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Chapter Text

Prologue - The Dream

Everything was quiet around her.

The room was not spacious, but it was comfortable, and Yuuko was slouched on top of soft cushions placed directly on the tatami mats, her pipe delicately held in one hand, eyes lost in the distance.

The trails of smoke moved in spirals towards the ceiling, trailing behind for a long while, curling like they had a life of their own; Yuuko’s gaze trailed up to them, then she languidly brought the pipe to her lips, inhaling deeply before puffing out more swirling coils of smoke which curled around her for a moment before floating away.

Everything was still, almost like time was not ticking forwards –just her slouched there smoking.

There was a soft noise coming from behind the sliding mat at her side and Yuuko tilted her head to the side, shifting up in a sitting position before leaning forwards and pressing one hand against the shoji panel.

A ripple of energy passed from the building to her fingers, alerting her of where the noise was coming from, and then she gently slid the door open, revealing the patio and the lawn outside bathed in moonlight.

There was no sound outside either, just the night and a quiet empty backyard with a tree, and up above a full moon.

“You’ve found your way in, it seems,” Yuuko murmured, her voice a bare whisper. “As it should be, then”.

Again, a noise –this time clearer, something shuffling in the distance– and then the sound of footsteps on the patio coming closer.

She waited without moving from her spot, rearranging her long limbs so that she would look poised and comfortable, and took another puff from her pipe, slowly, unbothered by the intruder.

Finally, the mysterious figure appeared in sight, and the moment he saw her, he bowed curtly, like someone used to displaying manners first and foremost.

He was tall, and he bore a familiar face, if one touched by age; short hair still ruffled despite his best attempts at taming it, eyes as sharp as ever, mouth forming a small, thin frown, and dressed with normal, everyday clothes –the kind one would expect from a salaryman, maybe. Dignified, adult.

“Welcome to my store,” Yuuko said, no trace of smile on her lips.

“It took me a long time to find my way in,” was the reply, eyes focused on her. “You were not an easy person to find, Yuuko-san”.

Now she did smile –a small, dry smile lacking amusement. “So it seems… but you had help, did you?”

The man nodded curtly. “Yes… and even then, I would not have found you if the power protecting the store wasn’t growing weaker. Dream walking is not something I could normally do.” The admission came easily, because he knew the extent of his powers, and did not see it fit to deny who was stronger between the two of them. “Even then, I could not find you… until now”.

“If you found your way to me now, inside my dream, it is only because it was fate,” she replied, and shifted her legs until they were stretched in front of her, naked feet touching the tatami.

The man found himself smirking. “As it should be, for there is no coincidence in this world, just hitsuzen”.

The two shared a small, complicit smile –these were words both of them had said more than once in the past, and as Yuuko knew, other instances of this man had said the same, too.

“I received a visit in my dreams, long ago” the man continued. “From a different world. Someone who bore the same face as the man I love –and yet who was different. He said he was sent to me because someone who cares did not want me to suffer –because no instance of me should suffer, no matter the world I am in”.

“So it is,” Yuuko smiled. “She truly has a big heart, reaching out to a different version of her own brother. Just as expected from dear Sakura-chan”.

There was no outside reaction to that name, but the air around the man seemed to tighten a bit.

“He gave me something that would help me travel through dreams,” the man continued, his voice steely. “He said the only one who could help me could only be found there, and nowhere else”.

“He was right, as the only one who can grant your wish is me,” Yuuko continued. “So tell me, Kinomoto Touya, what is it that you wish for?”

Touya looked at her wearily. For a moment, he looked his age –someone who had lost something precious in the past, who still had no answers, nothing to fill the emptiness in his chest– then he straightened his back and slowly sat down on the patio, adopting a formal sitting position in front of her. His eyes were sharp, just as sharp as they had been when they had met the first time, over ten years before.

He had looked almost the same back then, with barely restrained anger kept only in check by the calming presence of Yukito at his side. Even then, he had not truly understood his purpose, or why he had been sent to her.

Yuuko had met the two of them away from her store, as they hadn’t needed to enter then, and received from Touya’s hands something precious, something that he’d had to give because someone had asked him to, even if it pained him.

The look in his eyes back then was the same as the one he had now, but she could recognise something new now; he had a new purpose, and that was his wish.

“I wish to meet with my nephew,” he said, and his voice carried over to Yuuko the urgency of his request.

“Which one?” Yuuko’s gaze moved slowly away from him, feigning an uncaring nonchalance as she took another puff from her pipe. The smoke curled protectively around her, making her contours grow hazy. “Surely you have been made aware of the… particular circumstances related to your family, am I right?”

Touya scoffed. “I have,” he replied curtly. “But I was assured that one of them does not need me. He is with those who care about him, travelling where I cannot follow, and though I might not see him for the duration of my life, I was told he would be fine.” The hands he was keeping relaxed on his thighs clenched into the hem of his pants, knuckles turning white. “I want to see the one who is within my reach”.

Yuuko closed her eyes for a moment.

“I have searched for him for a long time,” Touya continued. “And so has Yukito, and he was always more powerful than me. And yet, in all these years we have been unable to find him. I have lost…” his voice wavered for a moment before settling back again “someone precious to me that day. Not one, but three people, only to find out later there was someone else I lost then. I’m here because I do not want to lose any more of my family, Yuuko-san”.

Yuuko still did not look at him, eyes gazing down at the delicate carvings on her pipe with wistful eyes.

The silence between them stretched on, Touya unwilling to speak again, and Yuuko allowing her thoughts to scatter.

“He has been hidden away, so that he wouldn’t be made of use by that person,” she finally murmured, talking so quietly that Touya had to strain his ears to hear her. “His name, his appearance –they have been changed, so that nobody would ever find him here. He has paid a price for that day that will come, and because of that price, he’s lost all his connections to his past. To his family. He does not remember, he does not know what his real name is, who his parents were. He remembers nothing, and his grip on reality wavers because of his impossible existence. His parents… your sister” Yuuko finally looked up, her eyes hard “paid a price so that he would be safe –so that both of them would be safe until that day”.

Touya closed his eyes, pain flashing on his face freely, and he did not bother to control it, nor the anger that flashed through him.

“But I did not,” he said, words slashing through the distance between him and Yuuko. “I did not pay the price for that, Yuuko-san. I have seen my sister lock herself away, disappear from this world to save someone she loved so much, and I have seen that kid follow her for the same reason. But what about the things… the people… they left behind?”

“It was their choice,” Yuuko replied, and although her words were blunt, her tone was softer now. “It is always a matter of choice. They accepted the consequences knowing that choice might have caused pain to someone else. As long as their children could be safe, as long as they could do their best to save them, they sacrificed all they had”.

“What about him?” Touya met Yuuko’s gaze. “The one who was also left behind, the one who does not remember having another name. Having a family. How can he still stand by a choice he doesn’t remember making?”

“That in itself, is still a choice,” Yuuko replied. She paused for another moment, and soon more smoke curled around her, vanishing into the cool air of the night. “If the mind does not remember, the heart still does. Watanuki is aware, subconsciously, that he made a choice. He has decided to keep going, and trust what he can’t remember, and that is because he found people who helped him change”.

There was something painful in the way Touya leaned forwards a bit, in the curve of his lips as he mouthed that name over and over, as if trying to impress it into his memory. “Watanuki…?”

A curt nod.

“Watanuki, written as First of April, and Kimihiro, written with the kanji for ‘searching’ and ‘you’, so that they would always find their way back to him,” Yuuko spelled out softly.

“Kimihiro,” Touya repeated to himself. He then opened his mouth to say something, but changed his mind. “Then I want to meet him,” he said. “I want to meet the Watanuki Kimihiro that was left behind”.

He seemed to brace himself for a refusal, because when Yuuko hummed softly and nodded, he seemed surprised. “You will have to give something in order to pay for this wish,” she warned him, and he steeled himself. “He paid a price, and that price cannot be taken back. Memories cannot be returned anymore. He will never know of the family he left behind, so part of the price will be that –you are not to tell him of your blood relation to him, and any attempt to tell him about his parents will be in vain. For that reason, he can’t know his real name either. If a connection between the two were to be made, all that we’ve done –not just me, but your sister, and Shaoran-kun too– will be for nothing, and he will be lost”.

Touya looked down, biting on the inside of his cheek.

He had expected that, somehow, since Yuuko had said his nephew had paid the price of his memories, but it still hurt to hear.

He knew that magic demanded an equal payment to be used –it would be useless to even try and work around it. If it was not meant to be, then it would find a way to work around it.

Still… he would not be able to look his nephew in the eye and tell him that they were family. That he had been searching for him, without stopping, for a decade. That he had exhausted what little powers he possessed day after day, trying to locate him, asking people who had power, and that they had been unsuccessful for years until one day a dream visitor had come to him bearing Yukito’s same face, finally bringing some answers, leading them to travel through dreams with their combined powers.

The other world’s Yukito, a creature of duality with more powers than both Touya and Yukito, had another self, and through that person’s mouth, Touya had finally learned of the fate of his nephew, and that he, too, had been split where before there had been only one.

That other Yukito had said he was the only one who could safely cross over to them, and only because Yukito’s face was one that Touya trusted, otherwise he would not have been able to slip into his dream to talk, and it was only then that he had changed shape, revealing that his other name was Yue, and that he had been sent to help.

Touya had then learned the entirety of his little sister’s sacrifice, he’d been told where his nephew had gone, and what his choice had caused –and he had learned of the existence of his other nephew, born to take the first one’s place. A nephew who was still there, in the same universe as he was, and one who could be reached –one who had to be reached, before his existence came to an end. Ever since then, Touya had worked just as hard to find him, seeking the Dimensional Witch’s store, where he knew he would find the answer to his prayers, and where he would have his wish granted.

He had hoped that he would finally be able to see his nephew and have what was left of his family back, and now… now Yuuko had told him that things would not go that smoothly.

And yet…

He would still be able to see him. See Watanuki Kimihiro, who did not know of his real name, who would never know how much his parents had loved him. He had lost one nephew, possibly forever, but he would not lose the other one.

“What is the second part of the price?”

Yuuko did not answer, but her eyes slid down to Touya’s left hand, and Touya stiffened and unconsciously moved his other hand to cover his ring finger.

“… I see,” Touya’s tone was plain, and he forced himself to relax. “Just this one?”

“Both,” Yuuko answered. “The payment has to be of equal value to what you are requesting, or it would not be considered enough”.

Touya’s lips twitched into a mirthless smile. “Of course. Then, is that it?” there was an air of relief around him, but he still remained tense, as if waiting for a blow to rain down on him anytime.

“Kinomoto Touya,” Yuuko straightened her back, and pointed at him with the tip of her pipe. “Do not think I enjoy taking away something in order to give you back your family, but all I have done until this moment was to protect the children until that day arrives. The fault rests on my shoulders, as well as Clow’s, and this is why I have been waiting here, in this store, for a long time. The bonds you seek to mend might not be there anymore, taken away as a price, but the connections between people are stronger than memories. What is familiar, the body remembers, through motions and sensations and feelings. Blood itself is the strongest bond, and cut ties can be recreated again, if you are willing to work for it”.

Touya’s eyes widened a bit, but he said nothing to that, and nodded in assent. He understood her meaning.

“Well then, I accept your payment. I will send someone to retrieve it very soon. What happens afterwards, that will be yours to shape”.

She watched as Touya swallowed nervously, closing his eyes while his shoulders slumped in relief.

“Thank you, Yuuko-san,” he said.

A soft breeze blew across the patio, and a wind chime tingled in the silence. Yuuko looked up at the moon, eyes softening considerably, and when she looked down again, the visitor had disappeared, his presence gone not just from her store, but from the dreamworld.

There was silence again, the perimeter of her dream undisturbed once more, and Yuuko closed her eyes and slid the shoji door close behind her shoulders.

The room was warm and well lit, and Yuuko stood up, the velvet fabric of her dress falling down against her sides and to her naked feet. With the pipe still loosely held in one hand, she walked out in the corridor, the store around her thick with magic and the otherworldly feeling that only dreams could have, shimmering and slipping slightly out of focus as she moved, her feet making no sound on the wooden floor, until she reached the treasure room.

Parts of the store were still faltering between dream, reality and nothingness, but that room was still the same, the magic stronger there, enough to keep the contents safe and protected.

She pressed one hand on the shelf where the original Star wand was, looking at it with fondness.

It was no wonder Sakura would reach out for her brother, even if it wasn’t really her own brother –they still shared the same soul, all across the universes. She had given her wand so that another version of her would be safe, so that every universe would be safe –because she believed things would be ok.

That Sakura’s power had grown considerably, enough that in time, she would be able to make another wand, or a staff, perhaps better than the one she’d given away.

“Humans always seek to create bridges. They see distances they cannot cross, and they strive forwards, and reach out with all their strength for what they believe is right”.

Yuuko’s eyes moved to the side, where a seal was keeping two small boxes hidden from sight. One contained a watch –the only proof of Watanuki’s real name and existence that tied that child to his past life. The other contained something left behind by Clow, so that one day, that legacy would be given to Watanuki.

“It is because of their resilience that a wish can become reality, because humans have the power to keep on believing, and that belief can turn even universes around”.

Yuuko placed her hand on the second box, expression turning wistful.

“Soon,” she breathed. “It will be soon, and then maybe there will be no need to keep on wishing anymore”.

***

Somewhere in a small, secluded apartment in Asakusa, Tokyo, Kinomoto Touya opened his eyes and shuffled until he was sitting on his bed.

His body sagged in a mix of fatigue and adrenaline, mind completely awake but body failing to follow completely, as the strain of moving within dreams had sapped him of his energy. He was not getting any younger, and while using his power apparently had other effects in the long run –it was getting a little easier to go through these sessions, and he did feel good for someone his age– he was not a teenager anymore.

He looked at his side, and met the vigil, warm gaze of Yukito, propped up comfortably in an armchair, hands clasped together in a familiar seal.

Just like every other time the two of them worked together, Yukito had forgone sleep in order to keep Touya protected as he searched from dream to dream; this was the only way he could do it, as his spiritual powers were not strong enough to give him free access like that. As it was, they were able to do it only thanks to what the other Yukito –Yue– had given them. Even now Yukito was wearing it, the little earring that allowed him to channel his powers into Touya’s body, enabling him to enter the dreamscape night after night.

It was not something they could do every night, as it drained them both of energy and left them tired and sluggish for days afterwards, and they had long since learned their own limits and how far they could force things until they had to take a break.

Once a week, every week, every month, for years –they had sought out a way to find Touya’s missing family without ever stopping, until the other Yukito had visited him in his sleep and provided some information, as well as some extra help.

“I felt something,” Yukito said to break the silence. “Did you…?”

Touya nodded, still too shocked to be able to speak, and Yukito’s eyes widened.

“You don’t mean to say–”

Inhaling deeply, Touya allowed himself to finally break, and his hands started to shake as he clenched them into the bedsheets. In front of Yuuko he had tried to keep calm, but it was hard to control himself now, in the privacy of their bedroom with only Yukito at his side to see him.

Yukito did not waste time with any questions –he knew Touya needed some time to recollect himself, so he stood up, wincing slightly when he wavered for a moment before regaining his balance, and left the room.

He returned a few minutes later with two cups of tea in his hands, and Touya accepted one with a grateful nod.

“I was finally able to enter her dream,” he said in the end, shuffling to the side so that Yukito could slip into the bed and at his side. His body was comfortingly familiar as he reached out to take his hand into one of his own, clenching it tightly. “She said he had his name changed so he would be protected, and that was why nobody could find him –no oracle, no fortune teller we tried to contact… none of them could do it, because he wasn’t using his name anymore”.

He paused, swallowing some of the tea and relishing the way the warmth seemed to seep through him. “I know his new name now”.

Yukito’s reply was a warm, relieved smile. It had taken them so long, but finally… finally, they had done it.

He shuffled forwards and pressed their foreheads together for a moment before pulling away, and Touya looked up into his eyes, a small smile on his lips.

“Watanuki Kimihiro,” he said quietly, and the name hovered in the darkness of the room like a promise.

Chapter Text

Chapter 01 - The Meeting

Watanuki hummed softly under his breath as he dusted one of the tall shelves of Yuuko’s treasure room.

He had started his usual cleaning from there, knowing full well how much dust could grow when one did nothing but shove stuff into one place without care, and so far he had not been disappointed.

Some of the objects Yuuko stashed away seemed to call dust like it was part of their nature, and it was hard for him to just wipe them clean instead of taking them out to rinse them like he’d do normally, but unfortunately Yuuko had other plans for him for the day, so he wouldn’t have enough time to clean up everything as he wished he could.

The first thing she had told him when he woke up was that he would have to run an errand for her –quite literally, as he’d been awakened by her face hovering mere inches from his own, smirking and poking at his cheek with her pipe.

He was glad it was weekend, so he would have no problem becoming her errand boy for the day.

“You aren’t coming, Yuuko-san?” he’d asked afterwards, wiping the sleep from his eyes and checking the paper with the address Yuuko had dropped on his lap.

“I have other things to do today,” she had replied, smirking at him in a way that told him she would only wait a couple minutes after he was out of the store before lounging for the rest of the afternoon drinking sake. “This time you’re on your own!”

“Wait, you’re not telling me to bring Doumeki with me this time?”

“Why, if you want so much to be in his company, then please do call for him, Watanuki!” there was far too much glee in her expression, really. It grated to his nerves. “But there is no danger where I’m sending you, so it’ll be fine”.

He’d accepted her words with a small shrug, trusting her with the matter.

Of course he would not ask Doumeki for help, either –it was bad enough he kept finding himself indebted with Doumeki, but spending more time alone with him proved to be… difficult, lately. Watanuki kept trying to understand the weird, mixed feelings he felt while around him, which in turn made him feel even more awkward, and when he felt awkward Watanuki ended up making a fool out of himself, perhaps even more than normal.

“Nah, I’ll pass and just go on my own,” he had assured her. “What do I have to do?”

“You’re going to receive payment for me,” Yuuko had replied, looking quite smug.

“Ah? You had a client? When was that?” Watanuki was left confused, since there hadn’t been any visits at the store in the past few days after that lady who wanted to learn how to cook.

