if you call out i will follow
Mar. 30th, 2019 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seleniasTitle: if you call out i will follow
Fandom: Natsume Yuujinchou
Characters/pairing: Natori/Matoba
Rating: all audiences
Word Count: 1688
-
Natori balked at the river, the swollen berth of it rising over the bank and hiding the trail, the one Seiji followed without issue, water halfway up his shins and climbing still. His shoes dangled from his hand by the laces, his bow extended off the line of his back like a curling tree branch. Seiji turned to look at him, expression mirroring his own disbelief.
“What? It’s only water.”
Is it, Natori wondered. The things that Seiji didn’t fear left him to reason too often. What was safe, what was foolish -- the too intermingled and he wasn’t going to let opportunities pass him by, but hadn’t Seiji said he didn’t know everything either?
“Are you afraid?” The sun burned Seiji at the edges; black turned red, made his face as pale as the chalk they’d passed between their hands in weeks past. Spells for capture. Spells for fighting. The bag at his side was heavy with ceramic, little brown jars with cork stoppers, and he’d wrapped them well enough so that when he moved sharply nothing rattled at all.
Natori stepped forward and unlaced his shoes, stuffed his socks down toward the toes. He felt buoyant without them. “No. There’s a bridge a quarter mile from here though, you know.”
“Shuuichi-san, if that’s the path you want to take, you’re welcome to try it.”
He didn’t.
The rocks were slick and cut into Natori’s feet with icy needles. He winced but waded along. Seiji cut through the grass silently. Pollen stuck to his pants as he passed through and vegetation dragged along the surface of the water, sent insects scattering. Sunset carried on over their heads. Time moved quicker. The stream held the color of sky, of ink, of copper flowing through. It was very cold. Natori’s ankles ached, but he followed obligingly, watching Seiji’s face turn toward the setting sun.
It was strange, he thought later, that Seiji never turned once to look at him.
Frost coated the bank in thin splotches. Where he had stepped, it had melted almost entirely. Natori turned to examine the trail of boot patterns behind them -- one set. Like he’d only ever been walking alone. Curious, he thought. Was he dreaming?
“You’re not very good at this. You seemed powerful enough to catch on, but what’s been said about your family is true then. You can’t see through me at all.”
Natori moistened his lips and finished the motion of stretching his arm. Then he reached for a charm.
The creature was faster, much faster than him. Natori yelped when he grabbed him by the wrist, nearly jerking him off his feet. The hand on his arm had kept him from stumbling off the path before, guided him over tree roots, lead him through patches of fog so thick he could hardly see ahead or behind him -- a kindness, which as of now only meant he was outmatched. He wouldn’t have taken an assignment outside his skillset.
“Relax. I look like a friend, don’t I?”
“It doesn’t matter what you look like when you’ve been lying to me.”
“That’s fair. I don’t suppose you’ll listen to anything I have to say then.” He paused, looked up under long dark lashes. “Unless you like stories?”
Natori glared. “Depends. What about it?”
“Exorcists used to help our kind too, you know. We have our wrongdoings, I’ll admit -- but so does your kind. Is there no one left who remembers?”
“There’s not many worth helping,” he bit back.
He hesitated. Broke that steady gaze to look skyward, for any sense of blue or vastness. Was he dreaming? The lack of anything human, the feeling of other-worldliness had persisted since the stream. Any sense of direction he’d tried to hold had left and was swallowed up with the undergrowth, the quiet flowing noises of water over rocks. Wherever civilization lived he could not sense an out.
“The person who’s face your wearing,” Natori kept his voice steady, began slowly, “was his family decent to youkai?”
“What’s it matter? You’re the one I wanted to meet.”
Oh, Natori realized. You’re lonely.
The youkai smiled. It had become more at ease in the forest, or maybe that was just the light spangling through, softening the day into a gentle obscurity. It should have been dark over an hour ago. No sunset spilled in here, just an eerie twilight.
He reached into his back pocket, drew paper between the cracks of his fingers, muscles wound tight. If not for the too wide smile, it was a decent pass at imitation. Natori didn’t want to ascertain whether that would make what came next easier or worse.
He remembered now: warnings about a youkai that lured its prey into the woods to lure a stronger pursuer. It wouldn’t work though. Natori worked alone.
The youkai’s pupils bloomed wide and dark. It stepped back and Natori stepped forward.
“I wanted someone to talk to. I’m sorry for lying.”
