(no subject)
Now, the last thing I need is to start another AU. I've got Victoria, MarriedBoys, Agents, general drabbles, the occasional foray into Iambic's Streetmusicians and then a few half-finished pieces that, quite frankly, need closure. Did that stop me from writing said AU? No. So Happy Easter!
Title: Into the aether
Fandom: xxxHolic
Series: On air
Pairing: 104. I won't mention the fact that we might be looking at a possible OT3 here depending on how circumstances evolve
Warnings: AU. Future crossover.
A/N: Not beta'd, probably contains misspellings and grammatical errors.
Summary: Himawari and Watanuki have started up a radio station. It doesn't take long before Yuuko and Doumeki become involved.
Into the aether
The woman, eyes shining a clear burgundy under heavy lids, shifted upon her divan and her breasts swayed invitingly. A teasing smirk said that she was aware of it. Watanuki swallowed, quelling the impulse to throw another questioning glance at Himawari. He didn’t like this. He really didn’t like this. Then the woman spoke and her voice was like smoke; fleeting, pervasive. Intoxicating.
”Welcome,” she said, smile like a shark. “… Kimihiro.”
For the benefit of the reader, we feel obliged to sum up the series of circumstances that led to Kimihiro Watanuki and Himawari Kunogi being in the presence of said woman, a Yuuko Ichihara (whom our informants report to be a somewhat unsavory character). In their entirety they may, we admit, seem fantastic, but at the time -and one by one- they were just simple incidents, such as life is full of, and they occurred and went rather unnoticed by most.
It started… with rain. A husband that drove his wife home drunk from the party. A lorry. A moment of inattention, a worn tire that should have been changed before but had always been put off, a good song on the radio - and then the expected outcome of death locked up in a tin can on wheels. Skidding on slippery, water-filled tracks one realizes, the walls that are meant to protect us are so thin, so very thin and they crumble. They’re fragile. So are we.
Then there was an inheritance. A modest one, but still, and because there was no one else (they had been young, that couple, or younger than they would ever be anyway) it went to a distant relative of theirs, a young woman named Himawari Kunogi. She was a good sort of girl, cheerful and black-haired with a luminous smile. Having just finished her pre-university studies at the age of nineteen, she was, however grieved by her relatives’ deaths, also inclined to dispose of the money in pursuit of her dreams.
So together with her friend (the only close friend she had, although some people always insisted there was more to it than that) Kimihiro Watanuki she bought a broadcasting licence and started a radio station. They flitted back and forth between different names for a long time (because Watanuki liked cute names and Himawari liked scary names) but in the end (having discarded such smashing suggestions as Radio Chiffon Cake and Radio 100 Ghost Stories) they settled for Radio Compass. And, perhaps surprisingly, they did well.
People liked hearing Himawari tell scary stories, or read the horoscope (which she lovingly came up with every day) and they liked listening to Watanuki lecturing sternly about the importance of fresh food and always washing the cutting board assiduously. Soon they were catering to a larger and larger area and took on new staff members, a spirited, young crew with fresh and bouncy ideas. But good things always come to an end.
It began… with another accident. During a publicity stunt the reporter, who was bungee-jumping, fell and was hurt. Himawari, who was there in capacity of being the owner of the radio station, couldn’t conceive of how it had happened. She herself had fastened the harness, had made sure everything was according to safety regulations. The equipment was new. It was a mystery.
And although the instructor gave a testimony in court in her favour that completely cleared her of any responsibility for the tragedy, still the damage was done. It was difficult to lose that tinge of suspicion that now clung to her, and the only one who remained fervently loyal was, of course, Watanuki. One by one the others came up with reasons to quit and left, sporting nice credentials and glowing recommendation letters that a tearful Himawari felt herself compelled to write. Word got out to the general public and their post contained equal amounts of supportive as disparaging letters from then on. All of these blows could have been weathered, however, had it not come to be that decreasing numbers of listeners and a lawsuit coincided.
”I think,” Himawari said slowly, measuring every word before looking into his eyes, “that we’re finished, Watanuki. This is it.”
