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“I Never Loved You Anyway” – Chapter One
(I Have Someone Else On My Mind, prompt 27)
(I Have Someone Else On My Mind, prompt 27)
Fandom: Saiyuki
Rating: PG-13
Author:
![[info]](https://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
redbrunjaCharacters: Gojyo & Yaone.
Author’s Note: Written for
![[info]](https://stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
un_love_you. Much love goes to my betas,pzb and renegadekitsune, without whom this would have zillions of typos and still be lacking a summery.Summary: “There should be someone getting her to smile- she was too pretty for somber to be her default expression.” In the game of love, some lines you cross, some lines you leap over, and some lines require playing hopscotch with the rules. (Yaone x Gojyo)
It wasn’t that seeing his brother and Yaone turn around to leave was terribly surprising - that they’d opened their conversation asking about their pouf of a boss said a lot right there- but it did surprise him that when he had yelled, they’d came back.
“Hey!” Gojyo shouted, half-drowned and clinging to a tree trunk with a sadistic monk. “Care to help us before you leave?”
“Of course, forgive me for my abruptness,” Yaone replied, and her head reappeared over the edge of the cliff, “would you mind waiting a moment?”
He’d never been more grateful to see a rope in his life.
There hadn’t been any convenient trees, so Dokugakuji was kneeling down, rope wrapped around his wrists and anchored by his grip, Yaone waiting at the top.
The minute he was close enough to reach, she grabbed his wrist and pulled him up. After scaling the cliff, wet boots slipping on the bluff and drenched clothes pulling at his limbs like greedy hands, he was so grateful he barely looked down her corset much at all.
“Yaone,” he panted, kneeling on the grass next to her, starting to shiver and watching as she gave the monk a hand up, “sometime you’re going to have to let me buy you a drink.”
She laughed distractedly, more of a brief huff of air than anything else, and her eyes were still worried.
“Thank you for the offer,” she said politely, once Sanzo was on top of the cliff as well.
“But it’s unnecessarily,” she finished, turning to unwind the rope from around Doku’s hands,
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Gojyo argued, as she started to gather wood. Doku, walking past, slapped him on the back of his head.
“What the hell?” he yelled, trying to get angry enough to feel warm.
“Don’t flirt with Yaone,” Doku snipped, as the woman in question piled the wood into a pyramid and did something with a vial and a click of her fingers that caused the tripod of firewood to burst into flames.
“Okay, see, now after that?” Gojyo revised, as the first wave of warmth hit him, “I owe you many, many drinks.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Yaone said, now stringing the rope between two trees. Taking the robes Sanzo had pulled off, she wrung out the water and spread the fabric over the impromptu clothes line. Was she ever still? Not that Gojyo wasn’t grateful, but it was freaky to see someone so focused on getting task after task done. It was like watching Hakkai on housecleaning day.
“By the way, you’ll warm up faster if you take off take off that soaked jacket,” Yaone held out her hands, “do you mind?”
Gojyo gave her his most charming smile. “Who could refuse when such a lovely lady asks me to remove clothing?”
She had to force herself to smile, Gojyo could tell, and that expression of false amusement looked too natural on her face. Admittedly, she was probably worried about something - even odds it was the missing members of their little quad, but still. There should be someone getting her to smile- she was too pretty for somber to be her default expression.
Doku was looking wooden, and Gojyo couldn’t tell if it was from worry about whatever was causing Yaone’s lips to pinch together, or if it was from annoyance that he was flirting with her. He ran his tongue along the back of his teeth and felt bothered that he couldn’t read his brother as well as he used to - although considering the things he’d only realized years too late, maybe he’d never been that good at reading his brother anyway.
“Damn, it’s cold,” Gojyo groused, rubbing his hands down his arms.
“The almighty Sanzo squad as a capsized trio. You guys suck." Doku said, his words too-laden for the usual witty banter. Yep, the lucky bastard was totally nailing Yaone. No wonder he’d been snappish earlier.
Yaone and Hakkai started discussing the absence of Kougaiji, and Yaone’s eyes closed in pain.
Huh. Looked like there was other things going on besides his brother’s extraordinary luck in bed partners.
“We seem to have become separated from Kougaiji,” Yaone said, looking at the ground.
She was just starting to explain when some over-dramatic fairy showed up. What a pissant. If he was going to interrupt the hot, distressed chick, he sure as hell better have something more amusing to say than cliché drenched threats. Maybe Gojyo should suggest that the little princess take lessons from Sanzo - that man knew how to make threats, even if he never followed through...
