There was something off about Natsume. Sasada had been aware of it for a long while, and had her suspicions about why. The fact someone was always getting between her and the truth only worked to strengthen her convictions.
She had seen strange things before. When she was younger her grandmother used to say it was a curse—or a blessing, depending on the day. Her parents thought it was nothing more than an overactive imagination, and were relieved when she started seeing them less and less as she grew older.
Sasada was relieved, too, at first. She was happy not to have to pretend like she wasn't being followed around by an enormous, shadowy thing. She missed the occasional friendly one she met, but it was nice not to have to lie anymore and say that she had just been talking to herself. She liked that her parents smiled more and that her grandmother only huffed instead of screeching whenever she caught Sasada's eyes unfocused.
Her grandmother died, soon after her limited abilities all but disappeared. Then, before she could even wrap her head around that singular loss, she found herself an orphan. It was blow after blow, even with the meager time in-between losses, and Sasada wasn't sure if she would ever actually recover.
She was left with nothing but an aching loneliness. The other kids at school didn't know how to handle that kind of grief, or didn't want to face the fact that people they knew, however peripherally, were gone. Her brand new stepmother, however kind, simply didn't know how to deal with being a widow on top of being suddenly responsible for a little girl she barely knew, and was only related to by a few months of a happy marriage.
They lost the house a few months later, unable to keep up with the payments. She was dragged halfway across the country, away from the town she had never even left before, to live in the place her new stepmother had grown up in. Her childhood home was gone along with so many of the last remaining happy memories. Her family was all dead, leaving her with only a woman who kept her out of the kindness of her heart and the legalities and responsibilities that came along with marriage. Even the spirits had left her.
Sasada found herself alone, not even sure if she knew how to feel anything but the yawning pit of loss and a sense of emptiness anymore. For the first time, she found herself wishing desperately for those shadows and disembodied voices to return. No matter how much she wanted it, though, she never saw more than flickering or heard anything but distant, indecipherable whispers.
It was the worst time of her life. She found herself going through the motions, never really thinking or feeling or dreaming of anything better. She did not go out on the weekends, because she didn't have any friends to think of inviting her out.
The only thing she pushed herself at was school, working harder than she ever had before to ensure her new stepfamily was pleased. She would smile and make inconsequential small talk at dinner. She got good at speaking without saying anything at all, well aware of just how precarious her situation was.
For a time, she was okay with it. After all, if she wasn't close with anyone, then she couldn't lose anyone. She had already lost everything and everyone, human and not. She never wanted to go through that again.
.
And then, one night, everything changed. Her mother's charm was lost, and Sasada felt panic well up. She choked on it, unused to anything but that carefully cultivated emptiness. She had no one to call upon to help her, so she set about the task of searching the unfamiliar darkness for her precious item, just as alone as she had been since she had lost everyone who loved her.
There were tears streaming down her face, blurring her vision. In the darkness, the stranger with a bucket over his head seemed to glow like an angel. He offered her the charm, and he told her to leave immediately. It was such a simple act of kindness, but Sasada felt something new blossom within her chest.
She searched her school, trying to find the boy who help her. She never actually believed that it was any of them, though. There had been something about the one who had given her back her charm, a sort of blurriness around the edges of his form, the way his voice seemed to be hollow and distant even though he had been right in front of her.
She had known, even then, that he was not human. The thought awakened something inside of her, a desperate sort of longing for a past that had long since been lost. Because of him, she was awake again, was beginning to find who she had been before her world had been torn from beneath her feet.
The first thing she learned about herself was that she was tenacious and dedicated, and stubborn beyond words. Every day she went back to that abandoned building, called for him until her voice gave out, searched until her eyes ached and her head felt like it was splitting open. She could feel the prickle of eyes on her, and the cold and creeping sensation she used to get when she was young and there was something strange nearby.
He never showed himself to her, no matter how much she yelled, no matter how many times she went to that place, no matter how desperately she wanted. That didn't discourage her, though. She had already known for a very long time that wanting something didn't make it happen. It was only recently that she had decided that she would be the one to turn her desires into realities, chasing them no matter the cost to herself.
She had so much more than just her mother's charm to thank him for.
She became the class representative the following year, something she never would have done before. As the representative, she was one of the first ones to meet the new transfer student.
