Ophelietta; Don't They Have Payphones Wherever You Were Last Night; T/PG-13

[nebulia]

Title:Don't They Have Payphones Wherever You Were Last Night
Author: ophelietta
Summary: Loneliness, drinking, old high school friends that
know too much about you, and the wish you never had to come back home
for Christmas. Doumeki and Himawari have holiday survival down to an
art.
Rating: T for Teen

The prompt:
Doumeki visits Himawari at college. Her dorm

Comments

[ekaterin24]

Oh, this is so painful and so beautiful all together.

This line just about breaks my heart: "she
knew that Doumeki was a person, a human being, and not just a love letter to be passed between two people who couldn’t see each other."

Thank you for this story.

[ophelietta]

Ha... this was painful to write as well, in all sorts of ways, but knowing that someone appreciates it like this makes it all worth it.

Oh, Doumeki. He's a mensch, as one of my friends would say. He's poised in such a very strange place, between Himawari and Watanuki's worlds (only one of which we could get to see in canon), and he deals with it so gracefully.

Thank you for this comment.

[shu_maat]

Thank you for this story, really. The latest arc of xxxHOLiC it's like... it's not xxxHOLiC anymore, but stories like this, which fill in the gaps so perfectly, makes me feel the deep love for these character back again.
Perfect writing, style, and overall atmosphere... my very best compliments, and thank you again.

[ophelietta]

It's funny, but I belong to the (very small) minority that actually likes holic rou - but possibly only because I think stories like this are happening all the time, out of the corner of the manga's eye. There's such a vast difference between what holic was and what it is now that it takes a lot of effort to reconcile the two - which is essentially what Himawari's trying to do here. I'm glad this fic helped you get back that loving feeling.

And thank you, very much, for this lovely comment.

[nebulia]

This is beautiful and sad and juswt captures all three of them perfectly, even though watanuki isn't even in the story except in name. In a quiet, slow way, it broke my heart.

[ophelietta]

Thank you (again), for commenting, and for hitting on something I was trying to do - trying to make Watanuki as much of an "absent presence" in Himawari's world, as much as she is an absent presence in the manga.

It broke (and re-broke) my heart a little (a lot) to write this. But that made this fic a lot more than what it would've been, without the heartbreak.

[nebulia]

Do consider it a high compliment if it broke my heart. Angst done fucking right does that to me. :)

[zeldas]

I loved this a lot. So much I'd wrap it around to hug it, if it wasn't so heartbreaking. You just did it so well, *showers you with warm cookies and verything that's sweet*

[ophelietta]

Thank you so much! It needs hugs, except hugging it would probably feel like getting cut with glass shards. Such is angst. I do indeed love warm cookies and sweet things. <3

[well_ladeedah]

this. THIS.

oh, darling. this is exactly it. you have it. yes.

i'll have to come back later, when i'm more coherent. but just know that this is absolutely the correct answer.

[ophelietta]

!!!!!!!

This comment made me a little incoherent myself. Do come back later, and we'll talk. :D

[well_ladeedah]

it's just - it's like you're in my head. When I was writing my Himawari fic for the minibang, I came up with like a hundred other Himawari-fic ideas. If you visit my LJ at well_ladeedah, you'll see that I did a lot of thinking about Himawari and even wrote some gen-ish Shizuka+Himawari fic. My obsession with their relationship is growing dangerous.

And really, your fic resonated with me because I wrote a few ideas down somewhere for another fic, and one note I have reads, "in public they always hold hands," and I wasn't sure where I was going with it, and - well. This. Your fic is where I was going with it, apparently.

You're amazing, have my babies, I think is what I'm trying to say.

[ophelietta]

Wow! I've been bogged down with work and been shamefully slow when it's come to working through the minibang, but I will definitely bump yours up to the top of the list now. I'll also have to check out your LJ, too - it sounds akin to my batch of Himawari notes (which, as it always seems to go, are all together longer than this fic itself!).

Shizuka/Himawari are just so fascinating, and I fully support your obsession (especially if it leads to tasty fic!). One of my notes for this story reads: "It's Himawari and Doumeki, but it's not Himawari/Douumeki." They just have this complicated but completely Platonic friendship that hurts my heart - and yours too, methinks.

It's good to know that I got "something" right. And it's great to have found another kindred spirit. :)