a half-circle of light
Jan. 2nd, 2019 06:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seleniasTitle: a half-circle of light
Prompt: 6. The heart its own rough animal.
Fandom: Natsume Yuujinchou
Characters/pairing: Natori, Hiiragi, Natsume
Rating: GEN :D exorcists are being ugly tho
Word Count: 5439
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HABITUAL CONTEMPT DOESN’T REFLECT A FINER SENSIBILITY - jenny holzer
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“The youkai isn’t particularly strong, but it is... rather witty.”
Natori scraped his thumb against the porch railing, watched the green paint peel up over the top of a nail. Rain came down heavily on the roof, running off along the gutter and metal spines like a low gray cloud. He was grateful he’d remembered his umbrella after leaving the station to find water racing down the steps. Slipping was an old cautionary tale, but never one that lingered on his list for very long. “How so? It must have been troublesome if others are declining it.”
Kanoko-san’s look was dirty, directed more at the yard than the blooming hydrangea’s below them, snapped stems victim to wandering deer. A nice day for some comeuppance, he thought irately. Would that others in the business stopped thinking him so shallow, he wouldn’t be stuck with such compromising cases. Would that he didn’t have a nose for knowing a winning case when he found one, he might be off in a corner reading a book.
“It feeds off of emotion. The more someone reacts to it, the bigger the fuss it’ll kick up.”
“Any particular...?”
The exorcist shook his head, looking chagrined. He tugged the tie away from his neck and swiveled back to face Natori, gray hair made dull and peppery by the years piling on. Corporations suck, he’d heard time and time again -- acting was the only lucky straw Natori had drawn in life that let him avoid that grave.
“Not as anyone in my family is aware of. Spells for warding on the mind may be effective. No one dared to try when we were met with such catastrophe the first time.”
“Your wife is...” he started hesitantly.
“--Recovering. I don’t think she’ll be chancing it with stairs anytime soon.”
Natori bowed his head. “Fair enough. I’ll take care of it. Because of the short notice, I would like half the payment now.”
Kanako-san laughed. His body turned with his head, bull-like, locked into one plane of looking. “What? Worried I’ll cheat you?”
“Just a precaution. It shouldn’t be so hard to procure half if you think this will be easy for someone of my caliber.”
Kanoko-san smiled and pulled his wallet from his coat pocket, along with a pack of cigarettes and a compact brush. Natori’s eyes caught on it, flitted away again, following rain water, a spider’s thread waving across thick wet grass and back again. “It’s not. I know you’re the honest sort, Natori-san.”
“That’s awfully generous of you.”
“Well, mostly good things are said about you these days, even with that career of yours. It’s good to see old family names like yours in the business. Not many of us left who can maintain them anymore.”
The thought was sobering and not much else. Natori didn’t want to know what ignorant circle of friends he kept. “It is very lucky for me than that someone shared with you the news.”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
Kanako-san’s smile was the kind one cut their necks on. Natori bowed out of the gazebo and hoped he toppled, too.
“It sounds simple, which is why I’m unsure--”
“You should be,” Uruhime interrupted. She paced in front of the sofa, hair coiling and slackening like static had animated it. The TV ran softly in the background, advertisements much too cheerful and mundane for the anxiety bounding off the walls like rubber balls. He had only wanted to see the weather, which foretasted heavy winds, rain, rain again-- “Amanojaku are notorious for torturing their prey. It’s shocking to think one would ever make them their shiki.”
He removed his watch and laid it on the coffee table, absently rubbing away the pink indent. “What’s so dangerous? Is it going to make me think myself to death?”
“It will read your heart. And then betray you with it.”
“Don’t you do that frequently?”
“And it is a dark place, well suited for possession by a beast.” He clutched his chest in defense, feigning pain.
“Well,” he said, “as long as it doesn’t shove me down a flight of stairs after the fact.”
Uruhime stared at him, mouth pulled flat and unwavering. Natori twitched and the button on his shirt sleeve slipped out between two fingers. He tried again, more successful, and rolled the gray fabric up to his bicep. The rest he’d already managed, and that cold air was unpleasant against his chest, making him tense. Heating was expensive and he would cut corners where he could.
The couch dipped and Hiiragi stretched her legs out beside him.
“Well?” he asked. “You won’t need a leg too, will you?”
“No.” The lizard, of course, was quite content to linger along the right one.
Hiiragi pulled a familiar brush from her sleeve. It was a motion as traditional and recognizable as films with samurai; items of importance kept in articles of clothing, gently bequeathed in an iron sleeve. He knew, because she’d told him, a shorter blade was tucked just above her heart. Not that he intended to reach for it ever -- good to know, regardless, if either of them had need of it. “This is just a precaution,” she continued. “I am unsure as to how effective it will be with her powers.”
“Not worried,” he muttered. They were collectively making him nervous. Were they nervous?
Off to his side, Sasago swiveled her head. “It’s a youkai that only enjoys the hearts of humans. We will be safe from its intent, master. You must only focus on yourself.”
He tilted his head to see her better. “Is there... something wrong with yours?”
“It’s not particularly soft,” she yielded. “Humans have much more variances with their dreams. It’s what makes them delicious, I’ve heard.”
Or it could just be you. Sasago scowled, turning toward the balcony door and slipping a hand between the blinds. She had been trying to reassure him after all. Dunce, he thought harshly at himself.
He sighed theatrically, and Hiiragi’s brush raised off his skin like she’d only been scrawling a note, not a ward, not the very last means of defense. She tipped her face back and away, and the smile on her mask didn’t line up with the stiffness in her arms, though perhaps the single staring eye could flay him alive one of these days, willing that he especially struck a nerve. He stared too long and looked away again, eyes catching the second best source of light in the room. His plants were in desperate need of water in the window. He’d remember to move them to the balcony before he left again.
“Natori, this would be easier if you were still.”
“Apologies, Hiiragi.”
Ink against his skin always made him shiver. Must have been the magic of a promise making him shy away. He didn’t, after all, like to promise anything before he believed he could procure it. Shiki were different. They were absolutes, as sturdy as law. Except for when they weren’t. But those weren’t the kind that served him.
“We should find out more. I don’t recall feeling his presence before.”
“No.” He nodded off. “He was a stranger to me, too.”
“How nice of him to leave the door unlocked.”
“A trick? He gave you keys.”
Natori jingled the useless things in his pocket. “Well, makes sense that it would be expecting us.”
“Sasago will examine the courtyard in the event the target attempts to leave. Hiiragi and I will accompany you inside.” Uruhime laid her hand over the wood paneling. The door slid silently on it’s wooden wheels as if someone had greased it only hours before; a vacuum of gray air rushed out under the eaves, carrying the stale smell of dust and mothballs -- he wrinkled his nose, but Uruhime looked unfazed. Kanako-san never said how old this estate was, did he?
