a mountain full of ego built upon a heap of trash [OPEN]

[its_dad_sanzo]

Who: Koumyou Sanzo, OPEN
Where: Koumyou can be encountered on his way to the Stores room bright and early right after the train wakes everyone up from mandatory nap time. Or he can be found in said stores room, wedged into a corner, meditating.
When: Late Jelly 4, Jelly 5, or early Jelly 6 before it's time to disembark for the mission.
What: Koumyou is not doing well, and can be encountered not doing well (heavily disassociating). He won't talk about it to anyone who isn't directly involved, and threads may be short because he won't have any of his usual energy or interest. This is basically "do you want your character to see Koumyou in a whole other mode" post. Might be more to give them something to think about in future interactions, kind of thing.
Warnings: Probably a shit ton of drama in at least one thread.

xxxxxis exactly what you get when you can't fully do the math

In the early morning for Jelly 5 and 6, Koumyou is up as soon as the train releases his mind, silently leaving 3-C. He'll tend to anything that requires his attention, and then head for the very, very front of the train, face lacking any of his usual smiles or serenity.

The store room is the one room that no one passes through, or goes into to smoke. He's not going to take up a quiet room.

Hair half out of its usual braid, robes rumpled from sleeping in them, with dried blood still under his nails and on a sleeve, he wedges himself into an out-of-the-way corner of the stores room, folds his body into a full lotus position, and shuts his eyes.

And this is where he will stay until the train either teleports him back to 3-C or, on Jelly 6, his SCA starts to beep him with information. And even then, he'll just sit right where he is, reading through what little data there is, his face blank and his mind blanker.

Comments

[blue_ice]

Kaiba doesn't exactly want to be in Stores this early in the morning, but it's laundry month again. He's started hauling loads up to the washers when he spots a familiar face from the stairs. The priest looks like he's had a rough night.

But he knows better than to start commentary. Instead, he starts on the load of laundry, then comes back downstairs with a cloth blotted with in hand. He can recognize meditating when he sees it, so he lays the cloth and a dish containing a powdery paste and a on a nearby box with a note on top, propped up so Koumyou can see his name when he looks up.

Rub this into your sleeve when you're up to it, and leave it there for an hour before you wash for the stain.

-Kaiba

Note left, he goes about his laundry business as quietly and unobtrusively as possible.

[its_dad_sanzo]

The next time Kaiba comes downstairs, he'll find the priest staring at the note, now in his hand. Blankly, like he can't quite make sense of the words.

Every time he tries to read that one short sentence, the words just flow right back out of his head before he can even grab them.

[blue_ice]

That's...definitely off. Kaiba sighs, and stops to repeat the content aloud.

"It's a paste for the blood on your sleeve. Leave it on the stain for an hour, then wash. I was already doing laundry, so I thought I'd leave it."

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou looks over as Kaiba talks, and blinks. "Alright."

He's not worried about the blood stain. Gods know Sanzo robes can get really drenched with the stuff, just by dint of who wears them. But explaining that feels too much like work. "Thanks."

[blue_ice]

"...I won't ask why you're in the worst possible place for that," he shakes his head. "Just. Good luck with everything."

He'll resume his work---it's a lot of laundry, so it's a good hour or two that he's there, wondering.

[namethattune]

Siebren is in stores to get the good coffee. Sure, he'd bought it as a gift for the population of the train, but some mornings needs that extra kick, and he still has a stroopwafel or two in his arms band to enjoy with it.

What he is not expecting is to see Sanzo in a corner...meditating, it seems. Normally, it wouldn't be a concern, but Sanzo has blood on him-

He has to stop, and breathe, and double-check - no, it doesn't look fresh. Still, that cannot be good. "Sanzo? Are you alright?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

Most of it has flaked off of his hands, at least, save for the stuff under his short nails. The white sleeve of his holy robes, of course, is another story.

But yes, it's not fresh. There is at least that.

Koumyou Sanzo doesn't respond, not seeming to hear Siebren enter or speak up... he barely looks to be breathing. He also isn't sitting up ramrod straight like he normally would to meditate, but instead is leaning against the hard shelving at his back.

[namethattune]

That he does not respond - that he is silent - is every bit as worrying as the blood. Siebren takes a knee in front of him and looks a little closer. He's unresponsive, he's slumped, and now Siebren is worried. "Sanzo. Look at me. Say something. Please."

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou's eyes do finally open, glazed and barely focusing. His expression is uncharacteristically blank, or even apathetic.

"Something."

It should be a joke, but it falls absolutely flat.

[namethattune]

...you know what, he'll take it.

Sanzo is responsive, at least - to a point. Perhaps he can help bring him out of this stupor. "Are you injured? What happened?"

[firewalled]

Rich isn't quite sure what to make of Koumyou at the best of times. Their first conversation had been... tense and complicated, though the priest had understood more of what Rich's past was like than some of the other people on the train. Still, the discussion of how far Koumyou was willing to go meant he wasn't sure he wanted to know where that blood had come from...

But Koumyou was important to Devero, and Devero was important to Rich. And that really just means Rich has an obligation to try to help. He knocks on a wall to try to get the man's attention.

"Um... Koumyou, right? I'm sorry to interrupt... was just wondering if you were hurt?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Sanzo," Koumyou corrects automatically. Always, before, he's given the option of 'Koumyou Sanzo' or 'Sanzo', but that's... that's too much work right now. Almost everyone opts for 'Sanzo' by itself anyway. Why bother with the homyo at all... why bother with a name.

He's just a Sanzo.

He honestly forgets to answer Rich's actual question. The priest certainly looks rough, and not just the dried blood on his hands and sleeve. Koumyou's slumped back against the shelving behind him, legs only loosely in lotus, his hair disheveled, skin paler than normal.

