Author's note:

I know what you're thinking: How can this story have a chapter two? Well, I have received emails from some readers curious to know more about Yuuko and Watanuki's backstory from chapter one. While when I conceived this story years ago, I had a pretty good idea of the backstory but when I decided to tell it through the eyes of their daughter, I felt it would be best to leave the backstory vague since children never really get to see into the private lives of their parents, and I figured the reader could fill in the blanks. However, about six years have passed since I wrote this story, and I feel it's time to tell their story.

You may want to read or reread chapter one before continuing. And if you liked the vagueness of this story, you may want to skip this chapter altogether. Although this chapter is very long, but since this pairing has so few stories, I doubt you'll mind.

Parings: YuukoxWatanuki, Watanku and Doumeki friendship.

Warnings: Some mild sexual references (nothing that would embarrass your grandparents).

Chapter 2:

He hears her sigh.

He glances up from what he's reading and watches her as she stands in front of the mirror in their bedroom. She's only in her underwear and she's running her hand over her stomach as she eyes her reflection critically. Yuuko turns left, and then right as she places her right hand on her back and her left on her belly, as if she's measuring the thickness of her body.

It's a hot July morning, and he thinks the heat may be attributing to her bad mood. Sweat is clinging to her skin in their muggy room, and he feels small beads forming on his brow. He can't help but notice that she definitely looks uncomfortable, but he doubts that the temperature is the only reason for her attitude.

He returns to his reading and just as he begins to concentrate on what the article is about, he hears her sigh loudly once more.

"Something wrong?" he asks.

"I'm with child again," she says, her voice low with a hint of irritation.

A small explosion of happiness goes off inside of his chest, and he bites his cheek to stop the smile that is threatening to spread over his lips. His heart speeds up at the wonders of when, and reimagines how she became with child. That small explosion turns into a swell of pride and he wonders if they'll have a boy or a girl this time.

"That's great," he says without looking up from his reading.

She only sighs in response, but this time there is a rattling sound in her throat and the sigh sounds more like warning growl. He chances another glance, and she's shooting him a glair with those heavy lidded eyes. He suddenly feels very naked on their bed, even though he is still wearing his boxers, and he has an idea of why she's upset.

"It's great for you. You got to do the fun part," she huffs as she turns and looks at herself in the mirror again.

"You're not happy?"

"I just lost the weight from our last baby, and then you put another one in me!" her voice explodes.

They go through this just about every time they have a child. Yuuko hates gaining weight, and she hates how she looks when she's pregnant. He rather likes how she looks when she has that swollen stomach and those lushes curves. And she knows that he rather likes it, but that doesn't matter. For all the children they've had, she still has an amazing body, so he isn't entirely to blame. . .

"I didn't do it all by myself, you know," he smirks at her, and she stares icily back at him.

"I'm going to get fat," she pouts, "and you don't seem to care."

Watanuki stands from the bed and crosses the room as she turns dejectedly back to her reflection, as if to wish her body goodbye. Wrapping his arms around her, he plants a messy kiss on the moist skin of her shoulder. He works his way up the side of her neck, and places a feathery kiss behind her earlobe. She shivers slightly, and he loves that he can still make her do that. His hands rub her stomach, and he feels her fingers intertwine with his as they rest of her abdomen.

"I love it when you're big with my babies," he thrums softly in her ear, and he watches as her eyelids flutter in the reflection of the mirror.

Her eyes close as he continues to place soft, loving kisses on her skin, making wet trails with his lips. On the back of her neck, her bicep, between her shoulder blades. When she opens her eyes, her face has softened considerably, and while she looks more content, there is still a hint of sadness in her eyes. He knows that look is not about losing her figure, because his Yuuko has always been much more complex than to be upset with trifle matters.

"Do you want me to check?" he inquires and she nods slowly without saying a word.

He smiles.

"Very well."

Their hands disentwine, and he spreads his fingers over her belly, giving soft presser with his palms over her belly button with his left hand, and letting the tips of his fingers massage slow circles over her lower abdomen. He hears her inhale at his touch and feels her muscles contract in pain, and he presses her back firmly to his front and buries his perspiring face into her shoulder. Closing his eyes, he begins to focus. . .

Her skin is soft, but her stomach is firm. Too firm. Her muscles are tired and tense, which doesn't surprise him. They've made many children, and all those children have put stress on her back and stomach. The tension in her belly makes it difficult for him to detect, so he kneads her abdomen more forcefully, and he hears a small whimper escape her. He doesn't like causing her pain, but it is necessary for the muscles to relax.

Eventually they do, and she stops making those little puffs of discomfort. That's when he feels it.

He would think he'd stop having this reaction since he's done this hundreds of times, but he always does. He can't help it when this throat contracts and his heart stops. He thinks the day he stops having this reaction is the day he needs to worry that something is wrong with him. A burning, calm feeling floods his chest, and he presses his face further into Yuuko's skin. He's positive that she can feel the heat from his flushed face, because the sensation of the wispy tips of her fingers run along his gently, as if tempted to grab his hands again.

Now that he's found it, he must narrow his focus. He inhales deeply and concentrates with all his energy.

He feels like he's falling. Falling into the darkness, as if slipping swiftly into a deep dream. He's barely aware of Yuuko's skin, or even her presence. Her rhythmic breathing if far away, like the distant waves of the ocean lapping along the shore. The heat of her body is like sweet, warm sunshine delicately hitting his face. His hands are suddenly hot and tingly and the whole world fades around him.

There is a spark of energy under his hands, growing and excited. He remembers all the times he's felt this before. All the times he's held this energy in his hands. They were all the same, yet all so different. There was only one whom he did not get to hold, whose existence he was regretfully not made aware until far too late. This was his first.

As far away as Yuuko seems, he can sense a hint of her emotions with this little spark of energy. She is anxious. Worried about their child and worried about the future. She hardly expresses these fears to him, or to anyone for that matter, but he knows.

They've done this so many times. They have had more children than he can count. Yet he knows them all. They are his. He knows each of them by name and remembers each of their induvial personalities. Generations have passed before his eyes, and yet fate has deemed it necessary for Yuuko and he to have children.

They don't always have a young one to look after. Sometimes they have them one at a time, sometimes they have them in batches. Sometimes they'd go years without having children, simply enjoying the company of each other. But eventually, hitsuzen wins, she conceives - sometimes on purpose, often on accident - his son or daughter which always brings him happiness. And they are always a family.

But just as not each child is the same, neither is each experience. All of his children have brought him unbelievable joy, and yet, along with that joy, he has also experienced incredible heartbreak. He first thinks of his son, Hikaru, who died in infancy unexpectedly. That child had loved Yuuko. His little face would light up at the sight of his mother, and he would babble to her for hours, as if he wanted to tell her of all the interesting things he saw in the world. And Yuuko would listen happily, cradling him in her arms and gazing at the boy like she understood every fuss and coo. Sometimes she would sing to him. Old lullabies that Watanuki had never heard before in a language that he didn't recognize. But coming from her, they had always sounded beautiful, and sweet Hikaru had loved them, too.

So when his health suddenly began to fail, they both sought every way imaginable to keep him with them. In the end, nothing could be done. It didn't seem fair, that their little one should seem so excited to live, and yet have his life was cut so short. He had been devastated, but Yuuko. . .Yuuko had locked herself away for a time. Her heart she freely gave Watanuki, but to others, it seemed she to lose interest in humanity. She lived in the world, but at the same time, outside of the world. The Witch of Dimensions seemed to be trapped within her own mind and it took much patience and love for her to begin to heal from losing Hikaru.

They waited a long time before she was ready to be a mother again.

That was not the first one they lost from this world. Sometimes loss and pain aren't always physical. Tai had been such a lovely child, but Yuuko had sensed that something was wrong with him from the day he was born. It was first seen in his stubbornness that had manifested itself in his youth. Watanuki had to discipline him harsher than his other children, and yet it never seemed to make a difference no matter how light or heavy the punishment.

Once Tai started high school, he and Watanuki would fight often. He accused him, his father, of not loving him. That had been the farthest from the truth, but he was such a difficult child that the boy could not see the light from the darkness. He kept getting into trouble in school, and showed great reluctance to be a part of such an unusual family.

"What am I supposed to tell people? Why does my mother look twenty-six and my father only thirty-three? Do you know there is a rumor that I live in a haunted house? What the hell is Mokona? How do I explain that the wrinkly, little Obasan who runs the tea shop is actually my older sister? People already think I'm a freak!"

Tai had been ashamed of them, ashamed of their family. Ashamed of who he was and where he came from. That had hurt Yuuko, but to Watanuki, it had angered him. He felt that Tai had been an ungrateful, dishonorable son, and Watanuki started to tell him this much more often than he should have.

In the end, he had been disrespectful to his mother, who had always shown such patience with him, that had finally caused the rift between them to become a vast chasm.

Tai had spit in Yuuko's face over such a trifle matter that no one can even remember. As he watched her eyes widen, wearing that shocked look that Watanuki had only seen once, he couldn't control his hand as it slapped his son, knocking him to the floor.

His son, his little boy, now on the verge of being a grown man, spit and hissed like some terrible demon. His face red with anger and stung with is father's hand, he roared like a wounded animal. He cursed his father, insulted his mother and swore that he was finished with them both. He stormed out, and that was the last Yuuko ever saw of him.

It was rare when they turned sour, especially since they had both always tried so hard give and teach and raise their children well. Another time had been with Izumi, who had inherited her mother's lecherousness and her father's libido, but had failed to inherited either one's self-control. She had gotten pregnant in high school, dropped out and married some Yakuza hooligan who treated her badly. While she had maintained a good relationship with both her parents, that damned fool of a husband had killed them both in an auto accident. His clothes had been so soaked with alcohol that there had been nothing left but bone. Izumi died days later in the hospital, never waking from the coma. Their grandson lived with them after that, and Yuuko never lied to her grandson about who he was or where he came from.

Watanuki had fretted for decades over the loss of his little girl. And even now, he knows that he'll never truly get over her leaving him so suddenly.

But life requires balance, and for each heartache, there had also been insurmountable happiness.

At some point in their relationship, Yuuko and Watanuki found themselves with eight children living in their home. All of them theirs. Normally it was only two or three, but eight? He hadn't been entirely sure how that happened, but it had, and the house was rarely quiet. Between the crying baby, and Yuuko chasing their toddler, to Watanuki bribing his four-year-old to "give Daddy the matches . ." life was hurried, chaotic, and stressful. But all those children had loved their parents, and their parents had loved them, more than they could have ever known.

Even so, when the last of the eight, their beautiful daughter Ai, had moved out, Yuuko had put Watanuki on strict condom only diet. She had kept him on that diet for almost four decades. It was only when she felt the missed desire of the motherhood whisper to her and realized that she wanted to have another child, that she told Watanuki that he didn't have to wear them anymore. And after four decades, Watanuki couldn't be held responsible for what happened next.

Sixteen kids was what happened next. One right after the other. Their room was rarely quiet at night, but the two of them had had an empty nest for nearly forty years, and they were too set in their ways and in love to care. Eight children had created a chaotic home, but with sixteen the house was a consistent calamity. Watanuki's reservation of showing affection for his love in front of his children had almost completely disappeared, much to the surprise of his older children who weren't there to experience the change.

To him it felt natural to quit worrying about how society thought he should act. Their sense of decency had deteriorated with time, and public displays of affection where not rare in their home. But he'll never forget the look on his daughter's face, who was at that time in her sixties, watch is surprise (and maybe horror) when she observed him plant a tender kiss on Yuuko's lips.

"I don't remember you ever kissing Mom in front of me before," Ai had gasped as if she had just seen something indecent, yet curious.

"They do it all the time," his fourteen-year-old son had chirped.

"That is the curse of eternal youth," Watanuki had replied, "But only if you're spending it with Yuuko-san."

He's pretty sure it was that night that they conceived yet another child.

Those had been some of the happiest times of his long life. But while his joke about eternal youth had made his daughter laugh, it could often be a curse.