The house was beautiful. It was small and traditional with thatched roofs and an overgrown garden sprawling in the front courtyard. Ivy climbed the neighbor’s fence and choked a monstrous maple, clambering among the branches like holiday tinsel. Rain dripped down and made puddles among the rock path he followed to the porch, the quiet plink methodical and soft. The walk over had been pleasant. It had been hard to steel himself in the face of it, but now he had to measure up.
Gourd princess, he thought wantonly, staring at the sea spun green above. I still like that choice.
“Be cautious, all of you,” he advised. “If you find anything, return to me and we’ll approach it together.”
Sasago nodded and vanished around the side of the building. He swiveled back to Uruhime and she stepped inside, black hair calm and still against the back of her neck. Nothing yet.
“Natori-sama,” Hiiragi murmured. She stood to her full height, bottom of her mask just reaching his elbow. “I will be closer than usual for this case.”
He stepped into the empty genkan without a word, her blade following on his heels.
The youkai was a mean one. It insulted him, slipping between floorboards and calling out to him, making the skin rise on the back of his neck. Mirrors in the bathroom were smashed, and it was good that he’d learned long ago that youkai were not so stupid as to not realize a weapon when it showed itself. He had no desire for a battle scar.
If you were to slip free, find someone such as Natsume--
His heart might actually stop. The results would be a disaster. He wouldn't hesitate here.
“It’s not making this easy,” he growled. Paper dolls curled up and around his arm like a shield -- not that they could guard him from an attack like this, but he’d strike at her if she slowed. Down the hall, Uruhime slammed a brick into a wall. Laughter sounded from another room.
“A curiosity comes into my home looking for blood and finding nothing to draw it from. When he has nothing to hold onto or carry, will he cup the collective hands of others? A noose!! A noose is a catch all!! Do you not have one? Paper? No tether, no connection. You’ll blow over from a stiff wind.”
“I don’t believe the sealing jar will be necessary,” Hiiragi murmured. Right. The moment he’d tried to lay down a circle a gust nearly threw him out the kitchen window. To think he’d lost his favorite brush from not showing enough steel. The clerk at the art supply store was going to be on a first name basis with him soon.
“Me neither,” he muttered.
“Your fingers don’t bleed, but their’s will! No safety if you don’t carry the crux. No strength or temperament to break the mold. Ties bind, boy -- the stories will tell you it is so.”
You can’t keep anyone safe if you lack strength, she whispered. It was a taunt like breaking glass, pulled from the bottom of a fumigating jar; he nearly snapped his own neck when he turned, head throbbing, searching along the grain of the floor for her presence.
He hated youkai who thought they could win.
A wooden door slammed flat and Uruhime strode forth successfully, a cackling woman locked in her hair like a bug, smaller and more vulnerable than the fuss she kicked up. Uruhime was not his oldest companion for nothing; under the calmness, he knew her skin was boiling as hot as his.
“I’ll strangle you before another word leaves you,” she growled.
“Weak boy, always losing, a neck for a knife. It’s a thin one too, isn’t it?? Classless, lacking grace. Thin muscle, pulled apart too early, always too early. Do you have a noose?”
“It is a good thing,” he said morosely, “that I don’t.”
Her eyes fell shut. “You fear for me. Kind, but stupid. Always stupid ones that come.”
In the end, Hiiragi’s sword cut through kimono as neatly as it did everything else.
Triumph flooded brilliantly through him, so quick and violently different from the emotion brought forth earlier that he shook. A hand on the wall kept him upright, the shoji stretching beneath his sprawled fingers while he waited, panting on air he hadn’t realized he was missing.
The youkai slowly stopped moving. Her blue kimono turned from blue to purple, black eyes wet and shiny when her head settled against a bookcase, mouth low and roving in a crawl. Take a good look at me, he thought angrily. She extended a rusted palm toward him, not unlike the maple leaves outside that he’d trampled over along the rocks, tannin turning the standing water brown and murky -- but there was nothing for her to offer him. No, wait -- she was asking of him.
Uruhime pulled away to stand guard. His teeth chattered, but he wasn’t cold in the least. Nervous. So very nervous.
“Mistress was sick. Something wrong with her heart. She walked when they told her not to. She stumbled. I tried to catch the mistress. I wasn’t fast enough. But she lived! I was sorry and left the house, but. I missed her. I went back. Her husband told me, Leave. Don’t return. So I left. I obeyed. I come here instead. Times were better here. They say mistress won’t walk anymore. I ask for a noose. No one listens.”
Natori swallowed thickly, tried not to get lost in the mighty flow she was building. “No, you pushed her down the stairs because you were angry.”
The youkai smiled, teeth stretching out of her mouth like exploding ribs. She wasn’t an Amanojaku at all. Just another old woman with hands made for strangling, of which exorcists these days saw plenty of.
“You pushed her,” he repeated. The floor was starting to feel spongy under his feet -- the wards on his skin had been useless after all. “What, did your masters grow bored of you? Were you hoping her death would break your vow?”
“A noose,” she repeated. “For me. You similar, but stupid. Stupid exorcists.”
Hiiragi’s foot swept forward and he strung up an arm, words falling out of his mouth for ending, for finishing.
The paper shot off his arm like a snapped rubbed band -- the trap closed with a sound like breaking rock and old tatami blew up in a cacophony of dust and straw. The shiki turned gray and hazy, withdrawing into herself like a drying flower. The frames in the room caught the retractions and it was like having a dozen small, canvased soft boxes aimed on him all at once. Natori shielded his eyes.
And then -- the light and the air in his lungs went out of the room with her.
The world could stop spinning on its axis anytime now, he thought desperately. I am not weak. Not anymore.
Maybe an idiot. Who can I believe?
“Natori-sama,” Uruhime said. She stood in front of him, lips parting again. She touched his shoulder. “Natori-sama.”
“Yes,” he said tiredly. He took his glasses off. Folded them. “I heard you.”
“You should stay still. That spell won’t disperse especially fast. I’m afraid it’s not my specialty.”
“That’s fine -- let’s just -- go outside, then.” But he couldn’t bring himself to move.
“Was she lying?” he asked abruptly. He snapped his mouth shut.
Uruhime scanned his face. She had been the first to pledge her loyalty, an unexpected gift Natori had been given and hadn’t known how to treat at the time. Now, it’s like being fourteen again, and waking up in agitation in the night because his bones were growing, stretching skin and muscle and ruining his clothes over and over -- the worst being when he’d gone through three different shoe sizes in a year, how much his father had hated pressing money into his hands.
