Notes:Written for LiveJournal's 31 Days. The first in a series of xxxHolic drabbles, and the inspiration for the title.
Paper Fortunes
On a (rare) walk home with Himawari, they circumvent the blazing streets into a shortcut she knows. In detours through bushes and thorns, they wander (lost) over cracked sidewalks to a temple at dusk. Pressing her fingers tip to tip, she threads wonderingly among the dangling wares half-forgotten in front. They take one each, and directions, opening them on the way home.
Hers: beware loose threads, the star that fires gold.
His (mentally narrated by someone like Doumeki): bad luck this summer. Stay home.
A glance. "Is Watanuki all right with such a misfortune?"
He says, sharp as fate, "I don't believe in those anyway!" As she slants an uncertain look to him, warmly: "So long as Himawari-chan is around, no misfortune is too bad!"
She laughs, his own lie shining out at him in reflection.
(He wonders, unwelcomingly, what fortune he might have found if Doumeki had been there.)
end