That had been three days earlier, when Yuuko had surprised Watanuki by making him take a formal appointment with the woman; he would have to go to her house the following week for their first cooking lesson, and he’d been somewhat on edge since then.

“Last night, while you were sleeping, of course,” Yuuko’s smirk said it all. “Do you think the only clients coming here are those who enter through the door?”

Watanuki refrained to mention that if Yuuko did not tell him these things, it was a given he wouldn’t think about it, because it would be pointless.

It also meant Watanuki had been tasked to go to someone’s house on his own not just once, but twice in the course of a week period, which was… troubling.

The idea of going to the house of someone he did not know made him wary, and he was not sure it was even possible for him to be a teacher to begin with (Kohane didn’t count, she wasn’t a stranger). What if she was some sort of culinary disaster? Was it even ok for a high-schooler to teach a grown woman?

Besides… Watanuki paused in his cleaning and looked down at his hands.

Mokona had told him something, that day, which was still in his mind.

The body could remember even when the mind could not. His hands knew the motions of cooking, even when all he could remember were the recipes. He did not remember where he’d learned those recipes, though he wondered, idly, if his mother had taught them to him when he was little, or maybe even his father.

He took pride in cleaning and he’d always assumed it was because he had been living alone for so long, but now he wondered if that, too, was something he’d been taught to like.

Cleaning made him feel accomplished, though not as much as cooking did.

If these were things he’d learned before, they were somehow a connection with the life he could not remember.

Would he be able to share something this personal with someone he’d only met once? Would it work for him?

With a sigh, Watanuki pushed those troubling thoughts away and continued his cleaning spree. Yuuko had told him that he could leave anytime he wanted as long as he left before noon, since he would be expected, but he did not know the district of Asakusa. He thought to leave earlier, so he could search for the right address without being too late and come back as soon as possible.

It didn’t take long to finish up the higher shelves, and after that he made sure Yuuko and Mokona had steamed fish and rice for lunch, not to mention lemon cake since he knew the two would complain afterwards if there was no dessert.

“I’m off!” Watanuki called out, standing on the door of the store and looking inside. Yuuko’s head popped up from a nearby room.

“Have a safe trip!” she called out gleefully, and held out a cup of sake as a parting toast.

He glared at her, and hesitated for a moment, still unsure whether he wanted to go, and Yuuko hummed softly. “You can take the Kudakitsune if it makes you feel better,” she told him, extending one arm towards him.

The pipe fox was curled around it, and he lunged out in the air, wrapping around Watanuki’s neck comfortingly and giving him a peck on the cheek.

“Is it ok?” he asked, feeling already reassured just by the familiar weight of the fox on him.

“Just go,” she waved him off. “Shoo, shoo!”

He snorted but did just that, quickly leaving the store’s premises. Asakusa was not within walking distance, so he headed for the closest metro stop, clutching the paper with the address on it in one hand as he descended the steps to the underground station.

Since both store and school were close to his apartment, Watanuki never had the need to take the metro, and even when he went to the nearby district’s school with Doumeki, he’d let him buy the tickets and check which line they’d have to get, so for a moment he was left baffled by the intersecting colours of all the metro lines various stops until he finally located where he was and bought a ticket to Asakusa. He did not remember ever having to leave his area, at least not before meeting Yuuko, so he decided to treat this trip as a bit of a holiday in order to feel less nervous about it.

The Kudakitsune was happily sleeping around his neck and nobody seemed to notice him as Watanuki got on the metro of the Ginza line, and for a moment he wondered if it was because the fox had some kind of notice-me-not charm or if it was because Watanuki himself slowly grew harder to notice.

If Yuuko had sent him off, it meant the people expecting him would be able to see him, at least, so that was good enough.

During the whole ride he kept glancing outside into the blackness of the metro tunnels, sometimes staring at the giant ads placed at the stops before looking towards the doors, watching people come and go.

All the while, he did not see a single creature or spirit anywhere.

The Asakusa district was far more crowded than what Watanuki was used to. There were people everywhere, and he belatedly realised it was because the district was famous for its temple, which he happened to pass by on his way to the address Yuuko had given him.

The Sensou-ji temple was one of the biggest ones Watanuki had seen so far, and it was packed with tourists and locals alike; he stopped to look from afar at one of the giant entrances to the temple area, and made a mental note to come back later for a visit since he was in the area.

He easily avoided the market street leading to the temple, which was a little too crowded for his tastes, but eyed the tourists and the various shops with wide eyes until the Kudakitsune tugged at his neck softly and made him move again.

The address he had been given was in the residential part of the district, close to the kitchenware shopping area, and Watanuki hesitated passing by it, feeling a strong urge to have a look around even if he did not want to buy anything, but ended up sighing to himself and moving on. He had to do something first, and if he managed to receive Yuuko’s payment in time, maybe he could afford to have a look around.

Most of the residential area was comprised of rows of apartments that looked the same, and for a moment Watanuki despaired about finding the right one soon, but he soon realised that the address was that of a house, not an apartment building, and from that it was pretty easy to find the right one.

He made sure to check that the kanji carved in the nameplate of the house were the same as those on the note, and once he was satisfied he’d found the right place, he walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

It was actually quite a nice-looking house, not too big but with a small garden surrounded by a tall wall and a wind chime hanging from a nearby window. Watanuki was actually curious to meet the person who lived in such a nice place.

When the door opened he took a step back, and was surprised to see… well, he didn’t know what he had been expecting, but a middle-aged man with light grey hair and a small, warm smile was definitely not it.

“Ah, uhm… good morning!” Watanuki bowed deeply. “Forgive me for intruding, but I was sent here for… uh…” he faltered, realising that saying ‘Yuuko’s payment’ out loud would have been weird, and swallowed. “Yuuko-san sent me,” he amended.

There was a light surprise in the man’s face, and he nodded, moving to the side. “Ah, of course. We were expecting someone to come today but I didn’t think it would be… a student?”

Watanuki offered the man a small, sheepish smile. “Considering Yuuko-san, it could have been someone flashier”.

The man looked a little confused, then chuckled softly. “I’ll take your word on it… please, do come in”.

Watanuki slipped out of his shoes and followed the man to a well-lit room with a couch and a couple armchairs, where his host had him sit down. “I was getting ready to prepare some tea, do you want any?”

Since he could not refuse without sounding impolite, Watanuki nodded, and the man left the room.

Watanuki chose this moment to look around, somewhat puzzled. Sure, most clients of Yuuko looked like normal people, but there was something about this person that made Watanuki puzzled, and at the same time, it was nothing bad. He looked normal, mostly. He could not feel anything weird coming from him or the things in the sitting room, and he wondered for the first time what could have been this person’s wish.

There were photos neatly placed on a drawer in a corner, but not wanting to be nosy, Watanuki remained sitting where he was, choosing to pet the Kudakitsune’s head instead until his host returned with a tray holding a teapot, two cups and a small dish of cookies.

“I’m sorry I haven’t introduced myself,” the man said, sitting in front of Watanuki and pouring them some steaming hot tea. “My name is Tsukishiro Yukito. We were not expecting anyone to come this soon, and Touya left for some commissions, so if you do not mind waiting for a bit for him to return…”

Watanuki waved his hands in front of him. “No, no, it’s perfectly ok, Tsukishiro-san! I wasn’t sure I would find your house at all, so I left the store early. I’m sorry to impose”. He then straightened his back. “My name is Watanuki Kimihiro”.

The teapot slipped a little from Yukito’s hands, and the tea splashed out of the teacup and onto the surface of the coffee table, and Watanuki let out a distraught sound and looked around in search of something to help clean up the mess, eyes wide. “Ah–”

“Ah, excuse me, sometimes I end up being somewhat clumsy,” Yukito replied quickly, standing up and smiling at Watanuki. “I’ll go get something to clean up”.

Watanuki watched him hurry out of the sitting room again, then looked down at the Kudakitsune, but Mugetsu was still sleeping around his neck, apparently undisturbed by the commotion, and he relaxed. He couldn’t help feeling on edge, especially after what had happened with Kohane’s mother, but Yuuko wouldn’t have sent him into a dangerous situation and the fox also seemed calm, so…

He tried to relax a bit, and when Yukito came back and mopped up the tea, Watanuki held the cups up for him, receiving a small smile back.

“Tell me then, Watanuki-kun,” the man started with a smile, clearly hoping to distract Watanuki from his earlier mishap, “how did you end up working for a person such as Yuuko-san?”

“Well, I’m just her part timer, really,” he held the cup into his hands, enjoying the warmth. “I clean up around the store and cook, mostly”.

“Oh, so… you do that kind of work, then,” Yukito offered him a small smile. “Touya’s a good cook too, but we do share the cleaning duties between the two of us”.

“Oh, is he the person I was sent to meet?” Watanuki took out the slip of paper and checked the name again, which was indeed Kinomoto Touya. “Yuuko-san said that… uhm, Kinomoto-san would have something for her”.

“Please, he would be uncomfortable if you were to call him that way –that is his father’s name. Touya will be fine. As for myself, Tsukishiro-san makes me feel old, so if you don’t mind, Yukito is better”.

Watanuki nodded at the request, but was still unsure. How much did the man know about Yuuko? Most of her clients ended up being somewhat clueless as to what her shop really was, and though she often offered things in exchange for wishes, he had noticed a lot of the customers ended up gladly ignoring the obvious in order to fool themselves.

In a way, Watanuki had been like that at first, but was starting to notice he had changed, just like the old lady fortune teller had said. He noticed more things, he didn’t assume as much as he did back then.

“I wanted to ask… does your friend eat food?” Yukito asked then, and Watanuki’s eyes widened in surprise.

Yuuko had said that normal people with no powers were easily fooled by Mokona’s appearance, and thought he was just a stuffed toy, and with the way nobody had noticed Mugetsu’s presence in the metro, he had thought he would be the same, so…

Did that mean this man had some kind of power?

“Ah, no, well… Mugetsu doesn’t need to eat at all, but–” hearing his own name, the pipe fox blinked sleepily and stretched, shuffling a little from around Watanuki’s neck, obviously unconcerned about being seen. “Sometimes he likes to nibble on things”.

“I’d say it would be a waste if he did not try one of the cookies Touya baked,” Yukito replied with a smile, then picked one of the smaller ones from the tray and offered it to the pipe fox.

Watanuki shyly smiled back, and watched as Mugetsu unrolled from his neck and sniffed cookie, nibbling at it and making delighted squeaky noises.

“Please, there is no need to be so tense.” Yukito had obviously noticed his posture. “I know it was probably a sudden thing to be asked to collect payment from someone you’ve never met, but–”

“No, no, I… I mean…” Watanuki flailed for a moment, embarrassed that his tension was read so easily. “I, uh… the last time I’ve been at someone’s house something bad happened, so I guess part of me is just a little tense, that’s all”.

Yukito seemed perturbed at that, but Watanuki did not want to disclose such personal things about Kohane’s mother, so he changed the subject to something else instead, and complimented the man about the house.

The atmosphere eased up after that, though, and surprisingly Watanuki found himself chatting with Yukito about the man’s high school days, and he had a lot of anecdotes to share, especially about the other man, Touya. When the front door clicked open, not even an hour later, Yukito was in the middle of an amusing story that had Watanuki almost in tears.

The man turned towards the door, interrupting his retelling, and the soft, fond smile on his lips made Watanuki tilt his head to the side in surprise.

“Touya, welcome back,” Yukito called out, and the person shuffling into the room offered a quiet ‘I’m back’, followed by a grunt. “There is a guest–”

Watanuki watched the man who had been Yuuko’s customer come into view. Again, he was left surprised because the second man, the actual customer, looked just as normal as Yukito.

The man called Touya was quite tall, and had groceries bags in both hands, but the moment he noticed Watanuki he froze in place, eyes meeting Watanuki’s from the other end of the room.

“Ah, uhm, good morning! I’m Watanuki Kimihiro,” Watanuki stood up and bowed, and the Kudakitsune squeaked softly. “I was sent here by Yuuko-san”.

“… I see”.

Touya looked over at Yukito, exchanging a silent conversation before the latter walked over and took the bags from Touya’s hands.

“Please sit down again,” he said, carrying the bags out of the sitting room, and Watanuki felt the awkward atmosphere return as Touya walked towards him and sat down, taking Yukito’s place.

“Uhm… as… as I was telling Yukito-san earlier, I’m Yuuko-san’s part timer. She sent me to collect something from you and…” Watanuki trailed off, unsure what to say.

“What was Yukito telling you? I could hear laughing from outside,” Touya said instead of acknowledging his words, and Watanuki flushed beet red.

“I, uh–”

“I was telling him about the time you participated to a high school play,” Yukito resurfaced with another cup for Touya, and Touya bristled a bit. Much to Watanuki’s amusement, Touya looked obviously embarrassed at this.

“Of all things you tell our guest, that had to be the first…” Touya rubbed the bridge of his nose, and poured himself some tea.

“Ah, but that wasn’t the first one at all!” Yukito smiled brightly, tapping his index against his chin. “First I told him about the time you brought home that stray puppy, and then–”

“Oh my God,” Touya’s cheeks were even redder, and Watanuki watched their interactions with a small smile.

He wondered if this was how Himawari saw him and Doumeki, and that thought made his stomach do a weird sort of flip-flop, so he decided not to think too much about it.

“You just wait, if you’ve been telling incriminating things to a high schooler, then you asked for a fight, since I have a lot of dirty stuff to dig up about you,” Touya poked Yukito in the shoulder, looking incredibly smug, and Watanuki couldn’t help himself –he chuckled.

Instantly, both men looked at him, and he covered his mouth with one hand. “Ah, I’m sorry!”

He hadn’t meant to laugh, but the scene had been… familiar. This kind of teasing, the ease the two had with each other, Watanuki had felt like he was watching himself interact with Yuuko and Mokona and Himawari and Doumeki, so instead of keeping his distance, he’d found himself laughing along. With the two men’s attention on him though, he felt a wave of embarrassment and looked down, taking a sip of his tea.

Touya and Yukito exchanged a look, but they were still smiling when Watanuki dared to glance at them, so he felt a little better about his slip up.

“I’m sorry,” Watanuki smiled sheepishly over the edge of his cup. “I wasn’t laughing at you but… I was reminded of my friends”.

“Good friends, I hope,” Touya’s tone came out a little bit more aggressive than expected, but instead of being taken aback, Watanuki found himself nodding along.

“Yeah,” he admitted softly.

“I think I’ve shared enough stories on my own,” Yukito decided with a smile. “So before Touya decides to take up on his threat and embarrass me until I can’t look anyone in the face, why don’t you tell us a bit about your friends, too?”

Watanuki knew the two were just trying to make some small talk and dispel the tension, but he could see they were actually interested, and he allowed himself to share some stories of his own, perhaps a bit too eagerly.

He didn’t even realise it when he moved from a simple school-related story to one of his adventures with spirits, and was met with casual acceptance instead of ridicule. Both Yukito and Touya were, apparently, able to a certain extent to see spiritual beings, though Touya admitted their powers were not too strong.

“There are many like us around,” Yukito explained to a surprised Watanuki. “After a while, you start to create your own network of people. It is easier to deal with things that nobody else sees, and it helps a lot if you need something specific that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to attain”.

“Ah…” Watanuki thought about himself, about Yuuko, then about Kohane and the old lady fortune teller, not to mention that man he’d given the bird cage to, and nodded. “I guess you’re right,” he admitted. “Is that why you contacted Yuuko-san?”

He seemed to realise too late that he’d just asked a very personal question, because he hastily brought both hands up and apologized profusely. “I didn’t mean to pry! Please forget I asked!”

“Well, I can’t say you are wrong. I had a wish, and the only person who could grant it was the Witch of Dimensions, as she’s the most powerful magic user around,” Touya replied with a shrug. “We consulted with a lot of other… specialists, but none were able to help”.

Watanuki nodded; he could understand that. Yuuko might be underhanded most of the time, and an alcoholic to boot, but she knew what she was onto.

“I guess it is about time we give you the payment to bring to Yuuko-san,” Touya said, his tone serious, and Watanuki instantly sobered.

Much to his shock, both Touya and Yukito reached for their hands, each of them removing a small, simple golden ring from their fingers, and placed them in front of Watanuki, who looked down at the unassuming gold and then up at them, unable to understand.

“Your… rings?”

“The payment consisted in something of the same emotional value as the wish itself. She asked specifically for our marriage rings,” Touya stated.

Watanuki looked from one man to the other. “You are married?” he asked, feeling silly. “With who…?”

Yukito couldn’t help himself, and started to chuckle, one hand covering his mouth. “Heard that, Touya? He asked who you’re married to… as if there was anyone else who could stand your morning grumpiness and your bad jokes!”

He looked so honestly amused, and even Touya was smiling, and it took Watanuki a few seconds for his words to click; his entire face turned beet red in embarrassment. “Ah! I–”

Touya’s lips curled up in a smirk. “Yes, sorry to disappoint kid, but we’re married. To each other. Have been for over twenty years now, and these rings are proof of that”.

Eyes wide, Watanuki stared down at the two rings with renewed surprise.

Twenty years was… a very long time to be married with someone, and while the shock of realising the two men were married to each other was quick to disappear, as he should have expected it from the way they acted with one another, and from the soft, fond smile Yukito had sported when Touya had returned home, it was more of a shock knowing they were willing to part with rings that meant so much to them for the sake of a wish.

“Was your wish worth parting with something this… precious?” he asked, not daring to reach out to touch the rings.

They felt too personal, too important, and in a way he felt guilty because he’d been sent there to collect them.

Touya waited until Watanuki looked up, then nodded, and he looked at peace with himself. “Yes,” he replied. “It was worth that, and more”.

Yukito nodded along, one hand pressed on Touya’s arm. “In the end, the rings are just a symbol. The feelings remain, they have not been lost”.

Watanuki swallowed, feeling oddly touched by this casual support, and watched as Touya picked the rings up and placed them both inside a small satchel and handed it to him.

“Here,” he said. “Don’t lose them”.

“I… I would never!” Watanuki hurried to take the small, precious bundle and secured it inside his pocket, realising too late he’d replied like he would have done with Doumeki, and he instantly felt bad. “I mean… I’ll make sure Yuuko-san receives those”.

