What you are is what you have been. [OPEN]

[its_dad_sanzo]

Who: Koumyou Sanzo and OPEN!
Where: All over the place!
When: Any time between the 3 questions event (Imagination 21) and the next mission.
What: A bunch of prompts and a wildcard, take your pick!
Warnings: Devero thread: some hot and heavy PDA toward the very end, and a minor reference to Dev's highly-abusive past relationship.


xxxxxWhat you'll be is what you do now.

( In all prompts, Koumyou is in his full Sanzo uniform, not train-issued clothes. )

xxxxx🌙 Cleaning and Singing

Blue team is supposed to clean, and so that's what Koumyou's doing. The priest has a broom and a dustpan, and... no plan! He can be found sweeping up the main walkways mostly, and doing an alright job of it.

And as he works, the priest is singing to himself. Quietly enough that one would have to actively listen to hear it clearly, but it's there. The chances are good that he's not even aware he's doing it. He has a lovely singing voice, even at a low volume.

xxxxx🌙 Meditating

Koumyou's found an out of the way corner somewhere, and has sat down on the floor in full lotus position, eyes closed and breathing slow and even. One could almost think he's asleep, except his back is far too rigid, and his head's not even drooping.

Is the light a little brighter, in this corner? A little colder, almost like... moonlight?

xxxxx🌙 Meditating Napping

It's been long enough since the mission on Nion that Koumyou is no longer sleeping in every random nook and cranny in the train to recover, but that doesn't mean he won't still occasionally nod off somewhere inconvenient.

Is he drooling on one of the tables in the dining car? Snoring quietly in the cinema car? Slumped over onto his side in a seat in the standard car?

Maybe someone should wake him up.

xxxxx🌙 Smoking

There's only a few places Koumyou Sanzo won't smoke. The cabin he shares with three kids, and the hospital car. He's nowhere near the walking chimney his son grows up to be, but at least once a day the priest will light up a single plain, filtered cigarette.

It takes the edge off, and no one wants Koumyou Sanzo to not take the edge off.

xxxxx🌙 Wildcard?

xxxxx(Wildcard.)

Comments

[subcircuits]

Devero has a hand ready to help Koumyou up, in case he needs it. Once the priest is upright again, Devero resumes his slouch against the table.

"The statue incident?" he repeats. "You know you have to tell me about that now."

[its_dad_sanzo]

What a gentleman!

Koumyou moves to sling his legs over the side of the bench, one after the other, turning around to sit the same way Devero is. With his back against the edge of the table and his tea cupped in both hands, and close enough to be shoulder-to-shoulder.

"It was at Taisouji, sometime after the first exam. The eleven of us still around in the first squad," as opposed to dead, "were being sent to the nearest town to get donations from the townsfolk, but we all knew from past experience a lot of it would be food and stuff that the temple wouldn't want. Normally, we get to keep that stuff."

[subcircuits]

Devero shifts his weight to lean just a little bit into that shoulder, clearly enjoying the proximity. He listens, nodding along to show he's following the story.

"How did your temple get food otherwise, if they wouldn't want the donations?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

"A lot of it's usually stuff that's technically forbidden," Koumyou points out, amused. "Like meat. Or just not wanted by the temple itself, like candy. And even the useful stuff-- the temple had sources for all of that in bulk, not the little that would fit in an alms bag for a full day's hike back up into the mountains. So it was easier for them to just not bother with any of the goods we brought back."

Unspoken, they probably were supposed to get rid of it. But if no one saw it, everyone had plausible deniability.

"Part of what we were doing was setting up those bulk donations, too. Most temples grow a lot of their own food, but nothing grew that high up in that kind of year-round freeze."

[subcircuits]

"High altitudes usually are pretty inimical to agriculture, yeah," he agrees. "All right, so you got to keep the goods, then. And probably deserved them if you had to hike a mountain for them."

He grins sidelong over at him. "So~?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

"So, we all made a deal with each other... whatever we were given, we'd bring back and throw into one big pot, and cook it. And then eat it together."

Which was absolutely inviting chaos, and they'd known it.

