"Right there," Satoru says, feeling a little rude as he points straight at the ayakashi shuffling away toward the opposite side of the park. "You don't see it?"
Taki is squinting, face screwed up in concentration. Her hands are balled into fists in her lap.
"Only sort of. Its edges are all vague. There isn't really a shape to it."
"Same here," Tanuma says. "It's more like a blurry shadow than anything else. But my head doesn't hurt, even with it nearby, which is already progress."
Satoru stares at them for a long moment, then looks back toward the spirit. It has a distinctive shape, long and skeletal with arms that hang so low its tapered fingers brush the ground with each step. It moves stooped over—as tall as it is, Satoru thinks its height would be alarming should it decide to straighten its spine. It seems a little anxious to get away from their prying eyes, head ducked and slooping shoulders bunched.
He doesn't really blame it. The ferocity of Taki and Tanuma's stares would probably make anyone uncomfortable.
"How come?" Satoru says faintly. "I can see it just fine, and you two have the same circle as me."
He tugs up the sleeve of his hoodie, bearing the proud circle sitting in bright green marker on his inner forearm, and compares it to the diagram on Tanuma's arm. It's a perfect match.
"This isn't a science, Nishimura," Taki says without heat, plucking at her skirt and rearranging her folded ankles. She looks very business-like all of a sudden, very professional, like she knows exactly what she's talking about. Satoru finds himself listening more closely as she goes on, "It's much closer to magic, really, as silly as that sounds. But for all we know, this variation of the circle only works for one, and you're the one who found it."
"Sorry," he says automatically, and she swats him on the shoulder.
"It's hardly your fault. Like I just said, we don't really know what we're doing here. The best we can do is puzzle along."
She puts out her hand expectantly, and he gives her his. Her fingers close around his wrist and tilt his arm a bit to put his circle in better light.
"I think it might have something to do with your handwriting, maybe. See, the way you draw this character here is different than the way I do it." She traces the diagram with a fingertip, brow furrowed in thought. "I start from the top and go down, and it looks like you went from the bottom up. I've read that some people believe our handwriting is as unique as our fingerprints."
"Is that really that important?" Tanuma asks, leaning in from Satoru's other side. Satoru's arm feels like a specimen on display at a super hands-on museum. It's a little uncomfortable, but he can deal. "It's such a small thing."
"It's worth looking into," Taki decides. "I can go through grandpa's library again tonight."
Her hand moves, and suddenly her fingers are wrapped warmly around Satoru's. Her smile lights up her whole face.
"This is fun," she admits. "It's like we're solving a mystery together that we didn't even know was a mystery."
"And until we get it figured out, it seems like we can borrow Satoru's circle," Tanuma adds. He's smiling, too, Satoru can tell from the way his words come out. "Kind of like borrowing someone else's prescription glasses."
Satoru watches the spirit pause politely at the sidewalk to let a little family go by. Two women and two little boys are walking a dog, and the dog pauses to look up at the spirit, head tilted to one side. It stays there until the length of its lead goes taut, and then it turns to catch up to the boys on the other end of the leash with a few energetic bounds.
The ayakashi watches it go with blind white eyes. One hand is half-extended, as though it had been thinking of petting the puppy, but hadn't quite worked up the nerve. It curls the appendage back in and continues on its way.
Satoru watches it take care to move around humans without disturbing them, slowly turning a corner at the end of the street and disappearing from sight. Headed towards a busier neighborhood, Satoru thinks, with a faint edge of concern. Foot traffic is a lot heavier there, especially at this time of day.
"Nishimura?" Tanuma says, nudging his shoulder. He's looking at Satoru the way he looks at Natsume when he thinks there's trouble waiting for him around the corner. Satoru isn't sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. "You were watching that yokai, weren't you? Was it doing something dangerous?"
"Oh, no, it was cool," Satoru says quickly. "It just, looks like it doesn't do too well in crowds."
