He was the only man I ever loved...

WARNING: This fic may contain spoilers for the Saiyuki anime and/or manga.

Crimson Thread

Chapter One: Divine Plan

He was the only man I ever loved. Could love, really.

I always had the feeling it was fated from the start. Everything. From the moment I first met him to the first kiss we shared. It was as though there were invisible strings – a sort of magnetic pull – that drew us uncontrollably to each other. Sometimes, when I was lying beside him in the dead of night, just listening to his heartbeat while he slept, I couldn’t help but feel deep down that everything was somehow right. Like this was something the Universe had planned for us all along...

...Or as though his love was something I’d never been without.

There was something about that gloomy October night that automatically set me on edge. In all honesty, I had no real reason to be aggravated. I was on my way back to my ramshackle excuse for an apartment from one of my usual haunts – a bar only one town over from my pathetic abode. A meticulously cleared path passed from one town to the next through a dense wood that gained a certain eerie quality at night. I hated traveling on it, but hey – beggars can’t be choosers, right?

Maybe it was the supernatural quality of the forest that made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck that night. Maybe it was the bitter cold slicing through the sad excuse for a vest I always wore back then. Or it could have just been the threat of dark storm clouds hanging low and angry overhead. Then again, I may have just felt sick of the revoltingly pathetic life I led: winning money with a few stale bets from gambling drunks kept the meals coming and seducing loose women with lame pick-up lines got me through the night. Life was so easy; it made me want to puke. It’s the same story every day...until today that, is. Yet again, I was forced to listen to flippant words from the lips of a promiscuous woman...

“’Gorgeous hair’ she says,” I scoffed, kicking at a rock on the muddy path with misplaced frustration, “Riiight.”

Gingerly fingering a lock of my long crimson tresses, I recalled her words with a bitter pain in the hollow of my chest. Everyone in town all seemed to believe that I dyed my hair its unearthly crimson color to make a fashion statement. I’ve let them believe that since the day I blew into this town – a teenage runaway trying to find his footing in a world that had only handed him despair from the start. It’s a miracle I even made it this far, to my 19th year.

Especially since someone like me isn’t even supposed to exist.

I’m a child of taboo, born from a union between a human and a demon. My father, the adulterous bastard that he was, had an affair with a human woman behind his wife’s back, and I was the product: a half-breed son. A child of sin. An untouchable creature forbidden by the very laws of Shangri-La. And yet, here I am, 19 years later, making a living off drunks and whores. Sometimes, I feel so disgusted with this life.

Even though it’s not as if I was ever destined for anything greater.

Hiding my true heritage is easy enough; not many people know what children of taboo are rumored to look like – with crimson hair and eyes. And even if they do, it’s not as though I’m considered all that unusual in this town, even with my supposedly unnatural red hair. People far more noteworthy than me blow into town every other week, so I can pretty much keep my true past on the down low. Life’s good, given the circumstances.

“Yeah,” I muttered to myself with a bitter laugh, “just as long as I never look anybody in the eyes.”

A forbidding low rumble interrupted the silence, putting a halt to my depressing train of thought. Glancing up at the rolling black clouds, I made a soft sound of annoyance. At this rate, it was going to pour before I even made it halfway home. I didn’t exactly relish the thought of walking home in freezing cold rain. Don’t get me wrong, being wet I can handle. I’m a water sprite, after all. I was practically born in water. But being cold? Not so much.

I’ve had a strong aversion to being cold since that one episode I had as a kid when I ran out into the December snow after my step-mom had tried to beat me again. My older brother stopped her, but just barely. I hid out in the forest beyond our house, at the very foot of this giant oak tree. I can’t even remember how long I was out there, huddled in the snow, shivering. Waiting. Jien eventually found me there and brought me back home, frostbitten and barely alive. It’s funny, really; I didn’t even mind the cold back then. I just wanted something – anything – to help me forget. It’s always felt as though there’s this gaping hole in my chest...a blinding aching need I’ve never understood how to fill.

And tonight the feeling was even worse than usual.

“How can anyone call this damned red gorgeous when it’s the color of—“

Blood.