He could only work with what he was given or that which he took. There was never a right way to begin with. Regret was a strange thing. Wasn't he getting better at uncovering the path that worked for everyone?
“I do not know,” Uruhime said.
Outside, the air was a relief. His ears popped and the fog lifted, and he was reminded of the early morning rush of a commute, pulling out of a tunnel from the station into sudden thundering brightness.
“Master,” Sasago said. “I’m glad you are unhurt.”
“His wounds are unclear to us, Sasago. Natori -- will you be alright?” Hiiragi stared up at him, mask slightly askew from her earlier acrobatics. He reached out and straightened it, knuckles catching against her hair, a shade like grass that had been compacted and weathered by a season of heavy snow.
“Yes,” he lied. “No.” He shoved his hands in his coat pockets to remove the feeling. “I think I’ll collect the rest of the payment tomorrow. That was -- not our best performance.”
She nodded, seemingly satisfied. For now, she drew a cloth from her pocket and wiped her blade clean, folding up the bloodied side like a well-packed envelope. He knew she’d question him later, and he wouldn’t tell her anything she didn’t need to know.
A noose, he realized that night, had burned their necks before.
“Did it do anything to you?”
“Well, it yelled at me quite a bit. I’m afraid to say your old house became a bit of a... battleground.”
“That’s no matter.” Kanako-san’s smile was wry. He leaned out over the railing, hand curved along the back of his neck, the other tapping ashes into a bush. “She did have a very particular sounding voice. It was nice to listen to, sometimes.”
Nice? Natori hoped his smile was friendly, because his skin was icing over again.
“Here’s what I promised. Thank you for taking care of the matter. It was... embarrassing to be unable to solve it myself.”
Natori slipped the yen bills in his wallet. Checks were easier for filing and tax season and why the old folks thought this was more official only made him convinced they watched mafia movies in their spare time. He hated going to the bank. “I understand. Sometimes a third party is a necessity.”
“What? No, not that... she was my wife’s shiki -- she went out of control when she refused to fulfill a silly bargain my wife had made with it. It was completely out of bounds.” Promises, as he’d learned from one Natsume Takashi over a year ago, were not so easily broken. Oaths, on the other hand, required a particular kind of cruel intention to pawn off again.
He smiled so sharply he thought he might puncture his own lip. “And this wasn’t important for me to know because...?”
Kanako’s friendliness left him. He angled his head to blow the smoke far off, but the wind picked up and blew it back in their faces instead. Natori thought he might much like to break something -- fists in a locker as a school boy were reserved for the students who did sports. Throwing rocks, cutting his fingers on paper like taking notes or thumbing through a dictionary to the right definition of a thing; he was definitely due to find a hobby that relieved him and didn’t enable whatever -- whatever this weight was that dogged after him, repeatedly, time and again. He couldn’t be satisfied with anything less than a clean break. It would haunt him.
And things were breaking all the time.
“You’re replaceable, Natori-san. Anyone could have done it. I just happened to think of you because I knew you wouldn’t mess it up. Regardless, the youkai was causing trouble and couldn’t be left alone anymore. My wife may never walk again. You didn’t need to know more than that. Amano-san was promised freedom before our times were up; she couldn’t accept that she was wanted for longer.” She wanted to die before her master. Did she hope she’d see her again? Did she regret her servitude?
He sighed. Youkai were tools, bow strings meant for drawing and releasing. He never liked these games of words.
“It would be quite ugly if word of this got out. I’ll be keeping my lips sealed on the matter. However, you might consider being more charitable with your information. If I were to wind up in the hospital you’d have a very hard time explaining that at next month’s meeting.”
“Ridiculous. Natori Shuuichi has no stunt doubles. If the money’s so dirty to you, give it back then.”
“Can’t.” He put his best smile on, teeth white and glowing in puddles below them. “I need it for my next counseling session, where I’ll have to vent about you.”
Kanako-san laughed, one arm on the railing, holding them both in place like mirror pins. “You already have plenty of enemies, Natori-san. You really want to make another for such a stupid reason?”
“Businesses such as ours are built on trust. Why should I risk my neck if you’re not even going to throw me a bone? You gave me an unnecessary job, because you didn’t feel like cleaning it up.”
“I think you’re starting to sympathize with them.” He threw his chin at Natori like a challenge. Hiiragi stepped out of his shadow and he knew very well where that gaze would land.
Natori took on a wider stance. The rain was only a whisper of what it had been the day before. What remained of the hydrangeas were drowned and busted by the torrential force. “As I said -- it’s very impolite to withhold information. I don’t believe we’ll be doing business in the future, Kanako-san. It’s a good thing, I suppose, that your wife was retiring after all, since your sight is fading too.”
He flinched away under the gazebo’s roof. That too, was satisfying, and brought with it its own complications he was in no interest to dissect.
“Who’s that boy you bring to meetings with you? Is he a cousin? I hear he’s as powerful as the Matoba’s head, maybe more so--”
Behind him: the sound of steel sliding against steel, a single step of a sandal on poured cement, paper burning as magnetic forces in his back pockets, threatening to loosen. He may have to someday. Could he do it? He wouldn’t have a choice. He wouldn’t ever be sorry for it.
“Stay your hand, Hiiragi,” he murmured. She melted back into shadow, and so too did Kanako-san, who broke along the flower strewn path with a stride not dissimilar to his own. Cowardice took many shapes, after all; it was just ugly when he was able to recognize them in himself. Like this, as he shrunk smaller and smaller, the fight went out of him, until he was feeling seventeen and wiped out again, in desperate need of a nap.
“Don’t call on me again!” he called out. On the bench behind him, something forgotten: an umbrella. I hope it dumps on you, he seethed.
(Of course, he wasn’t a weather man. It didn’t. The forecast had called for wind, after all.)
Kanako-san never looked back. And that was fine. Natori was beginning to prefer it.
Matoba-clan meetings were where the newcomers flooded for potential sponsorship. The kind of apprentice Natori wanted would never be found in such a disingenuous place though, so attendance was relegated to showing his face, mingling, remembering names of his enemies, and sometimes prowling the garden (if one were so lucky they might catch a watercolor impression of the infamous clan head, who was usually too busy anyway to reciprocate any of the greetings from his guests and spent his time being as unfriendly and dismal as possible) -- eating cake was optional.
The catering this time was an overblown collection of pastries and fruit. Natori thought perhaps that Matoba-sama was getting skimpy with the strong drinks again, though -- his events always seemed to be devoid of the tiny crackers he snuck as a child. Was he watching his waistline or something? Was their funding running low? He just didn’t know.
“Natori-san, good to see you this evening.”
