Outgrowing inhibitors 3

[moonshadows]

“So what’s it look like?” Gojyo croaks between bites of the rice porridge I’d put on to cook before putting him to bed earlier this morning.

He looks every bit as miserable as I expected, propped up on pillows with the quilt covering him from the hips down. His normally-tanned skin is pale, he sweats and trembles, and his face bears an expression of exhausted pain. It was hung-over mornings like this that initially drove me to figure out how to use my chi for healing, because as much as it warmed my heart to fuss over him, to wipe his face with a cool, damp cloth and feed him porridge with ginger and (when I could get it) honey, I would rather he not suffer through hangovers that bad to begin with.

“Your clan form,” he clarifies, a faint note of sullenness peeking through the ashy magenta of his chi. “I know y’don’t wanna show me, but can you tell me what it was you think I’m gonna be disgusted by?”

I put the spoon back into the bowl and hold it with both hands, my gaze lost in the depths of sweet ginger porridge.

“Fangs,” I say quietly. “Not just fangs. Fangs that swing outwards to shred whatever they catch as they swing inwards again.” The neat crater in half a loaf of brown bread haunts me. “Claws. As long as your forearm, thick and black like spears. Horns - I can’t tell you any more than that. Hooves, cloven. A vestigial tail. Fur, very short and fine, darker than dried blood and-”

“Fur?” Gojyo sounds interested, almost enthused.

Startled, I look up at him and see eager curiosity fighting through the exhaustion and pain. “Fur,” I repeat, slowly. “Covered in white lines, like scars. You’re not...”

He snorts weakly. “You’re not gonna scare me with fangs and claws. I grew up around youkai, remember? Fangs and claws are normal to me.”

Because I am paying attention to his chi, I can see what he’s keeping out of his words. Fangs and claws are normal in youkai society, but Gojyo has neither and this is a lack he has felt sorely. Suddenly, I realize that it is not just his hair and eyes that set him apart. Among other youkai, his rounded teeth and nails would have been ‘proof’ of his supposed inferiority. Not only is he not going to be disgusted by my ‘clan form’, but he likely envies this undeniable proof of my inherent youkai nature.

Once again, he is accepting me without hesitation when I can not accept myself.

“Tell me about it,” I say softly as I lift the spoon to his mouth again. “When you feel better. Tell me what it’s like, growing up in youkai society. Tell me all the things I never learned because I was raised human. Tell me what a ‘clan form’ is, and if you know anything about my clan, tell me that as well. If I hear it from you...” My hand trembles slightly and I lower it to lift the mug of tea for him to drink instead. “If I hear it from you, maybe it will help me come to terms with it applying to me.”

When Gojyo finishes his sip of tea, he lets out a soft huff of a laugh. “I keep forgetting that you were human,” he says, a note of teasing warmth in his voice. “Raised human, sure, but youkai? Absolutely.”

That upends my entire existence, like a single piece of wood collapsing and bringing down a set of shelves that tip into another set, toppling it into its neighbor, a chain reaction of destruction leaving me blinking at my hanyou friend because while I have never really stopped seeing myself as human, in his eyes, I had never been human in the first place. He knew what I was when he picked me up and brought me home, stuffed my guts back inside and put me in his bed. He knew what I was when he welcomed me back into his life. To me, this entire mess has been me struggling to accept that I am no longer human and have not been human for several years. But for him, it’s his friend panicking because the disguise is tearing. He supported me because I’m his friend and that’s what he does, but where the loss of my inhibitors would be an utter disaster in my mind, to him, it would be me just being myself. Displaying the nature that he would switch with me in a heartbeat for.

The fear that he will recoil from seeing me without my inhibitors dies, crumbles into dust that disperses with the slightest breath. I have never been a monster in Gojyo’s eyes. He has probably wanted to see me as I am for years, but he kept it to himself because he doesn’t want to upset me. If he weren’t horribly hung over and feeling like death, I would be at great risk for clinging to him and possibly weeping in grateful relief.

“Hey. Hakkai, you okay?”

I come out of my thoughts to discover Gojyo watching me in concern. “You’ve given me a lot to think about,” I say, bringing the spoon back to his mouth. “As much as I’d thought I had put my life as Gonou behind me, I have still been living my life within his boundaries, like a seed that has not shed its casing. I will need to examine many portions of my life and discard some notions I have been clinging to for longer than necessary.”

Fine red eyebrows arch. “Oh? Like what?”

“Before I had a name,” I say quietly, “I made a promise to Sanzo that I would not cause harm to myself in penance for my sins.”

Gojyo looks like he wants to call bullshit on that, except that his mouth is full and he knows that I would have kept to the letter, if not the spirit - that any harm I inflicted on myself was for a different reason.

“In accordance with that, I have been trying to perform equal but opposite acts as my penance.”

“That town where the asshole had a cannon pointed at them.”

I nod. “There, I atoned for not having been there when the Dark Crow came for Kanan, and for...” I don’t know how to finish that sentence. “So much of that time is blurred or missing, but given the rage that billowed up at how quick the town had been to sacrifice one of their own, I can easily believe that I may have done something...final...to the people who handed Kanan over to protect themselves.”

“Yeah,” Gojyo says softly. “So you being a chi-healer...you really were trying to save a thousand lives, weren’t you?” At my nod, he asks, “Were you keeping a count?”

