Hello, and thank you for taking your time to read this story!

I absolutely love the relationship between Natsume and the Fujiwara couple. I got a little curious as to whether or not Natsume ever got sick from the time he moved to the Fujiwara couple's home to the time the story started (which was one month after, if I remember correctly). That curiosity and my imagination gave birth to this fan fiction.

I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Natsume Yuujinchou.

Natsume Yuujinchou Fan Fiction
Family

When Touko and Shigeru first welcomed the boy known as Natsume Takashi into their home, they noticed that he had an easy time adapting to his new lifestyle. He easily got used to their early rural schedule despite having come from an urban lifestyle a few days prior. He could find his way around their traditional-style house and also seemed familiar with how to help with all kinds of chores. For someone who just came from the city, he was not significantly put off by the quietness and emptiness of their peaceful neighborhood. Just three weeks after moving in, he was smoothly living the countryside life.

They had heard from their relatives that Takashi moved between families nearly every few months. The longest he ever stayed with one family was approximately one year or even less. In that case, perhaps it was instead unthinkable that he would not be accustomed to adapting into new towns and lifestyles. Still, Touko noticed that there was indeed something that even Takashi had yet to grow accustomed to after coming to live with them, something that only made her distaste for the boy's rumored mistreatment grow.

To Touko, it was disturbingly obvious that Takashi had yet to grow accustomed to the kindness she and Shigeru were constantly showing him.

In his first week, the boy apparently got lost on the way home and arrived past sunset with his uniform covered in dirt and his arms and face decorated in many little scratches. Without even stepping into the house, he shamefully apologized over and over for being late and getting his uniform dirty, promising to do his own laundry. When Touko smiled gently at him, told him there was no need for that, and even offered to fetch him from school until he remembered the way home, his eyes grew wide, reflecting something between disbelief and horror. "I will definitely make it back home properly from now on. I won't cause any trouble. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." The boy who stood before her never minded his own scratches and only seemed ashamed for getting his new uniform ruined. His apologies echoed painfully in Touko's ears.

In the second week, Shigeru was walking home from work when he found Takashi in a knee-deep river with his sleeves folded up. He was bent down and was waving his hands blindly within the flowing current as if he was searching for something. From how his forehead was drenched in sweat, Shigeru had a feeling that he had been there for at least an hour already. When he called out to the boy, Takashi looked utterly horrified, like a child who had been caught stealing a cookie from the cookie jar. He explained that he dropped his pencil case in the river while a stray dog was chasing him. "I see. But it's dangerous, so come out of the river. We can just get you a new one." Shigeru said that easily and sincerely, but Takashi looked completely shocked, as if the idea of spending money on him was unthinkable. When Shigeru actually did buy a new pencil case for him later that week, the boy appeared more apologetic than he was thankful—a reaction that never sat well with the older man.

It didn't take much for Touko to take notice of these instances, along with many other smaller details, such as how Takashi would never ask for seconds when eating, how forced his smiles would seem, or how he would instinctively flinch at any form of physical contact they attempted. Touko and Shigeru had heard some stories from his previous guardians, and after living with him for a few weeks, they thought that they had fully understood the extent of Takashi's reservations.

However, the most worrying incident caught them both by surprise on the third week.

The night before, Takashi came home late once again after apparently being chased around the forest by a wild fox. Perhaps it was because of that, but the next day, he woke up half an hour late looking paler than he usually was. Still, when Touko questioned him about how he was feeling, he flashed another one of his painfully fake smiles, reassured her that he was simply lacking sleep, and told her, "I feel fine," before dashing out of the house in a hurry.

At that time, Touko had yet to realize just how good Takashi was at lying.

Later in the afternoon, an hour or so before Touko was expecting Takashi to arrive home, she received a call from the school's nurse. Her calm yet sympathetic voice did nothing to stop the sense of horror Touko felt crawl onto her skin when she was told that her foster son had passed out in class with an alarmingly high fever and signs of fatigue and exhaustion. Before she realized it, Touko was frantically calling her husband on the phone, urging him to come home so they could take the car and pick the boy up.

"Oh, this is terrible, Shigeru-san… I knew he looked bad this morning. I should have been more persistent when I asked him how he felt! Even though Takashi-kun is so reserved, I didn't think he would hold back this much… He must have been so ill all day!"

Shigeru gently calmed his wife even as she restlessly blamed herself and rambled on anxiously from the passenger seat on the way to Takashi's school. When they arrived, they quickly made their way to the school's clinic and found their foster child sleeping on one of the beds. His face was noticeably red, and his forehead was drenched in sweat. A boy who introduced himself as Takashi's classmate, Nishimura, excused himself from the boy's bedside after being repeatedly thanked by the elderly couple.

Throughout being lifted from the clinic bed onto Shigeru's back, placed against Touko's shoulder in the car, and carried into the local hospital's emergency ward, Takashi never once woke from his seemingly uncomfortable fever-ridden sleep. It took a few hours of treatment in the hospital for the boy's fever to go down and for him to regain consciousness. When he did, it only seemed to take him a moment to figure out where he was and what happened. Even as he pushed himself up from the bed, his feverish face somehow managed to turn pale in horror. His gaze was lowered on his nervous grip on the hospital blanket, darting away from both Touko's and Shigeru's.

"U-Um, I'm so—"

"Takashi-kun."

Touko's voice, painted in an unusually stern tone, made the boy flinch and fall silent right away. From the corner of his vision, he could see Touko rising from her chair and standing beside his bed. She raised her hand and Takashi shut his eyes—an instinctive reaction that had been carved into his mind and body. However, betraying his expectations built on experience, what came was not a sharp pain to his cheeks but an unfamiliar warmth around his shoulders and face. His eyes shot open in shock and blinked several times in confusion. A hug, his mind helpfully supplied. She's hugging you.

"I don't want to hear you apologize for causing trouble. If you're going to apologize for something, then apologize for holding back and suffering all on your own. Okay?"

Her voice was so close and so gentle, and her touch was warmer than anything he had ever felt. When he lifted his head in shock, Shigeru was standing right beside them with a similarly warm and gentle smile on his face, agreeing with everything his wife said. When Touko pulled away from the hug, Shigeru sat down on the bed beside Takashi and fondly patted the boy on the head.

"We want you to cause more trouble. If it means you will be more open and honest with us. If it means you will stop shouldering things by yourself. If it means you will have a little more fun every day. If that's the case, then Takashi, go ahead and cause us trouble."

What was reflected on their foster son's face at that time was more of shock and bewilderment than anything else. Still, the slight tinge of happiness like that of a little child's that they saw hidden beyond his expression told Touko and Shigeru, more than anything, that the day they take down all the walls around the boy and become a true family was closer than it seemed—and the journey toward that would be a pleasantly endearing experience for them all.

On a side note, I have no concrete proof that Natsume was ever physically abused, but he's certainly been abused in one way or another, and I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of his so-called guardians ever did so physically.

In any case, I hope you enjoyed it. Once again, thank you for reading and have a nice day!