Title: Memory
Author: crimsonrosepetals
Summary: Doumeki forgets what he shouldn't remember.
Rating: PG
Pairing/s: Is really Doumeki/Watanuki despite of being DoumekiHimawari
Warning/s: AU
Disclaimer: xxxHolic does not – and will probably never – belong to me.
Author's Notes: First xxxHolic fic. Please be nice.
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It is on a peculiarly chilly April morning – fifteen years precisely since the last day he was to see him; not that he knew it then nor could possibly know it now – that Doumeki Shizuka wakes up with a start, jolted out of a dream he couldn't quite remember having, by something he couldn't quite certainly place. He sits up on the bed, careful not to disturb the still-sleeping girl beside him, and glances at the clock on their small bedside table. 5:33 am of April first.
Vaguely, he thinks that it is the birthday of…someone he used to know. A classmate – but no, he thinks, that person and he were much closer than just that; friend perhaps? – from high school. Why he suddenly remembers, so many years after he had long forgotten, he couldn't say. But still, he remembers.
He tries to recall the boy's name – for somehow, he knew it was a boy – and finds that he cannot. Frowning slightly, and slightly disturbed, he tries once again, racking his mind almost frantically but drawing only a blank. For a moment, he forgets how to breathe. He shuts his eyes tightly and forces his lungs to expand; dying (asphyxiating to death) won't help him think, won't help him remember…
His eyes snap open and his stomach clenches painfully – without him knowing why – when he realizes that it isn't only his name, but also the boy's (or man's; surely he is at least as old as Doumeki now) face that he has lost. He is surprised by the flare of pain that abruptly grips his heart. He is even more surprised to feel warm tears streaming down his cheeks from his hazel-coloured eyes; he hurriedly wipes them away with the back of his hand.
The brown-haired girl beside him stirs; he turns to see her waking up. She opens her eyes sleepily and smiles at him.
For a fraction of a second, an image flashes before his eyes, overlaying her pretty face – short coal-black hair, a thin, pale countenance, strange, mismatched eyes: one the shade of cobalt-blue, the other the same shade as his own. A tall, willowy boy with a gentle gaze and the shyest – loveliest – smile.
The vision fades faster than he could blink and suddenly, he blacks out. His wife's delicate touch brings him back to reality. "Are you all right Shizuka?" Himawari's soft voice is laced with worry; her hand alighted hesitantly on his shoulder (as if it did not belong there, as if it is not her hand which should be there).
Doumeki nods, not quite remembering what upset him so, and returns her good morning kiss.
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In his little shop just a few blocks away, Watanuki Kimihiro – the Witch of the Dimensions, the smoke around him whispers – sits upon his predecessor's lavish couch, closes his eyes – one blue one hazel-brown – and clasps a hand on top of his left breast, the other one holding on to the still-full bottle of wine the girls had given him (the price of another wish granted). He smiles bitterly at himself and damns Hitsuzen to hell, all the while pretending not to hurt.
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Review at your leisure; no flames please.