“I know,” Natori said, “--I had just wondered what you wanted.”
Seiji’s bony hand around his wrist was iron, holding him up -- much stronger than the youkai. The sky spun above them, fractals of green and blue, and Natori didn’t think his feet ever touched the ground.
Before them, a body shape turned fire cracker bright and scattered into pieces.
Even when Natori closed his eyes to blink away the light, the impression stuck against the back of his eyelids, imprinted haloes as random and speckled as leaf patterns. He could still smell burning hair. Whatever the creature had been, it had made him believe it was someone.
Maybe that was all it had wanted from the beginning.
“I was handling it--” Natori started.
“Strange, it looked like the other way around--”
“You didn’t have to exorcise it. It could have been sealed.”
Seiji was curiously quiet. Natori craned his head up, which was suddenly hard to keep level, Seiji’s mouth was drawn thin and the collar of his jacket was smeared with dirt -- his fingers had moved from his wrist to his elbow, just touching the edges of him like he was nervous he’d break if he let go. Not an unreasonable assessment. Looking at the ground made Natori stumble toward it.
Seiji’s bony arms swept under his own, slowly lowered him to the ground as his legs failed him. Natori folded onto his knees, palms pressing into wet grass, jeans soaking up the cold. Seiji’s breath was hot against his neck, black hair slipping over his own unruly waves and brushing the top of his ear. He smelled warm too, like he’d only just left his house.
“Shuuich-san.” Iron, Natori thought again. “I didn’t have a choice. Did you know that you’ve been missing for three days?”
Natori breathed slowly. Tried to wrap his mind around the gap in his memory, which grew fuzzier the more he thought about it. Had it really been that long? “Three days,” he repeated. So what -- he missed two days of school, wasn’t at home being interrogated or ignored by his father for another -- that was practically vacation. Except. He was very tired.
“Three.” Seiji leaned over his shoulder to scrutinize him. “Do you know how I found out?”
“I didn’t meet up with you, obviously.”
“Your shiki.”
“...Ah.”
Uruhime. Will you be angry with me?
Seiji’s hands left his shoulders. “Somehow I don’t think you mean to make so many poor choices, but here you are.” He shrugged his coat off and dropped it in Natori’s lap. Natori’s fingers sunk into the material automatically, kept the warm mass from sliding off his knees.
“You’re shivering,” he offered, when Natori didn’t move again. “Oh. Where are your glasses, Shuuichi-san?”
“Don’t know. It’s fine,” Natori said, soft. Seiji’s foot scuffed in the wet earth, then he crouched back down. He looked like a lamp against the swaying undergrowth around them, a pale face cloaked in green and gray. Or maybe everything was still spinning on its axis. Seiji’s eyes were dark like bruised fruit. Natori was still seeing circles of light when he blinked. Did Seiji know that he could have been the bigger kill?
“You make it sound like you don’t want to go home. Don’t you?”
Natori blinked. “I’m sorry?”
Sometimes, when the wind blew Seiji’s hair into his face and made him look a certain way, turned his features hard and sharp like the edge of a book, all cut corners and slanting light -- Natori’s stomach flipped with nervous energy. Like now, he thought again, there was no breeze or harsh light to distort the calucations in his face, but Seiji was studying him, fingers folding together like the slats on a fan. It made Natori’s mouth snap shut; if he said anything, he’d give himself away. What would he say, even?
“Maybe when you’re well, you could tell me about it,” Seiji murmured. “Or not.”
Natori laughed weakly. “Funny, you’re not even someone who likes stories--”
“You never asked.” Seiji shrugged. “I’m an avid reader.”
Pressure built behind his eyes. Natori thrust his arms through the still warm sleeves and looked away first. His knees were iced through and the acidic aftertaste of a well cast spell was gone, but the same misty twilight he’d seen what felt like only hours ago was circling around again. Natori stared pointedly at the trail Seiji had come from. He could see the crushed grass from his pursuit -- the stride wasn’t that of someone who had only been walking.
“You said--” he moistened his lips, tried again, “--three days?”
“Yes. If you don’t mind, I’d prefer we didn’t make it a forth -- come on,” Seiji said from above.
He stretched out his hand, pale fingers loosely curled for him to take. Why did you come looking for me? Natori zipped up the coat, counted to five, and reached out to take it. Why do you ask so many questions?
Seiji’s fingers were like iron around his wrist, holding him up, pulling him forward.
It’s a long walk back, Shuuichi-san.