I sniffed the air urgently, scarlet eyes narrowing slightly. That bitter, coppery scent is unmistakable. I was all too familiar with it thanks to...my past. But this blood didn’t smell like an animal or a demon. This blood smelt...human. Goddamn demons. Probably went on another killing rampage like they did last week. It was a girl, then. Young, too, not even 13. Rumor had it she was torn to pieces by a pack of those bloodthirsty bastards. Makes me sick just thinking about it.

Feeling even more on edge, I turned slowly to my left, allowing my keen sense of smell to guide my nose. Sometimes it’s good to be part demon. I could smell the musk of blood radiating heavily somewhere farther up the path in the shadow of a thick tangle of trees. A flash of lightning illuminated the darkness, allowing me a brief glimpse of a man’s fallen form before droplets of rain began to fall, spattering the earth and further deepening the already irksome mud puddles underfoot.

Weaving past the thick pools of mud, I made my way over to examine the body of what I then assumed was a dead man. ‘What the hell? Way to block the path...’ Nudging his side with the toe of my boot, I called out to him, just in case. Around here, you could never be too careful.

“Hey. You dead down there?” Eloquence never was one of my strong points; ‘Blunt’ was practically my middle name.

He twitched sharply and low groan rushed from his lungs, barely able to be heard over the rumble of rapidly approaching thunder. This unexpected turn of events piqued my interest. “Hunh. I’ll take that as a ‘no’.” I murmured, with a certain degree of surprise. Judging by that bloody reek, most guys in his position would have already kicked the bucket long before. Kneeling beside the man’s prostrate body, I grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled up, tilting his head back so I could examine his face. There’s just something in my nature that prevents me from being “gentle” no matter how hard I try. Must be genetic, or something.

Another brilliant flash of light lit up the man’s equally brilliant green eyes. I was entranced by them in that instant. It was as though his very gaze had put me under some sort of hypnotic spell. I couldn’t bring myself to look away, despite the rain that poured down upon us in droves. Those green eyes, so sad and distantly internalized, focused briefly on my face, taking in my scars, my hair, my eyes...

I still swear to this day that he laughed at me when he looked into my eyes. Almost as if he was realizing that his karma was playing some sort of cruel trick on him.

No sooner did that silent mirth leave those beautiful emerald eyes than they rolled back into his head as the man’s body spasmed and lay rigid. Panicking, I fumbled for his wrist, searching blindly for a pulse. I’d never cared so much about the life of another person before, let alone a stranger, but there was something about this man that made me impulsively care.

Almost as if I was compelled to do so by pure instinct alone.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I found his pulse, slow and faint, but just barely regular. He was alive, if only just. Rolling him onto his back, I cursed as a torrent of fresh blood and a few choice organs came spilling out of a grotesquely large gash in his lower abdomen. ‘Ew...those’re a lotta guts for a skinny guy like him...’ Then again, who am I to talk? I’m six-foot-nothing and I probably don’t weigh half of what I should. Carefully but quickly, I managed to push all of his intestines back inside him, panting through my mouth to overcome my gag reflex. I’ve seen some pretty gruesome stuff, but this was a little too intense. It’s not everyday you have to shove some guys innards back inside him.

“Shit, man, who did this to you?!” I hissed in disgust. “It must’ve taken some sick bastard in order to—“

The faint gleam of metal caught my eye as I lifted his now-limp body into my arms. A bloody knife fell from his grasp, thudding softly on the blood-soaked grass below. The rain was already washing away the evidence, but it was clear as day that this was a suicide attempt. Looking down at the pale face of the man who tried to take his own life, I never even had a doubt as to what I should do. Regardless of whether or not dying was his intention, it was my responsibility now to do whatever I could to save him. Stranger or not, this suddenly felt like the most important thing in the world. That’s really saying something, coming from a lazy ass like me. It felt as though by doing this, I was deciding not only his fate but my own as well.

“Kaede!”

I hammered my fist against the peeling paint of my neighbor’s apartment door, bellowing hoarsely between bouts of heavy panting. Running through the rain with a half-dead guy who might as well be a ton of lead on your back is no easy task. Aside from being soaked to the bone, blood-spattered – the half-dead guy somehow managed to keep hacking up blood all over me – and caked in mud from the damn trail, being a little winded is the least of my problems.

“Kaede!” Leaning heavily on the doorframe, I called out again, my voice getting raspier by the minute. ‘If she doesn’t open the fucking door soon, I’m gonna be as dead as this guy!’
“Damnit, open the door, y’old hag!”

