While being unable to sleep last night, I read Saiyukiy Gaiden in its entirety.
I knew it was going to hurt. I've known it was going to hurt for over a decade, which is precisely why I never finished it the first time around.
But jesus fuck, I didn't realise it was going to hurt that much. Kenren dying first to buy the others time. Tenpou thinking about all the things he forgot to do, like needing to buy more cigarettes and finish off the last of his ramen. His dying words being apologising to Kenren for making him wait for him. Those were bad enough, but the worst absolutely had to be
Goku just slumped over in front of the gate, potentially for years because he can't bear to move from where he lost Konzen.
I immediately turned around and reread Goku's Burial Arc, just so I could soothe my sniffles with Sanzo's 'Soft and round like a dumpling' smile
-` 𖤓 ´- ❝ How's this for a new rule -- ❞ Konzen pokes Goku's side, making his frustration apparent. ❝ If I can't keep up with you, then you're going too fast. ❞
(My shoulder is still killing me when I type, so, late and probably only offer for the Monthly Minekura Christmas challenge. Too bad, Seemed like such a nice challenge @monthlyminekura was offering. I loved when it crossed my dash.)
Obviously late for Day 1: Bells
Fanfic - Saiyuki Gaiden.
Jingle in Paradise
Sekai, down below, is a messy place, a chaotic place. This is why dreams exist, some divinities surmise, to allow the pathetic creatures living there to try and make sense of their absurd world and meaningless lives in their sleep…
Whereas Tenkai? Beautiful. Quiet. Orderly and perfect. Souls are blessed and untroubled, there.
Therefore, kamis don’t dream.
(Usually.)
For a while, Kenren-taishou hadn’t even had the words for this fake reality invading his sleep and leaving behind a strange taste to his waking hours…
Always the same images.
The overpowering sound of the falling rain, its cold hitting his bare shoulders as he walks. Darkness, the road, the man on the ground. Lying there, face down. Bleeding. He knows who it is. At once. Kenren just… knows. And when the wounded man reveals his face, and smiles… It’s even worse to be proven right.
Waking up, heart pounding, breathing hard. Reaching for the pack of cigarettes to chase the smell of wet earth and metallic blood still very present in his nostrils… It’s his morning routine, now…
Yume. He’s found the word in one of Tenpou’s beloved books. Dream.
But having a name to put on the phenomena doesn’t really help. So he distracts himself some other ways, accepts to run ridiculous errands for Tenpou on Earth below to fill his days between military missions and duties. So he forgets to sleep. (After all, kamis don’t really need to.)
That day, when he comes back home, with a small stock of Tenpou’s favourite cigarette’s brand, he’s in a reasonably high mood. Doesn’t even knock before making his way into Tenpou’s library. Still stops dead, though.
Obviously a tree standing in Tenpou’s office is not the weirdest thing Kenren-taishou has seen in his superior officer’s place. Plus he’s the one who got ropped into dragging it in here a few days ago, so, there’s that. (Yes, Tenpou had tried to explain. No, Kenren is still not sure he gets this Sekai “Chrissmass” thing and the point of it. Though he kinda liked the way the word had curled the marshal’s lips, so unfamiliar on his tongue, and the twinkle of delight it created in the man’s green eyes.) What’s more incongruous is the treatment Goku is inflicting on it. He must have zoned out when Tenpou explained, because he can’t fathom why the gaki is basically dressing the poor piece of vegetation in tinsel and adorning it with shiny stuff…
While the kid, back to him and still unaware of his presence, chatters his heart out to his Ten-chaaaaan!, asking of him his thoughts on his efforts, Tenpou stands right there, a faint contented smile floating on his lips and curling around an unlit cigarette.
Kenren sighs indulgently (he sometimes suspects Tenpou would forget his head weren’t it attached to his body), drops his package on a low table and draws closer to his superior officer in order to offer him his lighter.
Tenpou, after bending his neck a little to meet the flame, smiles his thanks, expression for once uncomplicated and somewhat almost blinding for it.
Kenren reflexively smiles back.
“Tadaima,” the general says, a tad too soft.
“Okaeri,” Tenpou replies, oddly solemn, and oh-so warm…
And sometimes, they just don’t need more words. Both lapse into silence, watching Goku have his fun.
There’s a soft sound, then, that comes from a corner of the room. The one of a page turned.
