Disclaimer: Do not own xxxHolic, what a surprise

This story kind of gained a life of its own. This was going to be the final story I was going to write for this future!fic, but it seems there is more in the works.

Watanuki had been busy all morning. When Maru and Moro crept into his room to frighten him out of bed, they found him already gone.

He spent most of the morning in the sitting room cleaning everything. This was where they received customers, and it wouldn't do for it to look anything than its best so the first thing he did was scrub the floors till they gleamed. He found Mokona there lying under the couch with his little hands curled around the neck of a sake bottle. Typical. He left him snoring on top of the table, and Mokona hadn't even stirred, not even when Watanuki pried the sake bottle out of his hands.

Next, he opened up all the windows and aired out all the curtains and rugs. He stomped through every room and wiped all the furniture down, because it really had become too dusty in the shop over the winter, and everyone left it up to him. That was typical too.

It was still a little chilly outside but nothing he couldn't stand, and the early morning breeze felt good against his skin so he left the windows open. He inhaled, and the smell felt damp and heavy in his nostrils. "Some rain today, Ame-warashi-san?" he murmured. "It will do the tulips good." He thought fondly of the small dark bulbs he'd planted last spring and of the flowers still sleeping in the cold dark earth, waiting to rise out and bloom.

He kept the kitchen spotless on a daily basis anyway but figured if today was going to be devoted to house cleaning, he might as well make it a clean sweep, so to speak. Granted, there were some little crumbs sticking to the edges of the stove coils from when Maru and Moro had taken it into their heads to 'help' him with dinner, and he kept himself busy bleaching the stains from the cups where the tea had been left standing for too long.

He was rolling up his sleeves to take on the sink when Yuuko finally woke up.

Yuuko-san. He smiled to himself.

She had initially corrected him whenever he called her by her old name but had resigned herself to it soon after, although whether it was because she felt sorry for him or because she remembering more of her old life, Watanuki didn't know.

"Watanuki, why are you up so early?" she groaned as she stumbled into the kitchen. She rubbed her eyes and yawned widely, even though it was nearly noon. "I want tamagoyaki," she added and flopped into a chair, her kimono sloppy but still maddeningly elegant in a way he had never learned.

Watanuki pointed at a dish without turning around. She pouted a little. Demanding food wasn't as fun anymore now that Watanuki knew what she was going to ask ahead of time. His prescience was weak- he couldn't see into the future nearly as far as she could, but it was enough.

"I changed my mind," she declared. "I want-" Watanuki pointed again. "Broiled salmon…" she finished, looking into the plate.

"Happy?" Watanuki asked distractedly. He was still scrubbing the sink like he had a personal grudge against it. It had to be spotless. It had to shine.

"I suppose," she sighed and picked up her chopsticks. She stuck a piece of salmon in her mouth, but found to her disappointment that it was perfect as usual, and she had nothing she could complain about. "What are you doing, anyway?"

"Someone's coming," Watanuki said a little snappishly and felt the familiar flutter in his stomach that had jolted him out of bed that morning. "Don't you feel it? And you trashed this place yesterday." He toed over an empty bottle of sake on the floor, which fell over with a clatter. "What will the customers think?"

"Nng," she answered and clamped her hands over her ears. She had a hangover, and Watanuki's scrubbing sounded like sandpaper. "Too loud."

Watanuki had been turning around to yell at her about drinking too much again but suddenly froze. "You should put your fingers in your ears," he murmured, his expression distant. "It's more effective."

She missed the next piece of salmon and pursed her mouth.

Watanuki knew she sometimes felt guilty he had waited for her; she thought he had sacrificed too much. But he expected her to be herself, sake and all. To behave otherwise, as if she were paying a penance, would only have made him feel even worse.

Then again-

"You should clean the front yard too," she said loftily and draped a hand over the chair.

"I'm getting to it!" he hissed. "You could stand to clean up around here too, you know!"

"No-o-o," she said dramatically and put a hand to her forehead. "I have a headache."

"And whose fault is that?"

"Watanuki is too cruel," she complained, smiling.

"Cruel! Watanuki is cruel!" Maru and Moro shouted, running into the kitchen and almost knocking him over. "Good morning, mistress," they chimed and crowded around near her as they ate their usual toast and jam.

She smiled and touched their heads in turn. "Maru. Moro."

"Hmph," Watanuki huffed, feeling a little left out. He took a bun from the tray and stuffed it in his mouth on his way out. "I'll be cleaning the back yard."

"Watanuki," Yuuko said, sounding as if she knew exactly what he was feeling. She reached out a hand, and he automatically bowed over a little so she could touch the top of his head too. She ruffled his hair. "The shears for trimming the bushes are in the shed."

"You!" Watanuki shouted and stomped out. Maru and Moro burst into giggles.

Later, Watanuki collapsed bonelessly onto the couch in the sitting room and put a hand over his eyes. It still smelled strongly of cleaner despite all the scrubbing. Mokona suddenly shot out from under the couch and grabbed his ankle, which usually would have sent Watanuki into fits of alarmed shouting, but now he just shook him off absently and tucked his feet up.

He felt his eyes drooping shut. It was tiring keeping up the shop sometimes, especially since he could only see out of one eye now. The other one had gone dark a long time ago. Funny that he could still remember the exact day, the exact time down to the second. He had been making inarizushi that day. That made his heart pang, and his little finger ached a little, the one that wasn't frozen stiff.

When he woke again, there were sticks of incense on the table, and Maru and Moro were sliding past him, catlike, to open the double doors. Watanuki looked up and saw Mokona perched on top of the couch looking grave. Watanuki cursed under his breath. The customers. He had completely forgotten about the customers. Why hadn't Yuuko come and woken him? Sometimes he really didn't understand her.

He heard soft footsteps and looked up. He didn't even have to feign that lazy mysterious air that Yuuko wore so well; his tired eyes were already half-lidded, and his kimono was loose and dishevelled. He just hoped his customer wouldn't think-

"-Sorry," the boy said tonelessly, like he wasn't sorry at all. "My feet just began walking towards your shop."

Watanuki felt the blood surge into his face, because this guy was already annoying him, and how did he ever expect Watanuki to grant his wish with an attitude like that-

Then Watanuki stopped and looked, really looked and no it couldn't be- because it was too late. Decades and decades too late, and he'd almost stopped- "Nothing in this world happens at random," Watanuki replied a little breathlessly, saying it but not really believing it till then.

The boy frowned. "Then why am I here?" And the frown was vaguely familiar. And the voice. But no, the hair was completely wrong, and this boy held himself like he'd never touched a bow. The high school uniform was different- well of course it would be-

But the eyes. The eyes were exactly the same. Watanuki knew without knowing how that the boy's left pupil had a small dark freckle near the rim, and one eye always seemed a little darker than the other.

Yuuko hadn't bothered coming out for today's customers. Maru and Moro had suddenly disappeared into the shadows of the shop.

And he finally understood why.

He finally understood the little tingle in his stomach that morning and the cleaning and sweeping and the temptation to make inarizushi for reasons he couldn't name, all the nights laying awake smelling the stolen temple incense dressed in a pair of slightly too large pyjamas, and all the days waiting by the door and feeling time slipping by him in a flip-book blur, everything that had been coming to this moment like a long drawn out breath.

Watanuki smiled slowly, and the smoke curled around his hair. "Hitsuzen."