Touya was smirking again, and Watanuki had to pause and think about why he felt so comfortable around the two, enough to forget about property so easily.

He absently picked up one of the cookies that the Kudakitsune was still feasting upon, turning it in his hands before bringing it up to his lips; he was still thinking about the importance of this payment.

The cookie had a distinct smell of chocolate and something homey to it that made Watanuki smile, and before he could stop himself, he reached forwards to take a second cookie from the platter and away from Mugetsu’s reach.

Since he had realised he couldn’t taste food, Watanuki had tried not to pay any attention when he ate, because the dissonance between smells and the moment when he put things in his mouth seemed to blur together and dissolve into each other. He knew he ate, but he couldn’t remember the taste of anything he put into his mouth, unless it came from the spirits like the kitsune oden, and even then the taste was fleeting, but smells… smells were strong, and they were good, and he could easily get lost in them.

These cookies… they smelled delicious. If he closed his eyes, he could almost feel the taste of them on his tongue, like a familiar flavour, though it was just his wishful thinking. The smell was also familiar –it reminded him of waking up in the morning a little bit earlier than usual just to bake his personal cookie recipe to share them with Himawari and Doumeki and Yuuko and Mokona.

They smelled just the same.

“Is there something wrong?” Touya frowned.

From the moment Touya had returned home and met the sight of the gangly, thin teenager in his sitting room with Yukito, having tea, he had been unable to look away from him for more than a few seconds.

He had recognised the kid instantly –there was something about him that was distinctly Sakura and Shaoran. Not in his appearance, and that had come as a shock despite Yuuko’s warning during the dream meeting. No, it was something different that he could feel.

That kid was family. He was Sakura’s son –the soul that had been born because of his other nephew’s desire to save another Sakura, the kid who had been left behind, the kid Touya could save– and Touya had known it the moment he saw him.

His mannerisms, his politeness, a few quirks he had –that had only strengthened that certainty that this was Sakura and Shaoran’s son, and if there might have been any suspicion that Yuuko had lied, this would have been proof of the opposite.

This kid –Kimihiro, Touya wanted to call him that but he couldn’t, not when they barely knew each other– had honest, spontaneous reactions to things. He’d barely seemed to care about the tea, but the way he looked at the cookies, like they meant something, even closing his eyes to sniff them, that was such a Sakura thing to do that Touya felt a pang of old, unburied grief.

The desire to break the price for his wish and just tell Watanuki everything was stronger than he’d thought it would be before, when Touya hadn’t seen the kid yet, but he had been patient for many years, and with Yukito at his side, their hands clenched under the coffee table where Watanuki couldn’t see it, Touya’s desire slowly subsided a bit, until he was able to relax.

It wouldn’t have worked, anyway –these things were out of his hands, entangled deeper than just mere wishes and human desires– but he would have paid a worse price for even trying.

Watanuki was startled out of his thoughts and looked up, fretting for a moment and almost losing his grip on both the cookie and the cup of tea. “Ah, no no! Everything is fine! It’s just that this cookie has truly a good smell!”

Touya smirked. “Just the smell?”

He noticed instantly the way Watanuki seemed to tense at his attempted joke, fidgeting a bit before placing the teacup down, though –Touya saw– he still kept the cookie in his hand.

“No, of course, these are really nice cookies,” Watanuki replied. There was an air of… reticence around him, but Touya couldn’t really understand what that was about. “Mugetsu seems to enjoy them very much, too”.

“It’s a family recipe,” Yukito replied with a smile.

Touya glanced over at his husband, offering him a grateful look: Yukito had always been good at diffusing situations, and his easy, honest smile seemed to break through the heavier of moods.

It was the same this time too, because Watanuki looked over at him. “Oh? Do you maybe use–” he rattled over a few ingredients with the kind of practiced ease of someone who knew his way around the kitchen.

“Ah, I wouldn’t really know, I just like to eat them! It’s Touya’s recipe,” Yukito pointed proudly at him, and Touya, with a start, realised what he was trying to do, and his eyes widened a bit.

He had no idea what sort of leeway he could have with the wish’s boundaries, but he did not really want to test them, not when he’d just met his nephew.

“Yes,” Touya found himself replying anyway. “Usually you’d bake them for a set amount, but my father taught me to leave them in for a little bit longer, so they get extra crispy and the chocolate melts better, and I cover them with honey and egg yolk before putting them in the oven”.

“Ah, that’s how I do them too,” Watanuki nodded, apparently satisfied. “Makes the taste stand out pretty well, and even that oaf Doumeki seems to like them that way –that guy is a bottomless pit, really, he’d eat everything and–”

Touya watched Watanuki go on a spontaneous rant about some guy whose name Touya did not care to remember, and felt a tug in his chest; it was such a small thing, but to hear one of his own father’s recipes so casually mentioned by Watanuki…

There were things that apparently remained with him, even without his memories.

Watanuki at first had meant to refuse Touya and Yukito’s offer to stop for lunch, but one look at Yukito’s disappointed face made him reconsider; the two men were nice enough, and by lunchtime he had relaxed enough around them that he felt like their welcome wasn’t just meant as politeness, but as honest desire to keep him around for whatever reason.

He guessed they were just not used to having anyone around, and perhaps the fact that he, just like them, had dealings with spirits made things easier.

Lunch was, in fact, more enjoyable than he’d thought; Touya was the one who cooked most of the time, just as Yukito had said, and he usually refused to have others interfere, but Watanuki did not like being offered food without helping at least a little, so he had managed to worm his way into the man’s kitchen to help with some food.

He was blissfully unaware of the fond look Touya sent his way when he easily prepared row after row of perfectly shaped onigiri, but he also missed the confused frown when Watanuki followed easily some recipes that would have required him to taste the food without actually doing that, and yet the food came out perfect, just as always.

Yukito managed to sneak a few more tales during lunch, too, and Touya added his own until Watanuki was laughing while clutching his stomach with both hands, trying to keep a dignified aura but failing miserably, and the two men dissolved into practiced, fond squabbles over the kitchen table.

There was no other way to explain this feeling than to say he felt like he ‘fit’ in, and Watanuki wondered what it was about people with similar powers that made him feel so comfortable; still, he almost felt bad when afterwards he hesitantly stood up, excusing himself by saying he needed to leave and bring the payment to Yuuko, and the disappointed expressions of the two did seem genuine.

“Ah, I wanted to visit the temple before leaving but now if I don’t hurry I’ll miss laundry and I won’t have enough time to prepare dinner,” he murmured to himself while Touya and Yukito also stood up.

“You mean the Sensou-ji?”

“Y-yeah, I have never visited it before… and Kappabashi too…” he ruffled his hair in an excessive show of regret. “Too bad I can’t find the time for a visit!”

Yukito nudged Touya gently, who looked back at him with a frown, not getting what Yukito was trying to tell him, so Yukito rolled his eyes and tapped Watanuki on the shoulder, attracting his attention.

“We do live in the area,” he said with a smile when Watanuki looked up at him, “so if you want, we can schedule for next week and we can take you around on a tour, what do you think?”

Eyes wide, Watanuki looked at both him and an equally surprised Touya. “A-are you sure? Wouldn’t I be imposing?”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Touya interjected, shaking his head. “Yuki offered it. We wouldn’t mind at all”.

“Ah… I would have to see with Yuuko-san to have a day off, so… uh…” fretting a bit, Watanuki did not know what to say, the blunt offer leaving him unprepared.

“Here, let me write our number down,” Yukito moved to the side, and grabbed a pen and a spare piece of paper. “If you think you can free yourself, you can give us a call. We’ve met under… weird circumstances, so I can understand if you do not want to accept, but…”

“But there is no coincidence in this world,” Watanuki murmured. “Just hitsuzen. Yuuko-san always says that”. He extended his arm, looking serious and a little bit pale. “I’ll call you to let you know when I’m free,” he promised.

And that, Touya knew, was everything he could hope for.

***

Watanuki blinked. He was standing in front of the Sensou-ji’s main gate, the Kaminarimon, which he had passed by earlier while going to Touya’s house.

The area was empty, none of the people Watanuki had seen before were around, and the shops looked eerie like this, as if abandoned.

He walked down the street, looking from one side to the other, observing the various stands that were set up on both sides. It did look like every single person had just walked away from the place, leaving behind food with steam still raising from the cooking grills, but it offered Watanuki a moment to observe everything without being pushed and shoved around by the crowd.

At the end of the street there was the main temple building, and next to it the Shinto Shrine dedicated to the three founders of the temple. The lack of tourists did not make the buildings any less imposing to him, and the moonlight actually made the whole place look even more ethereal.

“You’ve had quite a good day, today”.

He blinked and turned around, greeting Doumeki’s grandfather with a small smile.

“Why am I here?” he asked, looking back at the temple and motioning to the general area.

“Well, this place is a temple. It’s a concentration of purifying energy, so it is no wonder it would call for you,” Haruka replied, slowly walking until he was at Watanuki’s side. “That aside, it is quite beautiful, so it must have made an impression on you, enough for you to find yourself here in your dreams”.

“I don’t really know how to move around dreams like you do, Haruka-san,” Watanuki turned from the temple to the other man. “But I can’t complain”.

He told Haruka about Yuuko’s order, and the morning he’d spent with the two men in Asakusa.

“Did you have fun?”

Watanuki didn’t have to think about it. “Yeah, Yukito-san and Touya-san were really nice,” he admitted. “I wonder what kind of wish they had for Yuuko-san, but it wouldn’t be right to ask”.

Haruka chuckled at that, and patted his shoulder. “I don’t think it is important, as long as they were happy about it,” he said, and his smile widened. “And I think they are”.

His words reassured Watanuki a bit. For the little time he’d spent with the two, he’d felt they were good people, and he hoped they would not regret their wish –not like so many other customers of Yuuko.

“They invited me to go back,” he admitted, looking at Haruka. “After I said I would have liked to visit this temple, they offered to give me a tour”.

“And you accepted?” there was no disappointment in Haruka’s tone, just encouragement, and Watanuki felt a knot he hadn’t been able to name dissolve from inside his chest.

“Ah… yes, I did. I know Yuuko-san always tells me not to act without thinking, and that I get myself in a lot of trouble because of that, but…”

“You wanted to go,” Haruka finished for him. He was still smiling indulgently, and Watanuki nodded shyly. “It is not a bad thing to indulge yourself when you want to do things, you know,” he said, looking away from Watanuki to stare at the temple in front of them. “You didn’t feel anything bad coming from them, and your pipe fox also seemed fine in their company, so you decided to trust them”.

“… yes”.

“And yet, you are still afraid you might have made a mistake,” Haruka continued, and at Watanuki’s defeated nod, he smiled indulgently. “I think you have grown to be more sensible to things. You worry more about yourself, and about others, and it makes me glad… but sometimes you have to trust your instincts”.

Watanuki hummed under his breath and looked down at his hands.

This was, in the end, the principle of it all, wasn’t it? What he had been worried about, all this time.

“I don’t think my instincts are right most of the time,” he replied quietly, feeling like he was confessing something shameful. “Mokona said… that the body can remember even if the mind can’t, so it should mean I choose instinctively things that I’m familiar with, things that I can do well, like cooking, or cleaning. And Yuuko said that trusting one’s feelings is important. And yet… I got close to Himawari, even though she was bad for me. I don’t regret it! I would never!” he hastily added, clenching his hands “but I ignored all the signs because I thought I wanted to be at her side regardless. And… and when I’m around Doumeki, I keep rejecting it, even though I know for a fact that his presence helps with spirits, and that he’s always helped me out, and sacrificed so much for that, too… and…” he could think a dozen different times when he’d picked the wrong thing for himself, times he should have known better, and it was so frustrating to think about now.

“You do know, looking back, that some of those choices ended badly for you,” Haruka interrupted his swirling thoughts, and he nodded. “But some of them did not. Kunogi-kun is still your friend, and your bond is stronger now, because you accepted her and her bad luck, even as she was trying to push you away to help you. And now you still want to be at her side, and find ways so that she won’t affect you too badly, right?”

Watanuki nodded, though he did not understand where the conversation was going.

“Some choices are not bad nor good. They are just choices that you make,” Haruka continued, the same gentle smile still on his lips. It was the sort of reassuring, grandfatherly face that made it so obvious how Haruka and Doumeki were not the same person. Sometimes Watanuki still wondered how a similar smile would look on Doumeki’s face, but the thought felt weird, almost like it was not his own. “It’s the result that makes the difference. If in the end your friendship with Kunogi-kun was strengthened, and you survived, maybe it was not bad. It was just something you chose for yourself. You walked through the consequences and changed thanks to it. Your friendship with my grandson is the same…”

Watanuki opened his mouth to say something –deny the fact that he and Doumeki were friends, maybe, he did not know– but then he stopped, and felt a wave of embarrassment flood him.

Why was it so easy for him to deny everything Doumeki had done for him, under the pretence that he hadn’t asked for it? Just because his attitude grated to his nerves, just because he felt slighted… that still did not erase the actions he’d taken to help him.

It was just as he’d told Haruka –part of him knew something was wrong, but he chose not to act on it. He was also ignoring something important, trying only half-heartedly to figure it out.

“So… you’re saying that even if I made some choices that were not really the best, as long as the result hasn’t hurt me, then they can’t be bad choices?”

“Your choices define you for who you are, Watanuki,” Haruka said, and his eyes were serious. “If you let yourself change to reflect your choices, what comes out of it is a new you. Sometimes this is good, sometimes not. But Change in itself is not a bad thing. Sometimes choices can hurt others. Sometimes what you think is right might not be right for others, but the responsibility for your choice is yours alone to bear. Sometimes your choices are for the best, but you can’t see that at first. It is only something you will find out in the long run”.

Watanuki sighed.

It was hard. Choosing knowing that every choice would bring change –it was scary. But scarier was the thought of never changing. Never changing would have meant, for him, to continue being alone as before. Not meeting Yuuko. Not befriending Himawari.

Even keeping his distance from Doumeki, and it would be a lie to say that thought didn’t make him unsettled.

Disappearing without anyone there.

Watanuki felt his surroundings fade, and he looked around in shock. The temple grounds were gone, and now he was standing in front of the river, one of the routes he used to take to go to school. The sky was dark, murky with clouds, the air heavy with the smell of rain, but it wasn’t raining in the dream.

He stiffened, and unconsciously took a step away from the river, and bumped into Haruka’s body.

“What…”

Doumeki’s grandfather placed one hand on his back to steady him. “Your thoughts shifted us here”.

Watanuki looked to the river, staring at the water in silence. The scene was too familiar, too eerie, called back from his memories.

“Why does it look like–”

Smoke lifted from the water of the river, taking a shape as it moved towards him slowly, a cat emerging from the smoke until it curled around Watanuki’s feet. Its fur was wet, and it was purring softly, but loud enough for Watanuki to hear as he stood there frozen, eyes wide.

“I… how is…”

Haruka knelt down on the ground, and the cat moved towards him, allowing the man to lift it up in his arms, but the cat kept his eyes on Watanuki.

Watanuki felt a vertigo hit him, but he closed his eyes and pressed both palms on his eyes, breathing deeply until the vertigo left him.

He remembered.

He remembered finding the cat washed into the edge of the river from the water, and remembered holding its body into his arms, but it was too late. The cat had died already. It had died alone, forgotten.

Watanuki remembered that moment, and how helpless he had felt, holding the cold, wet body to his chest. Thinking that he would also die like that, with absolute certainty and without feeling anything connected with it other than that.

It hadn’t been a good day. He didn’t remember the circumstances anymore, his memories faded with time, but he remembered the helplessness, the hopelessness, and the certainty that one day, a monster would wrap itself around him, and he would disappear from this world.

And nobody would care.

It had been such a certainty, that was all he could remember –and he hadn’t thought it would be too bad, then. Just something that would eventually happen. This thought filled him with dread now, but he’d never thought twice about it before.

It was absurd, but now Watanuki could see clearly what everybody had meant by telling him that he had changed.

Watanuki was trembling, and it took him a second to realise he was fighting back tears, hands clenched into his arms, fingers digging into the skin. He could feel the pain of it, which was weird since he was in a dream.

The cat was still looking at him, and so was Haruka –a soft, warm gaze that held no pity, just understanding, as if he knew exactly what he had been thinking.

“But…” Watanuki swallowed, his mouth dry. “I’m not… I’m not alone anymore now”.

“No, you are not”.

He extended one hand towards the cat, slowly, and it did not move away from his touch, actually leaning in. The fur was warm under his hand, not as wet as it seemed, and the vibrations he felt under his palm were calming.

“Is this cat…?”

“It is a spirit,” Haruka replied, looking down at the animal. “Your strong emotions made it come from the river. Maybe it was your distress that called it, or maybe it’s always been waiting here, hoping to see you. Cats have powers that humans can’t fully understand”.

Watanuki felt warmth spread inside him, the cat’s purring the only sound around them, comforting and gentle. “Thank you,” he said, his voice oddly choked. “For coming to check on me”.

The cat nudged its head against his hand one last time, and Watanuki felt some sort of nudge in the back of his mind, a fleeting touch that was not human, but that did not scare him at all. It was just a single thought, and it wasn’t even expressed with words, but he understood it all the same. Thank you for having been there. Thank you for crying for me.

The cat wriggled out of Haruka’s arms, and after rubbing itself against Watanuki’s leg in a quiet goodbye it walked towards the water again, dissolving back into smoke and disappearing from sight.

Watanuki took a shaky breath, and smiled at Haruka, who was still hovering at his side.

“Your choice to continue believing in your reality within a dream,” Haruka said, gently nudging Watanuki away from the waterside “it might cause you some pain in the future, but based on how many people want you to keep existing, I can tell you, Watanuki, that it is not a bad choice. Step by step, your choice brings you one way instead of another. Sometimes it’s scary to notice things, but being honest with yourself is better than the alternative”.

Watanuki was startled to hear him say that, because not too long before, he’d told himself that there was nothing wrong with lying to himself, even if just for a bit.

He nodded, feeling chastised and tired and drained, and then chuckled.

