Fic: Pray Someone Is there to Hit the Switch (Saiyuki Gaiden, Tenpou/Kenren, Mature)
Fandom: Saiyuki
Theme: Mad Science
Title: Pray Someone Is there to Hit the Switch
Author: lady_ganesh
Pairings: Tenpou/Kenren
Notes/Summary: Tenpou keeps digging into something. Kenren's not worried...much.
(Note: this fills my pending points from this excerpt a while back.) Thanks to opalmatrix for betaing, remaining mistakes are mine.
"What...what are you doing?"
Tenpou had cleared off his desk, mostly, as far as Kenren could tell, by shoving everything off to the northern side of the office, where it now lay in a chaotic pile. On the surface now was a strange set of three-dimensional shapes, bars and circles, creating a new, oddly formed shape. "It's a double helix," Tenpou said, squinting down at it. "The building block for life."
"And it's on your desk."
Tenpou glanced up at him, the ghost of a smile playing at his lips. "Well, a model. Though I suppose it's in our bodies, the same as it is in mortals."
"Ooooh-kay," Kenren said. "You wanna tell me why there's a double helix on your desk?"
Tenpou frowned a little. "It's probably best if I don't."
"Great," Kenren said. "Should I lock the door behind me?"
Tenpou tipped his head on one side. "Did you have something in mind?"
Kenren just shook his head, locked the door, and headed for the pile that had once been on Tenpou's desk. At least he'd had a bath yesterday. Sometimes taking care of the Field Marshal was almost more trouble than it was worth.
As he carefully picked the fragments of what had once been a glass from the pile, Kenren caught sight of Tenpou's face, lost in thought, his mouth twisted.
Yeah. Only almost.
Tenpou had pushed his glasses up on his forehead, and he was squinting at the model, the little balls and bars.
Kenren pushed his questions to one side and kept cleaning. "You need to sign this," he said, picking a damp piece of paper out and gently draping it over the edge of the desk. "Or the men won't get their back pay."
"I thought I'd already--" Tenpou glanced over. "Oh, damn."
"Just sign it," Kenren said, digging up Tenpou's chop. "Ink's around here somewhere." It would already be wet, thanks to the spilled water.
"How easy do you think it would be, to duplicate life?" Tenpou asked, as Kenren rummaged for the ink block.
"Um, is this a serious question?"
"If you had a map," Tenpou said. "A formula. Like putting together a puzzle."
"I don't think it'd be that easy," Kenren said, and there was the ink. He held it up, and Tenpou stamped the paper.
"No," Tenpou said. "Of course not. You'd probably have to practice. Trial and error."
"Sure." He put the ink on a shelf before it could do any more damage. He needed to get a towel. "You hold that thought, I'll come back."
But of course, by the time he got back, Tenpou was stacking the balls and sticks in a new configuration.
"What now, you making a tower?"
"It's just such a mystery," Tenpou said, biting his lower lip. "It's fascinating. Put the blocks together another way, and perhaps they hold together, but is what you created the same? Or is it something different? Something new?"
"Depends," Kenren said. "Does it work?"
Tenpou glanced over at him, and Kenren could almost feel how quickly his mind was working at this point. "Define 'work.'"
Kenren shrugged. "Does it breathe? Does it eat? Does it fuck?"
"What if it only does some of those things?"
"Can it make decisions?"
A shadow crossed Tenpou's face, and Kenren resisted the urge to ask more questions, push him further. Whatever he was thinking about, it was nothing good. "I don't know," he said.
"Well, then, I guess I don't know," Kenren said. "I mean, even a bug can make a decision, you know?"
"Even an inch-long worm has a half-inch soul," Tenpou said, narrowing his eyes. "But a worm--" he tapped the model-- "has come from our world. From nature. It was born, not constructed."
"But if you build it, it's still real, right? Like a fishtank. A fish can live in it, even if someone made it. Still a fishtank."
"But fish have souls," Tenpou said. "Not their environment. There's no question about fish."
"I guess," Kenren said. This was starting to get too heady. "You hungry? I was thinking we could grab Konzen and the kid, drag them out for a picnic or something."
"Hmm," Tenpou said. "Yes, that sounds...nice."
Konzen and Goku were nowhere to be found, so instead they went out under the sakura by themselves, spreading a blanket under the biggest tree they could find and passing a jug of sake back and forth.
They were halfway to drunk, Kenren lying on his back looking up at the sky, when Tenpou said, dreamily, "I suppose we should have brought some food."
