curious_robin; nebulia; The Limit, part two and fst; T/PG-13
part one
xXx
The amusement park turned out to be both an excellent idea and a bad idea on Watanuki’s part. Good idea because Kohane appeared to be genuinely enjoying herself for the first time on the trip. Bad idea because most of her amusement seemed to come out of coaxing Watanuki onto rides with her, with promises of forgiveness, and then watching him get sick when they got off. (Well, she hadn’t promised forgiveness per se, but it was the implication, dammit!) But really, the wrenching was awful, him not having eaten anything all day, and he coughed up some orange fluid that he was pretty sure might’ve been stomach acid. He fell really ill, very quickly.
They had finally sat down to take a break at one of the ridiculously over-priced outdoor cafes they had inside the park. It was growing late, an orange tinged sky burned slowly overhead, and some worrisome dark lumps of cloud were scattered across the horizon. Kohane and Doumeki both ordered something, while Watanuki just got some bottled water to help wash down the acrid taste in his mouth. He really didn’t think that he could handle any food right now, and after that he really wasn’t hungry either.
It got quiet when their waiter left their table. Doumeki and Kohane were not big chatters (at least, Kohane wasn’t in present company) and Watanuki was avoiding opening his mouth right then. They sat in a slightly awkward silence until the food came, and then they both dug in while he sipped cautiously at his water, staring off to the side so as not to be uncomfortable.
Maybe he was being a bit overcautious with this, Watanuki thought, when he noticed after a while that both Doumeki and Kohane were giving him subtle concerned looks now. But it was nice to know that he had their attention again.
After a while, Doumeki shoved over some fries to him, while he blinked at it, confused, before he realized that both of them had finished. “Eat something,” he had told him, nudging his fries forward, and Watanuki got irritated at the demand and started lecturing Doumeki about all the bad effects greasy food had on an upset stomach. Kohane looked between them, and she was smiling again. Watanuki felt a little warmer when he saw.
It was nice, and it might’ve been okay after that, until someone shouted Doumeki’s name and they looked up to see a crowd of people coming to their table.
They all greeted Doumeki and chatted him up, while ignoring his two companions. They looked, Watanuki narrowed his eyes at them, to be college age; they probably knew Doumeki from the university. That was confirmed when a couple of the students complained to Doumeki that they didn’t understand some of the lectures that he was the TA for, and asked if he was offering tutoring lessons. Most of the ones who asked, Watanuki noted, sneering, were pretty girls. This forcibly reminded him of high school. Then, all the groups had tried to approach Doumeki when he, Watanuki, and Himawari were eating lunch together or walking home together, on breaks or clean up duties. Doumeki, for some reason he had never been able to see, attracted people this way, and while he never seemed interested, they just kept coming.
Watanuki also remembered that while the people that came to see Doumeki had treated Himawari well enough (there were these ridiculous rumors in high school that they were dating), they hadn’t understood why Doumeki had hung out with him, the school’s pariah. Watanuki still didn’t know the reason for that either, but he had enough experience of the strange sort of hazing that Doumeki’s popularity caused to be wary.
When Doumeki’s one word answers finally whittled down the conversation, they took notice of the people he was sitting with, and one of them recognized Watanuki.
“Wait, you’re Watanuki Kimihiro aren’t you? The chef on TV?” When he confirmed that he was they immediately crowded around him, excited to be meeting a famous celebrity. Watanuki felt a little smug about Doumeki’s friends change in allegiance (even though he had been the first one to attract them), and turned to give him a superior look. Doumeki, however, wasn’t staring enviously at him like he thought. He was watching the crowd around him. And the look on his face hinted at Watanuki’s initial reaction. Guarded. Watanuki frowned, wondering why Doumeki would look like that around people that he probably saw every week.
“Wow, Doumeki-san, you’re friends with Watanuki Kimihiro?” The mention of Doumeki again brought Watanuki back to what they were saying. “That’s so cool!” One of the girls breathed happily, and Watanuki reflected on the irony that while they were in school, being seen as his friend had quite the opposite effect on his reputation.
The presence of these people here had quickly lost its entertainment value to Watanuki, and now he wished Doumeki’s students would find something else to do and leave. He got unnecessary fawning from people who didn’t know him all the time. And Doumeki’s ego might make his head explode if he got anymore attention than he already did. Luckily they hadn’t recognized Kohane, though it had been quite a few years since she had been in the spotlight and she had since grown up. If they did, they would almost definitely try to stay. Watanuki tried to think of something to say to get them to leave before they did.
“So, who’s the cute girl, Doumeki-san?” One of the guys asked. Kohane immediately stopped watching them with a blank expression and ducked her head. The group laughed at that, cooing that she was shy, and Watanuki tensed, realizing that being recognized out here was probably the last thing Kohane wanted to happen. Kohane’s departure from her acting career and her mother on her own years back had created a huge scandal, one that people still remembered years later. She still had issues at school because of it and strangers didn’t treat her much better most of the time when they knew.
“A friend,” Doumeki deadpanned, shifting slightly. Watanuki realized that he was trying to shield Kohane a little more from their staring, and he clenched his fists in his lap. These people didn’t look like they were going to let it go that easily. “Oh, I think she’s much more than that,” one of the girls simpered. Watanuki had dealt with too many people who hated his guts and had to pretend they didn’t, not to recognize that falsely sweet tone.
“No wonder Doumeki-san won’t go out with any of us,” another girl added. “When he’s got such a young, little girlfriend like you. What’s your name, sweetie?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Doumeki said. Watanuki, familiar with him after so many years, could hear the thread of iron in his toneless voice now. The others, of course, couldn’t. They laughed again at that, and one of the girls reached over to pat his arm familiarly, which Doumeki quickly retracted. Watanuki could see the girl pretend not to notice. “Oh it’s alright, we understand. It’s young love,” she winked. “Though you better not be trying to break her heart, going on like that!”
The rest of the group seemed to find that really funny for some reason, and Doumeki’s jaw clenched and Watanuki ground his teeth, while Kohane still didn’t look up.
“Hey, at least that means we can have the rest of the girls, now that we know Doumeki-senpai is hooked up,” one of the guys said, hooking an arm around a girl. “Doumeki-senpai has too many hopefuls, it’s hard to get a date.”
“But hey, if you drop that cute little bird, Doumeki-san, let me know, I wouldn’t mind going with a younger one for a while!”
Watanuki pushed out of his chair so quickly that it fell back behind him with an extremely loud bang on the concrete. At least it shut them up.
“Are you really that fucking insensitive or are you mentally defective?!” Watanuki yelled, so pissed off that he wasn’t sure if he was seeing straight. These are not Doumeki’s friends. Or if they were, Doumeki needed to tell them to get lost, and then lose the rest of his friends. He couldn’t believe Doumeki had just let them say all that shit. Watanuki felt like he was about to have an aneurysm, he was so angry. No need to be polite. “She doesn’t want to talk to you, she doesn’t even want to look at your fucking ugly faces, what makes you think she’d want to date you or have anything to do with you tactless, shiftless jackasses!”
Watanuki had never been so grateful to have such a ready tongue. It was so therapeutic.
