-/ Chapter 5 \-

Muun goes to school, Doumeki hovering disinterestedly a few paces behind him. Himawari spots them at the gate, and waves, but she looks troubled and doesn't step out towards Muun to greet him.

But then again, she doesn't run away.

While they are standing stock-still with indecision, Doumeki impatiently brushes past to walk through the gate.

Doumeki is still upset after all, Himawari thinks, with some dismay, craning her neck to watch him go.

Muun takes a deep breath. "Good morning, Himawari-chan," he says, as he would on a normal day.

"Hello, Muun-kun," replies, subdued.

"Shall we go to class?"

"Yes," she says simply.

It was a disappointing reunion, but at least they were together.

"Oy, Muun. I heard you confessed yesterday!" someone shouts.

"Yeah, where'd you disappear to with Kunogi-san?" comes the arrogant question.

"I heard she ran and hid in her locker!" in a tone of wonder.

"Eeee—?!" gasp the girls.

"So you said—" "So how was—" "HOW'D YOUR—" "—speaking your—" "—feelings of—" "CONFESSION!" "—end up?" "—TURN OUT?" "Go well?!"

Everyone shouts over one another.

Muun sits down at his seat and ignores them all, one hand pressed to his temple. Their yelling is giving him a headache...

"Are you feeling well?" asks a girl in a quiet voice. The class representative.

He shakes his head, and whisperes, "just for right now..."

She nods and walks to the front of the class, raising both hands to draw their attention to her. "Everyone! Minna-san!"

"Awww, class-prez, he's just faking it!" someone complains.

She slams her hands down, palms to the floor, simultaneously capturing their attention and expressing desperation for quiet. "Be quiet! Right now! And if I hear another word from you—!"

In a few minutes everything is calm and no one is trying to shout or yell or talk to Muun anymore, but the air seethes with unanswered questions and confused accusations, dismissal and disgust.

Himawari slides open the door to enter the classroom and the room turns absolutely silent. The whole class stares at her.

Feeling the hair rising on the back of her neck, Himawari finds her seat and sits down. Her friends come and speak to her in low voices to ask well-meaning questions.

She does not like this at all. It would have been better if the class had hounded her as she had been expecting, for she did not know what anyone was thinking.

"How was class?" asks Himawari, when they first happened to pass in the halls.

"Utterly horrible," says Muun, stopping only briefly.

"Mine too," says Himawari, and continues in the opposite direction.

"Talk later?" Muun calls.

She waves.

As soon as she is gone, the hall erupts in noise and sound and movement. Feeling as if he were being chased, Muun ducks and skids through the mob to get to his next class.

Doumeki comes with them when they went home that day, because Muun needed to deliver the crutches. Muun can feel Doumeki's tenseness and irritation seeping from within him with every step. Himawari clutches her satchel and looks preoccupied. Once they got to Muun's doorstep, Muun fetches the crutches, and delivers them into Doumeki's hands; then Doumeki leaves.

Glancing around, Himawari lingers on the front step.

"Is it okay if we talk now?" asks Muun. "Would you come inside? I can make tea."

Himawari shakes her head. "No, thanks."

"Are you sure?"

Himawari shakes her head more vigorously. "The risk..." she mumbles to herself.

"Bad luck again?" asks Muun.

She looks away. "Yes."

"We need to talk," Muun says.

"I know." Himawari shifts her feet restlessly.

"How...how do you believe your bad luck works?" Muun asks, knowing the question sounds stilted. It has to be, because he doesn't believe in her luck but in order to make any sense of this situation, he knows he has to descend to her level.

"Through touch," Himawari answers.

Muun guesses, "So...you don't want to contaminate anything in my house."

She nods.

"I'm fine with it," Muun offers.

"I'm not," Himawari says tightly. "You don't know the...consequences..." Her hands tighten on the handle of her school bag.

"Okay," says Muun, calm, trying to control his sudden alarm. "Then...we should stay outside?"

"Yes."

"How about the back porch, then?" Muun scratches the back of his head.

"All right."

Relieved, Muun leads her behind the house and they sit on the concrete house steps.

"What should we talk about first?" she asks.

"First of all, I want to know your story. How you see the situation. What you think happened last night. I don't think we will communicate on the same wavelength until you do, and I don't want to scare you or offend you like it seems I did yesterday."

"You didn't," Himawari says distantly. "That was me being stupid."

"At the very least, it will be counter-productive to leave me in the dark."

That's Muun. Ever logical.

At length Himawari agrees, and she begins in a hushed voice. "One day, there was girl who..."

"So you believe you were responsible for all that?" Muun asks. "The accidents, your grandmother, the fire...?"

"And many other small incidents over the years I didn't tell you about. The fact has been confirmed by people I trust, not just the priest. And if I had any doubt, what happened to Watanuki ended it completely," Himawari says grimly.

"What happened to Watanuki? He wouldn't say."

