Cat Skin

a xxxHOLiC fanfiction by Wyrdley

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Notes: PG-13 for violence and language. Release date – August 4, 2005. Part 1 edited and revised August 25, 2005. For the morbidly curious, the original draft can be found on my livejournal page. Just check my profile for the link.

Disclaimer: I do not own xxxHOLiC, but I do own any original characters that may appear in this story. Please read the original books by CLAMP, because they rock.

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Part 1

Kimihiro Watanuki was cleaning – this was not unusual, since he worked part-time as a housekeeper (and sometimes errand boy) for a rather eccentric fortuneteller, but it was actually on his own behalf. This morning he was cleaning out his closet, which was starting to become rather dusty.

The teenager was sixteen years old, nearly seventeen, and, while a little taller than average, possessed a rather delicate build. This was misleading, because he was a talented athlete, though he never competed outside of his daily phys ed class. Kimihiro had pale skin that burned in too much sunlight and black hair that had the unreasonable habit of standing up in cowlicks at any given time. His most remarkable feature, however, was his startling blue eyes: they were as light as a shard of ice and so large they loomed out of his face like a pair of brilliant lanterns. (The effect was somewhat diminished by the oval glasses perched on the end of his nose.) He was very good looking, if you liked pretty guys.

Fortunately, he escaped the fate of beingpopular, because Kimihiro had the habit of attracting ghosts and other supernatural undesirables to his person. The boy avoided crowds as much as he could, more to steer clear of other people's horrors rather than inflicting his own on the unsuspecting. Over the years, he acquired the reputation of a very private person and his reclusive behavior had caused a number of bizarre rumors about him at school. Some were rather stupid, like the one where he was really a girl, while others were downright outlandish, like the one where he had been abducted by aliens and was too traumatized to interact with people much.

Well, a cursed hydrangea bush had swallowed him once and dropped him into the realm of the dead, so maybe that made the alien thing tame by comparison. Only a couple people knew about that particular incident and he dreaded to think what would happen if more found out.

The closet was neatly organized, so it was easy for Kimihiro to stack the various boxes beside it. He carefully used his duster in the corners of the wall, and then swept the floor clean. It took all of three minutes. As he was replacing the containers back inside, however, a small shoebox fell free of the rest and landed on its side.

Kimihiro snorted in annoyance as several knick-knacks rolled away. He knelt over them and carefully examined them for damage.

"I really ought to wrap these up," he sighed, placing a miniature teapot that was missing its lid back into the box. After a second of searching, he found the errant top. "I'll have to pick up some tissue paper at the store today when I get the stuff for Yuuko-san's dinner…" A replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a jar full of stone shards labeled "amethyst," and a spool of red, metallic thread on a silver bobbin quickly followed.

Not seeing anything else, he tucked it carefully into the closet, then rubbed his hands free of dust and stood up. He had other things to do this morning before he had to leave for school.

In the corner, unnoticed, was a small, black statue.

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The air was damp and a little chill as Kimihiro walked down the street towards his high school, Cross Private Academy. He shivered inside his long jacket and picked up the pace. Every now and then, he saw the faint flutter of a spirit at the edge of his vision, but they seemed to be content to leave him alone today, which he was grateful for. Outrunning an over-affectionate tentacle monster was a dismal start for a day. He turned a corner, humming softly, only to be greeted by the sight of flashing blue lights.

Kimihiro stared at the police cruiser with interest. There was only the one, which was reassuring, and it was parked in front of a small, but prosperous corner store. Unlike most days, there weren't any customers inside, so the boy wondered what could've happened. There must have been some sort of crime. The building looked a little forbidding, now that he thought about it, the welcoming vibe that it usually possessed somehow misplaced.

It was unfortunate, but it wasn't really his problem. He shook his head and continued on his way, wondering what was different. The shop didn't seem strange…

Stop that thought right there, Watanuki, he chided himself. That's how you end up getting knocked off rooftops.

The day, however, seemed to be persistent about making his life too interesting. As he crossed the entrance to an alleyway, the unmistakable tang of death savagely bit his nose.

"Gah," he grumbled, pinching his nose shut. He squinted down the shadowed alleyway, trying to determine where the dead thing was. In the dim morning light, it was hard to distinguish one thing from another on the cracked pavement. After a moment, he saw the unmistakable trace of a diseased aura. It rose in sick, black tendrils from the small form of some kind of animal.

Ah, crap. That thing is definitely going to rise again. Shuddering, Kimihiro, pulled an about face and was about to make tracks when he collided face-first into a solid wall. "Ow!"

"Yo." Well, not quite a wall…

Kimihiro cringed back, his blood pressure rising. He glared at one Shizuka Doumeki, who had to be the most irritating thing under the sun. Doumeki ignored this, as he usually did, remaining where he was like a monolith, with no consideration for Kimihiro's personal space at all. To make Doumeki's abrupt appearance more annoying, a sweet breeze replaced the unrelenting stench. Kimihiro sneezed viciously, rubbing his abused nose.

"Catch a scent?" the tall teen asked frankly, peering with detached interest down the alley. Kimihiro ignored the other boy not-so-gently edged his way in-between himself and the entrance. Meddler…

"So what if I did?" Though it was kind of odd that Doumeki couldn't smell the dead thing. Actually, the reek from the body should've still been there, exorcist or not. How could a body not smell?

Kimihiro frowned at the rancid aura, not quite sure what to make of it.

