Summary: While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil. Warning: character death.
SkyGem: This is dedicated to the wonderful Bleach-ed-Na-tsu! Without her, it would have sat unfinished in my computer, collecting dust, for the next five years XD It still took way too long for me to get it up. Hope you all enjoy it!
The sun was shining, the weather beautiful.
It was an almost cruelly perfect day, considering the tragedy that had darkened the lives of a certain little town.
There was not a laugh to be heard in this community where everyone knew each other, its residents dressed all in black to pay their last respects to one of their own, a young life taken from them much too soon.
One house in particular was full to bursting with mourners, the air inside so thick with grief, it was almost suffocating.
There was a closed coffin inside, and over it was a picture of a gently smiling young man who'd had his entire life ahead of him.
His short, tan hair was ruffled endearingly and his kind amber eyes were so intense they seemed to stare into one's soul.
He'd been a strange boy, no one could deny that, but one would be hard pressed to find a sweeter soul in all the world, as anyone who'd had a conversation with him would be able to tell you.
Just three years ago he'd wormed his way into the hearts of this community, taken in as a foster child by some distant relatives with no children of their own.
These relatives were now sat at a table not far from the coffin, the husband trying to comfort his wife, whose heaving face was buried in her arms, crying for the boy she'd loved like her own.
Every once in a while, someone would come to give them their condolences – friends, neighbours, classmates of their lost foster son.
She barely acknowledged any of them, letting her husband accept their kind words.
She only looked up when she felt a hand come to rest on her shoulder, and saw a young girl with strawberry blond hair and swollen eyes.
"Oh, Tooru-chan," said the woman, Fujiwara Touko, sitting up a little and attempting to smile through her tears. Then, noticing the three young men that had accompanied the younger woman, her smile became a little more genuine. "And Nishimura-kun, Kitamoto-kun, and Tanuma-kun."
"How are you holding up, Fujiwara-san?" asked Taki Tooru, who had been a very close friend of Touko's late foster son.
Touko looked down, unable to answer without breaking into tears, and Taki, after just a moment of hesitation, wrapped her arms around the older woman.
The three boys all looked away from the scene, feeling as if they were intruding on an intimate moment.
"I-I can't believe he's gone," whispered Nishimura, the shortest of them, as he viciously scrubbed at his eyes to try and stop the flow of tears. "How can he be gone?" he asked, his voice broken.
"I don't know, Nishimura," sighed Kitamoto in a voice hoarse from crying. "But it's just like him, isn't it?" he asked, attempting a smile that came out as more of a grimace. "To rush in front of a truck to save a little boy."
Nishimura nodded, finding himself unable to say anything around the lump in his throat.
The third boy in their group, a teen with jet black hair and devastated yet distracted brown eyes, wasn't paying much attention to the conversation, instead opting to stare forlornly at the coffin, finding himself unable to believe that his best friend was lying in there, his body cold and still for all eternity.
It took a moment for the teen to register the child sitting in front of the coffin, unaccompanied by any adults. His head was hanging and his hunched shoulders were shaking with the force of his sobs.
Walking forward to place a hand on the child's shoulder, the teen was surprised when he recognized the tear-streaked face that looked back up at him.
"Kai?" he whispered, and the child got up to throw his arms around him, wailing loudly.
The teen, Tanuma, stood there stiffly for a moment, unsure of what to do, before awkwardly patting the little child on the back.
"I-I can't believe he's gone!" wailed the child, clutching at Tanuma is if he were a lifeline. "I-I didn't even g-g-get to apologize to h-him for assuming h-h-he was like t-that exorcist! A-and then he went and d-d-d-died while still thinking that I-I hated him!"
Carefully disentangling himself from Kai's arms, Tanuma knelt so that he was eye-level with the child and said in a gentle voice, "Natsume is...was a very understanding guy, Kai. I'm sure he knew how much you cared for him."
Kai, who had been trying to stifle his hiccoughing sobs, nodded, and again attached himself to Tanuma, who finally gave in to the wave of grief that had been threatening to drown him, letting the dam break as the tears slid down his face.
As these two of Natsume Takashi's love ones sought solace in each other, the door opened to admit two more mourners, who went unnoticed by most of the people in the room.
One seemed to be a foreigner, with rich dark skin and high cheekbones. His hair was dyed a pale purple and red-eyeliner rimmed his eyes. Between that and the two golden rings on his right ear, the two bells on his left ear, and the golden wrist-rings circling his left wrist, he looked the very picture of a delinquent. He was accompanied by an elegant young woman with dark hair and a black kimono, her skin deathly pale except for her red-rimmed eyes, which were swollen from crying like many of the other people in the room.
No one in the room seemed to recognize them, and Fujiwara Shigeru watched them warily as they approached, ready to throw them out if they made a fuss.
Contrary to his worries, though, both newcomers were the very picture of respect as they bowed low to he and his wife.