Look, students who had to face the idea of dying gruesomely day after day had to find entertainment where they could!

"It started off so good! The first things in the pot was fish, and miso, and sake, and a whole bag of vegetables. It smelled amazing! But, we made a deal..."

[subcircuits]

Oh, he can see the shape this is starting to take. Crossing one leg up and over the opposite knee, he turns on the bench to face Koumyou. "What else came out of those bags?" he asks, with barely restrained anticipation.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"And wild boar! It smelled so good," Koumyou repeats, "so so good."

But it hadn't stayed that way.

"So then, Gichou threw in a ton of rice and made it into rice gruel. And Soujin had a bucket of fried chicken. And Ganpuku had... he had..." a pause for dramatic effect, "doughnuts..."

[subcircuits]

There it is. "Frosted or plain?" he prompts.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Both," Koumyou sighs deeply, like the memory of it is still haunting his very soul. "It smelled so weird..."

And then he reaches for one of Devero's hands. "I need support, here! There were eleven of us, and I've only told you eight ingredients..."

It gets worse.

[subcircuits]

Obligingly, Devero grasps Koumyou's hand in both of his. "I'm here for you," he says with exaggerated seriousness. "You can tell me. What went in next?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou sets his tea down and mimics Devero's posture on the bench, folding a leg so he can face the bigger man. And he grabs onto their clasped hands with his other.

Can't not ham it up, after all.

"So... so you have to understand that Tenkai -- his name back then was Genkai -- he was really, really tiny. Like, literally half my height."

Koumyou squeezes Devero's hands.

"The villagers... the villagers all thought he was a kid. So they... they gave him candy. A whole alms bag of it. Chocolate and fruity stuff."

He shook their hands around for emphasis, "It was so. Gross."

Two more ingredients to go.

[subcircuits]

"No." That's real horror right there. And they still have two ingredients to go. "I-- I can't imagine how this will get worse..."

Please tell him.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"Ryūzen was given..." Koumyou leans close, "tabi socks."

And they absolutely went into the pot.

[subcircuits]

"Rust and ruin! Socks?! Like, actual on-your-foot socks?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou nods solemnly. "Two pairs. Not new, either."

The horror is real.

[subcircuits]

"I wouldn't have been able to go through with it. I would have tapped out there. There are lines, man!"

Nonetheless, he leans in eagerly. "Well? And the last ingredient?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

"The last ingredient was mine."

Uh oh.

"I visited a sculptor, and, well... our Mistake Stew ended up with a statue of Buddha jammed into it."

The final touch on a masterpiece of horrible decisions.

[subcircuits]

There is about 10 seconds of silence where Devero just stares into Koumyou's eyes with his own wide ones.

Then he absolutely loses it, bursting into unrestrained laughter. It takes him solid 15 seconds or so just to rein himself in again.

"That's what you get for agreeing to something that boneheaded," he says, freeing a hand to wipe laughter tears out of his eyes. "Did any of you actually eat it?"

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou joins in on the laughter, of course, if with a slight edge of lingering regret that he'd ever agreed to the plan to begin with. The first squad had sometimes shared one brain cell, and whoever had been in charge of it that day had clearly misplaced it.

"Of course! You can't waste food, Devero!"

[subcircuits]

"Why didn't you just compost it?!" he asks between gasping breaths. "Surely--"

He actually stops there, and corrects himself. "No, I guess you wouldn't be able to compost if it was that cold, would you? And no point if you weren't growing anything anyway."

Of course, that thought leads him back around to 'they had to eat it' and he dissolves into laughter again.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"It tasted like confusion and regret," Koumyou tells him while laughing along with, mostly out of delight at Dev's reaction. "And it only got weirder as you went!"

[subcircuits]

He manages, finally, to get a hold of himself. "Bet you and your mates didn't do anything like that again, did you?" he asks as he brushes his eyes clear again.

[its_dad_sanzo]

"I mean..."

Yes, yes they had done more stupid shit. Thanks for asking!

[subcircuits]

"How old were you?" he asks. He has to know.