rockthemonkey | IC Inbox

[The day after the excursion to Capypa Land, Goku will find a neatly wrapped present waiting for him whenever he gets to Hakkai's temple. It contains a bright yellow knit hat with capypa ears and two long straps on either side, with small stuffed plush capypa faces instead of pom-poms on their ends.]

[Goku actually doesn't go back to Hakkai's temple after the Capypa Land trip. Instead he goes to the treehouse with Ayumu, to help her get settled in and sit with some kittens for a while as he tries to stay as cheerful as possible whenever she's looking at him. It's only the next morning that he actually goes back to Hakkai's because, well- he's hungry. Getting meals from Hakkai is way more of a habit than getting them from Ayumu, so that's where he goes for breakfast.

Maybe it's also nice to have a quick break from his new shinki. Ayumu is great, but after everything that happened when he named her, it's a little exhausting to pretend he's completely fine.]

Hey, Hakkai- [What. A present? Goku's more than a little befuddled, especially when he opens it and finds. Something. It's cute? He guesses? Oh, no, wait, he saw these at the park yesterday. Goku grins and laughs to himself as he promptly puts the hat on. Okay, it's cute.]

Good morning, Goku.

[He's frying eggs with mushrooms and greens; he looks up from the skillet to see Goku with the hat tugged down over his ears, and his own smile meets Goku's grin.

It does suit him, actually.]

Ah, that looks good on you!

Mornin'!

[Oh, man, and that smells good. Goku darts into the kitchen and ducks around Hakkai to get a look at the eggs eagerly. Yes, coming back was definitely a good idea.]

Thanks! Did you get it? I didn't know you were at that place yesterday! [He was distracted. He's still distracted. There's food now, it's distracting.]

Why don't you get the plates down? It'll be ready in a few minutes.

-- Yes, I stopped by. The rides aren't really my thing, but I picked up a few gifts for all of you.

[He adds, mildly curious:] You were there too?

I can do that!

[Anything to speed up how long it takes for the food to reach his mouth. Goku spins around and rushes off to the cupboard to gets plates.]

Mm, yeah, I was there for a little while! I had to find Ayu. [Calling her "-chan" seems a little weird and cutesy after a while. He's not a kid, after all. And now they're actually friends too.] I didn't do any of the rides or anythin' though.

Ayumu?

[Hakkai looks up from the eggs in surprise, his chopsticks stilling above the skillet.]

Why were you looking for her?

[Not that she and Goku don't seem to get along reasonably well, but.

Of all the people he could have been looking for at the theme park, why her?]

Those guys at the meeting place said she was supposed to be my shinki.

[Goku has his back to Hakkai, rummaging through the cabinet and trying to decide how many plates they need. Chikusa, Ken and Gojyo too, right? Unless they ate already.]

And when I found her she was bein' hassled by some of those gross guys. [Ayakashi, he means Ayakashi. Goku pauses, holding a pile of plates a little tensely for a second.] ... So I gave her a name and everything.

[Hakkai, too, tenses. Goku named Ayumu. Goku named Ayumu?]

She's a diligent and hard-working shinki.

[His gaze seeks the back of Goku's neck, looking for telltale splashes of blight.]

... And I'm sorry.

[There's no one else in the room; Gojyo's still asleep, and Ken had gone out with Chikusa before Goku arrived. Still, Hakkai lowers his voice. He'd rather not hint at this where any shinki can hear.]

She was my shinki when she first arrived. [He knows exactly, to every last brutal detail, what Goku must have experienced naming her.] Are you all right?

She's really nice. [Which almost makes it worse. Not that it wouldn't still be terrible if Ayumu was mean and horrible.

Yeah, he can't hear Gojyo or Ken running around and he feels like he would if they were here. He'll just get two plates out. Goku's neck is mostly hidden by his scarf, but there's a hint of blight creeping out from under it anyway.]

Don't worry, I'm okay. [He might have nightmares for a while, but he's seen fucked up shit before. That was especially brutal, of course, but he has to deal and so he will. He probably should have expected it, really.

Goku turns around to put the plates out and hesitates, biting his lip briefly.]

... It felt real. Like- like I was remembering something that actually happened.

[He hadn't expected that.]

... yes, she's nice, too. Sometimes. [Hakkai's smile is a brief flicker, though his tone is dryly teasing.

Goku's claim to be okay doesn't sound entirely sincere. Still... he probably will be okay, in time. It's not the first terrible thing that he's seen, and it won't be the last. It is, though, a particularly terrible thing: the brutality of her fate, and the loneliness of it, her life ebbing away in the rain.

Luckily, he had already hated the rain, himself.

He turns back to the eggs, chopsticks prodding briefly at them -- yes, they're done, and will be overcooked if he leaves them any longer. He picks up the skillet, turning towards the table to serve out their portions as Goku sets the plates down.]

It's that way whenever you name a shinki. Sometimes, it might have been something that did really happen, but even the memories that aren't real feel as if they are.

[Goku thinks you're really nice too, Hakkai, don't tease him just because his taste is weird.

Goku will be okay, even with the lonely image of Ayumu dying in the rain burnt into his brain for the rest of his life. Really, he will. Even if he's not right now, as shown by the fact that Hakkai doesn't even have to smack his hands away while he serves the food.]

... How do you tell? Which stuff is real and which isn't?

[Hakkai reserves the right to tease. Although, to be fair, Ayumu is nicer than he is.

He does serve Goku a solid three-quarters of the egg mixture, though, on the grounds that food almost always makes things better -- at least, when it's things that can't be helped otherwise. It's hard to be sad and chew simultaneously.]

I'm afraid that unless you know already, you can't tell. With Gojyo, I know it didn't happen that way. Ayumu....

