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“You’re late.”
Doumeki snorts the slightest bit under his breath. ‘Yeah with your shopping.’ Watanuki’s been getting shorter and shorter with him lately. Maybe it’s just an inevitable resentment because the shopkeeper is cooped up like this while he can come and go as he pleases, but it bothers Doumeki in a way he can’t quite articulate that he sees it taking his friend over more and more.
He knows it’s because Watanuki has no one else to vent his frustrations to, but their friendship used to be more than this. He wants to be there for him, but lately it hasn’t felt like him at all.
“Maru and Moro got tired of waiting for you. I think even Mokona drank himself to sleep.”
Watanuki’s eyes slide open, deep blue behind dark eyelashes and a flash of most familiar amber as he turns to look at him.
“Oh,” He straightens up a little where he’s sitting on the porch, setting aside Yuuko’s burning pipe. A polite smile crosses his face. “I’m sorry. Can I help you?”
Doumeki watches this inexplicable shift with open suspicion (as much as any of his expressions could be called ‘open’). He’s acting suddenly professional, and though it’s something of a reprieve, it’s not nearly what Doumeki longs for. After a moment he holds out one of the plastic bags weighed down with groceries. “It’s not that heavy but if you feel like helping…”
But then Watanuki glares at him. “I wasn’t talking to you!”
Oh.
Of course.
“Sorry. Ignore him. He’s so rude.” Watanuki is speaking to the empty space to his left. “No that’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Take as long as you’d like, ok?”
Doumeki hasn’t seen Watanuki speak with such kindness in a long time.
“Is it a spirit?”
“She,” Watanuki stresses the distinction. “Is a ghost.”
“What does she want?”
Watanuki glares at him like he’s committed some obvious faux pas. “She can hear you perfectly fine. You can talk to her.” He gives an apologetic wince to the empty air again. This guy. Can you believe him? “She’s having trouble remembering much but she says she recognizes you. You don’t mind if she stays a while do you?”
Doumeki looks uneasily to the space beside him. Following Watanuki’s gaze means he can estimate an approximate height. Somewhere about his elbow. But that’s all. She recognizes him? A parishioner maybe? “What does she- what would you like me to do?”
“Just wait until it starts to come back to her.”
Doumeki nods. Fair enough but, “Can we cook while she does it? It’s late.”
“And whose fault is that?”
Doumeki ignores the jab. “You should eat.”
“I’m fine.” He turns back to his pipe.
“When was the last time you ate?”
Watanuki begins to roll his eyes and his mouth opens to to give some biting retort but Doumeki cuts him off. “And alcohol isn’t food.”
Then Watanuki retreats, brow creased like he needs to actually think about it. Whatever mental calculations he’s doing are interrupted by something Doumeki can’t hear.
Then Watanuki looks surprised. “Honestly it’s not a problem.” He listens for a moment and his face softens. “No, of course. I understand perfectly.” Then, to Doumeki, “She’d like to watch us.”
“Cooking?”
“It’s something she’s beginning to remember. She liked to cook”
“Is that safe?” The kitchen doesn’t have the kind of warding the more public areas of the shop do.
“Of course.”
The overconfidence means Watanuki is guessing.
He’s always guessing.
Even at the best of times, trying to help Watanuki cook more often means just getting in his way. So when they enter the kitchen Doumeki delivers the groceries and then falls back, watching as he dons an apron, and starts to chat with their invisible guest.
It really ruins the whole ‘otherworldly enigma’ mystique Watanuki has going on most of the time and Doumeki is glad for it.
As Watanuki coaxes a broth to full flavor he takes a few silent hints from their ghost companion. “Really? In a beef dish? No, I’ve never tried that before.” And then after adding the spices and sampling the result, “Mmm! I’d have never have guessed it.” There are a few more tricks shared in half silent conversations. Cutting the eggplant at a different angle. Soaking the beans in salt water before cooking them. Perhaps there are more but Watanuki has a tendency to murmur to himself when cooking anyway, so it’s hard to tell when he’s taking advice and when he’s working off of his own techniques. He watches for a long time before he’s bidden to set the table.
Which poses a conundrum. “Two place settings or…”
“Three.”
That particular mystery is solved when in lieu of food, Watanuki places a small glass of clear liquor in the center of the middle plate next to a single burning incense. He and Doumeki kneel down at the table around the corner to her either side.
They have spent many a meal in more or less comfortable silence and for a while this one is not very different.
“She wants to say thank you.”
“But I-“ And then Doumeki forces himself to look at the empty place above her plate instead of at Watanuki. It’s awkward but he does his best not to let it show. He wouldn’t want to offend her. “But I didn’t do anything.”
“She’s been wandering for a long time, and you’re finally a familiar face. She says it’s bringing her peace.” Though not the ultimate peace. She’s still on this plane after all.
“If I have helped you, then I am glad for it.” He says with a polite bow. Then more conversationally, “But I thought I was supposed to repel spirits.”
Watanuki just shrugs. There is a nuance to ‘spirit’ that doesn’t quite fit her, but he understands Doumeki’s meaning. “Perhaps it doesn’t effect her because she knew you in life?” Then, in a weakness that has grown uncharacteristic, “I have to admit I don’t know.”
Yuuko would have. Yuuko had known everything.
“Tonight’s food is delicious.” Doumeki says, steering away from melancholy thoughts. And it is. The beef is cooked to tender perfection. The vegetables still crisp and refreshing. The flavors balanced but tasted new and beguiling on his tongue. “Thank you. Both of you.”
Watanuki catches his eye and smiles at him for the first time in… in a long time, appreciative that Doumeki is showing her respect. In this small way they are a team once again. Then those mismatched eyes are closed to make room for a warm grin for their guest and he reaches out to a spot on the table where he must be touching ghostly fingers. “It’s all thanks to your advice.” He smiles, bows his head in deference and unless Doumeki is seeing things, the very beginnings of a blush begins to color his cheeks. “We should cook together again sometime!”
