A/n: How Watanuki confuses himself and everyone else around him.

"Ouch." Watanuki shook his finger, sucking sullenly on the tip. "I hate this."

Doumeki stepped up behind him. "You okay?"

"I'm fine… but I think I found what Yuko-san was talking about."

"Do you really want to stick your hand in there again?"

Both boys stared at the dark fissure running down the length of the wall. Doumeki had brushed aside the bedroom curtains, or what was left of it in the old house, but no amount of light seemed to be able to penetrate the darkness in the wall.

"I don't have a choice," Watanuki said, while rolling up his sleeves and reaching his hand in again. He saw the same glint that had made him reach into the wall the first time.

"I got it."

"What?" Doumeki asked, moving closer to peer into the crevice.

"I don't know. It has a handle at least." Watanuki began to pull, but whatever it was wouldn't budge. "I think it's stuck. Give me a second." He dug his foot into the wall and resumed pulling.

Doumeki fisted the back of Watanuki's uniform collar. "Things have a habit of pulling back when you're on the other end."

"Only because I have the worst luck when you're around," Watanuki snapped. He gritted his teeth and pulled harder.

"So… what are you doing after this?" Doumeki asked in his normal monotone.

Watanuki was pulling so hard by now that he'd flung his head back and was throwing all his weight in the opposite direction. "I'm…kind…of… busy…right…now," he said, straining.

"That's why I asked what you doing after this," Doumeki repeated in a voice that would have put a robot to shame.

"I don't know. Yuko-san will probably want something fancy for dinner, and I have history homework," Watanuki said, still struggling to pull the mystery object free.

He knew where the archer was taking this. But they'd gone on a date just yesterday. Twenty-four hours hadn't even passed yet. And it had been practically two dates. Not one. Two, if you counted that thing with the coming over and the cooking and the yelling to get out of the kitchen because he'd dropped one of his plates. Watanuki thought that people took dates one at a time, not two at a time and right after each other. Doumeki had no dating etiquette, the barbarian.

"We're at least supposed to wait twenty-four hours until the next one," Watanuki enlightened his stupider half. Yes stupider. "I mean, not that there'll be another one, because who would want to go on a date with you? I certainly don't," Watanuki corrected quickly.

"So what do you call this?" Doumeki asked.

Watanuki turned his head back to the front and doubled his efforts at pulling, as if his attention had never left the wall. "I call it Yuko-san's special slavery. It's because I didn't show up yesterday. Now she's decided to punish me by sending me on one of her ridiculous missions. That's all it is," Watanuki reasoned. "We do this all the time so it doesn't count as a…whatever-you're-thinking-about. It's just errands—and this errand is really stuck in here," Watanuki huffed. He pulled his arm out, wiping his forehead.

Doumeki looked over his shoulder, and then pulled him out of the way by the hold on his collar. He rolled up one his uniform sleeves, taking over for him. "How long will your homework take?" he asked, bypassing every single thing Watanuki had just said in that tremendously irritating way he had.

Watanuki tried to suppress his rage, both at Doumeki's insolence and the seemingly minuscule effort he was using to tug the mystery object out. His upper arm was flexing but other than that he was just standing there like a dumb tree. Actually a tree made more movement than Doumeki—its leaves at least fell to the ground.

"I could help," spoke the tree. "I did mine during the student body meeting."

Aren't you the stupid president, Watanuki was about to say, but thought it better to just let it go. The only thing Doumeki probably did during those meetings was eat his boxed lunches. And do homework, apparently. "If we did go on a date today (I said if dammit!), then you coming over before would count as… pre-date interaction," Watanuki defined tentatively. He would have none of that anymore. There would only be date-date interaction. Actually there should be no interaction at all because he hated Doumeki.

"It's my homework, so I'd prefer to do it myself," Watanuki continued. "Plus it's a lot." He glanced down at his watch. "I don't think I can finish by seven, and once it gets dark I can't exactly go out." At night ghosts came out at him at full-force. Not to mention it was a school night. He would have to wake up pretty early.

"They won't bother you if I'm there," Doumeki provided.

