notes/warnings
+ not a lot happens in this bit, just character & relationship development.
+ spoilers up to the most recent Natsume episodes, ie the end of the fourth season.
Part Six
Tanuma wears the chain looped around his wrist. He occasionally catches glimpses of it when he moves his hand. He likes that Natsume gave him something, even if it's just a protective charm.
His father notices it on Thursday afternoon.
"Tooru?" he asks, with a tiny smile. It suddenly occurs to Tanuma that maybe his father would be happy if he was interested in girls. But he can't lie. He already keeps enough secrets as it is.
"Takashi," he corrects.
Tanuma's father doesn't even blink.
"He's a nice kid," he says, carefully. "Walk with me, Kaname."
Oh no, Tanuma thinks. He shrugs his coat on and falls into step beside his father, waiting for the lecture. He and his father aren't actually close. They don't talk about important things unless it's absolutely necessary. And they don't just go walking together without a good reason. Something is wrong.
Tanuma wonders if maybe his father is one of those people after all, and he's going to hear about how it isn't proper to be receiving presents from other boys at his age.
They get past the temple before his father speaks again.
"Do you remember your mother?"
"No," Tanuma replies, honestly. He wishes he could remember. All he has is grainy photographs and the few things his father has told him.
"She was a very good person. And I think you're a lot like her."
"Thank you," Tanuma says, guardedly.
Silence falls for another few moments.
"Listen," Tanuma's father says awkwardly, wringing his hands. "Love is a powerful thing. It changes people's lives. But it is possible to love someone too much. Your mother loved people too much."
Tanuma tilts his head to the side.
"Is that how she died?" he asks, very quietly.
"She died of a brain tumour," his father replies. Always the same answer. Always. Of course she died of a brain tumour. The autopsy found a brain tumour.
So what if the scans a week prior had come back completely clear?
Tanuma knows how his mother died. He shouldn't ask. He shouldn't put his father through this.
"So," his father continues. "Please don't get too attached to anyone, Kaname. I know you care about your friends, and I think that's wonderful. But you're still very young. Don't go too far."
His father is talking about girls. Or boys. Teenage crushes, anyway. This should be horribly embarrassing, but Tanuma's father looks so serious and Tanuma feels sombre and calm. This isn't really about romance. This is about something far more important.
His father knows. Has always known. He knows, but he won't say. There's nothing he can say, and nothing he can prove.
"I understand," Tanuma tells him, honestly.
They walk back home, and Tanuma calls Natsume.
Nothing has changed.
The next day a tribe of tiny spirits mistake Natsume for a local vengeful god. Which wouldn't ordinarily be a problem, but they're very resourceful spirits and manage to lock Natsume in a cage. They refuse to let him go until he removes the curse that the god has placed on their chief.
None of them believe that he's a human child. Nobody knows where he is, he doesn't have his phone, and Nyanko is out drinking again.
"Please," Natsume begs. "It's getting late. I have to go back. I have…I have a family."
Yes. He has a family. He has friends, too. He has so many things now, more things than he ever dreamed of, and he can't stand the thought of making people worry.
"The chief is my wife," one of the spirits informs him. "She is my family. If you don't remove the curse, she will die."
"If you let me go, I can help you look for a solution," Natsume tells him. "I'll find the god. I'll make him undo what he's done."
Even Taki thinks he's gone straight home. There isn't anybody who can lie for him, and give Touko and Shigeru comfort. It might be hours before Nyanko finds him.
"There is a way to tell if he's lying," another spirit says, thoughtfully. "Every day at dawn, the god goes down to the lake to catch fish. If he's there today, we'll know this person is telling the truth."
"I am telling the truth!" Natsume yells. "You can't keep me here until dawn!"
What if Shigeru comes looking for him? How will Natsume ever explain being stuck in a rusty cage in the middle of the forest? What if…what if the redheaded spirit comes back to hurt Tanuma while he's gone?
"Please let me go," Natsume says, gripping the bars in his hands. "Please, please, please."
At nine o'clock, Tanuma gets a phone call from Touko.
"I'm sorry for calling so late," she says, sounding distracted and worried. "I just wanted to know, is Takashi at your house?"
