Saiyuki Story: Eight (last of a series of eight)
Author: Sunspot
Title: Eight
Rating: R
Pairing: 38 (Sanzo/Hakkai)
Note: Eighth in a series of eight, each written and posted on a succesive night of Chanukah. The Sanzo-ikkou, snowed in at a Tibetan inn, improvise Chanukah based on a one-page listing in Hakkai’s paperback Festivals of the World.
Eight
It was late, and Hakkai and Sanzo were putting a refractory period to excellent use. As Hakkai had expected, the teasing, nipping kisses Sanzo seemed to favor were just as delightful with Sanzo sprawled over him, if not more so. Sanzo’s eyes were dark wells above him in the lamplight.
At first he thought the (noticeably lessened) wind had flung a chunk of ice against the windowpane. Then it came again, a low, perhaps urgent, rap-rap-rap on the door.
“Ignore them and they’ll fuck off,” Sanzo murmured, breath warm at his ear. Hakkai shivered and shook his head, both.
“It could be important,” he whispered back. “Shift.”
Sanzo shifted with ill grace and Hakkai pulled his pyjamas from under the pillow, where hopefully they’d gotten a little less than icy.
Not much. He shivered from less pleasant cause as he pulled them on and shoved his feet into slippers, then crossed to the door.
“Who’s there?” he asked quietly, curling chi from his center into his extremities, warmth and weapon, both.
“It’s Namgyal,” came the low response.
Hakkai cracked the door. She was standing in the hallway, a dressing gown wrapped snug about her.
“Is Sanzo-sama there?” she asked in an urgent whisper.
“Yes,” Hakkai said, and checked over his shoulder. Sanzo was up, and dressed, and armed. Good man. “You’d better come in.”
He opened the door further and she slipped through.
“What can we do for you?” Hakkai asked, not that he didn’t suspect.
“Rinzen’s here,” she said. “In the inn. Sanzo-sama, will you marry us?”
Sanzo cut his eyes to Hakkai, who gave him the tiniest fraction of a nod.
“Tiresome,” Sanzo said, which, in this context, was Sanzo for yes. Hakkai gave Namgyal a reassuring smile.
“Where is he?” Sanzo added, putting his gun away with an air that said the stand-down was provisional at best.
“Hiding in the wing we close off for winter,” Namgyal said. “Bundle up, it’s cold there. And thank you.”
“Don’t thank me till it’s done,” Sanzo said, pulling Hakkai’s sweater over his head, then getting into his robes. “If then.”
Hakkai’s warmest sweater. Of course. Sanzo was still Sanzo, even after spending the better part of an hour exploring just how many different noises he could get Hakkai to make without touching any “official” erogenous zones.
Hakkai pulled his second-warmest out of his pack and a pair of socks to wear with his slippers then, remembering, all three of his layman's sashes. In scant minutes they were following Namgyal quietly down the hall.
Down the hall, up the stairs, through a locked door, and down a corridor at a right angle to the wing they’d been staying in. It was cold here, their breaths visible before their faces, little breath-clouds the three of them walked into and then through.
At last Namgyal stopped before a door and knocked: three raps in quick succession, a pause, and then one more. Then she unlocked the door with another key from the ring of them in her dressing gown’s pocket, and pushed it carefully open.
Their first glimpse of Rinzen was of a slight young man, as short as Goku and, if possible, wirier, getting to his feet from where he’s been assembling a small portable altar. He had a mop of dark hair, and under it his gap-toothed grin, looking at Namgyal, was positively incandescent with hope.
He turned to Sanzo and Hakkai, schooling his face to something more serious. “Sanzo-sama, Monk Hakkai, you came, thank you.”
“It’s the least we could do,” Hakkai said, as Sanzo grunted and pulled veil and crown from his robes’ voluminous sleeves. “Let me help you with the altar,” Hakkai went on.
“Thank you,” Rinzen said again. “There’s not much-just what Namgyal could conceal or I could carry.” They knelt side by side to the work, Rinzen pulling from his breast pocket little cards with images of the Buddha and what must be a pair of Tibetan saints, the kind the devout might carry in their wallets. He placed them reverently on the makeshift altar.
“Here,” Namgyal said, handing Hakkai two small candles. She had taken off her robe to reveal a festival dress and the striped aprons that Tibetan women wore for special occasions. Rinzen, like a man who’d just walked through a blizzard to marry the woman he loved, was in warm, but slightly threadbare, work clothes.
