Hi everyone! MidnightStarHunter here! So, I got the first Yo-Kai Watch game this Christmas, and I absolutely LOVED IT. And I was a fan of the anime first, so I was biased and chose the main male character and named him Nate. And there was that little phrase which you see in the summary, which got the corner of my mind that provides me writing ideas chugging along. Before you continue ahead, I warn you that this is kind of an AU, in which having a Yo-Kai Watch is IMPORTANT and there are some elements of the games mixed in, and it annoys me that there barely are any Yo-Kai Watch fics out there that paint Nate in a positive light. So I concocted this little one-shot to try to give the kid the characterization the TV show sorely lacks. I plan on expanding, and I have a couple of vague ideas, but this so far is all I managed to write down. ¡Enjoy!

Whisper woke to something or someone repeatedly poking his cheek. With a quiet grumble he buried his face deeper in the pillow he borrowed from Nate, hoping that whatever it was would get bored and leave him to peacefully drift to slumber once more.

…no such luck. The next poke had claws. Shooting out from under the blanket, he had barely started to take in a breath to scream when a red and white paw shoved itself against his blue mouth. Blinking the last of the grogginess away, a frowning Jibanyan came into focus. He batted the paw away as he opened his mouth to demand the meaning of the assault to his cheek, but this time it was two paws that forced his mouth closed, and whirled him around so that he could see a still sleeping Nate burrowed in his covers.

Ah. Of course.

He'd almost forgotten that Nate was actually sleeping tonight. For the past two nights, the kid had been travelling through their dimension and dark back alleys to talk to and befriend the Yo-Kai who made their convenience there, while Bakku took Nate's form and slept in his bed to fool his parents. Two full nights submerged in their world, and three days in school and dealing with even more Yo-Kai problems there. Even if the dream-eating tapir drained the tiredness out of Nate, hours like that would leave full grown adults completely incapacitated, never mind a still growing ten-year-old boy. And even Bakku, with all her snark and permanent droopy eyes, had started to look concerned when the spray of bubbles she absorbed from Nate went from being a couple of seconds long to five full minutes.

Following that, it took the combined efforts of Jibanyan, him and Hidabat to finally convince hin to actually sleep for tonight, and sleep in. Lucky for them, tomorrow was Saturday, which meant that the Watch Wielder could sleep in and go Yo-Kai hunting, but even then Nate had been protesting all the way from when he came home from school to while he was putting his PJs on. Until he sat in his bed. Once the soft matress was actually underneath him, his eyelids drooped down, and he yawned, accidentally cutting himself off mid-protest. He never even finished it, falling backwards and twisting around so that his face was buried in the pillow, asleep before he even hit it.

Now looking at his charge, he could see that Nate had effectively wrapped himself around like a burrito in his covers, face smothered into his pillow. The only indication of there even being a boy under the mountain of blankets was a tuft of brown hair peeking out and the soft breaths audible in the quiet.

When he became aware of an insistent tugging in his spectral tail, he snapped out of his musings to look down at the red and white cat underneath him. He too had seemed to be observing Nate, if the butler was to judge the unusually soft look in the eyes of the normally lazy Yo-Kai. He pulled at him, indicating the closet where Hidabat lived, now that he was paying attention seeing the shy bat herself peeking out from the darkness she made her home in.

With a quiet (unneccesary) breath, Whisper fazed through the door just before Jibanyan opened it a little more to silently slip in, Hidabat closing the wood pannel behind them. Once they were inside the (relatively-it was still a closet after all) soundproofed closet, Whisper asked the question that he had been holding in this time.

"What exactly is this about?" He asked directly, looking at the unusually serious expression in Jibanyan's face and Hidabat's determined stance instead of the quiet meekness she usually sported.

"About Nyate" Anwered Jibanyan without preamble, the soft blue light of the bat Yo-Kai's computer screens allowing the ghost butler to catch the hesitant look the fiery cat threw the closet door.

And, as he was about to ask why then Nate wasn't privy to the conversation, his mind flashed to their human's behaviour these past days, and the unsettling pattern his routine had been for the past month. And oh, he could have hit himself for being so oblivious.

For all the bakeneko lazed around and got Nate into trouble with his mom for stealing the sweets that were bought, Whisper knew the two-tailed cat regarded the human boy as his most treasured friend. Nate was the first person he met that was willing to put himself in danger so the Yo-Kai could realise his dream. More importantly, he was his first friend, who never doubted his story or how he felt even though when couldn't even remember his living name. And Hidabat also held Nate on high esteem, who offered refuge to her for nothing in exchange except her friendship, not even knowing that she was one of the highest profile Yo-Kai in the world when he offered. What Nate is doing to himself lately must be destroying them. And he hadn't even seen it.

