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"Oh, just let him sleep," Tooru whispered, taking Kaname by the arm and backing out of the bedroom. Takashi slumbered on, one arm crooked over his head.
She eased the door closed and they returned to the living room, Kaname looking questions at Tooru the whole way. She took his hand and squeezed it in reassurance. As they stepped over a line inscribed on the floor, the two youkai waiting there snapped into view. They'd been blurrily visible a few steps before -- today the spell wasn't working very well -- but now, they could be seen as precisely as any human. It was the chuukyuu, the two from Yatsuhara who were especially fond of Takashi.
"We'll pass on your message," Tooru said, spreading her hands to let them know she knew it wasn't ideal, but she'd do what she could.
Kaname looked at Tooru again. She wished that he was more confident in these situations, but that might come in time. He added, "In the meantime, we'll take a look." Tooru placed her foot very lightly on Kaname's, almost as if she was about to start pacing and didn't realize he was so close. Careful, that slight pressure said: don't promise too much.
She could tell the youkai in front of her weren't pleased. "We beg your pardon, but we need Natsume-sama. The two of you can't -- " The cyclops fell silent, lips pursed.
"We can't see," Tooru said, giving the words only a little bite, "like he does." She crossed her arms. Only when both youkai wilted under her glare and nodded did she continue: "This is true. But that doesn't mean we're useless."
Kaname said, "You told us the problem was with a human."
Frantic nods here from both youkai. “It might be those exorcists again,” the cyclops said.
Tooru knew the flashes of panic on his face were genuine. There had been recent reports of exorcist activity in the area, including one altercation, in which Misuzu had driven off a few of the unaffiliated, novice exorcists that were making their presence felt more often. Recounting the scene, Misuzu had been positively gleeful. That joy had unnerved Takashi, but Tooru couldn't fault the youkai.
"If they're human, Taki and I would be able to speak to them. Today," Kaname said. He raised his hands a little higher and took a step backwards. "Unless you'd rather this all waits until Natsume can join us."
"No, no, that would be fine. Wonderful," said the cyclops. "If you could take a preliminary look and report back to Natsume-sama, that would be most useful."
“Then there's just the matter of payment,” Tooru said. As she expected, both youkai cringed.
“We could bring you some very nice tomatoes,” the cyclops began.
Two weeks ago, they'd brought dozens of them in payment for another minor investigation. Tooru remembered the heft of them in her hand, redolent with the scent of summer sunshine. Kaname had spent a few days experimenting with homemade pasta sauce. Spaghetti wasn't her favorite meal, but his sauce had been delicious. They still had some to use up.
Kaname shook his head. “I'm sure they would be great, but I think we'd like something different this time.”
“Perhaps some flowers, then.”
Tooru sighed. “I'm sorry, but we can't eat flowers. Could we have something else, please? Rice would be useful.”
“No, no, we can't do that,” the cyclops said. Tooru wondered why; if they could conjure ripe tomatoes in autumn -- and this wasn't the first time their household had been presented with astonishingly unseasonal vegetables -- why not harvest some rice? Perhaps there was some odd youkai prohibition against the practice. Or they were just being stubborn.
The cyclops frowned and wrung his hands. “Two baskets of vegetables this time, if you insist. Or we could owe you a favor.” He brightened. “Yes, yes, I'm sure Natsume-sama wouldn't mind.”
Kaname and Tooru shook their heads fiercely in unison. “We'll take the baskets,” Kaname said. “We can't eat favors either. And we'd like a variety of vegetables this time, please.”
“That's fine, then. Two baskets,” the cyclops said, shoulders slumped. He looked as though he wanted to say more, but Tooru escorted them to the door.
Once they'd gone, Kaname gave her a lopsided smile. “I'm not sure we won that one,” he said.
“Well, they're giving us something, so maybe we should count that as a victory.” She twisted her lips. “At least Takashi wasn't there to tell them we'd do it for free.”
“He'd help youkai every day for free if he could.” Kaname's voice was exasperated.
“I know. But he can't. Not if we're all going to eat.” Tooru leaned back against the door. “Hopefully those were our only visitors this morning.” She checked her watch. “He can sleep a little bit longer.”
"Come on," Kaname said, kneeling next to the futon. He gave Takashi a gentle poke, which had no result at all. “I hate waking him up,” Kaname said to Tooru.
She put a hand on his leg and said, “I know. At least he's not having a nightmare this morning.”
