#natsumeweek 2020

[winterune]

A Moment of Sincerity

Word count: 3327

Summary: On Natsume’s 18th birthday, Madara finds himself contemplating that Natsume would leave after he graduates high school.

My (late) entry for @natsumeweek 2020. Day 1 Prompt: Wandering/Belonging. 

A/N: Unbeta'd, and some of them (the final part) was written in the middle of the night, so I'm not sure how it turns out (even after rereading and editing some bits). Also referenced my other fic titled Camellia: Remembrance. I hope you enjoy ^^ ALSO! A belated happy birthday, Natsume-ku~n! <3 season 7 where u at

Read on AO3. 

~*~*~*~*~

Madara watched the boy blow the candles on top of his white-frosted cake. When the last of the flame went out, his friends around him blew their horns and threw the confetti while the Fujiwaras clapped in silence with smiles on their faces.

“Happy eighteenth birthday!”

“Happy eighteenth birthday, Natsume!”

Natsume couldn’t stop the smile breaking through his lips, a tinge of pink on his cheeks.

They set out to cut the cake and handed them out on white paper plates. Natsume had even saved a piece for him, placing it in his bowl on the floor. “Here’s yours, Sensei,” he said. Madara would rather have those fried shrimps he had seen on the table, but it was Natsume’s special day, so he offered no complaints and instead just dug in to the soft, fluffy, creamy cake before his eyes.

Madara had witnessed three birthdays in his time living with Natsume. The first was a quiet thing, when not even Natsume had remembered. It had been around the time they first met. Touko had started fussing around the house after the boy left—cleaning, cooking, nothing out of the ordinary but Madara could tell she was giving extra effort on everything. Then she left for the town, and he left for the mountains, and when he came back later that afternoon riding on Natsume’s shoulder, a strawberry cake waited for them in the kitchen, with the words Happy Birthday, Takashi-kun spread across the top and center on chocolate icing. Natsume’s shock had been a sight to behold.

The second was a boisterous event, mostly held by his friends from school. With cakes and cookies and presents, a banner and confetti and trumpets. You’d think they hadn’t seen each other for years with the way the loud bunch had thrown the party. They had talked for hours and hours until night fell, and they had to go home because they had school the next day. Natsume hadn’t been able to stop smiling for the rest of the night.

Birthdays. Madara never understood the meaning of it. The day of someone’s birth. Natsume had asked him once if he had a birthday. The beast living off as a house cat had scoffed and said he didn’t need one. Though, if Madara had been honest, it was more like he didn’t have one, at least as far as he was concerned. Madara didn’t even know how long he had been alive. For as long as he could remember, Madara had been roaming the sky and across mountains as a great white beast, cultivating power and terror, until all the ayakashi feared him and respected him. Until all he could do was wander and pass the idle days under patches of dappled sunlight or drinking under a bright moonlit sky.

Madara finished his fluffy cake with a burp, his stomach full. It was good, as always. Too sweet for his taste, but he had no complaints.

Natsume and his friends weren’t around. Only the Fujiwara couple were there, eating their slices of cake on the table in silence.

Touko gave a quiet sigh.

“What’s wrong?” Shigeru asked.

Touko brought a spoonful of cake into her mouth. It was a while before she spoke. “This’ll be his last year here,” she said, her voice quiet.

Shigeru looked up from his cake and stared at his wife.  

“Time…seems to move so fast, don’t you think?” When Touko looked up, her small smile was tinged with sadness, and Madara took it upon himself to leave.

Natsume and his friends were holed up in his room. He could hear their screams and laughter from down the stairs. Madara couldn’t find the energy to join their raucousness, so he turned left toward the front door and exited the house.

***

An excitement seemed to brim beneath the silence of the forest where the ayakashi usually gathered. Whispers and hushed glee spread throughout the woodland creatures, leading him deeper to a dark clearing his ayakashi eyes spotted through a break in the trees. Familiar figures were rushing in and out, carrying little trinkets over their heads and dropping them at the center. And then he heard the voices, high-pitched and low, familiar and not.

“Here’s more!”

“I found these.”

“Would he like it, though?”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure Natsume-sama will accept them nonetheless.”

The two middle-class youkai stood at the center by a pile of what Madara had thought were the trinkets but apparently was an assortment of stones and twigs, flowers and acorns. Many lesser ayakashi darted into the pile to drop their forage, only to leave in search for something else. Hinoe stood by, overseeing it. She was the first to spot him at the edge of the clearing.

“Madara!” she called, hand held up high in wave. If none of the ayakashi had spotted him, Hinoe’s call certainly put him under the spotlight, and most of the lesser ones bowed to him before dashing away.

Madara strolled over to the pile, eyeing it with great interest. He could feel power coursing through it, not enough to attract attention, but enough for someone with a keen eye to know that something was there.

“What’s this?”

“A gift, Madara-sama,” the middle-class youkai said. “For Natsume-sama’s birthday.”

Madara blinked. A retort was ready on his lips, but he was cut before he could say anything.

“No, these aren’t just trash,” Hinoe said. “They’ve been bathed under the moonlight for the past month and now, they’re at the peak of their power.”

“They’re said to bless humans with long life!” the middle-class piped in, echoed by his ox-face friend beside him.

Long life.

Madara scoffed. He didn’t doubt the “gift” had some sort of power—he could feel it pulsing, like the throb of a beating heart. But he doubted the power was enough to bless “long life”, or if it would at all. He wouldn’t be surprised if they would take something from Natsume in return for it.

But Madara could already picture the boy’s face: a grimace, then a resigned smile. Natsume would still accept it, even when he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Too kind. The boy was too kind. One would have thought someone who had gotten into so much of youkai trouble had learned a thing or two about dealing with the lot, but in the three years Madara had lived with him, there hadn’t been a day when he was able to leave Natsume alone without getting into any trouble.

“All right,” the middle-class said after a short while. The kappa was the last one to drop a worn pebble on the heap. “I think we’re done.”

Every ayakashi in the clearing shouted and clapped their little hands. The gift pile glowed a dim blue in the dark, emitting a sort of warmth, as though the accumulation of moonlight-induced trinkets had produced a small fire deep within. Madara wondered how the hell they would bring these to Natsume. Drop them outside of his window? He could imagine Touko frowning at the sight of it.

“Let’s pack them up, everyone!” Hinoe said with a clap of her hands, but before anyone could move, Madara interjected.

“Give them tomorrow.”

“What?”