He swiveled and tucked his hands in his pocket, as if he wasn’t tempted by a dangerously small cup of chocolate pudding. He'd already had an early dinner anyway. “Nanase-san,” he greeted cheerfully. “Always a pleasure.”
“No need to put on airs with me.” She waved her hand and stopped several feet away, gaze resting on Hiiragi, then returning to his face. “I noticed you’ve been turning in a number of client complaints recently.”
The list, he thought gleefully, gets checked after all.
“Oh? Surely mine are far at the bottom of things worth attending to.” However that worked. Matoba-clan surely had some noses in all the local police departments. How they scraped together evidence for getting someone arrested for attempted murder or extortion with invisible monsters was the true mystery. He really didn’t want to know. He just wanted to maroon them from getting at anyone else. And he was forever hating himself for the one time he didn't make Natsume hide his face completely.
“Not at all,” she assured. Nanase took a glass of water, speared a mandarin slice with a toothpick. “It would be unfortunate for everyone if exorcists with such ugly tactics started scaring away some more green beginners. It’s been awfully dull around here lately because of it.” Natori felt the beginning of an eye twitch coming on. Right. Because Matoba-clan didn’t have more estates than they knew what to do with, a justifiably angry monster after an eyeball once a month, or a clan head who liked sniffing around his favorite high school student’s forest.
I can’t believe anyone actually follows up on these.
“Well,” he yielded, “I may have employed some ugly tactics myself. You may dismiss it.”
Nanase laughed. “Oh? That’s good. I get tired of sending hate mail. Feels petty.” It is petty.
“Speaking of,” she continued, hand flicking over the trash, “when are you going to host a meeting? I haven’t been to a Natori house for well over thirty years at this point. I’m old, you know.” Another thirty years, he thought, the Matoba’s would surely have found the solution for gaining immortality, Nanase would take over the Matoba clan by principle, and the lizard on his body would have offed him just before he had the pleasure of witnessing such success. No, he wasn’t interested in hosting any parties unless it was for a funeral.
“Never,” he deadpanned, then stuck the corner of the straw in his mouth and pulled away again, useless soda water bubbling against his gums. “--Unless everyone likes premiere events. Plenty of those I could host. Maybe we could all stand around in little party hats and sample cocktails. I don’t know how conducive that would be for this crowd though.”
“Refreshing for some, maybe.” Nanase just smiled. She wasn’t pleasant, but tolerable, he thought wearily. If she wasn’t Matoba’s right hand, maybe she’d have been one of the few who could understand him. Takuma-san and her had had an amiable relationship if the few times he caught them talking was anything to go by, but it was hard to ever know for sure when clansmen played musical chairs with their personas, when everyone had an ulterior motive steering their invisible barbs.
Honest people could never survive the business. That was, he was realizing, the core of his unhappiness.
“You’re a very efficient multi-tasker, Natori. It’s truly admirable. If you ever get bored with doing it yourself, Matoba-clan would still take you.” Beside him, Hiiragi stood motionless. Off me now, please.
“Ahaha. Don’t tease me, Nanase-san! Everyone knows one person doesn’t make a house.”
She grinned, glasses following the upward motion. “Well, these are interesting times to be an exorcist. No one can ignore that some less desirable connections might be needed to keep bloodlines alive.”
He kept his expression as grim as possible. “I am flattered that you thought to remind me about that, but I don’t think we have any chemistry at all. That’s cradle robbery in a sense, you know?”
Nanase’s laughter turned the heads of several exorcists. He grinned in turn, hoping they’d pass it of as nothing relevant to their interests -- then strategically removed himself from the middle of the snack table. Hiiragi took the cue and escorted herself to the closest door, sliding it back in the grooves with both arms. Pink sunlight streamed through, carrying with it cold air that wrapped around his ankles and passed between table legs.
“Is that what Matoba-clan’s been hosting so much for lately? Fishing for matches?” He took a sip of his drink. “You haven’t picked a wife for the head yet?” Why are you even talking to me again?
“Oh, do you have someone in mind? It would make my job easier.”
“No.” He let his expression turn sorrowful. “But let me know when you do. I’ll send her my condolences.”
She scoffed. “Stop it.”
He did.
He nearly trod over one Matoba Seiji’s waylaid foot on his rush out the door, though.
A week later found him sharing drinks with his favorite instigator. It was the only acceptable way to end the week. Outside, Hiiragi was sitting on a bench, people watching.
“-an Amanojako,” Natsume muttered. He unwound the scarf from around his neck, almost dragging the end of it though the ring of water on the table. Glasses clinked at the bar stool counter and Natori stretched his legs out in the booth, enjoying how good it felt to sink into rubbery cushions. Posh bars with co-workers got stale, sometimes. “--I’ve heard about them. I don’t think I’ve met one though. Have we, Nyanko-sensei?”
“They sparked wars in old times,” the cat drawled from an enormous duffel bag, “by feeding into human fears. You’d be a great snack for something like that, Natsume. Chances are, if you ever met one, you’d be dead.”
From house to house to infinite houses -- the extended family on Natsume’s father’s side seemed well-suited to making monsters.
It was very fortunate that the youkai sympathizer before him also extended his sympathies to infamous actors with a shaky moral compass.
Natsume caught the straw in his mouth and frowned sternly, pushing the soda water away again. “That’s what you are here for,” he muttered accusingly, hand shoving down on the rattling bag like a heavy book. “Don’t say such horrible things in front of Natori-san.”
He laughed. “No no, I’m the one who brought up work. Sorry about that. How’s school? How’s your friends? Ah -- the human ones?”
Natsume’s silver hair caught the last remaining bits of afternoon light turning him gray -- not unlike soft boxes in a house with tatami mats -- but he smiled, warm and open, green eyes less afraid to linger on Natori’s face than they used to. The restaurant lights were surely a place he could set everything aside, just for a while, make an attempt at normal human conversation. Like this, he could believe he might have something good left to offer.
Something had begun weighing on his shoulders that didn’t used to exist. It just took him a while to recognize the feeling.
Maybe it would keep him from stumbling off the path he so desperately wanted to take.
“They’re good. A group of us are going to try fly fishing on Sunday. I don’t know how that will work -- Nishimura claims to have done it before, but somehow Kitamoto’s the only one with the supplies -- Tanuma and I already agreed to just bring homework.”
“Do you need a chaperone?”
“What? No.” Natsume’s smile was dubious, then suspicious. He leaned in an inch. “Do you... know how to fly fish?”
“No. Sounds fun though.” Natsume sighed, put upon and completely, utterly normal. Glowing eyes watched Natori from under a half-drawn zipper, knowing, not saying anything.
In spite of it, Natori felt warm. "You'll have to invite me along one of these days. We could make a day of it."
