Chapter Text
They’d only been walking through the Yatsuhara forest for a few minutes, but Tanuma could already tell Natsume was on edge.
They’d taken a shortcut through the deeper parts of the forest on the way home from school, and Natsume’s reaction was making him start to wonder if maybe they should’ve taken the longer one. He was clearly trying to put on a pleasant face to not worry Tanuma, but he wasn’t exactly being subtle with the way he kept glancing around at the trees behind them.
Tanuma considered keeping quiet and not pushing him on it, but given they were planning on staying the night at his place anyway, he felt it would be better to address it now than to let it drag out the whole night. Plucking up his courage, he turned to Natsume.
“Is something there?” He asked.
Natsume visibly tensed, and then faced him with an obviously put on smile. “Really, it’s fine-”
Tanuma just stared at him, he didn’t want to be too harsh, but he could clearly tell things were not ‘fine’.
Thankfully that seemed to be enough for Natsume to cave, as his forced mask visibly fell. “Well I can’t see anything bad now at least…” He paused, likely deciding how much to bring up, and then continued. “It’s just- some smaller youkai came rushing past talking about some ‘terrible youkai’ nearby… They might just be freaking out over nothing though, the smaller youkai can overreact to things sometimes.”
Tanuma could tell he was trying to persuade himself as much as anything, but he couldn’t sense anything, so maybe Natsume had a poi-
A wall of pain slammed into his skull, and he fell to his knees.
He was vaguely aware of Natsume rushing to his side and yelling his name, but the pain in his head made it difficult to parse anything. He’d thought he was starting to get used to being around powerful youkai now, but this was like nothing he’d ever experienced. Something felt wrong about whatever this was.
Natsume was trying to get him to his feet when abruptly he pulled away, standing bolt upright in front of Tanuma. Barely managing to pry his eyes from the ground in front of him, he turned to look at what Natsume was staring at and felt his gut drop.
Several meters away, between the trees in front of them was a mass of black shadow, with several tendrils sprouting out of the sides of it. There were several hazy white patches scattered throughout its body that he couldn’t quite identify, though the fact he could see any part of the creature at all was a shock to him enough with how week his sight usually was.
“Wait is that- no it couldn’t be…” Natsume whispered, before turning back to face Tanuma. “I’ll get you out of here, don’t worry.”
Tanuma wanted to scream at him, he was obviously going to try and throw himself into danger, but all that came out of his lips was a faint groan. Either way though it was probably futile, he could barely move, there was no way they’d be able to get out of there on their own.
But he could also see the way Natsume’s hands were trembling as he stepped towards the youkai, which had started slowly encroaching on them.
“What do you want, we’re just trying to get home…” He said, placing himself between Tanuma and the youkai.
A vague garbled sound erupted from the youkai, and Tanuma initially assumed it was his headache or lack of abilities muddying the speech, but Natsume seemed just as taken aback.
“Ah… it’s not capable of speech I suppose,” Natsume muttered.
The youkai continued inching towards them, now only a meter or two ahead of them, and Natsume was clearly struggling. Tanuma’s sensitivity to youkai made just being near it debilitating, but as it drew closer even Natsume was clutching his head. Stubborn as he ever was however, he persevered, stepping slowly towards it with his hand outstretched in defence.
“I don’t know if you can understand me, but please just let us leave, we don’t mean any-”
One of the tendrils shot out towards Natsume’s outstretched arm, spiralling around it. He yelped, stumbling back far enough to pull away, and Tanuma cried out towards him. Breaking free from it did nothing to deter it though as the creature’s mass surged towards Natsume with increasing speed.
Reacting on impulse, Natsume surged forward, reared his fist back, and slammed it straight towards one of the white patches of the creature.
It missed.
Natsume cursed.
His arm was stuck in the mass of it. He tried to pull himself out, but it had wrapped itself thick around his arm.
Tanuma felt his gut drop a second time. He had to move, no matter how much pain he was in, he had to do something. Throwing himself towards Natsume, he pulled himself shakily to his feet and reached out his hand towards him. Even if he couldn’t fight the youkai himself, he had to at least try to pull Natsume away himself.
Natsume turned towards him, a look of terror across his face as the youkai slowly absorbed his arm into itself. He couldn’t tell if he was scared for Tanuma’s involvement or his own safety.
