Glance at Me

haha! chapter 2 is up! i would have gotten it posted sooner, but a bad cold had me out of commission for a week or so. @_@ anyway, on with the usual blather...
disclaimer: xxxholic and any characters pertaining to, are not mine. clamps'.
words/phrases with '----' are spoken in thought.
those brave enough: read on...

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Watanuki slowly returned to consciousness, keeping his eyes tightly shut. The last thing he remembered was warmth…and a smell…

Oh. That was right. Doumeki. He had been carrying Watanuki, but where was he now? Opening his eyes a crack, he winced against the shock of sudden brightness emitted from a hanging light fixture. It wasn’t his house. He directed his gaze downwards and stiffened.

A pair of disturbingly huge eyes was staring straight into his own with a virility that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Even without his glasses, Watanuki could see that they didn’t belong to anything human.

He stared at them.

They stared right back.

He stared some more.

They blinked.

“Hee…ee…eeeYAAAAHH!!” Watanuki jolted upright, sending the black Mokona flying. It turned a neat somersault and landed on his toes, feigning shock, but sounding pleased nonetheless.

“Kyaaan! Watanuki-kun is awake!”

“Hmm. It’s about time, too.” Yuuko appeared in the shoji doorway to his right, leaning casually on the frame, one delicate hand on her hip.

“Yuuko-san…” Watanuki looked at her for a moment, then dropped his gaze. He pulled back the covers of the futon and slowly got into a kneeling position. Touching his forehead to the floor, he spoke.

“I’m very sorry for the inconvenience I have caused, Yuuko-san. I will continue to work hard for you in order to pay off the damages.” Stillness greeted his ears. Watanuki waited. Finally soft footsteps alerted him to Yuuko’s approach. There was a creak of floorboards as she settled herself opposite him. A few seconds of tense silence followed. Then a long-fingered hand reached out and gently caught the young man under the chin, lifting his head up so they could look at each other. They stared into one another’s eyes for a moment, before Yuuko’s face broke into a warm smile, her hooded eyes glimmering with good-natured jest.

“I’m looking forward to you working harder than ever, Watanuki. As soon as you return from school.”

Letting out a sigh of relief that she hadn’t asked for more, Watanuki closed his eyes. “Thank you Yuuko-sa–SCHOOL!”

He had forgotten that the day before had been a Sunday. Leaping to his feet, he frantically looked around for his uniform overshirt.

“What time is it?!”

“Half past seven,” she coolly replied, clearly enjoying his haphazard panic.

“I need clothes! Aaargh! I’m not gonna have time to go all the way home, shower, and get dressed! Sensei’s gonna kill me!”

Right on cue, Maru and Moro came prancing in with his school bag and a paper package. Taking the proffered items bemusedly, he opened the package to find a fresh uniform neatly folded. “Where did this come from?” he asked, taking the white undershirt out and holding it up.

“Doumeki brought it over last night. By himself. In the freezing rain. In the dark–”

“All right already!” Watanuki interrupted impatiently, hauling on his overshirt a bit too roughly. “I get it…”

Snatching his glasses and bag up, he bolted for the door. Shoving his feet inside his shoes without bothering to put them on properly, he shouted through the shop. “Ittekimasu! See you after school!” Yuuko materialized in the doorway as Watanuki turned to leave. “Be nice to Doumeki, and thank him for what he did for you.” Her “employee” looked up at her pitifully before turning away and making for the gate.

“And Watanuki,” she called, her voice cutting through the crisp morning air. He stopped, but didn’t face her this time. He felt as if he couldn’t have bore to see her one more time, not out of anger, but out of guilt. “Beware a descent in the hour of the monkey.”

‘What?’ Watanuki spun around, bewildered. But Yuuko had vanished from the doorway into the shadowy depths of her mysterious store.

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The bell tones chimed and Watanuki leaned back in his seat, yawning widely. He threw his arms above his head and stretched, feeling his cramped muscles complain against the unanticipated action. All around him his classmates were gathering up their belongings and packing them away, jabbering excitedly as they made their various afterschool plans. Watanuki sighed resignedly as he let his arms fall back onto his desk, knowing that there was only one fate waiting in store for him.

A few minutes later, he was weaving through the rapidly thinning crowd in the hallway and going down the stairs. As he reached the landing that led to the second flight of stairs, there was a commotion at the bottom.

Two other underclassmen were engaged in a playful chase, shouting and laughing as others hurriedly made way for them.

“Watch out!” The first one bounded up the stairs three at a time with his companion hot on his heels and pushed past Watanuki, who grunted slightly in pain as his wrist hit the handrail. As the pursuer drew level with the bespectacled boy, it happened.

