A/N: It seems I wasn't quite ready to let this go yet . . . This will end up being in 3 parts, it looks like. Hopefully no one objects to a little more Shizuka II, because I can't get him out of my mind.

Myself and Myself

I've never known him to be so uncertain. At least, the me that is completely me and only twenty-nine years old has never seen it, although the protective feeling sweeping over me is entirely familiar. He is clinging to me as we walk down the path, away from the shop, with his eyes constantly darting back and forth to look at our surroundings. My arm is held in a bruising grip, but I can feel the fine tremble that is building up behind it, and I think I'd better move us to someplace safe as quickly as I can.

"It's so different."

He is whispering it, walking close at my shoulder and clutching me hard enough to hurt. I won't say anything about the pain. I never do— No, he never did— The lines between me and Doumeki Shizuka are blurring so quickly now that I feel like I'm falling and I wonder how it is I am still walking in a straight line.

"I don't recognize any of this. It's . . . where are we going?"

I briefly lay my hand over his, but only just for a moment. Any longer, and he will remember himself and pull away to suffer through his fear alone.

"I thought we'd start with something easy," I say with patient humour, something I've had since before I was old enough to have such a thing. I suppose that the lines between us have never been clear, and I see now that my mother knew it was something like this all along. I wonder what my great-grandmother knew, what she told my mother. "We're going to the temple. It's hardly changed at all, even after this long."

That relaxes him a bit. His hand is still holding me, but I no longer fear a loss of circulation. A pair of giggling girls run past us, chased by a father far more lively than mine ever was. Then again, my father never needed to chase me because I wasn't the running and giggling type.

He stops in the middle of the path and lets go of me. I see every muscle in his slender body straining to not turn, to not look back and see the hole in the universe that those two devilish remnants of Yuuko must have been lost in. Maru and Moro may not have had souls of their own, but they stayed at his side when the Doumeki family grew careless and lost interest.

But he has me, and he has his own determination. Now that he has made his choice, he doesn't want to look behind him. He starts walking again.

"Those girls were wearing such an old style of clothing . . . I was expecting jumpsuits and jetpacks."

It doesn't bother me that he doesn't want to talk about what he was thinking. I already know, and he knows I know, so that's good enough. Besides, now that he is outside of the shop he needs to know more about this new Japan that he is stepping into.

"Things really moved backward because of the war."

This less personal subject seems to have given him more confidence. The buildings may have changed, but his feet still know the path from his door to mine.

"After they closed the borders, after Nagasaki, the nationalistic spirit moved in the direction of our history. Everyone wanted a simpler, more traditional lifestyle, and lots of people left the city for rural areas—you know all this," I say suddenly, not sure why I'm explaining it to him. Of the two of us, he was the one who was alive during the war. "I heard a bunch of people from Nagasaki came to you for help in locating their loved ones."

He nods acknowledgement. His face has drifted far from me, back to that time. My grandparents were in college when the war began, so it was after he'd isolated himself completely from me—that is, from him—and begun to rely on my grandmother. I wonder how badly she neglected him during that time. I wonder how he survived when the whole country was living on food rations. I wonder how badly he hurt himself, asking for too little in return for his services because he couldn't bear to take more from the refugees.

That last thought makes the part of me that is more than myself feel desperation. He always disregarded himself in such cases, and I was supposed to be there to save him and I wasn't . . . I shouldn't be thinking like that. I am not quite the same man. This is not quite the same world, in fact. I have been told that the world of my grandparents' childhood was far different from my own. He himself has told me stories of his youth, no doubt thinking they were horribly antiquated and probably never realizing that they always sounded like science fiction to me.

"Yes," he says at last. "I knew the world was changing, but I . . . never thought I'd need to know the details."

Never thought he'd leave the shop. He had waited for Yuuko's return long past the point that he actually believed in it, just because he didn't know what else to do. This is the reason I was born when I was, and this is the reason that my thoughts and my feelings have always been older than I am, and this is the reason that I have been drawn to his presence since I was a child. Because I hold the answer to his uncertainty. I am Doumeki Shizuka, and I am also me. One hundred years ago, I left things as they were because I wouldn't hurt him and myself. But now, I don't have to fear that anymore. All I had to do was step forward and touch him to make him follow me.