Yeah, this assassin should be a piece of cake.
“Don’t look into his eyes!” Yaone yelled, and Gojyo did.
Lack of sleep was making her punchy. Otherwise, she’d never been so foolish as to slip into Kougaiji’s rooms.
Still after the month she’d had, Kougaiji vanishing, Kougaiji brainwashed, followed by that frantic search for him, Zakuru, getting her Lord back, rescuing Lirin, forcing Doku to rest, watching Lirin and her brother sleep off their separate ordeals, followed by setting her lab back into order.... well, perhaps she was allowed one bad call.
It was evening, and Yaone took care that no one saw her climb out of the library and up to Kougaiji’s balcony.
She quietly opened the glass door and stepped into his bedroom.
He’d been pacing, and looked up sharply at the sound of her footfalls.
“Yaone,” he breathed.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t meant to disturb you....” Yaone’s eyes were locked on Kougaiji’s and he was in his eyes again, him, it was him, not some blank eyed puppet with her Lord’s face. She felt her eyes well with happy tears.
Kougaiji took two long strides towards her, put his hand behind her head and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he laid her gently down on his bed, untying her robe and fingers nimbly unbuttoning her pajamas. She shrugged out of her clothes, baring skin marked by bruises from the previous day’s battle. She carefully put her hand over the particularly ugly one on her hip, hiding it from sight. Kougaiji was murmuring into her ear, voice too hoarse and low for her to understand the words. Wrapping her legs around him, she felt a flush of gratitude that he was back, and had to take deep breaths to keep herself under control.
Later, curled next to him with her arms around his chest and her head pillowed on his shoulder, she gazed at his profile in the dark.
“Yaone...” Kougaiji’s voice sounded hesitant, and she straightened a little. “Was it... never mind.” He forced his voice into surety. “It doesn’t matter.”
Yaone thought of lying on the cold, Control Room floor, Nii watching her like she was a new plaything, of rooms that were too silent, of watching herself in her bathroom mirror and forcing that pained look out of her eyes, because if Dokugakuji saw her looking broken.... She remembered the gutted feeling when Kougaiji had looked at her like she was nothing, remembered desperately seeking him, Lirin trapped behind glass, the way Doku had looked like he was at fault and a failure, even the way his brother’s screams had turned to silence when Gojyo had thought he’d killed his friends, the lack of sound so painful and so, so familiar.
“No,” she agreed. Yaone smiled up at Kougaiji, and reached up to brush her lips against his. “It wasn’t that bad. And it’s over now.” She smiled, and then caught sight of the bedside clock. “I should go.”
He nodded and watched her as she dressed, pulling on her clothes in the dark. At the balcony she paused.
“I’m glad to have you back, my Lord,” she said, and exited.
Kougaiji watched her leave. She had sickly green bruises on her shoulders and unlike the few scattered about her body, they weren’t from the last fight with the Sanzo Party.
He remembered how she’s gotten those. It had been after he’d killed Goykumen Koushu’s latest body servant. The man’s body had fallen to the floor, dropped like so much trash. Yaone’s eyes had been horrorstruck. She’d stepped toward him and begged, “please, my Lord, please, remember who you are.”
And he’s shoved her again the wall. He’d grabbed the woman he’d saved, the woman who’d sworn to follow him, the woman he’d been sharing a bed with for months and shoved her against the wall hard enough to leave bruises and felt nothing at all.
Goykumen Koushu had laughed, Nii had clapped slowly, and he’d felt nothing.
And now, now Yaone had come to him again, and he hadn’t even begged her forgiveness before having her, hadn’t even asked if she was all right.
He was turning into his father’s son.
A hard knot of fear settled in his gut.
There had to be some way to protect her. He felt his terror grow until he could taste it in his mouth like the echo of Yaone’s kisses, and then he knew exactly what he had to do.
“It’s out of the way,” Sanzo declared. “We’re going West.”
Hakkai chuckled.
Dawn was just barely a glimmer in the East, Gojyo could still see stars, he was craving caffeine with the kind of passion he usually reserved for women or cigarettes and the monkey was a dead lump in the seat next to him.
Gojyo looked over Hakkai’s shoulder at the map.
