| Chapter 5 |

Fai and Kurogane cross the threshold of wishing shop to the place where Watanuki awaited them. "You decided," Watanuki observes.

"Yes. We decided there were some livelihoods we would not take up while we lived here. Kurogane will not be a soldier or a martial arts instructor; I will not be a magician or an entertainer for a living."

"Then the price is paid." Watanuki scratches the back of his head. "Will you be all right here for another day, Fai?"

Fai edges closer to the shop, and puts his hand up to the invisible magical barrier. "Yes," he says, at length.

"Then come in." Watanuki ushers them inside. "What will you do instead?"

Fai and Kurogane shake their heads. "Not sure," they say.

"There's always school," says Watanuki. "You could learn a new profession at college."

"Hmm." Kurogane looks thoughtful.

"You can do it slowly. Take jobs and pay for school a little bit at a time," Watanuki suggests.

Kurogane nods, a little. "We'll look into it. But I have no idea what..."

"You'll find out," says Watanuki easily. "That's what college does, I'm told." He sneaks a glance at Shizuka, who has just gotten into college himself, to study chemistry; Shizuka, who is staring at the wall, doesn't respond, beyond a nearly absent, "Yes."

"Are you going back to work tomorrow?" Watanuki asks him.

"Yes." At the end of a long day, Shizuka is rather tired and drawn.

Watanuki regards him. "Would you prefer..."

"No," says Shizuka, a little sharply. "It's fine. I knew this time would end."

"All right." Watanuki backs down quietly.

Shizuka returns in the morning of the next day with Doumeki's journals safely packed in a leather satchel. Watanuki picks them up with trembling hands. When he throws a glance over his shoulder at the dark depths of the shop, Shizuka knows, as he had suspected, that he wants to be alone.

"Kurogane and Fai spoke to me on the way in and said they were coming back here for lunch," Shizuka tells him awkwardly. "I asked them not to bother you if you were reading."

"All right." Watanuki lays the journal down on the table, and paces restlessly. It feels like there is something he needs to do before he sits down with them.

Shizuka watches him with pain in his heart. He doesn't actually want to leave Watanuki alone with the journals. There's no telling how he would take Doumeki's words. But he knows Watanuki wouldn't want to be watched over like a hawk by Shizuka or anyone else.

Shizuka turns to go, but Watanuki stops him. "Shizuka, I've been thinking." Watanuki hesitates.

"What about?"

"About..." Watanuki touches his right eye, the greenish-gold one. Shizuka's great-grandfather's. "About this."

Shizuka shakes his head, confused. "I don't understand," says Shizuka.

"Doumeki and I shared sight, with this half of his eye. I think—it's yours, if you want it. I can share it with you. I found a spell recently that would let me do it. It will work with a descendant."

"Would you like that?" Shizuka asked.

Watanuki looked away, as if by doing so he wouldn't have to confront the strength of his own desires. "Yes. If you do."

"Why? Surely you're experienced enough with spirits, that..."

Watanuki touches his lips with two fingers, making the sign for silence. "True, it's not practical anymore, but I...I..."

Shizuka waited.

"I want to do it for you," Watanuki says at last. He can't explain it. His eye was an inextricable part of his relationship with Doumeki, one of the few parts of it that he could admit he treasured, that approached the sacred between them.
Shizuka dimly perceives the significance of the offer, but he doesn't know what it means, so he can't take it. Not just yet.

"I see. Thank you." Shizuka bends slightly. "However, I must think on it." He glances at Watanuki, then the door, and then he is gone, like a puff of wind, or shadow passing by. He tears himself away before he can convince himself to stay.

His heart tells him that he is only delaying the inevitable, that he wants to accept and so that is what he will say in the end. But he refuses to listen to it. His head is telling him that there are still important questions to be answered, that there is a catch to this deal which must be found out.

For one, there are selfish reasons why Shizuka would want this in order to keep an eye on Watanuki. It might devastate their trust, instead of building it up. He needs to want this for the right reasons.

