Metal

In retrospect the thing with the blood should have been classier, something with a chipped stone knife perhaps, or an ancient ceremonial dagger. Instead, Yuuko had opened some veins on Doumeki's forearm with a stainless steel kitchen knife and set him dripping over a plastic bucket. It was a red bucket.

It had taken a long time: the boy had sat on a stool and leant over, still in his blood-spattered archery rig, and supported himself with an elbow on his thigh. They were alone for most of it – ever since Mokona bounced into the room wailing "Watanuki stopped breathing again!" and Yuuko left in a graceless hurry. She'd brought Doumeki water, rattling around in an unfamiliar kitchen, and he'd thanked her politely for each cup.

They talked in broken, leaping conversations about schoolwork and movies, avoiding such topics as What If It Isn't Enough, and When He Is Better - Doumeki never quite got around to asking what Himawari had been doing when Watanuki fell through the window, for which she loved the boy more than a little.

By the time the blue-haired minion took the bucket away, Doumeki had looked as bleary as a man coming off a three-day bender. She thought he was out of it during the thing with the scars, but he'd somehow oozed to the wall of Watanuki's room, close enough to hear the boy's breathing, so apparently not.

And they'd waited.

Which was all apropos of nothing, really, but Himawari was waiting now, peeking out from an ornate screen while Yuuko talked with a client that Himawari couldn't see. "What are they saying?" she whispered to the minions. They grinned, pink hair and blue hair alike, and drew cartoons in crayon on the back of the screen.

There was Yuuko, reclining gloriously on the fainting couch, and before her knelt a very proper business woman, her hair scraped back in a bun and large, dark glasses covering half of her face. A caption read: Take this cup from me.

In the following box, the woman had taken off the glasses to show flowers growing where her eyes should be. Delicate buds trickled down her cheeks. Oh I shall die.

The next box was a close-up of Yuuko, eyes glinting. No. You won't.

Finally there was a sketch of them both on the floor, half wound about each other. The woman's sleeve was unbuttoned and rolled up, and Yuuko cradled a forearm blossoming flowers with one hand. She held her other hand palm upwards in the air: Maru. Moro.

When they'd finished writing the caption, the two minions looked at each other and scampered for the kitchen. "Run with scissors! Run with scissors!"

It was at this time that Himawari chose to wait in the garden with her jar of honey-crunch.

"No," said Yuuko, "that was my price. To choose between trusting that her circle would accept the change she had begun, or not." She drew a long pull on her silver pipe and blew out the smoke, examining the trail it made against the red and gold colours of the sunset sky.

"Either way the woman paid." She tapped ash from the pipe into a little pot and pointed it at Himawari. "Your turn."

Himawari had thought Doumeki was out of it, after the thing with the blood and the thing with the scars. But he'd opened one eye as she walked past him and said, "That's my brave girl." She'd asked him pleasantly not to pity her and he'd shaken his head slightly as the eye sagged shut. His head had sagged down like a rag doll's as she went through the door, so he was probably out of it when she explained to Watanuki how she was a Blight On His Life And Was Going Away Now and Watanuki insisted on Making Her Cake (because Watanuki was, when you came down to it, a bit of a silly). Probably out of it, because who else would spend that much time with her after, knowing?

Which was apropos of nothing, really, but this time Himawari stayed after the treatment. She drank warm sake with Yuuko and Mokona and the minions (who were called Marudashi and Morodashi – wasn't that cute?) and they lit sparklers to fizz away in the muggy evening air.

And somewhere in the city, a woman wore sunglasses after dark. Which was sad.

NOTES

Ai – how many times did I rewrite this chapter? 'Twas difficult getting the themes to work together, and the identity of Yuuko's customer changed several times. The tanuki almost came back. Tanuki Wars. Yeah, that's gotta be written sometime.

Take this cup from me is a quote from one of the gospels: The Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, having second thoughts about the crucifixion. Was trying to suggest that the flower thing was a price the woman had already paid for some unspecified benefit – not sure how well that worked out.

The flower thing is not particularly original. One of Caitlin R. Kiernan's Sandman comics had a dream where Lucien the librarian had flowers for eyes. I riffed on it, is all.

Marudashi and Morodashi apparently both mean 'to expose oneself in public'. Oh dear.