And then Natsume flinched and looked down at his waist. Pulling himself as far back as the youkai would let him, he yanked his shoulder bag off his body with his free hand, almost throwing it towards Tanuma.
“Take it!” Natsume yelled, and Tanuma surged forward to grab onto it. His hand gripped it, pulling on it with as much force as he could muster in hopes that it would pull Natsume away from it.
But then Natsume let go, and he was sent flying backwards into the dirt.
All he could do was lie there and watch as the youkai swelled with energy and in one swoop enveloping the rest of Natsume’s body into itself, before he even had time to cry out.
Just like that, he was gone.
Tanuma just stared at it, unable to process what had just happened.
Natsume would break out of it, right? He always made it out, always.
But he didn’t. The youkai only seemed to grow bigger with every passing minute, barely even noticing Tanuma sitting in front of it. The reality of what had happened finally overcame him, crashing down on him like a tidal wave. This was it. He was gone. Tanuma had failed, in every way he’d always been afraid he would.
So he screamed, as loud as he possibly could, hoping that something, anything, would hear him and do something, even if it was more than likely fruitless.
But quickly his voice gave out, turning into sobs as he pulled Natsume’s bag close to his chest, clinging to the one thing he had left behind.
Through all his cries however he hadn’t noticed the hurried footsteps sounding behind him, until he was forcefully pulled backwards, away from the mass of shadow and into the dirt.
He barely had time to register the sight of the man in black standing in front of him before he’d reared back the string on the bow he was wielding and fired an arrow straight into the youkai’s heart.
Tanuma cried out in panic, Natsume might still be in there his first thought, but it was too late either way. The creature let out a strange wailing sound, and its body began bubbling like boiled water as streams of light started to shine out of it.
The light quickly started to grow brighter, overwhelming the shadow as a voice boomed, “Get down!”
Tanuma dove into the dirt, shielding his head as a blinding light erupted in the clearing in front of them, followed by an explosion of energy that would have knocked him clean over had he been standing.
Slowly, after seeing the light recede, he turned his head back to face it. There was nothing, all that remained of the huge shadow was a blast radius burned into the grass, and several chunks of its body strewn across the area, which were already slowly disintegrating into black smoke.
And then he noticed the tip of an orange converse poking out of on of those chunks, and scrambled to his feet, barely remembering to grab Natsume’s bag. With the youkai gone, his head was now clear enough that he could run the distance between them easily, and quickly dropped to his knees next him. Even in that time, the smoke had already dissipated enough to reveal most of Natsume’s battered body, so he didn’t hesitate to reach through the remaining haze to pull him out of it.
Propping him up against his chest, Tanuma held one arm across Natsume’s upper back, while the other reached towards his neck, his fingers looking for a pulse as his heart lodged itself in his throat.
For a few panicked seconds he struggled to find anything, his hands already too shaky to take his pulse via his wrist, but then he found it. It was faint, but he could feel the thump of his heartbeat.
Letting out a strangled cry of relief, he bundled him into his arms, burying his face into Natsume’s shoulder.
That's when he noticed something was wrong. His heart might’ve been beating, but Natsume's chest was motionless.
He’d stopped breathing.
Sharply pulling away from him, he placed Natsume’s face in his hand, crying his name as he tried to wrack his frazzled brain for anything he could possibly do here. CPR? Would that work? But he could already see that same black smoke spilling from Natsume’s mouth, was that blocking his airway-
In all his panicking, he hadn’t noticed the man in black bolting towards him until Natsume’d been forcefully wrenched from his arms. The man almost threw Natsume to the ground and ripped Natsume’s already torn shirt open, slapping some sort of talisman onto his chest and holding it there for several seconds.
Tanuma opened his mouth to yell at his rough handling of his friend, but was stopped by Natsume’s eyes snapping open. Overcome with relief, he hovered over Natsume, calling his name, but his only reply was a short guttural sound, before his eyes widened in panic. The man stepped away just in time as Natsume threw himself to the side and doubled over in a coughing fit. He hacked up a thick haze of black smoke for close to a minute before his coughs slowly eased into heavy gasps for air.
Seeing Natsume’s arms start to shake with the effort of holding himself upright, Tanuma pulled his friend back against him, keeping him as upright as possible.
