Chapter 1 - One Rainy Night

“Alright, you can stay for tonight. But I want you out first thing tomorrow!” The door was slammed with such force that the badly painted pictures on the wall shook violently, threatening to pitch themselves to the ground.

As the innkeeper stomped down the hallway the door opened again and a pleasant face leaned out. “Thank you very much, sir.” But the affable smile on the young man’s face went unnoticed. With a sigh, he closed the door again.

Genjyo Sanzo, seated on one of the beds, stared moodily out of the window as dark clouds gathered in the sky. “I told you we’d get thrown out.”

“In the middle of dinner too.” The brown haired boy beside Sanzo muttered sulkily. “What did you have to go and pick a fight for?” He turned around and gave Sha Gojyo an accusatory look that lost some of the force of its impact due to his petulant pout.

Both crimson eyebrows shot upwards as the older man stared at the sullen Son Goku. “You wanted to just sit by and watch someone treat a girl like that! How was I supposed to know that it was the innkeeper’s little brat causing the trouble, you stupid monkey!” In his minds eye he could again see that stunning grateful smile of the petite woman, right until a meaty fist had hit him in the side of the head and surprised him. The smile had vanished at some time during the ensuing fight, along with its owner.

“Now, it wasn’t Gojyo’s fault that the innkeeper has a rather… unique faith in his son.” The pleasant faced brown haired man seated himself on another bed beside the now equally sullen red haired man. “The food wasn’t particularly good anyway.”

Goku turned his golden eyes towards Cho Hakkai and treated him to a special look of reproach that told him that the boy didn’t care what the food tasted like, it was just important that it was mostly edible and in front of him.

Hakkai simply shrugged and smiled.

Sanzo lit a cigarette and, without looking around at the other three, muttered “we were spending too long here anyway.” Whatever those purple eyes were trained on, it didn’t seem to be anything that his companions could see. “Your stupidity was useful for once.”

Gojyo’s shoulders slumped. “What is it with you lot? None of you’ve got any honour?” He gave Sanzo’s impassive back an especially intense glare, but the blond didn’t seem to notice – or if he did, he didn’t care.

“Me? No.” Smoke curled up from the blond’s cigarette and began to pool around the ceiling as the rain began to fall outside, small drops hitting the filthy window and trailing down it without cleaning it.

Hakkai dropped his hands between his knees and sighed as the atmosphere grew even more tense than before, glancing sidelong at Gojyo who was glaring even more viciously at the back of Sanzo’s head. “Maybe we should just sleep.”

“But I’m hungry…” Goku’s pout grew and he looked at the brown haired man like a lost puppy. The look was spoilt when he cried out sharply and clutched the back of his head with both hands. “That wasn’t fair!”

Without even looking at him, Sanzo had withdrawn that mysterious paper fan and had caught Goku hard around the skull with it. “Shut up and sleep.”

The boy opened his mouth to say something, then the warning tone in the older man’s voice filtered through his brain and he abruptly clamped his jaw shut again. The last thing he wanted was for Sanzo to refuse to let him have breakfast. However, some things just had to be said. “But there are only three beds...”

Like lightning, Hakkai was stretched out on the bed he was sat on, eyes closed and hands behind his head in apparently peaceful repose. A faint smile played around his lips.

Gojyo gave him one of the dirtiest looks he had in his inventory, and then glanced from Sanzo, looking immoveable on his bed, to Goku, to the third bed in the corner of the room.

The youth had apparently had the same thought as they both leapt from their positions and ran for the bed. They both also arrived at the same time, Gojyo taking a firm hold of the sheets as Goku clutched the pillow to his chest. “Go and sleep on the floor, little monkey,” the red haired man snarled.

“No way, you perverted kappa! You go and sleep with Hakkai!” Golden eyes narrowed as the boy held the pillow even more tightly to himself, as if sizing up his travelling companion and occasional opponent.

