xxxHOLiC·Heikou
Disclaimer: I don't own xxxHOLiC. If I did, I would make the Live Action drama last longer than 8 episodes!
Previous Chapter Summary: Two uncovered investigators aiding the police tell Doumeki and (fake) Watanuki about the strange deaths and how are those linked to Doumeki's temple.
Note: The first part is set on the Horitsuba-verse and the second one, in the original Watanuki's time.
VIII. Hiragana
(Horitsuba verse)
I.
Last night I dreamt of my dead grandfather. He was riding a white horse with our family logo, shooting arrows at evil spirits. I admired him until the end of his days.
I remember that time when I had just barely turned 10. He approached me, wearing his favorite hakama and carrying his bow.
"Shizuka-chan is getting stronger every passing day, isn't he?" He said, while smiling.
"Yes." I answered back.
"Good." He patted my head. "Now that you've become stronger, you should also know that you can also become strong for others."
"Strong for others?"
"Strong for the ones you love."
"You mean protect them? Like you do?"
"Being strong for another person is not only protecting them from danger. It is being there when they need you, make them know they can trust you, be their light when they can't see anything but pure darkness."
"I don't get it, grandfather."
"You will when you get older." He patted my head.
He sat down next to me and proceeded to smoke.
"Grandfather, you are very strong. You can see spirits, talk to them and even repel the evil ones. How can I do that?"
"You have abilities too, Shizuka-chan. You will discover them soon."
"But I can't see spirits… like you do."
My grandfather exhaled and told me something that was hard for me to accept.
"You are a good boy, Shizuka-chan. But you have one flaw. You tend to be selfish at times."
"Selfish?" I couldn't believe it.
My grandfather's smile turned bitter.
"You would be courteous enough to help those who requested your help as long as it is on your reach. But you wouldn't devote your own life to help others in need. You wouldn't invest your time helping other people with their fears and problems."
"That's because I don't have your abilities, grandfather."
"That's because you haven't found a real motivation, yet."
"Grandfather. I would help you unconditionally!"
"When I mean other people, I mean strangers, Shizuka-chan. People you don't know. I see you as the kind of person who would give them advice but not meddle that much. Since you wouldn't care about their issues. You would also detach yourself from any social relationships. Partying, going out with friends, hanging out… you are most likely to be uninterested in those. You restrain your emotions too much, and hence, it damages your social bonding with others."
"How can I avoid that, grandfather?"
"You can't, Shizuka-kun. It's part of your personality, and part of who you are." He pointed at my chest while saying that. "And I must confess that I am sometimes scared that the right person won't come at that right time to change that on you."
"The right person?"
"Yes. This person is your soulmate. This person will change you and you will change that person as well. It is the person that will give you that spark of motivation in your life, the one you will devote your mind, body and soul for. The one you will be willing to give your eyes, your blood and your own life for."
"Grandfather, what is a soulmate?"
"A soulmate is someone you are bonded with. Someone who was meant to be for you, and that you were meant to be for that person."
"Forever?"
"Forever."
"How do I know who is my soulmate? I want to know it."
My grandfather laughed.
"Oh, Shizuka-chan. Your soulmate is someone who needs you."
"Someone who needs me?"
"Someone that complements you. Someone that needs you to live."
"And that someone will change me into a better person, right?"
"A soulmate is always a positive asset in our lives. You will love this person. And this person will love you as well. However, love also brings pain along the way. Since you want to take care of this person, you will be faced with the uttermost frustration when your soulmate is not taking care of himself or herself. You will sometimes make decisions that will sadden your soulmate but it would be for their best."
"I will love my soulmate as I love you grandfather?"
"It is a different kind of love, Shizuka-chan."
"So… if I find my soulmate, I will become a better person, right?"
My grandfather smiled.
"Grandfather, do you know my soulmate?"
"As I matter of fact, yes, I do."
"Who is it?"