“What the fuck-” And he was so angry, that Watanuki only felt a deep satisfaction when what he said finally managed to penetrate their thick skulls and he could see their face as they began to get mad. He made sure to cut them off before they could say anything back.
“No one gives a fuck if you can’t get girlfriends or boyfriends because you’re all shallow, disgusting morons,” Watanuki said viciously. “Go pay for it if you need it, and save people the wasted effort of dating you.”
“Oh yeah, like you don’t pay to get some!” Someone finally roared back. “Everyone talks about on TV how you’re a complete asshole off camera and no one can stand to be around you, and I bet you’ve got some hookers on speed dial for when you can’t stand being alone with yourself, huh?”
“Better than being pedophilic freaks,” Watanuki instantly retorted. “Who want children because you’re used to it being completely unwilling. You-”
“Kimihiro-!” Kohane screamed.
A fist slammed into the side of his head, and Watanuki felt the wire of his glasses twist in his hair before they flew off. He snagged at a table edge before he fell down, and felt someone grab him by the lapels of his jacket and throw him into another table.
It hurt. A lot. Watanuki thought he might’ve shattered the glass-top table. He could feel a lot of sharp little shards underneath his face and hands. He was picking himself up when they pulled him back be the back of his jacket and hair and threw a fist into his stomach. Watanuki couldn’t take a breath.
He could dimly hear Kohane screaming at them to stop in the background, but he was busy trying to curl up from the volley of punches to his midsection and wasn’t really listening.
He did hear something when the blows stopped however; a grunt, followed by a cry, and the hands letting go of his back and hair. He fell forward and would have bashed his face on the cement if something hadn’t caught on the back of his collar and stopped him.
He gazed blurrily at the concrete beneath him, close enough to the ground that he could pick out the rough grains of the stone without his glasses. The thing keeping him from giving it a messy red kiss levered him up so he could wobble on his feet. He turned and squinted, coughing a little, able to tell only by the set of his shoulders and jawline in the bad light that it was Doumeki. He felt something slip under his shirt and slap on the ground.
Doumeki was holding something out to him. Watanuki reached out for it, fingers brushing his warm hand before they found a cool strip of metal. He pulled it back and realized they were his glasses, putting them on. The lens on the side where he got hit was cracked, and the metal earpiece felt like it was twisted around his head, but everything was in focus again. He could clearly see Doumeki’s angry profile and the glare he was giving the people half-circled around them several paces away.
“Leave,” Doumeki growled, the word sounding like it was reverberating in his chest and into the air. No one moved. Watanuki heard a gasp behind him, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from Doumeki and the people in front of them.
He didn’t know what might’ve happened then, if the café’s loudspeakers hadn’t come on and told everyone to stay put; the police were coming.
Well that was stupid, Watanuki thought, as he watched their adversaries immediately scatter in several different directions. No one’s going to wait for the police to get here and arrest them.
Which reminded him that it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea for them to get out of there either, and he turned to let Doumeki know this. Doumeki was looking behind him this time, and Watanuki turned all the way around to see what had his attention instead of escaping.
Kohane was kneeling on the ground, her long, wavy hair falling in front of her face, her hand outstretched and covering something. He noticed that her hand was trembling, and he wondered why that was, staring stupidly for several moments, musing on nothing. Then he saw that the edge that was sticking out was shiny and had a zipper, like a ziploc bag-
The recognition was like a bucket of ice-cold water over his head; Watanuki gasped, eyes going wide, and every hair on his body standing straight up. Before he thought about what he was doing he had leapt forward unsteadily, his legs like jelly, and snatched the bag out from under Kohane’s hand, which hadn’t even been touching it, just hovering there. Then he stuffed it into his jacket pocket like it had never existed. Kohane just stared at the ground where it had been and slowly lifted her head.
“You brought it with you…?” her whisper was so quiet and disbelieving, his voice crackling around the edges. Her eyes -beautiful eyes -were huge, her pupils dilated completely. Her voice broke him. And her eyes sent him spiraling down and down and down…
“Why? Why did you do that?” There was no comprehension in her voice, just complete and utter pain. Just like the night she found out. When they all did. That same look on her face when she came in and saw him talking to shades, trying to talk to him, screaming at him, and he aware of it all but still much more preferring to talk to the small, sweet little Kohane of his memory…
He couldn’t speak; he looked at her and he lost all his words. He felt Doumeki’s yank on his arm, he knew dimly that he was running and that he couldn’t see Kohane’s face anymore, but it still hung before him. Everything else just sort of didn’t come.
He only really became aware of anything when they were half-way through the parking lot. He looked around, confused, dazed, and stared blankly at Doumeki when they stopped and he told him to get into the car. He was angry. No, Doumeki was livid, snarling lips a match for his own, and when he didn’t move quickly enough he just shoved him inside and slammed the door. A click and the seat in front of him creaked as Doumeki got in and slammed his own door, keying the ignition. Watanuki got a glimpse of one gray-blue eye staring at him from the front seat before it disappeared and he could only see the edge of light brown hair.
Watanuki had only just gotten some of his wits back around him, the ones that told him he was in deep shit and he’d know how much later, and the ones that asked him what the hell was he going to do now, when the car came to a screeching halt.
He barely managed to catch himself from flying forward into the dash and the front seats. Doumeki made a violent motion, putting the car into park, before throwing open his door. He got out, shut it, opened Watanuki’s door, pulled him out thrashing and protesting and asking what the hell he was doing, and closed the door. Then he slammed him against the roof and the rear right window.
“You. Are so. Selfish,” he spat into his face, literally getting spit on Watanuki’s cheek. And like all things these days, Watanuki’s response was on autopilot.
“Selfish? You’re the selfish one.” He couldn’t even stop himself. He just closed his eyes, as he lost complete and utter control of everything. “This whole trip was for Kohane-chan.”
Watanuki was thrown away from the car the next second, staggering and tripping over the curb, landing on his knees. He looked in time to see Doumeki opening his car door and he wailed without thinking, “Where are you going?!”
Doumeki looked at him like he would like nothing more than to watch him jump off a bridge. “You’ve got your own car.” And got in, slamming the door shut.
Watanuki didn’t get up off the sidewalk for a long time after they left.
xXx
Watanuki never understood Yuuko’s death.
She was a healthy woman, maybe a little past her prime (Watanuki would have been beaten if he had ever said that out loud to her), had a little too much penchant for smoking and alcohol (and she ate like a horse), but still far too young to die. And to die of a stopped heart especially.
She was a beautiful woman. Queen of the modeling firm, Monarch, and long since retired and turned food critic, she found Watanuki, an orphan, fighting with middle-aged women in a cloth bargain sale. She said she was so impressed with the way he fought tooth and nail with those women that she had decided to hire him on the spot (and she only had to convince him afterwards that she had, and that, no, she wasn’t a crazy woman, what an insolent little boy to ask that).
He got to pick out the dress for her funeral. He chose a simple, but elegant one, vastly different from most of her wardrobe, but the one he thought suited her the best. And of course she had looked beautiful in it too.
