A Dream under the Stars

by winterune

In a typical summer morning, Takashi opens his eyes to an everyday scene of him having breakfast with his family. Yet something feels amiss, like trying to remember something lying at the back of your head or a word on the tip of your tongue. Familiar amber eyes gaze from across the table that makes Takashi smile and he says a word that he never thought he would ever say.

A/N: this is my third entry for NatsumeWeek 2018 event in tumblr. Prompt for Day 3: Memories/Dreams.
This is a direct continuation of the previous fics (titles: May you live your life to the fullest, Precious Family) and there are some allusions to them.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy^^ Comments and reviews are much appreciated, thanks!

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'Takashi!'

A call jerked Takashi out of his reverie, head snapping upward as he instinctively responded, "What?"

A woman was looking at him in concern from across the dining table. "Don't you like the food?" She had a pretty face, soft and gentle, with brown hair that reached just past her shoulders.

"Eh—" The sight of this familiar face startled him so much that his voice failed him. He looked around and found a mundane, everyday scene—the familiar square room and a familiar scent, the modest breakfast that somehow still looked extravagant to his eyes—yet something felt amiss, like trying to remember something lying at the back of your head or a word on the tip of your tongue.

"Takashi?"

"Yes?" He met her gaze, amber like his own, and for a split second, his mind brought him somewhere else—trees and water and birds and crickets, laughter and a voice—

'Natsume…'

"Aaaargh!" Takashi screamed, doubling over in pain. He shut his eyes and cradled his head as a headache split it in two.

"Takashi!" Two strained voices mingled into one, voices that seemed to pull at his heartstrings and brought tears to his eyes and he couldn't understand why.

"Are you feeling all right?" A man's voice, deep and concerned. The one who had been sitting beside the woman was now standing up, hands braced on the table as his wife raced to Takashi's side.

A cool hand touched his cheek as Takashi tried to even his breathing, in and out, trying to overcome the sudden onslaught of nausea.

"You're pale," the woman murmured beside him. Takashi could barely hear her over his own heart pounding in his ears, but he noted the concern in her voice. "Do you want to lie down?"

He opened his eyes slightly. Whatever image his mind had tried to bring up faded away and when he tried to remember, he had lost it, like a dream being buried underneath his consciousness. The splitting headache subsided and the nausea gradually disappeared. It took a while to realize he was covered in cold sweat and another while to realize the woman was dabbing a wet towel to his brow.

Takashi looked up and met her eyes. A gentle yet worried smile graced her lips. "You okay?"

And he felt his own mouth stretch to a small, weak smile and nodded. "I'm all right, Mom."

~ O ~

It was a typical summer morning. His father had actually planned for them to take a trip somewhere but they cancelled it because Takashi seemed to be under the weather, despite insisting that he was all right. "We can go some other time," was all his father said. "Rest for now." His mother agreed and the stern look on her face stopped Takashi from saying anything else. He could only reluctantly nod his consent and finish his breakfast.

So here he was now, lying around in his bedroom with nothing to do. He had opened the window to let in some air even though it was hot outside, but even that and the fan did nothing to cool him. As he lay on the floor and stared at the ceiling, half wondering what he should do today, his idle mind brought him to a different room with a different ceiling. He heard something enter his room through his window and a slurred old man's voice calling out, "I'm home~"

Takashi had half a mind to sit up and ask where he'd been but a knock on his door jerked him awake and he was back in his hot and humid room.

His eyes felt heavy.

Wait… Did he fall asleep?

Another set of knock sounded against his door and he called "Yes?"

The door opened a fraction of an inch and a head popped in, with his mother's dark brown hair, his father's honey eyes, and another pair of concerned eyes. His little brother asked, "Can I come in?"

Smiling, Takashi sat up on the floor. "Of course. What's wrong?"

Kai slipped inside the room and closed the door behind him. "Nothing. I just wanted to check if you're all right."

He couldn't help but laugh. "Why is everyone so worried? I'm all right!" Kai didn't look convinced and Takashi scoffed, leaped to his feet and did a full turn around. "See? I'm not going to collapse."