Too distracted with his quarry, the second boy unconsciously grabbed Watanuki’s shoulder and slightly pushed him in order to gain more momentum for himself. By the time he realized his error, it was too late.

Time slowed down as Watanuki found himself falling forwards, Yuuko’s words flashing once more through his mind.

'Beware a descent in the hour of the monkey…'

He felt an excruciating pain shoot upwards from his ankle as he twisted in an endeavor to catch hold of the rail, the boy’s outstretched hand, anything.

It failed.

The world turned upside down, blurring the walls, students’ shocked faces, the ground; at one point he could have sworn he had seen the toes of his shoes barely an inch from his face.

It was over and done in an instant. He was on his face on the soft ground, trying to recover the wind that had been forced from his lungs upon impact. Watanuki pushed himself up on his hands and did a quick mental once-over. His ankle throbbed terribly, now in addition to a few bruised ribs and a couple of smashed fingers, but he was intact and alive.

Wait a minute, the soft ground?

“Hey idiot, you okay?”

Oh. No.

There was no way it could possibly be… Looking down between his arms, Watanuki made a noise that was caught somewhere between a gasp and a gag. Doumeki was lying beneath him, his annoyingly apathetic face around Watanuki’s chest area, his arms around his waist, and worst of all, he realized with a horrible dawning comprehension, Watanuki was straddling his waist!

‘So that explains why everyone looks so amused,’ Watanuki thought sourly. Indeed, there were smothered titters and highly entertained smirks evident on the faces of the gathering crowd. One annoyance-laden upside down glance from Doumeki dispersed them very quickly however. Watanuki just lay there, hot-faced and sweating with his glasses dangling, miraculously unharmed, from one ear and his school items strewn all over the place. Doumeki propped himself up on his elbows and looked into Watanuki’s face.

“You alright?” There. It was that smell again. Watanuki had a fleeting image of rain, an umbrella, and the sound of someone crying. He almost closed his eyes drowsily, it was that comforting, but caught himself in time. Doumeki was still staring at him, but now there was something in those flinty eyes.

An emotion? Pity? Concern?

...

Affection?

Watanuki pulled back on the reigns of his imagination, bringing it to a screeching, skidding halt. Uttering an exclamation of self-disgust, he pulled himself together and stood unsteadily, adjusting his glasses and dusting himself off. He made to pick up his things when his leg suddenly buckled. “Ow!” Doumeki made an abrupt movement, as if to help him, but Watanuki leaned heavily on the wall, dizzy and slightly nauseous. The two boys who had been the cause of the entire incident sheepishly came up and handed Watanuki’s gathered belongings to Doumeki, apologized, and retreated.

“You need to see the nurse,” he stated flatly, replacing books into the bag. “I’m fine,” Watanuki snarled through gritted teeth, and made a swipe for his bag. He missed and wobbled on his good leg for a moment before Doumeki looped an arm around his waist, grabbing Watanuki’s arm and throwing that over his shoulder.

“I’ll take you.”

“I don’t need your help!” Despite his vehement protests, Doumeki had already started down the empty hallway towards the nurses’ office and Watanuki had no choice but to follow along.

‘Now I’ll be late for work and then Yuuko-san’s gonna make me work twice as hard!’ he lamented silently, hanging his head. ‘I can’t take much more of this…’ Immediately, his head snapped back up again. ‘What the–’

Doumeki’s right hand on his waist had somehow found its way under his shirts, supposedly caused by the action of their awkward progress. Now Watanuki was suddenly very aware of and focused on the feel of his classmate’s slim fingers on his hipbone. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground, pretending to be exceptionally engrossed in the linoleum tiles, but his mind was anywhere but there.

‘Oh God, he’s touching me! They’re soft…but his index and middle’s first joints are calloused. Probably from all that archery… It feels good… Gah! No, mustn’t think like that, he’s…he’s…’ Watanuki snuck a sidelong look at Doumeki and was taken aback to see that he was already unabashedly staring straight at him. ‘He’s looking right at me!’ he thought, sky-blue eyes widening as he pulled as far away from Doumeki as he could.

They stared at each other. “W-what?”

“Your face is red.”

“It is?! I mean, what are you talking about?!”

“You feeling okay?”

“Y–”

“You’re not hurting anywhere else, are you?” Watanuki took a sharp intake of breath as the fingers on his waist tightened convulsively, digging into his sensitized skin. He looked down with a wince at the offending digits, then back up at Doumeki’s face. His usually impassive eyes were betraying that emotion again, and now there was no doubt about it. He was concerned about him. Watanuki.

‘Me.’ Watanuki stared, searching for the fleeting vulnerability, but it was gone. He smiled, though his brows were still knitted together with the pain in his ankle and side. “I’m fine. Really.”