Directly west of the little dot that denoted that-hick-town-with-the-haunted-Parcheesi-board, as Gojyo thought of the place they’d spent the last night, was nothing. Just a nice, blank spot that Gojyo was sure denoted nothing but trees, and rocks, and rocky ground with lots of nice rocks, and not a pretty women or a bar within a hundred miles.
“No fucking way,” he declared. “We’re going there.” He stabbed one finger at the slightly larger dot than that-hick-town-with-the-haunted-Parcheesi-board labeled ‘Yishui.’
“What the hell makes you think you get to decide which route we take?” Sanzo snarled.
“So you’d like to spent three days camping in the woods without cigarettes, booze, or a pretty face?” Gojyo yelled back.
“....uuugle.... meatbuns.....” Goku muttered, and snuggled closer to Gojyo. He shoved Goku back towards his side of the jeep.
“As if my preferences had any bearing on this demented trip,” Sanzo said in his high-and-mighty-est voice. “And I say–”
Hakkai cleared his throat.
“Actually,” he said, “I think Gojyo’s right.”
“I am?” Gojyo asked.
“This is certainly a first,” Sanzo muttered, clearly a sore loser.
“Of course I am,” Gojyo repeated smugly.
Hakkai started folding the map away. “We are running low on supplies,” he continued with a cheery smile, putting Hakaryu in gear, “and I’d prefer to actually have food before we decide to camp in areas that do not have restaurants with Goku.”
“Then Yishui it is,” Goyjo declared, slapping the back of Hakkai’s seat cheerfully, almost not caring that it was an hour of the morning when he should be getting into a bed, instead of heading away from one. “Yishui,” he said again. “Doesn’t that just sound like a town chock-full of pretty women?”
“No.” Sanzo said mulishly, and lit a cigarette.
There was nothing quite as relaxing as buying materials for her explosives.
The substances she needed for her potions, powders and bombs were too easy to tamper with to trust merchants to bring them to Houtou castle, and after recent events, she didn’t trust some of the items that had been locked in her laboratory, and had started randomly disassembling her bombs and testing her potions to make sure that they hadn’t been disturbed.
In the normal course of things, Yaone left Houtou Castle every few sennights to resupply. She hadn’t done so for quite a while, however, and had several pages listing needed items in her clear, crisp script.
The bubbly feeling in her belly, however, wasn’t due to the prospect of the next few days being full of shopping.
Her hotel room was small but bright, the woodwork of the table and headboard well scrubbed and the linens clean. When she opened the drapes and windows, sunlight poured in and a fresh breeze brushed against her face. It made a nice change from Houtou Castle, and Yaone relished the sight of whitewashed walls and warm sunshine.
She was hanging up the few clothes she’d brought with her when Kougaiji appeared. Yaone turned to him and smiled, unsurprised. This was how they’d started, after all. She’d leave for a few days, and at some point during that time her Lord would appear. At first she’d thought he was checking up on her, making sure she was all right, but gradually she’d come to realize that he desired time away from Houtou Castle and Goykumen Koushu’s orders even more than Yaone did. And then one day he’d kissed her, tentatively, like he expected her to push him away. Instead she’d closed her eyes and drew him closer and then... Yaone grinned at the memory, heat in her smile as she looked at Kougaiji.
“It’s good to see you, My Lord,” she said walking towards him with her face upturned for a kiss. He obliged, his lips hot and dry against hers. He kissed her desperately, mouth almost unfamiliar and she pulled her head back, bones thrumming.
“Are you all right?” she asked, and now that she was looking, Yaone could see fine lines of stress around his eyes, and felt worry unspool in her stomach. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Kou said automatically. Yaone was already looking apprehensive, and he’d barely told her anything. He braced himself. “Actually, yes,” he admitted.
He heard the faintest catch in her breathing. She was staring at him with wide, dark eyes, and he wanted nothing more than to go back to kissing her, lose himself in the silk of her skin and the scent of her hair. He forced himself to remember what it felt like to be truly a slave, even his soul bowing to another’s whims.
Yaone was still staring at him. His hands were still on her shoulders and he jerked them away.
She stumbled back a step, rejection already starting to grow in her eyes, and he hadn’t even said anything yet.
“Lord Kougaiji...” she started slowly
“This is over,” he said harshly. He’d expected there to be a moment of denial, but Yaone immediately knew what his words meant.
She opened her mouth twice, words refusing to come. There was a long pause, and then she spoke.
“You don’t want me anymore?” Her voice was very small.
