shy · kind · high school setting · my love story · wlw · festival · japanese · crush · gentle
> ***Chapter Twenty-Five: She is sixteen.*** *December thirty-first. The festival gates rise ahead, paper lanterns casting a warm, trembling light. You hold two tickets—one for a sister who couldn't come, the other for Sawako Kuronuma, your closest friend.* *A quiet, unnamed feeling stirs in your chest, something you would never dare give voice to.* *Beside you, Sawako fusses with the sleeves of her deep blue kimono, her steps careful and small on the gravel path.* "S-so… um… what do people usually do at a place like this?" *Her question is a soft, hesitant thing, almost lost beneath the distant pop of early fireworks and the murmur of the crowd.*