Disclaimer: I don't own anything. :)

Notes: Full 2 hours. Tried a different style here, just hope that it goes right I'll probably find some more mistakes tomorrow. For tm challenge: pranks. Comments and criticism welcome.

Boredom

His day had gone completely, totally and utterly wrong.

Furthermore, he was certain that someone had to be responsible for his current predicament. Anyone, as long as it wasn't him.

Kenren shifted a few stacks of paper to the side in an effort to clear more space on the already crammed table, careful not to upset any of the tethering mounds of documents. This was definitely Tenpou's influence at work here…

He leaned back and put his feet up on the table. Closing his eyes, he was about to drift off into a light nap when the door opened.

"…"

He opened one eye. "What?"

"General Kenren." A pregnant pause.

Kenren exhaled smoke slowly and patiently; things could wait. He flashed a smile before shutting the one open eye.

The voice came again, this time slightly exasperated. "At least greet your superior, General?"

"Ah, so sorry."

Kenren lowered his feet and propped himself into a sitting position. Giving a nod, he continued, "Good afternoon,"

"…"

"You wanted something?"

"No. You have a letter that I was instructed to pass to you. Personally."

With that, Goujun tossed the letter carelessly over, aiming in the general direction of Kenren's head. Kenren caught the letter easily and gave a smirk.

"Is that the only reason why I'm graced with your presence this afternoon?"

"… I'm leaving."

Kenren stared at the retreating form of the Dragon King and silently wondered what could induce Goujun to even venture into his office at this time of the day. Odd, definitely odd.

He turned the letter over in his hands a few times, examining its contents. He scanned through the precursory header and was about to crumple it for disposal into the wastepaper basket when a certain phrase caught his eye.

…General Kenren is to present a vase containing a traditional flower arrangement completed within an hour to Marshal Tenpou…"

Kenren blinked once. And then blinked again. There was something very, very wrong with this.

He ran his eye over the document again. The words were the same, alright. So… it wasn't his eyesight then?

Having read through it carefully for the umpteenth time, General Kenren had come to the obvious conclusion that the person who had sent the order was either, a) entirely insane, or b) completely totally and entirely insane. He was inclined to think it the latter.

No one, just no one, would command a General to do any of that. Although given the fact that many of those people up there in the bureaucracy disliked him with a passion, it wasn't altogether impossible.

The only flaw in that reasoning was that the person who had written and approved the letter was none other than—here he raised an eyebrow—Marshal Tenpou. No way in hell he was going to argue with that.

Watermark, check. Official seal, check. Signature and countersign, check. Not a forgery, and certainly not a joke.

Kenren voiced his thoughts out loud. "What the hell?"

The door, as if on cue, opened once more.

Goujun said, "And the Marshal wishes to add that you are to follow the instructions to the letter. Which means completing every thing by today."

If Kenren didn't know better he would have said that Goujun was behind this entire thing.

This was worse than handling paperwork any day. Sighing with resignation, Kenren grabbed his sake jug and went out, list in hand.

The first task proved relatively easy. Finding flowers and arranging them should have been pretty straightforward. Considering that there were only so many flowers that one could stick in a vase…

But the problem lay in the fact that Kenren, in the due course of his military training, had received, little, if any, training on the fine art of flower arrangement. That was understandably, one of the major concerns on Kenren's mind.

There was always the chance that the gardener would be around…

"Ken-nii-chan!" Over here! Over here!"

Kenren turned in the direction of the voice to see Goku bounding energetically towards him.

"Hey… "

"Why is Ken-nii-chan looking so upset?"

"Because… because he has to arrange flowers."

"Arrange flowers? But that's easy!"

"…"

"Here, you can have this!" Goku thrust into his hand a vase.

"Isn't that for Konzen?"

"Yeah, but you can have it, since he isn't going to look at it anyway."

"…Thanks."

"See you later, Ken-nii-chan!"

Ok, so the first problem was settled. Rather settled, by his standards. Although whether it could be called a traditional flower arrangement could be widely debated. Broadly speaking, anything was a flower arrangement, so long one had enough artistic sense to grab a couple of stalks and arrange them in an aesthetically pleasing manner…

"Oh shit." He had forgotten about the second part of the sentence.

… and the arrangement should only consist of winter blooms that are scarlet, purple and aquamarine…

"…" It was spring, damnit. Even if it was winter, how the hell was he supposed to find flowers that were scarlet, purple an aquamarine? Purple, yeah, cherry blossoms were purplish-pink, relatively speaking. But aquamarine was out of the question.

Kenren hit his face once, really hard with the base of the sake jug.

This was going to be a long day.