Hakkai set the pair of candles on the altar, next to six familiar looking appetizer plates, each with a small, symbolic offering: a cone of incense, a dried apricot, an artificial flower made of cloth, a few coins, and, most heartbreaking, the earrings Namgyal usually wore, one to a plate, the only bride gift the couple had to offer.
Hakkai and Rinzen rose together, Namgyal crossed to her bridegroom, and the couple lit the incense together and one candle each with a lighter, then made their reverences.
Hakkai stepped forward and handed each of the pair down to sit in their appointed places next to the altar. At this point streams of relatives, friends, and well wishers should be passing through, making a reverence at the altar, and bestowing gifts and blessings on the couple, who would feed them grains of toasted rice.
Hakkai took the three sashes from Sanzo and approached the altar. He laid the first sash across it, and bowed, with a quick blessing for the couple’s future happiness, then moved to Rinzen and Namgyal.
Namgyal had no rice, but she opened her hand to reveal a pair of roasted pumpkin seeds. Rinzen fed Hakkai one, and Namgyal fed him the other. Hakkai laid a sash across each of their shoulders and wished he’d thought to bring a gift, though unsure of what they might have to hand.
Behind him, Sanzo cleared his throat. Hakkai looked over his shoulder. There was a book in Sanzo’s hands, the Book, Festivals of the World, and a question in Sanzo’s eyes. Hakkai nodded and held out his hand, then turned and laid the book to the side of the altar.
Sanzo, resplendent in veil and crown, knelt before the altar, raised his hands palm to palm, and began to chant.
When the brief ceremony was over, Sanzo and Hakkai made their way back to the inhabited wing alone. They’d offered Namgyal and Rinzen their room. They could pretend to insomnia and spend the night playing cards in the parlor. But the newlyweds demurred. It seemed sad to leave them to an undecked bride-bed in an unheated room, but when they’d left, the couple had been holding hands, dreamy-eyed and smiling.
“S’it all right, the Book? Sanzo asked, voice a shade gruffer than blasé. “It was that or a pack of Hi-Lites,” he added.
Sanzo was right. Their party traveled light, and most of what they carried was essential, or close to it. Hakkai regretted needing to take back the sashes. Technically, though, they were the temple’s, not his.
“A wedding with no gifts is bad luck,” Hakkai said, and let his shoulder brush Sanzo’s.
Hakkai was licking Sanzo’s chakra, tiny laps of his tongue tip over and over, not manipulating the chi, just enjoying it, the glowing circuit from crown to root and back, and Sanzo’s undulating writhing and quiet gasps. There was a chance Sanzo might come from this alone, or with just a little boost. Hakkai contemplated adding in some direct stimulation and really driving Sanzo crazy. He was just slipping his hand down when what was definitely urgent pounding on their door began.
“Aw crap,” Hakkai heard himself say over Sanzo’s protesting “fuck, so close.”
Neither of them was in a fit state to go to the door.
“This better be a fucking emergency or I’m going to shoot whoever you are,” Sanzo yelled.
The door burst open on Gojyo, looking wild eyed and pretty damn panicked. He was in his trousers and nothing else, and the buxom agronomist was behind him, wrapped in a fuzzy bathrobe.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Gojyo nearly babbled. “A bunch of the kids are missing, and Goku and Jeep.”
“Close the damn door,” Sanzo barked, sitting up, heedless of the cold on his bare torso. Gojyo shut the door behind himself and Dr. Laxan.
“Sanzo?” Hakkai said.
All eyes were on their leader.
“Give me a minute,” he snapped.
Hakkai watched Sanzo take a centering breath and close his eyes. His chest rose and fell, three more times before he spoke.
“Goku’s . . . all right. He’s not frightened. He’s . . . having fun?”
“They’re on an adventure?” Hakkai wondered.
“They’re on a distraction,” Sanzo corrected. “Gojyo, who’s missing and who raised the alarm?”
Gojyo looked at Dr. Laxan.
“It was the youngest of the middle boys,” she said. “The one who doesn’t sing or play an instrument.”
Pemba then. Who was quiet and level headed, and close to his sister.
“The missing kids are Dorje and Dechen, and the two brothers between them and Pemba, and Goku and Jeep,” Gojyo put in.
“Dorje and Dechen are on the village’s mountain rescue squad,” Hakkai ventured. And there had been a lot of rope in that storeroom.