Because eventually all of his children passed on. Sometimes prematurely, and sometimes not. One thing was for certain: it was not natural for a parent to outlive their children. And yet he and Yuuko had done so, countless times. Each time had been like a part of his life was being ripped unceremoniously from him. As much as he tried to prepare for the inevitable, once it came, it always shattered him. At first he would swear and cry and tear apart every room in the house, but over time, he would simply sob salty tears into Yuuko's neck each night as she held him tenderly.

"But that is the price of children," she would whisper mournfully, "that is the price you and I must pay."

He never said it out loud, but he knew why he was paying that price. It was one of the few things he and Yuuko rarely discussed. Yuuko had her own way of grieving. She was never one to be traditional, but he knew her price weighed heavily on her soul.

There were times in which he spied her in their room, dragging out the dusty photo albums of children who had long since passed away. He would watch through the crack in the door as her eyes traveled through each album, smiling at some memories, laughing at others. Her finger tips tracing the faces of their children. He knew she looked at those pictures often without him knowing. The pictures were so worn and cracked that he knew someone other than he was holding them, missing them. Those times when he would catch her looking through those photos, were one of the rare times he ever saw her shed tears.

Only once had she ever expressed verbally how she felt.

"I don't want to forget them," she had said one night when she could not hide the redness of her eyes.

"Me neither."

"I'm so afraid, Kimihiro. I'm so afraid that I'll forget my own children."

He had held her tight that night as she silently cried. Her body shaking in his arms, her watery gasps flooding into her pillow. He had cried as well, but hadn't let her see. He knew that as much as she loved him, she also held the tiniest bit of resentment toward him. It was because of the unique gift in which he held, one that had seemed like such a burden before he had met Yuuko.

After she had fallen asleep, he had stepped out on the veranda for a smoke when he saw Him.

"I can see by your face that Mom has been weeping."

Watanuki had puffed from Yuuko's pipe and nodded sadly. Patting the spot next to him, he invited his son to sit down next to him.

His son, who had been long gone for possibly centuries, one of the few sons that Yuuko could rarely bring herself to mention, sat next to his father.

"I wish. . .I wish I could comfort her," Tai-chan had said, burying his face in his hands.

"Me, too," Watanuki smiled at his son genuinely, yet melancholically.

"I wish I could say. . ."

Tai couldn't finish, but Watanuki knew what his son wanted to say to his mother.

They had long ago made peace, but only after Tai's life had ended. To Watanuki's joy, he was able to get to know his son and finally learn what kind of life he had lived. It had been ordinary, which was all Tai-chan had ever wanted. But it was once he had had his own children that the yearning for his lost family had awakened inside him. However, he still struggled with his pride, and it wasn't until the very end when some of his final thoughts had been of his mother, that he had deeply mourned how badly he had treated her, and regretted leaving home all those years ago.

He had grown into a very handsome young man. He had Yuuko's stunning features and Watanuki's strong build.

"Does she ever talk about me? Even now?"

"No," Watanuki had answered honestly, but without hostility.

Tai had given a deep, remorseful sigh and then looked up at the stars.

"But she thinks about you often," Watanuki had finished. "She never stopped loving you."

"How do you know?" he asked.

"Because I never stopped."

That was the blessing of seeing spirits. He could have hardly believed that there had been a time in which he had wanted to be rid of them. Now it was what he held onto. The only thing that softened his pain when his children left this world. He told Yuuko often about his encounters, and he knew she loved hearing about them. He was her connection to her children, not just in this life, but in the next as well. The joy on her face when he told her of Izume, and how much happier she seemed now that she was rid of her terrible addictions. She had laughed out loud when he mentioned how Haruka, their son who had always tried to help his mother with her shop and never complained about anything, was not only a leader in life, but in death as well. The pride he saw in her eyes and made him smile.

How Ai was loved and had been so good that part of her had moved on to plane better than this world. Or how Yoko constantly dropped by just to ask how her mother was doing. Rupa's love for her husband had been so strong that she had descended to hell just to see him again. That had impressed Yuuko and she had commented that Rupa had always had an iron will. For the most part, Yuuko enjoyed the link that Watanuki had between this life and the next.

However, other times, he knew Yuuko had been jealous. Those times when she had missed Ai or Izume, or Tai or Rupa or any of their other children, he knew she would have given anything to see them again, even for just a moment. Once when she had drank too much, after the death of Haruka, had she slipped and told Watanuki of her feelings.

The only times that he was ever aware that she was drunk was when she had terrible hangovers the day after. But that night, she had easily downed more than her weight in whisky, and her composure faltered.

"I can wish, too," she had slurred into his neck after the funeral as they had collapsed onto the couch in emotional exhaustion. "Those grieving guest had no idea I was his mother. But I can wish, and I wish every day to see them again. You'll never understand, you get to see them whenever you want. It's. . .it's not fair, Watanuki."

Yuuko had never been the type to complain about what was fair and what wasn't. She was incorrect in her assumption that he got to see his departed children whenever he wanted. But she had just lost another son. A child that had tried so desperately to make her proud. And she had been devastated and intoxicated, so he didn't correct her. He could only rub her back and kiss her face and tell her he was sorry. It was one of the few times in which their roles were reversed as usually he was the one cursing the loss of a child. But it was also one of the few times he had reminded her:

"It is the price we have to pay for. . ."

And she had silenced him with her lips then. They were salty and stale with alcohol and he knew she was reminded why. . .why they were going through all this. Why their price had been so high. It was the only time he wondered if she doubted if the price was worth it.

There had been times in which he questioned their choice as well. But then she would tell him she was expecting, and he would feel that hope and love and happiness all over again, not just for their child that would soon to be in their world, but for her. And he knew he made the right decision.

The price had not seemed worth it when one evening, he had been in the living room alone, Yuuko, out cold in their bedroom, recovering from another miscarriage. As he lay on the floor, he had felt a hand on his back.

"Dad?"

He had turned and when his eyes met the ones staring back at him, he had burst into tears.

"Did I make the right choice? Hisa-Hisa, did I make the right choice?"

Before him was his first. The one whose life he had not always been a part of. The one who yearned for a father, who never took him for granted like many of his children. The one who married the grandson of his best friends, Doumeki and Kohane, and had merged their families. The one who brought him back from the brink of insanity and hopelessness. Who saved him from a life without Yuuko. The one whose hands he held in the hospital as she slipped away. The one who visited him the most often.

"Only you can answer that."

She sounded so much like her mother.

"I'm. . . I'm not so sure anymore. I can't see her like this again. I can't live with myself knowing that I'm causing her more pain."

"You remember what happened last time you left her," Hisa had reminded him.

He sobbed harder at the thought. After all those years, he had never forgiven himself.

"Maybe she's changed her mind," he wept. "That was a long time ago."

"Dad," there was a hint of desperation in Hisa's voice, along with mild irritation, "you know her better than anyone. Do you think it was worth it?"

He thought about it for a moment. He remembered the first time he'd met Hisa and the realization that she was his daughter. He remembered picking her up and twirling her around. He remembered begging Yuuko for forgiveness. How when Hisa had been learning to swim with Amir, Yuuko had held him close in the kitchen of his small shack. How he kissed her neck, his hands roaming every inch of body as she arched into him.

"I haven't been touched in so long, Kimihiro," she had hushed hotly in his ear, her lips fluttering over his skin causing a jolt to trigger in his stomach.

He had lost his mind again in that moment. He'd been so drunk with passion, so desperate to make up for all those lost touches that she'd missed in those years apart, so excited that he had been able to put life into Yuuko, that he hadn't even considered the inevitable price that he would have to pay for Hisa's existence. The price of losing her eventually.

Nevertheless, the life with Hisa and Yuuko and eventually all his other children had brought him happiness that he never thought was possible.

"Yes," he answered Hisa finally. "Yes, it was worth it."

"Then you can't give up on her. You can't leave her when she needs you the most. If this pain is worth the price, you must pay it. Pay it and be strong."

When the sobs finally subsided, he opened his eyes to thank his daughter, only to find himself alone in an empty room.

"Don't forget," Yuuko had sighed into his skin later that night as he told her of his encounter, "you are not the only one who has to pay. This debt is also mine."

The price did not begin with Hisa's birth, but rather, many years before. It had been a decision he had made when he had been so, so young, and so, so in love.

He had been a servant in Yuuko-san's shop, and it was right after she helped Kohane-chan that he realized that he was in love with his employer. He had been hardly twenty when he knew she felt the same way, and almost twenty-one before he made love to her for the first time. Once they had been positive of the other's feelings, the control that they had held onto for so long broke, and as their desires had been too strong, and it wasn't long before they were slicking their thirsts and giving into their lusts. He was young after all, and she had been so lonely. And they were in love.

Those times had been like being on some kind of thrill ride. He had watched her for years, learned from her, talked with her, shared his deepest feelings with her. But now he got to have her, take her, love her without holding anything back. She had always needed a price, but he gladly paid it. His body was hers, his mind was hers, and above all else, his heart was hers. There was nothing he would deny her. Nothing he wouldn't do for her. That had worried her on more than one occasion. There had been no words to describe the excitement he felt in those early days of their relationship.

But it wasn't until the was about twenty-seven that he realized that his age was moving away from hers. It was then that the thought of growing apart from her that made him despair in such a way that life did not feel worth living if she wasn't with him. That was when he realized that he had already known Yuuko-san for who she really was, that he was one of the rare individuals who had the honor of knowing her.

He knew her fears, her habits, her quirks, her body, the noises she made when she was caught in the waves of passion, the expression on her face as she slept, the subtle nuances of her eyes when she was angry, sad, mischievous or suspicious. He knew her sweetness, her heartache, her affection, how her lips felt on his skin, how her body was heavier than it looked, but beautiful and how he enjoyed picking her up and carrying her off to bed.

He knew her better than any man probably ever had known her. And understanding that she had trusted him to show him that side of her, he realized that love like this was rare. Being with her was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and he knew he couldn't love anyone as he had loved her.

He had, in his own way, told her this, and he expressed his anxiety at having to part from her. She did not calm his fears when she confirmed that parting was inevitable. He had refused her then, told her he'd find a way to stay by her side, and she had touched his face and told him that if it was his wish, then she could grant it. But those eyes that he had learned to read so well made him hold back. Instead he had held her tenderly under the cherry tree, whispering that he could not, would not part from her. He would not accept that answer from her and that he would find a way. Even now, he can never forget the way she held onto him as the sakura petals floated and landed in her hair, like she had wanted to believe in everything he promised.

Over the next few years, that wish became his obsession and he even toyed with asking Yuuko-san to grant his wish, the price be damned. She had told him, more than once, that his love for her could very well be his undoing. Those words had scared him, so he refrained from asking anything of her.

As with any obsession, those passions are hard to hide, and ultimately ceased to become a secret. Soon those in this world and beyond were whispering of Watanuki's strong desires. One night an old man had wandered into the shop, but he had no wish to be granted from Yuuko. He only wanted to speak with Watanuki.

Yuuko seemed reluctant to let him into the shop. Her composure was icier than usual, and her eyes looked as hard as glass. She had waved her hand airily and had spoken to him in an aloof way. It wasn't like her to be so disinterested to a patron. Especially since her clients were brought to her by hitsuzen.

"I am a customer!" he had briskly said to Yuuko. "You cannot deny me if I have a wish to be granted!"

"It is nothing I can give you," Yuuko had calmly stated. At this the old man had waved her off.

"I don't wish to speak with you, but with him."

He had pointed his walking stick at Watanuki and laughed when he saw his expression.

As the two sat on the floor together, Watanuki could not help but notice how Yuuko eyed them from her chair. She sat with her pipe between her lips and frowned. He threw her a questionable glance, but she ignored it and boredly looked away. Watanuki knew her well enough to know what that look meant. She was pouting.

"You see, I was in love once, too," the old man had said. "Not with a woman like her. Heaven knows why you would want to spend all of time with the Far Eastern Witch! But I have a tender spot in my heart for a man who is willing to sacrifice so much for the woman he loves."

"How do you know me?" Watanuki asked, curious as to why one of Yuuko's customers would want to talk to him.

