Mono no Aware (Watanuki Kimihiro x OC)

Prologue: "Time"

'How long has it been?'

Watanuki sighed as he sat on the porch of the shop. He didn't know what day it was or what time for that matter. Lately, it seemed, he had stopped caring about what was happening around him. Moro and Maru seemed extremely concerned about this, but what really brought it to his attention was when even Mokona couldn't help itself from asking if he was alright. If the furry creature had taken the time to stop drinking sake and wreaking havoc around everywhere it went just to ask if he was feeling okay, then he knew there was something wrong with his behavior. And thus why he found himself sitting on his porch, contemplating when did he began to feel so empty.

'Was it when their visits stopped? '

It couldn't be. It had been so long ago... how could it still affect him?

And even if  that were the case, he wouldn't know how to stop it. Doumeki and Himawari where long gone. So much time had passed in fact, even their family lines had disappeared. Himawari's was the first to go. Because she didn't want her children to suffer from her curse, she and her husband decided not to have any at all, and so, when they perished, there was nothing left of them. Then there was Doumeki's. Doumeki had two children with Kohane-chan, one boy and one girl. The girl moved away from Tokyo, but their son Shizuka stayed. After Doumeki and Kohane-chan passed on, Shizuka kept on visiting. Same with his son, and his son's son. But then around the fifth generation of Doumeki's family, the woman his descendant married could not have children, and so when they stopped visiting Watanuki knew that was it. He had felt saddened at the time, but nearly a century had gone by already and he really thought he wasn't as affected by it as before.

'It isn't just that though, it's something I can't quite... remember' 

Every once in a while, when there were long periods of time in which no new costumers came into the shop, Watanuki had strange flashes of images and dreams. He'd be laying down in the shop's chaise longue, getting ready to sleep, or simply walking around the shop, and suddenly his head began hurting.

That's when he would see the images, or well image, as in singular.

It was mostly a woman who plagued his mind, a tall and beautiful woman with pale skin, long dark hair, and hunting red eyes. But every time he tried to  take a good look at her in his visions, his head stopped pounding and she disappeared.  Even worse yet, every time he had one of this episodes he was filled with a feeling he couldn't  understand, a feeling that was nostalgic, and sad, and unhappy, but at the same time it brought a smile to his face.  And although he knew he couldn't possibly have met the woman before, the little flashes felt like a memory of a lifetime ago. 

A repressed memory of different times, better ones, trying to escape and remind him of something special, something he had forgotten along the way of his long and miserable existence.