Glowsticks

By Confused Panda Bear


Prologue I:
"How to Begin"


"Haruka-senpai?"

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you a favour...?"


He thought he had misheard her.

The use of the word 'lessons' threw him off, thinking that her request had something to do with swimming.

It turned out to be the furthest thing from it.

"I...don't understand…"

"Well," she blushed, averting her gaze from his wide-eyed stupor. "There's this guy…"

Despite hearing her out, Haru decided before she'd even finished that he was going to say no: even after he let her explain her reasoning, even at the expense of her embarrassment.

Because it just wasn't right.

She was Gou—Rin's little sister.

So he had no idea why it took him almost the whole journey home to deliver his verdict.

"I'm sorry, Kou," he finally spoke, pausing just in front of her house. "I…I just can't."

Having walked her back after school, silently listening to her reasoning, Gou could not help a hurt look ghost across her face.

Although she had prepared for it, she did not expect to be shut down so mercilessly.

She forced a smile all the same.

"That's okay, Haruka-senpai. I understand," she said and patting her on the head, Haru turned to take his leave.

Gou watched him depart without looking back and knew then more than ever why she chose him from the beginning.

Because even though she couldn't help the embarrassment she felt, Nanase Haruka was not a guy to tease her about it, or intentionally make her feel humiliated.

Even so, she waited until he turned the corner at the end of her road before she ran up the driveway and straight to her room, throwing herself onto her bed face first.

Burying her reddened cheeks into the pillows, she willed herself not to cry.

Rejection was never nice, regardless of the situation.

But to her surprise, less than five minutes later, the boy was back at her doorstep, panting slightly like he had sprinted back to her house with a change of heart.

"Okay. I have a few questions," Haru breathed. "Can I come inside?"

Gou watched him warily as he slipped off his shoes and appraised the immediate area.

"Where is your mother?"

"She's working the night shift today."

Gou led them up to her bedroom in silence.

"I just want to know…" Haru's throat contracted when he caught sight of her bed. "…why me?"

Gou appeared unprepared for his question when she ducked her head to hide her eyes underneath her bangs.

"I—I was thinking about it for ages," she replied. "I thought about all the guys I knew and trusted enough to ask, a—and came to the conclusion that you were the right person for the job…"

She had spoken of her interest in the Samezuka captain, and how his 'previous conquests' and his 'breadth of experience' had intimidated her, and how she wanted to 'get little practice' in before she agreed to date him.

And Gou had always been attracted to Haru somewhat, even though she knew he only saw her as a friend, basically a little sister.

They had grown close during the past year as part of the team, and considering everything that happened with her brother, felt like they had an understanding between them that she did not share with any of the other guys.

"Rin will kill me, you know that right?" was the first thing Haru had to say—that reason alone accounting for about 90% of his concerns.

"He doesn't need to find out," Gou insisted. "No one needs to know."

Stillness stretched as deliberation crawled over Haru's features and gnawed at her every nerve ending.

"It's okay if you don't want to," she added, like something of an afterthought. "Maybe I'll ask Makoto-senpai or—"

"—No, no, I'll do it!"

Haru sounded frantic, but maybe that was just her ears.

Gou's eyes lit up the entire room; "really…?"

Haru nodded, not trusting his tongue to produce an appropriate response.

It was the thought that she would then ask someone else that had torn at him before. It was what made him come sprinting back—and definitely not that little voice inside his head that was a little bit interested and, if not, a bit intrigued.

Gou was excitedly chattering on in his stupor, "…thank you so much, Haruka-senpai, I knew I could count on you—!"

And that was when she realised that Haruka had begun undressing methodologically, like he did when near a body of water: unbuttoning his shirt and was even reaching for his belt before Gou frantically grabbed at his wrist.

"—W—Wait a second, Haruka-senpai!"

"What?" he said, appearing to be confused.

"What are you doing?!"

"I'm getting ready to—"

"I—I—I'm not a…a pool!"

He looked as if he were struggling to understand her reaction.

She sent him a pained look.

"Can we try to take things a little—" she swallowed, "—slower?"

The boy cocked his head slightly in suspicion.

"Kou," he began, careful with his tone of voice. "You've…done stuff with other guys before—right?"

He caught her lip tremble.

"D—Define 'stuff'…?"

"You've…kissed a guy before, right?"

Gou faltered for the longest second before she shook her head, and Haru raised a hand to his temple to soothe an impending headache.

He really shouldn't be doing this.

She was only a year younger than him, but she was so much more innocent—Rin had made sure of that.

He should have sat her down and talked her out of it—told her to find the right person to stumble through the ups and downs with intimacy with—someone who cared about her just as much as she did them.

But instead, he leaned in to kiss her, and it would be the biggest mistake of his life.

He felt her startle; her lips pucker like a child kissing a parent goodnight.

He pulled himself away almost immediately, now even more unsure than he was before.

The inner conflict must have been written all over his face before he could stop himself.

"Was it that bad?" Gou cowered meekly, misreading his expression.

A fraction of his hesitation was all she needed before she released a strangled noise that was a mixture of frustration and embarrassment, and threw herself face-first into the pillows of her bed once more.

"Wait, Kou…I didn't…"

At a loss for how to salvage the situation, Haru could not think of anything else to do but climb onto the bed with her.

He shifted sinuously over to her and Gou turned to face him, feeling the mattress sink with their combined weight.

He held that position, on his hands and knees, studying her with that expressionless gaze.

Without a word, he raised his hand to brush the hair out of her face; his even breathing a stark contrast to her own, sharp inhales.

He let his thumb smooth along the curve of her cheekbone and then skate across her lower lip, using it to pry her mouth open and swirl the single digit around her tongue.

He lowered his face next to hers and pressed his nose against the shell of her ear:

"Open your mouth this time," he instructed, lowly. "I want to taste you."