"Okay," Natsume said. He stroked the cat's head under the table.
On Sunday, Natori slept.
Prompt: 6. The heart its own rough animal.
Fandom: Natsume Yuujinchou
Characters/pairing: Natori, Hiiragi, Natsume
Rating: GEN :D exorcists are being ugly tho
Word Count: 5439
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“The youkai isn’t particularly strong, but it is... rather witty.”
Natori scraped his thumb against the porch railing, watched the green paint peel up over the top of a nail. Rain came down heavily on the roof, running off along the gutter and metal spines like a low gray cloud. He was grateful he’d remembered his umbrella after leaving the station to find water racing down the steps. Slipping was an old cautionary tale, but never one that lingered on his list for very long. “How so? It must have been troublesome if others are declining it.”
Kanoko-san’s look was dirty, directed more at the yard than the blooming hydrangea’s below them, snapped stems victim to wandering deer. A nice day for some comeuppance, he thought irately. Would that others in the business stopped thinking him so shallow, he wouldn’t be stuck with such compromising cases. Would that he didn’t have a nose for knowing a winning case when he found one, he might be off in a corner reading a book.
“It feeds off of emotion. The more someone reacts to it, the bigger the fuss it’ll kick up.”
“Any particular...?”
The exorcist shook his head, looking chagrined. He tugged the tie away from his neck and swiveled back to face Natori, gray hair made dull and peppery by the years piling on. Corporations suck, he’d heard time and time again -- acting was the only lucky straw Natori had drawn in life that let him avoid that grave.
“Not as anyone in my family is aware of. Spells for warding on the mind may be effective. No one dared to try when we were met with such catastrophe the first time.”
“Your wife is...” he started hesitantly.
“--Recovering. I don’t think she’ll be chancing it with stairs anytime soon.”
Natori bowed his head. “Fair enough. I’ll take care of it. Because of the short notice, I would like half the payment now.”
Kanako-san laughed. His body turned with his head, bull-like, locked into one plane of looking. “What? Worried I’ll cheat you?”
“Just a precaution. It shouldn’t be so hard to procure half if you think this will be easy for someone of my caliber.”
Kanoko-san smiled and pulled his wallet from his coat pocket, along with a pack of cigarettes and a compact brush. Natori’s eyes caught on it, flitted away again, following rain water, a spider’s thread waving across thick wet grass and back again. “It’s not. I know you’re the honest sort, Natori-san.”
“That’s awfully generous of you.”
“Well, mostly good things are said about you these days, even with that career of yours. It’s good to see old family names like yours in the business. Not many of us left who can maintain them anymore.”
The thought was sobering and not much else. Natori didn’t want to know what ignorant circle of friends he kept. “It is very lucky for me than that someone shared with you the news.”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
Kanako-san’s smile was the kind one cut their necks on. Natori bowed out of the gazebo and hoped he toppled, too.
“It sounds simple, which is why I’m unsure--”
“You should be,” Uruhime interrupted. She paced in front of the sofa, hair coiling and slackening like static had animated it. The TV ran softly in the background, advertisements much too cheerful and mundane for the anxiety bounding off the walls like rubber balls. He had only wanted to see the weather, which foretasted heavy winds, rain, rain again-- “Amanojaku are notorious for torturing their prey. It’s shocking to think one would ever make them their shiki.”
He removed his watch and laid it on the coffee table, absently rubbing away the pink indent. “What’s so dangerous? Is it going to make me think myself to death?”
“It will read your heart. And then betray you with it.”
“Don’t you do that frequently?”
“And it is a dark place, well suited for possession by a beast.” He clutched his chest in defense, feigning pain.
“Well,” he said, “as long as it doesn’t shove me down a flight of stairs after the fact.”
Uruhime stared at him, mouth pulled flat and unwavering. Natori twitched and the button on his shirt sleeve slipped out between two fingers. He tried again, more successful, and rolled the gray fabric up to his bicep. The rest he’d already managed, and that cold air was unpleasant against his chest, making him tense. Heating was expensive and he would cut corners where he could.
The couch dipped and Hiiragi stretched her legs out beside him.
“Well?” he asked. “You won’t need a leg too, will you?”
“No.” The lizard, of course, was quite content to linger along the right one.
Hiiragi pulled a familiar brush from her sleeve. It was a motion as traditional and recognizable as films with samurai; items of importance kept in articles of clothing, gently bequeathed in an iron sleeve. He knew, because she’d told him, a shorter blade was tucked just above her heart. Not that he intended to reach for it ever -- good to know, regardless, if either of them had need of it. “This is just a precaution,” she continued. “I am unsure as to how effective it will be with her powers.”
“Not worried,” he muttered. They were collectively making him nervous. Were they nervous?
Off to his side, Sasago swiveled her head. “It’s a youkai that only enjoys the hearts of humans. We will be safe from its intent, master. You must only focus on yourself.”
He tilted his head to see her better. “Is there... something wrong with yours?”
“It’s not particularly soft,” she yielded. “Humans have much more variances with their dreams. It’s what makes them delicious, I’ve heard.”
Or it could just be you. Sasago scowled, turning toward the balcony door and slipping a hand between the blinds. She had been trying to reassure him after all. Dunce, he thought harshly at himself.
He sighed theatrically, and Hiiragi’s brush raised off his skin like she’d only been scrawling a note, not a ward, not the very last means of defense. She tipped her face back and away, and the smile on her mask didn’t line up with the stiffness in her arms, though perhaps the single staring eye could flay him alive one of these days, willing that he especially struck a nerve. He stared too long and looked away again, eyes catching the second best source of light in the room. His plants were in desperate need of water in the window. He’d remember to move them to the balcony before he left again.
“Natori, this would be easier if you were still.”
“Apologies, Hiiragi.”
Ink against his skin always made him shiver. Must have been the magic of a promise making him shy away. He didn’t, after all, like to promise anything before he believed he could procure it. Shiki were different. They were absolutes, as sturdy as law. Except for when they weren’t. But those weren’t the kind that served him.
“We should find out more. I don’t recall feeling his presence before.”
“No.” He nodded off. “He was a stranger to me, too.”
“How nice of him to leave the door unlocked.”
“A trick? He gave you keys.”
Natori jingled the useless things in his pocket. “Well, makes sense that it would be expecting us.”
“Sasago will examine the courtyard in the event the target attempts to leave. Hiiragi and I will accompany you inside.” Uruhime laid her hand over the wood paneling. The door slid silently on it’s wooden wheels as if someone had greased it only hours before; a vacuum of gray air rushed out under the eaves, carrying the stale smell of dust and mothballs -- he wrinkled his nose, but Uruhime looked unfazed. Kanako-san never said how old this estate was, did he?