They couldn’t tell him why she had died, and when he came back home, to Yuuko’s gaudy mansion, not his, he nearly destroyed everything. He tore up the wall hangings, threw statues, and even managed to break the dolls, leaving to spazz and fitz in the second-story hallway, while he went into Yuuko’s rooms. And he barely touched anything in there. Some fingerprints through the dust on the dresser, a hand through Yuuko’s delicate butterfly bed curtains…
He picked up her pipe. He wanted to smoke, really badly wanted to, wanted to feel that same relaxation that Yuuko seemed to get, used to get, from doing it. And so he took some stuff out of her tobacco box, went out onto the balcony, and smoked -and had a wonderful time smoking and chatting with Yuuko that night.
Everyone except Watanuki’s best friends put down his strange behavior after the funeral as a product of grief.
Watanuki found out later what was in Yuuko’s pipe (for afterall, by this time he had run out), and learned it was Refrain, the Dream of the Past. Used to allow the user to experience a believable hallucination of the best parts of their lives. Extremely addictive, and, without the users continued use, extremely fatal.
So Yuuko had died.
Betraying him.
xXx
Watanuki was pretty sure that rabbit was mocking him.
he reached into the end table drawer
Just wait until he caught it in the act. Then he’d tell Yuuko.
rub it between his fingers
Then it’d be in trouble. And Watanuki would laugh
laugh
She stood at the end of the corridor, butterflies floating off her clothes, out of her mouth
No after-dinner alcohol! Not unless you punish that thing too!
What thing?
You know, that rabbit…thing… wait, maybe it’s an egg.
Watanuki
Then we should cook it.
found a letter (not to him)
Even if it isn’t, maybe we should cook it anyway. It’s annoying.
and a photograph
Long dark hair glasses. Megane-kun. “Such clever eyes”
(All those times you were looking into the distance…you were watching someone, weren’t you, Yuuko-san?)
P.S. I wanted you to live.
(I’m sorry you felt that way. I wish you had told me.)
xXx
He was in the rain somehow. The sky swung and he could feel it in his hair and his eyes. He couldn’t hear it though.
He couldn’t hear anything.
xXx
The first thing Watanuki was aware of was a smell. It was annoyingly familiar. Instead of opening his eyes (they felt too heavy), he tried to work out what it was instead. He frowned (he thought, he wasn’t sure): there was a sinking impression in his stomach and it wasn’t pleasant. The smell, something to do with the smell…
His eyes flared open. And for a second he was blinded.
Sunlight. Coming through the windows next to him. He had to squint his eyes shut, watching the soft red darkness behind them, before he opened them more cautiously. White curtains flapped prettily, and Watanuki could hear birds, and smell cut grass. Under the other stench.
He didn’t have to look, but he did anyway. He could see the cabinets, the edge of a curtain partition. White everywhere.
The hospital. He stared at the bumps in the ceiling plaster. He supposed this had only been a matter of time. If he hadn’t had enough of a bad experience being brought to one once, when his parents had died, the second visit had been enough to cinch his opinion of hospitals and what it meant when he went to one.
He’d had to come in to give permission for Yuuko to be taken off life-support. Her brain activity had almost completely died by then. Her damn heart had been coaxed into beating again, but anything that had been Yuuko was long gone. Watanuki had still wanted to hold on though, and the agony of being told again, over and over again, that there was no chance, absolutely none, until he had given in still hurt him now. Watanuki had wanted to believe in miracles. He still felt that he should have.
There was that weird falling sensation in his midsection that Watanuki knew was dread and maybe remembered fear, but he felt oddly disconnected to it. It was squirming in his stomach, but it felt more like insects buzzing in an empty cavity, and he didn’t feel uncomfortable enough to move.
The ceiling bulged above him. Watanuki frowned and blinked. Deflating and inflating. His eyes were focusing weirdly. He didn’t feel like sleep either.
Watanuki moved one of his arms to scratch his chest, when he was surprised into clear awareness of the drag and numbness in his limb. He glanced over and saw a needle and bag hooked up on a stand, but that was no longer important. What was, was the sight of a visitor in the chair next to him. Who that was.
Watanuki stared, breath frozen in his lungs, eyes subconsciously following the curves of curls rushing and tumbling down in elegant strands. When he did remember to breathe he caught the faint, indistinct flower smell of her favorite perfume.
He took in her face slowly; dozing or asleep, he couldn’t tell. Himawari always wore a serene expression. He’s glad that he never changed that. In some ways, he’s come to discover, Himawari had always been the strongest of them.
Her eyes flutter open and he’s aware now that he’s paralyzed, hooked-up, and bedridden. And that even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have been able to escape her dark-green eyes. Himawari smiled, tilted her head, and it is so much like how it used to be, but Watanuki’s still not afraid (or maybe more). He knows this is real. Somehow.
“Hello, Watanuki-kun,” she says in a normal, cheerful voice, like nothing’s wrong. She adds, “I’m glad you’re finally awake,” and there Watanuki can hear concern and relief, a little of both.
Watanuki swallows and nods, his mouth dry. Actually, now that he’s noticed it, it feels like his tongue has been glued to the roof of his mouth and grown fur. He swallows again and his throat clicks.
Himawari notices it. “Ah! Here…” She grabs a pitcher off a side table that Watanuki didn’t notice before, because it had been right next to Himawari and completely pushed out of his attention, and pours some water into a clear little plastic cup. She lifts it towards him. He tries to take it from her, profusely thankful, but is alarmed when he lifts an arm only to have it flap back down under its own weight. It feels like his limbs have been replaced with heavy wooden substitutes. Still holding out the cup, Himawari soon figures out what is wrong.
“Oh, that’s right, the doctors mentioned that there will be some weakness for a while. Well, I guess there’s no other option, then,” and she got up, sat at the edge of his bed and held the cup to his lips.
He’s surprised, but he drinks gratefully, dragging his hand up to help hold it by placing his arm’s weight on his chest.
Going slowly, he drinks all of it, and Himawari starts to reach back for the pitcher again for a refill. Watanuki grabs her wrist before she moves it away and stops her.
“No,” he croaks, and then clears his throat. “No, it’s fine for now. What,” and he doesn’t want to question it, but he knows now that it’s also pointless not to, “what are you doing here? Him- Kunogi-san.”
“Himawari,” she corrects, smiling, really looking at him now, like she understands what he’s trying to do but doesn’t think it’s necessary. “We’ve known eachother for too long for that, don’t you think so, Watanuki-kun?”
He has to close his eyes at that because they are starting to burn. Himawari was the first to offer her name and through all these years, Watanuki had never asked for the return favor. For some reason, asking had just slipped away.
Doumeki was right. He was completely selfish.
“Himawari-chan,” he says reluctantly. He wants to ask her, but he knows better than to do it right now. He doesn’t have the right to. “What -why are you here? I thought-” he takes a deep breath, “I thought you didn’t want to see me anymore.”
“I did want to.” Himawari’s eyes are so direct. Watanuki can only remember a few times before when Himawari was this frank. But then, it occurs to him, she has probably changed too. “There were many times I second guessed myself. And what I had told you. Especially when it didn’t look like you were going to stop. But I knew in the end that nothing would be different if I changed my mind and came back. If you want something to change, you have to decide for yourself that you want it, don’t you? Not because of anyone or anything else.”
