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Sanzo liked to keep everyone at arms length, or in Goku's case far too often, at a fan's length. He'd grouse and yell and give hits that stung but made no harm, but he didn't touch people. Not unless they or himself was half dead and passed out, anyways. So Goku only had a vague half memory of his arms around him, a warmth remembered when he was just waking, drifting between sleep and wakefulness.
Hakkai had the touch of a teacher, patient and caring and impersonal. It was the same when Goku was struggling with the shape of a letter, guiding his hand on the brush, as when he wrapped a wound too deep to heal on it's own. He would not yell if he didn't want to be touched, and he wouldn't hit you. He'd just give you a polite smile that didn't reach his eyes, as if to say excuse me, but what are you doing?' and in a way, it was worse.
Gojyo, everyone would say, liked to touch people. Beautiful women in a way that made them giggle, and not, as Goku first assumed, because they were tickly. Gojyo would say the secret to touching a woman was to make her feel as if she was a precious thing, not owned but treasured, even if just for one night. He would have said other things too, but Sanzo had threatened to shoot him if he taught Goku anything perverted.
So he'd continued later instead, once Sanzo was away.
But if it wasn't a girl, there seemed to be some rules. Sanzo he'd keep clear away from, he wasn't stupid. But he'd wrap a friendly arm around Hakkai's or Goku's shoulders, and he'd ruffle Goku's hair (which he hated because it was something people did to kids, but then again it felt sort of nice too), and then there were a myriad of pokes and nudges and hitting people on the back. Goku had gathered long ago that was what most men did with their friends.
Goku himself...well, to him it was all clear. He liked to touch people he loved. At first it was to make sure they were really there, and not a dream that would drift away, hanging tauntingly at the edge of memory. But as he grew older and more certain of his place among his friends, those dreams faded away. Home to him had never been a place, and it was only reinforced as they travelled across the world (it felt like to Goku). Home was the four of them, in the car or staying at an inn or fighting youkai, it didn't matter.
And sometimes Sanzo would not pull away when they were sitting around a fire after a long, tiring day, and Goku leaned his head against his shoulder, pretending to be asleep. He'd just huff and turn a page in his newspaper. Or Hakkai would listen to Gojyo and Goku bickering not in earnest but just because they were bored, and laugh out loud at some particularly ridiculous insult. And it would be such a sincere, not-fake laugh that even Sanzo would raise an eyebrow and forget the fan he'd been about to pull out.
Then there was the girl. The one who was helping the youkai get to the townspeople, and they couldn't understand why...until they'd defeated the youkai, and found they'd torn her apart before they attacked the town. She was still alive, but there was nothing even Hakkai could do. Without the sunglasses she'd been wearing before, the girl's eyes were red as the blood dyeing the ground around her, and she looked at them impassively, her face pale as chalk.
Gojyo cradled her carefully, his voice low and quiet:
"Why'd you do that for, kiddo?" he asked, because she was barely more than a child, and the girl's lips bent into a bitter smile.
"Human, youkai...they're all monsters." she spat out around frothy blood, choking on the last word. And a moment after that, her eyes grew glassy and unseeing, staring up at the grey sky but seeing nothing.
They were all quiet on the way back, but Goku could tell Gojyo took it especially badly. He always did. He didn't even complain for show when he was put in the same room with Goku for the night. In the room he sat down heavily on the bed and stared down at his hands. He'd washed away the blood and changed clothes, at Hakkai's insistence, but it was almost like he could still see it. Could probably still smell it, like they all could far too often, Goku assumed. Not that they ever talked about it. It wasn't necessary.
On an impulse, Goku walked over to Gojyo, and just wrapped his arms around him, tight. Gojyo jumped and tried to push his away, but Goku didn't budge, just held on tighter. Gojyo didn't answer the embrace, but he stopped struggling.
"What are you doing?" he asked dully.
"It's a hug," Goku answered squarely, and Gojyo chuckled.
"Really? Couldn't have guessed..." but his voice broke a bit at the last word.
They sat like that for a long while, the room silent but for the sound of their breathing. Goku felt arms wrap around his back, tentatively at first.
"If you want to cry..."
"No," Gojyo raised his head, and his eyes were dry. His face looked empty somehow, uncommonly expressionless. It didn't suit him. Goku considered him seriously, and then smiled.
"You know what, we should get some food!"
Gojyo blinked in surprise, and Goku grinned.
"Eating always makes me feel better," he explained cheerfully.
Gojyo rolled his eyes and pushed Goku off him and onto the bed.
"You seriously let your stomach think for you, monkey," he said, sounding amused, a marked difference to before. Goku decided that it was worth enough to overlook the "monkey", for this once.
"And Sanzo says you leave your thinking to your--"
"Yes yes, I just bet he does," Gojyo mumbled.
He sighed and laid down on the bed, Goku still curled on his side next to him. Neither remarked that the bed was a bit too narrow for two.
Goku had time to become drowsy before he spoke again.
"I guess it would be tough, being all alone all your life. I guess then I'd do anything," he pondered aloud.
"Yeah," Gojyo agreed, "it is."
Then after a while, he added.
"Aren't you going to your own bed?"
"Naaw, I'm good," Goku said offhandedly.
"Huh," Gojyo said, but that was all.