Chapter Text
Watanuki opened his eyes and let them adjust to the cool, dim light. He was curled up in a high-postered bed with velvet curtains the color and texture of fresh spring moss. It was April 1st, and Watanuki was 16 years old.
First was the usual morning routine: rouse a sleepy, grumbling Maru and Moro and fold away the blankets before starting on breakfast. The round bay window above the sink loved to play tricks on him; sometimes showing him blistering summers in the cold, and wintery outcroppings in the heat of summer. Today, however, maybe because it was his birthday, it showed a perfectly serviceable view of the street outside and a mild, sunny morning with no breeze.
What nice weather, Watanuki thought to himself, smiling, and set the kettle to boil. Breakfast was a special treat: strawberry souffle pancakes with fresh fruit and roasted buckwheat tea.
"Pankeki! Pankeki!" Maru and Moro cheered as he served them up with dollops of whipped cream, Yuuko smiling and clapping along, the golden bracelet on her wrist jinglling. The living trees whose branches wove a canopy across the dining room ceiling were just barely blooming with deliate sakura blossoms the almost same shade as the pancakes. It made for an especially gorgeous tableau as they all dug in.
"Delicious! Delicious!" the twins chimed together, bouncing in their chairs, and even Yuuko closed her eyes to savor her first bite.
"Today's breakfast is really wonderful, Watanuki."
"Oh, Yuuko-san, it's nothing, really."
"It's your birthday today, isn't it? Why don't you take the evening off today? Go to the festival."
"Oh! That's very generous of you—" Watnuki stopped mid-chew. Yuuko was a good employer: fair but firm, with a knack for teaching. And with every client that came through the door, she taught Watanuki that you didn't get anything for free.
"And what would you want in exchange?" he asked slowly.
Yuuko laughed, "Oh, Watanuki, not so blunt! Instead you should say, why thank you, Yuuko-san, and in return I'll bring yakisoba for your dinner."
An easy enough price. Watanuki smiled. "Thank you, Yuuko-san, and I'll bring you yakisoba for dinner."
"And fried tofu too, please."
"And fried tofu."
"And thank you, Yuuko, for being such an excellent employer. And can I mention, you are so generous and beautiful and wise."
"And thank you, Yuuko, for being such a — hey, wait a minute!"
Yuuko smirked as Maru, and Moro dissolved into peels of laughter. Watanuki shook his head, laughing with them, and poured them all more tea.
The festival lights rose up into the night sky like a sea of stars as he ascended the temple steps. He'd never been to a festival before — too strange going by himself and seeing friends enjoying themselves or couples on dates. And families making memories: children, grandparents, fathers. Mothers.
"Oh, Watanuki-kun! You made it!" Himawari bounced over in an impeccably seasonal seafoam yukata stylized with pink chrysanthemums."How was your vacation? Did you do anything fun?"
Watanuki hunted around his brain for an interesting tidbit but came up sadly short-changed. "W-well, I'm working for Yuuko-san at the shop, so I did a little spring cleaning. Actually, I'm here on an errand to buy dinner for tonight."
Himawari made a moue of sympathy. "Oh no, Watanuki-kun, are you still working even now?"
"Oh, it's not so bad. She told me to enjoy myself while I was here."
"Well!" she clapped her hands together, smiling. "You have to do what she says, don't you? Come on!"
Watanuki had a little extra cash from his wages, so he bought a candied apple for Himawari and some extra tempura to go with Yuuko's yakisoba and tofu. Other students were here from their school — some dressed in yukata and others, like Watanuki, in their uniforms. Himawari had a smile or a kind word for each of them, and everyone seemed to know her. Watanuki didn't know how to be friends with a popular student, so he let Himawari steer him around and tried to appear cool, while she kept up a stream of cheerful small talk about the upcoming school year and class schedules.
Himawari was on student council, she was playing piano for a school band, and she had just joined a book club. "And you and Doumeki-kun, and I are in the same science class again. Won't that be fun?"
"A…aa."