“Of course....” Kou checked himself. She was stubborn beneath the sweetness and if she realized his true motives... “No. No, I don’t. This was a mistake.”
He’d known that she’d be hurt, but the stunned, agonized expression that crossed her face hit him like a punch to the gut.
“I...” she started. “I see.” Her back straightened, and she drew herself up. “Well in that case I should-” she froze, and looked at him with horror in her eyes. “I am-” she sucked in a breath and Kou watched her brace herself. “Am I still you apothecary?” she asked, and Kou didn’t think he’d ever heard her sound so vulnerable.
“Always,” Kou said, and only by keeping his voice brusque did he manage to keep it from wavering. “I’ll see you in a few days.”
Yaone gave a formal half-bow. “I shall see you then, my Lord.”
“Good,” Kougaiji agreed, turned on his heel, and stepped forward. One moment he was in Yaone’s hotel room with the sun streaming through the windows and the next he was back in his darkened suite of rooms at Houtou Castle.
He didn’t stop moving; he strode to the nearest object (a vase, gorgeous, useless, ornamental) and threw it so hard against the wall it barely made a sound as it broke. He swore viciously, and threw the table the vase had been resting on against the wall as well.
It didn’t help and only the memory of yellowing bruises caused by his hand stopped him from immediately returning to Yaone’s hotel room, falling to his knees, and begging her forgiveness.
Yaone sat slowly down on the bed.
What was wrong with her breathing? It was just so loud. Struck by the sudden fear that someone in one of the rooms next to hers could hear her breath, Yaone reached over and started fiddling with the radio next to the bed. After a moment, the static cleared, and something low and filled with piano came on.
Yaone brought her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs, and focused on keeping her breath quiet and heartbeat slow.
When the shadows had shifted, the bright light of morning no longer filling her hotel room, she calmly rose, and went to purchase the items she needed.
It was a good thing that she had already established accounts with most of the merchants, as she couldn’t imagine what a horrific job she would do if she needed to barter. As it was, most of the shopkeepers either asked if she was feeling all right, or discreetly tried to diagnose her from eyesight alone.
Even Master Wu, who she’d been convinced hated her for a year until she realized he simply tried everyone like they were a bother asked her whether she was dying or not.
The next day didn’t go much better.
She’d spent the entire night lying under too-cold sheets and remembering all the thousand little signs that she’d hoarded in her memory that she’d believed meant Kougaiji had loved her, and laid over all of them was the way he’d looked walking away.
Yaone hadn’t slept well.
After depositing the day’s purchases in her room, Yaone loitered on the mezzanine above the main floor of the hotel and debated dinner.
Logically, she hadn’t had anything to eat since the toast she’d tortured at breakfast, and was aware that she should probably eat something. However, her stomach was twisted into knots, and descending into the busy bar held no appeal. She was exhausted just watching the waitresses darting around the busy room, the chatter of voices rising to buzz against her ears like gnats. Additionally, even from above, she could tell that half the room was occupied by couples in various stages of wooing. Over there was a married couple and then two young dark haired youths clearly newly in a relationship, and below her.... Yaone rolled her eyes, bitter and embarrassed at the pair of humans who decided public was the appropriate area to do ...that.
She looked over in the far corner, where a group of men were playing cards. There she was unlikely to have to watch-
Long, blood-red hair caught her eyes and her mouth opened in shock.
He shouldn’t be here. The Sanzo party had been last spotted in Lazhou - they shouldn’t be 150 miles northwest in Yishui unless.... Yaone factored in bad weather, insistence on staying in hotels, and irascible traveling companions, as well as the way the Sanzo party seemed more to wander in a vaguely westerly direction than traveling in a strictly liner pattern.
Yaone pressed herself against one of the support beams, peering around to watch Sha Gojyo lounge at the table, one arm draped back over his chair, the other holding a fan of cards.
Yaone debated. It would be foolish to rush back to Houtou Castle - even if she left now, by the time the group returned, the Sanzo party would have left. While she didn’t doubt she could incapacitate Gojyo and take him back to Houtou Castle, she severely doubted holding a hostage would change the behavior of Genjyo Sanzo or make it easier to take the Maten Sutra. Furthermore, Yaone wasn’t sure if the orders to gain the Maten where still up to date - recently, Goykumen Koushu had been focusing on a clan of demons in the north that claimed to possess Kouten Sutra.
Yaone pinched the bridge of her nose. Could nothing really be the appropriate response to this situation?
