Counterparts

Chapter 9


Hakkai had actually managed to get a bit of sleep that night, possibly because he had eaten a decent meal from the food Goku had brought back to the room for them. He had little luck getting Sanzo to eat much, but he had eaten a little rice with some tofu and vegetables, so that was at least something.

As Hakkai got out of bed and stretched, aligning both his chi and his spine, he found an envelope of the hotel stationary near the door to his room. He opened it and smiled to himself when he read that Yaone and the Houtou party had arrived overnight. He had to admit that he had truly been enjoying his correspondence with Yaone recently. He would have felt guilty about it if he had not known that Gojyo would approve – he had never made a secret of the fact that he thought Hakkai and Yaone “would make a cute couple.”

Although he had always found her very attractive, Hakkai had always dismissed Gojyo’s notions on that subject as romantic nonsense. He had no time for such things with all his responsibilities with the Sanzo-ikkou. Besides, he was still grieving Kanan for the longest time, and it was only recently that he had been able to think of her without being overwhelmed by sadness. He was finally beginning to be able to remember the good times he and Kanan had together instead of the horribly traumatic way their life together ended, and he supposed that must mean that his heart was slowly finally starting to heal.

He had found himself thinking about Yaone frequently over the past several months, even more so in the time since Gojyo had been injured and he had been corresponding with her. On the occasions when the Houtou group and the Sanzo-ikkou had met in battle, he and Yaone had frequently ended up opposing each other – it was only natural given that theirs were the two weapons that were non-contact. Their weaponry involved manipulating forces and chemistries rather than objects to impact the opponent, his chi cannon and her formulas for various toxic vapors and other chemical interventions. But if Hakkai was to be brutally honest with himself, he couldn’t remember a single battle involving her where he had actually aimed a chi cannon fire at Yaone with deadly intent. He had somehow always managed to keep his tactics where she was concerned diversionary rather than destructive.

When he and Yaone had met off of the battlefield, there had always been a pull there, a recognition like looking in a mirror that makes you look so very beautiful, you can’t help but look, and look again. He knew Yaone was much like himself – that much was obvious even to the most casual observer. Both were exceedingly well-mannered and polite, both staunchly loyal to their leaders that had saved them from dire fates as well as to their small extended families, both natural caretakers of others, often to the point of self-sacrifice.

But when Hakkai looked at Yaone he saw so much more… Her gentle grace showed in everything she did, from the way she rode their large dragons to her manner with the wild child Lirin. Her beauty, which he had tried to ignore at first, became clearer and crystallized for Hakkai as time went on. His impression of her appearance had drastically changed from his first uncomfortable feeling that she looked vaguely like Kanan. He had gradually started to perceive her as her own person, and when he looked at her now he saw her for the beauty she truly was, and he was astonished by it. Her hourglass figure, her large soulful eyes and small sweet mouth, her beautiful long hair, and her shapely long limbs sheathed in their usual white arm-warmers and stockings all haunted his thoughts from time to time now, as well as his dreams.

But none of this meant anything, he knew, and he tried as always to push it out of his mind, because he could never allow himself to love again. More accurately, to be loved again was what he must avoid at all costs. He had loved Kanan, had encouraged her to take the chance on their love despite the forbidden nature of it, and he had not been there to protect her when she needed him most. Her devastation was proof of his failure and his unworthiness for any future love in his life. He must content himself with the friends that he had, and that must be enough for him. It was more than he deserved.

He must simply stop any silly speculations, he told himself, Gojyo and his romantic notions notwithstanding. There was no way a woman like Yaone could ever be interested in him, nor should she. She simply considered him a colleague in the healing arts and an advocate of gentility and manners like herself. Those were their shared bonds and that was all there was to it. There could never be anything more.