Still, nightmarish or not, Takashi didn't get nearly enough sleep. He was determined as ever to navigate between the human and spirit worlds, and to give as much of himself as he could to each. And the amount of attention he received hadn't lessened as he thinned out the names remaining in the Book of Friends. The last name had been returned at least a year ago -- to the audible vexation of Nyanko-sensei -- but the youkai seeking him out had only increased. At least it was mostly benign attention; no one tried to kill him for the Book. It was a small comfort, since some still tried to kill him just because he was powerful, or they had a grudge against Reiko, or they were angry that they hadn't been able to wrest the Book from him when it was still a tool to be feared.
Kaname and Tooru had tried to persuade Takashi that he didn't have to work in the human world too. They didn't have a lot of money, but it was enough. Besides, they ate well using the fresh vegetables from grateful youkai, at least.
Takashi felt guilty, that was the problem. He didn't want to take an inch more than he gave. He wouldn't easily let himself believe that there were no tallies here, that no one was keeping count.
It didn't matter. It didn't. But Takashi needed to feel useful, and the price of walking in two worlds was that he felt like he had to prove his worth in both of them, in different coinage.
Right now it was a human obligation that beckoned: time for Takashi to get up for work. Eventually Kaname did manage to wake him without startling him, using a combination of stroking his hair and murmuring into his ear.
Takashi always wanted to hear about any youkai visitors immediately. "It was just those two guys from Yatsuhara again," Tooru reported, looking down at her notepad, perched on the end of the bed. "They think it's a human. We'll take a look," she said, pushing her hair behind one ear. "There isn't anything urgent. Not worth waking you up for, no matter what they tried to tell us." She stretched out on her stomach, reaching to hug his legs under the blanket. "So you got some sleep, right?"
Takashi put his hand out and petted her head. "I slept pretty well, thanks to both of you," he said. He put his other hand out towards Kaname, who pulled the blankets up and slid under them, his body a line of warmth against Takashi from the hip down.
Takashi smiled again and put his head on Kaname's shoulder. "You come up here, too," he said to Tooru. She wriggled under the covers, occasioning an objection from Kaname, who yanked them firmly back over to his side.
As she snuggled in, Tooru gave a pleased sigh. A minute later, she sighed again, less happily, saying, “Let's not fall asleep. I have to go to work. So do you, Takashi. I'm sure all the girls are waiting for you.”
Kaname made a noise of bemused surprise. Takashi covered his face with his hands. “It doesn't mean anything,” he said.
Tooru caught Kaname's eye and let a grin slip out. Her voice was serious, though, as she said, “Kaname, I stopped by the store after work yesterday. They had him on the register. He was surrounded by girls on their way home from school. They were all giggling. I think they were supposed to be buying snacks, but they were just staring at him. He didn't even notice me there at first. Too busy flirting, maybe.” She paused. “I'm sure they'll show up again this afternoon.”
Takashi groaned and looked at Tooru. “I'm sorry I didn't see you.” His face was blazing. “Honestly, it was embarrassing more than anything. You... you don't have to worry.” He grabbed her hand and Kaname's. “I'd rather be with you both than anyone else in the world.”
The amusement she'd been smothering died in her chest. She threw her arms around him. “Oh, Takashi,” she said, burying her face in his shoulder. “I was just teasing. But thank you.”
Takashi froze. Then he pulled Kaname in to join them. Nuzzling into them both, he said, "I probably don't say this enough--"
Tooru said, "No, you definitely don't," and Kaname had laughed his agreement. They had to reassure him, then, little kisses and touches and incoherent whispers. It was tricky; they both wished he could be more verbally expressive, but understood why he wasn't, even now. And conveying that to him was even trickier.
Takashi was better with hugs, with silly little trinkets he brought home from work. His smile, even at its shyest, had always been something that made her heart flutter.
And she knew what Takashi felt, most of the time. So did Kaname. That was the most important thing.
A minute later she stood up; both men groaned at the incursion of chilly air under the blanket as she did. "As much as I'd love to stay in bed and cuddle all day, I have to get to work." She looked at her watch. "And so do you, Takashi. Don't make all our defense this morning be for nothing!”
"I'll make dinner," Kaname offered; this was only fair, as it was his day off, but also fortuitous, as he was the best cook.
He and Tooru made arrangements to go to Yatsuhara after she finished her shift at the antique bookstore. “I'll be a little later, don't forget,” she told him. “They extended my hours again. I think they like finally having someone who's more familiar with books about the supernatural.”
“Maybe they just like seeing you around,” Kaname said, lips twitching. “Maybe it's you we ought to be worrying about.”
She snorted. “I really doubt it,” she said as she left, hair tucked up in the bun she typically wore to work (it made her feel like the bookstore was even dustier if her hair was in her face catching it all, she said).
