Saiyuki Fic: Why Is It Always Bananas, Anyway?
Fandom: Saiyuki
Title: Why Is It Always Bananas, Anyway?
Author/Artist: thenakedcat
Pairing(s): Implicit 585, future 393 discussed.
Rating: PG-13, suggestive produce but no sex acts onscreen.
Summary: It’s all perfectly natural. But that doesn’t make it any easier.
Notes/disclaimer, etc: I’m Unitarian Universalist. Comprehensive sex ed is kind of a sacrament in our religion. That’s the only excuse I have for this. The title comes from a line towards the end of the story. A few content notes appear below. Feedback is very welcome as I haven’t really worked with these characters before! Happy 5/8!
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Most of the time, Gojyo knew better than to ask too many questions-it kind of came with the territory when your arguably-better-half was discreetly homicidally insane and as prepared for every eventuality as an entire troop of Eagle Scouts. In the event of a zombie apocalypse, Hakkai would be the guy with a three year-supply of canned goods and a giant solar-powered bug zapper standing ready. (He’d also be the one covered in zombie sashimi.) So Gojyo almost never argued with anything on Hakkai’s carefully compiled and annotated grocery lists; he’d asked what the extra-large box of baking soda was going to be used for once and that had been enough. Even so, in this case confusion overrode blissful ignorance.
“’Kai.”
Hakkai paused for a moment in the middle of scrubbing the sink. “Mhm?”
“Don’t take this wrong since I’m sure as hell not in a position to judge either way, and they say all that honesty and trust shit is a sign of a healthy relationship…”
“Mmhmmmmm?” There was a definite note of ‘do either of us really want to hear the end of this sentence, dear?’
“…are you worried about knocking someone up, or about keeping your junk clean, or just making some really pervy balloon animals? ‘Cause I don’t remember ever putting ‘condoms’ on this list.”
Hakkai looked rather relieved as he wrung out the sponge. “Ahaha… that. They aren’t for personal use. I’m going to be taking them with me to the temple on Thursday.”
That narrowed the possible recipients down to list of about two. The two people on Earth Gojyo least wanted to think of getting freaky. “Ah fuck, it’s that time again already?”
“Indeed. Children do grow up so fast, even monkeys.”
“I swear you just did the last one, like, a month ago. Is there really that much more to say about birds and bees?” Hakkai swore by some fancy-pants educational theory that it was best to talk to kids early and often about sensitive subjects. In theory, Gojyo could see how that could be a good thing. In reality, not being able to say “this never happened, we will not speak of it again” at the end seemed more likely to just multiply the ambient levels of awkwaaaaaaard.
‘Kai was at least aware of that possibility. Every little chat took place on a “nature walk” off the temple grounds lest someone’s knickers get twisted by all that fleshly impurity and prompt them to go twist Sanzo-sama’s sanctified knickers in turn. (If the bastard even wore knickers. Karma willing, he would never find out.) But only Hakkai, with his ability to radiate wholesomeness even while shivving you in the kidney, could pull that balancing act off without being taken for some kind of creeper. In fact, Hakkai’s “Who, me?” face was good enough to make most people feel guilty about accusing him of creeperhood. Gojyo would have been taken in by it too if he hadn’t, y’know, seen Hakkai kill a man with an umbrella.
“Actually last time was about the birds and the birds and the bees and the bees. We’re not in the Qin dynasty anymore, after all.”
Well, that hit a bit close to home. “Any bees in particular or just bee-loving-bees in general?”
Hakkai gave him an apologetic, but not a regretful, glance. “I didn’t have many other examples at hand, much less role models. The only married people Goku knows are support staff at the monastery and he hasn’t met their spouses. As for cohabiting couples…I’m not going to hold the kendo master and his catamite up as an example of a loving egalitarian partnership. We really are the most functional couple he knows.”
They both let that sink in for a moment. Gojyo muttered, “That’s about the scariest thing you’ve ever said, even grading on a curve.”
“It is a bit worrying, isn’t it.”
