#nyanko sensei looks so fat so round so cute

[vice-like]

volume 32 cover!!

[goodlucktai]

Nishinatsu 25+21??

two-part drabble game25: being somewhere you’re not supposed to be+ 21: “they’re wrong about you.”

i got 2 requests for nishinatsu + 21, you guys know me so well (ꈍ◡ꈍ)♡ 

x

Somehow, they got off on the wrong station. Kitamoto’s voice is loud where it’s coming out of Nishimura’s cellphone on speaker – not quite frantic but certainly agitated, because it’s late and it’s getting dark, and Nishimura and Takashi are more than a little lost. 

“Just,” their friend says, “find someplace and stay there, okay? Like, an internet cafe or something. We’ll get off at the next station and double back.”

“Tell him we’re sorry,” Takashi puts in quickly, anxious at how upset they’ve made him. Nishimura just rolls his eyes. 

“It was an accident,” he says instead, with deliberate enunciation, like it’ll change Kitamoto’s perspective to hear that excuse for the fourth time. “Jeez, Acchan, lighten up.” 

Before Kitamoto can reply to that the way Takashi can guess he would like to, Tanuma takes over from the other end and says, “Natsume, you left Ponta,” like the fat cat is a shield or a talisman he wandered off into certain danger without. Despite himself, the note of worry in his friend’s voice over so small a thing makes Takashi smile.

“Keep an eye on him for me,” he leans in to say, and he doesn’t know if he’s talking to Tanuma about Nyanko-sensei or perhaps the other way around. “I’ll see you soon.” 

It isn’t unsettling to be out in the dark. Takashi has spent a lot of nights by himself in parks or the woods or just walking through empty streets, and it’s never really bothered him. There are just as many monsters around when the sun is out, after all, that’s something he knew as a child. 

So when they pass under a flickering streetlight, and the shadows jump and stretch like a living thing, and Nishimura shivers a little and presses into his side, Takashi just smiles.

“Cute,” he says mildly, purely for the sake of Nishimura’s deeply offended squawk, and the way he blushes so hard it’s easy to see even in the low light. And then Takashi can’t help laughing at him, and that only makes it worse.  

“You’re a jerk,” Nishimura mutters, not nearly as annoyed as he would like Takashi to believe. “Hold my hand, you jerk.” 

So they head down the street hand-in-hand, and Nishimura jumps at every innocuous nighttime noise, and Takashi is still smiling as they round the corner and almost walk headlong into a couple of strangers. 

“Oh, sorry,” he says automatically, and the man lifts his head from where it was buried in his phone and – 

Oh. Not strangers. Takashi goes tense before he can help it, staring up into a pair of faces that haunted him for months after he left their care. His breath stutters. 

“S- “ He swallows and tries again. “Sorry. We’ll just – “ 

“I don’t believe it,” the woman says, sounding surprised in an unpleasant way. She’s a cousin, he thinks. Her name was – Kotone? He can’t remember, she didn’t like when he called her by her name. What was he supposed to call her instead? Obasan? 

He’s floundering. His chest hurts. 

“What the hell are you doing back here?” her husband says. Kenta, and his voice is – a nightmare, given shape and sound, and Takashi ducks his head before he can think better of it. 

The years fall away and fall away and he’s seven years old again, small and scared under their cold eyes. The air between them is tense, and they seem to be waiting for an answer from him, so he says, “We got lost.” 

“Of course you did,” Kotone says, world-weary. “You never change, do you? Good for nothing kid.” 

Takashi stares, unseeing, at the pavement beneath his feet. 

He’s lived in Hitoyoshi for two years now, has found a loving family, made friends with wonderful people, cultivated the kind of reckless courage he needed to ask Nishimura out on their first date nearly six months ago. He has more now than he ever has. His days are warm and sunny and infinitely precious, like pages torn out of some fairy tale book.

But he still has nightmares.

Sometimes he dreams that he never left those dark places that plagued him as a child. Sometimes he dreams he’s still with Kenta and Kotone, that he still has to wear long sleeves to school and go to bed hungry, that he stays out long after the street lights come on and plays with stray cats in empty parks until a concerned passerby makes him go home. Sometimes he dreams Shigeru and Touko don’t want him anymore, or can’t keep him anymore, and he goes back to that cold house because no one else will take him, and he loses all the wonderful things he has now.

