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Fingertip resting on his rook, Natsume studies the shogi board, considering his move, anticipating how his opponent might respond to it and how he, in turn, will respond to that response. Satisfied with his strategy, he places the rook in a carefully chosen square.
"See?"
Natsume glances up at Tanuma, then back at the board. He doesn't see, not yet, although the curve of Tanuma's mouth suggests that he's about to. "It's because you keep focusing on your rook," Tanuma continues. "That leaves you open diagonally, so—" He reaches for his bishop and suddenly Natsume does see, even before Tanuma moves it and concludes, "The match is over now."
A shimmer of light outside catches Natsume's eye: sun glinting off the youkai koi pond. He misses most of Tanuma's next words but catches his own name: their eyes meet when he looks back and then Tanuma's gaze turns to the pond as well, silhouette fish swimming through shadow ripples reflected on the wall screen.
As they exchange another glance, Natsume knows exactly what Tanuma's smile means this time because his own smile means the same. They've been doing this, sitting out by the pond, for almost as long as they've known each other, ever since Tanuma first showed it to him. It's not a ritual or anything; it's just something they do. Natsume has come to think of it as their thing, though he's never said so aloud.
They still don't say anything as they fold themselves onto the ground near the pond's edge. There is no rule about not talking out here; sometimes they do and sometimes they forgo it in favor of a comfortable wordlessness. And the wordlessness, whenever they do slip into it, is comfortable. There's no awkwardness, no pressure to fumble for words that aren't there and probably wouldn't be right even if they were; there's comfort in the quiet they share here.
Natsume stretches his legs before him, his toes just out of reach of the pond, and leans back on his hands. Blades of grass crush beneath his palms and a gentle breeze picks up their pleasant, earthy scent, carrying it to him as it plays with strands of his hair, now drifting them into his face, now lifting them up and away.
As he lets the breeze have its way, Natsume rests back on his hands with a contented sigh. He's not just comfortable here in Tanuma's company; he feels peaceful. Youkai never seek him out here, maybe because he's not alone—although that doesn't always stop them from coming to him elsewhere. No, there's something about Tanuma's youkai pond... Natsume doesn't know what, exactly, but that's all right because it's special whether or not he knows why. Another easy breath floats through him as he gazes at the pond.
It's lively today. Half a dozen red koi are gamboling in the water, sliding along beneath the surface, flashing brighter in the sun as they leap. The same breeze toying with his hair is playing with the water, drawing ripples around the ones the fish are splashing up. The sun, on the descent but not yet low in the sky, is admiring the pond as well, its gaze caught in each new ripple, shimmering soft and bright.
Before he showed Natsume the pond, Tanuma only watched it on the wall indoors. Natsume doesn't know if Tanuma comes out to the pond when he's alone these days or if he stays inside to watch the shadowed reflections. He wonders how much Tanuma can see out here, what exactly he's seeing. He's tried asking a few times but Tanuma always seems to deflect the question and Natsume always lets him. He continues to ask again, now and then, because it never feels like Tanuma doesn't want to talk about it at all, more like he's just not ready yet. Natsume knows how that is, so he does his best to give Tanuma the space he needs while making sure he knows Natsume is here to listen whenever he is ready to cross that space. Tanuma would do the same for him, and has; that's how it is between them.
The afternoon has an easy feel to it, the kind of easiness where words might be right. "What can you see today?" Natsume asks, still looking at the pond. "Are there reflections or shadows anywhere out here?"
No response comes. When another moment passes wordlessly, Natsume tells himself to be content to wait for another day.
"On warm days, when your arms are bare, the shadow koi often move across your skin." Natsume turns to him as Tanuma goes on, "It's not swimming, exactly. That is, they must be swimming—but out here I don't see the shadow reflections of the water, so it looks like they're dancing."
"Can you see them at all now?"
Tanuma nods. "On your jacket. They're not as clear as when they're on your skin but I can see them."
Natsume looks down at himself. Then he shifts, settling back on his elbows, guessing that the shadows may be moving across his face now that he's lower. "How about now?"
"Yes."
Natsume returns his gaze to the youkai pond, the smooth flashes of color as the koi glide beneath the sunlit sparkling of the surface. It's beautiful, and he says so.
"I know," Tanuma says. Natsume turns to him, too slow to catch his eye as he looks off. Tanuma takes a deep breath and even though he only exhales, Natsume feels like he's getting ready to say something, so he keeps looking. "Do you remember the first time we watched fireworks together, up on the mountain? An ayakashi was blocking your view but you said you could tell how beautiful they were because of his intensity as he watched." Another deep breath. "That's how I feel about the koi pond, when I watch you watching."
He's still looking off into the middle distance and Natsume is still looking at him. Natsume wants to tell him it's all right: it's all right to look, it's all right to think like this and to say these things; they can talk to each other about everything, even things no one else will understand. Especially about those things.
He wants Tanuma to be looking at him when he says all this, so he'll see how much Natsume means it. Keeping his eyes on Tanuma's face to catch his gaze when he turns, Natsume sits up and reaches for his arm, misses, lands on his hand. He's thinking up a joke to laugh it off, something that won't make it even more awkward like a laugh by itself would—when Tanuma turns his hand palm-up beneath Natsume's.
Forgetting to keep looking at Tanuma's face, Natsume looks at their hands. He watches himself interlace their fingers. Watches Tanuma's fingers fold around his.
Oh~
He looks at the pond, follows a sleek red koi gliding along the water's edge, light glimmering in the bubbles it spills across the surface when it comes up. There's a bright flash of color as the koi arcs out of the water before diving deeper. Ripples traipse across the surface, joining up with ripples from another koi on the far side, coaxing the sunlight into dazzling new patterns.
Natsume gazes at it all as intently as he can.
"If there are other things you want to see, we can go there," he says. "In the meantime, I'll show you as much as I can here, so please look as much as you like." Their hands are still together between them and, for a moment, Natsume's closes gently around Tanuma's before relaxing again.
A breeze dashes across the pond, trailing a wake of pale golden shimmers, and drifts off the near edge. Natsume looks at Tanuma and sees the breeze, tangled with late afternoon sunshine, whispering through his hair and daring to caress his face.
"I'd like to see the pond the way you see it too," Natsume says when their eyes meet.
Tanuma nods and Natsume is grateful for the wordless understanding that he just wants to keep looking at Tanuma in this moment, just for a moment longer.
Then Tanuma says, "The shadow koi are dancing across your face right now." His hand slips out of Natsume's and hovers.
"Show me," Natsume says. "I want to know..."
Tanuma's fingers flutter; the flutter comes to rest, lightly, on Natsume's face, just below his cheekbone. As Tanuma's fingertips move on him, Natsume closes his eyes, translating the touches into images of delicate, silhouetted koi swimming, dancing oh so lightly across his skin.
The koi disappear as Tanuma withdraws his hand. "I'm sorry. I—I'm not good with people. So I don't know how to behave sometimes. I don't know what this feeling is..."
Natsume remembers the first time he and Tanuma spoke, looking out the window at the ayakashi in the school courtyard. He'd felt something even then, a feeling he couldn't identify, had no words for.
He smiles across time at his then self; smiles here and now at Tanuma. Their hands find one another again. Maybe they don't need to know, not right now. There's plenty of time and they're not alone in this, whatever it is; they have each other and they'll figure it out together.