Smile
Title: Smile
Summary: Tanuma encounters a youkai with a familiar face, and comes to a few realizations about himself.
Prompt: The Book of Friends: Natsume Yuujinchou Exchange prompt by Qem. Details below the fic.
Tanuma was walking home when Natsume stumbled out of the woods in front of him, covered in leaves and panting heavily. He dashed forward to catch Natsume's arm before he fell, and supported him carefully.
"Natsume! Are you alright?" Tanuma glanced at the still trees around them, unable to see anything, yet uncertain if that meant nothing dangerous was there.
Natsume straightened; but his leg buckled, and he had to lean on Tanuma to support himself. His eyes were half-closed, his expression strained.
"…I'm okay," he murmured. "It's gone."
Tanuma sighed in relief, and ceased his frantic looks around the area in favor of lifting Natsume's arm around his shoulders and beginning to guide his friend to a nearby hillock. "What happened to your leg?"
Natsume sat down easily - then winced a half-second later, as though the mention of his injury reminded him of the pain. "Don't worry about it," he said with a smile. "I just twisted my ankle."
His smile looked a little off, somehow. It lacked the usual gentleness, the almost serene sadness that always lurked behind it in moments such as these. Instead, there was an edge of almost… glee.
Tanuma frowned.
"You're not Natsume. Are you."
For a moment, Natsume's eyes went wide and innocent. Then that expression collapsed, as the faux Natsume dissolved into malicious snickers. "Oho, that was quick, Tanuma!"
Tanuma tried to yank back, but not-Natsume latched onto his wrist, with telling strength. If Tanuma hadn't already known, this would have been all the indicator he needed that this was a youkai.
"How do you know my name? What do you want?" Tanuma demanded. The youkai smirked at him, the expression odd on Natsume's face.
"Nothing much," not-Natsume said, baring his teeth in a malicious grin. "Just to eat you."
"To - uwah!" Tanuma flailed back in a panic as the youkai leaned closer, licking its lips and opening its mouth fully to reveal teeth that were much sharper than any human's. It bent over Tanuma's arm, still grinning, and sniffed at his skin, completely unaffected by Tanuma's efforts to pull his arm free or kick it away.
The smile on the youkai's face upended itself as it inhaled deeply against Tanuma's arm. "Blech! You smell like that old fool's wards!"
Not-Natsume let go of Tanuma abruptly, causing the boy to fall over backwards since he'd been pulling away so hard. When he straightened warily, the youkai had flopped back on the grass, folding its arms under its head. It looked disturbingly human.
He knew he should running right now. It was pure luck that the youkai hadn't eaten him already. He should be sprinting to the safety of his warded home, calling Natsume and reporting that a dangerous youkai was taking his shape. He should hand this problem over to someone capable of dealing with it, before his luck ran out.
But if Tanuma did that, Natsume would be the one in danger instead.
He stood his ground, glaring at the creature wearing his friend's skin like a mask. "You still haven't answered my question. How do you know my name? Why are you… looking like that?"
The youkai glanced at him, then away. It yawned rudely. "What, you haven't left yet?"
Tanuma persisted, despite the knowledge thrumming through him that he was an idiot; that he was probably going to die. "Tell me! …Please!"
Not-Natsume lay very still for a long moment. Then it leapt lightly to its feet, and stalked over to Tanuma. "Does it bother you, me looking like this? It must, for you to risk your life by hanging around here."
Tanuma opened his mouth to reply, but didn't get the chance. The youkai had already ghosted forward until it was mere millimeters away from him, staring straight into his eyes.
"Too. Bad," it enunciated clearly. "I'm interested in you, Tanuma. I want to know what makes you tick."
And then, with a sudden gust of wind, it was gone.
---
Tanuma lay awake late into the night, staring at the ripples on his ceiling.
He was frightened.
It wasn't something he wanted to admit. It felt… weak, acknowledging that he was scared. Tanuma hated feeling weak, all the more since he actually was weak. He hated feeling helpless while Natsume faced off such terrifying dangers, and he hated that he was secretly glad he was weak enough that none of them had ever targeted him instead.
Once, he'd wanted to be able to be as strong as Natsume. Omibashira had effectively killed that desire, or at least the selfish portion of it: now Tanuma wished he were stronger so that Natsume wouldn't have to face such things alone (and he didn't think about Natori and Ponta and the fact that Natsume wasn't really quite so terribly alone and probably didn't need him at all anyway). Even if he was enough of a coward to be secretly, shamefully happy not to be able to see youkai clearly, Tanuma was still brave enough to attempt to help despite that.
Or if not brave, then at least a little desperate. Natsume was what he cared about, in the end: being able to protect and help Natsume, just as Natsume had always done for him. Being able to lighten that burden Natsume carried, being able to be Natsume's equal, not to be left behind.
Tanuma was frightened. But he didn't tell Natsume about the youkai, and several days later, it returned as he'd expected.
---
It wore Natsume's form once more, and as before, the mask was initially perfect. Tanuma wouldn't have known the difference, had he not just parted ways with his friend only minutes ago, Natsume walking away in the opposite direction from where this Natsume was coming.
"What do you want?" Tanuma asked immediately, and not-Natsume smiled charmingly, Natsume's lips curving up smoothly at both ends.
