Doumeki hit the ground hard, expecting to feel the smaller boy hit him just as hard, but it never happen. His eyes widened in horror as Watanuki was lifted into the air, dangling like a fish on a hook by his arm and supported by something the archer could not see.
Watanuki clawed at whatever held him, crying out in a mixture of fear and pain. His feet kicked and hit something, but since his actions only increased in frantic pace, it did little to help.
Doumeki kept his eyes pinned firmly on the other boy as he picked himself up off the ground, bringing his bow up as he did so. His stomach lurched ever so slightly as, with another violent jerk from the spirit, Watanuki's shoulder gave an audible pop as it was removed from its socket. The sound was almost comical at that point. With a final scream of pain, the bespectacled boy lost consciousness.
Doumeki aimed his invisible arrow at where he hoped the body of the invisible spirit was and loosed it. For a second, that felt like an eternity, he held his breath, and then Watanuki began falling towards the ground.
The archer tossed his bow aside, long legs carrying him to the falling boy as fast as they could. He slipped on the wet grass, sliding the last few feet before his outstretched arms caught Watanuki. The force and awkwardness of the whole thing brought them both to the ground, knocking the wind out of his lungs.
Watanuki remained unconscious, which was a blessing considering what he was about to do. He had to push the shoulder back into place and he knew the smaller boy would only throw up a fuss and wiggle until doomsday if he was awake during the procedure, though the pain would no doubt be enough to knock him out anyway.
Carefully, Doumeki braced one hand on Watanuki's arm and the other grasping just beside the dislocated joint to hold the boy's torso in place. Left with little choice, since there was no resistance in the bespectacled boy's body, he had to straddle his chest. He took a deep breath and put all his strength behind him as he pressed down on Watanuki's dislocated arm. There was another popping sound and even in his passed out state, a look of pain came across those icy but pretty features.
The archer blinked and shook his head. Where on earth did that thought come from? Pretty? Well…possibly. Whether Watanuki realized it or not, he did have a fair amount of girls glancing at him. Yet only an idiot like him could be oblivious to it all, he thought, rather fondly.
"Oi, what an idiot," he muttered and stood up, dragging the boy over his shoulder as he headed to Yuuko's shop. He couldn't see it or enter it, but what with how strange that woman was, he had no doubt she was waiting for him.
Just as expected, when Doumeki arrived, Yuuko was waiting for him.
"Doumeki kun, I assume it went well?" A broad grin graced the witch's lips as if she couldn't see the unconscious Watanuki thrown over the archer's shoulder.
He nodded shifting the dead weight a little higher on his shoulder, while he dug in his pocket. Pulling out a small, nondescript necklace, he handed it to Yuuko.
With a squeal of utter joy the necklace was snatched from Doumeki's hands. "Wonderful! I knew I could count on you." Her attention seemed entirely focused on the necklace, turning it over in her hands an examining every last millimeter of it. "Could you take Watanuki home for me; the key to his apartment is in his right pant pocket." She said offhandedly, it wasn't a request or a question so much as a dismissal. "Oh, and tell him he has tomorrow off, I'm sure his shoulder will be killing him."
The stoic boy nodded, watching as the witch disappeared between the rotting fence posts.
Watanuki rolled over, but when lancing pain went through his arm and chest, he let out a cry and woke up. He was on his bed in his own apartment, alone as usual. What had happened? Everything was a faint fuzzy blur of action and then complete blackness. The last thing he could remember was dangling in the air, staring into the red, blood lust covered eyes of the spirit that had held him. And why was his shoulder aching so badly?
He was tempted to just stay home that day, as the pain when he moved sometimes made his stomach roil and he wanted to vomit, but if he did, he'd never see Himawari. Her face floated in his mental vision, and with a sigh of how adorable she was, he got up.
Getting dressed almost knocked him out again, and every action took twice as long. His reflection in the mirror was pale as he brushed his hair, and pulling on, at last, his uniform jacket nearly was the end of him. Things were going to be difficult today; the arm that hurt was the same arm he used to write with.