And his eyes are still shut, expression blank.

[firewalled]

"Oh... I'm sorry, Sanzo." He corrects himself easily enough, before moving a little closer. He certainly does look exhausted... maybe a little sick? It's seeming more likely the blood could be his own.

"Are you hurt at all? If you need help, I can find bandages or something."

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou opens his eyes to look... vaguely in Rich's direction. They're unfocused, glazed, flat.

Like the rest of him.

"I don't need help," Rich, at least, gets more up-front information than most who have stumbled into him so far, the priest even holding out the hand with the fresh, raw looking scar across the under-side of his fingers. It's as thin as a knife's edge, but still pink and new, the skin around it very red and irritated.

It's the same side as the sleeve with the dried blood on it.

"I already healed where the blood came from."

See? That means he's fine.

[firewalled]

That is a look Rich hasn't seen often... but one he's sure he's had on his face once in a while, when the pressure got to be too much for him and he had no choice but to separate from the world.

He worries what Koumyou felt he had to escape.

He worries more about the scar, though, and he immediately straightens to dig in one of the cupboards for supplies.

"Shit! That needs to be cleaned right away... how'd you get cut like that? It looks nasty..."

He bends back down at the priest's side, gently holding out both hands to try to take the injured one and examine the cut.

[herarrows]

Senegal had been about to engage in their stupid little game and attempt to startle the man except something seemed...off. Enough so that instead, she simply approached quietly, brows furrowed together in concern. She's not even an Empath and she can see that something's wrong, that this is not at all the ridiculous and charming man she'd known for not nearly as long as it felt like she did.

She can't even remember why she came in here in the first place but whatever the reason, clearly it couldn't have mattered much. And instead of turning around and leaving, she drops herself down on her knees in front of him, giving him his space but refusing to be ignored.

"Havens, you look like hell."

[its_dad_sanzo]

The reaction she gets is the same as if she'd tried to startle him, in this state; nothing. Koumyou doesn't even seem to have heard Selenay, yet. It would be incredibly easy to just, leave.

Which is completely his dim, unfocused, hazy intention, behind his closed eyelids.

[herarrows]

There's a joke on the tip of her tongue, about how it takes two people to have a conversation, but just that look on his face, kills it. Why, Lord and Lady, was she not Gifted with something that would be far more useful now?

"Well, alright then," she finally concludes softly and settles into a spot beside him. "I'll be here if you need me."

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou just goes back to meditation.

This Body itself is Emptiness, and Emptiness itself is this Body.

Time goes by in complete silence. He barely seems to be breathing.

This Body is not other than Emptiness, and Emptiness is not other than this Body.

Hours pass just like this. People occasionally come and go, grabbing things for the kitchen, but Koumyou's wedged himself as far out of anyone's way as he can.

All phenomena bear the mark of Emptiness; their true nature is the nature of; no Birth no Death, no Being no Non-being, no Defilement no Purity, no Increasing no Decreasing.

Most of the entire day has gone by before Koumyou says anything, his voice rough from disuse and a lack of drinking anything, "Why are you still here."

He hasn't even opened his eyes.

[herarrows]

For her part, Selenay doesn't move. She's in her spot and she's not leaving, dammit, until she's at least tried something. She's a Herald and Heralds help people. And despite the short amount of time they've known each other, she still feels like they could at least be the beginnings of friends.

She's a little bit startled when she hears him speak, but she recovers quickly enough and stretches her arms over her head. How long have they been sitting here again...?

"Because you look like you're half a breath from blowing over and you wouldn't mind if you did. Hellsteeth, what happened?"

[subcircuits]

Dining car, kitchen car, stores. Devero has made this trek so many times in just the past few weeks, shuttling back and forth between these carriages, that he hardly notices the distance anymore.

But right now, that distance seems interminable. Dining car, squeezing along in the narrow space between the seating and the outside wall. Kitchen car, dodging around a few passengers cooking, head down lest someone try to delay him.

Stores car. He slows his headlong, endless flight, eyes up and searching. He finds him at the end of the store room, halting when he first catches sight of the priest. Koumyou looks awful, he does look like a corpse, he-- he--

He's like this because of Devero.

He closes the last of the space between them at a run, and crashes to his knees in front of the priest. "Koumyou--" What right does Devero have to call him by his homyo alone anymore? "--Sanzo...?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou doesn't react to being joined in the stores car. He doesn't react to being rushed at in a run, or someone crashing to the floor before him.

When Devero speaks, the priest flinches. Eyes still closed, voice rough from not speaking, he grates a quiet, "I'll move."

Just give him a little space and he'll get out of the way. He will. He'll stay out of the way. There's only so many corners in the train, but he'll find them all.

[subcircuits]

Devero sees him flinch, and oh how he wants to reach out to him. He doesn't, though. What right does he have to that anymore, either, after what he did?

"Please don't," he says instead. "At least, not until I-- I have something I need to say to you. If you'll listen."

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou's eyes open, flat and glazed and unfocused, looking somewhere past Devero's ear. "You don't have to say anything to me."

He rubs at the new scar on his hand, not even aware he's doing it. The raised line of soreness, and the aching meat beneath it, have become a worry-stone for him whenever he's not meditating deeply enough.

"I know."

Koumyou has taken what Devero said to him yesterday, and meditated on that, too. If it wasn't true, it wouldn't resonate so deeply with him, surely. He wouldn't be able to see all the branching roots of it, coiled into their every previous interaction.

Black, poisonous roots.

[subcircuits]

Rust and ruin, Koumyou won't even look at him-- not that Devero blames him. He has to fist his hands against his knees to keep himself from reaching to grab Koumyou's hands, especially when he realizes what it is that the priest is doing with them.

He has to swallow to clear his throat, and he turns his face away. "Sanzo, I'm sorry."