Chapter Ten: Awaited

The fox leaves the next day, when Watanuki's fevered dizziness has faded. Watanuki goes through the motions at first, but as soon as he can manage it he struggles to put renewed effort into his life.

The snow clears away, but the clouds do not. The weather stays the same for a very long time, except for brief spells when it rains.

He begins taking customers again, one, two at a time. He collects the groceries left at his door by Doumeki's remaining family. He cooks for himself. He learns to have deep conversations with Mokona, who is lonely without the girls, and she becomes his constant companion since the pipe fox has been hibernating since the start of the unnatural winter.

It begins to dawn on him that perhaps the summer had come, but that for some reason he was not able to accept it, and he had wiped away those memories….because he was waiting for something.

Besides, before the summer came the spring, which meant the sakura season, which meant his birthday. Remembering his birthday reminded him of Doumeki's absence. Remembering Doumeki's absence reminded him how alone he was. And he didn't want to remember.

Watanuki stops checking the nonsensical calendar. He stops thinking of the past at all.

He dreams of the shop again with the wooden floors and side panels and ceiling lacquered such deep brown, almost a liquid ink black, that boxes him in a maze. It's a dream he's had before, many, many times, and willfully forgotten.

Now he almost remembers it happening, but can't remember why.

Watanuki wakes to knocking at the door and realizes it's the crack of dawn. He gets out of bed to answer the door, re-tucking the folds of his kimono as he goes. He reaches the genkan and kicks sandals aside, wrenches the shoji apart, and opens his mouth to give the random customer a loud, angry piece of his mind—

It is him.

The briefcase slips out of the boy's grasp and thuds to the floor. Relief, happiness flow in and out with each stuttered breath. He can barely get the words out, bowing jerkily. "Wata—Watanuki—"

Watanuki stares at him in shock.

The boy claps a hand over his mouth. "Ah—ahm—I'm sorry! I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to say that, I mean I apologize, I don't know what to call you!" He looks nervous. "Sir," the boy adds, and bows once more. The boy who looks exactly like Doumeki Shizuka at age fifteen. "I, um. I'm sorry I came this early. I guess that was kinda weird. I, er, I heard you knew my great-grandfather..."

Watanuki stares at him, ever so slightly amused by the boy's anxious, hasty apology but also troubled. For a moment he is simply at a total loss for words, and he doesn't know what to say, not at all.

"C-come in," Watanuki stutters, backing up; only when the new Doumeki moves to step forward, he belatedly shuffles to the side. The boy smiles very slightly, shy, and steps inside. He shucks his shoes, and Watanuki shuts the door dazedly. "What's your name?" he asks.

"Doumeki Shizuka," the boy says in a small voice.

Despite himself, he rocks back on his heels. "What?" Watanuki says faintly. The faint echo of Yuuko's voice comes to his mind: names have power.

"Doumeki Shizuka, I said," says the new Doumeki once again, confused but unconcerned. "I know it's a girl's name, but I'm named after—"

"Yes, I know. How did you…find me?" asks Watanuki.

The boy freezes.

"It's all right. Was it a dream?"

The boy nods, slowly.

"I see. I had one too."

The boy looks ever so slightly perplexed.

Why is it so easy to read the boy's expressions on Doumeki's face?

It hurts.

"Look…Shizuka-kun," Watanuki hazards, because he isn't sure whether it's appropriate at this stage but he sure isn't going to call the boy Doumeki and confuse himself as to what is real and what is not if he can help it, and anyway the boy called him Watanuki without the honorific at first sight so turnabout is fair play. "I don't know what your family told you, but there are some things must know about me…" the words coming out of his mouth are all strained and tense, but he doesn't know how to stop it. This—him—the resemblance—is freaking him out.

"They didn't tell me much because they didn't want me to go searching for you," Shizuka answers.

Watanuki swallows. "About what I expected, seeing as Doumeki's sons and daughters didn't like me much. They thought…" He thinks better of it. "No, never mind. …Are you sure it's all right to see me?" He ushers Shizuka to the dining table, and makes him sit down. Then he sits down across from him, as if Shizuka is his customer. Then he remembers; Shizuka is a customer, he wouldn't have been able to come if he didn't have a wish...

"That's why I came at the crack of dawn," Shizuka says, slightly annoyed. "I mean, I naturally wake up that early, but it made sense to do it then because I couldn't let them know and I had to do this for myself."

Watanuki smiles weakly. "I see. What else do you know, then?"

"I know you're practically immortal. That you grant wishes." Shizuka shrugs. "That you knew my great-grandfather."

Watanuki stares into space, trying desperately not to cry.

"Would you prefer it if I called you Watanuki-sama?" Shizuka offers, all in innocence.

Watanuki is so surprised and shocked by the question that he shoves the table by accident, and has to laugh. And keeps laughing, until he wheezes for breath, pounding the table. Shizuka clams up, shrinking in his seat a little. So he's shy. Watanuki straightens, clearing his throat. He didn't mean to make the boy nervous, but since he already had, he recklessly supposes that he might as well go all the way. "May I call you Shizuka?" Watanuki wonders out loud, in return.