Well, that was true… but it was still a school night. "Don't your parents mind you staying out?"

"They know I'll come back eventually," Doumeki provided, again as cool as a cucumber.

Watanuki tilted his head to the side, still deliberating. "Uh… I don't know." He should refuse outright. After yesterday's date—dates—he should have enough reasons to dislike Doumeki.

Watanuki's head fell forward and he gripped it between his hands in obvious distress.

Too bad he'd been too busy fighting with Doumeki that he'd completely missed out on any of them. He had wanted to pinpoint the main cause for their friction, but alas it was not meant to be. Some people were just fated to not get along. Hitsuzen, right?

There was really no reason to continue seeing Doumeki like this. They saw enough of each other everyday without adding overtime. More importantly, it couldn't work out between them. They were just too different and had such conflicting personalities, and it wasn't right to continue if it felt doomed from the beginning. Watanuki was a firm believer in being upfront with others, and he could never string someone along because he did not want that person to hate him. He did not want to hurt Doumeki because he did not speak his mind early on.

"I don't think it's a good idea," Watanuki said softly, and tugged on Doumeki's elbow to get his attention. "If I don't like you that way then it's wrong to continue."

Doumeki turned back to the wall, continuing the task he'd taken over for Watanuki. "What's wrong about it if I'm aware? If you don't like me now then keep trying until you do."

Watanuki narrowed his eyes. The gentle pressure of his fingers on Doumeki's sleeve turned into a menacing grip, and he yanked Doumeki's arm back like he was planning to rip it out of its socket and beat the archer to death with it. "This isn't riding a bicycle, you moron!" Watanuki exploded. "It's playing with someone's heart. Your heart. You'd think you'd treat it better."

Doumeki shrugged. "If it's my heart then I should know better than anyone what I want."

"GAH! Do you even hear what you're saying?!" Watanuki yelled, yanking Doumeki's arm back again.

A mysterious 'chink' sound came from the fissure in the wall, and both boys turned towards it.

"I think I got it," Doumeki said, and pulled out his hand holding the mystery object.

"It's a mirror," Watanuki said, forgetting about his anger. "A broken one."

"You probably made me break it when you were yanking on my arm."

"I didn't break it!" Watanuki yelled, quickly remembering that forgotten anger.

"Quiet," Doumeki said, but not to irk the other boy. He looked around the room. "Do you hear that?"

Shifting and creaking sounds had broken out around them, like the house was straining to keep itself upright.

Watanuki's eyes narrowed in thought. "It sounds like…"

A chuck of the ceiling fell right beside him.

"Yahhhh!" Watanuki yelled, and ran around in circles looking for the exit.

"We don't have time," Doumeki said, and grabbed his arm before pulling him towards the window across from them.

"Hey, we're on the second floor."

Despite Watanuki's concerns, Doumeki climbed through, pulling him out right behind him. They both looked down from the roof towards the ground.

"Ah, it looks far," Watanuki said nervously.

"You'll probably land on all fours," Doumeki said and shoved him off the roof without warning. He jumped down after him, landing on his feet right next to a kneeling Watanuki, who had indeed landed the way he had predicted.

Watanuki stared at the dilapidated house as it fell apart on itself. He hung his head dejectedly, breathing out a sigh of utter misery.

"I hate this…."

"Yay, you found it," Yuko-san said in a depressingly cheerful voice, but she didn't snatch the mirror away greedily like she had a habit of doing. When she saw that Doumeki was still holding onto it, she told him to go bury it in the yard.

"After all we went through," Watanuki said in a voice that could have made even the most hard-hearted person feel sympathy.

"The house is destroyed, so what use do I have with a broken mirror? Plus they bring bad luck, didn't you know?" she said, like he hadn't already run into boatloads of bad luck for that evening. "You two should clean up. Oh, and Watanuki, could you make us some snacks before I give you the rest of the day off. Your poor employer was on the brink of starvation," she said melodramatically. "Don't forget to make something that goes well with sake," she then added cheerfully before disappearing back into the shop, leaving Watanuki and Doumeki standing in the genkan with the cursed mirror.

