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It had been three days now, Shigeru noted, as he replaced the cooling cloth on his foster son’s head.
For three days, it had been a cycle of alternating between Touko and Natsume’s rooms with both of them knocked flat on their backs by a fever. Shigeru had been home when Touko collapsed, and had heard a loud crash in the kitchen and found her unresponsive on the floor, her hand still in the mixing bowl as her body slumped against the counter. He quickly brought her to bed, and although he was very worried about her, he still anticipated going to work the next day, expecting she would wake up and feel a little better, or at the very least Natsume could tend to her afterschool.
The boy usually was still exploring the woods until after sunset, so it wasn’t until Tanuma and Taki appeared at his doorstep practically carrying a dirtied and scraped up Natsume that Shigeru felt panic sink in. Natsume was sweltering and very disoriented, but because he was conscious, Shigeru believed that would mean he was, at the very least, leagues better than Touko. However, Natusme being awake ended up being for the worse as Tanuma and Shigeru had to fight the boy and wrestle him under the blankets of the futon. He kept trying to get out the door, muttering in his delirious state.
“They’re still out there… Sensei… I can fix it... “
Luckily, once they managed to wrestle him under the blankets, Natsume’s cat planted himself squarely on top of his chest. While Shigeru was at first worried the cat might restrict Natsume’s breathing, as he was already gasping, that all-knowing look from the side of the cat’s eye silenced him. Besides, the benefit of keeping the boy restrained and still for the moment outweighed his concerns. Both of Natsume’s friends stayed to help make dinner after they heard Touko had also fallen ill. Shigeru and Touko had always thought Taki and Tanuma were good influences on Natsume, but after they both helped him calm his shaking nerves and stayed to assure him that everything would be okay, he felt so thankful that his son had such wonderful people surrounding him.
Both of them tried to feed something to Natsume, but he remained unresponsive. Shigeru eventually thanked them and insisted they go home to their families, lest they catch whatever illness had plagued his son and wife. He didn’t miss the strange look they shared with each other before they took their leave, saying they would come by tomorrow just in case Shigeru started to feel unwell too.
And so, three days passed. Every morning Shigeru called his work and apologized for being unable to come in and by the third morning the office worker taking the phone sounded just as apologetic when they heard his wife and son still showed no change in condition. Shigeru went about a routine he had not followed since youth when one of his parents was very sick. He prepared rice and broth and brought them to each room in hopes one of them would eat.
By the third night his fears consumed him, and he dreamt that he was bringing nothing more than offering to a corpse.
Despite that, Natsume seemed to be faring better considering he felt cooler to touch and his breathing was less labored. Touko still looked to be on death's door though, and Shigeru was growing more and more frightened. He had called a doctor to the house, but he failed to diagnose what was wrong with her. Shigeru was by her side more often than Natsume’s during the day, sitting her up and helping ease water and broth down her throat to get some fluids into her.
He debated driving her to the hospital but with Natsume out of commission, there was no one to watch over her in the backseat. He thought about calling Taki as they had agreed to help but he didn’t want to trouble the girl, and he had already turned them away when they tried visiting again with Natsume’s other friends in tow. He regretted saying he wasn’t in the mood for visitors. He was desperate for someone to talk to besides Nyangoro.
And like a curse had struck, the next day, he woke up to the cat gone. The windows were open. Natsume’s condition became gravely worse. He called the doctor again. Still no diagnosis. Shigeru fearfully wondered if Natsume was succumbing to the same illness that killed his mother and father and grandmother.
He was so young. He prayed it wasn’t so.
Then he remembered. Natsume’s grandmother.
He rushed outside towards the woods behind the house, and stumbled into Nyangoro. The town had been cloaked in a mist for days now, and by the woods it was particularly thick. The cat seemed to manifest out of thin air, jumping out of the white clouds, and floating down to the ground in a grand entrance. Shigeru knew that it had to have been a trick of his tired eyes, and the cat had just climbed out of the brush and briar. The morning light made the water in the mist sparkle and Nyangoro’s white coat seemed to glisten as he emerged from it, landing in the dewey grass with a small jar in his mouth and a paper-wrapped package tied to his back with sticks and twine.
He dropped the jar and rolled it towards Shigeru who was on the porch. Shigeru carefully picked it up and removed the package, unfolding the wrapping to reveal a poultice and a small note with instructions. The jar had some dried herbs packed into it. Nyangoro gave him a strange look that was both knowing yet still told nothing. Shigeru read the note carefully, but by the end, he had to resist crumpling it up and tossing it aside.
He had a brief moment of hope at a memory of Natsume Reiko, and it seems he was right to go towards the forest that Natsume loved to frequent, but still-
He took a deep breath, and looked to Nyangoro, who was now looking back towards the mist, into the woods behind its screen. Shigeru followed the cat’s line of sight, and although he saw nothing beyond the clouds of white, he spoke to the person or thing that had brought him the gift.
