Author's Note: Written for rarity in the Yuletide 2007 Challenge. No spoilers for -- anything, really.
Disclaimer: I don't own xxxHolic. Woo.
Wish, Want, Need
In the evening, a man comes to the shop.
He's probably twenty, with classical features, but he hunches his shoulders and he smells very clean: the sort of clean that Watanuki has been striving for in the storage rooms since he arrived. In a room it seems clear, fine, right; on a human it smells of death -- and something else, a nameless thing neither alive nor dead.
He's staring too hard. Blinking, the man swings around to stare back. His eyes are the sharp color of light shining through leaves. Watanuki hastily looks away.
On cue, Yuuko steps out. Her silhouette resolves into a (vaguely) human being from behind the screens and the stranger swerves back again.
"Hi," he starts. He scratches his head. "I, um. I need a charm. Not for me," he babbles, "my mother, she is very superstitious and there have been a lot of fires in our neighborhood lately, so she, she wants to be safe. I don't suppose you sell...?"
Yuuko unfurls her hands like a magician, then flips her wrist. A chain swings out of the darkness, caught on the tips of her fingers. In the dusk, the wooden sign reflects back the colors of fire, and the etchings show delicate as wings. "Ask," she says, "and you shall find."
He squints at it but doesn't step any closer. "I, um. What do the symbols say..?"
"It will protect your household against all evil influences outside," Yuuko says.
"Oh." The stranger adjusts his glasses and beams. "That-- that sounds... good. Great. Perfect."
"Wait."
He blinks. "What? I-is this about money?" He fumbles for his pocket, his eyes wide on hers. "I've got money. I've got lots of--"
"You cannot pay with money. The price of this charm is truth. Answer honestly the three questions I ask. Do not say anything that is not the answer you wish to give."
He stares. His lips firm into a long thin line. "All right," he says, and he sounds steadier. He's unclenched his shoulders; standing straight, he might even be taller than Doumeki. "Ask your questions."
"Where are the kittens you took in a few months ago?"
"How did you--" he cuts himself off and answers. "They escaped. It's been a couple of weeks. All but for one; he was still in the apartment when I left."
"When was the last time you were drunk?"
"New Year's. There was a party at my office. I couldn't... not go."
Yuuko's features are impassive. "Who is the woman you love most?"
"M-my mother. She lives with me."
For a long moment, Yuuko is silent. She cups the charm between her hands. When she opens it, the color has changed to black. Watanuki thinks he sees a sliver of something wood-colored disappearing down one slinky sleeve. "I cannot sell you that one," she says. "Instead, I will offer you this."
The man stares at it, then shrugs. "It looks the same," he says. "My mother will like it fine." He thanks them both curtly and strides out of the yard, walking with a cringe.
Watanuki watches him go, thoughtful. As Yuuko turns to go back inside, he says, "You told him that you'd give him the other one for three answers. He answered. Why'd you give him a different one?"
She slips a lazy glance over her shoulder. Her eyes are brilliant in the fading light. "He lied," Yuuko says, "all three times."
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The stranger, Watanuki realises, smelt of ashes.
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A week later, the man comes back, thinner and bespectacled and profoundly embarrassed. "My mother says that the charm isn't working," he reports. "She wants a different charm. Could you please sell me the first one? I'm sure she'd like that one better."
"Why?" Yuuko asks.
He shifts, foot to foot. "I don't know, I just thought..." he shrugs. "It just seemed right."
"I cannot sell it to you. You may borrow it, but that, too, comes with a price."
"What is the price?"
"My assistant," she gestures magnanimously to Watanuki, fishing darkly in a jar for what he suspects is an empty bottle of beer. Finding the man staring at him, he waves awkwardly. "He must go with you to set it up. You cannot touch it."
He blinks down at Watanuki, bemused. "All right."
The chain Yuuko passes to Watanuki is cool to the touch. He clutches it tight as the man guides him out of the shop and down the sidewalk.
"I-I'm sorry, but there are some things we have to make clear before you enter my dwelling." Nervously, the man clears his throat. "If my mother speaks to you, just... go along with it. She's very superstitious and these fires have made her very nervous."
They do not speak again until they arrive at the building. The man opens the door, follows the railing up the steps and to an apartment marked 39. The man turns back and smiles at Watanuki. "Here it is," he says in tones of a man marching to his execution. He opens the door.
The first thing which strikes him is the stench hanging heavy about the house. Watanuki throws his hands over his nose and mouth, pressing down. The chain clinks, falling against his skin; the touch of it burns. Watanuki yelps and drops it. The man at his side doesn't notice.
"Soji?" A voice rises from inside one of the rooms, unseen. "Is that you?"
"Mother, I've brought a visitor! He's going to help set up the amulet. You can start on that now," he adds to Watanuki, touching his collar. "If you'd like."
"We do not need a visitor to set up a charm! Don't tell me you've paid him..." she clomps out from the closest door, clutching a squirming cat with a scowl. Her hair is drawn back into a tight bun, and the lines of her face are harshly drawn in the light. "You're very young," she says, then turns her eyes back to her son. "Did you let a funeral hearse pass you on the way here?"