In the end, it was all a matter of choices, and he knew, from the smell of cookies that he could almost taste, like a faded memory not truly forgotten, that this was a choice he’d already made.

“I think I’ll go,” he murmured, more to himself than to Haruka. “I want to see these two again”.

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was in his bed, Yuuko’s guest room covered in a blanket of darkness around him.

“I think I will go see them again,” he murmured into the silence of the empty room.

Outside the room, her back pressed against the wall, Yuuko smiled.

Chapter Text

Chapter 02 - The Resolution

“Yuuko-san…”

There were mainly three things Yuuko did in order to take full advantage of her stolen extra time; drinking her weight in sake was one thing, and enjoying leisurely as much good food as she could was another.

Ever since Watanuki had entered her shop, signalling the start of the end, Yuuko had in fact been able to overindulge in many of her favourite dishes; Watanuki was not just a very good cook, but one who put his very heart into every meal, and even though he did not know it (and how could he, when he had no idea of his own heritage?), his food had a distinctive, particular flavour to it that reminded Yuuko of that person.

It was a bittersweet thing, really, because in the end, that was the only thing she had left of him –memories, and that faint, fleeting taste in Watanuki’s food that she could always recognise.

Considering this, her reaction whenever he was mentioned or even just hinted at was more than justified, as were the things she said about him to anyone who was listening. In the end, he was dead, and she wasn’t… though not for long, now. But the fact remained that she was still here, seeing through things until that time arrived.

The third thing she enjoyed was, obviously, teasing her part-timer. That ranked above the other two in her mind, and it brought Yuuko countless hours of amusement.

It wasn’t like Watanuki couldn’t take a bit of tease –it was his genuine, overly expressive reaction to her teasing that made Yuuko want to continue. He looked more alive like that than he did normally, reacting to the actions of others, and she knew that she was not the only one who felt this way. Yes, if it did not hurt, then she would just have to continue.

So, all things considered, one could say that she was having fun. It had not been this fun in a long while.

“What is it, Watanuki?” she glanced over her shoulder, and found her dear part-timer openly fidgeting.

“I… that is, I wanted to ask…”

Without regards to his attempts, she easily interrupted him by looking up at the sky and exhaling loudly. “Ararara, today is quite the hot day, isn’t it? Maybe we should put out the pool and fill it!”

“Oh, that would be nice!” Mokona agreed, bouncing down from her shoulder.

Watanuki looked at her, hesitating for a moment. “Ah… yes, I guess I could do that, but–”

“And prepare some snacks to go with it too of course!” she added slyly, her grin growing as she looked away from him, knowing full well that he would agree. “It wouldn’t be perfect if there wasn’t peach sherbet with one of your mille-feuille!”

“I have the ingredients to do that yes, but–”

“Watanuki, be a good boy, why don’t you go get the pool outside first?”

She watched him slump a little and turn around, hurrying out of the room, his footsteps echoing in the corridors together with his distraught mumbling.

Yuuko and Mokona exchanged a shit-eating grin.

“He is full of determination today, Watanuki~” Mokona rubbed his chin.

“Of course, of course, he wants something and he is trying so hard to ask for it!” Yuuko leaned down, one hand covering her mouth as if to convey a secret.

“We should make it even harder for him to do that,” Mokona added, mimicking the pose. “Otherwise it wouldn’t be fun!”

“Of course we should!”

The two shared a look of complete understanding, then they watched Watanuki flail as he tugged and pulled the heavy pool out of the store room and into the front lawn, then brought the hose out and started to fill it.

“Watanuki, hurry up! The day’s just started, and I want to lounge outside later on!” she called out. “It’s going to be sunny all week, and I have a lot of plans!”

“Ah, about that, I–”

“Tuesday will be laundry day as usual, so you’ll have to work hard~” she started counting off the days, and Watanuki nodded, still busy filling up the pool and keeping an eye out for the water level.

“Of course, the linen blankets and all your kimonos need to be put out to get some fresh air too–”

“Yes, yes, and Wednesday is the day I invited over Doumeki-kun for a round or two of mah-jong~”

“Wait a moment why is Doumeki coming over?!”

“I just said it, didn’t I? Watanuki, are you getting deaf at the ripe age of–”

“I’m definitely not getting deaf!”

“Well then, make sure to prepare some of your angel cakes, Doumeki seems to enjoy them so much~”

“Don’t order me around to feed that guy!”

“And I think Thursday might be the best day for doing an inventory day, wouldn’t it Watanuki?” she continued, careful to keep a neutral expression and not smirk when she noticed his expression fall.

“Oh, I… I guess so?” he replied, fidgeting a bit. “But… Yuuko-san, I…”

“Then of course Friday you’ll have to go see that nice woman for your very first cooking lesson! Aren’t you proud, Watanuki? You’re going to be a real teacher!”

By now, Watanuki looked completely defeated, and more than a little bit haunted at the prospect of the cooking lesson, so Yuuko decided she’d had enough fun for now.

She allowed him to finish filling the pool, then she shooed him away as she changed clothes and into her best costume before sliding into the water. It was nice and cool against her skin, just as she’d hoped.

Watanuki returned a little while later with a tray holding two cups of sherbet and the mille-feuille Yuuko had asked; he seemed somewhat subdued as he served her and Mokona, who was swimming in the pool and splashing around, and Yuuko smiled indulgently, poking Watanuki in the forehead until he looked up at her.

“Watanuki,” she said, her smile softening ever so slightly. “Why don’t you just say what you’ve been trying to say since a while ago?” she stretched in the pool, tilting her head back to better enjoy the warm sun on her skin, a nice contrast with the cool water. “If you do not spit it out, a spirit might get your tongue…”

Predictably, his reaction was just as she had been expecting –he was startled and almost dropped the tray with the snack, but recovered pretty quickly and placed it down before grabbing the edge of the pool, looking right into Yuuko’s eyes. “That is not something that can happen, right Yuuko-san?” he waited for her to say something, and when she didn’t, he paled. “… right?”

“Watanuki”.

“Y-yes?”

It was always the right time for a little lesson, especially one that would come in handy.

“There is nothing in this world as important as communication. It doesn’t have to be with words, as there is more to it than just language. Sometimes a gesture or a look is enough, but you can risk getting misunderstood… sometimes even words are not enough, and sometimes words might be too much. All requires balance, and language is not exempt”.

She stretched her legs out of the pool, droplets falling down the curve of her thighs in a provocative way, though as usual the effect was lost on Watanuki, who was focused more on her words.

“This is especially obvious when you want something. What you want and what you need end up being different things too, depending on the way you convey your desires, but either requires you to find a way to reach out to someone else so that there is the least chance for misunderstandings. Language connects people, but it can also be a barrier…” she paused, and her gaze pointed ahead, lost in the distance looking at something Watanuki could not see. “Tell me, Watanuki, what do you think is the opposite of communication?”

Watanuki blinked and was clearly taken aback, because it took him a while to focus on her question enough to find an answer.

“Uh…”

“Chinmoku”.

Watanuki frowned, not following the conversation but somewhat intrigued either way. “Chinmoku?”

“Chinmoku: an absence of sound or action, idleness, stillness, the reluctance or restriction upon oneself to act upon something, silence,” Yuuko recited idly, a languid smile gracing her lips, one hand raised above her head to shield her face from the sun. “That is what is written in the Kodansha dictionary, second edition,” she added after a second, her tone instantly lighter.

“What is this return to the dictionary definitions for!” as usual, Watanuki’s reaction was refreshing. He cleared his throat and settled down next to the pool, pouting a bit. “So it is silence?”

“Whether the other person understands you or not, as long as you are communicating somehow you are still reaching out, but silence implies there is no attempt to bridge the spaces that separate us from others. It’s not a mere lack of words, but a will to keep something to yourself. It does not matter if you have a reason for it, because as long as you refuse to reach out, you end at an impasse. Silence can choke you, and your world ends up limited by itself, and by your own thoughts. No exchange can be made, no understanding reached”.

Watanuki fidgeted, pushing his glasses up his nose in a self-conscious way. “B-but you said a gesture is enough to convey something, so even if you don’t talk…”

“It is not a matter of gestures, surely you understand”.

Yuuko looked over at him, shifting in the pool until she was sitting up, rivulets of water falling from her shoulders down.

“When you are reluctant to reach out, that silence makes you shut yourself away, and no gesture can fill that emptiness,” she stretched one hand towards the abandoned tray, picking one sherbet glass and lifting it to her lips. “It becomes a void, and it curls around you like a vine, until it traps you. Words can tie you down, but silence is a self-imposed cage, which is worse than any spirit could ever be”.

She waited a beat, then her countenance changed, and she grabbed a small water gun she’d hidden behind the pool, pointing it at Watanuki’s face and shooting him until he started spluttering and trying to cover his face with his arms.

“Yuuko-san!”

“So! You wouldn’t want to end up like that, isn’t that right? Watanuki! Speak your mind! Good kids like you can afford to ask for what they want, you know~”

Watanuki took a deep breath, and swallowed thickly.

“I… I want to ask for a day off!”

He was expecting… something, but the knowing look in Yuuko’s eyes was not it.

“Is that it?”

“Wha… I mean, yeah, I just… I want to…” he hesitated, but remembering Haruka’s support helped Watanuki go on. “I have been invited to go back to Touya-san’s house. I know you told me not to be hasty, but I…”

“Watanuki,” she paused, the palm of her hand caressing the curve of Watanuki’s cheek. “I told you, didn’t I? Make sure you know what you want, and don’t look back if it is your choice. Do you desire to see them again, or is it just a polite agreement?”

He sighed. “I want to go, I really do. If I hadn’t wanted to, I would have refused. If I had thought they were scary, or dangerous, I wouldn’t have accepted”.

“Not even if they wanted you to?” she pressed on. “Not even if they made it sound like you had no choice?”

He shook his head. “No”.

“Aren’t you a good kid,” she replied with a smile, and let his chin go.

If Touya and Yukito had found him earlier, even just a month before, Watanuki’s choice might have been different. He might have felt obliged to indulge the invitation rather than accept because of his own desires. He might have not even thought to refuse, and he would have put someone else’s interests in front of his own, and then that thread stretching from Watanuki to Touya, thin and forgotten as it was, would have forged something forced, and not genuine. Watanuki would have felt tied down, and it wouldn’t have allowed anything spontaneous to form.

It didn’t matter that Touya had good intentions –for Watanuki it would have been the same as if it had been a dangerous spirit. But now, Watanuki had changed, and the ripples of his changes continued to expand through time, changing the way he looked at himself, and the way he reacted to the world, putting more importance to his own desires and the things he could, and would, do.

“So… does that mean I can have a day off?” there was hope written all over his face, in his words and in his stance, slightly tilted forwards, eyes wide in surprise.

He looked young, so young. Yuuko had to look away, else her smile turned wistful.

Instead, she smirked. “Well, I’m not yet sure about that… perhaps if you were to offer a good deal, I might be convinced to part from you for the entirety of a day… but it depends on what you intend as a payment for such a thing… you are quite the expensive part timer, you know…”

By now, Watanuki was smiling brightly, knowing exactly the kind of thing Yuuko would gladly accept as payment for this ‘wish’, and it was something Watanuki had no problem promising.

“What about hayashi rice, chirashi-zushi and uiro?”

“Uiro~ we haven’t had that in a long time~” Mokona was sold already, and he started wriggling around in the pool, trying to reach the edge so he could jump on Watanuki. “Watanuki, I want kasutera too!”

Watanuki glared down at him, knowing full well that his battle was not with Mokona but with Yuuko, then rolled his eyes. “Kasutera, too,” he amended. Then seemed to think up of a way to sweeten the deal. “With a bottle of rice Shouchuu”.

“Then it’s a deal~” Yuuko smirked in victory. “Now that is what I’d call a kingly meal!”

With Watanuki smiling and running around to get her an extra serving of sake, just because he was that happy, Yuuko allowed herself a small, secretive smile that she shared with Mokona.

“Well then,” she told him. “We’d better make that meal count, right?”

***

“Watanuki-kun!”

Himawari waved one hand towards him in greeting, and her little yellow bird fluttered up from her shoulder and towards Watanuki, peeping in happiness as he moved around his head.

“Ah, Himawari-chan, I’m here!” Watanuki held up the bento boxes with a winning smile, and promptly sat down next to her, ignoring the ball of fluff zooming everywhere. “Hmm? Where’s Doumeki?” Watanuki looked around, not noticing the imposing figure of the third member of their little lunch group, and frowned. He’d prepared that oaf food, but if he wasn’t even there, what was the point?

“He’s going to arrive a bit later,” Himawari told him. “He had to print some papers for his next class, and said we could start without him”.

Watanuki nodded, somewhat relieved, and the two started to eat.

“So, what did you do this past weekend?” Himawari asked as she fed Tanpopo a piece of sushi.

“I had to do a commission for Yuuko-san,” Watanuki replied with a shrug. “She sent me all the way to Asakusa to retrieve payment for her”.

He quickly told Himawari about his trip and the two men he’d met; it was almost a ritual to share with Himawari and Doumeki the things he did for Yuuko, and other than the spider grudge and the subsequent sharing of one eye, Watanuki had been always honest with Himawari about supernatural things.

“Makes you wonder what their wish was,” she said afterwards, pausing with a bite of rice in front of her lips. “Giving away their rings like this…”

“Yeah…” Watanuki looked down at his hands, hesitating before touching where a ring would go if he ever had one.

Meeting someone who had been with another person for so long, who still looked very much in love, and who had not hesitated to give away the token of their relationship just to see their otherwise unattainable wish granted… it made Watanuki aware that he had never entertained the idea of marriage before, nor about finding someone that might become so precious that he’d want to spend over twenty years with them.

Finding someone to love… oh, even when crushing on Himawari, he had never considered what might come ‘after’. He had just liked her in the present, not thinking about the possibility of a future together.

Even before knowing about the curse Watanuki hadn’t spared a thought about having Himawari return his feelings, or turn that into something deep and lasting. Thinking about that now made something stir inside him –and that something did not feel warm and hopeful. It felt cold, foreign.

Watanuki swallowed thickly and glanced up at Himawari. She was smiling, she was at his side, and he couldn’t have been happier with that, and with their friendship. And he still liked her, she still made him happy. But the thought of her returning his crush… no, that was…

That was…

Holding her hand, going on a date, k-kissing… Watanuki had never allowed himself to think about these things, and it was with a growing alarm that he realised he had never considered any of these things –long-term relationships, contact. Love.

He looked down at his hands again, and gritted his teeth; was this more proof that he was living a dream? That he wasn’t real, that his thoughts and his feelings could vanish one day and he would be gone?

Did he know… had he always known, somehow, that he would disappear one day?

Maybe he’d known, but with his memories gone, only his body remembered. Was this why he’d never had any friends before meeting Yuuko? It was true that she’d been the one to push him to talk with Doumeki and Himawari, even though afterwards it had been his choice to keep the contact until they were strangers no more.

Was this why Shaoran kept telling him to not disappear? How could Shaoran, of all people, have an interest in his existence?

Watanuki knew already that he wanted to continue existing. He trusted Yuuko because she knew more than he could ever hope to know, and that would suffice, but there were also things he had to do on his own. Learn to face things that made him uncomfortable, instead of resolutely ignoring them.

Like the fact that before meeting Yuuko he’d never had close relationships or friendships, like he was already setting himself up to disappear quietly, as if he had known this was inevitable.

Was he scared of forming bonds that would be left behind if he were to disappear?

The way Yukito and Touya looked at each other, the support they offered, the fact that he was sure that the wish had been mostly Touya’s and yet Yukito had accepted the payment without regrets… wasn’t that sort of feeling something to cherish and long for?

Watanuki felt the knot in his chest tighten, but he needed to know, he desperately needed to know, so instead of brushing the thought off, he glanced at Himawari again, and looked past the curse, past everything else, and asked himself –what would it be like to have her return his feelings, if she ever did?

What seeped through him was no happiness, nor warmth.

It was fear.

It was scary, to think he could be on the receiving end of someone’s love. To be looked at the same way Yukito looked at Touya, the same fondness, without hiding away… Watanuki thought about having someone look at him like that, and he felt cold, the chill starting from his chest and spreading through his body like ice.

The truth felt cold and unwanted as it slipped through the cracks of his mind and slapped him in the face, and Watanuki looked away from Himawari again.

He liked her so much, he’d always liked her. She was… well, not perfect, but she was genuinely sweet, and cute, and there had always been something about her calling out to him. He had started to pay attention to her following this impulse, without thinking, and he’d found himself liking her more and more, but it had been fine to just admire her from afar, while at the same time wanting to be closer to her.

His feelings for her were real, but… but…

But Watanuki was not as blind about his surroundings anymore. Something had changed, and just like he could concentrate and ‘see’ her curse now, if so he chose, he could choose to see the truth of his own actions too.

Watanuki could easily like Himawari because he knew she would never reciprocate his feelings. Time and time again she’d rebuked him, and he still kept ignoring this in order to be with her anyway. Even after he’d learned about the curse, and had still expressed his intention to be by her side, Himawari had never changed her stance with him.

This was… reassuring. He was certain she would not fall for him, and this allowed him to be open about his feelings for her.

If he would disappear, what could be better than knowing he wouldn’t break someone’s heart then?

This… this wasn’t something he’d done consciously, but that didn’t change the fact that he had done it again and again; instinctively, without noticing, one of the many things he did every day without paying attention to it, like not talking with his classmates unless strictly necessary, like barely remembering his landlord’s face, or who his neighbours were. So, getting close to Himawari, what could have prompted it? Why her, instead of…

And then, he was hit by another thought.

He could spend hours saying that he’d been attracted by Himawari because of her cuteness, her attitude, her gentleness, but… weren’t there other people who might have been the same? Why was it Himawari, and not anyone else? And why just her, of all people? What made her different?

Was it possible he had at first been attracted to her because of her curse? Watanuki attracted bad things, he’d always known that. So…

For a moment, it felt like the world was ticking on without him. He could hear Himawari giggle and talk about her classmates, about a trip to a shop and about buying Tanpopo some ribbons, but Watanuki was unable to follow, his eyes focusing on the spires of darkness surrounding her that kept trying to reach out to him through the distance that separated Himawari from him.