There was a hint of a smile on his brother's face. He looked so much like their father—except the hair. Four years younger and he was already in middle school.

"So, what's wrong?" he asked with a grin, because he knew his brother hadn't entered just to check up on him, and Kai beamed.

After making sure that his brother was fine, Kai asked Takashi to go somewhere because their trip was cancelled and neither of them had anything to do. Well, it was only to the convenience store since he wanted to buy some ice cream, but when he told their mother about it, she said, "Why not ask your brother to go with you?" and then gave him a list of groceries she would like them to buy since she was busy and their father had a sudden call from work. And of course Kai couldn't say no to his mother's angelic face.

Takashi laughed under his breath and agreed to go with him.

~ O ~

There wasn't a lot on the list and as Takashi read it, some deep, dormant feeling began to bubble up inside him. The smile he wore as he and his brother bid their mother goodbye was so wide he was practically grinning from ear to ear. He didn't understand why or where this feeling was coming from. Even his brother laughed at his childlike giddiness as if Takashi were sent on his first ever errand by his mother.

On their way, they talked about nothing and everything. Kai would crack a joke and Takashi would laugh. But then, at times, he would find his eyes drawn to the shadows among the trees or the undergrowth. A part of him seemed to expect to see something there. His heart beat would quicken at the thought, but when he looked… there was nothing there. Even as sometimes he thought he saw a shadow move or heard near-silent footsteps through the grass, when he looked, really looked, he always found nothing. And when he caught himself, it puzzled him. What was he even expecting to see?

"By the way," Takashi said, trying to distract himself from his own thoughts. "Have you seen Sensei?"

"Who?"

"Nyanko-sensei," Takashi said. "I haven't seen him at all today." Takashi was perplexed at Kai's confused look. "You know, our fat calico cat with the big head?"

That still didn't help Kai's confusion at all and he only said, "We don't have a cat, nii-chan."

Eh…? But—

Takashi was sure he had heard that voice—

Only, he couldn't remember it anymore—what the voice sounded like, or if there were even a voice.

A dream… a voice seemed to say in his head.

What—

"Nii-chan, are you sure you're all right?"

Takashi looked up. He didn't realize he'd stopped walking, didn't notice the sweat that was covering his brow—more sweat than from the simple summer heat.

"Should we go back?" Kai was genuinely worried. "You look pale again. Maybe we should rest somewhere?" he added, looking around for a bench or some shade.

"I'm fine," Takashi tried to say, but his voice rasped and he cleared his throat. He put on a smile that did nothing to ease Kai's concern. "Really, I am."

~ O ~

Takashi failed to convince Kai, so instead of going to the convenience store, his brother brought him to a nearby park and made him sit on a bench under the shade of a tree. He came back a few minutes later with a bottle of water he'd bought from a vending machine and handed it to Takashi.

"Really, you don't have to go to so much trouble," Takashi said, even as he received the water. He smiled up at his brother. "I'm fine, really. I'm just slightly…" his voice trailed off. Slightly what? He didn't even understand what was wrong with him. One moment he would get this intense headache or a sudden bout of nausea, then the next moment it was as if nothing had happened. In fact, right now, he didn't feel any hint of his previous discomfort.

Kai huffed irritably. "Please stop smiling like that. It makes me uncomfortable. I'm your brother and I have the right to worry about you!" he said firmly. "You've always had a weak body. Maybe today is just one of those days when your body won't listen to you." Creases had formed on his brother's forehead and Takashi frowned. Now he had gotten his brother worried too.

"No, that's not it, Kai," he said quietly.

"Then what's wrong?" he asked. "You've been acting weird. Mom and Dad are worried."

The thing was, he didn't really know it himself. He didn't remember what had caused it. If he knew, he might be able to stop himself from having these bouts of sicknesses.

In the end, though, Takashi could only shake his head and mumbled, "Sorry."

Kai pursed his lips, clearly irritated, but before he could say anything else, a call pulled both brothers' attention elsewhere and they saw two incoming figures—Katsumi Shibata and Yuriko Ogata. However, instead of a tall boy with unkempt brown hair and a girl with long curly red hair, the pair Takashi saw for a split second was that of a black-haired boy and a girl with light brown hair, gentle expressions and a smile, an arm high in a wave and—

"Oi! Natsume!" Shibata called.