He tried to put the discussion off so that it wouldn't catch him completely by surprise agaim, but even before he opened his mouth he knew it wasn't going to work. Because he got where they came from, darnit. All the information in Yo-Kaipedia about being the perfect Yo-Kai butler stressed that it was important to keep it as a strictly professional relationship. But even though Nate didn't know his backstory like he knew Jibanyan's (and even if the cat was a relatively new Yo-Kai, that the bakeneko was willing to speak about the time when he was alive to a human spoke volumes of their friendship) and he hadn't given him his Yo-Kai medal, he couldn't say that he didn't care for the kid. For the kid with a hot temper and scathing tongue which hid a heart big enough to carry the whole human world and then include theirs.

"Can't this wait until tomorrow?" And the look Jibanyan gave him was so deadpan and reminded him so much of Nate that it startled a snicker out of him. From how the shy Yo-Kai to his side buried her face in her wings, thin shoulders shaking, he wasn't the only one to have noticed the similarities.

Aparently, in Nate's absence, Jibanyan decided to occupy his role, if the way he crossed his arms and the eyeroll directed their way were any evidence. But he ignored the fresh round of laughs it started in favour of going straight to the point, completely bypassing Whisper's previous question. "I'm worried about Nyate" he stated bluntly, and that stopped the laughs. Because if Jibanyan was actually willing to say it out loud without being blackmailed, cajoled, or his afterlife being in the line, the cat must be inwardly frantic.

Hidabat sighed, her small voice ringing out next.

"I'm not with him as often as you two are" but you would be if given the chance, Whisper thought but didn't say, noting the wistful glint in her eyes, "but I have noticed his change in behaviour" troubled sky blues drifted upwards, as if trying to find the right words. "He is… quiet." She began haltingly. "He still talks with us, with the same cheer and fire, but when his mom entered the room…" The bat Yo-Kai let her gaze drift downwards, burying her snout in her wings. "…he didn't even look up to her, just continued to read his comic. But… his eyes darkened a little bit. They were just a little colder, a little more… distant." their closet neighbour took a deep breath, as if she'd rather not remember the next part. "She asked what he was going to do after school. He didn't even hesitate before saying that he had agreed to meet up with his human friends."

"But every day this month right after school he went looking for Yo-Kai… oh." Whisper exhaled softly, realising the point in Hidabat's tale even as Jibanyan vocalized it "Watcha mean, withmeowt hesitation?" The red and white cat asked even as fear dawned into his expression, the puzzle piece clicking with the rest they had scrounged up and making the picture they didn't want to accept even clearer.

Hidabat closed her eyes as if resigned, and forced herself to vomit up what they all knew but no one wanted to voice in fear that getting it out in the air would make it real. "There was no nervous smile, no guilty eyes, no stammer. If I didn't already know his plans for the day, I wouldn't have been able to tell it was a lie"

"…It was like that with his human friends too" Jibanyan's voice sounded incredibly small for the usually self-confident cat. "He lied perfectly about having to clean the house in punishment for staying up late playing videogames. Once he was sure they had bought it he immediately went on his way. He didn't even make goo-goo eyes at Katie once"

"And you know what's the worst thing?" The ghostly butler didn't realise he had spoken until he had to force himself to continue. "That his friends didn't even feel there was anything off, even though it had been two weeks since they had seen each other out of school. They just said it was incredibly predictable" he spit that word out like it had personally offended him.

Hidabat's eyes were very wide, and Jibanyan's paws were clenched into fists. "B-but what does that even mean?" the shy Yo-Kai's voice was incredibly small. "How is getting punished predictable?"

It was odd, to hear the usually meek bat inject so much venom in one word. Then again, it kinda wasn't. She cared about Nate as much as them, and Nate's average-ness was a running joke in the Yo-Kai community. The Watch Wielder's sudden spike in activity on the Spirit World meant thay they had been meeting a lot more Yo-Kai who spread the word through gossip (Chatalie in particular. And it always helped to have someone with as good of a rep as Toiletta in your side). As a result, any Yo-Kai you asked could probably tell you that their Watch Wielder was ten years old, was accompained by a cat and a ghost, and was surprisingly normal-looking.

Everyone would also tell you that of course the kid was special. He wouldn't even have the Watch in the first place if he wasn't.

