Kitamoto believes him. Satoru doesn't even have to draw a circle on Kitamoto's arm and point out the ghost that lives in the corner of his bedroom ceiling for Kitamoto to believe him.

"You were scared," he says plainly. "You can't fake being that scared."

Satoru lets his breath go in a sigh that deflates his whole body, relieved but not altogether surprised. If Kitamoto didn't believe him, he could rest assured that no one ever would.

"I'm going with you tomorrow," Kitamoto adds in a tone that books no room for disagreement, and then goes downstairs to ask Satoru's mom if he can stay the night. Satoru's mom likes him—thinks he's a good influence—so it's a guaranteed yes.

Satoru feels a little bad about it. Kitamoto doesn't like being away from his family when he doesn't have to be. They usually have sleepovers at his house.

Still, he's really glad he's not by himself. Even with his parents downstairs and his big brother in the next room, Satoru would have sat awake in his bed with his back to the wall all night, his desk pushed in front of the door and his eyes trained on the window. Terrified to close his eyes and open them to that monster coming inside.

Even so, as grateful as he is to have his best friend's company, there's an anxious pit in the bottom of his stomach as Satoru considers the interrogation he's in for when Kitamoto returns.

But the hard questions he's bracing himself for don't come.

Instead, they have dinner in his room, watching movies on his laptop for hours and getting crumbs in his bed. They catch up on the new chapters of the manga they're following, and argue passionately over the plot and characters just for argument's sake. Shibata pops up on their ridiculously extended group chat with a picture of a cat he found on the way home from his extra curriculars, and Ogata and Tsuji are immediately pelting him with name suggestions—and since Satoru and Kitamoto are also awake at one o'clock in the morning, they join in for awhile. They're weighing the names "Fuku" and "Miruku" when Natsume drops in to say —really? this is really happening? at 1 a.m.?— and Satoru laughs until he wheezes.

And when his eyes are finally drooping, that earlier fear is long forgotten, and the anxiety is misplaced somewhere too far away to grasp easily. Kitamoto reaches past him to fold the laptop closed and slide it out of the way, and then his arm sort of stays there, draped over Satoru's side like a weighted reminder.

With that, Satoru actually falls asleep when he closes his eyes. Actually sleeps until morning, for what feels like the first time in ages.

A year ago, he would never have woken up at seven on his day off from school, but that means he got about six hours of sleep, and that's—wow. That's an achievement.

Kitamoto is watching him when he wakes up, eyes sleepless and thoughtful. He looks alert, but he doesn't look tired, and Satoru can't exactly parse if that means he didn't sleep at all or if he just woke up much earlier than Satoru did.

"Breakfast," Kitamoto says, by-way of good morning. Satoru can relate. "And let's go out to eat. I really don't think I can deal with your mom for a whole meal."

"You and me both," Satoru agrees readily, rubbing his eyes.

Satoru falls out of bed and Kitamoto laughs for three minutes at him. Kitamoto roots around in the closet for the clothes he left over last time he was here and changes into them, folding his uniform away into his schoolbag, and Satoru goes over the circle inked onto the front of his shoulder carefully with a felt tip pen before he tugs a hoodie on over his head.

"Alright," Kitamoto says, steering him toward the door. "We go find food, and then have our confrontation."

The pit in Satoru's stomach is back. "It doesn't need to be a confrontation."

"Okay," Kitamoto agrees too readily, even shrugging his shoulders. Satoru takes a moment to feel sorry for himself.

"I want pancakes," he says mulishly, dragging his feet as they walk.

Kitamoto gives him an arch look but ultimately decides to humor him, changing route to the only place in town open early enough to serve breakfast instead of the all-hours convenience store they were probably headed to.

"You baby," Kitamoto says dryly.

"You're paying!"

An hour or so later, they make it to Taki's house. It's usually hard to feel too stressed after wolfing down pancakes and strawberries, but somehow Satoru manages it.

Tanuma doesn't look surprised to see Kitamoto tagging along when the two of them show up. He only smiles by way of greeting and gestures at some of the cushions situated around the low table he's already seated at.

"Guess Taki told you, huh?" Satoru says lamely, trying to make conversation. The attempt doesn't really stick.

Kitamoto is almost visibly bristling. As laid back as he was all morning, he looks ready to pick a fight now. But instead he just sits, and Satoru sits between him and Tanuma, feeling a little squashed by the tension.

