comfort food


The soup is very hot, steam rising in lazy coils above the lacquered bowl, so Sanzo blows on it and takes careful sips, small and delicate. Goku watches him eat, and the hunger that always aches within him flares up until it feels like his belly is nothing more than a giant abyss of want. Except that it isn't really his belly that needs filling but something else. He's lost something and all the food in the world won't fill up the hole within him.

Sanzo is taking larger sips now, the soup having cooled down or perhaps Sanzo has just grown impatient and doesn't care that the pale broth burns his lips and tongue. It's winter melon and pork, and to Goku it smells something like ham and something like comfort. The slices of winter melon are soft and colorless and it only takes the slightest pressure from Sanzo's lips to cut them in half, some to fall back into the bowl, some to be swallowed; the bits of cured pork that began the meal at the bottom of the bowl but are now swirled to the top, are tough and Sanzo has to chew on them before they can be swallowed.

Goku licks his lips. He watches the bowl rise and fall and he isn't even aware that Sanzo is staring at him until the bowl has stopped moving. He looks up and Sanzo's eyes are curious even though his face is scowling. Goku licks his lips again and vows to hold still and let Sanzo smack him.

The bowl comes skittering across the table and when Goku catches it, it's still warm; Goku would like to think that the warmth is from Sanzo's hands, but he knows that it's just the soup. There's quite a bit left, and Goku looks down into the bowl and then up at Sanzo, who is looking away, pretending to be interested in his cigarettes.

"If you were still hungry, you should have said something," Sanzo growls.

Goku grins. He didn't really want the soup.

Much.

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