bookwyrmling

Title: Ohakamairi
Author: bookwyrmling
Rating: G
Character: Watanuki
Prompt Challenge: # 001. Unfinished Business
Medium: Fic

I didn't have any xxxHolic unfinished fics lying around, but I figure this will do well enough to serve the prompt.

It was early morning, the sun only just beginning to rise, and Watanuki was awake. Not only was Watanuki awake, but he was dressed -- formally, in a deep blue, stylized changshan with black cranes and closures -- and up, a package held carefully in his hands. He was expecting no customer, today, however. Should one even arrive, they would be sorely disappointed. It wasn’t even a full day since he had seen and understood Yuuko’s dream and Watanuki had long ago left the shop.

It had been over one hundred years since the boy had walked these streets, but, despite the changes that had occurred, his feet still knew exactly where they were headed and it was not long at all before the shop keeper, finally released from his cage, stood outside one of the few structures in the entirety of the city that had not changed since he had last stepped foot in it.

The house would barely be waking, but the few people Watanuki was here to visit would not mind the early hour. Slipping past the kondo, Watanuki quietly stopped to grab a pail and brush before slipping in amongst the gravestones. He found the one he was looking for quickly -- after all, not only was this was the family’s temple, but it was the temple’s family -- and began his work. After years and years of cleaning the shop, however, cleaning this gravestone made light work. It therefore was not long before the brush made its way back into a now nearly empty pail placed to the side of a grave glistening wet in the sunrise. The package he had been guarding so closely was opened now and flowers, freshly picked -- he had paid extensively for these, both to the Zashiki Warashi for picking them and the Ame Warashi for delivering them -- and still covered with dew. After all, this family, and more importantly the person he had come to visit, deserved nothing less.

Flowers in place, Watanuki finally had the time to look at the structure. This family had been here for generations and sotoba stood out in every location alongside the haka. It took a while, therefore, to find the one he was looking for. The moment he did, though, the young man stepped up to it and ran fingers along each kanji. A fond small turned lips upwards and gave a soft glow to mismatched eyes. Watanuki could still think back and picture Kohane in all her beauty. Even in old age, she had shone. One more marker was a bit more difficult to find, being from a much older time. Watanuki still had yet to see a single picture of this man in his later days so could only recall the images from his dreams of a man in casual yukata, a cigarette held comfortably between two fingers. Haruka had been a shinto priest and buried at the shrine he'd served at instead of his family's Buddhist temple, but he had still not been left out of the list of those deceased. There was one more name he searched for. Shizuka's son had taken up his father's visits as the man had grown too old to do the grocery shopping on his own. This man's death had been much more recent and the family hadn't even done their final memorial visit after his death. Stepping back to the front of the marker, Watanuki’s face grew serious once again as he used a leaf that had fallen from one of the flower stems to sprinkle water on the Doumeki mon before bowing his head in respect for a family that had done so much for him.

There was still, however, one more grave to visit and it was a bit more of a walk before Watanuki caught site of the rounded gravestones hidden in a back corner. Once again, Watanuki did a duty that wasn’t truly his but he needed to take on all the same as he washed the unfinished haka and poured water in the trough. There was no flower stand built into this grave, but Watanuki reached carefully into his parcel and pulled out the final bouquet anyway. Irises and bluebells made a colorful statement against both the lighter slate of the family marker and the dull, dark gray of this priest’s marker. Watanuki did not spend as much time with his head bowed in front of this marker, but his fingers did linger longer on the name carved into it. The fond smile on his face was twisted in mourning, too. How many years had this man devoted to coming to visit him while he’d been stuck in the shop? Until his health had grown too weak to get out of bed, Doumeki Shizuka had visited Watanuki almost daily. And now, decades after the man’s demise, Watanuki was finally able to make his first visit.

“Do you realize how large of a debt you and your family have left me in?” he questioned, a slight tinge of annoyance in his voice as he pictured the smirk the other man would be wearing at such a comment. “I’ll bet you did it on purpose, too,” he continued before placing one hand on his hip and allowing a smile to take over his face. “It’ll take me years to finish paying it off.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes before kneeling down in front of the stone, morning dew soaking through the silk and chilling his knees. “You and Yuuko had too much in common,” he couldn’t help but mutter in finality as one of his hands made their way back to the marker. There was still the loss leaking through the small crescents of mismatched eyes that peaked through -- proof that a bit of that man was still here, alive, in this world -- but it was beginning to fade as he knelt there, running his fingers over the engraved name again and again. He had known, long ago, when this man’s death was coming and he had had many years since, but, for some reason, until he saw the stone, until he stood before it and felt the name carved there, it had never been so real. The abstract knowledge of his friend’s death had turned into the physical sensation of seeing and touching the grave and it took Watanuki a half-hour before he was ready to stand up once again and dust off his legs, leaving two wet circles at his knees. And then he left, nodding his head in greeting to one very shocked young man sweeping the leaves along the walks, just as his great-grandfather had once done. “I will still be expecting those groceries when you stop by later today,” he called out with a teasing smile before exiting the grounds.

It wasn’t until after breakfast that the family saw the cared-after graves. They smiled at the irises and bluebells before the two graves as the youngest individual told of who he had seen and the dream that had given the man whose story they all knew his freedom. The flowers might not be the best choice for ohakamairi, but their giver was eccentric and the family knew well enough what they meant. No one, however, noticed the single sprig of lavender and small lotus tucked into the bouquet resting on top of the smaller gravestone: a hidden message meant only for the name carved into the rough marker.

Kondo - Buddhist temple’s main hall. Where ceremonies are held.

Sotoba - Separate wooden grave markers on a stand next to the gravestone holding the deceased’s name

Haka - Gravestone of a family grave. Sometimes, although not always, the decedents’ names may be carved on this.

Mon - A family’s crest; carved on the haka.

Ohakamairi - Grave visit

The flowers used all have meanings in hanakotoba, or the Japanese flower language.

Iris - good news/glad tidings

Bleubells - grateful

Lavender - faithful

Lotus - far from the one he loves