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Usually he sleeps, if not well, then through the night. Konzen’s life had always been, for the lack of a better word, boring, even if he prefers the term “uneventful”. Documents rarely ventured out of their predetermined spaces. His pen and ink don’t talk back about not wanting a shower. The perfect creases he folds into the pristine documents are sharp and at a standard 45 degree angle, no more no less. So it isn’t that much of a surprise that ever since a bundle of unfettered monkied mess came into his life, he also had trouble sleeping.
He always thought he would be okay with the kid running off and leaving him alone with his beloved documents, but he never realized that he’d worry more when the kid didn’t come back.
It became a habit now, for him to roam the corridors and many, many rooms of the imperial compound searching for a runaway brat. Usually he finds said brat hanging out in hidden rooms or up a tree or worse- in his friend’s hoarder’s nightmare of a book lined room. Tenpou was a marshal now, he wasn’t one when Konzen first knew him as a young fresh faced captain who kept borrowing the books he wanted from the library. He remembered how he managed to get the address of the mystery borrower from the librarian and marched up to the barracks door, ready to get in the face of whoever took only the second and fourth volume of a five part series he was supposed to read for his schoolwork when the door opened and Captain Tenpou was shoved out by his bunkmates with a literal mountain of books in his arms. Konzen spotted volume four, snatched it off him and the rest was history.
But for what it's worth, his nerd acquaintance seemed to like having the monkey around and often willingly took him off his hands should Konzen need to rush important documents or just whenever he just wanted some extra time to himself. The kid didn’t mind it at all either and was always ready to go with either his Ten-chan or that drunk of a general who hung around Tenpou too much. Konzen also tried not to think about how much that general clung to his bookish friend. The two of them weren’t that close by all means but they also weren’t complete strangers and you’d be surprised at what strange secrets are revealed by the right amount of alcohol. Konzen is now in possession of a bunch of information that he was sure wasn’t supposed to be leaked out of the army; such as where the secret weapon supplies were, the percentage of recruits left after just two days of training, that an uncomfortable amount of high ranking officers were absolute perverts, not to worry about the fact General Sakamoto disappeared after he forced less than consensual relations with the newly promoted Major General Tenpou, and also most importantly, that with the right keywords, the mess hall had a secret much more flavorsome menu.
But all those heavy secrecy aside, Konzen had dropped the kid off at his babysitters, spoke with Tenpou about what to feed him and gave a begrudging nod to the black haired general smoking in the corner of the room with a book held upside down in his hands. Konzen then came back to his room and diligently did as much work as he could before deciding to take a well deserved nap.
He stretched out on his bed and shook his hair out of the ponytail. The air was nice and cool even in the middle of the day and he soon closed his eyes in preparation for sleep. It didn’t take him long to doze off but immediately he was thrust into one of the most vivid nightmares he had in a while.
He was striding down the many many corridors searching for the brat but no matter where he looked, he couldn’t find the monkey. In fact, he didn’t run into anyone else. No servants, errand boys, maids, other administrative staff, no one. Feeling worried, he walked over to his friend’s rooms, noting the absence of the usual soldiers walking back and forth. Tenpou’s room was also equally empty, with the books lying in charred piles all over the room. Blood was everywhere and suddenly Konzen was afraid. He started running, yelling out for Tenpou, that drunk general, and the kid. It just hit him that he didn’t know if the kid even had a name but it seemed too late to bring it up now. All he could do was call out wordlessly in a kind of strangled yell for the monkey but there was no reply. He turned the corner to where a bunch of sakura trees were planted, knowing that his charge liked to play there while Ten-chan and the dumbass general drank together in the shade. No dice and the flower petals strewn all over the floor were dyed an even worrisome shade of pink. He next ran to the library, knowing that his friend often brought the monkey to pick out new books but also no luck.
Konzen swallowed hard, trying to quell the rising sense of fear and urgency that he felt. This wasn’t an emotion he felt normally, hell, he barely felt any emotions in general before the hair pulling child was brought under his purview. His usual moods were either bored or annoyed and that was it but ever since monkey brain started living with him they expanded. Now he felt annoyed and frustrated yes, but also amused and proud and dare he say, affectionate? But not bored, never bored now even if he complained loudly about how he missed his uneventful life beforehand.
The corridors of heaven seemed to swim before him and all he could do was wordlessly call out for the kid, feeling even more new emotions -helpless was one, helpless and oh so terrified and scared and all the other synonyms of that emotion he never cared for.
