Gensomaden Saiyuki Fan Fiction ❯ Taste ❯ Chapter 1

DISCLAIMERS: All things Saiyuki belong to Kazuya Minekura/Epix, Saiyuki Project, TV Tokyo, and A.D. Vision, Inc. No infringement intended.

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"Taste"
By Viridian5
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Sanzo would beat me with his fan for this, but I had to do it. I had to find out.

It had started with yet another youkai talking about eating him. I know, the myth said that eating a Sanzo's holy flesh was supposed to give immortality and eternal youth blah blah blah, and flavor had nothing to do with it, but suddenly I had that thought stuck in my head. What did Sanzo taste like? I knew him with every sense except that one, and that seemed wrong, especially since I was tasting things all the time. Tasting things was one of the joys of my life.

Not that I wanted to dip him in sauce and devour him or anything. Yeah, he gave me such a hungry feeling low in my belly, but it wasn't the usual kind of hunger even if it did feel almost as bottomless. I didn't understand it, but it was there anyway, so I didn't need to understand. What I needed was to know him better.

If I asked him to let me have a taste, he wouldn't. If I just did it and asked for forgiveness later, I would have gotten what I wanted. Sure, he'd beat me....

I guess I better make this worth the beating.

Not that I minded the fan beatings so much. Okay, I hated the getting smacked bit, but at least it meant I had his attention.

I planned it out. After days of sleeping in the jeep or on the ground, Sanzo would sleep really deeply tonight in a real bed. He'd be less cranky in the morning too. Sanzo was always kind of cranky, but after a night sleeping in the jeep he could be lethally cranky.

Being very quiet so none of the others would wake up, I crouched near the bed on the side that would put his back to me. I could do this because he was used to me. When we all had to sleep in one space, I usually ended up with my head on his calf or feet on his stomach or something, so he didn't get twitchy about me being nearby as he slept anymore. He smelled of sunlight, cigarettes, gunpowder, sweat, power, sleeping human, metal, leather, and the sutra, even though he didn't have the sutra on right now. The sutra smelled like power, heat, dust, light, and sound. His shoulder was bare.

I shouldn't do this. Sanzo would say I shouldn't do it.

Like any of that had ever stopped me before.

I gently licked his shoulder. Mmm, salt and sunlight and heat and flesh. It made sense that he'd taste like the sun. Yeah, we all kind of did after all that time in the desert, but Sanzo was the sun to me. Sun and heat had flavors, just like when you picked a sunstruck piece of fruit right off the vine and ate it, tasting the energy on its skin. The day after he freed me, I'd stood out in the open for the first time in forever, tilted my head back, opened my mouth, and let the sunlight wash over my tongue. He'd called me a stupid monkey but in a not so annoyed voice.

I had the sudden, stupid urge to nibble on him. Not that I would eat him, since he was Sanzo and all lean muscle, sinew, and bone instead of good tender meat besides--he should eat more--but I wanted something more. I wouldn't though. Besides, the skin was the best part, right?

But....

Sanzo would find out what I'd done, like he always did, so I would be getting smacked around in the near future. If it was going to happen anyway, I should make it worth it.

I walked around the bed very quietly--I could do subtle, see?--so I faced him. Even asleep, he looked hard and guarded but also kind of sad. He didn't let the sad show much when he was awake, since he seemed to think that pissed off was better or more useful. Rainy nights were different, since he couldn't seem to help letting some of the sad creep in to the crankiness.

Usually I slept at the same time he did, so I didn't get to see Sanzo asleep very often. I got to see him unconscious, though I didn't like to think of that.... But, awake, Sanzo was big, walking and talking and insulting people and smoking and kicking ass. He burned. Like this, he didn't seem weak exactly, just... mortal. He might not have been your usual run of human, but he would die eventually even if he did make it through our mission to the west. And people kept beating on him or trying to kill him for being the head of the mission or having the sutra and being a Sanzo or just for being the nasty guy he was.

He'd been stabbed through the gut twice recently, and I'd been useless both times. Shit, I'd been worse than useless. The first time I begged him not to kill his old friend right before that old friend tried to stab me but gutted Sanzo instead when Sanzo tried to protect me. The second time, I begged him to show mercy to that youkai she stabbed him with poisoned claws when he turned his back.

I didn't like to think of what I did while trying to help him the second time....

It pissed me off that he had reasons to be sour and bitter and not trust anybody. I wanted to do something for him. I never wanted his mouth to be that hard thin line or sneering curl again. I wanted people to stop trying to take him away from me. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I reached out--

Something dropped on my shoulder, and Gojyo asked, "But I'm the pervert here?"

Shit! I shrieked in surprise. A second later I had Sanzo's gun pointed at my head. "What. The fuck. Is going on here?" Sanzo asked.

Gojyo shook me by my shoulder. "I always wondered what would happen if the monkey got too hungry. He licked your shoulder."

"He licked my-- And you saw this and let it happen?" Sanzo sounded dangerous.

"I was tempted to let him keep going and see what else he'd do, but then I thought he might do something really stupid that would make you hell to live with for the next day or so."

"Really."

"Nope. I actually got tired of waiting for him to make his next move."

"You licked me?" Sanzo asked me. He had such a strange look on his face.

"Yeah! We keep hearing all these youkai talking about eating you, and--"

Sanzo put his hand over his eyes and snarled.

Gojyo shook me again, so I knocked his hand away. He asked, "What can we do when everybody's so hot to eat you?"

"Maybe you could stop them," Sanzo answered.

"Hey, Sanzo, aren't you going to whip out the fan of punishment?" Asshole.

"Oh yes." Sanzo whipped it out and smacked Gojyo a few times with it. Yeah!

"What the hell was that for?"

"He's a stupid monkey with an idea caught in his head. You stood by and let it happen for shits and giggles."

"I'm not a stupid monkey!" That got me a few smacks. What was that thing made out of it that it stung so bad?

"I love these bonding experiences," Hakkai said. "They give such a sense of family."

"I refuse to belong to a family of morons," Sanzo answered.

"Too late, Sanzo," Gojyo said. "Besides, we already know what you taste like."

"You've tasted Sanzo?" I asked. Unfair!

"Heh. No."

"He only does that to me," Hakkai said with a smile.

Gojyo suddenly seemed nervous. "Uhm. Heh."

"You do?" I asked.

"Let's get back to the topic, okay? I don't have to taste Sanzo, because I'm sure he tastes like chicken. Ow!" Gojyo rubbed the back of his head and glared at Sanzo. "How can you throw a fucking fan with that kind of accuracy?"

"Practice."

"And I just meant that almost everything tastes like chicken!"

"I see, but I'll have to kill you anyway."

Sanzo in a rage was fun to watch as long as you weren't the one he was raging at. Hakkai obviously thought so too.

Maybe it was a good thing Gojyo interrupted me. I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't.

*********************THE END*********************

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