A gentle reminder that, being based after the mission, some parts of this story -- especially concerning those of the mission's outcome -- are not canon.

TILL THE LONELINESS SHADOWS THE SKY

Chapter 2 -- Plans

Lunch was a private affair on the balcony, involving as many meat buns as Goku could reasonably beg off the kitchen staff and carry. While countless acolytes would have vied for the honor of serving the vaunted Sanzo-sama, said Sanzo-sama had made it pointedly clear that he looked after himself, thank you very much.

So the task of arranging and obtaining lunch fell to Goku, as it always did when they dined together. Sanzo, concerns about work shoved momentarily to the back of his head, stood by the railing, studying the view of the city beyond. If he squinted, he could have made out the road along which he -- and Goku -- had taken, some three, four years ago, on the mission to end all other missions. The same road that they had returned along, bloodied and weary, while cheering humans lined the streets to welcome them back.

It seemed like a life time ago.

The clatter of plates caught his attention. He waited a while, content to drift in his own thoughts, while Goku set the table, piling most of the buns onto his own plate. He turned when a chirpy voice called his name.

"Sanzo, can I have beer?"

Biting back the customary retort that sprang, a reflex action, to his lips, Sanzo opted for a shrug and a "Do as you wish." He didn't miss the start of surprise in Goku's oh-so-readable golden eyes, and hard on its heels, the rush of enthusiasm.

"Really?" Goku said, reaching for a silvered can. "Then--"

"On the provision that it's limited to one can only," Sanzo cut in smoothly.

"Only?"

"One can is quite enough for you," came the reply. "The rest of the beer is for me."

"Selfish," Goku said, blowing a raspberry.

"Really? And who's the one taking all the buns?"

"But... it's not like you want them, anyway." A slight sulk of a child outmaneuvered in a stint of verbal sparring. Goku was still a child. In so many ways.

And yet not a child, as he had proven on many occasions. Certainly, the blood on his hands. He had never forgiven himself for the deaths of Homura and Kougaiji. Yet it had been inevitable, as these things tended to be. Admirable as their enemies had been, they were nonetheless just that -- noble enemies who stuck to their cause and their beliefs to the end.

Sacrifices always had to be made.

Yet despite all of that, Goku was still very much the same person he'd always been. One would have expected the dumbstruck innocence on those too-wide golden irises to fade after time; one who have expected less laughter and fewer smiles, one would at least have expected a bit of darkness to leak through. But none of that had happened, and he had brought back the more or less the same bakazaru who had followed him down that road, scant weeks after he had freed him from his prison on the barren mountainside.

"Whatcha thinking of, Sanzo?"

The voice that he heard as often in his mind as in his ears caught his attention and dragged him back from wherever his mind had wandered to. Sanzo ignored the question, preferring to pose one of his own : "What's troubling you?"

Goku's eyes went a little wide at that, betraying his next words even before they were said : "Oh, nothing."

Nothing indeed. You're a bad liar, saru. "Really."

"Well...."

Sanzo waited, with the patience of one who knows that waiting is sometimes the best way to catch one's prey. Just another lesson he had learnt on the long road West.

When it was evident that no outlet or lifeline was forthcoming, Goku began to stumble over words. "It's just that... just that... I .. uhhh, don't know how to say this."

"What nonsense did those two idiots put into your head, I wonder," Sanzo muttered to himself. Then louder : "Trust your instincts, saru. They're generally better than your head."

Goku bit his lip and turned to the side, a hint of color rising in his cheeks. "I ... I... I'll tell you another time, k?"

Silence greeted him from the other end of the table. A silence that all but demanded to be filled.

"It's just that... I don't want to leave," Goku said earnestly, trying his best to sort through a suddenly tangled skein of emotions. "You know, you said.. I could go away.. I don't want to."

"So you've said. I rather suspect that that's not what's bothering you." In general, perhaps. But it's something more specific than that...

Goku's brow creased, and he lowered his head, pushing meatbuns around on his plate with his chopsticks. "I don't think it's something you'd want to hear, Sanzo."

"Since when has that stopped you from saying anything?" Sanzo demanded, his tone becoming just a little harsher. So it concerns me, does it? And I wouldn't like know it. Oh, very interesting, Goku.

Goku shook his head. "Not today. I'm not even sure of it, myself." He resumed eating.

And that was that, Sanzo knew. He could have pushed for information, and certainly, Goku would have ended up blabbing, but he saw no point in pursuing the matter. He suspected what was going on under that sandy mop of brown hair, and he didn't like the direction it was taking. Better if the issue were not raised. In time, perhaps, Goku would sort out his feelings and everything would be solved without ever becoming a problem. Perhaps.

And because Genjo Sanzo always had the last word, he directed a parting shot at the youth as he stood, preparing to return to his office. "Don't keep secrets for too long, Goku. You were never fond of them."

--

"How can you tell?" Goku asked, staring at interlaced fingers. "How do you know?"

"How do you differenciate one emotion from another? One just knows, Goku," came the reply from the man seated across the table. It was different table from the one he was used to sharing with Sanzo. In fact, this was an entirely different place from the temple, a simple apartment that encompassed an entirely different world. Here, with the plain wooden furniture and the bare-bulbed lamp swinging from the ceiling... here, with the paint flaking off the walls, except where attempts had been made to add a new coat had commenced... he could speak his mind in peace.