“Himawari-chan-” He wants to say something, apologize, maybe to explain: and it’s not because his head feels clearer, it’s just because he doesn’t seem to have any energy anymore to avoid this. He’s finally run down.
Himawari held up a hand, cutting him off. “I’m just here to tell you one thing before I go. When you were admitted, the doctors said you had overdosed. They called Kohane-chan and I to the hospital, Shizuka-kun had brought you in by the way, the twins had called him, and we were given two options. One was to just wait until you came out of it with medication. The other was to detoxicate you right then and let you recover afterwards. Shizuka-kun had wanted you to ask for this yourself, to make the decision. Kohane-chan didn’t know what to think, but she wanted you to get better. I convinced them both to agree to the second option.”
Watanuki stared, speechless, and Himawari smiled again. “That’s what you get for listing us in your advance directive. So, Watanuki-kun. I’m giving you a choice. Actually, I’m making you make a choice. You decide if things should change or if you want to go back. We did this so that this time it would be completely up to you. We can’t stop you from deciding anything, but we wanted -to give you distance, I guess. Or give you the ability to have it.”
“I know that you miss her, Watanuki,” she said, and her eyes had a wistful sadness in them. “More than we’ll probably ever know. And I don’t know why she did it either. But even if she did…that doesn’t have to be you, Watanuki-kun. You don’t have to try to be like her to make up for the fact that she isn’t here. I don’t think anyone could be like Yuuko-san, to be honest. She was such a character.” She giggled.
Watanuki looked at her, wondering what she was remembering, and thinking that he had forgotten about most of Yuuko’s eccentricities and all her annoying little habits that used to drive him up the wall. He had forgotten about a large part of Yuuko, and in a way, he thinks he was trying to find a piece of that again. Though he had failed. His dreams hadn’t been able to bring back any of the past after all.
“You’re a different person than her.” Himawari was serious again. “And I remember -you were changing too, before. You were different, and we didn’t really get to see that new you, before this happened and destroyed that. I want to meet that different you, Watanuki-kun. It would be nice if we could all change and grow older together again.”
She smiled. “Well, I feel like I’ve talked too much.” She got up before Watanuki could think of anything to say and stepped back.
“I’ve been asking Shizuka-kun to keep me up to date on you,” she added before leaving. “And to watch to see if you were going to change.”
“I kept asking after you too,” Watanuki finally managed to interject. “But that jerk would never tell me anything.”
Himawari laughed. “That’s because I asked him not to. Shizuka-kun is very reliable about such things. And it wouldn’t make a point not to talk to you, if you could just hear about me from someone else.”
“Goodbye, Watanuki-kun,” she said at the door, black hair waving beautifully as she turned back to smile one last time at him. “I hope I will see you again, soon.”
Watanuki watched the door for a while after she left, before looking back out the window to listen to the birds.
xXx
They were celebrating his birthday. The hospital forbid anything extravagant, but Watanuki didn’t want anything bigger anyway. They were all clustered around him when he blew out the candles on the cake they had gotten him, helping him out so he could get them all the first time.
They turned the lights back on and Watanuki was watching when Obaa-chan cut the cake. But he was watching his friends. Kohane was smiling. Doumeki was looking at him with hope in his tiny eyes. And Himawari was laughing, together for the first time in years.
Watanuki felt his happiness multiply too.
*
The fst is by nebulia and can be found here at mediafire. Lyrics and the cover are below. As a side note, many of these can be both interpreted as Watanuki to Yuuko and Kohane/Doumeki/Himawari to Watanuki. So interpret as you want. :)
1. Megalomaniac--Incubus
If I were your appendages
I'd hold open your eyes
So you would see
That all of us are heaven sent
There was never meant to be only one
To be only one
Hey megalomaniac
You're no Jesus
Yeah, you're no fucking Elvis
Wash your hands clean of yourself
2. What Do You Go Home To?--Explosions in the Sky
instrumental
3. Walking With a Ghost--The White Stripes
No matter which way you go,
No matter which way you stay,
You're out of my mind
out of my mind
out of my mind
out of my mind
I was walking with a ghost
I said please, please don't exist.
I was walking with a ghost
I said please, please don't exist.
4. Savior--Rise Against
There is no reconciliation that will put me in my place
And there is no time like the present to drink these draining seconds
But seldom do these words ring true when I'm constantly failing you
Like walls that we just can't break through until we disappear
1000 miles away
There's nothing left to say
But so much left that I don't know
We never had a choice
This world is too much noise
It takes me under
5. When We Were Younger and Better--65daysofstatic
Instrumental
6. Bad Habit--The Dresden Dolls
and you might say it's self-indulgent
and you might say it's self-destructive
but, you see, it's more productive
than if i were to be happy
7. Ghost (Demo Version)--Indigo Girls
Dark and dangerous like a secret it gets whispered in a hush (don't tell a soul)
And when I wake the things I dreamt about you last night make me blush (don't
tell a soul)
When you kiss me like a lover and you sting me like a viper
I go follow to the river pay your memory like the piper
And I feel it like a sickness how this love is killing me
But I would walk into the fingers of your fire willingly
Dance the edge of sanity I've never been this close
In love with your ghost
This bitter pill to swallow is the silence that I keep
It poisons me I can't swim free the river is too deep
8. Hang You From the Heavens--The Dead Weather
I never know how to treat you
You say I love you but it ain't true
I'm walking away now
One step forward and back two
I'd like to grab you by the hair
And hang you up from the heavens
I don't know how to let you go
Or if I should keep you
9. Through December--Laura Veirs
Poor old red she's dead and gone her eyes
I do remember at least i have this old guitar
To get me through december through december
Her eyes were dark as winter's night both
Somehow young and old
10. High and Dry (US Version)--Jamie Cullum
You'd kill yourself for recognition, You'd kill yourself to never ever stop
You broke another mirror. You're turning into something you are not.
Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry
Drying up in conversation, you will be the one who cannot talk.
All your insides fall to pieces, you just sit there wishing you could still make love.
They're the ones who'll hate you, when you think you've got the world all sussed out.
There the ones who'll spit at you. You will be the one screaming out.
Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high, don't leave me.....dry
11. Don't Go Down to Sorrow--65daysofstatic
Instrumental
12. That Crown Don't Make You a Prince--Murder By Death
All the drunks in the alleys are takin' up arms to undo their whole lives in a day if their hearts they don't change before long in the heart of the beast they will lay
13. Just to Get High--Nickelback
I watched the lying, turn into hiding
With scars on both his lips, his fingertips
Were melted to the bone
But I can still remember what his face looked like
When I found him in an alley in the middle of the night
Tell me what you know! Tell me what you gone and done now
Tell me what you know! Tell me what you gone and done now
Gonna do the trick, get it over with
14. All For You--Sister Hazel
Finally I figured out,
But it took a long long time
Now there's a turnabout,
Maybe cause I'm tryin'
There's been times, I'm so confused
Down my road, will it lead to you?
