Disclaimer: I do not own xxxHolic or any of its characters
This whole thing started with grimm_psyke replying to Cat's Cradle with quote, "Although, I don't think you could do anything but crack if you were to do shinigami!Yuuko and Doumeki." I've been sitting on this a while, but as my recent updates in a lot of my stories have proved, an afternoon of tea and wagashi can get you everywhere.
House wife Yamato Miko , gas leak accident in the kitchen. Check.
Okuda Midori, high school student, junior. Collision with truck. Check.
Vice-President Shindo Jin, history of depression. Death by train. Check.
Doumeki shouldered his quiver and wondered why this month was so unusually busy. Maybe something was going on like with human holidays but a negative instead of positive influence. Doumeki shook his head and wondered if he'd really just called them 'humans.' After all, he'd been one of them once before becoming a shinigami.
He drifted thoughtfully away from the station platform, where the rest of the huma- people were gathered around shouting. Some of them were crying, and a woman was covering her child's eyes.
If you can't see me, I can't see you, Doumeki thought sardonically, and followed the commuters from the opposite train up the steps and to the gates. He didn't understand that- might as well let the child see what she would be up against for however long she lived. As the crowd took out their passcards and tickets and began scanning madly through to the other side with frantic beeps, Doumeki just passed through them and headed towards the west exit. One man he passed through stopped and shivered, probably feeling as if someone had walked over his grave.
Not yet, Doumeki thought and took the right side of the escalator down.
Some of the other shinigami preferred to float, but Doumeki just thought they were showing off and preferred to do all the walking himself. Not that he wasn't tempted, especially when he was going down the exit steps and was met by a crush of oncoming people trying to catch the eight-thirty train. He could always navigate around them like the other commuters were doing, but instead of bumping into a person like they did, he just passed through them- it was bothersome. But he took the steps anyway, because he couldn't be late. This was his district, damn it, and it was his responsibility to give these people a decent timely death. He hadn't missed a single one yet.
And oh yes, ramen shop at the foot of the station steps. Doumeki ducked through the curtain at the entrance and slid the door open. Yabe Minusuke had never realised he was deathly allergic to the type of clam he was about to order because he'd never eaten it before.
He was just going into flailing convulsions when Doumeki arrived. Perfect timing.
He took an arrow from his quiver, aimed carefully, and shot Yabe right through the chest. Yabe gasped and stopped moving. A moment later, another ghostly form of Yabe rose up from his own body and looked around.
From Doumeki's own experience, he knew everything would seem dim and blurry to Yabe except Doumeki, who would stand out as a bright crisp black like a beacon. Predictably, Yabe drifted over.
"Wh- what happened?" he asked, putting a hand to his head. "Am I…am I really-"
"Go to Yuuko, she'll help you sort things out," Doumeki told him shortly. Yabe nodded and drifted dazedly up and away as if he knew the way to Yuuko's shop. Which he did now.
Yuuko's shop was like a way-station for sprits on their way to their next lives. Yuuko oversaw the shop and made sure it was well supplied with dumplings and tea and music from her tinny radio. She was the one who really reaped the souls of the living, speaking with each one to help allay any fears and complete any unfinished work that might make the spirits stray. He ended their lives, she helped them into new ones. It was a neat little partnership.
He looked at the hysterical ramen shop owner and estimated she had about six months more. Despite a report showing that Yabe had died of an allergy, she would start losing customers once word got around. She would have to close down, which would be devastating, because the shop was all she had of her husband, who had died twenty years before. Her son had moved to Europe and didn't write anymore. He wouldn't know about her death for a week after the fact, at least.
Ah well. He didn't have time to stop and worry about her- there was nothing he could have done anyway. Being dead actually gave you less options than people realised.