Doumeki leaned back and examined Kimihiro with those baffling eyes of his. Kimihiro could never tell what the nuisance was thinking, one of the more aggravating qualities his classmate possessed. "Well?"

Kimihiro gritted his teeth and resolutely began to march down the street, away from the alley and it's bizarre victim. "It's just a dead animal of some kind. It's got a nasty aura. That's all." Doumeki lingered behind a moment, staring, then suddenly moved down the narrow corridor. Kimihiro stopped despite himself. "What are you doing, idiot? Do you want to bring some beast's angry ghost down on me!" he complained. Doumeki just ignored him.

After a short pause, Doumeki spoke out: "There isn't anything here. Just some trash, but nothing that looks like an animal."

Kimihiro felt his stomach lurch. He did not want to pursue this… He backtracked and cautiously took a few steps towards the aura, ready to bolt. "It's on the right side, up against the wall, by that drainpipe." He pointed.

Doumeki looked at the indicated spot and frowned. "There isn't anything there."

Kimihiro stepped a little closer and waved emphatically. "Right. There." He began to recoil a bit, because the aura was more potent the closer he got to it.

"Nothing." Doumeki was glaring at the spot now, and backing away. He bumped into Kimihiro. "Let's go…"

"Oh, now you're convinced that this is a bad idea," Kimihiro began to rant. The two quickly exited the alley and started to distance themselves from the site. "If that thing starts stalking me, you'll just have to starve to death, BECAUSE I'LL BE TOO BUSY RUNNING FROM THE DAMN THING TO MAKE YOU LUNCH!" His strides became longer to match Doumeki's, which made him look like he was stomping.

"So I'll stay over at your place. It won't bother you when I'm around and if it tries, I'll shoot it," he said calmly.

Kimihiro could swear he felt something in his head break. There was a vein throbbing in his temple. One of these days this moron really was going to cause him to have an aneurysm, he just knew it… "NO, YOU WON'T!"

Doumeki winced away and poked a finger into the ear that was closer to Kimihiro's snarling mouth. "Oh, shut up." He abruptly stopped mid-step, which made Kimihiro nearly fall over trying to prevent himself from crashing into him. "What happened there?"

"Huh?" Kimihiro scowled at his surroundings. "Happened where?"

"There, moron." It was Doumeki's turn to point.

It was another police car, lights blinking. A small group of people was standing on the sidewalk in front of a small and rather dingy café, speaking to a middle-aged officer holding a clipboard. Kimihiro couldn't tell what they were saying, but they looked confused. A man in a business suit gestured energetically at the window, but Kimihiro couldn't see anything out of place.

"How should I know?" Kimihiro snapped. "Why do you automatically assume I know what's going on whenever something suspicious happens?"

"I don't. It was just a question." Doumeki began to walk again.

"I do know that this is the second place I've seen with a police car in front of it this morning, though," Kimihiro sneered. Doumeki stopped and pinned him with a stern expression.

"Spill it. Now."

"It was the same as this, jerk. Now you know as much as I—" Kimihiro suddenly gagged and nearly bent himself over double trying not to throw up. "Urgh…" The rank stink was back in his nostrils, sending a long, nauseous dagger down his throat. Doumeki caught him by the arm as he staggered.

His eyes immediately latched onto a cloud of black leaking from the grate of a gutter. This time he could clearly see the unfortunate creature that had been murdered. It had once been a cat. The body had been gutted and the spine had been bent in several directions spines, even feline spines, were not meant to go. The exposed flesh had been viciously hacked into and the tail… It was just missing…

Kimihiro bolted down the street, a surprised Doumeki trailing him by half a pace. He just knew he was going to have nightmares. He probably would've run all the way to school if the lug beside him didn't grab the back of his jacket, nearly choking him. "Stop that," Doumeki ordered. "What happened?"

Kimihiro sagged against the side of a building, trying to catch his breath. The black aura faded from him. "Another animal in the gutter. It was a cat. Something mutilated it. Skinned it, it seems." His heart was still racing.

"I didn't see anything."

"You're blind, then."

Doumeki took a second to reply. "So it's a spirit of some kind."

This was not reassuring. "Spirits don't have bodies, retard," he managed to retort weakly.

"So it's not a spirit, but it's something else. I'm going to have a look. Stay put." He dropped his schoolbag on the ground next to Kimihiro.

"Huh?" The archer, however, was already gone. Kimihiro sank to the ground and loosened his jacket at the collar. He was going to smell like sweat all day now… He turned his mind away from the cat, trying to distract himself. He started to consider what he should prepare Yuuko-san for dinner that night, but the thought of food made his stomach gurgle unappreciatively.

Doumeki returned in less than five minutes, clutching something in his hand. "Take a look at this." He held it down for Kimihiro to examine. A few remaining wisps of black melted away before his eyes and he could see what it was.

It was part of a statue. The bit of ceramic that Doumeki had collected was the remains of an upraised paw, the paint scraped completely away. The familiar beckoning motion made Kimihiro's heart squeeze. "A lucky cat?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"Uh huh," Doumeki confirmed. He took out a handkerchief and careful wrapped it up. "I'll give this to you after school. You can give it to Yuuko-san. Maybe she can explain it."

Kimihiro felt ill at the thought of carrying the thing into the wish shop, but nodded anyway.

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To be continued…

Note: A lucky cat, or maneki neko, is a small statue of a cat frequently found in Japanese businesses. It always has one paw upraised to help beckon in customers and money. Different colors mean different things; for example, white attracts good fortune, gold or yellow attracts prosperity and wealth, and black drives away evil.