He squared his shoulders, straightened his monacle on his nose, and dressed for his day, tugging his tunic and scarf into perfect order. His shoulders sagged slightly as he remembered what lay ahead of him, that before he even had his first cup of tea he had to go check to see how Gojyo had fared during the night. Worse still he had to relay the bad news delivered by the doctor to Gojyo’s brother, and he didn’t look forward to that. Knowing that there was no putting it off any longer, he tucked Yaone’s note in the drawer with all her other ones and went on his way.

Unfortunately it had not been a good night for the patient. Sanzo had reported to him around 3:30 a.m. that Gojyo had been restless some of the time, with grimaces coming and going across his face throughout the night. Hakkai checked his vital signs, and his pulse seemed to be getting weaker, and his breathing shallower, which disturbed him. He also noticed when he tried to give him his prescription the doctor had left for him, dissolved in water, that Gojyo seemed to be having more trouble swallowing and to be choking more easily. None of this boded well, and it began to look like a long, slow decline was not to be in the cards for his friend. Hakkai felt an odd mixture of grief and guilty relief at the thought… he didn’t know how much longer he could keep up this charade that there might still be hope when in his heart of hearts he truly felt it was time to start saying goodbye.

Hakka’s heart clutched at the thought as he looked at the thin wan face of this friend, this man he had fought alongside, traveled with, drunk with, laughed with, lived with, and come to truly love in the time since Sha Gojyo had saved his life on that first fateful day. Hakkai had seen more death than any of the rest of the Sanzo-ikkou, but he wondered if he was really ready to deal with this one… another death of someone he loved so much… did the pain ever stop? Is this all there is to life, loving people so much, only to lose them just as you were really getting to know them, just as love was starting to grow…

He realized if he let his mind run on unfettered like that he’d never make it through the day in one piece, and he steeled himself for what he knew he had to do next. Sanzo had dozed off in the windowseat after he had reported in to Hakkai about Gojyo’s night, obviously exhausted by yet another sleepless night.

Hakkai slipped out of the room quietly and went downstairs and ordered a large pot each of tea and coffee with a full service and six cups. He also ordered some fresh fruit and a basket of assorted breads and jams to go with them, figuring that between his group and their guests someone might want a bite to eat at some point. He asked the desk clerk that they keep the coffee and tea service refreshed periodically during through the day and on into the night until told to stop. Hakkai was thinking this might truly be a very long and difficult day.

When he stepped quietly back into the room Sanzo was still dozing, He walked over to him and studied his sleeping friend. His beautiful golden hair had gotten long and scruffy, and was badly in need of a trim. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in over a week, and his face underneath the light stubble was ghastly pale and thin. Sanzo had always been a slender man, but his poor nutrition since Gojyo’s injury had left him looking gaunt and haunted. His shirt was untucked, his jeans dirty, and one of his sandals was coming apart at the seams. A person who had only known Priest Genjyo Sanzo in his relatively soft days in the temple would never have recognized this sad figure that was sleeping here before him.

Hakkai wondered what would happen to all of them when Gojyo was gone, but he worried about Sanzo the most. Keeping his feelings bottle up so thoroughly as he did, and trying to maintain his image of needing no one was hard enough on Sanzo when things were going well. Hakkai had known enough of what was going on between the two of them and of had perceived the changes it was effecting on Sanzo. To have that rug so cruelly pulled out from under him now might well be more than the man could stand, and he might well crack. It was a phenomenon Hakkai understood all too well.

He reached out and shook Sanzo gently by the shoulder, “oi, Sanzo. Dokugakuji and the rest will be here soon. Would you like to clean up a bit before they get here?”

Sanzo awakened immediately, startled and instinctively reaching for his gun, which of course he didn’t have on him. He looked blankly at Hakkai and then surveyed the room. Nothing had changed other than the fact that Gojyo looked even worse than he had last night. His brow was knitted up constantly now in an expression of what seemed to be perpetual pain, and his breathing had taken on a raspy rattle now that even Sanzo knew was not a good sign.

“Sanzo, Dokugakiji and the others are here, and he would like to see Gojyo now.”

“He didn’t bring that brat girl with him, did he?”