(Tanuma dragged his eyes away, feeling somehow guilty.)
"Tell me, Tanuma," it said, gesturing down at the body it wore, "what do you think of this kid?"
Tanuma swallowed hard. "I don't have to tell you that."
"Nooo," the youkai drawled, irritation prickling across Natsume's features, "you don't. I also don't have to let you live."
"You don't," Tanuma agreed, throat dry, "but even so, I'm not telling you anything you can use against Natsume."
The youkai squinted angrily at him. "You little wretch," it snarled, "How dare you presume I want anything to do with that brat!"
This caught Tanuma off guard. Up till now, he'd naturally assumed that the youkai merely saw him in regards to Natsume - as a source of information, nothing else. If that wasn't the case… Tanuma had no idea what was going on. "But - didn't you want to know-?"
"I want to know," the youkai spat, "about you. You annoying imbecile."
Tanuma stared in silence.
"Why didn't you tell Natsume about me?" the youkai demanded, voice rising. "Do you also prefer being eaten to receiving help?" It snorted derisively. "You're too weak to even scratch me, so don't go thinking you might be able to defend yourself without getting him involved."
"I - I wasn't thinking that," Tanuma replied. "I… know I'm weak. But - there's still some things I can do."
The youkai crossed its arms, glaring at him. It felt strange, to have Natsume's face looking at him in such a way. It felt as though he'd done something wrong, and should apologize, and beg forgiveness. It felt horrible, and worse for the knowledge that this wasn't Natsume at all, so he shouldn't let it bother him like this.
It felt worse still, when the youkai next spoke, in Natsume's voice: "No, Tanuma, there's not. There's really nothing you can do. You're useless, you do know that, right?"
Tanuma took a deep breath. The summer air felt cold in his lungs. For a second he forgot entirely to fear for his life, because it seemed to have ended already.
"I'm not," he said dully, voice singularly lacking in conviction.
Natsume's eyes regarded him frankly, Natsume's face smoothing out to a blank matter-of-factness that was worse even than the anger had been. Natsume's voice reached out to him, seemed to swirl around him, leaving shivers in its wake: "Yes, you are."
---
"Are you feeling okay?"
Tanuma jerked, startled. "What?"
Natsume smiled slightly. It didn't disguise the worry in his eyes. "You nearly walked into a rice patty just now."
Tanuma slowly looked down. Indeed, he was mere inches away from plunging off the road and into a rice patty. Carefully, he took several steps back. "Um, no, I'm fine."
They began walking again, silently. Several minutes passed before Natsume spoke again, eyes darting towards Tanuma then away. "If… You can tell me, if anything is wrong."
"No," Tanuma insisted quickly, too quickly, it was obvious he was lying. "Nothing's wrong at all, I'm just a little absentminded today."
Natsume didn't reply for a few more steps, and when Tanuma glanced over at him, his friend was looking at ground, hand squeezing tightly around the handle of his bookbag. He had a small, resigned smile on his face, and Tanuma instantly felt like scum.
"Oh," Natsume said, no hint of his distress in his voice, just careful politeness. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry…"
Tanuma normally would have broken into Natsume's apology here, saying something about how it wasn't necessary or how Natsume should realize that Tanuma was willing to listen to his problems, too.
But today all Tanuma could think was useless, and he didn't say a thing. Natsume's apology trailed off into the quiet, and they continued walking without speaking.
---
"Yo! Tanuma!"
The youkai was grinning cheerfully, hands shoved in its pockets as it leaned up against the stone pillar at the gate to Tanuma's home.
Tanuma eyed it wearily; angry at himself for the way his gaze got caught on its happy smile, lingered there for a while. "What do you want?"
"Oh, did I make you angry?" The youkai's grin grew a little sharper. "It's true, though."
Tanuma sighed. "Shut up."
A flash of malice, then. A voice suddenly too deep, too powerful, too altogether inhuman, rumbling out of not-Natsume's chest: "Do you want to die?"
Tanuma flinched back, cursing himself for forgetting the danger he was in. Youkai were deadly. He'd witnessed that, firsthand.
As if mollified by his obvious fear, the youkai settled back against the pillar, seeming to relax back into smug pretense. "Tell me about yourself, Tanuma," it cajoled, flashing that not-Natsume grin his way once again. "Go on."
Tanuma hated this youkai. Hated it. "No."
"You know," not-Natsume said, "I'm not very patient."
It stepped aside to allow Tanuma past, and he walked stiffly by. He felt it watching him all the way up to the door, but he didn't look back.
That night, he asked his father to teach him his exorcism chants.
---
Walking through the halls in school, mumbling the chants under his breath. Tanuma couldn't seem to get them right. He didn't know if it would even work, anyway; even when he managed to successfully say the whole thing he didn't feel as though anything was happening. Still, it was the least he could do. And at least it was something to do.
Taki smiled at him in passing, and Tanuma stopped mumbling to say hello to her. He wondered if he could tell her about the youkai. She would probably understand why he hadn't told Natsume yet, at least. And maybe she would be able to help him somehow.