And yet – despite how many bad dreams he’s had that started this way, despite all the variations of this same scenario that he’s envisioned in his lowest moments – this one is almost immediately something new. 

Because Nishimura is jolting a step forward and his expression is so angry it takes Takashi’s breath away. It cuts through the dark cloud of noxious fear in Takashi’s brain like a bolt of white lightning. 

“What did you say?” Nishimura demands, his voice too loud in the still of the night. They’re in a residential neighborhood, all but standing in front of someone’s home, and Takashi knows what it sounds like when he’s only going to get louder. “Good for nothing?”

It’s like they didn’t notice him beside Takashi until he spoke up, because Kotone and Kenta both shoot him startled looks. 

“Hey, tone it down – “ Kenta starts, eyebrows furrowing, but Nishimura is having none of it.

He was terrified of every dark corner a moment ago, but he’s fearless now, standing between Takashi and two of Takashi’s biggest fears like it’s the only place he belongs. 

“Say it again,” he says, scowling up at them. He never let go of Takashi’s hand, and his grip is so hard it almost hurts. Speechless, Takashi holds on just as tight, like he might fall if he lets go. “Go ahead. I wanna hear everything you have to say about Natsume, so start from the beginning. How old was he when you knew him? Ten? Eight?”

Something uncomfortable is settling on their faces now, and Kotone glances over her shoulder, as if expecting a judgmental neighbor to be watching the altercation from a row of hedges.

“Tell me,” Nishimura goes on, heated and fierce, too loud, all but filling the empty street. “Tell me what he did that was so terrible. Tell me what he did that made you hate him.”

“That’s enough,” Kenta says, sharp, trying to wrestle back control of this rapidly spiraling conversation. “Didn’t anyone teach you to respect your elders?”

“Nope,” Nishimura says with mean glee. “My big brother only taught me to respect my betters. Tough luck.”

Takashi stops breathing. Even Kotone’s face goes slack with shock at this russet-haired slip of a boy’s daring. Kenta’s mouth twists into an ugly frown, but at about that time a light goes on in the house nearest them. Kotone grabs Kenta’s arm, her desire to leave transparent. 

Heart in his throat, Takashi tugs Nishimura back and away from them as they shove their way past. “Go back to wherever you came from,” Kenta spits out, and then he and his wife are gone. 

Nishimura is trembling in the circle of Takashi’s arm. Takashi thinks he’ll have bruises on his hand tomorrow, an imprint of this moment, of how hard Nishimura held onto him. When he risks a glance at his boyfriend, he’s startled to find tears in Nishimura’s eyes. 

“They’re wrong about you,” he says, and his voice breaks. The brightest thing in Takashi’s whole life, and he’s crying, pressing the heel of his free hand into his eyes, like he can push back the wetness there if he digs in hard enough. “Natsume,” he sobs, helplessly angry, and Takashi pulls him in as close as he can. 

Shaken, but for a different reason than he might have been otherwise. 

“You’re – impossible,” he barely manages, wide-eyed and wondering. “I can’t believe you.” 

The gate behind them opens with a whine, and a middle-aged woman leans out with a look of concern on her face. She glances behind them sharply, and back again, and says, “Are you boys okay? I heard shouting. Was someone giving you trouble?”

“They’re gone,” Takashi tells her. A few more reassurances send her reluctantly back inside, and Takashi can focus on the task at hand. He rubs his hands up and down Nishimura’s back, trying to coax him back. “Right, Nishimura? They’re gone, we’re okay.” 

“Don’t comfort me,” Nishimura snaps wetly, rubbing harder at his face with his sleeve. “I’m – I should be – that’s my job.”

It should be impossible after what just happened – and if someone asked Takashi ten years ago, he would have told them so – but somehow, despite himself, Takashi laughs. It starts shaky, but it finds its feet as it goes, and it leaves him smiling. 

When Kitamoto and Tanuma find them an hour later, seated outside at a late-night cafe with a bubble tea and a plate of soft cream buns split between them, Nishimura’s eyes are still puffy and red-rimmed, but they’re watching a video on his phone that has them leaning on each other in their laughter, so their friends roll their eyes and assume the sorry state they’re in is their own fault. 

And if Nishimura holds onto him a little tighter than usual on their way back home, it’s not so strange. Everyone knows that Nishimura is afraid of the dark, and that Takashi is indulgent enough to hold his hand. 