Natsume Takashi was strange in the same way she had been, when she had first come to this school. People looked at him and saw his quiet nature and distant expression, they heard the whispered rumors of a tragic past and a complicated family life, and they kept their distance. It was just like how they had treated her, back when she had first come to this town, and she hated that she didn't know how to do anything to fix it for him.
She settled for scolding anyone who looked sideways at him, loud and unrepentant and so different than she had been just a year before. She made sure to extend invitations to him, whenever it felt appropriate to do so. She watched him closely, and tried to figure out how to help, because she knew that just wishing she could do something for him wouldn't actually accomplish anything at all.
That careful observation was how she realized he had a similar ability to what she had once possessed. Or at least, how she began suspecting it. She only felt a little bit guilty about trying to sneakily get him to help her find the ghost that helped her.
She would never forget the way he looked, bathed in light and fading away. Her heart felt like it had seized up at the thought of losing him before she ever had the chance to know him, and of never being able to properly thank him. The brush of his hand over her hair, the warmth in his eyes, and the sudden knowing he gave her would be memories she would treasure for the rest of her life.
After that night, she knew that she had a lot to thank Natsume for, too. That was why she stayed quiet about those events, why she smiled at him despite the lies that went unsaid between them. It was also why she did everything in her power to offer him the chance to tell her the truth.
She didn't want him to be alone. The longer she watched him, however, the more she realized just how much he could see, and suddenly she was self-conscious. After all, why would he want to talk with her, when she couldn't even see them anymore?
Still, it was hard to let go of the hope or of her drive to be her own change in the word. So she stuck around, even though she knew that his other friends didn't like her, and she basked in the warmth she felt every time he allowed her to be a part of his life, even if she would likely never get to experience that other part of his life again. She kept her mouth shut, and she told herself that it was enough.
.
There was an unspoken agreement among most of the girls (and some of the guys) at their school that Natsume was attractive. There was something appealing about his delicate features and his fair hair, the mysterious, insincere smiles and those gentle brown doe-eyes. He was gentle and compassionate, and far too kind for his own good. Despite all that, though, most people avoided him.
There was just something off putting about him. The way he distanced himself and kept quiet, the way he slept in class and came to school with strange injuries, and the strange things that seemed to always happen around him would come together to form a disconcerting picture to anyone who didn't already know. Sasada couldn't fault them for it, though she did make an effort to force people to interact with him when she could.
Still, there were times when others' tendency to avoid him came in handy, such as now. She wanted to talk to him alone, one-on-one, and if no one else who had stayed behind after school was out was looking for him, she could do just that.
She had been wanting to talk to him privately ever since the rumor had reached her about his parents' deaths. First his mother, then his father. Just like her.
Sasada thought that, perhaps, Tanuma could see them, too. He was so like Natsume in so many ways, and like her in less apparent ones. His mother was gone, too, she remembered.
She knew she could never ask Natsume, not outright, but she couldn't help the creeping, ugly thought that wormed its way into her head; were they cursed? Was she the reason her parents had died?
She just wanted to talk to him. Natsume was so gentle, and he was so kind, and he carried around a horrible weight that bowed his head and made him distant and resigned to every misfortune that came his way. Despite that, though, he could still smile and laugh and make friends with the people who dared to look past his facade.
She thought that, maybe, if she could see him and remind herself of how good he was, she could convince herself that they weren't cursed. Just unlucky.
(She ignored the little niggling doubts that whispered that there were too many similarities, too many coincidences, and maybe she should try harder to be nicer to Tanuma, because he would need someone when his father died, too.)
She found him in an unused classroom, napping at one of the desks, his head cushioned on his arms. School had been over for an hour already, but they had both been assigned to cleaning duties. She had suspected, when he had disappeared the second their tasks were finished and she never saw him leaving through the front gates, that she would find him like this.
He had looked so tired all day. His soft brown eyes had been glassy and the bags beneath them seemed to clearly say that he hadn't slept at all that weekend. The fact he had practically passed out the second he had sat down at his desk totally invalidated his later insistences that he was just fine. The boy had looked so bad that even their sensei had taken pity on him, waving off anyone who offered to wake Natsume up.
Staring at him now, he looked so peaceful that it seemed like it would be a crime to wake him. So she didn't. She just flipped the harsh white lights off, letting the warm sunlight that filtered through the curtains fill the room instead, and tiptoed to the desk adjacent to him.