Everything was so awkward when you were trying to do things with the hand you weren't used to using. Every step, that even caused his arm to shift, sent small jolts through his torso and he wracked his brain for what could have happened. There was no visible injury to it; no cuts or abrasions. Just a huge amount of pain, like the muscles and joint had been pulled apart and put back together.
It was as he saw Doumeki waiting for him, not a few paces away from his apartment block, that he realized he hadn't made lunch for either of them. He couldn't care less whether Doumeki starved or not, but he had nothing to eat. Perhaps Himawari would share with him. Had he not been concentrating near all of his attention on his shoulder, he would have been spastic at the thought of sharing his crush's lunch.
"Oi. You look like the dead."
"Shut up, Doumeki! This is all your fault!" He wasn't sure how just yet, but he was absolutely positive the archer had something to do with it.
Doumeki dropped his school bag on the ground and pulled out a cloth from his pocket. It was too large to be a handkerchief and while he struggled to figure out what it was, Doumeki had already approached him and was grabbing his injured arm, albeit gently.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" he screeched as pain lanced through him when Doumeki lifted his arms slightly and bent it at the elbow.
"This should help it at least somewhat." As if he was used to doing this sort of thing, the archer deftly had Watanuki's arm in a temporary sling in moments. Once the initial pain had subsided, though he'd be damned if he'd say it, it did begin to feel a little bit better.
"What happened?" he growled as they continued on toward the school.
"Your shoulder was dislocated and you passed out. I relocated it for you."
He was tempted to find something to yell at Doumeki, but the bell interrupted them and they parted for their classes.
Watanuki could not take notes during class, every time he tried to move his injured arm he had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. His consolation being that with his arm fairly stationary and supported by the sling, it didn't hurt near as much as it had before.
The only option left to him, was to find someone who was willing to lend him their notes to photocopy. If he was lucky, Himawari would lend him hers. He had no doubt that her had writing was just as beautiful as she, and her notes just a flawless.
He made his way out to the grassy area where they always ate lunch together, sitting down to wait. It was after a few minutes that he remembered that the girl of his dreams had lunch duty today and wouldn't be joining them.
Hanging his head, Watanuki felt crushed over the triple injury; he wouldn't be able to see Himawari until after school, he wouldn't even have the chance to share lunch with her, and he was going to be stuck alone with Doumeki… again. And to add to all of this, his stomach chose that moment to growl loudly at him.
"Oi." The annoyingly familiar greeting, brought Watanuki's head back up to glare at the cause of all this; some how, if not directly it was Doumeki's fault.
"I told you, my name's not 'Oi'! What do you want anyway?" In response to his question, a small bento was shoved in his face. He cautiously took it, looking it over as if it would bite him at any moment. "What's this? You can't cook."
"I didn't, it's store bought sushi. I figured lunch would have been the farthest thing from your mind this morning. Plus your fridge was empty last night." Doumeki sat down in the grass opposite him, opening his own bento and beginning to eat.
"WHAT? What were you doing in my fridge? More importantly; what were you doing in my HOUSE? How did you even get in?" He waved his free arm around, bento still in hand, realizing a little too late that he had probably destroyed the contents.
"I had to carry you home and got hungry," was all Doumeki offered in the way of explanation, adding a shrug, as he ate another piece of sushi.
"You got hungry." Watanuki repeated calmly, before exploding. "SO YOU JUST GO THROUGH MY REFRIGERATOR LIKE YOU OWN THE PLACE, AND DON'T EVEN HAVE THE DECENCY TO APOLOGIZE?"
Doumeki offered another shrug. "I had to carry you home, and I brought you lunch today."
"IT'S NOT THE SAME THING!"
Watanuki's stomach growled again and he awkwardly pulled off the top of the bento. He grimaced at the store bought smell and picked up the chopsticks. It was awkward to say the least and more often than not, he had to pick up a bit of sushi three times before he could successfully get it to his mouth. He was nowhere near done by the time Doumeki put his empty bento box aside.