She was just debating this question, and wondering if actually having something more to eat than a slice of bread twelve hours ago might make this quandary a little easier to solve when Gojyo’s opponent knocked over the table.
Yaone straightened. Gojyo didn’t look worried, his body still loose and relaxed.
Behind Gojyo, directly in her line of sight, someone pulled a knife, and Yaone suddenly had no doubts at all about the appropriate course of action.
“Hey!” Gojyo shouted, half-drowned and clinging to a tree trunk with a sadistic monk. “Care to help us before you leave?”
“Of course, forgive me for my abruptness,” Yaone replied, and her head reappeared over the edge of the cliff, “would you mind waiting a moment?”
He’d never been more grateful to see a rope in his life.
There hadn’t been any convenient trees, so Dokugakuji was kneeling down, rope wrapped around his wrists and anchored by his grip, Yaone waiting at the top.
The minute he was close enough to reach, she grabbed his wrist and pulled him up. After scaling the cliff, wet boots slipping on the bluff and drenched clothes pulling at his limbs like greedy hands, he was so grateful he barely looked down her corset much at all.
“Yaone,” he panted, kneeling on the grass next to her, starting to shiver and watching as she gave the monk a hand up, “sometime you’re going to have to let me buy you a drink.”
She laughed distractedly, more of a brief huff of air than anything else, and her eyes were still worried.
“Thank you for the offer,” she said politely, once Sanzo was on top of the cliff as well.
“But it’s unnecessarily,” she finished, turning to unwind the rope from around Doku’s hands,
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Gojyo argued, as she started to gather wood. Doku, walking past, slapped him on the back of his head.
“What the hell?” he yelled, trying to get angry enough to feel warm.
“Don’t flirt with Yaone,” Doku snipped, as the woman in question piled the wood into a pyramid and did something with a vial and a click of her fingers that caused the tripod of firewood to burst into flames.
“Okay, see, now after that?” Gojyo revised, as the first wave of warmth hit him, “I owe you many, many drinks.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Yaone said, now stringing the rope between two trees. Taking the robes Sanzo had pulled off, she wrung out the water and spread the fabric over the impromptu clothes line. Was she ever still? Not that Gojyo wasn’t grateful, but it was freaky to see someone so focused on getting task after task done. It was like watching Hakkai on housecleaning day.
“By the way, you’ll warm up faster if you take off take off that soaked jacket,” Yaone held out her hands, “do you mind?”
Gojyo gave her his most charming smile. “Who could refuse when such a lovely lady asks me to remove clothing?”
She had to force herself to smile, Gojyo could tell, and that expression of false amusement looked too natural on her face. Admittedly, she was probably worried about something - even odds it was the missing members of their little quad, but still. There should be someone getting her to smile- she was too pretty for somber to be her default expression.
Doku was looking wooden, and Gojyo couldn’t tell if it was from worry about whatever was causing Yaone’s lips to pinch together, or if it was from annoyance that he was flirting with her. He ran his tongue along the back of his teeth and felt bothered that he couldn’t read his brother as well as he used to - although considering the things he’d only realized years too late, maybe he’d never been that good at reading his brother anyway.
“Damn, it’s cold,” Gojyo groused, rubbing his hands down his arms.
“The almighty Sanzo squad as a capsized trio. You guys suck." Doku said, his words too-laden for the usual witty banter. Yep, the lucky bastard was totally nailing Yaone. No wonder he’d been snappish earlier.
Yaone and Hakkai started discussing the absence of Kougaiji, and Yaone’s eyes closed in pain.
Huh. Looked like there was other things going on besides his brother’s extraordinary luck in bed partners.
“We seem to have become separated from Kougaiji,” Yaone said, looking at the ground.
She was just starting to explain when some over-dramatic fairy showed up. What a pissant. If he was going to interrupt the hot, distressed chick, he sure as hell better have something more amusing to say than cliché drenched threats. Maybe Gojyo should suggest that the little princess take lessons from Sanzo - that man knew how to make threats, even if he never followed through...
Yeah, this assassin should be a piece of cake.
“Don’t look into his eyes!” Yaone yelled, and Gojyo did.
~~~
Lack of sleep was making her punchy. Otherwise, she’d never been so foolish as to slip into Kougaiji’s rooms.