I glance away, and he laughs weakly.

“You were, and you know you’ve passed a thousand.”

I was, and I do.

“I started keeping count on the trip. Figured one day I could use it to try to convince you to stop punishing yourself.”

“Your count is off by a couple hundred,” I inform him crisply.

That gets me another eyebrow raise. “Oh?”

“When we went through the mountains, in the winter, I was trading healing for supplies.”

He thinks about it while sipping green tea with honey. “Yeah, I can see that. So that’s the deaths out of the way. What’s left?”

“I never told you what my name means.” Because, of course, the one time he asked, I deflected and he never asked again. “I have been doing my best to live according to the meaning of the characters.” I pause, and flinch inwardly because Gojyo is hanging on my words. “As the scribes wrote them, it means Eightfold Admonishment.”

Instantly, every line of Gojyo’s body is tense, as if he were about to haul himself out of bed and go kick every ass in the Temple of the Setting Sun despite being wobbly and in pain enough that he wouldn’t even make it to the bathroom without my help.

“...but I think it’s time I live according to the symbols Sanzo intended, rather than the ones that the scribes chose.”

The tension melts out of Gojyo as if it had never existed, relief making him nearly collapse despite already being half-reclined.

“The name he gave me,” I say with a small smile, “is Eightfold Rebirth.”

“Much better,” he mutters. “So you gonna stop punishing yourself with the Eightfold Path?”

Right Speech, ironically, demands my honesty. “I’m going to try. To use it as a set of guidelines, rather than the bars of my prison. I don’t expect that un-learning those habits is going to be quick or easy.”

“Hey, I’ll do what I can to help.” His expression shifts to something uncomfortable, but not quite painful. “Uh. Speaking of help...”

Smiling gently, I fold the quilt back and to the side, off his body. “Of course. Should I leave you in the bathroom for a bit, or help you back immediately?”

Gojyo lets me practically lift him out of bed and onto his feet, where he sways and clings but does not fall. “Leave me there for a bit.”

“Alright. I’ll go see if Hakuryuu has left any of the chi-infused apples in one piece, and if she’s willing to share.”

***********************************************************

There are not one, but two apples my little dragon has not savaged, and it is more than a little touching that she insists I take one for Gojyo and eat the other myself. I hadn’t thought my chi was that depleted, considering the ease with which I maintained ‘clan form’, but then again I also hadn’t known that I was apparently impeding the flow of my chi at all, much less as badly as Chesu made it sound.

My good paring knife is right where it should be, and with practiced ease I bisect each apple into top and bottom halves, then slice the halved cores out to leave ring shapes that are easy to cut into narrow wedges. I’m halfway through the top of the first apple when I realize that I’ve been chewing on one piece of apple core, seeds and all. Tentatively, I grind a seed between my teeth. I’m fairly certain that human teeth should not be able to crush apple seeds - but my teeth are not exactly human, and boars are omnivorous. On top of that, it has been a significant amount of time since I finished that loaf of brown bread, and I did not help myself to any of the porridge I prepared for Gojyo.

Later, I promise myself, I’ll make more solid food and have a proper meal. For now, I mentally shrug and eat the other pieces of apple core while slicing the rings up. I set them on the bedside table when I’m done and knock on the bathroom door, but a muffled ‘not yet’ is Gojyo’s response and I return to the kitchen to brew a fresh pot of tea.

Gojyo calls ‘ready’ the next time I knock on the bathroom door, and when I open it, I am surprised to see that he is still wearing the pajama top. Usually, he sheds any unnecessary clothing at the first opportunity. He glances away from the surprise on my face as I help him to his feet.

“It feels like you,” he mutters. “It’s got your chi on it, and it feels like being hugged.”

My surprise deepens, because while I did last clean the cloth with my chi, that was at least a week or two ago and I had no idea that Gojyo was chi-sensitive.

If he could feel that, what else has he felt over the years?

Neither of us says anything else as he gets settled back in bed, and some of the pain in his face eases at the first bite of apple. The apples that I infused with my chi the day before he delivered my inhibitors to Chesu. Chi that he can feel, has been able to feel all along more likely than not.

I don’t know yet how any of that makes me feel. I’ll meditate on it later.

Although he doesn’t say anything, it’s clear that Gojyo approves every time I eat a piece of apple instead of feeding it to him, and he looks distinctly less miserable by the time the apple slices are gone.

“So. Clan form,” he says, securing every bit of my attention. “Every youkai clan has a form that’s representative of the clan. Remember that first group of assassins? The spider chick?”

“She turned into a giant spider and ate her companions.”

Gojyo nods. “That was her taking clan form. Not every youkai can do it; you gotta be pretty strong to make it happen at all, much less hold it for any length of time.”

Dryly, I say, “Like for around two days?”

He stares at me for a long minute. “You...didn’t come out of clan form at all?”

“If what I was on the way there was my clan form, than no.”

“God damn, Hakkai.” Gojyo shakes his head. “Wait. When you took care of those divine youkai...?”

“It wasn’t...full clan form. But I had hooves, and the tail, and the...talons...” I close my eyes and breathe deeply for a minute. “...and the teeth.”

“They’re called fangs,” Gojyo teases lightly, but I shake my head.

