#let my boy sniff flowers and paint figurines

[lehnsharrk]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID! 🎉

January 7th 2025

The day is finally here! 🥳

Thanks to everyone in the Evil Robot Enjoyers™ community for sharing your art and stories!

This space has been so warm and welcoming, I appreciate you all!

And David, welcome to the world! 😈

[goodlucktai]

put your empty hands in mine

chapter six: the lucky cat

natsume yuujinchou pairing: kitanishinatsu word count: 2639 summary: Kitamoto and Nishimura are soulmates, to absolutely no one’s surprise. But they’re also soulmates with a very shy boy who lives somewhere far away, who writes to them in tiny, careful letters right before bed, who apologizes when the mimicry of bruises pop up on their arms and backs because of him. And that’s a surprise to a lot of people. read on ao3

x

“Ugh, Takashi,” Satoru says with distaste. “I can’t believe you’re friends with Shibata.”

Takashi gives him a guilty smile, but finishes tapping out a reply to his new email anyway. While he’s distracted, Atsushi shoots Satoru a warning look over the top of his head, and Satoru rolls his eyes.

“I’m just saying. I was gonna beat him up for being a jerk, and I can’t do that if Takashi’s friends with him.”

“He’s not so bad,” Takashi says in his soft, insistent way. “He apologized for taking my phone, and he makes the other kids leave me alone. School is a lot more fun now.”

Satoru can feel himself relenting, because Takashi’s eyes are so big and brown that it’s impossible not to melt under them, and that’s annoying. He crosses his arms and sulks at the river, and sulks a little harder when Atsushi says, “Ignore him, he’s being an idiot. I’m glad you have a new friend, Okashi.”

Takashi still turns a little pink when they call him by a nickname, but that’s ninety percent of the reason why they do. He puts his phone away and lifts his bare feet up out of the water, crossing his legs and leaning over until he’s comfortably slumped against Satoru’s side.

Then he pulls out that orange marker of his, the cap squeaking as it’s twisted off. Satoru can’t resist looking down at his own hands as Takashi’s familiar handwriting appears on the inside of his left wrist.

Satoru watches the characters form, and sounds them out in his head as they do; su-ki da yo.

“Ughhhh,” Satoru says again, with even more feeling this time. He throws his arms around Takashi and topples them over sideways, squeezing him hard and rolling him into the muddy bank, mostly so he won’t notice how red Satoru’s face probably is. “That’s so cute! It’s annoying!”

Takashi’s alarmed yelp morphs into helpless laughter as he struggles to get free. Atsushi scoots aside to avoid their tangle of limbs and doesn’t lift a finger to help him.

It’s the best summer they’ve ever had, because Takashi is visiting for a whole month before the next school term. He got to meet all of Atsushi and Satoru’s friends, and they all liked him immediately-- even grumpy Adachi, who doesn’t really like anyone that's not Tsuji. They’ve spent countless hours playing tag in the tall grass, and begging cool treats from storekeepers, and filling their pockets with bugs and crushed flowers and little frogs to bring home to Mana.

Takashi brightens with every afternoon he spends in the countryside under the beaming sun, until his skin is a gold that matches his eyes, and his grin is waiting just around every corner. Satoru wants to keep him here forever, until he forgets what it was like to be shadowed and sad.

“Mom’s gonna be mad at you,” Atsushi says dryly, when they’ve run out of energy to wrestle anymore. “She already did the laundry today.”

“We can just hop in the river and get all the dirt off,” Satoru retorts. “It’s so hot today we’ll be dry again before dinner.”

Beside him, Takashi suddenly goes still. He sits up quickly, all the playful vibrance gone out of him to make room for something tense and alert, like a rabbit that senses a hawk in the sky. Satoru follows his eyes, but there’s nothing to look at; just a stretch of riverbank they have all to themselves, and an empty bridge over the water.

But still--

“Something’s there?” Atsushi asks. He’s already getting to his feet, reaching down with both hands to pull Satoru and Takashi up, too. “Where is it?”

“On the other side,” Takashi says quietly. He’s staring at the opposite bank. “I don’t think it wants to cross the river. If we hurry we can get away.”

Satoru will never understand how people see Takashi like this and still call him a liar. He’s looking at something-- his eyes are moving inch by inch to follow it, wherever it’s going. There isn’t anything faked or forced about it. Atsushi is still holding their hands as they pull away from their comfy spot by the water, and Takashi points them in the direction of a little footpath that wings toward the treeline.

“There’s a shrine up there,” he says. Somehow he knows better than Satoru does where all the shrines are, and Satoru’s the one who lives here. “We’ll be safe at a shrine.”