“Easy, easy… Just breathe,” Tanuma said, holding Natsume’s face in his hand to try and stop him from hyperventilating. Gradually Natsume started to breathe more naturally, and he could feel him start to relax against his body. Finally his eyes focused enough to meet his.
“Tanuma…?” Natsume’s voice was hoarse enough that it took him a second to register his own name, but he sighed with relief at the sound of it.
Trying to stop himself from choking up he replied, “Yeah, it’s me, you’re okay.”
Natsume smiled faintly for a second, before his eyes scanned across to the man standing in front of them and snapped open wide. Bolting upright, he tried to position himself in front of Tanuma, but clearly lacked the strength for it.
“What are you-” His arms buckled, and Tanuma was quick to pull him back against him, but Natsume wouldn’t stop.
“Stay away from him…” Was the last thing he managed to whisper out before collapsing into Tanuma’s arms. Startled by his outburst, he tried to keep him conscious, but Natsume didn’t stir. He was still breathing at least, but he couldn’t help but worry, especially as he looked at the bruises across his body, and the shallow cut across his shoulder. Even if the worst was over, he still clearly needed medical attention.
“Calm down, he’s just exhausted,” the man in front of him said, and it was only in that moment that things had calmed down enough for Tanuma to actually get a proper look at him. He was tall, with long dark hair tied back in a ponytail, and some kind of paper mask across his right eye. If it weren’t for the fact that he could see him, he might’ve assumed he was a youkai.
He was grateful for his help, but he couldn’t help but be put off by Natsume’s reaction to him. Either way though, he must have some knowledge of youkai was if he was able to defeat it so easily, so Tanuma spoke up, “Uh… Thank you… Do you know what that thing was? I’ve never seen any youkai like that before.”
The man looked at him with a curious expression, before replying, “Yes, you could say that… I’m surprised to hear that someone like you is this familiar with youkai, though I suppose if you’re this close with Natsume its probably inevitable.”
Tanuma was taken aback by his reply, but it did explain Natsume’s reaction to him.
“Wait, are you a friend of Natsume’s?” He asked.
He let out a soft laugh. “We are acquainted, yes… I suppose I should introduce myself,” He cast a sceptical eye towards Tanuma, as if he was trying to gauge his reaction. “I’m Matoba Seiji, head of the Matoba clan of exorcists.”
Ah, exorcists, that explained their connection.
“You are familiar with exorcists, correct?” Matoba asked.
“Yes,” Tanuma said. “You must be a friend of Natori-san’s then.”
The man seemed genuinely surprised by that, and stared at him for a minute, like he was struggling for a reply.
“We have… worked together on occasion. I’m surprised to hear you know him though.” Matoba said, leaning towards him. “While I knew Natsume had told some people about his abilities, I was under the impression he hadn’t told anyone about his connections with exorcists, I hadn’t expected him to confide so much in someone with such little power.”
Tanuma bristled, not expecting him to bring up his weaknesses so bluntly.
“Though I suppose he can’t have told you that much if he didn’t tell you anything about me.”
Tanuma winced even harder. He knew Natsume had many things he avoided telling him, but having it so blatantly how much he’d been kept in the dark stung. He should’ve really expected it given his previous encounter with Natori, but even his meeting with him had largely been a coincidence when he thought about it. Would Natsume have bothered to tell him about his exorcist connections otherwise?
But then Natsume made a muffled noise in his sleep, and Tanuma was snapped out of his spiraling thoughts. That’s right, he needed to get Natsume help, talking about this wasn’t helping.
And wait- he’d never actually answered his question about the youkai either had he?
“Uh… I appreciate your curiosity but shouldn’t we get Natsume to a hospital? He’s hurt pretty badly…” Even now he could see the cut on his shoulder was starting to bleed faintly, he quickly pressed his hand to it to stop the flow.
For a brief second Matoba seemed annoyed, but the expression was gone as quickly as it started.
“A hospital shouldn’t be necessary, they wouldn’t be able to treat the worst of his injuries to begin with, but we should get him to the nearest branch house for our doctors to check for any lasting injuries. I suppose I should let the others know this has been resolved as well…” he said, snapping his fingers in the air above his head. “And I can finally call the shiki back now the threat has been dealt with.”
Right on cue, several slender blobs of shadow flew through the trees towards them, and Tanuma flinched hard, pulling Natsume towards him.