"We were close friends of Takashi-kun," said the young man, his eyes downcast. "We live in the next town over and when we heard of what had happened to him we were absolutely devastated."
At this, the woman in the kimono let out a heartbroken sob, quickly burying her face in her hands.
The young man turned to comfort his companion, but before he could say anything, someone else placed a hand on her shoulder.
Looking up at the human offering her a handkerchief, the woman's eyes narrowed a bit. "You're...Natori," she said, and the man smiled sadly at her.
"And I believe you're Hinoe-san?" he answered. "I've heard so much about you. It's unfortunate that our meeting would be under such unfortunate circumstances."
Hinoe nodded mutely, unable to reply for fear that she would start crying again, and accepted the handkerchief he had offered, in silent agreement to a temporary truce.
Politely turning his eyes away as she gathered herself, Natori looked around in awe at all the youkai crowded in the room to mourn the young Natsume Takashi.
None of them were making any mischief for the humans or fighting amongst each other – to do so would be to show the greatest disrespect to the one they had gathered here for.
There was a long line leading up to the coffin, each youkai murmuring their last goodbyes to the young man as they passed it.
Natori had been exasperated many a time at how determined the young man always was to see the good in youkai, even when it was sometimes non-existent, but seeing all these youkai gathered here today, the exorcist was beginning to think that maybe young Natsume had had the right idea after all.
Feeling the sharp sting of oncoming tears at the thought of his young friend, Natori Shuuichi gave his condolences to the Fujiwaras, said one last goodbye to his friend, and left, unable to bear the atmosphere any more and unwilling to show his vulnerabilities to a group of youkai and strangers.
He paused a moment outside the house to wait for Hiiragi, who had lingered a moment to say her own goodbyes to Natsume Takashi. She exited the house moments later; the tear stains dotting her robes were the only evidence of her grief as she followed her master out of this town that had once been one of their favourite places in all Japan, but which no longer held meaning for either of them.
Back in the house, among this group of those who held Natsume Takashi near and dear to their hearts, there was only one face missing.
And it was only later, when all the guests had left and the Fujiwaras were left alone in their once again too quiet house, that they realized they hadn't seen hide nor tail of their foster son's beloved cat.
They would search fruitlessly for days afterwards before finally accepting that this last little bit of Natsume Takashi was gone as well, never to be seen again.
Hours slowly passed them by, turning into days, then weeks, then months, then years and this little community stumbled on, time slowly healing their wounds.
People moved on with their lives, but no one forgot young Natsume Takashi.
The Fujiwaras considered moving away many times, because in everything they did, in every corner of their house, they saw ghosts of their lost foster son.
But they were never able to make the move, because to leave their home would be to leave behind their memories of the little lost spirit that had stolen their hearts.
Takashi's friends never fully moved on either.
For the first few months, they always found themselves looking over their shoulders, seeking the quiet, calming presence of their friend, before remembering he wasn't there anymore.
Every year, on the anniversary of his passing, the four would get together and visit his grave, bringing him little trinkets that would have brought a gentle, amused smile to his lips if he were still alive instead of flowers, which he'd never really had use for.
They would stay there for hours, talking to him about their lives as if he could still hear them.
And so it went for six years before this routine was interrupted.
On the seventh anniversary of Natsume's death, the group of friends were making their way down the familiar path to their friend's grave, Taki almost excited to show off the new engagement ring on her hand, when they all saw something that made them freeze in their tracks.
Sitting in front of the tombstone, staring at it with a frightening intensity, was a plump little bobtail cat with calico fur.
It stared at the tombstone for a long moment and then, as if suddenly noticing their presence, turned its slowly to fix them all with its gaze.
"Ponta?" murmured Tanuma under his breath, his voice disbelieving.
The cat's ears twitched a bit, as if it had heard him, and locked gazes with Tanuma.
Involuntarily, the young man took a step forward, but the cat didn't react.
Slowly closing the distance between them, Tanuma didn't dare blink, lest the cat disappear before his very eyes.
He was only a few paces away when suddenly, the cat's ears twitched again, and it looked over its shoulder.
Tanuma stopped, wondering what it had heard, before his dull human ears also picked up the sound.
"...ko...sei!"
He listened harder, trying to make out words, and the voice came again.
"Nyanko-sensei!" called the voice, clear as a bell this time, and the cat stood up in one smooth motion and bounded off towards the source of the voice.
Tanuma followed the cat with his eyes, unable to move from his spot.
A little ways off stood a child, about seven years old, with sandy brown hair and a strange paper mask tied over the top half of his face, his little brown kimono the slightest bit too big for him and hanging off one of his shoulders.
He was holding the hand of a woman in an elegant purple kimono whom Tanuma thought he'd seen at the funeral, but he let go as the cat neared, catching it in his arms and smiling down at it as it snuggled in close to him.
Without a look back, the small group turned and walked away, and with the blink of an eye, they were gone, the quite jingling of bells announcing their departure.