After falling down a set of stairs and being saved from an oncoming truck by something she can't see at the shrine where she first met Natsume, Ogata Yuriko, one of his classmates at a former school, thinks about Natsume and their brief friendship. Natsume comes across a small youkai that reminds him of the short time he was living in the same town as her and Yuriko herself since she became friends with him even after he had proven himself a freak to the rest of the school.
Tropes associated with this episode:
- The Alcoholic: Yuriko noticed that the woman who was called to pick up Natsume when he was blamed for breaking windows at the school, despite the fact that they were very obviously broken from the outside while Natsume was standing inside, smelled of alcohol.
- Asleep in Class: Seems Natsume slept just as much in class before acquiring the Book of Friends.
- Book Dumb: Yuriko apparently fails her school exams often enough that she has a ritual for coping with it, but proves to be very observant in her interactions with Natsume. She basically pieces together the reasons behind his odd behavior just from watching him (although he never confirms her suspicions directly), and when a teacher blames Natsume for breaking a window, she quickly realizes that he couldn't have done it based on how the glass was broken.
- Cats Are Magic: Yuriko saw Natsume coaxing a cat closer once while she was walking home from school and the cat puffed up and hissed at something which Natsume also fled from indicating it was reacting to a spirit or youkai.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: Yuriko's friends say that she is always clumsy and her twisted ankle that she got falling down stairs and landing in the street is treated as a minor injury for her by them.
- Flashback: To Natsume's time at a school from before he was invited to live with the Fujiwaras, and Toyomatsu seeing him right before the episode takes place while on a bicycle ride.
- Girls Love Chocolate: Yuriko and her two female friends are eating chocolate dipped pocky while her friends visit after she gets hurt.
- In-Series Nickname: In the past Natsume referred to suneko youkai as clingbugs since they cling to humans, Nyanko informs him of their real names.
- It Amused Me: The shisa that said it would kill Natsume or someone near him if he couldn't avoid it for thirty days or fled the city and broke the windows at his school causing his guardians to decide to send him away since Natsume was blamed for it had no ability to actually kill humans, as it shows Natsume when he goes to beg it to end its curse and it swings its scythe through him to no effect. Natsume himself had started thinking it wasn’t that serious about killing him and was just enjoying chasing him around and tormenting him shortly before it started showing up at his school.
- Kappa: Yuriko has a kappa doll in her room.
- Loners Are Freaks: Natsume was always alone, understandably since his classmates would routinely see him fighting with, yelling about, fleeing from and talking with what appeared to be nothing and by the time he started going to school with Yuiko he had learned to be standoffish and had been being passed between his father’s relatives who didn’t want to keep him every six months or less for years.
- Look Both Ways: Yuriko trips as she’s leaving a temple and ends up running down the stairs in her attempt to right herself, falling on her knees in front of a truck in the street at the bottom of them. She is saved when something she can’t see picks her up and sets her on the other side of the street.
- Mascots Love Sugar: Nyanko-sensei can be distracted from his job as Natsume's yokai bodyguard by the prospect of eating dango. He spots the suneko jump from a cyclist passing by, it's just that he's too preoccupied with the treats Natsume is buying him. Consequences of being a Big Eater, huh?
- Mascots Love Sugar: Nyanko saw the suneko jump from a cyclist to Natsume but didn't bring it up until they were home as he was too preoccupied with the dango Natsume was buying for him.
- Pet the Dog: The shisa is a bully who enjoys tormenting Natsume and smaller yokai, but was originally a shrine guardian who protected humans from misfortune. Near the end, it is revealed to be the one who intervened and saved Yuriko from being hit by an oncoming truck in the beginning of the episode.
- Shrines and Temples: Yuriko goes to a temple after receiving a failing grade as she considers how to tell her parents. According to her friends she goes there every time she fails a test. It’s the same temple where she first met Natsume when he was sleeping there after school to avoid a youkai on his way home as they can’t enter temple grounds. The “youkai” that was chasing him was actually a shisa guardian from the temple so those barriers meant nothing to it.
- "Silly Me" Gesture: Yuriko taps her fist to her head as she apologizes for worrying her friends by tripping down a set of stairs and nearly getting run over.
- Sinister Scythe: The youkai with a shisa’s carved head that was trying to kill the suneko in the past and cursed Natsume when he stopped it carried a scythe that it used to attack the suneko and Natsume.
- Staircase Tumble: Yuriko tripping on the stairs as she left the shrine nearly ended with her death when she fell into the street at the bottom of them in front of a truck. Luckily the intervention of a spirit meant she was only left with a badly sprained ankle.
- Umbrella of Togetherness: Natsume shared his umbrella with Yuriko on a rainy day since they lived near each other and were both walking home, when her mother saw them she read into it as more and begged Yuriko to stay away from strange boy she’d heard of as a dangerous liar who had hurt classmates.
- Whole Episode Flashback: The episode is mostly made up of flashbacks to Natsume's time at a school from before he was invited to live with the Fujiwaras, one longer one from the perspective of Yuriko, one of his former classmates, and another from Natsume of the same time period. There is even a small flashback connecting the two as one of his former classmates had seen him, and unknowingly brought along the small suneko from Natsume's past which immediately transferred itself to Natsume, which is shown in a flashback when it is mentioned to Yuriko..
- Youkai: Nyanko is in this episode as well as a small sunekosuri and a shīsā spirit.
