Natsume doesn't flinch.
When the store clerk grabs his arm, holding out a bag they forgot at the checkout before they can leave it behind, Natsume's whole body goes still. It's only for a second, just for that brief moment of sudden contact, but something heavy settles in his face, something almost expectant.
As though he's been braced this whole time for what's coming next.
And maybe, Tanuma thinks, watching his friend smile his thanks and take the bag with a thousand yards of distance in his eyes, flinching would have been a little easier to watch.
Touko is so warm and so kind. Her smile is a perfect match to Natsume's at his most content, and she comes to meet them at the door when they return with the groceries.
"It's really no trouble," Tanuma says, when she thanks him for the second time. "Shopping with Natsume is hardly a chore."
Natsume's face turns a faint pink, and Touko looks pleased at them both. Her hand moves as they talk, threading gentle fingers through Natsume's fringe and pushing long bangs out of his eyes, and Tanuma expects – something. Natsume colors and brightens and blushes so easily at praise, a gesture should strike something beautiful to life in his face.
But Natsume just keeps smiling, if only a touch wider, and helps Touko carry her groceries into the kitchen without a single flustered stutter in his steps. Tanuma lags a step behind, a little surprised.
And then surprised at himself, for expecting Natsume to recognize a mother's gesture when he sees it.
Nishimura makes a strangled sound, and throws both arms around Natsume's shoulders in an over-exuberant hug. It makes Natsume laugh, soft and warm, and pat Nishimura's arm in a genial way.
"Happy birthday," he says, and Nishimura peels himself away with a sniffle.
"You even got it signed!" And it looks like he really might cry, fingers flattened over the glossy promo poster of Natori Shuichi's upcoming drama where it's spread reverently across his desk. "Natsume, I love you, okay? You're – shut up, Atsushi – you're the best thing that's ever happened to me, I just – "
Even Taki is giggling at this point, muffled behind her fingers, while Sasada rolls her eyes with unmistakable, if recalcitrant, affection. And Tanuma is watching, now, but Natsume's expression doesn't shift into anything it would hurt to look at. He doesn't go still under his friends' hands, has stopped looking so surprised to be included. He's happy.
Tanuma doesn't know why he doesn't feel satisfied with that.
Rumors spread easily in a small town. To hear Kitamoto tell it, most of the school knew that Natsume was an orphan within his first week as a student there. Somehow, it was common knowledge even in the very beginning that Natsume moved around a lot, from relative to relative, and Tanuma wondered how.
How Natsume could bring himself to walk into his classroom in those early days, under the weight of a whispered reputation. How Natsume could bring himself to reach out and be reached out to in turn, when so far nothing in his life had proved itself to be permanent.
There was a quiet courage in that – in letting himself be vulnerable to hurt, again and again, for the simple sake of being kind.
It's probably easier now than it was in the beginning. The Fujiwaras love Natsume with all their hearts – it's obvious after spending five minutes with them that Touko and Shigeru would give up everything they own to keep him. Even Natsume is learning – slowly, but steadily – that they mean it when they welcome him home.
And it's like watching him unpack boxes, one by one. Taking off a coat and hanging it by the door. Planning to stay awhile.
One night, when Tanuma's father is gone again on business and Touko refuses to let him go back to an empty house and a meal of instant ramen, he joins them for dinner. The conversation is easy and companionable, talk about Touko's day at home and Shigeru's day at work and Natsume's day at school. They ask Tanuma how his father is doing, ask about their friends, including him so seamlessly and so kindly that he wonders how it's even possible for people like the Fujiwaras to exist.
He's glad that they do.
At one point, Natsume makes a face at something Touko puts on his plate, nose scrunching delicately. Tanuma almost chokes in surprise, and Touko is quick to pick up a lecture about healthy eating, one that sounds practiced and repeated. Natsume nods in all the right places, looking appropriately chastised, but he hides a playful grin behind his bowl of rice.
Tanuma catches it, though. And across the table, Shigeru's eyes are impossibly warm and impossibly fond, so he must have caught it, too.
Natsume doesn't flinch when a man they pass in the street raises his voice. He's a large person, heavy in the chest and broad-shouldered, and he bellows so suddenly into his phone that Tanuma's heat leaps in his chest, that Kitamoto trips a little and swears.
"Jeez," Nishimura mumbles when they're out of earshot. He has a hand pressed to his chest, his heart probably fluttering as wildly as Tanuma's had. "That scared me!"