Shizuka bites his lip. "Um—"

No, it's a bad idea. Of course not. His family will have told him things—but the truth— "You look so like your great-grandfather, to me," Watanuki explains ruefully, "that I have a hard time telling the difference between you in my mind. You look exactly like he did at age fifteen. So just to cement the difference between you—"

"Oh. That's alright, then, but...didn't you call my great-grandfather by his first name?"

Watanuki's laugh flutters briefly. "Oh, no. I could never! He was a Doumeki. Through and through. He might as well have been a rock. 'Quiet' or 'peaceful' just wasn't the right way to describe him. He was too stiff." He slides his eyes over to meet the boy's, Shizuka's, speculatively. "It may describe you better, though. You're less rude." He smiles slightly. It is even true. Shizuka's first impression had been slightly rude, but he, at least, had the grace to apologize. "But if you must know, we didn't like each other very much at first. By the time we became good friends...well. I was already calling him Doumeki, and Doumeki never asked me to call him otherwise, so I never took the next step. He never asked to call me by my first name, either." He pauses. How much more should he say? "It happens more often than you'd think. Can you think of calling your teachers anything other than sensei? It's so ingrained that if they let you, you would call them 'sensei' for the rest of your life, no matter what might happen between you after school was over? Yes? It was the same for us." Watanuki stops talking with some relief. Perhaps that would explain things.

"Why not Watanuki-sama, though?"

Watanuki's whole body cringes and he makes a pained face. "Because when I was a schoolboy, I was a young fool and a total idiot and I did really stupid things trying to impress Doumeki, sort of, except I really wanted to punish him for…um, well…being himself. It never worked. But I swore I'd make him call me Watanuki-sama someday and—" he stops, realizing that he's been waving his arms all over the place, oodly-noodly, just like he used to before he became shopkeeper. He shudders. "I told you I was an idiot. I'd really rather not talk about it. It was completely stupid and I just— Look, if you called me that, it would give me airs." Once again Watanuki forces himself to keep from wriggling from sheer embarrassment. "Which I really don't need."

Shizuka stares at Watanuki open-mouthed.

Watanuki realizes that somewhere through this speech he started standing and he drops into his seat, blushing furiously and pretending he doesn't notice how completely embarrassed he is by all of this. He thought he was over this already, and then this kid walks into his life and it's high school all over again—

"Please forget I just said all that," he says, covering his eyes. Even though it's probably an impossible request.

"Oh. Okay." Shizuka just blinks.

Feeling somewhat relieved, Watanuki sits straight again and leans onto the table. "Okay. There is something I need to ask you. Do you have a wish?"

"I wish to know about my great-grandfather," says Shizuka immediately.

"Why?" asks Watanuki.

"I…" he turns indecisive again. "Sometimes, I…"

Watanuki decides it must have something to do with the matter Shizuka had hesitated talking about before, and raises his eyebrows. "Have dreams, like you said before? Remember things you shouldn't? Things that happened to someone else?"

Shizuka nods.

"You're your great-grandfather's reincarnation," says Watanuki, swallowing thickly. Like he promised me. "Your family must not be too happy about that."

Shizuka stares at the table. "I…I don't know. I try not to let on…" he mumbles.

"I see." Watanuki frowns. That confirms it. "Well, that's certainly worth the price of weekly errands which I happen to be in need of."

"What errands?"

"Fetching groceries, mainly," says Watanuki. "The ones that your family is already delivering, and any special ingredients that I would like. Your father doesn't know how to cook, clearly, because he doesn't know how to choose, so you're going to take that chore off his hands. But I'll teach you, and you'll help me out from time to time in other ways. Probably as payment for the bigger aspects of your wish that you aren't aware of right now. Don't worry, those will be few and far between."

"It sounds reasonable…" Shizuka looks down to consider it.

"Do it," Watanuki says briskly. "Otherwise you won't be able to talk to me at all. The only people who can see the wishing shop are those with a wish, or those with a wish that is being or has been granted. This is a small price, for that."

"All right." Shizuka shakes Watanuki's hand. "I'll do it. I've got to get going, though, I've got to go to school now."

"Good. Then come by in the afternoon. I'll draw up a list… And I should talk to your parents as well so they know what you're doing, and so we should arrange that. Also, I would like to get some sleep, so..."

"Sorry about that," Shizuka mutters, dropping his eyes to the floor.

He really is polite. Watanuki waves it off. "Never mind. I'll see you to the door." He escorts Shizuka to the front porch and watches as he walks back to school, the same school Doumeki attended. His heart aches a bit, and it feels a little heavy now. None of this, he had never expected…any of this.

Watanuki passes the window on the way back to bed.

In the dim, pinkish light, the sakura tree is blooming again.

Author's Note: If you wish to continue reading in the continuity of this fic, I highly recommend hightailing it to the first chapter of "Shall Your Wish Be Granted" (still in progress) after the Prologue.