« A Thousand Leaves »   A midnight chat between Hakkai and Gojyo. Set after Homura’s death, but before the wish upon a star (which closes up the second season)… Mainly Hakkai’s POV. (unlike what we see in « Burial » – Reload manga- I assume Gojyo never saw Hakkai without his limiters)   ###      &nbs p;        Most of « normal » people use to lull themselves to sleep by counting sheeps. I do not.   I count leaves… Vine-like leaves.  

One, two, three…

  It had been a while I had stopped, though. But after today’s events… The strange habit of old rainy nights came back full-force almost on its own.   My own and true face recalled itself to my memories.   I’ve reached towards my limiters and taken them off. I have freed the real me.   Ho, I had a good enough reason, that’s for sure. They were so much, these god-devoted youkai. And they wouldn’t die. First, I thought it would be easy. They kept up coming back, but the full power of the youkai in me was enough. The cold fury running in that blood had to be enough. I tore their limbs off, bit by bit…   But these fallen arms and legs were still crawling on the floor, reaching for me. This soulless flesh, I had to…   My god… In the end there was nothing left but fresh blood in the whole area.   I still remember looking for the limiters and fishing them in a puddle of crimson liquid, afterwards. It was as if my hands were covered with thin red gloves. I couldn’t stand it so I used a surge of ki to get rid of that off my skin.   Then, I needed a few seconds more to put firmly Cho Hakkai’s mask into place as securely as the limiters on my ear. But I had to hurry to join the others…   First it had been easy to go on. Gojyo was in danger. Then, we were all in danger. Fighting to survive kept me from thinking (much). Most of all, it was a different kind of regret, that fight with the gods…   Blacking out, after all that, would have been so much more easy. Merciful, even. But he wouldn’t let me. The thought of the others I didn’t know where they were, too, but him mainly. He half-dragged me all the way to the top of the tower. Towards a new Heaven.   We witnessed a death. Again. Homura. No joy in triumph, today. Only the relief of being alive, at the most.   And then, the way back to retrace our own steps.   I still remember our « foes ». Strange. I even recall being glad they were alive if not unscathed.   They were all standing behind their master, very close. But not threatening us. Just acknowledging the fact we had made it alive as well.   The defiant little prince, holding the second sutra before our very eyes before leaving. No words needed. No farewell either, of course. There’s no use. We all know we’ll cross path again. They disappeared. Just like that.   It was time for us to leave as well, I suppose.   We walked all the way downwards, each floor where still lingered the memories of the past fights…To the ground. Towards the first room we had entered. That room.   I didn’t want to go back there… These memories, I didn’t want to confront.   This is the end. The world is still here and safe. We’re all alive. Why should I go back in this room?   As I asked Sanzo whether we couldn’t take the same path the Kougaiji party used to come in (a huge hole in the wall, I saw), I didn’t recognize my own voice…Blank. I think something in it scared Gojyo. He tensed against my body as he was still almost carrying me. The monk heard, but he just glared and kept walking at once.   But I felt his hesitation, if only a split second, before he pushed resolutely the high door on our way. Here we were. We stepped in the room.   Red walls. The walls were all bloody red. The whole floor too. Even the ceiling. A red room. I don’t know how I managed to get only a few stains on my shirt after that.   I don’t want them to see.   I feel myself closing my eyes. I don’t need them, the feeling of Gojyo’s body still against mine can lead me alone.    No, it’s not that. I don’t want to look at the others seeing what I am able to do. What I am. This redness on the wall is more me than anything they saw during this already long journey. This bloodyjourney. Hakkai the former human, the youkai now. Look.   « So what? » Sanzo. The tone who makes the others feel like fools.   I open my eyes.   « I had known, I wouldn’t have been so worried leaving you all alone in here… » Gojyo. Carefully neutral.   « Sugeeeee! » Goku of course. It reminds me the day we met Kougaiji. Sometimes, I wonder why I worry about the kid…   « Gods. Next time, try to wipe out all of them: there’s still a hand here… » A hand currently clinging to our favourite sanzo monk’s ankle. The gun talked, as usual. It muffled my answer.   Hai.   Is that so easy to accept? What I truly am?   ###   A inn.   Fortunately, Hakuryu drove us here almost all by himself…   We hardly talked during the meal. Four silhouettes at the same table, each so deep in his own thoughts we must have looked like four strangers to each other.   Even Goku didn’t eat that much.   And I drank a lot.   « Could I have a little bit more sake, onee-san? »   …twenty-seven, twenty-eight…   The waitress, a midle-aged woman, answered this time with a slight frown: « I don’t want to know how much sorrows you have to drown in so much alcohol… »   Gojyo blinked as he heard the statement and gave me a weird look. But said nothing.   