“D’you really think?” Hakkai asked.
“What?” Gojyo demanded.
“No one’s said anything about Namgyal?” Hakkai looked at Gojyo and Dr. Laxan.
The agronomist shook her head. “Not that I heard.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Gojyo repeated.
“Rinzen is here in the inn. He and Namgyal are in the closed off wing. Sanzo married them earlier tonight.” Hakkai watched light dawn across Gojyo’s face.
“So,” Gojyo said, “We’re not gonna rat on them, are we?”
“I think not, but we do owe the parents a lessening of their worries.” Hakkai looked at Sanzo.
“All right,” Sanzo huffed. “You two clear out, we’re gonna get dressed. Fuckin’ kids,” he added under his breath.
As seemed to be a universal compulsion in times of crisis, Mother and Father Tamang, Choden and her husband (whose name might be Jingme), a white-lipped Pemba, and a scattering of inn guests, were all clustered in the kitchen. All assembled looked up as Hakkai and Sanzo and Gojyo and Dr. Laxan burst in.
“It’s very likely they’re all safe,” Sanzo, bless him, said at once.
Mother Tamang gave him a hard stare. “What do you know?” she said.
“Er, it’s hard to explain,” Hakkai put in. “Sanzo raised Goku.” Stretching it, but close enough. “They have, ah, a connection.” Hakkai pointed at his temple.
“Check in, why dontcha,” Gojyo urged, speaking to Sanzo of course.
“Fine,” Sanzo said, and shooed the traveling harness mender off one of the stools. He sat and breathed, focusing.
“Still not scared,” Sanzo reported. “No danger, but . . . I can’t quite tell. Second thoughts?” His brow furrowed. “That baka-saru!” He looked at the graved-faced parents. “He wants a snack.”
“Is it real?” Father Tamang asked Hakkai. Why he was the expert in Sanzology all of a sudden he didn’t know.
Oh. Right.
“It is,” Hakkai assured.
“Can you tell them to come home?” Choden asked.
Sanzo shook his head. “If he tries to check in with me he’ll know he’s in trouble. But that’s it.”
Even at that Sanzo was exaggerating. The connection between him and Goku seemed to wax and wane, and be more a matter of happenstance. Though, worried enough, they could reach out like Sanzo had.
Which said something about Sanzo’s worry. The storm was less than in previous days, but still fierce.
Choden and her husband exchanged glances. He raised his eyebrows. She gave a tiny nod, then took a breath.
“Namgyal’s not in her room,” Choden said. “She lives with us, in our apartment,” she explained to the guests.
Both parents gave their daughter a look between anger and shock. Pemba tried to shrink lower on his stool.
“She ran away?” Father Tamang said, not quite believing, or not wanting to. “The others went after her?”
“We were helping her!” Pemba burst out. “We took the rescue team ropes and daisy chained everyone together with Dechen and Dorje on the ends. She went to the village, to Rinzen. They’re going to the city and get married as soon as the storm breaks.” He seemed to shrink even further into himself, and wiped his nose with a pyjama-clad forearm. “I wasn’t s’posed to tell,” he added. “But I got worried. It’s still bad out.”
Gojyo met Hakkai’s eyes. It was well hidden, but Hakkai could see the master’s appreciation for a con well executed. Just enough truth, including Pemba’s evident and very real worry, to sell the whole thing of a piece. Tomorrow Hakkai would bake that young man a cake. Assuming all his siblings, and Goku and Jeep, returned in one piece.
“Maybe they stayed in the village, all of them,” Hakkai ventured.
Which was just when, for the third time that night, Hakkai’s train of thought (or something like that) was interrupted by someone pounding at the door.
Mother and Father Tamang moved fast, but Jingme was closer to the door and moved faster. He threw the bolt and pushed hard and the wind caught and flung the door wide, and Dechen and Goku (Jeep’s head peeking out at the neck of a jacket Goku had evidently borrowed from a smallish Tamang), and a brother, and another, and Dorje last of all, tumbled in, all caked in snow and still linked together by what was a very great quantity of snowy, icy, rope.
Many people began yelling at once, including Sanzo, who had moved almost as fast as the Tamangs and was shaking Goku by the shoulders and yelling something or other right in his face, Jeep ducking down into the jacket and out of range.
Hakkai caught Gojyo’s eye and they rose together to get snacks out and put on tea.
Which was about when Namgyal and Rinzen made their entrance, hand in hand. More yelling, if that were possible, ensued.
