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I was slapped upside the head with this little ficlet in my China/Japan class, when my teacher was talking about how she first learned about Zen Buddhism in her college. I blame this all on her.

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a koan: a riddle that takes a godawful time to figure out, but when you do, it’s a sudden, spontaneous enlightenment.
satori: the state of enlightenment itself.

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Koan

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This wasn’t the first time Goku had run off instead of waiting for Hakkai to arrive. The boy was bright, but so easily distracted that if Hakkai didn’t arrive earlier than he promised, there would be no golden-eyed child waiting eagerly to learn rudimentary math.

The monks had gotten used to seeing him waiting patiently in the abandoned study, and occasionally would offer him tea to help alleviate the boredom. They were more free with their tongues around him than around Sanzo, but he merely smiled at their thinly-veiled insults towards Goku and said nothing.

He had not known the priest long, but in observing these people he could empathize with the deeply rooted bitterness that hid in the back of Sanzo’s eyes.

At any rate, Hakkai knew that when Goku disappeared, he would eventually find his way back to Sanzo. ‘Like a sand burr,’ the priest had said, and it seemed an apt comparison. Goku was somewhere around fifteen years old — old enough to be married in the more traditional towns — but he acted so much younger at times. The fact that he did not look fifteen didn’t help matters any.

‘Immaturity,’ Sanzo liked to call it, but Hakkai found it refreshing. After all, the gods knew he and Sanzo both were far more mature than their own ages. Goku was simply making up the difference.

One half hour passed, and Hakkai had just set aside his tea when he heard the indignant squawking that heralded Goku’s arrival. And Sanzo’s, as well; he could hear the angry rumble of the blonde’s voice as they marched down the hall. It sounded as though the boy had decided to spy on another lecture.

Unperturbed, Hakkai set aside his cup and drew his bag into his lap.

The door slide open, and Goku made another irritated noise as the priest shoved him into the room.

“But I was bored!” the boy wailed.

“I don’t care,” Sanzo snapped. “If I can’t trust you to stay where I put you, then I’m going to have to start chaining you to the goddamned bedpost.” He stalked into the study, decidedly irate, and rounded his desk to drop into the chair with a growl.

“But Hakkai was late!” he continued, coming up beside where the green-eyed man sat.

Hakkai only smiled. “My profuse apologies,” he said mildly, but without any hint of apology in his voice. “Gojyo stalled me on the way out the door.”

The blonde slouched back in his chair and pointedly dropped his gaze to the blemish on Hakkai’s neck that his collar failed to hide. “I see this.”

Hakkai only smiled wider and said nothing.

Goku, oblivious, fidgeted by the brunette’s chair. “I didn’t want to wait,” he mumbled. “Besides, I don’t see why you have to do those stupid lectures, anyways. No one even knew the answer to that riddle.”

Sanzo sighed, and drew out his battered pack of cigarettes. Hakkai was fairly certain he had heard the monks ask the blonde not to smoke in his study, but Sanzo never was a stickler for the rules. “It’s called a koan, not a riddle. And I didn’t expect them to know the answer, any how.”

“I know the answer,” Goku replied sullenly.

The priest only rolled his eyes.

“What was the riddle?” Hakkai asked. Not being a Buddhist himself, and not inclined to spying, he had never been able to attend one of Sanzo’s lectures. It would be different, he imagined.

“ ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping?’ “ The boy rubbed the back of his head and grinned sheepishly. “It’s the sound you hear whenever Sanzo smacks me.”

The hand lifting cigarette to mouth stopped abruptly, and for the first time Hakkai thought he saw genuine surprise in those violet eyes.

“So?” Goku asked eagerly. “Is that the answer? That’s the answer, isn’t it? Do I get some satori now? What is satori, anyways? It sounds spicy!”

Sanzo put the cigarette to his lips and lit it, closing his eyes. Whatever expression he had previously was closed off and gone again. “Pretty spicy,” he agreed. “Too spicy for you, I think. Sukiyaki would be better.”

The boy made a pleased sound in the back of his throat, the sound that never failed to remind Hakkai of a happy puppy. “I love sukiyaki! Can we have some now? I’m soooo hungry!”

“Later,” the blonde replied. “Hakkai didn’t come here to listen to your stomach growl.”

“Yes,” Hakkai said, interjecting himself into the conversation once more. “However, if you do well with your math, we’ll not only have sukiyaki tonight, I’ll make it for you myself.”

Goku flopped himself on the ground at Hakkai’s feet so fast it made the other man’s tailbone tingle in sympathy. “Come on, come on,” the boy said impatiently. “The faster we do this, the faster I eat!”

Across the table, Sanzo ashed his cigarette in the discarded tea cup. “Enlightenment,” he said, “from the mouths of children.”

Hakkai only smiled, and withdrew the battered math textbook from his bag.