“There’s rows and rows of them, and they swing out...” With my fingers, I sketch out the motion of those horrific teeth swinging outward and then back in.

Gojyo doesn’t look horrified. He looks...intrigued. “Really. Never seen that before. Between that and the fur, I’d like to see it sometime. If you’re comfortable showing me,” he adds hurriedly.

I’d rather never experience it again, but my wants and needs are forfeit. “I need some time to adjust. Kaylin starts school in two weeks - I’ll take a day off, and we can go out into the woods and I’ll show you.”

He nods. “Sounds like a plan. So, in your very limited experience being uninhibited, you never just...went pointy?”

“Pointy?” I repeat blankly.

“You know, like Kou? And all the mooks that got sent after us on the way there? Pointy ears, pointy nails, pointy teeth, pointy pupils?”

“I was...pointy...briefly when Chesu was adjusting things?”

“God damn,” he says again. “I’ve been practicing almost my entire life and still can’t go pointy all the way, and you’re over here so strong you go right past it to clan form.”

Guiltily, I look down at my hands. “Chesu said...because I put my inhibitors on before I finished...ascending...I twisted the flow of my chi and artificially raised my...floor. He said I would need to get used to having a proper chi flow, and where my limits are.”

“That makes sense.” The envious tension bleeds away from his body. “With how hard you worked your chi, you’d been running in overdrive for so long that things’re gonna need to settle. I know some tricks, and I use ‘em as much as I can, but thanks to my mom being human, I’m just barely approaching the start line. Chesu said most youkai can’t stand inhibitors for more than a few hours, but fuck. If I could get my hands on one, I’d wear it all the damn time to strengthen my chi as much as possible, as fast as possible.”

My mind immediately jumps to the ‘souvenir’ in the pouch with my eyepiece. But as much as I want to tell Gojyo about it, I find myself distracted by something he implied. “You said you can’t go pointy all the way?”

“Yeah. I can flex it enough to prove I’m not human...” He goes still, concentrating, and his pupils narrow to slits while his ears lengthen to points, then they both revert. “...but I can’t hold it.”

That brief glimpse of Gojyo looking distinctly youkai does things to me that I will no doubt lie awake tonight analyzing.

“You have to have a chi pool to use it and have it get deeper,” Gojyo says, not quite bitter or discouraged, but close. “I’ve barely got a puddle.”

“That’s not true,” I blurt, making him stare at me in hope he dares not even admit to himself. “I’ve felt your chi before. Remember the time Sanzo nearly died to those lizard things?”

Warily, he nods.

“As I understand it, the floor of one’s chi is the lowest it can get without being drained to the point of causing damage.”

“Yeah...?”

“Your mother was human. Your floor is human. You don’t have a puddle, you have a well.”

He thinks about that for a long minute, expression going from dispirited to contemplative to mildly pleased surprise. “You’re saying I do have more than scraps of chi, I’m just starting from way behind the start line because I can handle lower chi than a full-blooded youkai. And I’ve been using it, but I haven’t been trying to generate it a whole bunch, so my crest is barely above-ground because it’s starting from a cavern. I have an underground chi lake. I need to find ways to feed my chi, and also to use it a fuck lot more than I have been.”

“Stay right here,” I tell him, standing up.

Warily, he nods.

The pouch is still in the travel bag. The earring with its dangling ruby drop is in the pouch. Useless without its mate, Chesu said. Nothing but a drain, trying to slowly empty the wearer’s chi pool. Gojyo looks greatly uncertain as I offer it to him.

“Hakkai...is that from the sisters?”

I nod.

“Why do you have it?”

“I was starting to overwhelm my inhibitors around then,” I confess quietly. “I figured if I added one of theirs...but this was the only one I could find. I stuck it in that wound I got and let it heal shut. Chesu said that without its mate to take the chi it pulls out of the wearer and actually shape it...all it is, is a drain on the wearer.”

“And you were wearing it for...” He does some quick calculations. “Two and a half years. Give or take. Is it really that big a drain?”

“Without also wearing a set of matched inhibitors, probably not. But I’m not an expert in these things, and I’m not sure there is an expert on hanyou chi pools.”

Hesitantly, glancing at me more than once to be sure that it’s okay, he takes the earring and closes its ring around his earlobe, gasping in surprise as it immediately starts draining his chi.

“Fuck. Okay, damn. Fuck, that’s stronger than I was expecting.” In mingled awe and regret, he takes it back off. “When I don’t feel like a wrung-out rag,” he promises, offering it back to me, but I shake my head. “You don’t- you’re serious, I can keep it?”

“An apology for how much you suffered the last few days,” I say softly. “And thanks for putting yourself out there for me.”

“Fuck,” he breathes, his chi looking like a slightly-ashy sunset full of peach, rose, and gold. “Thank you. Seriously.” In awe, he looks down at it, ruby glinting in his palm. Then he looks up, a ghost of his usual cockiness on his lips. “And you managed to find the one that will look the best on me.”

A breathed laugh bursts out of me. “To be honest, I’d forgotten what color it was. Truly, this is a gift smiled on by the heavens,” I say with dry amusement.

Pleased, he tucks it into a pocket. “Alright. Now. You asked for anything I might know about your clan. Got a name?”