The parents were upset at the newlyweds for eloping, at the teenagers for risking their lives to bring Rinzen from the village, at Pemba for prevaricating, and at Sanzo and Goku, and by extension Hakkai and the rest of the Sanzo-ikkou, for facilitating, and on Sanzo’s part doing the actual marrying.
Namgyal and Rinzen were mad at her parents for opposing their union, and at the teenagers for not sticking to the plan and going back to bed once Rinzen was safely delivered, and at Pemba, whom they counted on to be sensible, for going along with the crazy idea (and as it turned out thinking it up) of having the kids hide out and pretend to be missing to distract any potential attention away from Namgyal’s whereabouts.
Sanzo just seemed to be mad at everyone in general. Except possibly Hakkai. And maybe the newlyweds.
It was very late indeed before everything was sorted out to a sort of weary mutual resignation from every faction. Married was married and safe home was safe home, and hopefully everyone would be calmer after some sleep.
The five of them trooped up the their room (well, four trooped, and Jeep rode on Hakkai’s shoulder). So much for all of Hakkai’s (and Sanzo’s) delicious plans. The door shut behind them all, Hakkai and Sanzo both looked at the bed that had recently been the site of some very good times indeed, then at each other, and Sanzo shrugged. It was not like anything more than sleep was in the offing, but why not?
“Dibs on Sanzo,” Hakkai said, and went to go brush his teeth.
Hakkai woke to morning light, still weary, tolerably warm, and with a hand on his ass. Sanzo’s hand. Of course. He began to stifle a giggle that stifled itself as more of the night before came back to him. Well, Namgyal and Rinzen were married, and that was a good thing. And there was a strange sound, or rather lack of sound, in the inn. And the light was winter-watery, but clear. The storm had broken. And whatever the condition of the roads and passes, the Sanzo-ikkou might need to travel today. Fast. Still Hakkai couldn’t find it in himself to regret any of it. He slid out of Sanzo’s still-unconscious grasp, pulled on his sweater (the warmest one, thank you), stuffed his feet into slippers, and headed for the kitchen, hoping against hope to find it deserted.
So of course Mother Tamang was there. With a posse of daughters, Namgyal notably absent.
“I have a theological question for you, Monk Hakkai,” Mother Tamang announced, rounding on him. “Is it permissible to combine a wedding celebration with the observance of the last night of your festival?”
The Book’s single page hadn’t said a thing about that. And he was pretty sure the Sigilovdda Sutta didn’t either.
“That is considered especially propitious,” Hakkai intoned.
“Good,” Mother Tamang said. “Grab an apron, there’s cooking to do.”
The rest of the day was a whirl of peeling and chopping and wrapping and steaming and, yes, deep frying, and checking in with Goku and his crew on (nearly completed!) doll production, and a truncated but memorable make-out session with Sanzo in the linen storage room.
When it came time to light the lamp, there was a proper altar set up in the dining room, with six plates piled with sweets and incense and origami flowers, and jewelry contributed by anyone who had some to spare (Goyjo himself had donated the annoying and entirely superfluous navel ring some woman had convinced him to get a few towns back), and proper seats for the newlyweds, and porcelain bowls of crunchy rice with little spoons to serve it.
At the appointed time, Dorje and Dechen and Gojyo and Goku led a glowing Namgyal and a suspiciously bright-eyed Rinzen, grinning like his face might burst, past a row of beaming children holding up their dolls and puppies to give them a good view, to the lamp. Dechen solemnly handed her sister Gojyo’s now ceremonial lighter. Namgyal lit the shamash and the first four lamps, then handed the helper lamp to her new husband who lit the last four.
They stepped back, and looked to Sanzo, who was . . . breathtaking. His robes and crown and veil and hair and skin all golden in the lamplight. He moved closer and said something quietly to the couple, then turned to the lamp, looking past it and into Hakkai’s eyes for a long moment.
“Blessed be God, ordainer of the universe, who sanctifies us with the commandment to light the lamp. Blessed be God, ordainer of the universe, who performed miracles for our ancestors at this season. Blessed be God, ordainer of the universe who has kept us alive to see this day.”
A strange prickling in his eyes, Hakkai brought his hands together, once, twice, three times, hearing it doubled and redoubled by the hands of all those who had been their companions for the length of the storm and this festival, which they would probably never celebrate again but was now and would be for all times a valued and sacred Sanzo-ikkou tradition.
