A/N: i don't own XXXHoLiC...just this fic. I also saw the clip this happen but I don't watch the anime so I made it up as I went along. Comment if you know what really happened in this scene :S This will be short 3 shot. Hopefully.
If the ring fits
Doumeki Shizuka had read the letter several times. He then proceeded to burn it slowly off the stove top fire.
He had first found the envelope on his doorstep later that morning. His eyes hurt from his lack of blinking as he read, and sleep deprivation. He calmly sat himself down in a chair beside the stereo and started to throw his CD's against the wall, shattering upon impact. They held no sentimental value anyways. Everybody downloaded songs off the Internet.
When his grandmother had woken up from the sounds, she had been hysterically blubbering and asked him what was wrong. He refrained from telling her that her shrink had told him he was a sociopath and guided her back to her room, and laid her back to sleep. Speaking of sleep, it was much needed. Screw school. Today was officially a snow day.
The black plastic boxes banged against his hip, and he hobbled to school, ignoring the truthful jeers of 'Why are you limping? Did you take it up the ass from Doumeki?' and other forms of insults. After he had dropped off the letter, he had continued the tradition of making the three of them their daily bento, and since the oaf wasn't making any outlandish suggestions, he stuck with his favorite. Karai sake rolls*. He didn't have much of an appetite over the past few days, and Karin* appreciated the extra food, teasing that he spoiled his friends too much. He smiled at that and then frowned, remembering that he was supposed to deny the statement vehemently.
Throughout the day, the feeling of anxiousness did not leave him, and he gnawed at the tip of his pencil nervously as he darted his eyes around in each class, noticing that the seat in front of him was empty. Where is that idiot?
It hadn't occurred to the spirit medium that the archer could have been sleeping.
Himawari sat by the cherry blossom tree, her usual smile plastered on her face. The scene would have usually send him into a fit of joy, but he felt a pang of emptiness.
That jerk! Wasting his precious allowance!
"I noticed Doumeki-kun wasn't at school today?" Watanuki decided he didn't the sound of her imploring impish tone. Or his involuntarily flinch at the question.
Which, in hindsight, didn't help one bit.
"Yeah." he muttered more to himself than to her. He distractedly started to re-arrange the bentos. "Ungrateful jerk causes problems to everyone..." the seer didn't notice Himawari's own flinch at the words, because her next ones startled him greatly.
"You sound like you're being the grateful one."
He choked on his saliva, blinking rapidly. Had he just heard correctly? "Pardon?"
"I said, you're being ungrateful." Her dark eyes were hard, and all traces of the happy-go-lucky Himawari were gone.
The seer had been so surprised he found his mouth forming words, not carrying his voice through.
"I know you tend to downplay it for Doumeki's sake, but you're being selfish. Not just in the sense that you don't want to acknowledge him physically, but by refusing to take care of yourself. For the ones that care about you. And out of all of us, Doumeki's the guy."
He hadn't eaten anything yet and already his stomach was churning.
"I'm going to go as far as to say you're the one causing all these problems."
He felt sick.
"Perhaps Doumeki would be better off without you." she lay her hand over his own, and he flinched at her touch. It was no secret between them what occurred when Himawari could do by merely tapping them on the shoulder. "But we both know he won't get anything done listening to Sara Bareilles and stopping his grandmother from dying."
How does she know? He felt himself pale at all the implications. How does she know more about him than I do? His stomach churned further against the thought.
"Maybe-Watanuki?" he dropped the bento and curled into himself, his stomach was blazing, and he went through all the reasons in his mind he could feel this much discomfort. Without a thought, he emptied the contents of his stomach, the gallon of whatever he had sucked off of Doumeki coming with it. Suddenly, a vision resurfaced in his right eye.
Doumeki was talking to a brunette with bright green eyes, visibly nervous in every sense of the word, hidden under a distinct cover of false determination.
"I've already heard from Yuuko-san that the ritual was sped up by two weeks." she sat down on the glass counter and looked down at her hands in her lap. " You had a month to complete it. That's how long it took for me to conceive Kimihiro."
He could hear Himawari fervently spoke with whoever was on the other end of her cellphone. But he could distinguish 'Yuuko' and 'Doumeki' between the sounds of his own dry retching and her scatter-brained babble.
The thought was so absurd-so impossible.
The wriggling in his stomach was not.
He did not black out in the most cliche way possible, as Hollywood put it. He clung to the frantic girl's arm, eyes filling with tears, letting the cold hard slap of reality strike him.
A/N: I'M BACK. DID YA MISS ME?