"No."
"A black cat. Did you see one? Or meet the eyes of a crow?"
"No. Mother, I--"
"I saw a spider today, just after you left for work," she says in faint satisfaction. "It is good luck. We shall be protected this time." She makes to rub the head of the cat, but it has had enough; with a little hiss, it wriggles out of her arms and drops to the ground on all fours. There, it pads to Watanuki, who is bemusedly hanging the amulet over the door.
The kitten's eyes are wide and very green. It mewls sadly, wiggling its tail, then skulks off to rub against Soji's shins. Kneeling, he pets it with a chuckle.
His mother gazes down at it bitterly, then whips back to glare at Watanuki. "Well?" she asks. "Haven't you finished yet?"
"Mother!"
"Yes," Watanuki says, staring at the cat. The overwhelming stench has faded somewhat; he doesn't know why. "I'm done."
"Cursed like all its siblings," the mother mumbles, and the man exclaims again. By then, Watanuki is gone.
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There is a woman who comes into the shop with Watanuki; her smile is forlorn. He wants to speak to her, to tell her, somehow, that things will be all right, though he doesn't know her or the reason behind that smile - she's that kind of woman.
Hers is easy; she asks for a chance to speak to her true love once more before he dies. Yuuko agrees, and the woman strips something from her fingers that Watanuki cannot see. She leaves again, quietly and so easily that by the time he opens the papers the next morning, he has nearly forgotten.
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"I told them that it would protect them from all outside evils," Yuuko says, opening her eyes wide with insolence after he has finished shouting. "It could not protect them from what was inside their house." She cocks her head. "Would you like to see?"
Warily, he nods. She casts what looks like a golden nail clipping to the ground. A shadow shifts behind him. He whirls. The woman has come again, her hands tucked neatly behind her back. Yuuko nods at her. "The price, as agreed," she says. The woman bows, lithe and elegant, and takes Watanuki's hand.
The walk between Yuuko's shop and their destination is a blur; he thinks that he sees fish, fires, cats dancing with the rigid movements of corpses. Halfway there, the woman begins to weep and he cannot stop her. When she halts before a burning apartment building, he starts. "That's--"
She looks at him, long and sad. "Yes," she answers. "Don't be afraid; they will not hurt you so long as you are with me." She walks towards the flames, which part like a curtain around her. Together, they go up the stairs and into the 39th apartment.
Soji is sitting in the middle of the floor, cradling his mother. He raises his head as they come in. On seeing the woman with Watanuki, he starts violently. His mouth forms a first syllable, but he cannot seem to release it.
She squats, cupping his face between her hands, and kisses him: one, two, three. When she lets him go, he tangles his fingers in hers and holds on tightly, as if she is all the world he knows. "Oh, Soji," she sighs.
"I thought you were dead," he whispers. "I thought you hated me, I thought you had gone. We only danced the once, and then... I thought--"
"I left you your children," she says, holding onto his hands and gazing at the ground. "On your doorstep. I had hoped that you would understand. Instead, you cut off their tails."
"My children--" but he falls silent at the gleaming look in her eyes. Quickly, he says, "My mother did! She told me -- she thought that their tails would split, they came so inauspiciously. Splitting tails, you know, it creates monsters, the bakemono. It was cruel, but she didn't mean anything by it. She-- I didn't--"
"All of them, systematically mutilated." She touches his cheek. "Is it any wonder that they died? Of shame, of fright, of sadness that their father, their protector, should have been the cause of this..."
"Please." He's scrabbling to hold onto her hands, fighting as the fire closes in. "Please--"
She untangles her fingers from his; her mouth is very small. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I cannot go against my son. This is his last wish." Beckoning to Watanuki, she holds onto his hand as they walk from the room. Watanuki claws at the walls, but his hands pass through; this is nothing more and nothing less than a dream.
Outside the door, the woman closes her eyes. "I could not have stayed with him," she whispers. "It would have been against all honor."
"You can still save him,'" Watanuki shouts at her, and she looks at him with the piteous incuriosity of someone in a dream.
"No," she says, "I can't."
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"The other shape of a woman who can become a cat," Yuuko says. In one hand, she holds something thin and translucent up to the light; it moves like the ghostly shape of a feline. In the other, she is holding a thin pipe -- which, Watanuki supposes, is better than a mug of beer given that it's a Saturday and Yuuko is creepily keen on self-indulgence. "A fine payment."
"She could have saved him," Watanuki says.
"But she didn't. He killed her children."
"What about the last cat?"
"He did not die, but he lost his tail. He came to me and asked how much it would be to have the tail look whole again, so that nobody would suspect when the troubles began."
"So when the man paid you... you already knew what was wrong. You could have told him everything."
She lifts her cool eyes and blows a smoke ring out into the night. "He didn't wish for what he needed," Yuuko answers.
end