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I claim no ownership of Saiyuki or any of its characters. They belong to Kazuya Minekura biggrin .

Reformation

Goku was 18 years old. He had brown hair and golden eyes. He was kind of short, and had a few friends that were each between 20 and 23 years old. Two of his friends had tobacco and alcohol addictions, and the other couldn’t seem to get drunk no matter how much alcohol he assumed.

The two with the addictions were Sanzo and Gojyo. Sanzo was a blonde guy with a temper. He was constantly shooting at his friends, and refusing to call them ‘friends’. He secretly cared about them all, but wouldn’t admit it. In fact most often he hid the fact that he cared about his comrades very well. Even Goku was fooled, and Goku had been the first to travel with Sanzo.

Goku would often whine about the smoke that Sanzo and Goku puffed out of their noses and mouths while they sucked on their cigarettes. He didn’t find anything cool about smoking. He always had more energy than the rest of his team. He was much healthier than all of them, and it wasn’t because he was young. The others weren’t that much older than him.

It was a dark night at an inn when it happened. Sanzo woke up. He was unable to breathe. Goku had been sleeping on a bed next to Sanzo’s, and woke up when Sanzo hit him. The young main was flailing and trying to breathe. He was gasping when he managed to get his air. The man was coughing like crazy. His usually droopy purple eyes were wide.

Goku held Sanzo down. That was about all he could think to do to help his friend. He had noticed Sanzo had been coughing and wheezing a lot in the past few weeks, but didn’t think much of it. This time Goku was extremely worried. Hakkai and Gojyo burst through the door to their room and observed Sanzo’s condition. They decided to do the smartest thing they could think of, and took him to the hospital.

Genjyo Sanzo didn’t make it through the night. Goku burst into tears as the doctor came out to give him the news. His first thoughts were that of denial. He jumped up and grabbed the doctor by his short collar and growled “You’re lying! Sanzo’s not dead! He can’t die! He’s Sanzo!” Goku temporarily forgot that Sanzo was human, and therefore mortal. Not that Goku wasn’t a mortal either. He was just a healthier mortal.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said. He shook his head sadly and continued “Even if you had brought him here sooner there wouldn’t have been much that we could do for him. He died of lung, kidney, and liver failure. He also had the start of a stomach cancer.”

Goku let go of the doctor and almost lost all his control. Gojyo and Hakkai had to restrain their younger friend to keep his power limiter from breaking. That usually resulted in Goku going extremely crazy and trying to kill them all.

“But…we had something important to do,” Goku said. Hakkai had been holding onto Sanzo’s Maten Sutra. He held it close to his heart and forced back some tears. Gojyo had left the hospital as soon as he heard the news.

Gojyo stared at the sky. He wondered which direction Sanzo had gone in. He was pretty sure Sanzo was lost. He didn’t want to think about it though. Maybe Sanzo was just getting another mission and chose this dramatic way of leaving them to finish their current mission alone. There had been several attempts Sanzo had seemed to make to either get rid of them or leave.


Gojyo lit a cigarette and put it to his lips. Goku walked outside and stepped in front of his red haired friend. He stared up at him. “Gojyo…” he said.

“Hn?” Gojyo asked and looked down at him. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and blew smoke in Goku’s face. Goku coughed a little and snatched the cigarette from Gojyo. He threw it on the ground and stomped it out.

Gojyo didn’t say anything. He simply took out his pack of cigarettes to get another one. “Gojyo,” Goku said as he took the pack from him and tore it to little pieces, with the cigarettes still inside of it. He threw the pieces up in the air and watched them fall slowly down to the ground.

“Hey, what did you do that for you little monkey?” Gojyo snapped.

“Those are what killed Sanzo!” Goku cried. There were tears in his eyes again.

“Yea, so? “ Gojyo asked.

Goku glared at him. It was a kind of glare that Gojyo wasn’t used to, even though he fought with Goku very often. It scared him almost. He looked down at the ground and sighed “You’re right…”


***

The group of three was sitting around the table at a restaurant. None of them had ordered anything to eat. Even Goku, who almost always had to be eating, couldn’t find his appetite. None of them had spoken since Goku had confronted Gojyo about his smoking habit either. Hakkai wasn’t smiling anymore. For the longest time the young man would fake a smile, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it this time.

Silence…It scared them all. Hakkai drank alcohol before. Gojyo smoked and drank. They all ate the same things Sanzo had been eating. In fact, Goku had eaten more than all of them put together and even different things. Goku wrapped his arms around his stomach. Hakkai stared at a glass of beer. Gojyo stared at his glass of beer also. Neither of them had even reached for their drinks.

Goku started to shake and cry again as Gojyo reached for his glass. He put his hands on it, and squeezed very tight. The glass of beer shattered into many tiney little pieces. The alcoholic liquid splashed all over all of them. Gojyo smirked and then put his arm on the table. He put his head down on his arm and shook like he was crying. Shards of glass were stuck in his hand, and he was bleeding all over the table.

“Is something the matter, sir?” a waitress asked as she approached their table.

Hakkai forced a weak, fake smile and said “Don’t mind them, miss. We’ve just experienced a very tragic moment.” Hakkai was right, and it was a life changing moment as well.

“I…I’m sorry. Do you need a few more minutes to decide what you will order?” the waitress asked.

Goku didn’t look at the waitress as he picked up his menu and held it out to her. “I’ll just have a large salad and all the vegetables you’ve got, raw please…And some water too,” he said.

“That sounds about right,” Gojyo sighed. Hakkai agreed. The waitress seemed surprised as she wrote down their order and left.

For once, Goku wasn’t happy as he ate. He wasn’t as loud either. He ate silently and slowly. He continued to look at the empty seat. Gojyo didn’t touch his food for a long time. Eventually he just grabbed a raw carrot and sipped some water between bites. Hakkai didn’t eat at all.

***

It took about a month before the group had regained their willpower to continue on with their journey. They had a sutra to retrieve. It had been Sanzo’s duty to stop a crisis. They had to continue it without him. Goku wore Sanzo’s sutra and carried his gun as they continued on with their journey. By then they had regained their appetites, and while they still consumed meat, they were more careful and picky about what they ordered. Most of all, Goku wasn’t eager to get to the drinking age. It didn’t matter anymore for him. Gojyo hadn’t touched a cigarette since, and both he and Hakka were alcohol free.

Their change of lifestyle didn’t make their journey any easier, except Gojyo and Hakkai felt healthier, but at least they were pretty sure that if they were going to die, that they were going to die fighting. They refused to lose to a self induced disease. They were going to live on and fight, with the memory of Sanzo in their mind. It was just too bad Sanzo hadn’t left them with better memories.

Thanks ^^;. I think.

Alright, and thank you ^^.

Probably not. I'm not just a fanfic writer, but I also write other stories and such so I've been pretty busy. I might write more Saiyuki fanfics though biggrin .