"Ukon, kimi ga inai to umaku kangae ga matomaranai yo..." --Sakon
	"Koitsu kuchibeta de ore ga inee to nanimo dekinee." --Ukon


Karakuri-zoushi Ayatsuri Sakon: Negai
by K.Huntsman
released 11th August 2000


	Sakon knelt on the floor of his room, carefully dressing his 
partner.  Many layers of kimono went on Ukon's doll body, one at a time.  
He took his time and patiently adjusted each.  It was important that Ukon 
look his best today.
	After all, it was their anniversary.
	Sakon smiled as he picked up a comb and began smoothing and 
straightening Ukon's long red hair.  The individual strands were silky and 
slid easily through the comb's teeth.
	"Do you remember, Ukon?" he asked.  "The day we first met?"
	The comb found a knot.  Sakon immediately stopped and began to 
gently tease it apart.
	"We didn't get along very well," Sakon recalled.  "I wasn't very 
good at manipulating you then.  I didn't understand yet."
	The knot loosened, letting the comb slide through.
	"Nine years, Ukon...."


//Tachibana household, several years previous//

	"Haaaappy birthday!" Kaoruko cheered her nephew.  He knelt at the 
table, smiling uneasily, looking nervous and as though he'd much rather be 
anywhere else.
	"Blow out the candles and make a wish, Sakon," his mother urged him.
	"Ah--of course," Sakon murmured, and concentrated.  The eight 
candles had all been placed into an easy center group by his aunt.  He 
loved her, but he resented that.
	But a wish...?  What did he wish for?
	Sakon closed his eyes.
	/I wish...
	/I wish...
	/I wish...
	/...for a friend./
	He opened his eyes and decisively blew at the candles.  One 
lingered, a guttering flame, longer than the others, and he blew harder at 
that one until it vanished.
	/I did it./
	Sakon sat back on his heels as his mother began cutting the caraway 
cake into slices, and waited for his wish to come true.

	"Any doll?" Sakon asked, looking uneasily at his grandfather.  This 
seemed awfully like a test of some kind.
	"Any doll you want," Saemon repeated himself, nodding.  He gestured 
around the storeroom filled with boxes.  "Take your time and decide well."
	"Yes, grandfather," Sakon replied, bowing, still not sure that this 
wasn't a test.
	Saemon turned to go, walking out of the large door whose opening 
spilled glittering sunlight into the small building.  "Come find me when 
you've chosen, Sakon," he said casually.  "I'd like to know who you choose."
	Sakon stared after his grandfather for a minute, then turned to 
face the stacks of boxes again.
	It was going to take all day, he realized.  The Tachibana Bunraku 
school had accumulated hundreds of dolls over the years.
	Smiling at the thought of seeing the unknown dolls, Sakon began 
with the box closest to the door.

	Sakon laid the box, almost as big as he was, on the ground, and 
looked back at the door.  The sunlight was almost gone, and he still hadn't 
found one doll more special than the others.
	Sighing at the thought of the lost opportunity, and of having to 
wait a week to continue his search, he pulled the lid off and brought the 
doll into view with gentle hands.
	Long red hair spilled over the doll's shoulders as its head nodded 
forward.  Sakon frowned and shifted his grip so he could use one hand to 
bring the face into view.
	Closed eyes, sleeping eyes, greeted him, and he wonder what color 
the child doll's eyes were.  Sakon reached his right hand into the doll's 
body and flexed his fingers, manipulating the puppet controls within the 
doll so that its eyes would open.
	He blinked, unbelieving, and so did the doll.
	Purple eyes, just a shade or two off of his own.
	"You...."
	He blinked again, and could have sworn that the doll was staring at 
him as much as he was staring at it.
	"Are you alive?"
	His fingers on the doll's shoulders trembled in excitement.  "You 
are, aren't you?"
	Sakon hugged the doll.  "You'll be my friend, won't you?  Please?"
	A voice made its way up from his chest.  "Hey... hey, you're 
crushing me!"
	He let go and stared at the doll again.  "You are alive, aren't 
you?"
	The doll rubbed the back of one hand across its nose.  "Maybe.  
Who're you?"
	"I'm Tachibana Sakon."
	"Sakon, huh?"  The doll seemed to consider this.  "Huh.  What're 
you doing in here?"
	"My grandfather told me I could pick any doll I wanted for my 
birthday present," Sakon explained.  "You will be my friend, won't you?  
Please?"
	The doll looked away.  "Maybe.  I'll consider it."

