Dangerous Thought (Clow, Yuuko, Watanuki gen)

[storypaint]

Disclaimer: xxxHOLiC belongs to CLAMP.
Pairing or Characters Involved: Ichihara Yuuko, Reed Clow, Watanuki Kimihiro
Fandom: xxxHOLiC
Rating: G
Warning: none
Title: Dangerous Thought
Author: rhap_chan
Notes: Written for theme 01 Creative.

Summary: The first in a series. Yuuko tells Watanuki a story about Clow in his youth.

"What are you doing, Yuuko-san?"

Yuuko was reclining on a low couch and she appeared to be engrossed in a small book. When Watanuki spoke, she stretched like a cat, throwing her arms over her head. Since this made her book upside down, she twisted so that her head was upside down as well. She looked over-- under?-- the book and smiled at Watanuki. The effect was disconcerting.

"I am reading the I-Ching," she said, "the Book of Changes."

"You know all that mystical stuff is a crock?" Watanuki said, lifting an eyebrow and then the top box in a nearby stack. It was very small, and surely didn't support any of the stack's weight, but the boxes fell over all the same and Watanuki scrambled to pick them up before something bespelled him or broke. When the dust cleared, he was panting and the boxes were back in place, the small box carefully replaced at the top for balance. Or something. Physics was weird around Yuuko.

"You need inner peace, Watanuki," Yuuko said thoughtfully. "Sit and I will tell you stories of the I-Ching."

"Not if you want dinner on time," Watanuki warned. Yuuko considered it and then set down her book, got up, and followed him into the kitchen. There was a barstool conveniently situated in the corner, out of the way of the stove (and Watanuki tried not to wonder when exactly it had gotten there, because those types of things tended to give him headaches). She grabbed a bottle of sake and then sat down on the barstool and began to speak.

And Watanuki cooked, but he listened.

*

"Yuuko, I have the most brilliant idea!" Clow said, running into her work area. He was covered in soot and shedding it all over her carpet, and she knew that tone of voice all too well.

"No," she said firmly, and then pointed to his offending footprints. He looked down and was chastened for a moment, but a fourteen-year-old boy with an idea is not easily discouraged.

"I think I found the way to do it, Yuuko-san," he said. "I've found the way to create life."

In a movement too fast for his unpracticed eye, Yuuko was up and then standing beside him, her hand clapped over his mouth.

"No," she said. "Messing around with life is dangerous."

"But you do it all the time!" Clow protested, and his voice squeaked.

*

"Yuuko-san," Watanuki said, dropping the chopped onions into the pan, "who is this guy?"

"He's stupid, that's who he is," Yuuko said. "For a while, he and I had an arrangement like yours."

"What was his wish?"

She didn't speak for a long while and he turned his head just slightly to catch her eye. The bright garnet glitter was dulled by old memory.

"He wanted to be the most powerful magician in the world," she said after a moment, lifting her head skyward in a contemplative movement. "Like I said, he was stupid. Now let me continue."

*

"What I do and what you propose to do are two very different things," Yuuko said, leaning down and looking seriously into his eyes.

"But I can see it in my mind," Clow said. "If you move the power constraints in the proper manner and make adjustments for the unpredictability constant..."

"Creativity is one thing," Yuuko replied. "But stupidity is another. Go finish with the chimney."

Reluctantly Clow returned to his chores. Yuuko found a broom and swept the carpet, her lips a thin line.

*

"So you see, Watanuki, creativity can be dangerous," Yuuko said.

"What was he talking about, anyway? Making something like Maru and Moro? "

The beings Watanuki had referenced were at this moment doing some of Yuuko's laundry.

"No, not really," Yuuko said. "Something more... substantial. Almost like giving body to a ghost, and then shaping the resulting personality."

Watanuki shivered. "Definitely sounds dangerous."

"That's what I told him," Yuuko said. "But he left me and came back with two such beings."

"What happened to them?" Watanuki asked curiously, averting his attention from their dinner for a moment. "And what does that have to do with the I-Ching?

"The first hexagram is creativity," Yuuko said brightly, and then she answered his first question. "The stupid magician died." Her eyes were far-away and sad.

"I see," Watanuki said, straining the noodles and adding them to the bowl. When he turned around again she was standing over him in an anticipatory fashion.

"Is it done?" she asked, clapping her hands. He didn't get anything else constructive out of her for the rest of the night, unless you counted the creative drinking song she and Mokona invented around nine p.m., when they were really smashed.

But the next day when he came in, she had the book again, the I-Ching. And he didn't disturb her reading.