Title: Wildflower (Part 6 of Torrent) -
Chapter 7
Author: Befanini
Website: http://www.fanfiction.net/~befanini
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just another piece
inspired by Kazuya Minekura's delicious boys.
Rating: M
Summary: "Bloom where you're planted." A long-overdue songfic of random ruminations by four souls bound by fate. Part 6 of the Torrent series.
iii. Nobody's Child
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"We must
be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that
is waiting for us." – E M Forster
XxXxX
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There's not a day that goes by
that I don't think of you. I still hear your voice in my head, I still recall
your laughter, your smile, the way your eyes twinkled whenever you teased me. I
can still smell your hair… I can still remember the feel of your hands
caressing my face… I can still taste the sweetness of your lips, and how your
body felt wrapped around mine, and your soft cries in my ear. I still remember
your face.
Sinner.
Yes, and sometimes I still get the occasional nightmares, and I go
through the hell of losing you all over again… and the doubts and the guilt
come back in full force to haunt me.
If only I'd gotten home sooner.
If only I'd thought to keep the blade away from you.
If only you weren't my sister, then I could stop wondering
if all of it was simply just and true, after all – and we were only punished as
we deserved.
If only…
These days, though, I don't have the luxury of wallowing in
despair, even had I wanted to. How can I, with a hyperactive monkey, a
mischievous kappa and a neurotic High Priest demanding my care and attention?
And trust me, it is not pride that speaks when I say that the whole mission
would be shot to hell without me – it's just the simple truth. Hm. It sometimes
feels like I've been babysitting these three guys far longer than I even
remember.
They are my family now. They are my reason for going on. When you
were taken from me – when you took yourself from me – I truly went mad;
I wanted nothing more than oblivion, to be past all care and worry, all
happiness and sorrow alike. Numbness was not even close to enough – what I
felt, what I didn't feel, what I had lost, was too deep even for tears. There
was no relief for me, no matter where I turned… all I wanted was blessed release;
and if death was the only way out, so be it.
Luckily for me a certain free-spirited, perverse redhead refused
to let me die; he resisted the broken plea in my dead eyes to deliver the rest
of my body to death's hands as well – and it is due to his hasty and ruthless
act of literally shoving my guts back inside myself that I am left with this
nasty scar today. No, don't get me wrong. I didn't say the wound was his fault.
Only the scar is his doing, and yes I do "blame" him for that – I owe
him for knitting my body back together. That is what a scar is, after all –
lasting evidence left of your tissues re-knitting themselves in the process of
healing.
And so I live, and so I still breathe, because of Sha Gojyo.
Luckily for me a certain high-spirited, innocent boy knocked my
hand away from gauging into my second eye: if not for that, I would be
completely blind. But thank God for Goku – I retain my vision of the blue sky
and the green earth, a half-vision though it may be. And so now I need to turn
my head if I want a broad scope of my surroundings – and it is good to have the
necessity of that extra effort if I don't want my world to be so narrow. It is
good to still be able to see the faces of my friends, good to be able to read
my books, good to see the sun set, driving behind the wheel while my companions
sleep the hours away until we reach the next town. If not for my glass eye, I
don't think I would truly appreciate the real eye that I have left.
And so I still see, and so I still have the gift of color and
light and shape and shadow, because of Son Goku.
Luckily for me a certain enigmatic, ruthless High Priest saw it
more fitting to "punish" me with a new life, rather than granting me
the easy way out with a bullet. A few brusque, harsh words were all it took for
him to shatter all the precious illusions that once again threatened to consume
me in my anguish at losing you. For despite meeting the man who saved my life
against my wishes, and who was to become my best friend – I was still a ticking
bomb inside; I used Sha Gojyo's kindness, took advantage of the shelter and
comfort he offered me to get better – yes, to get well just enough so that I could
walk away and put an end to my life as he refused to do so for me.
But Genjo Sanzo would have none of it; he scoffed at my pain and
pitied me for allowing my suffering to render me spineless, instead of using it
as mettle to grow some backbone… as I later found out is the way he lives his
life. And the way Gojyo lives his, as a matter of fact.
And so Sanzo brought me before the Temple and argued for my life –
for me, the sinner, the murderer, the one with the blood of a thousand youkai
on his hands. At that moment the lost orphan in me was finally set free – with
the new name to go with my new life I was at last reborn, and I was no longer
nobody's child, but a Child of the Temple, as the layman's sash I wear to this
day attests. With Cho Gonou died all the illusions I had clung to for most of
my life – bitterness, anger, despair, and the worst of them all: the terrible
apathy that had so consumed me as a child in the orphanage, and was about to
consume again, when I lost the one dearest to me.
And so I am reborn, and so I am set free, and so my life now has a
purpose, because of Genjo Sanzo.
And yet… great friends as they are, and great though their impact
has been in my life, and great though the debt I owe to them for it all… it is
still your influence that has the ultimate bearing upon it all, Kanan.
