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It was a normal day in Hitoyoshi.
It was supposed to be a normal day.
Takashi restlessly paced back and forth, mind racing a mile per minute. Taki and Nishimura were sitting on a bench, Taki wringing her hands together, Nishimura bouncing his legs with his arms crossed. Kitamoto on the other hand was standing, leaning against the wall, arms crossed and tapping his foot.
All of them looked as anxious as he was.
A moment later, Sasada walked out from the room in front of them, a police officer accompanying her. She looked like she hasn't slept in days—which she probably hasn't—dried tear tracks evident on her face.
She sat down beside Taki, and Taki immediately got ahold of Sasada’s hand. They both calmed down a little.
“Next…Natsume, Takashi?” Takashi’s breath hitched. He looked up at the police officer, nodding. The officer smiled at him, in an attempt to comfort him, but it came out more as a grimace.
“Right- Natsume-kun, follow me alright?” Takashi nodded again, silently following the officer into the room.
“Go sit down and make yourself comfortable,” The officer gestured towards one of the chairs in there before walking out again, talking quietly into his radio.
The small bare windowless room did nothing to comfort him.
Takashi sat down anyway. A minute later the officer came back in with another person- a detective, maybe. The dark haired detective sat down in front of him, the officer hovering close.
“So, Natsume Takashi correct?”
Half an hour passed by in a blur, questions upon questions asked and replied with monotonous and sometimes repetitive answers.
Before he walked out the room, the detective stopped him and asked him one last time.
“Natsume, I know I’ve been asking this repeatedly, but just to be sure- are you absolutely sure you don't know anything?”
Takashi thought of the footprints that were only visible to him. He thought of the flowers he found in his bedroom, scattered and invisible and bloody. He thought of the youkais in Yatsuhara who upon seeing the flowers he carefully wrapped in cloth recoiled with such intensity. He thought of Nyako-sensei who on day two of him disappearing, presented him with a small seemingly harmless sand hourglass, with the same flowers he found etched into the edges of it.
Nyanko-sensei’s words echoed in his mind. One month, he said. One month before the sand all completely falls down.
Takashi held back his tears.
“I’m sorry, I really don't know anything,” His voice cracked.
The detective nodded and sighed, patting Takashi's shoulder in comfort, eyes shining with sympathy.
“Don't worry, we'll find him,” He said. Takashi only nodded, before walking out of the room. He was the last to be more or less interrogated; all of his friends were already standing, getting ready to leave as soon as Takashi walked out.
Takashi took a breath. In. Out.
He looked at his friends. Kitamoto grimaced.
“Let's go home,” Said he.
Nishimura was clinging onto Kitamoto, silently crying. Kitamoto himself was holding back tears. Sasada was crying again. Taki doesn't have the energy to cry anymore.
Takashi took a breath. In. Out.
He tried to smile. “Let's,”
It has been a week since Tanuma Kaname disappeared.
When he went to school the next day, Takashi could immediately feel the gloomy atmosphere.
The news has already spread then.
Other students looked at him with sympathy and pity as he walked passed, murmured words and hushed whispers following closely. What had happened to the dark-haired student, they wondered. Tanuma was quite well known- especially with the girls. What, with his shy personality and admittedly good looks, it’s no wonder he received love letters any other day. So of course the news of him disappearing immediately spread amongst the student body.
“Isn’t that Tanuma’s friend?”
“He’s the one with weird rumours right?”
“I heard that he sometimes talks to thin air,”
Takashi sighed. Of course, wherever he goes, rumours always follow him. It was already a miracle how he hasn’t become the talk of the school yet ever since he first came here, with him either suddenly flinching or looking at something that isn’t there, with him suddenly running away and yelling to thin air.
“Maybe he has something to do with his disappearance-”
“-Natsume-kun!”
The blond looked up. Taki was walking towards him, a small tired smile on her face. She was wearing a yellow cardigan over her uniform, the supposedly bright colour now looked almost dull in Takashi’s eyes.
“Good morning,” Taki said.
Takashi took a breath. In. Out.
“Morning,” He tried to smile. It came out as a grimace. Taki didn’t say anything. Instead, she looped her arms around his arm, before tugging and slightly dragging him towards the staircase.
They walked up the stairs leading to the second floor where their classes were placed, but Taki stopped walking when they only reached half-way. It was silent.
“Natsume-kun,” Taki looked into his eyes. “Tanuma’s disappearance…does it have anything to do with…” Youkais. Because of course she reached that conclusion. It has been a week. There was no trace, no evidence on Tanuma’s whereabouts. Only a speck of blood on a bracelet of praying beads that Tanuma usually carried around before. The only evidence the police could find.
Takashi took a breath. In. Out. One more time.
In. Out.
He nodded silently. Taki’s attempt to hold up a sort of smile dropped.
“Do you know anything about this?” Yes. There was a sand hourglass sitting on top of his desk back in his bedroom, the sand slowly trickling down through the hole, counting down a time limit of- of something. There were flowers, bloody yet invisible to naked eyes, scattered around in Tanuma’s room and more outside. There were footprints- some smaller than a human’s, some larger, and some were Tanuma’s.