His two companions give him twin versions of a patiently uncomprehending expression. Satoru rubs the back of his head and changes the subject.
"Anyway. Do you think me and Tanuma could help you look through your grandpa's books? It'd probably go a lot faster if we all put our heads together."
"That'd be great!" Taki claps her hands together. "We should meet up sometime this weekend! I'll text you when I know the house will be free."
They say their goodbyes, and Satoru waves until they're both out of sight. Then he turns in roughly the opposite direction of his house and takes off after the shuffling yokai. He's not as good at weaving through the crowd as it was, bumping shoulders with strangers a few times, but he doesn't knock anyone over at least.
It only had a few minutes' headstart, and with as slow as it moves, Satoru catches up in half as much time. The spirit is stuck at an intersection, hovering fretfully at the curb of a busy street. It looks like its ringing its hands.
Satoru crosses the last few feet between them, shoving his hands into his pockets. Ignoring the chills that run down his spine, as well as that little voice in the back of his mind that sounds like Kitamoto's asking "what the heck are you doing?" because he doesn't think this spirit is one of those mean spirits. It wanted to pet the puppy earlier, and it couldn't, and now it's just trying to get home, and it can't.
"So," he says, more to the ground than to his inhuman companion—it's still pretty creepy-looking, despite everything. "I take it you don't get out much."
It doesn't have a face that lends itself well to expression, but Satoru can tell its startled. It goes still abruptly, and cranes its head around to stare at him from hardly an arms length away. Yokai or not, its mannerisms are familiar. Something about its round white eyes reminds Satoru of Natsume, and all the times he's been surprised by the smallest acts of kindness—even from where he's supposed to get it, from his friends and the people who love him.
"This is probably a bad decision," he informs it cheerfully, leading the way when the pedestrian crossing light turns green. "But if you remind me of him, you can't be all bad, can you?"
The yokai doesn't answer him. It doesn't really make a sound at all. Even its shuffled footsteps are silent, while Satoru crunches obnoxiously through dead leaves. He can feel the spirit's sightless eyes boring into the side of his head, and does his best to pretend it's not incredibly off-putting.
They walk almost the length of town; past the river and the lotus fields, and up in the direction of the mountain; following the treeline to the denser part of the forest. Satoru's never been here with one of his circles before, and he's on edge almost the second he steps onto the worn dirt path.
There's a lot of them here. Up ahead, something with red eyes peeks out from behind a line of crooked concrete lanterns. Satoru stops in his tracks.
"Well," he says lamely, to the ayakashi hovering directly behind him, "I think you can take it from here."
He manages most of a step before he's hauled back by a hard yank on his wrist. Those tapered fingers, the ones that had curled harmless inches away from a small dog, are biting into his skin with a grip like unyielding steel. It looms above him, inch after inch after inch, until Satoru is looking all the way up at something tall and terrifying and not in the least bit like anyone he knows.
Definitely a bad decision. Bad, bad, bad decision.
"Let go!" he yells, and wrenches at his arm. The yokai peels away from him, skittering back a few steps at Satoru's sudden shout, and Satoru doesn't waste time turning tail and running like his life depended on it.
His lungs are heaving as he pelts down the road back into town. His heart is in his throat. He doesn't stop shaking until he's halfway home, and even then he doesn't want anything but to go to Kitamoto's apartment and fall into his best friend's arms and hug the breath out of him until this terror recedes into something he can deal with—
But he can't do that. Kitamoto would want to know what happened—Kitamoto would demand to know what happened—and Satoru isn't ready to betray Natsume's trust in such a big way.
So he walks up to his house on unsteady feet. His wrist is burning. He can't bring himself to look at it. It hurts when he pushes the gate open.
Kiyoshi is waiting in the entrance hall when Satoru comes through the front door. He manages to restrain himself for a full twelve seconds before he starts the interrogation.
"Where were you?" Kiyoshi asks, arms crossed. "You're later than you said you'd be, mom was getting annoyed."
