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Sanzo\'s Secret	By : helliongoddess Category: Gensomaden Saiyuki > General Views: 1702 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: No ownership of Saiyuki is implied or intended, no money is being made off of this work.

Chapter List
- 1-Sanzo's Secret
- 1
Sanzo's Secret

“Oh, man, I love buffets! That was the best meal I’ve had in a long time!” Goku crowed as he stacked his final well-cleaned plate on top of the stack of nearly a dozen just like it in front of him on the table. He leaned back in his chair and grinned as he rubbed his bulging tummy happily, stifled a small belch, and let out a long, slow, ridiculously-contented sigh.

“You’d better throttle back on the chow, kid,” Gojyo said as he cast a disparaging crimson eye on Goku’s rotund belly, “or they’re gonna be using you for a model for those fat ‘happy Buddha’ statues we see in the temples.”

“Can it, kappa!”

Before Gojyo could even begin to respond, the swift white blur of the harisen connected soundly with the side of his head , knocking the dangling Hi-lite from his lips onto the tablecloth.

“Oi, priesty! That fuckin’ hurt!” he protested angrily. “What the hell’s got your royal knickers in such a knot?”

Gojyo retrieved his lost smoke and glared at Sanzo, but his objection was only met by stony silence as the monk sipped his coffee and refolded his newspaper to look at another page.

“See, ‘Kai, I didn’t do anything, and he just whacks the livin’ shit out of me like that…”

Hakkai smiled patiently. “Just let it go Gojyo.” He endeavored to divert the fuming kappa. “What do we all feel like doing with the remainder of our evening? Mahjong, anyone?”

Gojyo’s intention to continue his complaint was interrupted when the pert, petite, sloe-eyed waitress showed up at their table with a large bamboo tray laden with tea-sweets, cakes, and other assorted desserts. “Would the gentlemen care for something sweet?” she chirped merrily, hoping to increase her tip by persuading them to add a few more items to their already ponderous bill before she totaled it all up.

Gojyo’s eyebrow shot up as he leaned towards the girl. “Nothing on that tray looks as delicious as you do, sweet cakes. Care to swing by my room later, and give me a little sample?” he leered showily.

Hakkai dropped his face gently into his hand, and the pale slender fingers holding the newspaper whitened even more as they tightened into a tense death grip. Goku was another story, however.

“Sanzo, can I, puh-leeaze?!? I promise, I’ll go shopping with Hakkai an’ carry everything, an’ help with the laundry, and I won’ pester Hakuryuu before bedtime, an…”

“You’re gonna do all that anyway, idiot,” the voice behind the newspaper said tersely.

“Aw, Sanzo, c’mon…” Goku’s voice elevated into a full-out nasal whine before it suddenly cracked unattractively and dropped a full octave on him. His jaw snapped shut and his cheeks flushed. He would be so relieved when his voice finally finished changing – this in-between business sucked ass!

Gojyo didn’t even try to stifle his giggle at the teen’s expense, and Hakkai first shot the kappa a stern, forbidding glare, then gave Goku a sympathetic smile. Sanzo just wanted them all to shut up.

“Fine! But only four this time. Last time, you ate the whole goddamn tray, and I got so fuckin’ tired of having to listen to you whine about your aching gut all night.”

“Yeah,” Gojyo snorted, twirling his cloth napkin into a tight twist and snapping it hard at Goku’s tummy, “and he’s still got the gut to show for it, right there!” Snap snap!

Sanzo slowly dropped the newspaper and fixed Gojyo with an icy stare that would have frozen over the hottest onsen in Shangri-la. Goku, oblivious to both of them, was fixated on the dessert tray, and busily chatting with the waitress as he carefully selected his four desserts. Hakkai continued feeding small tidbits to the dragon on his shoulders, observing the scene at the table from under downcast lashes.

“Hey, ’Kai, you’d better give the flying rat some extra chow – he’s gonna need it, if he’s gonna have to haul this lard-assed monkey around much longer. We may have to put on a hitch, and get a trailer to lug him in – his fat monkey butt ain’t gonna fit…”

“Goddammit, Gojyo…!!”

BANG!! BANG!! BANG!!

Three sharp, loud shots resounded from the Smith & Wesson .38 as Sanzo roared, cutting off Gojyo in mid-tirade. The offender sat in stunned disbelief for a long moment, mouth still agape, as it slowly dawned on him exactly what Sanzo had done. He reached up with one hand and found, much to his dismay, that each of the first two shots had taken out one of the long cowlicks of hair that bobbled over his head and provided a constant conversation piece for the ladies. As a child he had hated them, but since he had found out how much women loved to stroke and play with them, he had grown rather fond of them. Now they were reduced to two three-inch-long stubbly bits of hair, sticking up ignobly from his scalp. To add grievous insult to the truly heinous injury, the third and final shot had put a hole straight through his mug of coffee, which had now all drained out onto his lap, leaving a rather unfortunate, troublesome stain on his trousers - not to mention the fact that the coffee had been damned hot and had landed dangerously close to the family jewels.