Still after the month she’d had, Kougaiji vanishing, Kougaiji brainwashed, followed by that frantic search for him, Zakuru, getting her Lord back, rescuing Lirin, forcing Doku to rest, watching Lirin and her brother sleep off their separate ordeals, followed by setting her lab back into order.... well, perhaps she was allowed one bad call.
It was evening, and Yaone took care that no one saw her climb out of the library and up to Kougaiji’s balcony.
She quietly opened the glass door and stepped into his bedroom.
He’d been pacing, and looked up sharply at the sound of her footfalls.
“Yaone,” he breathed.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t meant to disturb you....” Yaone’s eyes were locked on Kougaiji’s and he was in his eyes again, him, it was him, not some blank eyed puppet with her Lord’s face. She felt her eyes well with happy tears.
Kougaiji took two long strides towards her, put his hand behind her head and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he laid her gently down on his bed, untying her robe and fingers nimbly unbuttoning her pajamas. She shrugged out of her clothes, baring skin marked by bruises from the previous day’s battle. She carefully put her hand over the particularly ugly one on her hip, hiding it from sight. Kougaiji was murmuring into her ear, voice too hoarse and low for her to understand the words. Wrapping her legs around him, she felt a flush of gratitude that he was back, and had to take deep breaths to keep herself under control.
Later, curled next to him with her arms around his chest and her head pillowed on his shoulder, she gazed at his profile in the dark.
“Yaone...” Kougaiji’s voice sounded hesitant, and she straightened a little. “Was it... never mind.” He forced his voice into surety. “It doesn’t matter.”
Yaone thought of lying on the cold, Control Room floor, Nii watching her like she was a new plaything, of rooms that were too silent, of watching herself in her bathroom mirror and forcing that pained look out of her eyes, because if Dokugakuji saw her looking broken.... She remembered the gutted feeling when Kougaiji had looked at her like she was nothing, remembered desperately seeking him, Lirin trapped behind glass, the way Doku had looked like he was at fault and a failure, even the way his brother’s screams had turned to silence when Gojyo had thought he’d killed his friends, the lack of sound so painful and so, so familiar.
“No,” she agreed. Yaone smiled up at Kougaiji, and reached up to brush her lips against his. “It wasn’t that bad. And it’s over now.” She smiled, and then caught sight of the bedside clock. “I should go.”
He nodded and watched her as she dressed, pulling on her clothes in the dark. At the balcony she paused.
“I’m glad to have you back, my Lord,” she said, and exited.
~~~
Kougaiji watched her leave. She had sickly green bruises on her shoulders and unlike the few scattered about her body, they weren’t from the last fight with the Sanzo Party.
He remembered how she’s gotten those. It had been after he’d killed Goykumen Koushu’s latest body servant. The man’s body had fallen to the floor, dropped like so much trash. Yaone’s eyes had been horrorstruck. She’d stepped toward him and begged, “please, my Lord, please, remember who you are.”
And he’s shoved her again the wall. He’d grabbed the woman he’d saved, the woman who’d sworn to follow him, the woman he’d been sharing a bed with for months and shoved her against the wall hard enough to leave bruises and felt nothing at all.
Goykumen Koushu had laughed, Nii had clapped slowly, and he’d felt nothing.
And now, now Yaone had come to him again, and he hadn’t even begged her forgiveness before having her, hadn’t even asked if she was all right.
He was turning into his father’s son.
A hard knot of fear settled in his gut.
There had to be some way to protect her. He felt his terror grow until he could taste it in his mouth like the echo of Yaone’s kisses, and then he knew exactly what he had to do.
~~~
“It’s out of the way,” Sanzo declared. “We’re going West.”
Hakkai chuckled.
Dawn was just barely a glimmer in the East, Gojyo could still see stars, he was craving caffeine with the kind of passion he usually reserved for women or cigarettes and the monkey was a dead lump in the seat next to him.
Gojyo looked over Hakkai’s shoulder at the map.
Directly west of the little dot that denoted that-hick-town-with-the-haunted-Parcheesi-board, as Gojyo thought of the place they’d spent the last night, was nothing. Just a nice, blank spot that Gojyo was sure denoted nothing but trees, and rocks, and rocky ground with lots of nice rocks, and not a pretty women or a bar within a hundred miles.
“No fucking way,” he declared. “We’re going there.” He stabbed one finger at the slightly larger dot than that-hick-town-with-the-haunted-Parcheesi-board labeled ‘Yishui.’