How did Doumeki justify it to himself, when he offered the gift? He probably didn't think. The only thing in his mind was Watanuki's well-being, and that alone; and it was necessary, so he did it. He did what had to be done. He was profoundly simple in that way, and that was also why Watanuki found him so unfathomable and stubborn. Shizuka is not sure he can accept the same gift with such a pure heart. There are times when power leads to possessiveness. But who would be possessing whom?

But the second, more integral question was: did Shizuka even want the relationship that Doumeki had with Watanuki? Or did he want something new? And thirdly, why would Watanuki want to offer?

But there was no guarantee that everything would be the same, after all, even with the eye. It was a puzzle.

It would probably be safest to refuse for now.

Kochoushu came in after that. She must have heard everything, but she appeared as if she had nothing to say; she simply went on with her chores, shelving books and organizing artifacts and papers. Watanuki sighs when he sees her. She's about to go out the door when he holds out his hand to stop her.

"Kochoushu. I haven't been giving you the due attention you need, or deserve," Watanuki says simply. "We need to talk."

After a moment of consideration, Kochoushu lets go of the front door handle and follows Watanuki to the clients' study.

"Whatever problem you had originally would have to be urgent for you to have come to me when you did," Watanuki explains when they are both seated. "I think we both know that the Sight was not your ultimate goal, only a means to the end. Possibly a key to your destiny. But that's a different kind of thing altogether."

Kochoushu shrugs, trying to look nonchalant.

"I think it's time you told me what it is," Watanuki says gravely. "Do you know?"

Kochoushu's eyes slide sideways. "I don't have the experience to tell you what exactly it is. I only know what I have observed." She plays with her fingers, lacing them together tightly.

"Sit down," Watanuki orders, gently but firmly. Kochoushu bows slightly and sits in the only available chair, which is across the table from Watanuki. Watanuki pours her some weak lukewarm green tea, then refills his own cup. Kochoushu stares at it, but doesn't drink. Watanuki sips a little, for the sake of form, then puts it down. Only then does Kochoushu copy him. Watanuki steeples his fingers. "So what is it that you have observed?"

Kochoushu's expression appears to tighten. "It was my cousin. We used to be close... She has been behaving strangely for a long time now. At first I thought she had been possessed, but now..." She looks out the window. Her brick-red eyes momentarily flash scarlet in the light.

"The Sight tells you that there is nothing acting on her directly," Watanuki interpreted quietly. "But that does not eliminate the possibility of the interference of a spirit."

Kochoushu nods fractionally, squeezing her hands on her lap. Her hair lifts at the slightest wind, appearing to fly. She appears a dark, brooding shadow as she crouches there.

"I will assist you in your investigation," says Watanuki, standing. "If your suspicions are correct, the spirit may not be one that you are prepared to deal with. The most difficult spirits to deal with often have the lightest touch, because they rely on the consent of the victim, and as such have very good persuasive ability, and a degree of trust. They create a compulsion or an enthrallment that is very hard to resist, and the best spirits play on the deepest desires of the victim, which is why it is so hard to break that spirit's hold. Am I wrong?"

"N-no. She's not possessed, so..." she stammers. "That sounds right, but..."

"Possession is also consent-based, but only initially, as the victim's mind rejects the manhandling of body and spirit and begins to reassert itself over time. It takes a surprising amount of energy to force the victim to succumb, so weak spirits' immediate goals after possession is in search of energy to feed, and in doing so they alert us to their presence... Still difficult to eradicate, but the cure needn't be delicate, and it is relatively easy to convince the victim to resist. Enthrallment is much more difficult to deal with and the victim may resist help as strongly as the spirit. Why were you surprised?"

"I didn't, um, think you would agree help me so easily. I wasn't really looking of help, either," Kochoushu says, embarrassed. "That was all I knew, so...well, I thought it was a dead end..." She runs her fingers through her hair, though there are no knots to untangle—her hair is always sleek and very, very straight; the gesture is purely nervous.