Oh, the blond grouch his there, too.
Curled on Tenpou’s office chair, his long legs tucked under him in a slightly bizarre way, at Tenpou’s desk, nose deep in one of Tenpou’s books. Kenren can’t help but think he’s out of place here. But where would Konzen-douji be if not far from his little charge, right?
Must have felt the weight of the general’s gaze, too, because the blond sourpuss raises his eyes after a few seconds.
His nose does this frowning thing, and Konzen glares a bit, too, as if he objected to the just lit cigarettes: he has a vague gesture of the hand as if to chase the delicate smoke that hasn’t even reached him yet, Kenren is sure.
Heaven forbid Konzen would look like he was enjoying himself being here, right, once he’d noticed he was watched…
But Kenren had seen.
For once there’d been this inabitual bubble of calm around Kanzeon-bosatsu’s nephew, very unlike this ever present buzz of irritation surrounding the man at any given time that often gets under Kenren’s skin.
The general could go at it, needle the man a bit. Changes his mind, though, and turns his attention back to Tenpou.
“Hey,” he simply calls, reaching for something tiny in his leather coat’s pocket and throwing it in the marshal’s direction.
He brings back little odd things from down below Tenpou hasn’t asked for, sometimes. Can’t help it, the marshal is so easily delighted…
The marshal snatches it from mid-air without much effort, in spite of his sloppy appearance. People forget, sometimes, that Tenpou is a soldier, a very good fighter at that, with the good reflexes it entails.
In his palm, a little sphere, something golden and delicately inlaid, with only a tiny slit on the metal and a tiny little ring to hang it, probably. Tenpou grabs it with two fingers to raise it closer to his eyes.
And they have drawn the kid’s attention too, now :
“A new christmas ornament? How did you know!” Goku exclaims, already reaching for the little thing.
But Kenren grabs him by the scruff of his scrawny neck. He loves the kid. To pieces. Still… and it feels ridiculous to say it out loud, but :
“It was for you,” he tells the marshal who was about to let the itan child have the gift. “It sings,” he awkwardly adds, then.
With his chibi saru-free hand, the general sends a finger nudge the thing in Tenpou’s grasp, and as he knew it would, the little ball hidden inside the golden shell moves, eliciting a delicate little sound.
“Yes, it would be wasted, just hanging still on a branch,” the marshal eventually acquiesces, brows already furrowed in reflexion, eyes invisible behind the harsh reflexion off his glasses. And without warning, he’s a flurry of activity. In three strides, he’s near a startled Konzen, reaching over him for a drawer, fishing into it, of all things, for a little ball of thin but solid wire and a little pincer.
It takes him hardly three seconds to figure out a way to fasten the sphere on the wire and create a little hook at the other end. Then, the marshal’s hands fly to the side of his head.
Not even a hint of hesitation, and he’s piercing skin and flesh pushing the metal through the little round part, till the gold orb hangs at his ear.
Kenren stays stunned for a full second. He hadn’t seen this one coming. But in the little things like the big, Tenpou is sometimes reckless to a point that could scare a lesser man than the general. (Who he is he kidding? Totally and indubitably scares him when he ventures to think about it.)
“What do you think? You said it was for me, right?” Tenpou says, smiling a bit like a proud loon around this cigarette he has managed to keep between his lips all along. He turns his head a little on his slender neck to show off, and a little ringing sound comes out the little sphere as if to gently underline the gesture.
It allows for Kenren’s hand to find the side of this face, on the pretence of angling it for a better sight.
A pearl of redness gathers at the puncture wound and collapses on itself, truly miniscule rivulet down the abused lobe.
It’s nothing, but it’s like a jolt to Kenren…
And the familiar images come, unbidden, while he’s still wide awake this time.
The overpowering sound of the falling rain, its cold hitting his bare shoulders—
Gravity makes its office, and the scarlet drop hits the shoulder of Tenpou’s labcoat. (Shocking) little flower.
“Chi.” Goku says, his little face raised to them. Tone odd.
There’s something in the way the kid’s nostril flare. Something flinty, for a second, obscures his golden gaze, suddenly metallic instead of warm. He’s like a different being for a second, one who could could inspire terror.
