La Chapelle au Paradis
Summary: With a new age comes the rise of a new entertainment—as the people, young and old, fall in love with the allure of the unspeakable things. Such is the power of temptation in the form of a golden-eyed, captivating boy enslaving the hearts of those who lay eyes on him—that not even a man whose life had been dedicated to the Most Divine can resist.
.
Days flow like the water—unceasing, unyielding. Try as people may to stop time, they can never do it.
Inside the houses of the deities, however, time seems to stop. Under the high ceilings of marbled stone and the walls that hear the muttered prayers of those who believe and those who seek guidance, Genjo Sanzo finds comfort in the form of his daily routine. Dull and lifeless as it may seem to the eyes of an outsider, the priest seems not to mind, as he holds masses and presides over weddings and wakes and listens to confessions of those who repent—
—life is going well for him, he thinks, and he nods to himself, trying to ease the nudge of worldly thoughts that creep from the church doors.
Outside, the very world moves forward day by day. With their advancements in technology and fascination for the ever evolving fashion and fixations that are too shameful to even utter through untainted lips, it is a miracle that he hasn't been sullied by the people. Then again, such a thing can never happen, as he is bound to the walls of the church he calls his home.
His footsteps are a dull echo in contrast with the deafening clamor of the people outside, and he peeks through the cracks of the large and heavy doors, tutting when he sees the figures of people clad in both Eastern and Western clothing, walking down the street, some armed with a bottle of liquor, and some, holding the hand of a woman, or both. The priest harrumphs, and doesn't take his sights off the streets as he closes the door.
He removes his black cassock, drapes it over one of the pews, and creaks his neck.
"Today has been another eventful day," he convinces himself in deadpan, frowning as he retrieves his cassock and ascends the stairs behind the altar. Calling it a day may have been too soon, however, when he hears rapid knocking on the doors. Sighing, he descends the stairs in a hurry, donning his cassock once more as he does so, and opens the doors to see a man lying on the steps, face on the ground, his fist ready to knock once more.
Sanzo frowns, and acknowledges the man, "Good evening, what brings you to the house of prayer? Shouldn't you be at home?"
The man grumbles something unintelligible under the stench of beer emanating from his mouth as he wobbles to stand and lean one arm against the door, and the priest takes a step back on instinct as his nose twitches at the offending smell. The man makes faces as he opens his jaw and glides his tongue over his upper teeth, yawning as he scratches his flaming red hair, and he looks over at the priest with heavy-lidded eyes.
"Say, uh, Your Holiness. Can I sleep here for the night? My friend lost my key and we had an ugly fight and I ended up in the bar and here."
The man says it without so much as a blink, that the priest has to take a few seconds to comprehend the man's words. "So, what are you implying—"
"Just let me stay for the night, Your Holiness. I'll sleep on the floor and not dirty the pews if that's what you're afraid of—"
The priest looks over at the sloppy way of dress the man wears. Muddied black slacks, rumpled dress shirt that had probably been once white, a lint-ridden black suit.
The priest frowns, but door opens wider as he steps aside with a resigned sigh, and gestures inside. "You're welcome to seek sanctuary for the night if you so wish," he says in monotone, his violet eyes appearing almost weary as the drunken man perks up at the words and grins, giving him a sloppy salute.
"Thanks, Your Holiness! I owe you one," he says with a hiccup as he steps inside, bowing his head and hunching his shoulders just the slightest at the sight of the altar. "Pardon the intrusion, Your Lordship—ah, um, I can sleep on the floor…"
"No need," the priest mumbles as he turns away from the man, his strides hurried as he goes behind the altar. The man looks around, stunned and awkward at the sudden act—
"Look, uh, Reverend, I know I'm just a lowly man, but—"
The sound of shuffling cloths behind the altar stops his words, and the priest emerges once more bearing a folded mattress and a comforter. Sanzo plops them in the man's arms and nods.
"Use that," he says, and walks away, turning towards a corner behind the altar.
