Notes: So xXxHOLiC ended. And to be honest, I hardly even know what's going on anymore. I mean. Just. Why?
Notes 2: By the way, I left the egg out, because I have no idea what purpose it serves.
Notes 3: Also, it pisses me off. Why even create this whole egg subplot thing if you're not solving it in the end, anyway?
Notes 4: Dammit, I want to know what it does.
Notes 5: Anyone else feel like we've just been screwed with?

Splinters

„Are you sure?"

Doumeki made a face and gulped down the rest of his sake. Why did everyone keep on asking him that? Marriage was perfectly normal at this sort of age, and they knew each other more than half of their lives already. It made sense. It was easy. So why not?

Well.

He held up his empty cup expectantly, waiting for Watanuki to refill it. He didn't. He had stopped smiling, too. He was just staring at Doumeki now, hands folded in his lap, and Doumeki reflected that he should hate this person way more than he did.

Well. There he had why not. Watanuki was why not. The shop was why not. Everything was why not.

Still, it was so easy. It made sense. This way everything would add up.

"I want more sake," Doumeki said, just like he always did, and thought that even though he didn't love Kohane, he was pretty sure he liked her at the very least. She was nice and decent, all silent smiles and smoothed out; no rough edges anywhere.

Watanuki continued to stare for another moment, before sighing, "You really don't change."

Doumeki had to agree. Around here nothing ever did.

He thought he might die when he saw her for the first time. Although she wasn't all that impressive, really. Just a small, ugly heap of flesh, poorly put together, smearing blood all over his hands as he held her.

She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

The doctors asked what she was called, but Doumeki didn't pay much attention to them, looking at his newborn daughter and hoping for the best.

When Kaori reached the age of nine, he began to have these dreams. Nightmares, really. They mostly consisted of him and Watanuki in various situations, which wasn't all too nightmarish he might admit, but that wasn't the point. He could have handled that. The point was that Watanuki was yelling and laughing and hyperventilating and living,and that was what made them unbearable.

Every night he would shake awake and try to imagine what life was like back then. He could never remember. Or rather he did not want to remember. Only the morning after he dared a quick glance at the past, picking one memory out of the many he had stored away carefully, and allowed himself the luxury of self-pity.

"You spend too much time here," Watanuki would often tell him with a disapproving look on his face that almost reminded Doumeki of the expression he'd worn back in high school during his regular rants about Why Doumeki Shizuka Sucked.

"I could say the same thing about you," Doumeki would reply, and then Watanuki would offer him some more wine to distract him, because this was a sore subject and neither of them had quite gotten over it yet.

It didn't shock or appal him in the least that his grandson turned to out to look just like him. It was quite the opposite; it suited him just fine.

Every time he and his parents came over to visit, Doumeki told him as much about Watanuki and the shop as he could recall, and the boy devoured the stories like good food. Although that wasn't very shocking, either. He wasn't simply a perfect carbon copy of his grandfather, he seemed to have the exact same essence. Doumeki could sense it in his bones—no—could sense it somewhere much deeper than that, in a place where words weren't able to reach:

he had been reincarnated.

He wasn't quite sure how he was supposed to feel about that, regarding the fact that he was, well, still alive, but figured there wasn't much he could do about it. He guessed it was just one of these fate things.

"Will I ever meet him?" Katsuya enquired one afternoon in early autumn.

The leaves rustled gently as a breeze passed by and the general atmosphere was so peaceful, Doumeki was even a bit taken aback.

"I'm not the fortune teller here," he said after a pause.

"But you know the answer." It wasn't a question this time.

And Doumeki understood him. After all, they had the very same heart with the very same wishes engraved in it. Essentially, they were the very same person. Would be. Would be the same person if the Inevitable weren't screwing with them. Or Yuuko. One could never be certain.

With 89 he decided to go to the shop one last time.

It was, as always lately, a slightly degrading thing to do, considering that Watanuki hadn't aged at all.

Watanuki always apologized for being a burden, but Doumeki started to suspect that it wasn't just about the age difference. It was about something much more conclusive.

When they talked, this became more and more evident. The way Watanuki smiled and spoke indicated that he knew about Doumeki's approaching end. He had probably known about it longer than Doumeki himself had.

And then finally: "Farewell."

"Take care of yourself."

Doumeki turned around, gritting his teeth hard because of the cold winter air, and wondered if this was really it—the end.

Suddenly, his vision began to waver. He squinted his right eye, not wanting this right here right now, and promptly saw himself. Saw his retreating back, saw the door slowly being shut, saw the blackness swallow everything as Watanuki closed his eyes.

Doumeki wondered if he was crying.