Misery in the Mountains

Chapter One
Good Morning?


I never remember my dreams when I wake up. Never. I always have dreamless, boring, uninterupted nights of sleep. Though nice 99.9% of the time, it kinda sucks in the routine of things. I don't have a chance to wake up some mornings with a confused look on my face, asking myself "What the hell was that? Why was Barney, George Bush, and the Teletubbies riverdancing with somberros on top of huge mushrooms?" I don't get to question my sanity first thing in the morning. Sure, I get to do that for the rest of the day, but that's beside the point.

My eyes opened of their own accord, and I laid there staring at ceiling of my room, my brain trying to make sleepy connections between nerves and muscles, but my mind was working about as fast as a arthritis-ridden tortoise, so I couldn't move for a while, until my brain woke up more. It was dark in my room, probably 'cause I drew the blinds last night. I hate being woken up by the sun, it rises too damn early for me. Why can't the sun rise at, like, noon or something? But no, the sun likes being a prick and, never listening to my polite requests, still rises at 5:45 in the fuckin' morning.

I sleepily reached over to the beside table and grabbed my watch. I held it in front of my face for a moment, my eyes focusing on the small hands, then swore when I saw the time. Shit, it was 8:30 in the morning! Goddammit. Maybe I could go back to sleep for a few more hours-

"Sanzo, I'm hungry!" whined a voice from the next room.

"Shut up, pea-brain," came the growled response.

"Don't mention peas, I'll just get hungrier!"

"Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll starve to death," said another voice.

"What'd you say, you stupid kappa?!" said the boy's voice.

"Please, try to be quiet. As much fun it is to play, you might wake up our guide," came a calm voice.

"Play?! Are you out of your mind, Hakkai?!" asked a voice, one I reconized as the redhead's, Gojyo.

Sleep I could forget about as I heard various thuds and insults. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, then stretched out my arms. I swung my legs outta bed and stood up, my back cracking and popping like a bag of popcorn. Digging through my sheets and blankets, I pulled out a button up shirt and pulled it on, not doing to buttons in sheer laziness, and pulled on a pair of jeans I found. Even though there was only guys here, I wasn't going to walk around half naked. Sighing and grumbling, I pulled open the door and blinked momentarily in the brightness of the sunlight streaming through the windows. My house is a comfortable size, two rooms, with a small kitchen, but a bigass living room. I walked out of my room and looked to see the living room in chaos. All the furniture (which, actually, wasn't much) was shoved to the sides, and four make shift beds were srcunched together. Seeing the people there, I did a head count. Yep, all there: the redhead, the monacle, the monk, and the monkey, all there.

At the moment, the redhead, cigarette hanging from his mouth, as trying to strangle the kid with the big gold eyes, who was trying his best to bite his attacker's arm. The monk, his robes hanging from his waist, was pinching the bridge of his nose, and I could see the throbbing vein on his forehead even over here; he was going to snap any minute. Just fantastic. The last one, the pleasent, non-idiotic one with the monocle, was in the kitchen, and I smiled when I realized he was making coffee. He was now my new best friend. If you haven't already noticed, I'm a bit grumpy before I've had my coffee.

Hakkai walked out of the kitchen, holding two cups of steaming coffee, and with a smile handed me one. "Good morning, Roku. We didn't wake you, did we?"

I held up a finger for him to wait a moment, then took a cautious sip of the brew to find it perfect, not too hot, with the right amount of creamer and sugar. I savored my joe, then looked at him and grinned. "Not at all. How about you, you guys sleep okay?"

"It was fine. Thanks for letting us stay here on such short notice," Hakkai said, and with another sip I shrugged. "No big deal," I said.

Yesturday it had been a very big deal, but with today being a new day and beginning with a great cup of joe, I could forgive yesturday's events. Yesturday, a random jeep pulls into town with four guys, the very same guys camped out in my living room, actually. Turns out they were from the east and trying to get to the west. Unfortunately for them, the west lay beyond a range of mountains, the TrapDoor Mountains, as they are sometimes called. Apparently, a long time ago in the good old days when the town was first founded, the mountains were said to be filled with riches. So some genius came up with a plan to stop robbers; dig lots of holes. I'm serious. If a person trying to get to treasure got in the mountains, they'd fall into a hole that lead all the way to the middle of the earth and died. Yeah, sounds really dumb to me, too, but that's a legend for you.

Anyway, these guys went into the local bar to find out that a) there's no path smooth enough to drive a car through the mountains, b) that there's no way to go around the mountains, unless you want to drive for an extra week, and c) they were stuck. At least they were, until Hakkai asked if it was possible to hike through the mountains. After everyone got a good belly laugh, they were told that yeah, it was possible, if you wanted to hike for four days.