I want his hand back on my arm. I want him to know I am here, and real. But he remembers the way to the temple well enough that he is walking ahead of me.

"We still have plenty of things you'd remember," I tell him, thinking that keeping the conversation casual is better for now. "The school system is similar, that sort of thing. Although, as I said, we honour tradition more today than you probably even did back then. When I joined the soccer team, it was so ritualistic I thought I might as well have become a priest."

I thought his feminine way of laughing was an affectation he used because it fit his image as an eccentric old wizard. It seems that's just how he laughs—a smoky chuckle that should sound familiar because I grew up hearing it, but instead makes me think he could ignite my blood with it if he chose to.

The temple comes into view, and he abruptly slows down. He clearly feels embarrassed about being so obvious, because he juts out his chin and keeps walking without looking at me. It's one of those things about him that will never change, and I'm glad to see his old self. It doesn't stop me from quickening my pace to catch him. When we enter the yard and go up the steps, I slip my arm around him.

I am sometimes just me. The old Shizuka might not have done such a thing, but the situation was different between us back then. This time, I want to touch him. This time, he will allow it. I feel over a hundred years of confusion and frustration being laid to rest in my soul because he is leaning into my touch instead of turning around and giving me hell for it.

I release a small chuckle as we remove our shoes.

"What?"

"I've never seen you wear shoes before. Didn't last long."

He pauses for a moment, then looks up with bravery.

"You'll see it again."

I didn't know it was possible to feel such a sweet sort of warmth as this. I want to kiss him, but it would be a poor choice of moment. And perhaps he won't accept it.

I am the sixth generation of my family to live here. I am the only one in three generations to have any sort of connection to the spirit realm or to serve the temple in any capacity other than hard labour. But we have lived here, protected by his wards and close enough to go to him if he needed help. My great-grandfather's will in this matter touched all of his descendents, it seemed, not just me. Enough that even his daughter, who hated the wizard, stayed in the city during those years of upheaval.

I knew we'd run into my mother and father soon enough. They turn a corner and see us, and we all stumble to a halt. I wait for them to be the first to speak, and I make my arm tighter around him. I don't want him thinking it's beneath his dignity to be seen like this and to go from my side again. Who knows how many years it would take to return this time?

"You— You— You're here." This is the most that my father can come up with.

"It's wonderful to see you," my mother says with more composure.

"And you, Kimiko."

I have never known him to be so reserved . . . Well, I have, but that was in the distant past. He became someone else during the passage of time, and now I see him already changing back. It's easy enough to understand. Not only was he a teenager the last time he was here, it was with someone who looked just like me. His old manner has been stirred to the surface, not as hidden beneath his Yuuko act as he would have liked.

"I thought you could never leave your shop?" my father asks weakly.

"I have become more powerful than the restraints that held me there," he says, retaining at least some of that ethereal, smirking manner.

"I see. When did this happen?"

"Tonight."

"You came straight here?"

"It was Shizuka's idea."

Their eyes are on me, and I wonder what I ought to say at this point. Surely they have realized by now that I am far more than simply their son? If nothing else, I am holding him against my side like he is my possession. I was fated to remain near him from our first meeting, and I've oriented myself around him since my seventeenth birthday. I think my mother, at least, has seen this coming all along.

"He'll stay with me," I tell them simply.

My father was ill-prepared for this moment. He didn't want to be prepared. He'd have been much happier if he'd been allowed to be an average person with no knowledge of the spiritual realm. His method of dropping off groceries, asking no questions, and never learning has left him unable to process this. I have brought home a one hundred and twenty-year-old man and announced we'll be sharing a room.

Or I think we will, in any case. It's not exactly something we've talked about, although I feel some confidence based on the fact that simply whispering in his ear makes his knees weak. And he isn't removing himself from my side. Or is he truly so frightened and overwhelmed that he can't?

"We were just on our way to bed," my mother says calmly. "Shall we talk in the morning?"

He bows slightly. "I look forward to it."

