Disclaimer: Clamp ain't mine.

A/N: Well, here it is. Better short, poorly edited and late than never, right? Oh dear. Hopefully it will get easier from now on. Flame me if you'd like, but that'll probably just make me sad and less likely to update. --;;

Chapter 6: Dancing

I can't believe I just did that was all Watanuki could think as he led Kazahaya out onto the dance floor.

He could feel Doumeki's eyes boring holes into the back of his skull, and for some reason, the idea kind of…excited him. Of course, his excitement could be for a number of different reasons.

Of course.

Kazahaya looked about as embarrassed as Watanuki felt.

"Watanuki, I won't lie: I'm a terrible dancer. At least, I think I am...this isn't really my scene, you know?" He glanced quickly over to where Rikuou was leaning against the bar, and upon seeing his stare, blushed furiously.

Watanuki thought it was cute.

"Just move with the music, I guess. Look at that couple over there, they look like they've got it."

Of course, said couple chose that particular moment to start making out blatantly. Watanuki looked away quickly.

"Um...or not. Whatever."

Kazahaya laughed, and began to dance.

Rikuou and Doumeki sat in a tense silence as Watanuki and Kazahaya walked, hand-in-hand, onto the dance floor.

Keep it cool. It's no big deal. They're only dancing. They're FRIENDS, Shizuka. Just friends. Friends who like to dance really…close…to…eachother…

Rikuou reached out a hand and prevented Doumeki from standing up.

"They're just dancing, it doesn't mean anything."

Doumeki didn't believe this for a second, but slowly sat back down. It was his fault, after all. If he hadn't confronted Watanuki like he did…

Speaking of which, he still had no idea what had come over him. His own words echoed in his head:

"What if I wanted to…kiss you?"

Yeah, that was dumb.

But somehow, Doumeki felt a little better then he had earlier. It was almost as if a weight he didn't know existed had been lifted off his chest. He probably should have felt worse about his blurted out confession, but instead he felt…pretty good, actually.

Was this what the Witch meant when she talked about 'venting his feelings'? Maybe he really ought to confess to Watanuki.

No. That would be a terrible idea. He freaked out at the mere mention of me kissing him. If I were to seriously confess my feelings for him, who knows what might happen?

Nothing good, that's for sure.

"Are you two together?" Rikuou asked in a deep voice, eyes still fixed on Kazahaya and Watanuki.

Doumeki rolled his eyes.

"He's a little slow." Rikuou nodded in understanding.

"So is Kazahaya." He looked once more in Kazahaya and Watanuki's direction before polishing off the rest of his beer.

Seeing Rikuou drink reminded Doumeki why they had come.

"Hey." he called out to the bartender, who was filling a shot glass.

"Yes?" The man was tall and thin with dark brown eyes and a pointed chin. He was wearing a white shirt with a little black bowtie.

"I'm looking for some koshu (1) for my friend's boss."

"Oh, for Yuuko? Sure, just a second." After giving the shot glass to a man at the far end of the bar, the skinny boy disappeared under the counter and resurfaced with a bottle of alcohol. He set it down and extended his hand.

"Kinomoto Touya."

"Doumeki Shizuka."

Taking his cloth, Touya carefully wiped the dust off of the old bottle.

"Thank you for picking this up. I would have brought it over myself, but I've been working a lot lately, and it's getting harder and harder to keep that brat away from Sakura. I swear, I can't leave that kaiju home alone anymore without him sneaking over..."

It was obvious this was a sensitive subject for the boy, and Doumeki rose from the bar, taking the bottle that was handed to him.

"Good luck with that." He said awkwardly. He wasn't used to having complete strangers talking with him so openly.

"Yeah, thanks."

Strange guy the archer thought, as he looked over to where Kazahaya and Watanuki were dancing.

Or at least, where they had been dancing.

Uhoh.

The archer's amber eyes quickly scanned the crowd, searching for a small boy with glasses and fishnets among the mass of dancing bodies, but saw no one who matched the description. Kazahaya suddenly appeared by his side, and Doumeki turned to him accusingly.

"Where's Watanuki?"

"Oh, he's still out there dancing, I just got a little tired."

"Oh. Was….anyone with him?"

"Yeah, actually. Another guy. They seemed to know each other, though. I mean, they were getting pretty friendly, if you know what I mean…." His voice trailed off when he saw the dark look on Doumeki's face.

"Where…is…he?"

The boy drew back at the sudden change in Doumeki's voice and pointed with a slightly shaking finger. Out of the corner of his eye, Doumeki could see Rikouo glaring at him, but chose to ignore him.

"Uh, he's over there….or at least, he was." Kazahaya looked around worriedly. "He was there a second ago, I swear!"

Doumeki cursed silently.

Watanuki had only been dancing for a few minutes when he felt a shiver run up his spine. It was one of those "Somebody's watching me" shivers, one that he'd grown somewhat accustomed to, because…well, he was always being watched, really. But somehow, this shiver didn't feel like a Doumeki or malevolent spirit induced shiver, rather, it felt like a…

"Hey there cutie." The words were soft, but were spoken close enough to his ear that Watanuki could hear them over the loud music. "What's a pretty thing like you doing in a rough place like this?"

The Pretty Thing spun around, and was quite prepared to bite the speaker's head off for talking to him so rudely, but stopped when he saw who it was. Or rather, what it was.

The creature bore an almost perfect resemblance to a normal man of medium height and build, with short, spiky brown hair and dark copper skin. The only thing to distinguish it from any other ordinary guy was it's hungry, jet-black eyes. Its canines were long and sharp, and Watanuki was reminded briefly of a fox. He looked down and, sure enough, caught a quick glimpse of a tail before the creature saw the direction of his gaze and tucked it out of sight.

A yokai (2) in jeans.

Fantastic.

1. Aged sake, basically.

2. A spirit baddie.

I am extremely unhappy with this chapter. Extremely. So yeah, many apologies. I'll try to make things more interesting next time.

Coming up next chapter: More ellipses then ever before! Watanuki gets hit on, Doumeki flips a shit, and other interesting things happen.