Just can't turn and walk away
And I'd thought I seen it all,
Cause it's been a long long time
Oh bothered that we'll trip and fall,
Wonderin' if I'm alive
15. Unwritten--Natasha Bedingfield
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
16. Homeward Angel--Moby
Instrumental
xXx
The amusement park turned out to be both an excellent idea and a bad idea on Watanuki’s part. Good idea because Kohane appeared to be genuinely enjoying herself for the first time on the trip. Bad idea because most of her amusement seemed to come out of coaxing Watanuki onto rides with her, with promises of forgiveness, and then watching him get sick when they got off. (Well, she hadn’t promised forgiveness per se, but it was the implication, dammit!) But really, the wrenching was awful, him not having eaten anything all day, and he coughed up some orange fluid that he was pretty sure might’ve been stomach acid. He fell really ill, very quickly.
They had finally sat down to take a break at one of the ridiculously over-priced outdoor cafes they had inside the park. It was growing late, an orange tinged sky burned slowly overhead, and some worrisome dark lumps of cloud were scattered across the horizon. Kohane and Doumeki both ordered something, while Watanuki just got some bottled water to help wash down the acrid taste in his mouth. He really didn’t think that he could handle any food right now, and after that he really wasn’t hungry either.
It got quiet when their waiter left their table. Doumeki and Kohane were not big chatters (at least, Kohane wasn’t in present company) and Watanuki was avoiding opening his mouth right then. They sat in a slightly awkward silence until the food came, and then they both dug in while he sipped cautiously at his water, staring off to the side so as not to be uncomfortable.
Maybe he was being a bit overcautious with this, Watanuki thought, when he noticed after a while that both Doumeki and Kohane were giving him subtle concerned looks now. But it was nice to know that he had their attention again.
After a while, Doumeki shoved over some fries to him, while he blinked at it, confused, before he realized that both of them had finished. “Eat something,” he had told him, nudging his fries forward, and Watanuki got irritated at the demand and started lecturing Doumeki about all the bad effects greasy food had on an upset stomach. Kohane looked between them, and she was smiling again. Watanuki felt a little warmer when he saw.
It was nice, and it might’ve been okay after that, until someone shouted Doumeki’s name and they looked up to see a crowd of people coming to their table.
They all greeted Doumeki and chatted him up, while ignoring his two companions. They looked, Watanuki narrowed his eyes at them, to be college age; they probably knew Doumeki from the university. That was confirmed when a couple of the students complained to Doumeki that they didn’t understand some of the lectures that he was the TA for, and asked if he was offering tutoring lessons. Most of the ones who asked, Watanuki noted, sneering, were pretty girls. This forcibly reminded him of high school. Then, all the groups had tried to approach Doumeki when he, Watanuki, and Himawari were eating lunch together or walking home together, on breaks or clean up duties. Doumeki, for some reason he had never been able to see, attracted people this way, and while he never seemed interested, they just kept coming.
Watanuki also remembered that while the people that came to see Doumeki had treated Himawari well enough (there were these ridiculous rumors in high school that they were dating), they hadn’t understood why Doumeki had hung out with him, the school’s pariah. Watanuki still didn’t know the reason for that either, but he had enough experience of the strange sort of hazing that Doumeki’s popularity caused to be wary.
When Doumeki’s one word answers finally whittled down the conversation, they took notice of the people he was sitting with, and one of them recognized Watanuki.
“Wait, you’re Watanuki Kimihiro aren’t you? The chef on TV?” When he confirmed that he was they immediately crowded around him, excited to be meeting a famous celebrity. Watanuki felt a little smug about Doumeki’s friends change in allegiance (even though he had been the first one to attract them), and turned to give him a superior look. Doumeki, however, wasn’t staring enviously at him like he thought. He was watching the crowd around him. And the look on his face hinted at Watanuki’s initial reaction. Guarded. Watanuki frowned, wondering why Doumeki would look like that around people that he probably saw every week.
“Wow, Doumeki-san, you’re friends with Watanuki Kimihiro?” The mention of Doumeki again brought Watanuki back to what they were saying. “That’s so cool!” One of the girls breathed happily, and Watanuki reflected on the irony that while they were in school, being seen as his friend had quite the opposite effect on his reputation.
The presence of these people here had quickly lost its entertainment value to Watanuki, and now he wished Doumeki’s students would find something else to do and leave. He got unnecessary fawning from people who didn’t know him all the time. And Doumeki’s ego might make his head explode if he got anymore attention than he already did. Luckily they hadn’t recognized Kohane, though it had been quite a few years since she had been in the spotlight and she had since grown up. If they did, they would almost definitely try to stay. Watanuki tried to think of something to say to get them to leave before they did.
“So, who’s the cute girl, Doumeki-san?” One of the guys asked. Kohane immediately stopped watching them with a blank expression and ducked her head. The group laughed at that, cooing that she was shy, and Watanuki tensed, realizing that being recognized out here was probably the last thing Kohane wanted to happen. Kohane’s departure from her acting career and her mother on her own years back had created a huge scandal, one that people still remembered years later. She still had issues at school because of it and strangers didn’t treat her much better most of the time when they knew.
“A friend,” Doumeki deadpanned, shifting slightly. Watanuki realized that he was trying to shield Kohane a little more from their staring, and he clenched his fists in his lap. These people didn’t look like they were going to let it go that easily. “Oh, I think she’s much more than that,” one of the girls simpered. Watanuki had dealt with too many people who hated his guts and had to pretend they didn’t, not to recognize that falsely sweet tone.
“No wonder Doumeki-san won’t go out with any of us,” another girl added. “When he’s got such a young, little girlfriend like you. What’s your name, sweetie?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Doumeki said. Watanuki, familiar with him after so many years, could hear the thread of iron in his toneless voice now. The others, of course, couldn’t. They laughed again at that, and one of the girls reached over to pat his arm familiarly, which Doumeki quickly retracted. Watanuki could see the girl pretend not to notice. “Oh it’s alright, we understand. It’s young love,” she winked. “Though you better not be trying to break her heart, going on like that!”
The rest of the group seemed to find that really funny for some reason, and Doumeki’s jaw clenched and Watanuki ground his teeth, while Kohane still didn’t look up.
“Hey, at least that means we can have the rest of the girls, now that we know Doumeki-senpai is hooked up,” one of the guys said, hooking an arm around a girl. “Doumeki-senpai has too many hopefuls, it’s hard to get a date.”
“But hey, if you drop that cute little bird, Doumeki-san, let me know, I wouldn’t mind going with a younger one for a while!”
Watanuki pushed out of his chair so quickly that it fell back behind him with an extremely loud bang on the concrete. At least it shut them up.
“Are you really that fucking insensitive or are you mentally defective?!” Watanuki yelled, so pissed off that he wasn’t sure if he was seeing straight. These are not Doumeki’s friends. Or if they were, Doumeki needed to tell them to get lost, and then lose the rest of his friends. He couldn’t believe Doumeki had just let them say all that shit. Watanuki felt like he was about to have an aneurysm, he was so angry. No need to be polite. “She doesn’t want to talk to you, she doesn’t even want to look at your fucking ugly faces, what makes you think she’d want to date you or have anything to do with you tactless, shiftless jackasses!”
Watanuki had never been so grateful to have such a ready tongue. It was so therapeutic.