“There- There’s more of them-” He cried out, confused by Matoba’s lack of reaction. They were skinnier and more solid, and seemed to be wearing some sort of white clothing, but they clearly had the same sort of shadowy body and white round features.
Matoba just looked at him annoyed, “Calm down, they’re my servant youkai. They only obey my orders, not like that abomination.”
Tanuma was still wary, but decided not to press it. If it could help Natsume he’d put up with it, even if they freaked him out.
Matoba turned to his shiki, offering them various orders, mostly to take notes to other exorcists he was hunting the youkai with, and apparently requesting use of a car. He then faced the last remaining shiki. “Take Natsume to the nearest branch house and get him to the doctors, along with this note,” he said, scrawling some details onto a piece of paper before handing it to the youkai. Before Tanuma could react, the youkai launched itself towards him and pulled Natsume right out of his arms.
“Hey!” Tanuma yelled, trying to grab after them, but they’d already leapt to Matoba’s side. “Be careful, you’ll hurt him!” He’d been willing to put up with his rudeness to him earlier for Natsume’s sake, but he didn’t appreciate him being so careless with his friend.
“Relax, he was clearly mobile enough earlier to indicate he has no serious internal injuries.” He turned to face the shiki next to him that was holding Natsume. “I’m more worried about him ingesting parts of that thing, it’s far more important he gets inspected by our doctors soon, and the shiki are faster than the car.”
He waved his hand and the shiki took off, taking Natsume with him, and leaving him behind.
The thought of being separated from Natsume terrified him to his core, it felt like being able to hold onto him was the one thing keeping him from breaking down, but he knew Matoba was right. Getting Natsume the care he needed took priority, he’d just have to keep it together until he could see him again.
At least he still had his bag, Tanuma thought, taking Natsume’s green shoulder bag and pulling it over his torso.
“You didn’t suffer any injuries, did you?” Matoba asked, and Tanuma shook his head. “Good, then we should get to the car, we can discuss the rest of the details on the way, it’s a bit of a drive.”
Tanuma nodded, following Matoba back towards the road. A part of him wondered if going with him was a good idea, but ultimately he didn’t care as long as he got to see Natsume again.
The walk was silent between them, but as they grew closer to the edge of the forest several people wearing the same type of dark coloured kimonos as Matoba came running towards them, clearly relieved to see him. He was quickly bombarded with questions about the youkai they’d been tracking, and he quickly confirmed that it had been ‘disposed’ of, and introduced Tanuma as a ‘victim’ he’d intercepted and was bringing back with him to the main branch.
With that, they were directed to a long black limousine and Tanuma couldn’t help but pause at the extravagance of it. He hadn’t thought of exorcists to be the sort of people wealthy enough to afford a chauffeured limo of all things. Even Natori Shuuichi had driven a normal car, and he actually was a celebrity.
Who exactly were the Matoba clan?
He didn’t have much time to question it though as Matoba held the door open for him, so he followed him inside, taking a seat facing forward, opposite Matoba. He waved his hand, and the car quickly set off.
“We should arrive at the main branch in around an hour and a half, by then the doctors should have a better idea of Natsume’s condition as well,” Matoba said, glancing at his watch. “Now…” He turned his gaze towards Tanuma. “I don’t believe you ever introduced yourself?”
Tanuma paused. He supposed he hadn’t, in all the chaos it hadn’t even crossed his mind.
“Oh, sorry, I’m Tanuma Kaname. Nice to meet you?”
Matoba paused for a second, thinking carefully, before his face lit up in recognition. “Ah, that name… you wouldn’t happen to be related to the Monk Tanuma that works in this area, would you?”
Taken aback, he nodded. “Yeah, that’s my father. Do you know him?”
He shook his head, “Not personally, but I’ve certainly heard his name mentioned, I believe we may have worked with him once or twice.”
He hadn’t thought exorcists would need to hire a monk, but it made sense that they’d have some overlap, he thought. Though he thought his dad might’ve mentioned working with someone as out there as the Matoba family seemed to be.
The connection seemed to have made something click for Matoba-san, as he stared at Tanuma with a rapt expression. “I suppose that explains why Natsume bothered to confide in you in the first place, your abilities might be practically non-existent but at least you have some familiarity with the spiritual world.”
Tanuma stiffened. He phrased it like it was supposed to be some kind of compliment, but it certainly didn’t feel like one to him.