"Are you going home after this?"

Watanuki toed off one of his shoes, then tiredly sat down to unlace the other one. He was now starting to realize what Doumeki had said about the heart wanting what it did, because right now his heart wanted to do nothing but relax. Though it was irresponsible, homework could wait. His entire life filled with ghosts and dangerous errands could wait. At that moment Watanuki could not help but wish for a normal life filled with normal teenage activities.

"Take me to the movies," he said tiredly, as he stepped up from the genkan. "I don't care what we see, just as long as it isn't horror."

Watanuki stared at the large movie screen and could not find himself caring too much about the plot, only that there were moving pictures in front of him and he could pay attention to them if he wanted to or not. That feeling in itself was a great one. He had always liked the movies, but his unfortunate ability to attract ghosts had made it so that the movies did not like him back.

The theater was a dark place where, depending on what the screen showed, emotions in the audience could fluctuate from happiness, sadness, anger, and fear. With all these intense emotions trapped in this one place under the cover of darkness, the movies was an ideal place for ghosts.

Watanuki couldn't go to the movies by himself or even with others. Ghosts would spring upon him in no time at all. But with Doumeki here, they didn't even want to come near him. Doumeki and he were seated all the way in the last row, but the few ghosts that had stayed after Doumeki's entrance were now hovering all the way over by the screen, as if they themselves were trying to escape.

Watanuki settled into his chair more comfortably. It was certainly a nice feeling to know he wouldn't be attacked anytime soon… unless Doumeki had to go to the restroom. Then the ghosts would certainly come over here.

"You have to tell me if you're going to the bathroom," Watanuki whispered.

Doumeki gave him a weird look—a person who only seemed to have one expression in his arsenal. "Why?" he asked, and suddenly looked a bit stiff around the shoulders.

It was Watanuki's turn to give him the stare. "No, I don't mean it like that, you weirdo," he hissed, and got a person who was sitting in front of them to shush him.

"You're the weird one," Doumeki muttered, visibly un-stiffening.

Watanuki threw himself back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Nevermind." Relaxing was something of an impossibility with Doumeki around, but it was also the only way he could have the peace of mind to go about it.

He felt like he was taking advantage of the other boy when he'd told him to bring him here. To go on another date like this seemed selfish. Now that he had calmed down, he could see that he'd been caught up in the moment. But honestly, he could not summon the will to care. He was always so tense and jumpy from expecting ghost attacks that it had become apart of his ongoing personality. To feel absolutely safe was rare for him, and he couldn't pull himself away from that feeling, or the person that was making it possible. He just felt so absurdly safe with Doumeki that it was embarrassing.

Was it just the blood running through both their veins the reason he felt this way?

Watanuki turned to look at Doumeki, whose deadpan expression made the movie they were watching seem like one of the greatest exercises in boredom ever. But that was Doumeki's normal face—composed, tranquil, a little cocky. Past the irritation it caused Watanuki on a daily basis, he could see that he'd also grown used to its quiet presence. It was handsome, and dependable, and protective, and was as emotional as anyone's when angered, even more so because it happened rarely.

He thought he could have liked Doumeki's face if it wasn't for the mouth embedded in it.

Watanuki noticed Doumeki was staring at him out of the corner of his eye, having noticed that he was too being watched. Watanuki glanced away due to awkwardness, but he could still feel Doumeki's eyes quietly boring a hole in the side of his face.

"What?" he said, irritated and flustered, but mostly irritated.

Doumeki seemed to get the hint and turned his attention back to the movie. Seeing that he had his chance to continue his study of the strange and stupid creature known as Doumeki, Watanuki glanced back at the other boy, only to have his eyes meet with his for a second time.

Argghh, couldn't he spy on a person in peace?! Why did Doumeki keep looking over here? The movie was being projected onto the screen, not on his face!