But Natsume is calm and unruffled, not a hair out of place. His eyes are weighted again, but his smile is the same as always.
His smile doesn't mean very much.
"Takashi!" a young man calls, and Natsume stops dead in his tracks. "Wow, it's been - how are you?"
Natsume moves a few steps ahead, and they talk for a few minutes, and his voice is pleasant and his expression is kind. The man is in a hurry, and assures Natsume it was great to see him before rushing off as quickly as he'd come, and Natsume rejoins them looking no worse for wear.
"Who was that?" Nishimura asks, inevitably.
"Before the Fujiwaras took me in, I lived with him and his parents," Natsume explains simply enough. "Not far from here, actually. He must work in this area now."
It's later, when it's just the two of them walking home, that Tanuma says, very carefully, "Touko-san mentioned once that you came home to them from the hospital."
Natsume blinks, but he doesn't look upset. "Oh. I did. When did she say that?"
"It was just in passing, it was a long time ago." Tanuma's heart is in his throat. "So you were hurt? Did they - did those people - "
"No," Natsume replies quickly. "No, it was never - it wasn't like that with them. Around that time, I sealed a yokai on the mountain and got injured, that's all."
Tanuma shouldn't ask, he knows he shouldn't. But his mouth opens anyway, spilling out, "'With them'?"
It opens a yawning pit between them, the inches separating their arms stretching into what feels like miles. Natsume's grip on Ponta, where the cat curls in his arms, tightens almost imperceptibly.
"Everyone was kind to me," is what he finally replies. "But the kindness didn't last for quite as long in some places. I was a hard child to care for."
Tanuma swallows down something hot in his throat, blinks past a sudden sting in his eyes. Too old now to wail against unfairness, but he wants to.
He wants to tell Natsume not to justify those people in his past who might have hurt him. Tanuma wants to sit him down and open him up and pry all those sad secrets out of his head, no matter how they might stain his hands. He wants, more than he's ever wanted anything, to help Natsume carry the weight of them.
Natsume's face is flushed red with the biting wind. The rain is still coming down in solid sheets, a curtain of rushing gray that they watch from the relative safety of the store awning they had ducked under.
The store is closed. It would have been warmer inside.
"Maybe it'll let up soon," Natsume says, voice wavering in the chilly air. He gets sick so easily. Tanuma turns to face him, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"Let Ponta down for a minute. I want to try something."
Natsume agreeably unbundles the fat cat from his coat, and the disgruntled calico jumps from his arms to settle with a huff by his feet. His fingers are clumsy with cold, fumbling to rebutton his jacket, and Tanuma folds his hands over Natsume's smaller ones.
"You should have brought gloves," he mutters, and Natsume huffs out a quiet laugh, letting Tanuma take over. An amused, sideways smile overtakes his face at the particular way Tanuma straightens his collar and fixes his scarf.
"Well?" he says, patiently. It's not like either of them are in a hurry, trapped as they are in this small dry pocket of dark, stormy evening. "What did you want to try?"
Ponta eyes Tanuma a little too knowingly, and then turns his back on them to primly wash a paw. "It's about time, you brat. I thought you must have been waiting for a blue moon."
And with that, Tanuma takes Natsume's face in both hands, telegraphing every inch of the move before he makes it. They're close enough now that Tanuma's bangs hang into Natsume's, black and tawny blond shifting together.
Natsume's eyes widen, but he doesn't step away.
Tanuma moves closer still, carefully folding Natsume into his arms. The smaller boy fits tucked against him like a missing piece coming home, thin shoulders stiff with shock, breath hitching quietly against Tanuma's throat.
There's a moment of stillness, of caution and wonder, and then Natsume sighs slowly. His hands creep up, his arms settling around Tanuma in turn, as gingerly as if he's never held a human like this before.
"Oh," Natsume says, soft and surprised. "It's warm."
Natsume doesn't flinch, because he didn't want people to look at him. He couldn't react to invisible monsters, he wouldn't react to heavy hands and cruel voices. He taught himself stillness and silence instead.
But there are times when Natsume has to steel himself. When Tanuma can see him trying.
When Taki lays her head on his shoulder on the train; when Touko frames the side of his face in one warm, worn hand; when Natori pushes affectionate fingers through his hair; when Ponta purrs against his cheek; when Tanuma pulls him close enough to kiss, soft and slow.
Natsume doesn't flinch, but it's more out of love these days than anything else.