Gensomaden Saiyuki Fan Fiction ❯ Hey ❯ Chapter 1

Tell me do you think it'd be all right

If I could just crash here tonight

You can see I'm in no shape for driving,

And anyway I got no place to go.

-Gin Blossoms, “Hey Jealousy”

 

**Saiyuki, Sha Gojyo and Cho Hakkai are all copyright Kazuya Minekura. I am in no way making any money off this. All in good fun, my droogs.**

 

 

 

The house is quiet when he's gone. Maybe `quiet' is not the right word. The house is dead when he's gone. He's loud, obnoxious. If he's not cursing over the fact that he can't find his cigarettes or he's out of beer, he's boasting about his exploits. He makes me feel like a bystander sometimes, like I can only watch the things that go one in his world, but I'll never be able to come any closer than the threshold. This house is Gojyo. It smells like him—smoky, sharp and strong. Feels like him—careless, amused and haphazardly capricious. Everything from the ashtrays I'm constantly emptying to the tasteless magazines I've found under his mattress.

 

He's gone now, like he is every night. I've made him dinner; it's sitting there on the table alone, getting cold. The kitchen looks embarrassed to be clean, and I wonder why I bother. Cleanliness is out of place in this house, like a bucket of water in a wildfire. Every night, he comes home later than the last. I'm beginning to wonder if he's doing it intentionally. He'll walk in the door long after the moon has risen. There will be a guilty look on his face, that same expression I've seen on children and animals when they know they've done something wrong and are waiting for someone to notice. His shoulders will be slumped just so, casually. He'll kick off his boots. He'll look at me before he looks at anything else in the house. His eyes, those chilling crimson eyes, will find me no matter where I'm sitting in the room, and he'll look at me for just a moment. And then he'll look away, guiltily. But he'll always look.

 

He doesn't often say anything. Maybe a grunt of acknowledgement. I think he tries too hard to act casually. He'll come home, dump his boots and jacket, and go about his business as though I'm not even there. It's not rudeness, really. It's Gojyo's way of trying to pretend my presence in his home isn't weighing on him every second of every day. I know it is, I can see it in that one glance he gives me just when he walks in the door.

 

Perhaps it's about time I take my leave. I have unfinished business, after all. I have inconvenienced him far too much already.

 

I don't know why I still sit up and wait for him. It's foolish, to lose sleep over a man who can certainly take care of himself. This is his house, this is his life I'm intruding in. It almost feels arrogant to think he needs my supervision, like a child that won't make it home safely unless his parents leave the light on. But I want to see him walk in the way he does, with that mildly nervous look in his eyes. I want to see him see me, and see him look away. I want to smell him when he stumbles in wrapped in smoke and booze and fog and mud and perfume. I want to see him rake his hands through his hair as he walks by me, pointedly refusing to look me in the eyes. I think I might embarrass him by sitting here on the couch night after night, refusing to fall asleep until he comes home.

 

A sound at the door signals his return. I know it's him even before he opens the door. The knob turns, rattles in hesitation, and stops. A sound like a sack of flour hitting a brick wall is muffled by the heavy door. And a groan.

 

Why do I worry so? He's drunk again. Just drunk. And yet, I can't jump off the couch and fly to the door fast enough, to yank it open and try to catch him as he falls awkwardly into the room.

 

“Gojyo-san!” My voice, it's far too worried. I try to catch his shoulders as he collapses, and only partially succeed. He hits the floor, his head falls into my chest. The crimson on my hands I first mistake for his hair in my fingers, but then the scent hits me like a fist to the jaw. Blood.

 

He groans again as I try to pull him up into a sitting position. His long red hair is matted in his face, and above his left eye is the source of the blood that's all over my hands and shirt. And there's still a piece of the beer bottle that did it, a sliver of glass lodged in his forehead.

 

I am not the kind of person who panics, but my heart skips an awkward beat as I see how pale his lips are, and how freely the blood mats his hair and floods his eye like tears.