Natsume shut his eyes and shook his head, trying to calm his racing heart and the bile rising up his throat.

"You're not going on your trip?" Shibata asked when they reached him, smirking. "Don't tell me, it got canceled?"

There was teasing laughter in his voice but Takashi couldn't even register that.

When he didn't reply, Ogata, who had noticed Takashi hadn't said a word in response and was hanging his head to the ground, face white as a sheet, asked, "Natsume-kun, are you all right?"

Takashi wanted to nod, to look up and say yes, but before he could say anything, Kai already beat him to it. "No, he's not."

"Wait, seriously? You're sick? Why are you out here then?" Shibata questioned.

"I wanted to go to the convenience store and Mom asked Nii-chan to come with me." Kai sighed, then he shifted his gaze from his brother to his brother's friends. "Katsumi-san, will you take Nii-chan home?"

"Kai, I can—" Takashi began.

"No, you can't," Kai cut him off.

Kai looked at Shibata again and Shibata, despite his usual troublesome demeanor, immediately said, "Sure, I'll take him home."

"Thanks!" Kai said with that innocent smile of his that could fool anyone. "Then, Yuriko-san, will you come and help me buy groceries for my mom?"

Again, that smile on Kai's face to which people could never say no, and Ogata said okay. In his daze, Takashi could hear Kai saying goodbye and asked Shibata to promise to take his brother home quickly. Shibata replied with something Takashi didn't catch before he slumped on the bench beside him and watched Kai and Ogata leave for the store.

Silence fell between them, in which Takashi tried to fight off another splitting headache, worsening ever since he saw Shibata and Ogata together.

"Want to go home now?" his friend asked. Takashi didn't say anything nor do anything. His head pounded so painfully he could think about nothing at all.

Shibata took the silence as "no" and before it stretched into something uncomfortable, he began talking about… nothing, really. Takashi was still trying hard to ward off the headache to listen to what his friend was saying, but then Shibata's topic of choice turned toward the first time they had met in elementary school and how Takashi had always been quiet back then too, and he spoke of the time they became friends that time in fifth grade when Shibata saw Takashi defending his brother, Kai, from bullies, and even going as far as help Shibata, who had been nothing but a nuisance to Takashi.

"Not that I was the only nuisance in our group, though," Shibata said with a laugh, implying that Takashi was sometimes a nuisance to him in his own way.

And Takashi would have joined in the laughter, if not for an image searing itself into his brain—of a boy, brown-head and familiar, like a younger version of Shibata, with other kids around him, laughing at Takashi, calling him—

'Liar!'

Takashi gasped, and fell over on his side.

"Oi! Natsume?" Shibata exclaimed, grabbing Takashi's shoulders, keeping him from hitting the ground.

Shibata was calling his name again and again, but somewhere in his mind, Takashi knew this was wrong. They had overcome their differences and they were friends, but this was different. He didn't befriend Shibata in elementary school, and Shibata and Ogata didn't know each other, and he never had a younger brother, and his parents—

He heard something clicked its tongue. Something… somewhere… at the tree above or the fountain beyond or inside his mind. A voice so loud yet so quiet. A whisper and a scream. It came from everywhere.

Such a difficult human child!

The pain that hit him was unlike any other he had experienced and before he knew it, darkness had taken him in.

~ O ~

Takashi heard voices, voices that were calling him, voices he knew so well. Screaming at him. Begging at him to open his eyes. Crying for him to fight.

'Fight, Natsume!'

In a split second, he was lying on the ground in a dark clearing. The sky was clear and the stars were bright. There was no moon and nothing to light the dark forest. But he was there and so were the owner of those voices. Their faces were blurry and their voices were fading fast and before darkness took him again, a light shone bright at the end of his vision, and in that light was a woman with long white hair and a regal white kimono.

As his eyes met hers, she opened her mouth and her voice echoed inside him.

'Fight it, Natsume-sama!'