“What the fuck-” And he was so angry, that Watanuki only felt a deep satisfaction when what he said finally managed to penetrate their thick skulls and he could see their face as they began to get mad. He made sure to cut them off before they could say anything back.
“No one gives a fuck if you can’t get girlfriends or boyfriends because you’re all shallow, disgusting morons,” Watanuki said viciously. “Go pay for it if you need it, and save people the wasted effort of dating you.”
“Oh yeah, like you don’t pay to get some!” Someone finally roared back. “Everyone talks about on TV how you’re a complete asshole off camera and no one can stand to be around you, and I bet you’ve got some hookers on speed dial for when you can’t stand being alone with yourself, huh?”
“Better than being pedophilic freaks,” Watanuki instantly retorted. “Who want children because you’re used to it being completely unwilling. You-”
“Kimihiro-!” Kohane screamed.
A fist slammed into the side of his head, and Watanuki felt the wire of his glasses twist in his hair before they flew off. He snagged at a table edge before he fell down, and felt someone grab him by the lapels of his jacket and throw him into another table.
It hurt. A lot. Watanuki thought he might’ve shattered the glass-top table. He could feel a lot of sharp little shards underneath his face and hands. He was picking himself up when they pulled him back be the back of his jacket and hair and threw a fist into his stomach. Watanuki couldn’t take a breath.
He could dimly hear Kohane screaming at them to stop in the background, but he was busy trying to curl up from the volley of punches to his midsection and wasn’t really listening.
He did hear something when the blows stopped however; a grunt, followed by a cry, and the hands letting go of his back and hair. He fell forward and would have bashed his face on the cement if something hadn’t caught on the back of his collar and stopped him.
He gazed blurrily at the concrete beneath him, close enough to the ground that he could pick out the rough grains of the stone without his glasses. The thing keeping him from giving it a messy red kiss levered him up so he could wobble on his feet. He turned and squinted, coughing a little, able to tell only by the set of his shoulders and jawline in the bad light that it was Doumeki. He felt something slip under his shirt and slap on the ground.
Doumeki was holding something out to him. Watanuki reached out for it, fingers brushing his warm hand before they found a cool strip of metal. He pulled it back and realized they were his glasses, putting them on. The lens on the side where he got hit was cracked, and the metal earpiece felt like it was twisted around his head, but everything was in focus again. He could clearly see Doumeki’s angry profile and the glare he was giving the people half-circled around them several paces away.
“Leave,” Doumeki growled, the word sounding like it was reverberating in his chest and into the air. No one moved. Watanuki heard a gasp behind him, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from Doumeki and the people in front of them.
He didn’t know what might’ve happened then, if the café’s loudspeakers hadn’t come on and told everyone to stay put; the police were coming.
Well that was stupid, Watanuki thought, as he watched their adversaries immediately scatter in several different directions. No one’s going to wait for the police to get here and arrest them.
Which reminded him that it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea for them to get out of there either, and he turned to let Doumeki know this. Doumeki was looking behind him this time, and Watanuki turned all the way around to see what had his attention instead of escaping.
Kohane was kneeling on the ground, her long, wavy hair falling in front of her face, her hand outstretched and covering something. He noticed that her hand was trembling, and he wondered why that was, staring stupidly for several moments, musing on nothing. Then he saw that the edge that was sticking out was shiny and had a zipper, like a ziploc bag-
The recognition was like a bucket of ice-cold water over his head; Watanuki gasped, eyes going wide, and every hair on his body standing straight up. Before he thought about what he was doing he had leapt forward unsteadily, his legs like jelly, and snatched the bag out from under Kohane’s hand, which hadn’t even been touching it, just hovering there. Then he stuffed it into his jacket pocket like it had never existed. Kohane just stared at the ground where it had been and slowly lifted her head.
“You brought it with you…?” her whisper was so quiet and disbelieving, his voice crackling around the edges. Her eyes -beautiful eyes -were huge, her pupils dilated completely. Her voice broke him. And her eyes sent him spiraling down and down and down…
“Why? Why did you do that?” There was no comprehension in her voice, just complete and utter pain. Just like the night she found out. When they all did. That same look on her face when she came in and saw him talking to shades, trying to talk to him, screaming at him, and he aware of it all but still much more preferring to talk to the small, sweet little Kohane of his memory…
He couldn’t speak; he looked at her and he lost all his words. He felt Doumeki’s yank on his arm, he knew dimly that he was running and that he couldn’t see Kohane’s face anymore, but it still hung before him. Everything else just sort of didn’t come.
He only really became aware of anything when they were half-way through the parking lot. He looked around, confused, dazed, and stared blankly at Doumeki when they stopped and he told him to get into the car. He was angry. No, Doumeki was livid, snarling lips a match for his own, and when he didn’t move quickly enough he just shoved him inside and slammed the door. A click and the seat in front of him creaked as Doumeki got in and slammed his own door, keying the ignition. Watanuki got a glimpse of one gray-blue eye staring at him from the front seat before it disappeared and he could only see the edge of light brown hair.
Watanuki had only just gotten some of his wits back around him, the ones that told him he was in deep shit and he’d know how much later, and the ones that asked him what the hell was he going to do now, when the car came to a screeching halt.
He barely managed to catch himself from flying forward into the dash and the front seats. Doumeki made a violent motion, putting the car into park, before throwing open his door. He got out, shut it, opened Watanuki’s door, pulled him out thrashing and protesting and asking what the hell he was doing, and closed the door. Then he slammed him against the roof and the rear right window.
“You. Are so. Selfish,” he spat into his face, literally getting spit on Watanuki’s cheek. And like all things these days, Watanuki’s response was on autopilot.
“Selfish? You’re the selfish one.” He couldn’t even stop himself. He just closed his eyes, as he lost complete and utter control of everything. “This whole trip was for Kohane-chan.”
Watanuki was thrown away from the car the next second, staggering and tripping over the curb, landing on his knees. He looked in time to see Doumeki opening his car door and he wailed without thinking, “Where are you going?!”
Doumeki looked at him like he would like nothing more than to watch him jump off a bridge. “You’ve got your own car.” And got in, slamming the door shut.
Watanuki didn’t get up off the sidewalk for a long time after they left.
xXx
Watanuki never understood Yuuko’s death.
She was a healthy woman, maybe a little past her prime (Watanuki would have been beaten if he had ever said that out loud to her), had a little too much penchant for smoking and alcohol (and she ate like a horse), but still far too young to die. And to die of a stopped heart especially.
She was a beautiful woman. Queen of the modeling firm, Monarch, and long since retired and turned food critic, she found Watanuki, an orphan, fighting with middle-aged women in a cloth bargain sale. She said she was so impressed with the way he fought tooth and nail with those women that she had decided to hire him on the spot (and she only had to convince him afterwards that she had, and that, no, she wasn’t a crazy woman, what an insolent little boy to ask that).
He got to pick out the dress for her funeral. He chose a simple, but elegant one, vastly different from most of her wardrobe, but the one he thought suited her the best. And of course she had looked beautiful in it too.