He ducked back out the shop door and out towards the streets lined with pachinko parlours and konbini stores and food shops. The little Walk/Do Not Walk signs still amused him, so he waited patiently with everyone else until the light flashed green and started plinking out its little loop of Toryanse. Doumeki joined the rush to get to the other side, no matter that he could have jaywalked at rush hour and come out without a scratch. In fact, it would probably be good to do that if he had nothing else to do. It would help him field a lot of traffic accidents before they happened. Traffic accidents always involved a lot of mess and a lot of dead people. It wasn't his favourite type of accident, certainly.
Now heart attacks, he thought as he started following department store employee Sasaki Natsumi on her way home from work, heart attacks were definitely more to his liking. It was usually over fairly quickly without getting other people involved, and the death itself wasn't too messy so there wasn't much chance for the victim to get hysterical over seeing their own corpse. Not that most spirits got hysterical- usually they were just dazed and confused and willing to be herded, but there were always exceptions. Some people got hysterical about everything and didn't see why that should change after death.
Sasaki stopped and put a hand over her chest for a moment, frowning, and then her eyes widened in pain.
Now, he thought, fitting another arrow to his bow. Now.
"What are you doing?"
Doumeki was so surprised he almost missed and shot the doctor walking past Sasaki, which would have been a shame because he wasn't due to die for another week.
Doumeki looked up beyond Sasaki, and saw a high-school boy staring at him. His face was completely white. Doumeki sighed. Well, so much for his perfect record.
He perfunctorily turned and shot Sasaki a few moments after he technically should have, which was alright, really. Nothing they would heckle him about too much when he got back.
Sasaki's spirit drifted close to him. Her eyes were half-lidded and blank.
"Yuuko's waiting for you," Domeki told her without taking his eyes off the boy. She nodded and started walking off before disappearing.
The boy made some kind of strangled noise. Doumeki wondered what was wrong with him. Most humans that could see spirits kept it to themselves and didn't seek to draw attention.
Whatever. It wasn't his problem- he had other commitments. He started walking back the way he came to catch a train to the next station. He liked doing that- it reminded him of when he'd taken the train to school when he was alive. Now he didn't have the problem of finding a strap to hold and could take up as many of the priority seats as he wanted. He still enjoyed watching the commercials that played on the screens next to the station information: flashy commercials about cell phone plans and face washes and beer. He didn't need any of those things now. Alright, maybe he missed beer just a little bit.
"Hey! Hey, you! Come back!" And then, when Doumeki didn't turn around. "Hey, jerk!"
Doumeki stopped at that. He was death incarnate. No one had ever called him a jerk. This boy was either a complete idiot or crazy. Either way, Doumeki didn't have time to deal with him.
The boy finally caught up with him and crossed his arms. "What the hell did you do to her? Who are you?"
Doumeki stepped closer and loomed, something Yuuko claimed he did extraordinarily well. He always tried it whenever she sneaked one glass of sake too many when the shop was busy. She always giggled and put her hands to her cheeks. "Oh my, Doumeki-kun. How scary." And then broke out another bottle.
"Scary! Scary!" Maru and Moro would sing behind her, putting their hands to their faces.
Alright, looming worked on everyone but Yuuko, who could be quite frightening in her own right when she wanted to be.
The boy actually tried to loom right back, all 170 centimeters of him. It was an impressive foolhardy gesture, Doumeki gave him that. The boy jabbed a finger. "That woman is dead back there! What did you- you shot her! What kind of-"
Doumeki silently held out his hand to block a passerby, who went right through his hand without stopping.
The boy looked shocked and his mouth snapped shut. He swallowed convulsively. "But I thought you were-"
"I'm not a spirit," Doumeki interrupted. "I'm a shinigami."
The boy's eyes bugged out. "They wanted kind and comforting, and the best they could do was you?"
"Yes," Doumeki said flatly. "Go home…" He looked at the boy for a moment. "Watanuki Kimihiro."