Doumeki stared piercingly at Watanuki with those alarmingly yellow eyes before blinking slowly and continuing on. Watanuki hadn’t even realized that they had stopped walking.

‘He was worried about me. Wait, why should he be?’

‘Why not?’ another part of him contradicted. ‘Really, what is he to me? A rival? A classmate? A fellow supernaturalist?’ He paused in his thoughts and chanced another cautious glance at Doumeki’s serious profile, finding it no wonder why most of the girls in the school were head over heels in love with him.

‘A friend?’

“We’re here.” Doumeki’s words scythed violently through his ruminations, bringing him back to reality a little more ruthlessly than he would have liked. It was true, however. They were at the medical room and Doumeki pushed the door aside with a rumble. The lights were on, but nobody was inside.

“Maybe she stepped out,” Watanuki said, leaning on Doumeki as he poked his head into the room. “Hey!” Doumeki had pulled him over to one of the far sick beds, and now slowly lowered Watanuki onto it.

“You need to elevate that leg before it starts to swell,” he suggested. Watanuki watched him go over to the refrigerator and pull a bag of ice out, admiring the confidence and evenness of his gait. “Here. Hold still.”

Watanuki hissed at the shock of cold on his sore ankle, missing the look that Doumeki gave him. “Thanks,” he muttered grudgingly when the other boy had turned away to close the partition curtain behind them.

“You say something?”

“No,” he growled mulishly, averting his head to face the wall. His eyes widened as strong fingers gripped his chin and turned his face so Doumeki could look at him.

“What did you say?” he repeated, stronger than before.

“I–I didn’t say anything!” A hand thumped on the pillow beside Watanuki’s head as Doumeki loomed over him, his face millimeters from his own.

“Don’t lie.” Watanuki could feel his warm breath washing over him and swallowed. It smelled like peppermint. He was finding it harder to breathe and reached up with his right hand to try to push his classmate away, gasping softly as the hand next to Watanuki’s head snatched it away and pushed it into the sheets by his side. Doumeki’s other hand was still clamped firmly on his chin.

“Don’t lie,” Doumeki repeated in a hoarse whisper. “…Not to me…” The distance between their faces was rapidly closing, and Watanuki could feel his heart beating faster, his breath coming in shallow, hitching pants, his eyes fluttering shut, their lips tentatively brushing together.

“Ouch!” Doumeki’s grip on his wrist, the one that had been smashed painfully against the rail when the first boy had pushed past him, had increased to a painful vice-like pressure.

In that same instant, there was the sound of someone starting close by, an object clattering loudly to the floor, and a rattle as the curtains were hauled back to reveal a very pale and scared-looking nurse.

Doumeki, who had pulled away the moment Watanuki had yelped in pain, turned his back on him as the nurse put a hand to her chest, closing her eyes.

“Don’t do that! You two startled me!” She went to retrieve the clipboard she had dropped, admonishing them as she bent down. “Next time, log yourselves in before you settle down, please.” Doumeki took the log sheet from her and scribbled Watanuki’s name, his injury, and the time and date before handing it back.

Blushing furiously, Watanuki didn’t look at either of them and closed his eyes to hide the shame lurking there when the nurse came to examine the sprain and eventually bind it with a stiff bandage. All during this, Doumeki stood at the window with his arms crossed over his chest staring out in silence at the elongating shadows and vivid colors of the dying daylight.

When the nurse finally released Watanuki from her care with a crutch, it was with a heavy, subdued tranquility that they made their way home. Watanuki knew Doumeki was going the long way around to his shrine in order to see him safely to Yuuko’s shop, and instead of feeling annoyed as he recognized he normally would have been whenever Doumeki insisted on following him anywhere, he felt as if two feral animals were warring terribly inside of him. He would try to bring himself to look at the person who so many times before had given him so much grief and smile, to say some small word of encouragement, even gratitude, but every time his eyes slid over to the other boy, they would snap back to the hem of his shirt, or at the ground, or away at the scenery around them.

As it turned out, their ten minute walk was travelled in complete silence.

When they stopped outside of the ornate entryway, Watanuki fidgeted with his crutch, while Doumeki stood a few paces away, hands in his pockets, pointedly looking elsewhere.

“Um…”
“Oi…”

Their voices mingled in the still air as they both tried to speak at the same time. The two boys stared at one another for the first time in a long time, then looked away.

“Go ahead,” Watanuki offered, diffidently raising his gaze. Doumeki glanced up at him through his bangs, and Watanuki was suddenly struck by how poetic it seemed, vibrant amber eyes contrasted sharply with coal-black hair.