"I heard about you. Heard that you had a mighty wish that could not be granted. Like an itch you can't scratch, it can be so frustrating."

"More than you'd realize," Watanuki muttered neutrally, but his interest was piqued.

"There is a place, you know, where if you have the nerve, you can have any wish you would like granted."

"And I don't have to pay Yuuko-san's price?" Watanuki asked, feeling hopeful for the first time in years.

"Oh, you have to pay a price, alright, but not one from her. She always seems to have ironic twists to large wishes like that. Like you could spend eternity forever with her, but you wouldn't love her."

The old man laughed that last statement, but Watanuki spied how Yuuko's body had stiffened and she had turned her body away from him. Her scowl seemed more pronounced as well. Perhaps this crazy Ojisan knew much more than Yuuko had let on. He stared at Yuuko, looking for any sign of contradiction. When there was none, he turned back to the customer.

"Tell me more," he demanded.

"Ah, well, you see, that is all I can really tell you."

"Then you haven't really told me anything," Watanuki huffed disappointed.

At that the old man grinned and stood up and he held his finger to his nose.

"But maybe that's enough."

And with that, he was gone.

Later that night he had pestered Yuuko about what the old man had told him. She had wandered to their bedroom, biting her lip and refusing to answer him. Usually when she did that, it meant that there was a price for her information.

"Is what he said true?"

"Watanuki. . ."

"I'll pay! I'll pay for whatever you can tell me," he pleaded.

She had looked so guarded in that moment, and her expression seemed to be asking him to sleep on it. To think it through before he promised he would do anything. Watanuki had gulped and had looked down.

"Fine. As you wish," he relented, but she could not mistake the irony in his words.

He began to inquire everyone he knew about it and read about any subject on the matter. The Fountain of Youth (which he was pretty sure was B.S.), the Elixir of Life (may have been partly true) and the Cup of Jamshid (probably didn't exist anymore) and anything that vaguely resembled a way to halt his time. He dreamed about it, had nightmares about it. It was like his mind was a record, and this one thought was stuck in groove, repeating itself over and over and he didn't know how to move on with the music.

Finally, on this thirty-third birthday, he broke.

"You have a wish," Yuuko stated sadly that morning when she saw that he had been up all night.

"Will it cost me your love?"

". . .No."

"Will it cost you my love?"

". . .No."

"Will it cost me you?"

". . .No."

"Will be able to stop my time and spend it with you?"

"Yes."

"Can we be happy?"

"Yes."

"Will it be worth it?"

She had closed her eyes and sighed. She had never looked more beautiful to him at that moment.

"That is something I cannot answer. Only you will be able to answer that. In time."

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes.

"I wish you to tell me more about what that old man mentioned."

She didn't say anything, she just looked at him with a forlorn expression.

"Where do I start?" he persisted, trying to not get trapped in her neglected gaze.

"Go to the Aokigahara forest. And between the hours of 2 a.m and 4 a.m find the tree that looks like it's being pulled into the Earth. Then look up."

". . .Is that it?"

"That is all I can tell you for a moderate fee."

In the end, the whole thing had been incredibly vague. He expected that Yuuko would have told him a bit more than that, but so it was with her. It had been a long time, but he had once thought about visiting the Aokigahara forest. Those were dark days, and he tried not to remember them. Nevertheless, he had done as Yuuko-san had instructed, and found himself wandering through the dense, thick trees. He had wandered for about 2 days before he saw it.

The tree had been much larger than he had anticipated, but the warped roots grew out of the ground like some kind of grotesque claw, making the tree like it was being dragged back into the Earth. It was unmistakable. This was the tree that she spoke of. Even though Sun had been directly centered in the sky, the forest was so dark that it seemed like dusk. Watanuki had wiped his brow and marked his map. Setting his gear on the ground, he sat and rested. For the first time, he had felt the sensation of dread at the thought that perhaps the price he was to pay might be more than he anticipated.

He sat at the tree and waited, the hopes and thoughts of love giving fire to his determination. He wasn't sure when he had fallen asleep, but when he had awoken, he'd felt the cold night chill whip down his spine. He wasn't sure what time it was, so he looked up, and he could almost see a few stars fainting littering the sky through the thick tree branches up head.

"Well, you're a man who looks like he has a wish," he heard a little voice say.

Watanuki just about jumped out of his skin and his heart hammered in his chest. Looking up and into the trees, he tried to find out where that voice had come from.

"Down here," the little voice said again.

Looking down, he saw a little old man, very similar to the one who had entered Yuuko's shop, sitting at the base of the tree, only he was. . .small. So small that Watanuki had to bend down and squinted through the darkness. No, he was not the same man, but they could have been brothers.

"You're making me blush," the man said in a deadpan tone. He then added impatiently, "Do you have a wish or not?"

Suddenly, Watanuki had felt the blood run straight to his face, and he had fallen before the man on his knees and bowed.

"I'm sorry!" Watanuki hushed. "You're not what I was expecting."

"Is that so?"

A snap was heard, and then a hiss followed by a spark of light and the man was illuminated as he lit a match and placed it in the lantern next to him. Wordlessly, he handed it to Watanuki who took it humbly. With the same match, he thin lit an old worn pipe and placed it in his mouth.

"I see you've learned some politeness from your employer. You have a reputation among the spirits," said the man.

"I take it from your tone that it isn't a good reputation?" Watanuki had said it as a fact rather than a question.

"Depends on who you talk to. But spirits are hard to impress. They are old fashioned, you see. They are from a time when honor and respect meant something. Not like the youth of today."

He clapped his hands and Watanuki sat down cross-legged facing the little man. The man wore a farmer's hat, as if to protect himself from the sun that wasn't shining. He smiled a toothless smile at Watanuki, and somehow his smile made him look like his face had melted. A white, wispy beard dangled above his collar, and he twirled it around a withered finger.

"Let's get down to business!" he exclaimed cheerfully. "You must be desperate to come all the way out here. Don't you work for that witch?"

"Yes," Watanuki replied, although now he resented anyone who referred to Yuuko as a witch.

"Why didn't you ask her? Would have saved you the trip."

"Well, my wish it about her."

"Mmmm. With her, you never know what you'll get. Although she's not a ruthless as people think. She can be quite sweet when she wants to be."

He had tried to hide it, but at the man's words, Watanuki felt himself blush. He hoped the man wouldn't notice in the lamplight.

"I see," he heard his little voice say. "You probably already know that," he added slyly.

". . . I -"

"I'd heard she was very taken with someone. I must say, I'm impressed, young man! She doesn't give her heart easily, or freely."

"That, I do know," Watanuki smiled.

This little old man seemed much more sweet tempered than the one who had entered Yuuko's shop, so Watanuk felt that he was a little bit more relaxed and he found that he could speak much more freely.

He had then proceeded to tell the man the details of his wish. He had started timidly, but once the words began to fall, it was like a speeding train, breaking wouldn't help much unless he crashed. Against his better judgment, his feelings tumbled out of his mouth, and when he was able to finish, the man sat in a stunned silence.

"Oh dear," he sighed when he finally found his voice. "This is not good. Not good at all. I can see why she refused to grant your wish."

"What do you mean?" Watanuki asked anxiously.

"I had heard that she was taken with someone, but I was not aware that. . ."

"What?"

"That she was. . .that her feelings were so deep. Nor was I aware that those feelings were reciprocated so equally. For her to grant your wish, it would have cost the both of you greatly."

"Why does it matter what we feel for each other? The wish is the same regardless of who grants it," Watanuki snapped irritated.

"That's not true at all. The value of the price is determined by the value of the wish. The stronger the wish, the higher the price. Both require an equal payment. The buyer and the seller both get what they want in the exchange because both desire what the other has," the old man explained.

"I already knew that!" Watanuki shouted, feelings like he was a teenager again and talking to Doumeki.

"But this is different. You both desire each other, but because you each value the other more highly than you value yourselves, there is no equality. In order for her to grant your wish, you will lose something, which means she too will lose something."

"What will be lost?"

"It's hard to say, but there is a conflict of interest," he sighed. "So it is with love. That sorceress should have known better than to fall in love in her line of work. Makes things so much more complicated when you care for someone more than yourself."

Watanuki thought back to that night years ago when he had spoken of his feelings to Yuuko for the first time, and the expression in her eyes. How he had bit his tongue and refused to speak further. Perhaps Yuuko-san had seen this coming.

"Your wish is not cheap," uttered the old man. "But at least with me, there is no conflict of interest."

"What is the price?" Watanuki asked.

The old man took a grave, deep breath.

"The price for your time. . .is your time."

Now it was Watanuki's turn to be stunned.

"What the hells is that supposed to mean!?" he exploded in a petulant rage.

And then the old man burst into a jovial, hearty laugh at Watanuki's reaction.

"Eh," the man shrugged nonchalantly and bit the end of his pipe. "I don't expect you to understand right now. We work differently than that enchantress, you see. We don't trade. We test. And if you can pass, your wish will be granted."

"What do you mean you test?" Watanuki pouted from his bruised ego at the man's laughter.

"A series of trials, if you will," the man clarified. "And if you can pass all successfully, you will be deemed worthy to have your wish granted."

"What's in it for you?" Watanuki eyed him suspiciously.

"Nothing in the material sense. Why do you think I look so old? Why do you think I'm so small? People don't dream enough anymore, that's why! People's wants are too centered on things that do not matter. Of vain and unfulfilling, worldly needs. We feed off of the deep, meaningful wishes and desires of humans. But we do not only take and give nothing in return. We do not seek to trick or cheat you. You see, it is the goodness of the world that keeps us alive, but we must also give back that goodness, for a price. For this is our purpose. This is why we were created. Why, just in the time I've sat here talking to you, I think I feel a little younger."

Watanuki squinted and peered into his smiling face again.

"I think you're imagining it."

The man laughed again.

"Ah! You see! Laughter is the how men spend their youth."

His laugher stopped and he stared quite intensely at Watanuki.

"Make no mistake, young man, I am not implying that this will be easy. These trials are meant to test, and they are not for the faint of heart. You will be stretched, much further than you think you are able. I have seen men with the purest intent crumble miserably under the pressure. Halting one's time to spend it with a lover is not a request we get often. If you think you will be simply jumping through hoops or solving riddles, think again. The trials must be as difficult as the wish is to grant."

For the first time since Watanuki had stepped into this forest, he suddenly felt the gravity of his situation. Just what exactly were these trials? What did they expect him to do? The seriousness of the old man's face was now frightening, and it reminded him of the look that had been in Yuuko-sans eyes before he came here. . .

"Let me ask you this," the man interrupted his thoughts, "is she worth it?"

Watanuki knew the answer as soon as the man had asked the question. But for a split moment, Watanuki was afraid and he hesitated. The old man saw, but said nothing. Finally, Watanuki took a deep breath and nodded.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, she is worth all of it."

"I see," said the man. "I believe you. You will not be left completely on your own. You are allowed to bring two items, and one person with you. Think carefully about what you want those two thing to be. Something that links you to this world. This will be your failsafe should you. . .begin to crumble. As for that person, it cannot be her. She is too personal and it could make your situation worse. But it must be someone who you deeply trust, even with your life. I also see that you need time. Go home and really think about if this is the path you want to travel. If so, come back a week from today an hour after sunset, and we will begin."

With that he clapped again, and the lamp went out. The smell of the old man's burnt tobacco faded, and Watanuki knew that he was now alone.

That week, he had been a bundle of nerves. Watanuki was sure that he had never wrestled so much with himself in those seven days. He alternated between confident determination that he could succeed, to quaking frightfulness that made him want to run far away and hide under a rock. Yuuko had watched him closely that week, at one point offering her saucer of sake one evening when she had detected the unsteadiness of his hands. He had not murmured at all as he down it in one gulp.

He had asked her repeatedly: "Should I do this?"

And she had always replied: "If it is your wish."

That hadn't helped him at all.

Ultimately, the night before, as he stared at his aging reflection in the mirror, he knew what he had to do. Calling Doumeki, he told him to meet him in the morning, and to bring two items of his choice to the forest. And as he sat on Yuuko's couch, trying to control that soft hum of fear that threatened to change his mind, it had been fate of what happened next.