He blinked, and the spires disappeared again, hidden from sight.

No. That was not fair.

That thought was painful and it was not fair, and… it was not true.

And even if it were true, it meant nothing now. Watanuki’s feelings were his own. They were not fake. Even if he’d been attracted to her because of the curse, his feelings for her were honest and not fake. He cared for her so much that it made him happy to see her smile. He wanted to have her at his side, he wanted them to be friends for as long as they could… even in the future.

But once you throw a rock into a pool of water, it causes ripples. Thinking about Himawari’s curse and his own situation made Watanuki’s thoughts take a further step ahead.

Was this unconsciously seeking to be alone, rejecting company and friendships, also why he had disliked Doumeki so much for absolutely no reason, ever since they’d met the first time?

He’d never heard anything about Doumeki before he’d crossed paths with him one day at school, Watanuki descending the stairs and Doumeki going up, but just seeing his face, seeing him pass by… it had made Watanuki feel like kicking him, which he’d actually attempted to do, jumping down the flight of stairs like a loon and comically enraged at Doumeki for daring to move out of the way.

Watanuki had never thought anything about this instinctive dislike, nor that it was strange to grow to dislike someone without even knowing their name, but afterwards he had tried to back up this dislike by gathering info on Doumeki –learning his name, his class, finding out he was popular. Growing to dislike him even more then, because of his casual, blank attitude and his skills during their joint PE class.

Doumeki also had purifying powers. As Yuuko had said, being close to him chased away the creatures that plagued Watanuki every day. In fact, Yuuko had said something else to him too, after the first time Watanuki had been saved by Doumeki during their 100 horror stories sitting. She had said that ‘the creatures themselves made Watanuki dislike him’. Of course Watanuki had refused to listen. He hadn’t cared, then.

Guilt washed over him, bitter and gnawing at his insides; he kept acting like Doumeki’s sole presence offended him, like he didn’t want to have him around, but things were changing, weren’t they? Refusing to see that, to see how the bond they shared was growing –first with the eye, then the blood– and was that why Watanuki was finally able to stare at Doumeki and not feel like punching him anymore? Why he could share with him things he found it hard to say aloud even to himself?

With the creatures chasing Watanuki slowly vanishing for some reason, was that reflecting Watanuki’s changing thoughts about wanting to keep on living?

Watanuki was no stranger to things he couldn’t control, but this one made him angry. The spirits following him, wanting to feast on his power… he couldn’t protect himself from them, he was powerless about it, but… it was not fair that even his thoughts about other people could be tampered by that.

It was a slight towards Himawari to think he’d started to like her simply because there was something wrong about Watanuki himself, and it was a slight towards Doumeki to think that he kept disliking him because of that, too.

Of course there were a lot of things he still disliked about Doumeki. He was stubborn, and he never spoke his mind most of the time, and he was perhaps too quiet, and he really grated to Watanuki’s nerves, but… but he didn’t dislike having him around, not really.

He liked Himawari, but he was learning to minimize her bad curse so that it would not harm him, and he was starting to admit Doumeki’s presence was not good just as a way to protect him from evil spirits, but also just because…

Watanuki swallowed, his mouth incredibly dry, and clenched his hands together, still lost in thought.

His feelings were his own, and instincts were also his own, but what he decided to do about them was another thing. Just like Haruka had said, the choice was his own.

He could continue to act like nothing had changed, or he could… do what? Change the way he acted around Doumeki?

Himawari was still important to him, but she was his friend, and he didn’t need any more than that to be happy, even if he liked her. It was easy to be honest about this, because Watanuki knew already that their friendship was precious. His feelings were almost the same as before, but something had already changed even before he’d grown aware of it.

Doumeki was… Watanuki pushed past the guilt and the confusion, and thought about Doumeki, refusing to stop at the surge of annoyance to look deeper. He thought about the look on his face when he’d waited for Watanuki to come back from the hydrangea. About the way he had forced Watanuki to tell him when he’d sacrificed his eye so that Doumeki could be spared from the spider’s grudge. About how Haruka had been able to reach him and save him only because he looked like Doumeki –someone Watanuki had learned to trust even back then. About the fact that he hadn’t hesitated to pay with half of his blood so Watanuki would not disappear.

How Doumeki only ate the food Watanuki made, because Haruka said he only ate what he trusted.

That did imply that Doumeki did trust Watanuki, and his actions towards him implied quite openly that he cared.

And what about Watanuki himself? Did he really think Doumeki was a waste of space now? or had things changed even if he’d never wanted to admit it?

So… it still boiled down to one single question; what did Watanuki want to do?

Haruka had said “Your choice to continue believing in your reality within a dream… it might cause you some pain in the future, but based on how many people want you to keep existing, I can tell you, Watanuki, that it is not a bad choice”.

And then Yuuko, phrased like a joke but said with such a serious expression… “Good kids like you can afford to ask for what they want”.

It was a weird feeling, to realise that he’d never allowed himself to want things before, and perhaps even weirder was the dawning realisation that along the line, Watanuki had started wanting things for himself.

He wanted to stay alive. He wanted to remain in this world where there were people who cared for him. People he liked, people he wanted in his life.

And something else too, so simple, perhaps, but to him it was such a big thing… he wanted to be able to continue sitting with Himawari and Doumeki for lunch. Not just until the end of the school but afterwards too, to keep on meeting with them just like this.

He wanted to have a future, and he wanted it to include Doumeki and Himawari too, and this greediness settled heavily in his chest, and even then it was a comforting weight. Wasn’t that the meaning of being human? To desire things for yourself?

The thought brought a different ache to his chest, a desperate longing to understand himself and to fill that weird emptiness that were his memories, to find out who he had been, who he was, to know if he deserved all of this. If he could really be human. It was almost painful and it was scary, and Watanuki tried to swallow down the knot in his throat, though it didn’t help much.

Through all of this, he was still staring down at his ring finger like it held all the answers of the world, and in a way, it did.

And all these scattered thoughts had started because he’d met Touya and Yukito, because of whatever wish they had needed granted, because of their closeness. Because Watanuki was faced with things that made him think about himself, about what it meant to keep existing. The right meeting at the right time, because there was no coincidence, as Yuuko always said.

All he was feeling was just the consequence of his own choice to keep on living, clinging to this reality, wanting to make it his own, like a desperate fool.

It was his wish, and for every wish there was a price. He wondered what the price to keep living would be, and he knew he would not mind paying for it.

“Whatever wish Touya-san had, it must have been worth this sacrifice,” he murmured, attracting Himawari’s attention. “Because the price Yuuko-san sets is always fair”.

Himawari seemed to sense something was amiss; she’d tried to distract Watanuki with some idle chat, having noticed his wistful mood, but it was obvious she’d failed. Her smile softened a little and she made to touch Watanuki’s shoulder, then she froze in mid-air, suddenly afraid. Watanuki noticed that hesitation and quickly closed the remaining distance with one of his hands, gripping Himawari’s in his own and squeezing it before letting it go, a fleeting contact that was enough for them both.

“I’m going back to see them on Thursday,” Watanuki changed the subject, not wanting her to worry so much for him, and waved one hand in the air. “I’ll get you something nice from one of the shops nearby the temple if you want”.

“Thank you, Watanuki-kun!”

They exchanged a small smile, the air around them clearing a bit, and Watanuki allowed himself to be swept away by one of Himawari’s stories, something about a few classmates and some swapped notes.

A few minutes later, Doumeki appeared from behind Watanuki’s back, sitting down next to them with a quiet greeting, hands open and stretching towards Watanuki to get his bento from him.

“Food,” he asked. “Onigiri with salmon today?”

If either Doumeki or Himawari noticed how little Watanuki protested, despite the way he tensed up and grumbled under his breath, neither mentioned it, though the two did share a look above Watanuki’s head that he missed completely.

***

“Good morning Yukito-san!”

“Watanuki-kun, hello! Please do come in!”

Just like last time he had visited, it was Yukito who opened the door and let him in, still with the same warm smile that managed to put Watanuki at ease. Watanuki bowed slightly and slid out of his shoes, following the man inside.

“I’m glad you decided to come,” Yukito looked quite happy, and he was dressed in a casual attire, ready for the day out. “Touya was glad when you called, and he’s been in the kitchen all morning to prepare some food to bring with us all morning…”

“Ah! I didn’t want to impose, so I brought over some food to share too,” Watanuki fumbled around with the bag holding the sandwiches and onigiri he’d prepared earlier, feeling a bit silly. “I made something that would be easy to eat, plus some rice cookies covered in chocolate as a dessert”.

“Wow, that’s a lot of stuff! Did you wake up early to prepare it?” Yukito seemed impressed, which made Watanuki puff his chest out.

“It was no bother, really. I wanted to,” he told the man with a shy smile. “I’m just worried I might have made too much if Touya-san is also cooking…”

“Well, you don’t have to worry, Yukito can eat easily for two even without our help,” Touya appeared from the kitchen, still wearing a simple apron.

“I’m sorry I came too soon,” Watanuki gave his bags to Yukito, who left to put his food together with the one Touya was preparing. “But I brought over something to thank you for your time!”

It was a bottle of expensive sake he’d bought at a nearby gift store on his way to Asakusa, and Touya hummed in pleasure as he brushed his fingers over the brand name.

“Thank you, but just having a nice day out with this weather would have been enough,” he replied a bit gruffly, and Watanuki smiled at him, shaking his head.

Touya seemed the kind of person who had a limited range of expressions –a bit like Doumeki, really– but Watanuki had no trouble deciphering him… he guessed he’d just had a lot of practice with Doumeki, after all.

Touya excused himself to put the bottle away, since they wouldn’t have time to open it before leaving, and Watanuki found himself standing in the middle of the sitting room on his own. He shuffled towards one corner of the room, curious about the bookshelves, and noticed that most tiles were either written in romaji or about esoteric matters, not unlike the sort of books that he’d seen in Doumeki’s temple, belonging to his grandfather.

Some of them were specifically about dreams, and Watanuki felt a growing sense of wonder for the determination of the two men, who only started dream-walking in order to find Yuuko. Not to mention it rekindled his curiosity about the dreamworld. Watanuki himself might have been able to travel within dreams somehow, but he had no skills and no knowledge, and if Haruka didn’t want to see him, the two wouldn’t meet at all.

His shifting to the riverside had been because of his emotions wavering out of control, and that aside, he had no idea what rules existed within dreams. Just being able to meet with a person who should have been dead was really extraordinary, and Watanuki wondered idly what other sort of things he could do in that world.

He had never thought about asking Haruka to help him, mostly because the feeling of peace he felt around the other man was the kind of hazy contentment that made it hard to do something other than enjoy the company, and perhaps share a burden, not to mention how Haruka disappeared without warning, and Watanuki was left alone, often either falling into a normal dream or waking up.

As for asking Yuuko herself… Watanuki remembered with unease meeting Yuuko inside his dreams, and he did not want to talk with her about it. Besides, who knew what the price for lessons about that would be?

Now… maybe he could ask Touya and Yukito instead?

Watanuki wondered whether he could actually do that, and what their answer could be, and if that would mean he might see them again, after today, and realised that the idea made him happy.

He looked away from the shelves, and his eyes fell on the photos on the nearby drawer, which he had noticed during his last visit; before he could stop himself, he’d already stepped forwards, peering down at the rows of neatly arranged frames with curiosity.

The first photo was of a tall man with glasses with a soft smile, but the second photo made Watanuki stifle a gasp as he leaned forwards, eyes wide.

The photo had five people in it –one was Touya, though he did look younger, one was Yukito, also looking younger, then the same man from the first photo, towering over the other four, and then…

“… Sakura-chan? Shaoran-kun?”

It was them. They both looked around Watanuki’s age in the picture, and the photo had been probably taken without Sakura noticing because she was holding Shaoran’s arm in a tight grip while showing her tongue at Touya; Shaoran looked at the camera, obviously uncomfortable, and with a light flush on his cheeks.

It took Watanuki a moment to realise that he couldn’t possibly be looking at the Shaoran and Sakura he knew, but at someone else entirely –probably the Shaoran and Sakura who lived in his world.

“… oh”.

With a startled gasp at the unexpected sound, Watanuki pushed himself away from the counter and straightened his back, spinning around and coming face to face with Touya, who was looking down at him with a weird twist of his mouth.

“Ah! I’m sorry, I wasn’t… I wasn’t being nosy! I mean, I guess I was. But… ah…” he waved his arms in the air, knowing that the more he tried to explain himself, the less sense he made, so he deflated. “I just…” he waved one hand towards the photos, his cheeks burning in embarrassment.

“You… know Sakura and Shaoran?” Touya asked, his tone carefully blank.

Watanuki looked down, still flustered, and gave a small shrug, realising how that was definitely not a polite answer, and then winced. “Well… yes, I mean–”

Whoever they were, those were not the same people he’d met through Yuuko, so he couldn’t say he knew them, but… how could he explain this to Touya?

Touya looked grave for a moment, his lips a thin line, and Watanuki wondered if he’d said something wrong. Then his face smoothed out a little, though he still did seem tense.

“I was not aware you knew my sister…?”

Watanuki’s eyes grew wide at that. “S-sister?!”

He couldn’t help it –he turned to look at the picture, searching into their faces for some kind of similarity that still evaded him.

“Yes,” Touya continued, and Watanuki was too flustered to mind the way his voice was strained. “My little sister”.

“No, I don’t… I mean, this Sakura-chan I…” Watanuki rubbed the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes in frustration. “I have never met her but–”

“But you’ve met a Sakura from another world?”

Eyes snapping open in shock, Watanuki looked up and into Touya’s face, unable to hide his surprise at hearing this. “How…?”

“Yes, we also know of other dimensions,” Touya nodded, eyes falling on the photos on the drawer, reaching out to take the closest one, one that Watanuki hadn’t seen yet, and looking at it with such melancholy that Watanuki felt suddenly guilty for prodding. “I’ve met someone from another dimension in a dream…” Touya seemed to notice something in Watanuki’s face, because he smiled grimly, “as did you, it seems”.

Watanuki nodded dumbly. “Y-yes,” he shook his head to try and dispel the surprise. “I spoke with a Sakura-chan in a dream… more than once,” he admitted. It wasn’t a thing he’d been able to tell Himawari or Doumeki yet. It felt almost too personal, and too confusing, and too much tied with feeling himself slip away. “But I saw a Shaoran-kun while I was working at Yuuko-san’s shop”.

He did not mention the second Shaoran, thinking that one copy of each was enough to be confusing, let alone two. Especially when that Sakura-chan had said that something similar had happened to her, too…

“Were they together?”

Watanuki blinked; he hadn’t expected that question, so it took him a moment to collect his thoughts. “Uh… the Sakura-chan I met in my dreams was alone,” he admitted, though he did not want to share the things she’d told him as they were too personal. “But the first time I’ve seen them, yes, they were together. They came from the same place, and Shaoran-kun was travelling for her sake”.

Touya nodded, apparently satisfied, though there was a bitter edge to his tone that even Watanuki was able to catch. “If they were together in there, then it’s fine”.

Something was wrong, and Watanuki felt somewhat uncomfortable to press the subject on, so he tried to think about something else to say.

“I… I sort of wanted to meet with this world’s Sakura-chan too,” he found himself saying, looking at the picture and smiling softly. “I thought we could be friends. But she seems happy here, so I’m glad. The Sakura-chan I met was… going through a lot. I hope she’s doing ok too”.

The longing within Touya’s chest seemed to expand with this quiet admission, and he clenched his hand around the photo frame, gritting his teeth and hoping Watanuki would not notice his distress. There was so much he wanted to say –too much, and he could not even say it, because the price was binding him and preventing him from telling Watanuki the truth.

He opened his mouth, and felt something bitter coating his tongue, like a physical admonition not to say too much, and he cursed silently at Yuuko, at this heavy price that he’d paid in order to be able to fit in his nephew’s life again, at whatever bullshit situation his sister had gotten herself caught into. He didn’t know the whole truth, he didn’t know what was going to happen, nor why his nephew was in danger, wavering between dream and reality, but what he knew was that he could not lose him.

He refused to lose him.

“Sakura is…” his voice faltered, and this change made Watanuki turn around to look at him, worry clear on his face. “Sakura and Shaoran are not in this world anymore,” he finally choked out.

Watanuki gasped, his face growing pale in a heartbeat. Touya looked away, his chest constricting.

It is not a lie, he told himself. It was not a lie, and that was exactly what made it worse.

Watanuki felt like he’d been dropped into an icy-cold bath, his breath stolen away.

He remembered the fake wand in Yuuko’s shop, shaped like a weird beak with wings, and Yuuko telling him that the real one was somewhere inside the room too, given to her by another Sakura in order to pay for something that would help that Shaoran.

He remembered how he’d looked at the fake wand and wondered where the Sakura living in his world could be, and if she was happy.

He’d wondered whether she had a Shaoran with her too. If they were happier than their counterparts. If he would be able to meet them one day, and be friends with them too.

The sadness that filled his chest was acute and as sharp as a thousand needles, but it could be nothing compared the sort of pain Touya was probably going through.

Dead. Both Sakura and Shaoran were dead in this world, and Touya was the one who had been left behind.

“I’m sorry,” he reached out instinctively, forgetting about his reservations as a guest to grab Touya’s hand in his own, squeezing it and looking up, meeting the man’s shocked gaze. “I did not mean to hurt you. But I understand. My… my parents died when I was little, and sometimes it still hurts to think about it”.

He meant he understood the pain of being left behind to mourn, of feeling guilty for someone’s death even if there was no blame to take, of missing them so much that at times it felt like he couldn’t go on. He didn’t even remember his parents, but he still felt acutely their absence from his life.

They were nothing but shadows in his mind, shadows made of gestures and blurred smiles, of hands gently pressed over his forehead while he was feverish, of faint smells and the echo of voices he did not remember.

It was all he had. He understood the kind of pain Touya was feeling.

One time, he had almost slipped away too, trying to follow the soft touch of hands he could not associate to faces, and only Haruka had been able to save him.

Touya felt even worse at this admission, because Watanuki did not know, but he did. There was some sort of irony, because they were talking about the same people, but it was a bitter, painful joke that Watanuki would never understand.