 

“Hey…” He tries to grin as he recognizes me, and squints at me through the blood. “Sorry…”

 

His apology goes ignored. I'm not even sure what he thinks he's apologizing for anyhow, I simply must get him cleaned up. As I sling his arm over my shoulders and pull him to his feet, I realize my first guess wasn't entirely wrong. He's drunk, very much so. The alcohol on his breath stings my nose, and he can barely keep his feet as I drag him to the couch. He collapses easily into the old couch, and I hurry to the kitchen to fetch bandages, towels, anything to clean up the wound. I doubt Gojyo keeps a first aid kit.

 

I start flinging open cabinets, and I'm surprised to find a cardboard box, neatly shut and filled with bandages, rubbing alcohol, gauze, everything one could hope for in a first aid kit. All the packages are open, and the ointments half-empty. I realize, stupidly, that this is probably what he used on me.

 

I hurry back into the living room, only to find him trying to sit up.

 

“Oi….” He says drunkenly, with his hands clamped firmly over his head. “Ow.”

 

“I'll get this cleaned up,” I say. I realize that, without my knowledge, my voice has slipped into that old familiar tone, the one I used to use with children. And with Kanan. The gentle tone that I used to lie, to say everything's all right, I'll make it all better. I haven't used this voice in so very long.

 

He closes his eyes as he falls willingly back to the couch. I sink to my knees beside him, and begin mopping up the blood with a damp towel. There's a lot of it, but the wound isn't deep or serious. He probably just manage to piss someone off who happened to be a bit quicker (and considerably more sober) than he. He flinches when I remove the glass, even though I'm as gentle as I know how to be.

 

He opens his eyes. Watches me as I run the towel over his forehead and through his hair. His eyes study me curiously, with an expression I've only seen on his face when he's unusually drunk. Like a child. No underlying fear, no awkward embarrassment, no guilty laughter or crude jokes to distract from the pain in his eyes. Just honesty. And right now, he looks at me honestly, observing me, studying me. That look makes me want to run my hands through his hair and take him in my arms, like a child. I've only known one grown human being in all my life who could touch that spot in my heart I thought I reserved only for children. And him.

 

“What happened?” I ask, hoping he'll stop looking at me like that. His eyes, scarlet like tainted blood and as open as the innocent eyes of a child. I can't withstand that gaze for long.

 

“A guy…” he mumbles, and his eyes flicker as though he fears retribution from me for getting into trouble. He's a child, I realize, a child wrapped in the stony defenses and rough lifestyle of a man. “Can't remember…” he trails off, his eyes fall closed. Perhaps it had been a poor loser in a poker game, a jealous boyfriend, just another drunk. It doesn't really matter much, and I don't care what he did to get into a fight. I know that he came back here, to me. Made it back home before dawn.

 

I clean him up until the blood stops flowing. He'll have a scar for a while, and right now he has a nasty swelling over his eye, but he'll be fine. I think he's asleep, the way his breathing is even and calm. I realize I should put the first aid kit away, and get off to bed myself, but I hesitate. Setting down the bloodied towel, I reach out to smooth the tangled hair out of his face. His breath is warm on my fingers, and for the first time in what feels like years, I feel an involuntary smile turn my lips.

 

I don't stop to think about it at the time, but something in me acts of its own accord. I lean over him until I can feel his breath on my chin, and ever so softly, the way I used to kiss Kanan, I brush my lips against his. I would never do this if he were awake and sober, but this is now and this is here. He tastes like smoke and booze, and it makes me smile.

 

“Good night, Gojyo-san,” I whisper softly, as I gently run my fingers through his hair. It takes nearly all my strength to rise and leave him there, but he'd become upset with me if I stayed all night be his side.

 

But as I turn to walk out of the room and reach for the lights, a soft whisper stops me dead in my tracks.

 

“'Night,” he mumbles softly, and I think I can hear the grin in his voice.