Layers [XXXHOLiC; English]

[laurus_nobilis]

Title: Layers
Rating: PG
Genre: Genfic / humour
Characters: Clow and Yuuko
Pairings: In the background, as usual.
Summary: Nobody knows themselves completely. Not even Clow Reed.
Notes: Written for insert_phrase. Also, Scarborough Fair really is very, very old. The fragment of lyrics that I mention here has been around since the nineteenth century.


Yuuko swallowed the bitter medicine with a grimace. It tasted horrible, but she couldn't complain; it worked, after all, and it was fast. She knew that her headache would disappear in only a couple of minutes.

“Why aren't you ever hungover?” she muttered, sprawled on her sofa, while Clow sat down on an armchair in front of her. He gave her a look that was between sympathetic and amused.

“Because I know my own limitations,” he said. “Some people, believe it or not, actually stop drinking before it's too late.”

“That's stupid,” she said.

“Not at all,” Clow told her. “If you had ever bothered to pay attention, you should have figured out how to avoid this by now.”

“Well, not everyone's had a million years to practice the right timing,” she replied. She was already feeling more lucid again, and discovered that she was in the mood for arguing.

“Yuuko, dear,” he said, shaking his head in amusement, “you should try to know yourself better.”

“Oh, please,” she snorted. Yes, she was definitely up for debate this time. “Only the shallow know themselves. Us interesting people have layers and layers and layers. You can keep discovering new things everyday, it's fun.”

Clow raised his eyebrows, smiling. It was the kind of smile that he had when he was absolutely certain of being right. Yuuko wondered if he knew that much; then she decided not to tell him.
“Are you saying,” he asked, “that you can surprise yourself?”

“What, haven't you ever heard that expression?” she asked back at him. “It's possible. You try something new and discover if you like it or not, if you are good or bad at it. Sometimes you can guess – for example, I know that I will like anything that has alcohol in it. Obviously. I know that much about myself,” she said. “But if someone paid me with, say, a dessert from a different world that isn't similar to anything I know, then I'd just have to try. Find out what happens.”

“You are talking about food and drink,” he pointed out, as if she didn't know what she was saying. Yuuko let out an exasperated sigh.

“I am using a simple example,” she said. “Use your imagination a little. Say you're in the middle of an emergency, for example. You're stuck in a typhoon, or something, and you'd never been in one before. Then you wouldn't know how you would react, not until you lived through it.”

“Yes, I would,” Clow replied. “I would know exactly how I'd react. I would use Shield first of all, and then Windy, or perhaps Watery, depending on the typhoon's strength. Which I would also know. Because I would have seen it coming.”

For once, he didn't sound smug, or as if he was just trying to win the argument. He was merely stating a fact. Yuuko gave him a long look before she spoke again.

“You really don't get it, do you?” she said at last. But she didn't say it because she was annoyed, and certainly not because she was amused. It was actually kind of sad.

She didn't tell him that, either. Although, judging from his little smile, he already knew.

“All right,” she said, sitting up. She had suddenly got an idea. “I know how to prove I'm right. I can tell you things about you that you're not aware of.”

“Do try,” Clow replied, leaning back onto his armchair. Now he was looking smug, the idiot.

“Thing number one,” Yuuko said. “You hum, and sometimes even sing, to yourself when you're cooking.”

“Is that the best you can do?” he asked. “Of course I knew that already – ”

“Thing number two,” she interrupted. “It's always Scarborough Fair.”

He frowned, staring at her in disbelief. That was exactly the reaction she had expected from him.

“You are making that up,” he said. Yuuko grinned at him triumphantly.

“No, I mean it. Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme!” she exclaimed, laughing. “Perfect cooking song, you know. And you never even realize that you're singing it.”

“That is completely ridiculous,” he muttered.

“Oh, it definitely is. It's also true. Ask your Guardians.”

“Yuuko, honestly... ”

“Thing number three,” she continued, counting on her fingers. “Soel and Larg steal the sweets from that little bowl on your desk when you're writing, because you're too focused on your work to notice.”

“But I do know that they do it,” Clow insisted. “That's why I leave all those extra ones.”

“You still don't understand,” said Yuuko. “Of course you know, because you've Seen it, but you never actually catch them in the act. Those are different things. They put up all this stealthy show right in front of your nose and you're too distracted to see them.”

Clow still didn't seem convinced. For a few moments, he remained silent, which was always a treat. It wasn't often that she managed to leave him without words, and much less looking as thoughtful as he did right now.

“Perhaps you're right,” he said in the end, and Yuuko felt like she could have danced in triumph if she didn't still have such a headache. “But still,” he added, making her roll her eyes again, “all those things you mentioned are just details and quirks. They're not important to my knowledge of myself as a person.”

Yuuko sighed. Was it so difficult to grasp?

“Look, there's something that you aren't quite getting here,” she told him. “My point is that there is at least one layer to you that you didn't know about.”

“And that would be?” he asked.

“Foresighted or not, you're still hopelessly oblivious.”

Again, he didn't reply immediately. Yuuko grinned to herself. Twice in the same argument? That had to be a new record.

“Am I, really?” he asked after a moment, still frowning a bit. She couldn't help but laugh at his expression, which made him look even more embarrassed.

“Of course you are,” she told him. “Oh, don't give me that look! It's not that bad, you know. It tones down the creepiness.”

And it was actually quite endearing, too; not that she would ever say that aloud. But now it was Clow who rolled his eyes.

“Will you ever stop calling me 'creepy'?”

“Not in the foreseeable future,” Yuuko replied with a grin. He raised his eyebrows.

“In our case,” he said, “that would be not ever.”

“Exactly my point.”