"No," Tanuma replies, concerned.
If she's calling, then Natsume must be missing.
"He didn't come home from school," Touko tells him. "I'm getting worried."
"Call Taki Tooru," Tanuma suggests. "If anyone knows where he is, she does."
Natsume never tells him what's going on, but he doesn't usually worry his foster parents like this. Tanuma takes his own advice, and calls Taki as soon as Touko hangs up.
"Good even-"
"Do you know where Natsume is?" he asks, without even waiting for her to finish greeting him. "He didn't go home. Did he say anything to you?"
He waits for her answer with his heart in his throat. This is what he's scared of. This is the worst possible part of being the person that Natsume doesn't trust, of being the one who is always left out. That Natsume might end up in terrible trouble and Tanuma wouldn't even know.
"No," Taki says, tremulously. "I have no idea where he is."
Tanuma can't breathe. No. No. They're going to move in together and buy a table. Natsume can't be missing. He can't be in trouble.
"I'll meet you outside the forest in twenty minutes," he says, decisively. "Bring anything you can think of that might help."
The spirits discuss torturing him, and Natsume curls up in his cage, drawing his knees up to his chin. He can't actually feel his hands any more. He's a little bit frightened, but mostly he's preoccupied with self-loathing and misery.
The spirits decide they don't actually know how to torture someone, and after that things go kind of quiet. Natsume drifts off, hunched over and utterly helpless.
They tell the Fujiwaras some lie about Natsume maybe going to the forest to meet up with some of his classmates. Tanuma wants him to have a cover story when they find him.
Because they're going to find him.
"What if he's dead?" Taki wails, after they've been searching pointlessly for two hours. "What if something's eaten him? We'd never even know!"
"He's alive," Tanuma replies, speaking more for his own benefit than for Taki's. "He's alive. Keep looking."
"Your hands are shaking, Tanuma."
"Just…keep looking."
Many hours later, Natsume wakes up to the sound of the tiny spirits screaming and running for cover.
"Someone's coming! Someone's coming!"
"Humans! Oh goodness, I smell humans!"
It's dark and he's freezing cold and he feels terrible. It's really really late, and people must be concerned about him by now.
"Natsume?" someone asks, and suddenly Taki is there, shining a torch right in his eyes.
"Taki," Natsume croaks.
"Thank goodness," Taki says. She's all bundled up against the cold, and her face is sheet-white. "I was scared…I was thinking the worst might have happened."
"I'm so sorry," Natsume tells her, hanging his head. "If you can just pick the lock-"
"Natsume!" someone else says. Tanuma. His voice is high-pitched and frantic and choked, like he's totally terrified.
"He's fine," Taki calls, sliding a hairpin from her bangs.
Tanuma staggers into the clearing, looks right at Natsume, and just collapses onto the ground.
"I'm glad," he manages, weakly.
How is Natsume ever going to atone for this? This is why Natori was wrong, why he should never have made human friends. All he ever does is hurt people, no matter how hard he tries.
A moment later, the cage door swings open. Taki helps Natsume out and then pushes him over to where Tanuma is still kneeling in the dirt.
"I'll call Touko and Shigeru," she says. "You bumped your head and got knocked out cold, okay?"
"Hi," Tanuma says, tensely, staring up at him.
"I'm sorry," Natsume replies.
He runs his fingers through Tanuma's hair, over and over again. It's all that he can do.
Natsume tries to send him home, and Touko looks almost irritated and then sweetly tells Tanuma that he's welcome to stay the night.
So he does, because it's dark outside and late and cold, and because he doesn't want to leave Natsume right now. The three of them set up beds side by side, like they're a proper family. As soon as they turn out the light, Tanuma rolls over and faces the wall. He's not sulking. He knows that he's practically useless to Natsume, and Natsume has every right to not want him around. He just wants to exist in the same room as his precious friends and do nothing at all. Ponta curls up against the back of Tanuma's neck, reassuring and warm.
After a while, Natsume and Taki start whispering.
"What are we going to do with you?" Taki says, affectionately.
"I think I need to spend less time with Tanuma," Natsume says, a non-sequitor, a lead weight dropping right onto Tanuma's chest.
