by Princess of Pain

NOTES: Though short, this was really emotionally exhausting to write. It’s easy to write about things such as child abuse from the point of view of the abused (Gojyo, in this case). It’s a bitch to try and write about the same topic from the POV of the abuser. Most people, unlike myself, are smart enough to not want to take up a different tack, and explore the thought process (such as it is) of the abuser: Gojyo’s surrogate mother.

Gojyo’s my favorite character in “Saiyuki”, and the parts of the series which dwell on his childhood always hit me really close to home: him trying to love his ‘mother’, her digging for any excuse to beat him, Jien hopelessly caught in between. This isn’t meant to be Gojyo-bashing, or an endorsement of abuse, and I hope that I’ve handled it in a somewhat sensitive fashion, as much as I could, anyhow. Standard fic disclaimer.

*~*~*

It does this to mock me; I know it does, that little fucking monster.

It's always underfoot, that little thing is.  It's all smiles and false kindness, offering flowers, promising the moon.  Ha!  I know better, though.  It can say what it likes, but you only have to look at it to know how false it is.  The blood in its hair and eyes--it betrays every word, brands it a liar!

Not everyone knows, oddly--about the filthy taboo children.  But I do.  Oh, yes.

The term, I'm told, is "hanyo"... what a cute little name, for such abominations!  For those disgusting beasts that walk around and pretend to have feelings and intelligence!  It's funny, really.  But I know better.  I know a dog when I see one, even if the dog walks on its hind legs and calls me Mother.

Mother!  It's quite funny, when you think about it.

I try to tell it I'm not its mother.  It knows I'm not.  Like I said!  It does things just to mock me.  It calls me Mother just to make me feel sick inside--as if just looking at the thing didn't tie up my stomach into a hot, greasy knot.

Why, just yesterday, it got home from school, crying like it always does.   Once, I think my dear Jien told me that the thing doesn't always cry, but I've never seen it not leaking around its ugly red eyes.  Even when it's smiling and telling its lies, it's only a second from weeping.  I know.  I can see these things through my own tears.

My precious son--oh, he's so brave, handling an animal like that thing!--asked it what was wrong.  Like it wasn't obvious.  Its clothes were ripped, its hideous bloody hair was mussed, and its face was cut and bruised.  When the monster comes home like that, I always smile, even though the sight of it still makes me break down.  I can't help but cry.  I hate it so much!  It's a hateful, dirty little horror that should have been strangled the second it came squalling out from between its whore of a mother's legs.

I didn't listen to what the little bastard was saying: I don't have to.   It's the same, most days.  I send it off to school, even though it pales (as if it could feel terror!  Such an idea is like a monkey wearing clothes) at the sight of his schoolhouse.  Three out of five days, it comes home with evidence of healthy discipline.  It begged me once to stop sending it there, but I thrashed THAT thought out of it quite fast!

But, suddenly, it said that one word that it knows drives me mad: it called me Mother.

Well, I wasn't going to take that lying down.  Let me ask you, do I have fur?  Do I walk on four legs and eat my own vomit?   How could I possibly have been the bitch that gave birth to that monster?

My darling Jien tells me that I struck it with my whisky bottle.  He told me that I held the thing up by its torturously red hair and gave it a good, hard whack across the face.  I might have dislocated its jaw.  It's a shame that I don't remember, and that the bottle apparently didn't break.

My dearest son (my ONLY son!) tells me that he stored the horrible monster outside, beneath the stairs on the porch.  That's its favorite hiding place, and no wonder.  Dogs like hiding under porches, so I'm told.  Dearest Jien!  He's not going to leave me, you know.  He's not a lying man, not like... and not like that godawful child will become.   He's my little boy, the light of my life.  Look at how kind he is, feeding the flaming thing under the stair!  Not that I approve--I'd like to let it starve--but my only son insists that it be fed.  Ah, well, he's young enough to make mistakes yet.

Tonight, I shall dream sweet dreams.   I'll dream of that whisky bottle I don't remember throwing crashing into that little fucker's face.  Only it breaks, crisscrossing its face--the one that looks like a dog and a man I once knew, all at once--with thousands of cuts.  I will dream of glass lodging in its nasty red eyes, its cheeks, its forehead.  I will dream of turning its face into a glittering mask of blood and glass, so everyone can see just what it is.

I'd love to scar the little son of a bitch.  I really would.

~Owari~