“What the hell makes you think you get to decide which route we take?” Sanzo snarled.
“So you’d like to spent three days camping in the woods without cigarettes, booze, or a pretty face?” Gojyo yelled back.
“....uuugle.... meatbuns.....” Goku muttered, and snuggled closer to Gojyo. He shoved Goku back towards his side of the jeep.
“As if my preferences had any bearing on this demented trip,” Sanzo said in his high-and-mighty-est voice. “And I say–”
Hakkai cleared his throat.
“Actually,” he said, “I think Gojyo’s right.”
“I am?” Gojyo asked.
“This is certainly a first,” Sanzo muttered, clearly a sore loser.
“Of course I am,” Gojyo repeated smugly.
Hakkai started folding the map away. “We are running low on supplies,” he continued with a cheery smile, putting Hakaryu in gear, “and I’d prefer to actually have food before we decide to camp in areas that do not have restaurants with Goku.”
“Then Yishui it is,” Goyjo declared, slapping the back of Hakkai’s seat cheerfully, almost not caring that it was an hour of the morning when he should be getting into a bed, instead of heading away from one. “Yishui,” he said again. “Doesn’t that just sound like a town chock-full of pretty women?”
“No.” Sanzo said mulishly, and lit a cigarette.
~~~
There was nothing quite as relaxing as buying materials for her explosives.
The substances she needed for her potions, powders and bombs were too easy to tamper with to trust merchants to bring them to Houtou castle, and after recent events, she didn’t trust some of the items that had been locked in her laboratory, and had started randomly disassembling her bombs and testing her potions to make sure that they hadn’t been disturbed.
In the normal course of things, Yaone left Houtou Castle every few sennights to resupply. She hadn’t done so for quite a while, however, and had several pages listing needed items in her clear, crisp script.
The bubbly feeling in her belly, however, wasn’t due to the prospect of the next few days being full of shopping.
Her hotel room was small but bright, the woodwork of the table and headboard well scrubbed and the linens clean. When she opened the drapes and windows, sunlight poured in and a fresh breeze brushed against her face. It made a nice change from Houtou Castle, and Yaone relished the sight of whitewashed walls and warm sunshine.
She was hanging up the few clothes she’d brought with her when Kougaiji appeared. Yaone turned to him and smiled, unsurprised. This was how they’d started, after all. She’d leave for a few days, and at some point during that time her Lord would appear. At first she’d thought he was checking up on her, making sure she was all right, but gradually she’d come to realize that he desired time away from Houtou Castle and Goykumen Koushu’s orders even more than Yaone did. And then one day he’d kissed her, tentatively, like he expected her to push him away. Instead she’d closed her eyes and drew him closer and then... Yaone grinned at the memory, heat in her smile as she looked at Kougaiji.
“It’s good to see you, My Lord,” she said walking towards him with her face upturned for a kiss. He obliged, his lips hot and dry against hers. He kissed her desperately, mouth almost unfamiliar and she pulled her head back, bones thrumming.
“Are you all right?” she asked, and now that she was looking, Yaone could see fine lines of stress around his eyes, and felt worry unspool in her stomach. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Kou said automatically. Yaone was already looking apprehensive, and he’d barely told her anything. He braced himself. “Actually, yes,” he admitted.
He heard the faintest catch in her breathing. She was staring at him with wide, dark eyes, and he wanted nothing more than to go back to kissing her, lose himself in the silk of her skin and the scent of her hair. He forced himself to remember what it felt like to be truly a slave, even his soul bowing to another’s whims.
Yaone was still staring at him. His hands were still on her shoulders and he jerked them away.
She stumbled back a step, rejection already starting to grow in her eyes, and he hadn’t even said anything yet.
“Lord Kougaiji...” she started slowly
“This is over,” he said harshly. He’d expected there to be a moment of denial, but Yaone immediately knew what his words meant.
She opened her mouth twice, words refusing to come. There was a long pause, and then she spoke.
“You don’t want me anymore?” Her voice was very small.
“Of course....” Kou checked himself. She was stubborn beneath the sweetness and if she realized his true motives... “No. No, I don’t. This was a mistake.”
He’d known that she’d be hurt, but the stunned, agonized expression that crossed her face hit him like a punch to the gut.
“I...” she started. “I see.” Her back straightened, and she drew herself up. “Well in that case I should-” she froze, and looked at him with horror in her eyes. “I am-” she sucked in a breath and Kou watched her brace herself. “Am I still you apothecary?” she asked, and Kou didn’t think he’d ever heard her sound so vulnerable.
