Chapter Text
“I really could have used some good luck this year,” Nishimura moans into the tabletop. “I can’t believe I don’t remember what my dream was about.”
Natsume glances up from his book. “Is it so important?”
“Well, yeah, it was—Natsume, how did you forget about hatsuyume? We even talked about it yesterday! I told you to think really hard about the medicine man before you fell asleep, so you’d dream of him and have better health this year!”
For some reason, that makes Natsume smile. “I guess it slipped my mind. Actually, I dreamed about you last night.”
Kitamoto looks entirely too entertained by this news, pausing the game of shogi he’s playing with Tanuma to look over at the two of them with a grin. Nishimura weighs the pros and cons of burying himself underneath the kotatsu until March.
“Oh yeah?” he manages to ask calmly. “Were we eating eggplant? Climbing Mt. Fuji?”
“No,” Natsume says fondly, “we were just sitting together by the river, like we do sometimes when the weather is nice. It was a good dream. I think I’d pick that over a good luck omen, anyway.”
Oh my god, Nishimura thinks faintly. He feels Tanuma lean over to pat him on the back.
“I feel sorry for you, but it’s also really funny,” Tanuma says, so sincerely that Kitamoto gives into laughter. Natsume looks between the two of them with a confused expression on his face, and that only makes Kitamoto laugh harder.
Nishimura hides his face in the table again, until he’s absolutely sure the stupid giveaway blush is gone. Only when he’s certain it’s safe does he stand, grab a handful of orange slices from their dish on the table, and advance on Kitamoto intently.
Sensing danger, Kitamoto upturns the shogi board in his haste to scurry away. Nyanko-sensei yelps awake when the board lands on his head. Nishimura manages to get half the oranges down Kitamoto’s shirt before he slips on the shogi pieces and falls, dragging his friend down with him.
No one brings up Natsume’s first dream of the new year again after that, reasonably distracted by cleanup efforts and then dinner, and Nishimura doesn’t quite look him in the eye for the rest of the night.