"Want breakfast?" Kaname asked Takashi as the latter stretched his arms above his head in preparation for leaving the bed. "You've got time."
"Just some toast, please," Takashi said, knowing Kaname would like nothing more than to prepare him a full breakfast. He wasn't very hungry; despite getting more sleep, turbulent dreams had left him disoriented and unnerved. He didn't want to make the other two worry by mentioning it, and if nothing else, he was much less tired than he had been.
It was just that there was so much to do. He never would've imagined that he would become some sort of ... he didn't even know what. Liaison to the youkai? Part detective, part negotiator, part translator. There weren't many other jobs he could take on, and besides, this one was important to him. Soul-draining and exhausting, much of the time, but it wasn't something he wanted to give up.
Tooru and Kaname did their best to protect him from the seemingly incessant demands of the spirits. They made sense of the tangled assortment of warnings, pleas, and difficulties; they were better at saying no than he ever was.
It was probably in part because they still couldn't see youkai very well. Tooru had unearthed, after a year of searching, a spell in her grandfather's books that would make the invisible visible, to some degree. With some trial and error, she and Kaname had worked out a formula that allowed them to see, in a hazy way, most of the spirits that Takashi could. At least they assumed it was most of them; it was an awful lot, anyway. The spell's duration seemed to be about an hour. But both duration and clarity were uneven at best.
He still felt conflicted about having them involved at all, but most of the time he managed to believe them when they said they wanted to be. On good days, anyway. On bad days he felt like he was sucked into a maelstrom of all the darkness from his childhood, the years he really felt like he was too tainted to be fit company for anyone, when loneliness was a noose he'd never escape.
He was still learning, on those days, to let them take care of him.
Even as a child, Kaname had been able to prepare breakfast that was more complicated than toast. “But if toast is what he'll eat, then toast is what I'll make,” he whispered to himself in the kitchen. At least the bread was homemade. He cut two slices, thin like Takashi preferred, and put them in the toaster.
Throughout high school, he'd cooked basic meals, even though his father had often tried to prevent him from helping out, driven by obsessive worry about his son's health. It had been good practice for moving in with Takashi and Tooru, who could find their way around a kitchen, just barely, and would cook if required. But they didn't enjoy it, and there were other household tasks Kaname disliked (cleaning the bathroom high among them), so they'd worked out a rough division of labor that mostly kept everyone happy.
He'd picked up delivery work for a couple of restaurants right after graduation before settling down doing kitchen gruntwork at one of them. And he realized that not only was he competent at cooking, he enjoyed it. Maybe it was having such a concrete way to contribute to their home. Or the delight with which the other two (and Nyanko-sensei, of course) ate his meals. He found it soothing, to stand at the counter with his knife and cutting board and giant soup pot. Cooking was methodical, logical: cut a carrot and you had sliced carrots. Ingredients behaved in expected ways, ways that were for the most part understood.
It wasn't like youkai, where everything you thought you knew might suddenly prove irrelevant, or even contradictory, faced with whatever spirit was in front of you.
Kaname wasn't very good with them, wasn't very useful there. He knew Tooru's spell was unreliable for her, too. But it remained frustrating: sometimes he felt certain that he was seeing everything Takashi could; other times, the spirits were greyed out, dim outlines, hardly recognizable at all.
They had one of Tooru's circles traced in the living room of their house, where they received their visitors -- the ones that knocked at the front door, anyway. All the youkai so far had obligingly stayed within it, but he wasn't sure if it was courtesy, nonchalance (youkai thinking they were too powerful to be concerned with such a thing), or even ignorance. They knew Takashi could see them, so perhaps it wasn't so odd to be dealing with two other humans who could see them as well.
They'd thought about it a lot, when they first decided to try the awkward arrangement where Takashi helped out the youkai but also kept a part-time job in the human world. "We're not going to let you burn yourself away to nothing," Tooru had said, wrapping Takashi in a tight embrace and putting her forehead to his.
This -- the circle, the spell -- were the best they could come up with so far. Tooru worried, as he did, that it wasn't enough. But it was what they had now, and they were together, and if there was something else to be figured out they would do that, together.
Kaname believed that. He knew Tooru did, too, and Takashi did, as much as he let himself believe in anything. Their relationship was a statement of hope. Maybe all relationships were, at their base, he thought: a core of belief in the light we see in other people, and a hope that they see the same light in ourselves.
Maybe that was another thing he liked about cooking. It, too, was fueled by hope, though over a much shorter timespan, and with much more certainty than any relationship could ever have.