“He’s with his friends right now,” he went on. “Or do you want them to see stones and pebbles floating around in the air?”

Silence, where each of the ayakashi present looked at each other and murmured among themselves. It wasn’t until Hinoe grinned at him and said, “Since when were you so attentive, Madara?” that his temple pulsed.

Madara ended up ordering the couple middle-class youkai to get him the best alcohol they could find, announcing they would hold their own celebration tonight, and shouts of consent and joy were thrown around. They brought him to a spring deep in the woods that seemed to glow even when there was no moon to be seen.

***

Madara lay on his back on top of a boulder at the edge of the spring. A gap in the foliage above him showed a fragment of the moonless sky.

After a night-long merriment filled with drinking and laughter and singing, and more drinking, everyone was dozing peacefully, spread across the clearing. Quiet wheezes and snores, hushed breathing and a silent whimper as someone shifted in their sleep, turning on their side to hug an empty bottle of sake, murmuring incorrigibly. Madara couldn’t sleep, staring at the stars strewn across the stretch of dark indigo sky, blinking back at him.

A stir among sleeping reveler caused him to shift his eyes toward the source of the sound. A particularly tall ayakashi approached him. Her feet barely made any sound as she stepped over the grass and her sleeping companions.

“You’re not going back, Madara?” Hinoe asked as she reached him, her blue hair swaying in the cool gentle wind.

Madara shifted his gaze back toward the sky. “I’ll return in the morning.” It’s not as though he had never stayed out late. He would open the window in the morning, and Natsume would berate, but the boy would leave him be.

Silence fell. Hinoe sat on the grass with her back against the boulder.

“Who came up with the idea for the gift?” Madara asked quietly.

It was a moment before Hinoe answered. “I did.”

“Why?”

Hinoe shrugged in the dark. “I don’t know. It just came to me that we have never given Natsume anything.”

Madara scoffed at that. “We don’t owe humans anything,” he said. “And besides, it probably would’ve been better to assemble something that would help him with his future rather than something as lofty as blessing him with long life.”

“What’s wrong with blessing him with long life?” Hinoe asked testily. “That’s what all humans wish for.”

“It’s stupid. No matter what blessing he receives, we’ll always live longer, and then one day, he’ll be gone, like a flower falling off its branch, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

He could feel Hinoe’s glare, even if he didn’t see it, before she huffed and turned her eyes away. “I only wish he would live longer than Reiko.”

Reiko. Now that was a name Madara always had trouble sorting his thoughts on. A human girl around Natsume’s age who had been such a pain that he had done all he could think of to avoid her relentless approach.

“Do you remember, Madara?” Hinoe asked. “The last time we saw Reiko.”

He remembered. It had been burned to the back of his mind. Though the scene playing in his head was probably not the same as the one Hinoe was referring to. Because Madara had seen the human again, once, years after she had come to them on that late winter day and challenged him to a match.

Come on! Reiko had insisted. This could be the last time.

He’d look at her then, this small defiant human who had seemed to have the backing of a thousand gods with the way she had been pestering him time and again. Bold. Daring. Or should he say fearless? Stupidly fearless. Didn’t she know that he could eat her alive right then and there and she would never be heard from again?

But Madara had scoffed, because he hadn’t believed it would have been the last time they saw each other. Though, if he were being honest, even if he had known, Madara probably would have still refused. So he had grunted and said, “Good riddance then,” and Reiko hadn’t returned the next day, nor the next, until he found her sitting on a set of stairs leading down to a small cemetery in the mountains, her features looking older than the last time he had seen her.

***

“What brings you here, Reiko?” he’d asked her. The human he had known to have harassed half the mountain dwellers had looked frail, and sickly then. He had seen it in the gauntness on her face, a weakness in her drawn shoulders, and the indifferent look that somehow looked tired.

She had been staring at a bouquet of white flowers on one of the cemetery gravestones. Camellias, she had said those flowers were. The red ones symbolized noble death. But the white ones, when they were brought to a graveyard, it was said to send out a message—that those who had died would live on in their hearts.

Madara had never seen Reiko look so forlorn. Her voice, small and quiet, talking about flowers and death had brushed him the wrong way. Something was off, he’d thought, but he hadn’t known what.

Until she decided to perk up and challenged him once more.

Madara had scoffed.

“Come on, you never accepted,” she had said. “For old’s time sake.” And before him had not been the sickly Reiko anymore, but the Reiko he had used to know, with that exasperating spark in her eyes. “If I win,” she’d gone on, “you’ll give me your name. But if you win…”

You can ask for anything you want, was what he had thought she would say. It had gotten to be like a spell, the way she kept saying the same thing over and over every time she met a new ayakashi. However, what she ended up saying had frozen him to the spot.

“I’ll give you the Book of Friends.”

Madara had stared at her and found her staring back—some sort of resolve swimming just underneath those amber eyes. He had heard right. She hadn’t been joking.

Of course, Madara hadn’t accepted her challenge. She had left with her young daughter shortly after he told her he would take the Book after she died. Reiko hadn’t given him any sort of retort or comeback, only smiled and said thank you. He didn’t know how many seasons passed until that one early winter day, when Madara was walking past the cemetery and he noticed something that made him pause, transfixed: hundreds of white flowers on the bushes and undergrowth blooming in unison.

Camellias.

***

“I heard Natsume’s leaving.”

Hinoe’s voice broke through his reverie, pulling Madara back to the present. The stars had slowly gone out one by one as the sky started to lighten in the distance. Dawn would come soon. Madara turned over to his side then leaped to his paws on the soft grass wet with dew.

“Rumors reach your ears fast,” Madara said, shaking himself free off the night’s ruminations. His eyes felt heavy. He needed sleep.

Hinoe straightened up her back. “What are you going to do, Madara?” she asked. Madara stared at all the ayakashi still sprawled throughout the clearing. “Are you going to follow him?”

Madara looked back at Hinoe. “I suggest you give the present after he comes home from school.” Madara turned around without another word and made his way home.

***

Natsume came home one day when Madara was dozing in the corner of his room. The door slid open, followed by quiet footfalls as Natsume made his way to his desk. Madara heard a soft thump—Natsume had sat down on the tatami mat. A moment’s pause before the boy drew out a heavy sigh, and Madara opened an eye to see him plopping down on his back, his hands stretched out on either side.

Madara waited for a moment, then, realizing Natsume wasn’t going to say anything as he stared up at his ceiling, decided to go back to sleep. His head was pounding from all the sake he had drunk the night before. However, not a heartbeat had passed when he heard Natsume sigh again and this time, Natsume spoke.