“How exactly did you and Natsume become acquainted actually, I’d be curious to know,” Matoba asked, paying no attention to Tanuma’s unease.
“Oh… at school?” He replied, doing his best to follow the conversation despite his discomfort. The look Matoba gave him in response though told him that it wasn’t a satisfactory answer. “Uh… I’d heard about him seeing strange things so I tried to talk to him about it, I’d never met anyone else who could see this sort of thing. After that he started to tell me more about youkai. Though he still doesn’t tell me all that much, I think he’d rather keep me out of it…”
Matoba huffed, “Well that’s hardly surprising, you might have enough casual familiarity with the supernatural offer him some basic comradery, but you’re hardly going to be much use in any actual conflict, as this little incident has certainly proven.”
Tanuma’s gut dropped. He knew that, no matter how much he tried to avoid thinking about it, he knew Matoba was right. Natsume was only hurt because he’d been too weak to protect himself, to even do anything really, and if Matoba hadn’t shown up he would’ve lost him altogether.
It was all his fault, he knew that, but he hardly needed Matoba to tell him that to his face. But he didn’t even seem to notice Tanuma’s reaction, and just continued like he’d said something entirely mundane.
“Although, in this instance I doubt you’d have been able to do much against a youkai like that even if you did possess any kind of power, Natsume was hardly any better a match for it even with as much power as he has.”
Thankfully drawn out of his spiralling thoughts, he was now reminded of his own misgivings about Matoba’s connection to that youkai.
“What exactly was that youkai actually… I’ve never seen anything like it.” Realising his poor choice of words, he corrects himself. “I mean- I don’t normally see more than shadows or anything, but I actually could see that one, though it was pretty blurry…”
To be honest, he wished he hadn’t been able to in hindsight, he doubted he would ever forget the sight of Natsume being engulfed by that thing.
“And your shiki too actually- I can see those well too for some reason.”
Matoba didn’t seem surprised by that. “That’s to be expected, man made youkai are usually easier to see than true spirits.”
Tanuma just stared at him, “Man…made? You can make youkai?”
Matoba looked at him like he’d just asked what the sun was. “Yes. It’s hardly easy, but with enough power you can create living youkai servants bound to the creator.”
“Wait, so the youkai that attacked us was the same type of youkai as your servants then?”
Matoba really didn’t like that comment, as he raised his voice in real emotion for the first time, “Don’t compare my shiki to that eyesore! A creation of ours would never backfire so spectacularly. That thing only exists because a careless weakling attempted to bastardise our technique in order to sabotage us.”
“Someone made that on purpose?” Tanuma felt sick at the thought of it. He’d assumed it was just some sort of unconventional youkai, sure it had been different to the few youkai he’d dealt with before, but that was probably just due to his lack of experience. But the idea that someone had made something that destructive intentionally?
“Well, I don’t believe it was supposed to be that volatile,” Matobe replied. “They simply failed so utterly at executing the spell that instead of creating a formidable servant they spawned an abomination with an insatiable hunger for spiritual energy and wildly unstable body matter.”
Matoba let out a noise that almost sounded like a laugh, “I suppose its fitting in the end that they ended up being the first victim of their own creation.”
Tanuma’s hands were shaking.
“You two were lucky I happened across the two of you when I did, by the time we’d discovered the fool responsible for all this there was nearly nothing left of him.”
All Tanuma could do was let out a sharp wimper. He’d known he’d come close to losing Natsume, but hearing just how close things had been made his head spin, the words nothing left repeating over and over in his head. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of, Natsume just disappearing one day, devoured by some youkai without a word.
“Natsume- he’s- he’s going to be okay right?” Were all the words he could muster.
Matoba at least seemed more confident. “I’ll have to see the doctor’s report before I can give proper judgement, but I doubt he’ll suffer any major repercussions. That creature did drain a lot of his spiritual energy, but he thankfully has plenty of that to go around. My main concern is whether ingesting parts of that thing’s body might impact his organs, but the talisman I placed on him should have forced him to expel anything still in his system regardless.”
That explained how he’d gotten Natsume breathing again at least, but Tanuma was still uneasy.