For some time now it had been obvious enough to Gojyo (and should have been equally so to anyone with, like, eyes and shit) that, sure as the sun rose in the east and set in the west, one day either the chibisaru was going to stop being chibi even in name and jump those priestly bones like all 8 Hells released at once, or else one day His Holiness was finally going to wind himself one crank too far and his sanity was going to explode into marshmallow bits all over the monkey…or, Goddess of Kinky Voyeurism forbid, BOTH of them would flip their shit at the same time and the result might be the sort of event that is described in terms of “collateral damage” and “blast radius”, no matter whether or not it also resulted in sated, wedded bliss.
Gojyo was all for reasonable protection-protecting the monkey from his keeper’s loco, protecting the keeper from his own paranoid inexperience, protecting any Not-Sanzo person Goku might crawl into bed with from social diseases or unplanned half-stone-monkey bundles of family drama. He just wanted to know how the responsibility had fallen to the hired help. Sanzo had reamed Hakkai out before for needless self-abnegation; it was one of the few things Gojyo had ever completely agreed with him on.
“You know, this is really way above and beyond the call of duty for a part-time tutor. Cherry-chan gets all the credit for raising the brat, just give him your lesson plan and let him finish the dirty work.” He winced as he heard himself. “I mean the hard work. I MEAN THE DIFFICULT PART, BUDDHADAMMIT.”
The crimp in Hakkai’s smile said he was biting his lip to keep from laughing. “Sex education was one of my responsibilities as a teacher. If Goku had been a regular student in my classroom he would have received whatever instruction was age-appropriate.”
“But you were getting paid a lot better back then, too.”
Hakkai’s shoulders stiffened at what he saw as an affront to educational ethics. “You’re suggesting that, for purely financial reasons, I leave discussions of safer sex to the trigger-happy professional virgin who‘s spent his entire life in a context of institutionalized pederasty?”
“…man, that was pretty blunt by your standards. Pedantic but blunt.”
“Why thank you. I’m practicing for Thursday.” His hard look softened. “I know you think I’m getting too involved. It would be much easier, of course, if I could just hand Goku a book entitled Relationship Bliss for Ridiculously Strong Teenagers and Emotionally Unavailable Monastics but I seriously doubt our little bookstore has that title available.”
Then the thoughtful expression that usually meant either rearranging the items in the freezer for maximum efficiency or some cardshark literally losing his shirt in a poker game crept across Hakkai’s face. “Although I do wonder…”
“OH NO YOU DON’T. I am NOT going to the big library in the city to ask that question! The librarians are still giving me funny looks from the time you asked for books on historical torture techniques and chocolate cream pie recipes.”
“But I could…”
“YOU ARE NOT WRITING IT, EITHER. I like this town and I don’t want to have to move to Mongolia and disguise myself as a yak to keep Sanzo from turning me into a colander.”
“Yare yare.”
Gojyo watched suspiciously for a few minutes just to make sure Hakkai really had given up the idea before turning back to his perusal of the grocery list. “So yeah. Condoms. You want me to pick up some bananas for the hands-on demo?”
"No thank you…no cucumbers or carrots either. I think using food in the example would be a serious distraction, given the target audience.”
Gojyo choked on his own spit a little. “Sweet shit, the mental image you just gave me…” As he pulled on his jacket he paused and looked back. “You do this because no one else will and someone should. Y’know I love you for that, right?”
Hakkai’s smile changed subtly in quality. “Don’t forget the milk, dear.”
Gojyo grinned. “That’s what I thought.”
~~~~~
Notes
Fancy-pants educational theory: The current paradigm in comprehensive sex ed is to start in kindergarten with names for body parts and “no one has the right to touch you in a way that makes you uncomfortable” and gradually introduce more complicated concepts all the way up into high school where things like contraception and STDs are discussed.
Qin dynasty: The first dynasty of the Chinese Empire, the Qin emperor was known for his brutal authoritarian rule (although not for homophobia as such).
A context of institutionalized pederasty: Sanzo didn’t exactly grow up with great relationship role models either.
Bananas for the hands-on demo: Why are bananas the default penis stand-in? Zucchini produces unrealistic expectations? Parents get up in arms if the health teacher brings a dildo into the classroom?