“Thank you,” Shigeru said, “I know… I know this is for him but… I hope you’ll forgive me if I give it to my wife first.’
Nyangoro gave a huff and hopped off the porch, walking back into the forest. Shigeru went back inside, ignoring the sensation of eyes watching him as he shut the door. He took the medicine to the kitchen and prepared an infusion with the herbs, and brought it and the poultice to Touko. The note said that although he would not see it, he should apply the poultice to a wound that was on Natsume’s wrist. Then, the boy would wake, and he would be able to drink the tea.
He carefully smoothed the paste over Touko’s fragile skin, ignoring the way the mist swirled at the window of their bedroom. He ignored his foster son’s labored breathing from the other room when he walked back down the hall to bring the untouched tea cup back down to the kitchen.
Touko did not change. He was a fool.
At night, after a few broken dishes in the kitchen, he crept to Natsume’s room, guilt eating away his desire to sleep. The boy was soaked in sweat, and Shigeru went through the motions of changing the bedding and his clothes in hopes that somehow, it would make up for the mistake he made. When Natsume was tucked back in, he opened the window some more, pinning back the curtains in hope that the summer air would help quell his rising fever. Around midnight, he thought he heard voices inside, but when he went to check, there was no one but the comatose boy. The window was opened a little wider, though.
By some miracle, Natsume awoke on the fifth day. Shigeru dropped the tray he was carrying when he slid open the door and saw his son sitting up drinking from an unfamiliar, old teacup. The boy was smiling and leaning against the windowsill, looking out and talking to someone, but when he heard the dishes clatter to the floor, he turned around and looked at Shigeru with guilt and sadness. The first words that spilled from the boy’s lips were nothing but apologies, the word burden vaguely registering in Shigeru’s mind before he surged forward and rushed to embrace the boy, cutting off that train of thought.
He was still warm. As Shigeru tucked the boy’s head into his shoulder, he noticed the remnants of something smeared across the inside of his wrist. The small teacup fell from Natsume’s hand and spilled the remnants of its drink onto the tatami. Shigeru’s heart clenched and he held the boy tighter, wishing he had not been selfish and had used the medicine on his son first.
Natusme’s eyes were glassy but he insisted on getting up and seeing Touko. He sat by her all day while Shigeru cooked lunch and dinner, but Natsume ate very little. His eyes held that same knowledge that Shigeru had seen in Nyangoro, but like the cat, Natsume said nothing. Eventually, both of them knelt at Touko’s side in silence through the night. Not a word was spoken for hours until-
“Shigeru-san, I… I know what is wrong with Touko. I’m sorry but if you would let me-”
Shigeru put his hand on Natsume’s shoulder.
“I know what you’re thinking of doing and no. I won’t allow it. You are still sick. I do not want you to go out and collapse somewhere far away where I won’t be able to find you. Taki and Tanuma brought you home last time. I can’t-”
Shigeru’s words suddenly fell away, and then they came out entangled in a choked sob. Natsume flinched when he heard the cry leave his father’s throat, and his expression became somber as he glanced down at the hand gripping his shoulder. Slowly, Shigeru bowed his head, his fingers tightening in Natsume’s shirt as he leaned over Touko and cried.
Natsume turned away, his eyes hidden beneath his overgrown bangs as Shigeru trembled.
“Okay, Otou-san. Okay.”
That night, Shigeru had a strange dream. He had fallen asleep at Touko’s bedside, and he dreamt of Natsume fleeing through the window. He heard the boy’s feet shuffling across the tatami, and sat up just as he saw his son climbing up onto the sill. There was a white beast dancing in the air outside, rippling along as if it was a part of the mist, a skytrain waving around waiting to whisk the boy away. Shigeru tried to get to his feet, but found his legs too heavy. He shouted for his son to stop, but Natsume just looked at him with those sad eyes, and smiled. He climbed through the window, and stood up on the outside sill. Shigeru got to his feet just as Natsume whispered an apology over his shoulder, and as Shigeru reached out to catch the back of his shirt, Natsume jumped and was swallowed up by the mist.
Shigeru awoke the next morning, and Natsume was gone.
He cursed himself, fisting a hand into his greasy hair as he fought back more tears at Touko’s bedside. He tried to go about his chores, continue a routine to get his mind back to normal, but his hands were shaking too much. His vision was always just too blurry as he poured hot water from the kettle into the cups, and when he burned his hand on the stove, the pain was nothing compared to the guilt eating him up inside.
He had failed his son. He had promised to take care of him but he had been selfish and failed him and his family. And now he was gone.
Eventually, after many failures, he moved to the back porch again, and sat on the stoop and waited. He watched the mist settle over the leaves of the bushes and trees for hours, falling asleep after a few hours when the sun finally rose higher in the sky.
Not that he could see it all through the mist. The fog had completely enveloped their home, and as Shigeru closed his eyes, he thought he saw it coming to swallow him too.
He awoke to rustling. With how lethargic his body was, he could barely crack his eyes open, but it was just enough for him to glimpse another vision of Natsume.
