It took Doumeki another twenty minutes to wake up by his own accord, much too long for Watanuki's patience. However, as the impatient one quickly discovered, the archer was just as helpful and concerned as he was unconscious.

Still, the shorter one was wholeheartedly determined not to give up and make the best use of the time without help.

A few hours later, the younger boy finally came up with results worth commending. Dangling the paper in front of the other's face in his oh-so-subtle manner, it took him all his self-restraint not to flat out pronounce his accomplishments for every inhabitant in the house, wherever the hell the twins were at- as well.

No response.

It wasn't until he physically lifted the archer's head a few inches up to actually see his handiwork. But even so, all he received was the slightest, slightest eyebrow arch.

"Well?" Watanuki slowly grounded out between his teeth, dangling the paper inches from the other's nose. "How. Is. It."

A slow nod. Watanuki obliged and let go. The head immediately ducked back down and mumbled out a response. "Hn. Try again."

Watanuki ripped the paper out of view and surveyed it himself, frowning and turning it at all angles. "But…" he whined, "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Everything. Try again."

"No really-"

"You already know."

"But-"

"Yes you do. And I can't fix it anyways."

Watanuki wordlessly turned back and hauled his entire workstation to the other side of the room, with his back to the archer.

The two wouldn't talk to each other for the remainder of the night.

XXXHOLIC

As the night wore on, Watanuki's circles grew worse and worse, until he stopped and found that his circles looked just like his earliest ones, clumsy and faltering. Discouraged, he left the room with the teapot, shuffling to the kitchen for a refill. As he came back, Doumeki was gone.

He set the pot on the table and began shuffling through the other boy's pile, becoming more and more disheartened at what he saw.

Perfect symmetry. Perfect grace. Perfect circles.

It wasn't until halfway that he found a break, a page with two characters written in perfect calligraphy amidst all the perfect circles.

'Sorry.'

He ripped it into shreds, along with the rest.

XXXHOLIC

Surprisingly, Yuuko never asked him how the 'lesson' went, or even why she came home to her disheveled employee busy at work as a rather efficient paper shredder.

Of course, her silences always made Watanuki much more agitated than her half criticism, but he was already glad that she didn't do her routine of embarrassing the hell out of him, even managing not to eat his curry rice he had ordered on the way home.

The next day was a different story.

She began. "So."

He tried to end it. "Yeah."

"About yesterday…" She inwardly smirked at the pained expression.

"No." He turned away from her to dust the floating trinkets on the other side of the room.

She shifted onto her back, arms behind her head, continuing the interrogation.

"Well, you could-"

"Look," Watanuki started, turning back to his employer to issue his side of the situation, "it's all his fault, he's such a loser and wouldn't tell me how to improve, and I had to spend hours and hours all by myself trying to get it right, but that moron just sat there without doing anything."

Yuuko actually looked interested. She didn't expect him to snap that fast. "Not yet, huh?"

Flustered, he dropped his hands from their previous position above his head. "No."

"And your relation with Doumeki…?" she called out to the retreating back.

She didn't expect a reply, but the stomping and infuriated mumblings confirmed her guess. She held her tongue to giving out a hint. Not like he'll follow it anyways.

XXXHOLIC

On the other hand, Watanuki's assumptions about Doumeki had been dead on, rarely ever seeing the other boy. Pretty much, it meant Watanuki had to walk home alone everyday and was spared from lunch requests, which suited him well enough. Himiwari didn't seem to notice the absence, and for a while, neither did he.

And then it started.

AN: Sorry for the wait, lahs. Whoever said the whole '99 perpiration, 1 inspiration' is a total liar. I'll be getting the next few chapters out MUCH faster than this, count on it.Thank you for getting this far w/ me, guys! D