Deep down Konzen knew that he was dreaming, it just didn’t make sense that he couldn’t find anyone else in this small corner of heaven he was used to roaming around and it made even less sense that the monkey didn’t immediately come out to find him when he started calling out for him. It was definitely a dream, and he tried to wake himself up. Surely this was the reason why he shouldn’t nap during the day but try as he might, he stayed firmly in the dream with the rising sense of terror not stopping. He felt out of breath suddenly as if he was encased in a slowly shrinking vice and he gasped, trying to draw oxygen into his lungs but something didn’t let him and-
Konzen finally opened his eyes, feeling a strange warm pressure against his back. He gingerly moved his hands to his waist to find arms hugging him tight and the kid poked his head up from behind him.
"Konzen!! You're awake!! I was so scared! You were tossing and turning and didn't wake up and-"
He should have felt irritated. Or at the very least annoyed as he usually did when the dumbass assumed things he should have known by now. But for some reason the annoyance wasn't there. Konzen held onto the arms around his waist, the emotions from his dream still bleeding into reality. It felt both so strange yet so reassuring, to feel the scrawny arms holding him tight and that stupidly worried face looking up at him.
Konzen wiped at his face, trying to keep himself together as he found tears. "You're back early from Tenpou's place." He said gruffly, hiding as much as he could under his usual demeanor. "What did you do there today?"
That got the monkey to scramble out in front of him, bouncing up and down as he recounted the events that transpired earlier. "Ten-chan and Ken-niichan had the day off so we went fishing! And I caught a really really big fish, it was so much bigger than the one Ken-niichan caught and he said we should fry it up with some soy sauce but Ten-chan doesn't have a big enough frying pan so we let them go and then I caught another one but Ten-chan said it had eggs so we let her go and then it was gonna be dark so we came back but we ran into some bad people on the way!" The kid stopped there to take a deep breath then. "We just walked past them and then one of them said something bad about Ten-chan so Ken-niichan started to beat him up and then the other one said something bad about you so Ten-chan also beat him up and they didn't let me join cuz they said I'm too young so I just threw rocks at them!" A beam of sunshine then and he paused as if to wait for applause.
Konzen was suddenly aware of how his charge was hiding his other arm behind his back. "Is that all?" He asked as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed to sit up properly. "Did Tenpou or Kenken, whatever his name is, or anyone else get hurt?"
Under his scrutinizing gaze the kid crumbled easily as he held out his bandaged arm. Konzen was suddenly filled with another rarely felt emotion, rage. He grabbed hold of the arm and inspected it closely, feeling like he was about to burst with righteous anger. "I'm going to kill that damn nerd and his boyfriend. He's supposed to take care of you! How can he just let this happen! He didn't even come in to explain himself?! I swear I'll!"
A reproachful look from his charge stopped him and the next few words were soft and bitter. "...one of them had a knife. And Ten-chan saw it and he pushed me out of the way but I fell and hit a rock on the ground." The kid started to cry then. "And then Ken-niichan beat up that guy and he brought us back and bandaged my arm and then he said Ten-chan will need to see the doctor cuz he wouldn't stop bleeding so he dropped me back here. And I wanted to see you but you were sleeping and then I thought I'll wait until you woke up but then you started making weird noises like how Ten-chan does sometimes when he's sleeping and then Ken-niichan will climb in to hold him tight and Ten-chan'll be okay so… so I thought I'll try that too." He was still crying then, and Konzen suddenly didn't know what to do.
Multiple thoughts flashed through his mind.
Firstly, that he was right about that good for nothing being Tenpou’s actual boyfriend, it didn’t surprise him much but he would have thought that his friend was supposed to have much better taste.
Secondly, that his friend still has some kind of PTSD or trauma that keeps him up at night and is the main reason why Konzen doesn’t allow him to crash on his sofa when it gets too late, a single sleepless night of frenzied screaming coming from the living room was already a night two many.
Thirdly, Tenpou and Kenwhatever seem to not care that much about the consequences of beating up random people who insulted them, and frankly that’s not the kind of role models he wants the kid to be exposed to this early in life.
Fourthly, which shady part of heaven were they walking through that a random lowlife is armed and also ready to use it on a child?!
And finally, it broke his heart that this small monkey who barely came up to his waist was ready to fight tooth and nail to protect his guardian’s honor. Yes, Tenpou was the one who started it, but now that he was reconsidering his relations with his feistily bookish friend and aggressively illiterate partner, Konzen wondered if enrolling the kid in a school of some sorts would give him stability and friends his age instead of starting fights alongside adults who really should have known better.