Telling her would probably be wise. But Tanuma couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to tell her what the youkai had said to him, of what he knew to be true. Which was stupid, because she was in the same boat, but Tanuma sometimes thought her desire to help Natsume was nothing compared to his own, a mere droplet to his rainstorm, and so her weakness mattered correspondingly less. It wasn't that she didn't want to help Natsume, but Natsume held far less sway over her. She wouldn't be so destroyed by those words spoken in Natsume's voice, she - it was just different somehow, and Tanuma didn't want her meeting not-Natsume.
He had to do this himself.
---
He sat, back against a tree, waiting. It didn't take long - five minutes, and then Natsume stepped out from behind a tree, and came to sit in front of him.
Tanuma spoke before the youkai could. "If I tell you what you want to know, what will you do?"
It grinned goofily, in a way that felt all wrong and made Tanuma's chest ache a little. "Well, I'll probably go away."
"What if I don't?"
The youkai shrugged, stretching a finger out to draw in the dirt. "Do you want to find out?"
The lines in the dirt formed a name: Natsume. Tanuma swallowed, feeling sick.
"No," he said quietly. Then he began to chant, carefully, pressing all his energy into every word, intent on banishing this malevolent youkai forever.
Even before he finished speaking, he knew it was no good. The youkai didn't even flinch, didn't move to stop him. It simply watched and waited, until Tanuma was done, at which point it smiled, and scuffed its foot across the name written on the ground.
"My first question is, what do you want with this face I'm wearing?"
Tanuma spoke carefully, voice catching against the lump in his throat. "I just - " he couldn't look away from that name in the dirt, half-erased - "want to help him."
The youkai made a sound of understanding, a low hum. "Even though you can't."
Tanuma didn't answer. Not-Natsume didn't seem to mind, simply smiling at him. "Even though he won't let you help him, even though he tells you nothing, even though you just barely have the ability to see shadows, you still want to help him. Why is that? It can't just be this charming face."
The youkai suddenly lifted its arms, flexing them and posing in front of Tanuma with an arrogant look on its face, one eyebrow raised. "Though I am pretty handsome."
The suddenly childish behaviour was so at odds with all the subtle menace up till now that Tanuma gaped. The youkai snorted at him and dropped its arms. It seemed amused at the reaction it had caused, and Tanuma quickly forced himself to glare at it, provoked into anger.
"I'm his friend!" Tanuma snapped. "Do I need any more reason?"
"But you do have another reason. That's what I want to know."
Tanuma shook his head. He felt sick again, helpless, weak, unable to make a difference, not-Natsume just watching him, just waiting for him, just sitting there and he couldn't do a thing -
"I can help him," Tanuma insisted quietly, because everything would break if he admitted otherwise. If he gave up on that, on helping Natsume, then it would be as though he'd never changed at all. He would still be that same weak, ill Tanuma whose health waxed and waned with the shadows around him, that boy who was all alone and with no one to understand, that same child just on a slow slide to the end, and not able to do anything about it. "Even if it's just… knowing, I can help him that way."
"But you don't just do that, do you? What about when you get yourself put in danger? When you try so hard to help him that you end up doing extremely foolish things that cause him to have to save you?" It had Natsume's smile almost exactly right this time, gentle and a little sad, and Tanuma felt on the verge of something terrifying.
"That's not-!" Tanuma stopped himself. "I… even if I know it's stupid, I want to help him. Even if I…" he shuddered, but said it anyway, feeling dizzy and foolish and very sad as he finally realized, "Even if I'm too weak, I'll try to help him anyway. Because I - I don't want him to leave me behind."
Tanuma hung his head. It hurt to realize, to actually admit that his endless efforts to be helpful to Natsume weren't really about helping Natsume at all. They were nothing more than the result of his own selfish desire not to be left out, to be pushed away from Natsume's life, to be left alone again. Even though he knew Natsume had been through so much worse! Even though he knew he was lucky not to be caught up in the world of youkai any more than he was! Even though he was scared of the youkai, Tanuma still wanted more power, more sight, enough to match Natsume. Not for any of the noble reasons he'd told himself, no, Tanuma was just a lonely coward, latching on to Natsume, weak, pitiful -
"Oh." The youkai's voice brought Tanuma out of his daze. It was looking at him with a thoughtful expression, which soon morphed into boredom. "Well, that's a lot of time wasted."
With a pop, Natsume vanished, a familiar maneki neko flipping to land on the forest floor instead. With a strident voice, he demanded, "I want you to buy me a hundred cakes to make up for it!"
Tanuma stared. "Wh - Ponta? Why did you…?"
The fat cat blinked sourly up at him. "You were annoying me. There was something about the way you were acting around Natsume… It made me suspicious."
Tanuma was almost too shocked to be offended, but not quite. He was also starting to grow very angry. "You actually thought I wanted to hurt Natsume? How could you think that!"
"I didn't think that. Stop yelling. Don't make me kill you." Ponta sniffed haughtily, then jumped without invitation up onto Tanuma's shoulder. "I just didn't understand why you kept getting yourself involved in stupid things when you're so pathetically weak. You're almost as bad as Natsume. He's so foolish, always worrying by himself and not saying anything. At least that's one thing you're not useless for."
Tanuma's anger stilled. As did his breathing, his heart, every particle of him frozen on hearing those words. Time, his thoughts, all of it ground to a halt as he slowly, slowly took in what Ponta had said. Then it all jerked back into being with an almost painful thump of his heart, words escaping his mouth near breathless in their haste: "What do you mean?"