The windows were opened just a crack, letting the pleasantly brisk autumn air into the room and setting the curtains rippling. The sunlight was already beginning to fade, turning deep gold, tinged with red. It filled the room, casting everything in an otherworldly glow, including Natsume.
As he slept there, face cast in contrasting light and shadows, Sasada couldn't help but smile. He looked so young, and he looked content. His hair was ruffled by the breeze, fluffing up before settling down. She had the urge to touch it, wondering if it was as soft as it looked.
Her fingers twitched, her hand moving forward of its own accord. A shadow passed by the window, blocking out the warm glow of the fading sunlight. A chill climbed her spine.
It was a feeling she was intimately familiar with, that creeping sensation that there was something watching her, something she couldn't see. It was the sudden paranoia that there was something dangerous nearby, waiting and watching and unstoppable. She felt it often around Natsume and whenever she passed by the darkest parts of the forest on her walk home. It was never this strong, though.
Something was about to happen. This was not like the times she had felt the gaze of that kind, lonely ghost on her. This was something bad.
"Natsume!" she hissed, her voice tight and shaking. She reached out, placed a gentle hand on his shoulder instead of his hair, and shook him. "Natsume, wake up! We need to go, now."
His eyes fluttered open, confused and groggy. He stared at her for a second, his lips parted like he was going to say something, but the world seemed far away and muffled to Sasada. She watched as his warm brown eyes focused on something behind her, then went wide and horrified.
Somewhere far away, she thought she heard a shout and the roar of some beast, and even as muffled as it was, it was enough to raise goosebumps all across her flesh. She watched Natsume rise, fast enough that his chair was thrown back, clattering to the ground with a sound she couldn't seem to hear over the sound of the monster behind her. His arms were thrown out wide, his expression as fierce as it was scared.
She thought with a rush of warm affection, that that expression was for her. He was protecting her.
Then, the world exploded in a flash of blinding white light, and she knew no more.
.
When she next opened her eyes, she found herself lying on the floor, her head cushioned on something soft. Slowly, Sasada forced herself to sit up and look around, dragging the soft thing into her lap in an instinctual need for comfort.
Her heart leapt to her throat at the sight of the destruction surrounding her. The light was almost gone, bathing the room around her in a mix of blood red and heavy grey shadows. There was the remains of a splintered desk beside her head.
The entire room was completely trashed, desks overturned and chairs broken apart, like they had been thrown against the walls or torn apart with inhuman strength. The chalkboard was lying in pieces, scattered across the floor. Even the windows, though not shattered, had spiderweb cracks throughout them.
Natsume stood amongst the wreckage, his pale, messy hair catching the last fading light of day. It looked like a halo, a fire burning so hot and bright it turned white and radiant. She could only see him in profile as he stared out the window, shoulders loose and relaxed, his expression far away, like he was watching something no one else could see in the distant horizon. He looked quietly resigned, defeated in a way she had never seen before.
"Natsume?"
He turned to her, and her breath caught in her throat. As he stared at her, his expression still distant and empty, his eyes reflected the light. They burned a brilliant gold, like nothing she had ever seen before. Most shocking, perhaps, was the way his pupils had turned to thin, animalistic slits.
Surrounded by deep red light and destruction, the curtains moving like living things and his halo of hair shifting in the wind, he didn't look human at all. She couldn't look away even if she wanted to, afraid that the moment she took her eyes off of him, he would simply disappear like every other important thing in her life. It was the most frightening (the most beautiful) thing she had ever seen.
"Natsume? What…?"
Then that empty expression was gone, replaced with a smile. Though his eyes still glowed, though the room was still destroyed, he still found it in himself to offer her such a gentle expression. She decided immediately that she hated that smile.
"Sasada, I'm sorry," he said. His voice was soft, barely even a whisper. He looked like he was waiting for her to accuse him of something, already ready to quietly take the blame for everything. "I'll tell the teachers what happened and I'll clean it up, so don't worry."
"Stop it! Don't do that, Natsume," she snapped, pushing herself to her feet so fast it made her head spin.
Her hands were trembling, clutched into white-knuckled fists around the black material that had been cushioning her head. She realized it was his uniform jacket. Tears welled up in her eyes, unbidden and unwanted.
"You...you don't have to worry," he repeated, and that gentle (fake) smile had melted away, giving way to a look of uncertainty. "You didn't do anything."