The shop had been unusually quiet, and he had been lost deep in thought that he hadn't heard Yuuko approach him. It wasn't until that she was standing before him that he noticed her. Mournfully, he looked up at her as if to ask her one last time if he was making the right choice. If he could indeed, do this hard thing for her.

She had looked different; he had noticed that right away. Something about the expression on her face that he hadn't seen before. He hair had been down, and she was wearing another red kimono that looked so soft, like it was made of satin. She had looked beautiful, more beautiful than he had ever remembered before. Softer and sweeter than he ever thought possible.

So when she knelt before him, his body snapped rigid upright in alarm. A cold creep of fear tightened his chest and he felt hot, salty beads of sweat roll down his brow and into his eyes. And when she bowed, the way a samurai's wife bows to her husand, he felt his heart slam in his chest and he threw himself on the floor to her, grabbing her shoulders.

"Don't!" he whispered urgently. "Don't do this!"

She had kept her face hidden from him, so he had shaken her, pulled at the muscles of her arms to get her attention. When she had looked up, her face had been contorted, and her hands had found his forearms and gripped them with equal strength. She bit her bottom lip, and her eyes pleaded with his as she gazed back at him.

"Don't go," she hushed back. "Don't leave me. Please don't leave me."

"Yuuko-san," he breathed in shock. "Stop!"

She shook her head and closed her eyes, that horrible, beautiful expression still on her face. Her hands traveled up his body and stroked his face so tenderly he wanted to cry.

"I don't want you to do this. Not for me," she murmured softly, "Please –"

"Stop it!" he hissed, shaking her again.

She could not do this. She had been given stewardship over space and time. It was her job to maintain balance, and there would be a price to pay if she denied anyone their right to choose or to walk their own path. He felt a terrible fog of something sinister at that moment. Watching on the horizon like some shadowy vanguard, but its eyes were on Yuuko, and there would be no reckoning, no compromises for when she would be held accountable for this act of defiance. That had scared him so, and he wanted to scream in her face and flee from her grasp if only to protect her from such a terrible fate.

She'd broken from his embrace and stood up. He hoped that perhaps she had seen reason, and understood what she was doing was insane. But her eyes locked with his, and that look on her face. . .Watanuki found he couldn't breathe, and something electric was in the air around them. Crackling and pulling him to her, like some unstoppable force. Something about her looked so. . .so. . .vulnerable. He hadn't ever remembered seeing her look so open before. So ready, so willing to show him how she felt.

A fire rolled inside of his chest, and he had been obsessed with her before, in love with her before. But this. . .what was this? What was this chemical, monstrous, overwhelming sensation sizzling through his blood? It made him feel not human. It made him feel. . .transcendent, like his threshold of emotions had suddenly been expanded a thousand times greater than what it had been before.

This was her. All of her. Everything she had to give, she was offering. And it was more breathtaking and glorious than he had ever been able to conceive. He trembled before her, dizzy by these new feelings, this new revelation. So when she undid the knot in her kimono, and he watched the fabric pool to the floor around her feet, he had to look away in fear that his senses would engulf him.

But that chemical feeling was too strong, and he looked back up, and his legs lifted his body on its own, and his hand found her waste on its own. And when his eyes again locked with hers, a second wave hit him again, and we wavered on his feet.

Slowly, she closed the gap between their bodies, and he felt her open lips on the corner of his gapping mouth, the damp, chalky sound of lips on lips as she teased him with her kisses. He had stayed rooted to the spot. Her fingers coiling in his hair and around his neck.

"Stay," she breathed into his mouth. "Stay with me."

Here she was, hurling everything she could at him, anything she could think of to make him stay. Her lips lightly played with his, but he did not kiss her back, afraid he would lose his nerve. But the sound of his breathing was betraying him, and that rolling fire inside of his chest was turning into a devastating inferno.

"I'll do anything you want," she purred, and he shuddered and choked a little bit.

"Yuu-"

She kissed him again.

"Stay. Just stay, Kimihiro. Don't go."

He felt her lips tease his again.

"Stay. And I'm yours."

Another kiss.

"Stay."

Another wave of that feelings hit stronger than before, and he greedily consumed her lips breathing her in. Lowering her to the floor, they made love long and hard into the night. He had been possessed, crazed, ravenous for her in this open state. It was like he could feel everything she once was, everything she was now, and everything she was going to be. . .could be. He swore her skin sang and hummed when he touched her. He was delirious, out of control, like some kind of drug had been injected into his system, and he would never again crash to earth. It was like the cosmos had moved and the already infinite universe had expanded, only this universe was theirs, and he loved her more than he ever had in that moment.

Of course, she had underestimated his reaction, and overestimated her strength. She had not been able to keep up with him that night, and he had exhausted her before the sun began to rise. And as she lay asleep, he hungrily kissed her body, trying to hold onto this beautiful moment, never wanting to forget her like his, never wanting to part from her ever, ever again.

In the end, her plan had backfired. As she slept, deeper than the dead on the floor, her kimono wrapped messily around her sweaty body, he dressed as the first few rays of light streamed into the shop, and he vowed that he would spend the rest of eternity with this woman, damned the expense. Any price, any torture, any intense misery and pain was all worth it even if he could feel what he felt that night in her arms just one more time.

That spark, that weak moment that she had shown him, it had gotten into him, changed him, and ultimately, what brought him back to her.

And that was how he left that morning. Tired, and sleep deprived and so desperately in love that any doubt that he had felt before had been washed away. He met Doumeki by his temple, his voice rough with lack of sleep and his body still shaking from his experience with Yuuko.

"You look like hell," Doumeki had observed when they met that damp morning.

"Did you bring the item?" he shot back, ignoring Doumeki's statement.

Doumeki nodded and reached into his kimono, pulling back his hand, he handed one item to Watanuki.

"An egg?" Watanuki gapped. "Did you just grab whatever was in your refrigerator?"

"You told me to pick something. Are you unhappy with my choice?" Doumeki asked as they began to walk to their destination.

"It doesn't matter,"

They left for the forest, and the little old man had been there again.

"You brought an egg?" he asked when he saw the item. "Smart choice."

The old man then turned to Doumeki.

"You are the connection," he said. "The egg is just the receiver. You are to watch him, you are to help him if he appears weak. But if he fails, if he cannot handle the test, you are to break the item. The trial will end, and the wish will not be granted, but the price will be paid."

"What happens if I fail?" Watanuki asked.

"You will forget her. But while the mind forgets, the body does not. You will always miss her, even though you won't know her. You will be restless and in discontent, an unquenchable desire you do not understand will haunt you until you are buried in the ground. You will be miserable for the rest of your life, but your life will be extended, and it will be a long time before you will be relieved from the darkest pain imaginable."

The little old man's words hit Watanuki in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. The forest spun around him.

"Are you sure you want to do this? Even if you age, you will still have a few more good years with her."

The look on her face the night before had flashed across Watanuki's memory, and the thought of having to part from her. . .

"I . . .want to be with her forever," Watanuki answered, his heart pounding.

"Very well," said the old man, "Then let the test begin. . . ."

That was the last thing that Watanuki really remembered clearly. As he looks back on that time, the trials now appear in his mind like a dream. He still remembers much of what happened, but much of the small details are lost in his mind, and he is only occasionally struck with a remembrance of those missing moments that trigger without warning. Still, as much as those memories have faded over time. They will stay with him for an eternity and changed him forever.

Still, it had been for the best that he did not know exactly what he was getting himself into, for if he had, Watanuki would have never gone through with it.

Like a dream, it had no beginning. He was pulled out of this world, into another dimension. To a place where time did not pass the same. But how, he cannot recall. He remembers hazily of a voice in his mind, similar to the voice of the old man, whispering inside of his head. And in this darkness, that voice softly said:

"The first is a test of your physical strength."

The time blurs here in his memories, but he remembers being in psychical pain. A heavy weight fell upon him, and pressure gathered on the crown of his head, around his eyes, and setting on his torso. His knees buckled and he became difficult to walk. A small aching feeling bloomed in his chest, and he found it became more and more difficult to breathe. This feeling, it reminded him of how he felt when he was surrounded by the most malicious spirits.

He didn't know what to do, so he simply walked. Where he was, he didn't know. Darkness engulfed him from all angles. There was a thickness to it, as if he felt he was breathing it in. Each breath intensified the ache, and after experiencing for too long, he began to cough. Stifling it first, it grew into a harsh, strained, gasp, wracking his entire body.

How long he wandered, he didn't know. Minutes, hours, days? He wasn't sure. At the time he thought it had felt like years, but looking back, Watanuki wouldn't have been surprised if it had been longer. Years passing in that terrible place. This awful, dreadful feeling only intensified with each step, making his stomach turn, burning his nose like it did when he was around the strongest evil.

His bones ached, his back hurt. Blood filled his shoes to the point where he could no longer walk, and he crawled, coughing, his eyes stinging and nose hurting. The floor there had been freezing and rough. Eventually, his fingertips biting with cold, became numb, and the only warmth he felt in his hands was his blood as the skin ripped away the skin from his palms.

He had been there so long, and memories of his former life seemed distant. He couldn't even remember where he lived or who where his friends. He only remembered Yuuko, and when he was sure he couldn't move anymore he finally collapsed on the icy ground.

He lay there, the darkness attacking his body, blood in his throat, and he was sure he was going to die. How pitiful, he had thought to himself, that he couldn't even make it through the first trial.

It was then, in the darkness, that he heard a man's voice. Look back, Watanuki knew it had been Doumeki's voice. But at the time, Doumeki had been lost from his memory.

"Do you still wish to remember her?"

Watanuki had jumped at the sound of another human's voice. It had surprised him so much that he didn't register the question.

"Do you still wish to remember her?" the voice repeated.

Watanuki thought of Yuuko, her sweet face, and he hoped to have that memory with him before he died.

"Yes," Watanuki had coughed, blood slipping from his lips, fully expecting for his spirit to leave his body.

Slowly, the ache in his chest lessened, and he gulped his first fresh breath of air in what felt like forever. Every pain in his body gradually evaporated. He lay there, unaware if he was awake or asleep when he heard that small voice in his head again. The voice sounded mature, it was deeper and powerful. He voice richly spoke:

"The second is to test your will."

His time shifted then, and he was transported, how he wasn't sure, to a time when he was seventeen-years-old and still only Yuuko's servant. At first he was aware of who he was and why he was being tested, but it wasn't long before he increasingly began to forget. This world was more real than the last, and he soon found himself immersed in running errands for Yuuko and helping her grant wishes. Doumeki irritating him, Himawari helping him, Mokona pestering him for food.

It was as it had always been.

The only thing that stayed with him was his feelings for Yuuko-san. He did not know how or why, but he had loved her dearly. But something was different about her, she looked sadder than he ever, and a light in her eyes had faded. Being swallowed by darkness, like a lamp about to go out.

Himawari seemed more guarded, and for some reason, Doumeki acted like he knew more than he normally did.

It wasn't until one day, when she had faded before his eyes, that Watanuki realized true loss. In this warped and morbid world, she had been taken from him, and at a time when he was so tender in years and so attached to her. A shuddering, heart-stopping grief exploded inside of his heart as he stared back into her eyes, not believing that he would never see her again. For a love that he never would have a chance to express, yet felt like he had experienced in some stolen moment in time. Lost in those eyes, a fiery spark had ignited in him, and he vowed to grant her wish, to exist, to keep on existing, to wait for a chance to meet her again.

He did not know if this trial had manipulated his feelings in order to torture him, or if it merely manifested her deepest fears, but either way, he stayed in the shop, granting wishes and waiting to meet Yuuko-san again. To explore those unsaid feelings for her just once. He did not know how long he would have to wait, but he would, even if he would wait until the end of time.

And he waited. He waited, and waited and waited. He watched Himawari and Doumeki, and Doumeiki's children pass away. He saw Syaoran and Sakura find each other and experience love over and over again while he waited for his one chance with Yuuko-san. Time flowed, and on many instances, he sorrowed. He cried and wore her clothes and smoked her pipe so that he would always remember her.

