Saiyuki Fan Fiction ❯ Shades of Time ❯ Parallels ( Chapter 9 )

 

 

Rei leaned against the kitchen counter and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly she looked at Anya.

 

“What's wrong, Rei,” the younger woman asked, looking at her worriedly.

 

Rei rubbed a hand across her forehead to try easing some of the ache that had settled there. “I'm not sure. I just get such a strange feeling around those men.”

 

“They aren't bad people, Rei. Though I get the feeling they could be given the right reasons.”

 

“Anyone can be a bad person given the right reasons, look at me.”

 

“You weren't bad, Rei. You fought and stole to keep the rest of us out of trouble with a roof over our heads and food in our bellies without any of us having to sell ourselves,” Anya said, suppressing a small shudder at a narrowly escaped fate. Poor Mai's own family had sold her into prostitution at the age of six. It wasn't an unusual fate for girls living on the street to resort to that as an easy way to make money. “That was all.”

 

“It was enough,” Rei said thoughtfully. “Anyway, we'd better get the rest of this food out there or that damn monk will be bitching about the lack of service.”

 

“He's definitely an odd monk.”

 

“That is a certainty.”

 

Rei loaded up both arms with trays and shoved the door open with her hip. Anya followed behind her and when they had set the trays down on the table Goku looked up from his food.

 

“Come and eat with us,” he said, grabbing a chair from one of the other tables and motioning for Anya to sit. “You made a lot. Might as well have some of it.”

 

Everyone at the table stared at him in disbelief. Goku offering to share food with anyone was unheard of.

 

Anya looked at Rei in question. “Go ahead. There isn't anyone else here at the moment and I'm sure you're hungry.”

 

“You'd better eat too, Rei. You probably haven't had an afternoon meal yet,” Anya said, looking at her sister knowingly.

 

Rei sighed. “I should go check on Hakuryuu first. Tai and MeiLin have probably fed him until he's about to burst.”

 

As if on cue, two little girls came into the room through one of the side doors into the dining room. Both looked to be around five or six years old. They were carefully carrying Hakuryuu between them in a big, fluffy, green towel. Only his head could be seen sticking out of the towel and he was making little cooing and cheeping noises at the girls.

 

“Aunt Rei! We gived him a bath and fed him like you asked.”

 

“Gave him a bath,” Rei corrected, crouching down to the girls' level. “Thank you. You did a very good job with him,” she said, scratching Hakuryuu behind the head and down the length of his nose.

 

“Can we keep him, Aunt Rei?” both girls asked simultaneously. Big brown eyes looking pleading and hopeful. “Pleeeeeasse?!”

 

“He's so pretty.”

 

“And he's a good dragon.”

 

“And we'd take really good care of him.”

 

“And we'd make sure to feed him.”

 

“And snuggle him up someplace warm.”

 

“Girls, he isn't ours,” Rei said gently. “He belongs to this gentleman here,” she nodded to Hakkai. “You wouldn't want to take away his friend, would you?”

 

Their little faces fell. “No,” they said sadly, handing Hakuryuu to Rei.

 

“If you ask him nicely maybe he'll let you play with Hakuryuu while they're here.”

 

Before Hakkai could blink he was confronted with two sets of big brown eyes. “Can we play with him, Mister. Please?! We'll take good care of him. We promise. Pleeeeasee!?”

 

Rei laughed at the expression on Hakkai's face. “If you can resist their begging, you're a stronger person than I am.”

 

“I think that's up to Hakuryuu but I don't mind if he doesn't,” Hakkai said. He suddenly found himself with two little girls in his lap, kissing him repeatedly on either side of his face.

 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

 

Rei smiled and unwrapped Hakuryuu from the towel. “Okay, girls. Make sure you take it easy with him, I'm sure he's tired from traveling. So, don't play too hard. Go visit your Mom and your new baby brothers when they all wake up, okay.”

 

“How'll we know when they're awake?”

 

“Trust me, you'll know. Babies have a way of announcing when they're awake,” Rei said.

 

Hakuryuu shook out his wings and lifted himself from Rei's arms then flew over to settle on Hakkai's shoulder for a moment before taking flight across the room with the girls following him giggling.

 

“Well, I'd better get this towel into the laundry,” Rei said, leaving everyone at the table to their meal.

 

Anya watched her go with worry clouding her features.

 

“What is it?” Hakkai asked.

 

“It's just . . . I worry about her a lot. She hasn't been the same since our dad died.”

 

“How'd he die?” Goku asked, mouth stuffed full of a whole dumpling.

 

“Goku, I don't think that was a polite thing to ask,” Hakkai said. “Especially not with your mouth full.”

 

“It's okay,” Anya said. “A lot of people wouldn't understand but I think you guys might. He was a youkai. Full blood. When all of the others went crazy he didn't for a long time. Then he felt himself starting to lose it so instead of hurting anyone he just . . . he . . .”

 

“He killed himself,” Hakkai finished for her.

 

“Yeah. It was really bad for Rei though because she watched him do it. He'd locked himself in a cage and threw the key as far as he could from the cage. Rei didn't want to believe he was losing it so she was looking for the key around the cage when he ripped himself open on his own claws. I think she actually bent the bars trying to get to him when she couldn't find the key right away.”

 

“Man, that sucks,” Gojyo said, lighting another smoke and looking at Hakkai worriedly. He knew if he was making the parallel connection to someone killing themselves in a cage that Hakkai was too.

 

“She built the funeral pyre herself and disappeared for a little while after it was all done. Part of the woods didn't survive because she kind of lost it for a while after that from the grief. She tore trees apart instead of other people. Thank goodness. Then she came back like nothing had ever happened and started running this place.”

 

“I have one question, totally off the subject,” Sanzo said, looking up from his newspaper. “What does FiLoLi mean? It's posted over the door to this place. Is that the name of the inn?”

 

“Kind of,” Anya answered. “You're the first person to ever ask about that. It was kind of Dad's words to live by. It means; Fight for what you believe in. Love your friends and family. Live your life to the fullest.”

 

“I rather think,” Hakkai said slowly. “That those are good words to live by.”

 

 

***

 

FiLoLi is a mansion and estate south of San Francisco. The unusual name Filoli combines the first two letters from the key words of this credo: “Fight for a just cause; Love your fellow man; Live a good life.” I just modified the saying to suit my own purposes in the story.