Ponta kicked him. "I'll tell you if you buy me cake."
Tanuma stood and started to walk without hesitation. "Okay."
The heavy weight over his shoulder settled down into what seemed to be a more comfortable position, and that familiar voice spoke into his ear. "That idiot used to be so stupid, he'd always suffer by himself. Now at least you don't let him just keep doing that so easily… and the better he feels, the more he's willing to buy me treats!"
Tanuma ignored Ponta's continuing musings on food, all his attention focused on simply walking without losing control of his legs and falling to the ground. It was one thing to hope that he was helping when he insisted that Natsume share at least his stories if not his responsibilities, but it was completely another to hear it spoken as a simple truth, that what Tanuma was doing made a difference. That Natsume cared was something he'd known, but intellectually rather than instinctively; it was hard to truly believe it, when Natsume spent so much time trying to keep Tanuma out of things. He knew that was just because Natsume was no good at sharing his burdens, but he'd begun to doubt whether it wasn't also simply because Natsume didn't want his help - to wonder whether even in such a simple regard, he wasn't more of a hindrance than anything else.
Did it really matter, if he was spiritually weak? Maybe he couldn't help enough in that regard - not yet, there had to be more than chants, something he could do - but if he truly helped Natsume just by knowing, just by being his friend and being ready and willing and even pushy enough to demand inclusion in his troubles, that might be good enough. So long as that was true, Tanuma wouldn't be left behind.
And his reasons were selfish - but so long as he was helping Natsume, did that really matter? That was what was most important, in the end - Natsume, and the thought that maybe one day he'd be able to smile at Tanuma like Ponta sometimes had as not-Natsume, without that shadow behind his eyes, without that distant sadness that still lingered in everything he did.
Tanuma felt giddy, stupid with an idiotic sort of euphoria, and he bought five expensive cakes for Ponta without complaint. The cat tore into them, moaning in bliss around mouthfuls of the baked good, and Tanuma watched him bemusedly, almost unable to reconcile the smooth, menacing youkai he'd feared for the past week with this greedy pig.
He still didn't understand exactly why Ponta had done that at all. The cat's explanation was vague and a little strange, but Tanuma had a feeling that his real reason had been concern, in some way, for Natsume. Ponta was a good bodyguard after all, sometimes.
"AH! Nyanko-sensei! There you are!"
Tanuma looked up at the shout, although the one being addressed ignored it in favor of his cake, only noticing his 'master' when Natsume picked him up and hugged him to his chest.
"Touko-san was looking everywhere for you!" Natsume scolded the feebly struggling cat in his arms. "And here you are, eating cake!" He turned to Tanuma, smiling a little nervously. "Sorry. He didn't make you buy that, did he?"
Tanuma smiled in return, something swelling very large in his throat at the way Natsume's eyes met his before darting off. "No, it's fine. I met him in the woods just now, and I didn't mind getting it for him."
Natsume winced. "Sorry!" He glared down at the subject of discussion. "Some bodyguard you are! Wandering around and making people buy you sweets instead of guarding!"
"Nothing happened, anyway, leave me alone," Ponta whined, finally wiggling free and landing back on the bench to eat the remaining few bites. "If you couldn't stay alive that long then you'd deserve to die!"
"That's not what a bodyguard should be saying!" Natsume snapped back, before turning to Tanuma once more. "Sorry, again, Tanuma."
Tanuma didn't bother to suppress his grin. "No," he said, warmth spreading through him when Natsume's eyes met his. "No, actually, thanks. For asking about me earlier this week," he added at Natsume's confused expression. "I… you were right, I wasn't okay, but I'm fine now, so thank you."
As Tanuma watched, a slow, embarrassed blush rose on Natsume's cheeks. "Oh - no, I didn't do anything. I'm… glad you're okay. Like I said, if I can help, you can…"
Tanuma's grin grew even wider, "You too. Take your own advice! I want to listen, even if I can't do anything… okay?"
Over the past four days, Tanuma had come to realize just how weak he was, just how pathetic and selfish and pitiful, how small he really was. But none of that mattered now - nothing mattered - the whole world had condensed down to one small and simple fact, his heart racing and breath catching, soul swelling within him at this one little thing -
Because he might be selfish, might be weak and small and unworthy, but Tanuma was smiling at Natsume and Natsume was looking back at him, and Ponta, now snarfing the last few bites of cake and belching loudly, had told him that these things Tanuma did mattered to Natsume, made him happy, helped him and if that were true he wouldn't leave Tanuma behind, instead he'd do what he was doing right this instant, that one small thing without a hint of sadness -
Natsume smiled.
------
This fic explores the following requested Tanuma issues:
- only partially seeing youkai, spiritual power
- the way he's apart from other people - can see things they can't
- the way he feels frustrated as his sight is weak - can't see things Natsume can
- learning to improve his own power
- interest in getting close to Natsume
- having him talk with spirits (Madara)
The idea of Madara changing his shape also came from the prompt, with inspiration from the Omibashira arc. My justification for why Tanuma didn't suspect Madara of being the youkai is that Madara had never acted that way around him (call it flimsy if you wish).
