April Showers
a xxxHOLiC fanfiction by Wyrdley
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Notes: PG for angst, though the rating could go up. I seem to have started this habit of writing Watanuki angst, usually for background or to explore motivations for his behavior. Bowing to Sam the Great and Kirisames' one-shot collections, April Kisses and Thirty Kisses, I'm starting this assortment of Watanuki character pieces. Please enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own xxxHOLiC. CLAMP does.
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A Room to Hide from View
For many years, when Kimihiro Watanuki wasn't at school, he was at home, hiding from ghosts.
His world was very small: it had four walls, a window, a clean floor, and an uninteresting ceiling. There was a futon folded neatly against the wall and a small table placed in a corner. There was a small kitchenette and a single-basined sink, a miniature refrigerator nestled underneath the minimal counter space. The appliances were old, but they worked well.
There was a cupboard, well stocked, and not with junk food. There were jars of pickled vegetables, three different kinds of bread, jams, relishes, and over a dozen kinds of noodles. There was an enormous bag of rice and an entire shelf was devoted to both powdered spices and bags of whole herbs. There was flour, sugar, and tea and all the sorts of things a person wouldn't expect to find in a pantry owned and stocked by a fifteen-year-old boy.
There were a few other pieces of furniture, plain, but that was okay with Kimihiro. They served their purpose and never complained, an odd endorsement for inanimate objects, but Kimihiro was an odd boy. There was a small console table with a single photograph on it, a man and woman wearing Western-style wedding clothes and smiling into each other's eyes. There was a small incense holder holding the remains of several burnt cones in front of it. Jasmine, because his mother had liked the scent a great deal. His father's smells were easier; all he had to do was cook. Kimihiro had another picture he liked better, one with himself included, but his guardians had told him he should put it by his bed instead. He, after all, wasn't dead.
The last thing worth noting was his closet. It was filled from top to bottom on one side—his parents' effects, mostly. He didn't like to leave them lying around, because they made his small world seem too small: his mother's sewing kit, while useful, made him cringe, because when he was very young, she scolded him for playing with her needles. (He pricked himself with one and then dropped the small sliver of metal between the floorboards. It was one of the few times she didn't kiss his hurts better.) His father's cookbooks sat inside the door, easily got to, but he didn't really need them much these days. He liked to read one in particular, though, because his father wrote it; it was published a year before his death. The words were matter-of-fact and the subject, rather mundane, but they were still his father's voice. Kimihiro missed them both, because his tiny apartment held only him and the few things they left behind.
He filled the space with activity, keeping it clean, improving his cooking, doing his homework. Sometimes he turned on the radio, but if he did that more than every once in a while, he would start to hear things from the speakers that no deejay would be able to say and keep their job. The radio brought things into his home from the outside, after all. It made sense that his haunts would find even the most subtle routes into his presence.
Kimihiro once had the opportunity to own a television set, but he was very reluctant to accept it. His studies, he had explained. After all, his only way into high school and college was to win as many scholarships as he could. His trust fund wouldn't last forever. The television was tucked away in the corner of his space, disconnected from the antenna. He watched videos, every so often, but he made sure to unplug it when he wasn't using it.
He concentrated on the things he could control: his grades, his home. To his face, adults admired his zeal and practicality: what a responsible young man, living alone and taking his own success seriously. A hard worker and so polite. Kimihiro knew what they said when he left the room, though, because his ears were quite keen: a bit paranoid, isn't he? He jumps at shadows. Poor thing, it's because of what happened to his parents…
At these times, Kimihiro smiled and pretended not to hear. He pretended to be ordinary. Most people let themselves be convinced.
At night, though, in the privacy of his little world, when all his chores were done... he knew he could never fool himself.
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Fin.