“No, it’s just Doku, Kougaiji, and Yaone - they got in late last night. The desk clerk said they left word for us to send for them when we were ready.”

“I guess there’s no avoiding it then. Let’s get it over with,” he sighed tiredly, lighting a cigarette.

“Sanzo, I’m having some coffee and tea and some food sent up. When it gets here, I really wish you would eat something – you’re getting terribly thin. I don’t need two patients on my hands,” an edge of crossness slipped into Hakkai’s voice as he spoke, and he immediately regretted it. It wore on him sometimes, though, having to constantly tell grown men to do things for themselves they should damn well know enough to do without being told. But he realized today, everything was wearing on him, and Cho Hakkai felt old beyond his years, and tired beyond what sleep could ever repair.

He looked at Sanzo sadly and touched him gently on the shoulder.

“Gojyo would hate for the Houtou people to see you looking this bad, Sanzo… you’re a Sanzo priest, and you are our leader. He was… is .. so proud of that. Take a few minutes and clean up before I call them all in to see him, please, for him?” He pointed at Gojyo in the bed nearby.

Sanzo knew in his heart that what Hakkai said was the truth.

“Oh, for fuck sake. You’d think the Dalai Lama himself was coming for an audience. Whatever.”

Grumbling under his breath all the way, he stubbed out his cigarette and grabbed some clothes from a drawer and headed into the shower.

Hakkai fussed about the room nervously, straightening up and emptying the eternally-full ashtrays. He carefully put Gojyo in a fresh t-shirt and pajama pants, and brushed his hair gently till it shone like he knew the kappa liked it to. He did his best to get the trademark antennae to stand at attention, but for some reason since his injury they had been as limp and lifeless as their owner.

The whole time Hakkai worked on Gojyo’s still form he kept up a running commentary, telling Gojyo what he was doing, and chatting about the events of the day. As he was washing his friend’s face he told him that his brother was here to see him, and leaned in close to tell him conspiratorially that Yaone was there as well, and that he was looking forward to seeing her.

As he washed Gojyo’s face he moved the cloth carefully over the scars that were the constant reminder of the hanyou’s cruel start in life. He knew his friend hated the scars, and that he had first grown his red hair long in an attempt to hide them. But Hakkai had always thought they were part of Gojyo’s singular beauty, part of what made him the distinctively attractive being that he was. They took his pretty boy face and gave it character, making him classically handsome like the legendary heroes of epics from days bygone.

Hakkai carefully made the bed around Gojyo’s still form and crossed his hands over each other on top of the covers. The movement and jostling from Hakkai’s efforts apparently had been a strain on Gojyo, even though the healer had been as gentle as he could possibly be. Gojyo’s breathing became more ragged and scowls ghosted over his face as if he were fighting some unseen foe. Hakkai stroked his forehead gently and tried to calm him, speaking to him in low, level tones, and assuring him everything was going to be alright.

Suddenly Gojyo’s breath caught and then there was a deadly silence in the room. It took Hakkai a moment to realize what had happened before horror ripped through his mind and he felt a rush of adrenaline, leaving his heart hammering and a sickening feeling in his gut. A single dominant thought overtook it all, mobilizing his body and brain into immediate coordinated action.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

“No you don’t not now not with me here alone you bastard we’re not ready it’s too early you cant go not yet!”!

The words bounced through his mind like light-speed pinballs as he jumped up beside Gojyo in the bed.

“Not now you dickhead,” he thought as he pinched off Gojyo’s nose and blew two quick breaths into it and felt the artery in his neck for a pulse.

“People need a goddamn chance to say goodbye you motherfucking asshole!”

He placed his stacked hands over Gojyo’s breastbone and rocked back and forth pressing down on the kappa’s chest and counting out the fifteen compressions. As he did the compressions he concentrated on pouring as much of his chi into Gojyo through his hands into the kappa’s chest as he possibly could.

“I – will- not – let – you – die – now – it’s – not – the – right – time – yet - you – rat - bastard!”