Konzen snapped back to the present, seeing the monkey slow down in his crying. “Look.” He started off, trying to put all his thoughts in order and in a form that could be understood by his charge. “I just had a nightmare, it's different from the night terrors Tenpou gets and you don’t need to worry about me.” That seemed to put the child at ease and he looked up at him with those soulful innocent eyes and a part of Konzen just melted even more. He coughed, trying to break the tension as he got up and walked over to his kitchen.
Pittering steps behind him told him that he was followed and Konzen pulled out a wrapped rectangular bundle. “Sit.” He said and without question the kid did so, watching him hopefully as Konzen put the box in between them. “Did Tenpou and Renken feed you?” Konzen tsked as the kid shook his head. “I swear I need new babysitters.” He pushed the box over. “Eat up.”
Konzen found that he was watching his charge carefully as he lifted the lid off the box and immediately cried out in delight. “Konzen! Did you make this?!” The sunshine beam of cheer was back and he bit back a pleased smile as he nodded just a tiny bit and then looked away.
“You were supposed to bring it with you to Tenpou’s but I forgot to give it to you earlier today. Hopefully it’s kept well.” He was sure he was a slight shade of pink now and so he got up to go to his desk, switching on the lamp so he could be further disguised in the darkness of his work.
The kid didn’t spare any expense and complimented everything, from the crudely done octopus sausages to the attempt at a scrambled egg sun and seaweed ocean view over white rice. If anything was bad or tasted off, he didn’t get any mention of it and Konzen found that he was just staring at his documents, a small grin on his face. It wasn’t too long ago that his aunt challenged him to make a themed bento and he had furtively spent the time since then researching how to make the various animals or items beautifully photographed in the cooking books Tenpou lent him. Konzen picked at a corner of his document, noticing that it had been graffitied with a tiny sun beaming out right at the 45 degree angle fold. It should have bothered him, it used to bother him but for some reason it didn’t and he neatened the papers as he watched the kid devour everything in the bento box.
“Shower and then get some rest.” He called out, slightly pleased that the now satiated monkeybrain nodded and went on his way instead of giving him some half hearted excuse as he normally did. He didn’t need to supervise the kid for this part, trusting enough that he could perform the tasks without much interference and he soon heard yawns as his charge climbed into bed.
Konzen continued with his work, getting absorbed yet again as he was thrust back into his familiar world of administration and bureaucracy. He perfectly stamped another form and was about to move onto another when he first heard it, the sound of soft whimpering.
His first thought was that Tenpou had somehow snuck in again and was stuck in yet another of his nightmares but a quick look at his front door found it still tightly shut with his windows also in the shuttered position. Konzen looked around again, not finding anything amiss nor was there the tell tale smell of cigarette smoke. Come to think of it, Tenpou hadn’t been sneaking in ever since he got together with his new general, perhaps that might be a gift in its own right, Konzen could never deal with his friend when he got all broody and emotional over things, be it a favorite character in his many books dying or him thinking too much about corruption in the heavenly army.
He stepped over to the kid’s bedroom, it used to house his study before but he had since moved the desk out to the living room where he could easier keep an eye on him. Curled up on the hastily purchased bed was his charge, tossing and turning in the throes of a bad nightmare.
“Ten-chan… Ken-niichan…” Konzen could make out the mumbled words and he softened as he approached the bed. “Watch out Ten-chan!” A hand loosely curled into a fist soared through the air before dropping back onto his chest. “No! Don’t hurt Konzen!” That gave him pause. The first bit was definitely the events that transpired earlier today but that second bit was probably something his mind made up in response. “Konzen! Ah!” Whatever was happening seemed to cause the kid a lot of distress and Konzen suddenly hesitated. Would waking the monkey up in the middle of something like this make it worse? He knew from past experience that waking Tenpou up while he was in the grip of a nightmare usually resulted in someone being hit in the mouth, usually it would be Konzen and so he often let his friend be, even if the screaming kept him up at night. Konzen eyed the heavy chains around the child’s wrists and ankles. If he were to get hit by that, he would probably lose more than a few teeth at least.
Unbidden, the words that his charge spoke earlier came back to him and Konzen thought it through a bit longer before he slipped in behind his charge, holding him close. It felt weird and to cover up his hesitation, he started to hum a lullaby he once heard.
Within a minute or so, he could feel the kid relax and fall back to deeper sleep and without thinking too much of it, so did he, breathily humming the last bit of the melody as he let sleep overtake him once more.
Please don’t take my sunshine away