Less than an hour after that, we left the table to join our rooms.             & nbsp;             &nb sp;                         &nb sp;                      ###   A room.   Gojyo can’t sleep. It’s been a while he is turning over and over again on his mattress. He suddenly gives up and stands. I don’t know what comes into me as I fake sleep when he calls my name. He sighs. Leaves the room. He is going to find a girl, a comforting one night stand like usual, I suppose…   I hate it anytime he leaves like this. Not the fact he is with somebody else. Just the fact not feeling him in here.   Sometimes, staring at the void, the time flies quickly by.   …one hundred sixty six, one hundred sixty seven…   Door. He is coming back.   He smells of tabacco and alcohol more than sex, tonight.   He is softly muttering something, too. Strange…As if talking to somebody.   « …this isn’t the right place, and this is sure the wrong time. So I look at you from afar, from the corner of my eyes, and I try not to think of it. My intentions are good, you know, I try not to have myself involved in you, really. I try not to touch you, not even brushing past you, and life goes on as it has to. I shrug feelings like… ducks brush off water on their feathers just to keep dry…or safe… »   He just lets himself fall on his bed with a deep sigh. The old mattress creaks its protest. The room is almost empty of furniture. My voice rings with a strange echo.   « Gojyo, you are very drunk, » I state even if he certainly doesn’t need me to be aware of the fact. I hear reproach in my own words. Weird. I never minded him coming back home in a drunk state, as far as he came back, before…   But he is talking about feelings tonight. It’s far too personal. I shouldn’t hear that. I don’t want to. Can’t deal with mine. Won’t help him with his ones. Don’t want to know, if he suffers and I can’t help him.   He flinches. Didn’t know I was awake. Not fair, I know.   « No shit, » he answers after a time with an inebriated mirthless laughter.   « I mean… You shouldn’t have to wait until being in this state to talk to me. This is not right. »   What’s the matter with me? Saying something like that? So maybe I want to know after all…   « Because you’re so talkative yourself, hu? ». Bitter. « You don’t even let me know any time you’re hurt, anytime you’re afraid, any time you’re angry – »   « But I don’t have to : sure, you always know, » I cut softly.   That’s true. Always. It’s almost frightening sometimes, any time I realize the mask I had so confidence in is no use…   « As for me, » I resume, « I’ve always been deaf to these kinds of things, or blind, whatever you want to call it. Unless you tell, I’ll never be able to know what weighs on you.  Maybe waiting eternally for a better time isn’t the answer, but I haven’t any other one. So until then…»   « …Nothing changes, » he says.   … What do we do? I was about to finish. But he settled the problem. Nothing changes. Yes, It’s safer. Maybe. Even if I hate silence. Even if I hate secrets almost as much as Goku as long as they aren’t mine.   But if nothing changes, there’s no use talking about it, right?   …three hundred forty-two, three hundred forty three…   Clicking sound. The lighter.   « And you, what were you thinking? Since you weren’t sleeping… » He sounds angry. Even the thick cloud of smoke he breaths out looks angry.   I have to say something, here… And I already know he won’t like the answer. But…Honesty. Sincerity. He tried to teach me that, during the past few years. Sometimes it works:   « Past. » After all that’s true. These leaves I’m counting have their roots deep embedded in the past. He has this smirk. The one who is bitter on the edges, but clearly means he is not surprised at all.   « You know, you’re a chameleon, Hakkai, » he states suddenly.   Touché. Always trying to hide.   « These animals… It’s said they’re unable to live in the present. Sometimes I look at you looking at your past, and I think maybe I’m not real ‘cause present doesn’t mean anything to you. » He glances at me from the corner of his garnet-like eyes, but breaks swiftly eye-contact before I can answer.   The comparison is strange. Or maybe we’re not speaking of the same chameleon. Hiding skills. I thought it was their particularity… That’s funny the way he sees them. Damn funnier than thinking of the way he sees me. THAT is scary. He is speaking as if my eyes were threatening his very … existence…   « You know… Sharing you with shadows of your past or ghosts, or whatever it could be… I don’t care as far as I have my share. »   He frowns. Maybe he has said out loud something he didn’t want me to know. He lays on his side, now. All I can see is his back.   …four hundred sixteen, four hundred seventeen…   But his voice rings clear again whereas I was thinking he wouldn’t speak any more.   …four hundred eight -   « So, you got rid of your limiters, today… »   - teen.   He tries another subject, thinking maybe I’ll prefer remain deaf this time again to his previous words, as I usually do. But it’s growing harder and harder to do as if the feelings in my chest weren’t part of me… My share. What does he want?   ###  

Matte kudasai. My limiters?