Takashi's ears woke up first before his eyes. He heard the pitter and patter of raindrops against the window in his bedroom, and smelled the scent of a warm rice porridge somewhere nearby. When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a darkness that made him wonder for a moment if he was truly awake. But his eyes adjusted and he realized that he could see the ceiling of his bedroom and when he looked to the side, the rice porridge lay untouched in a bowl on his bedside table.

~ O ~

He sat up slowly, head still pounding. He could even hear his own heartbeat in his ears. As he closed his eyes and tried to recall what he'd seen, the dream was already gone.

What happened?

He couldn't seem to remember anything after he left the house with Kai that afternoon.

His bedroom door slid open and a figure paused at the doorway. Takashi couldn't really make it out in the dimness of his room, but he thought it was surprise lining his mother's face, then a smile.

"You're awake," his mother said. She couldn't really hide her sigh of relief.

Takashi tried to smile but it came out awkward and weak. "I'm sorry for worrying you."

His mother scoffed as she approached the bed and turned on the bedside lamp. She studied his face and held his face in her hand. "Your countenance looks better," she commented. "And your fever's gone down." She smiled again, somewhat wistful.

"Mom?"

Her smile grew wider, even though it retained that hint of sadness. She shook her head and nodded toward the porridge. "Eat," she said quietly. "You'll feel better." She held his hand and squeezed. There was something in that simple gesture that seemed to twist Takashi's heart. The dim light from the lamp cast shadows on her pretty face and when she let go and stood from the bed, Takashi immediately missed his mother's warmth.

"Eat and rest," his mother added as he stared at the hand his mother had squeezed. "I'll be downstairs if you need anything."

She turned to leave, and Takashi didn't know where it came from but he had the sudden urge to call out to her. "Mom!"

His mother turned back again, the smile still on her face, but the sadness was gone, only warmth, and Takashi found himself beaming back at her.

~ O ~

Takashi had gotten much better the next day, but still they postponed their family trip. His mother said it was too early and they had to make sure Takashi was a hundred percent all right. So Takashi spent the entire day in the house. His mother and father told him to rest but Takashi, already feeling better, went to help his father tend the garden and helped his mother in the kitchen. Kai would join in once in a while, and sometimes he would coax Takashi to play a board game he found in the storage room. It was as uneventful as any other day, but Takashi laughed and smiled a lot, and the more time he spent with his family, the more his heart was filled with a sense of contentment. He didn't realize how much these little moments meant to him until he felt his heart at peace. As though he had been searching for something for years and could never find that last piece.

It was the afternoon and he was sitting on the porch with his father as he watched his mother tend to her own special garden with Kai. It was then that a slight movement on the side caught his attention. It drew his gaze away from his family and he found small, little creatures among the bushes and undergrowth, whispering among themselves. Takashi couldn't find it in himself to be afraid or wary because somewhere in his mind, he knew these creatures meant no harm.

The thought struck him as odd then. It had felt as if he were used to seeing creatures like these, knew enough about them to be able to deem these little ones harmless, and yet… this was the first time he had ever seen them.

Kai's sudden laughter of joy brought his attention back to the garden where he saw his mother spraying his brother with water from the hose. Kai sprayed his mother back and they began to laugh in their drenched sight brought a smile to Takashi's face.

"That smile," his father mused beside him. Takashi glanced at him. His father smiled a small smile, his eyes staring at his mother, but Takashi knew his father's mind was lingering on some far-off memory. "That was the reason I fell in love with your mother.

"Don't you agree? Your mother has the best smile in the entire world. She could brighten up a room just with that smile alone."

Takashi smiled at those words. It was rare to see his father bared his feelings like this. His father seemed to realize that too, as he later cleared his throat and looked away. Takashi chuckled at that. The last time he had heard his father talk about his mother was back when Takashi was still so young he almost couldn't remember. They had been sitting on that very veranda and looking over to the garden his mother was tending right now…

For a split second, Takashi wasn't sitting on the veranda but on his father's lap and there was a chime singing with the wind and his father was telling him a story about a garden his mother had planted just before he was born and when he looked toward where it had been just a few moments ago, all he could see were unkempt grass and an overgrown garden and his mother was nowhere in sight and neither was Kai.