The house was beautiful. It was small and traditional with thatched roofs and an overgrown garden sprawling in the front courtyard. Ivy climbed the neighbor’s fence and choked a monstrous maple, clambering among the branches like holiday tinsel. Rain dripped down and made puddles among the rock path he followed to the porch, the quiet plink methodical and soft. The walk over had been pleasant. It had been hard to steel himself in the face of it, but now he had to measure up.
Gourd princess, he thought wantonly, staring at the sea spun green above. I still like that choice.
“Be cautious, all of you,” he advised. “If you find anything, return to me and we’ll approach it together.”
Sasago nodded and vanished around the side of the building. He swiveled back to Uruhime and she stepped inside, black hair calm and still against the back of her neck. Nothing yet.
“Natori-sama,” Hiiragi murmured. She stood to her full height, bottom of her mask just reaching his elbow. “I will be closer than usual for this case.”
He stepped into the empty genkan without a word, her blade following on his heels.
The youkai was a mean one. It insulted him, slipping between floorboards and calling out to him, making the skin rise on the back of his neck. Mirrors in the bathroom were smashed, and it was good that he’d learned long ago that youkai were not so stupid as to not realize a weapon when it showed itself. He had no desire for a battle scar.
If you were to slip free, find someone such as Natsume--
His heart might actually stop. The results would be a disaster. He wouldn't hesitate here.
“It’s not making this easy,” he growled. Paper dolls curled up and around his arm like a shield -- not that they could guard him from an attack like this, but he’d strike at her if she slowed. Down the hall, Uruhime slammed a brick into a wall. Laughter sounded from another room.
“A curiosity comes into my home looking for blood and finding nothing to draw it from. When he has nothing to hold onto or carry, will he cup the collective hands of others? A noose!! A noose is a catch all!! Do you not have one? Paper? No tether, no connection. You’ll blow over from a stiff wind.”
“I don’t believe the sealing jar will be necessary,” Hiiragi murmured. Right. The moment he’d tried to lay down a circle a gust nearly threw him out the kitchen window. To think he’d lost his favorite brush from not showing enough steel. The clerk at the art supply store was going to be on a first name basis with him soon.
“Me neither,” he muttered.
“Your fingers don’t bleed, but their’s will! No safety if you don’t carry the crux. No strength or temperament to break the mold. Ties bind, boy -- the stories will tell you it is so.”
You can’t keep anyone safe if you lack strength, she whispered. It was a taunt like breaking glass, pulled from the bottom of a fumigating jar; he nearly snapped his own neck when he turned, head throbbing, searching along the grain of the floor for her presence.
He hated youkai who thought they could win.
A wooden door slammed flat and Uruhime strode forth successfully, a cackling woman locked in her hair like a bug, smaller and more vulnerable than the fuss she kicked up. Uruhime was not his oldest companion for nothing; under the calmness, he knew her skin was boiling as hot as his.
“I’ll strangle you before another word leaves you,” she growled.
“Weak boy, always losing, a neck for a knife. It’s a thin one too, isn’t it?? Classless, lacking grace. Thin muscle, pulled apart too early, always too early. Do you have a noose?”
“It is a good thing,” he said morosely, “that I don’t.”
Her eyes fell shut. “You fear for me. Kind, but stupid. Always stupid ones that come.”
In the end, Hiiragi’s sword cut through kimono as neatly as it did everything else.
Triumph flooded brilliantly through him, so quick and violently different from the emotion brought forth earlier that he shook. A hand on the wall kept him upright, the shoji stretching beneath his sprawled fingers while he waited, panting on air he hadn’t realized he was missing.
The youkai slowly stopped moving. Her blue kimono turned from blue to purple, black eyes wet and shiny when her head settled against a bookcase, mouth low and roving in a crawl. Take a good look at me, he thought angrily. She extended a rusted palm toward him, not unlike the maple leaves outside that he’d trampled over along the rocks, tannin turning the standing water brown and murky -- but there was nothing for her to offer him. No, wait -- she was asking of him.
Uruhime pulled away to stand guard. His teeth chattered, but he wasn’t cold in the least. Nervous. So very nervous.
“Mistress was sick. Something wrong with her heart. She walked when they told her not to. She stumbled. I tried to catch the mistress. I wasn’t fast enough. But she lived! I was sorry and left the house, but. I missed her. I went back. Her husband told me, Leave. Don’t return. So I left. I obeyed. I come here instead. Times were better here. They say mistress won’t walk anymore. I ask for a noose. No one listens.”
Natori swallowed thickly, tried not to get lost in the mighty flow she was building. “No, you pushed her down the stairs because you were angry.”
The youkai smiled, teeth stretching out of her mouth like exploding ribs. She wasn’t an Amanojaku at all. Just another old woman with hands made for strangling, of which exorcists these days saw plenty of.
“You pushed her,” he repeated. The floor was starting to feel spongy under his feet -- the wards on his skin had been useless after all. “What, did your masters grow bored of you? Were you hoping her death would break your vow?”
“A noose,” she repeated. “For me. You similar, but stupid. Stupid exorcists.”
Hiiragi’s foot swept forward and he strung up an arm, words falling out of his mouth for ending, for finishing.
The paper shot off his arm like a snapped rubbed band -- the trap closed with a sound like breaking rock and old tatami blew up in a cacophony of dust and straw. The shiki turned gray and hazy, withdrawing into herself like a drying flower. The frames in the room caught the retractions and it was like having a dozen small, canvased soft boxes aimed on him all at once. Natori shielded his eyes.
And then -- the light and the air in his lungs went out of the room with her.
The world could stop spinning on its axis anytime now, he thought desperately. I am not weak. Not anymore.
Maybe an idiot. Who can I believe?
“Natori-sama,” Uruhime said. She stood in front of him, lips parting again. She touched his shoulder. “Natori-sama.”
“Yes,” he said tiredly. He took his glasses off. Folded them. “I heard you.”
“You should stay still. That spell won’t disperse especially fast. I’m afraid it’s not my specialty.”
“That’s fine -- let’s just -- go outside, then.” But he couldn’t bring himself to move.
“Was she lying?” he asked abruptly. He snapped his mouth shut.
Uruhime scanned his face. She had been the first to pledge her loyalty, an unexpected gift Natori had been given and hadn’t known how to treat at the time. Now, it’s like being fourteen again, and waking up in agitation in the night because his bones were growing, stretching skin and muscle and ruining his clothes over and over -- the worst being when he’d gone through three different shoe sizes in a year, how much his father had hated pressing money into his hands.
He could only work with what he was given or that which he took. There was never a right way to begin with. Regret was a strange thing. Wasn't he getting better at uncovering the path that worked for everyone?