  « How do you look like? I mean, with you limiters off? » you resume.   As if you were really expecting me to show you at once, you suddenly turn to face me again, and hold out your arm, lighter in hand, to light one of the old fashioned candlestick on the bedside table between us.   This is sick. Don’t tell me you believe in these stuffs about the attraction of mystery. Don’t tell me you were wondering how I’d look like without the limiters. Do you mean it makes you curious? I should know better though. I shouldn’t be even remotely suprised. Children. Goku and you are children at times. And children always have a lot of questions. Most of the time, they don’t even think they would be a lot happier not knowing some of the answers.   « Haven’t you seen enough youkai already to know perfectly well how they look like? » I try to reply lightly.   « That’s not the same. »   « How come? »   « It’s you. »   Silence, while I’m pondering over your answer. Does it make such a difference?   I wouldn’t have thought I would surrender so easily to such a demand, though. My hands fly to my face on their own. As if trying to hide the invisible traits my words are describing in a dreary enumeration:   « Longer hair. Split pupils. Claws almost like talons. Pointed ears. And tattoos… They’re like… vine-patterned leaves. That’s all. »   « Leaves? » You lean on your elbow to look up and down at me. You’ve jumped on the word like the owl on the mouse… Why are you so interested in that suddenly?   « So… How many leaves? » you dare ask. And you’re already grinning from ear to ear. Maybe because you’re so proud of yourself as you simply succeded in making me talk… about that.   « Do you think I’ve counted? » I retort. I’ve been harsher than intended, here.   But you’re right. I did. I still do…  

…five hundred seventy three, five hundred seventy four…

  The Three Aspects had told me to be Cho Hakkai, from now on, as Sanzo brought me to them. Cho Hakkai was a youkai, but I had been wearing the limiters all along. I didn’t know at all what the beast in me would look like. It didn’t mattered much at the beginning. I didn’t care. In fact, there was a lot of things I didn’t care about, the first times.   One day, though, I just had to know. So I took off the limiters… The whole day, I had felt this nagging feeling of incertitude gnawing at me from the inside. It’s funny: I don’t remember, but I’m quite sure it must have been a rainy day. Maybe somewhere deep inside I hoped the youkai in me would be gone and that by watching at the looking glass I would only see the human me. Quite childish, now that I think of it.   Maybe it was because you weren’t home, too. It’s not the same when I have to worry constantly about you: how would you not worry when you’re living with a man who spends his time coming back home either totally drained because of any temporary work any time he could get one, or scratched if not wounded from numerous tavern brawlings, or even so totally drunk, to the point he can’t walk straight? But I was alone that day, and I had an awful lot of time left to fill my thoughts with myself.   Hakuryu wasn’t living with us yet, at that time. Of course, as I said, you weren’t at home. I wouldn’t have taken the risk in that case lest I could harm you. I was cautious enough to think it might not be a good idea anyway, so I enclosed myself in the bathroom, the door locked. One after the other, the three metalic limiters fell in the sink, and under my very eyes my own body began to blur. It’s strange: the picture in the mirror didn’t at all surprise me. As if I had known all along what I would behold, somewhere deep inside, but too far to be consciously aware of it. And for instance, even if I didn’t know whether it would last, I could control it. The body was still mine, not turning in rampage-mode as I had feared.   I got rid of my shirt and other clothes, quietly, to have a better look. Almost with a detached scientist’s look.   And then I felt the sudden urge to count those leaves. As if I had to know every little thing which could be known about the creature staring back at me, even to the extent of the unsignificant ones.  