“Zhuhuai,” I say, feeling strangely self-conscious about claiming membership in a clan I’ve never heard of, but Gojyo lets out a low whistle.

“I don’t know a whole lot about them,” he warns me, “but no one does. They keep to themselves and are kind of rare to come across. Low profile. They don’t give a shit about conquering other clans, and the only survivors of the ones that fuck with them are left alive so they can spread the word that you don’t fuck with the Zhuhuai. They don’t start shit, but they sure as fuck end it. Honestly,” he says, head tilted to one side, weighing me with his eyes, “I can’t say I’m surprised that’s your clan. Hyakugan Maoh started the fight, and you fucking ended his everything.”

“And then vanished into obscurity, living in a small town with a new name. Chesu was right, that does put my ascension into perspective.”

“Sure does,” Gojyo says smugly.

That just reminds me of Chesu asking what I would do if another cruel, power-hungry Maoh threatened my town.

“You mentioned conquering other clans...?”

“Youkai society is pretty brutal,” he says, leaning back into the pillows. “The strong do whatever the fuck they want, and the weak do whatever the fuck the strong want or they get stomped on. A lot of social status revolves around how dangerous you are, look, or can be.”

The memory of a snowy mountain pass, a sturdy keep, and a solitary youkai nobelady comes to mind. She hadn’t wanted to let us take shelter at all, and had objected to Gojyo’s very existence, but the near-sacred nature of the wandering chi-healers had opened her doors. She had seemed unduly interested in hearing that I had been human, and that would explain why she had drugged me and attempted to obtain my seed, with or without permission, and why she suddenly went from predatory to meek after I told her in no uncertain terms that I did not approve of her attempt.

I wonder if this would increase my chances of Gojyo returning my affections. He has never given the slightest hint, but-

-but he is sensitive to chi, and I wonder how much he can read from me. If he read my gratitude every time he sought simple physical contact, and there was nothing sexual about it.

Then I remember my thought earlier that I would carve my way through two clans again if they harmed him in any way, and that he fell asleep shortly after. Is that-? Does it mean-?

I need to not think about this right now.

“No wonder Kougaiji acted like I out-ranked him. I achieved a Maoh state.”

“You sure did,” Gojyo says, not just smug but pleased with himself.

The potential implications send my thoughts back into chaos again.

Gojyo yawns widely. “I need some more shut-eye,” he announces, shifting down the pile of pillows until he’s stretched out on his side, back to me. “Get over here and let me steal your warmth again.”

It’s an excuse, and we both know it. He wants physical contact, wants to be held and treasured the way he was when he woke up. Whatever complicated feelings there are between us, they can be figured out later. Right now, the second love of my life needs to know that he is loved, and I am more than happy to put everything else aside and cherish his lean bulk in my arms, the silk of his hair against my skin, the faith and trust that colors his chi.

I wonder briefly if it’s possible for him to some day achieve clan form.

I wonder what clan his father was.

Then I put everything else aside and meditate on the incredible depths to which I love the drinking, smoking, gambling, brawling, wenching, cursing Taboo Child currently melted against me.

***********************************************************

Gojyo is still asleep when faint noises and fainter chi suggest that the dinner I placed an order for has been delivered. It takes a minute for me to dredge up the memory of doing that, and thus, what it is that is now waiting to be eaten.

Stir-fry. An enormous amount of stir-fry, fresh vegetables and fresh meat, noodles for me that fuel my body but not my chi and rice for Gojyo because his body doesn’t always do well with vegetable matter.

Carefully, I slip out of bed without waking Gojyo and venture to the door. I can’t see anyone or sense anyone’s chi. My bare feet make no sound on the wooden stairs as I descend smoothly, in complete contrast to the last time I went down them. The paper bag waiting in front of Gojyo’s door is larger than I expected, but the scents emanating from it make my stomach growl, and I am glad there will be more than enough food for both of us. With both hands, I carry the bag back up into the apartment and set it on the table. A moment is spent considering plates, bowls, serving utensils, but in the end I just remove the three enormous take-out boxes and the disposable chopsticks and carry them all into my bedroom. It will be far from the first time the two of us have eaten on the bed, straight from the containers, although it is something we have not done since we returned from our trip West.

Judging by past hangovers and the state of his chi, Gojyo will be ready for a solid meal and thirsty enough to drink an entire pitcher of water by himself. The pitcher and a mug are already by the bed, and as I walk in, I can see his nose wake him. He goes from boneless slumber to the sudden stillness of a predator scenting prey, and then he slowly lifts his head from the pillow, eyes searching the dim room until they alight on me - and the containers in my hands. I can’t help but smile as he sits carefully up, still watching me.

“You’re amazing,” he says as he accepts the containers so I can join him on the bed. “I mean that. I am the luckiest goddamned son of a bitch ever.”

“That’s not true,” I chide with a teasing note. “I’m sure your mother was a lovely woman.”

A laugh catches in his throat, his chi blushing peach and bringing warmth to my smile. Together, we open and arrange the three containers between us, and then he looks at me with fragile hope.

“Don’t worry,” I say quietly. “I’m going to eat my fill. Before, I was trying to starve my chi. But that’s not a concern anymore, and I have to adjust to chi flows that aren’t twisted or impeded.”