Title: Eight
Rating: R
Pairing: 38 (Sanzo/Hakkai)
Note: Eighth in a series of eight, each written and posted on a succesive night of Chanukah. The Sanzo-ikkou, snowed in at a Tibetan inn, improvise Chanukah based on a one-page listing in Hakkai’s paperback Festivals of the World.
Eight
It was late, and Hakkai and Sanzo were putting a refractory period to excellent use. As Hakkai had expected, the teasing, nipping kisses Sanzo seemed to favor were just as delightful with Sanzo sprawled over him, if not more so. Sanzo’s eyes were dark wells above him in the lamplight.
At first he thought the (noticeably lessened) wind had flung a chunk of ice against the windowpane. Then it came again, a low, perhaps urgent, rap-rap-rap on the door.
“Ignore them and they’ll fuck off,” Sanzo murmured, breath warm at his ear. Hakkai shivered and shook his head, both.
“It could be important,” he whispered back. “Shift.”
Sanzo shifted with ill grace and Hakkai pulled his pyjamas from under the pillow, where hopefully they’d gotten a little less than icy.
Not much. He shivered from less pleasant cause as he pulled them on and shoved his feet into slippers, then crossed to the door.
“Who’s there?” he asked quietly, curling chi from his center into his extremities, warmth and weapon, both.
“It’s Namgyal,” came the low response.
Hakkai cracked the door. She was standing in the hallway, a dressing gown wrapped snug about her.
“Is Sanzo-sama there?” she asked in an urgent whisper.
“Yes,” Hakkai said, and checked over his shoulder. Sanzo was up, and dressed, and armed. Good man. “You’d better come in.”
He opened the door further and she slipped through.
“What can we do for you?” Hakkai asked, not that he didn’t suspect.
“Rinzen’s here,” she said. “In the inn. Sanzo-sama, will you marry us?”
Sanzo cut his eyes to Hakkai, who gave him the tiniest fraction of a nod.
“Tiresome,” Sanzo said, which, in this context, was Sanzo for yes. Hakkai gave Namgyal a reassuring smile.
“Where is he?” Sanzo added, putting his gun away with an air that said the stand-down was provisional at best.
“Hiding in the wing we close off for winter,” Namgyal said. “Bundle up, it’s cold there. And thank you.”
“Don’t thank me till it’s done,” Sanzo said, pulling Hakkai’s sweater over his head, then getting into his robes. “If then.”
Hakkai’s warmest sweater. Of course. Sanzo was still Sanzo, even after spending the better part of an hour exploring just how many different noises he could get Hakkai to make without touching any “official” erogenous zones.
Hakkai pulled his second-warmest out of his pack and a pair of socks to wear with his slippers then, remembering, all three of his layman's sashes. In scant minutes they were following Namgyal quietly down the hall.
Down the hall, up the stairs, through a locked door, and down a corridor at a right angle to the wing they’d been staying in. It was cold here, their breaths visible before their faces, little breath-clouds the three of them walked into and then through.
At last Namgyal stopped before a door and knocked: three raps in quick succession, a pause, and then one more. Then she unlocked the door with another key from the ring of them in her dressing gown’s pocket, and pushed it carefully open.
Their first glimpse of Rinzen was of a slight young man, as short as Goku and, if possible, wirier, getting to his feet from where he’s been assembling a small portable altar. He had a mop of dark hair, and under it his gap-toothed grin, looking at Namgyal, was positively incandescent with hope.
He turned to Sanzo and Hakkai, schooling his face to something more serious. “Sanzo-sama, Monk Hakkai, you came, thank you.”
“It’s the least we could do,” Hakkai said, as Sanzo grunted and pulled veil and crown from his robes’ voluminous sleeves. “Let me help you with the altar,” Hakkai went on.
“Thank you,” Rinzen said again. “There’s not much-just what Namgyal could conceal or I could carry.” They knelt side by side to the work, Rinzen pulling from his breast pocket little cards with images of the Buddha and what must be a pair of Tibetan saints, the kind the devout might carry in their wallets. He placed them reverently on the makeshift altar.
“Here,” Namgyal said, handing Hakkai two small candles. She had taken off her robe to reveal a festival dress and the striped aprons that Tibetan women wore for special occasions. Rinzen, like a man who’d just walked through a blizzard to marry the woman he loved, was in warm, but slightly threadbare, work clothes.
