Author's Notes

Considering this is one of the few fics that is planned to the end and not too far from it, I'm surprised I took so long to update.

And I'm going to have to add an extra chapter, because the ending was too perfect for me to add another scene at the end of.

Meetings

'They are very much like you and Dōmeki, Watanuki. But you should be more grateful. After all, you have something more that they don't.' – Yuuko gets an interesting pair of customers…

Kouichi/Koichi K &Yuuko I

"Nothing in this world is coincidence. Everything is hitsuzen." (Hitsuzen means "the inevitable.") – Yuko Ichihara

Chapter 3

Choices

'The number four,' Yuuko mused aloud, before turning to her employee. 'I've told you this before, haven't? How unlucky that number is?'

The pipe fox slithered off her lap and over to Watanuki, who in his distraction had tripped over the dust pan and fallen flat. Yuuko laughed in amusement as the little fox pecked the boy on his cheek: a sign of motherly tenderness, like a mother kissing their child's skinned knee. 'Chop chop,' she said, after she'd had her fill. 'Back to the cleaning.'

Watanuki grumbled something and straightened, stiffening slightly as the pipe fox slithered down the sensitive skin under his shirt, before relaxing as she adjusted herself above his pants line.

'What brought this on anyway?' he asked.

'The dust brush,' Yuuko said with a smile.

Watanuki picked it up and continuing collecting the dust and other odds and ends into the dust pan.

'The number four,' Yuuko repeated, once the sweeping fell back into its previous rhythm. 'Considering how unlucky it is, it appears very often in nature and human architecture. Hospitals avoid having the number four in any of their rooms – and the fourth floor is entirely empty – but you go to a regular building: a university building, for example, and they'll have a fourth floor.' She spun the pipe between her fingers. 'People build crossroads: paths that go four different ways. And then, most insects have four wings. Most higher order organisms have four appendages. From earth, we can see four of Jupiter's moons. So why is four so unlucky?'

Watanuki emptied the dustpan, picking at the brush to clean the last of the tidbits he'd swept up. 'What about the four leaf clover?' he asked. 'Isn't that supposed to be good luck?'

'Yes.' Yuuko sounded amused. 'The fourth leaf is supposed to represent luck.'

'I haven't heard of that.' Watanuki turned around. 'What are the other three?'

Yuuko sighed theatrically. 'Really, what do you know?' Ignoring Watanuki's indignant splutter, she said: 'The first is faith, the second hope, and the third love. The fourth, as I just said, is luck. And yet four is still an unlucky number.'

Her smirk suggested she knew more, but Watanuki didn't and wasn't in the mood for mind-games. He said as much, before cleaning the last of the dust and clutter on the bristles.

'Make some cake with the dinner,' Yuuko ordered, watching him. 'We'll probably be getting a visitor soon after.'

Watanuki groaned. 'Why am I the one cooking for your visitors?' He paused, then added: 'Is this another customer?'

'Are people who don't buy customers too?' she returned. 'But yes, another customer.'

She lit the pipe and watch the smoke form.

Kouji thought he heard someone shout his name, but hadn't thought much about it until he heard the screeching of breaks behind him. And, in the time it took to turn, the scene he'd almost left had exploded into chaos.

A car had swerved on the crossing, almost crashing into the traffic lights. There was a sprawled form on the crossing as well, with a couple more sensible adults trying to keep a crowd away. They were also blocking a clear view, so Kouji couldn't tell much of what happened – except that someone must've gotten hit by the car.

But the scene didn't concern him and he'd seen nothing of use to anyone, so he headed home, ignoring the pounding of his heart. Still, he remembered the scene: the voices woven into a symphony of shouts and cries for a perfect stranger. He still remembered what he thought was someone calling for him – even if he didn't know why a random someone on the street would be doing such a thing.

He couldn't forget though, and it bothered him all afternoon until his father added fuel to the fire by suddenly whisking him into the car.

Yuuko puffed at her pipe, watching the rings of smoke rise gently towards the clouds. 'So,' she said quietly, watching the boy walk home. 'That's how things stand.'

She set the pipe on her knee, watching it sway, before turning her attention to the candle she'd received as payment from her previous customer: the boy's twin. The flame had whittled away, destroying the beautiful wax carving and leaving barely a stub behind. Within an hour or so, she though it would be gone entirely.

She turned away from the candle. 'The price for unbalance,' she said quietly. But to upset the balance of the world was not an easy thing; things had a way of going to a larger plan.

The balance would eventually be repaired, but by what method and time was up to the boys who'd upset it.

'I'm going out in a bit,' she called out to Watanuki. 'Have dinner ready when I get back. Soba noodles.'

'It's not New Years!' her employee yelled back at her, and she laughed lightly. If Soba was supposed to be eaten on New Year's and New Year's alone, the world would be in a disastrous situation.

Kousei was silent at the wheel, and Kouji's patience was reaching its end. 'What's going on?' he said finally. 'Where are we going?'