Although he is clearly eager to dig in, chopsticks held ready and hovering over the still-steaming meat, he catches and holds my eyes. “Are you going to eat because you need to, or because you want to?”

It’s a valid question, one that makes me avoid his gaze because while we both know I deny myself things I want, we’ve never spoken about it before. But I told him I was going to try to no longer punish myself, so he’s dragging it out into the open to test my commitment.

My wants are forfeit, and I will need to work to break that habit. But Gojyo’s are still my silent commands, and he wants me - has always wanted me - to enjoy things. To be selfish. Well, I can do this for him, even if I can’t yet do it for myself.

Taking a deep breath, I meet his eyes again. “Both. I am quite hungry, it smells delicious, and while I will let you have the beef unopposed, I make no such promises on the poultry.”

Slowly, a smile of gratified surprise spreads across his face. I almost expect him to wrap one arm around my neck and ruffle my hair. “You have until I’m done with the beef,” he teases.

Without warning, he plunges his chopsticks into the stir-fry and I follow suit, filling my mouth with tender breastmeat and crisp vegetables. There are extra chopsticks and I grab a second pair, following my mouthful with noodles while Gojyo reaches for the water. The look of approval that gets makes me feel warm and fluttery. In quiet mock-competition we divide the enormous meal between us until we are taking the occasional unhurried bite, picking out a morsel here and there, wanting to eat more enthusiastically but knowing that it would be unwise. Finally, we close the containers with our chopsticks still inside and pile them on the table before laying on our backs, side by side in culinary contentment.

“Proud of you,” he murmurs, reaching awkwardly over to pat my head. “Almost didn’t think you could eat like that.”

“I had an excellent example to learn from,” I murmur back, feeling ridiculously pleased at the compliment.

Comfortable silence stretches, and my thoughts return to the subject of what clan Gojyo’s father was. His teeth, like mine now are, seem more than capable of dealing with things human teeth can’t. I’ve seen him eat shellfish in the shell and not bother de-boning things with small bones. Him being sensitive to chi would explain why he likes his meat as fresh as possible - live, in the case of some seafood, raw, or - when it’s possible - freshly-killed. That suggests a predator of some type. His preference for seafood may just be that he can get more chi out of live and raw foods, or it may be the diet he was raised with, or it may be part of his clan’s diet. Combined with the regrettable effects certain vegetables have on his digestive system, it is more than likely that his clan form is a carnivore. 

I am running through what I know of various carnivorous creatures when Gojyo breaks the silence with my name.

“I’m sorry I put you through so much trouble,” he says quietly. “I don’t deserve half the shit you do for me. I talk a good game, but then I don’t know how to deal with shit ‘cept by drowning it in booze, and then you gotta clean up after my sorry ass.”

“I didn’t learn how to metabolize alcohol and reduce hangovers so that I wouldn’t have to deal with you being drunk or hung over,” I reply, equally quiet. “I did it because you were suffering, and I wanted you to not suffer.”

There’s a pause while he thinks about that. “But I-”

“Gojyo,” I interrupt gently, “If you were not important to me, I would not have returned once I had a name again.”

I can feel Gojyo subside next to me, unable to argue against my logic. “I was?” he asks in a very small voice.

The memory of the first time his corpse accused me of forgetting about him makes my heart clench. “You were,” I whisper.

There’s a choked sound, and when I turn my head, he’s biting the knuckles of one hand with his eyes clenched tightly closed, as if they could hold back the tears escaping into his hair. I brush the back of his hand with my fingers, and suddenly he is clutching the front of my sleep shirt with both hands, shuddering like he was early this morning. My arms come up around him in an instant, reassuringly tight as I try to radiate soothing emotions, but when my skin touches his, I realize that what is making him shake with repressed sobs is the same sort of thing that nearly flattened me when I opened my heart to Kaylin. Gojyo has been so afraid to hope, and for so long, that having his fears of rejection so thoroughly refuted is almost more than he can bear.

Some corner of my brain puts scattered pieces together and whispers a suggestion. Slowly, listening very closely to Gojyo’s chaotic emotions, I bring one hand up to his hair as if about to stroke it soothingly. I know how sensitive he is about his hair, and the scars it hides, but he does not object. In fact, he goes limply boneless at my touch, still shaking with the force of the bawling he is trying not to do. Gently, I cup the back of his head and hold it gently to my chest and more of the shuddering eases as his exhalations gain wordless sound, bleeding out those tangled emotions in globs and tears while I hold him protectively and reassure him in quiet murmurs that I’m here, I’ve got him, he is important to me and I will protect him.

His chi in turn screams gratitude, but also the plea that I will not let him go or abandon him. After a few minutes, when the overwhelming pressure of those bottled-up hopes and fears has waned, he manages a tiny, choked, whispered, “You’re important to me, too.”

I am forced to admit, in the privacy of my own mind, that there is a chance my feelings are not unrequited. However, with both of us being so starved for affection, can either of us really tell what type of love we are feeling for the other? I am important to Gojyo, and he is important to me. Until we both get used to the fact that we are not simply casual friends, any gesture of affection outside the realm of things we have been doing for years could be unwittingly putting emotional pressure on the other.