"Nah," Kenren said. He had a nice buzz on, and Tenpou was even prettier when his face was flushed. "Not like we were hungry."
"Still," Tenpou said. "What if there were an emergency? We might have to--"
"They'll just send Nataku," Kenren said, waving his hand in the air.
"Hn. Nataku." Tenpou took his glasses off and squinted at the sunlight. "Yes."
"What's going on?" Kenren said.
"I wish I knew."
It was never good when Tenpou, of all people, confessed he didn't understand something. Kenren hoped he could blame it on the sake, even as he knew the sake had little to do with it. The only thing the sake might do was loosen Tenpou's tongue. Perhaps they were safer there, with no ears to hear what Tenpou might say, but.... "We should get back."
"Let's stay a little longer," Tenpou said, and shifted closer. "What do you think, Kenren? It's not so pleasant as spring Down Below, but I do like the breeze today." He reached out and stroked Kenren's hair. "And the view."
It was safer behind closed doors, but damned if Tenpou's smile wasn't delicious. "I guess we could stay out here a little longer," he said, and turned his face into the touch. His blood was rising, sake be damned. "If you insist."
"I do still outrank you," Tenpou said, his smile adjusting in a way guaranteed to make Kenren's dick twitch.
"May I remind you that you're under my command at the moment?"
"I suppose, technically, you have a point." Tenpou scratched at the back of his head. "So should we stay, or return to somewhere a bit less...public?"
Kenren wanted both. "We probably ought to get under cover," he said, though Tenpou's hand was perfect, delicious in his hair.
"Perhaps we should tarry, just a bit longer."
Kenren closed his eyes.
Three days later, Tenpou was still brooding, and he'd dragged Konzen into the web of suspicion and rumor. They talked at great length, heads together, in conversations that Kenren chose not to overhear. He kept the kid busy instead.
"Can we go outside, Ken-nii-chan?"
"Yeah," he said, "of course." He glanced over at Konzen and Tenpou, Tenpou's glasses on his forehead as he squinted at something. "Don't be too long, girls, people will talk."
Konzen didn't quite snarl at him. Tenpou just sighed. "Of course, Kenren. Your concern for our reputations has been noted."
"Always lookin' out for you," he said, because it was basically true. "Besides, it's nice outside. We could play baseball again or something. Maybe outside Gojun's window this time."
"Don't antagonize him," Tenpou said, automatically.
"'Course not."
"But why," Tenpou continued, as Kenren shut the door behind them, "why buy all this if you're not planning to create something? If you put these requisitions together--"
He raced Goku. They climbed trees. Kenren tried to ignore the nagging feeling that Tenpou was getting even further into the rot he'd demoted himself to investigate. Of course, that was what Tenpou had planned all along. Kenren wasn't opposed to it, not really. But you don't break open a conspiracy without breaking plenty of other shit. Sometimes yourself. Sometimes--
"Ken-nii-chan!"
"Yeah," he said, turning his attention back to Goku. "You know what we should do? We should go swimming."
"Yeah," Goku said.
He pulled Goku out of the water when the boy was starting to shiver, and still Konzen and Tenpou hadn't come looking for them. Kenren wasn't looking forward to having to make excuses to the kid.
Plus, at some point he'd have to put his pants back on. He always hated that part.
"Is the water cold like this, Down Below?" Goku said, wrapping the towel around his shoulders and finding a sunny spot to warm himself in.
"Not everywhere," Kenren said.
Tenpou wasn't building anything. Kenren would know it. So someone else must be. Requisitions. Someone was making something, or Tenpou feared they were. Making something like life.
What did that mean? And what were they trying to create?
"Ken-nii-chan," Goku said.
"What?"
The boy was staring at him. "You didn't answer. Is it?"
"Oh," Kenren said, and rewound the past seconds until he found the question he'd ignored. "Oh, yeah. The water's cold like this, some places. Other places the water's really warm. Like a bath."
"Like the scrubbing part, or when you soak in the water?"
"Like soaking."
"I don't like scrubbing," Goku said, pulling his knees underneath him. "Konzen gets behind my ears and it hurts."
"You should wash behind your own ears, then," Kenren said. "Problem solved."
"Eh," Goku said, his lip wrinkling in distaste.
"There you are," Tenpou said, and Kenren felt a rush of relief. He looked tired, but he'd been looking tired lately anyway. "Konzen was starting to get worried."
"Concerned you might break something," Konzen said.