Hakkai set the pair of candles on the altar, next to six familiar looking appetizer plates, each with a small, symbolic offering: a cone of incense, a dried apricot, an artificial flower made of cloth, a few coins, and, most heartbreaking, the earrings Namgyal usually wore, one to a plate, the only bride gift the couple had to offer.
Hakkai and Rinzen rose together, Namgyal crossed to her bridegroom, and the couple lit the incense together and one candle each with a lighter, then made their reverences.
Hakkai stepped forward and handed each of the pair down to sit in their appointed places next to the altar. At this point streams of relatives, friends, and well wishers should be passing through, making a reverence at the altar, and bestowing gifts and blessings on the couple, who would feed them grains of toasted rice.
Hakkai took the three sashes from Sanzo and approached the altar. He laid the first sash across it, and bowed, with a quick blessing for the couple’s future happiness, then moved to Rinzen and Namgyal.
Namgyal had no rice, but she opened her hand to reveal a pair of roasted pumpkin seeds. Rinzen fed Hakkai one, and Namgyal fed him the other. Hakkai laid a sash across each of their shoulders and wished he’d thought to bring a gift, though unsure of what they might have to hand.
Behind him, Sanzo cleared his throat. Hakkai looked over his shoulder. There was a book in Sanzo’s hands, the Book, Festivals of the World, and a question in Sanzo’s eyes. Hakkai nodded and held out his hand, then turned and laid the book to the side of the altar.
Sanzo, resplendent in veil and crown, knelt before the altar, raised his hands palm to palm, and began to chant.
When the brief ceremony was over, Sanzo and Hakkai made their way back to the inhabited wing alone. They’d offered Namgyal and Rinzen their room. They could pretend to insomnia and spend the night playing cards in the parlor. But the newlyweds demurred. It seemed sad to leave them to an undecked bride-bed in an unheated room, but when they’d left, the couple had been holding hands, dreamy-eyed and smiling.
“S’it all right, the Book? Sanzo asked, voice a shade gruffer than blasé. “It was that or a pack of Hi-Lites,” he added.
Sanzo was right. Their party traveled light, and most of what they carried was essential, or close to it. Hakkai regretted needing to take back the sashes. Technically, though, they were the temple’s, not his.
“A wedding with no gifts is bad luck,” Hakkai said, and let his shoulder brush Sanzo’s.
Hakkai was licking Sanzo’s chakra, tiny laps of his tongue tip over and over, not manipulating the chi, just enjoying it, the glowing circuit from crown to root and back, and Sanzo’s undulating writhing and quiet gasps. There was a chance Sanzo might come from this alone, or with just a little boost. Hakkai contemplated adding in some direct stimulation and really driving Sanzo crazy. He was just slipping his hand down when what was definitely urgent pounding on their door began.
“Aw crap,” Hakkai heard himself say over Sanzo’s protesting “fuck, so close.”
Neither of them was in a fit state to go to the door.
“This better be a fucking emergency or I’m going to shoot whoever you are,” Sanzo yelled.
The door burst open on Gojyo, looking wild eyed and pretty damn panicked. He was in his trousers and nothing else, and the buxom agronomist was behind him, wrapped in a fuzzy bathrobe.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Gojyo nearly babbled. “A bunch of the kids are missing, and Goku and Jeep.”
“Close the damn door,” Sanzo barked, sitting up, heedless of the cold on his bare torso. Gojyo shut the door behind himself and Dr. Laxan.
“Sanzo?” Hakkai said.
All eyes were on their leader.
“Give me a minute,” he snapped.
Hakkai watched Sanzo take a centering breath and close his eyes. His chest rose and fell, three more times before he spoke.
“Goku’s . . . all right. He’s not frightened. He’s . . . having fun?”
“They’re on an adventure?” Hakkai wondered.
“They’re on a distraction,” Sanzo corrected. “Gojyo, who’s missing and who raised the alarm?”
Gojyo looked at Dr. Laxan.
“It was the youngest of the middle boys,” she said. “The one who doesn’t sing or play an instrument.”
Pemba then. Who was quiet and level headed, and close to his sister.
“The missing kids are Dorje and Dechen, and the two brothers between them and Pemba, and Goku and Jeep,” Gojyo put in.
“Dorje and Dechen are on the village’s mountain rescue squad,” Hakkai ventured. And there had been a lot of rope in that storeroom.
“D’you really think?” Hakkai asked.