“The teacher gave us one of those future plan surveys again,” he said. “I don’t know what to write in it.”

“Didn’t you say you were going to college?” Madara said, his eyes still closed. Ever since the season rolled from summer to fall, Natsume had been staying up late at night, studying. A couple times, Madara had seen Touko and Shigeru helping him decide what schools to choose and what things he could study. Natsume had even talked to Natori that one time he visited town for another job.

“You’ll have more chances to land a good job if you go to college,” the exorcist had said.

“Did you go to college, Natori-san?”

Natori only smiled and said, “I did,” but had not elaborated.

“I could just look for a job here,” Natsume went on. “I’m sure there’s something I can do. Help out in someone’s store or something.” He paused. “What do you think, Sensei?”

Madara was silent for a while. He couldn’t believe Natsume was asking these things when he seemed to have been quite excited the last time Madara saw him talk with the Fujiwaras. And why was he even asking him about his future plans? And his head still pounded hard and the light filtering through the windows didn’t help at all.

A migraine was coming.

Madara turned around on his paws to shield his eyes from the light and plopped himself back down, desperately wishing for sleep to come.

“I don’t care what you choose nor am I obligated to help sort your human problems,” he said. “Whatever you go with, rest assured that I will be with you all the way.”

Silence fell. It was a moment before Madara realized what he had said, and it made him internally cringe. When he was about to take it back, his head hurt so bad that even lifting his eyelid was too much of an effort.

“Sensei…” he heard Natsume say, so soft he almost missed it.

He had expected a scoff or a laugh, but all Madara heard was a sort of wonderment in his voice. And maybe it was all right, this moment of sincerity. Or maybe it was the sake talking. Or the migraine talking. Just to get Natsume off his back and let him have his peaceful sleep.

But there was one thing Madara knew.

Once upon a time, Reiko had wanted to entrust the Book of Friends to him. Once upon a time, Madara had promised he would. He could say that was the reason why he said what he said. Or even the promise he had made Natsume on the day they first met, before he became the boy’s so-called guardian. But despite the quiet excitement brimming under the surface, Madara had seen the faraway look on Natsume’s face when no one was looking. A slight frown, drawn eyes, and furrowed brow—almost the same expression he had seen on Reiko’s face all those years ago, when she came to him and Hinoe and challenged him to a match.

This could be the last time.

He had thought Reiko as bold, and daring, and fearless. But after living with a human for three years, Madara had begun to see her persistence as a way to hide her loneliness and anxiety.

And maybe, Natsume felt the same.

Madara forced open an eye and found Natsume lying on his side on the mat, gazing at him. Silent. Expecting. And maybe a little apprehensive, though who was he to know? Humans were such complicated creatures.

“I’ll stay with you wherever you go, Natsume,” he said.

Natsume blinked.

A moment passed, then another. Natsume didn’t say anything, and Madara frowned. That was the most cringe-worthy line he had ever said. He turned his face away and closed his eyes once again.

But then he heard it—a soft chuckle—and he imagined a small smile grazing Natsume’s lips as the boy whispered, “Thanks, sensei.”

Madara’s chest tightened and his stomach flip-flopped. A peculiar yet bothersome sensation he would rather not feel again, but it wasn’t bad. Madara’s ears drew back in contentment.

“Now leave me be!” he said instead. “I have a headache!” Natsume’s light laughter was the last thing he heard before he finally drifted into sleep.

~ END ~

[natsumeweek]

NATSUME WEEK 2020 PROMPTS DECIDED!

Thank you all so much for your patience and your wonderful prompt submissions! Whittling them down was tough work but we managed in the end :) 

Without further ado, the prompts for Natsume Week 2020 running from Wednesday 1st of July to Tuesday 7th of July in UTC+9 (Tokyo Time) are as follows: 

Wednesday 1st July - Wandering / Belonging  Thursday 2nd July - Past / Future  Friday 3rd July - Earth / Stars  Saturday 4th July - Whispers / Secrets Sunday 5th July - Bad Habits  Monday 6th July - Seasons  Tuesday 7th July - Outsider Perspective 

As always, feel free to interpret the prompts however you want, and follow them as closely or loosely as you wish. Of course, take a quick peek at our rules and don’t be afraid to send us an ask if you have any questions!

Get creating! Hope to see you there! 

[parthenopiadoodles]

July 1 - Wandering

I immediately thought of Reiko for this prompt so I decided to redraw this illustration from the manga.

[natsukoberryart]

Yeey Natsume Week ❤❤

Of course I had to draw something since I love this series ❤❤❤ Actually I used my cospaly photo as reference 😅 but I hope you still like it 😋

And also! HAPPY BIRTHDAY NATSUME 💕💕

@natsumeweek day 1: Wandering

[natsumiyasblog]

my first post for this year's @natsumeweek! I dropped the ball on 2020's, but I'm determined to stay on track this year!

[winterune]

Bound by Will

Word count: 6715

Summary: Shortly after the start of Natsume's freshman year of college, he meets a youkai who seems to have some sort of connection to Reiko.

Was supposed to write this for natsumeweek, but alas, I did not have the time to write for all the prompts. However, I still plan on writing this as a series based on the event prompts. They will be interconnected stories, maybe not direct continuations, but each will still be connected in some way to the other. 

So, Day 2 Prompt: Past/Future.

Read on AO3

Previous entry: Tumblr / AO3 / My NatsuYuu fic masterlist

~*~*~*~*~

There was a club in their university that specialized in Occult Study and Natsume found himself being dragged into its premises.

It started fifteen minutes back, when Natsume came down from his lecture building to join Tanuma and Taki in the cafeteria. Someone stopped him in his tracks. Ebony eyes glinted behind a pair of black-rimmed glasses.

“Hey,” he said with a grin stretching from ear to ear. “Do you want to join our club?”

He then had explained in length that he was from an Occult Study club in need for new recruits because they had reached the bare minimum of members needed to form a club. A couple of their members would graduate next year, and if they hadn’t recruited any new members by then, their club would be forced to disband.

Natsume hadn’t heard of this Occult Study club. In fact, he didn’t remember seeing one when they were all showcasing their clubs and circles at the start of freshman year.

“What’s your name?” the man asked.

“Takashi Natsume,” Natsume replied on instinct, regretting almost immediately that he had just told his name to a stranger that he wasn’t even sure was a human. There was a sinking feeling at the pit of his stomach as the man’s grin grew.