Watanuki smiles a little. "I, too, would have thought so, in my first few years of working at the shop. I did learn, time after time, and so will you. But that is why I thought I would ask." He purses his lips. "So, with that decided, would you mind telling me what exactly is wrong with your cousin?"

Kochoushu's cousin's name was Kuwako. Kuwako had a boyfriend for nearly a year who was sweet, but "troubled." One day he rode his bike into the ocean, and never came back. After he went missing for a few days his body was found at the base of a beach cliff.

Kuwako had tried to make herself believe it was an accident. Kochoushu wasn't entirely sure if this was denial or not. Everyone else was afraid that the worst had happened, and that it was what had gotten the better of Kuwako's boyfriend. And because it hurt too much—to think that the accident was just that, an accident, unanticipated, unfair, and undeserved—that was what they believed.

Only recently Kochoushu had found out, from a friend of Kuwako's, what had happened. Kuwako had kept the relationship secret, because if her mother knew the full extent of her boyfriend's "oddness," she would have freaked. But Kochoushu's cousin had wanted to be there for him, and that was how she had done it.

Kochoushu said Kuwako had stayed out that night after the funeral, and it had rained. Neither Kochoushu nor Kuwako's mother knew where Kuwako had gone, or what had happened. But when her cousin came back, soaking wet, she was very strange. She...well.

Kochoushu's cousin saw things that weren't there, spoke to someone Kochoushu couldn't see. Kuwako disappeared for hours to go off and do things by herself. She would promise to do things and forget them, make commitments and then skip them, intent on a promise to a person Kochoushu didn't know, to the exclusion of everyone else. That person consumed Kuwako's thoughts. She didn't care about anything or anyone at all. She was irrationally convinced that no one else understood her and what she felt. And she was getting sicker all the time. These days, she had a constant fever and couldn't even go to school. Her mother tried to keep Kuwako in the house, but Kuwako always found her way out...

"There was a promise?" says Watanuki, sharply.

Kochoushu nods, mute. There are unspilled tears in her eyes.

"Do you know the exact nature of that promise?"

Kochoushu shakes her head.

Watanuki breaths deeply. This sounded familiar. If it was what he suspected, well... "How long has this been going on?" he asks.

"Two months."

Watanuki turns that thought over in his head.

Kochoushu swallows, and asks, "What is it?" in a small voice.

Watanuki shakes his head, glum. "Nothing." Kochoushu slumps in her chair with a disappointed look on her face. Watanuki rests his chin on one hand.

Watanuki remembers the last time he encountered this type of spirit. When Watanuki was possessed, it had taken only two weeks for the sickness to take over. That was a rather depressing thought. Watanuki had not fought back at all. The spirit Watanuki had encountered was a stranger; given the story Kochoushu had told, this one had been a friend, and more than a friend, and would therefore be expected to have a greater hold over her. "Your cousin is a strong one," he says finally.
Kochoushu stares at him.

"There's hope. She wants to live. She doesn't want to be convinced otherwise." That was Watanuki's interpretation. Hopefully the right one. "But we need to work fast to save her life."

"Save her life?" Kochoushu inhales sharply. She places her palms flat on the table. "What do we need to do?" she asks, desperate.

His reply, spoken low and dark, is: "Whatever is necessary."

She sits back, stunned. Kochoushu is unnerved, for somehow she knows deep in her bones that he means what he says about this of all things. A trickle of dread runs down her back. Watanuki's cold and bleak expression does not change as she stares at him. For the first time Kochoushu is really frightened for her cousin, not just uneasy.

Kochoushu wipes her eyes and in a broken voice she promises to do what she must and damn the consequences. She wishes to end the spirit connection to save her cousin's life.

Watanuki says, "I will hold you to that." And then he looks out the window.

He knows from the standpoint of the enthralled one that the very righteousness of one's savior is the hardest of all to forgive. Kochoushu's relationship with her cousin may not survive unscathed. If Kochoushu doesn't understand that already, then she is about to find out.