So every time a Yo-Kai calld Nate average it was a joke and, more importantly, the Watch Wielder knew it was a joke.

But in his school, everyone seemed to genuinely believe Nate was only one more of the lot, and that made all the difference, as Whisper was coming to realise.

"…it relates to the theme of Nate being average." Jibanyan was explaining as the ghost butler tuned back into the coversation. He blamed his wondering thoughts on the late hour. He might already be dead, but without a constant energy source as they would have in their dimension, their way of recharging is the same as every other living breathing being's.

Huh. Never knew Jybanyan could make the word average sound so vindictive. But he wasn't surprised. "Cleaning the house is a common chore, and no staying up late is one of the rules that gets broken the most by kids. I think Nyate was betting on that"

"But doesn't it hurt him that they immediately believe that only because it's common?" and Hidabat's innocent question was the last puzzle piece that clicked, and suddenly the picture was crystal clear. Whisper had to fight very hard to not let his cringe show.

"Six months ago" the ghosly butler began, cutting off Jibanyan's attempt to answer. When we met went unsaid, but if the red cat's sharp glance was any indicator he heard it anyways. "He would have thrown a temper tantrum to, indeed, cover up that he was hurt" And judging by the dawning horror in the bakeneko's face, it seemed that the fiery spirit had caught on what he was saying.

"…and why not now?" Hidabat, bless her Shady little heart, was trying to follow up, but for most of her afterlife she had been hiding away with only computers to keep her company. Her grasp on human behaviour wasn't the best, and him and Jibanyan had known Nate since the beginning, when his big heart was still mostly hidden behind temper tantrums and sharp words.

"He is pulling away from them" he settled on saying, and if her wide eyes and strangled squeak were any indication, she had finally caught on.

"B-b-but" she stammered, and there was confusion swirling in her blue eyes "t-they are his only f-friends! W-why is he leaving them b-behind?"

"Cuz he got new ones that didn't treat him like he could one day vanish and if anyone else appeared in his place they wouldn't notice" Jibanyan took the lead again, and he sounded really tired. Ooof. It was obvious that he wasn't used to deep talks if this made him stray so far away from his usual mood.

"W-wait!" Hidabat squeaked out. "Y-you mean us?!" At Jibanyan's nod, the bat blushed pink underneath her fur, and shyly stammered out denials about how it wasn't possible, that Nate had known his human friends for a lot longer, but there was a quietly happy tilt to her muzzle that told the other two Yo-Kai that she didn't mind.

"But the worst thing isn't that he is leaving his old friends behind." Jibanyan continued gravely, and the ghostly butler momentarily wondered if maybe the fiery cat was inspirited. It would explain his entirely unusual mood. " The scary part is that he is leaving his old world behind."

…Whisper hadn't thought about that. But as it became clear to him, he suddenly started babbling in a panicked rush. "B-but he can't do that!" he cried. "The Wielder is supposed to be the Medium between the two worlds! He can't just suddenly decide to leave-"

Jibanyan cut him off with a tired glare, so at odds with his usual disposition that it froze his tongue for a second the bakeneko took advantage of. "Do you think he kmeows that?" the cat fixed the ghost with a blunt look. "I asked. He thinks that the firefly that guided him to the Sacred Tree and the voice that told him to use the crank-a-kai machine was you"

"He is ten years old." The bakeneko reminded them both. "And although he has a big heart and plenty determination, we all know that he isn't ready to know the full impact his presence and work has in both worlds"

This unusually wise words from the chocolate-loving cat rang in the air for a couple of seconds before Hidabat asked meekly "But… if he is pulling away from the humans… what do we do?"

"We don't pull away. It would be a lot worse if he also left us behind" Jybanyan said firmly. "He has already been rejected by one world, at least let him take refuge in ours. And we do what we have been doing all along. Be there for him."

But while Whisper was thinking about breaking the heavy mood with a joke or two (even if he would probably get smacked for it) Hidabat suddenly stiffened, big hears swiveling towards the closet door.

Jibanyan barely had the time to stuff a choco-bar in his mouth while asumming a relaxed position and Whisper to get out his Yo-Kai Pad before the door cracked open and, lo and behold, the topic of their conversation peeked in.

The light from the monitors wasn't much, but enough that Whisper could make out the unusual softness to the kid's eyes, which were peering blearily at the three of them. It told him that Nate was still more than half-asleep and probably wouldn't even remember ever getting out of bed by morning. Seeing his human friend with his hair mussed from sleep, cheeks flushed where the pillow had pressed into them and a blanket trailing around his shoulders, it really hit home that the Medium betweeen two worlds was really young. With his two metres of attitude, he usually succeeded at making them forget that they all probably were at least a decade or two older than him.