	Sakon pushed the box across the floor to his grandfather, who 
opened it.  Saemon smiled.  "Ukon..." he said in a soft voice, pulling the 
doll out of the box.
	"That's his name?" Sakon asked.
	Saemon nodded.  "The doll seller who sold him to me, long ago, told 
me his name.  He was made by the famous female dollmaker Unosuke in the 
second year of the Meiji era."
	"How is his name spelled?"
	"'U' is 'right,' and 'kon' is 'next to'."
	"Like mine," Sakon breathed, eyes wide.
	Saemon nodded.  "Like yours.  Where he is 'right,' you are 
'left'."  Then he paused and seemed to remember something.
	"Grandfather?"
	"The man who sold Ukon to me when I was young... I remember now 
that he asked me, after hearing that I was a Tachibana, if there was anyone 
in our family with the name 'Sakon'."
	"Grandfather," Sakon said warningly, suspecting he was being teased.
	Saemon shook his head.  "Well, perhaps you and Ukon were meant to 
be together, Sakon," he said, fondly stroking the doll's red hair once 
before placing him back in the box and replacing the lid.  "Happy birthday."


//Sakon's room, current day//

	Sakon touched the comb to Ukon's hair one last time, smoothing an 
errant strand, then put it away.
	"Well, how's that?" he asked, slipping his hand within Ukon's body.
	Ukon opened his eyes and looked at himself in the mirror, turning 
this way and that to examine his reflection.  "Perfect!" he declared, 
giving a thumbs-up.  He then turned to examine Sakon's garb.  "You, on the 
other hand...."
	"I look fine!" Sakon defended himself.
	Ukon looked skeptical.  "You look like you got dressed out of a 
dustbin."
	Sakon blinked and looked down at himself.  There was a faint trace 
of dust on his shirt from cleaning off shelves earlier that day.  "All 
right, I'll change."
	Five minutes later he was in a clean black shirt, presenting 
himself to his partner for re-inspection.  This time he passed.  "Now 
you're fit to be seen with," Ukon allowed.  "So, what do we do today?"
	"It's my birthday," Sakon replied.
	Ukon sighed, knowing all too well what that meant.  "One of 
Kaoruko's birthday parties."
	"Yeah," Sakon agreed, remembering every other birthday party his 
aunt had thrown for him.
	"Hey, Sakon, how old are you now?"
	"Seventeen.  Why?"
	"Just wonderin'."  Ukon laced his fingers together behind his head 
and kicked one foot up over the other knee.  He looked innocent.  Sakon 
didn't buy it.
	"Ukon...."
	"Sako~n!" Kaoruko's voice burst into his room at the same time she 
did.  "I brought cake!  Come downstairs and make a wish!"
	"C'mon, c'mon, she's got cake!" Ukon urged, tugging at the front of 
Sakon's shirt.  "Let's go!  I swear, you're so useless you'd be late to 
your own funeral!"
	"Ukon... you can't eat."
	"What has eating got to do with appreciating cake?" Ukon wanted to 
know.
	Kaoruko stood there looking at the two of them.  Finally she shook 
her head and grabbed Sakon by his left arm, dragging him to his feet and 
then downstairs.
	Sakon blinked at the number of people who crowded the living room.  
Where had they all come from?
	"H-hey, Kaoruko, isn't this a little overdoing it for a party?" 
Ukon asked.
	"There is no such thing as overdoing it for a party!" she replied, 
and let go.
	Sakon's mother and grandfather waited by the table, as did Sakuron, 
his grandfather's assistant.  Mai Kawai, the idol, waved at him and Ukon 
with a sweet smile, and so did Funasaki Hazuki.  Fukami Junichirou had 
brought his granddaughter Sayoko-chan.  Shiho was there, grinning 
impudently at the both of them, and behind her was Professor Kisaragi.  
Everyone was there.  Somehow Kaoruko had managed to track down almost all 
of Sakon's friends.
	He smiled and shook his head, a little rueful.  He hadn't expected 
this many people here.
	"Heh," Ukon commented.  "Well, go blow out the candles and make 
your wish!"
	Sakon's mother took a step to one side, revealing behind herself a 
cake set with seventeen glowing candles.
	Sakon made his slow way through his friends, who cleared a path for 
him, then closed in behind.  He could smell the spicy scent of caraway from 
halfway across the room, and smiled in memory of another cake, another time.
	"Whatcha gonna wish for?" Ukon asked him when they stood before the 
cake.
	Sakon's eyes slid to meet his partner's as he considered.  Then he 
smiled.  "A secret," he told his partner, and leaning over, blew out all 
the candles in a breath.
	/I wish..../


[Author's Notes]
Since I believe the anime doesn't cover how Sakon and Ukon first met, I 
decided to write it.  The man who sold Ukon to Saemon and what he asked are 
both a reference to a Sakon doujinshi I have.  [Saemon was a dead ringer 
for Sakon when younger, BTW.]  Sakuron is from another Sakon doujinshi by 
the same circle.  I didn't drag any of the characters from the novel or any 
of the original characters of the anime into the story because I don't know 
them well enough to write them yet.  As for why Fujita Zenkichi is not at 
the party... well, let's just say this follows the manga storyline rather 
than the anime.