take that much to transfer contagious germs, all right? Do I make myself clear once and for all?!?”

 

Sanzo pouts and goes back to his newspaper. Goku looks up curiously from his post. “Um, Hakkai…then that means I might catch something too, being this close to the kappa?”

 

Hakkai smiles at Goku. “Naw. You're robust and fit enough to fight off sickness. Unlike these two chimneys…”

 

“Robust my ass… he's bound to be, the way he eats…” murmurs Gojyo weakly. Then he yelps as Goku naughtily lets ice water trickle down on him in revenge.

 

“By the way, Sanzo, I heard a farm was ransacked last night,” mentions Hakkai.

 

“So?”

 

“I think we ought to check it out.”

 

“'Ch… All right. I'm out of smokes anyway.”

 

“Get me some Hi-Lites as well, buttercup…”

 

Hakkai gnashes his teeth, then motions to Goku. They whisper secretly. “You know where he keeps it?” Goku nods, grinning. Sanzo blows Gojyo a kiss as he and the healer leave.

 

 

~*~*~*~

 

… When they return, Sanzo gives the peacefully sleeping kappa a longing look, but obeys meekly when Hakkai shakes his head warningly. Sanzo sighs. The sooner they both get better, the sooner they can be back in each other's arms. He goes to his own bed and falls sound asleep.

 

Hakkai grins. He knew he'd be able to reason with Sanzo… The healer walks over to the sickbed and gently shakes Goku awake. “Go to bed, Goku.”

 

Goku gives a great yawn that threatens to dislocate his jaw. His eyes pop as he suddenly remembers something. He fishes around in his boot and triumphantly hands Hakkai a set of tiny keys.

 

Hakkai ruffles Goku's hair sympathetically. “Did he put up a huge fight?”

 

Goku waves a dismissive hand as he pads to his own bed. “Naw… nothing I couldn't handle… Besides, he was asleep the whole time.”

 

Hakkai smiles in satisfaction. Peace and quiet at last… for tonight, at least. He chuckles softly.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Next morning, the loud cursing of a very pissed kappa, dragging his bed along with him as he threatens murder to everyone, wakes the whole inn up. “Get these fucking handcuffs off of me!!!”