“I’m Akihiko Chiba. You can just call me Aki. Everyone does that.”

A nickname on the first minute of their first meeting?

“Want to take a peek of our club, Natsume-kun?” The level of familiarity this man projected. Aki…senpai pointed over to the general direction of the student union center where most of the clubrooms were located.

Natsume wasn’t sure. His mind told him that something was off, that he should refuse and told him his friends were waiting, but his heart seemed to say otherwise. So he found himself nodding and Aki-senpai’s grin widened.

***

A part of him said the club wasn’t real. That this was a scam, and if this Aki-senpai showed any signs of being or related to a youkai of any sort, Natsume would hit him in the head and run for his life.

But then they finally stopped and Natsume looked up to see a ramshackle shack that looked to be an old disused storage in the middle of a copse of trees.

“Here we are,” Aki-senpai said ahead of him, reaching toward the wooden door. It shook and grated against the floor. “Welcome, to our humble abode!”

Natsume braced himself. A face or teeth or limbs trying to take him in and he would run.

But only silence greeted him.

Aki-senpai invited him in with a nod of his head. Natsume gulped, gripping the sling of his messenger bag tighter as he stepped through the threshold.

The place smelled of dust and rust and the lingering scent of cup noodles. Sleek gray walls surrounded him with a single lamp hanging down the center of the room, swaying in the gentle breeze entering through the door. He spotted shelves stacked with thick books and a scatter of various objects and boxes on a nearby table. A used mattress on one side and at the center was a rickety table where two of the four people present played a game of shogi.

“All right, break it up, guys!” Aki-senpai said. He slapped the back of the guy playing the game. Big, muscled, with blonde hair and piercings on his ear.

“Go away,” the guy who looked like a delinquent said, waving his hand to ward Aki-senpai off. “We’re in the middle of the game!”

“We’re down to five people and all you do is play shogi.”

“What’s wrong with that?” the delinquent’s opponent, a girl with a red checkered shirt and glasses, said. Her hand moved and slammed a shogi piece on the board. “Ha!” The delinquent stared wide-eyed.

Aki-senpai sighed. “What’s wrong, Aoi, is that we’re gonna be shut down if we don’t get any new members.”

Stretching her names over her head, the girl called Aoi said, “No one wants to join us.”

“Well, I brought someone.”

Natsume started, his feet taking an involuntary step back, as four pairs of eyes suddenly looked up and found him by the threshold. Their surprise told him enough that they hadn’t seen any new members for years. What had started as simple curiosity was slowly turning into regret and Natsume hoped they wouldn’t force him to join. He didn’t even know what these people actually do. Exorcism? Or simply studying the unseen? But judging from the dust collecting on the shelves, he doubted any of them actually dealt in Occult Study.

The delinquent eyed him with scrutiny as he leaned back on his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “You really wanna join?”

Natsume blinked. What should he say? No? That he was only looking around? For one, he hadn’t decided if he wanted to join a club or circle or any of the sort. Even if he had, would he really join an Occult Study when his life was already swarming with youkai—even if these people were only here to hang around with nothing else to do?

“Well he didn’t really say that.” Aki-senpai went to his defense. “I only offered to show him around.”

The delinquent stared at him before clicking his tongue in irritation. Leaning over the table once more, he picked up another shogi piece and moved it across the board. “Don’t go dragging people here, Chiba.”

Aki-senpai apologized, though still scolding them on the side that they should act more like club members. “This is why no one wants to join.”

“Pretty sure that’s not the reason why,” another girl said. She had been sitting on the mattress, scrolling through her phone lazily, and now she fell onto her back with not much care about the world.

Their interest in him dwindled once they knew that Natsume wasn’t here to join. Aoi and the delinquent were completely absorbed in their shogi game, forgetting about him entirely. The girl on the phone ignored Aki-senpai as he tried to explain their need for members. Only one paid attention—the final boy standing by the shogi players, who had been just as absorbed in the game as the players themselves when Natsume and Aki-senpai entered. A boy roughly around his senpai’s age, with jet-black hair falling over gray eyes.

Their eyes met.

A sickening feeling rose from the pit of his stomach as those eyes seemed to suck him in. Natsume.

Natsume looked with a start. Aki-senpai stood in front of him, still wearing that easy-going grin. He had called his name.

“So, what do you think, Natsume-kun?” he asked. Natsume blinked, feeling a lump rise at the back of his throat. His heart raced, his fingers felt clammy. A high-pitched ringing filled his ears. Aki-senpai seemed to notice the change, because he drew his brows in concern and asked, "Are you all right?" His voice sounded so far away. 

Natsume blinked again and the feeling slowly dissipated, as though it had never happened. The bitterness he had felt in his mouth faded away and his ears returned to normal. "I'm all right, Senpai,” he managed to say. But he still didn't feel well, so he excused himself for the day.  

***

“You’re late!”

Nyanko-sensei was sitting on Taki’s lap with a frown and a glare when Natsume finally reached the cafeteria. Tanuma and Taki looked up from one of the round tables.

“Nyanko-sensei? What are you doing here?” Natsume asked.

The cat looked away with an irritated huff.

“I found him coming out of the bushes near your building, Natsume-kun,” Taki said. “You didn’t come so we looked for you.”

“Did you go somewhere?” Tanuma asked.

“Sorry.” Natsume took a seat between them. “A senpai tried to recruit me for his club.”

Tanuma tilted his head to the side. “What club?”

“Occult Study?”

His friends stared at him in the same disbelief Natsume had felt the moment Aki-senpai told him the name of his club. Who could blame them? Neither of them had expected a club like that to exist. He wanted to laugh, but his body felt drained and heavy and all he wanted was to sleep.

“You look pale,” Tanuma remarked, concerned.

Natsume tried to wave him off, to smile and say that he was fine, but his shoulders slumped before he could manage. His chest felt heavy, his breathing labored. Tanuma and Taki jumped to their feet in alarm.

 “Did you meet an ayakashi, Natsume?” Nyanko-sensei had leaped onto the table between them, his gaze narrowed and hard.

Ayakashi?

He tried to remember, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know. Natsume shook his head, listless. Nyanko-sensei’s gaze could have drilled a hole in him if he had the power to.  

Taki looked at Nyanko-sensei, then Natsume, and pursed her lips. “Anyway, let’s get you home first," she said. She pushed away from her chair and pulled Natsume to his feet. Tanuma carried his bag and supported Natsume on his other side. Sensei trailed just a few feet behind them, his eyes never leaving Natsume.