'The hospital,' Kousei replied, a little tersely. 'K…someone was hit by a car.'

Kouji caught the hesitation and frowned at it. His father didn't stutter. 'So?' he asked. 'People get hit all the time. Why is this person special?'

The answer took a while to sink in, and Kouji found himself repeating it in his mind in shock. 'He's my brother. My brother!'

Kousei was relieved Kouji was too shocked to ask too many questions, moreso when they actually got to the hospital and Kouji discovered that not only was the accident he'd passed the very same one the other had been involved in, but the boy who'd called his name and he'd ignored now hovered between life and death.

Yuuko slipped through the crowds in the hallways unnoticed. She knew who see was looking for after all, and most of those bustling around had agendas of their own: Doctors and Nurses hurrying from one patient to another. Visitors heading to visit patients – sometimes stopping in the wrong room along the way. Patients coming out for some fresh air – or outpatients simply heading for their Doctor. And even the aimless ones were too consumed by their own thoughts to notice her.

She found the boy on the roof, something she thought was rather amusing, though another would likely have found it ironic instead. 'A nice view?' she asked, smiling as the boy started. Something that would seem uncharacteristic, but that simply meant he was better at hiding it than some others.

The boy turned away again, mumbling something that sounded like "mind your own business."

'Now, now.' Yuuko didn't chuckle. She might have with Watanuki, but she is more familiar with him. It wasn't so appropriate with a short-term customer. 'I'll get to the point, since you seem to prefer that.'

He didn't turn around, simply staring out into the grey city with its interwoven roads below.

'Depressing?' Yuuko said, and she did smile this time. 'Everywhere you look, you see the number four. The hospitals avoid rooms and floors with that number, but what good does it really do? You can't avoid the number appearing in other things: the fourth house on the street, the fourth leaf in a plant, the fourth road in an intersection – and it was an intersection, wasn't it.'

He did turn around at that. Sharply. Yuuko held up a hand. 'A crossroad,' she continued. 'It's bad luck to cross paths with someone four times at crossroads. It's said to open the doorway to death.'

The shock had faded a little from his face, leaving a "so what" expression instead.

'You avoided it…only because you had your back to those encounters.' Yuuko heard his silence, then continued: 'there are four crossroads between your school and your house. Did you not hear someone calling you at the forth? Didn't you hear someone calling you before that? Chasing you?'

He had, though he hadn't admitted it then and didn't want to now.

Yuuko's smile became gentle, melancholic, and she came nearer to him. 'Your brother followed you, crossed four crossroads – but he didn't have his back turned like you. So the doorway to death opened for him.'

She watched the words sink in.

'Why should I believe that?' the boy said roughly, in the end.

Yuuko shrugged. 'I am called the Dimensional Witch,' she said. 'I grant people's wishes, and deep down you must have realised you had a part to play in all this, because it is your wish that has brought me here.'

Kouji turned away again. 'People die all the time,' he said. 'Why is this different?'

Yuuko regarded him, then said: 'You can try and distance yourself all you want, but it won't work. Death is something that never fails to touch anyone; whether you walk away from an accident or stay to watch and wait really makes no different if the person dies in the end.' Then she smiled. 'But I don't give advice for free either, so that'll be added to your payment.'

'Payment?' Kouji repeated.

'Payment,' Yuuko affirmed. 'The world must be kept in balance after all. For each person that dies, another is born. For every empty hole, something is created to fill it. The world would collapse otherwise. And the balance is maintained, because everything that happens is meant to be. Hitzuen: inevitability.'

He turned away again: slowly, thoughtfully. 'You have a brother you don't know,' Yuuko continued. 'And you feel guilty: if only you'd been more open, you think. More approachable, instead of hiding behind bitterness. Then the two of you mightn't be in this situation. And maybe you father would have considered you old and mature enough to know the truth, so you wouldn't have had to live a lie.'

Kouji laughed dryly at that. 'But everything is inevitable.'

'Indeed.' Yuuko's tone showed no amusement to that. 'Which means the only thing you can strive for is the future. The future is inevitable, yes, but do you know that inevitable future?'

He thought about it, then shook his head.

'Then you must try to change the path you think its heading down,' Yuuko said. 'It is the nature of mankind. And you can do it; I grant wishes, as I said. I cannot bring back the dead once they've died, but for someone still at the crossroads they can be guided back…with a heavy price. Though there is no guarantee; what is meant to happen will happen, eventually.'

He said nothing to that, though she could see him thinking.

'You wouldn't have to pay that price alone,' she added, as an afterthought. 'Since you are not the only person involved.'

'Who else?' he asked finally.

'That depends on your answer to my question,' Yuuko returns. 'Your brother was a customer of mine as well, but his wish was different and he had the tools to grant his own wish and therefore refused my aid. You, however, have little choice. Shall I grant your wish?'