The look in his eyes was so much like Shaoran’s, unwavering and full of empathy without any trace of pity, and Touya felt a wave of affection for this teen who knew nothing about his past, who did not remember his parents, and who was left behind to make sense of his own existence all on his own.

This kind of bond they shared, unlike that of blood, was far too painful to be considered fair.

Touya swallowed the lump in his throat, and squeezed Watanuki’s hands back, smiling slightly down at him. “Thank you,” he said. “They… they were happy,” he added, unable to stop himself. He couldn’t tell Watanuki the truth, but he could… at least he could say this. “They’ve been so very happy together. They were married. They were together for a long time, and… they were together until the end”.

It did not matter that Touya hadn’t liked Shaoran at first. He’d had a grudge against that guy who’d arrived to take his little sister away, even if she’d never truly left, mindful of her family and wanting to be close to them too. Shaoran had made Sakura happy for the short time they had been together, and that… that was more important than any stupid grudge he could hold against someone. And in the end, Touya had grown to care for Shaoran, too.

It was odd to find comfort in those words, but Watanuki still found himself nodding, faintly relieved.

“Still, I’m glad you were not alone,” he murmured, letting go of Touya’s hand to look at the photo of Sakura and Shaoran again. “You had Yukito-san with you. I’m glad”.

Because at least through such a painful loss, Touya had not been alone. And at least –and Watanuki thought that he would be forgiven if he sounded bitter to himself, considering everything– Touya still had memories to cling to, instead of a gaping void that did nothing to erase the pain.

Touya wanted to do something, anything –maybe hug Watanuki, since he could not say anything, or fall to his knees and thank Yuuko for granting his wish, for giving him this– but what he did instead was to raise one hand and ruffle Watanuki’s hair, perhaps a bit more roughly than he’d wanted.

“Ah–!”

Touya grinned down at him. “You’re a good kid,” he said. “And good kids shouldn’t be gloomy. It’s in the past. It still hurts, but if you’re left behind, the only thing you can do is keep going. They wouldn’t want you to do anything else”.

Watanuki blinked, and felt the world spin around him for a moment.

Ah. Yes.

Somehow, he remembered Shaoran again, his hand stretched towards him, eyes wide and focused on Watanuki, and his words –do not disappear.

His gaze softened a bit, and if he leaned a bit into Touya’s hand, nobody but them had to know.

“Yes,” he murmured, mostly to himself. “You’re right”.

Touya regretted it the moment he removed his hand from Watanuki’s head, but this was as much as he could allow himself to reminisce in one time. “Well, let’s go see if Yukito’s put everything away so we can leave,” he stated, his voice even and steady. “I hope you don’t mind walking, Watanuki-kun, because there’s a lot to see around here”.

Watanuki shook his head with a small smile. “No, not at all”.

His eyes lingered only a second more on the photos before following Touya into the other room, catching the sight of a slightly older Sakura embracing an older Shaoran.

They did look happy there, in that frozen moment stolen from time.

He hoped his parents had been that happy once, too.

Chapter Text

Ripples of Fate

Chapter 03 – The Edge

“It’s not that she is a bad cook,” Watanuki found himself saying, looking down at the bento box he was holding with a cross expression. “It’s weird, you know. That woman knows how to cook. I was afraid she’d be the kind who washes rice with detergent, but… no, she can use a kitchen knife properly, and she can measure ingredients correctly, too…” he paused, and sighed. “She really doesn’t need to take cooking lessons from me at all”.

The stairs that led to the roof of the school were empty save for the three of them.

The day had started with a light rain, and Watanuki had accepted Yuuko’s offer and grabbed the umbrella that had been mended by the spirit owl, grateful he would not get wet.

Still, despite the warmth provided by the memory of sun shining around him, keeping him dry and safe from the rain, Watanuki had been in a weird mood up until lunch time, when he’d joined Doumeki and Himawari in their secluded corner to eat together.

The roof, usually perfect place to stay for a lot of people, was avoided by most students of the school for reasons that, if asked, they would be unable to explain; Watanuki knew why, of course –the amount of miasma he had to breathe when he got too close to the door leading outside was enough to keep him away too– but this wasn’t something he could tell anyone else aside for the two teens sitting with him.

Still, this meant that the stairs leading to the roof were a quiet corner to retreat to when their outside spot was not viable, such as during a downpour. It provided them with privacy, so that Watanuki could babble about spirits without anyone else overhearing.

This time, though, he was not complaining about that.

He’d had his first cooking lesson with that woman the previous day, something he’d been dreading, but things had gone better than expected, if not for a few details that still bothered him, but at least he thought that if he could share the story with Doumeki and Himawari, maybe he could feel a little better about it.

He hoped.

“Is that so,” Himawari looked confused, too. She’d been the one to ask Watanuki about the lesson, since she knew how on edge he’d been because of that, and the answer had left her baffled.

Tanpopo chimed in as well from his usual perch on her shoulder, looking just as cute as always.

“No, really –the hardest thing was to keep Mokona from eating all her food!” Watanuki sighed, feeling tired just at remembering that.

Mokona had been almost impossible to keep hidden away, and much to Watanuki’s embarrassment and annoyance, he had succeeded in eating at least a few things he hoped the woman wouldn’t notice went missing.

At least… and that he could admit, if only to himself, Mokona had indeed helped him feel a little less awkward and on edge about the cooking lesson.

In fact, it was just like when Yuuko had offered Watanuki to bring the Kudakitsune with him to meet Touya and Yukito –a way to make him feel safe while somewhere foreign.

Still, he had been unable to fully relax despite how polite and warm the woman had been, whereas at Touya’s house he had managed to relax and feel welcome.

“So what did you make?” Himawari asked, making Watanuki look up at her again.

“Since it was the first lesson, I thought to start with something easy,” he replied with a shrug. “We made these –potatoes with soy sauce and sugar”.

He grabbed a small container he’d kept aside from the bento boxes, and offered it to Himawari and Doumeki, who both eagerly picked from its contents –well, mostly Doumeki, really, who never hesitated when he had to stuff his mouth with food.

Though Watanuki couldn’t help but think about what Haruka had said –how Doumeki only ate things he trusted.

Himawari seemed interested, so he quickly told her the recipe, since it was, indeed, something easy to make.

“Ah, that’s amazing Watanuki!”

“No, not really, that’s really easy!” he replied, feeling embarrassed at her cheerful praise.

Her eyes widened then. “Oh, I just remembered… didn’t you go see Kinomoto-san too? We didn’t get to talk yesterday because I had a lot to do during lunchtime, but I really wanted to ask!”

Watanuki smiled warmly at that, the mention of Touya acting like a switch for his mood, and nodded eagerly, not noticing the sharp look Doumeki sent him, nor the way he paused in his methodically polishing his bento box.

“Yes! He was kind enough to prepare some food too, so we shared with the sandwiches I made while we visited the temple,” he started, looking really pleased. “And–”

He was interrupted by loud sound of a bell chiming, and Himawari’s face fell. “I’m sorry, I have to leave early, it’s my turn to be on class duty today… thanks for the food, Watanuki! Bye Doumeki!”

Watanuki waved at her, making sure to remind her they would go get some cake soon, and when she disappeared from sight he turned to look over at Doumeki, about to comment on his continuous munching when he noticed that Doumeki had stopped eating and was looking at him.

“Wh… what?” Watanuki hastily reached for his face, thinking he had some food there, but he couldn’t find anything. “What’s wrong Doumeki?”

“Who is Kinomoto?”

It was half a question half a demand, and Watanuki was taken aback by his tone, feeling annoyed before he realised that Doumeki was actually worried about him; and while he remained annoyed that Doumeki did not trust him to go anywhere on his own, he had to grudgingly admit he didn’t have a good record for safety either.

“He’s one of Yuuko’s customers,” Watanuki replied with a pout, looking to the side. “I was sent to his house to gather payment for his wish,” with every word he could see Doumeki’s mood darken, and Watanuki felt his own annoyance grow to match it. “Hey, you don’t have to look that displeased! I can go wherever I want, whenever I want!”

“Why didn’t you ask me to come with you?”

“There was no need for that, Yuuko said there would be no danger,” he replied with a shrug. “But Mugetsu came with me anyway, so I didn’t need you at all”.

Something shifted in Doumeki’s expression, and Watanuki had the feeling that he’d said something wrong again.

“Well, there was nothing to worry about, anyway,” he grumbled, wanting to dispel the uncomfortable aura. “He was really nice, and he invited me to go back to visit Asakusa’s temple since I said I’d like to see it…”

“So you went back,” Doumeki said, tone oddly blank.

“Yes, of course I did! I wanted to, he… he and Yukito-san are nice people,” Watanuki felt aggravated because he had to defend Touya to Doumeki, so that he wouldn’t think the worst about him. Just thinking about the two men made him smile a bit wistfully. “They have some power themselves, and they agreed to teach me about dream walking, too”.

He hadn’t meant to say that, but the words left his mouth anyway, and he quickly gasped and covered his lips, flustered.

He’d thought he would keep the news for himself, at least for a bit (he had no idea if he would be able to learn anything, after all) but since he had managed to gather the courage to ask, and both Touya and Yukito had looked more than happy to help him even when he’d asked so much… Watanuki had felt happy.

It was nice to be around the two, and he was glad they didn’t mind seeing him again.

In fact…

“There’s going to be a festival there this weekend, and they asked if I’d like to go with them,” he said, jutting his chin out and daring Doumeki to say anything. “I’ve… always wanted to see the Sanja Matsuri, so I’m going!”

Doumeki was glowering, Watanuki noted, and he wondered why he was taking it so personally when there was nothing to be worried about. He hadn’t seen creatures at all lately, nothing that would chase him around, nothing at all, so…

“You… you don’t have to worry,” he added, cheeks flushed at the forced admission. “I’m not going to be in any danger whatsoever”.

Doumeki snorted. “Dangers seem to find you whether you want them to or not,” he replied, and shoved some food in his mouth, munching on it with more force than necessary before shooting another glare at him. “When?”

“I’m… I’ll be going this Sunday!”

Doumeki was still looking at him, as if expecting something, but Watanuki had no idea what. If he thought he would suddenly change his mind, just because Doumeki didn’t want him to go, then he was sorely mistaken.

This was something Watanuki wanted to do for himself, so what?

“See if I make you inarizushi ever again,” he muttered under his breath, even though he knew perfectly well, as did Doumeki, that he would end up making inarizushi again for sure.

As a last attempt to veer the conversation away from this weird stall, and acutely uncomfortable under the fixed stare of Doumeki, Watanuki picked another small box he’d placed on the side and shoved it under Doumeki’s face.

He’d saved up a portion of potatoes that the woman had made, since they’d done enough between the two of them to fill up more than just a couple boxes, and had brought them over. Watanuki did not know what had made him uncomfortable about the woman in the first place, nor why he’d felt the need to bring the food with him and offer it to Doumeki, but after what Haruka had said, and after he cryptic words from Yuuko, Watanuki had felt an inexplicable need to see for himself.

“Here. Why don’t you try these potatoes too?”

In fact, that had been one of the things he’d wanted to do since the start of their lunch period. Watanuki watched Doumeki observe the food, then pick one small, round potato with his chopsticks and put it into his mouth.

He had expected… well, anything, really, but not… not Doumeki to stop chewing instantly, making a weird, disgruntled face.

“Eh? What’s wrong?” Watanuki took a step towards Doumeki, a sliver of worry inside his stomach.

For a moment, Doumeki did not answer, one hand covering his mouth. Then “these… did that woman make these?”

“Ah…? Yes, following my instructions. Since I had no idea of her actual skills, i made her do a slightly simplified version, but it’s based on my recipe so the taste shouldn’t differ much at all…” he looked up, frowning. “Why? Are they… do they taste bad?”

“… no”.

“Then what’s wrong? Usually one would have to fight you to get you to stop eating…”

Doumeki refused to answer though, and this, together with his already odd actions about Watanuki going to Asakusa, settled heavily on Watanuki’s shoulders.

Even talking with Yuuko afterwards did not help to shed any light on the situation, although it did make him happy to see her and Mokona eat the food he made with such gusto, and he was left pondering over Yuuko’s words for the rest of the day.

He had no idea what sort of ‘something else’ could there be in food, nor why that woman’s food had tasted different to Doumeki and not to Yuuko and Mokona.

And yet… in a way, while it was weird and confusing, the fact that of all people, Doumeki had decided that his food was good –that he enjoyed it in a way that he couldn’t with other people’s food…

Had he ever seen Doumeki eat store–bought food? He did not remember. He knew he drank things –not just alcohol with Yuuko, but in general. When they’d had the double date with the twin girls from the local college, he remembered Doumeki drinking. But whenever they went out with Himawari, he could not remember a time he’d seen Doumeki eat.

No cakes, no food –not even onigiri that were not made by Watanuki himself.

That was…

Well, both annoying and gratifying.

It did mean that Watanuki’s food was good, even with Doumeki’s horrendous table manners, and maybe Doumeki did recognise the something that existed in his dishes that the woman did not have. Now, he wouldn’t ask, not at all… but it still made him feel good. Since he could not taste anything himself, at least this way he knew that there was value in his food.

It was not until Watanuki was in his bed, with both Mokona and Mugetsu curled up at his side, already half asleep, that another thought hit him –if his food was, in a way, a window to his true self, the person he was that he could not remember being, did that mean that Doumeki’s appreciation for his food meant Doumeki liked him?

Well, Watanuki’s sleepy mind corrected, of course Doumeki liked him, or he wouldn’t be around him, right? They were friends, weren’t friends supposed to like each other…?

And with that fleeting thought, barely coherent, Watanuki fell asleep. He slept through the night, his sleep untouched by any visits, and when he woke up the next morning, he couldn’t quite remember what he’d been thinking, though he had the distinct feeling he had been thinking about Doumeki.

***

Sunday morning found Watanuki awake earlier than he was used to.

He had slept over at Yuuko’s again, despite his determination not to overstay his welcome –then again, nowadays he found it hard to remember ever going back to his cramped, empty apartment, not when Yuuko’s extra bedroom was starting to become his own– and in his excitement for the day, he had decided to cook as much as he could.

Mokona, disgruntled at having been shaken awake by an hyperactive, overly excited Watanuki, had dropped back into the blanket nest and dozed off instantly, while Mugetsu had followed Watanuki to the kitchen, trying and failing to be useful and only managing to get covered in flour and leave imprints on everything he touched, including first and foremost Watanuki’s face.

Watanuki hadn’t planned on making anything specific or special, and yet when he finally put together the bento boxes to bring with him, he found out much to his dismay that he’d prepared six of them; since Yukito ate two on his own, that left two extra ones that he did not remember even making.

Awakened by his rustling and cooking, Yuuko came to inspect his work, a knowing look in her eyes, and when she asked if those were her portion of his food, Watanuki shook his head and showed her where he’d put her food, that she would share with Mokona too.

“Just don’t drink too much sake with this, or it’ll alter its flavour,” he told her, knowing already it was a lost cause. “Still, I never made this much extra food before… that’s weird, I thought I calculated the portions correctly…”

Yuuko watched him mumble and check over the desserts for a moment more before leaving the kitchen.

“Well,” she murmured to herself with a pleased grin, her naked feet making no sound against the pavement, “your powers are growing again, Watanuki~”

She glanced out of the shop at the clear sky, satisfied to see that it would be such a good day, then retired inside to take a bath and get properly dressed.

“I’m off, Yuuko-san!”

Watanuki hurried out of the front door of the store, jumping around while putting on his shoes as he tried to balance all the food boxes. He had decided to bring the extras with him too, and with all the desserts, he wasn’t even sure if he would manage to carry everything to Asakusa.

As he turned the corner of the shop’s fence, he almost slammed into someone’s chest, and he backed away, a polite apology on his lips…

“D-Doumeki?!”

Doumeki was standing in front of him, looking bored and imposing as usual, and the two shared a long look as Watanuki’s brain rebooted itself.

“What the hell are you doing here?! I told you I was going to–”

“I’m coming,” Doumeki said, his tone final.

“Eeeh?!” Watanuki exploded on him, waving his arms and the bags around, the bento boxes carefully stacked inside rattling together. “How can you be this daft?! I was invited over, not you! You can’t presume to accompany me when nobody is even expecting you! Who the fuck do you think you are–”

Doumeki, motions familiar and practiced, brought one finger to his ear and looked away, only returning to focus on Watanuki when he noticed him calming down a bit.

“I wanted to come,” he reiterated, which only sent Watanuki into another angry, loud rant. In order to make him stop, Doumeki focused on another subject. “Did you make inarizushi?”

Watanuki opened his mouth to curse at him again and reply that no, of course he hadn’t made that stupid dish, since Doumeki was not the receiver of his lunch today, then shut it so quickly his teeth clacked together painfully.

He did actually prepare inarizushi, yeah. And not just that, but a few more dishes that thinking back, happened to be some of Doumeki’s favourites.

Again he opened his mouth to curse Doumeki’s presence to hell and claim that it was just a coincidence for him to have prepared that, and once again he couldn’t speak at all. Obviously, even for this sort of thing, it couldn’t be just a coincidence now, could it? Yuuko had truly conditioned him well.

Had Watanuki known, somehow, that Doumeki would come too, inviting himself over like the rudest, most annoying person in the world?

No, he couldn’t have known at all, and yet… and yet, the extra bento boxes, filled with Doumeki’s favourites, were carefully stashed inside his bag and Doumeki had no intention to leave at all.

Oh, he knew him and his stupid stubborn ass –he would not go back on his decision and would just follow Watanuki around, whether he wanted him to or not.

With nothing else to do, Watanuki deflated.

“You carry these!” he ordered, shoving the bag into Doumeki’s waiting hands. “Just do your part and keep your trap shut! Let me do the talking and maybe Touya-san will not see you for the rude oaf you are!”

Doumeki simply hummed, holding the boxes like they did not weight a single ounce, and contented himself with following Watanuki to the nearby metro stop.

During the whole trip to Asakusa, the two did not speak, though Watanuki kept stealing glances at him every few minutes, unable to be truly annoyed at Doumeki butting in.