Natori only wondered where they would lead him.
Fandom: Natsume Yuujinchou
Characters/pairing: Natori/Matoba
Rating: all audiences
Word Count: 1688
-
Natori balked at the river, the swollen berth of it rising over the bank and hiding the trail, the one Seiji followed without issue, water halfway up his shins and climbing still. His shoes dangled from his hand by the laces, his bow extended off the line of his back like a curling tree branch. Seiji turned to look at him, expression mirroring his own disbelief.
“What? It’s only water.”
Is it, Natori wondered. The things that Seiji didn’t fear left him to reason too often. What was safe, what was foolish -- the too intermingled and he wasn’t going to let opportunities pass him by, but hadn’t Seiji said he didn’t know everything either?
“Are you afraid?” The sun burned Seiji at the edges; black turned red, made his face as pale as the chalk they’d passed between their hands in weeks past. Spells for capture. Spells for fighting. The bag at his side was heavy with ceramic, little brown jars with cork stoppers, and he’d wrapped them well enough so that when he moved sharply nothing rattled at all.
Natori stepped forward and unlaced his shoes, stuffed his socks down toward the toes. He felt buoyant without them. “No. There’s a bridge a quarter mile from here though, you know.”
“Shuuichi-san, if that’s the path you want to take, you’re welcome to try it.”
He didn’t.
The rocks were slick and cut into Natori’s feet with icy needles. He winced but waded along. Seiji cut through the grass silently. Pollen stuck to his pants as he passed through and vegetation dragged along the surface of the water, sent insects scattering. Sunset carried on over their heads. Time moved quicker. The stream held the color of sky, of ink, of copper flowing through. It was very cold. Natori’s ankles ached, but he followed obligingly, watching Seiji’s face turn toward the setting sun.
It was strange, he thought later, that Seiji never turned once to look at him.
Frost coated the bank in thin splotches. Where he had stepped, it had melted almost entirely. Natori turned to examine the trail of boot patterns behind them -- one set. Like he’d only ever been walking alone. Curious, he thought. Was he dreaming?
“You’re not very good at this. You seemed powerful enough to catch on, but what’s been said about your family is true then. You can’t see through me at all.”
Natori moistened his lips and finished the motion of stretching his arm. Then he reached for a charm.
The creature was faster, much faster than him. Natori yelped when he grabbed him by the wrist, nearly jerking him off his feet. The hand on his arm had kept him from stumbling off the path before, guided him over tree roots, lead him through patches of fog so thick he could hardly see ahead or behind him -- a kindness, which as of now only meant he was outmatched. He wouldn’t have taken an assignment outside his skillset.
“Relax. I look like a friend, don’t I?”
“It doesn’t matter what you look like when you’ve been lying to me.”
“That’s fair. I don’t suppose you’ll listen to anything I have to say then.” He paused, looked up under long dark lashes. “Unless you like stories?”
Natori glared. “Depends. What about it?”
“Exorcists used to help our kind too, you know. We have our wrongdoings, I’ll admit -- but so does your kind. Is there no one left who remembers?”
“There’s not many worth helping,” he bit back.
He hesitated. Broke that steady gaze to look skyward, for any sense of blue or vastness. Was he dreaming? The lack of anything human, the feeling of other-worldliness had persisted since the stream. Any sense of direction he’d tried to hold had left and was swallowed up with the undergrowth, the quiet flowing noises of water over rocks. Wherever civilization lived he could not sense an out.
“The person who’s face your wearing,” Natori kept his voice steady, began slowly, “was his family decent to youkai?”
“What’s it matter? You’re the one I wanted to meet.”
Oh, Natori realized. You’re lonely.
The youkai smiled. It had become more at ease in the forest, or maybe that was just the light spangling through, softening the day into a gentle obscurity. It should have been dark over an hour ago. No sunset spilled in here, just an eerie twilight.
He reached into his back pocket, drew paper between the cracks of his fingers, muscles wound tight. If not for the too wide smile, it was a decent pass at imitation. Natori didn’t want to ascertain whether that would make what came next easier or worse.
He remembered now: warnings about a youkai that lured its prey into the woods to lure a stronger pursuer. It wouldn’t work though. Natori worked alone.
The youkai’s pupils bloomed wide and dark. It stepped back and Natori stepped forward.
“I wanted someone to talk to. I’m sorry for lying.”
“I know,” Natori said, “--I had just wondered what you wanted.”