"You didn't either!"
He tensed at her words, cat-like eyes going wide. There was something hunted in his expression, and she realized that, more than anything, he was scared of her. Terrified, even. Something inside her chest clenched, but she forced herself to relax.
She scrubbed at her eyes and took a deep breath, telling herself to calm down. Natsume had moved by the time she had opened her eyes again, and she had no clue how he had managed to move across the room so silently when every inch of the ground was covered in rubble. He was hesitating by the door, like he wasn't sure if he should disappear or not now that he had been caught.
The last rays of light caught on his face, and she wasn't surprised to see that his eyes were back to that warm brown she was so used to. He was staring at her, wide-eyed and vulnerable, like she held his whole life in her hand. Maybe she did.
Sasada took a deep breath and met his eye. He stared back, trembling like trapped rabbit, ready to bolt at any second, eyes darting between her and the door. There was something so desperately sad about the sight.
She had the sudden crushing realization that nothing she had done up to this point had mattered. Even after so long of her desperately attempting to make friends and covertly assuring him that she knew and she still cared about him, it had done absolutely nothing to make him feel better, or to make him trust her any more than any random stranger off the streets.
As selfish as it was, that realization was what made her tears spill over once again. Natsume watched her with wide, panicked eyes, and took a half-step towards the door.
"Don't!" she shrieked, voice breaking, and he froze immediately. "Don't leave me behind again, Natsume. You...you always always do that. I'm just...I'm just trying to show you—"
Sasada cut herself off, a sob ripping from her throat. She covered her face, shoulders trembling at the sudden overwhelming rush of emotion that filled her. She felt like she was drowning in her own loneliness, the reminders that she would never quite fit into either world, that even someone as kind as Natsume would never want her around.
"I've noticed. Of course I've noticed," she whispered, words muffled by the jacket she still clutched tightly. "I'm not stupid, Natsume. I'm sorry if I'm too persistent. I just...I just didn't know how else to get you to see me." Another deep breath, broken by pathetic little hiccups. "You have good friends. I hope you know that."
She jerked when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She raised her head to find Natsume standing right in front of her, something unreadable swimming in his dark eyes. His touch was warm despite the sudden chilly wind that swept through the room and the familiar prickling along her scalp.
She forced herself to drag her gaze away from Natsume, glancing over her shoulder. She smiled wetly at the sight of Natsume's fat cat sitting on the sill of the suddenly wide-open third-floor window. It was watching them with sharp eyes and a smug curl to its mouth. A tiny huff of laughter escaped her lips, because it was such a tiny thing, but suddenly she knew, instead of just suspecting.
She turned back to Natsume. He was watching her, wary and guilty and a thousand other things that Sasada was at least a little familiar with. Slowly, she reached out to touch the side of his face, watched the way he flinched away at first, only to slowly relax into her touch, surprise and suspicion warring over his features.
Her smile became a little brighter as she dropped her hand from his face, only to capture his hand in hers, instead. He looked down at their linked hands as she gave a warm squeeze, and the look of bewilderment made her giggle. She waited until he had relaxed again, until he didn't seem like he was going to bolt the second she opened her mouth.
There were still tears trembling on her lashes when she took a deep breath and met his eyes head-on. When she looked closely enough, she could find that gold again and the hint of distortion to pupils she had only ever seen as round before. Her smile widened, and she tried to pretend that her hands weren't shaking. She gathered her courage, and promised herself that she wouldn't let him run until she had finally said her piece.
"When I was little, I used to see strange things. Sometimes, I still do. I think that they might have been youkai," she said, watching the way his eyes went wide, enjoying the sound of a fat little not-cat thudding to the floor behind her in what she could only assume was surprise. Her expression went soft. "What do you see, Natsume?"
Here it is, the final prompt for Natsume Week! We did it kids. This prompt was a bonus, "Your Favorite Headcanon." The first headcanon here was that Sasada is spiritually sensitive, similar to Tanuma, but lost most of her abilities as she grew older. The second was a really amazing headcanon by tumblr user mayorofcattown, about how Natsume's eyes look relatively normal to people who can't see youkai, but look like we see them in the show to people who can. They have super cute artwork and made a little comic about it, and if I were you, I'd definitely go check them out. ;)
Anyways, this monster was turned out in a single day and I inadvertently made myself fall in love with Sasada in the process. So I hope you liked it, too!