On the one hand, Doumeki was very good at science, so this would be a godsend for Watanuki, who was hopeless. On the other hand, Watanuki, April 1st, who alphabetically sat in the back of the classroom, would spend another year fruitlessly burning a hole into the back of Doumeki's head with his eyes, wishing they were seated closer together so Watanuki might be near enough to him to ask to maybe borrow an eraser once in a while or exchange idle pleasantries at the end of class about their weekends. Unfortunately, it seemed Watanuki would just have to continue preparing more and more elaborate lunches to make up for it.
As he stood conspicuously in a gaggle of high school girls getting jostled by surprisingly sharp elbows, Watanuki reflected mournfully on one of Yuuko's other favorite pieces of wisdom: everyone gets exactly what they wish for.
He and Himawari were right next to the shooting pitch where Doumeki was preparing to demonstrate traditional kyuudo technique with his family's sacred bow in their annual ritual to cleanse the new season and welcome spring. Watanuki had nearly been stampeded to secure the prized spot, where he stood out in his student uniform like a black ink stroke spilled across a beautiful watercolor. For Himawari, though, the crowd of girls readily opened a space like a hive deferred to a queen bee. Since then, a series of choice festival treats and cute trinkets had exchanged hands, as well as promises to see each other after the school year started. Watanuki kept his mouth shut as he was squeezed like too much filling in a dumpling case and gratefully accepted a skewer of chocolate covered strawberries when it was given to him.
They all fell silent as the taiko drummer began a rolling beat. Doumeki spared the crowd little more than a flicker of an eyelid as he took his position on the platform in sync to the beat, so focused was he on the task. His formal black hakama and haori made him look older than his years, and his every move was deft and graceful as he adjusted his shooting glove and checked his bow, speaking to a lifetime of practice.
"Doumeki-kun is pretty cool, huh?" Himawari whispered over and gave him a thumbs up.
"Hmm? Y-yeah. Actually, I—" whatever Watanuki was about to say next ended in a rattle of breath as Doumeki casually shouldered his way out of his right sleeve and lifted the bow above his head in a single fluid motion.
Watanuki was a guy. He had seen other guys' chests before, he told himself, and tried to look anywhere except the rumpled vee of Doumeki's open haori. Except that meant that he was looking right at Doumeki's bicep as he drew back the bowstring and held it taut, making all the corded muscle in his arm stand out in stark relief. This demonstration of strength elicited a low murmur of appreciation from the crowd, including a smattering of embarassingly loud giggles and nudging from the high school girls around him.
The commotion must have been what made Doumeki turn his way. There was no other reason Doumeki would have looked at him, would have held Watanuki's gaze as he readied the bow and released it, shooting without even looking at the target as the arrow hit the bullseye, and the bowstring recoiled with a melodious hum.
Another triumpant drumbeat, but this one struck right on Watanuki's poor nerves, and he almost dropped the bag of yakisoba in fright. Being as it was, he barely pulled himself together in time to join the clapping as the crowd began to disperse.
"And so the whole rest of the year, until next the cherry blossom festival, is free from bad luck!" Himawari seemed to him a little lighter and brighter now, as if there had been a wisp of cloud across the lovely moon of her face that had just cleared. "What did you think, Watanuki-kun?"
"He's certainly, uh … you know, I've never seen kyuudo before."
"It's a family tradition!" Himawari closed her eyes, reciting from memory. "Every year one member of the Doumeki household must shoot the purifying arrow, to renew the seals on their temple relic and ensure the spirits they contain will never get out."
A chill went down Watanuki's spine. "What … what kind of spirits?"
"That's just an old folktale my grandfather liked to tell."
Watanuki at this point was habituated to Yuuko's habit of appearing out of nowhere, so there was no excuse for his heart skipping a beat. "D-Doumeki! You were really good! I mean, I don't know much about kyuudo, so I'm sure I can't appreciate your skill, but um …" Watanuki panicked. "W-would you like to have a strawberry?"
Doumeki considered the proferred skewer of chocolate covered strawberries for a moment and then bent his head to delicately close his lips around one and slide it into his mouth. Watanuki panicked again and nearly knifed him in the throat with the sharp end of the skewer.
Doumeki pulled back to chew thoughtfully. "This is good," he said. "Thanks."
Watanuki could feel Himawari smiling at them and couldn't muster up the nerve to meet her eyes. This is a dream, he thought to himself deliriously. This is a dream, this is a dream.