@nyanko3sensei / nyanko3sensei.tumblr.com
Shen Qingqiu arrives with a tearful, red-faced Ning Yingying to the sight of two children biting the Bai Zhan Peak Lord.
drew my fave scene so far from the amazing fic Shen Yuan of No Relation by @grubus!!! this is a 10/10 friendodo recommendation, go read it!!!
Natsume Yuujinchou AU where Reiko was an illegitimate child of the Natori family.
Because of her enormous spiritual power, she and her mother were both allowed to live with the Head Family, despite it being obvious how much her father’s wife hated both her and her mother.
Growing up, everyone in the head family treated Reiko with grudging respect, but her mother got no such luxury. Treated as a slave and an outsider, the only person, other than her own daughter, that showed her any kindness or affection was Reiko’s younger half brother, Syusuke.
He was cheerful and free with his affections, and he adored his sister to the ends of the Earth.
He was 11 when Reiko and her mother, tired of being ridiculed and mistreated by the Natori family, fled from the main house, and were never heard from again. He cried bitterly about it for months afterwards, missing his big sister and his aunt, who always seemed to care for him more deeply even than his own mother. It was at that point in his life that he truly began to despise his parents .
He searched for them tirelessly for almost a decade, only for it all to end in tragedy, the day he received news that Reiko and her mother had both died in a car crash.
He never got over that pain, never stopped wondering what his life might be like, if only his big sister and his aunt were still there.
And as the years turned into decades, he grew slowly more and more bitter.
His beautiful daughter, with her pale blonde hair and charming smile, in the end grew up just like the rest of them - shrewd and arrogant and unloving.
And it wasn’t until his grandson, Shuuichi, was born that he finally knew true happiness again.
Shuuichi, who wore his heart on his sleeve and was so much softer than he liked to pretend, reminded Syusuke so much of himself.
Syusuke did everything he could, to guide Shuuichi properly, to let him keep his innocent, childish wonder at the world. But the influence of their family around them was too much.
By the time Shuuichi was 16, he’d already grown so jaded and closed off from everyone. Syusuke worried that he had failed his grandson already.
But then, everything changed the day Shuuichi came home with a skinny little 8-year-old in tow. With ill-fitting clothes and shaggy silver hair that hid his eyes, Syusuke almost didn’t recognize him.
But as Shuuichi explained that, “Grandpa, you have to let Takashi-kun stay here! The people he’s with aren’t feeding him properly! And they call him a liar because they don’t believe he can see and if-” the child finally lifted his head, and those familiar, soulful silver eyes staring out of an eerily familiar face completely stole his breath away.
And finally, finally, after an entire lifetime of mourning, Syusuke was reunited with the family that had been stolen from him at such a young age. And there was no way he was going to let go ever again.
There’s something unbearably sad about Madara-sama, Natsume Shigeru often finds himself thinking. He can never quite put his finger on what exactly it is, though.
Maybe it’s the slow, thoughtful way in which he moves, as if plagued by creaking bones and painful joints.
Maybe it’s the way he tends to stare off into space, whenever he’s not busy teasing Shigeru and his older sister, or accompanying their father, the clan head, to exorcisms or other official business.
Or maybe, probably, it’s the way he disappears on every first of July, only to reappear the next day, every time lonelier and more miserable than the year before. Shigeru followed him one year, to a humble little grave in a sleepy little town in the countryside - the grave of Shigeru’s great-grandfather Natsume Takashi, the founder of their Clan.
(Madara-sama had poofed into the form of a fat little calico, and had curled up with his nose pressed up against the gravestone.
He lay there for a long time, his eyes closed, and Shigeru could swear he heard him talking in that deep, rumbling voice that always managed to make Shigeru feel safe and protected.
Shigeru had left then, not wanting to intrude on this intensely private moment of grief.)
It’s not only Madara-sama either.
All of their clan’s oldest and most powerful shiki - Misuzu, Hinoe, Benio, Chobihige, Chuukyuu, Kai - carry themselves with an air of misery, of loss. Deeply respected and beloved they may be, they almost don’t seem to belong. Like relics from a time long past.
(“It’s like they’re waiting for something,” Shigeru had said to his mother once.
She hadn’t replied, just smiled sadly and cupped a gentle hand to Shigeru’s cheek.
And he was sure she knew what they were waiting for.)
And then, Madara-sama comes home one day in his fat little calico form.
He’s trailed by a lost-looking 27-year-old with fine silver hair and piercing grey eyes that seem to look through a person. There’s something inside Shigeru that recognizes the man instantly, intimately, as one of their own.
“Nyanko-sensei? Where are we-?” he’s asking.
But Madara-sama interrupts him.