He tries to look impassive but really he just looks annoyed. It's familiar, and somehow, oddly comforting. Satoru sits in the genkan to fight his sneakers off, and not at all because his legs are still shaky.
"Mom's always annoyed," he says, but his voice drops to half its normal volume, because he has no idea where she is and he doesn't want to start a fight. He's all but whispering when he adds, "Tell me something I don't know."
Kiyoshi notices. Deadpan, he says, "She's out getting groceries. You're lucky I covered for you."
Sagging with an exaggerated sigh of relief, Satoru tilts a winning smile his brother's way.
"Anyway, I'm late 'cause I was helping a friend get home. Sort of underestimated how far away they lived, that's all."
The excuse rolls easily off his tongue, and it's even mostly the truth. If by 'friend' he meant 'freaky ayakashi' and by 'home' he meant 'random spot in the forest, because he was stupid enough to follow it to the forest.' But no one's that interested in the details. He'll keep them to himself.
Kiyoshi studies him closely for a minute with a narrow gaze—and maybe Satoru's circle has made him more perceptive in general, even to things outside the spiritual realm, because he can't help noticing the dark circles under his brother's eyes; how pale he looks in the warm lighting of their entrance hall.
"Have you been sleeping?" Satoru blurts without thinking. "You can stop studying long enough to sleep, nii-san. Those books won't run away without you."
Kiyoshi looks taken aback, for all of a moment, and when the surprise fades his face has softened. Just a little bit. Just a little more like the big brother Satoru used to be close to.
"You're one to talk," he says, and his voice has gentled, too. "You think I haven't noticed how tired you are every morning? What do you do all night if you're not sleeping?"
That backfired beautifully.
Satoru steps up into the hall beside Kiyoshi and past him, quickly, because Kiyoshi is way too smart for his own good and can read Satoru like a book. Just like everyone else who knows him can.
(So maybe it's not a them thing, maybe it's a him thing. He should probably work on that.)
"I'm not an old man like you are," he taunts, "and I definitely don't need as much beauty rest."
Kiyoshi smacks him, and Satoru squawks indignantly, but they drift upstairs together and Satoru follows Kiyoshi into his bedroom instead of shutting himself up in his own. Shoving some books on the bed to one side, Satoru takes a seat in their place with an unapologetic flop.
"Can you take a break from work for a minute?" he asks, fishing out his phone. "I wanna show you a video."
His brother rolls his eyes, but moves another pile of stuff out of the way to sit next to him. Satoru finds the link Tsuji sent him earlier, glad he has something on hand.
One video will turn into five if he's lucky, and Kiyoshi will be a small world away from his studies; at least for as long as it takes mom to make dinner.
Satoru should do this for him more often than he does. Kiyoshi has to carry their parents' heavy expectations all on his own; the least Satoru could do is make him take a break every once in awhile.
"Is your wrist okay?" Kiyoshi asks abruptly, a quarter of an hour later, while their fourth video is buffering. He's looking down at Satoru's lap, where his arm is cradled gingerly on his folded knees. "You haven't put any weight on it since you got home. And you took your shoes off one-handed, too. Let me see it."
"What are you, a doctor? I'm fine, leave me alone."
But Kiyoshi rolls his eyes at him, all long-suffering sibling exasperation, and snatches Satoru's elbow before his little brother can backpedal across the bed out of the way. His fingers fold around Satoru's arm the way that ayakashi's did, but they don't hurt. And he's careful as he draws the sleeve of his jacket up, turning Satoru's arm up toward the light.
Satoru's breath catches at the vivid bruising circling his wrist like a grisly manacle, but Kiyoshi doesn't react to it at all. After a moment of careful examination, his brother lets him go with a mild, "You're fine, after all," and Satoru stares at his hand in something like horrified fascination.
Yokai bruises, he thinks faintly. That makes sense.
Taki and Tanuma are going to kill him.