xxxホリック ◆ 戻 chapter 04
xxxHOLiC Rei chapter 04

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

The first female customer is there, now with injuries, so Yuuko-san asks how she got them. The woman says she tripped, but wasn’t pushed. Yuuko-san asks to see the woman’s phone, so she produces it. The dirty, little cat stuffed figure now has damage to its right “hand” and “foot”, similar to the woman’s own injuries. Yuuko-san asks about this, so the woman says she thinks the damage happened when she fell. Yuuko-san starts to ask why the woman hasn’t removed it, but the woman interrupts her, saying it is fine since it is a gift from a friend.

After she leaves, Watanuki notes that Customer 1 didn’t touch her drink when Customer 2 arrives, unsure how she arrived there. Like Customer 1, Customer 2’s phone strap cat figure is damaged in the same spots.

Sometime later over lunch, Watanuki discusses things with Himawari-chan. The one vital piece of information that Customer 2 provided was that when the gifts were given, Customer 2 told Customer 1 to think of the rabbit figure as Customer 2 and the cat one as Customer 1.

Watanuki returns to the shop after school to find that Customer 1 is there, only now, she has even more injuries.

Thoughts/Review:

It was pretty obvious with this chapter, even before Customer 2’s “the rabbit is me and the cat is you” revelation, that the cat figure that had damage at the same time as Customer 1 was tied to Customer 1. The rabbit was clean and undamaged as was Customer 2 obviously meant that represented her.

Based on CLAMP’s earlier xxxHOLiC works, it isn’t much of a stretch to think that Customer 2, despite everything, is somehow inflicting this damage on Customer 1.  The delivery method could be anything and the reason could be anything, both of which I’m sure will be revealed down the road, but I was reminded of the xxxHOLiC story of the two, unnamed twins where one’s “kindness” was physically causing the other.

Which reminds me, CLAMP just loves to have unnamed, female characters show up as customers for Yuuko-san. While there are characters like Ame-Warashi and Zashiki-Warashi, those aren’t names but creature types whom we’ve just granted their creature type name status.

Beyond that, there’s just not enough information to provide any additional analysis. Certainly, no clues were given as to how Watanuki and the others are “back” (or if there were clues, I missed them).  The next chapter is out, so I’ll now take a gander there and see what is revealed.