He was about to call for someone before an intense pain shot through his head and he doubled over.

He was back in the veranda with his mother and Kai the moment he blinked, but the headache still hadn't gone away and instead, he was hearing little voices now, and when he looked to the side, it was those small creatures staring at him with fear and worry as they called ond whispered his name over and over again.

"That ability skipped one generation," his father suddenly went on.

"What?"

"Your grandmother could see them, but not your mother. I don't care what they say about your mother's family. I loved her and I'd do anything to protect her."

Loved?

The searing pain struck again and Takashi screamed, but it was as if none of his family heard.

A figure that wasn't there before had appeared a few yards before him—a woman with flowing white hair and a regal white kimono. Takashi had seen her somewhere…

"Natsume-sama," the woman said, her eyes a mixture of frantic and relief despite the softness in her voice. "I don't have much time. Remember, Natsume-sama!"

Takashi couldn't register what the woman was saying. The pain took everything he had to stay upright and hold it off.

"Remember what brought you here!"

"I don't...understand—" he gritted through the pain. His chest was heaving and his breathing became labored. He looked to his father and he realized his father had stopped talking and his mother and Kai had stopped moving, as if time itself had been stopped.

"Fight it, Natsume-sama!"

Fight?

The third strike sent him falling to the ground, his legs crippling, his body jerking, his back arching, as if someone was pulling hard on his spine. His scream split the air and in his pain, his mind's eye brought him somewhere else—

~ O ~

A mountain, a forest, and a camp.

Something rustled across the stream, but nothing came out. Nothing disturbed the stillness of the forest. The stream was gurgling as it had been, the water surface breaking only by pebbles and the occasional splashes by the fish. The rustle from the trees beyond the stream had drawn Natsume's attention away, and that itself drew his friends' attention to him.

"What's wrong, Natsume?"

Natsume watched the trees and bushes for a moment longer before he decided it was only his imagination and that nothing was wrong. On their way back to their campsite from fishing, though, Tanuma pressed Natsume whether he'd seen something strange.

"No, but I heard something," Natsume whispered reluctantly when they were out of earshot of Nishimura and Kitamoto, after being pressed again and again by Tanuma.

"Does it have anything to do with the place being spiritual?" Natsume glanced at Tanuma, a questioning and worried expression on his face, even as Tanuma chuckled and said, "I at least know that much. This isn't a place we should mess around with."

Natsume pursed his lips. Tanuma was right. The place Nishimura and Kitamoto had chosen seemed to have a strong spiritual power. Natsume didn't have the heart to suggest they look for a different place since they were already there so he figured if they didn't disturb anything, they would be safe.

"I wish Ponta had come with you," Tanuma mused.

Nyanko-sensei had indeed decided not to come. When he had found out Taki would be coming, he had said he wasn't going to let himself be in Taki's merciless grip from the moment she would have seen him. Well, he never said those words explicitly, but Natsume thought that was what he had probably been truly feeling.

Natsume had his guard up all day long. Tanuma had told Taki about what Natsume had felt, but even if with the three of them on high alert for any suspicious activities around the camp, fortunately, nothing unusual happened.

It wasn't until night time that Natsume felt something oppressive in his sleep and when he woke up, a huge, thick black smoke was covering the entire campsite. To his horror, whatever this smoke was, it seemed to be… entering his friends' bodies through whatever pore it could find. In fact, he noticed the black smoke around his nostrils and realizing that, Natsume instinctively grabbed at it and was surprised to find it solid.

Natsume pulled it forcefully out of himself, startling the smoke-youkai, who suddenly blinked huge, slitted eyes in the middle of the black ashy mass—eyes that immediately focused in on him.

"You…" the youkai seemed to drawl in a deep guttural voice. The smoke seemed to move, and by the time Natsume had pulled every last bit of it out of him and drew a gasp of relief, the youkai was already fully in front of him.