Once alone, the man looks at the soft, white mattress and the comforter, and shrugs with a smile.
"Well, at least I'm safe from the cold."
.
Monday comes with few attendees in service. With only the first day of the week, Sanzo lets the matter slide, secretly feeling relieved upon having few chores to do for the day, it has always been like this, after all. On the following days, however, he notices a recurring occurrence when night falls.
The man who had sought sanctuary a few days ago keeps returning, requesting for a night's rest, with the excuse of being locked out of his room every time.
Sanzo takes it all with a sharp sigh and turns a blind eye, and accepts the man into the church. As long as the man takes nothing from the church, then all is good, he repeats to himself.
Tonight, however, seems to be different, as the man pesters the priest about his lack of attendants. They talk for some time as the priest cleans the chalices on the altar, and all subjects seem to end up on why the priest is always alone. Upon calmly telling him that he manages the church alone unless necessary, the man seems to be taken aback, blinking as he looks around in surprise.
The man's long and tanned arms wave about in stunned silence, and when he has taken all that he can, he faces the passive priest, scoffing with a forced smile. "Don't tell me you even clean the lights all around here all by yourself," he laughs out, expecting even a small chuckle from the priest, but sees none. "Wait—don't tell me you…?"
"I told you. I can manage by myself."
The man freezes, and his lips part at the sight of the priest's downturned eyes. Pity, he thinks, as the priest has enthralling violet eyes. "Oh," he lets out in a quiet breath, nodding absentmindedly. The sound of cloth against the rim of the chalice stops as the priest gives the man a small smile.
"It has always been this way."
The man clamps his mouth shut as he nods and looks away to a pew, chucking his hand in his pocket as he mutters an apology.
"I don't mind," the priest replies as he places the chalices in a wooden box and hides them under the altar.
The man nods, scratching his face as he eyes the altar with confusion, "You have taken wine, then? Every Sunday?"
"Of course. Why do you ask?"
The man shrugs, smiling as he scratches his nose and looks away, "Nothing much. Say, Your Holiness, have you—" He glances at the way the priest looks, notices the blond hair, the pale skin, and the attractiveness he emits with every turn of his head. If the priest doesn't act indifferent all the time, the man thinks that the priest may actually look even prettier—he pauses in his musings, and clears his throat. "Have you been to a bar? The decent ones, I mean."
"Why would I go to such a place?" the priest asks with a snort, and hides his distaste with a polite cough. "I can't possibly be around the presence of people who abuse the provisions given by the Lord."
"Ah," the man says, looking away with a bashful grin, "right." He forces out a laugh as the priest's brow scrunches in confusion, and the man hisses through a too wide of a smile, "It's just… well, I'm just thinking—Your Holiness could use some time off from your sacred duties. What's that scripture again…? Ah, 'a time to weep and a time to laugh', was it?"
"If you're talking about Ecclesiastes, yes."
"Ecclesiastes. Right. Um, my point is, you can do your religious duties better if you take some time to relax and enjoy the labors of the people."
"I am relaxed. Are you saying I'm doing my job wrong?"
The man freezes and waves his hands about, shaking his head in vehemence, and laughs out, "I didn't mean that, Your Holiness! What I mean is, since you're in here all alone every day, you can—I don't know—you can go out and have some fun every now and then. Laughter is good for the soul, you know! Ah, here—" He fishes out a red card and hands it over to the priest, to which the latter takes with an unspoken curiosity. Nodding after the card, the man grins and cocks his head, "That place provides great laughter for the downtrodden and the heavyhearted, provides you with everything you can think of and more. It's the best place to escape the reality we're living in, just…" He shrugs as he shoves his hands in his pockets, grinning at the priest once more, "If you want to take a step back and take it easy, you can go there anytime. The place is open from 5pm to 5am—"
"Who even works at cafés for that long?"