Kenren grinned to himself. "We went swimming. He got cold."
"I'm better now," Goku said happily. "But look, my fingers got all weird again." He held them up.
"That's because you stayed in the water too long, moron," Konzen said. "Come along."
"I'm coming, I'm coming!"
It was pretty impressive how fast someone as formal and composed as Konzen could walk. Soon he was gone, the kid bounding behind him.
"That help any?" Kenren asked.
Tenpou sighed and dropped next to him. "I suppose it did," he said, taking his glasses off and wiping them on his lab coat. (Experience told Kenren that would only make the mess worse, but experience also told Kenren not to bother pointing that out.) "His conclusions are...similar to mine."
"That's not good."
"Not particularly," Tenpou said. "No." He glanced at Kenren. "Are you planning on putting your pants on any time soon?"
"At some point," he said. "Didn't think you minded the view."
"I don't," Tenpou said. "I'm afraid we have to be...cautious, in the short term."
More cautious than they already were. Great. "Pants on," he said. "Got it."
Three hours later, they were back in Tenpou's office, Kenren's pants on the floor where they belonged, Tenpou's cock in his mouth, Tenpou making weird little noises and clutching at Kenren's hair.
"Thank you," he said, when he'd finished.
"No problem." Kenren got up and wiped his mouth. "Least I can do, right?" After all, Tenpou had let him fuck him up against the desk. Blow job seemed only fair.
Tenpou reached out to him, slowly, deliberately. "I suppose I should sleep in my own quarters tonight."
"Yeah," Kenren said, moving closer, feeling the heat of Tenpou's body. "Both of us."
Tenpou's arms found his back and pulled him in. "I do sleep better with you there."
"You sleeping at all these days?"
Tenpou chuckled, without much humor. "Eventually."
"What is it? Really?"
"I'm afraid I'm still not sure. Talking with Konzen only gave me more questions. Someone has...diverted materials, supplies, chemicals. Perhaps...."
"You think someone's tried making life."
"I'm fairly certain someone has. And I'm concerned they might have succeeded."
Kenren thought of yellow eyes, of a shivering boy. "Not the kid."
"Not...not Konzen's ward," Tenpou said. "No. That is still something of a mystery."
Shit. Shit. That meant....
That wasn't possible, was it? You couldn't make a person. Even a doll-like child like--
"Don't say it," Tenpou said. "It's dangerous enough already."
"Yeah," Kenren said, and felt a little sick. "I get it."
"You understand," Tenpou said, "the extent of what we might be dealing with. The crime. The...implications."
Li Touten made a little boy so he could send him out killing for Heaven, Kenren thought, and nodded, because he couldn't trust anything that would come out of his mouth. What does alive mean? What did it mean to Li Touten? To Nataku?
That poor kid....
"But," Tenpou said, barking out an uncomfortable laugh. "It's merely speculation. Probably nothing."
"Yeah," Kenren said, playing the part. I mean, it'd served him this long, why stop now? "Probably."
Still, he didn't sleep well that night, and not just because he was in his own quarters, alone, missing Tenpou's stench and the rough rasp of his breathing.
He sat up after staring at the ceiling for an hour or so and lit a cigarette.
Breathing, that made you alive. Eating, sleeping, shitting, fucking. Nataku -- it felt weird even thinking the name -- could be hurt, could bleed. Kenren tried to remember if he'd ever seen the kid eat anything. Too young to even think about screwing, and he sure as hell wasn't gonna follow him around to see if he hit the head.
He seemed to like Goku. That was part of being alive, right? Loyalty, friendship, all that shit?
It had to be.
But if that was true....
What the hell did that mean?
"Fuck it," he said to himself, and got dressed.
The moonlight made it better, somehow. The sake took the edge off.
Seeing Konzen....
"The hell are you doing here?"
Konzen tossed his perfect ponytail. "I could ask you the same."
"Couldn't sleep."
"Hn."
"Where's the kid?"
"Snoring. Surprised we can't hear him from here." There was a note of affection there, under all the disdain. Kenren smiled at it.
"Anyone heard how Nataku is?"
Konzen shook his head. "Not yet. Recovering, I'm sure. His father never seems particularly concerned."
They stood watching the moonlight for a moment, united by insomnia and disgust for Li Touten.
"Tenpou--" Kenren said.
"I'm not trying to get him killed."
"I know. Just...watch him for me, okay? He can get in over his head before you've even realized he's screwing around in the water."
Konzen dipped his head. "I can't promise anything."