The taller boy sighed and walked up to the other, who, despite his instincts, didn’t bolt as his personal bubble was invaded again. “May I…”

Just like the other time in the rain the day before when they had been alone together, it wasn’t a question, more like an implication. It then occurred to Watanuki if Doumeki didn’t really know how to ask, maybe that was why he always seemed so abrasive, so standoffish.

He tilted his head to one side. “What do you want?” he coaxed quietly.

One hand lifted out of his pocket, hesitated, then pressed itself lightly to the side of Watanuki’s face. Pleasant shivers tingled down his spine as Doumeki ran his thumb along the soft lower lip and brought his face closer, as close as it had been in the medical room.

“To do this,” he whispered. “But only with your consent.”

With his one free hand, Watanuki clutched at the back of Doumeki’s shirt. “You have it already.”

Doumeki quickly closed the remaining distance between them, gently pulling the shorter boy against him, carefully mindful of his injuries, as their lips met. Watanuki suddenly felt his eyelids become heavier, and decided not to resist. He didn’t care that they were in the middle of the street, in plain view of any passersby; he didn’t even care if Yuuko herself came out and saw them like this. He was living for now, for this one moment with Doumeki, wanted to memorize every single minor detail: his lips were soft and warm, affectionately covering his mouth with a tenderness that belied his rough outer appearance and blunt personality.

Watanuki jerked slightly as something moist and wonderfully warm brushed against the seam of his mouth, he wanted to pull away, but Doumeki’s arms held him tight. He pushed his doubt away, feeling like responding somehow, but as soon as it had come, it was gone, and so was the pressure of Doumeki’s lips.

Watanuki half-opened his eyes, leaned forward, and nipped insistently at the corner of his mouth, eager to continue. Doumeki snorted good-naturedly and obliged with a quick, chaste kiss before grabbing Watanuki’s shoulders and turning him to face the shop. He dropped a neatly wrapped box into his arms and pecked him one last time on the cheek from behind.

“Here. Daifuku. Mom packed them for me but I never got the chance to eat them. They might serve to placate Yuuko-san.” With that, he turned, swinging his bag over his shoulder and fading into the gathering darkness.

Watanuki stood there with his fingertips on his lips and watched until he could no longer see his friend… Yeah, that sounded about right… His friend. He found it difficult to think of the two of them as anything else, but he thought that perhaps if it really were possible, it wouldn’t be so bad.

A smile graced his features as he walked down the pathway that led to the place where wishes were granted.

“Tadaima!”

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CH. 2 EPILOGUE

Yuuko swirled the sake in her cup before tossing her head back and swallowing the contents in one gulp. Mokona held the tokkuri bottle out for her and filled it again, then made one for itself. Yuuko brought the cup to her lips but stopped there as her mouth curled up in a knowing smile at Watanuki, who was cleaning up and determinedly avoiding her gaze.

“Hitsuzen,” she said simply. “A funny thing. Is it not, Wa•ta•nu•ki-chan?”

Said boy straightened up, giving his boss a nonplussed look. “What do you mean?”

Yuuko closed her eyes and smiled more broadly, her adaptation of a disarming expression. “I mean, that it was no coincidence that you were so dreadfully maladroit yesterday, that a certain young man just happened to be running an errand the same moment you were feeling so down and needed someone’s comfort, that you were pushed down the stairs the instant that same person was passing close by, and that you hurt yourself and required his company to walk you home, which culminated in a very nice k–”

Watanuki snatched his crutch from the floor and hauled himself up, hobbling towards the kitchen with the empty dishes as fast as he could.

He didn’t hear Yuuko’s self-satisfied chuckle, nor did he see the devilish smirk cross her face as she raised her cup and proclaimed a murmured toast.

“Here’s to you Watanuki, and your…‘friend.’”

With that, she drained the cup.

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a/n: ~the hour of the monkey is from 3 pm to 5 pm. i think, that is quite strictly, think, that japanese high schoolers are in from 8 am to 3.
~to answer a long-standing contradiction between me and a friend, i really don't know what color doumeki's eyes are. yellow just seems more...exotic? =P
~to ani: (to quote yuuko); "daifuku" - a rice cake stuffed w/ bean jam, according to kenkyusha's new japanese-english dictionary, fourth edition. it's white, about the size of a child's fist, recommended best with warm gekkeikan sake.
~"ittekimasu" is the phrase a person would declare when leaving home. lit., "i am going now." "tadaima" is something one would say upon returning. lit., "i am here!"
~lastly, thanks to Kenyanboa, bookworm, Sira, sarisia, and ani (haha, got that kiss, eh?) for those wonderful reviews! they really encouraged me! thanks again to them, and everyone else reading this! (you poor things...)