Watanuki cleared his throat, pretending to not be bothered by the weird off-again on-again staring contest they kept having. Other than being unbearably awkward, it also made paying attention to the movie impossible. If Doumeki asked him any questions about a specific scene he doubted he could answer him. But then again, Doumeki wasn't paying attention to it either, so what did he have to be embarrassed about. And he doubted Doumeki would ask questions like that in the first place.

Relaxing back into his seat for the second attempt of the night, Watanuki quickly tensed back up again when Doumeki suddenly leaned over and latched onto the straw of his drink, like it was his own. He rested his hand on the arm-rest between them, the same one that Watanuki's hand was currently inhabiting, and Watanuki felt the archer's pinky finger graze his wrist.

The touch was light, almost non-existent, but it still made the fine hairs rise along his arm, the echoes of that minuscule touch running up his shoulder and nape in one small but sharp shiver.

Watanuki blinked in the dark theater.

What the…

He glanced over at Doumeki, who was still slurping noisily at his drink, but whose posture no longer seemed as relaxed as it had previously been. The archer sat back stiffly in his seat after another longer slurp, but his hand seemed unwilling to follow and remained on the armrest next to his. When his pinky finger grazed him for a second time—this time on the knuckles-- Watanuki knew he was doing it on purpose.

Watanuki thought it was about the right time to start panicking.

"Ah…hey," he managed to squeak out, but ended up swallowing the rest of his words when Doumeki's pinky and ring finger crept onto his hand, covering his two corresponding fingers, but not going past the middle one.

Watanuki squeezed his eyes shut and dug his fingers into the arm-rest. He felt a very strong urge to kick Doumeki, but the sudden lack of air in his lungs was more of a priority to him right now. Ah, geez, he had not been prepared for this. It was a date, and he'd accepted to go on it, but for some reason it hadn't hit him until now that when a person went on a date, there was usually…these kind of things involved. But he didn't like Doumeki that way and… why the hell did this feel so…

Okay, okay, he could forgive a little hand-holding. It wasn't a big deal. It was innocent, possibly the most innocent of all things that people did on dates. He didn't feel like Doumeki was being too pushy by initiating a little innocent hand-holding either. Not at all.

Doumeki slid his entire palm over his hand, covering it, and suddenly Watanuki felt like he'd short-circuited something in his brain that he'd need in the future. The entire half of his body connected to the commandeered hand went hot and twitchy, and if he hadn't stopped himself, he would have kicked the seat in front of him and possibly the occupant's head as well.

Okay, normal hand-holding shouldn't feel like this. If there was anything normal about this then Watanuki wouldn't be trying to claw out the fabric from his arm-rest. Where were his warm butterfly feelings? He was feeling like he was about to combust.

For the remainder of the movie, Watanuki could not sit still in his seat. He shifted, slouched, shimmied, and did everything that wasn't shouting directly into Doumeki's ear to get his attention—anything to get him to notice what he was doing with his hand. But it was all to no avail. Doumeki seemed to be preoccupied and restless himself: he'd noticed him frequently rubbing the back of his neck and rolling one of his shoulders.

When the credits began to roll, Doumeki stood up haltingly, and then still holding onto his hand, he began to make for the exit. Maybe it was incorrect to say Doumeki was holding his hand, since he'd only curled two fingers around two of his, and by that tentative hold, he was tugging him out of the lobby and into the cool night air.

Watanuki glanced back through the glass door to see if anyone had noticed, but the other people in the lobby were so busily speaking to their friends and so on that it seemed kind of pointless to worry. And even if someone saw, he didn't know them so it didn't matter. Hopefully, no one from school had seen them because he was sick of the other students talking about him. He supposed it was only natural since he'd never made the best (sanest) impression when he's started high-school: running from ghosts through the hallways, shouting at the top of his lungs in class, rolling around on the ground like he was on fire during lunch—no, he had given them enough reasons to call him the seventh wonder of Cross Private. It was only after he'd started running into Doumeki that he'd noticed the ghosts were keeping away from the school building, leaving him to try for a semi-normal high school existence. If rumors started up again about him—sure he could ignore them as he did everything else—but he wouldn't want to drag Doumeki into it, too. He actually had a good reputation at school.