“What?” Gojyo demanded.
“No one’s said anything about Namgyal?” Hakkai looked at Gojyo and Dr. Laxan.
The agronomist shook her head. “Not that I heard.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Gojyo repeated.
“Rinzen is here in the inn. He and Namgyal are in the closed off wing. Sanzo married them earlier tonight.” Hakkai watched light dawn across Gojyo’s face.
“So,” Gojyo said, “We’re not gonna rat on them, are we?”
“I think not, but we do owe the parents a lessening of their worries.” Hakkai looked at Sanzo.
“All right,” Sanzo huffed. “You two clear out, we’re gonna get dressed. Fuckin’ kids,” he added under his breath.
As seemed to be a universal compulsion in times of crisis, Mother and Father Tamang, Choden and her husband (whose name might be Jingme), a white-lipped Pemba, and a scattering of inn guests, were all clustered in the kitchen. All assembled looked up as Hakkai and Sanzo and Gojyo and Dr. Laxan burst in.
“It’s very likely they’re all safe,” Sanzo, bless him, said at once.
Mother Tamang gave him a hard stare. “What do you know?” she said.
“Er, it’s hard to explain,” Hakkai put in. “Sanzo raised Goku.” Stretching it, but close enough. “They have, ah, a connection.” Hakkai pointed at his temple.
“Check in, why dontcha,” Gojyo urged, speaking to Sanzo of course.
“Fine,” Sanzo said, and shooed the traveling harness mender off one of the stools. He sat and breathed, focusing.
“Still not scared,” Sanzo reported. “No danger, but . . . I can’t quite tell. Second thoughts?” His brow furrowed. “That baka-saru!” He looked at the graved-faced parents. “He wants a snack.”
“Is it real?” Father Tamang asked Hakkai. Why he was the expert in Sanzology all of a sudden he didn’t know.
Oh. Right.
“It is,” Hakkai assured.
“Can you tell them to come home?” Choden asked.
Sanzo shook his head. “If he tries to check in with me he’ll know he’s in trouble. But that’s it.”
Even at that Sanzo was exaggerating. The connection between him and Goku seemed to wax and wane, and be more a matter of happenstance. Though, worried enough, they could reach out like Sanzo had.
Which said something about Sanzo’s worry. The storm was less than in previous days, but still fierce.
Choden and her husband exchanged glances. He raised his eyebrows. She gave a tiny nod, then took a breath.
“Namgyal’s not in her room,” Choden said. “She lives with us, in our apartment,” she explained to the guests.
Both parents gave their daughter a look between anger and shock. Pemba tried to shrink lower on his stool.
“She ran away?” Father Tamang said, not quite believing, or not wanting to. “The others went after her?”
“We were helping her!” Pemba burst out. “We took the rescue team ropes and daisy chained everyone together with Dechen and Dorje on the ends. She went to the village, to Rinzen. They’re going to the city and get married as soon as the storm breaks.” He seemed to shrink even further into himself, and wiped his nose with a pyjama-clad forearm. “I wasn’t s’posed to tell,” he added. “But I got worried. It’s still bad out.”
Gojyo met Hakkai’s eyes. It was well hidden, but Hakkai could see the master’s appreciation for a con well executed. Just enough truth, including Pemba’s evident and very real worry, to sell the whole thing of a piece. Tomorrow Hakkai would bake that young man a cake. Assuming all his siblings, and Goku and Jeep, returned in one piece.
“Maybe they stayed in the village, all of them,” Hakkai ventured.
Which was just when, for the third time that night, Hakkai’s train of thought (or something like that) was interrupted by someone pounding at the door.
Mother and Father Tamang moved fast, but Jingme was closer to the door and moved faster. He threw the bolt and pushed hard and the wind caught and flung the door wide, and Dechen and Goku (Jeep’s head peeking out at the neck of a jacket Goku had evidently borrowed from a smallish Tamang), and a brother, and another, and Dorje last of all, tumbled in, all caked in snow and still linked together by what was a very great quantity of snowy, icy, rope.
Many people began yelling at once, including Sanzo, who had moved almost as fast as the Tamangs and was shaking Goku by the shoulders and yelling something or other right in his face, Jeep ducking down into the jacket and out of range.
Hakkai caught Gojyo’s eye and they rose together to get snacks out and put on tea.
Which was about when Namgyal and Rinzen made their entrance, hand in hand. More yelling, if that were possible, ensued.