“What the fuck, man!?” Gojyo said hotly, standing and starting to lunge across the table towards the glaring priest. “What the hell was that all about, asshole?” he demanded, nearly shouting now.

Hakkai looked around the small restaurant, mildly mortified, and not at all surprised to see that the eyes of all the diners and staff were riveted on their little table. It wasn’t like it was the first time it had ever happened. He fought back a smile as he noticed the waitress and Goku. Apparently the gunfire had startled her into dropping the tray, but the swift reflexes of the teen had saved his just desserts: he and the girl were now frozen in place, wide-eyed, staring at Gojyo and Sanzo, with the tray of sweets precariously perched on the edge of the table between them, Goku holding onto it for dear life. Hakkai sighed resignedly and took one last sip of his tea before rising.

“Yare yare, Gojyo, let’s go find a fresh pair of jeans for you right away, ok?” Before his friend could resist him, Hakkai pulled his leather jacket off of the back of his chair and shoved it into the fist Gojyo had aimed at Sanzo. Gojyo looked up at Hakkai, and he recognized the “don’t fuck with me” light in the glittering green eyes that belied the patient, ever-present smile. He had played enough cards with Hakkai over the years to know when to just give up and quietly fold, put down his cards, and let the other man win – and this was apparently one of those times. He cast one last withering baleful glance at Sanzo and turned to follow Hakkai out of the restaurant, clutching his jacket in front of his besmirched and befouled crotch.

“We’ll see you gentlemen later upstairs,” Hakkai said, bowing just slightly. “Sanzo, if you would be sure to see to the bill, and please see that the nice waitress gets a generous tip?”

Sanzo nodded slightly, and otherwise ignored their exit. Goku slowly exhaled, and the waitress quickly plunked down his dessert choices in front of him, her hands still shaking slightly, after which she beat a hasty, nervous retreat.

*********

Later that night, Sanzo stood alone on the roof of the inn, smoking and taking occasional desultory looks up at the stars as they emerged from the residual dark puffy clouds from the thunderstorm that had just passed over. The moonlight reflected off of the puddles on the roof, and the only noise was the crochety whine of the ancient rooftop air-conditioning unit, and the chirruping song of the cicadas high in the tall oaks in the woods behind the inn. Sanzo was startled, but not at all surprised, when Hakkai appeared silently at his side in the darkness.

“Well, Goku is sleeping soundly, snoring like a buzz saw, and Gojyo’s gone off to see if he can score with that poor waitress. I’d say that’s a rather typical night on the road with the Sanzo Party, ne?” he said, his voice quiet and relaxed as he leaned against the railing next to the priest.

“Suppose so,” Sanzo said laconically.

“Care to tell me what that was all about tonight?”Hakkai asked cautiously, keeping his voice as neutral as possible.

Sanzo flipped his spent cigarette over the railing and watched the tiny light arc outwards and down towards the ground. He tapped out another one from the battered pack, and seemed to be deliberately taking his time, finding his lighter in the pockets of his robe, and lighting his smoke. “Back off, Hakkai,” he said quietly.

“No, I don’t think so,” the healer said. “We’ve both seen Goku and Gojyo go at each other hammer and tongs for years now, teasing each other ruthlessly, and you’ve never reacted like that. Something pushed your buttons.”

Sanzo scowled at the other man through the fringes of his bangs, his violet eyes almost black as they narrowed in the dim light. “It’s nothing,” he said firmly, looking away again.

“No,” Hakkai insisted as he stood in front of Sanzo to position himself in his line of sight again, “it was definitely something. I’d like to know what.”

Sanzo huffed out a quick pained sigh. “Gods, you’re relentless. You’re not going to leave me alone unless I tell you, are you?”

Hakkai grinned impishly, knowing he had won. “Probably not, no.”

Sanzo groaned and moved to perch on the edge of the metal AC unit, stretching his legs out straight in front of him. He fixed his gaze on his feet, not on the man he was speaking to.

“I didn’t appreciate how the goddamn kappa was teasing the monkey.”

“I gathered that,” Hakkai replied drily. “Three bullets is one or two more than your typical expression of displeasure.”

“It’s just that…” Sanzo sighed again. “Fuck. If you ever breathe a word of this to that goddamn kappa, I will fucking kill you. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly. And you know me better than that – I’m insulted you even feel the need to say that.”

“Yeah, well. If that pissant found this out, I’d never hear the end of it.”

“Found what out?” Hakkai prodded gently.

Sanzo looked around the roof, as if making sure they were truly alone. “When I was a little kid… goddammit, Hakkai… look, I was fat, ok?”