”Himawari-chaaan!” he wailed, hating to see her so downcast and torn up. “Don’t lose hope! There must be something we can do.”
She paused, looking down at her hands fiddling in her lap and then took a deep breath.
”Yes. There is something we can do. But you won’t like it.”
She took him to see an old friend of hers (but when he asked closer about this friend she became evasive, replying only in vague answers that left him none the wiser) in the old fiat that he owned. He drove and she directed and eventually they pulled up in front of an old, very dignified-looking building. Himawari strode up the front porch (dark, polished wood of some sort, he couldn’t identify it) and knocked, then after a brief interval of silence pushed the door open and stepped inside. The door was white with a window in the pattern of a half moon laid into it.
Watanuki followed his friend quietly, never stopping to stare at the strange ornaments that lined the long hallway or the way that doors appeared from nowhere and although some of them were open they did not appear to actually lead anywhere. He thought briefly of how dreadful it would be to become lost in here, and how easy - Himawari seemed confident enough in finding her way, however.
”Here we are,” she announced quietly at last, gesturing at an ordinary-looking door. He peered at it, and stepped closer. There seemed to be nothing particularly splendid or strange about it - except that it had ‘open me’ emblazoned in gold letters. He looked questioningly at Himawari who encouraged him with a delicate smile. So he turned the knob and the door swung open.
At first he thought that they had stepped outside, that night had fallen and that it was foggy. Then, as he took a breath and the sluggish grey mass moved up his nostrils and into his lungs, he realized it was smoke. The smell of incense was in the air. Coughing and waving in the air Watanuki stepped gingerly forward.
”Hello?” he said cautiously, eyes adjusting to the dimmed lights and glow of the incense sticks. Then he stopped, and what he saw bewildered him. A woman, arranged indecently upon a divan, stretched her long limbs out and slowly, eyes the colour of red wine slid from the chess table of marble in front of her to rest on him. I have waited, they seemed to say.
”Ah, ah… we apologize for the intrusion!”
She didn’t reply. The long elaborately decorated silver pipe in her one hand issued sinuous coils of smoke. Upon the chess board, pieces were scattered haphazardly any which way and yet he thought he could perceive that a game was being played, by a player very skilled or very clumsy he could not tell.
“My name is Yuuko Ichihara,” she went on and surged to her feet in order to stroll over to him and thoughtfully stroke her finger to the tip of his chin. “Now. Let us speak… about wishes.”
About a month after that conversation had taken place, Watanuki, fuming with anger, strode down the refurbished hallway into the office of their new radio station. The office was extremely modern in decoration although rather modest size in, containing a couple of desks with laptops and other office equipment and a corresponding number of comfortable swiveling chairs. At the end opposite of the entrance two twin doors were set into the wall, practically oozing out stylishness in the way their aloof whiteness stood out from the canary yellow walls. Watanuki promptly threw them open.
”You!” he screeched, an accusing finger coming up out of its own accord. Yuuko looked up from the papers in front of her with a slow smirk, safe and secure behind the massive desk.
”Yes, Wa-ta-nu-ki?” she sang. “Anything wrong?”
”WHO IS THIS AND WHY IS HE FOLLOWING ME?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, clearly too incensed to indicate the person behind him in any other way. Yuuko’s smirk grew just a fraction wider, although her voice remained mild.
”I see you’ve met your bodyguard. Did I forget to introduce you? We can’t have anything happen to the radio station’s star, can we? Doumeki is here to protect you.”
”Watanuki needs protection!” the little black animal commonly known as Mokona cried. “Watanuki needs protection!”
”How could he,” another jerk of the thumb, “protect me from anything? And what is he meant to protect me from?”
”Why, from all your rampant fans of course!” Yuuko said brightly, hands clasped together. She sighed happily. “Naa, everybody loves Watanuki! So we need Doumeki to love him the most!”
”STOP SAYING THESE STUPID THINGS!” With that, he pivoted and left.
Yuuko grinned at his retreating back, watching Doumeki follow in the wake of Watanuki-induced destruction. Well, she’d thrown them together - for now the rest was up to them.