A Different Kind of Hunger by keraha
Summary: Goku is always hungry for something else. Two ficlets.
Rating: PG-13
Categories: Saiyuki
Characters: Son Goku
Genres: Angst, Drama
Warnings: Dark
Challenges: None
Series: None
Published: 01/22/05
Updated: 01/22/05
Index
Chapter 1: Goku
Chapter 2: Hakkai
Chapter 1: Goku
I. Goku
When Goku dreams, it is of curry and sushi and all of the delicious things that he can eat. In his mind, he grabs them with greedy fingers and crams them into his mouth until his cheeks are filled like a chipmunk's and he can hardly swallow for its bulk.
His stomach is full, distended with the delicious foods held inside. He eats and eats, and he suddenly finds that he cannot stop. There is something inside of him that craves fulfillment and there is nothing but foodfoodfoodfoodfood. There might not be food in the future, there might be starvation and warded bars and the sickening rise and fall of the sun, shadows streaking dark across a cave floor. There is food now; it must be eaten.
So he does.
Sometimes, his dreams become something terrifying, as he finally fills himself up to the brim, his stomach rounded and warm, he looks around and he is alone. There are only dirty plates and chewed on bones. There are empty seats and empty bowls.
Maybe Hakkai has gone with Gojyo to get more sake. Maybe Sanzo got tired of them and left.
Maybe he should wait.
Goku chews on a bone, sucking the last bit of flavor from it. Before long, in the unsettling silence of this restaurant (is it a restaurant? Where is everybody?), he finds himself gnawing on it. The bone breaks underneath his teeth and splinters dig into his gums. He grabs another bone and bites until his mouth is a mess of spilled food and bloody gums. He is nervous. He is afraid. He is alone.
He closes his eyes and chews. When he opens them again, the bowls are full, and he says to empty air, "I am saving you guys food. You should come. It is very delicious." He pats his stomach.
He expects Gojyo to drop a hand on his shoulder and say, "You saved us food?" then raise an eyebrow. "It must be truly disgusting."
It doesn't happen. Instead, Goku sits by himself, the table almost sagging with the weight of the dishes.
He waits.
Before long, the nervousness sets in, and he takes a little bit of rice-- just to make sure it tastes good, Goku says to himself-- and he finds that he cannot stop spooning it into his mouth. It is food and he cannot help himself. Foodfoodfood. Delicious things against his tongue. Flavor. Not dirt or the bits of dead grass he can reach from between the bars, hissing when the wards burn into his skin. It is not his fingernails, or the blood that came after he chewed those for too long. It is rich and varied. It is delicious.
He cannot help himself.
He eats.
--
When he wakes up, he is hungry. He has gorged on food, but it is not enough.
"Oi, saru," Gojyo says and flicks the end of a cigarette at him. "'Bout time you got up. We were just about to leave you."
Goku sees the back of Sanzo's head, Hakkai's head. He sees Gojyo's red hair ribboning in the wind. He sees trees passing them by and the tough durability of Jiipu below him.
He feels a rumble of emptiness in his stomach. He drapes his arms around Sanzo's headrest and he says, "I'm hungry."
"Hungry? You sounded like you were having a feast in your dreams," Gojyo says. He knocks Goku's head with his hand. "Wasn't that enough?"
"No," Goku says. "It wasn't."
His stomach rumbles, and, as Sanzo rolls his eyes, he forgets his dream.
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Chapter 2: Hakkai
II. Hakkai
Gojyo slips his arm around the townsgirl and he whispers in her ear. She blushes, but Hakkai knows that at the end of the day, she will slip out of her room, out of her dress, and into Gojyo's arms.
Gojyo has asked Hakkai more than once why he doesn't go out with that girl over there, or why he didn't take the other girl when she was clearly mooning over him. Gojyo runs his hand through his hair when Hakkai exasperates him, and it happens often when they come to the subject of girls.
They have come to an unstated compromise. Gojyo will get the girls and Hakkai will not.
Hakkai knows that Gojyo loves women for their curves and their gasps in his ear. He is trapped in the sensuality of flesh and the rhythm of bodies. Hakkai understands the love that Gojyo has; he has known it before. Hakkai now knows that it is not for him.
Hakkai goes to his room. Sanzo is there as he always is, and Sanzo ignores him as he always does. He smiles and says a pleasant "Good night, I am just getting a change of cloth. There is a bath nearby."
Sanzo looks at him-- he is wearing spectacles and Hakkai is always reminded of the first time Sanzo put them on. Old, he had thought. -- and says nothing.
With his clothing bundled under his arm, Hakkai goes to the empty room and fills a bucket with water. The water is warm, and he knows that by the time he bathes, it will be cool against his skin.
Hakkai undresses, and there is nothing romantic about it. He imagines that Gojyo must be skilled at stripping, ripping his shirt over his head, limbs tangling in cloth, reaching naked flesh with the desperate movements of lust and woman coinciding. Hakkai is not like that. He takes off his clothing efficiently and folds them into neat piles. He puts them where the water will not spill and stands naked for a moment.
There is a scar on his stomach, and he has gotten so used to that subtle rise of flesh. He looks at it, and he thinks Kanan. He runs his hand down his stomach, and he thinks, more insistently, Kanan.
He recalls images of his sister. She is beautiful. She waits for him to come back from the school, their small house filled with the smell of soup made from too ingrediants and too much water. She smiles at him the first time he touches like that. Floodgates open in his mind, and he drowns himself in Gonou. He is human, he is in love, he is with Kanan. He is happy and he feels the deep burning in his limbs of loveloveIloveyouKanan.
He remembers how they had always been close. How they held hands as children, how they hugged, how they kissed, how they grew. How her breasts rounded and her limbs lengthened and how she fit in his arms and how they held hands and hugged and kissed again and how it was so much different.
His body remembers, and he draws his hand along his stomach. The warmth of his hand is loud against his skin, and he leaves it there. Once, he had made himself come, imagining Kanan's hesitant touch. He had thrown up afterwards, a bitter taste in his mouth and Gojyo's hands supporting him as he leaned over the grimey toilet. Afterwards, Gojyo had given him a glass of water and no chance to talk about it.
Hakkai had appreciated it, and he had never tried again. He was not Gonou and it was unfaithful on too many accounts. He could not get himself to dirty Kanan. She is all that he was not. And he knows he cannot lose that.
Hakkai shakes his head. No. No more Kanan. He is Hakkai now, and he has Gojyo and Sanzo and Goku.
(He never has women, only dirty sheets in the morning and Sanzo's apathy. He used to have Gojyo's searching look asking why like this, why never with a woman? But no more. Not any more.)
He is a new man.
He gathers the bucket of water in his hands, then spills it over his head. The water beads on his skin and trails down, running over the scar and the flesh below it.
Hakkai shivers at the cold.
He is a new man.
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