"I can't tell you of course, Shizuka-chan. You will have to find out for yourself."
"But my soulmate already loves me, right?"
"As a matter of fact-" he took a big sip and held it for several minutes before exhaling the smoke. "your soulmate isn't going to like you and might even hate you. It is in your hands to make that person love you back."
"Why won't my soulmate like me?"
"I can't give you more information than that." He smiled. "In fact, I might have spoken a little bit too much."
"Grandfather, I want to be able to protect my soulmate, so they can love me."
"Very well." He patted me on the head and handed me his bow.
Watanuki had been absent for three weeks. I felt tempted to call him and see how he was going but I was both too proud to do so after his constant insults, plus I wouldn't know what to tell him. He probably wouldn't want to receive that call either as it was a pity call.
Still I couldn't help but wonder what had happened to that guy.
Even though he was our classmate, no one really cared about him because he was quite unsocial. Save for that girl, Himawari, who kept asking the teacher if he was all right.
As I was walking home, I saw him running into the street, desperate as if someone was trying to kill him. But there was nothing following him. Watanuki tripped over and fell in the middle of the road, while the red lights were on. He tried to stand up but couldn't due to a twisted ankle. He was paralyzed and shaking, still trying to move. I ran towards him, unsure of what to do. When my feet touched the road's pavement, Watanuki quickly moved out of the way towards my direction, accidentally tackling me by doing so, and avoided being hit by a car.
He gasped for air, still scared of the whole experience.
I noticed he had scars on his arms and a couple of bruises.
"Hey! Are you all right?" A policeman came running towards him. People were looking at the whole scene.
Luckily, Watanuki hadn't been badly injured but he was injured from previous wounds.
And even though Watanuki was tired, injured and shocked by the incident, he stood up and screamed at me. Typical Watanuki.
"What the hell are you doing here?!"
"Young man, I've called an ambulance to check on your wounds."
He turned around and smiled kindly at the policeman. "Ok, thanks, but I'm fine though."
"You sure?" I asked him. His face changed completely when facing me.
"Why the hell are you even here?! Of course I'm fine! I would be better if you weren't right here! Oh god I hate you!"
Watanuki looked angrier than usual. No matter how rude he was being, I sensed something wasn't right and that I should stay close to him and watch him just in case.
"I'll go too."
"What?"
"In the ambulance."
"WHAT?!"
"Ok, Sir."
"OH NO YOU ARE NOT GOING!"
But I went, despite his freak-outs and protests. He laid down while I sat on a chair. We didn't talk to each other neither during the trip nor when the doctor checked him at the ER. Watanuki was fine, save for those injuries and then gave the doctor an incredible lame and obviously fake excuse for those. I seemed to be irritating him every passing minute. And frankly, he kind of irritated me as well.
When the doctor told Watanuki he was ready to go, he just left without uttering a single word to me. Ungrateful b-...
The new school director was an eccentric woman.
She didn't seem to believe in being on administrative duties all day long, sitting on her office. Instead, she chose to spend her time in the student's playground, go to the recesses and fool around with the chemistry teacher while annoying the physical education teacher.
She also became our history teacher.
"Are you Shizuka Doumeki?"
I turned around and faced her.
"Huh." I nodded.
" I knew your grandfather. He was a great man."
I was pleased to hear that, and perhaps she also did it on purpose.
We talked about him, about his innate ability to both see and repel spirits and how he managed to help a lot of people.
"Is there something you want?" I enquired her at last. Our conversation had been on professional levels, as if she was trying to make an acquaintance with me. So I figured out she wanted something in return.
She smiled, quite enigmatically if you ask me.
"I need your help."
"What can I do for you, then." I asked her, politely.
"I need to retrieve an item from an specific location. Unfortunately, I can't retrieve it myself."
That didn't seem too difficult.
"Where is the item?"
"At the Arawasu Cinema."