As Gojyo’s breathing evens out into sleep once again, I realize I’ve been stroking his hair the way I never let myself think about wanting to. I also realize that there are quiet rustling, munching sounds and a soft, white chi in the same direction. Hakuryuu is helping herself to our leftovers, and she is more than welcome to them after the long hours of driving she put in these last few days. When she has eaten her fill, she curls up on the pillow next to us and I join my dragon and my dear friend in sleep.

***********************************************************

It is somewhat disconcerting, when I wake up early the next morning, to discover that I have somehow slept soundly and mostly without nightmares for two nights in a row. That I have not been visited by one of my usual hallucinations is no surprise; they do not generally come unless I am alone. But the nightmares...I did have some vague and uncomfortable dreams, but they were not nearly as grotesque or as blatant as I am accustomed to. Chesu did imply that they were caused by twisted chi flows, and for a long moment of bemusement I contemplate that I have, indeed, been punishing myself with them for several years. Fitting, then, that they should fade when I have decided to live my life according to the name Sanzo gave me, rather than the one the scribes chose.

Rebirth.

I am a youkai, not a monster. I have a clan, and while their clan form is monstrous to me, I am not a monster. Despite the recommendation that I remove my inhibitors regularly, I know I will not be able to face that idea for a long while. The signs of being youkai - of being Zhuhuai - remind me too strongly of the things I did.

No.

The things Gonou did.

Gonou is dead, and I have been reborn. I need to adjust the way I think about myself, to normalize my inherent youkai nature. Seeing Gojyo with...pointy bits...should help with that. I have always kind of considered myself to be in the same category as him - human but not, youkai but not - and seeing him more youkai will make my adjustment easier.

I do not let myself think about whatever reaction it did or did not have on me.

I firmly do not contemplate the very idea of showing my clan form to him.

I do contemplate that Gojyo not only permitted me to touch his hair, but that doing so was welcome. That is an enormous amount of trust for him to display, trust that I will not hurt him while he is vulnerable, trust that I will protect him. I wonder if it is related to my apparent status as a Maoh.

I wonder if he has wanted me to provide comfort that way.

That train of thought is cut short; it is something that can be contemplated when we are both more comfortable with the revelations of the last day.

Morning rumination complete, I turn my attention to the rest of the world and discover that Gojyo is again holding me from behind, one arm around my chest and the other flat against the skin of my abdomen, over the scar. It is a position so familiar, so comforting, that I realize I have missed it in the long months since we settled into this town.

Well, I have no doubt that Gojyo and I will discuss it in due time.

Time. It is morning, well after the one-day restriction of not actively using my chi, and Gojyo is chi-sensitive. Gently, I send a tendril of warmth to him, like my hand on his cheek, and feel him nuzzle my hair before he stirs.

Then he stills.

“Hakkai?”

“Good morning,” I say cheerfully, rolling over to smile up at him as he leans back to look at me. “I slept much longer, and more deeply, than I was expecting. I suspect this is one of the changes I will need to get used to, now that I am not abusing my chi.”

Gojyo’s concerned expression fades into relief and delight. “Good morning to you, too,” he says warmly. Then he sits up and scratches his scalp with both hands. “I need a fuckin’ shower.”

“There should still be a change of clothes for you in the bag,” I point out. “Or I can clean the ones you were wearing, now that I’m allowed to use my chi again.”

For a moment, he looks like he wants to take me up on my offer. Then his expression clouds as he remembers the state he must have been in when I cleaned him up, and he looks away. “Up to you,” he says, climbing out of bed and shucking off his borrowed pajamas on the way to the bathroom.

It’s not until the bathroom door shuts behind him that I realize I had been admiring the play of muscles in his back, and that I have been admiring them since before I had my name. That’s something I’ll continue to ignore until other things are resolved. There’s no point in trying to figure anything out until I know if it will even be relevant. To distract myself, I retrieve the bag and unpack its contents onto the bed. Clothes for me, clothes for Gojyo. Both are submitted to a quick chi-cleaning. I had intended to clean myself the same way, but the pull is...weird...and I decide to just use water. I’ll have to meditate on the flow of my chi, later, because what had always been right there is still there, but more like flowing through a series of pipes than opening the drain of a tub.

Gojyo emerges, clean and dressed, while I am chopping fruit for Hakuryuu to gobble down almost as fast as I can produce the pieces. I expect him to lean into my space, but he hovers just out of arm’s reach.

“Did you mean that, last night?” he asks quietly. He doesn’t specify what he’s referring to, but he doesn’t have to.

“Last night, and yesterday morning,” I confirm. “You are the most important person in my life.”

“Kyuu!”

“You’re not a person,” I chide teasingly. “You’re a dragon, and you’re the most important dragon in my life.”

“Kyuu,” she says smugly.

Now Gojyo leans into my space, one arm draped around my shoulders in the possessive gesture he has been using for years. The only difference is that now, I can feel warmth and affection where his skin meets mine. “When the most important dragon in Togenkyo has finished her breakfast,” he drawls smugly, “let’s go see what chaos your little hellion has unleashed on Chang An.”

***********************************************************

Gojyo clips the earring to his right ear once we are on the road, cursing at the drain to his chi but not in a serious way. He plays with it idly for a long minute, smoking a cigarette, before turning to me with a bit of cocky smile. “How’s it look?”

“Rakish,” I tell him, because it does. I do not mention the tiny jump in my pulse, nor do I point out that he put it on his right ear to draw attention away from the scars on his left cheek.

