Disclaimer: xxxHOLiC and its characters belong to CLAMP.
Spoilers: Volume 8.

There is no blinder man (than the one who refuses to see)

One otherwise perfectly ordinary day, at the beginning of lunch break (so as to not be interrupted by the bell) a week before a major archery meet (so as to not be interrupted by Doumeki), after making sure that Himawari-chan had no prior engagement (so she wouldn't escape), Watanuki gathered all his courage and confessed.

Then he confessed again, and again, using big and small words in alternance to ensure that there would be no more deliberate misunderstandings.

Her answer was soft and gentle, and contained words like 'just' and 'friends' and 'sorry'. All ready to tell her not to worry about his safety, Watanuki was forced to understand that it wasn't that she couldn't return his feelings - merely that she didn't. The silence afterwards was tense, and she finally broke it with a comment on the quality of his bento.

That afternoon Yuuko gave him a long, hard look before handing him a drawn-out list of exhausting, complex tasks to be completed now. Mokona and the girls spent the afternoon popping up on him at random intervals, and between the amount of work he had to do and their interruptions he had no time to think at all.

When she finally let him go, Watanuki wandered aimlessly for a while, having nothing to do but unwilling to go back home.

Letting his feet carry him, he ended up at the temple; it wasn't much of a surprise. Neither was the fact that Doumeki, the lazy bastard, was sitting under a tree with his eyes closed, ostensibly meditating but probably sneaking a nap.

Watanuki refrained from commenting. He didn't want to start that fight tonight.

"Quit staring at me."

Then again, if the fight was brought to him, who was he to refuse?

Still, he only had time to point and say "YOU!" in a threatening manner before Doumeki got up and nodded towards the temple.

Watanuki grumbled under his breath as he followed. It seemed pointless not to.

There were two cups of tea in the sitting room, emanating conspicuous amounts of vapor - and Watanuki knew what that meant.

"I didn't mean to come here," he denied preemptively.

"You've been walking in circles around the temple for over half an hour," Doumeki answered without so much as a shrug. Watanuki considered ranting about his privacy being invaded yet again, but chose to stare at his teacup instead.

His teacup. It seemed that whenever he came over he was handed the same one. After all this time, all he understood of hitsuzen was that it was a tricky thing, better left alone by all but the professionals (which as far as he knew meant Yuuko). But if there truly was no such thing as a coincidence, did that mean he and the teacup shared a destiny?

Possibly something about breaking in a thousand pieces after being dropped by the person they liked most, he thought gloomily.

He felt the weight of Doumeki's gaze for a dozen seconds before the idiot, in his usual intrusive manner, asked "what's wrong?".

There was a stray stalk bobbing vertically on the surface of Watanuki's tea. Clearly this teacup was Doumeki's: it had inherited his sense of completely inappropriate timing.

It bumped noisily -resentfully- against the table when Watanuki put it back.

"I told Himawari-chan," he admitted, not looking at Doumeki.

Who displayed an hitherto unseen amount of wisdom and didn't ask what he was talking about.

"Haven't you told her a hundred times?"

Watanuki would have yelled at him then, if he hadn't had the exact same thought before.

"No, I. Told her." Made her listen.

"Ah" was all the commentary Doumeki seemed disposed to make.

"She said no," Watanuki informed him after half a minute of uncomfortable silence.

"No to what?"

Watanuki looked up for the sole purpose of glaring at him.

"What do you think?"

Doumeki shrugged. "You said you told her. Not that you asked her anything."

"ARE YOU REALLY THAT STUPID? OF COURSE I-" didn't. Watanuki had to stop himself short, because he hadn't, had he? He'd told her the facts and made sure she understood, but he hadn't asked for anything. Not a date, not something more, not a chance to prove himself. He'd made a statement, and in the end she'd said no to a question that hadn't been asked yet.

And he honestly couldn't tell if he would have asked at all, had she given him the chance.

"Anyway," he said pointedly, and sipped at his tea for a moment. "It doesn't mean she likes you." He felt it had to be said.

"I suppose." As usual, Doumeki failed to be properly impressed with the statement. It made Watanuki want to yell at him - a familiar feeling that settled in his stomach and warmed him up as much as the tea did.

The overall quietness of the temple always made it a little harder -although not impossible, never impossible- to work himself up properly, so he drank instead.

"Are you staying for dinner?" Doumeki asked after a moment, looking at him with that perpetually bored look of his. The first few times he'd been asked the question, Watanuki had been oddly surprised to be invited over so easily.

Of course, now he knew better.

"I am not making you dinner, you opportunistic bastard! Would it kill you to show a little compassion?" Not that he would want Doumeki's compassion, or anything else from him for that matter, but the question still applied.

"You seem fine to me. More or less."

Watanuki turned the full force of his glare at him, but it didn't seem to be enough to shut him up.

"Or was it really that much of a surprise?"

Watanuki glared harder, stung, and opened his mouth for a scathing retort. "You," he managed on the first try, and on the second "that is so".

Doumeki put his own teacup back on the table. "So what?"

"ARROGANT! You just assume I should expect to be rejected by default! It's so typical of you, I don't even know why I'm surprised!"

The words unravelled before him, and he said each and every one of them, hurled them all at Doumeki in one cathartic outburst of verbal abuse. When he ran out of words Watanuki was standing up, panting and pointing accusatively. He felt a lot better.

Doumeki unplugged his ears.

"I didn't say that. But when people don't see something that obvious it's usually because they don't want to see it."

With time, Watanuki had learned to differenciate between what was quoted straight from Haruka-san and Doumeki's own brand of doubtful wisdom.

This allowed him to snort and say "That's stupid. Why would anyone do that?"

He thought he saw Doumeki's eyes flicker towards him, but couldn't be sure.

"Because it's easier. More comfortable. Because they don't want to deal with the consequences of change."

He'd thought rolling his eyes was a sufficient response, but then Doumeki just had to look him in the eye and follow up with "You do it as well."

Watanuki chose not to ask, and went to the kitchen instead.