Request up!

[ciircee]

So another request is up. This is for lineartone who wanted more of Watanuki and Baby Shizuka. Check the icon, people!



"Here."

Doumeki automatically accepted the box that Watanuki thrust at him. "What's this?" he asked, peering into box.

"Your things." Watanuki shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "From my apartment," he added.

"I've never been in your apartment," Doumeki reminded him, frowning slightly.

Outside, on the stairs, Watanuki folded his arms. "Shizuka's things?" he responded tightly. "They're yours."

Doumeki looked up from the contents of the box in time to see Watanuki vanish around the corner of the front gate. Frowning more heavily he shut the door, waved off his mother's look, and went to his room.

Upon closer inspection the box held a small, and rather odd, assortment of things that young Doumeki Shizuka must have collected in the scant month he'd lived with Watanuki.

There was a red rubber ball. One of those super-high bouncy balls that came from the turn-key machine at the super market.

"Nuki? I ball?" A chubby finger, attached to a tiny hand and a short arm, pointed at a gleaming machine.

Watanuki, loaded down with several bags, blanched and looked frantically around. "Eyeball? Where?"

The finger pointed insistently. "There. I have?"

"Oh, a ball!" Watanuki relaxed visibly. "Sure, I guess so. You were a good helper in the store today." From his pocked Watanuki produced a handful of change. "Okay, just like I showed you, okay? The biggest one for the machine, all right?"

Baby fingers sorted through the coins. "This?" The coin filled the chubby hand to the point where the fingers barely curved around it.

"Good job!"

There was a tiny set of clothes; red t-shirt, blue jeans, socks, and red shoes with white laces.

"Nuki, we wash?" A flash of red obscured everything for a moment.

"Yup, Shizuka, we wash," Watanuki agreed as the world went momentarily white. "Jeans off?"

Two small feet lifted and Watanuki, crouched before those feet, tugged until he held the jeans, which he tossed into a basket with the red shirt and some other, much bigger, clothes. He stood up, taking the basket with him.

"Me too?" Two arms framed the view of Watanuki. "Me?"

Watanuki crouched again. "No, you get to stay here. I need you to hold on to Pipe Fox for me until I get back up from the laundry room, remember?" The pipe fox spirit squirmed and twisted as plump fingers closed tight around it. "It's very important to hold on to him and that's Shizuka's job, right?"

"Right!"

There was a large, white t-shirt, worn soft and thin with age, which sported some very obvious alterations.

Watanuki's face was pale in the moonlight, oddly bare without the glasses defining his features. Little hands explored the dark blue circles under his eyes.

"Nuki?"

"Please go to sleep, Shizuka. I have school tomorrow and Doumeki wants lunch."

"Nuki nigh-nigh?"

"Yes, Watanuki is sleeping now."

"Same? Nuki, same?" Baby fingers plucked at the hems of the sleeves that threatened to engulf them and then patted at the broad expanse of white covering Watanuki's chest. "Shizuka, Nuki, same?"

Watanuki's arm lifted. "That's right. Watanuki and Shizuka have the same shirts for sleeping in. Shhh."

"Okay, Nuki. Okay."

There were two toy cars, grubby from use but obviously fairly new.

"Don't pick up any strange rocks, okay, Shizuka?"

The park was huge; huge expanses of green grass, towering trees, an endless blue sky, a gigantic emperor penguin slide. The hand wrapped around Watanuki's first two fingers was white knuckled. "Go home?"

Watanuki's hand shifted, his fingers sliding out of the grasp on them and wrapping around the hand that had held his. "No. Auntie Yuuko wants us to be here. It's our job for this week." He held up something that looked like a little gong. "We have to ring this, remember?"

"Auntie's job?" The world suddenly was blurry, watery.

"Thought that might happen," Watanuki muttered under his breath, rummaging in his school bag. "Hey! Look what I brought to play with!"

"Truck!"

"That's right…a special kind that only drives in sandboxes! Now, where are those sandboxes?"

"Here is! Here!"

There was a set of handmade paper dolls folded from colorful, sturdy rice paper.

"You have to eat, Shizuka!"

"NO! No, no, no! No eat!"

"You like oyako domburi. You make me make it all the time!"

"No! No, no! Don't! Dooooooooooooooon't!"

"Well…" Watanuki's hands disappeared under the table and popped back up a moment later with a poorly folded napkin. "THIS Shizuka likes it."

"Likes?"

Watanuki's hands disappeared again. "Yes, he likes it. And when he eats it all up his mommy and—"

"Nuki! Nuki!"

"Okay, so his Watanuki and his…um, other Watanuki—"

"Doumeki!"

"Why does he always get to be the tall one?"

The last thing in the box was a child sized apron, dark blue with a bear on each pocket and in one of those pockets, a small blue kerchief that had clearly been folded and tied numerous times.

"I help, Nuki! See! See!"

"I do see!" Watanuki said. "You were very busy while I was at school. It's much, much cleaner than your AUNTIE YUUKO EVER GETS IT," he said.

Everything in the room was filthy, with the exception of the things at or below knee-level. Those things were marginally less dirty.

"I help 'acause I love Nuki!"

Doumeki set the box aside, staring at it for a long moment. Then he picked up the phone. "Hey," he said when Watanuki answered.

"…" Watanuki's silence sounded suspicious.

"I thought I'd bring lunch tomorrow. Since you took such good care of Shizuka."

"It's not like I wanted to," Watanuki said stiffly. "I had to. And YOU were no help at all and Yuuko…ha. 'Ha!' I say."

"You must miss him. I'm sorry."

"Miss you?" Watanuki raged. "You intruded on my every waking moment for almost a month!"

"I figured you did, since you couldn't stand to keep his stuff," he spoke over him, tucking the phone under his ear so that Watanuki couldn't deafen him. "It hurts to lose somebody you love."

There was a beat of silence. ''I don't love you!"

"Well, Shizuka loved you." He held his breath, waiting.

For a long time, Watanuki didn't say anything, then he said, "Well, if you want to bring lunch, then bring lunch."

"Okay." He clutched the phone a little tighter and listened to the silence. Then, "We could get dinner, if you want."

"Tomorrow?"

"Tonight."

"I'm already making oyako domburi."

"Oh." He stared at the paper dolls in their box.

Watanuki sighed on the other end of the line. "You could…you could come over and eat if you want."

"I'll be right there."

Comments

[kaustic-kiwi.livejournal.com]

Ohh... why is this so ridiculously sad to me? It's so cute, but so sad. I wonder what kinds of loops Watanuki's mind is doing, knowing that the kid he was taking care of was really Doumeki... it's so adorable but that line Doumeki had makes me so sad too. Wow, this is so good.