The sudden question halts the man in mid-sentence, and upon seeing the seriousness on the priest's face, tries to let out his laughter in the form of a loud cough. "The place—the café—has to be cleaned up to perfection daily, Your Holiness. Can't have the people getting diseases these days, if you know what I mean." He wags his eyebrows at the priest, and seeing his lack of recognition at the joke, frowns and waves a hand at the card in the priest's hand. "If someone ever comes up to you and asks you who you are, just say that you're a close colleague of mine—"
"What—"
"I'm Sha Gojyo, by the way," he says with a toothy grin, chucking out his hand for the priest to shake.
The priest eyes the hand warily, and looks at Gojyo's smug face. With apprehension, he shakes Gojyo's hand, and mutters, "Sanzo."
"Huh?"
"My name. Sanzo."
"Oh, good! I'll call you by your name then. Calling you Your Holiness all of the time sounds too tedious. Well, I'll be taking my leave for now, Sanzo!" he says in a voice too loud for Sanzo to tolerate, and laughs as he turns around and walks away. "I'll be returning in a few days!"
"Ah. Hey, wait—"
The church doors close, leaving the priest alone in once more.
He tuts, and frowns at the red card in his hand. Written in neat, white calligraphy, he reads the label, "La Chapelle. Hm." He turns it over, sees nothing more at the back, and furrows his brows. Pursing his lips, he chucks the card inside his alb, and calls it a day.
.
Sanzo watches as the people exit the church as soon as the mass is over, and sighs as he cleans up the altar, fussing over the small details such as the tiny drop of wine on the corporal. As soon as the people have left, he wastes no time in cleaning all of the items, frowns at the sullied corporal, and stuffs it in the wooden box along with the chalice and the paten.
He makes his rounds at the pews with the wooden box in hand, and stops when he sees a lone figure kneeling behind one pew, and Sanzo hums. He places the box on the credence table, only to return to the small figure kneeling in silent prayer. The priest blinks and shrugs as he takes a quiet interest in the boy. The others have left, so why is this boy still here?
He approaches the boy as quietly as he can, and waits for him to finish. When the boy does, he wobbles to stand as he beats at his numb knees, wincing as he leans on one pew—
"Little boy, do you have a problem you wish to convey?"
The boy turns around sees the priest—
—and Sanzo stands in silence, and is stunned at the beauty upon seeing the boy's large, golden eyes.
"Oh, hello," breathes the boy in mild surprise, and bows, smiling upon seeing the vestments Sanzo wears, "I am seeking for guidance, Your Lordship. Oh, and I'm not a little boy."
At this, Sanzo blinks, and nods with a lack of attention. "Ah. Is that so?" he asks, breathless, and clears his throat, dismissing the sight of the innocent beauty this boy has. Looking at him, he notices the boy's tanned skin, the long, brown hair tied in a low ponytail, the round, soft-looking cheeks, and the smallness of his stature compared to his. Upon seeing the boy donning a loose, russet-hued kimono, though, the priest hums, and nods in quiet approval.
Good thing to know there are still people valuing tradition.
Although, looking closely, the boy looks quite smaller in the kimono.
He bites back a remark, and straightens his back, "What kind of guidance are you looking for?"
"Guidance on whether or not I should accept my job offer," the boy squeaks out, and the priest nods—
That sounds good enough. A young boy wanting to build his own future to contribute to society. That's good. "Very well, then. First off, does your family know you're working?"
"I don't have parents, Your Lordship," the boy says, hunching his shoulders and looking apprehensive upon answering, and the priest bites his inner cheek as he looks away.
Sanzo doesn't like the sudden feeling of contempt weighing on his stomach upon seeing the sudden fear and sadness in those golden eyes.
"All right. Well, what is this job you speak of? Is it appropriate for your age?"
The boy fidgets and looks away, biting his lip. He toys with the hems of his sleeves, and looks back at the priest with fluttering lashes, "I think it is, Your Lordship. And yes, it's appropriate."
Sanzo eyes the boy with suspicion. If the job is appropriate, then why the blushing and sudden shyness? And why has he dodged the question? He lets out a quiet sigh, and musters a faint smile that doesn't reach his eyes, "Very well, then. Would you care to talk to me about it?"