“I do not know,” Uruhime said.
Outside, the air was a relief. His ears popped and the fog lifted, and he was reminded of the early morning rush of a commute, pulling out of a tunnel from the station into sudden thundering brightness.
“Master,” Sasago said. “I’m glad you are unhurt.”
“His wounds are unclear to us, Sasago. Natori -- will you be alright?” Hiiragi stared up at him, mask slightly askew from her earlier acrobatics. He reached out and straightened it, knuckles catching against her hair, a shade like grass that had been compacted and weathered by a season of heavy snow.
“Yes,” he lied. “No.” He shoved his hands in his coat pockets to remove the feeling. “I think I’ll collect the rest of the payment tomorrow. That was -- not our best performance.”
She nodded, seemingly satisfied. For now, she drew a cloth from her pocket and wiped her blade clean, folding up the bloodied side like a well-packed envelope. He knew she’d question him later, and he wouldn’t tell her anything she didn’t need to know.
A noose, he realized that night, had burned their necks before.
“Did it do anything to you?”
“Well, it yelled at me quite a bit. I’m afraid to say your old house became a bit of a... battleground.”
“That’s no matter.” Kanako-san’s smile was wry. He leaned out over the railing, hand curved along the back of his neck, the other tapping ashes into a bush. “She did have a very particular sounding voice. It was nice to listen to, sometimes.”
Nice? Natori hoped his smile was friendly, because his skin was icing over again.
“Here’s what I promised. Thank you for taking care of the matter. It was... embarrassing to be unable to solve it myself.”
Natori slipped the yen bills in his wallet. Checks were easier for filing and tax season and why the old folks thought this was more official only made him convinced they watched mafia movies in their spare time. He hated going to the bank. “I understand. Sometimes a third party is a necessity.”
“What? No, not that... she was my wife’s shiki -- she went out of control when she refused to fulfill a silly bargain my wife had made with it. It was completely out of bounds.” Promises, as he’d learned from one Natsume Takashi over a year ago, were not so easily broken. Oaths, on the other hand, required a particular kind of cruel intention to pawn off again.
He smiled so sharply he thought he might puncture his own lip. “And this wasn’t important for me to know because...?”
Kanako’s friendliness left him. He angled his head to blow the smoke far off, but the wind picked up and blew it back in their faces instead. Natori thought he might much like to break something -- fists in a locker as a school boy were reserved for the students who did sports. Throwing rocks, cutting his fingers on paper like taking notes or thumbing through a dictionary to the right definition of a thing; he was definitely due to find a hobby that relieved him and didn’t enable whatever -- whatever this weight was that dogged after him, repeatedly, time and again. He couldn’t be satisfied with anything less than a clean break. It would haunt him.
And things were breaking all the time.
“You’re replaceable, Natori-san. Anyone could have done it. I just happened to think of you because I knew you wouldn’t mess it up. Regardless, the youkai was causing trouble and couldn’t be left alone anymore. My wife may never walk again. You didn’t need to know more than that. Amano-san was promised freedom before our times were up; she couldn’t accept that she was wanted for longer.” She wanted to die before her master. Did she hope she’d see her again? Did she regret her servitude?
He sighed. Youkai were tools, bow strings meant for drawing and releasing. He never liked these games of words.
“It would be quite ugly if word of this got out. I’ll be keeping my lips sealed on the matter. However, you might consider being more charitable with your information. If I were to wind up in the hospital you’d have a very hard time explaining that at next month’s meeting.”
“Ridiculous. Natori Shuuichi has no stunt doubles. If the money’s so dirty to you, give it back then.”
“Can’t.” He put his best smile on, teeth white and glowing in puddles below them. “I need it for my next counseling session, where I’ll have to vent about you.”
Kanako-san laughed, one arm on the railing, holding them both in place like mirror pins. “You already have plenty of enemies, Natori-san. You really want to make another for such a stupid reason?”
“Businesses such as ours are built on trust. Why should I risk my neck if you’re not even going to throw me a bone? You gave me an unnecessary job, because you didn’t feel like cleaning it up.”
“I think you’re starting to sympathize with them.” He threw his chin at Natori like a challenge. Hiiragi stepped out of his shadow and he knew very well where that gaze would land.
Natori took on a wider stance. The rain was only a whisper of what it had been the day before. What remained of the hydrangeas were drowned and busted by the torrential force. “As I said -- it’s very impolite to withhold information. I don’t believe we’ll be doing business in the future, Kanako-san. It’s a good thing, I suppose, that your wife was retiring after all, since your sight is fading too.”
He flinched away under the gazebo’s roof. That too, was satisfying, and brought with it its own complications he was in no interest to dissect.
“Who’s that boy you bring to meetings with you? Is he a cousin? I hear he’s as powerful as the Matoba’s head, maybe more so--”
Behind him: the sound of steel sliding against steel, a single step of a sandal on poured cement, paper burning as magnetic forces in his back pockets, threatening to loosen. He may have to someday. Could he do it? He wouldn’t have a choice. He wouldn’t ever be sorry for it.
“Stay your hand, Hiiragi,” he murmured. She melted back into shadow, and so too did Kanako-san, who broke along the flower strewn path with a stride not dissimilar to his own. Cowardice took many shapes, after all; it was just ugly when he was able to recognize them in himself. Like this, as he shrunk smaller and smaller, the fight went out of him, until he was feeling seventeen and wiped out again, in desperate need of a nap.
“Don’t call on me again!” he called out. On the bench behind him, something forgotten: an umbrella. I hope it dumps on you, he seethed.
(Of course, he wasn’t a weather man. It didn’t. The forecast had called for wind, after all.)
Kanako-san never looked back. And that was fine. Natori was beginning to prefer it.
Matoba-clan meetings were where the newcomers flooded for potential sponsorship. The kind of apprentice Natori wanted would never be found in such a disingenuous place though, so attendance was relegated to showing his face, mingling, remembering names of his enemies, and sometimes prowling the garden (if one were so lucky they might catch a watercolor impression of the infamous clan head, who was usually too busy anyway to reciprocate any of the greetings from his guests and spent his time being as unfriendly and dismal as possible) -- eating cake was optional.
The catering this time was an overblown collection of pastries and fruit. Natori thought perhaps that Matoba-sama was getting skimpy with the strong drinks again, though -- his events always seemed to be devoid of the tiny crackers he snuck as a child. Was he watching his waistline or something? Was their funding running low? He just didn’t know.
“Natori-san, good to see you this evening.”
He swiveled and tucked his hands in his pocket, as if he wasn’t tempted by a dangerously small cup of chocolate pudding. He'd already had an early dinner anyway. “Nanase-san,” he greeted cheerfully. “Always a pleasure.”