Said cinema was closed last year, since they planned on demolishing it and adapting the place to hold a new restaurant. But the project halted and it now laid abandoned and covered with a yellow caution tape.
"Want me to fetch it right now?"
She looked at me, with a particular mysterious gaze.
"You will be only able to retrieve it at night…"
"Which item is it?"
"It is a black nano USB. It is on one of the screening rooms."
I looked at her, quite staggered. There were at least 10 large screening rooms in that cinema.
"So you want me to get it?"
"No, I want you to protect the person who will look for it?"
"Protect someone?"
"Yes. Kind of… preventing said person from getting killed."
"It is not that I don't accept your request but as far as I know that place isn't dangerous since the demolishing order was never issued so the place just stayed the same."
"I am not talking about protecting from falling walls or broken windows."
"So?"
"You will understand… soon." She gave me that enigmatic smile of hers again. "So, do you accept my request?"
Even though I didn't know what I was agreeing to, I still accepted.
"Yes."
"Would you wait here for a few minutes? I am going to bring here the person who is going to be in charge of finding the item."
"Yes."
"Very well, then."
She left, while I wondered how would this person be. Would it be some sort of expert, with advanced machinery?
No.
It was…
"WHAT?! What the hell?! You want me to work with THIS IDIOT?"
It was Kimihiro Watanuki.
I wouldn't have agreed if I knew this before hand. Can I still tell here that I've changed my opinion?
"So, Watanuki has accepted my request as well."
"WAIT A MINUTE! You want me to find a SUPER TINY USB, to search in a HUGE place and you won't even tell me HOW am I going to search for that thing?! Do you think it is that easy?!"
"But you said you would help me." She smiled.
"You came to me and said 'Watanuki Kimihiro would you kindly help me find an item?' and I agreed thinking it would be something MUCH more REASONABLE!"
"Well, that's your fault for checking the box for 'I Accept Terms and Conditions' without knowing what they were about." She poked his chin.
"Well now that I've ALREADY read the Terms and Conditions, I want to uncheck that box!"
"But you have already ACCEPTED them, hehe! You silly boy!" She poked him even more while Watanuki was turning pink, red, blue, purple, and so on due to being furious. He looked very funny.
Watanuki pointed at me while screaming: "And WHAT will be HIS role?"
"Chill around while you do all the work!" She giggled.
"That's not fair! He should look for it too!"
"But he can't" Yuuko's expression turned from a lively one to a very serious one.
"Why?"
"Because he can't see them."
At that time, I didn't understand what Yuuko meant or what Watanuki saw. I also didn't realize that our small encounter with Yuuko that day and the task that she gave us would tie both Watanuki's destiny and mine together in a red string of faith. An encounter that should have never happened… An encounter that ended up destroying both of us, killing one of us and leaving the other insane.
II.
(The Shop-verse)
"That blonde guy questioned you?" Watanuki asked me.
"Yeah."
"You know… his partner, the guy with red hair. He…"
I noticed Watanuki was slightly pale.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah… it's just that… he showed me disturbing messages… about people wanting to get buried in your temple…" There was something else he wanted to tell me but he wouldn't. I decided to ignore it.
I remember the first event on TV.
"Kintarou Wada, aged 53 and sentenced four years ago for attempted murder and arson, was found dead with his eyes gorged out and his throat-"
"Oh my. How terrible." My mother had said."I made cookies. Miss Horiumi Kida taught me this new recipe to make them more soft and delicious."
"-the police have mounted a search for the culprit. Self-mutilation was discarded due to the wounds being-" The TV went on.
"Mom. We should turn the TV off." I had told her.
I remember I hadn't paid attention since I wasn't into this kind of news. My mother, Romiko Shino Doumeki, loved mystery novels.
"And that strange symbol… kind of looked like a leaf, didn't it?"
"I'm not that sure. A strange leaf."
"Or a sort of feather? Or- I don't know, leaf, feather, whatever it is it must mean something."
