Disclaimer: Senkaiden Houshi Engi is NOT mine. It belongs to Fujisaki-san and it's original Chinese author and whoever else has claim to it. ADV, I think licensed it? Oh, and of course J Shanon Weaver for doing an awesome job on dubbing Taikoubou!! So of course that means he has claim to it. ^_^;

an: My first try at a HE fic so I apologize beforehand! Any mistakes, please point them out to me and I'll be forever grateful. And be sure to let me know what you thought!

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Chapter 1: Blinded

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It was late.

It was a moonless night. The sky was an endlessly dark background for thousands of tiny sparkling stars. The shrill call of summer crickets sounded from all around the campfire, interrupted only by soft, deep breathing.

Taikoubou was lying on his back with his hands behind his head, cushioning it. His strange hat was on top of a pile of his clothes to the side and all he wore were his white pants, leaving him bare-chested as he stared up at the starry sky above him.

"It's beautiful, isn't it, Fugen?" he murmured quietly, careful not to break the peace of the beautiful night.

The angelic sennin who had just appeared simply smiled his peaceful smile,

"Yes it is, Bou-chan."

They had a special bond, the two of them.

Sitting down on the lush grass next to Taikoubou, Fugen rested his paopei in his lap as he tilted his head up to look. But even the faint glow from the halo over his head emitted enough light so that the stars were blinded from him.

His smile faded a little at not being able to see Bou's stars, but in the dark his love didn't notice and kept whispering,

"I used to love looking at them when I was younger. But they were prettier before."

They both knew what the 'before' was.

"Yes, Bou-chan." Fugen agreed softly.

For a while, the only noise came from their soft breathing and the crickets.

"I've missed you, Bou-chan." Fugen remarked softly. Bou had been spending more and more time on Earth. Genshitenson had practically given up trying to keep the troublesome doushi on Konron. But Bou always found some way back.

"I'm sorry, Fugen." he apologized meaningfully. And he really was sorry. He knew that his long absences hurt Fugen, but he had to come back. Everyday it seemed as if he was becoming more and more Taikoubou the doushi and losing a little more of who he was before his immortality.

Silence stretched between them for a long time as both were lost in their thoughts until Bou suddenly spoke up again. His voice was a little louder but also a little unsteadier,

"I remember a story from when I was younger."

Fugen stayed silent and waited for Taikoubou to continue,

"There was once a young man. He was tired after a whole day of tending his animals so he went outside to look up at the sky and the stars. In the middle of a meadow with the heavens above him, he drifted to sleep.

But then something woke him up. He opened his eyes and saw a beautiful woman drifting down from the sky. She was an immortal. A goddess.

They met and talked all night. But before dawn, she had to go back to the sky. The man was sad. He had fallen in love. But not just with anyone. He had fallen in love with an immortal goddess. And she loved him too. For a while, they were happy and didn't care about anything else except their love for each other.

But the ruler of the sky found out and didn't approve. An immortal and a human were not allowed to be together. So he made a white river of stars in the sky to keep them apart. One was on one side and the other on the opposite. They thought they would never see each other again."

Bou's voice, which had been steadily lowering in volume faded away and he stopped,

"...that was a sad story." Fugen murmured, now also lying on the ground and curled up next to his lover. Silently, Bou shook his head and Fugen looked up at him questioningly, but Bou shook his head again and curled up too so he faced Fugen. His huge emerald eyes met soft violet ones. They simply gazed at each other, content with just being together.

A while after Fugen had fallen asleep, Bou's eyelids began to flutter and before long he fell asleep too.

As the two slept side by side, the sky steadily lightened until a few hours before dawn when Fugen came awake, shivering from the cold dew seeping through his thin shirt. Sitting up, the sennin brushed Bou's long bangs away from his forehead gently and placed a light kiss on his love's forehead,

"Bou-chan..." Fugen murmured affectionately. Then his expression saddened a little as he asked the question to his sleeping love that he knew not to ask to an awake Bou, "What's the matter?"

With one final soft brush of lips to forehead, Fugen stood and left his now-snoring lover to go back to the floating mountain.

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