“If you don’t shut up, I’m going to shoot you where you stand, half-breed!” A husky voice almost as deep as a man’s, though distinctly female, snarled back from the other side of the door. I watched impatiently, dripping a sickening mess of blood, mud, and water onto the doormat as she slid back the deadbolt, peering out at me through the gap that the thin bronze chain allowed. One of her sharp brown eyes, bleary and unfocused from sleep, glared out at me above the moody curve of her frowning lips.

“The fuck do you want, Gojyo? Do you realize that some people actually sleep at this hour?! Its fucking 4 a.m. for cryin’ out—“

She stopped herself in her own tirade as she spotted the bloodstains on my shirt. Her visible eye widened in shock. “Gojyo...what the hell happened?” Her eyes drifted upward, zeroing in on my ‘passenger’s’ head lolling limply against my shoulder. A nasty cut on his cheek was still caked with blood, and a small rivulet of crimson trickled down from his temple. The pair of us must’ve made a sorry sight.

“Open the door, Kaede,” I managed to rasp out, still breathing a little abnormally, “I’ve got a patient for you.”

The door slammed shut with a muffled curse and a jangling of locks. It was flung open mere seconds later to reveal Kaede in all her pre-dawn glory: disheveled purple-black hair tangled wildly about her thin face. Her husky frame clad in an oversized T-shirt and baggy blue sweats, her sleepwear of choice. Despite her naturally pretty features, I knew she’d be pissed about me seeing her like this unless it was for a good reason – like a man’s life. Her eyes were more focused now and her hands already twitched expectantly, just waiting to examine her patient.

“Set him down on the bed over there,” she instructed brusquely, transforming rapidly into her ‘professional doctor’ mode. If there was anyone you ever needed to call in times of crisis, Kaede Kikukawa was your girl. She was the only one in this dirty town that even went to school, let alone college. At 23, she was the most level-headed and well-educated person I knew. I’d asked her once why she hung around this place, but I’ve forgotten. I’ve got the memory of a rodent. Or maybe an insect. I've heard goldfish have a memory of only--

"Gojyo! For Chrissake, move it!"

Damn my short attention span.

No sooner did I get the man settled did the woman affectionately known as the “Slave Driver” give me yet another order. “Take off his clothes,” she barked, “I want to get a good look at him without all those wet layers on.”

“You want me to what?” I called out, a little annoyed that it was my job to disrobe him. When the sound of the sink running answered my cry, I sighed moodily. There was no arguing with her when she was like this; the most I could do was play along and try not to get stabbed with some sharp medical instrument in the process. I nearly got sliced and diced by a scalpel the last time I dared to question her when she was working...and that was on a good day.

“Yes, ma’am.” I muttered under my breath, slowly easing the man’s limp body into an upright position so as to remove his soggy jacket. Kaede’s voice rang out from the kitchen as the water ceased running; she had to shout to be heard over the clatter of her rummaging search for the required medical supplies in another portion of the apartment. “And be careful!” she warned, “I don’t want you making any of his injuries worse!”

Grumbling under my breath, I eased the jacket off and proceeded to painstakingly strip the green-eyed man down to his boxers. Hey, a guy deserves a little modesty, right? Forcing my eyes away from the gaping wound on his belly, I occupied myself with studying his face.

He was even more beautiful than I had originally thought. Is it weird to call a man beautiful? For some reason, when it came to this green-eyed stranger, I didn’t think so. His cheekbones were high and his jaw delicate – like some high-bred prince. Completely flawless. Even his skin was a perfect milky cream, so different from my own bronzed body. A light smirk tugged at the corners of my lips when I noticed the light spattering of faint freckles across the bridge of his nose. It gave him a boyish look, though he was probably my age, from the look of him. Despite his bedraggled appearance, as he lay there on the bed, I couldn’t help but feel as though I had found a fallen angel.

“Step aside, lover boy, I need to treat your boyfriend ASAP before he dies from blood loss.”

