Gensomaden Saiyuki Fan Fiction ❯ Sweet Decay ❯ Aftermath ( Chapter 4 )

Sweet Decay

by Eline

* * * * * * * * * * *

When the dark impulse faded away, Homura found it hard not to pity the other man.

Homura had held him and stroked his fine hair, still fascinated by its golden sheen. He had kissed Konzen's firmly closed eyes, not unkindly, and tasted salt tears. When he had left, Konzen lay like a doll in the dimness of the Recorder's Office, pale and unmoving.

Perhaps he too would come to hate the shadow of helplessness that would dog him . . .

* * * * * * * * * * *

Konzen was not like Genjo Sanzo, who refused to allow anything to touch the guarded core of his soul and lied through his teeth when something did get to him.

Konzen . . . had delicate sensibilities. Unlike Genjo Sanzo, who barely registered surprise when he had appeared that evening after a particularly rough skirmish with Kougaiji's youkai.

Konzen would have got on his pissy high-horse. Sanzo appeared to make no distinction between the toilet door and the inn's beds. Braced up against the thick planks and iron bolts, knuckles white from the strain. The door did not shake, so rigid were his arms as he pushed back against Homura's thrusts.

He had been alone, stripping the soiled robes off in the privacy of one of the inn's private baths when Homura found him.

Sanzo turned even though he had not made a sound. It had been an instinctive move--wary and tense as he searched for a new enemy. This was the killer that walked in monk's robes.

"You again." The killer was still there, somewhere behind those shadowed eyes.

"You've been busy, Konzen. But I didn't expect you to fall to any of that lot--that would have been . . . disappointing."

"If it's not your half-witted minions, it's Kougaiji's," Sanzo stated flatly. "They bore me and all of them indulge in senseless melodrama."

"Such a harsh critic . . ." Homura's gaze lingered on the gun that Sanzo slipped back up his sleeve--he must have seized it and kept it behind the folds of his robe in the second it took for him to turn around. If the man had been a kami, he would have been formidable indeed.

"But impartial. All of them were in my way." Sanzo made no move as Homura came closer. "What is it like, *kami*, to sit there and watch your underlings bumble around like the fools they are?"

There was anger there, yes. Anger and something else. Trying to understand the man was like grasping a handful of razors. Homura could almost taste the dark miasma that cloaked him from head to toe. Up close, he fancied he could almost see it. Battle after battle--the sweet taint of decay lingered on.

Homura knew it all too well. Blood, death and lust. Sanzo positively reeked of it at the moment. It was temptation itself.

It was like bare flesh coming in contact with ice.

It burned. It burned when he had Sanzo backed against the wall, lips and skin and hands. Sanzo's pupils were almost black in the dim light, a chill void that was drawing him in.

It burned as Sanzo's hands pulled him closer. There was a recognisable urgency there. A familiar scent. Darkness welling up and boiling over . . .

*Now* Sanzo is pressed up against the door with Homura behind him. Homura never slows down, not even when someone knocks on the door and an irate voice asks just how long the priest was going to take in there. Sanzo doesn't stop even as he curses a blue streak and scares whoever it was outside away.

It is like that. The present. The time in which they fucked. Urgency without past or future. Knowingly coupling with death, inhaling the old blood from the oceans they had waded through.

They rut like this until they were sated. And then the present changes into the past, the room smells of cigarette smoke and the scent of blood is masked by sweat.

"Are the gods always this idle?" This was a mortal man who did not believe in the gods. Or perhaps he was wroth at the gods for letting the tragedy of his youth happen.

"I am not like the other gods . . ."

Sanzo's eyes reflected the eternal anger he seemed to exude so effortlessly as he rested on the tilled edge of the bath.

"And how are you different from the other gods?" Sanzo asked around a mouthful of evil-smelling smoke. "Your minions die like the others do when you send them here, *kami*."

Sanzo's words were mocking him. Challenging him.