There's a rustle of cloth, and then a soft thump. Tanuma doesn't look around. He doesn't want to embarrass Natsume by showing that he's still awake.
"Ow," Natsume says.
"Don't ever say something like that again," Taki tells him. "I have never wanted to call you a name so much in my life."
"But," Natsume protests quietly. "If something happens to me, and he's close to me, he'll be hurt. So will you. You'll both be hurt."
"And before you came along, neither of us had any friends," Taki argues. "That reasoning is stupid. It's like saying you're better off never being born because once you're alive, something bad might happen."
Nothing bad will ever happen to Natsume, Tanuma thinks. I won't let it.
"I guess," Natsume says, uncertainly.
"You know what I think?" Taki says, softly. "I think you should start taking Tanuma with you when you're dealing with spirits. Something like this won't happen again if one of us is always with you."
"No," Natsume says, promptly, before Tanuma can even get his hopes up. "I can't. He's…he's too…"
Natsume trails off. Tanuma imagines him gesturing pathetically. There must be dozens of synonyms for 'extraneous', but Natsume is too kind to use any of them.
"Say it," Taki urges. "Finish that sentence."
Tanuma always longed to know what Natsume said about him. Now he kind of wants to put his hands over his ears. But he can't. So he sucks in a breath and holds it, instead.
"Precious," Natsume says, reluctantly. "He can never ever come with me, Taki. I can't let anything happen to him."
Tanuma doesn't exhale. He wants to go over and put his hands on Natsume's back, but he can't, he can't.
Natsume sits with Taki at lunch. They have places they go, secret places, where they can talk about spirits and nobody is likely to overhear them.
"I wanted to speak to you about something," Taki says, and Natsume hopes she isn't going to try and make him discuss how he feels about Tanuma.
"What is it?" he asks, pulling Nyanko into his lap.
"Last night. When…when we were looking for you," she pauses for a minute, like it hurts to say those words, and Natsume wants to apologise all over again. "I was scared and Tanuma was scared, but he was talking like he was sure you weren't dead."
"Of course he was," Natsume tells her, surprised. "I wasn't dead. I wasn't even hurt."
"Yes," Taki says, impatiently. "But it was like he knew that. Like he could sense you, somehow. I don't know. It was weird."
Natsume smiles.
"Maybe he has more faith in me than you do."
Taki snorts. And really, it's more likely that Tanuma has faith in Nyanko. Irritating Nyanko, who should have been there last night. Who was off inhaling sake when he should have been at Natsume's side. Who could have prevented the whole awful situation from ever happening.
Natsume pokes at his head.
"I have faith in you," Taki says, quietly. "I just. I know what some of the spirits are like. I've read my grandfather's books."
"Not everything in the books is correct," Natsume tells her. He doesn't know if that is true – he hasn't done more than glance at the covers – but he doesn't want Taki knowing too much about the world of spirits, either. He wants to keep his friends safe.
Precious.
"Afternoon," Tanuma says cheerfully, peering around from behind a tree. "May I sit with you two, today?"
Tanuma was quiet at breakfast, and didn't say a word on the way to school. Natsume's glad to see he's feeling better.
"Of course," he replies.
Tanuma takes Nyanko from Natsume. Which is good, because Taki is starting to get all starry-eyed and twitchy.
"Ponta," he says, warmly. "I think you're getting fatter. What are we going to do? We're going to have to reinforce the table with wooden stakes, otherwise the plastic is going to crack underneath you."
Natsume grins, huge and silly, and Tanuma sits down beside him, close enough that their shoulders are touching.
Before class starts, someone comes up behind Tanuma and puts their hands over his eyes. Tanuma sighs.
"Hello, Kitamoto."
Kitamoto laughs and sits down beside him.
"You've been smiling all day," he points out. "Is it because of Natsume?"
Tanuma is kind of embarrassed. But at the same time, he's reminded of Natsume's words last night, which makes him feel warm and fuzzy inside. He's important to Natsume, at least on some level. He's important and that's big, that's huge. Maybe they really will get to live together. Tanuma wants that so, so much.
"What is your fascination with me and Natsume?" he asks, as casually as possible.