***

The three of them lived in the same small apartment complex near campus, on the same floor, only several doors apart. Tanuma took the key from Natsume and opened the door to Natsume’s apartment, where they shuffled him inside and lay him on his bed.

Natsume’s head swam and pounded, sweat covering his brow and neck. He heard distinct voices, whispers—Tanuma and Taki discussing whether they should stay in Natsume’s apartment until he seemed better.

“Good thing tomorrow’s a weekend,” Tanuma said.

Natsume went in and out of stupor. At one moment he was walking in darkness, his body sluggish as he tried to find a way out. At another, he heard his friends’ voices drifting in and out. His nose picked up a scent of food—chicken or some sort. His friends talked about school works or interrogated Nyanko-sensei on what he meant by meeting an ayakashi.

“Why were you at school, Sensei?” Tanuma asked.

“I was checking it out,” Sensei replied through a mouthful of whatever dinner his friends had gotten him.

“Sensei!” Taki probed.

It was a while before Natsume heard him say, “I felt a presence, all right, and I followed it.”

“And it led you to the school?”

Natsume in vain fought to keep his consciousness. It went under again before he could hear what Nyanko-sensei had to say.

One time, he heard a voice, a child’s, crying in the distance. Another time, he felt a heavy lump on his stomach before someone took it off him with a reprimanding tone in her voice.

Her.

When Natsume opened his eyes, he was standing in a clearing. A small forest clearing where a patch of dappled sunlight pooled on the ground. The foliage around him was thick and green, the wind brushing his face cool to the touch.

A quiet sob drew his attention and Natsume found a small boy crouching against a tree, hugging his scraped and bleeding knees to his chest.

Natsume blinked and a woman materialized there. Her long brown hair fell to her waist. She wore a green floral dress that reached to her calf. Natsume recognized her, though he had never seen her outside of her school uniform.

“Are you all right?” Reiko asked the boy. She looked older, somewhat calmer.

The boy looked up. Dark hair fell over gray eyes. He looked familiar though Natsume couldn’t remember who or where he had seen him.

“Who’re you?” the boy asked.

Reiko crouched in front of him. “I’m Reiko. You are?”

The boy’s eyes widened at that. Natsume heard shuffles of tiny feet and rustles in the trees. Several pairs of eyes looked down at them from above—tiny youkai drawn by their curiosity.

“You’re Reiko?” the boy asked.

“I am.”

“You don’t look so bad.”

Reiko tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean by that?”

“They say a powerful human who’s been terrorizing the ayakashi on the other side of the mountain has been seen around here lately,” the boy said. “They say the human is called Reiko Natsume.”

Reiko stared at him for a silent moment, before she snorted and burst into laughter—the sort of laughter that shook her to her core. Natsume had never seen her laugh so freely like that. The boy could only stare, transfixed.

“What’s your name?”

The youkai shook his head. “I don’t have a name.”

Reiko let out a quiet breath as she stood up and brushed her hands on her skirt. “Those scraps look painful,” she said. “I know someone who can patch you up.” And then she looked at him with a thin smile and offered him her hand. “Let’s go.”

***

Natsume woke up to a different darkness. Not the pressing, suffocating darkness he had trodden in-between dream and reality, but warmer, and friendlier, where he could see his ceiling past the initial darkness his eyes perceived. His clothes felt damp, his body sticky. His eyes were still heavy but the pounding in his head was gone.

A dream. Of an older Reiko.

Natsume wouldn’t have had these dreams if he hadn’t encountered a youkai. But his mind was exhausted to retrace recent events where he could have met one, so he let the thought be. Instead, he looked to the side, where he heard a soft rhythmic breathing of someone asleep. Sensei was there, curled up beside him. He could just make out the outline of Taki sleeping on the couch and Tanuma on the table by the kitchen counter.

Natsume shifted on his bed, trying to sit up without waking anyone. His stomach grumbled. He needed to eat. Hopefully, there were leftovers from whatever dinner his friends had.

Just as he drew his feet off his blanket, he felt it, a stare from the corner of the room. He looked up to find a pair of gray eyes looking straight at him. Natsume jerked in surprise. The pair of eyes took a step forward and a head materialized, followed by a body and its limbs.

The boy with the dark hair from his dream. But older. His age.

Natsume caught himself. Could a youkai age?

“Natsume-sama,” the youkai began and Natsume was again struck with a familiarity that he had seen this boy somewhere.

Natsume’s head pounded once more, like a painful strike of a hammer to his temple. He grunted, his hand flying to the side of his head, and the youkai froze.

“Natsume-sama, I do not wish you harm.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Haru.”

“What do you want?”

The youkai—Haru—shook his head. “I have something to tell you—something to show—but I cannot state that here. The barrier your guardian has placed around you is strong. I cannot stay here long.”

“Then—”

“If you would, Natsume-sama, there is a place near here. A store. Old Roots. You can find me there.”

A shift on his bed. Nyanko-sensei blinked sleepy eyes at him. He mumbled his name, eyes narrowing.

The youkai stared at the cat for a good second. “I will wait for you there,” he said quickly right as Nyanko-sensei’s eyes flew open and he leaped onto his feet, bright white light bursting from the mark on his head.

Haru had vanished.

***

“You and your pests,” Nyanko-sensei grumbled later that night. His friends had woken up from the ruckus Sensei had created and now Taki was heating up the porridge she had made for Natsume, who was sitting on the table being scolded by a cat. “I can’t even get a wink of peaceful sleep around you.”

“He said he didn’t mean any harm,” Natsume tried, only to be treated by one of Sensei’s painful glares. He had explained the gist of what happened, and that the youkai called Haru wanted to meet with him.

“We can go with you,” Tanuma offered.

“No!” Natsume and Nyanko-sensei said simultaneously. Tanuma jerked.

Sensei clicked his tongue. “I don’t need another human to look after. One is already a handful.”

“What if something happened?” Tanuma said.

“Well you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.”

“Should we call Natori-san?” Taki asked from the stove.

“Don’t,” Natsume said. He could already picture the actor’s face. That strained smile on his picture-perfect face. One lecture was enough. Natsume didn’t need another one.

“Well at least he could be more sensible than you sometimes.”

Natsume frowned, though there was nothing he could say to that.

Taki turned off the stove and brought Natsume his porridge. It warmed him up, driving away the last of his fever. None of them initiated another debate as they let him eat, knowing there was nothing they could say to change his mind.