The boy, who has his face covered by the sleeve of his kimono, nods, and bows low, giving the priest a glimpse of a slender, exposed, tanned nape—
The priest's brow raises—that's odd.
Nevertheless, he speaks to the boy, listens to him, pays attention to the happiness and optimism this boy emits, and gives him the advice befitting for a budding young man. "Are you sure you want to do your job? Is your heart and mind into it?" The boy nods, eager and grinning wider the longer he talks. Sanzo sighs, and gestures outside the church, "Then go, child, your future is waiting for you."
The boy raises his arms and whoops in joy, only to clamp his mouth shut as he looks around, glances at the altar, and bows, "Sorry." The priest lets it slide, and the boy bites his lip to hold back his grin.
"Thank you, Your Lordship. I'll do my best with my job!"
Sanzo nods, and watches the boy as he exits the church. Before he leaves the steps, however, the boy turns around, waves him goodbye, and finally goes out into the streets.
Sanzo nods as the boy crosses the street, and notices for the first time that the boy's obi is tied at the front.
He shrugs away the assumptions his head conjures, and returns to his forgotten task of washing the soiled corporal in the wooden box.
.
Sanzo's following days begin to be filled with people coming into the church for confessions, often from men, rarely from women—and Sanzo becomes curious at the commonality of their confessions, all of them stemming from seeing a group of people dancing the night away.
He recites the prayers they should recite to appeal for forgiveness, and when the day it over, only then does he resign to the night of another eventful day.
It isn't until he has resigned to his bed—in a small room just beneath the bell tower—that he notices the discarded card sitting near his pitcher of water. The card that Gojyo had given him from what had seemed like years ago sits there on the small bedside drawer, waiting for Sanzo to pick it up—and when he does, he inspects it carefully, turns it over and back, furrows his brows, and glances at his cassock lying on the chair near his desk.
He toys with the card in between his calloused fingers, runs his nail down the embossed print on the card, and hums as he glances at the door with half-lidded eyes.
.
He hugs his black cassock tighter around his waist as he walks down the streets that are filled with young couples flirting out in the open. He steers his eyes away from the women who wear skirts that reach just below their knees, and sighs in relief whenever he walks by a woman who wears the modest kimono. He frowns as he sees men wearing suits from the West, walking in long strides, eyeing women who favor to wear the dresses and skirts that Sanzo does not want to look at.
He also notices some of the people who wear the kimono are those of the middle-aged—and the memory of that boy kneeling in prayer, wearing the kimono that he so favors resurfaces in his mind, and Sanzo nods to himself. Although he hasn't been wearing kimonos anymore since he had taken over the city's church, he isn't one to turn a blind eye to anyone who still values the traditional wear.
Tradition is to be respected, and after seeing that budding young man wearing a piece of the country's tradition, he is convinced that the culture of the East remains etched within the future generations—
Sanzo stops and looks around, and notices a throng of people gathering outside a building. Men and women raise their arms, their hands filled with crumpled and crisp bills as they hand the money to a man sitting behind a desk by the entrance. The priest blinks, and tries to look around the crowd, and catches a glimpse of the name of the establishment—
Hanging from the top of the entrance door is a neon sign of bright red and green lights, made to look like the cursive font the Westerners seem to to partial for—
La Chapelle.
He looks at the card once more, and nods. This café seems to be the place—although he wonders why there are many people gathered outside, waiting in throngs just to enter, is beyond his understanding.
Maybe the food is that exquisite? If so, maybe—
"Maybe I can try it for myself," he mutters. Seeing the man sitting by the doorway taking the people's cash, Sanzo comes up to him and asks, "Why are there many people here? Is there a special menu tonight?"
The man stops taking cash in mid-grab, and whips his head to where Sanzo stands. He eyes him up and down, sees the black cassock, and scoffs.
"Heh. You can say that. Why?" he turns away and grants entrance to a couple who has paid. "Are you here to preach? This is not a place to do that thing, I'm afraid."
