(no subject)
Not even meaning to write anything, I sat down and spontaneously wrote three drabbles in a row. I wonder what that means? O_O
Drabble table here
001. Crash
This is bad, Watanuki thinks, hands involuntarily gripping the edges of his seat so hard the fingers go nearly white. Really bad. Hurtling through the air with nothing between himself and the approaching ground except for a few layers of steel, a small panic-isolated part of his mind reflects on how extremely like him this is. His first time on a plane, and of course it should crash. Bad luck, huh.
Realisation jolts him, all of him, into renewed panic - this will kill her. Maybe not physically but this will crush Himawari’s spirit as surely as the mountains bear down upon the earth. For a fleeting second he is angry, angry at everything and everyone - Himawari for being what she is, Doumeki for not negating her bad luck influences, himself for being such a self-sacrificing idiot; but all of that goes away when he feels a trembling hand touching his own.
He looks up into golden eyes heavy with guilt and fear and apologies and suddenly the only feeling left in him is the urge, the need to protect. So Watanuki envelops that hand in his own and he smiles reassuringly, looking so strong as if to say ‘it’s all right for you to fall, I’ll catch you this time around’. Doumeki’s breath hitches slightly at the sight.
And still the ground closes in upon them.
071. Morgue
Doumeki goes to the morgue that afternoon, cold stings of rain spattering his face because he’s too distracted to have thought of bringing an umbrella. He doesn’t go because he particularly wants to but rather because there is a need in him, and a fear.
Once he comes out again he stands still for a while, thinking deeply. Then, course of action decided, his feet engage and they walk him to the park and the swings and the lonesome figure there. The crunch of his feet against the gravel path alerts the other and the idle swinging stops, pale hands clutching the chains of the swing tightly. Doumeki moves forward again, into the rectangle of sandy playground and a small flock of crows caw at him reproachfully as they flee from him. They’re nothing but smudgy fingerprints against the bruised, blackening sky and their throaty cries appear to taunt him from above, to taunt the fear suddenly returning into him. Evening is just around the corner and the dark is creeping in. The time of dusk, twilight, and long shadows are upon them.
It occurs to him briefly, then, just before Watanuki rises and turns around, that he’s being exceptionally stupid and reckless. But upon the heel of that thought he knows, what else is there to do?
”Your funeral is tomorrow.” He says, for lack of anything else. Something tightens in the sunny smile Watanuki wears.
”I know,” he replies and then; “Will you be there?”
”Will you?”
”Of course! Himawari-chan will be there after all!”
Doumeki doesn’t know what to say to that. So instead he says, “I thought dead people were supposed to stay dead?”
Watanuki shrugs and it looks so real, so achingly real, that he begins to think that it’s all a bad dream, a joke in bad taste because he doesn’t look dead. And he’s not gone. He’s standing right there. So to think of Watanuki as gone beyond reach, dead - it’s simply not possible.
”I thought so too, but I guess some of us don’t, huh?”
He waits with the silence for a little longer but nothing more he said. Eventually he ventures, “Aren’t you going to yell at me?” and receives a flat, dispassionate stare in return. And that hurts.
”Maybe I should. But I can’t remember how.”
Then Doumeki knows, truly knows, in the pierces-your-heart-that-fucking-hurt-knows kind of way that he was wrong, and Watanuki is gone because while this may look like that boy and speak like that boy, the spirit is gone and so this is just a shell. Just then the wind picks up and he can feel a faint smell of preservatives and the sickly-sweet smell of rot but all of that is just details, just confirmation of what he already knows.
”Watanuki,” he says, throat dry and eyes dry and his entire soul slowly drying out, and then again, “Watanuki.”
097. Writer’s choice - Bad day
You’ve changed, both of you. Watanuki is quieter, more pensive sometimes. You’re a bit rougher around the edges, still gentle but not as gentle as you were and still patient, just not as patient as you used to be. It’s impossible for you to discern whether the two of you have become more or less than what you used to be.
”Here,” he says and places a cup in front of you. Steam wafts lazily from the surface, a blessing on a day so cold and wet as this one. “It’s chai tea!” he tells you quite happily. Apparently it’s from India. You bite your tongue to keep yourself from saying, And since when do you know anything about India? because the day has been good so far and you don’t want to make it go bad. Not yet.
Instead you look out through the window, at the windwhipped trees trashing their branches violently. The tawny golden colour of the leaves mingle with dark oxbloodred and rich chocolate brown. It’s beautiful, in a drenched, bleak sort of way. A haunted, depressing beauty, if you will.
Yuuko said that there was nothing to be done about it, but you believe otherwise. If a bad day means being someone you’re not and doing things that you don’t, then you will do all you can to not have a bad day.
Yuuko said that, at the most, you could initially keep them down to a minimum but that eventually, even that small grace would disappear as your will power eroded and your mind’s databank began to unravel.
You take a small sip of your tea; it’s hot, strong and very spicy. The rich taste floods your dry mouth; cardamom, cinnamon, black pepper and cloves being the most prominent flavours. Watanuki believed her. You beg to differ. Not only will you keep them to a minimum, you’ll stop them altogether. It doesn’t matter if Yuuko says it cannot be done. You don’t need her shop, you never have and there’s a reason why.
Glancing sideways at your quiet companion in his informal clothes and messy hair, glasses slightly askew you know you’ll do it. Because there is something worth protecting, here, and you couldn’t possibly become fragments of yourself then.
And that’s fine. You’ve always done well against near-impossible odds. Another sheet of harsh, cold rain spatters against the glass and you smirk, asking for inarisushi. The silence shatters, the mood shatters - the bad day shatters, slipping away, and you’ve won again.