The first time something followed him, he told Satoru and Atsushi to go home without him. They scolded him so much for even thinking they’d leave him to deal with a mean ghost by himself that he never brought it up again. He just holds their hands tight and pulls them along, as quick as he can without tripping them up, dodging low-hanging branches and jumping over protruding roots.

They spill out of the trees and onto a wider path, and nearly bowl Tsuji and Adachi right over.

“What in the fresh hell are you doing?” Adachi snaps, shuffling to hide the fact that he’s holding Tsuji’s hand. Any other time, Satoru would be delighted. “Natsume, don’t let them drag you around.”

“Everything okay?” Tsuji asks, as unflappable as ever. He’s frowning a little bit. “Are you running from someone?”

“No,” the three of them chorus, which is probably the most suspicious thing ever. Tsuji, class president and resident mom friend, narrows his eyes at them. “We’re just showing Takashi around,” Atsushi adds more convincingly.

A branch snaps somewhere behind them, and Takashi jerks an involuntary step in the opposite direction, yanking his soulmates with him.

“Anyway, seeya,” Satoru says by way of farewell, and the three of them take off again before their friends can get a word in edgewise, tearing up a slight incline and diving into the cover of some heavy brush. “Jeez, the one time there are other people walking around in the woods-- why would you walk around in the woods? Weirdos!”

Atsushi laughs breathlessly. “We hang out here every day!”

Their meandering route finally leads them across the shrine stairs. They head up, bare feet tapping the sun-warmed stone, the red torii gate looming in welcome just a few meters ahead.

Looks like we made it, Satoru thinks victoriously--

And then wind roars behind them, like a hunting creature. Takashi makes a strangled sound and pulls them to the left sharply. Satoru’s foot catches on something around ankle-height and he goes sprawling with a startled squawk, and he drags Atsushi right down with him. Takashi manages to stay upright because Atsushi does the sensible thing and lets go of his hand, but his face is pale.

“Um,” he says, sinking to his knees gingerly. “Do either of you know what this was for?”

Satoru picks himself up with a groan to get a look at what Takashi’s talking about. The fair-haired boy is holding two ends of a snapped straw rope-- probably the thing Satoru tripped on. Its little paper streamers are crushed and dirty, now.

“It’s a shimenawa,” he goes on, looking at the two of them beseechingly. “It’s-- like a ward? Or a barrier? Do you know if-- it was here for an important reason?”

“You broke it,” a gruff voice behind them says. All three of them flinch wildly, and Satoru and Atsushi both spin around, ready to plead their case to whatever old man happened upon the scene, because it was an accident!

But there isn’t an old man. There’s just a little wooden shrine, with more of the paper shide streamers hanging across the door. Satoru blinks, and looks around for whoever spoke. Atsushi crawls over to where Takashi is kneeling and says, “Hey, what is it?”

He grabs for the hand Atsushi offers him. He looks terrified. The doors of the shrine are rattling now, as if there’s something inside trying to burst out. Satoru looks down at the broken rope on the ground, thinks of what Takashi said about a barrier, and has a realization that comes in the form of a succinct, internal, oh no.

The doors burst open.

There’s a lucky cat statue inside.

They sit there frozen for a moment, staring at the innocuous porcelain figurine. It stares right back, with its waving paw and painted smile. It’s so anticlimactic that Satoru lets out a huff of laughter, and Atsushi’s tense shoulders slump in relief, and Takashi says, “Well, thank goodness for-- “

The shrine explodes.

Wood bends and snaps, a plume of stirred dirt rising like a cloud, and the three of them duck closer together to keep it out of their eyes. Satoru squints from behind his hand, though, watching the round figure of the calico cat come to life.

It lands next to the splintered remains of its home and squints at them with its dark, slitted eyes.

“You’re not going to cower at the sight of me?” it asks, in the old man voice from earlier.

“You’re not very scary?” Takashi replies. It comes out sounding like a question. He’s probably used to spirits that are scary. The cat huffs, like it’s amused.

“Little brat,” it says, not entirely unkindly. It waddles a few steps forward to give Takashi a sniff. Atsushi is tense, clutching Takashi’s arm with both hands, but Satoru isn’t sure what he’s so freaked out for. It’s a fat old cat-- if it tried anything, they could just throw a rock at it or something to make it go away. “You smell like another human I know. You look like her, too, but she was bigger than you are. Nowhere near as runty.”

“He’s not runty,” Satoru says, offended. “We’re ten, this is as tall as we get!”

The cat gives him a once-over. “You’re the brat that broke the barrier. Well done.”

“It wasn’t on purpose. And if I’d known what you were like beforehand, I’d have hopped over that old rope and left you stuck in there.”