[He trails off. He'd spoken to Hijikata about her, and from the other man's responses, he suspects that all the brutality of the death he (and now Goku) saw is true.]

I don't know. Perhaps it's best, though, to act as if it is real, unless you know it's not.

I guess so.

[For Ayumu's sake, anyway. Neither of them can talk to her about it, so it really doesn't make a difference what they saw.

The food looks really good. Goku can't wait to eat it, but he still doesn't rush off with the plate once it's been served.]

... Hey, Hakkai, have you ever seen somethin' like that before? Not when you're naming a shinki, I mean, just like... You're doin' something and suddenly you see something and it's like it's something that happened a while ago?

[It's hard to put something into words when you barely understand what you're talking about.]

[For Ayumu's sake, and not just because they can't ask her about it, or even hint at what they know. No -- it's also because that pain has left its marks on her, and it's something that her gods need to accommodate.

Hakkai doesn't elaborate on that subject, though; Goku's question distracts him from it, and he looks up from picking out two pair of chopsticks from the drawer. His gaze is probing.]

Like something you see feels familiar?

["That's just deja vu," he could say. "Everyone has it."

And yet... everyone does have it, from time to time, and Goku's standing there holding his plate without making the slightest move to eat. Whatever had been familiar to him, it's left a mark. And...

And Goku isn't a shinki, but he has lost memories, too.]

Yeah! [Oh, good, Hakkai totally knows what he means and can help Goku understand. That's great. That's really reassuring. Goku fumbles around for his own chopsticks, busy looking at Hakkai instead.] Like, a person or... or a name...

[The feeling had started as soon as he'd seen Nataku. It'd continued when he'd learned his name and when they'd seen him again. The vision he'd gotten then hadn't been anything like what he saw from Ayumu, but something about it felt similar all the same. He can't stop thinking about it.]

And then- and then when you're lookin' at them you see something that looks like it was from a long time ago. You know?

[This is a universal experience, right?]

[This isn't a universal experience. Hakkai meets his gaze, cautious and concerned, his own chopsticks paused in his hand.]

When did this happen, Goku?

[Is this something that could be related to all of the memory magic here, or something... else?]

[Goku finally manages to find his own chopsticks and takes a seat, nudging at his eggs a little.]

... When we were fightin' Nataku. But I got that familiar feeling the first time I saw him.

[He has a bite of his eggs, more for the sake of something to do with himself than out of any of his usual eagerness. Nataku is distracting.]

[Goku had seemed quiet, afterwards, careful to keep himself busy with the tasks of rebuilding. Hakkai had assumed it was because of his worries about Sanzo's injury. It seems that might not quite be the truth.

And yet...

Hakkai can't stop thinking of those three supposed gods he'd known for a short time. Lookalikes of himself, and of Gojyo, and of Sanzo, although Konzen had been taller, Kenren dark-haired and purple-eyed. Lookalikes who knew Goku, and who were willing to put their lives on the line to protect him in a heartbeat, even from himself.

Whatever the connection between those three and the three of them now, Goku had lived in the Heavens once. There can't have been only three gods who knew him.]

Sometimes, I've had that familiar feeling when I met someone for the first time, but I've never remembered anything specific to go with it.

[He's silent for a second.]

When you saw something from a long time ago, did it feel real? Like the things you saw when you named Ayumu?

It was like...

[Goku trails off and makes a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. It's hard to talk about. Why is it hard to talk about? He starts shoveling eggs into his mouth as a distraction.]

... I dunno. It wasn't the same, but it felt a little similar too. [Helpful.] A bit more like a dream, I guess. It was just for a second.

[Slowly, Hakkai nods, and -- ah, yes, he should eat something before it gets cold. He takes a bite of the eggs, using the opportunity to think while he chews.]

It might be that you were really remembering something.

[Goku doesn't look shocked by the suggestion. Even he can only avoid the obvious for so long and he's been thinking it over for a while now. Still, it's nice to hear someone else say it out loud.]

... Nataku didn't remember me. [Which hurts. It's weird that hurts when Goku doesn't remember Nataku either.] He didn't look at me like I was anything.

Edited 2018-06-05 03:43 (UTC)

[It's not a hard conclusion to come to, but he's glad Goku seems to be taking it calmly.

It's still hard not to be remembered by someone important, and Hakkai's wince at that is absolutely sincere.]

I don't know if he remembers very much.

[He hasn't had the chance to meet Nataku face to face, not yet, but he'd heard the descriptions. It had sounded as though the young war god behaved like some kind of automaton.

And it's hard to guess what might have happened to him, in the centuries in between the last time Goku was in heaven, and the War God's descent to Tougenkyo. Hakkai doesn't want to promise that he might remember, not when he doesn't know if that's even possible.]

I'm sorry.

He was actin' weird.

[Not that Goku knows what's normal for Nataku. He doesn't even know if they were close, how important Nataku was to him, or on what terms they parted. He has a feeling, all the same.]

... I know there's nothin' I can do about it from here. I can't make myself remember, or talk to him, or figure out what's going on with him. But I- [Goku flexes his hand and looks at his palm, staring at if it'll help him see something that isn't there anymore.] ... That time, he was crying. I wanted to do something.

[He still wants to. It's frustrating, knowing there's nothing he can do right now.]

We might not know when we'll get home, but we know, eventually, we were.

If not, you'd have noticed me missing, wouldn't you?

[His chopsticks tap the edge of his plate, quietly.]

When we get back, we will have the chance to do something.

[Nataku may be Goku's friend, or Goku's acquaintance, at least: if it's enough to partially overcome his amnesia, though, Hakkai thinks it may be friend. There's no doubt that he'll be involved in what they do, if they're continuing west. There will be the opportunity.]

IC Inbox - thefarshore

Nov 22

Late.

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