"Mmm." Watanuki tugged at his fingers, giving Doumeki a hint to let go. "We're in public…."

Doumeki slipped his fingers from his. "It's dark."

They were walking down the sidewalk to Watanuki's apartment building, and the street-lamps here were dimmer than in other residential areas.

"That's not the point," Watanuki snapped, reclaiming some of his bite. "What's the matter with you? That was totally uncalled for," and when he said that, he meant the business in the movie theatre.

"I thought you wouldn't mind," Doumeki replied, a little too quick to understand, as if it had been on his mind too.

"Well…I didn't," Watanuki admitted breathlessly, "but I wasn't okay with it after awhile. It turned completely abnormal." That had been some abnormal hand-holding if he'd ever seen it.

"It's not like I knew that would happen," Doumeki replied. He seemed to also recognize that there was something not right about the encounter. It wasn't that it had felt bad; on the contrary, it had felt good, way too good for that to be simple holding hand. They hadn't thought it would be that intense, so they were both a bit freaked out. Doumeki shook out the offending hand, like it had gone numb while he was talking. "It felt like I was holding onto a charged battery."

Watanuki narrowed his eyes at him. "Who are you calling a battery? It felt more like a…" He fumbled for the right words, half to simply talk about it and half to one-up the archer with a more accurate description. "It felt more like a furnace—I mean a cold shower," Watanuki quickly changed when he realized what he'd said. No need to give Doumeki a big head over it.

The archer smirked. "I think it felt more like when you shove your hand in a washing machine full of hot water, going counter-clock wise."

"You're really bad at describing this!" Watanuki exploded and stomped off ahead. That was possibly the most retarded thing he had ever heard in his life (and he'd heard Yuko-san singing the old Casshern opening in the bath once), but before Watanuki could put the desirable distance between himself and the archer, Doumeki grabbed his hand.

"Don't run off. You'll get mauled by ghosts."

Watanuki rolled his eyes so his mouth wouldn't have to form the words. It was feeling very dry all of a sudden. "Let go you idiot. We're not supposed to be doing this anyway. I came to the movies with you to relax, not to be all…like this." He would have been more relaxed with a ghost chewing on his face. "It turned really weird," he sniffed.

"I like you," Doumeki said out of nowhere, and Watanuki immediately stopped pulling, "so it'll only get weirder between us if we continue."

"That's right…" Watanuki said slowly, as he realized something.

While he'd been opposed to go out with Doumeki, he'd still made a big fuss about calling these outings of theirs "dates." But was that really right? A date was an unspoken agreement between two people to get to know each other and to see if there was anything of a romantic interest. Their first outing had been a result of anger, the second indifference, and the third because he wanted to get away from himself for one day. He'd known all these things were unfair, so he'd tried to put a stop to these meetings, yet he was still calling it a… date, when that was hardly what this was.

He'd just been hanging out with Doumeki as if nothing had changed between them, even though he'd thought he was more than aware of the change in their relationship. And even worse, Doumeki had suggested it was fine for him to go on like that—people didn't normally like each other when they started dating or something casual like that. But surely those people did at least try to like that person and went into the date with genuine romantic aspirations, all of which, Watanuki had lacked upon entering.

On some level, Doumeki might have thought it was okay for now--for Watanuki to not be that serious, but after tonight, he seemed to realize that was a little naive of him, especially when he was now intensely staring him down and warning him about future weirdness if they continued. Doumeki was always so dependable and perceptive, so Watanuki had forgotten that he was sixteen like him, that he had zero to none romantic experiences, and he was taking all this as it came. It was like the blind leading the blind. They were really hopeless, Watanuki thought as he sighed.

There was no delaying it now. He would have to either accept Doumeki's feelings and honestly try to make it work, or turn him down completely. There was no gray area.

Yesterday, he would have turned him down flat (and he did), but after tonight he was starting to see that his relationship with Doumeki was not as simple as that. Sure he got angry with him a lot—hell he was a little angry with him right now—but he could not deny that there was… something between them.