This time, he floated down on air, descending from the mist like Nyangoro had, except, instead of bursting through its shield and falling through to the ground, it was like he had always been there. As if he was a part of it. With his sickly pallor and pale hair and eyes, he may as well have been born from it, and so Shigeru watched him drift down from the sky, gently touching down between the patches of grass and walking forward with an ethereal confidence.
Natsume was carrying a strange object like Nyangoro had too. Except this time, instead of it being herbs or a paste, it was a cracked cup covered by thin rice paper, and he held it with a hand placed flatly against the bottom and top.
Shigeru would have scrambled to sit up, but all of his strength had left him. Natsume stopped before the stoop, looking down at him with those eyes again. They were so wrong, Shigeru thought.
They were full of hurt, of sadness. They were not the eyes of Natsume who had lived with them and flourished with friends and family, but instead, the eyes of the boy sitting on the rock at the funeral parlor, staring at nothing as the world offered him nothing.
It was like he had just arrived at their home again, as if the year of progress Touko and him had made had been undone.
Shigeru knew it had been. And it was his fault. It was that pang of guilt alone that gave him the strength to sit up, to lift his head from where it rested against the door, and slump forward just a little bit towards the boy.
“I’m sorry, Otou-san,” Natsume whispered, his voice soft and Shigeru almost deluded himself into thinking there was still fondness in the tone, “I couldn’t bear to see you or Okaa-san suffer anymore. I had to go visit someone.”
He then turned to face the mist, his shoe scuffing the dirt.
“You see what you have done?” He growled, “You see what you have wrought on my family? I will return your name, only after you fix what you have done.”
The mist danced, but appeared to shrivel back somewhat. Shigeru found the strength to sit up more and squinted at it.
Natsume stared at it for another moment, and then stepped up onto the porch, passing Shigeru and walking into the house. He glided like a god would in heavy robes, the train of their elegance and commandence following behind them even as they disappeared. Shigeru had to to do a double take (out of the corner of his eye- he was still too tired to move his head anymore) to assure himself it was Natsume that had come to visit, and not a shinigami to reap Touko at last.
Natsume made his way upstairs and straight to Touko’s room. The mist followed him, and Nyangoro was suddenly behind it. When they reached the door, the cat struggled to squeeze it’s fat body in between Natsume’s legs, and the boy chided him, carefully stepping around the cat so as not to drop the cup.
Once they were all in the room, Natsume looked between the mist in the doorway and the sleeping woman.
“Look at what you’ve done,” he said, “This medicine won’t be enough for her. Fix it.”
The mist, now warping its shape, condensed itself until it was more of a human-like figure. It blew past Natsume and went to the other side of the woman. Natsume knelt down and uncovered the cup, revealing a stronger infusion of tea that had been prepared by Hinoe. Setting it on the ground, he carefully eased the top of the futon back and scooped his arms under Touko, sitting her up before he reached for the cup. With one arm around her shoulders, her head was still limp in his hold as he tilted the cup and poured the liquid slowly into her lips.
When he was done, he stared down the mist again, watching it closely as it reached out its “hands” and let them move over her in an intricate pattern.
Touko took a sudden breath.
Natsume gasped and smiled, “Yes,” he practically cried, wrapping his other arm around his mother and hugging her.
“My name....” The mist groaned, reaching out towards Natsume. Nyanko-sensei transformed into his true form and stood behind the boy and the woman, gazing at the mist as his tail encircled them protectively.
“You will wait another day,” his voice rumbled, “As punishment for what you have caused. Come back tomorrow.”
The mist looked to protest, but after it took another look at the boy and woman, it retreated. It evaporated from sight, pulling back and fading away as it turned back into the wind and disappeared out of the house through the window.
The orange sky of the sunset appeared over the home as the clouds parted at last. Shigeru sat up suddenly, his leg jerking to life and kicking as he felt that falling sensation half-way through sleep.
That’s right! Natsume came back and-
He scrambled to his feet as fast as his old body would allow, his socks slipping against the wooden floor and sending him falling for a moment before he caught himself. He raced upstairs, frantically turning the corner and running into him and his wife’s room.
He found them.
Natsume was beside Touko, who was now sitting up and awake, her skin flushed, but colorful with life and vibrancy.
“Oh, Shigeru-san?” She asked in her sing-song voice, so sweet that Shigeru could cry, and put a hand to her mouth in surprise, “What’s the matter?”
Shigeru ran over and grabbed his wife and son in an embrace, relief flooding him as tears of joy fell down his face as he sobbed at their side. They were both still a little warm, their voices were still a little scratchy as they tried to console him, but they were awake and here and alive and that was all that mattered.
Nyangoro circled around and settled down in a ball at the edge of the futon. He glanced at the family one more time. Natsume laughed softly as he handed his father a tissue, and Touko fretted over the fact that Shigeru might be sick with exhaustion when she heard how many days she had been collapsed.
He let out a huff and shut his eyes.