Homura left without a word, fading into the darkness and crossing the distance to the Tower. His own sanctuary down here on Earth.

His anger was slow to abate and he forced it aside with some effort. He had nothing to prove to Genjo Sanzo. Only to the gods in Heaven, unaware of his true purpose here on Earth.

Did they think he would not do it, when the power was almost within his grasp?

* * * * * * * * * * *

The marks on his skin had faded rapidly. The soreness inside him took a little while longer to subside, but it made no difference. No difference at all.

Scandal and infamy. They would enjoy it, up here in Heaven. Bored stupid across the many centuries, the courtiers tittered over choice bits of gossip like a flock of malicious birds, all beady eyes with sharp beaks ready to tear into anyone who exposed the slightest weakness.

Konzen Douji would have no part in it.

What right did that man have to--

How dare he presume?

But he *had* presumed. In the damned Recorder's Office.

It had been a wonder how he had managed to stand up again and set his clothes to rights. But he had. Konzen had gone on to beret the next two clerks who had been fingered in the chain of blame for the misplacement of documents amounting to a whole day's work for him.

He prided himself on the fact that he had not run to his quarters for a much-needed bath even though he felt the cold slickness seeping down the inside of his thighs. The soreness did not impede his progress as he walked back at a sedate pace and tried to scrub away all evidence of that encounter even though it did hurt to reach down there and make sure that no trace of . . . that man's leavings remained. He had even managed to make it through the boring dinner he had gone to in place of his exalted and holy hag of a relation before retiring to his quarters again. Goku had been sent to Tenpou's for the evening and Konzen recalled that he could never trust the Marshal to have any regular mealtimes. But the boy had returned, stuffed full and scruffy in the way that only children could be after only a few hours of play. Apparently Kenren had a hand in making sure both Tenpou and Goku had some form of dinner that day, for which Konzen was silently thankful for. He would have been unable to deal with a hungry monkey on top of everything else.

Not that he wanted to remember any of *that*. No, it had not happened because such things did not happen to Konzen Douji.

Konzen Douji had work to do. And a monkey to take care of. Heaven alone knew how much time that took . . .

"--and then Ken-nii-chan said that if Ten-chan didn't put that book down now, he was going to drag or carry him out," Goku chattered on, leaving a trail of damp footprints on the floor as he wandered out from the bath. Despite himself, Konzen's fastidious nature was irked by the mess the boy was making. And he still had no idea of what to do a comb, judging by the botch he had made of his hair.

"And Ten-chan said that that'd count as an as-sault-onna-superior-officer--"

"Oh give me that!" Konzen snapped, taking the comb away from Goku and started on the tangled mop of damp hair that stuck out in all directions like spines on a sea urchin.

"--but Ken-nii-chan said something about him liking it well enough last night and Ten-chan said that he'll see about that later. What'd he mean, huh? Konzen?"

Even Konzen, isolated as he was at the administrative end of the bureaucracy, had heard about the Marshal and the General. He had wondered privately if Tenpou minded the rumours that claimed that he was the General's wife. After meeting Kenren, he had known almost at once that the brash, headstrong officer was hardly the kind of man who could exercise any form of control over the Marshal. Not that it was any of his business.

Tenpou, he knew, could take care of himself. Tenpou would probably never be caught in a situation like the one this afternoon--

"--Konzen?"

"It's none of your business, saru," Konzen muttered, combing through another knot of hair.

Goku shrugged at the particularities of adult folk and continued prattling on about his favourite part of the evening, "So we went out and had fried dumplings, hot-plate beancurd, mock mutton soup and bean-jam pancakes. It was *great*! When are we gonna have bean-jam pancake again, huh? Maybe you should go out to dinner with Ken-nichan and Ten-cham more often--"

"Do you ever shut up?" Konzen asked wearily.

"Why?" Goku countered immediately.

"Because some people *like* silence."

"I can be quiet! Really!"

"Good!"