Sometimes, he would gaze deeply into the skies and would mourn, his desire and hopes seeming so far away, so unreachable. His thirst would never be quenched, his hunger never satisfied. Years passed, and he always watched, sometimes unwavering, sometimes wavering, for that person who he wished to see just one last time.

Once in a while he would catch a glimpse of her. Dream of her, see her image before him. But slowly, even her beautiful face began to vanish from his mind, and he would agonize, plead, and beg the spirits for sign of hope that she would not be lost to him completely.

It wasn't until one morning, when he was making breakfast that he realized that he could not recall her favorite dish, that he had entirely forgotten what she looked like. He could not remember her last name or what kind of alcohol that she had preferred to drink. It was then that he had collapsed in the kitchen, shouting for Moro and Maru to bring them Yuuko-sans things, and as they had dropped old kimonos in his arms, they asked what this Yuuko-san had been like and why he always wore her clothes.

He had wept bitterly in her kimono, breathing it in, trying to recall her scent. She'd been gone so long, and he tried and tried to remember the sound of her voice and the way her body moved and how she said his name. He cried until her kimono was soaked through, until he was merely gasping into the fabric. Years, so many years he had yearned for her, and now he only wanted the memory of her. He could now only remember that he loved her.

Suddenly the door opened, and the descendant of Doumeki had walked into the room, so far removed from his friend that Watanuki had lost track long ago. He had kneeled before Watanuki and stared into his swollen, red, broken face.

"Do you still wish to remember her?" he asked.

Watanuki paused for a moment, and gazed back at this man who looked so much like his old friend. For a split second, Watanuki considered forgetting Yuuko-san. It was inevitable that his point, he might as well get it over with. But as soon as that thought entered his mind, he felt unmistakable distress at never laying his eyes on her again.

Watanuki nodded his head, and parting his lips, he weakly said: "Yes."

It was then that Watanuki felt dizzy, and the shop spun around him, and the face of Doumki's descendant multiplied and saw before his eyes.

The world began to split apart. He'd seen this happen in dreams many times, and soon Watanuki began to fall. He fell and fell and he heard a familiar voice of a young man echo in his mind.

"The third will test your emotions."

This world was similar to the last. He had to wait, but this time, it wasn't long until he saw a woman at his shop. This woman was distinctly familiar, and it didn't take him long before he could place her face.

"Yuuko-san?"

It had been her. She had looked and acted almost exactly the same. If he had been in his own world, in his own time, that would have put him off, made him suspicious. But here, in this world, after all he had been through, it comforted him. It had felt like she had never left. However, something about her countenance had bothered him. It was almost as if something was missing from his Yuuko-san.

He brushed it off, thinking that it was because he hadn't seen her in so long, and had forgotten aspects of her personality, or that perhaps she wasn't as exactly the same as he had thought.

In this world, he got to explore that love he felt deeply for her. The things he said, how he treated her, it had been so familiar, like he had done it before in a previous life. They talked, and she laughed and they shared everything. They worked side by side during the day, and made love during the night.

For years they shared this life. And he had been so happy to have finally met her again. It had all been like a dream come true. Everything had been perfect, and looking back, he should have realized that his situation being so idyllic had been a problem. One of Doumeki's descendant's had pointed this out to him once, but that had only made Watanuki angry. This boy had no idea how difficult it had been waiting for this person.

And for years they loved each other. She had fit him so completely, and that perfection had lulled him into a false sense of security.

It had begun slowly, and when he least expected. She stopped finding him amusing at first. Her laughter was something that he heard less and less. At first he assumed that she was tired or perhaps that they had just been together for so long, that perhaps there is a limit to many times someone can make you laugh or smile. Her serious side started to become the side of her he saw most often. Still, he loved that side of her, so he didn't mind. Although sometimes he missed her teasing and light heartedness.

He hadn't been able to pinpoint exactly when the air between them changed, but one day he noticed that she rolled her eyes at him when he talked. It had been a long time since she had done that. Not since when he was just her annoying servant and had taken her for granted. She had never done so when he was her partner and lover. He had asked her if she was angry with him, but she had denied it, and then acted as if nothing had bothered her.

However, he observed that she did it more and more. Soon she forwent rolling her eyes, and that was when he saw something in her stare. Something that he had never seen before. He wasn't sure what it was. It bordered on annoyance and boredom, and it had scared more than when he thought he might forget her.

She started snapping at him and sighing whenever he made a comment or tried to make small talk. He felt like he was walking on egg shells all the time whenever he was near here. Eventually, they began to sleep in separate rooms again as she gave off the distinct vibe that she was not want to be touched.

He asked her multiple times what was bothering her, and she went from denying that anything was wrong, to only answering in silence. It was then that he began to beg her, to try to understand what was wrong. But that had only made her withdraw more, he felt that the love that use to reflect in her eyes disintegrated with each passing day.

They began to fight. And each fight became more personal and made him feel like the most vile person alive. He screamed at her, reminded her of all that he had done for her. Asked her why. Had she met that stupid magician when she was gone? What had caused that rift between them? She would push and pull, apologize but again throw that wall up between them.

This went on for years. She'd give him hope, and then she'd cast herself further and further away from him. He wondered sometimes, if perhaps she resented him for bringing her back. That perhaps she had been happier where she had been. Perhaps she had been with that other person who she had also cared for. . .

If that had been true, she had never confirmed. But they fought more and more. He begged her, worshipped her, so why couldn't she try? Why couldn't she try to go back to the way things were?

Finally, one day, when he could take no more, he asked her. He asked her what he could do to make her happy?

"You could leave," she had said, her voice very matter of fact.

He could hardly believe his ears, so he had stared at her. His mouth hanging open. He asked her what she had meant.

"I am tired of you," and as she said this he couldn't help but notice how weary she looked. "We've been together for so long. For lifetimes. And more than half of that has been exhausting. I am exhausted of being with you. We have given each other all we can offer," she frowned. "Maybe it's time for us to finally part."

He shook his head unable to understand her words. He could feel himself annoying her, but he couldn't help himself.

"I don't want you anymore, Watanuki," she murmured sadly. "I don't think humans were meant to belong together for eternity. It is not possible, humans are far too complex and weak to bond forever. It's time, Watanuki."

His mind had broken and he had begged and pleaded and cried, to try, just one more time. He remembered how she had shaken her head mournfully, eyes unable to meet his. She had walked out on him, and the realization that she left him, never to see her again ever, sent him over the edge.

Even now, he does not know how long he grieved the end of their relationship. He had been absolutely wrecked, and he had locked himself in the shop and refused to talk to anyone. It had been like all of him had died, and it was one thing to lose her when she still meant something to him, but to lose her and have her hate him? He did not want live anymore.

It was then that he had heard his bedroom door open, and he had seen Doumeki. He had stood before the bed and he was holding something in his hand. It had looked like an egg.

"What do you want!?" Watanuki had howled at the image of his friend.

"Do you still wish to remember her?" Doumeki asked.

Watanuki screamed and hissed and threw his possessions at Doumeki. All the anger and hurt and pain that he felt since Yuuko had abandoned him so unceremoniously exploded onto Doumeki. He beat his fists and pulled out his own hair and broke every piece of furniture that reminded him of her. All the while, Doumeki had watched silently, his hands out stretched as if to offer him the egg. He seemed expectant that Watanuki would take it.

When Watanuki had exhausted himself from his tantrum, he cried brokenly and asked him why he was offering him an egg.

"Do you still wish to remember her?" Doumeki repeated.

Watanuki wrestled with himself then. Why should he remember Yuuko? Why shouldn't he forget her? The idea had never seemed more tempting. It then occurred that Doumeki and all of Doumeki's descendants would often ask him this question, but the he had never taken it very seriously.

Now, however, he deeply considered Doumeki's question. But then he felt it. There was something lingering deep within his heart. A small spark that he vaguely, distantly remembered Yuuko possessing. His reached into the vault of his memories, trying to recall when she had looked at him like that. He could not remember, but his body told him. It whispered to him that there was a reason he was he was experiencing all of this, told him there was a purpose in his suffering, and he thought he saw an expression on Yuuko-san's face when she had gazed at him once. Beautiful and open, and with so much emotion and love. His body contracted, as if recollecting the way she had touched him long ago, electricity in her fingers, and he missed the way she used to touch him like that. . .

He'd felt close to her in that moment, and he realized that the Yuuko that he had been with all these years had never held that kind of passion in her countenance, had never touched him that way. It was that fleeting memory, that last thought that he clung to when his life was crumbling around him.

"Yes," Watanuki answered, "Yes, I still want to remember her."

Suddenly the ground shook beneath him and the walls split open. The sky seemed to be falling, and Watanuki felt his feet lose contact with the ground. The world around him was crashing down, and Doumeki looked up at him, and Watanuki saw his fists close around the egg as his image floated further away from this world.

Watanuki felt his body grow tired when he heard a young man's voice in the darkness.

"The fourth will test your sanity."

He found himself in a cold and dying world. The sun was large and red and it hung low in the sky as if it were about to perish. It was here that Watanuki realized that everyone was gone. All those whom he had cared about where no longer with him.

But somehow, he knew. He knew of what had happened to her. He knew that she, the Witch of Dimensions was with that person. He knew that she was happy, and she was happy without him.

It was here that all his sorrows and disappointments, unfulfilled desires and dashed hopes crashed into him. Those feelings, which he had doubted could have ever been more painful before, were now magnified one-hundred fold. They had ensnared him, and dragged him down into the depths of his misery, and it wracked his soul and teared his heart.

As his pain expanded inside him, the Sun grew colder and colder, until it finally extinguished pitifully.

This world was much like the first, except instead of only his body hurting, his mind, his heart and his soul was plunged into icy pain. Breaking out in a sweat, he moved, but he was so focused on his own intense desolation that he did not noticed his surroundings. A bitterness had formed inside of him, and he erupted in a roar of agony, sobs wracking his body.

It had been all for nothing. All the sacrifices that he had made, the time he had spent, the wishes he had granted. It had all made no difference. He sorrowed, he lamented severely for the life he had wasted, for the failure that he had allowed himself to become. His soul purpose had always been for her, and she had left him, hated him, wished to never see him again. And in the end, he hadn't become better for it, he had been utterly devastated, and he mourned for his loss.

He had traded his life for an eternity of misery. Life was not balanced, never fair. There was no such thing as hitsuzen. And if there was, it was the cruelest force in the Universe.

It was here that Watanuki remained the longest. It had seemed like the tears would never cease to fall, like there had been an infinite amount of sadness inside of him, and that it would never stop. He felt the depths of the darkest hatred, the sting of the hottest bitterness, emptiness of the most hopeless depression, and the profound uncertainty of unrelenting horror.

This place. . . it had been the scariest thing Watanuki had ever experienced. All of his mistakes, missed opportunities and wasted expectations mounted inside of him. And he blamed her.

It was because of her that he felt this way. It was because of her that he was here. But ultimately, he blamed himself, because if Yuuk-san had been correct about anything, it is that people were in control of their own destiny. And when he thought this, Watanuki didn't want to die. Instead, he desired nothing more than to end his existence.

He wished that the sky itself would fall and bury him. Nothingness would have been better than this never ending torment.

Then he felt a presence beside him. He wasn't sure how long Doumeki had been there, he had been too caught up in his own misery to pay attention. But when he saw Doumeki, his familiar face, he had fallen before him and latched onto his hem of his shirt. Doumeki's expression had been . . .he had never seen his friend look so crestfallen. But there was the hint of distinct fear in his eyes.

"Do you still wish to remember her?" he asked.

Watanuki shrieked inside of his own head. No, no, no. . .he did not want to remember her. His life would have been better if had never met her. His very existence had been a waste, a waste because of what that woman had done to him. She had ruined him, shattered his entire being. Everything she taught him had been a lie, and because of that, he had lost everything.

He opened his mouth several times, but he was so grief struck that he couldn't find his voice. Perhaps his body wouldn't let him say the words out loud.

"Do you still wish to remember Yuuko-san?"