Knowing you, even if only for that short time we had together, has truly
changed me forever. My selfish nature might have caused me to go insane when
first I lost you; but without the gentle strength your spirit has imparted to
these hands, nothing they did would have made any difference. Not Gojyo saving
my life, not Goku rescuing my sight, not Sanzo giving me another chance.
Without the sound of your voice echoing in my mind, without your dear presence
still alive in my heart and soul, I couldn't have mustered the will to go on.
It is the thought of your disappointment, and your grief, that
stays me when the old darkness threatens to overwhelm me again. It is the
rebuke I hear in your voice that shames me when I feel myself giving in. It is
the memory of us that calms and soothes me whenever it rains. It is the pride
you gave me that lends me the determination to carry on without you.
It is the wish to still become the man you saw in me, that
keeps me holding on… and breathing… and trying... because of you.
Much like Gojyo and Sanzo now find meaning in each other, as
strange as that miracle is… I still find meaning to hope, to dream, to go on, because
of you. Even without you beside me to share in it all, as we always
planned. I think of it now as making the most of the rest of my time here on
earth, so as to meet you on the other side without shame and regret.
And so… if you'll forgive me, Kanan… for just a little while… I
would like to live for my own sake. I can no longer say that I live for
you – that would only be another illusion, another pointless lie, because you are
gone from me. Even bathing in the blood of a thousand demons was not enough to keep
you, and over time I've made my peace with that. At first I wondered if it's
really okay for me to be here, alive, after the crimes I've committed, after
the lives I've taken, and most of them innocent lives – but I have decided to
let go of the guilt, together with the rest of it. If nothing else, I am now
one of the youkai that I so hated; and even if that is not punishment enough, I
no longer have the will nor the desire to seek a defeatist life of "atonement".
These three guys have taught me that much. Life is filled with
misery enough as it is; why waste it shrouding yourself in wretchedness when
you could be chasing after happiness? And even if the prize proves ultimately
elusive, the journey itself is worth it.
Gojyo embraces life as the gift that it is, despite being born an
outcast. It is in fact testament to his grit and character that he should be so
free-spirited and easygoing today, considering how he has always been treated
so poorly simply because of the color of his hair and eyes. Just the fact that
he still sensed the danger to me – as I never could fathom why I couldn't for
you – the fact that he knew I was in danger and led Sanzo and Goku to me,
despite me earlier only having fed his demons with my cold, foolish
words of "penance" and the color of "blood" – that he was still
determined to keep me alive despite life being so unfair to him – that
truly shamed me into continuing the struggle, instead of giving in to the void.
His stubborn insistence on his right to exist has kindled my own wish to
survive, to matter, to make a difference to this seemingly indifferent world.
And Goku… Goku reflects on me the innocence I always wish I had
had. He reacts to everything as if experiencing it all for the first time, even
something so simple as food – and his intense yet childlike enthusiasm for the
temporal world has awakened me, it has refreshed my view and made me appreciate
the simplest of things, wherein true joy can be found: a good meal, a good
book, good friends, a nice long nap, the wind on my face, the moon and stars
above.
As for Sanzo… He defies everyone and everything – he lives by his
own rules, and believes in himself so totally that somehow it makes perverse
sense that our High Priest should smoke and curse and drink and wield a gun. In
the same way, it is also fitting that he, the lone human of our group, should
be the one leading us – and it is only more proof of his inner strength. The
spirit is willing, so the flesh better damn well follow – it is this
attitude above all that leaves me so in awe, and secures my total respect for
the man. I am on this Divine Mission on the explicit instructions of the
Sanbutsushin, yes; but I am also here because I wish to prove myself – that my
life was worth bargaining for, as Sanzo did for me.
And so here I am today, and at last I can honestly say that I am
thankful to be alive, and that I live for myself. I am Cho Hakkai now, and I am
proud of it. But I will never forget Cho Gonou, as I will never forget you. I
think perhaps Gonou died with you that rainy night, the moment my dagger
pierced your heart by your own hand – and yet part of him remains with this "demonslayer"
that I am today; Cho Hakkai who is part human and part youkai, one of the
Sanzo-ikkou traveling West on a divine mission, far removed from the simple
schoolteacher I used to be.
Your Gonou lives on in these gentle hands that heal, in this quiet
voice that soothes, and the smile that now comes easily to my lips and reaches
my eyes. I will keep you close and safe in a corner of my heart, knowing that
if someday I should find someone to love again, if I should be doubly blessed
to have the kind of togetherness that Gojyo and Sanzo share – that you and I
shared – I know that no one will be happier for me than you.
Jamatane… Kanan.
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XxXxX
I hold it
true, whate'er befall
I feel it when
I sorrow most –
'Tis better to
have loved and lost
Than never to
have loved at all.
Alfred Lord
Tennyson
XxXxX
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A/N: "Jamatane",
literally, "See you soon"; or, "Until we meet again". TBC…
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