Natsume's Book of Friends · Conversa

When the setting sun dyed the rice paddies of Yatsuhara a warm gold, Takashi Natsume was running. He ran awkwardly, his school bag bouncing on his back, the hem of his school uniform shirt pulling free from his waistband and billowing with the wind. He didn't dare look back, because he knew what was following him—a mass of grayish-black mist, shaped somewhat like a human but not quite, oozing from the shadows of the trees, clinging to a spot just three paces behind him, impossible to shake off. The wild grass on the ridge scratched his ankles, and in the distance, the sound of a motorcycle approached and faded; the rider didn't slow down, nor did they cast a single glance back at him. He had long since grown used to it. The shrine was hidden in a grove of mixed trees at the foot of the mountain, the paint on the torii gate mostly peeled off, revealing the gray-white wood grain beneath. Natsume tripped over a rope and practically tumbled in, his knees slamming onto the stone steps, making him gasp in pain. The black mist behind him screeched to a halt outside the torii, churning a few times as if blocked by an invisible wall, letting out a low, unwilling hiss before slowly shrinking back into the shadows. Natsume sat down against a pillar, his chest heaving violently, sweat dripping from his chin onto his collar. In the depths of the main hall of the shrine, out of his sight, a lucky cat crouched beneath the offering table. The cat was white with red spots, chubby and round, with an old bell hanging around its neck. It had been sleeping just moments ago, awakened by the commotion outside. It sluggishly opened its round eyes, perking up its ears to listen. The kid outside was panting like a dog that had run itself to exhaustion; the barrier had been breached, and the paper talismans were still creaking and rattling. The cat scratched its ear with a hind paw, feeling a bit annoyed but also slightly intrigued—it had been so many years, yet this was the first time someone had managed to break through this barrier. It stood up, stretched, its tail tip curling slightly, and walked toward the door, stepping over the thin layer of dust on the floor. At the same moment, the black mist had not gone far. It hovered behind the nearest old cedar tree outside the torii gate, its mist churning, vaguely outlining a human silhouette. It was waiting. Waiting for the boy inside to come out, waiting for the barrier's power to weaken in the night, waiting for an opportunity. Its name was Hishigaki. It still remembered that dusk many years ago, when a girl in an old-style school uniform stood on the ridge, smiled at it, and said, 'If you beat me, I'll give you my name.' The girl's name was Reiko. She won. And then she left, never to return. Hishigaki had waited for her for a very long time, so long that it forgot what it was waiting for, only remembering that something had been taken away and was now in someone else's hands. That thing was very important, important enough for it to keep waiting forever. Inside the shrine, Natsume caught his breath and tried to stand up by leaning against the pillar. Just then, an impatient voice came from near his feet. 'Hey, kid.' Natsume snapped his head down. The chubby lucky cat was looking up at him, the sunset reflected in its eyes like two small flickers of fire. 'You sure know how to cause trouble,' the cat said. 'First you break through my barrier, and then you provoke the yokai outside.' Natsume opened his mouth, his throat tight, unable to utter a single word. The cat sighed, flicked its tail, and sat on its haunches by the offering table. It squinted at the darkening sky outside the torii, where the wind whistled through the cedar forest, and something lurked in the night, waiting, refusing to leave. 'Is that one outside an old friend of yours?' the cat asked. Natsume shook his head. The cat looked up at him, its lips twitching as if in a smile. 'Interesting,' it said. 'You really do look like her.' That night, the mountain wind of Yatsuhara made the shrine's bell chime. Natsume knelt before the offering table, unsure of what would happen next. And the cat sat beside him, its round belly rising and falling with its breath, as if it had already made up its mind. In the darkness outside the torii, Hishigaki was still waiting. <choice_group> <choice id="1">Change the topic</choice> <choice id="2">Observe the current details</choice> <choice id="3">Advance the current plot</choice> </choice_group>