…nine hundred ninty eight, nine hundred ninty nine…

  The answer chilled me to the bones, even if I should have guessed before.   A thousand.   A thousand leaves. For a thousand lives.   Of course. ###   You are suddenly so close, I don’t know how I didn’t feel you coming so near… I feel your weight on my bed, you breath near my face.   « Well… If you’re too lazy to count all by yourself, put them off, clothes and limiters - I’ll help you - and I’ll do it myself! »   The worst being, I know you’re able to do that. Hooo, no. Scratch it. The worst being you’re about to do that… You’re a lot more drunk than I thought and it could end up pretty badly… Remember what I am, damn it! Limiters aren’t toys! Gojyo…   « Is there one here? »   Your grip on my wrist is firm but gentle as you try to lift my hand from my face. Your lips brush the skin of my palm. Electricity. The feeling crawled under the skin and burned the nerves with as much intensity as freed kiduring a battle. So soft it hurts. I gasp.   « And here? »   My finger on your lips before you can touch my skin again. My other hand grabbing your own. It has to stop now. We can’t let it go out of hand. Or rather I can’t because I’m quite sure you’re not in the state to think rationally, and you won’t even remember anything tomorrow in the morning, anyway; alcohol’s perfume still lingers on you.   « You’re breaking all the untold rules, » I say matter-of-factly.   Untold, because we never talked about it, of course. Rules, because this is the way things have been and have to remain. It’s easier dying tomorrow when you have nothing to lose. We don’t think we’re going to make it all of us alive (and if we had once, Sanzo’s last injuries were the cold shower of sad reality…).   We aren’t fools. We just try to remain blind as long as possible : it’s a human disease (Ho, you call yourself human, now?). And even if I want to live a little longer than before now, there are some things left which need to be done, gods’ order or not. That’s why we need nothing standing on our way. Not even ourselves.   But only because of the journey? That’s true. It’s almost hard to remember there’s been a « before the journey », these days. It’s like we’ve always been on the road. However, three years ago, in the little house in the forest, we had no idea and the rules were already here. Messed up bloody pasts made us careful not clinging on to vain hopes and happiness’ delusion?   Maybe. Or Sanzo’s belief you shouldn’t attach importance to anything, cold detachment from events of life, was already carved so deep in each of us? Who knows? I really don’t know. And it doesn’t change anything anyway, right?   « Yhea, it’s what it means being a taboo child: our first intake of breath when we’re born – our life itself - is already breaking an untold law… » you say with a bitterness where lays an ounce of wistful fatalism.   « So, we’re quite a pair, » I reply. I, the human turned into a youkai by the power of the blood shed. « I’m a walking impossibility, too. »   I meant to be comforting, but my words came up incredibly harsh. That’s why your look is a little lost, not knowing how to take the answer. Just enough for me to escape your grip. You let yourself roll on the mattress like a puppet whose stings has been cut off, as if all your strength had been suddenly washed away. Limp. Your lanky form is sprawled on the bed, so spineless you could look dead, if not the steady breathing and the vaguely reproachful and wide-opened eyes following my every moves as I stand up.   ###   Time for revelations and intimacy is over. We don’t need light any more. I lean forward and smother the little blaze of the candle between two fingers. Darkness falls on us, not oppressive, tonight. Just here, like a haven where you don’t need to think.   A thousand leaves. For a thousand lives.   Lives I have taken.  

One, two, three…

  All over again, the numbers are running in my head, though. My body walks on its own in the narrow space of room, aimlessly. Towards the window. Then back towards the beds. And again to the window. Very slowly. My eyes are glued to my hands and my forearms whose pale flesh is almost glowing in the gloom.   I still can see all of them on the flawless seemingly human flesh… The leaves…   Or maybe it is only the shadows of the foliage which is brushing on the window pane, against the moonlight outside, and falling on my skin. It has to be that: the little dark spots are moving on the flesh… But I’m not really sure. Superstitiously, my fingers reach for the limiters, but their coolness is still here. I heave a relieved sigh, so deep that all is left of my energy leaves my body along with the warm breath. Tiredness. No… Exhaustion. I used so much ki today I must be… empty. Flesh and soul.   Suddenly, even my own body feels too heavy for me, my head is reeling. I realize my legs have given way under me only as I find myself vaguely sitting on the floor in a mess of limbs, as limp as a ragdoll.   I hear Gojyo’s muffled call from my bed he still occupies.   « Hakkai…For my very life I wouldn’t be able to leave this bed… » he almost whines.   I look up at him because he is talking, but I wasn’t really listening. I don’t know whether I even heard because my own blood is running furiously at my ears like a powerful wave which makes me strangely deaf. I stare at his face without understanding clearly what he means, but I can read the pain behind the red eyes looking darker, almost pitch black in the gloom. Years of habit tell me about his hangover. It explains why his words sound hollow as he keeps talking. As if it was difficult for him to speak, like having cotton in his mouth.   Concentrate. Try to listen, this time…   « Why? » He is angry. « Why did you put them off, before, if it’s eating you that much? We would have found another way. »   Eating me. Exactly. As I say he always knows! And he never believes me… I don’t know why it’s such a shock though. It had to happen soon or later, me taking off the limiters. And the others saw what I was and it doesn’t seem to matter to them…   He feels my stare locked on him, unnerving, but I can’t help it. I think what he doesn’t like, it this expressionless face of mine…But he has taken me utterly aback and he doesn’t notice.   He is right… Why did I? This is the important question.   I remember myself standing in the high-roofed room, these ragged youkai-gods all around us, lunging out at us, and me calling Sanzo to tell him what I wanted to do. The feeling I felt, then… The feeling I felt was… Certainty? It was the perfect thing to do at that time. The perfect thing. The fact was, I had so much more to lose than a fragile sense of reconstructed ego…There was something else I didn’t want to lose… To any price… Which mattered so much more than a sutra to retrieve, or a new world’s birth to stop.   Some people.   It’s surprising how things are really simple sometimes… Revelation dawns on me like the sun raising after a stormy night.   A thousand leaves to give me the power to protect my beloved ones. Enough strength  to be able to care again.   A thousand leaves for three lives, now.   Three living and breathing people.   Hakuryu hisses suddenly from the far corner he has chosen to shelter his sleep tonight (half buried in my travelbag, as usual), making me flinch. He arches his long neck and glares at us (or rather me, especially) with burning ruby eyes. Either he is pissed off because we keep him from sleeping by talking and moving in the room in the middle of the night, or the dragon is able to read my mind as I suspect sometimes and is a little offended. He is right, of course…   Summimasen, Hakuryu…   Four people.            &n bsp;             ;            &n bsp;             ;            ### Le mot de la fin : Gojyo ###  