"You can see me…" Natsume didn't see a mouth. Where did the voice come from? It seemed to echo throughout the entire campsite and inside his mind. As if a part of it was already in his mind…

Intense fear filled his heart at the notion of what this youkai was doing to everyone, and, fisting his right hand, Natsume hissed, "Don't you dare touch my friends," and he punched it right at the center.

The youkai screeched in agony but it didn't down him. Whether that was because they were in the youkai's home or it was already strengthened by whatever it had taken from them, Natsume didn't know. But the youkai only staggered back before it regained its footing and zeroed his glare on Natsume.

"Boy!" it growled.

Natsume didn't think. He immediately ran, deeper into the forest, farther and farther away from the campsite. But it was night and there was no moon so Natsume was practically running blindfolded. He could feel the youkai's breath behind him all the time, and its roar seemed to shake the entire mountain. This was its home. It could find its way around here even with its eyes closed. So when Natsume turned a corner, he didn't see the upturned root and failed to brace for the impact as his foot tripped and he fell face-first to the ground. The moment he turned around, the smoke-youkai was already over him. A huge, smirking fanged mouth appeared beneath those red hungry eyes as it said to Natsume's mind:

You have such strong powers. No wonder you smelled so tasty. I will take my time eating you…

~ O ~

Takashi gasped, tears sprung to his eyes, and the moment he did, the moment he realized what was happening, a deafening roar split his mind in two.

Natsume screamed in pain, clutching at his head, at the force that was threatening to destroy him. The memory was starting to fade away again, and he would have let it if it meant it would end this endless pain.

"Fight it, Natsume-sama!"

'Takashi.'

It wasn't his father that he saw but a familiar middle-aged couple. The man was smiling gently but the woman had a joyous beam on her face.

'Have a nice trip, Takashi-kun.' Her eyes crinkled with happiness as she added, 'come back safe.'

Touko-san! Shigeru-san!

BOOYYY! The guttural cry sounded in his mind again as the smoke-youkai tried helplessly to regain its grip on him. Even as Takashi lay there with his body folding into itself, as tears rolled down his cheeks one by one, he clutched onto those smiling faces waiting for him to come home.

He looked up. The woman youkai who had given him a photograph on his birthday was still there and she smiled when she saw the recognition in his eyes.

He tried to smile back, but the smile turned to a grimace and he couldn't hide the sadness welling in his heart.

The ground began to shake. Along with it was a threatening voice echoing everywhere around him and time seemed to move and his family was speaking and laughing and the woman youkai held out her hand, frantically calling him to her as she was losing her hold on him, but he just stared at her with his lips pursed. The woman cried out his name before she disappeared and left alone again, Takashi looked to his father, and found his father was looking back.

Moving carefully through the ache in his body, Takashi sat back beside his father. He watched his mother and Kai for a long while, imprinting the sight of their laughing faces into his memory, before he met his father's gaze again. "You're not real, are you?" Takashi asked, his voice quiet.

His father didn't answer immediately, but the slight change in his gaze, the crinkle around his eyes, told him what he needed to know, and Takashi suddenly found it hard to breathe.

"I'm real enough," his father murmured. He smiled a knowing smile and he patted Takashi's head. "Real enough in here."

He gently ruffled Takashi's hair and that compassionate gesture brought more tears to his eyes. That hand was solid, this place was vivid, and no matter how much Takashi wanted this place to be real, he had a place to go home now and people waiting for him to wake up.

"Takashi." His mother's soft voice and he couldn't bear to look at her, at this face he had never known and the gentle smile he had only seen in a photograph. She held out a hand, asking him if he would stay, and he wanted to, wanted to be with them so much, but he remembered the Fujiwaras' smile as they saw him leave, imagined their distraught if he never came home. And what would his friends say? How would his friends feel?

"I can't," Takashi murmured, his voice straining as he pushed through the lump in his throat. "I'm sorry, but I can't."

And it wasn't sorrow or contempt that met Takashi's eyes as he looked up to meet his mother's gaze. The smile that grazed her lips was nothing but full of love as she said, "I know."

And Takashi couldn't hold back his emotions any longer. He jumped to his feet and hugged his mother with all he had, calling her again and again and sobbing against her shoulder. She only whispered soothing words to his ear, her arms enveloping him in a warm embrace. His father joined in and he was cocooned in their protective arms.