“Men do nothing for me.” Gojyo’s eyes narrowed also, mirroring Goku’s expression. They remained locked like that for a moment, like a pair of cats, unwilling to concede a small victory to the other. Then Gojyo’s right foot flashed upwards and outwards in a sharp kick designed to knock the boy sideways and off the bed.

Unfortunately, the only thing it met was fresh air as the brown haired boy dived sideways towards the other side of the bed. “Nah nah na-na nah, not fast enough!” He smirked at the infuriated man opposite, crossing his arms over the duck-down pillow and rubbing his cheek against it as a deliberate attempt to make Gojyo attack him for it.

It worked. The crimson haired man dived for Goku, only just managing to avoid colliding with the wall as the boy again ducked sideways. “Hold still you little runt!” He made a grab for the youth’s thick hair with the hand not clutching the sheets but missed. Goku stuck his tongue out at him and scrambled to the other side of the bed.

A click from behind them made them both freeze, then turn around slowly.

Purple eyes were fixed on both of them, and Sanzo looked more annoyed than usual. The gun in his hand moved from Gojyo’s head, to Goku’s. “Stop arguing.”

“But-” Goku broke off as the gun swung back and the barrel aligned itself with the center of his forehead. “Um…”

“Another word from you and it’ll be your last.” The older man’s voice was deadpan – and deadly serious. “You can sleep on the floor.”

“That’s not fair!” The boy wailed as Gojyo turned a smug smile on him.

“Life isn’t fair.” The gun remained trained on the boy’s head.

Goku threw the pillow to the head of the bed, narrowly missing Sha Gojyo as he did so, and slid from the bed onto the floor. “At least give me your pillow…?”

The gun vanished from sight, and to all intents and purposes Sanzo appeared to fall instantly asleep. Goku crossed his legs, folded his arms, and began to sulk in a determined manner. When something soft and thick hit him around the back of the head he turned and was about to start yelling at Gojyo again, when he realised that it was a pillow. Hakkai’s green eyes were watching him from the other bed. The gentle young man raised a slender forefinger to his lips and smiled softly, a silent ‘shush’ to Goku.

The boy smiled happily, ever easily amused, and curled up on the floor with his head on the pillow.

Outside, the rain began to fall faster and heavier than ever.

---

It didn’t matter how high he pulled the covers up or how hard he shoved his head against the pillow, the sound of the rain wouldn’t go away and his memories held him in their grip, making sleep elusive. Hakkai stared up at the ceiling, a faint frown on his brow. Snores coming from the three other corners of the room indicated that his companions had had no such problem, making the chance of it happening to the young brown haired man even less likely than normal. He sighed deeply and, to no one in general, murmured “this is a little frustrating.”

He rolled onto his side and began contemplating the prospect of another sleepless night, waking up exhausted and feeling fragile, yet having to always be the adjudicator between the other three and their bickering, and sighed again.

Finally, he slipped from his bed and stretched, glancing out of the window at the rain as it hammered against the glass and making the same ‘shush’ gesture to the tiny white dragon curled up on his pillow and watching him with bright, inquisitive eyes, as he had to Goku a few hours previously.

Sometimes he felt that Hakuryuu was the only member of the small party that tended to listen to him.

The white dragon inclined its small, elegant head and curled up around itself again, although its eyes never left its master’s form. Hakkai couldn’t help but smile.

Even in this rain, a walk couldn’t hurt. At most he would come back soaking and relish curling up in a warm bed more than normal; at the very least he might tire himself out and finally be able to sleep.

Taking great care not to wake the others, and especially taking care to avoid stepping on the sleeping Son Goku, he padded with bare feet over to the door and slipped out of the room.

---

Gensoumaden Saiyuki and its characters are © Kazuya Minekura / ENIX / Saiyuki Project / TV Tokyo / Studio Pierrot / ADV and anyone else who may have rights to it. I own none of it and am not making any profit from it.

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