[goodlucktai]

Nishinatsu! Maybe Natsume trying a new food? Like maybe something he missed out on when he was a kid or maybe it's a prank like something super spicy??

x

The kids behind the kiosk are up to something. Satoru can smell it.

“Didn’t you used to live around here, Natsume?” Adachi pipes up, shading his eyes to look around their table at the pretty city scenery. They’re at an outdoor cafe, and Natsume’s cat looks pleased to be allowed to sit at the table while they wait on their food. Natsume, for his part, smiles vaguely.

“A few years ago,” he replies, “but I didn’t stay for very long.”

At this point, the ache in his eyes when he talks about those temporary homes is all but gone; the Fujiwaras love him so much it’s almost enough to eclipse the love he lived most of his life without, and Satoru is certain his friends help in that regard, too. There’s no loneliness as he follows Adachi’s eyes and looks out over the place that could have been his home, and Satoru is relieved.

Just for a moment, and then he’s back to being suspicious again, eyeing the unfamiliar faces at the counter warily.

So they probably recognize Natsume from when he lived here before. Generally, Satoru was quick to learn, that doesn’t bode well.

A girl in a smart seafoam green uniform comes out to their round table with a tray and a wide smile. Satoru doesn’t trust her as far as he can throw her, and he watches Kitamoto’s eyebrows lift up to meet his hairline – probably because there’s a cute girl within ten feet of Satoru and Satoru isn’t trying to flirt with her.

Well, joke’s on him, because there an even cuter boy sitting on Satoru’s other side, currently struggling to keep his fat cat out of the fries, and if Satoru was going to flirt with anyone it would be him.

“Enjoy your meal,” the girl says sweetly, and hurries off again to join her tittering friends.

Satoru swiftly trades his food for Natsume’s, and offers an impish grin at the dry look Natsume gives him. “Nishimura,” he says, “we ordered the same thing.”

“Uh-huh,” Satoru replies gamely, unwrapping the innocuous-looking burger, “but I want this one.”

As soon as the paper comes off, he’s hit by the heat. The sandwich in his hands smells spicy. What the heck did those kids do to it?

“Are your eyes watering?” Kitamoto says incredulously. Natsume blinks and reaches over, putting a hand on Satoru’s wrist to guide the burger closer for an inspection.

“Oh,” he says, sounding confused, “this is the chili burger. They make it with peppers and chili paste. It’s supposed to be pretty aggressive, actually – when I went to school here, kids would buy them as a prank for each other.”

“Have you ever tried it?” Satoru asks casually, shooting a murderous look up to the store counter. All the giggling up there has stopped, at least. Seriously, a prank burger? What are they, twelve? It says a lot if Satoru thinks it’s immature. Or maybe it’d be funny if it was anybody else, but it wasn’t anybody else, it was Natsume, and Satoru is officially annoyed.

“I don’t really like spicy foods,” Natsume says, which isn’t really an answer. “They must have given us this by mistake,” he adds, “should we go tell them?”

“Nope,” Satoru says plainly, taking the burger back, “I’m gonna eat it.”

“Satchan,” Kitamoto says at length, looking long-suffering, “you hate spicy food, too.”

“Well, I’m gonna eat it anyway. Because I’m more of a man than you.”

More like he doesn’t want to give those strangers the satisfaction, but two bites in and his eyes are streaming and his mouth may as well be on fire and he can’t help but wheeze, “Oh my god I’m dying.”

Taki and Adachi are both laughing as Tanuma reaches across the table to extract the burger from his hand, and Kitamoto pushes his drink over with a “Really, Nishimura? Really?” Natsume’s eyes are bright with humor, at the very least, as he scoots his drink over to Satoru, too – and really, Satoru would eat a dozen of those burgers to put that look on his face, even if it killed him. Which it actually might.

“Mind if I try it?” Tanuma asks, and Nishimura reaches out as if to save him.

“Don’t do it. You might have an asthma attack.”

“I don’t have asthma?”

Within a few minutes, everyone has tried a bite of the prank burger – even Nyanko-sensei, who doesn’t look impressed by it one way or another – and Natsume is muffling laughter behind his hands at the sorry state they’re all in, flushed with the heat in his mouth and the humor in his eyes, and Satoru thinks, Hah.