Atsushi is making a sound like he’s dying, but Satoru ignores him. He’s not going to be polite to anyone who decides to be mean to one of his two favorite people in the world, and he doesn’t care if they’re humans or one of Takashi’s yokai.

The cat doesn’t look too bothered, anyway. It seems like it would take a lot to impress it one way or the other. And then Takashi is leaping ahead of the conversation to say, “What human do I look like, maneki-neko-san? Who was she?” so Atsushi doesn’t get a chance to call Satoru an idiot, which means Satoru won that round.

“Her name was Natsume Reiko,” the cat tells him. There’s something odd about the way it’s looking at Takashi, as though it’s sizing him up for something, or making some kind of decision about him. “She must have been a relative of yours.”

“I think that was my grandmother’s name. I’ve heard some of my relatives talk about her,” Takashi says slowly. “They don’t say nice things. Was she-- like me?”

“She was. She could see ayakashi, and she was always alone.”

“That’s not like Okashi, then,” Atsushi interjects abruptly, apparently having kept quiet for as long as possible. “He’s got lots of friends.”

“We knew he could see ghosts before we even met you,” Satoru says. He doesn’t add “so there” even though he wants to. “That’s why we were running through here like crazy in the first place.”

The cat blinks once, twice, unhurried. It says, “Something chased you here?”

“Yes,” Takashi says. “It was-- big. It had long, tangled hair and one eye in the middle of its face. There was a smaller yokai with it, with, um-- sort of wide, feathered ears? Like a dog’s?”

“Do things chase you very often?”

“Yes, ever since I was small. That’s why I was going to the shrine. They don’t bother me there.”

Atsushi’s hands squeeze where they’re holding him, and Satoru leans into his back a little more. They can’t be there with him all the time, as much as they’d like to be. He lives so far away from them that he has to handle the scariest things all by himself. All they can do is comfort him after the fact, try to cheer him up when he gets quiet and sad, write reminders to him in colorful ink that no matter what, he’s never really alone.

And that’s nice and all, but when a monster chases you home from school and looms over your bed at night and whispers your name from every corner of the house, it’s not much.

“Hmph,” says the cat, and then it crawls right into Takashi’s lap.

Takashi gasps, perfectly stunned, and Satoru can’t say he expected this turn of events either.

“Um,” Atsushi hedges. “Maneki-neko-san--”

“Come up with a better name for me than that, brats,” it grizzles. “That’s a mouthful, and it’s none too creative. Your heads must be full of cotton.”

While Satoru is offended and Atsushi is getting that way, Takashi looks somewhere between hopeful and delighted. “A name?” he asks, lowering his hands slowly to the calico fur. “Are you going to stay with me?”

“That’s right,” says the grouchy cat. “Not because I want to-- I have better things to do-- but I owe your grandmother a favor. She’d curse me from the afterlife if she knew I let her little descendant get into trouble on his own.”

“This thing reminds me of Adachi,” Satoru mutters. It’s not a compliment, and Atsushi turns away to muffle a snort behind his hand. “So you’re gonna look after him, is that what you’re saying? Why don’t you just say that?”

The cat glares at him. Satoru has never been less impressed by a glare in his life. Takashi bites his lip, looking worried. “Um, I don’t think my guardians would let you stay, neko-san. They don’t-- they’re not-- “

“They don’t have to let me do anything.” It folds up its paws and puts its chin on Takashi’s knee, every bit as though it’s settling in for a nap right then and there. “I can make myself invisible to most humans, you know. It’s only in this form of mine that your little friends can see me.”

“Lucky us,” Satoru mutters.

“Satchan,” Atsushi laughs helplessly.

But Takashi is enamored. He likes cats, Satoru remembers. He sends them pictures of the strays he feeds at the park.

He’s kneeling there in the dirt, damp and muddy from an afternoon spent by the river, barefoot because they didn’t remember to pick up their shoes before they went running off, his arms full of a fat talking cat that they accidentally broke out of a warded shrine, and none of these things seem particularly strange to him.

If anything, he looks happy.

“Can I call you Nyanko-sensei?” he asks eagerly, which is exactly the sort of adorable thing Satoru should have anticipated he would say.

The cat grumbles a lot, but it doesn’t look displeased, and it’s exactly like when Adachi rolls his eyes at Tsuji, who literally everyone knows is Adachi’s best friend. Takashi scoops it up when he climbs to his feet, and turns to throw a beaming smile at his soulmates, hugging his new cat to his chest in both arms.

“Wait till I tell Shibata!” he says brightly.

“Ugh,” Satoru replies, remembering to be annoyed about that.

But he has to admit, even if he’ll never say it out loud, that it’s nice knowing Takashi’s got some people looking out for him when Satoru and Atsushi can’t. Even if one of those people is an annoying reformed bully, and the other is an annoying talking cat.