“No need to put on airs with me.” She waved her hand and stopped several feet away, gaze resting on Hiiragi, then returning to his face. “I noticed you’ve been turning in a number of client complaints recently.”
The list, he thought gleefully, gets checked after all.
“Oh? Surely mine are far at the bottom of things worth attending to.” However that worked. Matoba-clan surely had some noses in all the local police departments. How they scraped together evidence for getting someone arrested for attempted murder or extortion with invisible monsters was the true mystery. He really didn’t want to know. He just wanted to maroon them from getting at anyone else. And he was forever hating himself for the one time he didn't make Natsume hide his face completely.
“Not at all,” she assured. Nanase took a glass of water, speared a mandarin slice with a toothpick. “It would be unfortunate for everyone if exorcists with such ugly tactics started scaring away some more green beginners. It’s been awfully dull around here lately because of it.” Natori felt the beginning of an eye twitch coming on. Right. Because Matoba-clan didn’t have more estates than they knew what to do with, a justifiably angry monster after an eyeball once a month, or a clan head who liked sniffing around his favorite high school student’s forest.
I can’t believe anyone actually follows up on these.
“Well,” he yielded, “I may have employed some ugly tactics myself. You may dismiss it.”
Nanase laughed. “Oh? That’s good. I get tired of sending hate mail. Feels petty.” It is petty.
“Speaking of,” she continued, hand flicking over the trash, “when are you going to host a meeting? I haven’t been to a Natori house for well over thirty years at this point. I’m old, you know.” Another thirty years, he thought, the Matoba’s would surely have found the solution for gaining immortality, Nanase would take over the Matoba clan by principle, and the lizard on his body would have offed him just before he had the pleasure of witnessing such success. No, he wasn’t interested in hosting any parties unless it was for a funeral.
“Never,” he deadpanned, then stuck the corner of the straw in his mouth and pulled away again, useless soda water bubbling against his gums. “--Unless everyone likes premiere events. Plenty of those I could host. Maybe we could all stand around in little party hats and sample cocktails. I don’t know how conducive that would be for this crowd though.”
“Refreshing for some, maybe.” Nanase just smiled. She wasn’t pleasant, but tolerable, he thought wearily. If she wasn’t Matoba’s right hand, maybe she’d have been one of the few who could understand him. Takuma-san and her had had an amiable relationship if the few times he caught them talking was anything to go by, but it was hard to ever know for sure when clansmen played musical chairs with their personas, when everyone had an ulterior motive steering their invisible barbs.
Honest people could never survive the business. That was, he was realizing, the core of his unhappiness.
“You’re a very efficient multi-tasker, Natori. It’s truly admirable. If you ever get bored with doing it yourself, Matoba-clan would still take you.” Beside him, Hiiragi stood motionless. Off me now, please.
“Ahaha. Don’t tease me, Nanase-san! Everyone knows one person doesn’t make a house.”
She grinned, glasses following the upward motion. “Well, these are interesting times to be an exorcist. No one can ignore that some less desirable connections might be needed to keep bloodlines alive.”
He kept his expression as grim as possible. “I am flattered that you thought to remind me about that, but I don’t think we have any chemistry at all. That’s cradle robbery in a sense, you know?”
Nanase’s laughter turned the heads of several exorcists. He grinned in turn, hoping they’d pass it of as nothing relevant to their interests -- then strategically removed himself from the middle of the snack table. Hiiragi took the cue and escorted herself to the closest door, sliding it back in the grooves with both arms. Pink sunlight streamed through, carrying with it cold air that wrapped around his ankles and passed between table legs.
“Is that what Matoba-clan’s been hosting so much for lately? Fishing for matches?” He took a sip of his drink. “You haven’t picked a wife for the head yet?” Why are you even talking to me again?
“Oh, do you have someone in mind? It would make my job easier.”
“No.” He let his expression turn sorrowful. “But let me know when you do. I’ll send her my condolences.”
She scoffed. “Stop it.”
He did.
He nearly trod over one Matoba Seiji’s waylaid foot on his rush out the door, though.
A week later found him sharing drinks with his favorite instigator. It was the only acceptable way to end the week. Outside, Hiiragi was sitting on a bench, people watching.
“-an Amanojako,” Natsume muttered. He unwound the scarf from around his neck, almost dragging the end of it though the ring of water on the table. Glasses clinked at the bar stool counter and Natori stretched his legs out in the booth, enjoying how good it felt to sink into rubbery cushions. Posh bars with co-workers got stale, sometimes. “--I’ve heard about them. I don’t think I’ve met one though. Have we, Nyanko-sensei?”
“They sparked wars in old times,” the cat drawled from an enormous duffel bag, “by feeding into human fears. You’d be a great snack for something like that, Natsume. Chances are, if you ever met one, you’d be dead.”
From house to house to infinite houses -- the extended family on Natsume’s father’s side seemed well-suited to making monsters.
It was very fortunate that the youkai sympathizer before him also extended his sympathies to infamous actors with a shaky moral compass.
Natsume caught the straw in his mouth and frowned sternly, pushing the soda water away again. “That’s what you are here for,” he muttered accusingly, hand shoving down on the rattling bag like a heavy book. “Don’t say such horrible things in front of Natori-san.”
He laughed. “No no, I’m the one who brought up work. Sorry about that. How’s school? How’s your friends? Ah -- the human ones?”
Natsume’s silver hair caught the last remaining bits of afternoon light turning him gray -- not unlike soft boxes in a house with tatami mats -- but he smiled, warm and open, green eyes less afraid to linger on Natori’s face than they used to. The restaurant lights were surely a place he could set everything aside, just for a while, make an attempt at normal human conversation. Like this, he could believe he might have something good left to offer.
Something had begun weighing on his shoulders that didn’t used to exist. It just took him a while to recognize the feeling.
Maybe it would keep him from stumbling off the path he so desperately wanted to take.
“They’re good. A group of us are going to try fly fishing on Sunday. I don’t know how that will work -- Nishimura claims to have done it before, but somehow Kitamoto’s the only one with the supplies -- Tanuma and I already agreed to just bring homework.”
“Do you need a chaperone?”
“What? No.” Natsume’s smile was dubious, then suspicious. He leaned in an inch. “Do you... know how to fly fish?”
“No. Sounds fun though.” Natsume sighed, put upon and completely, utterly normal. Glowing eyes watched Natori from under a half-drawn zipper, knowing, not saying anything.
In spite of it, Natori felt warm. "You'll have to invite me along one of these days. We could make a day of it."
"Okay," Natsume said. He stroked the cat's head under the table.
On Sunday, Natori slept.