“No,” He lied. Because Taki—sweet, kind, Taki—does not deserve to be shown the horror of the shitshow that was about to come. She may have the vast knowledge of youkais, of many ancient spells, forbidden or not. She may have some of her grandfather’s blood- magical, capable of doing said ancient spells and maybe even more, but in the end she was human.
Takashi was human too, of course. Tanuma as well. But they were different.
Takashi could see the other side of the world. Tanuma could feel it.
Youkais, ayakashis, spirits and other-worldly creatures- those were basically Takashi’s everyday life. From as long as he remembered, the knowledge that such things existed were already deep ingrained within his mind by the time he learned what that even meant.
And he never met anyone who’s the same or at least similar to him, until Tanuma.
Tanuma, who transferred to Hitoyoshi not long ago. Tanuma, who looked outside the windows in the hallways, looked directly at a group of youkais that Takashi had been eyeing for a while. Tanuma, who shyly talked about weird shadows, before anxiously laughing it off.
Tanuma, who held out his hand to Takashi. Tanuma, who patiently waited for Takashi to tell the whole story. Tanuma, who helped him with his youkai shenanigans despite Takashi not asking him to.
Tanuma Kaname, the someone who finally understood him.
And Takashi would be damned if he didn’t go to the end of the earth and back to save him.
As Takashi’s mind raced, Taki already dragged him to his class. The bell rang.
The teacher gave them group classwork. Nishimura dragged his chair to sit beside Takashi. Sasada followed shortly after.
No one said anything when Nishimura clinged onto Takashi the entire time they did their classwork. No one said anything when Sasada gave up on even doing the classwork and left the rest to Takashi. No one said anything when Takashi turned in the classwork—Nishimura still clinging onto him—half-finished, and the other half definitely had at least ten questions answered wrong.
When school was over, they all simultaneously agreed to go to Takashi’s house, because his house was the closest.
(Nishimura doesn’t want to deal with the possibility of his mom nagging him even more in his more or less depressed state. Kitamoto—albeit guiltily—wanted a break from basically taking care of his entire family. Taki couldn’t even bear the thought of being all alone in her empty house. Sasada wisely decided she does not need to deal with her somewhat-family-somewhat-strangers situation back home.)
“Where did you get that hourglass, Natsume?” Nishimura asked when they settled around in Takashi’s room, the afternoon sun streaming through the window.
Ah. Right.
“I just found it. I thought that I’ll keep it safe for a while and look for its owner,”
Nishimura hummed. Silence fell.
“Well-” The brunet started talking again. Takashi drowned out the conversation, instead staring at the hourglass sitting on the table.
Night fell. Takashi’s friends went home, waving at him. He prayed that they wouldn't pass by any youkais that were roaming at night.
He looked at Nyanko-sensei. The porcelain cat stared back.
“The crimson flowers,” Nyanko-sensei started, and Takashi wanted to laugh at the underwhelming name. “There are rumours among the ayakashis. A sort of deity, with a thing for blood and flowers, and is apparently friends with time herself,”
The cat huffed.
“Mischievous too, some spirits would say. Follow the trail of crimson flowers, and you might find her with what you’re looking for,” Nyanko-sensei jumped onto the window sill. “I’d say she’s a weakling, but finding her would take a while,”
“Hence the hourglass?” Takashi was already grabbing his jacket again, opening the window behind the cat, shivering against the night air.
Nyanko-sensei nodded. “She gave you a month to follow her trails and claim what's yours, before she completely destroys it,” Takashi flinched.
He stared at the calico cat in horror, the reality weighing onto him.
“That means…” Takashi didn’t finish his sentence.
“...that boy will die,” Nyanko-sensei finished.
His knees went weak. Takashi took a breath. In. Out. In. Out. In-
Fuck, he couldn’t breath.
He fell onto his knees, panic overtaking him. His breaths came out short and erratic, and he curled up, hands coming up to tug on his hair in an attempt to- to something-
Tanuma is going to die, his mind said. Tanuma is going to die.
And it’s all Takashi’s fault- he shouldn’t have left Tanuma when he saw him in the forest-
He shouldn’t have even drag Tanuma into this mess of youkais and ayakashis because now he’s captured by one- and he’s going to die-
Everything was too much. Too overwhelming. What was he even doing he should be moving because Tanuma is going to die-
Something soft wrapped around him. Between his short breaths and teary eyes he could see white fur-
“Calm down brat,” A voice said. Old, scratchy, familiar.
Gradually, Takashi’s breaths became slower and slower until he could finally breathe normally again.
Vaguely, he realised that Nyanko-sensei had transformed into his larger form, curled up around Takashi protectively.
“Sensei,” Takashi leaned against the spirit, softly gripping her soft fur, grounding himself from the last bit of panic still there. “Thank you…”
The spirit huffed. “You’ll have to buy me manjus tomorrow,”