I never knew he possessed a smile in his arsenal that could be described as "sweet" or "innocent"—but that's not true, I did know. From before. This is becoming too much. I don't know how to reconcile myself with myself, but I'll have to if I don't want to go mad. I'm not my great-grandfather, in all the small ways that infinitely matter right now.

"Goodnight," we all say to one another, and then I take him to my room. I don't know what to do after that. It's not that I'm inexperienced—rather the opposite—but it's him and my twenty-nine-year-old self is still in some ways awestruck by him. And I don't know what he wants, either. After all this time, I've started thinking of those flashes of leg and seductive smiles as nothing more than part of his Yuuko act and meaningless when directed my way.

He doesn't really know what to do, either. He is flustered, in a way I've never seen but at the same time never fail to find amusing.

"So you'll call me Shizuka, then?" I ask him casually, walking past him to set up the bed. If nothing else, he must be tired. After weeks of making sleep into magical labour, after this emotionally draining day, he needs the rest.

"I . . . yes," he says simply, and that's fine with me.

"I've always called you Watanuki. Do you want me to keep calling you that?"

"No."

"Kimihiro?"

"No."

"Your real name?"

"I don't know," he says desperately. "You're him, you're not him, the shop is gone and I have no idea what I—I have to think, dammit!"

"I would like to call you that," I tell him quietly, returning to his side and leading him to the bed.

"Why?"

I guide us both to sit down, and I feel myself beginning to feel sort of queasy. Nervous. It's him. Here, with me.

"I need something between us that wasn't his first," I murmur, and I slowly slide my hand over his.

"You don't think this is enough?" he asks in disbelief, looking down at our hands. "I never— not with him— did he want—?"

Now my queasiness is more than nervousness, it's a feeling like I've been punched in the stomach. It had not occurred to me, at least not consciously. Maybe it's because I don't actually possess the memories of the first Shizuka and so had no way of knowing the truth. He has never had a romantic relationship before. All those years . . . Tied by fate, by circumstance, by everything, to a married man that he sent away. I think it would kill him to find out that the person he wanted had wanted him in return, and he'd just missed it somehow. Thankfully, I can tell him the truth.

"I don't think he did," I say calmly. "I think it's just me this time. But I don't think he would be upset that his soul wound up in somebody like me."

"I didn't know you wanted this."

There are things I've never been able to talk about in my life, and suddenly they are right there in front of me and they won't be held back. I tell him all the things I never though I'd say, things that I have shoved so far into the back of my mind that I'd lost the awareness of them.

"You have been the most important person in my life since the day I met you. I can't tell you how strange it was that I was already devoted to you when I was five. It was . . . It's completely your fault that I'm gay," I tell him rather bitterly. "Or his fault, or something. I went through puberty with the knowledge in my head that I was born to be at your side, and I imagine that influenced my development somewhat. And then when I turned seventeen you started doing all kinds of flirtatious things and I could hardly change it by then."

I had thought of him as being a rather selfish person until I grew up and learned more about what shaped him. Then I began to see just how great a heart he really has. And despite his discomfort right now, despite his uncertainty, he moves to hold my hand between his, and his eyes on me are filled with compassion.

"That can't have been easy. Even my existence must have been confusing . . . I didn't even realize what was happening, and you were a child. I'm sorry."

I don't know that I am crying until he takes his hand off mine to gently wipe my cheek. Confusing doesn't even begin to describe my passage into adulthood.

"Who was I supposed to talk to about something like that? Who was I supposed to go to, to confess that my first wet dream was about my after school babysitter? Who in their right mind would have understood that I couldn't be taken away from you, even if it seemed so unhealthy?"

When did we move into this position? I didn't even notice he had drawn me against him and pulled my head down to his shoulder. His hands are stroking my hair and my back, and I feel like it's finally time to let go of all this—all this confusion and anger, and enough shame to fill an ocean.

"Do you know what I did to myself in college, trying to escape that, to convince myself that it wasn't me who was feeling it? Do you know about the people that I begged to hurt me and abuse me to try to chase you out of me?" I am sobbing now, something I have never done before, definitely never done in over a hundred years. "It didn't work. It didn't work, so I came home, but I never thought anything would change. I never thought you would come with me. I—I—"

"Shizuka."