Summary: Tanuma encounters a youkai with a familiar face, and comes to a few realizations about himself.
Prompt: The Book of Friends: Natsume Yuujinchou Exchange prompt by Qem. Details below the fic.
Tanuma was walking home when Natsume stumbled out of the woods in front of him, covered in leaves and panting heavily. He dashed forward to catch Natsume's arm before he fell, and supported him carefully.
"Natsume! Are you alright?" Tanuma glanced at the still trees around them, unable to see anything, yet uncertain if that meant nothing dangerous was there.
Natsume straightened; but his leg buckled, and he had to lean on Tanuma to support himself. His eyes were half-closed, his expression strained.
"…I'm okay," he murmured. "It's gone."
Tanuma sighed in relief, and ceased his frantic looks around the area in favor of lifting Natsume's arm around his shoulders and beginning to guide his friend to a nearby hillock. "What happened to your leg?"
Natsume sat down easily - then winced a half-second later, as though the mention of his injury reminded him of the pain. "Don't worry about it," he said with a smile. "I just twisted my ankle."
His smile looked a little off, somehow. It lacked the usual gentleness, the almost serene sadness that always lurked behind it in moments such as these. Instead, there was an edge of almost… glee.
Tanuma frowned.
"You're not Natsume. Are you."
For a moment, Natsume's eyes went wide and innocent. Then that expression collapsed, as the faux Natsume dissolved into malicious snickers. "Oho, that was quick, Tanuma!"
Tanuma tried to yank back, but not-Natsume latched onto his wrist, with telling strength. If Tanuma hadn't already known, this would have been all the indicator he needed that this was a youkai.
"How do you know my name? What do you want?" Tanuma demanded. The youkai smirked at him, the expression odd on Natsume's face.
"Nothing much," not-Natsume said, baring his teeth in a malicious grin. "Just to eat you."
"To - uwah!" Tanuma flailed back in a panic as the youkai leaned closer, licking its lips and opening its mouth fully to reveal teeth that were much sharper than any human's. It bent over Tanuma's arm, still grinning, and sniffed at his skin, completely unaffected by Tanuma's efforts to pull his arm free or kick it away.
The smile on the youkai's face upended itself as it inhaled deeply against Tanuma's arm. "Blech! You smell like that old fool's wards!"
Not-Natsume let go of Tanuma abruptly, causing the boy to fall over backwards since he'd been pulling away so hard. When he straightened warily, the youkai had flopped back on the grass, folding its arms under its head. It looked disturbingly human.
He knew he should running right now. It was pure luck that the youkai hadn't eaten him already. He should be sprinting to the safety of his warded home, calling Natsume and reporting that a dangerous youkai was taking his shape. He should hand this problem over to someone capable of dealing with it, before his luck ran out.
But if Tanuma did that, Natsume would be the one in danger instead.
He stood his ground, glaring at the creature wearing his friend's skin like a mask. "You still haven't answered my question. How do you know my name? Why are you… looking like that?"
The youkai glanced at him, then away. It yawned rudely. "What, you haven't left yet?"
Tanuma persisted, despite the knowledge thrumming through him that he was an idiot; that he was probably going to die. "Tell me! …Please!"
Not-Natsume lay very still for a long moment. Then it leapt lightly to its feet, and stalked over to Tanuma. "Does it bother you, me looking like this? It must, for you to risk your life by hanging around here."
Tanuma opened his mouth to reply, but didn't get the chance. The youkai had already ghosted forward until it was mere millimeters away from him, staring straight into his eyes.
"Too. Bad," it enunciated clearly. "I'm interested in you, Tanuma. I want to know what makes you tick."
And then, with a sudden gust of wind, it was gone.
---
Tanuma lay awake late into the night, staring at the ripples on his ceiling.
He was frightened.
It wasn't something he wanted to admit. It felt… weak, acknowledging that he was scared. Tanuma hated feeling weak, all the more since he actually was weak. He hated feeling helpless while Natsume faced off such terrifying dangers, and he hated that he was secretly glad he was weak enough that none of them had ever targeted him instead.
Once, he'd wanted to be able to be as strong as Natsume. Omibashira had effectively killed that desire, or at least the selfish portion of it: now Tanuma wished he were stronger so that Natsume wouldn't have to face such things alone (and he didn't think about Natori and Ponta and the fact that Natsume wasn't really quite so terribly alone and probably didn't need him at all anyway). Even if he was enough of a coward to be secretly, shamefully happy not to be able to see youkai clearly, Tanuma was still brave enough to attempt to help despite that.
Or if not brave, then at least a little desperate. Natsume was what he cared about, in the end: being able to protect and help Natsume, just as Natsume had always done for him. Being able to lighten that burden Natsume carried, being able to be Natsume's equal, not to be left behind.
Tanuma was frightened. But he didn't tell Natsume about the youkai, and several days later, it returned as he'd expected.
---
It wore Natsume's form once more, and as before, the mask was initially perfect. Tanuma wouldn't have known the difference, had he not just parted ways with his friend only minutes ago, Natsume walking away in the opposite direction from where this Natsume was coming.
"What do you want?" Tanuma asked immediately, and not-Natsume smiled charmingly, Natsume's lips curving up smoothly at both ends.
