Title: A Lesson in Romance
Author: quietviolence

Summary: Genjo Sanzo is a 23 year old teacher who thinks all high school students are self-absorbed and obnoxious. Son Goku is the one senior that just might prove him wrong. AU, Shonen-ai.

Pairing: 393 (references to previous 383)

Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own the boys, and this time you just might get two hair bands in the mix if you sue, so this disclaimer is very important to me. Heh.

Chapter 2:

After a week of rotating through multiple classes, Sanzo noticed a pattern that had developed immediately in the semester. Goku's tardiness was apparently not a one time thing, as his teacher soon realized. Indeed, it seemed like every morning Sanzo was holding his lesson back nearly ten minutes to accommodate the tiny brunette. Monday, a full week after the initial class, Sanzo decided he would have to do something about the boy's habitual lateness.

"Son Goku, please come to my desk," Sanzo said without looking up from his desk. Just as he had expected, Goku was standing outside the door awaiting permission to enter the classroom.

"Yes, sir." Goku walked to the desk without hesitation. "I apologize for being late, sensei."

Sanzo peered through his wire rimmed glasses at the boy before him. "Goku, I expect to see you in my office and half past three to discuss your repeated tardiness," he informed the student. "With your parents."

"But--!" Goku started, only to be silenced by the other man.

"No buts. You have constantly used up valuable minutes of my class time," he said, still annoyed, as if having to point this out was physically painful for him. "I may be young and right out of college, but I'm not an idiot."

"You don't understand. I don't live with my parents anymore. They disowned me as soon as it was legal to do so. I live on my own now," the boy repeated, finally getting his story in. He had lowered his voice to a near whisper, and looking up with pleading amber eyes.

Sanzo felt a slight touch of pity for the youth, which surprised him, considering his opinion of disruptive high school students. A part of his head told him that this was probably because he knew how the boy felt; he'd been raised without parents after all. But he never listened to that portion of his brain when it talked, there was no reason to dwell on the past. He looked back to Goku. "Fine then. But I still expect you to be in my office promptly at three thirty. Now sit down, I'm tired of you."

The rest of the period, as well as the other classes that day, passed without any real disruptions. A boy and a girl that were frantically passing notes were assigned a detention, and many pieces of gum were confiscated, but aside from that it was relatively uneventful.

As he sat in his office at quarter past three, however, Sanzo allowed his thoughts to drift back to Komyo Sanzo, who was as close to a father as Sanzo had ever had. Something about Goku made Sanzo think of the older man, perhaps that he was the only way the blonde had survived parentless childhood. The teacher wiped at his eyes, willing the tears that threatened to fall away. He had shed too many as a young boy, and vowed never to cry again, no matter how much his body wanted him to.

The teacher glanced at his clock, and sure enough it read 3:35, more or less time for his council with Goku. "Come in and sit. You know why you're here. Do you plan to do it again?"

For some reason unbeknownst to him, the brunette felt a strange need to please the older man in front of him. "I'm sorry, sensei, but my car has been continually stalling out on the drive here due to the weather, and the walk is rather long. I really am trying to get here on time, but it's extremely difficult to do so without a car or the option of taking the bus."

"Then leave earlier," Sanzo stated harshly. A moment later, however, when he noticed the look in the boy's eyes, another ounce of sympathy passed through the older man, and he felt the need to at least try to make less hostile conversation with his student.

"So why did your parents kick you out?" the blonde asked, genuinely wondering why this boy was living alone at age eighteen. "Annoy them too much too?" So much for friendly conversation, he thought to himself.

Goku looked down at the hands in his lap, instantly somber again. He wasn't sure that he wanted to share this with the man in front of him, but common sense told him that withholding information from a teacher wouldn't matter. He knew Sanzo would come by the facts through another source soon enough. "No, sir. My family kicked me out because I was a disgrace. I--" Goku faltered. "I'm gay, and my family finds that unacceptable."