When morning came, Natsume walked through town with Nyanko-sensei in search of a store called Old Roots. Tanuma and Taki had looked at him with concern and they made him promise not to do anything rash and to come back if he felt faint again. Natsume, in return, had promised to be careful.

But no matter how far they walked, and how many people he asked, no one had heard the name of that store before, to the point Nyanko-sensei started grumbling about not to trust what youkai said.

Natsume listened to him bicker for a while, but as they turned around a corner, a familiar face entered his line of sight. Aki-senpai was sweeping the pavement in front of a store, the words on the nameplate spelled Chiba’s Collectibles.

As though drawn by supernatural instinct, Aki-senpai looked up and their eyes met.

“Natsume-kun?!” He sounded surprised, though maybe not as surprised as Natsume felt over this weird coincidence. He nodded his greeting as he approached his senpai. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for a store.” He paused, glancing down at Nyanko-sensei, who seemed to silently tell him to do what he needed to do. “Something called Old Roots?”

Aki-senpai tilted his head to the side. “You mean our store?”

Natsume blinked, uncomprehending. He looked up at the storefront sign again, and indeed, it was called Chiba’s Collectibles.

“Ah,” Aki-senpai said, following his line of sight. “Yeah, that’s what we’ve been calling it since Grandma passed away. Old Roots was the name Grandma gave it.”

“I see.”

The store looked like an antique store. The wooden front door looked ancient. The name looked to be written in archaic, cursive calligraphy. On the window display were china plates and old fans, with pots and vases and a maneki neko doll at the center. 

Aki-senpai opened the front door with a rattle, inviting him in. Natsume stared at the open doorway for a while, then willed himself to enter the store, Sensei following behind.

The store smelled of old and aging wood. It reminded him of the mountains at the back of his hometown, where he would find his youkai friends gathered on daylights. Natsume could see various objects on the shelves lining the walls—from bowls and pots to dolls and paintings. Mannequins stood in a corner wearing ancient Japanese armors, their swords and spears and bows hanging on the wall. Glass cases dividing the room into aisles contained smaller trinkets like hairpins and scrolls and watches.

A small sitting area stood at the back of the store, at the corner across from the cash register counter, between a set of stairs leading to a second floor and a door leading to a backroom.

“What brings you here, Natsume-kun?” Aki-senpai asked after offering Natsume a seat.

“Um—” What should he say? He had thought the store belonged to Haru, or other youkai, or someone with the Sight like an exorcist or people who dealt with magical objects. He hadn’t expected it to belong to a normal human, much less someone he knew.

“Don’t tell me,” Aki-senpai said before Natsume had formulated his answer. He suddenly leaned closed, his eyes glinting in understanding as a grin stretched across his face. “Did you really want to join our club?”

Natsume stared, dumbstruck. For a moment, he wondered what his senpai meant, before the events of the day before returned to his mind. The club at the disused storage room in the middle of a copse of trees—the dusted books and shelves, and the people playing shogi. He had completely forgotten about it.  

“Then again,” Aki-senpai went on without waiting for his reply, “you wouldn’t have known I work here.” The thought made him pause, and he leaned against his broom. His eyes narrowed as he stared Natsume down. “How did you learn about Old Roots?”

I heard it from a youkai, Natsume wanted to say, but would his senpai even believe him?

But then Aki-senpai said something that froze him on the spot: “Did Haru tell you?”

Natsume whipped his head up and met Aki-senpai’s stern and unwavering gaze. He hadn’t heard wrong.

“Do you know Haru, Senpai?” he asked.

“Of course. He’s our shiki.”

Shiki.

The unexpected use of the word rendered Natsume speechless. Aki-senpai had a shiki. 

“How did you know Haru, Natsume-kun?” Aki-senpai went on.

Natsume shook his head. “I don’t know him.”

“Then why was he looking for you?”

“What?” That was news to him. He looked to the ground, but Nyanko-sensei was nowhere to be found. The cat probably knew about it. That was why he had been at school the other day.

Aki-senpai’s lips pressed to a thin line, but his eyes stayed on Natsume as he leaned his broom against the wall and took a seat across from him. “He came to me one day and asked me about a boy called Natsume. He told me, you go to our college. I said I don’t know him. He asked me to find out about you.”

Did that mean Aki-senpai approached him not because of the club but because a youkai asked him to?

The thought made him pause.

Had Haru been in that clubroom?

There were five people—six including him. Among them were Aki-senpai, Aoi and the delinquent playing shogi, the girl on the phone, and—

Just as the thought entered his mind, Natsume heard footsteps coming in from the backroom, and a familiar voice he had heard the night before reached his ears.

“Aki, don’t be like that.”

Natsume turned and found the boy with the black hair and gray eyes standing over the threshold—the person he had seen in the clubroom yesterday, who had been standing over the shogi players and watching them play. The person who had stared intently at him, causing the sickening feeling in his stomach.

The youkai, Haru, smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, Natsume-sama, for coming to you so intrusively.”

From across the table, Aki-senpai scoffed. “You call him with honorifics but not me?”

“You told me not to, Aki,” Haru said.

Aki-senpai frowned. They stared each other down, not entirely in animosity—Natsume couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Aki-senpai was the first to break eye contact and sighed. He stood up from his chair. “Take your time. The shop won’t be open for another couple hours.” And then he went over to the backroom with a promise to bring tea.

Natsume was halfway up his chair, halfway saying, “You don’t have to, Senpai—” but Aki-senpai had already disappeared.

“Don’t worry about him, Natsume-sama,” the youkai said, his eyes still trailing over his master’s back. “He’s only feeling somewhat rivaled.”

“Rivaled?!”

Haru chuckled. “He’ll be over it at the end of the day.”

That didn’t ease his anxiety though Natsume had no room to argue. Haru sat on the seat Aki-senpai had vacated and Natsume followed him, glancing sideways toward the backroom once. The youkai noticed this.

“It’s the first time Aki meets someone his age with spiritual power,” Haru explained. “All he’s known were his immediate family, and several patrons who come looking for magical objects—yes, the antique store is only a front for the magical objects they deal with,” he added when Natsume raised his brows. “The rivalry he feels may stem from what pride he has as a youkai specialist—though Aki isn’t a particularly prideful person. Or…” Haru paused, laughing quietly under his breath. “Well, he might be afraid of me leaving him to follow you.”

Natsume blinked, uncomprehending. “Why would he think that?”

Haru looked at him and Natsume noticed the faraway look in his eyes and the longing in his smile. “Because, Natsume-sama,” he finally said, “You are Reiko’s grandson.”