"Need help?"
"NO, I DON'T NEED HELP!"
He fumbled to get a smaller piece of the lunch to his mouth. The smaller sizes were the hardest ones because there was more room for error. He almost had it when suddenly his chopsticks jerked out of alignment and it landed back in the box. Frustration was a mild word to use when applied to his current mood.
"Here, you're going to drive me insane doing that."
Before Watanuki could react, the chopsticks were snatched from his hand and expertly grabbing what he had tried to eat. When it appeared in front his mouth, he was torn between keeping it resolutely closed and yelling. Since yelling alleviated some of his stress, he worked out exactly what he was going to say and took a deep breath.
"I TOL-mmphpmmf"
Unless he wanted to choke on the food that Doumeki had shoved straight into mouth, he had to chew and swallow. He coughed a little in shock, but it only gave the stupid archer time to grab another piece and shove it, a little more gently this time, into his mouth. Watanuki's dark blue eyes frantically glanced around as he ate, fervently hoping no one saw Doumeki feeding him as if they were some kind of damn couple. He would completely die of mortification if Himawari found out.
By the time the last of the bento had been, literally, shoved down his throat, lunch was over. Doumeki just calmly put everything away like nothing out of the ordinary took place while he tried to yell some sense into the jerk. It seemed a losing battle.
"ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME? You stupid JERK! What is someone had seen us? Then what? Can you even imagine what people would say?" He waved his uninjured arm around trying desperately to make Doumeki pay attention to what he was saying.
The taller boy finished packing things away, then, without warning, grabbed Watanuki by his still moving arm and hauled him to his feet. "You better hurry and get to class or you'll be late." Doumeki seemed oblivious to the fact that there were only inches between them as they stood like that.
Watanuki yanked his arm away, pushing his glasses further up on the bridge of his nose to cover a blush, and took a quick step back. "I know that, and I don't need your help! I can, at least, stand up on my own."
Unfazed as ever Doumeki turned to follow his own advice of getting to class, pausing briefly to look over his shoulder. "Your shoulder should be well enough by tomorrow to use it some. I want tamago in my lunch tomorrow."
"I DON'T TAKE ORDERS!" Watanuki yelled, preparing for another long speech directed at the source of all his life's frustration, then the bell rang.
Doumeki heard the slamming of something on the table behind him and he could just tell by the feeling of a glare on his back who it was. He didn't dare twitch now that he had his eyes on the target and the arrow was ready. The rest of his club had gone home, but maybe the fact that he stayed after so much longer was what made him the best member of the group.
He let it go, and there was a satisfying clunk, across the field, in the center of the target. Slowly his arms fell back to his sides and he glanced over his shoulder, hair falling over his brow so rakishly handsome that had any girls been around, they would have swooned. It appeared to have little effect on Watanuki, however.
"Here! Himawari asked me to bring this."
His eyes moved to the stack of papers on the table and he nodded, moving to put his bow away. "Oi." Watanuki stopped and Doumeki's golden eyes caught the sapphire boy's gaze. "Thanks for last night, by the way."
"Thanks for what?"
He registered the suspicion and total surprise in the bespectacled boy's tone, but paid it no heed. "For saving me."
"I DIDN'T SAVE YOU! I tripped!"
Doumeki didn't, for one moment, believe that he'd tripped. Not with how purposefully he had hit the ground and the fact that he could remember clearly those hands pushing at his shoulders to throw him off balance. For such a skinny, lithe boy, Watanuki definitely had some strength hidden in him. "What's this?" He asked, picking up the papers.
"I don't know. It's something for the student council, she didn't say what." Watanuki huffed, readjusting his glasses. The truth probably was that he had been too busy fawning over the girl to remember.
"I see." He picked up the papers, but didn't look at them, his eyes remained locked on the boy on the other side of the table from him. "Are you busy tonight?"
There was a moment of shock, and then, "WHAT? What kind of stupid question is that, you now I have to work!"