He settles back, both hands behind his head and eyes closed, looking quite content with smoke from his cigarette drifting in the wind and morning sunlight on his face.

“You wanna talk about it?” he asks in a low voice.

My pulse jumps again and I turn to look at him, but his eyes are still closed. “Talk about what?” Is he going to ask about-

“What it was like, getting your inhibitors adjusted. Being without them for the first time in ever. Putting them back on again. Y’know, the sort of things you’re likely to be asked that you might want to have answers for.”

Oh, that. I turn my attention back to the road, not that I’m the one driving. Hakuryuu knows the way and is perfectly capable of driving to Chang An by herself.

“It was...disorienting. Having my body be a different shape, having things move in ways I wasn’t anticipating. I’m sure that if I become accustomed to my clan form, it will be strong and agile, but at the time, it was just distressing to not know how to walk without just shuffling along.”

Gojyo makes a thoughtful sound. “Did it hurt?”

“No. It felt loose and weak in some places, tight in others, and there are no words for the sensations of having your bones and muscles rearrange themselves. It did itch a little,” I add as an afterthought. “No doubt that was the fur growing in.”

“You were taller, you know.” One eye cracks open, sliver of ruby watching my expression. “Taller’n me by a head, maybe two. Depends on how much of that was horns, but you also bulked out. A lot.”

I am mildly surprised that I didn’t notice either of those things, but I did have other things on my mind, and most of that time was spent huddled against the door. “Zhuhuai are very boarlike.” It’s almost a confession.

This time, the thoughtful sound comes with a brief flare of orange that glows like the setting sun. I’ve seen it often in his chi, and I’m fairly certain I know what it represents, but I’m not thinking about it. If it becomes relevant later, then I will allow myself to not only think about it, but have a reaction to it.

A handful of minutes pass in quiet contemplation before Gojyo says, “Your hair’s darker now. Just a little. And softer.”

I wasn’t expecting that, and I have no idea what to do with it. “Are there any other changes?”

He shrugs. “Probably. I think you got most of ‘em out of the way that first month, so anything else would be just finishing up, you know?”

I wasn’t expecting that, either. “I did?”

That eye peers at me again, and then Gojyo turns his head to look at me directly. “You really didn’t know. Yeah, you got leaner. More angles, less curves. Freaked me out for that first week - I thought you were wasting away in front of me. Guessed later that it was just your body adjusting to being youkai instead of human.”

That brings up something else he’d said. “You...knew? That I was youkai?”

Gojyo snorts. “Humans don’t wear inhibitors. Thought about taking ‘em off you to make sure you didn’t die, but that’s a real personal choice. Woulda been less intimate to just shove my hand down your pants. Plus, your chi was loud. Bright. Spiked up a lot that first month. I guess I knew you were a made-youkai, but I thought they were a myth until Sanzo showed up at my door looking for you, so I told myself that it couldn’t be that, it had to be something else. Like most people seeing a guy with hair as red as mine, probably. Yeah, I look like a Taboo Child, but they’re just a myth, I must dye it somehow.”

This morning is turning out to be quite educational, and I’m still not sure how I feel about any of it.

“So. They feel any different, now that they’ve been adjusted?”

“A little,” I answer slowly. “I didn’t realize, because I didn’t have anything to compare it to, but before...it was like being tightly swaddled in a wool blanket. Now...I’m still tightly swaddled, but in silk.”

“So I guess, being without them at all, you had to feel like you were letting everything hang loose.” Gojyo’s expression is dry and teasing - while he prefers to wear loose pants with nothing under them, I prefer not having certain bits free to bounce around.

“Something like that, yes.” My tone is as dry as his, and amused.

Gojyo grins around the butt of his cigarette as he pulls out another. “So, ready to face the curious questions now?”

“I’m not entirely sure that I am, but this has helped. Thank you.”

Satisfied, he drapes his arms on the back of the seat and lets the smoke of the new cigarette flow past over his head. “Any time.”

I wonder if Liara had been able to sense my chi, when Sanzo and I had reached the shrine where she was trapped, and if that’s why she chose to reveal herself to him and not me. Then I chide myself for that unworthy thought; it could have been the presence of the Maten, or the fact that he was the first to lay his hands on the door to the shrine. It could have been that she only had the energy to communicate once, or that my chi was too drained from fighting whatever it was that she had become a living seal to contain, or that I felt too much like one of the youkai she was protecting and she didn’t realize I was an outsider.

Whatever her reason, it really doesn’t matter.

In the end, I wouldn’t have had the first clue how to unravel the enchantments that were responsible for maintaining her, in the center of the valley that had turned into a chaotic labyrinth of walls far overgrowing their purview and expanding to envelop nearby farms. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to free the youkai clan that had been living there, nor would I have had the authority to ease their re-entry into the political landscape of the region the way Sanzo did. I still don’t know exactly what happened, either to seal them all away or to release them again, and I am absolutely not going to be so rude as to open the can of worms that is what, exactly, her nature is. When she was a life-force serving as a living seal, I would have sworn she was human. But in the flesh, whether what she wears is her original body or something that had been created or transformed, she seems almost hanyou, and she has passed her red hair to her infant son Jonan - a good part, I’m sure, of what has endeared him to Kaylin.