They couldn’t tell him why she had died, and when he came back home, to Yuuko’s gaudy mansion, not his, he nearly destroyed everything. He tore up the wall hangings, threw statues, and even managed to break the dolls, leaving to spazz and fitz in the second-story hallway, while he went into Yuuko’s rooms. And he barely touched anything in there. Some fingerprints through the dust on the dresser, a hand through Yuuko’s delicate butterfly bed curtains…
He picked up her pipe. He wanted to smoke, really badly wanted to, wanted to feel that same relaxation that Yuuko seemed to get, used to get, from doing it. And so he took some stuff out of her tobacco box, went out onto the balcony, and smoked -and had a wonderful time smoking and chatting with Yuuko that night.
Everyone except Watanuki’s best friends put down his strange behavior after the funeral as a product of grief.
Watanuki found out later what was in Yuuko’s pipe (for afterall, by this time he had run out), and learned it was Refrain, the Dream of the Past. Used to allow the user to experience a believable hallucination of the best parts of their lives. Extremely addictive, and, without the users continued use, extremely fatal.
So Yuuko had died.
Betraying him.
xXx
Watanuki was pretty sure that rabbit was mocking him.
he reached into the end table drawer
Just wait until he caught it in the act. Then he’d tell Yuuko.
rub it between his fingers
Then it’d be in trouble. And Watanuki would laugh
laugh
She stood at the end of the corridor, butterflies floating off her clothes, out of her mouth
No after-dinner alcohol! Not unless you punish that thing too!
What thing?
You know, that rabbit…thing… wait, maybe it’s an egg.
Watanuki
Then we should cook it.
found a letter (not to him)
Even if it isn’t, maybe we should cook it anyway. It’s annoying.
and a photograph
Long dark hair glasses. Megane-kun. “Such clever eyes”
(All those times you were looking into the distance…you were watching someone, weren’t you, Yuuko-san?)
P.S. I wanted you to live.
(I’m sorry you felt that way. I wish you had told me.)
xXx
He was in the rain somehow. The sky swung and he could feel it in his hair and his eyes. He couldn’t hear it though.
He couldn’t hear anything.
xXx
The first thing Watanuki was aware of was a smell. It was annoyingly familiar. Instead of opening his eyes (they felt too heavy), he tried to work out what it was instead. He frowned (he thought, he wasn’t sure): there was a sinking impression in his stomach and it wasn’t pleasant. The smell, something to do with the smell…
His eyes flared open. And for a second he was blinded.
Sunlight. Coming through the windows next to him. He had to squint his eyes shut, watching the soft red darkness behind them, before he opened them more cautiously. White curtains flapped prettily, and Watanuki could hear birds, and smell cut grass. Under the other stench.
He didn’t have to look, but he did anyway. He could see the cabinets, the edge of a curtain partition. White everywhere.
The hospital. He stared at the bumps in the ceiling plaster. He supposed this had only been a matter of time. If he hadn’t had enough of a bad experience being brought to one once, when his parents had died, the second visit had been enough to cinch his opinion of hospitals and what it meant when he went to one.
He’d had to come in to give permission for Yuuko to be taken off life-support. Her brain activity had almost completely died by then. Her damn heart had been coaxed into beating again, but anything that had been Yuuko was long gone. Watanuki had still wanted to hold on though, and the agony of being told again, over and over again, that there was no chance, absolutely none, until he had given in still hurt him now. Watanuki had wanted to believe in miracles. He still felt that he should have.
There was that weird falling sensation in his midsection that Watanuki knew was dread and maybe remembered fear, but he felt oddly disconnected to it. It was squirming in his stomach, but it felt more like insects buzzing in an empty cavity, and he didn’t feel uncomfortable enough to move.
The ceiling bulged above him. Watanuki frowned and blinked. Deflating and inflating. His eyes were focusing weirdly. He didn’t feel like sleep either.
Watanuki moved one of his arms to scratch his chest, when he was surprised into clear awareness of the drag and numbness in his limb. He glanced over and saw a needle and bag hooked up on a stand, but that was no longer important. What was, was the sight of a visitor in the chair next to him. Who that was.
Watanuki stared, breath frozen in his lungs, eyes subconsciously following the curves of curls rushing and tumbling down in elegant strands. When he did remember to breathe he caught the faint, indistinct flower smell of her favorite perfume.
He took in her face slowly; dozing or asleep, he couldn’t tell. Himawari always wore a serene expression. He’s glad that he never changed that. In some ways, he’s come to discover, Himawari had always been the strongest of them.
Her eyes flutter open and he’s aware now that he’s paralyzed, hooked-up, and bedridden. And that even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have been able to escape her dark-green eyes. Himawari smiled, tilted her head, and it is so much like how it used to be, but Watanuki’s still not afraid (or maybe more). He knows this is real. Somehow.
“Hello, Watanuki-kun,” she says in a normal, cheerful voice, like nothing’s wrong. She adds, “I’m glad you’re finally awake,” and there Watanuki can hear concern and relief, a little of both.
Watanuki swallows and nods, his mouth dry. Actually, now that he’s noticed it, it feels like his tongue has been glued to the roof of his mouth and grown fur. He swallows again and his throat clicks.
Himawari notices it. “Ah! Here…” She grabs a pitcher off a side table that Watanuki didn’t notice before, because it had been right next to Himawari and completely pushed out of his attention, and pours some water into a clear little plastic cup. She lifts it towards him. He tries to take it from her, profusely thankful, but is alarmed when he lifts an arm only to have it flap back down under its own weight. It feels like his limbs have been replaced with heavy wooden substitutes. Still holding out the cup, Himawari soon figures out what is wrong.
“Oh, that’s right, the doctors mentioned that there will be some weakness for a while. Well, I guess there’s no other option, then,” and she got up, sat at the edge of his bed and held the cup to his lips.
He’s surprised, but he drinks gratefully, dragging his hand up to help hold it by placing his arm’s weight on his chest.
Going slowly, he drinks all of it, and Himawari starts to reach back for the pitcher again for a refill. Watanuki grabs her wrist before she moves it away and stops her.
“No,” he croaks, and then clears his throat. “No, it’s fine for now. What,” and he doesn’t want to question it, but he knows now that it’s also pointless not to, “what are you doing here? Him- Kunogi-san.”
“Himawari,” she corrects, smiling, really looking at him now, like she understands what he’s trying to do but doesn’t think it’s necessary. “We’ve known eachother for too long for that, don’t you think so, Watanuki-kun?”
He has to close his eyes at that because they are starting to burn. Himawari was the first to offer her name and through all these years, Watanuki had never asked for the return favor. For some reason, asking had just slipped away.
Doumeki was right. He was completely selfish.
“Himawari-chan,” he says reluctantly. He wants to ask her, but he knows better than to do it right now. He doesn’t have the right to. “What -why are you here? I thought-” he takes a deep breath, “I thought you didn’t want to see me anymore.”
“I did want to.” Himawari’s eyes are so direct. Watanuki can only remember a few times before when Himawari was this frank. But then, it occurs to him, she has probably changed too. “There were many times I second guessed myself. And what I had told you. Especially when it didn’t look like you were going to stop. But I knew in the end that nothing would be different if I changed my mind and came back. If you want something to change, you have to decide for yourself that you want it, don’t you? Not because of anyone or anything else.”
