Chapter Three: Let Me

Is he dreaming? Spots dance before his open eyes.

The room fades into view slowly, a grainy, pockmarked image. As if his glasses were dirty. Watanuki palms his face. No glasses. The ceiling above is flickering, the light buzzing slightly. Or is that his ears? It's so hard to tell. Things are so blurry and weird.

He lets his eyelids slide shut, and when he opens them again, Doumeki is hovering over him.

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

Doumeki reaches for his chest. For an instant he rests his hand there, just above his left ribs, and then he pushes through the skin, just barely under it, just like the Zashiki-Warashi had on Valentine's day, when she extracted Doumeki's soul. Watanuki's heart kicks hard, hard enough to bruise. Watanuki imagines a purple mark blossoming under his translucent skin like a flower. Doumeki withdraws his hand, looking satisfied, while Watanuki splutters.

How are you? Doumeki says calmly, back to kneeling at Watanuki's side with the same old eyes, the same mouth. The same amused quirk in his perpetual slight frown. It's weird how Watanuki's eyes focus only on bits of him, rendering them in perfect clarity while obscuring the rest. There are also parts of Doumeki that he can't see, for no matter how hard he tries to look, the image just refuses to comply.

"What-did-you-do-to-me-you-bastard," Watanuki tries to snarl, but he can't. He has to cough, great hacks racking his lungs. It comes out as a scratchy, hoarse whisper instead. The cough continues to rack and contort his body.

Doumeki, Watanuki can see, is even more amused with this answer, which sounds much more like Watanuki's old self. He doesn't reply, but the quirk to his mouth widens a bit. He tilts his head. Keeping you from dying. His tone is dry.

Doumeki couldn't be happier with that job, Watanuki thinks bitterly.

"I just wanted to follow you," Watanuki explains, and a tear slips down one cheek. "If Yuuko's not coming back—she's not, is she—but you always thought I was foolish—to—to wait— Is death so horrible and wrong? Tell me why won't you let me."

Doumeki shakes his head, enigmatic and mysterious, seeming a little farther away, gazing over the top of Watanuki's head. You know why.

No, he doesn't know, doesn't understand.

"Why can't you let me go?" Watanuki whispers bitterly, when his lungs stabilize enough to speak. He crushes the edges of the sheets between his fingers. "Stop helping! I don't need your help. Why can't you let me decide for myself?"

The smile slips from Doumeki's face, wipes it clean. Now he's expressionless. That is the face Watanuki absolutely hates the most.

"For all I know you're not even here," Watanuki rasps, clutching the covers of his bed with clawed fingers.

Doumeki fades, his essence blown away into the shadows and a wind that gutters the few candles lighting the room.

Ha. It was an illusion. He knew it.

But even in the brief moment it takes to gloat, guilt and gloom descend.

Something flutters across the floor, lifted by a brief wind: a paper, a feather, a wing? Just in case Doumeki is still waiting around, Watanuki sits up to yell at the air, "I AM NOT GOING TO DISAPPEAR, YOU BASTARD! IF THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE SO AFRAID OF, JUST LET ME DIE!" The effort slams him back down onto the pillows and he heaves for breath for a very long time.

The damage is done. Once uttered, it became a promise that he is bound to keep. It was a trick. This was what Doumeki had wanted.

If Doumeki was there—if Doumeki was ever there—he doesn't respond.

I must be going about it all wrong, Watanuki thinks deliriously. Dying shouldn't be such an effort.

You think that because disappearance takes no effort, because disappearing is what you know...that death is also easy. You promised you would not take the easy way out. You belong to the living. Watanuki hears the voice as very still, very calm. Doumeki's voice pauses, continuing in a conversational tone, There are much easier ways to die than self-neglect. The vehemence of your denial is also the proof of your care... So don't be foolish.

Watanuki looks around for the source of the voice, but Doumeki is nowhere to be found.

Darkness reaches up and overwhelms him. He sleeps with much tossing and turning and sweating and waking and twisting and struggling with himself and the sheets, much unlike the dead, and very much alive.