“Shigeru!” he calls, and Shigeru sees the man’s head snap immediately towards him. Those piercing silver eyes blow wide and his mouth drops open in shock, and Shigeru knows he’s been recognized as well.
“Go call your father and grandfather!” Madara-sama barks the order, and Shigeru obeys without question.
“Madara-sama has brought home a guest,” Shigeru announces when he finds his father and grandfather in a room, discussing things in urgent tones with some of their other clan members.
His father looks startled at the news. This isn’t something that happens every day. Or at all, really.
“I think it’s great-grandfather,” Shigeru informs them with a note of uncertainty.
Within moments, his father and grandfather have leapt to their feet and are out the door.
It is, indeed, a time displaced Natsume Takashi that has arrived at their doorstep.
He’s with them for exactly 5 days, and Shigeru has never seen Madara (or the rest of their oldest and most powerful shiki) as happy as they are when they’re with the Founder.
There’s none of those creaking bones and painful joints - they’re young and energetic again.
And Shigeru knows, can feel it in his bones, that this is it.
This is what they’ve been waiting for.
(Natsume Takashi’s smile is soft, his voice so full of tender affection and relief, when Shigeru overhears him talking Madara-sama and Misuzu and the others on the second day.
“I’m so happy you’re all still together,” he says, running a hand through silky white fur.
He turns to smile at Shigeru’s grandfather then, cupping the older man’s face in a soft hand. And it should look strange, out of place, that look of fatherly pride on Natsume Takashi’s face. But Shigeru has seen far stranger things in his life.
“I’m so proud of you. You’ve led our clan well.”
His grandfather looks the happiest Shigeru has ever seen him, despite the tears running down his cheeks.
“Thank you, father,” he replies, pulling the younger man into an embrace. “You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve missed you.”)
In those five days, Shigeru comes to understand why everyone has always talked about his great-grandfather as if he had hung the stars in the sky and built the sun on his toolshed.
The man is so gentle and caring, so sweet and loving - their whole clan seems to revolve around him, even those members or shiki who had never known him before.
And the day Natsume Takashi returns to his own time, Shigeru cries bitterly for hours on end.
Not only for the man that he had come to love like a big brother, but for Madara-sama and Misuzu and Hinoe and the others.
He falls asleep curled up in silky white fur and surrounded by the deep rumble of Madara-sama’s voice, the sweet, cloying scent of Hinoe’s perfume wrapping around him like a blanket.
And when he wakes up hours later, they’re gone, evaporated like mist into the sticky warmth of the summer night.
Natsume Yuujinchou au where Natsume is actually super good at writing and drawing, and he also gives exactly zero fucks, so when he’s in his early twenties, he decides to write a book about a young boy who loses his parents at a young age and is passed around by his father’s relatives because no one wants to keep him because he’s always telling “lies” about seeing scary youkai.
The story starts when the boy is in high school and is taken in by a nice older couple who love him and are good to him, and at around the same time the youkai in the area start attacking him because they mistake him for his grandmother, who had a really powerful instrument called the book of friends. The book tells about the boy’s struggles to make friends, fight against dastardly youkai and exorcists, and learns to trust his family and friends enough to tell them his secret.
His book ends up becoming wildly popular.
He’s 12.
With fine silver hair spun from silk and pretty grey eyes clear as little glass beads, and just as cold. His lips are always curved into the vaguest approximation of a smile, but it never seems to reach his eyes.
He doesn’t tell the vicious lies his previous caretakers had warned them about, but he doesn’t need really to - he’s creepy enough as it is. He trips over things that aren’t there, will suddenly scream for no reason at all, will drop everything he’s doing and run as if his life depends on it.
They’ve only had him for 2 weeks, and already they can barely stand him. Unfortunately, they can’t find anyone to push him off on yet. No one will consider it until they’ve done their minimum 4 months.
So when a man appears on their doorstep - handsome and tall, dressed in a smart black suit and silky silver hair brushed neatly back - and says he’s the boy’s maternal grandfather, says that he wants to take the boy off their hands for good, they don’t ask questions, don’t even hesitate.
They yell for the boy, jot down an address to mail the paperwork to, and wave the two off with way too much enthusiasm.
(It’s ten at night and the streets are deserted.
No one sees the man kneel down in front of the boy at the end of the driveway and ask him a single, whispered question.
No one sees the way the child’s eyes widen in shock and maybe a little fear, the way he seems to consider for a moment before giving a slow, decisive nod.
No one sees the way the man - handsome and tall, dressed in a smart black suit and silky silver hair brushed neatly back - disappears into thin air.
No one sees the way the boy is lifted slowly, gently into the air by an invisible force, the way he seems to sit, legs spread as if on the back of some giant beast, fingers curled as if threaded through silky white fur.