Kitamoto chuckles, and shoves at Tanuma's shoulder.
"I like how happy you make each other," he replies.
The spirit-pond outside Tanuma's house has five fish. Four red, and one black. Natsume never bothered to tell Tanuma about the black one. Not out of laziness or accident, but by design. He wants to keep Tanuma as far away from the spirit world as possible.
And it's not as if Tanuma will ever know.
The Fujiwaras are still at work. The house is empty. Natsume sets his homework on his desk and takes out a pen. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees something moving in the garden. When he jumps up and presses his face to the window, nothing is there.
"A spirit?" he wonders, aloud. He jogs downstairs, with the intention of surveying the situation. But when he reaches for the door, someone grabs his hand.
"Don't go out there!"
"You again," Natsume sighs. "Why are you always following me around?"
"Never mind that," Aoi snaps at him. "One of those things is wandering around the street. You can't let it see you. You'll be in danger if it finds out where you live."
Natsume blinks.
"The sickness-spirit?"
"I don't know what it's called," Aoi tells him. "But it's after you."
"Do you know why?" Natsume asks, his heart quickening. This thing isn't going to just go away. In fact, it's getting closer and closer to where he lives.
"We should move away from the walls," Aoi advises. "Go into the centre of the house and stay there for at least an hour."
"Okay," Natsume says, and then impulsively adds. "Come with me?"
They go and sit in the kitchen. Aoi sits on the table, swinging her legs. Natsume wonders offhandedly just how old she's supposed to be.
"You're so annoying," she informs him. "I don't envy Madara at all. Looking after you is vexing."
"Nobody asked you to look after me," Natsume retorts.
"I shouldn't," she agrees. "You don't even notice me. All you ever notice is your stupid friend. Even when I got my sister to…"
Aoi stops, abruptly. Natsume stares at her, trying to understand. What sister? What does her sister have to do with anything? He's never even seen someone who looks like Aoi, except…
"You sent her?" Natsume demands, narrowing his eyes. "You sent Hikari to bother Tanuma?"
"Bother?" Aoi asks, lowering her eyelids. "My sister is beautiful."
Natsume tugs at his own hair.
"So it was a lie," he says, angrily. "She wasn't interested in him at all. She was just doing what you told her to do."
"Pretty much," Aoi agrees.
"Why? Why would you do such a thing?"
Aoi looks away.
"Because I wanted to prove to you that he wouldn't be loyal."
"That doesn't even make sense," Natsume says, stonily. He's kind of furious. Nobody toys with Tanuma and gets away with it. "I don't care whether Tanuma dates girls. I care that you tried to hurt my friend."
Natsume maybe cares a little bit whether Tanuma dates girls. Or boys. Other people. He wants…he can't say what he wants. He just wants that future. That apartment with the green plastic table. He wants Tanuma's hand on his shoulder all the time.
He wants Aoi to disappear, damnit.
"You never notice me," Aoi yells. "You came to my lake that day and you fished and I watched you, but you don't care. You really don't care."
Natsume clenches his hands into fists. It's a confession, of sorts, but that's irrelevant right now.
"Nyanko was right," he says. "You really don't know how to love someone, do you? You don't do it by trying to turn them away from their friends. That's not love!"
"Oh, really?" Aoi snarls. "What is love, then?"
"Love is…" Natsume thinks of Tanuma. Tanuma talking animatedly, hands shoved in his pockets, flop-haired and cross-eyed and wonderful. He feels his bad mood subside a little, despite Aoi's idiotic antics. Tanuma has that effect on him. "Love is when you'd die for someone, just to make them happy."
He's breathing hard. He's never come this close to admitting it before, not even to himself. Tanuma is precious, elevated above everyone else, and Natsume is maybe perhaps in love with him.
It's okay. It's okay. They'll be together. It's going to be okay. Natsume clasps his hands together, tries to stop them from shaking. Sometimes he's consumed by how important Tanuma is. Of course Natsume hides the spirit world from him. How could he not? How could he not do everything possible to protect his Tanuma?
"That sounds stupid," Aoi tells him, flatly.
tbc
a/n
+ thank you so much for reading :)