But right now he looked incredibly childish and small. You would never be able to guess that he can summon spirits that affect the way you think and act and make you forget at command.

Nate covered a yawn with his watchless hand, the other gripping the blanket around his shoulders. He blinked lethargically at them before squinting in the screen light.

"J'ba-yan? W'sper?" he blinked once more. "w'at are… here?"

Hidabat and Whisper only blinked back at the human. It was Jibanyan who readily provided an excuse with his usual flippancy while munching on a choco bar. "Hiya Nyate! We were just keeping Hidabat here up to date with your nyewest blunders on the field. We also added a couple from the beginning that she missed. Couldn't leave her out of the fun, right?" he finished his chocolate and scratched his belt with a yawn, and the ghost had to be impressed at the cat's nonchalance when half a second ago he looked like someone had banned choco-bars from the house.

If Nate were more awake, he would probably hit the nekomata with a paper fan 'round the head for that comment. As it was, he only blinked, usually dark eyes now light and expressive with sleep clouding his thought processes. As it was, the hurt in them was clearly visible for a second before he cast his eyes to his bare feet, his answer a softly muttered "oh".

Jibanyan clearly noticed, for the moment Nate's chocolate brown eyes were off him he dropped the charade and allowed his eyes to soften. With a soft sigh, he stood up and walked towards the human kid, patting his leg to gain the Wielder's attention. "Hey, I'm just pulling your leg" he tugged softly on the fabric of his PJs as a demonstration. "I'll explain what we were talking about in the morning. C'mon, let's get you back in bed." Feeling Nate's confused eyes on him and knowing that tomorrow he won't remember this conversation, Jibanyan guided his human friend carefully back to his bed, Whisper pulling back the covers and extra blankets so Nate could climb in. Once he was relatively sure that the sleepy kid wouldn't fall over, Jibanyan turned around, intending to go back to his spot on the floor to sleep. Instead, soft, cold hands picked him up under his armpits, and the red and white cat couldn't help the squeak of surprise when blue-clothed arms closed around him in a hug against someone's chest and a chin was carefully laid between his ears. He was aware of Whisper snickering somewhere in the background as he heard the click of the camera in the Yo-Kai Pad go off, before the ghostly butler dropped the blankets up to Nate's chin, effectively burying the bakeneko in a cocoon of soft darkness and quiet breaths. But he was a little too busy to notice that somewhere other than in his subsconcious, mainly with trying to wriggle out of Nate's surprisingly strong grip.

After one or two more failed attempts to free himself without hurting Nate, the cat tried for the verbal approach. "Uh, Nyate? Care to let meow go?" the only answer of the boy that he had managed to turn to face in his wriggling was to hug his Yo-Kai friend a little tighter, effectively rendering said spirit unable to even wriggle. So unfair.

The bakeneko tried again, even though he was pretty sure that Nate was well deep into dreamland by now. "C'meown, Nyate! I know I'm cute, but I'm nyot a stuffed anyamal!" He knew he was whining. He didn't care.

To his surprise, Nate did respond. It was a barely coherent mumble, as it was muttered into his head fur and the kid was pretty much asleep by now, but what his sensitive cat ears managed to pick out froze any other protests in his throat.

"You are warm"

That's when Jibanyan became aware of how cold the lips that spoke into his fur were, and how Nate was shivering. You could barely tell he was, but since the nekomata was quite literally smushed against the boy's chest, he could feel the vibrations traveling through the human's body and making him vibrate slightly. With a sigh, the cat conceded defeat and mentally told himself once Nate stopped feeling like a living ice cube, he would slip out of his hold the moment the boy fell deeply asleep. So he wrapped his flame reminiscent tails around his human friend's arms and tried to use his inner energy to rise his body's temperature. Plus, there was something about Nate's cold temperature that reminded Jibanyan about spiritual energy, and there is no way he would let a Yo-Kai inspirit the kid when he was finally getting some rest. Whoever had created the Watch really should have included something to prevent the Wielder from getting inspirited. It would make their job so much easier.

Waiting for the Watch Wielder's breaths to slow down, the bakeneko slowly became aware of the odd thumping beat he could hear. Curious about the familiar sound, his ears pinpointed the location and pressed themselves against Nate's chest. The steady thump-thump relaxed him, and he blearily remembered that all living things had something similar, the whatchamacallit... heartbeat. Yo-kai were kind of alive, only it was a second life, so they had a different thing that doubled as a heart. His energy core hummed at the thought, and he could feel it trying to match its humming to the thumping beat and quiet breaths his best friend was emitting before him.