The parents were upset at the newlyweds for eloping, at the teenagers for risking their lives to bring Rinzen from the village, at Pemba for prevaricating, and at Sanzo and Goku, and by extension Hakkai and the rest of the Sanzo-ikkou, for facilitating, and on Sanzo’s part doing the actual marrying.
Namgyal and Rinzen were mad at her parents for opposing their union, and at the teenagers for not sticking to the plan and going back to bed once Rinzen was safely delivered, and at Pemba, whom they counted on to be sensible, for going along with the crazy idea (and as it turned out thinking it up) of having the kids hide out and pretend to be missing to distract any potential attention away from Namgyal’s whereabouts.
Sanzo just seemed to be mad at everyone in general. Except possibly Hakkai. And maybe the newlyweds.
It was very late indeed before everything was sorted out to a sort of weary mutual resignation from every faction. Married was married and safe home was safe home, and hopefully everyone would be calmer after some sleep.
The five of them trooped up the their room (well, four trooped, and Jeep rode on Hakkai’s shoulder). So much for all of Hakkai’s (and Sanzo’s) delicious plans. The door shut behind them all, Hakkai and Sanzo both looked at the bed that had recently been the site of some very good times indeed, then at each other, and Sanzo shrugged. It was not like anything more than sleep was in the offing, but why not?
“Dibs on Sanzo,” Hakkai said, and went to go brush his teeth.
Hakkai woke to morning light, still weary, tolerably warm, and with a hand on his ass. Sanzo’s hand. Of course. He began to stifle a giggle that stifled itself as more of the night before came back to him. Well, Namgyal and Rinzen were married, and that was a good thing. And there was a strange sound, or rather lack of sound, in the inn. And the light was winter-watery, but clear. The storm had broken. And whatever the condition of the roads and passes, the Sanzo-ikkou might need to travel today. Fast. Still Hakkai couldn’t find it in himself to regret any of it. He slid out of Sanzo’s still-unconscious grasp, pulled on his sweater (the warmest one, thank you), stuffed his feet into slippers, and headed for the kitchen, hoping against hope to find it deserted.
So of course Mother Tamang was there. With a posse of daughters, Namgyal notably absent.
“I have a theological question for you, Monk Hakkai,” Mother Tamang announced, rounding on him. “Is it permissible to combine a wedding celebration with the observance of the last night of your festival?”
The Book’s single page hadn’t said a thing about that. And he was pretty sure the Sigilovdda Sutta didn’t either.
“That is considered especially propitious,” Hakkai intoned.
“Good,” Mother Tamang said. “Grab an apron, there’s cooking to do.”
The rest of the day was a whirl of peeling and chopping and wrapping and steaming and, yes, deep frying, and checking in with Goku and his crew on (nearly completed!) doll production, and a truncated but memorable make-out session with Sanzo in the linen storage room.
When it came time to light the lamp, there was a proper altar set up in the dining room, with six plates piled with sweets and incense and origami flowers, and jewelry contributed by anyone who had some to spare (Goyjo himself had donated the annoying and entirely superfluous navel ring some woman had convinced him to get a few towns back), and proper seats for the newlyweds, and porcelain bowls of crunchy rice with little spoons to serve it.
At the appointed time, Dorje and Dechen and Gojyo and Goku led a glowing Namgyal and a suspiciously bright-eyed Rinzen, grinning like his face might burst, past a row of beaming children holding up their dolls and puppies to give them a good view, to the lamp. Dechen solemnly handed her sister Gojyo’s now ceremonial lighter. Namgyal lit the shamash and the first four lamps, then handed the helper lamp to her new husband who lit the last four.
They stepped back, and looked to Sanzo, who was . . . breathtaking. His robes and crown and veil and hair and skin all golden in the lamplight. He moved closer and said something quietly to the couple, then turned to the lamp, looking past it and into Hakkai’s eyes for a long moment.
“Blessed be God, ordainer of the universe, who sanctifies us with the commandment to light the lamp. Blessed be God, ordainer of the universe, who performed miracles for our ancestors at this season. Blessed be God, ordainer of the universe who has kept us alive to see this day.”
A strange prickling in his eyes, Hakkai brought his hands together, once, twice, three times, hearing it doubled and redoubled by the hands of all those who had been their companions for the length of the storm and this festival, which they would probably never celebrate again but was now and would be for all times a valued and sacred Sanzo-ikkou tradition.