偽りの友人 | Itsuwari no Yuujin | Chapters 37-38
On the day of Natsume's adoptive father Shigeru's birthday Natsume is approached by an old classmate named Shibata and pressured into joining him to look into someone he met since Natsume moved.
Tropes associated with this episode:
- Adaptational Modesty: In the manga Natsume thinks over Shibata's reaction to his revelation of Shibata's crush not being human in the bath.
- Bathtub Scene: Natsume angsts in the bath after Shibata gets angry at him and does not believe him, Nyanko startles him out of it by slowly surfacing in the tub when Natsume thought he had it to himself.
- Blackmail: Shibata threatens to expose Natsume's secret to his newfound friends and family if Natsume doesn't help him.
- The Bully: Shibata bullied Natsume when they went to school together.
- False Friend: Natsume is well aware Shibata is not his friend but his current friends react like Shibata is a false friend to Natsume since they immediately feel like there is something off about the way he approaches him.
- Manipulative Bastard: Shibata threatens to tell Natsume's new friends about the claims he can see youkai, and when Natsume tries to play it off as something he said to try to get attention as an unwanted child Shibata picks his explanation apart and reveals that it is something Natsume truly believes.
- Nature Spirit: Murasaki is the spirit of an old dying wisteria tree.
- Pet the Dog: Shibata runs all over with Natsume to help him find the type of cakes his adoptive mother asked him to pick up after Shibata's request interrupted Natsume's attempt to buy some and delayed his return home.
- Properly Paranoid: The girl Shibata wants Natsume meet so he can know if there is something supernatural about her is an ayakashi that approached Shibata with the intent of getting him to let his guard down so she could eat him.
- Running Gag: Shibata, like so many before him, has trouble telling that Madara's Nyanko-Sensei form is supposed to be a cat.
- Weirdness Magnet: Shibata hangs a lampshade on the fact that Natsume attracts "strange creatures".
