Intrigue

By Hakubi

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, but CLAMP holds a large portion of my money! They broke me, dammit!

Written for Kigern, who requested I write a chaptered fic with the Yuko/Doumeki pairing. I hope she likes it!

Sunrise on San Francisco…was not at all what it was cracked up to be, in the mind of Doumeki Shizuka. Not that the sunrises in any city were comparable to those he'd viewed from his bedroom in Kyoto. Kyoto was clean and spiritual, while this place was just plain noisy. He'd already heard six or seven carriages come thundering past the hotel, and it was barely morning. He rolled his head once towards the right, and waited for the satisfying pop of bone and muscle before turning his head the other way. Never again would he sleep in a Western-style bed when he had the option of sleeping on a futon.

Stupid feather mattresses.

A painted porcelain bowl waited for him on the low wooden table, filled with warm water. The lacquered wood of the table was supposed to remind him of home, he supposed. He padded over, and splashed his face once. Droplets caught hold in his dark hair, and glided down his bare neck and shoulders before soaking into the familiar fabric of his faded blue yukata. He would never understand, for the life of him, why anyone would ever want to live in a city like San Francisco. Such a dirty, atheistic place, filled with strange American ideals and a smell he had long since associated with pure idiocy. The sooner he could return home, to the Doumeki family shrine, the better. Damn all his grandfather's developments to hell if it meant staying away from home too long.

"Hope she's not pining over me."

Himawari-chan, his cousin. Always fretting. Her last letter had contained some very redundant questions that he should have been used to by now. Was he getting enough to eat in America? Were his suits warm enough? Were their grandfather's employees treating him with the respect that he deserved? If not, she would immediately send a letter to their grandfather, Doumeki Kimitoshi, to have them reprimanded or removed from their positions.

The rows of tiny kanji had gone on and on, on both sides of the paper, until the count had reached six. She had probably made herself sick with worrying, and Doumeki had a feeling that he would soon be receiving a letter from his aunt Kamio, to scold him for making poor, fragile little Himawari-chan worry so. Either that, or her overprotective husband, Kudou-san, would send various letters warning him not to get too close to his cousin, or there would be dire consequences. The man failed to remember that only two years earlier, Himawari's father, Kunogi Keisuke, had done the same thing. But he wasn't in Japan now, and he couldn't begin to think of his family until he was boarding a ship for home. He was at his closet now, feeling over the lapels of various suit jackets…until he came across a sprig of sakura threaded through one of the buttonholes, that is.

It was fresh, smelling sweetly of spring and home.

But only very vaguely sweet and homey. The acrid scent of America clung to it in a sick perfume. One of the maids must have placed it there yesterday while Doumeki had been out on his 'grand tour' of San Francisco with his grandfather's aide, Makiko-san. Tugging very gently at the stem, he lay it flat in his palm; it was very pretty, but an insult to the sakura trees in their serene groves in his home. Fingers rushed in, and quickly, Doumeki crushed the fragile bloom, just to feel the liquid flowing out into his palm and fingers. He issued a soft snort, and dropped the cruelly murdered sakura sprig on the wooden floor before extracting his suit. Black velvet, with purple lapels, and on the back of the jacket, a waving line of hand-stitched crimson butterflies following each other in a manner that suggested smoke. Butterflies courtesy of Himawari-chan and Aunt Kamio. Intrigue in the midst of a sea of neutrality, and spirituality amongst overpowering atheism.

"Doumeki-san, your carriage has arrived."

The little maid who could speak his language fluently, of his own nationality. Pretty as she was, though, her scent was rank with peasant blood and betrayal of the class system that had been demolished with the Tokugawa shogun. Were they in Kyoto, she would have never dared to call him anything but Doumeki-sama or young master, nor would she have dared to stand in the presence of a samurai's offspring. America did not make her better; only the nobility were destroyed, stripped of their political power and placed on the same level as the peasantry.

"Doumeki-san?"

He heard fingers sliding between the door and the hideously wrought door handle, and tapped one gray-stockinged foot on the floor.

"I did not give you permission to enter."

"My apologies, Doumeki-san. Makiko-san is waiting for you in the lobby, whenever you are ready."

Softly thumping heels on the Persian rug that ran the length of the hall, slightly quickened in frustration, and then she was gone. Doumeki smirked, and tied the black silk hanging from his neck into a rather poofy knot, and tucking the tails beneath the top of his purple silk vest. Pull the tiny pearl buttons into their proper places in his sleeves, and he was ready for his jacket. He smoothed out the back, and traced a finger over the outline of one of the butterflies. It would supposedly bring good luck in change, according to Kamio, if he paid his respects to their omen. Button up the front, and smooth it down, make sure no buttons are missed. Now for his top hat and gloves.

Makiko-san looked very impatient, waiting at the bottom of the grand staircase, fiddling with the black leather of his gloves.

"Ah, Doumeki-san has finally decided to appear before us. I was beginning to wonder if ever you were going to awake, young master."

"It's barely sunrise, Makiko."

"Of course. Forgive me, Doumeki-san."

Even the ground was rougher here. Or perhaps that was just the rutted dirt road that lead out to his grandfather's latest development. A small, rural village called Shinomori, filled with Japanese immigrants from Okinawa all the way up to Hokkaido. According to Makiko-san, the town was progressing quite nicely, at a rate quick enough that it could easily become a booming town filled with business. This was what Doumeki Kimitoshi had sent his grandson, Doumeki Shizuka, to determine. The jolting came to an abrupt stop, although not so much so that either of the passengers could be sent flying forward into the front of the carriage. The whinnying of horses was slightly calming. Not that he was nervous in the least bit about being in a carriage.