(Tanuma dragged his eyes away, feeling somehow guilty.)
"Tell me, Tanuma," it said, gesturing down at the body it wore, "what do you think of this kid?"
Tanuma swallowed hard. "I don't have to tell you that."
"Nooo," the youkai drawled, irritation prickling across Natsume's features, "you don't. I also don't have to let you live."
"You don't," Tanuma agreed, throat dry, "but even so, I'm not telling you anything you can use against Natsume."
The youkai squinted angrily at him. "You little wretch," it snarled, "How dare you presume I want anything to do with that brat!"
This caught Tanuma off guard. Up till now, he'd naturally assumed that the youkai merely saw him in regards to Natsume - as a source of information, nothing else. If that wasn't the case… Tanuma had no idea what was going on. "But - didn't you want to know-?"
"I want to know," the youkai spat, "about you. You annoying imbecile."
Tanuma stared in silence.
"Why didn't you tell Natsume about me?" the youkai demanded, voice rising. "Do you also prefer being eaten to receiving help?" It snorted derisively. "You're too weak to even scratch me, so don't go thinking you might be able to defend yourself without getting him involved."
"I - I wasn't thinking that," Tanuma replied. "I… know I'm weak. But - there's still some things I can do."
The youkai crossed its arms, glaring at him. It felt strange, to have Natsume's face looking at him in such a way. It felt as though he'd done something wrong, and should apologize, and beg forgiveness. It felt horrible, and worse for the knowledge that this wasn't Natsume at all, so he shouldn't let it bother him like this.
It felt worse still, when the youkai next spoke, in Natsume's voice: "No, Tanuma, there's not. There's really nothing you can do. You're useless, you do know that, right?"
Tanuma took a deep breath. The summer air felt cold in his lungs. For a second he forgot entirely to fear for his life, because it seemed to have ended already.
"I'm not," he said dully, voice singularly lacking in conviction.
Natsume's eyes regarded him frankly, Natsume's face smoothing out to a blank matter-of-factness that was worse even than the anger had been. Natsume's voice reached out to him, seemed to swirl around him, leaving shivers in its wake: "Yes, you are."
---
"Are you feeling okay?"
Tanuma jerked, startled. "What?"
Natsume smiled slightly. It didn't disguise the worry in his eyes. "You nearly walked into a rice patty just now."
Tanuma slowly looked down. Indeed, he was mere inches away from plunging off the road and into a rice patty. Carefully, he took several steps back. "Um, no, I'm fine."
They began walking again, silently. Several minutes passed before Natsume spoke again, eyes darting towards Tanuma then away. "If… You can tell me, if anything is wrong."
"No," Tanuma insisted quickly, too quickly, it was obvious he was lying. "Nothing's wrong at all, I'm just a little absentminded today."
Natsume didn't reply for a few more steps, and when Tanuma glanced over at him, his friend was looking at ground, hand squeezing tightly around the handle of his bookbag. He had a small, resigned smile on his face, and Tanuma instantly felt like scum.
"Oh," Natsume said, no hint of his distress in his voice, just careful politeness. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry…"
Tanuma normally would have broken into Natsume's apology here, saying something about how it wasn't necessary or how Natsume should realize that Tanuma was willing to listen to his problems, too.
But today all Tanuma could think was useless, and he didn't say a thing. Natsume's apology trailed off into the quiet, and they continued walking without speaking.
---
"Yo! Tanuma!"
The youkai was grinning cheerfully, hands shoved in its pockets as it leaned up against the stone pillar at the gate to Tanuma's home.
Tanuma eyed it wearily; angry at himself for the way his gaze got caught on its happy smile, lingered there for a while. "What do you want?"
"Oh, did I make you angry?" The youkai's grin grew a little sharper. "It's true, though."
Tanuma sighed. "Shut up."
A flash of malice, then. A voice suddenly too deep, too powerful, too altogether inhuman, rumbling out of not-Natsume's chest: "Do you want to die?"
Tanuma flinched back, cursing himself for forgetting the danger he was in. Youkai were deadly. He'd witnessed that, firsthand.
As if mollified by his obvious fear, the youkai settled back against the pillar, seeming to relax back into smug pretense. "Tell me about yourself, Tanuma," it cajoled, flashing that not-Natsume grin his way once again. "Go on."
Tanuma hated this youkai. Hated it. "No."
"You know," not-Natsume said, "I'm not very patient."
It stepped aside to allow Tanuma past, and he walked stiffly by. He felt it watching him all the way up to the door, but he didn't look back.
That night, he asked his father to teach him his exorcism chants.
---
Walking through the halls in school, mumbling the chants under his breath. Tanuma couldn't seem to get them right. He didn't know if it would even work, anyway; even when he managed to successfully say the whole thing he didn't feel as though anything was happening. Still, it was the least he could do. And at least it was something to do.
Taki smiled at him in passing, and Tanuma stopped mumbling to say hello to her. He wondered if he could tell her about the youkai. She would probably understand why he hadn't told Natsume yet, at least. And maybe she would be able to help him somehow.