The toaster dinged, interrupting his thoughts. He rummaged through the fridge for a small container at the back. The smell of apples wafted out when he pulled off the lid. Tasting the contents with a knife, he nodded and spread some on the toast.
Presenting the plate to Takashi, he said, “I tried something yesterday with those apples we got. It isn't jam, exactly,” he said apologetically. Takashi took a bite, chewed, and said, “It's good! Nice and sweet. Whatever it is. Thank you.” Kaname smiled, feeling relief out of proportion to what a mere mouthful of bread should generate. He made sure Takashi ate both pieces.
It was a teenage boy at Yatsuhara. Tooru and Kaname went there in the late afternoon, as they'd promised. He was easy to find, sitting on a large boulder, squinting and swiveling his head from side to side. Occasionally he'd let out a cackle.
They walked up and greeted him. He said hello, offering them a perfunctory smile.
"Do you see them?" Kaname asked. He made a circle with his hand, enclosing the whole area around Yatsuhara. "The youkai."
The boy raised an eyebrow, then laughed. "I do. Sometimes. Little flashes. Do you?" His eyes snapped between Kaname and Tooru and back, waiting until they both nodded.
"Sometimes. Little flashes," Tooru echoed.
"They jump," the boy said. "When I do this." He gathered himself; Kaname's skin prickled as he felt power massing.
"Don't!" Kaname said, holding out a hand. "Can you really see them?"
The boy paused, all good-natured energy coiled up, and looked at Kaname, politely, as if wondering when he would go away and leave him to his games.
"Do you know what it does, when you do that?" Tooru shrugged. "It's not very nice for them."
The boy's smile faded. "Are you sure? I thought... I thought it was like tickling. From the sounds I could hear."
Kaname shook his head. "It's not." He looked at Tooru. "Maybe we could..." Tooru shook her head, a tiny gesture. All right. They wouldn't tell him anything more than necessary. He said, "Maybe we could introduce you to my father."
The boy tilted his head. "Your father?"
"He's the priest here. I think you might like speaking with him." Kaname smiled and held his breath.
"Okay," the boy said, uncertain. "I didn't think I was hurting anyone. I thought--"
"It's all right," Tooru said. "It's hard to know, when it's so hard to see, isn't it? And when you don't have anyone to talk to who understands."
Kaname looked up and saw the cyclops hovering nearby. The spell was working well at the moment, so Kaname easily saw him point to a spot closer to the temple itself, next to a tree.
There were several locations around the temple grounds that seemed to amplify spiritual power, or where the curtain separating the human and youkai world seemed torn. Kaname had noticed himself that it was easier to sense youkai, if not see them outright, in those places.
The cyclops gestured again to point out Kaname's father approaching. Good.
"Let's go see if my father's home," Kaname said, leading them towards the tree. The cyclops dipped his head and headed in the same direction.
“You know, about five years ago he was doing the same sort of thing you are.” Kaname flicked his eyes from the boy over to the cyclops and continued, “He didn't mean to, but he was hurting spirits just because he didn't know.” Kaname gave the cyclops an apologetic glance. His father stopped, just out of view but within earshot.
The boy asked, “So what happened?” Then, clearly catching sight of the cyclops, he yelped, “What -- what's that?”
"That's one of our friends," Kaname said. The cyclops smiled and waved. The boy stared, blinked hard, and kept staring.
"Hello," the boy said. "Can you hear me? Can you understand me?"
"Yes, I can. Hello," the cyclops said, waving again.
Silence. The boy stared, and stared, and stared. "I didn't know," he said. "Are there many of you here?"
The cow youkai, the one that was the cyclops' sidekick, wandered through. Kaname didn't think the boy's eyes could get any wider, but they did as he saw the second youkai.
"There are a lot of us here," the cyclops said.
"A lot, a lot," the cow repeated, bobbing his head.
"I didn't know.” He turned to Kaname. "Can I always see them? If I come here?" He looked down and tapped his foot twice, as if trying to mark the spot.
"Not always," Kaname said. "It doesn't always work." He shot a look at Tooru again; she shook her head, confirming that they wouldn't tell him about the circles or the spell. "But sometimes," Kaname added.
"Now you know who lives here," Tooru said. "Maybe you could see them without 'tickling' them."
The boy's face fell. "I didn't know," he repeated. "I only thought -- they made such funny sounds when I did it! I thought... I thought it was like tickling."
"That's all right," Kaname said. "Now you know, you won't do it again, right?"
The boy looked at the cow and cyclops youkai, gulped, and said, "Never." He gave a hasty bow and said, "I'm sorry!"