Damn you…

 

What‘s the matter with you, now?

 

He just remains sitting on the floor, staring at me with his empty eyes, as if he was so far away of anything happening right now in this room. It scares me as only he can… I’m not even waiting for an answer, now. A single reaction would be enough...  

But I can’t let you like that, right?

  I sigh.   The things you make me do, I think as I drag myself from the bed, very slowly. Very laborously. Very painfully. Wounds and alcohol. Hate that mix.   Hakuryu makes a sound from the corner, and Hakkai looks at the little lad fondly, as if jerked up abruptly out of his thoughts. Good. Tomorrow, I’ll let the dragon stealing a little more food than usual from my plate. But not too much. It would believe I’m fond of it, after…   After an eternity to cross the tiny room, my hand falls on his shoulder. He looks at me inquiringly, then at the bed, as if it was an imposssibility me being right beside him.   « For your very life, you said… » he points suddenly, as if remembering only now.  

Oh. Please. That’s not funny.

 

He is unable to stand up, his limbs remaining unresponsive. Here we go again. Me dragging him to bed. Recall me never even trying counting how much times I have done that…

 

I don’t know why I put up with you…

  « That is far more important… » I answer gruffly.  « You okay? »   He just smiles. He doesn’t say « I’m fine ». Whenever he says that he is usually lying. So paradoxically, it’s reassuring. But this man… He is used to feed me with half-truths or deceptive appearences, and I have myself quite a reputation to be very stubborn (even if Sanzo tends to call it being a pain in the ass).   « How do you feel, really? » I need to insist.   « Nothing more to wish. »   Strange answer. But tonight, it will do.   We stumble as « gracefully » as we can towards the other end of the room, none of us in a better shape than the other, I’d say. One second everything was almost alright, the following one, I lost completely my balance. As I said I couldn’t do it! I never should have left my (his… whatever…) bed. We both crash loudly on one the beds. So tangled in each other I don’t know what is mine and what belongs to him. Ok. This time, I don’t move any more. Not even one inch.   Anyway, the whole room is rocking already enough according to the taste of my poor throbbing head. I can’t believe I tried to absorb again as much alcohol as Hakkai usually do, tonight. I must be stupid. And broke now (since the namagusa bouzu wasn’t here with this blessed from the Gods golden card of his to join me in my willing boozing in the late hours).   « I don’t move, » I warn my bedmate, though. I wouldn’t be able to, anyway. But he doesn’t have to know…   He sounds already pretty asleep himslef as he answers, his voice muffled against the fabric of my T-shirt :   « As you like it. Neither do I. »   A last deep sigh and his head falls slowly on my shoulder. I think he was sleeping long before me. A quiet slumber in the stead of the nightmares I was half-expecting after his tonight’s tormented behaviour.   « Oyasumi nasai, » I tell to the emptiness of the gloomy room.   Hakuryu growls, this time. I wince, not only because of my unfortunate hangover. It sounded like an aggravated reptilian curse for daring interrupting his sleep again…   He is right. It was a hard day.   ### Owari ###   A/N: Gojyo and the chameleon thing… I’ve not made up the story, it’s that some people think really about the chameleon. I don’t remember where… Maybe Madagascar…They say they’ve got two independant eyes : while one is looking forward, the other one can look backward. That’s why some people say they’re able to see past and future in the same time… (And maybe even living in-between, out of present time! Who knows? I have thought…)