Hakkai’s dark green eyes flew wide open with surprise, and he fought back a sudden and, he knew, wildly-inappropriate, urge to laugh. “You don’t say?” he said, struggling to keep his voice as nonchalant as possible.

Sanzo looked up at him, daring him to laugh with an ice-cold glare. “Yeah, I know. Real funny. Ha ha.”

Hakkai could see this was a source of some pain for the monk, and schooled his expression into one as sympathetic and serious as he could manage. “Please, Sanzo, tell me about it. I want to know.”

Sanzo went back to studying his feet. “When Koumyou fished me out of the river, apparently I was half-starved. I don’t remember anything about my life before that, so I don’t know what the story was, but apparently there was some neglect. Not exactly a surprise, from parents who would just toss away their kid into some river.”

“I’m sure it was some kind of sad and complicated story,” Hakkai murmured. “Such things always are.”

“Yeah. Whatever. Anyway, apparently I would eat anything that wasn’t nailed down, and the cooks in the kitchen fucking loved to feed me. I guess they were tired of cooking for nobody but jaded ascetics and fasting monks. I was an enthusiastic audience, so they made all kinds of treats and stuffed me to the gills.”

“And you got…”

“Yeah. I got to be a little chubby boy. By the time I was five or six, I was pretty plump. At first, the cooks and Koumyou and his friends in the temple didn’t say anything – they acted like it was kind of cute, pinched my cheeks and that kind of shit. But later on, when I hit seven or eight, and started to be in classes with boys my age, it was a whole other thing entirely.”

“Kids can be relentlessly cruel,” Hakkai said softly, recalling the abuse he had taken at the hands of the other children in the orphanage for his differences.

“Tch. Tell me,” Sanzo said coldly. “Some of the teachers were just as bad – a few were goddamn mean. After about a year or so of that, I made up my mind to do something about it. I’d had enough.”

“Didn’t Koumyou…?”

“Oh yeah, of course. He said I was fine as I was, sticks and stones, blah blah blah, all that happy horseshit. But he didn’t have to deal with the crap, day in day out, like I did. It was just too fucking annoying.”

Hakkai bit the inside of his lip to keep from smiling. The image of Sanzo as the cherubic little blond boy being fattened up like a pig for market with all sorts of tasty tidbits prepared for him by the temple cooks had been hard enough to resist, but the thought of the chubby but determined little Kouryuu, pissed off by all the taunts and determined to be master of his own fate and waistline, was almost too much. He knew he could never ever betray this confidence to Gojyo, but it was certainly not going to be easy.

“So you took it on yourself to lose the weight, all on your own?”

Sanzo nodded.

“That’s quite a lot of resolve for a boy that young,” Hakkai said thoughtfully. “It also explains a lot about why you eat so carefully now. Do you actually worry about your weight now?” The prospect seemed incredible, as thin as Sanzo was.

Sanzo shook his head. “No, I just kind of lost my taste for food back then.” He shrugged. “I got in the habit of only eating what I absolutely needed, to get by, and I’ve been that way since.”

Hakkai nodded. “And the teasing, that’s why you didn’t like Gojyo…”

“Yeah. When the fucking moron started picking on Goku, it just pissed me off – especially the Buddha belly thing. Goddamn, I must have heard that one fifty times a day.”

“I see.”

“Besides, the damn monkey will eat what he’s gonna eat, regardless. Gojyo teasing him won’t change it. I figure he’s still making up for that five hundred years with no chow. When he’s done, he’ll slow down.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Sanzo,” Hakkai agreed. “Do you want me to speak to Gojyo about the teasing?”

Sanzo sighed. “No. If the asshole didn’t get the hint tonight, nothing you could say would do any good.”

Hakkai laughed. “You may be right, but I think I may put a small bug in his ear about it, regardless. For Goku’s good. And for the safety of people dining with us in the future.”

“Tch. Whatever.”

“Sanzo?”

“Yeah?”

“For what it’s worth, I’ll bet you were the cutest little fat boy that ever lived,” Hakkai said affectionately as he turned to head back downstairs.

“Don’t make me shoot you too, Hakkai.”

“Goodnight, Sanzo. See you in the morning.”

“ ’Night.”

~owari~

Author’s note: Usually I dedicate my fics to friends or family, for a number of assorted reasons, but this one I dedicate to myself. I was born a chubby girl (over 10 lbs!), was teased horribly as a child, and have fought my weight all my life. Thanks to a lot of hard work, good food instead of junk, and the motivation of finally realizing that with my health issues and age, it has become a “life and death” kind of thing now (and I much prefer life), I’ve managed to lose 100 pounds since Spring of last year, and have about 70 or so more to go (which will still leave me many pounds above what the weight charts say, but fuck ‘em. It’ll be perfectly fine for me.) So this one is for me, and all the other chubby kids out there, young and old.
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Sanzo\'s Secret