"Well he wouldn't, would he, to protect me. He didn't know what you knew so he couldn't say." Himawari smooths her skirt. "He draws spirits to him. I draw bad luck. Whenever he touched me, it didn't go well. The first time, Watanuki invited me to Hyakumonogatari, to tell ghost stories with him, and I drew the spirits of the dead. Fortunately Doumeki's power is purity, so he dispelled them. Once we traded cookies for my dream, and unwittingly he took my bad dream. The third time...Watanuki made a promise to me, and hurt the pinky of his left hand."

"How?"

"It was a pinky-promise; I didn't think anything of it... 'Yubikiri-genman uso tsuitara: hari-senbon nomasu, yubi kitta...' "

"Did he break it? The promise?" That kind of reason he could understand, Muun thinks.

Himawari shakes her head. "The next time I touched him, his pinky broke permanently, and he fell out the second-story window of the school. That finger will never move again."

"Why don't I remember that?" Muun asked himself, but Himawari answered anyway.

"The wishing shop—that's the place that you went—doesn't entirely exist in this time, and Watanuki removed himself from the world." Himawari kicked her legs. "That's why no one remembers him. Besides myself and Doumeki and another girl he saved, only his customers know him. But unless they are spirits themselves, or people with magical power, even they forget."

"So I'll forget again?"

Himawari shrugs. "I don't know. Doumeki and I, we haven't tried to remind anyone on purpose. So maybe not, if you need to know."

"I hope not," Muun says quietly.

"I, too."

"I think I should say, I don't buy into your reality completely..."

"Muun-kun wouldn't be Muun-kun if he did." Himawari glances at him. "I know it's hard to swallow. I was afraid that you would reject me, but the least I can do is let you be a skeptic."

"But you have reason. I shouldn't dismiss that," Muun says quietly.

Himawari is tired, but she says, "Thank you."

They stay quiet for the next few moments.

"Himawari-chan?"

"Mmm?"

"Do you remember what I said to you while you in the locker?"

Himawari sits ramrod-straight, with shock. "I—ah—"

Muun rushes to say, "It's all right if you've forgotten, I just—"

"No, I—I remember—" she stammers quickly.

But Muun stands and jumps off the steps, and says in a rush, "I want to say this clearly. I like you, Himawari-chan. Would you go out with me?" He bows, and waits for her reply.

Himawari slowly rises to her feet. "I cannot."

Muun straightens back up, and looks her in the eyes. "But would you want to?"

"I—I don't know."

"All right then." Muun sighs and sits back down on the porch beside her. "At least I've got an answer. Is there someone else you like?"

Himawari shakes her head and drops back down. "There was," she murmurs, "But it doesn't matter anymore."

"It was Watanuki, wasn't it?"

She nods.

Muun sighs again. "Can't be helped then, can it?"

"I'm afraid not."

"I've still got a chance, though?"

"If I didn't have this curse. If we knew each other better, maybe," Himawari replies.

"Friends?"

She smiles. "Okay then. Friends."

School got better once they actually had a reply to all the questions. The students quickly lost interest in Muun's rejected love, and Himawari's class went back to normal once they realized that Himawari hadn't actually taken up with anyone, and was just as free as she always was. Nothing of significance really changed.

Himawari and Muun talked and studied together when they could, often with a few other friends. But what did not go unnoticed was that while their other friends come and went, they had become the two constants in their study group.

Doumeki warmed up to Muun only very slowly, but from what Himawari knew of him, his attention was elsewhere. A good part of it was with Watanuki and his continued well-being, of course, but also on the drama within his own family and his uncertain future. From what little he had told her, Doumeki was supposed to be the heir of the Buddhist temple, he had thought, but family politics had unexpectedly come into play and his parents strongly urged him to take a different path, or at least to delay entering the family business. After the very long time it took to convince him to at least prepare for another path, Doumeki's free time was busy with college preparation. Sometimes Himawari wondered what was left for him to study. To her, Doumeki seemed to know everything. While some of his excuses to get out of social invitations were true, she was equally sure he was intent on isolating himself, apart from seeing Watanuki after school some days and on the weekends. It was his way of mourning, she thought, and on top of that he was worried and stressed about a million other things.

There was little she could do about it other than to keep trying to coax him out of his shell. Doumeki responded only halfway most of the time. Muun understood to an extent, but he was puzzled by Himawari's concern. He had never witnessed the friendship Watanuki and Doumeki used to share. What Himawari knew was that, regardless of how Watanuki felt and how much they fought, Watanuki was one of the few people Doumeki had ever truly connected with. These days, Doumeki walked around as if a large piece had been ripped out of his spirit and the edges were still smarting. Doumeki had always been curt, but now his manner was brusque and bitter to the point of deliberate rudeness.

So the senior year of high school passed. When exams came, Muun and Himawari conferred on their college plans, and applied together.

Doumeki applied for a local college and stayed where he was. This was not a surprise.