The man fails to see the scandalized look on Sanzo's face as the man counts cash and grants another man entrance to the building. "I'm sorry," Sanzo starts, levelling his voice as the man signals a few teenagers to get inside the building, "but I'm not here to preach. I'm hungry and I need to eat."
The man and some of the people near Sanzo pause as they look at him from head to toe in scrutiny. Some of the women whisper among themselves, while some of the men whistle and catcall after hearing Sanzo's words. The man looks at the men, then at the confused blond wearing a priestly attire—and waves some of the crumpled bills at Sanzo's face.
"You need to pay before you enter, Pastor."
Sanzo eyes the rumpled money with mild disgust, and glances at some of the men—and frowns as some of them leer and eye him with what he can only describe as lascivious. He suppresses a shiver that runs down his spine as he holds tightly onto his cassock. "How much?" he hisses, immediately not liking the way the words have slipped from his lips, and almost apologizes, when the man cuts him off.
"Three hundred fifty."
Sanzo steps back, and glances at the wads of cash stacked neatly in a box next to the man. His feels the bills inside his pocket, and thinks whether it is worth the money, his allowance—
The man's fingers curl and uncurl, waiting for Sanzo's cash—
—the priest closes his eyes as he hands him the only note he has.
"Oh?" the man breathes out, tucking the bill on both ends, "You paying for 500? Quite the move there, Pastor. Thank you for blessing us. All right, get in. You'll even get a free meal for this."
The man beckons the next customers in line as a guard dressed in a gray suit escorts Sanzo inside.
"Wait, how about my chang—"
"Add the additional 150 next time. Next!"
The entrance door closes on Sanzo's face as he tries to plea for his change, and stops when he hears laughter and a deafening round of applause. He turns around and squints through the darkened entryway, and steps inside with caution as he splays his arms outwards, trying to find the nearest wall he can lean on to. He makes his way to where the loud noise grates louder in his head the more he steps inside.
And when he steps into the café, he realizes there and then that La Chapelle is, in fact, not a café—but a club.
And not just any club—
—but a burlesque club.
Sanzo's eyes widen at the sight, and feels his vision blurring at every corner he looks at.
Here, inside the place where the people call La Chapelle, the women seem to be not from this world—as the women whom he has seen minutes before are now close to slipping away their modest dresses from their shoulders as they hunch closer to the men beside them, laughing the night away with a sip of liquor flowing from table to table. Walking around are servers dressed the way the Western servants dress—the men in tailcoats and pressed pants, and the women in kimonos that reach above their knees—and the stage. Oh, the stage—!
The stage is filled with women clad in nothing but feathers, dancing the applause and catcalls away as they sway their hips clad in long, flimsy tassels to a tune that Sanzo recalls as jazz. The women walk around the stage as the sultry notes fill the club, flaunting off their bodies and their dances, enticing the drunken men—and the sober women—at the tables. All of the women on stage smile as they remove what little clothing they have on their chests and crotches, turning around to grace the crowd a sight of their shapely derrière and plump thighs, only for the large, looming and colorful feathers to cover up their buttocks as they bend over, causing the men to howl and shout and clap and beg for the women to lower the feathers—
The curtains close as the song ends, and the crowd groans in disappointment, some tutting as they down another glass of wine.
All the while, Sanzo leans against the wall, and feels bile coming to his throat at what he has just seen.
His eyes dart around, looking for a semblance of familiarity in the crowd—a decent person wearing decent clothes, a woman wearing all of her clothes without exposing much of her skin, a man who won't howl and whistle at the sight of a woman's naked body—
His vision dims. "I want out," he mutters in a mantra as a waitress passes him by and offers him a drink to which he declines with a shaky palm faced outwards. He reaches out to the exit, grateful for having felt his way through—
—only to stop when the club gets dimmer, to the point where Sanzo can't see anything except for the sole limelight illuminating the stage. He swallows the lump in his throat as a tall, black-haired man appears from behind the curtains, his crisp suit and tie looking sharp against his stance—and the crowd cheers once more.