Something in the way Doumeki had said her name struck Watanuki deep within him. He looked into Doumeki's eyes again, and that fear that he had detected before was shining brightly now. And Watanuki thought of her. . .

He knew his mind could not recall every moment of his life, but his body remembered. He felt something deep in his soul, something that had been long since forgotten. The image of her on her knees before him, a light in her eyes that he had never seen before. The smell of her skin as she kissed him. Her long, spindly fingers so tenderly stroking his face. The heartbreak in her voice.

"Stay. Just stay with me, Kimihiro. Don't go. . ."

Her breathy whisper in his ear, and he realized that she had never called him by his given name before. So when had she said that? He had made love to her many times, but when was it that he felt her heartbeat so steadily with his and her voice cry his name in such ecstasy? When had her skin seared into his and her warmth enveloped him so completely? When had they been one in every sense, thought, body and soul?

He missed her dreadfully right then. Whenever this time was, whomever that Yuuko had been, he wanted it back. And that was when he made a decision. Even if he had wasted his life for Yuuko-san, even if had given everything to her, sacrificed anything for her, it didn't change that she had been his life. Her life had meant everything to him. He'd loved her for so long. She had given him purpose for almost his entire life. So even if they had parted, how could he forget his life?

Watanuki opened his mouth.

"Yes," he croaked. "Yes, I still want to remember her."

It was then that he saw Doumeki close his eyes and sigh in relief. For the first time in his entire existence, he saw Doumeki smile.

Doumeki's image broke apart around him then, and that crushing despair faded, and once that weight was no longer hovering over him, Watanuki crumpled, but when he fell, he fell into nothingness. An overwhelming fatigue swathed him, and just before he lost consciousness, he heard the voice of a young child whisper warmly, proudly in his ear:

"Well done."

Even now, he does not know how long he had been in that place. Perhaps eons and eons had passed away there, and by the time Watanuki had come back to his world, he was a different man.

He doesn't remember how it ended. It had been like slowly waking up from a dream. Eventually, he became more aware of his surroundings. Like his mind had been somewhere far away, but his body had been still. It wasn't until one morning, when his mind suddenly registered the white curtain that was caught in a draft of a room, that he began to realize his new reality.

Watanuki, to this day, can't ever remember a time when he had been that exhausted. His entire body ached and his eyes had been scratchy and dry as his mind had awoken. He first realized that his entire being was warm, wrapped in clean sheets that smelled like something he had loved once. It was then that he felt someone rubbing his back tenderly.

He tried to speak, but his voice failed him. Just thinking about uttering a single word made him want to close his eyes and drift back into that darkness. All he had been able to do was to make a weak puff as he exhaled. But it had been enough.

The hand rubbing his back had stopped, and he heard a beautiful, clear, low voice call out his name.

"Watanuki?"

He tried to answer the voice, but all he could do was hiss pathetically.

He did not have the energy to turn on the bed, but he felt her breath in his ear.

"Watanuki?" she asked again.

It was pointless, he couldn't move, so he started to close his eyes again when he heard her move around to his side of the bed. The room had been bright and a beautiful sunny day greeted him from the open window. She moved over him, and he saw her. Yuuko-san, who he thought he had not seen in an eternity, stood in her bedroom.

He had felt different when he had awoken. Older. No longer the spry seventeen-year old, but his body had felt bigger and heavier, and when Yuuko-san had grabbed his face, he felt his scratchy beard prick her hands. As he stared back at Yuuko-san, her eyes had searched his frantically, and she knew that he recognized her.

He tried to move his lips, but they were so dry they stuck together, and when he gulped, his tongue felt thick and chalky.

"Oh, Kimihiro," she whispered sadly, her thumbs brushing softly over his lips. "It's over."

He felt her touch as she gently rubbed his torso, her hands slowly sliding up and down over his muscles, and it was like all the burdens that he had ever felt in his life slowly seeped out of him. The act had been intimate, so personal that he had realized that he forgotten what it was like to feel so loved. Her touch had felt so wonderfully physical and exquisitely tangible that he could feel the heat of her skin burn into his chest. Had her touch always been like that?

"It's finally all over," she promised as she bent down and covered his dry, cracked mouth with her own.

The feel of her moist tongue had been like some kind of wonderful drug as it made him forget his own name, and he closed his eyes and tried to kiss her back, but he couldn't muster enough energy. But it had been okay, she took control and kissed him deeply for a long time.

That other Yuuko who had dwelt in that place had never made him feel like this. At the time Watanuki had been confused as she stroked him and kissed him and murmured sweetly in his ear as to why it felt so different. That other Yuuko had done the same, so why was this Yuuko making him feel so. . .so . .

Alive?

It had been like he had been eating flavorless food his entire life, and someone came along and introduced him to salt. To sugar, to every delicate spice imaginable, and he knew that he could never go back to that mock shadow of this woman.

She had told him of what had happened after he had left her the morning of the trials. He had not been able to ask any questions, but she knew him, and answered them all without him asking.

Yuuko had been angry when she had awoken to find him gone. She had been believed that she had convinced him to stay, so when she had opened her eyes to find herself alone, she had left to look for him.

"Something happened when you went to the forest," she told him. "It was like you cut the bond between us. I could no longer feel you or guess where you were. I went to the tree that I had told you to find, and there I met Doumeki. He had been sitting by himself holding an egg. Watanuki his face. . .it looked like he had seen time without end. He told me you were lost and he wasn't sure you would be able to find your way back. He handed me the egg and told me to make a wish."

Her voice had turned thick, and she looked back down at him.

"I wished that you would keep existing. That no matter how hopeless or wasted you felt your existence was, that you would not disappear. With that wish, I hoped you would grant it. That was what I desired with all my heart."

He remembered that moment, in the dark place when Yuuko-san had disappeared from him the first time, how she had told him of her wish before she had faded. Could that have been the real Yuuko-san? Did she somehow manage to impress herself on him during the trials?

She told him that he had only been gone for one week before Doumeki sensed that the trials had ended. But he had not reappeared in the forest. For another week they could not find him anywhere, it wasn't until she had been alerted through her many sources that Watanuki had been seen in the city.

She found him in Ginza, standing on the street corner. He had looked awful, worse than she had ever seen him before. He had been wandering around aimlessly, his mouth slacken and his eye bloodshot and swollen.

"You looked like you had seen the depths of hell. It was then that I became terrified."

She had gone to him, in the middle of that crowded district, and he had not recognized her. He did not know her and he simply had stared past her, his eyes large as if he were stuck experiencing some undeniable horror. She had shaken him, kissed him, shouted his name, but her voice had bounced right back at her. She took him home to the shop, led him to their room, and he lay there catatonic in their bed.

That had been three weeks ago. The whole ordeal had lasted only about a month and a half. He could scarcely comprehend how so much time had passed in that dark place, but such little time at passed here. It was then he recalled the words that old man had said in the forest:

"The price for your time. . .is your time."

He had not known what that old man had meant back then, but now. . .now he understood all too well. To have his time halted, he had to wait in perpetuity and spend that time in the most horrible pain imaginable.

He could barely believe it was over, that this was real. That he was home and that he would be able to spend the rest of his life with Yuuko-san. His bottom lip had trembled as she watched him on the bed. He thought of in those final moments, how he had wanted nothing more than to forget her and how he wished he had never existed. How he had felt her with him just as he was on the brink of collapse. How he had found to strength to keep going when he had lost all hope.

"I hope my wish found you, Kimihiro," she said as she had taken his hand.

Doumeki, he found out later, had been with him in that place the entire time. He wasn't sure if time passed the same for him there, and it seemed he had been able to leave at will. But he had stayed with Watanuki. He had silently watched, helped him. The shadows of the past had mostly been shadows, but Doumeki, in all his forms, had been real.

Watanuki had never been able to fully express his gratitude to his friend. Doumeki told him there was no need, he knew. He knew what his help had meant to Watanuki. He had told Watanuki that his experience hadn't been nearly as emotional as it had been for his friend, just a little too long. But Watanuki wondered if Doumeki had simply been downplaying. It was then that he truly appreciated and admired Doumeki's strength.

However, Yuuko-san had been wrong. It was rare when that happened, but while the trials were over, they were not over in Watanuki's mind.

After he had regained his strength, he had tried to continue his life with Yuuko, but it had been much more difficult than he had anticipated. At first it was simply getting use to the idea that this world was his own, and not some morbid creation to test him. He kept forgetting and found himself agitated, uneasy, as if waiting for another tragedy to befall him.

There were times when he didn't know if he was dreaming or awake, and he often found himself crying for no reason. Once Yuuko had caught him in the bath after a long day of running errands for her, and he wondered why she had crawled into the tub with her clothes on, but then he realized that he had been dozing off, and she was watching over him, her hands behind his head, keeping him above water as he drifted to sleep in the warm water. He wasn't allowed to bathe alone after for a long time.

The habits that he had gained in that dark world followed him here. Yuuko had been surprised and impressed when she inhaled from her pipe so easily. And she had tried to hide her astonishment when one morning, Watanuki had thrown on her cloths so naturally without batting an eye. Once he had realized what he had done, he stumbled dumbly as he tried to explain, but she had stopped him. He looked good, she had said. And she was attracted to a man who was so secure in his masculinity.

He had terrible nightmares at night. It wasn't rare that he would awaken in a cold sweat, Yuuko's arms around him, calming him as he trashed, tangling himself in her sheets. Gasping for breath he tried to recognize his surroundings, he would frantically try to burrow himself into her skin as she whispered soothing words to him. She would kiss him and hold him and tell him it was alright. It was only in her arms that he felt truly awake, that he was still human. And when they made love, he felt alive, so he focused his passion on her much more than he ever had before.

Watanuki had become much more intense, as Yuuko had put it, and he would often get the sensation that he had very little control over his body, emotions, and mind. Since he hadn't been sleeping well, he was tired all the time, and he found that he would teeter back and forth between passive resignation and forceful possession. More than once, he would find himself grabbing Yuuko's wrists out of the blue and pressing her against him. He would stare deep into her face, looking. . .looking for that spark in her eyes. That tell that she was real, and not that imposter. Even though he would always find it, still, he doubted. She never objected, in fact, he suspected that she was aroused by that danger he sometimes unwillingly displayed. He wondered if she secretly enjoyed his intense, powerful side. It certainly seemed that way when he would kiss her once he found what he was looking for.

Only once, he had had awoken from a nightmare with his hands on her throat. He had not squeezed her esophagus very hard, not yet constricted her airway, but he had remembered awaking feeling a fiery anger that he had only felt during the trial. His face muscles were tight and contorted as he stared down at Yuuko. She swallowed, and he could feel the muscles of her throat expand under his fingertips. Her pulse was fast and strong. And while he had been terrified to awaken to such a fearful sight, the look on her face, the way she gazed back at him with heavy lidded eyes, lips slightly parted. Her desire was palpable, and the skin of her stomach touched his as she breathed deeply.

And when he had let go of her throat and attempted to run from her, she had seized his hair roughly and had pulled him down for a kiss. That night, they had reverted back to their old roles of master and servant. Except this time, she demanded that their roles be reversed.

Still, the incident had scared him, and even though Yuuko had responded to it very well, he never wanted to find himself in that position again. So his nights were fitful and restless, and his days were long and aching.

One afternoon on a humid summer day, after several sleepless nights, he had been hanging laundry in the backyard when he thought he began to see his world split apart. Cracks appeared in the air and traveled up to the sky, and he had felt his gut wrench in panic. Yuuko's garden spun, and he his feet seemed to disconnect from the ground. Sheer, unadulterated fear grasped him as he truly believed in that moment that his reality had been another trial, and that he had never left that place, and that he would be stuck in that hell for all eternity. That the happiness and hope for peace were another lie.

He came to minutes later, Yuuko and Mokona hovering over him. The strap of Yuuko's garment had dangled from her shoulder as she leaned down and patted his flushed face. Worry reflected in her expression but he had pushed her away. In that moment, he had been convinced that she wasn't real.

Watanuki had babbled, his heart racing, about tricks and lies, and how she was not going to hurt him again. She had told him, through the ring in his ears, that he was exhausted and dehydrated and that he was sick. He was not well and he needed rest, that he was not himself.