With that he blew two more breaths into Gojyo’s mouth, and nearly fainted with relief when he heard a raspy breath come out of his friend on its own. He was breathing again and had a pulse – both were weak but he would take what he could get.

At that moment Sanzo came out into the room from the shower, dressed in clean clothes and toweling off his hair. He found Hakkai kneeling on the bed next to Gojyo, pale as a sheet, trembling, and drenched with sweat. His monacle had fallen off and was on the floor by the bed, and his scarf was down around his waist.

“Would you care to explain to me just what the fuck you are doing?” he asked dryly.

Hakkai looked down at himself in his state of disarray and realized how it must look- the irony of it made him smile in spite of everything.

“Yes, I suppose this must look rather interesting. Thank you.”

He took his monacle which Sanzo had retrieved from the floor for him and climbed off of the bed slowly. As he stood his legs started to buckle under him and he caught hold of the window frame for support and lowered himself down into the windowseat to sit. He set about straightening himself up as he explained to Sanzo what had happened.

Sanzo sat opposite him on the windowseat, dumfounded by what had happened. His mind refused to process that Gojyo had basically died while he was in the stupid fucking shower, and that if Hakkai hadn’t been there and known what to do, Gojyo would be gone now.

“You must have it wrong… he must have just been having a …a fit .. of some kind.”

“No, Sanzo. He was gone. No pulse, no breathing. I may not be a medical doctor but I know that much.”

“But he’s not that sick yet. There’s still some chance he could come back from this. I know how hard-headed he is. When he wants something bad enough he never gives up, goddamnit.”

“Sanzo, I know this is hard… it isn’t easy for any of us. We all love Gojyo. But I was explaining it all to Goku yesterday, and he put it better and simpler than I ever could. Gojyo would not want to live like this. It’s time for us to let him go.”

“Bullshit. I’m not listening to this. What does the monkey know – he’s just a kid.”

“I know this hurts…

“You have no idea…

“I know you are really hurting, Sanzo. I am, too – I’m losing my best friend. But we have to think of what’s best for Gojyo, don’t we?

“What’s best for Gojyo is for him to be here with us riding in jippu heading west. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

His mouth was set firmly in a grim line, his eyes so narrow they were almost shut.

Hakkai sighed. He knew all too well the deep pain and frustration when the life that you are living veers off wildly from the life that you know you want to have, when happiness is in your grasp and then is suddenly cruelly ripped away. He would have given anything not to have to talk like this to Sanzo, and he could tell that right now he wasn’t going to get any further with him anyway. Rather than aggravate him more, he decided to let it go for now and see if any of the others would have any better luck in convincing Sanzo to accept the inevitable.

He busied himself with very gently straightening out the bed around Gojyo again, and checking his vital signs. His breathing was shallow and ragged, but showed no signs of stopping again.

“I think we’d better get Dokugakuji in here right away. I believe Goku needs a chance to see Gojyo as well.”

The unspoken coda to his sentences, of course was “to say goodbye.”

He touched Sanzo’s shoulder lightly as he passed him on his way to go call the others in to see their fallen comrade. It was simply an instinctive gesture of comfort and commiseration. Normally he would never have done such a thing with Sanzo, and it was a measure of the severity of the situation that he had done it then without a second thought. It was even more telling that Sanzo did not flinch from his touch or bat it away.

Given what had happened with Gojyo while Sanzo was in the shower, Hakkai was hesitant to leave the room for long so he went to Goku’s room first, and not finding him there went to the hotel café where he found him finishing a large breakfast. It did his heart good to see that in this whole unhappy mess at least one thing remained constant, that the saru’s appetite remained undiminished. He asked Goku to round up the Houtou folks from their rooms as soon as he finished and bring them in to see Sanzo. When Goku asked how his kappa friend was doing, Hakkai smiled wanly and said he needed to get back to the room, and he would rather explain everything to all of them at the same time. Goku nodded, and Hakkai headed back to the room.