But of course, almost a minute later, Goku piped up again, "Can I talk now?"

Goku wanted to read the latest books he had borrowed from Tenpou; Konzen had no energy to argue with him. The Adventures of Anpan occupied him for a time before he dropped off in the middle of the luridly illustrated battle between a bun and what *could* have been a bottle of soy sauce. Intelligent as he was, Tenpou had decidedly . . .odd tastes in reading matter, Konzen thought as he disentangled Goku from the book.

Watching the monkey sleep, Konzen thought for a moment that ignorance was truly bliss. He finally retired into his own mire of dark thoughts, only to wake again early the next morning, feeling distinctly unrested.

Glaring at the ceiling, he willed himself to forget it all. That sort of thing definitely did not happen to Konzen Douji. Not in the gods-be-cursed Recorder's Office with the open door and not with some ill-bred minor princeling from the bloody Royal Palace. Even thinking about it made him cringe with shame--it had almost felt pleaurable for a moment. Then the pain of that abrupt entry had made him weep like a damn woman.

Ill-tempered and impatient, Konzen hauled himself out of bed and managed to get Goku to awake after several attempts. He sent Goku off to play in the garden for the morning and took himself off to work.

His personal daily trial began when he reported to the offices of his immediate superior.

As always, almost like a daily greeting, Kanzeon Bosatsu leered at him over the top of the report he had submitted for approval. Wearing the minimum amount of silk and gauze required to veil the male and female parts of the form it had chosen, the Merciful One radiated an earthly sensuality that hinted of its less saintly aspect--a patron of fertility with origins older and darker than most other gods. Perched cross-legged atop its desk, the Goddess of Mercy regarded his discomfort with thinly veiled amusement.

Konzen fixed his gaze on a spot on the wall of the office somewhere above the Bodhisattva's left shoulder. He did not need this right now, not from anyone and especially not from his lecherous superior . . .

Adding to his embarrassment was the fact that Kanzeon of the Thousand Arms--the arms that were supposed to reach out to those in need--was also his aunt. Uncle. Whatever it chose to be. Konzen thought--very often--that his exalted relation was aptly dubbed, though not for any compassion acts. He had never seen Kanzeon reach out a helping hand to anyone--aside from the hand that was always questing for opportunities to grope his ass when he wasn't on his guard.

"You're in a fine mood today," Kanzeon remarked. "Has your charge been keeping you up late?"

"It's the work that I don't have enough time for, now that you've saddled me with that chattering nuisance," Konzen growled, barely able to keep a civil tongue.

"Poor Konzen . . ." The old bitch laughed gaily. "Come sit on my lap like you used to when you were a child . . ."

He struck aside the offending hand that had been reaching for him with more force than he had intended.

*That* had been a mistake. Kanzeon's eyes narrowed, all good humour evaporating in a flash. "And what is the matter with you now, hmmm?"

"What in the world do you mean?" he snapped, trying to cover up his slip. He could probably fool Tenpou--he could fool anyone in Heaven except his annoying all-seeing, all-hearing relative.

"You aren't normally this frigid--oh wait, you *are* usually like that, but there's something different . . ." Those sharp eyes measured him up slowly and Konzen's heart sank because the old bitch would know--

"Didn't sleep well, did you?"

Konzen told himself that paranoia was making him hear the suspicious note in that question.

"Something's bothering you?"

"No. And it's none of your business even if there was."

"Well, if *you* think so . . . You were always a stubborn little boy, but you've got to grow up some day . . ." The Goddess of Mercy set down the reports without comment. Just when Konzen's hopes rose, she handed him another stack. "Come on, you know what the reward is for a job well done . . ."

Konzen thought a very rude word.

When he was safely away from Kanzeon Bosatsu's unnerving presence with his new workload, Konzen allowed his relief to show. Kanzeon had let the matter slide--he barely believed his luck. Now if only he could forget that it ever happened . . .

* * * * * * * * * * *