Hi everyone. Here again is Stormchaser, from Italy. ^^ A new fanfiction, but changing completely the subjects from the first one. Hope you like this first chapter, I know it is a little short but the other will be a bit longer.
As a side note, the fanfiction is already finished in Italian, so I'm translating it in English, and I hope I manage to mantain a publish rythm of a chapter a week. I hope also that my English will be good for you readers.

Please Read&Review! ^^

Disclaimer: I obviously, and unfortunately, do not own xxxHolic and any of the characters inside it. I only own the idea of this fanfiction.

Threads

Chapter 1

by Stormchaser

"Watanuki..! I want sakèèèèèèèè!"

"No, you didn't finish your tasks Mokona. The room is still unclean." The boy answered calmly.

The little black animal huffed and said. "Watanuki is mean!" He was clearly not satisfied with the current situation: he wouldn't have received a single drop of any liquor if he didn't finish the cleaning. It was, from time to time, more and more difficult to convince Watanuki to give him more than his fair (and abundant) share of alcohol. And, obviously, Mokona didn't want to do anything to earn it, it was too much tiring without the promise of a good reward.

Watanuki let out a big sigh. There were no ways to transform the usual Mokona in a more responsible being, with him or with the things that he had to do in the shop. It was some 300 years ago when he met the 'strange thing' for the first time, but as the saying goes, hold habits die hard. And, maybe, this was really the most evident proof!

So, he tried to reason around the core matter. "This evening, for dinner, we will have something that will go really well together with the old Umeshu that we have in our storage." He made a pause, and Mokona wondered where he would go with that statement. "If, and only if, you manage to finish all your tasks before dinner, you will have five glasses more. Only for you." And the boy regarded him with eyes that left no space to further negotiation.

Mokona beamed, while he was hopping all over the place. "Justice! Watanuki is great!"

The shop owner was always amused by that display of affection, even if it was clearly induced by the convenience of the deal that he had just done. Mokona added. "I'll ask Maru and Moro for help, so I'll finish early and I will drink before everyone!"

"And if you will do something like that, the glasses will be only two." That said, Watanuki left to go back inside. He heard only a "Mean Watanuki, mean Watanuki, mean Watanuki...!" repeated over and over, and this made him smile inside himself. Mokona would always be the same.

The evening was calm. Well, relatively calm, except with the extreme chaos that the two sisters Maru and Moro were doing since the beginning of the dinnertime, and with Mokona that was adding more mischief to theirs, since he was completely drunk! Jumping from everything to everything in the big room was surely not helping, when Watanuki was trying to enjoy his always full of beautiful taste and fragrances cooking. If an hypothetical outsider would have been watching the scene, surely he would have been laughing like there was no tomorrow, since the entire thing was extremely comical.

And the final shot came from the same Mokona, when he landed badly in his dish, completely destroying it and spraying its whole contents on all the shojis of the room. And more, Maru and Moro, while they were running around, tripped on the rope that was keeping the big western chandelier (that Wakanuki put there some years ago trying to renovate the image that he had of that specific room, since it had been almost the same for more than three hundred years) and so, bringing it to a really close crashing with the dinner table. The expression that the shop owner had on his face was priceless, but understandable at the same time. The bad thing about it was that it was the funniest thing in all that mayhem! And Watanuki knew it, a thing that made his frustration only grow bigger!

But. This hypothetical visitor was there, and until now it had succeeded to make itself completely undetected. Even to the really advanced perceptions of the master of the shop, that were refined over the years as master.

The visitor was there, and was looking intensely at Watanuki, when the Pipe Fox –the first one to perceive the menace that that person brought with him– jumped out from its safe and comfortable home and, revealing its true form in an instant, bit the person on an arm!

Watanuki was stunned for a moment, since the flow around himself changed so suddenly. It was similar to his reactions many and many years before, when he was still trying to understand all that things that went on in that strange shop. And it helped him recall the 'mis'adventures that he had (by force) with his former master and mentor, Yuuko-san.

But, the thought of that special woman brought him in the reality again.

"Wait, Fox!" He ordered with a strong and firm voice, fearing that his eternal ally had somewat made an error, even if, deep inside, he knew that it was not possible.

The Pipe Fox obeyed instantly, and opened her mouth releasing the arm of the person. It went back by two or three steps, but keeping its ferocious stare on the unexpected visitor.

Mokona, Maru and Moro stayed back, and limited themselves to be simply watchers of what was going on in their garden. But, since they were magical beings, they understood immediately who they had in front of them. And the Fox reaction was a confirmation of their thoughts and sensations. Since the shop owner did not give them any orders, they remained there, forgetting everything they were doing a single minute before.

When Watanuki was near enough to recognize the characteristics of whom he had in front of him, bathed in the full moon light, he didn't believe his eyes.

"I said it already before… You've gotten cute." The person answered, smiling both wickedly and entrancing as usual.

"You... What are you doing here?"