"Yuuko gave you the day off."
Watanuki blinked dumbly at him, then comprehension filled his eyes. "THANKS FOR TELLING ME NOW! I've been worrying all day about how I was going to get any work done, and for nothing! You are the most annoying, stupid, jerk I have ever met in my life!"
"So you aren't busy?" Doumeki asked, taking his fingers out of his ears.
"What? NO! You are so dense!" Watanuki threw up his arm in exasperation. "What does it matter to you anyway?"
Doumeki shifted the papers to his other hand, regarding the screaming boy calmly. "Good, I'll be by around eight to take you to dinner."
Watanuki stood there sputtering, trying to find something, anything, to say as his face grew slowly redder. "No, no, NO! I am not going to dinner with you… you… GAH!" He threw up his arm again and turned to leave.
"It's not like you can cook for yourself." Watanuki tuned his head to glare at Doumeki over his shoulder, but Doumeki could see the fight leaving him as he realized the truth in the statement.
"Fine, eight, I got it. You better not be late."
"Wear something nice, but not too formal." Doumeki could see Watanuki stiffen momentarily but he didn't stop again as he stomped off. A faint smile touched his lips in amusement. Watanuki could be so funny sometimes.
Watanuki fidgeted nervously, despite every action sometimes sent pain through him again. He glanced in the mirror and straightened the nice, white turtleneck sweater he wore and black slacks. He thought he looked rather nice. Nice for basically any occasion. And damn, why was he so nervous?! It was just Doumeki.
Yes, it's just Doumeki.
The bespectacled boy ignored his inner, annoying voice that snickered at him. He jumped a little like a startled rabbit when the doorbell rang and with one last pat on his hair, he glanced at the clock. Eight on the dot.
He pulled open the door and leveled Doumeki with a jaundiced eye, before the stiffness in his face relaxed and shock fell over his shoulders like a cloak. He'd never seen Doumeki in anything other than his school uniform, shrine clothes, or his haori and hakama. He hadn't realized, he thought as he swallowed, just how well Doumeki could clean up.
"What is it?"
Watanuki blinked and jerkily grabbed his coat. "Nothing!" He glared and locked his door, suffering in silence as Doumeki helped him put on his jacket, draping the right side over his arm with the sling instead of trying to wrestle with it and causing it to hurt more than it already did.
"So where the hell are we going?"
"Taohua Quan. It's a Chinese restaurant."
The shorter boy gave the archer a piercing stare. "What's so special about it?"
"What do you mean?"
"You sounded…almost happy about it."
Doumeki shrugged and wouldn't meet his eyes. "It's the restaurant my grandfather proposed to my grandmother in."
"WHAT?! AND YOU'RE TAKING ME THERE?! WHAT'S GOING ON IN YOUR HEAD?!"
Doumeki pulled his fingers from his ears when Watanuki wound down, panting a little. "What's the problem exactly? Do you think I'm going to propose to you there too?"
"YOU BETTER DAMN WELL NOT!"
Watanuki most assuredly knew that his cheeks were flaming in a blush at just the suggestion, and he refused to even look in the archer's direction. It didn't help that was extremely attractive in his black pants and deep blue shirt that was almost exactly the same shade as the bespectacled boy's eyes. It was a simple, button up style, but with the black jacket he wore, he gave off an almost regal and untouchable air.
Stop thinking like that right now! He told himself; it was Doumeki, Do-u-me-ki, his rival and the most annoying person he had ever met. He was not supposed to be thinking anything even remotely nice about him, ever.
The restaurant wasn't far from Watanuki's apartment; it was roughly half way between his house and Doumeki's family's shrine. It was a small, but nice looking place, with traditional Chinese decorations. The inside was dimly lit and had a very relaxed, and quiet atmosphere to it. Just walking in made Watanuki's hackles rise, it seemed almost… romantic.
"Welcome, table for two?" Watanuki's attention was brought to the small waitress that had spoken. She couldn't have come any higher than Watanuki's shoulder.
