#i am a sucker for watanuki grieving over his lost lovers

[goldfinwrites]

The smoke curled around Watanuki’s face as he hung up the phone. Doumeki and Himawari had made their happiness and it was enough. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly from the- his cigarette holder. It had to be enough. He tipped his head back, blowing the new cloud of smoke towards the ceiling.

His heart still felt leaden sometimes from hearing their voices. He walked back towards the main room, tossing his body onto the couch and pillows. He knew they pictured him from high school, but his face hadn’t changed. He looked nearly identical to the photo from his yearbook. His yearbook had a photo of the three eating lunch, and he felt his chest closing in on itself thinking about the image of them sitting on a blanket, Doumeki stealing one of Watanuki’s carefully-made spring rolls while Himawari smiled at them.

Himawari had gotten his interest with her gentle personality, a difference from his awkward and dramatic nature. Watanuki could play her voice in his head on command, mediating patiently as he bickered with or whined about Doumeki. He loved Himawari. He remembered how she wept when he confessed, overjoyed at being able to be loved. However, life moves on, and he had received pictures of her wedding, unable to attend in person, and kept them framed near his telephone. He had cried for the first time in years, both from joy and grief, eventually calling Doumeki when his tears ran dry.

Even when he had straddled the boundary between the supernatural and normal worlds, Doumeki had followed him, hand holding hand, keeping him steady. He was always reliable and firm, but Watanuki had learned to read the subtleties of his stoic expression. He loved Doumeki. He remembered when Doumeki had confessed, his flat voice hiding a slight wobble, and Watanuki had thought his heart would stop. Unfortunately, the wheel of fortune turned, and Doumeki’s wife became a familiar face. He still saw Doumeki, needing a liaison to the rest of the world, but there was always a bubble in the back of his throat, full of words he couldn’t let out.

Watanuki ignored the familiar dull ache of his heart as he dwelled on them. He remembered Himawari in sound, in the way she answered the phone, and in the way she eventually said goodbye. He remembered Doumeki in touch, in the way he ran his thumb across Watanuki’s cheek, and in the way he hugged for the last time before taking a step back. He wondered how they remembered him, ageless and strange.

He poured a serving of sake, then set it across from him on the table before preparing his own. Leaving one out for Yuuko had become habitual, but he didn’t know when it started. He drank, mourning before the guilt set in. He had known when he took the shop that Himawari and Doumeki would be unable to stay with him, and in his selfishness had still wanted them. And they had stuck with him for as long as they could, even now staying as solid fixtures for his vague existence. He poured another serving. He loved them, and they had loved him back once, and that had to be enough.