Title: Evanescent
Pairing: Mostly Gen; blink & miss Natsume/Nyanko
Summary: Many years later, a girl visits Eight Fields and discovers a little bit of magic.
"The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness; and knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream."
—Kahlil Gibran
Momoko dozed lightly in the empty train car as it chugged past woods and streams, the morning sunlight shone through the windows and lit the floors and walls golden. Every summer since she was 15 her parents had sent her to visit her grandparents in the countryside for their celebration of the harvest in Eight Fields. Although many small country towns had been bulldozed and rebuilt in recent years, Eight Fields had resisted any attempt modernize it.
Tilting her head back, she fingered the warm brass button in her hand and smiled to herself, soaking in the warm sunlight. Even though she was unhappy to leave high school and to part ways from her classmates, remembering senpai's confession at the graduation ceremony made everything sad fade into the background. He gave me the second button, she thought to herself once more, the one closest to his heart. She closed her eyes and slept with the light playing on her face.
"Wah!" she cried and jolted awake to the sound of the conductor declaring her destination. Hurriedly, she grabbed her bag and ran onto the platform before the doors could close.
"Jeez, that was close," she said. If I hadn't woken up, I might've ended up in Kiriganuma or something!
Taking a moment to catch her breath and stretch, she shouldered her bag and walked out of the small train station. She first went to Nanatsujiya to pick up a box of the sweet buns that her grandfather favoured before making her way to the forest trails that would lead her to her grandparents' house.
As she walked, she hummed softly to herself and swung the box gently. The early afternoon sun glinted on the crisp and vividly green leaves of trees and plants; she could hear the sound of birds chirping and she could see critters scuttling in the underbrush. Even the air was light and clean – all very different from the metropolis that she lived.
When her friends found out about her yearly trips, they had all been very sympathetic and had said things like: 'Oh maaan, must be a drag to go out to country every year, huh?' and 'Jeez, that sounds really boring,' and 'Ahh! That stinks Momo-chan! I wanted us to go to the fireworks festival together...' She giggled to herself. Although she had been reluctant at first, she had grown to love her trips and love the vibrant tranquility of Eight Fields; it wasn't a drag at all. Maa, I better not let those guys know though. She smiled to herself.
She reached her grandparents' house by late afternoon and was greeted at the door by her grandmother.
"Ah, Momoko-chan! Welcome. You must be tired from the trip."
"Thank you for having me," she responded. Handing the box of buns to her grandmother, she slid her feet out of her shoes and into house slippers.
"Are these for Kaname-kun? He'll be so happy that you've remembered! He's helping with setting up some booths at the festival now but we'll see him when we go to the festival later tonight. Let me put these away for now. Go take a shower to cool down; I've already laid out your yukata for you. Once you're done, I'll bring you tea and some snacks in the family room." She patted Momoko on the head before walking down the hall.
Blushing a little but happy at the affectionate gesture, Momoko padded into her room and dropped her bag before walking to the washroom. She was looking forward to a shower and relaxing for a while before heading up the mountain to see the festival.
Sighing contentedly, she sipped some of the chilled tea before setting it down so that she could flop backwards to lay on the porch. The family room had screen doors that opened to the gardens at the back of the house and the tall trees at the edge of the property showed off the glint of the sun as it sank beneath the horizon.
The last vestiges of afternoon turned the earth and sky a rich amber colour with faint spans of pink. The air was warm and still and Momoko could see dust motes hanging like little stars in the air, motionless.
"Isn't it a beautiful day Tooru?" a quiet voice asked.
Eh? Was he there before? She turned her head against the floor and saw a young boy about her age dressed in a beautiful yukata that was painted with a motif of a sky dog next to her on the porch. He was leaning against the screen doors in a relaxed pose with a large fluffy cat in his lap and one hand in his fur. There were some sake bottles and a tea set on a tray beside them. She blinked. While the boy looked fine, the cat looked... slightly tipsy. All about the two of them, there seemed to be a light mist that obscured the details of their features, even though it was a perfectly clear day.
"I'm Momoko. Tanuma Tooru is my grandmother." She'd never seen the boy before but for some reason, her intuition told her that he meant her no harm. Her body seemed captured by lethargy and she continued to lay completely relaxed, unable to muster up a dredge of concern or alarm. She watched as his hand leisurely combed through the cute cat's fur.
"Ah... her granddaughter," he said quietly, a little sadly.
She raised an eyebrow and stared at him a little. Suddenly, she realized that the boy was probably quite attractive. A little self-conscious, she cleared her throat and asked if he wanted her to get her grandmother.