Kenren knew Tenpou better than anyone. "Believe me," he said. "I know."
Theme: Mad Science
Title: Pray Someone Is there to Hit the Switch
Author: lady_ganesh
Pairings: Tenpou/Kenren
Notes/Summary: Tenpou keeps digging into something. Kenren's not worried...much.
(Note: this fills my pending points from this excerpt a while back.) Thanks to opalmatrix for betaing, remaining mistakes are mine.
"What...what are you doing?"
Tenpou had cleared off his desk, mostly, as far as Kenren could tell, by shoving everything off to the northern side of the office, where it now lay in a chaotic pile. On the surface now was a strange set of three-dimensional shapes, bars and circles, creating a new, oddly formed shape. "It's a double helix," Tenpou said, squinting down at it. "The building block for life."
"And it's on your desk."
Tenpou glanced up at him, the ghost of a smile playing at his lips. "Well, a model. Though I suppose it's in our bodies, the same as it is in mortals."
"Ooooh-kay," Kenren said. "You wanna tell me why there's a double helix on your desk?"
Tenpou frowned a little. "It's probably best if I don't."
"Great," Kenren said. "Should I lock the door behind me?"
Tenpou tipped his head on one side. "Did you have something in mind?"
Kenren just shook his head, locked the door, and headed for the pile that had once been on Tenpou's desk. At least he'd had a bath yesterday. Sometimes taking care of the Field Marshal was almost more trouble than it was worth.
As he carefully picked the fragments of what had once been a glass from the pile, Kenren caught sight of Tenpou's face, lost in thought, his mouth twisted.
Yeah. Only almost.
Tenpou had pushed his glasses up on his forehead, and he was squinting at the model, the little balls and bars.
Kenren pushed his questions to one side and kept cleaning. "You need to sign this," he said, picking a damp piece of paper out and gently draping it over the edge of the desk. "Or the men won't get their back pay."
"I thought I'd already--" Tenpou glanced over. "Oh, damn."
"Just sign it," Kenren said, digging up Tenpou's chop. "Ink's around here somewhere." It would already be wet, thanks to the spilled water.
"How easy do you think it would be, to duplicate life?" Tenpou asked, as Kenren rummaged for the ink block.
"Um, is this a serious question?"
"If you had a map," Tenpou said. "A formula. Like putting together a puzzle."
"I don't think it'd be that easy," Kenren said, and there was the ink. He held it up, and Tenpou stamped the paper.
"No," Tenpou said. "Of course not. You'd probably have to practice. Trial and error."
"Sure." He put the ink on a shelf before it could do any more damage. He needed to get a towel. "You hold that thought, I'll come back."
But of course, by the time he got back, Tenpou was stacking the balls and sticks in a new configuration.
"What now, you making a tower?"
"It's just such a mystery," Tenpou said, biting his lower lip. "It's fascinating. Put the blocks together another way, and perhaps they hold together, but is what you created the same? Or is it something different? Something new?"
"Depends," Kenren said. "Does it work?"
Tenpou glanced over at him, and Kenren could almost feel how quickly his mind was working at this point. "Define 'work.'"
Kenren shrugged. "Does it breathe? Does it eat? Does it fuck?"
"What if it only does some of those things?"
"Can it make decisions?"
A shadow crossed Tenpou's face, and Kenren resisted the urge to ask more questions, push him further. Whatever he was thinking about, it was nothing good. "I don't know," he said.
"Well, then, I guess I don't know," Kenren said. "I mean, even a bug can make a decision, you know?"
"Even an inch-long worm has a half-inch soul," Tenpou said, narrowing his eyes. "But a worm--" he tapped the model-- "has come from our world. From nature. It was born, not constructed."
"But if you build it, it's still real, right? Like a fishtank. A fish can live in it, even if someone made it. Still a fishtank."
"But fish have souls," Tenpou said. "Not their environment. There's no question about fish."
"I guess," Kenren said. This was starting to get too heady. "You hungry? I was thinking we could grab Konzen and the kid, drag them out for a picnic or something."
"Hmm," Tenpou said. "Yes, that sounds...nice."
Konzen and Goku were nowhere to be found, so instead they went out under the sakura by themselves, spreading a blanket under the biggest tree they could find and passing a jug of sake back and forth.
They were halfway to drunk, Kenren lying on his back looking up at the sky, when Tenpou said, dreamily, "I suppose we should have brought some food."