"Take a look, Doumeki-san. Shinomori, California. Your grandfather's latest project."

Doumeki lowered his chin to rest on the heel of his hand, and shifted his eyes around the area. It was surprisingly…homey. A traditional village, in this place? Open, door! His feet slid down from the steps, to the unusually soft bit of earth. Had Makiko-san not been present, Doumeki would have removed his shoes and walked through the grass, just to feel the reminder of the Doumeki shrine. The town followed one main street, and smoke rose from several small lean-tos hidden in crooked alleys. As far as he could see, there were no silly signs naming the little roads; there weren't any signs at all, for that matter, except for the familiar kanji leaning over a restaurant. The characters labeled the small establishment 'The best in the West!' And, of course, there was a second sign, bearing the word 'Shinomori' in kanji and English.

"You are pleased, Doumeki-san?"

He frowned at the man's overly smug expression that twisted his lips into an ugly snarl, and rudely shoved his happiness into the caged rear of his mind.

"It is…acceptable. Show me the businesses, Makiko-san. That is what I am here to judge, after all."

"Of course, Doumeki-san. It is just that I had no wish to…" Here, the man paused. "interrupt your reverie."

"…"

Doumeki removed his heavy coat, and carefully slipped the woolen garment over his left forearm. More butterflies flitted on the cuffs, golden yellow in such intricate stitching as only Himawari-chan herself could do. But then, the coat had originally been made for Kudou-san, until the doctor had deemed him to ill to leave the house. Himawari had passed it to 'Dear Shizuka-kun.' Poor, ill little Kudou-san, confined to a wheelchair and skinny as a little girl. How Kudou-san would hate this place, with its lack of Western taint, and how oblivious to 'Shizuka-kun's' affection for it. They stood before the restaurant now.

It was a dilapidated little establishment, with a frayed, fading cloth hanging in the upper half of the door. It had been blue once, he believed, or perhaps a blue-hued green. Makiko-san pushed past it with obvious disdain, evident in the manner he pushed into the building. Doumeki felt butterflies tickling his stomach, urging him to laugh at the grimace deepening the lines on Makiko's fat face. The cloth carried miniscule hints of dishes long past, and brought another aching reminder of home.

"This way, Doumeki-san."

The frown positively tore at the muscles in his mouth this time. A back table, at an unhealthy distance from the other patrons gracing the room. Most were discussing personal affairs in delightfully hushed tones, some speaking in the dialect of Osaka, and others in the Tokyo dialect. A scathing remark caught him from the corner, falling from the mouth of a woman so little and so anciently wrinkled and dark-skinned that she could have been most easily an earth spirit. She muttered something about 'damned foreigners in English, pronouncing both the 'm' and the 'n' in her word. And also, something about 'damnable nosy businessman' whilst directing a death glare in Makiko-san's general direction.

"Pardon me, madam, but have you ever visited Kyoto?"

She fixed him with a stare-the odd, untrusting stare that elders tended to direct at the younger generations.

"I hail from Kyoto. My grandson, he thought it would be a nice present to tear an old woman from her home and send her here to this hell."

"Doumeki-san!"

That his employer's grandson should speak so casually to a peasant…a penniless old grandmother who had complaints of her grandson, this was completely unacceptable.

"Learn your place, old woman!"

The wizened lady set her chapped lips in a frown, so that her face disappeared even moreso into wrinkles.

"Silence, Makiko-san. I wish to hear what she has to say."

"Do you have any idea to whom it is that you are telling to learn her place? My name is Kudou Misato!"

"Your grandson would be 1 Kudou Kazahaya, then? He mentioned something of that nature shortly before I left."

"Doumeki…you are Himawari-san's cousin."

He nodded, and directed his eyes toward the mortified Makiko. His sharp gray eyes weren't wide with fear, but so perfectly mimicking of stormy water tat he seemed as though he could summon a typhoon to destroy the parties causing his humiliation.

"Makiko-san, apologize to Kudou-sama."

Grumbles gathered in the lowest part of his throat before an apology was grudgingly regurgitated.

"Kudou-sama."

An older man now stood off to one side of Misato, shifting his weight from one foot to the other at odd intervals. He still wore his silvering hair in the traditional topknot, although the tail had grown long enough to dangle down between his shoulder blades. The traditional garments only served to increase Doumeki's respect for him, as he confused to conform to Western ideals.

"Yuko-san said that you would be coming today."

A fortune teller? He languidly raised his arm to rest on the table, as to seem more polite in the old woman's presence. However, Makiko had failed to mention a fortune teller establishing business.

"Yuko...san?"

"She said that you must visit her when you arrived, Doumeki-san. It is imperative to your destiny."

Perhaps Kudou-san had had valid reason to ship his grandmother off to America after all; she acted as though she had taken complete leave of her senses. Fortune teller indeed.

"Where is this...'Yuko-san's' shop, Kudou-sama?"

The old man stepped into the doorway, and pointed to the end of the street. Doumeki followed the line the servant's finger made, to the shadowed border of the town. A solitary grove of pine trees, with one huge tree at each of the cardinal points.

"You would not be wise to so easily dismiss Yuko-san, Doumeki-san. If you are truly as traditional as Kazahaya claims you to be, you will go to her. But please, do not tarry here; Yuko-san is rather...impatient when concerning guests."