An hour and a half later, Kaede and I shared a hot cup of coffee while her newly-stitched patient rested in an almost comatose state on the bed. As we sat together, I reached into my pocket for a cigarette. It felt like forever since I’d had one, and with all this stressful shit, I felt I deserved one. Placing the slim Marlboro cigarette between my lips, I reached into my pocket once more, groping blindly for my lighter. My eyes were far too preoccupied with the green-eyed man I’d managed to save, if only just barely. The only sign of life the form on the bed displayed was the gentle rise and fall of a thin chest beneath the covers. I had a habit of watching that simple movement just to assure myself that he hadn’t died on me. I knew that was what he wanted, but...

Something in me wasn’t about to let him go that easily.

“Oi! Kappa! You listening to me?” Kaede called, snatching the cigarette from my lips before I even had the chance to light it. “I said no smoking! My patient’s got enough to recover from without you destroying his lungs!”

Silence momentarily fell as I pulled out my lighter, flicking it open and habitually attempting to light a cigarette that was no longer there. After a few seconds of burning nothing but air, I froze and looked down at the blank space between my mouth and hands. “Huh?”

Blinking, I turned to face her with a faint flush across my cheeks. I’d been caught staring again, and we both knew it. Kaede smirked devilishly, and raised a brow at me in that way I’d learned to try and avoid. It usually meant an onslaught of badgering and irritating jokes were headed my direction.

“You weren’t listening to me at all, were you?” Following my gaze to the nearly motionless body, she grinned. “Ah...you were too busy watching your lover sleep again. Just so you know, hon, he’s not going to wake up anytime soon – he’s out cold. He’ll be that way for about another week.”

I sighed, knowing that Kaede was just teasing me as a buildup to what she really wanted to ask. “What do you want, hag?” I muttered back, not really in the mood for our usual witty banter.

The hard glitter in Kaede’s sharp brown eyes softened, and her weather-creased tan skin wrinkled a little more at the corners of her mouth. “Damn, he must’ve really stolen your heart. You’re even more out of it than when Kari dumped you last week.” I snorted darkly and gave her a look that said: ‘You really think I’m going to waste my time bemoaning that whore?’ Nevertheless, I found my gaze drifting down to the table under her scrutiny.

For most people, it would be awkward discussing recent lovers with an ex, but for me and Kaede, it was old news. When I arrived in this dirty town, I was 17, and still green to finding my way around cities. Kaede took me in. We were together at one time, sure, but it ended pretty fast once we started realizing we were too much alike for our own good. Being together was like being with your mirror image of the opposite sex. Cool at first, but too damn creepy after a while. We broke things off mutually, agreeing to be friends. As a result, there was always one woman in my life who knew way more about me than I’d ever revealed to anyone else. Guess that’s what happens when you live with a lover who turns into a friend.

“He’s not my lover...I don’t even know him.” I answered in a monotone, my gaze drifting back toward the man that had already bewitched me in a way I could never explain, even to this day.

Kaede’s brow rose dubiously. “You mean...you just picked up some random suicidal stranger off the street?”

“Yeah.”

“Goddamn, Gojyo! I thought you had more sense than this! The guy could be a mass-murderer for all you know!”

I glared at her, suddenly defensive. I’m not generally a cruel or irritable person; I tend to get in little scraps every other night, but it takes a lot to get me really pissed off. For some reason, tonight Kaede’s words really hit home. I was instantly livid.

“Hey!” I snarled. Kaede’s eyes widened; she knows how cool my blood runs. “Where d’you get off talkin’ like that, huh? What he’s done doesn’t matter to me, okay? I don’t give a shit. The guy was dying, Kaede! Do you really think I’m so much of an ass that I’d just leave him out there?”

Kaede clicked her tongue at me.

“Tsk, this is worse than I thought...”

Now it was my turn to be dumbfounded. “Wh-what the hell are you—?!”

“If you’re this defensive about some guy you just met an hour ago, then you’ve really let yourself go. I mean, to be in love already...”

“I don’t love him! I told you, I don’t even know him!”

A lazy brown eye closed in a sultry wink, accompanied by a devilish curl of soft lips.

“I know,” she murmured, grinning at me playfully, “I was just testing you.” She leaned back in her chair with a self-satisfied smirk that reminded me of the cat that caught the mouse. “I’ve got to admit, you have good taste,” she purred, “He’s cute…”

Groaning, I slumped low against my chair, covering my burning face with a hand. If it was possible for someone to die of embarrassment, I’d probably have already gone to hell and back 623 different times. I fell for it. Again. After the past 4 years, you’d think I’d have learned a little something about dealing with Kaede...