"Nah," Kenren said. He had a nice buzz on, and Tenpou was even prettier when his face was flushed. "Not like we were hungry."
"Still," Tenpou said. "What if there were an emergency? We might have to--"
"They'll just send Nataku," Kenren said, waving his hand in the air.
"Hn. Nataku." Tenpou took his glasses off and squinted at the sunlight. "Yes."
"What's going on?" Kenren said.
"I wish I knew."
It was never good when Tenpou, of all people, confessed he didn't understand something. Kenren hoped he could blame it on the sake, even as he knew the sake had little to do with it. The only thing the sake might do was loosen Tenpou's tongue. Perhaps they were safer there, with no ears to hear what Tenpou might say, but.... "We should get back."
"Let's stay a little longer," Tenpou said, and shifted closer. "What do you think, Kenren? It's not so pleasant as spring Down Below, but I do like the breeze today." He reached out and stroked Kenren's hair. "And the view."
It was safer behind closed doors, but damned if Tenpou's smile wasn't delicious. "I guess we could stay out here a little longer," he said, and turned his face into the touch. His blood was rising, sake be damned. "If you insist."
"I do still outrank you," Tenpou said, his smile adjusting in a way guaranteed to make Kenren's dick twitch.
"May I remind you that you're under my command at the moment?"
"I suppose, technically, you have a point." Tenpou scratched at the back of his head. "So should we stay, or return to somewhere a bit less...public?"
Kenren wanted both. "We probably ought to get under cover," he said, though Tenpou's hand was perfect, delicious in his hair.
"Perhaps we should tarry, just a bit longer."
Kenren closed his eyes.
Three days later, Tenpou was still brooding, and he'd dragged Konzen into the web of suspicion and rumor. They talked at great length, heads together, in conversations that Kenren chose not to overhear. He kept the kid busy instead.
"Can we go outside, Ken-nii-chan?"
"Yeah," he said, "of course." He glanced over at Konzen and Tenpou, Tenpou's glasses on his forehead as he squinted at something. "Don't be too long, girls, people will talk."
Konzen didn't quite snarl at him. Tenpou just sighed. "Of course, Kenren. Your concern for our reputations has been noted."
"Always lookin' out for you," he said, because it was basically true. "Besides, it's nice outside. We could play baseball again or something. Maybe outside Gojun's window this time."
"Don't antagonize him," Tenpou said, automatically.
"'Course not."
"But why," Tenpou continued, as Kenren shut the door behind them, "why buy all this if you're not planning to create something? If you put these requisitions together--"
He raced Goku. They climbed trees. Kenren tried to ignore the nagging feeling that Tenpou was getting even further into the rot he'd demoted himself to investigate. Of course, that was what Tenpou had planned all along. Kenren wasn't opposed to it, not really. But you don't break open a conspiracy without breaking plenty of other shit. Sometimes yourself. Sometimes--
"Ken-nii-chan!"
"Yeah," he said, turning his attention back to Goku. "You know what we should do? We should go swimming."
"Yeah," Goku said.
He pulled Goku out of the water when the boy was starting to shiver, and still Konzen and Tenpou hadn't come looking for them. Kenren wasn't looking forward to having to make excuses to the kid.
Plus, at some point he'd have to put his pants back on. He always hated that part.
"Is the water cold like this, Down Below?" Goku said, wrapping the towel around his shoulders and finding a sunny spot to warm himself in.
"Not everywhere," Kenren said.
Tenpou wasn't building anything. Kenren would know it. So someone else must be. Requisitions. Someone was making something, or Tenpou feared they were. Making something like life.
What did that mean? And what were they trying to create?
"Ken-nii-chan," Goku said.
"What?"
The boy was staring at him. "You didn't answer. Is it?"
"Oh," Kenren said, and rewound the past seconds until he found the question he'd ignored. "Oh, yeah. The water's cold like this, some places. Other places the water's really warm. Like a bath."
"Like the scrubbing part, or when you soak in the water?"
"Like soaking."
"I don't like scrubbing," Goku said, pulling his knees underneath him. "Konzen gets behind my ears and it hurts."
"You should wash behind your own ears, then," Kenren said. "Problem solved."
"Eh," Goku said, his lip wrinkling in distaste.
"There you are," Tenpou said, and Kenren felt a rush of relief. He looked tired, but he'd been looking tired lately anyway. "Konzen was starting to get worried."
"Concerned you might break something," Konzen said.
Kenren grinned to himself. "We went swimming. He got cold."