He knew that Doumeki was worried, but his way of showing it was far too brash, and even when Watanuki had assured him there would be no danger, Doumeki had still wanted to make sure.

Still, it wouldn’t do to let this ruin the day, and he hoped Touya and Yukito would not be bothered by the addition of a fourth party for the day.

They left the metro and exited the station, Watanuki looking around with wide eyes as there were already far more people around even this far from the temple, and Doumeki stepped at his side, perhaps a little closer than he would have liked, eyes scanning their surroundings.

Watanuki took notice of a few dense concentrations of smoke surrounding some of the passers-by; he’d gotten used to seeing them every now and then while groceries shopping, or during some errand for Yuuko, but if there was going to be a matsuri festival, there might be more around of those, and their smell was still far too disgusting for Watanuki.

“Watanuki-kun! Here!”

Watanuki turned around, his small frown melting into a happy smile as he saw Yukito waving at him from the other side of the street. He waved back enthusiastically, and hurried over there with Doumeki at his heels.

“Yukito-san, I had no idea you would be waiting for me here!”

“Touya got worried because there’s a lot of people this early on,” Yukito replied with a small smile. “So he sent me here to act as a mighty guardian of sorts, if you don’t mind!”

Watanuki chuckled at that, then he was reminded of Doumeki’s presence at his side when he felt him stiffen. “Ah… Yukito-san, this is Doumeki Shizuka, he decided to come with me to the matsuri, I hope you won’t mind him tagging along?”

Yukito turned towards Doumeki, and the two exchanged small bows. “Not at all! The more, the merrier! Nice to meet you Doumeki-kun. Watanuki-kun has told us a lot about you, so it’s nice to put a face next to a name…”

Doumeki glanced over at Watanuki, obviously wondering what Watanuki had said about him, and Watanuki felt his face grow hot, so he looked away, distinctly embarrassed.

Yukito looked at them and smiled, then pointed to the right, “Touya’s waiting for us near the Kaminarimon, so follow me!”

If Yukito noticed how Doumeki’s pace kept him at Watanuki’s side all the time as they travelled through the busy streets of Asakusa, he did not comment on it. He did notice that Doumeki at one point covered one eye with a hand and stared at him, and did not remove his hand even when Yukito turned around to look at him quizzically, not until Watanuki elbowed him hard in the side and turned towards Yukito with a sheepish smile.

“Haha, ah, don’t mind him! Just… one moment ok?” he tugged Doumeki back a couple steps, just enough that Yukito wouldn’t overhear them. “What do you think you’re doing?! He’s not a spirit!”

Doumeki did not answer him, but he did lower his hand. “What did you tell them about me?” he asked instead, tilting his head to the side.

“Nothing good!” Watanuki reacted as expected, taking a couple steps away from Doumeki and pointing one finger at him. “That you keep demanding food from me and that you’re an irritating oaf!”

“Hmm”.

“Don’t hmm me!”

Despite this sudden stop, the three managed to reach the Kaminarimon without much fuss, and Watanuki was left amazed by the sea of people already packed there.

A lot of people were tourists, but the amount of Japanese people was still astounding, for someone like Watanuki who lived in a less crowded area. Asakusa truly was a busy district all year long…

It was worse closer to the temple, but there were a lot of small clusters of smoke around, and Watanuki squirmed a little closer to Doumeki whenever one passed by too close, throat constricting at the putrid smell of ‘bad habit’. Doumeki kept his eyes trained around, fingers itching for a bow he did not have, and for a moment he regretted his choice to leave it at home.

“Touya! We’re here!” Yukito waved one arm towards the huge entrance of the temple, and Touya walked quickly towards them, a disgruntled expression on his face.

“There’s a lot of spirits hovering nearby the temple grounds,” he muttered as an explanation when Yukito and Watanuki were close enough to hear him over the excited chatting of the surrounding people. “It’s always like this every year, but maybe it is not a good idea to–” his eyes fell on Doumeki, then on how close he was standing to Watanuki, and the grimace became more pronounced. “Who are you?”

“Doumeki Shizuka,” Doumeki bowed politely, introducing himself this time, and Watanuki grunted at him. “I will be joining you for the day”.

Touya’s frown did not ease even after the presentations, and Doumeki straightened his back, meeting Touya’s eyes squarely. The two seemed to stare each other down for a long moment, while Watanuki’s eyes moved from one to another with growing worry.

Yukito turned towards Watanuki with a cheerful smile that contrasted with Touya’s frown. “Say, Watanuki-kun, they’re selling small charms nearby, do you want to buy one for your friend Kunogi-kun?”

“Ah! Y-yes, but…”

“Let’s go before even more people arrive, or we won’t get to buy one!” Yukito took Watanuki’s elbow and lead him away from Touya and Doumeki, who still did not look away from one another.

“But Yukito-san, why–”

Yukito offered Watanuki a small, secretive smile. “I’m sorry you’ve been caught up like this, but since you’ve told Touya about your problems with spirits, he’s been a bit worried, so…”

“Oh, but he shouldn’t worry about Doumeki! That guy might be an irritating oaf but…” Watanuki looked away from Yukito, and brought one hand up to his eye. “He’s not a bad person at all”.

Sensing there was something that Watanuki was still not feeling comfortable enough sharing, Yukito backed down a bit, and pointed at the stand with the charms. “Let’s just buy a charm, then we can go back to those two, hmm?”

Watanuki nodded with grateful smile.

Touya waited until he was sure that Watanuki was far enough that he wouldn’t hear, then he stepped closer to Doumeki. “I can sense spiritual powers from you,” he stated without inflection.

“Purifying powers, just like my grandfather,” Doumeki confirmed with a curt nod. He had yet to look away from the man, not at all intimidated.

“Can you see spirits?”

Doumeki shrugged. “Only with this eye,” he pointed at the eye he shared with Watanuki, but did not elaborate at Touya’s confused stare. “It’s enough”.

Touya’s eyes narrowed a bit, but then he nodded, apparently accepting the answer for what it was. “Did you think I was a spirit?”

Doumeki brought his hand up to cover that eye, deliberately doing it slowly, and stared at Touya for a long time before removing the hand again. “Now I don’t,” he replied. A pause, then “You want to teach him to walk through dreams”.

Touya was taken aback, not having expected Watanuki to share the news with anyone yet, but saw no reason to hide it, especially since Doumeki seemed to know already. “He asked us to. I have no plans to hurt Watanuki-kun,” he said. “Yuuko-san wouldn’t have allowed him to come this often otherwise”.

Doumeki did not say anything, but he acknowledged Touya’s words by relaxing slightly.

Touya opened his mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by Watanuki hurrying past him to go back at Doumeki’s side, who stared at him with a knowing look.

“Oh, shut it,” Watanuki muttered, glancing around at the crowd with a pout. “It was just someone’s ‘bad habit’, nothing dangerous!”

Doumeki made a small noise under his breath. “Did you get the charm?”

“Yeah, I did!” Watanuki smiled and pocketed a small package. “The cutest charm for the cutest girl~”

Yukito and Touya shared a look, Yukito smiling as he grabbed Touya’s arm. “If we don’t move now, there will be far too much crowd to see the procession,” he chided. “And there’s still a lot to see!”

Watanuki found himself walking in front of Touya and Yukito, always with Doumeki at his side, looking around with wide, curious eyes.

There was just so much to see, between the new stands erected specifically for the Sanja Matsuri and the tourists and people from all over coming to watch the parades, Watanuki had his hands full with things to look out for.

Yes, as he had expected, a lot of people around him had ‘bad habits’, but as he had Doumeki clinging to his side like a sticky piece of nori seaweed, he did not have much to worry about them.

As for spirits… yes, there were a lot, just as Touya had said.

Most of them were things Watanuki had no words to describe –some were attached to people, vague translucent silhouettes fading away in the sunlight, while others were spirits like he was used to seeing, though he did not know any of them.

The temple had enough pure aura to dispel most dark creatures, as he could see that some of the spirits vanished the closer they got to the temple grounds or were repelled if they tried to go that way, while others did not seem to have any problem passing from one side to the other. He wanted to know more about them, fascinated at the differences, but Yuuko was not around, and he felt a little too self-conscious to ask Touya instead.

It was a different sort of situation from what he was used to see –Watanuki usually ran from spirits, and definitely did not openly stare at them (with so many people, even his curiosity wouldn’t be noticed, so he felt free to gawk without shame)– so he found himself approaching this in a new way.

Spirits usually were things to be wary of, some were scary, some were just annoying, a few friendly but overall most of them were confusing and weird. Watanuki had always disliked them until he had started to meet some good ones (the Zashiki Warashi, and Mugetsu, and the Oden kitsune family, and even Ame Warashi despite how disgruntled she always was around him), but he couldn’t help the fascination he felt for this world he was starting to see in a different way.

Yes, spirits were still attracted to him, but lacking the dangerous, annoying blobs of darkness and smoke that had plagued him since he could remember, he was less scared of things he couldn’t understand.

Maybe it was a bit Yuuko’s fault, because at her side he’d always approached the unknown with less wariness, but he found himself less intimidated by the many spirits than he would otherwise be.

He was approaching that world as a human who had the ability to see it, and for a moment he forgot everything about the bad sides of having these powers –all the people surrounding him, except for the three he was with, had no notion whatsoever that between them were spirits, creatures who shared their space without sharing their world. This was a new perspective he had.

“Can you see them?” he leaned a bit towards Doumeki, lowering his voice. “There’s a lot of them around”.

Doumeki glanced at him, then covered his eye with one hand.

He was not sure if he would be able to, because he could only see things if Watanuki felt a strong rush of emotions, but he focused on a spot Watanuki was subtly pointing at him, and he found himself staring at a small, sturdy spirit with a shaved head and elongated ears.

Doumeki had long since gotten used to seeing weird things, being around Watanuki so often, but it was always a novelty to be able to see things such as spirits just like this.

“Yeah”.

He inched closer to Watanuki, who let out a snort.

“I’m not afraid,” he said, and he meant it. “The temple keeps the darker ones at bay, and your aura is enough to do the same for the ‘bad habits’, so I can relax”.

The comment was offered with such easiness that Doumeki blinked in surprise. Just to get Watanuki to admit that Doumeki was useful for something was a hardship, and it would be accompanied by words of denial or excuses to diminish his worth right away, because that was what Watanuki did whenever Doumeki helped with something.

It was a familiar routine.

This change was unexpected.

The only time Watanuki had acknowledged Doumeki’s help was after they had returned from the TV program station with Kohane. Even then, Watanuki had acted like Doumeki’s presence was something he could count on, but the way he’d mentioned it had irked Doumeki in ways he could not explain. It was like he’d been cheated out of something, Watanuki’s matter-of-fact tone and plain look ruined by his weird mood, by how introspective and… separate from reality he had looked then.

Doumeki hadn’t liked to see him like this.

This Watanuki though… he was not like that. He looked more alive than Doumeki had seen him, aside for his bouts of ranting and flailing around. He looked more present, which made all the difference to Doumeki.

“Did you hit your head too hard when you bumped on me this morning?” he asked.

“What are you–” Watanuki glared at him, feeling offended, then elbowed him until Doumeki inched away from him. “If you think I’ll let you come anywhere with me ever again you’re sorely mistaken!”

“I’ll just come,” Doumeki replied, and even though he did not smirk, there was an amused tinge to his voice that said it all.

Yukito chuckled at their squabbling, and when Watanuki turned to look at him, still frowning, he waved one hand. “You two are really good friends,” he said, eyes sparkling with amusement.

“Ah… uhm, y-yeah,” Watanuki turned around and hurried ahead, passing by a small crowd of people who were slowly undressing to reveal extensive, colourful tattoos on their bodies.

Watanuki paled a bit and kept walking, almost choking on the dark, thick smoke surrounding them.

Doumeki looked back at Yukito, who was beaming at him, then at a frowning Touya, then at Watanuki’s retreating back, and quickly made his way to follow him, puzzling over his sudden entrance into some sort of parallel world where things stopped making sense.

“It feels like when Sakura brought back that kid from Hong Kong all over again,” Touya muttered to Yukito, scuffing against the ground with his shoes.

“So you feel twenty years younger and ready to pick a fight with someone over half your age once again?”

Touya sent him a glare, but did not protest when Yukito intertwined their hands together, tugging him along so he would follow Watanuki and Doumeki through the crowded street.

“C’mon, you grumpy ol’ uncle,” Yukito nudged him with an elbow. “Or the younglings will get lost in the crowd”.

Touya smiled a bit, and they hurried past the yakuza members getting ready to join one of the main parades.

***

They spent a few hours just aimlessly walking through the shops and the stands in the area surrounding the temple, catching a few groups getting ready to try and join the parades, until Yukito’s stomach grumbled and they sat down to eat Watanuki’s meal.

The streets were by then so full of people that they had to retire away from the temple and into one of the side streets just to find a nice place to sit down, and even there they had a hard time finding a spot with nobody in it.

A few policemen regarded them with boredom written all over their faces but did not bother them, though Watanuki kept glancing at them and fidgeting.

Their moment of rest didn’t last long, since there was still a lot to see.

One of the mikoshi that were being brought around since earlier in the morning happened to pass by them as they were browsing some of the souvenir stands, trying to keep away from the crowd, and Watanuki’s eyes were wide as he watched the procession happen in front of him.

People kept pushing and shoving the big temple reproduction down the road, while some of the men he’d seen undressing before were standing on top of the poles people were using to drag the mikoshi around, proudly displaying their tattoo-covered bodies for everybody to see.

Watanuki had to back away from them as the mikoshi approached, bumping into more than one person as he did so, because the dense, dark smoke surrounding the man in front of the mikoshi was too overpowering for him, but thankfully that did not detract from the sight.

Doumeki quietly placed himself in front of Watanuki, not enough to cover his sight but enough to keep even the smoke at bay, for which Watanuki sent him a grateful look while covering his mouth with one hand.

“It bothers you a lot, doesn’t it?” Touya leaned down, trying to make himself heard above the commotion and the yells as the mikoshi passed by.

“Ah–”

“My powers are not strong enough that I can see everything you can,” there was almost an edge of regret in Touya’s voice, and Watanuki wondered why. “Sakura was… the same as you. her powers grew stronger with time, At first she could not see spirits or other creatures, while I could, but afterwards she could sense a lot of things I couldn’t”.

Watanuki found his attention move away from the mikoshi to Touya, surprised that he would talk to him about her like this but grateful at the same time.

“Shaoran was the one who taught her to control what she could sense,” Touya continued. “Since my powers were pretty stable, I had no need to learn, but I might be able to remember a few pointers that might help you block out things you do not want to sense”.

“What? So… there is a way for me not to be bothered by that?” Watanuki now fully turned towards him as the mikoshi slowly made its way down the road and the men carrying it turned the corner. “But Yuuko-san…”

“It’s probable Yuuko-san would have taught you that too,” Yukito smiled down at Watanuki, “but I think she was waiting until your powers were more stable”.

“Stable?” Watanuki turned from one man to the other, confused.

“Your powers are greater than mine and you are still young, so it’s probable they will keep growing with time,” Yukito replied. “I can feel them a little, which is why I can say that, but by the stories you told us, you weren’t capable of controlling them before, right?”

Well, that somehow made sense to Watanuki.

He had been seeing creatures long before meeting Yuuko, but as he slowly grew to realise there was something else wrong with him, and as he slowly decided to cling to his existence, Watanuki hadn’t seen those creatures anymore, but he’d seen other things that he had never been able to before.

With his erratic behaviour and powers attracting creatures, Watanuki wouldn’t have had a chance to block things out, but now… maybe now he did?

Would Yuuko tell him, or was she waiting for him to realise and ask it himself first? But Touya was offering, and Watanuki was actually happy to accept, this time.

“Well, I wouldn’t mind if you could help, yeah–”

“Of course, if your bodyguard doesn’t mind,” Yukito glanced up to where Doumeki was hovering, arms crossed on his chest, and smiled at him, receiving a blank look from him and an incensed one from Watanuki.

“He’s not my bodyguard!”

Doumeki snorted. “I do tend to–”

“If you value the bento boxes I make you every day you will not complete that phrase!”

Doumeki rolled his eyes, deciding not to bother with it.

Once the mikoshi was well out of sight, and the crowd had stopped acting up and pushing closer to watch it, Touya pushed Yukito and Watanuki down a side street, so they could pass through to the next main road, hoping to see another one of the mikoshi pass by before it was too late.

“Oh, isn’t it you, kid? Watanuki-dono!”

Watanuki blinked and stopped, twisting his head around to see who’d just called out his name.

The side street was full of people and most of them were minding their own business, but he could see nobody looking at him.

“Up here, kid!”

Watanuki looked up, and was met with the familiar sight of the owl spirit, Kyomaro, sitting comfortably on top of the fence of a shop, his bag of umbrellas around his neck. “Kyomaro-san! What’s up with the ‘dono’…?”

“You’re a customer, kid, it’s only proper to address a customer with their name,” the owl shook his head and fluffed up the feathers around his neck. “Here to watch the matsuri?”

“Yes! I…” Watanuki looked around, but as he had expected, nobody was even looking at him, except for Doumeki, Touya and Yukito. He waved them over, embarrassed. “Ah, sorry! Touya-san, Yukito-san, Doumeki, this is Kyomaro-san, an umbrella mender”.

Touya and Yukito exchanged a perplexed look, then both bowed, while Doumeki simply moved closer to Watanuki, eyes widening a bit as he took in the sight of the owl spirit.

“Is the umbrella working fine for you, kid?” apparently used to the staring, the spirit turned to look at Watanuki.

“Yes! It still works perfectly!” Watanuki smiled, then hastily shuffled his bags until he found the bag of desserts he’d packed before, which was still mostly full. “Do you want one? I made a lot and we wouldn’t be able to finish them all…”

While Watanuki and the spirit named Kyomaro chatted happily, apparently uncaring about the sight they made, Touya and Yukito glanced around, surprised to see that nobody in the surrounding area was paying them any attention.