“Always,” Kou said, and only by keeping his voice brusque did he manage to keep it from wavering. “I’ll see you in a few days.”
Yaone gave a formal half-bow. “I shall see you then, my Lord.”
“Good,” Kougaiji agreed, turned on his heel, and stepped forward. One moment he was in Yaone’s hotel room with the sun streaming through the windows and the next he was back in his darkened suite of rooms at Houtou Castle.
He didn’t stop moving; he strode to the nearest object (a vase, gorgeous, useless, ornamental) and threw it so hard against the wall it barely made a sound as it broke. He swore viciously, and threw the table the vase had been resting on against the wall as well.
It didn’t help and only the memory of yellowing bruises caused by his hand stopped him from immediately returning to Yaone’s hotel room, falling to his knees, and begging her forgiveness.
~~~
Yaone sat slowly down on the bed.
What was wrong with her breathing? It was just so loud. Struck by the sudden fear that someone in one of the rooms next to hers could hear her breath, Yaone reached over and started fiddling with the radio next to the bed. After a moment, the static cleared, and something low and filled with piano came on.
Yaone brought her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs, and focused on keeping her breath quiet and heartbeat slow.
When the shadows had shifted, the bright light of morning no longer filling her hotel room, she calmly rose, and went to purchase the items she needed.
It was a good thing that she had already established accounts with most of the merchants, as she couldn’t imagine what a horrific job she would do if she needed to barter. As it was, most of the shopkeepers either asked if she was feeling all right, or discreetly tried to diagnose her from eyesight alone.
Even Master Wu, who she’d been convinced hated her for a year until she realized he simply tried everyone like they were a bother asked her whether she was dying or not.
The next day didn’t go much better.
She’d spent the entire night lying under too-cold sheets and remembering all the thousand little signs that she’d hoarded in her memory that she’d believed meant Kougaiji had loved her, and laid over all of them was the way he’d looked walking away.
Yaone hadn’t slept well.
After depositing the day’s purchases in her room, Yaone loitered on the mezzanine above the main floor of the hotel and debated dinner.
Logically, she hadn’t had anything to eat since the toast she’d tortured at breakfast, and was aware that she should probably eat something. However, her stomach was twisted into knots, and descending into the busy bar held no appeal. She was exhausted just watching the waitresses darting around the busy room, the chatter of voices rising to buzz against her ears like gnats. Additionally, even from above, she could tell that half the room was occupied by couples in various stages of wooing. Over there was a married couple and then two young dark haired youths clearly newly in a relationship, and below her.... Yaone rolled her eyes, bitter and embarrassed at the pair of humans who decided public was the appropriate area to do ...that.
She looked over in the far corner, where a group of men were playing cards. There she was unlikely to have to watch-
Long, blood-red hair caught her eyes and her mouth opened in shock.
He shouldn’t be here. The Sanzo party had been last spotted in Lazhou - they shouldn’t be 150 miles northwest in Yishui unless.... Yaone factored in bad weather, insistence on staying in hotels, and irascible traveling companions, as well as the way the Sanzo party seemed more to wander in a vaguely westerly direction than traveling in a strictly liner pattern.
Yaone pressed herself against one of the support beams, peering around to watch Sha Gojyo lounge at the table, one arm draped back over his chair, the other holding a fan of cards.
Yaone debated. It would be foolish to rush back to Houtou Castle - even if she left now, by the time the group returned, the Sanzo party would have left. While she didn’t doubt she could incapacitate Gojyo and take him back to Houtou Castle, she severely doubted holding a hostage would change the behavior of Genjyo Sanzo or make it easier to take the Maten Sutra. Furthermore, Yaone wasn’t sure if the orders to gain the Maten where still up to date - recently, Goykumen Koushu had been focusing on a clan of demons in the north that claimed to possess Kouten Sutra.
Yaone pinched the bridge of her nose. Could nothing really be the appropriate response to this situation?
She was just debating this question, and wondering if actually having something more to eat than a slice of bread twelve hours ago might make this quandary a little easier to solve when Gojyo’s opponent knocked over the table.
Yaone straightened. Gojyo didn’t look worried, his body still loose and relaxed.
Behind Gojyo, directly in her line of sight, someone pulled a knife, and Yaone suddenly had no doubts at all about the appropriate course of action.