That had triggered an outburst. He had rage in her face that he was himself, that he was real. That she was nothing but a mirage sent to torture him. He had grabbed her arms and hurled terrible, hurtful words at her beautiful face. His hands leaving deep, red marks on her skin, and she had let him. In that moment, Watanuki had felt his world spinning out of control as he suffered a complete mental breakdown.

Her hands had cradled his face then, and it had been her touch that calmed him instantly. Like a fever breaking, his rage turned cold, and he found himself staring into Yuuko's calm, yet frightened face. He had seen Mokona staring at him, its little face so broken and sad that it made Watanuki want to cry. Again, he was reminded that the other Yuuko's touch had never felt so good, so real. His hands slid from her arms to around her waist as he thrust her into him, crushing her with his arms, holding her like a lifeline. He had wept into her shoulder, begging her for forgiveness.

"Yuuko-san. . .Yuuko-san," he sobbed bitterly into her shoulder.

She had told him later that she had been disturbed that he had reverted to calling her Yuuko-san when he came back from those trials. Their relationship had long since moved past the need for honorifics. But she had ignored it, and forgave him instantly.

That had not been the first meltdown he had, and it wouldn't be the last. Most days were happy, but he had never been content. Some days he would clean the entire shop from top to bottom to distract him from the fear that the ground would break apart and swallow him, and other days he would lie in Yuuko's arms all day, barely able to crawl out of bed. She was infinitely patient with him then, and would run her fingers through his hair and place soft kisses on the back of his neck. He thinks on some level she had known what he had gone through for her and that she had been grateful for his sacrifice.

One day, on one of his cleaning rampages, he had decided to clean out the storehouse, and as he rummaged through the dusty bins and tattered chests, he came across the clothes he had worn on the day of the test. Looking at those slacks and jacket, and he felt his head spin and a familiar sense of dread made him suddenly want to stop cleaning and crawl into bed. Lifting up his jacket, he ran his fingers over the material. He was about to put it away when he heard something metallic fall to the ground.

Looking down, he had seen a ring. It had fallen out of his pocket. Attached to the gold ring had been the most beautiful gem he had ever seen. It sparkled like fire and glittered like the stars. It had been so bright that Watanuki half expected it to burn him when he lifted it off of the ground. As he touched the object, a memory flashed in the depths of his mind. A memory he had tried to block out.

He had been given that ring at the end of his trials. When he had left that dark and lonely world where the Sun had expired. He had been told to keep it as a token of his accomplishment, to give it to that person who meant the most to him.

He had walked back into the shop and said nothing as he showed it to Yuuko. Her eyes had lit up curiously as she spied the item in his hand.

"Where did you find that?" she had asked. "Certainly not in the warehouse?"

"It's mine," he had responded, and that earned him another surprised look.

"Is that so?"

"Well," he corrected, "it was mine."

He had grabbed her wrist and slid the ring slowly onto her finger without making eye contact. But he felt her intake a breath, and he though he may have imagined it, he noticed that her hand tremble slightly. He'll never forget the way the ring had fit so perfectly, how it shimmered against her beautiful skin. He bent down and kissed her hand, her palm, her wrist and each one of her fingers. Somehow, he knew this had been made for her. That it was a gift, and a reminder that he should be happy for how he had literally gone to hell and back for her and had survived.

"Are you hinting at something?" she teased, but he thought he might have seen something akin to hope reflect in her face.

"Whatever that something is, depends entirely on you," he offered a lopsided grin that he couldn't hold back.

"Do you know what this is?" she had asked, wetting her lips, her eyes locked on the gem.

"I know it's important," he said as he rubbed his thumb over her finger that bare the ring.

"This gem. . . .it's very rare in this world," she told him smiling, and then she had held her hand out in front of her and admired the ring. "You always know what looks good on me. Thank you, Watanuki."

She never asked how he came to be in possession of the ring, but he was pretty sure she knew. And he would catch her playing with it whenever his emotions got too out of control, or when he would second guess whether either of them was real. She never asked what the compensation was for the ring, but he had assumed that was because she was paying for it already. She had to put up with him and his deteriorating mental state, so she deserved something rare and beautiful in return.

He remembered how she had begged him not to go, and he had asked her, more than once, what the price was for her going against hitsuzen. She wouldn't not answer his question, no matter how many times he asked. She would only tell him that he didn't have to worry about it anymore. It always caused him great anxiety when she was cryptic like that. He suspected that she acted that way because she didn't want him to worry or burden him with her problems. But after all that they had been through, he knew that when she kept her feelings guarded like that, he would eventually end up paying the price, because whatever hurt her, also hurt him, and he couldn't contain his concern.

Her happiness was what he desired almost more than all else. And even though he was often worried that his reality was false, that he was still trapped in the dark place, he worried more about the possibility that their prolonged time together would backfire, and she would grow wary of him. He had experienced that once, and it had nearly destroyed him.

There had been a time, when they had argued over an outburst that he suffered over particularly needy customer. She had been constantly dropping by the shop, often talking to Yuuko for hours on end, yet not really committing to whether Yuuko should grant her wish, that Watanuki's anger had gotten the better of him and he had yelled at Yuuko.

"I've never known you to tolerate customers who waste your time," he had snapped bitterly at Yuuko one day after Yuuko had been talking to her guest for hours.

He had been making her dinner, and he had not seen her all morning or afternoon, same as the day before, and the day before that. . .

"Are you jealous?" she jested, tittering at his pink cheeks.

"I just don't remember you ever investing yourself in a customer unless alcohol was involved," he grunted in reply.

"I believe you were my customer once," she had pointed out.

"I never wasted your time!" he shouted at her.

"You're wasting it right now by talking to me like that," she shot back annoyed.

That had sparked a fight, and while he had yelled and shouted and had waves his arms, she had merely sat there, calmly contradicting everything he said. Somehow that made his temper worse, and she had ended up walking out, leaving a half-eaten meal on the table. That experience had bothered him. It wasn't unfamiliar for him to be possessive and jealous, but it wasn't like him to take it out on her so deliberately. It was, however, extremely rare that she became so fed up with him that she need to excuse herself from his presence.

He had felt like bastard, and had begged her forgiveness, which she granted, until he did it again later. She forgave him again that time, too. But he could not shake that awful feeling that he was unwillingly pushing her away. He over-analyzed her every expression, every tone. The way she ate his food, and how she greeted him in the morning, he worried that he was making life for her miserable.

She had told him that he didn't need to worry, that the fact that they had problems was actually a good thing. She pointed out to him several times that sorrow and pain often meant that they experienced happiness and love. That their fights and irritations didn't cheapen their relationship, but rather proved that it was very valuable. And while it could be difficult at times, she felt it was worth it because he made her so happy.

Still, while her comforting words softened his paranoia, he could not silence that little voice in his head that told him that she would not be able to put up with him much longer. His already sleepless nights became even longer and more disturbed. He was certain that she could sense it, and would often softly hum songs that he had never heard before until he was lulled to sleep.

"I love you," he whispered to her in bed one night as she was in the middle humming a particularly gentle tune.

He had been thinking of these things for a while, and had been worried that he was burdening her too much with his emotional instability. He had noticed how she had seemed more exhausted and crestfallen. And when she gazed at them, there was so much tenderness and hurt behind her stare, it reminded him of how she looked before she disappeared in that dark place. So he wanted to make sure to keep her with him, and keep adding to his debt, hoping to give her a reason to stay with him.

"Kimihiro –"

"Shhhh," he stopped her. "I love you. I know I don't say it very much. Because I always felt it was not enough just to tell you my feelings. I wanted to show you my feelings. I want you to feel loved, every day. But I realize that sometimes it is necessary to express them with words. I have lost you, so many times –"

"What?" Yuuko had interjected perplexed. "When have you ever lost –"

He silenced her again, for he had not told her much of what he had experienced during the trials. Such things were too painful to talk about. She knew some details, but where she bad been concerned in his mind, he had kept those experiences locked away, and it was the only feelings where he did not give her a key.

"I love you. I have regretted not being able to tell you, Yuuko-san. I have dreamed, and yearned and have desired only to remember you. Even in my darkest moments, when I was lost and in pain, when I hated you and wished I had never met you," and he felt her inhale in his arms at his harsh words, "I loved you. My mind had forgotten, but my body didn't. You saved me, even if you don't realize it. You. . .are my most precious person."

She was silent for a long time, and he knew that she couldn't answer him without him having to pay a price. But he could feel her in that moment. Her emotions were radiating off her, so potent that the air felt thick and it made his heart slam in his chest.

"I told you, feelings are the only thing that can be given without a price," she said tenderly.

"So then why do you always need compensation?" he asked.

"Because. . .my feelings for you cannot be contained to only that."

Her voice has sounded as if she was trying with all of her might to keep it together, and he felt the little shudders of her skin as her body trembled against his.

"I'm happy to pay any price for your feelings," he had sighed into the back of her neck. "I would gladly give you anything you desired."

Since his time had been halted, they had been together for a few decades, and while they were able to execute their feelings for each other, talking about them was still difficult. She had turned in his arms, and while he could not see her expression in the darkness of their room, he felt her breath on his face as she whispered:

"I love you, Kimihiro."

She had never said that to him before. Not in that world, and not in this one. And when he heard those words from her mouth, so foreign and yet so natural, he couldn't contain himself as he kissed her and touched her and made her body sing. His madness was quieted that night, as it usually was when he gave himself to Yuuko. His mind was unusually clear and calm and his anxiety was alleviated, so he had been able to detect that he had changed Yuuko somehow that night. He had given her a part of him that he had never given her before. It had been so profound, so sweet, so beautiful that afterwards, as they gasped and giggled and blushed as they held onto each other, that he had repeated the words that he had spoken just hours before to her over and over and over. Even when she had gently placed a hand over his mouth, even when she had shaken her head as if to ask him to stop, he still murmured it softly, hoping that she would charge him full price.

He had been so hopeful after that night that they had reached a new, deeper phase in her relationship, but instead, that was when everything had gone dreadfully bad.

Looking back, he should have realized that she was with child. Her tiredness seemed to increase, and she became more and more easily irritated. She had quit smoking and drinking, and he had taken that as a sign that she no longer wished to spend time with him as she often pestered him to prepare the liquor.

When he had brought this up, she had waved him off passively, which only made his fear worse. She began to have uncharacteristic mood swings, her moods alternating between sadness and anger. Little things that normally didn't bother suddenly became very important, and her patience threshold for his delirium was shortened.

But he had tried, dammit. If his mind hadn't been so sick, he would have been able to make better decisions. If he hadn't been so tortured, he wouldn't have taken Yuuko's behavior so personally. He perhaps would have stayed in time for her to tell him the truth, that she was carrying his child and he would be a father.

He didn't stay to hear her happy news.

At the time, he had been so convinced that he was making her miserable, that he was driving her away, that he decided that he would leave if it made her not hate him. To have her hate him, to have her bored of him, he couldn't watch the inevitable. He had experienced it once, and it had nearly destroyed him. He just couldn't go through that again.

Six years he spent apart from her then, and while he had been devastated to not have her by his side, it had actually been somewhat of a good thing. He moved to the ocean to a far away land, and he was paid to cook fish for a small restaurant that catered to tourists. In his sorrow for being apart from the woman that he loved and had given so much for, the distance between them made him realize that his reality was, in fact, his own. There was something about being alone by the stunning ocean, doing repetitive low pressure work that cleared his mind and allowed him to focus.

He realized that a life without his love, while it was terribly, terribly difficult, was nothing like that awful dark world. He learned that life did go on, even if he was alone. And he was comforted in the fact that he had done this for her good, and that she would be happier without him and that made him feel joy in an odd, self-sacrificing kind of way. His anxiety for losing her was gone because already he had lost her, and he truly believed she would thank him one day.

Still, she stayed in his thoughts, and most days, as he woke up he was surprised that he had been able to survive the previous day without her. Every day he wrestled with the temptation to run back to her shop and beg her to take him back. But his newly healing mind told him that it was not time, and that perhaps it would never be time, so he stayed. It was here that he began to heal.