Badump-badump

Humm

Whoosh

Listening to the strange melody, he could almost feel the invisible thread that Whisper once tried to tell him tied the heart of Human and Yo-Kai together when the Medal is given willingly. He didn't get it, but right now, in the quiet of the room, he could nearly hear it sing, telling him to stay with this special boy. To protect him at all costs.

Badump-badump

Humm

Whoosh

Feeling his eyelids grow heavier with each beat and Nate's growing warmth, Jybanyan finally admitted to himself that tonight he wasn't moving away from Nate. He almost feels like he could lay there forever, inside this cocoon of warm darkness, listening to the melody that was the imposibility of two worlds merging into this.

Badump-badump

Humm

Whoosh

"I'm staying here for tonyaight" the fiery bakeneko finally muttered, feeling his eyelids grow heavier with every passing second. "You put meow here in the first place, so don't complain. I kmeow you can't hear meow, and I kmeow tomeorwrow you won't remeowmber any of this," he continued regardless, each blink lasting longer with every word; "but if the first thing you do when you wake up is shove meow off the bed, we are gonya have words"

Badump-badump

Humm

Whoosh

His piece said and done, the red and white cat finally lost the battle with consciousness, drifting off with a quiet chuckle rumbling in his hears and a symphony of two worlds rebounding on his core and soul.

Badump-badump

Humm

Whoosh

ALL DA FLUFF! Sorry, but I couldn't resist writing a sleepy Nate. He is adorable.

Okay, answers.

First, I'm sorry if the characters were... out of character, but it's on purpose. To put it bluntly, the Yo-Kai were having world-shaking revelations at four in the morning and Nate was a more than half-asleep sleep deprived ten year old. I think they can be forgiven for acting oddly.

Second, the running around at night while Bakku takes your appearance is an element from the games. The school being a magnet for Yo-Kai trouble is from the show.

Thirdly, I have to explain my personal headcanons. As I mentioned in the Author Notes at the top of the page, this is kind of an AU, so I felt free to include a couple of my own ideas.

-The energy cores- My idea is that these cores are what keeps them tethered to the Human and Yo-Kai realms. It is a tangible ball of energy in their centre. Think of it as the little blue light that appears in the game when the Yo-Kai's life bar reaches zero. When a Yo-Kai moves on, like the two Nosirs that didn't take residence in Nate's Watch, that little energy ball dissolves and return as neutral energy in their dimension.

-Cold = Spiritual Energy- The Spiritual Energy is what provides the Yo-Kai their powers, and it varies from Yo-Kai to Yo-Kai. In it's raw form, however, is cold, crisp and jittery, clinging to everything that it touches. So, in Nate's case, who spends his days around Yo-Kai, and his nights in the actual Spirit World, he is absolutely BURSTING with it, to the point where he has started feeling it physically as cold. My headcanon is that the watch has to contain a lot of energy so that it can detect the hidden Yo-Kai, and the reason why Nate is constantly bumping into Yo-Kai is because they subconciously register the energy signature and are curious by nature, so they look for it.

I haven't watched the Movie yet so I have no idea exactly how Nate' Grandpa created the watch. If anyone knows it, telling me would be much appreciated.

Jibanyan was able to warm Nate up by absorbing the neutral energy and returning it as his own energy, which is a lot warmer.

-The Medium between two worlds- I still have to develop the finer details, but for now let's just say that having a Yo-Kai Watch in here carries a LOT more weight than in the show, and that it wasn't Whisper who guided Nate to the crank-a-kai. ;)

This is the most important part. In this AU, calling Nate average won't result in a comically dramatic protest from said boy.

In this AU Nate is constantly overlooked by neighbors, classmates and even his friends because of being thought of as average and nothing special.

And I'll be honest, I don't like Katie. This AU won't paint her in the best light, and Nate will get over his crush on her. I won't be razing, but I honestly don't understand why everyone loves her so much.

By the way, sorry for any typos. English is not my first language. And I tried to write down Jibanyan's peculiar way of talking, but I'm pretty sure I failed ^^'

Thanks for reading this. MidnightStarHunter out!

9/1/2017: I added a couple of extra phrases, and found out that Jibanyan is a Bakeneko, not a Nekomata. Apparently, there's a difference ^^'