Apparently, my attention span is shorter than everyone gives me credit for.

“So why’d you do it?”

Peering through my splayed fingers, I gave my ex-girlfriend a puzzled look. When she just sat there, staring at me as though she could dissect me with her big brown eyes, I realized she wasn’t about to tell me anything. Shivering briefly at my own mental images of scalpels and morgues, I sat up straight and looked her in the eye with a long-suffering sigh.

“Why’d I do what?” I muttered.

“Why’d you save him? Why does this stranger mean so much to you?”

I blinked, taken aback by the question. Even as she asked it, I was slowly realizing I had no real answer. Snapping my lighter open and closed, I stared intently into the flame, zoning out everything for a moment as I tried to come up with an answer for myself first and Kaede second. She sat patiently, sipping quietly on her coffee while she waited for me to speak. That’s the one thing she and I didn’t have in common: her boundless capability to be patient.

Maybe that’s how she managed to put up with me.

"You know,” I said, “on some days it's like I can see the whole 'divine plan' behind the Universe. On others, I think the world was thrown together from whatever bits of trash the Universe could spare. Saving him was kinda like that."

Kaede’s brow furrowed, she leant forward on her elbows, folding her hands beneath her crooked nose. I could tell from the way she shifted slightly in her chair that she wanted to say something, but was holding back for fear I’d stop talking altogether.

“It’s—maybe he was dealt a bad hand, y’know? Maybe the Universe didn’t plan for him to die like that.” I was speaking faster and more fervently as I continued. “Maybe I was meant to find him. It must’ve been Fate or something that I brought him to you so that you could save him. Maybe he—“

“Gojyo. Hon. You can’t fix the world.” Kaede said slowly, in that damned mothering tone she’d always used when I went off on one of my generally illogical rants.

“I know that, Kaede! I just—“

“You just what? Wanted to redeem the loss of your mother’s life by saving his? It’s not going to change anything, Gojyo. She’s gone, okay? She’s gone. And it’s not your fault. She brought it upon herself. Everything. It was all her, hon. It had nothing to do with you.”

“I know...I know...”

“Then what? Why are you so hell-bent on making sure this guy stays alive?”

“...It just...feels...right.”

Kaede stopped, her mouth half-opened. After a moment, she closed it. Sat back. And waited. Encouraged by her silence, I continued.

“It feels like we’re...connected somehow. Like all of this was meant to happen. And I know it sounds weird, but even though we’re strangers...it’s like I’ve known him forever…Crazy, yeah?”

Kaede sat silently. Rigidly. Finally, she chuckled to herself and nodded, smiling at me through the billowing steam rising off her mug. When she finally spoke, she sounded like she did when she was high – distant and wise – like the world itself had shrunk to fit inside her mind, expanding her eyes with infinite knowledge.

“Yeah...but that’s life. It’s all one crazy, mixed-up mess. Sometimes you think you know where it’s going, sometimes you don’t. But through it all, there's a little crimson thread connecting each and every one of us, so fine we can't see it, but so strong that it's nearly unbreakable.” A brown eye winked at me again. “That’s what makes it interesting.”

As we sat there in the deepening silence, holding steaming mugs in front of our faces, listening to the quiet breathing of a wounded man, I felt lost in it all. Destiny. Fate. Karma. Chance. Luck. The universe was playing tricks on my mind. Eventually, my puzzled frown slowly melted into a smile. Kaede rested her chin in her hand, smiling back with lazy brown eyes. The look on her face said clearly “well done” as though I’d managed to unravel some sort of cleverly hidden secret, or puzzle out an inside joke.

In that moment, I started to think...think that maybe my life has a meaning, after all.

“Love took me by the hand,

Love took my by surprise...

Love led me to you,

Love opened up my eyes...”

Luck. Chance. Karma. Fate. Destiny.

Maybe there’s something to the Universe’s ‘divine plan,’ after all.

Sha Gojyo and Cho Hakkai are characters of Saiyuki (c) Kazuya Minekura. Lyrics used are from "In Your Eyes" by Vanessa Carlton. Kikukawa Kaede is (c) CAELWIT and may not be used without permission.