Haru confirmed that Reiko was his former master, though Reiko had claimed she had never bound him to her. “She named me, you see, saying the name was gift,” he said with a light-hearted chuckle. “I don’t think she knew very well the power of naming a youkai. Especially with a power like hers.”

“Hmph, sounds very much like the Reiko I know,” Nyanko-sensei said. The cat, who apparently had been exploring the store, had finally joined them. He had looked at Haru with narrowed eyes and Haru had nodded his head in meek greeting.

“I’m sorry for causing an alarm,” Haru had said.

Nyanko-sensei had only grunted, before taking his place on the chair by Natsume’s side.

Haru chuckled. “Yes, a peculiar human she was—Reiko.” His voice was so soft, so gentle, as though speaking of something precious. But then his eyes grew dark and drawn and his smile was tinged with sorrow.

“The moment Reiko died—I felt it—like a snap in the bond I had come to cherish over the years since our meeting.

“It was an order,” he went on. “The only thing stopping me from going after her was her order for me to stay behind and protect Aki’s family.”

Natsume let the thought sink in. “Then, does the contract still stand?”

Haru gauged his response, before saying, “I believe it does. I thought it was gone the moment Reiko died, but apparently, I was still connected by a sliver of a thread to her daughter. But her power was too weak, our bond too thin, that I never felt it. Until several years after Aki was born that the contract snapped into place again.”

“So,” Natsume said after a while, “if I were to order you—”

“Then I would be compelled to follow.”

The depth of the situation finally dawning on him, Natsume understood why Aki-senpai had acted the way he had. For the blood relative of a former master to appear, carrying a long-forgotten contract…

“Had none of Aki-senpai’s family ever renewed the bond?” he asked. Because Natori had told him once, that the contract could be inherited, or even made new, by someone with strong power.

Haru shook his head. “Chieko, Aki’s grandmother, never did, in respect to Reiko’s wishes. While in Aki’s parents’ case—I might have stayed long enough that both of them have forgotten I was not bound to them.”

“So you stayed here of your volition?” Nyanko-sensei asked. “Not bound to anyone but your own will?”

Haru nodded, prompting Nyanko-sensei to scoff. “Silly. You’ve attached yourself to humans who would be gone in a blink of an eye.”

“I could say the same thing to you,” Haru said evenly. “Isn’t that why you’re here? Putting such a strong barrier no other ayakashi could come and harm him.”

“I am the master in our relationship, not the other way around.”

“Semantics. Have you never gone to his aid then, without a thought of who’s the master and who’s the servant—with your heart roaring when you see him hurt?”

Nyanko-sensei’s eyes glinted under the light. His voice had dropped several octaves when he spoke next. “He is my prey and mine alone. I will not let other ayakashi eat him.”

They stared at each other, the air between them thick and charged with electricity. Natsume wasn’t sure what was happening. It was not the same sort of exchange he had seen between Nyanko-sensei and other shiki. A fight would break, and not just any skirmishes his guardian had had before.

Natsume touched his pelt. He felt Sensei start, so soft he could have missed it, but the bristle that had slowly begun along his spine died down. Nyanko-sensei was the first to break eye contact, looking away with an irritated huff.

“We’re not so different, you and I,” Haru went on, “when all we wish is to keep our humans safe.”

Nyanko-sensei didn’t say anything.

Natsume stared at him for a couple moments before looking up to meet Haru’s eyes. “What did you wish to show me, Haru?”

The youkai looked at him again, before shifting his gaze toward his laced fingers on the tabletop. “Reiko met Chieko shortly after she arrived in the city,” he began. “She already had a daughter by then. And her body had already begun to break.”

~~~

The moon was low. Reiko lay on her side. Blood trickled down the corner of her lips as her chest heaved with difficulty. Her child. Where was her child? She tried to look but her eyelids were heavy. How did she get here? All she remembered was traveling down the hill, her hand grasping the small hand of her daughter’s, before a coughing fit shook her, and she stumbled. Her sides ached, her head pounded.

Had it all been a dream? Had she dreamed of having a daughter and dreaming of a future in peace?

Or had her daughter abandoned her like everyone else in her life? A good-for-nothing mother like her. She couldn’t even raise her child. She couldn’t give her a proper house proper meal like everyone else.

A light shone above her. A hand, bony and wrinkled, grasped her face, cupping her chin. Tsk, tsk, it went. You have death on your door, child. You don’t have long.

Reiko fought to open her eyes.

A curse has bound itself to you. A forbidden magic you have done.

The wrinkled hand touched her forehead.

A cherished object.

Another tsk. The hand caressed her face, and when it spoke, its voice was soft.

Poor child. No amount of healing spells can save you—unless you return those which you have taken.

***

“A curse,” Natsume echoed, interrupting Haru’s story. The heart of his heart already knew the answer, even before Haru nodded and said,

“The Book of Friends.”

Forbidden magic.

Natsume’s mind brought him back to a dim room in Natori’s place. He had asked the exorcist’s help to reseal a youkai, and after it had been done, the conversation had taken a turn to the rules in place for exorcism.

When an exorcist makes a contract of mastery with an ayakashi, Natori had said, they should never bind their real name. Some of the most dangerous can even curse people who aren’t involved.

“That book bound their true names to her life force,” Haru went on. “Not only had it taken a toll to her body, it was something that should never have been done, and the act, by itself, cursed her.”

***

That night, her daughter, who had gone in search of help, brought Chieko to where her mother lay. Chieko was, in fact, skilled in the arts of healing, but even Chieko could only slow the curse’s progression.

Haru met Reiko not long afterwards and stayed with her long after she named him. It didn’t take long for him to find out about her illness.

She lived with Chieko’s family for a couple years—said the medicine worked well. Her body hadn’t hurt as much. But sometimes in the middle of the night, when she thought everyone was asleep, Haru would see her body bent, her hair matted with sweat, as cough after cough took over her body. And when she pulled her hand from her mouth, he’d seen them covered in blood.

Still, she stayed. Haru suspected the reason was because Chieko and her husband had been so welcoming that when it would have been time for her to leave, she’d find herself saying, ‘just one more day. Let me stay here just one more day.’ Then one day became one week, and one week became one month, one month became one year.

Until one day, the curse began to spread, and not just in her own body.

“I’m leaving, Haru,” Reiko said one night in their room. The light had gone out. Everyone was fast asleep. Rain poured outside, masking their conversation.

Haru shook his head. “Chieko said not to leave.”

Reiko laughed under her breath. “I don’t live by Chieko’s rules.”

Haru frowned. He’d heard them earlier, downstairs in the kitchen, talking in hushed voices. The curse was spreading, and not just in her own body. Chieko’s son had gotten sick with a high fever and coughing fit that had lasted for more than two weeks.

“You don’t know if it’s because of the curse,” Haru argued.

“You don’t know if it’s not,” Reiko said. “The doctors didn’t find anything wrong with him, yet he’s been bedridden for weeks. Don’t tell me it’s not because of me.”

“It’s not!”

Reiko put a finger to her lips. She didn’t want to wake the others, but Haru didn’t care. Let him wake the others. Let the others put some sense in this human’s head.

“Then let me come with you.”

“I can’t. I need you to stay.”

He had been ready for that. Please take care of Haru for me. That’s what Reiko had asked Chieko. She had meant to leave him.

“You need me to protect you, Reiko.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“How?” he countered. “You’re halfway to the underworld and now you’re leaving in the middle of the night with a child and nowhere to go. How can you take care of yourself?”

Reiko gave him one of her infuriating smiles that meant enough—that asked him not to ask questions and leave her be. But how could he? How could he when she was his master and him her servant—when ever since the day Reiko named him, his sole purpose had been to protect her?

“I need you to protect Chieko and her family.”

“They’re strong!”

“Not strong enough.” Reiko’s smile turned wistful; her eyes drawn. “Chieko saved me, Haru. She accepted me when no one ever had. She welcomed me to her home, and her family, and now look what I’ve brought her.” Her laugh was self-deprecating and it grated in his ears.

It’s not your fault, he wanted to say, but he knew it was a vain attempt when her heart was already set.

“Where are you going?” he asked instead, though his heart ached in his chest.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Find a peaceful place to settle down? Away from the eyes and ears of humans and youkai.” Not much of an answer, but that only told him the extent of her plan.

“Will you do it for me?” she asked him after a while. “Make sure Chieko’s child lives and none of my illnesses get to them? Make sure they’re happy, and healthy, and no harm comes to them? You’re the only one I can ask of this.”

He couldn’t say no, even if he wanted to. A final order. She had never claimed mastery of him, but Haru still found himself following her.

So he nodded, and she smiled, brighter this time. She pulled him to her and pressed her lips to his forehead.

“When you meet my grandson, please tell him I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Tell him I’m sorry I’ve left him with such a huge burden.”