No one sees the boy disappear into the sticky warmth of the clear summer’s night.)
It’s exactly one week later that the police knock on their door, asking questions about 12-year-old Natsume Takashi.
“His grandfather took him a few days ago,” they respond, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. They’d sent the paperwork off the very next day. Surely the man had filled it out by now?
The police officer’s expression grows suddenly cold.
“Natsume Takashi’s grandfathers are both dead,” he says.
They feel the blood turn to ice in their veins.
The police officers ask them to describe the man that had taken Natsume Takashi away.
“He was in his early forties,” they say, and it isn’t until the officers’ expressions grow tight with disapproval that they see the problem there. Early forties? Much too young to have a 12-year-old grandson. He’d have to be mid fifties at least.
The hurriedly go on to describe his attire. “The very picture of respectable!” they hurry to say, as if explaining away their oversight.
“What name did he give you?” the officers ask.
They think for a moment, trying to remember. They go over the whole interaction in their memories, from start to finish, and feel shame curdle in their stomach, averting their eyes awkwardly from the officers’ suspicious gazes.
“A man comes to take your ward away and you don’t even ask him for a name!?” the officer demands in outrage. He’s a father himself, and the complete disregard for a child’s safety angers him to no end.
The officer leaves then, outraged beyond belief and muttering to himself about getting an arrest warrant.
(And hundreds of kilometers away, a twelve-year-old child sleeps soundly on the back of a great white beast.
They’re lying in the middle of a sun drenched meadow, the sweet, heady scent of wildflowers hanging heavy in the air.
A woman in an elegant purple kimono sits nearby, smoking and chatting quietly with an enormous, horseheaded beast. Both cast occasional glances at the sleeping child, expressions fond.
Their sweet little flower child.
They can’t imagine the things he’s seen, the things he’s been through.
But he’s safe now.
And they will never let anything hurt him ever again.)
Hc that Natori literally never stops talking about Natsume on the set.
His directors and co-actors and actresses are all just…so sick of hearing about “Takashi-kun.”
Every other sentence that comes out of Natori’s mouth is “Takashi this” and “Takashi that”.
It’s easy to see that Natori completely adores this mysterious “Takashi-kun”, and at first everyone thinks he must be Natori’s s/o.
(The number rumours that sparks is kind of terrifying. Natori can’t for the life of him understand why so many of his male co-workers are suddenly being extra friendly with him.)
But when someone asks him about it one day, the look of utter disgust that passes Natori’s face is shocking.
“He’s 15,” Natori grinds out with a grimace, and the other person hurries to apologize for making assumptions.
After that, the rumours change from “Natori Shuuichi is gay” to “Natori Shuuichi has the biggest little brother complex and it’s the cutest thing ever.”
The number of girls throwing themselves at Natori increases tenfold.
(“A man who cares so much about his family is just the most attractive thing ever,” they sigh dreamily to each other.)
And then, one day, the schools are out for summer vacation, and Natori is absolutely beaming when he arrives on set, followed by a teenager sticking so close to his side that they’re almost tripping over each other’s feet.
The teenager is hugging an ugly cat to his chest, and looking around at everyone warily.
He’s absolutely gorgeous, all lean limbs and soft features. His hair is a stunning silver, and his eyes are only a few shades darker.
He smiles faintly at something Natori says - a smile that could make flowers bloom.
And everyone immediately knows that this is the “Takashi-kun” they’ve heard so much about.
And okay yeah, they can totally understand why Natori talks about him so much. He’s the kind of kid that everyone wants to protect, the kind of kid that you would do anything to make him smile.
(There’s a brief moment of confusion when everyone addresses him as “Natori-chan”.
“To differentiate between you and your big brother,” they explain, thinking his confusion stems from the honorific, and not from the name.
Natsume isn’t sure what to say, but when he sees that Natori-san doesn’t seem too bothered at the misunderstanding, just chuckles and tells them to “back off and give Takashi-kun some room;” Natsume decides to just let it slide.
It’s kind of nice, he thinks, to have an older brother figure.
He gets so used to being addressed as Natori, that when he returns to school two weeks later, he’s almost startled to be called by his real name.)
“The kimono supposedly looks different to different people. Sometimes it’s just a white cloth, or it shines with pale light. But the truly strong see patterns of beautiful gold chrysanthemums or large peonies.”
I feel like I’m returning home whenever I rewatch this series…
Book of Friends ✿
This may be the last drawn part as a comic, will continue writing the rest and share it with 2 or 3 arts of some scenes of each chapter
And here is another part, dunno how it became a weekly updated comic but anyways,,
Perhaps... I should stop before drawing a whole fanfic of my own? Or maybe not..?