This man talks of words that bounce off Sanzo's hearing, words that make no sense to the priest—and this man couples his fluid gestures with a wide, toothy smile, his very expression making the crowd fall for his handsome features.
Sanzo tries to level his breathing, tries to hear the thoughts in his head against the man's booming voice on the stage. The sound of the microphone's static grates on the priest's ears, and he gulps, drowning the voice of the whistling and cheering crowd as the man on the stage says something with a charismatic smile and a quick wave to the curtains—
—and the drapes part to the sound of a low bass as six women clad in loose, muted green kimonos strut to the stage, their wide, colorful sashes tied into huge, loose bows swaying with each dainty step. Their small feet peek out from beneath the layers of silk as the first soulful note of the saxophone fills the air, gracing the men a glimpse of pale legs and thighs. Their shoulders peek out from their loose clothes as the bass plays a slow thrum, the light bouncing off of their collarbones and soft curves. Their faces show neutrality, and as they stop in front of the stage, they took out russet-toned fans from their cleavage, and the song plays its stirring notes. The women cover their mouths with every flutter of the fan as their other fingers dance down the length of their sashes, exposing their legs with each trill of the hypnotizing music. The paleness of these slender legs enchant the men as the dancers dip lower to the floor, their legs parting more and more as the lights grow dimmer—
The music stops for a moment, and Sanzo gathers his bearings as he squints looking for the exit—
The faint rustling of another set of curtains parting meets his ears, and, with a morbid curiosity, his violet eyes slide to the stage, and feels his palms grow damp when a lone, tanned figure steps in—
—walking on his tiptoes and dressed in nothing but a sheer, red babydoll.
Sanzo's breath hitches in his throat, and tries to avert his gaze, only to find all the patrons and employees alike stunned in awe at the languid movements of the petite boyish figure on stage.
Chestnut brown hair. Eyes spun in bright gold. A small, boyish face blooming into that of a young man's. Plump cheeks framed by a jawline developing into prominence. Collarbones jutting from the confines of the sheer fabric. Skin bronzed by the sun. Lean and toned muscles that Sanzo didn't know the boy had—
The priest gulps. Sanzo feels a trickle of sweat down his back upon realizing who the boy on the stage is. Is this the boy he had talked to before? The one who asked him for advice about taking a job? Was that why the boy had looked apprehensive upon being asked about this… job?
"…is this the work he was talking about?" He pales, feels his blood grow cold as he steps back. "Is this… the result of my advice…? I—" He wants out. He wants out and he wants it now.
He looks away from the display of tanned legs and hips and torso and—look away.
Sanzo squints in the dark, trying to see any semblance of a door, an opening, an exit, anything, for him to escape—and feels his breath go short when he finds none.
Resigning to his fate, he buries his face in his palms instead. Maybe if he closes his eyes long enough, time will go faster—
The roaring whoops and whistles of the crowd pierces his ears as the low sound of saxophone reverberates in the air, and the priest's traitorous hands lower from his eyes when he hears fists repeatedly banging on the table in apparent delight.
On the stage, he sees the boy, the innocent-looking boy that he had met a while back, caressing his chin in a feather-light touch all the way to his navel, his neck throwing back, exposing more of the bobbing Adam's apple there, revealing more of that tanned skin under the stage lights as he parts his lips, exposing the faintest glimmer of white teeth and the sheen of the inside of his mouth as the boy slowly, deliberately, parts his legs to bare more of that utterly obscene display of unmentionable male parts and realizes that the boy is a young man in his teens judging from what he has seen—
Sanzo lets out a breath he doesn't know he had been holding for who-knows-how-long. He can't bear it. It's too much. Too. Much.
It's too much, he knows that well, but—
The young man starts to move, undulating his body in a way that mesmerizes the audience with his seemingly shy moves as he abruptly stands and thrusts his right leg out, his small feet outstretched to a random man in the audience who looks dangerously close to standing up just to reach the exposed leg—
A rumbling of a growl is heard, and Sanzo looks around, and sees no one beside him, and finds out that the unnatural, the animalistic, sound—had come from himself.