His voice, right in my ear, makes me shudder and that only makes me sob all the more. He sounds desperate to help me, but he doesn't know how. But he is here, and holding me instead of running from me. That is enough for me. Eventually, I run out of tears. Eventually, I run out of shame to let go of. Eventually, I can lift my head.

It's dark. I don't know how long I clung to him, but he never moved. Doesn't that mean that he wants to be here with me?

"We're both tired," I find myself saying. "Let's sleep."

"We're still dressed," he murmurs.

He does want this. My heart is already beginning to beat faster. He stands up and slips out of his clothes in one motion. The sliver of moonlight through the high window that falls over his bared shoulder and leg . . . I can barely breathe. I am on my feet, too, but struck dumb by this moment and motionless. He has always been so very, very unattainable, a lofty figure of awesome power whom I would spend my life pining after and not touching. Now he is before me, and the moonlight is sliding over his skin as he approaches me.

"You can't sleep in this," he says, and touches my sleeve. I am still in shock.

His hands find the edges of my clothes, pull them apart, and I can feel them trembling. He doesn't know what to do, and he's so beautiful. My arms will move, at least. I lift them to take off his glasses. His gasp is a silken touch of air on my fingers. I cup his cheek with my hand, and he closes his eyes and I see his tears in the moonlight. One hundred and twenty years and he has never felt an intimate touch in all that time. He is starving. He must have thought he could no longer even feel hunger, then this simple gesture moved him to tears.

He must be terrified.

I find his hands, bring them back to my clothes, guide him into undressing me. It's true that my own experiences were more or less about punishing myself, but it still leaves me as the person in this room with any real idea of what happens next. I want to begin slowly, just standing in this bit of moonlight. Discovering. I start with gestures that are more intimate than sensual. Touching his face and letting him lean into it. Kissing his eyes to rid them of tears. My hands are mostly on his waist, their movement restricted to stroking his slender ribcage.

He is more bold. His hands are exploratory. Finding all the things about this body that he never knew. It's not the same body, certainly, as similar as it seems. He knows that, and I do not begrudge the wistfulness I can feel in him over the fact. I have come back to him, slightly different but mostly the same, and he is willing to take me as I am. Both parts of me are almost pathetically grateful for this acceptance, and for some time I simply stand still with my head on his shoulder again, allowing him to comfort me as he explores me. He changes methods after a while, using his lips to continue what his hands started.

They are everywhere, his mouth and his hands. On my neck, on my thigh, on my shoulder, on the small of my back, on my chest. My own hands refuse to obey the order to go slowly. One strokes his hip, the other tangles in his hair and drags his face up so I can start kissing him in earnest. He moves into it, pressing his body completely against me. He is willing. He wants me to lead him.

"Love me, Tsubasa," I command him as I guide us downward.

"Always did like to boss me around," he murmurs into my neck as I lower him down.

Then it's us, and we're coming together, and it's good and right—but it's more than that. When two bodies come together, sometimes they speak. And tonight, what is spoken is potent and saturated into every moment. The word is "surrender."

His sweat paints it onto my chest when he thrusts his body upward. His tongue tastes of it when he opens his mouth to mine. His fingers scribe it onto the skin of my back when he helplessly seeks an anchor in the darkness. It's whispered in every tremble of desire.

There is such finality to it, as though it will never need to be spoken again after this. We will age and die together this time, and in another hundred years when we meet again, he will have already spoken it for that lifetime. I know I must answer it, and I do. Every thrust of my hips is "yes," and my fingers leave the marks of an equal surrender on the shoulders I am clutching to find my own anchor. My every kiss is a plea to love me, and his every shudder is a promise that he does.

At the end, I lay my head on his chest and find another sob swelling out of me. His hands tighten on me, accepting it and soothing it away.

"Sleep, Shizuka."

We still need to decide on the unimportant things like where we are going and what we will do with our life. But morning is soon enough for that. And he will be here when I wake up.