“Are you sure? It seemed like he was trapped in that youkai for a while, and if he wasn’t breathing that whole time…”
Matoba-san just waved his hand, “I doubt that would pose any issue, the youkai feeds off spiritual energy, so it was likely using its own power to keep him in some sort of stasis. It can’t exactly gain any power if he’s dead after all.”
Not the choice of words he would’ve liked to hear, but it did assuage Tanuma’s fears a little bit. A part of him still couldn’t help but worry about all the millions of things that could be going wrong while Natsume was gone however.
But he would just have to wait.
The conversation between them fizzled out as the ride grew longer, eventually leaving them both in silence. But after what felt like an eternity, the road started to expand out, revealing the face of a massive stone entrance. Beyond that stood a large traditional style building, so big it rivalled even Tanuma’s home temple in size. A few cars lined the grass outside, and several people were already waiting for them near the entrance.
As soon as they stepped out of the car, Matoba was greeted by an older woman with grey hair carrying what looked to be some kind of paperwork.
“I hear you finally dealt with that fowl creature, took you all long enough,” she said, showing surprisingly little emotion for the situation.
“Yes, it was quite the pain, but I finally managed to take it out it while it was distracted by a more appealing victim.”
Tanuma really did not appreciate hearing Natsume being treated like some kind of youkai bait, but now didn’t seem like the time to protest.
“Yes, we’ve received that Natori’s young friend, he’s in the infirmary now. It sounds like he’s stable enough, though you’d best check with the doctors yourself.”
At the mention of his friends however he immediately perked up, scrambling over to where the two exorcists were talking.
“Natsume- is he- can we see him?”
The woman turned her gaze towards him for the first time, “Ah this must be the other boy you mentioned in the note.”
“Yes, this is Tanuma-kun, I believe you may have worked with his father, the yatsuhara monk? He’s apparently a friend of Natsume-kun’s,” Matoba said, talking about him like he wasn’t standing right there next to them.
The woman looked at him with newfound curiosity, and finally introduced herself as Nanase-san. He tried to be polite enough, but he really just wanted to see Natsume. Possibly sensing his unease, she waved them both off, asking Matoba to submit a report to her later.
At last, they were able to enter the building, and were it any other situation he might’ve been more curious about it. He’d never expected the exorcist industry to be this big, he’d largely assumed they functioned like independent contractors, not whatever this was.
But at that moment, all he really wanted to see was Natsume, so he just followed Matoba without a word.
“I need to make a few inquiries and reports, so you can wait in my office until we’re done, I’ll let you know Natsume’s condition when I get back,” Matoba said as he came to a stop in front of the entrance to one of the many, many rooms of the building.
Tanuma immediately protested, “Wait- no, we need to see him now, what if something’s happened?”
Matoba gave him a stern look, “Then we’d hardly want to interrupt the doctors, they know what they’re doing, and will hardly appreciate you barging in just to fuss over him. I doubt he’ll be waking up any time soon either way.”
As much as he hated to admit it, Matoba was probably right. It wasn’t like Natsume needed him there, he was the one who needed him.
He needed to stop letting his feelings get the better of him, and just stay out of-
“Matoba-sama!” His train of thought was interrupted by someone in a white coat running towards them, their expression frantic. The white uniform stood out amongst the traditional kimonos he’d seen the rest of the exorcists there wearing.
“What is it?” The exorcist replied.
“The- your patient- he’s…” They were gasping for air, winded from running down the hallway. At their words, the two of them both tensed up.
“Is something wrong? What is his condition?” Matoba asked, speaking quickly.
“He’s awake, he’s asking to see you sir.”
Tanuma let out a sigh of relief. He was okay.
Matoba sighed as well, though he couldn’t tell whether his was out of relief too, or annoyance, “I am glad to hear he is stable, but that hardly justifies your level of urgency.”
“I’m afraid he is being rather insistent, we’re having trouble restraining him, even in his condition… He may injure himself further if this continues,” the doctor replied. “He’s asking for someone named Tanuma as well.”
He threw himself towards the two of them, unable to hold upon back hearing his own name, “Please, let me see him!”
Matoba pinched his forehead with his hand and sighed for a long minute.
“That stubborn little- I should’ve known…” He turned towards the doctor, resigned. “Fine… take us both to the infirmary.”
“Thank you,” Tanuma said emphatically, and quickly the three of them headed back down the hall, his heart in his throat at the thought of finally being reunited with his friend.