Chapter Five: Smoke

Yuuko's smoke has not completely dissipated by the time Haruka arrives. He comes in from the porch—they always meet on the porch—and steps inside Watanuki's room. This must be the first time he has come to Watanuki's private space, not taken Watanuki "outside" in his dreams, so to speak.

Watanuki wonders what it could mean, except he's sick and stuck here, and having a conversation anywhere else right now simply doesn't make sense.

"Why are you here?" Watanuki says sleepily.

"I heard you met Yuuko. And Doumeki sends his love. He's still recollecting his spirit, on the other side..."

"Like Yuuko-san?"

"Aye."

Part of what Haruka said was late in dawning. "Doumeki sends his...love?" Watanuki makes out, gasping, as if a bucket of ice water had just been upended over his head.

"Yes, of course." Haruka smiles.

Haruka said "of course," as if Watanuki had already known. Even if he had known, if he always suspected, it feels like an entirely new revelation, coming from Haruka, whose words cannot be denied.

Feelings slam into Watanuki's chest where Doumeki reached in to kickstart his beating heart, the heart that is now writhing inside of him. His hand clenches over the spot, as if by keeping his hand there, he could contain himself. He wonders distractedly what colors his skin must be turning, moment by moment. Grey-blue for shock, pale yellow for hope...white for hot, sharp pain, orange for grief, inflamed red for anger, green-yellow-brown for guilt, watered milk for inadequacy...pink for embarrassment, light purple for shame, bruise blue for the dull hurt, provoked, for the ache of missing, and wanting, and not having...

"I...I worried him, I guess," Watanuki admits weakly, a little awkwardly. There is no expressing what he actually feels. What else could he say?

Such honesty from a Doumeki comes only from beyond the grave, beyond fear, beyond regret: now all that is left is make up for lost time and voicing the words left unsaid, clarifying a matter that has already met its end. What is the use in Doumeki telling him now, when there is nothing Watanuki can do?

Haruka nods. It's one of the best things about Haruka, in Watanuki's opinion, that he never judges. "Will you permit me to smoke?" Haruka asks, since they are inside the house for once.

Watanuki decides it doesn't matter. It's the dream-space after all. And it seems hypocritical to forbid it since both he and Yuuko smoked the opium pipe inside so often. So he waves his hand and Haruka lights up his cigarette. Haruka takes one long drag on the cigarette and now he seems ready to talk.

They don't, though. Not for a while.

"It's not that I wanted to. Worry him, I mean. I didn't think he would...care." Looking at the ground, Watanuki is aware of how foolish that sounds now. Just because Doumeki died didn't mean... He should have known better. Watanuki looked up at Haruka. "I was so angry and upset at him, Haruka-san. I've never been that...that way with anyone before, not for real."

Haruka breathes in, breathes out the smoke. "It was bound to to be someday. Happens to most everyone, at some point in their lives." He lifts the cigarette to his lips again, and the embers at the tip flare orange.

"I suppose. But we didn't even fight properly." Watanuki makes a sound that could have been either a laugh or a sob. "I think...I think maybe he wanted one. At the end. But I couldn't even tell him what I felt. I couldn't process it. I couldn't mindlessly rage at him. Even if I had told him everything, it was too late. I couldn't change what he was going to do."

"No, it was too late for that," Haruka agrees.

"And then." Watanuki swallows. "He said he wasn't leaving me alone, but that had to be a lie. You can't come back from the dead! What was he thinking of? I can't...I can't... How can he expect me to just go on without him, as if nothing was wrong, knowing what he did to himself?"

Haruka lets out a soft sigh. "He doesn't," said Haruka, lowering the cigarette. "He doesn't expect. He just had to hope. To trust..." Haruka casts a knowing, sad look at Watanuki, and continues. "He couldn't wait any longer for you to earn your freedom; he was an old man by then. In a few years he knew he was going to die in good time. And you were young. He could have died and never seen you freed."

"Then what...what was he trying to do?"

"To make another way." There is only the sound of soft burning, the sound of smoke rising, of drawn breath.

Watanuki lifts his head to speak again. "Yuuko said she wasn't coming back quite the same."

Haruka nods. "That is correct. Neither is Doumeki."

Watanuki blinks. "What?"

"That time, what my taciturn, tactless grandson was trying to tell you," said Haruka, dryly, "When you saw him last, was that he was coming back for you when he could be reincarnated at the earliest opportunity. That is allowed, within the rules. He really died."

"...Oh."

Haruka looks a trifle wry. "Yes. He's very devoted. Delightful, isn't he?"

"That's the least of his—" Watanuki covers his temples with his hands and groans aloud with frustration. "Haruka-san...!"

"Hurry up and spit out your thoughts before they give birth." Haruka's expression does not even twitch. He would be able to say that with a straight face... But it's so unusual to hear him joke like that. It sounds like something Yuuko would say.

Watanuki pinches the bridge of his nose, looking as if he could explode.

Haruka finally lets a smidgen of a smirk through his solemn expression, and then suddenly he's chuckling to himself in that infuriating Doumeki way. Haruka shakes his head to dispel the last remnants of his mirth. "Ah, well. Never mind." Haruka waves one hand. "You were saying?"

"Right...so. Anyway, Yuuko is coming back, but she said that I should ask myself why I needed her."

"You have not asked the question to yourself?" Haruka says with apparent surprise.

Watanuki shakes his head. "At first I just needed her. When I made the wish, I mean. It hurt so much for the very people whose lives she touched, whose lives she changed, for them not to remember her. It was so unfair. I didn't want her to go, I wasn't ready for her to go. But after a while, I just did what I had to. I couldn't think about other things. I was just desperate. I wanted her because... I wanted her because..." Watanuki spreads his hands, clenches them into fists. His throat almost choked closed again. I don't know.

Haruka gazes at him as if from a distance, neutral again. "Then what do you miss?"

Watanuki shuts his eyes, willing himself to go on. "Everything. Even her teasing and the drinking and her selfish requests and how—how she took care of me, more than anyone else I ever met. She sent me on dangerous missions, sure, but that was part of my wish, and she was the shopkeeper, and the truth was that I had always been in danger, all my life, and the difference was only that I chose to brave the danger instead of enduring it. And she knew that. But she was my support, when I returned from every mission, and she took care of me. Gave me advice, sometimes, when she was kind, c-comforted me, even. I never doubted her. I knew that what she wanted...deep down...was for me to be safe, and whole, above all, despite everything." Watanuki stops.

"You wanted a mother," Haruka answers.

Watanuki's eyes fly open.

"It was what she was," says Haruka, looking tired. "Your guardian. She was the reason you survived, when she took your memories of your parents, of your former life, all those years ago. And to the degree that it was her fault, she felt responsible for you."

"I still need her," Watanuki insists.

Haruka nods. "But not that way. Those times is over."

"Then what is she to me?"

That is the question. It is up to you to decide, or discover, the answer.

Haruka half-smiles, leans forward and breaths once more on the cigarette. The ember burns, another plume of smoke rises to join the cloud around them. He stands and opens the shoji that leads to the porch, and steps outside. The presence of Haruka fades into the smoke, into the scent of the tobacco, and then the wind takes him and the smoke and the heat and warmth of the hearth away.

Goodbye, Haruka...

This time, with no one to watch and no one to hear, Watanuki cries.