Watanuki sputtered. "I-I will not, you rude- y-you dumb -faced-"
What the hell, Doumeki had already ruined his perfect record. Why not just go in for all of it? He stepped sideways into a pocket between worlds and then popped back out near Omiya station where one of the government offices was going to find out they had a serious electrical wiring problem.
Doumeki sighed and hefted his bow. Work work work. It just never stopped.
"Doumeki-kun, what good timing. I've just set up for tea," Yuuko said, fluttering past the spirits in her shop to take his sleeve and guide him to the back parlour, which was smaller but more private than the formal receiving room. "Just a moment," she called to the spirits, who nodded and began tinkering with the old radio sitting on the table.
"Aeroplane crash," she confided to Doumeki as she led him past them and into the parlour. "Very confused. Won't be coherent at least for another hour. So!" She smiled and sat him down at a table covered with dishes and cups of tea. "Maru and Moro made ohagi especially for you. Isn't that right?"
The two girls sitting at one end the table nodded in tandem, smiling at him widely.
"Delicious!" Mokona said from his place, his little mouth smeared with anko paste.
"We saved you one," the twins said together, holding out a plate for him. Doumeki picked it up and ate it. It was alright, he supposed. Nothing really special. But then again, he'd lost most interest in food after he'd died. Sometimes he would go weeks and weeks without eating. There was no incentive in it any more- he didn't actually need to eat, and most food he'd eaten even when he'd been alive had been average to mediocre at best, so what was the point? But Yuuko still hung on to it with an almost religious fervour. Perhaps like him with his train stations and cross walks, she just found it an amusing diversion.
"So, Doumeki-kun," she said crisply, pouring him a fresh cup of tea. "How was your day? Kill any exciting people?"
He wasn't sure whether she was joking or not. Either way, he shrugged and then remembered the incident a few hours before. "I met this high school boy-"
"Oh my," Yuuko said dramatically, "Our Doumeki-kun met a boy. He's growing up so fast! Next thing we know, he'll be leaving the nest."
"Leaving the nest!" Maru and Moro echoed, flapping their arms enthusiastically. Mokona joined in and actually got himself off the ground by flapping his ears. Doumeki stared, because there was no way that pudgy little ball of fur could have-
"-So tell me all about it, Doumeki-kun," Yuuko trilled. "Was it love at first sight? Did your eyes meet? Is he handsome?"
"He's annoying," Doumeki muttered. "He tried to shout at me. In a public place. People must have thought he was crazy. I thought he was crazy. And I work with you."
"So cruel!" Yuuko cried, puffing her pipe. "But I'll forgive you this once, since you brought me such an interesting story. What exactly did this boy say to you that made your heart go doki doki?"
"He called me a jerk."
She smirked, although her eyes were serious for once. "Aw, are Doumeki-kun's big scary feelings hurt?"
Maru and Moro immediately tried to give him a hug, which he ignored. "No, I just think he's a moron. He won't survive very long if he keeps doing that."
"I'm sure he's built up a reputation at his school as the weird student," she agreed. "But most people probably blame it on Watanuki having no parents and living by himself. You know how those types get."
Doumeki grunted, his mouth still full of rice. He suspected Yuuko was expecting him to feel sympathetic. His human self surely would have, but he was a shinigami and didn't need to feel sympathy. If anything, it would get in the way of his job. So he squashed it down.
"But," she continued. "Most people forgive him for it, because he is essentially a nice person and a very good cook. He makes an excellent inarizushi, for one." Doumeki looked at her sharply. She just smiled back serenely. "All hypothetically speaking, of course."
"Of course," Doumeki said tonelessly and finished the rest of his tea in one gulp. "Have to go," he said, standing up. "The bar rush is starting."
"Of course," Yuuko said and let him go with a graceful wave of her hand, but he could feel her eyes on his back as he put on his shoes and left. Even Mokona was silent, and ironically, that was what chilled him most of all.
It was only as he was half-way to alcohol-poisoned Aoki Yuta on the corner that he realised she had called the boy Watanuki before he had even told her his name.