by K.A. Rose
Gensomaden Saiyuki characters et cetera © and ™ Kazuya Minekura, ENIX and TV Tokyo, 1997. Used without permission, for nonprofit fan appreciation.
This started out as a gift piece for Tochira, as thanks for beta-reading E = mc² and helping with some Japanese translation a while back, but after the first chunk (posted in the journal, as most of my informal work is) I got something of a taste for it, I guess it could be said, and wrote the rest of the arc Cassandra was imagining for it. After we had finished writing, I was faintly surprised to discover this operated as a sort of counterpart piece to "Brevity": also three parts, with the same beats (set-up, kiss, consummation), and highly seasonal. Unlike "Brevity", though, it counts as part of the House universe, set between the conclusion of Father's House and its epilogue. Goku/Sanzo, in something roughly Tracy Chevalier's style, and clearly not my usual. Just warning.
Speaking of warnings, this story is rated A:S, meaning it is rated Adult (ages 17 and up only) for sexual description. Heed, please.
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Part 1
Summer came early that year, and stayed late. Stretched
the heat out until the air coiled with dust and all the moisture had burned
away, dense enough to cough if you could only suck enough breath.
It was the first summer they'd seen standing still.
The first he could even remember, where the days weren't punctuated by
violence and blood baking in the sand. He was starting to forget quick
pulses and the knotting adrenaline in his throat. Cigarettes were only
making it harder to breathe.
A hot, dry summer. The neck of his leather was feeling
tight, and there was no way to wear the robes that wasn't suffocating.
It would have worked to stay indoors, write letters
to Kou, maybe tolerate those senior monks for up to ten minutes at a time
before he felt the urge to throw his ash tray at them, but he couldn't
bring himself to any of that somehow. For whatever reason, he was standing
out on the grounds, in the sun. Feeling his skin crisping and hair darkening
out from the roots, thinking, This is what it's like having raw melanin
swarm over your scalp, torching everything in its path. Definitely the
wrong season to start growing your hair out.
Sanzo teased his ponytail habitually, shifting on
his feet. He was out in the sun because he couldn't not be out in the sun,
because Goku was here, and Goku couldn't be left alone.
The boy had embraced the persisting summer by wearing
as few clothes as possible without being all the way indecent. It was turning
into a bit of a scandal. The most Sanzo knew was that he hadn't realized
just how dark a tan could get, if you kept after it for a while. And how
stark the lines were in the evenings, when Sanzo caught him changing out
of the thread remains of those boxers, and he saw spreads of flesh so pale
it almost glowed. Hard to keep the eyes away.
It was the first summer since their return, but
it was a while coming back too. Things had ended in India, sure, but then
the other three had insisted on taking the scenic route back to China.
The scenic route. After the century and a day he'd spent with those three
the first time around.
But Gojyo and Hakkai had each kissed his cheek and
he'd found it hard to argue after that, especially with Kou laughing at
his back. The bastard.
Right now Gojyo and Hakkai were enjoying their own
summer somewhere else. Last Sanzo and his charge had heard, their old travel
companions had gotten a house and were working on furnishing it. And had
adopted a child and taken to wearing rings on their fingers, but Sanzo'd
believe that when he saw it.
There was housemaking to be done at home at the
temple anyway, which was the reason for the monkey running around stripped
down to his boxers, hauling planks and pounding nails into the starts of
beams and angled roofs. He'd work all day like this, grinning while the
sweat washed down his back and glittered under the sunlight, and Sanzo
watched and smoked and watched and found it increasingly hard to break
the gaze.
Because it had been years on the road, first there
and then back again, and the boy he'd left with wasn't the one that had
come home.
In fact, it wasn't a boy.
In fact, it was by no stretch a child at all.
Gojyo wasn't beating him in wrestling matches anymore,
for a start. The fun had gone out of it after he found the kid was taller
than him.
In the evenings, after the sun had set, Goku would
pour a bucket of water from the fish pond over his head, let the water
mingle with his sweat and wash off the chafe and soothe the blisters. And
towel off with a sleeve of Sanzo's robe, despite the sharp words. Move
to settle behind the monk with a comb, tease the day's tangles out of his
hair, smooth it straight and run a hand down the slight wave and curl.
It only came down to about the edge of the shoulder blade, but the fact
that it could grow that long without falling out in clumps spoke of progress.
With diet, at least.
Sanzo didn't argue the comb. He didn't argue the
fingers grazing his neck as Goku braided him for the night, trailing down
to his waist and hooking on a hip before undoing the knots of a sash. He
didn't say anything to the hands that moved his robe down off his shoulders
and slid the leather from off his arms, running thumbs amused and calloused
over the spots of tan against the white like awkward birthmarks. Watched
those dark brown hands glide over flesh scarred and softening with the
idle days and held his breath back as long as he could until he slipped
and sighed, and those dark brands withdrew quickly and Goku went to go
see about setting out the futons for the night. Two and separate. Always.
What are you so scared of? Sanzo wanted to ask.
It wasn't a question for his lips, though. Wasn't the sort of thing he'd
say.
In letters Kougaiji teased him. Eventually he stopped
writing him about it, let the king think it was a passing thing, and talked
about the weather instead. Discussing the weather was the heavy artillery
in the art of letter warfare.
But it turned out to be useless. Because all the
days were the same, burning hotter instead of cooler. And the leather still
felt tight around his neck watching Goku under the sunlight.
Endless, choking summer.
(22:34, 11 July 2005)
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