A Firefly's Glow

Chapter Eleven: Part Four

The boy named Keitaru Hanabusa aimlessly wobbled towards the school building he spotted ahead through his blurred vision. He wished to return to his sleep.

That morning he had nearly overslept, and his maids and chauffeurs pounded on his doors for him to wake up. He had to admit to himself that even if a bomb exploded by his head, he wouldn’t wake up if he didn’t want to.

And to add to his exhaustion, he had helped the girl he owed a debt to that morning by marking her path from the staircase to her bedroom. And as he did, he almost blurted something that he would have regretted if that girl knew what he had been speaking of.

He lazily twisted one of the two handles of the set of doors that marked the entrance of the high school division. He climbed the stairs in a sleepy daze, slightly slumping forward and swaying his head mildly back and forth.

Perhaps he would sleep through his crazy teacher’s session. But he couldn’t afford to miss the next lesson.

He was sure that he would flunk his math homework from the night before.

He dragged himself down the hallway the staircase led to. The wide hallways of the building were strangely empty. He inferred that everyone had probably headed into their classrooms. He was used to the usual mob of girls peering over at him in such a peculiar way. He never did anything but glimpse towards them and then glimpse away. It lasted no more than a second, but they would squeal over this anyway.

He knew he was approaching his classroom. Before he could take another step from this point, he heard his name called over his shoulders.

“Hanabusa!”

He slowly turned his gaze around to face the figure dashing towards him. He was sleepy and he would have told the figure to just leave him alone until a day where he wasn’t so drowsy. But he kept his mouth closed.

The figure was a girl several inches shorter than he was. She had long, glossy hair that cascaded down her shoulders, and her eyes and lips were lined with mascara and lip gloss. There weren’t many girls at Seika Academy who didn’t look similar to this.

He figured that the red-headed girl would definitely be one of those uniquely mediocre girls.

“Yes?” he asked, trying to bend his drowsiness awake.

He was positive that he gave nothing to the girl but a blank, emotionless face. He was sure that his poker face would defeat anyone else’s poker face, even if it did make his appearance ghostlike and distant.

But despite his blankness, the girl’s cheeks flushed a deep mahogany.

“H-Here!” the girl’s high, anxious voice squeaked as she held something out towards him.

He peered at it. It was a spotless envelope that probably needed to be folded in fourths to fit into a pocket.

The girl bowed her head towards the floor as she shoved the envelope closer to his hands. “Please take it!”

He faintly obeyed the girl, slowly reaching towards the envelope and lifting it out of the girl’s hands. Once it was out of her fingertips, she immediately straightened her back and glanced towards him with an even redder face.

He inspected the envelope, turning it from front to back. He couldn’t see through it, and it was fairly light. But he immediately figured out why the girl was so anxious to give this envelope to him.

“Thank you.” He softly murmured, peering back towards the girl with his mutual, emotionless face.

The girl immediately shuddered at the sight of him, and her mouth wobbled as her cheeks continued to flush redder and redder and redder until it seemed like the girl had a massive fever.

Before he could say anything else, the girl hopped onto her heel and dashed back down the path that she came in, leaving him there forlornly standing in one place with the light envelope clutched into his hands.

He knew what it was. This wasn’t exactly the first time he’s gotten an envelope similar to this. And even though all of the envelopes didn’t all look exactly the same, every letter inside the envelope seemed to have the same meaning.

He peeled open the envelope and fished out the letter with his fingertips. He tucked the envelope between his fingers and slowly unfolded the letter to see what was inside.