Chapter Text
Tick, tick, tick
Natsume impatiently watched the seconds’ hand of the wall clock.
Only five more minutes.
Five more minutes until his last lecture of the day was finished. Unlike high school, Natsume was never one to rush out of his university classes. He was blessed with the opportunity to pursue higher education and he did not want to waste the Fujiwara’s support and generosity.
However, today was an exception.
Tonight, at 7 o’clock sharp, at a new izakaya a few blocks down, his whole high school friend group was going to meet up for the first time in a long while.
After high school, every one ended up going their different ways. Some left Hitoyoshi and some stayed. Tanuma planned to take over the temple from his father, Nishimura went out of town to the same university as his brother, Kitamoto decided to go straight to work to support his family, and Taki had gone to a neighbouring college to Natsume. Truthfully, they weren’t really all that far away from each other and they still frequently met up and kept in touch, but the gap of not seeing them every day would sometimes weigh heavily on Natsume.
Natsume never took those days for granted and he knew partings were inevitable, but his heart grew heavy every time he recalled graduation. His wish from that conversation, on that fork of the road with Nishimura and Kitamoto never changed or wavered once during each passing year; he wished that he could stay in that town forever with every one that he cherished by his side. Although he was well aware of the reality that people would grow, move on, and start the next chapter of their lives, it was still a bittersweet feeling.
A thought that Natsume always found funny was that he considered himself privileged to even feel this melancholy. When he was younger, before he was taken in by the Fujiwara’s, he was so used to being shuffled around that he stopped trying to make connections; why put in the effort if they would be gone so soon? To think that there would be a day where he could feel sad because he missed someone and in turn someone missed him. To him, it was nothing short of a miracle so he tried to always take these emotions in stride.
Though right now, he was feeling a mix of anxiety and excitement. It was a given that he was excited, after all it had been one month since he’s seen everyone together, but it was being fought by a creeping anxiety due to the ominous text messages that Nishimura sent in the group chat.
nishimura: guys….
nishimura: tonight…
nishimura: i have something really important to tell you guys…
nishimura: like REALLY important...
nishimura: super DUPer important so u better b on time !!!
tanuma: ???
kitamoto: aren't you usually always the one who's late
nishimura: ... ...eheheh no comment (｡･ ω<)ゞ
kitamoto: yeah, that's what i thought
kitamoto: although
kitamoto: it must be serious if your messages are actually legible and grammatically correct
nishimura: Σ(°ロ°) xCUSE me?!1! r00d!!! my msgs always make sense??
kitamoto: dude I literally have to have a dictionary on me to understand what you are saying half the time
nishimura: it’s highkey on u if u don’t understand me and my rich vocab (𓁹◡𓁹) i pity u fr fr…¯\_(ツ)_/¯
kitamoto: …
tanuma: again
tanuma: ???
Natsume chuckled rereading the messages. He couldn’t wait.