Saiyuki Fan Fiction ❯ Tainted Souls ❯ Part 1 ( Chapter 1 )

He looks so peaceful, sleeping beside me. His youthful face is calm and without cares for the moment.

Sometimes I wish I could make it last forever, this peaceful sleep. But I would sooner rip out my own heart. Though life is painful for him, I cannot be the one to grant him death, for he means the world to me and I am selfish.

Careful so as not to wake him, I roll out of bed and pad barefoot to the window. It's still raining, but the wash of it falls in near silence, and there is no thunder. I park myself in the flimsy chair by the window, staring through the glass that by day would only show my own reflection, but tonight it shows only him, reflected in the rain. Good thing, about the reflection business; I don't like looking at myself much. Never have.

But…

He makes me feel things that I never could have anticipated. Has made me feel, in fact, ever since our first meeting. If you could call that a meeting.

He was lying in the road, rain and blood and guts pooling around him as his life spilled undying into the hungry earth, giving him no solace. As if moving to the demands of an unseen puppetteer, he had raised his head and seen me. Not merely looked at; he SAW me, and he knew.

And he laughed.

I thought he was mad, and dying. And beautiful.

I took him in. I wanted him to live, whether he wanted to or not. I was selfish then too.

He had laughed. Only when he was mended enough to talk about what had brought him to that pass did I learn why. His beloved, his sister, his secret bride had been raped by a demon, made to carry an unwanted child. In terrible retribution this gentle man had brought a plague of death to the demon stronghold, as well as to the unthinking humans who had sold her for their own safety. He fought his way to her side, to bring her home…

(A flash of lightning, like accusation, lights the window and turns it into a mirror for two timeless seconds. My hair and eyes look nearly black in the glass. Are those tears, or is it just the rain?)

He has called her the only one he would ever love.

She knew she carried a demon's child. Even though this heartlost man had bloodied himself like a fiend out of legend for her sake, she would not live with the shame, the taint that filled her…

(Tears, I think. I let them fall.)

Gonou died into the life of Hakkai before he ever took the name. Demons' blood raced through his veins even as it filled her belly, even as it spilled from his sister's chest and rushed from her lips as they formed their last startled word.

She died rather than bring a taboo child to life.

Brother and sister could have loved, could have made their future even in the face of that political taboo.

But to love a half-demon child? One who was not wanted, but was forced into their life?

A constant reminder of pain and sorrow and the loss of hope and the loss of love itself.

(Lightning once more turns the windowpane into a mirror. I turn away from the face I see there, looking in at me with longing and despair and a need so deep it hurts.)

I hope the thunder doesn't wake him. While he is asleep, I can imagine that he loves me, in spite of what I am. In spite of what I must remind him of, every day, every breathing moment of his unnatural existence.

The reason he had laughed.

Before this journey westward had begun, the newly-born demon Hakkai had shared my home, my life, and in time my bed. Neither of us knew anything about laying with men, so everything was new and amazing.

Besides, for the first time in my life, I was in love with the person beneath me in that bed.

I could forget, in the throes of passion. I could shut my eyes and ignore the fact that his eyes were hollow and haunted, that something lurking deep within them wanted my blood more than my seed.

I could pretend that he loved me too.

But now, so far into our journey with still so far to go, I can't pretend anything. I can't even pretend to be heartless.

I have a heart, all right, and it's shattered and cutting me up inside like a sackful of broken glass.

What hurts so bad is knowing that he's right.

I should not exist. My birth was a thing forbidden, and with good reason. I belong nowhere.

Now I find myself hoping the rising thunder will wake him, make him see me by lightning's flare. Make him want to comfort me for a change. I want him to hold me this night, as I have held him so many times. I have never felt these things for anyone else, and never felt them for him so strongly as tonight.

If he wakes, I will offer him myself. I will lie down and pull him on top of me and give him the only thing I have left to give.

I know I'm persuasive enough to get what I want, and if that doesn't work I know how to cheat. I will make him want me, make him as desperately needy as I usually am, though I will be the one to stay cool and frosty this time.

And if the simple tricks of the flesh aren't enough, I'll tear that limiter right off.

I don't care if he tears me apart. I'm already torn, and I know it's perfectly possible to go on living that way. I've done it all my life.

One thing I know for certain, I'd rather die by his hand than go on living with his unacknowledged scorn. I want his love. I'll settle for his passion. Maybe it'll get through to him, make him feel again. Feel anything.

Maybe if he knows I'm serious he'll let me love him, though I am tainted.