The building is old, dilapidated, and falling apart from the inside out. Outer walls made of brick appear to be more moss than stone. Critters scurry to hide and watch from a safe place as Jongdae and Xiu hyung wade through the overgrown grass. Where a door used to stand is an empty space; the door itself is in pieces on the ground.

“This looks right,” Jongdae remarks, looking from a Polaroid to the sad building in front of them. He shivers and rubs his arms. Both for warmth and some comfort, he lifts the water dragon from the ground and holds him close. Xiu hyung doesn’t comment, eyes narrowed at the dark interior of the building.

“Why would Jongin come here?” Jongdae wonders aloud. His grandfather had lived nearby for a while, but the building is out of the way and wouldn’t have offered much shelter from rain.

Curious and cautious, Jongdae ducks inside. The inside matches the outside—overgrown, like an enormous planter. Spider webs cling to the corners, and there are even a couple nests near the ceiling.

A cool breeze whispers over his neck, and something brushes past him to lift his hair.

“Jonginie, you came back!” Dark hair hangs like a long veil in sharp contrast to a white hanbok. Sleeves cover her hands, but they feel like ice on Jongdae’s face. “You—You’re not Jongin…” Jongdae turns his head with the gwisin’s examination; she’s not hurting him but is very curious. “You smell like Jongin, but you’ve shrunk! And you’re so pale…”

“Jongin was my grandfather,” he says, carefully removing her hands. Xiu hyung climbs to lie behind his neck. “He passed away a long time ago.”

The gwisin recoils, slouching and curling into herself. “I see. Humans have such short lives…”

Jongdae shudders at the plunging temperature. “I understand you gave him your name, when you last met.” The back of the photograph doesn’t have a date but rather a name, Soojung. “I’d like to return it.”

“I guess, if he’s already gone…”

Returning a name always exhausts Jongdae. He wakes up in the grass after dreaming about Jongin and Soojung. She held her hands to his bruised cheeks, and they laughed while playing hide-and-seek. Jongin cheated and won Soojung’s name, promising to return for a rematch.

She sits in what remains of a window when Jongdae and Xiu hyung leave. “Will she be alright?”

“A spirit has to decide for themselves to move on or not. She was already there a long time when Jongin met her.”

At home, Jongdae sits through a lecture about being late and coming home covered in grass stains; he had to outrun a young fox and fell down a small hill before Xiu hyung decided to scare it off. Jongdae felt bad; anyone would turn white seeing a massive four-toed dragon.

After dinner, Xiu hyung turns on his basking lamp and sprawls over his rock. Jongdae digs out the cardboard box of belongings left behind by his grandfather. Inside are worn novels—some still checked out from libraries across the country—old school uniforms, random toys, and a few loose photographs. There is only one image of Jongin; Jongdae sees no family resemblance except in the smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

He tucks the photo of Soojung’s grassy home back among the rest and sighs, falling back where he sits.

Cicadas and crickets compete noisily outside. The pond near the house has bullfrogs that croak, either telling the others to be quiet or joining the symphony themselves. Someone somewhere is playing a flute, music following the light summer breeze.

“What was my grandfather like?”

“Jongin?” Xiu hyung is quiet for a while; Jongdae thinks he may have fallen asleep, but he may have been collecting his thoughts. “He was quiet in school; other human children picked on him a lot. He had an obnoxiously loud laugh, though, and danced so well some of us spirits were jealous. We would get together, and he’d join our parties. It’s rare a human ever hears spirits’ music, muchless enjoys it the way he did. I guess he was sort of amusing, for a human.”

“Did he have friends?” An ant starts to climb down the wall into the bedroom; Jongdae sets a finger down for it to clamber onto and redirects it back outside.

“No.” He hisses a sigh and lays his head over his striped tail. “He was always alone.”

“What about among the spirits?” Someone must have cared about him. “Like Soojung, or the Dew God.”

“Only weak spirits are so sentimental.”

Jongdae laughs softly.

“I was thinking about that ahjussi and the Dew God—he heard the God’s voice but couldn’t see or touch him.” He cared a great deal for the human, so much so that he disappeared after Sehun’s death. It was Sehun’s prayers that kept the God alive, being from a small village’s shrine.

“Are you jealous?”

Is he jealous?

Jongdae watches the chime sway in the breeze. It’s not enough to make it ring; the air has been oppressively still all summer.

No… No, he’s not jealous. His immediate reaction upon hearing the story from the Dew God and Sehunssi was sadness. Something like regret.

The Dew God had watched Sehun grow up and grow old, always within reach yet divided by the thin veil between the living and spirit worlds.

Xiu hyung scoffs, tail whipping. “You’re so soft, Jongdae. That’s why you always get hurt.”

“Aw, hyung,” Jongdae sings, lifting him from his basking rock. “You really do care!” He rubs beneath Xiu hyung’s chin, the spot he enjoys most.

“Of course not! I care about the Book of Friends. The sooner your bleeding heart is eaten, the sooner I inherit the power I deserve.”

“Uh huh. But until then I can rely on you, right?”

Xiu hyung sighs and turns his head so his cheek is rubbed, instead. “I suppose I have to. You’re so weak by yourself.”

“Thank you, hyung.”

a/n: Written for Quick Attack round one. (prompt no.QA-002 natsume's book of friends AU: A inherits his grandmother's "book of friends" i.e. a book of all the names of youkai pledged to his grandmother. he goes on a journey to return these names to these youkai.)

Natsume Yuujinchou is one of my absolute favorite anime; I rewatch it at least once a year. Rather than a cat, Minseok (Xiu hyung/Minseoknim) is a Chinese water dragon whose true form is a large dragon. It was between that and a Jindo/fox spirit.