Seiji’s bony hand around his wrist was iron, holding him up -- much stronger than the youkai. The sky spun above them, fractals of green and blue, and Natori didn’t think his feet ever touched the ground.
Before them, a body shape turned fire cracker bright and scattered into pieces.
Even when Natori closed his eyes to blink away the light, the impression stuck against the back of his eyelids, imprinted haloes as random and speckled as leaf patterns. He could still smell burning hair. Whatever the creature had been, it had made him believe it was someone.
Maybe that was all it had wanted from the beginning.
“I was handling it--” Natori started.
“Strange, it looked like the other way around--”
“You didn’t have to exorcise it. It could have been sealed.”
Seiji was curiously quiet. Natori craned his head up, which was suddenly hard to keep level, Seiji’s mouth was drawn thin and the collar of his jacket was smeared with dirt -- his fingers had moved from his wrist to his elbow, just touching the edges of him like he was nervous he’d break if he let go. Not an unreasonable assessment. Looking at the ground made Natori stumble toward it.
Seiji’s bony arms swept under his own, slowly lowered him to the ground as his legs failed him. Natori folded onto his knees, palms pressing into wet grass, jeans soaking up the cold. Seiji’s breath was hot against his neck, black hair slipping over his own unruly waves and brushing the top of his ear. He smelled warm too, like he’d only just left his house.
“Shuuich-san.” Iron, Natori thought again. “I didn’t have a choice. Did you know that you’ve been missing for three days?”
Natori breathed slowly. Tried to wrap his mind around the gap in his memory, which grew fuzzier the more he thought about it. Had it really been that long? “Three days,” he repeated. So what -- he missed two days of school, wasn’t at home being interrogated or ignored by his father for another -- that was practically vacation. Except. He was very tired.
“Three.” Seiji leaned over his shoulder to scrutinize him. “Do you know how I found out?”
“I didn’t meet up with you, obviously.”
“Your shiki.”
“...Ah.”
Uruhime. Will you be angry with me?
Seiji’s hands left his shoulders. “Somehow I don’t think you mean to make so many poor choices, but here you are.” He shrugged his coat off and dropped it in Natori’s lap. Natori’s fingers sunk into the material automatically, kept the warm mass from sliding off his knees.
“You’re shivering,” he offered, when Natori didn’t move again. “Oh. Where are your glasses, Shuuichi-san?”
“Don’t know. It’s fine,” Natori said, soft. Seiji’s foot scuffed in the wet earth, then he crouched back down. He looked like a lamp against the swaying undergrowth around them, a pale face cloaked in green and gray. Or maybe everything was still spinning on its axis. Seiji’s eyes were dark like bruised fruit. Natori was still seeing circles of light when he blinked. Did Seiji know that he could have been the bigger kill?
“You make it sound like you don’t want to go home. Don’t you?”
Natori blinked. “I’m sorry?”
Sometimes, when the wind blew Seiji’s hair into his face and made him look a certain way, turned his features hard and sharp like the edge of a book, all cut corners and slanting light -- Natori’s stomach flipped with nervous energy. Like now, he thought again, there was no breeze or harsh light to distort the calucations in his face, but Seiji was studying him, fingers folding together like the slats on a fan. It made Natori’s mouth snap shut; if he said anything, he’d give himself away. What would he say, even?
“Maybe when you’re well, you could tell me about it,” Seiji murmured. “Or not.”
Natori laughed weakly. “Funny, you’re not even someone who likes stories--”
“You never asked.” Seiji shrugged. “I’m an avid reader.”
Pressure built behind his eyes. Natori thrust his arms through the still warm sleeves and looked away first. His knees were iced through and the acidic aftertaste of a well cast spell was gone, but the same misty twilight he’d seen what felt like only hours ago was circling around again. Natori stared pointedly at the trail Seiji had come from. He could see the crushed grass from his pursuit -- the stride wasn’t that of someone who had only been walking.
“You said--” he moistened his lips, tried again, “--three days?”
“Yes. If you don’t mind, I’d prefer we didn’t make it a forth -- come on,” Seiji said from above.
He stretched out his hand, pale fingers loosely curled for him to take. Why did you come looking for me? Natori zipped up the coat, counted to five, and reached out to take it. Why do you ask so many questions?
Seiji’s fingers were like iron around his wrist, holding him up, pulling him forward.
It’s a long walk back, Shuuichi-san.
Natori only wondered where they would lead him.