“Himawari-chan-” He wants to say something, apologize, maybe to explain: and it’s not because his head feels clearer, it’s just because he doesn’t seem to have any energy anymore to avoid this. He’s finally run down.
Himawari held up a hand, cutting him off. “I’m just here to tell you one thing before I go. When you were admitted, the doctors said you had overdosed. They called Kohane-chan and I to the hospital, Shizuka-kun had brought you in by the way, the twins had called him, and we were given two options. One was to just wait until you came out of it with medication. The other was to detoxicate you right then and let you recover afterwards. Shizuka-kun had wanted you to ask for this yourself, to make the decision. Kohane-chan didn’t know what to think, but she wanted you to get better. I convinced them both to agree to the second option.”
Watanuki stared, speechless, and Himawari smiled again. “That’s what you get for listing us in your advance directive. So, Watanuki-kun. I’m giving you a choice. Actually, I’m making you make a choice. You decide if things should change or if you want to go back. We did this so that this time it would be completely up to you. We can’t stop you from deciding anything, but we wanted -to give you distance, I guess. Or give you the ability to have it.”
“I know that you miss her, Watanuki,” she said, and her eyes had a wistful sadness in them. “More than we’ll probably ever know. And I don’t know why she did it either. But even if she did…that doesn’t have to be you, Watanuki-kun. You don’t have to try to be like her to make up for the fact that she isn’t here. I don’t think anyone could be like Yuuko-san, to be honest. She was such a character.” She giggled.
Watanuki looked at her, wondering what she was remembering, and thinking that he had forgotten about most of Yuuko’s eccentricities and all her annoying little habits that used to drive him up the wall. He had forgotten about a large part of Yuuko, and in a way, he thinks he was trying to find a piece of that again. Though he had failed. His dreams hadn’t been able to bring back any of the past after all.
“You’re a different person than her.” Himawari was serious again. “And I remember -you were changing too, before. You were different, and we didn’t really get to see that new you, before this happened and destroyed that. I want to meet that different you, Watanuki-kun. It would be nice if we could all change and grow older together again.”
She smiled. “Well, I feel like I’ve talked too much.” She got up before Watanuki could think of anything to say and stepped back.
“I’ve been asking Shizuka-kun to keep me up to date on you,” she added before leaving. “And to watch to see if you were going to change.”
“I kept asking after you too,” Watanuki finally managed to interject. “But that jerk would never tell me anything.”
Himawari laughed. “That’s because I asked him not to. Shizuka-kun is very reliable about such things. And it wouldn’t make a point not to talk to you, if you could just hear about me from someone else.”
“Goodbye, Watanuki-kun,” she said at the door, black hair waving beautifully as she turned back to smile one last time at him. “I hope I will see you again, soon.”
Watanuki watched the door for a while after she left, before looking back out the window to listen to the birds.
xXx
They were celebrating his birthday. The hospital forbid anything extravagant, but Watanuki didn’t want anything bigger anyway. They were all clustered around him when he blew out the candles on the cake they had gotten him, helping him out so he could get them all the first time.
They turned the lights back on and Watanuki was watching when Obaa-chan cut the cake. But he was watching his friends. Kohane was smiling. Doumeki was looking at him with hope in his tiny eyes. And Himawari was laughing, together for the first time in years.
Watanuki felt his happiness multiply too.
*
The fst is by nebulia and can be found here at mediafire. Lyrics and the cover are below. As a side note, many of these can be both interpreted as Watanuki to Yuuko and Kohane/Doumeki/Himawari to Watanuki. So interpret as you want. :)
1. Megalomaniac--Incubus
If I were your appendages
I'd hold open your eyes
So you would see
That all of us are heaven sent
There was never meant to be only one
To be only one
Hey megalomaniac
You're no Jesus
Yeah, you're no fucking Elvis
Wash your hands clean of yourself
2. What Do You Go Home To?--Explosions in the Sky
instrumental
3. Walking With a Ghost--The White Stripes
No matter which way you go,
No matter which way you stay,
You're out of my mind
out of my mind
out of my mind
out of my mind
I was walking with a ghost
I said please, please don't exist.
I was walking with a ghost
I said please, please don't exist.
4. Savior--Rise Against
There is no reconciliation that will put me in my place
And there is no time like the present to drink these draining seconds
But seldom do these words ring true when I'm constantly failing you
Like walls that we just can't break through until we disappear
1000 miles away
There's nothing left to say
But so much left that I don't know
We never had a choice
This world is too much noise
It takes me under
5. When We Were Younger and Better--65daysofstatic
Instrumental
6. Bad Habit--The Dresden Dolls
and you might say it's self-indulgent
and you might say it's self-destructive
but, you see, it's more productive
than if i were to be happy
7. Ghost (Demo Version)--Indigo Girls
Dark and dangerous like a secret it gets whispered in a hush (don't tell a soul)
And when I wake the things I dreamt about you last night make me blush (don't
tell a soul)
When you kiss me like a lover and you sting me like a viper
I go follow to the river pay your memory like the piper
And I feel it like a sickness how this love is killing me
But I would walk into the fingers of your fire willingly
Dance the edge of sanity I've never been this close
In love with your ghost
This bitter pill to swallow is the silence that I keep
It poisons me I can't swim free the river is too deep
8. Hang You From the Heavens--The Dead Weather
I never know how to treat you
You say I love you but it ain't true
I'm walking away now
One step forward and back two
I'd like to grab you by the hair
And hang you up from the heavens
I don't know how to let you go
Or if I should keep you
9. Through December--Laura Veirs
Poor old red she's dead and gone her eyes
I do remember at least i have this old guitar
To get me through december through december
Her eyes were dark as winter's night both
Somehow young and old
10. High and Dry (US Version)--Jamie Cullum
You'd kill yourself for recognition, You'd kill yourself to never ever stop
You broke another mirror. You're turning into something you are not.
Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry
Drying up in conversation, you will be the one who cannot talk.
All your insides fall to pieces, you just sit there wishing you could still make love.
They're the ones who'll hate you, when you think you've got the world all sussed out.
There the ones who'll spit at you. You will be the one screaming out.
Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high, don't leave me.....dry
11. Don't Go Down to Sorrow--65daysofstatic
Instrumental
12. That Crown Don't Make You a Prince--Murder By Death
All the drunks in the alleys are takin' up arms to undo their whole lives in a day if their hearts they don't change before long in the heart of the beast they will lay
13. Just to Get High--Nickelback
I watched the lying, turn into hiding
With scars on both his lips, his fingertips
Were melted to the bone
But I can still remember what his face looked like
When I found him in an alley in the middle of the night
Tell me what you know! Tell me what you gone and done now
Tell me what you know! Tell me what you gone and done now
Gonna do the trick, get it over with
14. All For You--Sister Hazel
Finally I figured out,
But it took a long long time
Now there's a turnabout,
Maybe cause I'm tryin'
There's been times, I'm so confused
Down my road, will it lead to you?
Just can't turn and walk away
And I'd thought I seen it all,
Cause it's been a long long time
Oh bothered that we'll trip and fall,
Wonderin' if I'm alive
15. Unwritten--Natasha Bedingfield
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
16. Homeward Angel--Moby
Instrumental