Smoke
It had seemed like a great idea at the time.
Well, Goku thought, that could probably be applied to a lot of things in his life.
Yeah, that was right. Eating that fifteenth nikuman had seemed like a great idea at the time. Stealing Gojyo’s pants while he was in the bath had seemed like a great idea at the time. Putting pink hair dye into Sanzo’s shampoo had seemed like a great idea at the time. Convincing Kougaiji to fight him seriously had seemed like – actually, that one still seemed like a good idea.
But that wasn’t the point. He reminded himself severely that he now had approximately fifteen minutes to resolve this dilemma he had created for himself.
Sanzo and Gojyo were always smoking. In fact, they seemed pretty cranky whenever they were in any sort of position that involved them not smoking. Logically speaking, Goku had assumed that smoking must be something that was a lot of fun. Not that Sanzo and Gojyo ever looked like they were having fun while they smoked. Nope, Sanzo’s sour expression (that Goku secretly adored, the moreso when he was the reason for it) didn’t change regardless of whether or not there was a cigarette in his mouth.
Thus Goku reasoned that to the two of them, smoking was more like breathing: something one needed to do in order to survive, but got no particular pleasure from. But that didn’t really make sense either, because they could survive without smoking; they just hated to do so.
Goku being fairly bright, despite all evidence to the contrary, had taken this question to his teacher.
“Hakkai, why do Sanzo and Gojyo smoke so much?”
“Ha ha, because if they didn’t have an outlet for all that frustration, they’d probably kill each other.”
That made sense to Goku. And it also explained two things: 1) why he personally didn’t need to smoke, as he was not frustrated, and 2) why Sanzo and Gojyo were always more argumentative while they were out of cigarettes.
Despite this, the curiosity didn’t go away, so one afternoon while Hakkai was doing the grocery shopping with Gojyo as his packhorse and Sanzo had delivered his usual ‘I’m going to read the paper. Disturb me and die.’ statement, he stole one of their spare packs and took it behind the inn they were staying at to try it out.
He lit the first cigarette, stuck it in his mouth, took a deep drag –
and promptly coughed so hard that he accidentally squashed the entire pack in his hand. He was still coughing, in fact, as he dropped the mangled remains of the pack on the ground. When he finally finished coughing, he stopped to examine it. Nope, no chance that any of them had survived. Maybe one or two. Definitely not a whole pack.
Which probably wouldn’t have been such a big deal if it weren’t for the fact that he was pretty sure it had been Sanzo’s last pack.
Because Goku was not an idiot (most of the time), he immediately hastened off to the market to buy more. He had a little pocket change. Surely enough to get one pack of whatever stupid brand Sanzo insisted on having. He found a booth that sold them and eagerly told the man what he wanted.
The man chuckled. “Get out, kid, ye’r not old enough to buy cigarettes.”
“Oh, crap!” Goku blurted out. “D’you know what Sanzo’s gonna do to me?”
“He won’t stop at killing you, that’s for sure,” a voice from behind him said. Goku spun around to see Gojyo and Hakkai, the former carrying several bags of groceries and the latter wearing that nerve-wracking grin that only Hakkai could manage.
Goku turned his best pleading expression on them. “Oh, oh, please do me a favor and buy them,” he said. “I’ll pay for them. I have the money. But Sanzo’s gonna kill me! He’s gonna do worse than kill me! You’ve gotta help me out here!”
Gojyo just grinned. “One reaps what one sows,” he said.
Hakkai gave him a slightly aggravated look. “Gojyo, please don’t quote proverbs you don’t understand.”
“Hey!”
Hakkai turned back to the vendor, took Goku’s money, and procured the cigarettes. “Goku,” he said, in his teacher-voice, “I want you to understand that I’m doing this not because you deserve to be bailed out of trouble, but because I don’t want to deal with Sanzo in a mood. Do you understand?”
“Yeah!” Goku said happily, as Hakkai tucked the cigarettes away.
“And have you learned your lesson?”
“Of course!” Goku said, and began to bounce back towards the hotel.
Next time, he would just take one cigarette instead of the whole pack.