Sanzo looked at the boy before him, taken somewhat aback by his student's confession. Though the teacher preferred to avoid relationships as a whole, and therefore didn't have much of a sexuality, he did remember what Komyo Sanzo had taught him when he was a teenager. Sanzo's mentor had walked in on Hakkai and Sanzo in the midst of youthful experimentation that most thirteen and fourteen year old boys experience at least once, and given the two of them a discussion on their behavior. That day, Sanzo was taught that while there was nothing wrong with what he and Hakkai had done, there were people in the world who found two men being involved in a relationship unacceptable. He just couldn't imagine living in an intolerant household like Goku, and somehow managed to feel another tinge of emotion for the innocent looking boy before him.

Before he realized what he was saying, the older of the two found himself speaking to his student. "You say your car broke down yet again today, do you need a ride home?"

"Really? Oh, thank you so much, Sanzo! I wasn't looking forward to walking in the rain," the boy said, and Sanzo noted that he was bouncing back to his normal enthusiasm instantly.

Feeling as if he needed an excuse for his offer, he added, "Well, if you missed school due to a cold, I wouldn't want to have to bring you up to speed."

Despite the harsh comments from his mentor, the boy couldn't help but smile when the teacher had offered his assistance without even really noticing that he was proposing the offer at all. In Goku's mind, things that were said on impulse carried more meaning than strategically planned speech.

A moment later they were in Sanzo's car, a Honda that looked a couple years old but perfectly clean, heading towards a sketchier part of town that housed Goku's apartment. "Sensei?" the young boy ventured after quite a long silence. "Would you like to go to dinner tonight? I don't want to head home just yet, and I bet you don't want to go home to an empty house either. Plus . . . I'm hungry!" Once again, Goku had reverted to his childish alter-ego.

"You really are a bakazaru, aren't you? Do you expect people wouldn't talk if they noticed a teacher and a student eating together? Not to mention a young teacher and a gay student," he pointed out.

"What's wrong with that?" Goku asked, obviously oblivious to the connotations that Sanzo and the rest of the world interpreted from situations like that. "It's just dinner," the boy offered, completely missing the entire point.

For some reason, Sanzo found he couldn't shoot down the boy again. "Fine, let's go." After a moment he added a "monkey" for good measure. Ten minutes later the two found themselves seated in a McDonalds, ordering at the counter.

As Goku's list went on, Sanzo found himself wishing he hadn't offered to pay for the younger boy. "And I'd like a number three, and a number four, both super sized. Dr. Peppers with those. Ooo! And a Reese's McFlurry," he finished off finally.

Sanzo approached the counter to add his order, aware of the looks he was getting from the other people in the restaurant. He had to admit, it was rather odd to see two men eating together, with one of them paying, but he didn't know why they had to stare like that. A moment later he realized just what they'd noticed – Goku was wearing his school uniform, and Sanzo was dressed in what he liked to call his "teaching garb" complete with wire rimmed glasses. It was obvious what this scene appeared like to the masses, just as Sanzo had suspected from the beginning. Oh well, he thought to himself as he placed a single order for a Fruit 'n Yogurt Parfait and paid for the two of them.

"Think you ordered enough, baka?" Sanzo asked when they finally sat down at the table with all of their food. Only seconds before, Sanzo had attempted to seize a single fry from Goku's tray only to have it snatched back forcefully, a tirade about the boy's hunger accompanying it. "Shut up or I'll kill you," Sanzo demanded forcefully, annoyed by the stares of the others in the restaurant.

After that, Sanzo could tell that his student was really trying as hard as he could to contain his explosive personality. Goku made an effort to remain on neutral conversational topics that would make him seem more mature and worthy of spending time with the blonde. "Today's lesson was great. I don't really like learning about a bunch of dead old people, but you made it seem interesting."

"I happen to enjoy studying those 'dead old people', thank you very much," he responded, but somehow Sanzo found himself more amused than insulted by the young boy's take on history. And somewhat honored by the compliment that had been paid to him.

