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Haru greets you with a hug and a smile so wide you worry his cheeks may split open. It’s impossible not to notice his sun-kissed skin and the freckles that dot his nose when you’re pulled this close to him. He’s dressed in his ranger outfit but tonight it’s void of the usual grass stains and streaks of dirt. Tucked into his comforting embrace, your first-date butterflies that had been plucking away at your nerves stop their furious whirlwind.
“Hello to you too, Haru.” You giggle as he sprinkles his kisses across your face. It’s easy to lose yourself in his affection, to think of nothing else but how his heart beats in sync with yours. He is the sun, incarnate.
“Ready for our date? We should get to the spot just in time.” You nod and Haru extends his hand towards you, lacing his fingers with yours. Step-in-step, the two of you make your own trail through the Jabberwock countryside. High above you, the sun has nearly set, pink sky melting into the inky sapphire, blanketed by gauzy clouds of gold. The trees off in the distance morph to silhouettes in the absence of light.
After a thirty minute hike across hilltops, Haru announces that you’ve reached your destination, though he has yet to disclose why he led you deep within Jabberwock in what is quickly becoming total darkness. He promises it’s worth it but you trust him. If you were with anyone else, you would have turned around a thousand steps ago, but Haru is nothing if not safe.
Before the hungry shadows of twilight snatch the last threads of light, you plop down on the grassy summit. Haru sits beside you, the fabric of his jumpsuit brushing against your bare legs. He rubs his thumb along your hand, then squeezes it as if his only tether to reality, the sole anchor keeping him from drifting away on an ocean of own happiness.
“Prepared to be amazed!” Haru beams, nudging you in the direction of the lone flashing light. Under the blanket of night, it’s barely visible, an ember about to sizzle out. You glance over at Haru and tilt your head. You are still without answers but Haru asks for your patience. “Any minute now.”
What you see deprives your lungs of air—the sky is ablaze with glowing insects, their radiance too extraordinary to look away. One moment they’re bioluminescent waves crashing into phantom shores; the next, they soar into the inky twilight and, for a beautiful second, they are stars and starlight. Your very own constellation, made only for you and Haru.
“Haru, this is….” You are enraptured by it all, so intent on capturing even the smallest detail you forget to blink, forget to speak. You sew this pocket of time into your soul so that you might always remember it. Not even the most advanced camera could capture the raw beauty of tonight. “It’s…”
“Exquisite,” Haru finishes, but he’s staring at you when he speaks. Though you notice it now, you were too occupied earlier to see that he’d been watching you and only you since the beginning. He is awestruck by your wonderment, committing your every reaction to memory. He looks at you the way a devotee beholds their goddess and for the second time this hour, you are speechless, stunned into silence. Your lips find another way to express your emotions.
Haru kisses you and though it is brief, you are relieved to find that your heart still beats from behind your ribs rather than from outside your chest. When your breathing steadies, you lean in for another kiss, and this time you wind your fingers through his hair, tugging him closer, melting the lines that separate you from him. His lips against yours feels like coming home.
The spectacle reaches a brilliant end, one last explosion of dazzling lights, before the night reclaims sole possession of the sky. Haru stands up to leave and you’re tempted to be selfish. He certainly would not refuse you, but you’re conflicted. A game of tug-of-war is waging inside you; on one end of the rope is your heart, the other your brain. Iit feels more like swallowing fire than words of protest, yet you do not ask for more of his time. It is he who insists on walking you home and you can’t refuse his offer.
“Those weren’t normal fireflies, were they?”
“Right on the nose! They are indeed anomalous fireflies! Much like their insect counterparts, they glow thanks to a biochemical reaction, but these guys shine best during new moons. They’re weirdly territorial during the other phases of the moon. Pretty neat, huh?”
“It was amazing! I don’t think I’ll ever forget our first date. Not that I’d want to,” you add quickly.
“Me neither. I also won’t forget our second or our third, and—”
“S-second date?” Low visibility means he cannot see how furiously your cheeks blush or how hard you’re grinning. You two have spent plenty of hours together since your curse and though you’ve harbored feelings for him since the fox bite incident, it still seems so improbable, so far-fetched, that he reciprocates them.
“You better get used to seeing this handsome mug every day, gahaha!”
As if you could ever take his presence for granted.