He looks over his shoulder at the quiet girls at the counter and says, “Y’know what? Maybe we should order a few more of those.”

“Once you get past the burning, they’re not bad,” Taki giggles, fanning her mouth.

“I’ll buy,” Adachi says cheerfully, and Natsume goes with him.

Satoru wipes his still-tearing eyes with his sleeve, patting himself on the back, when Kitamoto leans forward on his elbows and says, “You’re a good guy, you know that?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Satoru replies without missing a beat, ignoring the way Taki and Tanuma stop talking to look at him, “all I did was steal Natsume’s food. You guys yell at me for that any other day.”

“Any other day,” Kitamoto agrees, always knowing way more than he lets on.

[goodlucktai]

Hi! If your prompts are open perhaps you could make a sequence to BYGONE ? (I really like seeing Nishimura and Kitamoto reacting to nyanko sensei and cute child natsume asking their help and always wondered what happened afterwards...)

continuation of this

x

It must be strange for them, Natsume thinks.

He can’t wrap his mind around being older and then suddenly being young again, and he doesn’t think these bigger kids can, either. Taki and Tanuma are tense, as if they’re braced for a fight and dreading one at the same time, but Nishimura doesn’t take his cues from anyone.

Instead he exclaims, “I knew that cat could talk!”

Kitamoto looks at him sideways, but it doesn’t sound like he’s joking. Nishimura jabs an accusing finger at the round creature in Natsume’s arms and adds heatedly, “So all those times you stole my snacks you knew exactly what you were doing! What kind of guardian are you? Natsume, your cat owes me money.”

It’s so silly that Natsume giggles, and Tanuma blurts, “How could you know?”

Nishimura sits, right there in the dusty road, and pats the hard earth beside him for Natsume to sit, too. When he does, Nishimura puts an arm around his shoulders as if it’s any other day, and something older in Natsume’s heart aches.

“Maybe I didn’t know,” he admits. “But Nyanko-sensei’s voice sounds familiar. I must have heard Natsume talking to him before, even if I didn’t know what I was hearing. Honestly, this explains a lot.”

“Explains a lot of what?” Natsume pipes up, and giggles again when Nishimura messes his hair up playfully.

“You do strange things sometimes,” Kitamoto explains when Nishimura doesn’t. He’s watching them with a funny look on his face. “You – jump at shadows. Or talk to people who aren’t there.”

Natsume’s face falls, and Nishimura shoots Kitamoto a dirty look. Kitamoto visibly backtracks.

“Not that we care, we’re still your friends! I just – I never considered you were actually seeing ghosts.” He finally closes the last handful of steps between them and crouches. He cards Natsume’s hair back into place in as friendly a way as Nishimura tousled it, and smiles at whatever Natsume’s expression looks like. “It really does explain a lot. We’ll have a ton of questions for later, for older you, but for now – it’s okay. We believe you.”

It’s never gone like this before. It’s never been this easy, it’s never turned out right. Natsume looks at his hands and doesn’t know what to say.

“Thank goodness,” Taki breaths, hands folded over her heart. “You two are so sweet, I don’t know what I was worried about.”

Nishimura sputters. “Sweet?”

“So tell us about this yokai, Natsume,” Tanuma says, sitting cross-legged beside him. “What happened to make it do this to you?”

Natsume opens his mouth to answer, but the memories are foggy and far-removed. Grabbing at them is like grabbing at mist, and as far back as he can remember clearly is the open hillside, sitting in these too-big clothes on a warm patch of sun-soaked grass, a fat little yokai ahead of him blustering and yelling without any true anger in its voice.

The same fat little yokai says, “This brat helped a Days Eater and it turned back his time in thanks. Since it was an act of gratitude, I’m sure I can convince it to undo the spell – I just have to find it.”

“I’ll help you!” Taki and Tanuma say at the same time, and Natsume starts, wide-eyed.

“No, you shouldn’t,” he says, reaching out to them. “It’s not safe! Even the nice ones can be mean, they don’t really understand how people are. Nyanko-sensei – “

“I’m not taking anyone who can’t even see yokai with me to look for one,” the cat grumbles irritably, swatting a soft paw at Natsume’s arm. “What sort of fool do you take me for? No, these brats will take you someplace safe and wait for me to return.”