"Yes." Doumeki answered, completely relaxed and seemingly unaware of the smaller boy's growing anxiety over the situation. Watanuki wasn't surprised by that though; to think that Doumeki would be aware would be giving him more credit than he deserved, and Watanuki didn't think he deserved any.
"This way please." The two of them were led to a small table, tucked into the back corner and seated. Menus where handed to them and the small waitress rushed off to get their drinks, leaving them secluded and alone in silence.
Doumeki glanced up at him. "Do you want me to order for you?"
Watanuki glanced at the menu with misgiving, as he didn't hold much in the way of restaurant food, and shrugged, wincing when it made his shoulder ache. Which reminded him of something that he had forgotten until just then.
"You will not, under any circumstances and on pain of excruciating death, feed me in this restaurant!" he hissed, falling silent as the waitress was back and setting two glasses of water in front of them.
"Give us a minute, please. We haven't decided yet." She nodded at Doumeki and wandered away to another table. The golden eyes turned back to Watanuki and he could have sworn that they were laughing at him. It would be just like him. "And how else would you like to do it?"
"I'll do it myself!"
A faint curl of those lips in a smile and he told himself that his heartbeat did not pick up pace at the sight of it. "Like at lunch? That, I have to say, was pitiful."
The bespectacled boy opened his mouth, but suddenly there was a gentle finger over his lips. It was surprisingly soft for all his arching practice, and his spine shivered. From the sheer shock, he remained silent.
"Quietly."
Watanuki jerked his head away from that finger and it left his stomach strangely in knots. He knew why Doumeki had said so; the atmosphere was pleasant, if suspiciously romantic, and his yelling would have sincerely disrupted it. For a moment, he sulked before remembering what he had been about to say.
"I handled lunch just fine!"
"It would have taken you three days to finish it at that pace."
"Doumeki…!" he hissed dangerously, but the waitress' appearance cut off any words he might or might not regret later. Without even asking him, the archer had given her the order for both of them and he didn't miss the look she gave the two of them before leaving once more.
He turned on Doumeki like a striking snake. "You know what she's thinking, you bastard! She thinks you…! And me…! That we're…!"
Doumeki shrugged. "Let her. Who cares what she thinks?"
The bespectacled boy spluttered in annoyance, but could find nothing to say that he hadn't already said before and yelling and flailing was not an option at that point. The set way Doumeki had glanced at him when he had warned him to be quiet told him that the archer would not stand any disruption of the peace. Suspicious even more now, he leaned forward.
"There's something more to this place than you've said."
Was it just him or was that glance filled with annoyance? "If you must know, my father proposed to my mother here as well. I guess…it's something of a tradition in my family to come here."
There were those fingers on his lips again, stopping his outraged "WHAT?!" before he had even taken in breath for it to be realized. Doumeki had brought him here, where not only his grandfather, but father had proposed to their wives?! Suddenly the threat of being proposed to by Doumeki seemed all that much more weighty.
Watanuki couldn't think of anything to say, he had plenty of things to yell and scream about, but nothing to say. So, he sat there in silence, glaring for all he was worth at the stoic boy sitting across from him. He prayed that something, anything, would interrupt this dinner and give him an excuse to leave. But, as usual, his prayers went unanswered.
Their food arrived, the waitress beaming at them as she set their plates in front of them. "Let me know if I can get you boys anything else." With that she practically skipped off, as if she was having the best night of her life; well someone had to be happy in all this mess Doumeki had caused.
Watanuki reached for his chopsticks, but before he could grab them, Doumeki snatched them up. He returned his glare to the archer, full force. "You are going to give those back to me right now." He spoke through gritted teeth; if he opened his mouth properly to speak he would have been yelling at the top of his lungs.
Doumeki just picked up a piece of food from Watanuki's plate, lifting it to the other boy's mouth.
Watanuki had never been more mortified in his life; not only had Doumeki fed him, but he didn't bother switching chopsticks when eating his own food in between bites, and the waitress had commented on how cute they were together. If it was possible to die from blushing, he was close.