Watanuki had made the right choice all those years ago, but it was a near thing. The decision, made in a split second, had been based on a gut sense of guilt and an instinct for kindness that he could not ignore.

He's not sure when he began to accede that Doumeki had done the right thing. It had taken much time and healing to lay the grudge to rest, and the sick horror of that memory, like a deep scar, never faded. By the same token, Doumeki was extra cautious when crossing Watanuki on subjects more serious than snack choices and it was then that he began his habit of outwardly deferring to Watanuki even when he disagreed with him. When it came to Watanuki's life and health he would never compromise. Doumeki seemed to believe that he had used up all of Watanuki's forgiveness points, and truth be told, he should have been right.

But he hadn't been right, because Watanuki came to rely on Doumeki much more than before after the incident. Doumeki had proved his loyalty, even if he had gone against Watanuki's wishes. He could not be accused of not having Watanuki's best interests at heart, and it would have been foolish to throw that away.

Even though it was the "right thing," Kochoushu was not guaranteed a happy ending. Watanuki hoped she understood that. Not everything could be made better; there was a price to every wish. Watanuki wished for her sake that this consequence wasn't part of the price.

Watanuki gets up and calls Shizuka first thing. He picks up the phone and his kimono sleeve slips down; Watanuki rubs his wrist, where it is suddenly cold. The numbers are strangely heavy as he dials them, slowly dragging each number around in an arc. He remembers this was an old phone of Yuuko's. Shizuka calls it an antique.

Shizuka picks up, with accompanying soft static, probably from Watanuki's old phone. Watanuki clutches the phone, and turns his back to Kochoushu.

"I need your help," says Watanuki in a low voice.

Watanuki hears an office chair rolling back, a pen clattering to the desk. "Tell me what to do," says Shizuka immediately.
So Watanuki tells him, and Shizuka writes down what is needed.

"It's Kochoushu," Watanuki murmurs, at the end.

"What?" Shizuka snaps to attention on the other end of the line.

"It's Kochoushu's true wish."

"She told you," he remarks with some surprise, and clears his throat.

"Mm. I thought it would take longer, too." Watanuki pauses, and takes a deep breath. "It's not good." He leans on the phone cradle.

"Do you need me to..." Shizuka trails off, but Watanuki knows what he was thinking of.

"No...!" he exclaims, too quickly. Watanuki doesn't want to put Shizuka into danger, and Shizuka offers to help him with too much as it is, while he is still untried, when this task carries a high risk that someone will be hurt.

Watanuki's own fears are delayed, but they were there, but in the quiet that follows his words, he sees them for what they are. The truth is, although he has the skills he needs to beat this foe, he doubts himself. He has succumbed once, and the problem had not ever, really, been about magical ability. The flaw lay within his own soul. If he succumbed, it would endanger Kochoushu, whom he has promised to help and protect. He cannot afford to. Yuuko and Doumeki together would strangle him from beyond the grave.

Shizuka is still waiting.

The truth was, though it kills him to admit it, he needs backup.

"Yes," Watanuki whispers. He clutches the phone and his heartbeat throbs in his ears as he chokes out, "Please come."

Somber silence settles over Shizuka's end. And then, quiet, "I'm coming. I'll be there at six."

"Thank you," Watanuki says faintly, before he can take back his request, and with a soft click, he replaces the receiver.
He leans over the phone and shudders. Kochoushu is watching him miserably. He tries to relax. He can't, with that troubled gaze on him.

"How about another cup of tea?" he asks, forcing himself to smile as though nothing were wrong. Before Kochoushu can answer, he whisks into the kitchen to get such tea. If nothing else, the familiarity of the ritual should be comforting.

It is going to be a very long afternoon.

The prickling lump in my chest

was always there, but

Recently it seems to have gotten better. […]

Tears fall throughout the world; as for me,

I shouldn't wipe them away to look pretty.

You taught me I should treasure these small things,

for pain is always the more vivid memory.

You left my heart those very definite words.

—"Aozora" (Shikao Suga) [translation]