Telling her would probably be wise. But Tanuma couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to tell her what the youkai had said to him, of what he knew to be true. Which was stupid, because she was in the same boat, but Tanuma sometimes thought her desire to help Natsume was nothing compared to his own, a mere droplet to his rainstorm, and so her weakness mattered correspondingly less. It wasn't that she didn't want to help Natsume, but Natsume held far less sway over her. She wouldn't be so destroyed by those words spoken in Natsume's voice, she - it was just different somehow, and Tanuma didn't want her meeting not-Natsume.
He had to do this himself.
---
He sat, back against a tree, waiting. It didn't take long - five minutes, and then Natsume stepped out from behind a tree, and came to sit in front of him.
Tanuma spoke before the youkai could. "If I tell you what you want to know, what will you do?"
It grinned goofily, in a way that felt all wrong and made Tanuma's chest ache a little. "Well, I'll probably go away."
"What if I don't?"
The youkai shrugged, stretching a finger out to draw in the dirt. "Do you want to find out?"
The lines in the dirt formed a name: Natsume. Tanuma swallowed, feeling sick.
"No," he said quietly. Then he began to chant, carefully, pressing all his energy into every word, intent on banishing this malevolent youkai forever.
Even before he finished speaking, he knew it was no good. The youkai didn't even flinch, didn't move to stop him. It simply watched and waited, until Tanuma was done, at which point it smiled, and scuffed its foot across the name written on the ground.
"My first question is, what do you want with this face I'm wearing?"
Tanuma spoke carefully, voice catching against the lump in his throat. "I just - " he couldn't look away from that name in the dirt, half-erased - "want to help him."
The youkai made a sound of understanding, a low hum. "Even though you can't."
Tanuma didn't answer. Not-Natsume didn't seem to mind, simply smiling at him. "Even though he won't let you help him, even though he tells you nothing, even though you just barely have the ability to see shadows, you still want to help him. Why is that? It can't just be this charming face."
The youkai suddenly lifted its arms, flexing them and posing in front of Tanuma with an arrogant look on its face, one eyebrow raised. "Though I am pretty handsome."
The suddenly childish behaviour was so at odds with all the subtle menace up till now that Tanuma gaped. The youkai snorted at him and dropped its arms. It seemed amused at the reaction it had caused, and Tanuma quickly forced himself to glare at it, provoked into anger.
"I'm his friend!" Tanuma snapped. "Do I need any more reason?"
"But you do have another reason. That's what I want to know."
Tanuma shook his head. He felt sick again, helpless, weak, unable to make a difference, not-Natsume just watching him, just waiting for him, just sitting there and he couldn't do a thing -
"I can help him," Tanuma insisted quietly, because everything would break if he admitted otherwise. If he gave up on that, on helping Natsume, then it would be as though he'd never changed at all. He would still be that same weak, ill Tanuma whose health waxed and waned with the shadows around him, that boy who was all alone and with no one to understand, that same child just on a slow slide to the end, and not able to do anything about it. "Even if it's just… knowing, I can help him that way."
"But you don't just do that, do you? What about when you get yourself put in danger? When you try so hard to help him that you end up doing extremely foolish things that cause him to have to save you?" It had Natsume's smile almost exactly right this time, gentle and a little sad, and Tanuma felt on the verge of something terrifying.
"That's not-!" Tanuma stopped himself. "I… even if I know it's stupid, I want to help him. Even if I…" he shuddered, but said it anyway, feeling dizzy and foolish and very sad as he finally realized, "Even if I'm too weak, I'll try to help him anyway. Because I - I don't want him to leave me behind."
Tanuma hung his head. It hurt to realize, to actually admit that his endless efforts to be helpful to Natsume weren't really about helping Natsume at all. They were nothing more than the result of his own selfish desire not to be left out, to be pushed away from Natsume's life, to be left alone again. Even though he knew Natsume had been through so much worse! Even though he knew he was lucky not to be caught up in the world of youkai any more than he was! Even though he was scared of the youkai, Tanuma still wanted more power, more sight, enough to match Natsume. Not for any of the noble reasons he'd told himself, no, Tanuma was just a lonely coward, latching on to Natsume, weak, pitiful -
"Oh." The youkai's voice brought Tanuma out of his daze. It was looking at him with a thoughtful expression, which soon morphed into boredom. "Well, that's a lot of time wasted."
With a pop, Natsume vanished, a familiar maneki neko flipping to land on the forest floor instead. With a strident voice, he demanded, "I want you to buy me a hundred cakes to make up for it!"
Tanuma stared. "Wh - Ponta? Why did you…?"
The fat cat blinked sourly up at him. "You were annoying me. There was something about the way you were acting around Natsume… It made me suspicious."
Tanuma was almost too shocked to be offended, but not quite. He was also starting to grow very angry. "You actually thought I wanted to hurt Natsume? How could you think that!"
"I didn't think that. Stop yelling. Don't make me kill you." Ponta sniffed haughtily, then jumped without invitation up onto Tanuma's shoulder. "I just didn't understand why you kept getting yourself involved in stupid things when you're so pathetically weak. You're almost as bad as Natsume. He's so foolish, always worrying by himself and not saying anything. At least that's one thing you're not useless for."
Tanuma's anger stilled. As did his breathing, his heart, every particle of him frozen on hearing those words. Time, his thoughts, all of it ground to a halt as he slowly, slowly took in what Ponta had said. Then it all jerked back into being with an almost painful thump of his heart, words escaping his mouth near breathless in their haste: "What do you mean?"