Taki comes bustling back in with a tray of tea a handful of minutes later, and Satoru's never been happier to see her in his life.

"Good morning," he says desperately. She looks sympathetic.

"Good morning! I'm glad you're both here! So," she continues, getting right to it as she passes around cups, "where should we start?"

"I want to see his arm," Kitamoto says right away. Satoru wants to sink through the floor, but unfortunately it remains solid underneath him, and Taki only nods.

"I thought you might. I have a circle all drawn up already," she says, maintaining the tentative peace.

There's a small stack of books on the table already, and she opens the topmost one to draw out a piece of paper folded into quarters. Smoothing it on the tabletop, revealing the yokai circle inked onto the page, she gestures for Satoru's hand.

He gives it, reluctantly. She pulls it closer to her side of the table, until it's suspended over the yokai circle, and Kitamoto swears so colorfully that Tanuma glances over his shoulder reflexively as if to make sure Taki's absent parents aren't swooping through the door.

"What the hell? You told me you were hurt, but you didn't say it was this bad!"

His touch doesn't match his tone; he's careful as he takes Satoru's arm out of Taki's hands, and there's so much in his eyes that it's hard to hold his gaze for more than a few seconds at a time.

"It's not that bad," Satoru says weakly, for what it's worth.

"I don't get it." Kitamoto all but talks over him, furious. "Why did this happen?"

There's almost—almost—blame in his voice, and it's almost pointed on the two across the table from them like a weapon. Satoru tugs his arm away, knowing that the marks on his wrist fade from their sight once it's back in his lap and away from the circle spread open on the table.

"It's not their fault," he says pointedly, giving Kitamoto as much of a look as he dares. It's not much of one, and Kitamoto's attitude doesn't soften in the slightest. "It's not, I mean it. I got myself into some trouble. I was stupid. And then I was stupid again and kept quiet about it until they bullied it out of me. Honestly, this is on me."

"Not all of it," Tanuma says. He holds Kitamoto's heated glare without flinching, so calm and sensible that shouting at him would probably feel like shouting at a particularly impressive oak tree. "We shouldn't have let the situation get so bad. I'm sorry we made you feel like you were on your own, Nishimura."

"I'm sorry, too," Taki says earnestly, and Satoru shakes his head so hard the room blurs together.

"Would you guys stop, this is so dumb," he says vehemently. "I literally should have said something sooner and I didn't, that's my fault. Acchan, what are you doing?" he adds, totally clueless. "I thought you'd be mad at me, not them."

"I'm mad at all of you," Kitamoto says stiffly. Satoru stares at him.

"You bought me pancakes."

"That doesn't mean anything." But he's relenting despite himself, some of the angry edges in his face easing out into just plain unhappiness, and his eyes seem to be stuck on Satoru's wrist where the invisible bruises sit. "I just—hate that this happened to you. I hate that you were so scared yesterday. I hate being the last one to know about all of this."

Satoru twists his hands together. Kitamoto meets his eyes sharply as he's drawing breath to apologize.

"Say you're sorry and I'm never buying you breakfast ever again."

"But," Satoru says helplessly, "I am."

"Yeah, but you're so strung-out and tired-looking that it's literally impossible for me to have an argument with you right now," Kitamoto tells him shortly. "So save it for later."

"Wow," Satoru grumbles. Taki and Tanuma are trading amused looks, and Taki clears her throat.

"So you don't have any questions about the circle?" she prompts him delicately. "Or the things Satoru's been seeing?"

Kitamoto raises an eyebrow. "No? The magic circle your grandpa made lets people see yokai. That sounds pretty cut and dry."

"Amazing," Tanuma says faintly. Kitamoto gives him the fisheye, still a little too prickly to be poked fun at.

Taki, ever reliable, carries on before things get heated. Satoru loves her. "In that case, I want to show the three of you what I found in grandpa's library. There were some books in English that I couldn't quite parse—they were a little complicated. But what I could read led me to look in a few other places, and I'm pretty sure—well, mostly sure—that what we're dealing with is a sort of contagious magic."

"Contagious magic?" Tanuma leans forward to look at the notebook Taki flips open. Her notes are meticulous, but she's helpfully highlighted a few areas in bold yellow, and he absorbs her work quickly. "Like—voodoo?"