When he returned, the coffee and tea service had been delivered and Sanzo was settled back in his windowseat perch with a cup of coffee, nibbling desultorily on a small piece of fruit.

As Hakkai entered Sanzo held the fruit up and said, “see, I’m eating, now will you leave me alone about it?”

“Well, I’d hardly call that a substitute for a real meal but I suppose it’s better than nothing,” he conceded.

Hakkai pulled all the chairs from around the room to the table and realized he still only had four, and quickly ran to his own room and brought two back to make the necessary six. Just as he was finishing up these arrangements there was a soft tap at the door and Goku poked his head in.

“I found them all – ok to come in?”

“Certainly. Welcome, all of you,” Hakkai did the best he could to play the gracious host under the circumstances, greeting everyone and making them comfortable at the table with tea or coffee.

Sanzo remained sullenly at his post in the windowseat, having greeted all of them only with the barest of greetings he could get away with without being blatantly rude. When he and Kougaiji greeted each other there was a split-second moment of frozen glare, like two dominant wolves sizing each other up when neither is willing to cede the lead role to the other.

Yaone and Hakkai bowed deeply to each other, and for the second time that day his adrenaline surged as their eyes met. He noticed she was dressed differently than he had ever seen her, in a sleeveless high-necked dress of emerald green embossed silk with black velvet arm-warmers, and black boots and tights. The dress had a wide belt of the same fabric as the dress pulled tightly around Yaone’s waist and tied in a large trailing bow in the rear, and the cinching effect of the belt accentuated her sensual, curvaceous youkai figure. Hakkai felt a flush creeping up his cheeks as he looked at her and struggled to make normal conversation.

“I’m so glad you are finally here,” he said, spontaneously taking one of her delicate hands and holding it in both of his. “I can’t tell you what your letters have meant to me.”

Yaone covered his hand with her free one and squeezed gently, “I too, am glad to see you, Hakkai, though I am so very sorry of the circumstances, and I have very much enjoyed getting your letters. I only wish there was more I could have done to help you.”

Neither seemed inclined to let go of the other’s clasped hands.

Hakkai recovered himself, “just having you here is a wonderful help, Yaone. It means very much to me that you came. And I know it would mean a lot to Gojyo to know that all of you are here.”

Yaone glanced over to Dokugakuji standing by Gojyo’s bed. He had summarily greeted everybody and gone straight to his brother, and stood there wordlessly since. Hakkai followed her eyes and they both went to his side.

“He looks so bad, I know it must be a shock,” Hakkai said as soothingly as he could. “I’m so sorry – if I had known he was going to go downhill this fast I would have insisted you come much sooner.”

“Oh, Hakkai,” Yaone said, touching his arm consolingly, “there’s no way you could have known. Nobody blames you… We all know you have been doing everything you can to save him.”

Doku finally looked up at Hakkai with confusion and pain written all over his face. The healer knew there was nothing else for it but for them all to sit down together and talk it out. He guided Gojyo’s brother and Yaone to the table where Goku and Kougaiji were waiting, and offered them tea or coffee as they sat.

“Sanzo, would you please come join us over here?”

“I’d rather stay where I am, thank you very much,’ he sounded somewhat like a petulant child, and Hakkai held his patience because he understood the agonies of self-imposed hell the priest was suffering.

He walked over and sat by him, speaking softly, “Please Sanzo, for Gojyo, and for me, this is his family, and our family, and we need to be together to talk about this. Please.”

Sanzo shot Hakkai a look that told him he would rather red-hot skewers into his own eyes than do what Hakkai asked of him, but he rose and followed Hakkai to the table, sitting reluctantly between Hakkai and Yaone. Goku sat directly opposite him, and was watching him carefully, studying his every move. Sanzo glanced briefly around the table at the assemblage, and when his eyes caught Goku’s he rested there for a brief minute. The young man met his gaze steadily, with deep compassion and sorrow mirrored in his large golden eyes. Sanzo cut his eyes from Goku over to Gojyo’s still form in the bed, and slumped down in his chair.