"I love you," his mother whispered to him.

Kai had disappeared. The house and the trees and the garden were slowly fading away.

"We have always loved you," his father added behind him.

~ O ~

Shouts brought Natsume to his senses and the moment he stirred, the moment he grunted, he heard that guttural angry howl and a familiar voice crying, "Now!"

A poof and a blinding light even through his closed eyelids. "Begone you filth!"

Natsume opened his eyes to the sight of Madara banishing an inky-black smoke-like youkai with his light and Tanuma and Taki's worried faces as they looked down on him. When they found him conscious, Taki let out an audible sigh of relief and Tanuma's shoulders slumped in exhaustion.

Somewhere far ahead, Natsume noted the sky was already lightening. The stretch of dark indigo was slowly turning into a shade of purple. The stars were slowly disappearing from view.

It took several tries for Madara to banish the smoke-youkai. It was still insistent on possessing Natsume but the woman with the white hair stood protectively before him with hands outstretched, emitting a bright white light. Together they drove off the youkai and it fled the clearing with an irritated click of its tongue.

"Seriously!" In one smooth motion, Madara turned back into a cat and stalked over to Natsume. "I left you alone for one damn day and you got your soul sucked—"

"Sensei," Tanuma whispered softly, stopping him for scolding Natsume any more, because Natsume was crying.

"Natsume-kun?" Taki tried, hand outstretched.

"I'm sorry," Natsume whispered. His voice shook. His body trembled. He shut his eyes, turning to his side and folding over himself. "I'm sorry."

That was the only thing he said. I'm sorry. No one knew what he was sorry about. He wasn't even sure of it himself. For letting himself be possessed? For wanting to stay in that dream world and possibly hurting everyone he knew even after all they had done for him? Or for choosing to leave his own parents for the family he has now?

They stayed quiet, but stayed near enough that he knew he wasn't alone.

Then the woman youkai moved her hand and touched his forehead. "This will give you peace of mind," she murmured. "Sleep."

Sleep did come, driving away any negative feelings he felt over himself, but not before he heard what they talked about, of a man-eating youkai who fed its victims dreams of their deepest desires while it sucked out their souls to lengthen its lifespan. Nyanko-sensei said that Natsume's strong spiritual power and, possibly, all the pent-up negative emotions he might still be holding led him to be susceptible to the youkai's attack.

~ O ~

Later on, Tanuma and Taki told everyone that Natsume seemed sick and that they should bring him back home. The others were worried and decided to end their camping trip and maybe go somewhere else later when Natsume was healthy again. Natsume felt guilty, but he didn't have the energy to say otherwise. Tanuma and Taki brought him home and when Touko-san opened the door and beheld her foster son between his two friends, his shoulders slumped and his face ashen, she immediately rushed to him and held his face in her hands to inspect him more closely.

And at the sight of her, the sight of this house, the sight of Tanuma carrying his bag and Taki carrying Nyanko-sensei in her arms, Natsume cried again and Touko-san was surprised while Tanuma and Taki could only grimace and before he knew it, Touko-san had already pulled him into a hug and she was patting his back and whispered soothing words to his ear. And Natsume clung to her-clung to her with all his might as tears streamed down his face with no hint of stopping.

I'm sorry, he wanted to say. I'm sorry for wanting to leave you.

He thought he had overcome the loneliness he had felt throughout his childhood. He thought he had found the thing he was looking for. But the moment someone looked deep into his heart and gave him the parents he had always wanted, it was as if everything he had gone through to reach this point was for nothing.

"I'm sorry," he murmured.

But this was real and what he'd seen was only a dream, a youkai manipulating him, and even if those illusions represented his deepest desires, Touko and Shigeru were as good as his parents now, and Tanuma and Taki were his friends, along with Nishimura and Kitamoto and Sasada, even Nyanko-sensei, his reluctant, self-proclaimed bodyguard. How could he have thought of replacing them, even if it was with his own biological parents and a little brother he would never have?

~ END ~