The conversation carried on, though more one-sided, as Sanzo didn't seem inclined to speak much at all, no matter how well Goku was behaving himself. Little did the younger boy realize that his companions thoughts were not off in the distance, but rather centered around the person blabbering senselessly at him. Sanzo couldn't help but smile despite himself at the overeager boy before him, who was now explaining the last time he had really enjoyed a book – it seemed that all the boy read were mangas and old children's books.

"Finished eating yet, baka?" Sanzo asked, silencing his dinner company. "I've got work to do."

Goku swallowed the last of his food and rushed to throw both his and Sanzo's away at the trashcan. Almost instantly the two were in Sanzo's car once again, heading towards the apartment Goku lived in once again. When they got there, however, the youth realized that once again he wouldn't be sleeping in his apartment. Unfortunately, it was too late to hit up one of his coworkers for a place to stay, and the boy didn't even want to think about what to do.

"Well, this isn't going to work," Sanzo said irritably when he spotted the gang outside the doors of the apartment building, guns in hand. Watching the hoodlums, Sanzo became even more annoyed. Not because they were handling weapons and wrecking havoc – Sanzo had done his fair share of that at their age – but rather because he realized what he had to do. Instantly he put his foot on the gas and sped off down the street silently.

"Where are we going?" Goku asked, curiously. He wondered what exactly the other man was thinking. He was capable of reading most people, but his new teacher seemed to be completely inhuman due to his lack of expression.

"My place," was all the violet-eyed man said. The rest of the drive was continued in complete silence until Sanzo pulled into a parking garage and got out of the car, waiting for Goku. "Hurry up and move. I'm giving you a house for the night, don't push it."

Goku followed obediently, bouncing up and down and bounding through the halls behind his teacher. His mind briefly flicked to Sanzo's sexual orientation, but he knew better than to ask it of the other man. Naïve as he may have seemed, most of the happy-go-lucky attitude he put up was just that, a front. He knew exactly why their dinner drew attention, but he simply didn't want to think about it.

"Wear this," Sanzo said, throwing a pair of grey pants and a tank top to the younger boy. A minute later Goku walked into the central room to find out where he was sleeping, and was surprised to see Sanzo sitting there in just boxers. "You're on the couch, monkey. Have a nice night," he said, smirking. He hopped up and walked out of the room to what Goku figured was the bedroom.

Midway through the night Goku heard whimpers mingled with yelling coming from Sanzo's bedroom. Worried about the other man, the brunette ambled through the dark and into the room to find his teacher shifting back and forth on the bed, obviously in the midst of a horrible nightmare. Unsure of what else to do, the younger boy slid under the blankets and wrapped his arm around Sanzo, hoping to calm him. He had every intention of slipping out two minutes later and returning to the couch, but sleep overtook him and he awoke six hours later in Sanzo's bed.

"What exactly do you think you're doing?" Sanzo angrily asked the boy who was still tangled with him. "Do you normally glomp people in the middle of the night?"

Nervous, Goku blurted out his story, trying to excuse himself. "Well, you were shaking and shouting in your sleep and I was just trying to comfort you and keep you calm and this was the only way I knew how and then I was going to go back to the couch but I drifted off and… I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to invade your personal space or anything, really."

Sanzo stood up and glanced out the window. "Ah, it rained last night, didn't it?" he asked. The ground was soaking wet. Of course, he thought unhappily, even in his sleep the rain still got to him, reminding him of Komyo Sanzo's death. "Hurry and get dressed, we're running late."

Goku didn't know what to make of this comment on the weather, but it obviously had some significance. Either way, as Goku glanced at the clock that read 7:48 he realized that Sanzo wasn't kidding about them being tardy, and rushed to get ready.

A/N: First of all, sorry that my chapters have been pretty short lately, I'm going to try to start getting them to be a bit longer in the next few. Secondly, thanks a ton to all my reviewers. I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint.