notes/warnings
+ sorry this update is late.
+ I actually don't have any extra warnings for this chapter. \o/
Part Three
On Friday after school they go walking in the forest, just the two of them. Tanuma hasn't visited the forest in ages. Natsume always worries when he comes here.
These past few days, Natsume has seemed a lot happier. The tiny frown line between his eyebrows has almost completely disappeared. Tanuma doesn't understand why, but he hopes that it's something permanent.
Natsume always deserves to be happy. If Tanuma could do something to make him happy, no matter what it cost, he would do it in a heartbeat.
As it is, he does what he can. He used to want to try and protect the whole world. Now he just wants to protect his precious friend.
"And it turned out we were on an anthill, so we had to get up quickly and find another place to sit. It was too late to save the cakes, though."
Natsume is talking about Shigeru. Apparently they went biking up in the mountains after school yesterday, and Natsume can't stop saying good things about his almost-father.
Natsume has an almost-father, an almost-mother, and an almost-bodyguard. Tanuma doesn't want him to have almost-friends. He and Taki, they have to go all the way. They have to break that barrier, and be worthy of Natsume's trust.
Taki, of course, can go further than Tanuma. She's closer to Natsume. Tanuma will have to do his best to foster their relationship and not get jealous. If she can stay with Natsume – platonically or…or more than platonically – then he'll be much better off for it.
This isn't about what Tanuma wants.
"That's tragic," he answers, lightly. "Touko's cakes are too good to waste on ants."
"I agree," Natsume says. "And they were…Tanuma, look out!"
Natsume is suddenly distressed, suddenly shoving Tanuma violently towards the edge of the path. Something is here. Something bad. Tanuma doesn't have time to respond before he's picked up by the invisible thing and tossed backwards. He lands on his arm with a painful crunch, but he's too concerned for Natsume to care.
"You again," Natsume says, seemingly to the empty forest. "What do you want?"
Tanuma struggles back to his feet, but he's useless, blind to whatever this new monster might be. His head aches. This thing is evil. Natsume punches the empty air, throwing a frightened glance in Tanuma's direction.
"I'm fine," Tanuma tells him, quickly. "What can I do to help?"
Natsume is lifted off the ground. He looks like he's levitating. Stupidly, Tanuma rushes towards him.
There's never anything that he can do.
"Get away!" Natsume yells. "Stay back!"
Tanuma stops, mid-stride. Of course. Of course he's being left out.
"Don't you dare," Natsume tells the spirit. "If you hurt him, I will kill you, I swear."
He sounds so different when he's talking to spirits. So forceful and confident. He's used to them. He's used to these things that try to hurt him, that try to eat him, that ruined his life for so long. He's not used to humans.
There are noises behind them. Something else is here. Natsume is slammed against a tree, and Tanuma desperately wants to help him.
"Ponta!" he shouts. "Over here!"
He has to hope. The cat always saves Natsume. Always.
Tanuma doesn't see anything, but a great wind picks up, whipping his hair around his face. A moment later Natsume drops to the ground.
"That thing was a lot stronger than I expected it to be," Ponta announces, appearing out of nowhere.
"What was it?" Tanuma asks, in a rush. "Is it gone now? Are you okay, Natsume?"
"Don't ever come towards me," Natsume tells him, fiercely. "If there's a spirit, just…just run away. Please."
Tanuma doesn't answer. He doesn't want to promise to leave Natsume behind. He doesn't want to be left behind.
"Your arm," Ponta says, suddenly. "You're bleeding."
Tanuma glances down. Blood is soaking through the sleeve of his white shirt.
"Oh," he says, quietly. He's actually starting to feel a bit faint.
Natsume sits hunched on the floor next to Tanuma's bed. He doesn't remember much of how they got here. The whole afternoon is a blur; frantically trying to bandage Tanuma's arm with his handkerchief, shouting at Nyanko, bodily dragging Tanuma through street after near-deserted street. And the look on Tanuma's father's face when they finally arrived at the house, like he'd been expecting the worst.
Tanuma is all the family his father has, and Natsume should never have allowed him to get hurt. Every time, he promises himself that he'll shield Tanuma from the spirit world entirely. And every time, he fails.
"It seems like the sickness spirit has taken an interest in you," Nyanko says, thoughtfully, like everything is fine and they're having an ordinary casual discussion. "But it didn't seem to be after the Book of Friends."
"It doesn't think I own the Book of Friends," Natsume replies, not lifting his head from his knee. "It just said that it wanted to eat me."
"That's no good," Nyanko replies. "I'll have to keep an even closer eye on you now. You're so troublesome."
"So you didn't kill it?" Natsume asks. "It will come back?"
"Primitive spirits are difficult to kill."
"I'll try to talk to Natori," Natsume resolves. "He might know of a way to seal it."
Nyanko tilts his head.
"Did this sickness spirit look identical to the first one you met?" he enquires.
Natsume thinks.
"More or less. Why? Do you think there might be more than one?"
"Who knows?" Nyanko answers, and wanders off to look for food.
Natsume leans back against the bed. If this spirit is going to follow him, then he's going to have to spend less time with Tanuma. He can't take that risk. Tanuma could have been killed today, and oh god, Natsume doesn't even want to think about that.
Tanuma is just a person. Just a sweet, gentle, precious person. Natsume cannot let anything happen to him.
"I'm sorry," he says, softly, even though he knows Tanuma is sleeping. "I'm really sorry."
He's so bad at this. He's bad at being around humans. He's bad at caring about people.
An hour drags past before Tanuma wakes up. He rouses quietly, eyelids fluttering, and Natsume puts a hand on his shoulder.
"Stay still," he urges. "Please don't hurt yourself."
Tanuma gingerly touches his arm.
"Natsume," he rumbles, sleepily. "What are you doing here?"
"Making sure you're okay," Natsume says. "The cut is deep, but not deep enough to need stitches. Just try and rest for a few days."
"I'm good at that," Tanuma jokes. "Sorry for passing out."
Natsume shakes his head hard, so that his own hair slaps against his face.
"It's fine," he insists, voice shaky. He puts his fingers in Tanuma's hair before he can stop himself, still haunted by the possibility of what might have happened.
He's dangerous. His life is full of spirits and blood and pain and dying. How could he ever have considered living with Tanuma? It would be even worse than living with Touko and Shigeru. Tanuma would constantly be getting headaches, constantly be getting hurt.
"You're not fine," Tanuma notes, a rare moment of brutal honesty. Natsume sort of wants to push his face into the mattress and cry for a while, but he can't impose on his friend.
"Tell me about the table," he says, resting his head against the wall.
"What table?" Tanuma asks, puzzled.
"Our table. The green plastic table that we're going to buy."
"Ah," Tanuma says, shifting a little under the covers. "Well, clearly it's going to be poorly made, so it will probably be all rickety and unstable. We'll probably have to jam newspaper under one leg just to stop it from wobbling. And it will probably be horribly stained, right? From soy sauce and coffee."
"Yeah," Natsume agrees, closing his eyes. He can't. He can't have that future. Not unless he loses his powers, or unless…
…unless the healing spirit stays in his life forever.
It occurs to Natsume that Tanuma will be better by tomorrow. He feels a little of the tension in his shoulders ease. Things will be okay.
Maybe. Maybe he can have that future.
"What kind of coffee?" he asks, smiling a little. And even though it's a stupid question, Tanuma indulges him.
Natsume stays the night. In the morning, Tanuma finds him curled up in a ball on the futon, fast asleep. Tanuma is glad to see him actually resting. Sometimes he worries that Natsume stays awake all night, every night, just helping spirits and planning new ways to save the world.
Ponta is awake, perched on Natsume's hip, watching Tanuma with an odd sort of clarity.
"Good morning," Tanuma says, politely.
"Morning," Ponta replies, haughtily. Then he glances at his charge. "Natsume is pretty special, isn't he?"
"Yes," Tanuma agrees, without hesitation. Ponta grins at him.
"Being able to see spirits is a special ability," he continues, rather unnecessarily. "It's amazing, sometimes, the things that humans can do."
Tanuma laughs, quietly.
"You're making me feel bad for being such a wimp," he says, easily, even though Ponta seems to be staring right through him.
"You're an interesting kid, aren't you?"
It's not exactly a surprise that the cat-spirit is suspicious of him. Tanuma has sort of known for a while. That's okay. Tanuma is pretty sure that Ponta's real goal centres squarely on protecting Natsume. He can sympathise.
"Natsume is going to be upset when he wakes up," Ponta adds. "Consider yourself warned."
Tanuma wants to ask what he's talking about, but suddenly Natsume is sitting up and rubbing his eyes and the conversation is well and truly over.
"Hey," Tanuma says, gently, kindly, in case Ponta wasn't lying.
Natsume looks ruffled. His bangs sticking out from his head at strange angles, and there are dark circles under his eyes. He meets Tanuma's eyes, briefly, and then sort of throws himself on the bed.
"Whoa," Tanuma says. "Are you okay?"
"Stay still," Natsume mutters, deftly taking Tanuma's wrist and pushing back his sleeve. It's more intimate than their usual fistbump, their standard cursory hand-on-shoulder, and Tanuma's heart is suddenly pounding against his chest.
The wound. For some reason, Natsume is just checking the wound.
"It's still there," Natsume says, sounding genuinely shocked.
"Well, yeah," Tanuma manages. The cut is huge. It will probably take at least a week to heal, and that's if he's lucky and doesn't get an infection.
It probably won't scar, though. Tanuma almost never scars.
Natsume jumps back, like he's been burned, and this is obviously one of his many many secrets, because Tanuma has no idea what is going on.
"This isn't right," Natsume says, and he sounds like he's going to cry.
"Wait," Tanuma says, fumbling, trying to prop himself up on his good arm. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Natsume replies. He looks horribly unwell. "I have to go."
"Why Taki, and not Tanuma?" Natsume asks, angrily. He wants to kick something. He wants to find the healing spirit and shout at it. "Everyone else gets healed overnight. Why not him?"