But the flash on the gaki’s features is so brief it feels like Kenren has just imagined this, that he can blame his already frayed nerves…
And the general doesn’t know what takes over him. He gathers the marshal to him by way of grabbing his labcoat, and leans in, on an impulse, towards the man. Till his lips are on Tenpou’s earlobe. The iron-y salt of blood and the tiniest hint of a real metal’s taste mingle on his tongue. He feels his officer still. And tense. Tenpou’s hand is suddenly on his arm, its message unclear. Stop. Or… Don’t you dare stop. Kenren wouldn’t know. Maybe Tenpou doesn’t either.
Goku, oblivious anew, saves them from public awkwardness, dragging his Ten-chan back to their tree… Since they are not conversing anymore, it must be alright for him to get back his friend to keep him to himself.
Kenren decides not to acknowledge how suddenly bereft he feels.
Also, now it’s on his tongue that the taste of blood lingers.
The overpowering sound of the falling rain, its cold hitting his bare shoulders, the darkness the road and the dying man, bleeding and smi—
Stop, the general tells himself, feeling uneasy. Now the dark thoughts hunt him even awake… What the hell is happening to him?
He feels a gaze on him and, whip-sharp, his head turns on his neck, catching Konzen’s eyes.
It’s a frown subtly different from the usual scowl, on the blond’s face. More considering. Almost… worried. And directed at him.
How odd, Kenren thinks.
But already the divine bureaucrat is averting his eyes. He has surprised Konzen’s eyes on him, and the blond god is probably as embarrassed at having been caught looking as Kenren himself is by his own lapse of attention, by how he has let his own discomfort show…
But he’s a soldier. He knows tactics. He knows… diversion.
He pastes his patented shit-eating grin on his face, and with a jerk of his chin, indicates Tenpou.
“Ever told you how I met him, Goldie?” And Konzen frowns a little, not entirely duped but curious nonetheless. “Came into his office and found him buried under piles of his own books.”
The great Konzen-douji can’t help a particularly unelegant snort.
“That would have been such a stupid way to lose him,” Konzen manages to offer. His book is definitively forgotten on his crossed legs.
“Heh. There an intelligent way?” Kenren needles.
It’s a just glance, that’s thrown his way. A flash of violet. But with a might and a steel you wouldn’t be used to, thinking of the spoiled nephew of the great Kanzeon-bosatsu. Surpringly, it cows Kenren the tiniest little bit.
“Yeah, no way we’re losing Tenpou,” the general weakly agrees, hardly above a whisper. Because the alternative is unthinkable. “Not that this itan kid of yours is better anyway at staying out of trouble,” he still feels the need to retaliate.
Over there near the tree, the marshal is giving a boost to the heretic child in question so he can reach the higher branches. Tenpou’s move makes the little sphere at his ear tinkle again.
It derails them both a little:
“Like a bell on a cat,” Konzen unexpectedly comments, and there’s something speculative in his gaze as it then flies to his charge, like it gives him an idea, and in a way, Kenren gets why. How tempting it would be to be able to always know where the kid is, be sure to be able not to lose him.
Kenren has spoken about this with Tenpou more than once. They’re just like Konzen. The three of them feel it, that unclear menace gathering around this kid. Even in this perfect place Heaven is supposed to be.
When has Paradise stopped being Paradise?
But then Goku says something that unexpectedly wrenches a surprised laugh out of Tenpou, and as the marshal’s body shakes in delighted mirth and he throws his head back, the little bell once again jingles.
And for a second, Kenren is able to forget the disturbing thoughts. He just drinks the sight.
Tenkai is paradise once again. A place where souls are supposed to be blessed and untroubled.
* Goku takes Konzen's hand and pulls him into daylight.
* Goku loses his hold and Heaven makes Konzen into Nothing, and when he's swallowed up by the light, they lock Goku into the dark.
* Sanzo takes Goku's hand and pulls him into the sunlight.
* Sanzo loses his hold and almost becomes Nothing, but Goku takes his hand and pulls him away before he can be swallowed up by the darkness, and they walk away at dawn.
> Was it arrogance or choosing Hard Mode for funsies for Ukoku to decide to pull out his tricks on the full moon? Come on, man. You knew that was going to go against plan when you made that decision.
> The friction-tension of night trying to devour the moon vs the comfort-tension of the day and the sun incomplete without the other.
>> Night will exist regardless of the full moon's presence, and the ghost of the full moon even takes a place in the daytime sky; the sun and the day can't exist separately from each other, even though the moon is also the ghost of the sun.
