Between longer projects I'm known to turn out the odd short, untitled snippet of vaguely (and sometimes more solidly) Doumeki/Watanuki-ish fic. The stories I'll be posting here won't be connected and weren't quite worth posting on their own, but they should be able to provide some light entertainment.
The first thing Watanuki said when Doumeki found him standing outside after archery practice was, "I am not waiting for you."
"Okay," said Doumeki.
"I had to see a teacher about an assignment!" Watanuki told him, or, given the direction he was looking in and the volume of his voice, apparently told someone standing on the other side of the oval. "And then I had to fill in for someone else who wasn't there for cleaning duty! I didn't even realise your club was finishing until I happened to walk by on my way out."
Doumeki could have drawn attention to the fact that, coming from any part the school Watanuki might have needed to help clean, the archery field was in the opposite direction to the school gate, but he stuck with another, "Okay."
"But since we're both going in the same direction now, you can walk me to Yuuko's shop and I won't complain," Watanuki finished, already walking off in that direction. If he'd been here this long, the odds were he was already running late.
"Whatever," mumbled Doumeki. As if to change the subject, he added, "So, what was it that chased you to school this morning?"
"What? Nothing chased me to school!" Watanuki snapped, right on cue. "I don't even know why you'd think that."
"You were at school earlier than anyone else today. When I arrived you were still panting," Doumeki reminded him.
"It's none of your business if I was! Which I wasn't! And there was nothing chasing me!"
"You've been looking at the school gate like it's going to eat you all day. When Kunogi suggested we eat outside, you started flailing like a lunatic and picked a place on the other side of the school grounds."
"You are a crazy person who keeps imagining crazy things!"
"Is that where it's waiting for you?" Doumeki suggested mildly. "The school gate?"
"I have no idea what you think you're on about."
Watanuki stalked through the school gate with the sort of focused determination of an invading army general. It was a good thing, Doumeki reflected, that there was no-one in his way, because Watanuki was putting so much effort into not looking at anything that may-or-may-not have been lurking at the side of the road that anyone who wasn't standing exactly in a very narrow field of view would very likely have been trampled before Watanuki so much as noticed they were there.
"When do you get off work tonight?" asked Doumeki, after they'd left the gate a safe distance behind them.
"After nine," was Watanuki's reply. "But I don't know why you'd want to know that, because it isn't like I need you to walk me home or anything like that."
"Because there's no danger there'll be anything waiting for you outside the shop when you finish either?" Doumeki finished for him.
"Why would there be? That's a ridiculous suggestion. Of course not!"
Doumeki gives this a few moments thought. "I'm going to have an errand to run that's going to take me past the shop at about nine tonight," he says carefully.
"Oh really."
"And then probably past your place," Doumeki adds.
"I don't know why you're telling me."
"So that you're not surprised to see me when I show up."
"I'm sure I won't even notice you're there," Watanuki declares, haughtily enough to thoroughly disguise anything that might have been even close to relief or gratitude in his voice.
Satisfied, Doumeki lapsed into silence for the rest of the journey. That was the evening sorted out. If the spirit was still a problem tomorrow, they would sort it out then.