"Fine, we'll hike it, but is there anyone in town that could act as a guide?" asked the monk. It was at that time that everyone turned to look at me. I ignored them for a few minutes, until some smartass said, "Take Roku, he knows the mountains like the back of his hand!" I swore I was going to kill whoever said that.

And that's how four random guys ended up crashing in my living room. We were going to start hiking today, and I made sure I was getting paid for this little escapade.

"Morning, Roku! Do you have anything to eat?" asked the boy, Goku. I sat down on a barstool near the kitchen and smiled. "Well, since Gojyo's arm didn't seem to fill you up, you can help youself to whatever's in the fridge." His eyes shining like stars, he jumped up and ran like the fridge was going to fly away before he could get to it.

"I hope you know what you've done," said Gojyo, sitting on the floor and trying to wake up.

"Yeah," said Hakkai cheerfully, "he'll eat you out of house and home."

I shrugged. "I home very rarely, so he won't be able to eat so much I'm screwed."

"As long as he's quiet and it doesn't cost me a dime," said the monk, Sanzo, grabbing the lighter from Gojyo and lighting a cigarette. My eyes narrowed slightly at him. I didn't really like the monk all that much. In town, he's well known for being a big shot monk, a Sanzo, but to me those robes just let him act like a jackass without consequence. He is arrogent and snobbish. Normally, I'm a very laid back and friendly guy, but I was in a terrible mood after I agreed to show these guys through the mountains. A few people even shared worried glances as I left with a curt, pissed off attitide (yeah, I notice that kind of stuff). Maybe this monk had pissed me off. For a second, I even thought about somehow leading him down an abandoned path and he somehow fell into one of those legendary "trap doors" hidden everywhere....

"Hey, Roku." Gojyo's voice broke me outta my trance, and I looked over at him. He looked very comfortable, just sitting there with only his pants on, completely shirtless in some stranger's house, like it was nothing. Sanzo and Goku were pretty much fully dressed, and Hakkai was wearing an oversized shirt, different from yesturday, and pants. "You got an ashtray?" he asked. Without hesitating, I threw him the saucer from my cup, which he caught with one hand. "I'll take it you don't smoke?" he asked, flicking his ashes onto it, then setting it on the table for Sanzo to use.

"Waste of money," I simply said. "When you don't make much, it all counts." Gojyo nodded slowly, then stood up and walked to the kitchen.

"And what do you do for a living?" asked Hakkai politely but actually curious. "I'm sort of a handyman for the town. I just do odd jobs, fixing roofs, collecting harvests, patroling against youkai-"

"Have youkai attacked here yet?" asked Sanzo, and I shook my head. "Nope. I'd like to think its me, but we've just been lucky so far. That's why I know the mountains so well, I've been doing this for a while." I looked back towards the kitchen and called, "Hey, Goku! Don't eat the apples in the left drawer, but everything else is fair game."

"Too late," said Gojyo, shoving Goku to the side (who had a plate with a mountain of food) and holding up an empty sack. "He beat you too it."

I sighed aloud. "Aw, shit. Well, I guess there's no point in telling you they were poisoned apples left by a very ugly old witch."

The sounds of Goku sputtering and saying "What?! Poisoned? Are you kidding, please be kidding-!" were music to my ears and I couldn't stop laughing.

"I think that his way of saying 'STOP BEING A GLUTTON!'," said Gojyo in Goku's ear, who jumped.

"Yeah, well, I think giving you that plate was his way of saying 'STOP SMOKING AND BURNING HOLES IN MY BLANKETS!'" Goku shot back. I looked at Hakkai and Sanzo.

"Did he really burn holes in my stuff?" I asked. "Wait, don't answer that," I said after a second. I found myself not really caring; they were old blankets anyway. Actually, the banter between these guys was pretty funny, and I found myself liking them, well, everyone but the priest, that is. He was still a prick.

"There's no booze, either," said Gojyo, looking the fridge, then shutting it and looking at me with a mix of pity and shock. "You don't smoke and don't drink? What are you, a ruler? I've never known anyone that was such a straight edge." He leaned across the counter that seperated the kitchen from living room and stared at me. "Have you even had sex before?"

I glared at him but decided not to answer that. I tried to not blush when everyone looked at me (except for Goku, thankfully), but it was hard not to curl up in a ball and die.

"Great. We're getting lead through dangerous mountains with a poor sap who hasn't even done anyone!" said Gojyo exaspearated.

"I never said that," I said loudly. Gojyo looked at me. "Exactly! You didn't say anything, that's my point!"

"Goddammit," I muttered. "Look, this 'poor sap' can lead you to the west, or you can lead yourselves. I don't give a rat's ass either way." Okay, I take back what I said earlier, Gojyo's a jackass, Sanzo's a smartass, and Goku...well, he be alright if he had a tube going into his stomach pumping food into him every minute of the day. Anyway, it was going to be a long trek, and I was kicking myself in the ass mentally asking myself why I agreed to this in the first place.