Now, the jerk was walking him home, and all of the things he had planned to yell at Doumeki seemed insufficient. There was no word, or string of words that he knew of to describe just how angry he was right now, or how even knowing the archer was an embarrassment and that, even if he broke both of his arms, he would never go to another restaurant with him ever again.
He had a white knuckled grip on the front of his jacket, holding it closed against the cold. Doumeki's hung open, and he didn't look affected by the cold in the least. Another thing for Watanuki to curse him over, because right now he was freezing. He had to be dragged out on this ridiculous dinner on the coldest night of that entire spring.
"Do you want my jacket too?" Doumeki offered, as if reading his mind.
"NO! Just get me home and I'll be fine." It felt good to scream at the jerk again. Ignoring what he had just said, though, Doumeki pulled off his jacket and draped it over top the one Watanuki was already wearing. "DIDN"T YOU HEAR ME? You are an IDIOT! It's not my fault if you get a cold, don't expect me to take pity on you either when you do. I won't make you lunches just because you were stupid and didn't listen to me!" He panted heavily, his own ears ringing from the force of his yelling. It felt unbelievably good to scream again.
Doumeki pulled his fingers out of his ears, giving him a sideways glance. "Quiet down a little or you will wake the entire neighborhood."
Watanuki opened his mouth to scream again, but promptly shut it when he realized just how close they were to his apartment building. The last thing he needed was to piss of his neighbors again. They were hardly happy with him from last week when he'd had to do battle with a spirit that had somehow bypassed his wards and sent him calling for the archer in a real hurry.
He gritted his teeth again as he ascended the stairs and dug his hand in his slacks. "You can leave any time now," he hissed, awkwardly trying to put the key in the hole with his shaking, and not all of it was from the cold. Damn it, doing things with his left hand was a living hell! Today, all of it, had been a living hell! Being fed lunch and dinner by Doumeki was humiliating, especially since the archer seemed to take such pleasure out of the act of doing so.
"Oi."
The daily meter for Doumeki Patience had run down to 0 by now and he almost literally kicked his door in. "WHAT is it?!"
A hand touched his shoulder and he irritably turned his head, but no words came out of his mouth the moment his eyes met Doumeki's. He didn't know what made him look into those tiny, golden suns, but whatever it was left him feeling strangely breathless.
The fingers of Doumeki's other hand lifted to run along his jaw, sending another shiver down his spine. He stiffened and opened his mouth, but in seconds, he felt the archer's tongue running gently over his own. The blush in his cheeks could have put a rose in the height of bloom to shame and he shivered. Before he realized it, instinct began to kick in and he was responding!
It was slow, and while seductive came to mind, it didn't really feel that way. More like affectionate and caring. In passing, he noted that Doumeki tasted just like their food and something more. Tangy and spicy though nothing they had eaten was like that. Was that just the way Doumeki tasted? His own specific—
The kiss was over in less than a minute, but it had felt like an eternity. Doumeki's thumb ran over his soft lips, and murmured, "Thanks."
"F-For what?" He stuttered in shock.
"Dinner and saving me last night."
Reality gripped him again and he yelled after the retreating back before he could help it, "I TOLD YOU I TRIPPED!" Then he winced, half expecting doors to irately open and demand that he shut up, but nothing happened. As if the night itself was too pleased about their dinner to bring anything to mar the beauty of what had just happened.
Beauty, Watanuki?! What the hell are you talking about?! What the hell has gotten into you?! It's god-damn-frickin' Doumeki!
Watanuki rushed into his apartment and slammed the door, locking it behind him, before he realized that he still had Doumeki's coat. With a grimace, still trying to force the heat from his cheeks away, he stumbled to his bedroom and collapsed onto his futon, regardless of the layers of his clothes.
God…what the hell is going on?
I created this story with a friend of mine, Orochimaruhan on the xxxholic and the doumekiwatanuki livejournal communities