The investigator, Hal Kurabayashi, had been looking for a sort of connection between the victims but they weren't related at all.
"Doumeki?"
"Huh?"
"Did that guy tell you anything else?"
"Yeah. He said the victims perceived no sense of time or space a few days before their death. The information was gathered from various witnesses."
"No sense of time?"
"They were hungry when they should be sleeping, they would wake up at unusual hours, they felt that they biological clock was tricking them… like a strong jet lag."
I pressed my hands against my forehead, in frustration. "Doumeki?" Watanuki said, with a gentle, sweet voice. "Are you alright?"
Before leaving, Kurabayashi told me that he had been checking every single person who inhabited the temple and that he had gotten reports on my mother: she had been showing a strange behavior pattern. Her biological clock didn't seem to be working well, according to her friends. That was why she was at home, resting. I had noticed that as well but until meeting Kurabayashi, I thought it was nothing to be worried about.
There are many people who could have those strange of symptoms so I tried not to think that much about it.
Even though it was late, I knew who could help me solve this issue.
"Yes, I've heard of them." Watanuki said, while smoking his kiseru and resting his hand on his beautiful, long legs. I had told him about the strange deaths and how they left a message about wanting to be buried at the temple. "So, there should only be one more death left before it either ends or until a new cycle begins." He exhaled the smoke, with a gloomy expression.
"One more?"
"Yes… I need to know what is happening… but I can't get Syaoran to communicate with me."
"Mokona tried its best!"
"What do you mean one more?"
Watanuki looked at me. "Haven't you figured it out, yet?"
"No."
"Kintarou Wada. Miharu Tamakawa. Hiroki Nuramatsu."
"They didn't have anything in common."
"Yes, that's true. That was precisely why the chosen people were very different. Because they aren't supposed to have any sort of relation in age, sex, social status, and so on."
"So, what did you figure out?"
"Kintarou Wada. If we take the first hiragana out of his name and surname, we got Ki and Wa. If we do it for Miharu Tamakawa, we get Mi and Ta. Same for Hiroki Nuramatsu, which gives us a Hi and Nu."
My eyes opened wide, realizing it.
"Ki Wa, Mi Ta, Hi Nu, if we order those, we can: Ki Mi Hi and Wa Ta Nu."
KimihiRO WatanuKI.
I knew what he was about to say but I didn't want to hear it.
"So the next person has to be someone suffering from the biological clock disorder, whose name starts with the hiragana RO and surname with KI…"
"I know someone who is suffering that disorder… My mother… Romiko Shino Doumeki…"
"Her maiden name and surname?"
I could hear my own heartbeat and feel it on my throat. "Kishida… She is Romiko Kishida…"
Watanuki drew closer and cupped my chin since I was in absolute shock.
"Doumeki… I know you know about that distortion but you won't tell me… but I want you to know that if you erase it, we will be able to save your mother..."
A/N:
I'm sorry for the long wait! RL kept me busy so I had to write and rewrite at the bus stops during traffic!
I don't know if anyone tried to search for a sort of correlation of the deaths or if it was just a 'who cares, what's this got to do with the story?' Of course a time distortion creates a distortion in said universe and prices must be paid. However, said prices might distort that universe even more, because it is sheltering another distortion. So Doumeki will have to make a choice (and this time he will actually CHOOSE, unlike *ahem* *ahem* the egg thing that drives me mad! argh!)
In the Horitsuba-verse, Yuuko's encounter with both boys and her tying their destinies together brings pain rather than happiness... But they will have their happy moments before facing the inevitable.
Also, Horitsuba!Doumeki doesn't know Watanuki attracts spirits, yet. Even though Watanuki's aura repels his and Watanuki drives him nuts, Doumeki knows there is something about him that makes him want to be near him. He just needed the catalyst: Yuuko, to be able to bond with Watanuki.
See you in the next chapter!