"It's fine. She's probably busy preparing for the festival; I'll see her and Tanuma tonight anyway."
"Oh." She turned head back to stare at the sky again. The dust motes still hadn't moved; the sun's glow was like liquid gold, it turned everything in its grasp sluggish and muted and soft. Slowly, she hauled herself up so that she could also lean against the screen doors and stare out into the yard. The boy seemed fixed on a spot near the middle but there wasn't anything there but grass.
Momoko frowned a little and turned to look at him. The boy paid her no attention and sipped on a bit of tea but his cat looked straight at her for an intense moment before padding towards her on his paws. Unable to contain herself, she grabbed him and hugged and petted and cooed at it for all she was worth.
"Kyah! So cute! So soft! I can't resist!"
Soft laughter reached her ears and she paused for a moment in her ministrations.
The boy smiled softly at her and said, "You're very similar to Tooru, aren't you? His name is Nyanko-sensei. I think you're choking him."
Eh!? With a gasp, she relaxed her grip on the cat and for a moment she thought her eyes played tricks on her when it seemed to let out a sigh of relief. She giggled and petted him more sedately.
"Yeah, sometimes my mom tells me that I remind her of grandma," she says before looking out into the yard and blinking. The mist that had clung around the boy and Nyanko-sensei, who was still in her lap, now enveloped her as well. Perhaps it was a trick of the light or some strange refractive quality about the mist but – she blinked again to be sure – is that a pond in the backyard?
There was bright beautiful red carp swimming in the clear gleaming water. All of a sudden, Nyanko-sensei bounded off of her back towards the boy. The vision disappeared.
"Did you do that to make me jealous? Silly Nyanko." The licked him on the cheek and settled again in his lap, with a smug looking expression on his face.
Although she couldn't quite make out the details of the boy's face she could tell that he was kind: his warm and quiet voice; the gentleness of his caresses on the cat's fur; his smiles.
"Um... was there – I mean – did you, did you see a pond? Just now, in the backyard. There. I mean." She hesitated a little and wondered if he thought that she was very strange.
"Yes," he said with a smile, "it's very beautiful right? You should ask your grandfather sometime." She stared at him.
He stood slowly and dusted himself a little with his hands. "Well, I should be going now. The sun has almost set." And he started moving towards the forest at the edge of the property, past the pond that she had seen.
He moves like water, she thought to herself. His movement didn't interrupt even the dust motes in the air. Instead, he seemed to only nudge aside the ones that were directly in his way; he created no wind to disturb anything else. For a moment, she doubted that his feet even touched the ground.
"Wait!" she called, fighting the lethargy, before he could disappear into the trees. For some reason, she felt like it would be a very, very long time before she would ever see him again. "What's your name? Who are you?"
He turned his head around to look at her and smiled over his shoulder, "My name is Natsume. See you later, Momoko."
Then he was gone.
The moment that he disappeared, everything seemed to come alive again.
Momoko shivered at the chill for a moment when she suddenly found that the sun had gone down and a brisk breeze was dancing around merrily, stirring up the air. The sake and tea set that Natsume had was also gone from the porch. Sounds seemed to re-appear: the sound of leaves and grass, the croak of insects, the creaks of the house.
Momoko stared at everything around her with wide eyes. Was that all just a dream?
"I'll call you on the phone when I get to the train station and once more when I'm in Tokyo," she said while tugging on her shoes. Straightening, she patted down her clothes and swung her bag across her shoulders.
"Alright, I know it's daytime but I still want to hear from you that you're safe." Tooru smiled gently at her granddaughter.
The smile suddenly reminded her. "Grandma, do you and Grandpa know a boy named Natsume with a really cute cat?"
Her grandma blinked at her, "Natsume? Oh, and Nyanko-sensei?"
"So you do know them! Who is he? I thought I dreamed him up!"
"Well, I suppose he is something of a dream, a beautiful ever-blooming dream."
Momoko looked at her grandmother, a very straightforward and direct woman, and found that she couldn't understand her cryptic phrase.
"Well, anyway, you need to catch your train! Go, go! Be careful on the road and remember to call! Visit us again next year!"
Gently shooed out of the house, Momoko thought that she had another thing to look forward to at Eight Fields.
Author's Note: I recently discovered Natsume Yuujinchou (and the 2nd season Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou) and I've fallen in love. *__* How utterly beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I apologize; I wrote this very quickly and it was not beta'd.