He gulps, his eyes going wide at the realization—and shakes his head. No. No. It can't be. It's unheard of for a man such as himself to—
The reverberating sound of a long and drawn-out sigh echoes in the hall, and the priest's eyes snap up to where the young man now clasps a microphone stand in his spindly fingers, their movements suggestive as he gives the audience a lazy smile, his eyes almost glazed under the limelight that seems to highlight every jutting bone on his sinfully taintless body—
He leans back, taking the stand with him, drawing the microphone to his chest. The young man caresses it, licks the air as his mouth further slides open, sending the crowd in a frenzy of whistles and cheers—and the young man smiles as he gyrates to the sound of the staccatos of the piano, raising his leg higher and higher, revealing the lean flesh under the gossamer cloth—
A gasp escapes from the performer's lips, its sound sending a jolt down the priest's spine. Sanzo freezes in his seat, and finds himself unable to tear his eyes away from the immoral sight.
"Heavens above, deliver me from the wicked—"
The tanned male puts the microphone stand back in its place and gives the entranced crowd another smile, another mid-raise of the leg, before putting it back down just as quick, his hands doing a mock-shame gesture of covering what little he can of his naked self. He turns around, the hoots grow louder as they see the pert, little bottom through the sheer fabric, and he cranes his head back, giving everyone a coy smile and a bite of his lower lip as he tries to cover up his derrière as he sticks it out more, pulling on the cloth lower in a faux attempt of covering himself, but to no avail.
Sanzo finds himself unable to close his eyes anymore, barely registering that his lips have now slightly parted as the young man dips further down on the floor, and takes two, large, golden feather fans from where the audience couldn't see on the floor as he stands up and covers himself with the fans, grinning at the crowd as he once more teases them with a raise of his leg, and in a series of kicks, he lets it stay there as he fans himself—
The croon of the saxophone grows louder as he fans himself faster, the feathered hems of the babydoll raising from his skin as the young man sways onto the edge of the stage. He gives everyone another smile, and steps onto the nearest table in front of him, drawing groans and wolf-whistles from the patrons on the table.
The young man twirls, tiptoes on the table, and parts his legs in front of a practically drooling man. As soon as a hand reaches out to touch him, however, the young man licks his lips, and steps onto another table, earning wistful sighs from the customers.
He keeps this up all over the hall—covering himself up the whole time save for a few seconds of a peek of tanned skin. The music grows louder as he nears the middle to where Sanzo can clearly see everything up close despite his apparent farsightedness. The crowd claps and whoops as the beat of the drum grows louder, urging the young man to finally throw his feather fans to the floor to reveal his now lack of clothing save for a tight-fitting, small piece of cloth tied around his waist and under his buttocks, emphasizing its plumpness in its restraints.
The priest feels his breathing run shorter and shorter as the young man leans back onto the table and thrusts his hips into the air in repeat, closing his eyes as his lips fall open, caressing one tanned hand onto the expanse of his skin, down to his chest, to his stomach, and when they think he's going to touch further, a thin rope lowers in front of him.
The young man splays his fingers above his crotch, hovers it there—and reaches for the rope, pulling it with a rough tug—
Sanzo hears a faint click from above, and sees in a split second of a gate of sorts opening overhead—
—to spill a cascade of water down the young man's rippling body, soaking everyone in the vicinity of the table sopping wet, and earning the roaring applause and clamor of the audience as the crescendo careens to a halt, with the young man's chest popping to a stop at the final note.
The young man sits up kneeling, opens his eyes, licks his upper teeth, and grins at the whooping crowd.
Unbeknownst to him, sitting just a few meters away, is the priest he had sought advice to a few days ago, unmoving in his seat—
Sanzo feels shivers wracking his body despite the lack of cold air in the hall.
The priest looks down, and sees a splotch of something wet on his slacks that he's sure hadn't been from the sudden splash of water.
.