He stands before the
newly packed mound of earth, smoking a cigarette. Alone. That’s
how he prefers to be, especially now. After all, who wants company
when…

He’s been
standing there for some time now. Just staring. His mind is in
complete turmoil, as though someone has taken all of his thoughts and
memories and thrown them to the wind, making him go and try to find
them and piece them all together. It’s hard for him to remember
what happened the last few days, what led up to this. He doesn’t
even want to try to remember. Not when he’s standing
before this grave.

The others are waiting
back in the jeep, affording him the luxury of being alone. Knowing
that he needs to be alone. Even if he doesn’t show it, they
know how much this has hurt him.

He takes a deep breath,
closing his eyes. Then he opens them again and looks down at the
ground. It’s still there. There’s still a grave, covered
in fresh dirt. A newly dead body tucked away inside a blanket of
earth. A life snuffed out, just like that.

Sanzo drops his
cigarette, crushing it under his heel. It feels good. That small
movement feels good. Crushing something, destroying it. He wants to
shoot something, tear something to pieces. But he never would and he
never will, not under these circumstances. Some other time, perhaps,
when they are attacked by youkai. When their lives depend on him
killing something. Then he will loose his emotions in the action of
pulling the trigger of his gun. Watch the blood splatter on the
ground. But his face won’t ever show any of that emotion.

He takes another deep
breath, still staring at the grave. There’s a headstone, though
it has no name written upon its face. They don’t have time to
write anything. They couldn’t afford to wait for any elaborate
burial and they can’t wait for someone to etch a name upon the
rock. No one will ever know the man who is buried here.

Sanzo clenches his jaw
and then, in an uncharacteristic display of weakness, his sinks to
the ground, a hand to his head. He has a headache. A dull throbbing
in his skull. It doesn’t really hurt. It’s just…annoying.

He’s glad that
the others are at the jeep. Glad that no one is around. But he’s
still not going to show any emotion. He’s not going to talk.
Not going to…definitely not going to cry. He won’t cry.

When he finally gets
up, when he finally walks back to the jeep and gets into the
passengers seat, he’s going to act as though nothing has
happened. He’ll pull out a cigarette, light it, and sit there.
Not talking, just smoking. He won’t even think about the person
who’s no longer sitting in the jeep with them. He won’t
forget that they are gone and try to talk to them.

But he might forget
that Sanzo is supposed to yell. He might forget that Sanzo
is suppose to fire his gun at the smallest thing, or hit someone over
the head with his fan. They’ll realize that he’s hurt, of
course. They may even try to make him talk about it. But he won’t
do that. He’ll just tell them to shut up and then he’ll
go back to smoking, the white smoke swirling backwards as they drive
towards the west.

He’ll just make
sure that they finish the damned quest. And then he’ll–

He doesn’t even
know what he will do when this is all over. He really doesn’t.

He’s still
sitting there, staring at the grave. There are a couple of flowers
lying near the headstone. Sanzo wasn’t the one to put them
there. He’s not that sentimental. Beside, what good are flowers
for the dead?

The ground is slightly
muddy from a light rain that had fallen the night that he died. Sanzo
could have laughed at the irony of it all. Or was it even irony? That
he had died during the rain, just as he had died during the
rain all those years ago? He could have laughed if he were the type
of person to laugh. Though there would have been no humor in the
laughter. It would have been cold, harsh, grating in his throat.

His head sinks into his
hands. Damn it, he’s not going to cry! He’s not going to–

He’s crumbling.

He didn’t think
that it would hurt this much. Losing him. He thought that…that
losing one person had allowed him to seal off those emotions, to keep
them from ever coming back. That if one of those around him died he
would be able to keep from feeling anything.

He thought he had
learned to live without holding anything. He thought that…

Damn it!

It was like something
was in his chest, tightening around his heart and lungs, cutting off
the flow of air and making his breath grow short. Like ice starting
in the very center of his body and spreading outwards. Like…

His squeezes his eyes
shut, digging his fingernails into his scalp. It shouldn’t hurt
this much! Losing someone–

He lived for himself,
not for anyone else. He hadn’t lost anything, really. It didn’t
matter, their journey would go on. It would continue and they would
finish without him. It didn’t matter that he was dead. It
didn’t matter…

He want’s to stop
thinking about it. Wants to shut everything out, like he has done so
many times before. It shouldn’t matter so much that he’s
gone…

When he gets back to
the jeep they are going to ask him what’s wrong. Even though
they know full well what it is that’s eating away at the inside
of him. They know, because they have gone through the same thing.

It’s not like
he’s the only one who lost him. They all have.

He’s glad they’re
not here. If they were…

If they were he’d
act like nothing was wrong. He’d stand there, smoking. Silent.
Not cry. Not cry. He’s not going to cry.

It’s beginning to
be a useless mantra. It doesn’t matter how many times he
repeats it to himself. He jambs the palms of his hands into his eyes,
trying to keep himself from breaking down. Sanzo doesn’t cry.
He hasn’t, not in all the years that he’s known them. He
won’t cry now. He–

It’s not working.
It’s not working. Damn it, damn it, damn it!

He wants to scream. He
wants to slam his fist into a tree, maybe even break it. The pain of
broken bones in his hand would distract him from this other pain,
wouldn’t it? But then…

Then they’d ask
him how he hurt his hand. He wouldn’t tell them, of course. But
still…

A spray of blood, the
crack of bones, a strangled scream, and a gunshot. That’s all
it had taken. For him to die. The blood, the bone, the scream. All
his. And it had been Sanzo who had shot the gun, killing the youkai
that had killed him. But he hadn’t been able to save
him. Hadn’t–

He felt wetness slap
his cheeks. What was this? Was he…was he crying? But he didn’t
cry. Sanzo didn’t cry. Genjyo Sanzo didn’t…

All it took was those
first few tears to escape and then he was sobbing. Shaking. Leaning
forward, clutching at his head with his hands. Trying to stop the
tears, the sobs. Trying to–

He was gone. He was
really gone. And he wouldn’t be coming back.

Why did it have to hurt
so much? Why did losing that simple person hurt so much? It
shouldn’t. It really shouldn’t.

But it did. It hurt
like hell, making him…

Making him crumble and
fall to pieces.

And so he sits there,
crying. No one saw him and even if they had, they wouldn’t have
believed it.

Sanzo doesn’t
cry. Never.

Sanzo doesn’t
cry, so maybe it isn’t Sanzo who is sitting before his grave,
sobbing as though his heart will break. Maybe it is someone else.
Maybe it’s the person Sanzo could have been. Maybe it’s
who Sanzo really is, but never shows. Maybe…

Eventually, he will
stop crying. And when he does he will get up, make sure that it looks
as though he has never even thought of crying. Then he will return to
the jeep and sit down in the passenger seat. They’ll drive off
to the west, as though nothing had ever happened. They’ll worry
about him, wondering why he doesn’t seem like it hurts him.
They may even try to make him talk about it. Ask him why he doesn’t
cry.

He won’t answer.
He’ll never admit that he fell apart. Never.

But now he sits there,
on the damp grass.

Broken, though only for
the moment.

Crying. Sanzo…

Crying.