“Let’s go to your house, Tanuma,” Kitamoto says, straightening. “Your father’s still away, isn’t he?”

“That’s right.” Tanuma just looks happy to be of any help at all. He adds, “We should probably call Touko-san and let her know Natsume’s spending the night at my place.”

“Touko-san?” Natsume asks. Nishimura blinks at him.

“Your foster mom! You can’t have forgotten Touko-san.”

Natsume watches Tanuma take out his cellphone and scroll for a second or two through preprogrammed numbers instead of typing a bunch in. Oddly, when he notices Natsume watching, he pulls the phone away from his ear and puts it on speaker instead.

A woman answers after a few rings. Natsume’s breath catches in his throat, and the arm Nishimura has draped around his shoulders pulls him a little closer.

“Hello, Touko-san. It’s – “

“Kaname-kun! How are you? Takashi-kun just went out to get some more sweets for you and Tooru-chan. That greedy Nyankichi ate them all up when we weren’t watching.”

“Actually, Touko-san, I think we’re going to hang out at my house instead,” he says a little awkwardly, glancing sidelong at Taki. “Um, Taki and I ran into Natsume while we were out, and then bumped into Nishimura and Kitamoto, and one thing led to another – “

“You kids can never sit still,” she says fondly, nowhere near annoyed. Nothing like any of Natsume’s other temporary families would have been, if he had changed plans like this so suddenly, if he had had a friend call last-minute to let them know. “Well, that’s alright! Have a good time! And make sure Takashi eats a big dinner, and breakfast, too. That boy of ours needs looking after.”

“We’ll look after him,” Tanuma says in a quiet voice. He’s watching Natsume as he says goodbye, and Natsume only remembers to take a breath when Nishimura nudges him.

His eyes are wide, and his heart is a lump in his throat. No one has ever talked about him so kindly before, never when they didn’t know he was listening, never. He blurts, “I want to go back. To how I was before. I want to go back so I can go home.”

“Don’t you worry,” Taki says firmly, reaching over to push some of the long fringe out of his eyes. Her fingers are gentle but nothing about the look in her eyes is soft. “We’ll take care of everything this time.”

Nyanko-sensei huffs, and bumps his head into Natsume’s arm, and says, “I’ll see you to the priest’s house and make sure you’re warded, otherwise you’ll just attract more trouble. Let’s get a move on, brats.”

Nishimura hops up, and reaches down for Natsume’s hands to pull him up to, then says, “Wait, wait, we can’t go anywhere like this.”

He points. Natsume follows the point down to his own bare feet. “My shoes and socks were too big, so I left them on the hill,” he says. “It’s okay, I’ve gone through woods without shoes before.”

“That’s good to know,” Nishimura says, deadpan.

“I’ve got it,” Kitamoto says simply, and the next thing Natsume knows he’s swinging through the air. He flails for a moment, stunned, and then finds himself looking down at the others from his new seat on Kitamoto’s shoulders.

“It’s been awhile since Mana’s been little enough for this,” Kitamoto adds cheerfully.

Natsume clutches at Kitamoto’s head, wide-eyed. His friends’ faces are shining as they grin up at him, and Natsume doesn’t – no one’s ever –

“How come – “ he stammers, and Nishimura scoffs at him.

“I told you we weren’t gonna let you walk without shoes! What if you stepped on something sharp? Didn’t Tanuma just tell Touko-san we’d look after you?”

“And I thought I was the mom friend,” Kitamoto says dryly. Nishimura scowls deeply and Tanuma muffles a laugh behind his hand. Taki trades a look with Natsume that feels familiar, in all its fond exasperation, and he can’t help smiling at her.

He doesn’t remember much, but he remembers the lotus field, and the path they follow into the forest. 

He remembers a hospital room and two kind people reaching out to him, touching his battered hands carefully and asking if they could take him home.

He remembers a visit from his friends – the two of them standing in his yard and telling him we can tell when you aren’t happy, we want you to have fun – and crying himself to sleep that night because he was so grateful he didn’t know what to do.

“How’s the view up there?” Kitamoto asks after they’re a little more than halfway to the shrine where Tanuma lives. His hands are still folded loosely around Natsume’s ankles, making sure he won’t fall. 

“It’s good,” Natsume says brightly. And he remembers enough to know he’s never meant anything more when he adds, “Thank you!”