It was weird –they could feel there was no barrier of any sort to prevent people from taking notice of a high school teen talking to thin air– but it looked like no one saw anything weird. In fact, Touya noticed with growing alarm, a person walked right by Watanuki, and while his eyes moved both sides, he did not look alarmed –he actually didn’t look like he’d seen anything weird at all.

“Why…” Touya started, but Yukito elbowed him.

They both turned to look at Doumeki, who was staring straight at Watanuki, hands clenched into fists at his side and a darkened expression on his face.

“Doumeki-kun…?”

“Is it just because of your powers that you can see him…?” Doumeki’s question surprised them, and Touya felt some annoyance at that.

“The spirit–” he started, but Doumeki shook his head, making him stop. Still Doumeki said nothing afterwards, making Touya’s annoyance grow some more, but they had no time to say anything because with a wave, Watanuki said his goodbyes to the owl spirit and turned around to look at them.

“Kyomaro-san said he came here to harvest some memories from the shrine today,” he told the three, not noticing the shift in mood. “He suggested for us to go get an omikuji since today is a particularly good day to get one… something about… is there something wrong?”

“No, it’s just…” Yukito looked at the retreating spirit, then back at Watanuki. “Weren’t you worried about being seen talking to…?”

It took Watanuki a second to realise what Yukito meant, and his reaction to the question wasn’t what the three were expecting at all. “Oh, that… no, not really,” he smiled wistfully, for a moment looking so distant that Touya felt his heart constrict painfully, and stepped forwards without even realising it, one hand coming up to ruffle Watanuki’s hair before he could stop himself.

“Well, that spirit suggested to draw a fortune, right? Then let’s go,” Touya recovered from his slip-up by quickly walking down the sidewalk and glancing back at them. “We can avoid the crowds if we go down this way”.

Yukito hurried to follow him, glancing back at Watanuki for a moment, and Doumeki silently reached Watanuki’s side. Watanuki almost expected Doumeki to say something –he had noticed he looked tense– but instead what Doumeki asked was, “Is that the one who fixed your umbrella?”

“Yeah,” Watanuki and Doumeki hurried across the street to reach Touya and Yukito. “Doumeki…”

“Is there dessert left?”

“Oi! Of course there’s dessert left! What kind of question is it? You overgrown bottomless pit–”

It was easier to get Watanuki angry than it was to get answers out of him –and it made him lose that distant, aloof air. Doumeki did not like to see him like that. It reminded him too much of how sometimes Watanuki looked like he would disappear if Doumeki happened to look away.

It made Doumeki not want to look away, either.

There was a small line of people in front of the dispensers of omikuji, and by the time they managed to get to the front, there was a small crowd of teens standing close by, inspecting their fortunes while clamouring and chatting loudly. While Touya inserted two 100 yen coins in the slot, shaking the box to get a number stick and holding it out for Yukito to do the same, Watanuki idly looked around, instantly stiffening when he noticed a faint curl of smoke surrounding one of the girls closest to him.

He didn’t want to be too obvious as he squirmed away, so he tried to focus on something else instead of the smell, hoping they would get away from the teens soon enough.

“You shouldn’t have done that, Ruko-chan,” he heard one of the girls say in a hushed done, though they were all giggling. “Didn’t you know it’s bad to put the fortune back and pick another?”

“Waa~? But I wanted a daikichi, not a hankichi one!” the girl with the smoke surrounding her neck spoke up. “It’s not like these things are real anyway, but I just wanted a good one to bring home!”

“Watanuki-kun, it’s your turn,” Yukito called out, and Watanuki hurried forwards, shuffling through his pockets for a coin but unable to find it. Doumeki reached out from behind him and slid one inside the offering slot instead, and Watanuki glowered at him a bit.

“I had one,” he muttered, still unable to find it.

He shook the box and picked a number, then checked the corresponding drawer in front of him and opened it. There were many rolled up fortunes to pick, so he just grabbed the top one and closed the drawer, opening it to reveal a suekichi –a future blessing.

“Oh, you got a good one,” Yukito peeked from above his shoulders.

“It says I’m going to be lucky with my love life,” Watanuki read out loud, “And that luck will be with me in form of Sakura flowers”.

The fortune paper then went into further detail about things, but Watanuki shoved it in his pocket, deciding to read it fully while on the train back home. As he did that, his fingers found the coin he’d been searching earlier, so he took it out with a triumphant cry. “There it is! Here, Doumeki! I don’t want to be indebted to you!”

He hurried forwards and slid his coin into the slot, smirking at Doumeki, who simply shrugged and shook the box before picking his own drawer.

The moment Doumeki opened it, Watanuki felt a sudden chill, and shivered, looking around. He’d felt something, but he didn’t really know what. Was it a spirit? But this close to the temple it shouldn’t be possible…

“Ah,” Doumeki had unrolled his fortune, and it was suekyou –a future curse.

“Haha, now that’s unlucky!” gloating a bit because for the first time since ever, Watanuki had gotten something lucky while Doumeki hadn’t, Watanuki nudged him in the shoulder with such a smirk that Doumeki turned around and stared him down. “Don’t find yourself trapped within false roads… huh?” Watanuki shook his head. “That doesn’t make much sense…”

“Hmm”.

“Can’t you say anything else? I bet you’d like to have my lucky one now~” Watanuki waved one hand in front of his face. “But no, I’m going to keep that one!”

“Good,” Doumeki said, looking serious and making Watanuki look at him. “Keep it with you”.

Then, ignoring Watanuki’s confused ‘huh?’, he turned around and walked away from the fortune dispenser, reaching the wall where people tied their bad fortunes, and quickly placed his own there as well, making sure it was secure before returning to the others.

“Well, that’s done,” Yukito patted Touya’s shoulder, being the only one to notice Touya’s growing glower, “There’s still some time before you two have to go back, so how about we have another round at the stands out there?”

As they walked away from the crowded steps of the temple, Watanuki couldn’t help but glance back a few times, the weird feeling following him for a long while, until it finally grew fainter as he left the temple grounds and was pushed back into the crowd of people watching the parade of another mikoshi.

Still, it took him a while to relax again, and if he kept closer to Doumeki, neither of them mentioned it.

***

It was later in the afternoon when Watanuki and Doumeki had to leave and walked back to the metro line, with Touya and Yukito in tow.

All the food gone, Doumeki was now carrying just the empty boxes, while Watanuki had on him a few goods he’d bought as a gift for both Himawari and Yuuko tucked away in a bag, which he knew they would enjoy.

“Thank you for inviting me today,” Watanuki looked up at Touya and Yukito with a smile, then elbowed Doumeki, who bowed.

“Thank you for having me today,” Doumeki parroted, keeping his voice blank as he stared specifically at Touya.

Watanuki rolled his eyes. “Still, I had fun today, I’ve never seen so many people together ever!”

“Watanuki-kun, that reminds me… shouldn’t you buy the ticket now? There’s a lot of people waiting in the station too, if you wait too long you might miss the train back,” Yukito touched Touya’s arm and then led the teen to the ticket machine, leaving Doumeki alone with Touya once again, while Watanuki glared over at Doumeki hoping to convey to him ‘be nice’ without speaking.

Touya sighed as he watched Yukito and Watanuki leave, but when he turned around to stare at Doumeki, he found the kid looking at him with such a penetrant gaze that it made him uncomfortable, even if he was the adult one.

“Did anyone ever tell you not to stare all the time?” he grunted out, and Doumeki did not reply, but he did look away, eyes seeking Watanuki and Yukito as they waited in line to buy the tickets. “What did you mean before?”

He did not have to specify, since Doumeki knew exactly what he was talking about.

“Sometimes…” Doumeki looked uncomfortable, and for the first time he did look his age. “Sometimes people don’t seem to notice him”.

Touya did not reply to that. It could have meant anything, really, but he felt instantly chilled to the bone. He waited for Doumeki to continue.

“Lately, I have been accompanying him when he goes to buy groceries. I’ve seen the way he stands in front of the cashier, waiting. There are times he waits for a long time before one takes notice he’s there, even if…” Doumeki paused, as if his words physically hurt him “even if they were looking his way all the while”.

Touya swallowed. That was not what he’d expected to hear.

Doumeki did not add about the things he had noticed while they were at the TV Program station, how the guards had bypassed Watanuki to focus only on Doumeki. How that hadn’t been the only time he had noticed it.

“He acts like he expects it,” he said instead, looking angry, “like it doesn’t bother him”.

“But it does,” Touya murmured. “Was that why you asked whether it was my powers that made me able to see him?”

Doumeki shook his head. “I don’t know,” but he really meant ‘I don’t know why he wants to be around you’ though he did not say that.

Touya brushed one hand through his hair. He looked over at Yukito, and his eyes softened as he watched him talk with Watanuki. They were both smiling. “I do not mean any harm to him”.

Doumeki followed his gaze, and for a moment, neither spoke. Then, without looking away from Watanuki, “What did you ask to that woman?”

Touya snorted. “That’s a personal question to ask,” he said with a small sneer, then he turned serious. “I was… searching for a person”.

Doumeki hummed, but said nothing more. Touya wondered how much was too much, and how keen was that kid, who barely spoke and who kept a blank expression most of the time. He sighed, and rubbed his temples.

“Listen,” he said. This was not his sort of thing, not really. Yukito would say it better than he ever could, and without all the reluctance either… but Yukito was with Watanuki, and he could not switch positions with him. “We’re on the same side here. There isn’t much I can say when I appeared without warning and you have no reassurances whatsoever about why I decided to stick around but… if there is one thing you can believe, is that I have every intention to keep that kid here, no matter what”.

Doumeki looked back at him, eyes narrowed and contemplative, one hand slipping inside a pocket of his vest; Touya had no idea what he was doing, but Doumeki was clutching the egg Yuuko had given him, knuckles white around it. He didn’t even know what it was, or why he’d been given it, or whether he would have to use it, or what for, but it was the one thing that even Kohane had noticed –something that he could use for Watanuki. And until he had the answers to all those questions he would cling to that egg and keep it on him all the time, just in case.

A reminder, maybe, that somewhere along the line, he’d gotten far too invested, and did not want to back down anymore.

“Is there anything you can say?” he asked instead.

Touya stared at him, at his stance, and Doumeki fought the urge to look away, because for a moment he felt this man –this incognita, someone who had appeared one day, gotten close enough to Watanuki to invite him over more than once, someone who had power– was looking right through him, and reading more than Doumeki wanted him to. Instead he kept himself still, and did not look down.

“I knew someone who was like him, you know”.

Doumeki fought the urge to stiffen as Touya’s tone changed, turning into something softer, and it reminded Doumeki of the way his mother spoke about her own mother, who was no longer with them.

“She thought she was so good at keeping things hidden, as if by keeping her worries to herself she could keep others from worrying, but… she just didn’t see that all she did was make us more worried,” Touya shook his head. “I did the wrong thing –I waited. I thought she would notice, that she was just taking longer to realise we were all waiting for her to open up instead of confronting her about her silences. I cared for her, and did not want to push her into opening up if she was not ready. I thought being patient, showing her we were there for her, would be enough”.

Touya breathed deeply, looking at Watanuki but seeing someone else –his little sister as she had been before Shaoran had appeared in their lives. There had always been something up with her, both Touya and his father had noticed, and even Yukito, but none had said a thing. They had respected Sakura’s space, hoping that she would one day explain why there was so much sadness in her eyes. Why she kept looking into the distance, waiting for something that did not come.

When she’d brought Shaoran back, things had changed –Touya had hoped she would open up to him then, finally tell him what made her smile so sad. He wanted to help, but he had waited still. He’d believed she would tell.

And then things had happened so quickly afterwards –her marriage to Shaoran, and then the birth of their first child. Sakura and Shaoran had worked hard into teaching their little kid about his heritage on both sides of the family.

Touya had still waited, because he had felt that something was up, and he’d hoped then that Sakura would tell him. That she would trust her big brother at least with that.

And by then, it had been too late. Before he knew it, Sakura and Shaoran were gone. His nephew was gone. She had failed to see that by waiting, she’d effectively kept them away, and Touya had been wrong too.

He should have talked to her. Made her aware that he knew something was up, and then allowed her to decide what to tell him… but he’d waited for her to make the first move, and that had been a mistake.

Sakura had never noticed that they knew something was up, and that they were waiting for her to open up to them. So nothing had been done by either side. And now it was far too late for regrets.

What she had been keeping hidden from them had to be revealed by another Sakura through the mouth of Yue, so that Touya could finally have at least what little closure he could.

“Watanuki is like her,” Touya continued, and looked back at Doumeki, trying to convey the right message. “He hasn’t noticed yet. He might know there’s people around him who care for him, but he hasn’t realised that he has to reach out too. And just like her, he will not notice unless someone speaks up. I was unable to do so with her, and I can’t… it is not my place to do so with him, even when I notice something is wrong, with the way he keeps things to himself”.

And it hurt to admit, because all Touya wanted was to be that person. He wanted to make up for his mistake with Sakura, and help Watanuki who was going through the same thing.

But Watanuki did not trust him the way he trusted his friend, Doumeki. Only someone like Doumeki could reach out to Watanuki now. Touya could be there, he could do his part and make a place for himself and Yukito in Watanuki’s life, but Doumeki was the only one who could confront him at the same level. Touya could have done so with Sakura, but hadn’t.

Doumeki was the one who could do it with Watanuki, if he didn’t make the same mistake of Touya.

Touya did not know that, but he was not the only one who had noticed this –Doumeki’s grandfather had seen the bond his grandkid and Watanuki shared, and he’d chosen to be seen by Watanuki with an appearance closer to Doumeki’s because of this. He had been able to save Watanuki for this same reason, too.

Doumeki inhaled sharply, and looked down, his hand still clutching the egg in his pocket. His other hand was closed in a fist and was shaking slightly as he took in Touya’s words and understood them.

Neither said a word after that, but there was a weird sort of understanding growing between them that was stronger than any words could be.

On the other side of the street, Watanuki peeked at the two that were waiting for him and Yukito to come back and sighed.

“Yukito-san…?” he started, sliding the money inside the machine and waiting for the options to appear on the display.

“Hmm? What is it, Watanuki-kun?” Yukito looked down at him, polite and smiling, and Watanuki looked away.

“Thank you for inviting me to the matsuri,” Watanuki didn’t look away from the ticket dispenser so he would not see Yukito’s face. “You’ve spent the whole day minding me and Doumeki when you could have had some time for yourselves, so… thank you. I had fun today”.

Yukito grabbed the tickets from the machine before Watanuki could, holding them out of his reach so Watanuki had to turn around to look at him.

“I know usually it’s Touya saying this, but it was no problem at all, Watanuki-kun,” Yukito offered Watanuki his tickets with a smile so warm Watanuki couldn’t not return it. “Touya and I, we truly do not mind having you around. We… ever since Sakura and Shaoran…” Yukito paused, feeling the pressure of magic on his throat, and swallowed. Watanuki took that for grief, and winced. “Well. It’s been just the two of us, for a long while after that,” Yukito continued. “Having you around makes Touya look happier than he’s been in a long while, and I am not about to say it’s just him. You’re a nice kid, Watanuki-kun, and we enjoy spending time with you, and if we can help you learn something… well, that knowledge is made to be shared by others who live within this kind of world. Please consider this an invitation to come see us anytime you want, and if we can come visit you too, that would be nice too, no need to make sure of this every time, ok?”

Watanuki’s cheeks were a bit red, both in embarrassment and happiness, and he nodded, meeting Yukito’s eyes. “Yes, I understand,” he floundered a bit with the tickets, then glanced over at Touya and Doumeki. “Uh, is it ok if… maybe Doumeki will butt in– I mean, maybe he might want to come next time too, is that ok or–”

“Your friends are always welcome, especially those you seem to mention so often,” Yukito’s smile was blinding, and Watanuki covered his face to try and hide his fluster.

“Yeah, thank you”.

“Now let’s go back before they start a competition or something,” Yukito nudged him, and Watanuki jerked up.

“Wha– why… Doumeki wouldn’t–”

“I know Touya,” Yukito winked, “and those two can be pretty similar, don’t you think so too?”

“Ah? That oaf and Touya-san?” Watanuki shook his head. “Impossible!”

Yukito’s smile seemed to reach his ears then “oh, but that’s because I didn’t tell you of that time he and Shaoran had a competition during a matsuri… they ended up trying to beat each other at four different games while Sakura tried so hard to make them stop…”

“Eh? Really? Why did they do that?”

“Touya didn’t like Shaoran much at first,” Yukito chuckled, one hand covering his mouth to convey the truth to Watanuki much like one would with a secret. Watanuki’s eyes widened. “He wanted to make sure Shaoran would treat Sakura right, and I always thought he had a little bit of a brother complex…”

Watanuki shook his head in disbelief, “he doesn’t look like the sort of person who would do that,” it was a bittersweet thought, but it made Watanuki smile softly, thinking about a younger Sakura and Shaoran being happy. “But… what does that have to do with Touya trying to do the same with Doumeki?”

Yukito’s smile turned into something mischievous, and he winked again. “That would be telling now, wouldn’t it?”

Watanuki watched Yukito walk back towards Touya and Doumeki with a small frown.

For a moment, he stood still in front of the ticket dispenser, the sun warm on his skin, and watched Touya, Yukito and Doumeki on the other side of the street, waiting for him.

Doumeki joining them hadn’t been too bad at all. Watanuki had worried he would intrude, that things would feel awkward then, but they hadn’t.

He’d had fun.

There was something nudging him at the back of his head, almost an insistent prodding for him to notice something, but Watanuki couldn’t understand, for the life of him, what it meant.

He was a bit too content, maybe –warm and satisfied– and it was weird to realise how rare it had been for him to feel this way, before. Now, he could think up countless times when he had felt happy, ever since meeting Yuuko, and Mokona, and Doumeki and Himawari and Kohane, and now with Touya and Yukito.

He felt like he could reach out with one hand and finally grasp the something he was missing –that little puzzle piece he’d need to figure stuff out– but then he blinked, and Touya called his name, and Watanuki hurried forwards, bags clutched against his chest as a reminder of the day he’d spent with them, and decided that he could wait a little bit more to think about it.

On the trip back home, with Doumeki sitting at his side, Watanuki found himself wondering, selfishly, if he could get to have more days like this to look forwards to.