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“The moon looks really beautiful tonight”
He blinks at the voice next to him and turns slowly and you greet him with a grin before tilting your head back up to stare at the sky.
“Well? Doesn’t it?”
Yugi furrows his eyebrows before clearing his throat gently, “Yeah, um- do we know each other?”
If you heard him, you don’t make it obvious. Instead, you throw your hands up in the air and lean back on the bench you’re both seated on. “Ah, I always loved the moon. When I was younger, I used to think it was following me home. Kinda silly of me right?” You laugh and wink when he meets your eyes, “It was nice though. It was kinda like a secret friend I had, even if everyone saw it”
He doesn’t tell you that he thought the same too.
You finally look back to meet his eyes, nose wrinkling when you see all the bandages that are patched on his cheek and wrapped around his forearm. He struggles to hide them from your view.
You lift a hand out as though to reach for him but seem to think better of it and let it fall gently onto the empty space between the two of you. “I hope it doesn’t hurt anymore” you mumble quietly and he stills, what does that mean?
Before he can question it anymore, your somber expression is replaced with one of elation but the bright smile that lights up your face doesn’t quite meet your eyes. “Anyways, did you hear about the moon landing? I thought it was so cool”
Your eyes sparkle when he watches you, did you put the stars in your eyes?
“I mean the moon is like 370,000km away from Earth and yet we-”
“380,000” Yugi interrupts you and you stop your rant to stare at him, wide-eyes and an open mouth, “it’s actually 380,000km away”
Your lips curl into another one of your grins and he can’t help but reciprocate a smaller one of his own. They’re pretty- your smile that is, but he’ll keep that piece of knowledge to himself.
“Oh? You seem to know a lot about the moon yourself” You tease, and he flushes but can’t bring himself to disagree because it’s true, he loves the moon and if he never decided to change his own fate, he’d love you just the same, if not more.
“Yeah,” He says quietly before digging around in his pocket to lift up his most prized possession and showing it to you proudly under the dim moonlight, “I actually have a moon rock, or at least, I think it’s a moon rock”
You hum in response but your eyes are trained on the rosy blush dusting the apples of his cheeks, the golden brown that shone under the streetlamp light for the smallest of seconds at the mention of his rock and you silently wish he looked like that all the time.
“I think I was four when I got it” He admits, rolling the rock around in his hand, “it landed right in front of me. I don’t really know if it’s real or not but I think it is”
“The moon is always really pretty and it’s huge too” It’s the first time he looks at you with a genuine smile, “I bet it’s a great place”
The wind blows softly, ruffling strands of his brown hair and your own flutters in time with the breeze. He cradles the rock in his hands before putting it back into his pocket and you can’t help yourself from reaching out to gently squeeze his fingers and he stares at you in surprise.
“You must really love the moon” You whisper and he nods mutely, brain still reeling from the soft patterns you’re rubbing into his skin. It’s hard to concentrate when you’re tracing a certain pattern into the back of his hand.
You
Lonely
He twists his lips, pressing them together tightly until they turn into a straight line when he finally deciphers the characters you trace into his skin.
Are you lonely?
Yes, he wants to say, I am but he doesn’t and you don’t say anything else. Instead, you lean back onto the back of the bench and pull your hand away from his.
“I love the moon too,” You lift your hands and trace circles in the air, mimicking the full moon’s shape, “but people always say I’m like the sun”
Your mouth twists into a frown, “They all say I’m too loud, too noticeable, too happy to be anything else” and Yugi wants to laugh at the crestfallen expression on your face because he can see why they say that.
“I mean, not that it’s an insult or anything!” You drop your hands onto your face to cover your eyes, “I love the sun! It provides life and makes things grow”
“I guess I just like the moon more” you sigh before tilting your head slightly to look at him. You seem as though you want him to say something but you close your eyes before he gets a chance to.
His eyes trail from the strands of hair that fly in time with the breeze, your long lashes that sweep across your cheeks with every motion and your ruby red lips that are stretched into a grin more times than he could can within this one meeting.
It’s a nice change of pace from what he’s used to
“I like the sun” he finally says and you crack open one eye to look at him. “I mean, I definitely like the moon better but the sun is still nice. It gives nice sunsets and stuff, you know?”
You hum in response, a short puff of air blowing through your nose as you contemplate his words. He takes in a deep breath and before he can back out of it, he finishes the rest of his sentence. “Plus, we wouldn’t be able to see the moon if the sun didn’t illuminate it”
You seem to perk up at those words and shove yourself into a better seating position. “Oh yeah! I completely forgot. Hey, tell you what-” You grab his hands into your own, carefully avoiding the bandaids that overlap with each other.
“You call me sunshine and I’ll call you my moon and stars, what do you think?”
“Are you flirting with me?” He finally asks and you laugh a little, shaking your head no.
“Nah,” you laugh, “I just thought it’d be a nice way to address each other if we ever happen to run into each other again”
You take his silence as a yes and bounce excitedly in your chair. “I’ll take that as a yes then”
He nods and you smile in response, pink lips stretching across your cheeks and eyes shining and he quietly thinks to himself how much the name ‘sunshine’ suits you.
But there’s something he doesn’t quite get, honey brown eyes flickering from your still intertwined hands and to the sweet smile on your face, “What made you come talk to me?”
“Hmm?” You look at him surprised, round doe eyes staring right back at his and he shifts uncomfortably in his seat at the way you looked at him innocently. “The moon is a good friend to talk to when people are lonely,” you say and his heart quickens at your next words and the sticky sweet smile that you send his way
(he thinks you’ve given him enough smiles to remember you by for the rest of his life)
“But I think talking to a real person is a little better, don’t you think?”
x.
Yashiro comes barreling into the third-floor bathroom, eyes blown wide open with shock and Hanako stares at her blankly, moving out of the way just in time to avoid her crashing into him.
“Oh?” he teases, lips curling into the teasing smirk she has grown accustomed to seeing, “Did you miss me that much?”
“What? No!” she tugs on his sleeve, urgently pushing him out the door of his own sanctuary. “There’s a rumor going around about this spirit that’s been supposedly seen around the school and I thought it was super suspicious so we have to go check it out!”
Hanako floats alongside of Yashiro when she finally lets go of his arm and he puts a finger to his chin at her words, wondering who it could be. “That’s weird, I haven’t seen or felt any new spirits around recently”
“Yeah!” Yashiro nods furiously, turning the corner of the hallway sharply, “That’s why I had to tell you because it’s super suspicious, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, what do they do?”
“Well, it’s nothing bad but I just wanted to tell you anyway. I heard she tells you stories to cheer up”
“What’s her name?”
Yashiro stands outside in the courtyard where an old bench sat underneath the shade of a tall oak tree, placing her hands on her hips.
“Sunshine!”
Hanako stops in his tracks, his nonexistent heart suddenly making itself very known with the hard thumping against his ribcage. “How do you summon her?” he asks quietly and Yashiro looks confused by the sudden change in demeanor.
“You call out a certain phrase” she tells him, matter-of-factly
“What’s the phrase?”
Hanako thinks of soft touches that trace ‘are you lonely?’ into the back of his hand and the moon shining bright in the sky. He thinks of pearly white teeth and rosy red cheeks from smiling so hard.
“Don’t you think the moon looks beautiful tonight?”