Yes definitely a blush.
Doumeki had almost forgotten that his embarrassment didn’t always used to lead to barbed insecurity.
“Ha! I’m not surprised at all.” Watanuki continues. Finally he turns that easy warmth on Doumeki. “Our guest says she used to cook prize winning gyosa. Maybe next time she’ll show me how to make them. I’m sure mine wouldn’t be as good but…”
Watanuki trails off at the look on Doumeki’s face.
Doumeki turns to the empty place setting, thinking. He wants to look at her but his eye catches on the incense smoke instead. The thin trail writhes and curls in on itself as it rises to the ceiling and into oblivion.
“At the midsummer festival?” Across the table Watanuki takes in a sharp breath. He’s on the right track. “At the temple grounds, right? You won money in a red envelope. They gave you a pin for your collar. Everyone had thought Mrs. Nakano was going to win again.” He follows a single twist of smoke until it is lost to the ceiling, then he looks back down to where he guesses her face must be. “Am I right?”
“Yes.” Watanuki whispers.
“I know who you are.”
There is a momentous silence and it occurs to Doumeki that he now wishes he could see her too.
“Please,” Watanuki prompts gently. “She wants to know.”
“Your name is Minami Oshiro. You were a parishioner at the temple where I live. We even had a few classes together when we were young. We were friends.” He had known her well. And yet what to say? Where should he even begin? “Your parents are named Kyohei and Satomi. You didn’t have siblings but you made friends easily. You had a hamster, but I’m sorry I don’t remember what its name was. You were always talking about animals. I think you wanted to be a vet.”
Across the table Watanuki’s hand was tight around hers, or at least he assumed that’s what the empty air between his fingers was. His other hand was in a fist resting a knuckle against his mouth, fighting for composure. Doumeki wondered how she was taking it.
“Fall was your favorite time of year because you loved sweaters. Your aunt had knit you one with a duck on it. You seemed really proud of her.” None of this seemed like enough. It hadn’t been that long had it? How could someone’s life get reduced to such mundane details? “I got to try your gyosa when you won. And a few other things besides. You were an excellent cook.”
He trailed off, unsure if more would be welcome. Watanuki had that look. The one that said he’d do anything to ease another’s suffering. Funny how he’d been missing Watanuki’s compassion, and now that it was here, it made him anxious.
There was a long silence. Doumeki averted his eyes but other than that, did not move.
Eventually Watanuki spoke. “How did it end?”
He first glanced to him, drawing strength from the small, solemn nod Watanuki gave, then turned back to her.
“You got sick. Your blood- I didn’t know all the details but it couldn’t carry enough to keep your body healthy anymore. It wasn’t sudden, but you didn’t suffer any pain from it.”
Doumeki could tell it was killing Watanuki to stay in his seat instead of moving to comfort her. At length the revelation seemed to settle. “And her parents? What became of them?”
“Growing older but in good health. They never had another child. They come in every year on your birthday and say prayers for you. They miss you, but I think they’re happy.”
Again there is silence. Then Watanuki’s eyes go wide, there is a sudden chill to the room and the incense burns itself out with a hiss.
Neither of them move.
“Is she…?”
“Gone.” In every sense.
The last of the smoke fades away.
“You don’t have to look so sad.” Watanuki says gently.
“I’m not.”
“You helped her find peace. She wanted to rest.”
“Of course.”
With a deep breath and a furrowed brow, Watanuki draws a delicate fingertip along the end of his chopsticks. “We should finish while it’s still hot.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Even with how delicious things had been, it feels wrong to eat, and yet just as wrong to forsake it. I was her last act on earth.
Doumeki doesn’t meet his eye but knows Watanuki is watching with a careful gaze. At length Watanuki stands, coming to sit at his side, resting his head against his shoulder. Through it all Doumeki does not move.
“Did you know her well?”
“I used to.” And yet, he hadn’t thought of her in years.
Watanuki doesn’t say anything. Just stays close. Just stays quiet.
“How can they forget like that?” Doumeki’s voice is absolutely steady but there is a stutter in his breathing that Watanuki can feel against his side. “It… she’d been gone for years. And all this time…” She’d been wandering. Lost.
“It’s why we have to keep praying.” Watanuki explains, hoping it might offer some solace. “It helps the ghosts find their way back.”
Then why did she stay lost for so long?
“What really happened to her parents?”
Doumeki let out a deep breath. His gaze fell to Watanuki’s knee next to his own, covered by the delicate pattern of a robe Yuuko had left behind. “They divorced about a year later. He remarried. I think she moved away. I didn’t see them much.” He turned to catch Watanuki’s eyes. Up close the mismatched color was so pronounced. “Do you think that was wrong?”
Watanuki doesn’t have the time or distance to mask his reaction. He doesn’t know. Like so many things now, he tries his best, but he just doesn’t know. And the pressure of that uncertainty is crushing him.
He breaks his gaze away, resting his cheek against Doumeki’s arm. “It made her happy.”
And though he always does, with Doumeki warm and solid beside him, he allows himself to really feel how much he misses Yuuko.
He loses himself to it for a few minutes, but then he is called back. With a subtle choke, Doumeki speaks. “I won’t forget. Like she did. I- I won’t.”
Watanuki looks up, eyes wide in shock. Doumeki is staring fiercely at the far wall, mouth set tight.
And Watanuki can’t-
He buries his brow in the material of Doumeki’s sleeve, hands coming up to clutch tightly into his arm. His voice, when it finally comes, is strained but deliberate. “I’ll pray for you.”