"What's this?" Kaname's father came striding up. He made a pretense of taking in the scene, despite having overheard everything, of course. He'd long since discovered the same spiritually sensitive patches that Kaname knew about, and finally getting to see the youkai that were his neighbors had only confirmed his resolution to never try to blast them again.
"Why don't you come for dinner?" Kaname's dad said. He looked at the boy. "I think we probably have a few interesting things to talk about."
The boy's eyes kept darting back to the youkai, a smile breaking out over his face. Then a second later he'd stifle it -- worrying, Kaname knew, about what he'd been doing to them for days. And then that smile would steal out again.
Kaname nodded to his father, who was walking off, hand on the shoulder of his new friend. "What's your name?" his father was asking, as he gave his son a nod in return.
Kaname's father worried about him, was a worrier in general. Sometimes it chafed, but during almost all the hardest parts of his life, Kaname had tactile memories of that hand on his shoulder, reminding him he wasn't alone, that he was loved.
Kaname thought it was going to be all right.
He turned back to Tooru, who was smiling up at him. "That was easy," she said. "And home in time for dinner. Which is good, since you're cooking again!" She took his hand.
The cow and cyclops were still there. Kaname said, "I'm sorry my father caused you so much trouble back then."
The cyclops shook his head. "That's all in the past now. Besides, Natsume-sama took care of it, didn't he?"
"Yes. He told my father he didn't have to blast all of you to protect me. And then he told Natsume to come talk to me. That was how we met." He was hit by a wave of gratitude for the encounter that had let Takashi come into his life; he was pretty sure the smile spread across his face was embarassingly sentimental, but he couldn't bring himself to care.
They bid the chuukyuu good night and returned to the house. Takashi was napping. He usually didn't sleep very long after his shifts, perhaps half an hour, but it seemed necessary to stem the sleep deficit his restless nights left behind. Right now Takashi was sprawled across their futon, deep in sleep as if he'd been there all day.
Kaname and Tooru looked fondly down at him for a moment and then edged out of the room, closing the door and moving to the kitchen.
"He'll wake up soon," Tooru said. "Probably whenever your food starts smelling good. What are you cooking, anyway?"
Kaname pulled open the refrigerator and surveyed the contents, then repeated the exercise with the kitchen cupboards. "We're almost out of rice," he grumbled. "Why can't the youkai ever pay us in rice?”
Tooru giggled. "They only seem to be able to manage tomatoes lately."
Kaname pulled his face out of the cupboard. "That's not a completely bad thing; they're very expensive at this time of year. And theirs taste much better. I don't know if I want to find out how they do it." He pulled out a pot and placed it on the stove. "We could have ramen again, maybe." Thumping his cutting board down on the counter, he said, “I wish they would just explain why they can't give us rice. Then we could stop asking for it.”
Shrugging, Tooru said, “If I could get a youkai to truthfully answer one question, I'm not sure that's what I would pick. Anyway, your ramen will be delicious.”
Halfway through dinner preparations, as expected, Takashi emerged from the bedroom. Hair ruffled and rubbing his eyes, he padded into the kitchen and enfolded each of them in a hug. He was prone to hugging when newly awake. Not that Kaname was complaining, but he wondered if it was because just-woke-up Takashi couldn't believe that they were still there, that their relationship hadn't been a dream.
"Tell us about your day," Tooru said, after the hugs were completed, moving on to the next part of the ritual.
Every day at the store, there were customers who were garishly dressed or making odd purchases or otherwise memorable; today was no different. Takashi finished his anecdotes and said, “I made sure I didn't accidentally flirt with anyone,” eliciting a snicker from Kaname.
"And now you," Takashi said. "Tell me about Yatsuhara."
Kaname said, "It wasn't a big deal." Takashi seemed relieved to hear about the boy, his contriteness, and that he had been left in the care of Kaname's father. There weren't many youkai incidents that could be so simply resolved.
"Let's hope the rest of the week is as uneventful, then," Tooru said, yawning. “We could all use a break.”
They went to bed early, curled up together in the quiet house. Takashi was always the last to fall asleep, but both Tooru and Kaname had developed a habit of waking up every few hours to check on him. It wasn't deliberate; it was just something their bodies did. That night, Tooru woke up at exactly the same time as Kaname. They smiled at each other, relieved to find Takashi sleeping, and then returned to sleep themselves.
Later, Kaname stirred as Nyanko-sensei tiptoed in; even he took a bit of care not to wake up Takashi, these days.
Kaname found himself awake once more before morning, aware only of the warm tangle of their bodies in the blanket. He shifted his foot and realized Nyanko-sensei was at the edge of the bed; the youkai was snoring softly. Kaname smiled and let himself drop back into sleep.