Ponta kicked him. "I'll tell you if you buy me cake."
Tanuma stood and started to walk without hesitation. "Okay."
The heavy weight over his shoulder settled down into what seemed to be a more comfortable position, and that familiar voice spoke into his ear. "That idiot used to be so stupid, he'd always suffer by himself. Now at least you don't let him just keep doing that so easily… and the better he feels, the more he's willing to buy me treats!"
Tanuma ignored Ponta's continuing musings on food, all his attention focused on simply walking without losing control of his legs and falling to the ground. It was one thing to hope that he was helping when he insisted that Natsume share at least his stories if not his responsibilities, but it was completely another to hear it spoken as a simple truth, that what Tanuma was doing made a difference. That Natsume cared was something he'd known, but intellectually rather than instinctively; it was hard to truly believe it, when Natsume spent so much time trying to keep Tanuma out of things. He knew that was just because Natsume was no good at sharing his burdens, but he'd begun to doubt whether it wasn't also simply because Natsume didn't want his help - to wonder whether even in such a simple regard, he wasn't more of a hindrance than anything else.
Did it really matter, if he was spiritually weak? Maybe he couldn't help enough in that regard - not yet, there had to be more than chants, something he could do - but if he truly helped Natsume just by knowing, just by being his friend and being ready and willing and even pushy enough to demand inclusion in his troubles, that might be good enough. So long as that was true, Tanuma wouldn't be left behind.
And his reasons were selfish - but so long as he was helping Natsume, did that really matter? That was what was most important, in the end - Natsume, and the thought that maybe one day he'd be able to smile at Tanuma like Ponta sometimes had as not-Natsume, without that shadow behind his eyes, without that distant sadness that still lingered in everything he did.
Tanuma felt giddy, stupid with an idiotic sort of euphoria, and he bought five expensive cakes for Ponta without complaint. The cat tore into them, moaning in bliss around mouthfuls of the baked good, and Tanuma watched him bemusedly, almost unable to reconcile the smooth, menacing youkai he'd feared for the past week with this greedy pig.
He still didn't understand exactly why Ponta had done that at all. The cat's explanation was vague and a little strange, but Tanuma had a feeling that his real reason had been concern, in some way, for Natsume. Ponta was a good bodyguard after all, sometimes.
"AH! Nyanko-sensei! There you are!"
Tanuma looked up at the shout, although the one being addressed ignored it in favor of his cake, only noticing his 'master' when Natsume picked him up and hugged him to his chest.
"Touko-san was looking everywhere for you!" Natsume scolded the feebly struggling cat in his arms. "And here you are, eating cake!" He turned to Tanuma, smiling a little nervously. "Sorry. He didn't make you buy that, did he?"
Tanuma smiled in return, something swelling very large in his throat at the way Natsume's eyes met his before darting off. "No, it's fine. I met him in the woods just now, and I didn't mind getting it for him."
Natsume winced. "Sorry!" He glared down at the subject of discussion. "Some bodyguard you are! Wandering around and making people buy you sweets instead of guarding!"
"Nothing happened, anyway, leave me alone," Ponta whined, finally wiggling free and landing back on the bench to eat the remaining few bites. "If you couldn't stay alive that long then you'd deserve to die!"
"That's not what a bodyguard should be saying!" Natsume snapped back, before turning to Tanuma once more. "Sorry, again, Tanuma."
Tanuma didn't bother to suppress his grin. "No," he said, warmth spreading through him when Natsume's eyes met his. "No, actually, thanks. For asking about me earlier this week," he added at Natsume's confused expression. "I… you were right, I wasn't okay, but I'm fine now, so thank you."
As Tanuma watched, a slow, embarrassed blush rose on Natsume's cheeks. "Oh - no, I didn't do anything. I'm… glad you're okay. Like I said, if I can help, you can…"
Tanuma's grin grew even wider, "You too. Take your own advice! I want to listen, even if I can't do anything… okay?"
Over the past four days, Tanuma had come to realize just how weak he was, just how pathetic and selfish and pitiful, how small he really was. But none of that mattered now - nothing mattered - the whole world had condensed down to one small and simple fact, his heart racing and breath catching, soul swelling within him at this one little thing -
Because he might be selfish, might be weak and small and unworthy, but Tanuma was smiling at Natsume and Natsume was looking back at him, and Ponta, now snarfing the last few bites of cake and belching loudly, had told him that these things Tanuma did mattered to Natsume, made him happy, helped him and if that were true he wouldn't leave Tanuma behind, instead he'd do what he was doing right this instant, that one small thing without a hint of sadness -
Natsume smiled.
------
This fic explores the following requested Tanuma issues:
- only partially seeing youkai, spiritual power
- the way he's apart from other people - can see things they can't
- the way he feels frustrated as his sight is weak - can't see things Natsume can
- learning to improve his own power
- interest in getting close to Natsume
- having him talk with spirits (Madara)
The idea of Madara changing his shape also came from the prompt, with inspiration from the Omibashira arc. My justification for why Tanuma didn't suspect Madara of being the youkai is that Madara had never acted that way around him (call it flimsy if you wish).