"How is that different from friendship?" Goku asked, still not looking up.

"Perhaps you could call it a stronger emotion," Hakkai told him.

"But... but... he's a guy!" Goku all but wailed. "I thought guys were supposed to go for girls! Like Gojyo!"

"How naive," comment the third occupent of the room.

"So you say, Gojyo," Goku said, shooting him a glare from below tousled bangs.

"It happens to anyone, idiot. 'Cept... perhaps we don't call it love. Isn't that so?" Gojyo nudged his housemate.

"Love is a convenient label," Hakkai agreed. "Applied to a great many things, and, as such, not descriptive enough to cover all of them. You feel what you feel... and you can choose to name it or not to, but putting a name to it does not make it what it is not.. nor does not putting a name to it make it any less real." And he elbowed Gojyo back.

"But you and the monk..." Gojyo threw his hands into the air in mock surrender. "Talk about bad taste. "Listen, if it's hot sex you want, I know a lot of--"

"That's not what I want," Goku snapped, not in the mood for jokes.

"Oooh, so you want us to help you get hooked up with your beloved Sanzo-sama?" Gojyo quipped. "Try romantic candle-light dinners. Pick up the tab for a change. A new dress would be nice too... can't have him wearing the same thing for years, can we?"

"One imagines that Sanzo wouldn't be too pleased," Hakkai said, smiling.

"Chocolate. Chocolate's da bomb. Endorphins and all that. You'll have him dancing in the palm of your hand."

"You don't understand," Goku groaned.

Gojyo winked at Hakkai. "Really?"

Hakkai rolled his eyes. "Actually, I think you don't, Gojyo. I'm not Sanzo."

"And thank goodness for that."

"The question being.. is it wise to pursue this course of action, considering the high chance of.. shall we say, rejection?" Hakkai said delicately. Only one who knew him well would be able to tell that he was, in fact, terribly amused by this turn of events. He could well imagine Sanzo's rather violent reaction to all this plotting proceeding behind his back.

"Yeah. Rejection. Seen lots of that," Gojyo said, with a shake of his head. "The only way is to keep trying."

"You're not helping," Goku said. "Sanzo's not some girl you can just pick up."

"Oh? Would never have guessed," Gojyo said, then yelped in pain as Hakkai stepped -- hard -- on his toes.

"No, he's not," Hakkai replied smoothly, placing a companionable and possessive arm around Gojyo's shoulder as he whispered, sotto voce, "And don't you even think about it, Gojyo-san."

"Why should I? There are easier targets," Gojyo muttered under his breath.

"Yet none so pretty."

Gojyo howled with laughter. "You said that. I didn't!"

"Said what?" Goku asked in confusion.

"Private joke," Hakkai replied, chuckling, as he withdrew his arm.

"Look Goku, take it from me," Gojyo said, leaning forward. "There are three ways you can go about it. You can forget about the entire thing in the first place and concentrate on someone who actually has a heart. That's what I would do, actually. Or you could act on it, which means that you could go indirectly -- candlelight dinners, for a start -- or you could just drop the bomb on our favorite priest's head and see how he reacts."

"Preferably while he's drunk," Hakkai muttered.

"Preferably from long range," Gojyo seconded.

"What do you think I should do?"

"Like I advised -- forget about it. Sanzo's not going to come down from whatever icy mountain he's stuck on and become a real human being. Not in a hundred lifetimes."

"That's rather unkind," Goku replied. "He opened up to us nearer the end of the journey."

"To you maybe," Gojyo replied. "Me, I think I've lost at least a billion braincells to that harisen."

"You don't need them," Hakkai mumbled.

"Was it the mushrooms we had for lunch?" Gojyo queried. "You're acting real strange."

"Am I?" Hakkai asked, feigning innocence.

"Take it from the guy who knows you best."

"Ah."

"It's just that..." Goku was saying, oblivious to the conversation in front of him. "... I don't know if I love him. I mean, he's the one I wanted to protect and he's the one who--"

"--And your point is?" Gojyo said.

"What if it's not ..." Goku winced. "Love?"

"What if it's just infatuation? Then you just dump him and look for someone better," Gojyo, the expert on all affairs of the heart, replied without a moment's pause.

"It's not unnatural, if that's what you were asking," Hakkai said. "It's not something that doesn't happen." He refused to catch Gojyo's eye. "If you ask me, I think that... if it were just infatuation, it would have died down a long time ago. You've known him for almost a decade."

"But.." Goku looked nervous.

"What is it you truly want, Goku?" Hakkai said gently.

"A good lay," Gojyo supplied, and got his toes stepped on again.

"I .. want to tell him," Goku said. "I just... don't dare."

"Then summon the courage," Hakkai smiled. "You'll never know if you don't try."

--

"I can't believe you told him that," Gojyo said, eyeing Goku as he headed down the road for Chou'An. "I can't believe you egged him on."

"It promises to be interesting," Hakkai replied, sounding not unlike a certain Goddess of Mercy.

"Interesting? We'll be able to see the fireworks from here."

"True, so true. But," he shrugged. "I've been watching them for a while. If nothing else, there's some sort of chemistry between them."

"The explosive type, you mean."

"Still."

"You're evil when you set your mind to it, Cho Hakkai."

"Really."

"10 bucks says that he'll get rejected."

"You're on."

***

TBC

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