But why Doumeki?! Watanuki screamed inside his head. Why did it have to be him of all people?! It just wasn't fair! Wrenching Doumeki's hand up, Watanuki strangled it between his own two hands, as if he was punishing it for changing everything. If this stupid hand had only kept to itself, then he could have remained oblivious and happy. He wouldn't be feeling confused and embarrassed and a little sweaty.

Watanuki's hands flew up to the front of Doumeki's uniform jacket and he began to shake him back and forth. "It's not fair," he cried. "You're messing up my entire life. Apologize for messing up my perfect future life with Himawari-chan. I was going to have a really big, really excessive wedding, with a fondant cake with clusters of sugar-paste blue hydrangeas. Why can't I have my fondant cake with clusters of sugar-paste blue hydrangeas?!" Watanuki shook Doumeki harder and the boy mumbled something about sugar-paste blue hydrangeas being his favorite. "It's not for you!" Watanuki practically screamed. "It was never supposed to be for you…" he said, his anger fizzling out and his embarrassment taking over.

"I don't want to feel anything towards a jerk like you. But now I'm all confused and I want to kick you in the head," Watanuki bawled in the middle of the sidewalk.

"I think that's your natural state," Doumeki said, and then he paused when he recalled the more important part of the sentence. "You're confused about how you feel towards me?"

Watanuki nodded. "I think I'm going to throw up. This is so disgusting and against some laws of Nature, like the one that says not to associate with Doumeki."

"You like me back?" Doumeki asked, trying to separate the jumble of thoughts that was Watanuki's head. He was such a spaz.

"No!" Watanuki said on reflex; then his shoulders sagged in defeat. "Ugh, I don't know. That's why I'm confused. I shouldn't like what we did in the movies but I did! Oh god, don't tell anyone or I'll poison your bento from now on."

Knowing Watanuki and his culinary skill, he could probably make poison taste good, but that was not what Doumeki should be focusing on. He was glad that he'd worked up the nerve to make the first move, especially since it had confused Watanuki. And that was what he was here for, to confuse Watanuki and make his life harder. "So this is a good thing?"

"For you, but not for me," Watanuki said, wanting to set that picture straight. "I'm going to have to really start going out with you, not like what we've been doing now. I'm going to have to put an actual effort into liking you. It's going to be horrible," Watanuki cried.

"So we're officially going out now," Doumeki said, liking the sound of that.

Watanuki put one hand in front of him in a stop motion. It even had its own screeching sound effects. "Not yet, you bastard. This is our…feeling-each-other-out phase." Doumeki nearly choked on his spit when he thought he'd heard Watanuki say 'up' instead of 'out.' "If our next dates go well, then yeah… I guess you could be my whatever…" It didn't sound like he had much conviction behind his words, but the fact that he could not meet his eyes meant more to Doumeki. "But… if we don't work out, then I'll have to break up with you. I'll still be able to have my dream wedding with Himawari-chan, and everything can go back to normal," Watanuki said, with a shaky breath.

Doumeki nodded. "I don't think we can return to being normal with each other if that happens."

"Of course we can't!" Watanuki breathed out, like that was just plain obvious. "I can't even look at you the same anymore. I can't even look at you period." Watanuki turned his back on him and started to hurry down the sidewalk.

"Hey," Doumeki said, trying to stop him.

"Don't follow me you cretin," Watanuki called back. "What do you not get by 'I can't even look at you right now'?"

"But—"

"It's okay," Watanuki grumbled. "I'll run home. The ghosts on the way might not be able to catch me. Anyway… I'll see you in school. We can talk there, dammit." And with that awkward exchange finished with, Watanuki took off, leaving Doumeki on the sidewalk. He watched the other boy disappear into the darkness, and while he had been worried about Watanuki getting attacked by ghosts on the way, he had also thought it would have been nice to walk him home for reasons that they were sort of going out now….

A/n: Ah, young love is so… awkward. I'm sorry to put Watanuki and Doumeki through this.

Here's a random note about Hydranges that I thought was nice. Hydrangeas can symbolize boastfulness because of all the petals, gratefulness for understanding, or anything sincerely heartfelt.