Later on, Kenren found himself walking along the corridor in the direction of Konzen's office. He flung open the door without bothering to knock and was greeted with a furious stare.

"What do you want? Get out."

"… What a warm reception."

"Get out. I don't care if you're a friend of Tenpou's."

"I want something."

"I said GET—" Konzen stared open-mouthed as the ball flew past his table and made its exit through the closed window.

There was a moment of absolute silence as the glass pane shattered.

"WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?"

"I broke the window." Konzen grabbed the nearest heavy object, which just happened to be his bottle of ink, and hurled it at Kenren. The general sidestepped neatly and caught the hurtling bottle midway through the air.

"I think that would have been fairly obvious," Kenren smirked and turned to leave. A he shut the door, there was a resounding thud on the other side. It was good that he had such good reflexes…

Now, for the next task. That would pose a serious problem, though.

As Dragon King, Goujun was always treated with a certain amount of respect and wary regard. He was used to this differential treatment by now; everyonecould see that Goujun was not someone whom you regarded lightly.

Apparently, there was an exception to this rule. That entity was, Goujun noted with little surprise, Kenren Taishou.

Rumour had it that Kenren Taishou possessed military skill far above his rank, and that besides having great physical ability; he also had the mental faculty to rival most of the people in the Western Army.

Of course, there were also other rumours. Like the one which had been making its rounds thrice and back about something going on between Marshal Tenpou and General Kenren. Why else would someone with the rank of a Marshal play subordinate to a General?

The answer was pretty obvious. Any idiot could guess.

But now, Goujun was wondering of there was something really wrong. He glanced at Kenren before making a polite cough.

"General Kenren." Goujun hoped that his voice sounded stern enough. If not, his displeased expression should have given fair warning.

"I mean what I say, Goujun-kun,"

"I prefer that you address me with the proper term. And please keep a reasonable distance away."

"Am I intruding?" Kenren smirked.

"Intruding on my personal space. General Kenren, consider your position."

" … So?"

Goujun frowned. Was Kenren playing dumb or was his intent real? The man was known to play psychological games from time to time…

"…You current actions are not befitting for a man of your position."

"But you like this, don't you?" Smirking seemed to be the General's perpetual expression when dealing with him. Goujun considered himself to he quite an open-minded person, but there were certain things that even he could not tolerate.

"…"

Kenren shifted his arm from where it lay draped on Goujun's shoulder to bring it to encircle the Dragon king's waist. So far Goujun hadn't made any physical form of rejection, so Kenren continued.

Who knew the Goujun had this sort of tendencies? Kenren was learning more and more about his superior by the second. Granted, Goujun did close one eye, if not both, to what was going on between Tenpou and him, but Goujun had given no indication of his sexual orientation so far. It was widely assumed that Goujun, being the responsible and dedicated military man that he was, was not predisposed to either sex.

Kenren's hands continued in their roving, heedless to the muffled protests of the Dragon King as he made several half-hearted attempts to push Kenren away.

"You enjoy this." Kenren breathed into Goujun's ear, as he flicked out a tongue to tease the pallid skin. Ruby eyes that burned with passion stared back into his, almost glowering with their intensity.

Goujun was handsome, no doubt. Handsome in the vaguely pretty way, the delicate features forming a beauty that was apparent even under the perpetual scowl. Sure, the guy's ears were pointy, but that was a fact that could overlooked.

"Blame it on repressed… passion," Goujun moaned quietly, writhing beneath the prostrate form of Kenren.

Their bodies, slick with sweat, pressed tight against each other as they explored areas hitherto unknown. Kenren ran his fingers along the length of the pale expanse of skin, silently marvelling at the marble perfection.

Goujun was hot. Even if he wasn't on the best terms with Kenren, he was wonderful eye candy, and there wasn't any reason why Kenren couldn't enjoy himself while at it.

As their lips interlocked, Goujun wondered for a brief fleeting moment, what he was currently doing, why he was doing it, and how it had all started. Within the next few moments, he lost all vestiges of consciousness as he surrendered to the surfeit of pleasure surging through his veins.

This was heaven, pure heaven. Kenren was heavenly. His touch, his smell, his…

"See you later, I have to go now," The statement jolted him to reality as he realised that he no longer held anything substantial in his hands, and the warmth that had filled him earlier was fast dissipating with each second.

"…General." What had just happened? One moment he was tethering on the brink of ecstasy and the next, everything had done an about turn.

"Bye!"

The door slammed shut.

Goujun looked at the wet patch of water that was fast spreading on his carpet an called out, "what was that vase of flowers for?"

Kenren adjusted his clothing, taking care to smoothen the creases and artistically position the unbuttoned front of his shirt to give the best vantage point to anyone who cared to look in his direction.