"I'm better now," Goku said happily. "But look, my fingers got all weird again." He held them up.
"That's because you stayed in the water too long, moron," Konzen said. "Come along."
"I'm coming, I'm coming!"
It was pretty impressive how fast someone as formal and composed as Konzen could walk. Soon he was gone, the kid bounding behind him.
"That help any?" Kenren asked.
Tenpou sighed and dropped next to him. "I suppose it did," he said, taking his glasses off and wiping them on his lab coat. (Experience told Kenren that would only make the mess worse, but experience also told Kenren not to bother pointing that out.) "His conclusions are...similar to mine."
"That's not good."
"Not particularly," Tenpou said. "No." He glanced at Kenren. "Are you planning on putting your pants on any time soon?"
"At some point," he said. "Didn't think you minded the view."
"I don't," Tenpou said. "I'm afraid we have to be...cautious, in the short term."
More cautious than they already were. Great. "Pants on," he said. "Got it."
Three hours later, they were back in Tenpou's office, Kenren's pants on the floor where they belonged, Tenpou's cock in his mouth, Tenpou making weird little noises and clutching at Kenren's hair.
"Thank you," he said, when he'd finished.
"No problem." Kenren got up and wiped his mouth. "Least I can do, right?" After all, Tenpou had let him fuck him up against the desk. Blow job seemed only fair.
Tenpou reached out to him, slowly, deliberately. "I suppose I should sleep in my own quarters tonight."
"Yeah," Kenren said, moving closer, feeling the heat of Tenpou's body. "Both of us."
Tenpou's arms found his back and pulled him in. "I do sleep better with you there."
"You sleeping at all these days?"
Tenpou chuckled, without much humor. "Eventually."
"What is it? Really?"
"I'm afraid I'm still not sure. Talking with Konzen only gave me more questions. Someone has...diverted materials, supplies, chemicals. Perhaps...."
"You think someone's tried making life."
"I'm fairly certain someone has. And I'm concerned they might have succeeded."
Kenren thought of yellow eyes, of a shivering boy. "Not the kid."
"Not...not Konzen's ward," Tenpou said. "No. That is still something of a mystery."
Shit. Shit. That meant....
That wasn't possible, was it? You couldn't make a person. Even a doll-like child like--
"Don't say it," Tenpou said. "It's dangerous enough already."
"Yeah," Kenren said, and felt a little sick. "I get it."
"You understand," Tenpou said, "the extent of what we might be dealing with. The crime. The...implications."
Li Touten made a little boy so he could send him out killing for Heaven, Kenren thought, and nodded, because he couldn't trust anything that would come out of his mouth. What does alive mean? What did it mean to Li Touten? To Nataku?
That poor kid....
"But," Tenpou said, barking out an uncomfortable laugh. "It's merely speculation. Probably nothing."
"Yeah," Kenren said, playing the part. I mean, it'd served him this long, why stop now? "Probably."
Still, he didn't sleep well that night, and not just because he was in his own quarters, alone, missing Tenpou's stench and the rough rasp of his breathing.
He sat up after staring at the ceiling for an hour or so and lit a cigarette.
Breathing, that made you alive. Eating, sleeping, shitting, fucking. Nataku -- it felt weird even thinking the name -- could be hurt, could bleed. Kenren tried to remember if he'd ever seen the kid eat anything. Too young to even think about screwing, and he sure as hell wasn't gonna follow him around to see if he hit the head.
He seemed to like Goku. That was part of being alive, right? Loyalty, friendship, all that shit?
It had to be.
But if that was true....
What the hell did that mean?
"Fuck it," he said to himself, and got dressed.
The moonlight made it better, somehow. The sake took the edge off.
Seeing Konzen....
"The hell are you doing here?"
Konzen tossed his perfect ponytail. "I could ask you the same."
"Couldn't sleep."
"Hn."
"Where's the kid?"
"Snoring. Surprised we can't hear him from here." There was a note of affection there, under all the disdain. Kenren smiled at it.
"Anyone heard how Nataku is?"
Konzen shook his head. "Not yet. Recovering, I'm sure. His father never seems particularly concerned."
They stood watching the moonlight for a moment, united by insomnia and disgust for Li Touten.
"Tenpou--" Kenren said.
"I'm not trying to get him killed."
"I know. Just...watch him for me, okay? He can get in over his head before you've even realized he's screwing around in the water."
Konzen dipped his head. "I can't promise anything."
Kenren knew Tenpou better than anyone. "Believe me," he said. "I know."