Chapter Text
It must be strange for them, Natsume thinks.
He can’t wrap his mind around being older and then suddenly being young again, and he doesn’t think these bigger kids can, either. Taki and Tanuma are tense, as if they’re braced for a fight and dreading one at the same time, but Nishimura doesn’t take his cues from anyone.
Instead he exclaims, “I knew that cat could talk!”
Kitamoto looks at him sideways, but it doesn’t sound like he’s joking. Nishimura jabs an accusing finger at the round creature in Natsume’s arms and adds heatedly, “So all those times you stole my snacks you knew exactly what you were doing! What kind of guardian are you? Natsume, your cat owes me money.”
It’s so silly that Natsume giggles, and Tanuma blurts, “How could you know?”
Nishimura sits, right there in the dusty road, and pats the hard earth beside him for Natsume to sit, too. When he does, Nishimura puts an arm around his shoulders as if it’s any other day, and something older in Natsume’s heart aches.
“Maybe I didn’t know,” he admits. “But Nyanko-sensei’s voice sounds familiar. I must have heard Natsume talking to him before, even if I didn’t know what I was hearing. Honestly, this explains a lot.”
“Explains a lot of what?” Natsume pipes up, and giggles again when Nishimura messes his hair up playfully.
“You do strange things sometimes,” Kitamoto explains when Nishimura doesn’t. He’s watching them with a funny look on his face. “You -- jump at shadows. Or talk to people who aren’t there.”
Natsume’s face falls, and Nishimura shoots Kitamoto a dirty look. Kitamoto visibly backtracks.
“Not that we care, we’re still your friends! I just -- I never considered you were actually seeing ghosts.” He finally closes the last handful of steps between them and crouches. He cards Natsume’s hair back into place in as friendly a way as Nishimura tousled it, and smiles at whatever Natsume’s expression looks like. “It really does explain a lot. We’ll have a ton of questions for later, for older you, but for now -- it’s okay. We believe you.”
It’s never gone like this before. It’s never been this easy, it’s never turned out right. Natsume looks at his hands and doesn’t know what to say.
“Thank goodness,” Taki breaths, hands folded over her heart. “You two are so sweet, I don’t know what I was worried about.”
Nishimura sputters. “Sweet?”
“So tell us about this yokai, Natsume,” Tanuma says, sitting cross-legged beside him. “What happened to make it do this to you?”
Natsume opens his mouth to answer, but the memories are foggy and far-removed. Grabbing at them is like grabbing at mist, and as far back as he can remember clearly is the open hillside, sitting in these too-big clothes on a warm patch of sun-soaked grass, a fat little yokai ahead of him blustering and yelling without any true anger in its voice.
The same fat little yokai says, “This brat helped a Days Eater and it turned back his time in thanks. Since it was an act of gratitude, I’m sure I can convince it to undo the spell -- I just have to find it.”
“I’ll help you!” Taki and Tanuma say at the same time, and Natsume starts, wide-eyed.
“No, you shouldn’t,” he says, reaching out to them. “It’s not safe! Even the nice ones can be mean, they don’t really understand how people are. Nyanko-sensei -- “
“I’m not taking anyone who can’t even see yokai with me to look for one,” the cat grumbles irritably, swatting a soft paw at Natsume’s arm. “What sort of fool do you take me for? No, these brats will take you someplace safe and wait for me to return.”
“Let’s go to your house, Tanuma,” Kitamoto says, straightening. “Your father’s still away, isn’t he?”
“That’s right.” Tanuma just looks happy to be of any help at all. He adds, “We should probably call Touko-san and let her know Natsume’s spending the night at my place.”
“Touko-san?” Natsume asks. Nishimura blinks at him.
“Your foster mom! You can’t have forgotten Touko-san.”
Natsume watches Tanuma take out his cellphone and scroll for a second or two through preprogrammed numbers instead of typing a bunch in. Oddly, when he notices Natsume watching, he pulls the phone away from his ear and puts it on speaker instead.
A woman answers after a few rings. Natsume’s breath catches in his throat, and the arm Nishimura has draped around his shoulders pulls him a little closer.
“Hello, Touko-san. It’s -- “
“Kaname-kun! How are you? Takashi-kun just went out to get some more sweets for you and Tooru-chan. That greedy Nyankichi ate them all up when we weren’t watching.”
“Actually, Touko-san, I think we’re going to hang out at my house instead,” he says a little awkwardly, glancing sidelong at Taki. “Um, Taki and I ran into Natsume while we were out, and then bumped into Nishimura and Kitamoto, and one thing led to another -- “
“You kids can never sit still,” she says fondly, nowhere near annoyed. Nothing like any of Natsume’s other temporary families would have been, if he had changed plans like this so suddenly, if he had had a friend call last-minute to let them know. “Well, that’s alright! Have a good time! And make sure Takashi eats a big dinner, and breakfast, too. That boy of ours needs looking after.”
“We’ll look after him,” Tanuma says in a quiet voice. He’s watching Natsume as he says goodbye, and Natsume only remembers to take a breath when Nishimura nudges him.
His eyes are wide, and his heart is a lump in his throat. No one has ever talked about him so kindly before, never when they didn’t know he was listening, never. He blurts, “I want to go back. To how I was before. I want to go back so I can go home.”
“Don’t you worry,” Taki says firmly, reaching over to push some of the long fringe out of his eyes. Her fingers are gentle but nothing about the look in her eyes is soft. “We’ll take care of everything this time.”
Nyanko-sensei huffs, and bumps his head into Natsume’s arm, and says, “I’ll see you to the priest’s house and make sure you’re warded, otherwise you’ll just attract more trouble. Let’s get a move on, brats.”
Nishimura hops up, and reaches down for Natsume’s hands to pull him up to, then says, “Wait, wait, we can’t go anywhere like this.”
He points. Natsume follows the point down to his own bare feet. “My shoes and socks were too big, so I left them on the hill,” he says. “It’s okay, I’ve gone through woods without shoes before.”
“That’s good to know,” Nishimura says, deadpan.
“I’ve got it,” Kitamoto says simply, and the next thing Natsume knows he’s swinging through the air. He flails for a moment, stunned, and then finds himself looking down at the others from his new seat on Kitamoto’s shoulders.
“It’s been awhile since Mana’s been little enough for this,” Kitamoto adds cheerfully.
Natsume clutches at Kitamoto’s head, wide-eyed. His friends’ faces are shining as they grin up at him, and Natsume doesn’t -- no one’s ever --
“How come -- “ he stammers, and Nishimura scoffs at him.
“I told you we weren’t gonna let you walk without shoes! What if you stepped on something sharp? Didn’t Tanuma just tell Touko-san we’d look after you?”
“And I thought I was the mom friend,” Kitamoto says dryly. Nishimura scowls deeply and Tanuma muffles a laugh behind his hand. Taki trades a look with Natsume that feels familiar, in all its fond exasperation, and he can’t help smiling at her.
He doesn’t remember much, but he remembers the lavender field, and the path they follow into the forest.
He remembers a hospital room and two kind people reaching out to him, touching his battered hands carefully and asking if they could take him home.
He remembers a visit from his friends -- the two of them standing in his yard and telling him we can tell when you aren’t happy, we want you to have fun -- and crying himself to sleep that night because he was so grateful he didn’t know what to do.
“How’s the view up there?” Kitamoto asks after they’re a little more than halfway to the temple where Tanuma lives. His hands are still folded loosely around Natsume’s ankles, making sure he won’t fall.
“It’s good,” Natsume says brightly. And he remembers enough to know he’s never meant anything more when he adds, “Thank you!”