"I guess so? I mean, the connotations aren't exactly the same, since this is an ayakashi we're dealing with, but I would go so far as to say that the mark on Nishimura's arm is a curse." Taki flips through pages of one of the books and turns it around for them to see. "The word 'folk' comes up a lot, so I'm guessing this is largely just folklore. It's all written in the hypothetical, for posterity's sake. We don't exactly have a go-to manual for this sort of thing."

"We should write one," Satoru says glumly, rubbing his sore wrist. So the creepy bruises are a curse. That's not a huge surprise.

"Wait," Kitamoto says, hugely surprised, "he's cursed?"

"It's not that bad," Satoru assures him. "It could be way worse, probably."

Kitamoto ignores him in favor of staring at the blocks of nearly indecipherable text, so transparent for a moment that Satoru can almost see him wishing he paid more attention in English class. Then his eyes dart up to Taki again desperately.

"How do we get rid of it?"

"Well," she says, rubbing her forehead. "From what I gather, contagious magic is based on the assumption that the two subjects that came in contact with one another—in this case, Nishimura and the yokai—can continue to affect one another even after they've gone separate ways. I'll probably understand more of this once I have a chance to look online."

"But how do we get rid of it?" Kitamoto stresses.

Taki looks so reluctant to answer that Satoru already knows he's going to hate everything she's about to say. "I don't know? If I had to guess, we'd probably need to find the yokai that cursed him."

"Nope," Satoru says immediately. "I'll just have a cursed arm forever, thanks."

"That's not funny," Kitamoto snaps, and Satoru jabs a finger at him.

"What's less funny is the idea of walking up to that monster and asking it for a favor," he replies hotly. His heart is racing so hard it hurts, and yesterday's terror isn't that hard to sink back into. "Heck no. No. And Taki, Tanuma—don't do this behind my back. I know we're all about loopholes here, and I know I'm not one to talk, but we need to promise right here and now that we're not gonna go near that thing. At all. Okay? Or I'm—I don't know, I just—you have to promise."

Taki pushes her books out of the way and leans across the table to take his hand in both of hers. Her eyes are bright and worried and relentlessly kind. He probably looks pathetic if he's managed to put that expression on her face, but if it works, he'll take it.

"Nishimura, I promise. It's okay, I promise I won't. I can't even see spirits properly, remember? Not unless you draw my circle for me, and even then, only barely."

"Same here," Tanuma says, reaching over to bump his arm. "If you're that against it, we'll figure something else out. You have my word, too."

Kitamoto only glowers, arms folded tightly, but that's probably as good as Satoru's going to get from him.

"In fact," Taki says brightly, "I think I know someone who might be able to help! We can buy his silence with food," she adds, as though everything she's saying makes perfect sense. "He has a light that dispels curses and creates barriers. I just didn't know that Nishimura's bruises were a curse until now—but now that I do, I'll ask him right away!"

"Do that," Satoru says, pressing his palm over his aching chest. "Just do it far away from the creepy yokai. And since my arm hasn't fallen off yet, I think it's safe to sit on this for a little while."

"That's not funny," Kitamoto says again, and pushes him over. Satoru lets him, and sort of scoots around until he can use Tanuma's knee as a convenient pillow. Tanuma huffs a quiet laugh and leaves him there.

Satoru listens to the conversation pick up again around Taki's research, thinking that with every question Kitamoto asks, he's getting more and more deeply involved in a pretty dangerous world. But Satoru still can't help feeling glad he's here.

He tugs his sleeve back and glances at the bruises on his arm. They're darker today, a horror's handprint wrapped around his wrist like an ugly bracelet.

Even though Satoru ran away, that yokai is practically still touching him, with this stupid contagious magic—it might as well still be holding his arm.

He's afraid to think about that too much.

Satoru's phone chooses that moment to chirp, at about the same time everyone else's does, and he fishes it out from his back pocket without bothering to sit up.

It's another picture message from Shibata in the group chat, of the ratty stray he found last night newly transformed into a pretty cream-colored creature with a powder blue collar and long white whiskers.

— couldn't decide between fuku and miruku so i went with both! —

"'Lucky Milk'?" Tanuma says slowly, a world of confusion in his voice.

Satoru makes the mistake of catching Kitamoto's eye, and despite everything else, they both dissolve into laughter.