And it was here, at this place, at this time, that he realized what it truly meant to love her.

So when she had found him that fateful day, as he stood fishing on the dock with Amir, he thought he was hallucinating. And when she had presented him with their daughter, and he understood, with his now clear perception, why she had behaved so erratically before he left, he had felt such an overwhelming mix of sorrow, loss, and joy that he wanted in that moment was to wrap his arms around them both and never let go.

His little girl, who looked so much like Yuuko, loved him so much even though she never met him. She was the most curious little thing he had ever seen, and her mannerisms reminded him of himself, yet her playfulness reminded him of her mother. He had been so proud, so immensely in love with his little one, that he swore that he would dedicate his entire existence to helping her blossom into the wonderful woman he knew she would be.

Yuuko found his newly healthy awareness refreshing as he had been able to express himself to her without having some kind of breakdown for the first time in decades. She had been even more pleased that she had been able to drive in him insane when they were in bed together. But after six years, it had not been a difficult task to achieve. It was ironic that just a few short years before, it was only in her arms that he felt real. But now when he was with her, he could barely form a coherent thought. He thinks Yuuko was quite pleased to have that kind of effect on him.

He had hurt her, and even though she had forgiven him freely, much as she did a thousand times in the past, he didn't know how he would ever be able to heal the damage that he had inflicted on her. She had changed slightly when he came back to live with him. He was reminded of this when Hisa, who was so innocent and small, mentioned the change in her mother.

"Mommy smiles a lot now," she told him one night as he tucked her in.

"Is that right?" he sat on the edge of her bed and tried not to frown. Hisa nodded.

"She has a pretty smile. Do you love her smile?"

"I do," he said, "and I love your smile, too."

He poked her belly and she sweetly giggled.

"I didn't think Mommy knew how to smile."

She had said it so honestly. Her voice full of wonder and amazement, and it that was perhaps why it felt like someone had punched Watanuki in the gut. It had been true. He had caused Yuuko so much pain, and while he was flattered that she still loved him so much, he felt so guilty that he had made her feel unloved and abandoned.

"I told you, I understand," Yuuko told him when he expressed his feelings to her.

He had finally told her of the trials, and how her image, her memory had been used to torture him. He told her how sick he had been. How his mind had been so clouded and irrational that he had been surprised that he had even been able to get dressed in the morning. Nonetheless, no matter how scattered his perception, no how large the crater in his mind, he told her that it didn't excuse him for leaving her and deserting their child. It was then that she had hushed him, with her finger over his lips.

"It was the price I had to pay," she had confessed. "For that decision that I made long ago, when I asked you to stay. For when I went against hitsuzen."

He had stared at her, astounded and protested. He had made the decision to leave her, it had been all him, and she had nothing to do with it. She gazed him sadly and had shaken her head.

"I knew. . .I knew the price for trying to prevent fate would hurt me. Hurt me more deeply than anything had before. But what it was my heart that suffered that hurt. I didn't know when that time would come or how it would happen, but when it did, I knew I would feel it. I tried to help you, to make you whole again without costing you so much, hoping it would counter balance what I had done that night before you left. But it was not so. I had thought that you had severed our connection, but you can imagine how devastated I became when I learned that the one who cut that connection was me. The moment I asked you to stay, I triggered the events that would cause you to leave. Now the price has finally been paid, and I'm glad that I was able to meet you again."

She had shuddered hard as he held her lovingly in his arms.

"Please, don't ever make me feel that hurt again, Kimihiro. Don't ever leave me."

And as the years turned into decades, and decades into centuries, and centuries into. . .His love for her, and hers for him, did not lessen. In fact, it only grew. It grew to heights and depths that he did not know existed in this dimension of space and time. It had not always been easy, there had been many troubles and heartbreaks, but it had been rewarding and worth every tear shed.

And his little ones. All his children who were all made by Yuuko and himself, who had all began their rich, hopeful lives as a little sphere of energy in his hands, every possible future available to them and their choosing.

Watanuki feels himself drifting up, like he's floating to the top of a deep sea. The darkness fades, and he inhales deeply when he breaks the surface. His eyes hurt when the bright light of the room hit them, and he feels slightly dizzy as he remembers where he is and who he's holding. His hand still feel warm, and he can see in the reflection of the mirror that Yuuko is smoothing her fingers over his hands.

He pulls his face away from Yuuko's shoulder as he moves his eyes around their hot, muggy bedroom. His skin now flushed as little droplets of sweat pour down his face, he looks back at Yuuko's reflection in the mirror. He smiles at her.

"How much time as passed?" he asks.

"Just a few minutes," she responds, and yet she sees an eternity reflected in his eyes. "So?" she sounds apprehensive.

"It's healthy," he confirms, and he feels her stomach deflate as she sighs in relief.

"Boy or girl?"

He smiles.

"It's far too early to tell. But it loves you, and it is excited to come into this world."

She reaches back and strokes his cheek, and he rests his chin on her shoulder. Checking the health of their baby always tires him out and makes him relive his past. But it's always worth the while to see the respite in her face. Sometimes he does find something wrong, and she can see it in his expression right away when that happens, but they still always try to find hope so that they may brave the future.

"You always make me feel better," she smiles, "about getting really fat," she finishes.

He can't help but laugh as he knows her so well, yet she is always full of surprises. They grin at each other and he wraps her completely in his arms as she leans back into him. They stand comfortably in their bedroom in front of that antique mirror. He is about to bury his face her in neck when they hear their five-year-old.

"Risa's here!" Shota bellows obnoxiously in the hallway outside of their door.

Yuuko's eyes light up in her reflection and then she's turning around in his arms. Placing her hands on his chest, she bobs up and down in excitement. Grinning, she bites her bottom lip and she looks like a five-year-old herself waiting for a present.

"Oh! Risa's here!" she exclaims as she claps her hands and she moves out of Watanuki's embrace.

"You can't drink with her this time," he points out, and at this her face falls.

"But you can make us a delicious breakfast?" she bites her lip slyly this time and he knows he is a gonner.

"Of course," he smiles.

Risa has become of one Yuuko's favorite drinking buddies, and he sometimes wonders if his DNA is in Risa at all with how like her mother she is. Even now in her thirties, Risa still looks fresh and young and is almost a carbon copy of Yuuko in looks, personality, and addictions. She even has the same alcohol tolerance as Yuuko, much to his annoyance.

"Dad!" he hears Risa holler from the foyer, "Where's Mom? I brought the champagne!"

Yuuko is hurriedly getting dressed, so he throws on a robe and meets his daughter downstairs. He kisses her on the cheek when he greets her and takes the alcohol from her hands. It looks expensive, and he notices that it's from France.

"Your mother will not be drinking with you today," he tells her as he walks back to the kitchen.

"Don't tell me she's pregnant again!?" Risa laughs.

When Watanuki nods as he beings to pull out the cookware for breakfast, Risa pats him firmly on the back.

"That's great! But I'm still drinking the champagne."

And she emphasizes this by prying the bottle out of his hand.

"It's ten in the morning!" he protests.

"I'm celebrating your new baby!" she chirps loudly as Shota barges into the room.

Shota looks confused and opens his mouth as if to ask what they are talking about when he hears Yuuko's laugh as she meets Risa in the kitchen.

"Welcome, my dear!" Yuuko's tone is warm and she hugs her daughter. When she sees the bottle of champagne, she sighs. "I'm afraid I won't be able to drink with you today."

"Yes," says Risa, "I'm aware. But don't worry, I won't let it go to waste."

"I wouldn't expect any less from any daughter of mine," Yuuko chuckles.

"Don't drink the whole bottle," and the chastisement in Watanuki's voice is much more evident than he wishes.

"I have to, Dad, I'm drinking for two," Risa replies nonchalantly.

"Two?"

"For me and Mom," she says it as if it were obvious.

He shoots her a dangerous glair and Risa rolls her eyes. "Fine, I'll add orange juice to it since it's breakfast. Mimosa's sound good, anyway."

"Darling, be sure to cook twice as much as you usually do today," Yuuko adds hastily to Watanuki as she wraps one arm around Risa.

"Weren't you just fretting about your weight?" Watanuki can't control the heat in his voice.

"That doesn't change the fact that I'm eating for two," and when she smiles, he feels himself blush.

"Since that's true, I don't mind."

The two women are almost already out the door when Yuuko calls over shoulder: "Shota, help your father in the kitchen."

The boy seems to teleport onto the stool next to Watanuki. When he looks up, his son is already standing on the stool next to him, his sleeves rolled up, an excited grin on his small face. He looks so adorable that Watanuki can't help but smooth his fingers over his young son's hair. He begins to prepare the ingredients, instructing Shota about measurements, and he notices how the boy listens intently to his every word.

His son has his love and talent for cooking Watanuki thinks proudly, and when they're finished, they walk out onto the veranda with their breakfast. As Yuuko and Risa both dig in, they smack their lips and make humming sounds with each bite.

"Oh Daddy, your food never fails to amaze me," Risa tells him in admiration.

"I taught you everything I know, you don't need me to cook for you," Watanuki reminds her as he finishes his breakfast.

"I know, but why do it myself when I know you'll do it for me?" Risa laughs, and he swears she's already drunk half of that bottle of champagne.

"I'm sure our son-in-law appreciates it when you cook for him," Yuuko says and Risa shrugs.

"He called me a lush, so he'll be lucky if I ever cook for him again."

Risa sips at her frosty glass and doesn't look the least bit worried over what happens to her husband nor realizes how she has just proved her husband's point right. Or perhaps she just doesn't care.

"The trick is finding a man who can keep up with your lavish taste," and Yuuko deviously peeks at Watanuki as she says this, and he can feel heat in his cheeks again.

Risa throws her head back as she takes a large gulp of the now orange-champagne hybrid and when she's finished, she gives a satisfied exhale.

"It's such a shame you can't drink this, Mom. It's truly delicious," she grins, loving to tease her mother.

Yuuko laughs again, and Watanuki begins clearly away the dishes. Afterwards, he and Shota walk around the yard on this beautiful summer morning. Shota is still at that age where he is excited about everything, and Watanuki thinks it's sweet that his son finds such wonder in this world. He hopes that Shota never loses that wonder, it is something that he has always hoped for all of his children.

He looks back at his two lovely ladies, laughing and gabbing on the veranda. They look more like sisters rather than mother and daughter. Risa is asking Yuuko questions about the little surprise that they discovered this morning, and he notices how Yuuko repeatedly rubs her hand over her stomach. He positive that she is completely unaware that she is doing this, and that thought makes him smile that her motherly instinct is so refined.

They look truly happy, and these are the moments that he hangs onto when he eventually loses his children. Even though times always become hard again, all that means is that he knew real love. That they made him so. . .so happy.

His son giggles in his arms, and he can feel it ripple through Shota's body, and when he looks down, he notices that Shota is staring at his mother and sister. That happiness is so contagious that even his little boy can't ignore it. Watanuki notices how Yuuko sneaks slight glances at him, and the smile on her face as she talks with her daughter makes him excited to experience being brand new parents with her again. She has become so good at it that it is always inspiring to watch her raise their children.

Even though it had been hard, even though the trials had almost destroyed him, in the end, it had been a good thing. It had given him experience that had made him stronger, and it had allowed for him to prepare for the inevitable pain that would come from simply living a long life. He found that when he felt he couldn't go on any longer, he thought of the trials, and felt that if he could get through that, he could get through anything. And one day, when he and Yuuko do leave this world, he will have an enormous family waiting for him on the other side, and more in other lifetimes just waiting to meet him again. And he knows Yuuko will be with him through it all.

This morning, he thought about all that they have been through, and he wonders what they will experience next. As long as he has Yuuko by his side, he's sure that he can manage it. He thinks about how his choice, the price that he and Yuuko have to keep paying in order to remain together. The pain and the anguish, the tears and broken hearts. The payment of their love and as he looks at his daughter and son and the love of his life, he is more than positive that his family was worth the price.

One could even say he received quite the bargain.

The End.