~~~

Natsume opened his eyes to dim light. A quiet stillness enveloped his surroundings. He smelled the scent of incenses, like the ones he would find in temples or rituals. He was lying on his back on a soft mattress. His fingers tingled as they slowly regained their senses. His blurry eyes sharpened, and he noticed the wooden beams on the ceiling. His ears picked up a soft drizzle against the window outside.

“Natsume-sama?”

The familiar voice drew his attention and Haru entered his line of sight—the older version of the twelve-year-old boy he had only seen moments ago. He sat cross-legged beside him, gray eyes staring at him.

Natsume blinked back the tears he hadn’t realized he had shed, covering his eyes with the back of his hand as he took a deep, shaking breath. Haru’s emotions from the memory had been so raw. He wondered if the sadness he felt then was his own or the youkai’s. It truly felt as though he had been there, trying to stop Reiko from leaving.

“I didn’t know youkai could grow,” was the first thing Natsume said.

Silence, before Haru let out a soft laughter under his breath. “I started changing my appearance ever since Aki was born,” he said. “I wanted to grow with him.”

Natsume’s lips tugged into a smile as he took another shuddering breath. He could see her behind his eyelids, her face gaunt, her cheeks hollow. Reiko was thin. Too thin. And weak. And frail. He wondered where the bright spark that had lived in infamy in the memories of youkais had gone.

And the little girl sleeping beside her. His mother. Barely six or seven years old.

He could see Reiko in front of him then, staring at him with that same sad and resigned expression she had given Haru.

I’m sorry I left you with a huge burden.

“Do you know where she’d gone?” he asked the youkai.

“No,” Haru said quietly. “When I asked, all she said was a mountain she wanted to see one last time.”

A mountain. There were a lot of mountains in Japan.

A peaceful place to settle down. Away from the eyes and ears of humans and youkai.

A tree.

The door slid open.

Natsume uncovered his eyes, letting his arm fall onto his chest. Nyanko-sensei came, followed by Aki-senpai carrying a tray of steaming soup and a glass of hot green tea. He looked happy to see Natsume awake.

“Do you often faint, Natsume-kun?” he asked, helping Natsume sit up.

“Often?” Nyanko-sensei scoffed from beside the futon. “This guy faints every time an ayakashi does something to him.”

“That doesn’t sound good.” Aki-senpai looked at Natsume then, concerned. “I can look up some medicine if you want. We have lots of books dealing with these kinds of stuff.”

“You don’t have to, Senpai,” Natsume said with a small smile.

But Aki-senpai only laughed, waving his hand in dismiss. “Don’t be so stiff. It’s the least I can do.” His lips stretched thinly then, and he dipped his head in apology. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable before, Natsume-kun. It’s just…I’ve never met someone my age who can see youkai, and I figured you’re technically his master and all, and…” His voice trailed off, his ears reddening. “Anyway, I’ll find a book that can help you!”

He jumped to his feet and rushed out the door. Aki-senpai was gone before Natsume could even say a word. Haru chuckled beside him.

Natsume glanced at him, then at Sensei, who was pawing the lid off Natsume’s bowl of soup, saying something about eating his meal if Natsume didn’t want it. Natsume imagined what he would do if there ever came a time when Nyanko-sensei would have to leave him for good. Not to another master—as Natsume couldn’t imagine Nyanko-sensei actually having a master—but maybe something else that would draw the cat away from him, never to return.

He didn’t like that.

“Haru,” Natsume said. The youkai looked at him, questioningly. “Would you like me to release you?”

Haru stared, eyes blinking in surprise. He hadn’t expected that, it seemed, but Natsume wanted to do it. Reiko was gone. Haru didn’t have any ties with him. An age-old order that had slowly transformed into his own will.

Haru was Aki-senpai’s guardian. There was no denying that.

Natsume felt Nyanko-sensei stare.

“I’ve done the ritual before,” he added. “I know how to do it.”

Haru gazed at him for another silent moment, before his mouth finally spread into a small, genuine smile. He bowed.

“Please do, Natsume-sama.” 

~ END ~