"Dunno," Nyanko replies. "Maybe you just don't care about him enough?"
Natsume blanches.
No. That would be the worst thing ever. Tanuma is his…important…darling…he doesn't have words for it. Tanuma breaks his heart all the time. He can't not care enough. If he cares any more he's going to explode from caring.
"Do you really think so?" he chokes.
"No," Nyanko snaps. "I was joking. Geeze."
Natsume pushes his hands over his face.
"But if he's missing out on being healed because of me…and he's the one who needs it more than any of us…"
"Look, I don't give a damn about you or any other human, and even I can tell that Tanuma is the centre of your sad little universe," Nyanko informs him. "Settle down. If there really is a healing spirit involved, then it's probably just not powerful enough to tackle Tanuma's myriad of illnesses."
Natsume looks up.
"That's not fair," he declares. "I would rather that they leave me to suffer, and do what they can for him."
"That's a fairly useless desire, unless you can actually find this thing and talk to it."
"Right," Natsume says, nodding.
He's definitely going to find Natori today. For Tanuma.
Taki comes to visit, which always does wonders for Tanuma's mood. She's thoughtful and generous and relatively uncomplicated. They buy sweets from the local store and sit in Tanuma's backyard, throwing stones in the general direction of the pond that neither of them can see.
They chat about nothing for a while, and then Tanuma finally gives up and asks.
"Is something going on with Natsume?"
Taki blinks at him, then avoids his eyes.
"You know I can't answer that," she says, quietly.
Tanuma knows. They agreed, shortly after the debacle with Omibashira. When Natsume first started leaving Tanuma out of everything. They agreed that Taki would be his confidante and Tanuma wouldn't hold that against her.
"I know, I know," Tanuma says, rubbing at his eyes. "It just seems weird. It's like he was expecting my arm to heal overnight."
Nothing heals that quickly. Tanuma knows that.
"I really can't tell you anything," Taki says, sympathetically.
And Tanuma doesn't want to put her in this position, but sometimes he gets so exhausted with being the third wheel, with being the incompetent one, with never getting any answers.
"Fine," he replies, almost without thinking. "Does Natsume talk about me a lot?"
Tanuma's hands start to shake. He said it. He actually said it, and now Taki is going to answer and he's going to have to handle the truth, whatever it might be.
"Yes," Taki says, simply, and then stares at him. "Anything else you want to ask?"
Tanuma ducks his head, hides behind his bangs
"No," he answers, hoarsely.
"This isn't fair," Aoi snarls, grappling with the paper doll. "If you want to talk to someone, you're supposed to ask nicely."
Ordinarily, Natsume would apologise. He'd shrug and say 'your name isn't in the Book of Friends and I needed to speak to you. I'm sorry, but there was no other way'. Or maybe he'd leave out that first part, because Natori is standing right beside him, but he'd still be polite and deferential.
Today isn't an ordinary day. Today, Natsume is angry.
"Why aren't you protecting Tanuma?" he demands.
Aoi ceases struggling and tips her head quizzically.
"Again with the Tanuma," she huffs. "Is he really so special that you have to talk about him all the time?"
Natsume feels the blood rush to his face, even though he has no good reason to be embarrassed. He wants to argue with Aoi, wants to berate her for mocking his friend. But he doesn't have time. The summoning only lasts for five minutes.
"Just tell me why you aren't healing him," he says, impatiently.
"Healing?" Aoi queries.
"Healing?" Natori echoes. "Natsume, what's going on?"
Natsume ignores him.
"You're doing it, aren't you?" he insists. "You're the only spirit following me around."
"Natsume," Natori begins, placing a hand on Natsume's shoulder. "Please tell me what this is about."
Natsume shakes him off, crossly.
"A spirit has been healing my family and friends. I'm pretty sure it's her."
"Well, you're wrong," Aoi says, attempting to fold her arms and failing miserably because they are still bound to her sides.
"I've never heard of a spirit who could heal humans," Natori murmurs, rubbing his chin. "Are you sure about this?"
"Sprained ankles don't heal overnight on their own," Natsume says, tersely.
"That is weird," Natori agrees. "Aoi, tell me why you keep hanging around my friend."
"I don't have to answer you," she replies, flippantly.
"Answer me then!" Natsume says, loudly. It's a stupid tactic, a desperate tactic, but it seems to work. Aoi hunches her shoulders, as if she's guarding some sort of secret.
"You can't make me," she says, evasively.
"Oh," Natori says, his mouth dropping open. His lizard-mark skitters around the circumference of his neck, like it's sharing in his revelation. "Are you in love with Natsume?"
Aoi's pale cheeks colour a little, and for a moment she seems lost. Then, abruptly, the paper doll around her body starts to dissolve.
"Time's up," she says, sweetly. "Good luck finding your healing spirit, Natsume. If such a thing really does exist."
She vanishes into the air, leaving Natsume more frustrated and confused than before.
tbc
a/n
+ thank you for reading.