So I scribbled down a few lines about Doumeki a while back, and somewhere in the process they grew into a fic. Set between chapter 106 and 108 (the girl in the kimono in the sakura tree and the majong game, for reference). Contains spoilers and pretty heavy references, probably won't make a lot of sense if you haven't read those chapters.
It starts when Doumeki blinks, then finds himself seeing a tree out the front of the shrine through half his vision. There's a girl perched on a branch in an old-fashioned kimono; she's certainly no longer among the living. It's raining hard outside and he hadn't seen Watanuki come in, but he must be out there now.
The image turns up something else, beyond the sight of either eye - it turns up a memory of another rainy morning long ago, when a much younger Doumeki found his grandfather in the garden in front of that same tree. It's startling (and Doumeki is not easily startled), because even though it isn't something he'd ever entirely forgotten, it's still a memory unused in so long that it's a surprise to find himself only making sense of it now, so much later. It isn't like him to forget something his grandfather told him. No matter how long ago.
But right now, not nearly as important as it's going to be to find an umbrella before that idiot gives himself pneumonia out there.
Watanuki shows up at his gateway a couple of mornings later before he leaves for school, which is unusual and almost definitely not voluntary.
"Yuuko wants us both to meet her at the park right after school." He fumes, while Doumeki lounges in the against a gatepost. "She says bring your bow." Ah. That's why he's here. There's no club practice today, otherwise that item would have stayed at home. That, or Watanuki has such a giant bone to pick about this one that he's getting started early.
"Okay."
"Okay? That's all you have to say, 'okay'?"
Doumeki considers. "I'll let my parents know I'll be late." He leaves Watanuki to simmer on the footpath while he makes the necessary trip back to the house. The path takes him past that tree again, both ways.
It was raining that day too, and his grandfather had been watching two half-transparent children playing in the puddles forming at the tree's roots. He pointed them out to his grandson. Doumeki could
(feel them, maybe, like a pleasant hum in the light, or is he only imagining that because he already knows they're there?)
Doumeki couldn't see them.
Maybe the girl in the kimono is still there now, but he can't see her either unassisted, and Watanuki's not looking in the right direction.
His mother doesn't ask for any details regarding where he's going to be that afternoon, which is convenient because Doumeki didn't ask Watanuki, and Watanuki probably hasn't gotten a straight answer out of Yuuko yet anyway, if he's asked her at all. His mother kisses him goodbye and reminds him that dinner will be in the fridge if he's late. Outside, Watanuki has remembered to check on Doumeki's ethereal guest, and the image of the girl in the tree flickers through his vision. The sutra mustn't have been enough after all.
He rejoins Watanuki at the gate, bow slung over his shoulder. "Anything else I need?" He checks. Watanuki must be one of few people on the planet who could take offence at such a simple question, and the answer he gives Doumeki has far more words in it than it needs, but the gist is 'no', so the two of them set off. It's way too early in the morning to argue, but Watanuki continues to rant and grumble the rest of the way to school, and this is nothing really new. From the start Watanuki has been difficult to talk to, but with events of late he's become impossible to ignore. Doumeki doesn't have it too bad really - Watanuki is capable of carrying on an extended argument with him with practically no input from Doumeki at all.
Doumeki can at least sympathise a little today. Yuuko may not be actively trying to get him killed (and she doesn't really have to – it's a wonder he's survived to this age at all), but her way of doing that is to send along backup, not keep him away from danger. It's never fun to owe your life to someone else. Spending the day knowing you'll probably owe them your life again by tomorrow morning, that has to be even worse.
School is… school. There's nothing particularly important about it. He's not in any classes with Watanuki that morning so he doesn't see him much during the day, nor get the chance to check on the status of his temper. They meet at lunch, but by then he's calmed down to not much worse than the sort of base level that is either his natural state or just whatever level of frustration Doumeki's existence inspires. From his angle it would be hard to know the difference. Himawari joins them as usual, and there's a point somewhere in the proceedings when he looks at her a little more directly than usual, and maybe she hums like the spirit-children - but discordant; the light which reaches her shimmers and dissipates, some of it takes the long way around. Watanuki's the one who's supposed to notice this stuff, but he never seems to notice anything. Maybe he's just too distracted noticing other things when Himawari's around.
Doumeki frowns down at his chopsticks, but mentally drops the subject a moment later. He isn't the sort of over-think things. Left alone they usually manage to figure themselves out.
Afternoon classes are much the same. The park is in a different direction to Himawari's house, so they don't see her again after school. With her gone and the evening's errand looming closer, Watanuki's temper is rising back up again. He says things like "Why do I have to do this anyway?" (Entirely hypothetical, no answer required), but eventually Doumeki joins in.
"Where are we going this time?" Doumeki asks.
"The park, I told you this morning. I don't know where after that, because Yuuko hasn't told me yet." Watanuki replies. He seems to be gearing up to say something else, so Doumeki stays silent. Sure enough, Watanuki starts again.
"Why do you let her make you come on these things? She doesn't pay you." Doumeki gets just as far as opening his mouth during this pause. "And don't you even think about making another impossible lunch request, because I'll be very lucky if it isn't very late before Yuuko lets me go home tonight and I'm not going to have much time and I've got just enough ingredients to make for onigiri for tomorrow and you're going to eat them and like them, understand?"
"Rather I didn't?" Says Doumeki, once he can finally get a word in.
Watanuki has gotten so sidetracked trying to get ahead of the argument he's forgotten the original question. "Didn't what?"
"Come on these errands."
Watanuki looks embarrassed. "Well, maybe if you didn't she'd admit they were too dangerous and wouldn't make me go."
"Wouldn't that mean a few years more housework for you?"
"How did you even know about that, you…you…!"
"Onigiri can be made with roast beef, can't they?"
"Don't you even think about it!"
Doumeki tunes him out. Yuuko's errands might get dangerous sometimes, but it's never occurred to him to complain. He watches out for Watanuki for the simple reason that no-one else is going to do it. There aren't even that many other candidates out there who are even properly qualified, and none Doumeki knows and could trust with it, let alone could expect such a favour from.
The young Doumeki in his memory stares forlornly down at the deserted roots of the tree. The spirit-children are no more to him than the ripple of the puddles as the rain continues to fall. His grandfather pets him on the head. "It's alright Shizuka. You won't need to see them – you'll have someone else to be your eyes."
He pushes the stray memory back to the back of his mind. It's surprising to discover that his grandfather had that kind of foresight, but it doesn't really change anything. If this is all fate, it will take care of itself. If it's not, it'll take care of itself. If it's Watanuki about to get himself killed again, that he can take care of. The rest is just detail.
To someone like him, it's enough.