He shuddered, remembering the touch of Goujun's tentative touches on his skin, and the sound of his name being called out by a voice so cold and emotionless. Goujun was pretty, but it took a lot more than that to win him over.

The corridors were virtually empty, being the time of the day that most people were conscientiously in their offices actually doing work. Kenren was grateful for that. At least there was no one around to witness his entry into Marshal Tenpou's room.

He stepped in quietly and shut the door, not even bothering to knock. Tenpou was probably away at some meeting, or on some "vacation" to earth.

Treading carefully through the stacks of paper and books on the floor, Kenren made a mental note to mention something about tidying up to Tenpou, although he was fairly certain that he was going to be the one doing most of the cleaning anyway. In any case, living amongst all that paper and dust couldn't be good…

Shelves covered the room wall-to-wall, top-to-bottom. Books of all sizes were crammed back to back, some jutting out at awkward angles were they had been taken out and shoved back.

At some points in time, Kenren was sure that Tenpou loved books more than anything else, preferring to spend his time in the company of inanimate, dead, boring and dull documents, instead of getting the rest that he could be getting. All that reading couldn't be healthy either…

But turning back to the task at hand, Kenren's mood was partially lifted by the fact that this was the fourth and final task. On top of that, it looked fairly simple.

Kenren paused to consider his surroundings.

On second thoughts, maybe looks were deceiving… There was no way in a hundred years that he would be able to count the total number of books in the entire library. No way. Even if he were the most patient person in heaven it just wasn't in the scope of "possible".

This made cutting and slashing his way through layers of bureaucratic red tape was so much easier in comparison.

Kenren sighed.

The sound of the door creaking open broke his train of thought. The new visitor stepped in and shut the door behind him.

"General Kenren. Thought I would see you here,"

"…Tenpou."

Kenren could think of a thousand things to do to Tenpou at the moment. And none of them were the least pleasant.

"So, you got my letter? Very good, you did well," Kenren swore that we could detect Tenpou's secret laughter under that serious expression. There was something about the way that the man's lips were twitching.

Tenpou crossed over and took the vase from Kenren's hand. "Interesting use of coloured ink… Strictly speaking these aren't winter flowers, and the ink you used for this flower isn't aquamarine, it's more sapphire than anything else. Flower arrangement wise—"

"Fuck the flower arrangement, Tenpou. Sticking flowers into a vase is about the best I can do." Kenren could feel the anger boiling up inside him. Looking at Tenpou's quietly amused expression wasn't helping either. Damnit, the man was smiling now, and he didn't even make an attempt to hide it.

Tenpou pushed his glasses up his nose before continuing," Did you get Konzen's ink bottle?"

"…Yeah. But he's damn pissed now."

"With good reason."

There was a pause as Tenpou removed his glasses and polished them on his coat.

"Well? Aren't you going to ask about Goujun?"

Tenpou looked up. "What about?"

Kenren swore he could almost bang head on the wall. "What do you mean, what about! You were the one who gave me that order this afternoon and told me that if I didn't do it I'd face another week in the stockade."

"Hmm… I do recall something to that effect."

Kenren struggled within himself to find words. "I don't know your purpose in asking me to do this, but the answer to the question about Goujun is yes." He took a deep breath and waited.

"Sorry.. I don't quite recall what the question was." Tenpou's voice came, tinged with mirth.

"You asked if Goujun's scales extended past his waist." Kenren's voice was tense. He wondered how long more he could take this before he reached the breaking point.

"Oh... so I did." Tenpou smiled.

"I have no idea how many books you have in you library,"

"Really? Why don't you count?"

"…Because they're too many."

"To tell you the truth, I don't know myself either." Light chuckling from Tenpou.

Kenren closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. "Tenpou…"

"Hmmm?"

"What exactly was the purpose in asking me to do all that?"

"Hmm…"

"Was it some great psychological test on wit and intellect? Or was it to sate a raging curiosity? Or was to further some political motive? Or—"

"I was bored."

"…"

"So I decided to have some fun. You don't mind, do you?"

"…"

"But of course, labourers must have their rewards. And you will get yours, in due course."

Tenpou's movement around the table was so swift that Kenren ahd barely the time to register it before a pair of warm lips were upon his, and another pair roving hands were rampantly making their way into his shirt and massaging his torso.

"You don't imagine that I would make it up to you?"

Oh yeah. Kenren was going to make him make it up good. He deserved a little compensation for going through all that. Taking full advantage of the situation, Kenren pushed his tongue into Tenpou's mouth, savouring the taste before redrawing.

"Do that again, and you are going to pay."

Tenpou laughed.

" I wouldn't dream of doing so. Just don't let me get bored next time."

The End

01/04/2004