That makes me smile - my daughter grew up the only hanyou anyone in her town had ever known, passed over by every prospective adoptive parent that had ever been to the orphanage and facing a dead-ended, empty future. Then I walk in and not only adopt her, but bring her into a new life that contains a full-grown hanyou man who is very capable in many ways, a dragon, a woman who very well may be hanyou herself, and her red-headed infant son. In looking for a child for whom the pain of my past would not be a burden, I somehow brought more happiness than anyone would ever have expected into both her life, and mine. And, truth be told, to Gojyo’s. Being able to be the mentor he needed when he was her age has been very good for him.

As Hakuryuu comes to a stop outside the walled villa maintained by the dignitaries of the clan Liara belongs to, works with, or works for, I wonder if Sanzo will actually be there or if his duties have him in the Temple of the Setting Sun. Between helping the clan re-establish themselves and wanting to spend as little time in the temple as possible, he has taken to living out of a room in the villa.

The gate opens and we walk inside, my dragon perched on my shoulder and quite satisfied with having delivered us safely. To the right, Kaylin is pretending to be chased by Jonan, who has come a long way towards mastering his own legs, while Liara watches from a bit away. I scan the rest of the courtyard garden for blue and green sparks, and locate Sanzo in a woven-reed chair to the left, reading a hefty-looking book.

“Hi, Dad! Hi, Uncle Gojyo! Hi, Hakuryuu!” Kaylin scoops the boy up to sit, shriek-giggling, on her hip while Gojyo saunters towards her for a one-armed dual hug. She transfers Jonan to him, then launches herself at me for a hug that’s tight with relief that I have come through this unscathed. “Missed you,” she murmurs before letting go and pretending, in the way of all teenagers in public, that she was not just experiencing mushy, messy emotions.

Hakuryuu chirps and climbs from my shoulder to hers, expressing to my daughter with nuzzling motions that she was missed, as well.

“Did you behave?” I ask, pretending to be stern.

Liara laughs as she joins our little cluster to claim her son and a pair of hugs. “She was just fine. How are you, Hakkai? Did it go well?”

“I think it did,” I answer truthfully. “It was a bit harrowing for me, emotionally, but I feel better in ways I was not even aware of previously.”

Beside me, Gojyo’s chi is peach and rose and I am very deliberately not looking at him. Instead, I look over at Sanzo as he approaches.

“You okay?” he asks gruffly, but I can hear the concern he’s pretending he doesn’t feel.

“I believe I am. Apparently, the way I had been wearing my inhibitors was unhealthy.”

Sanzo snorts, eyes sliding away from me as if disavowing any comment he may have been thinking but not making, and they land on Gojyo.

Gojyo, who is smirking and absolutely radiating smug self-satisfaction.

Gojyo, who has his hair tucked behind his right ear.

Sanzo’s eyes narrow. “What are you wearing?”

The unlit cigarette in Gojyo’s mouth shifts to the other side as his smirk widens. “An earring.”

“A ruby earring.” The words are almost a challenge.

“Yup.”

“Why-” Sanzo cuts the question short, clearly reconsidering giving Gojyo that opening. “Where did you get it?”

One thumb jerks in my direction.

“Hakkai...”

“Yes?”

“Is that earring what I think it is?”

“Ah,” I say as Gojyo chokes back a laugh. “That depends on what you think it is.”

Violet eyes narrow further. “The sisters?”

“Ah, you would be correct.”

“Where did you-” Sanzo’s eyes widen, and then close as if he wishes he could un-think whatever thought just went through his head. “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know, I’m not asking, and I don’t want to be told.”

Gojyo bursts into laughter that makes the priest look at him sourly, and has my daughter eyeing me with curiosity.

“Dad?”

“I was inhibiting my chi in a very unhealthy way,” I tell her mildly. “Harrowing as it was, however, I am glad it has been corrected. I feel...renewed.”

Renewal. Reform. Rebirth.

“In fact,” I continue, turning to Sanzo, “I feel so renewed that the characters of my name no longer match the meaning the syllables hold for me.” I have the pleasure of seeing Sanzo smother surprise as it attempts to transmute into hope and, possibly, wild glee. “While waiting eight years would have been more symbolic, I do not wish to go that long still defined by the name the scribes wrote down. I would quite prefer my name to use the characters you chose.”

Sanzo’s expression softens into approval and quiet wonder as that long-ago unspoken promise comes to fruition at last. Then he smirks. “I’ll see to it personally,” he says almost warmly. “Hakkai - I’m happy for you.”

Hearing my name, knowing which meaning the sounds are intended to represent, reminds me of the first time it came from his lips and I smile, feeling as though my joy were golden light that I am radiating. “To be honest,” I say mildly, “I’m happy for me.”

Gojyo drapes his arm over my shoulders, to all appearances the same gesture he always uses - but I can feel his happiness where his skin touches mine, and my heart leaps.

No doubt I will be overcome with insecurity and uncertainty later, and the emotional wounds I suffered because of my ascension have barely even begun to heal. But in this moment I can feel my future unfolding before me, full of light and promise, like the sun rising on the first day of my life. I have atoned for Gonou’s sins, and now I can truly begin living for myself.

My name is Cho Hakkai, and it no longer describes my very existence as a punishment.

It means Rebirth.