Chapter 28: “Festival Fever”

  Scene 1: Festival Setup

  —-: Hana

  There were too many wires.

  And not enough patience.

  Hana knelt by the base of the central promenade arch, elbow-deep in a box labeled CAUTION: NOT FOR STUDENT USE (Except Hana) and tugged a finicky copper cable through a mess of crystal relays. The school’s festival prep was already running on borrowed time and surplus drama.

  Steam hissed from the food cart line across the quad. Someone was testing the caramel pressure nozzles again—loudly. A firework dummy misfired near the roof of the mechanic’s dorm. Taiga’s voice echoed over the clamor:

  “IT WAS SUPPOSED TO DO THAT!”

  “No, it wasn’t!” Jiro shouted back.

  Hana wiped a smear of carbon grease across her forehead with the back of her glove and muttered, “If one more person cross-wires a glow lantern into the firework grid, I swear I will personally short their—”

  A voice from behind cut in. “Table seventeen’s funnel boiler isn’t heating again.”

  Hana didn’t look up. “Tell them to stir it manually. If they complain, stir them.”

  She flicked a switch.

  The arch lit up with a smooth fwoom of warm light, the embedded festival crystals responding with a satisfying ripple. Gold shimmer rolled across the frame like sunlight caught in glass.

  One down. Twelve more to go.

  Mei walked by carrying an entire basket of paper lanterns on one hip like it weighed nothing. Her sleeves were spotless, of course.

  “I saw the left corridor fountain sputter,” she offered in her usual blank tone. “Want me to light a fire under someone?”

  “I’d love that,” Hana muttered, yanking another cable taut.

  It wasn’t until she double-checked the volunteer list that she noticed the name missing from her assigned team of setup gremlins.

  “Wait… where’s Rin?”

  Mei tilted her head slightly. “Vanished around an hour ago.”

  “She had the ring anchor booth. She was supposed to test the gyros for the illumination race.”

  Mei shrugged. “Now she’s testing our ability to adapt to unpredictable variables.”

  Hana’s jaw tightened.

  “I’m serious,” she said, standing and wiping her hands on a cloth that was more oil than fabric at this point. “She’s been slipping out of every task all week. First drills. Then flight checks. Now this?”

  “She’s grieving,” Mei said calmly.

  “Over what?”

  Mei looked at her like she was being deliberately dense.

  Hana turned back to the arch frame, pretending to adjust a crystal that was already perfectly centered.

  “She should just say something if it’s that important,” Hana muttered. “Instead of running off.”

  “She did,” Mei said. “Just not loud enough for anyone to hear.”

  That stung more than Hana wanted to admit.

  The wind carried the scent of caramelized sugar and overboiled soy broth across the quad. Someone was playing a shamisen in the background—badly. The festival stalls were coming together fast, all rope knots and crooked banners and the hum of too many hearts in one place.

  And Rin was somewhere else. Again.

  Hana picked up her toolkit and strapped it tight across her chest.

  “I’m going to finish the western junction,” she said. “If she shows up, tell her to stop ghosting her team.”

  “I’ll pass it along,” Mei said, adjusting her grip on the lantern basket. “Gently. Maybe.”

  As Hana walked off, the lights of the promenade flickered behind her—bright, warm, nearly perfect.

  But missing a piece.

  Scene 2: Taiga’s Masterpiece

  —-: Taiga

  .

  Taiga had envisioned lines.

  Rows of adoring fans.

  Confessions. Swoons. Maybe even a fainting or two.

  What he had… was wind.

  And a hand-painted booth that read:

  KISSING CRYSTAL

  1 Flight Token = 1 Fated Pair Reading!

  Taiga Fujiwara, Certified Heartseer?

  He sat alone beneath a festoon of pink lanterns shaped like hearts. The cushions were fluffed. The velvet drape glimmered. The crystal orb at the center of the booth—salvaged from a decommissioned guidance gyroscope—glowed an alluring shade of mostly functional magenta.

  And still… no customers.

  Not one.

  “Maybe,” Taiga muttered, chin in his hand, “I made it too perfect. People are intimidated by greatness.”

  “You misspelled ‘fated’ on the sign,” Jiro said, walking past with a stick of grilled mochi.

  “It’s stylized!”

  “It looks like it says ‘fatted pair.’”

  Taiga clutched his chest. “My artistic soul!”

  Across the festival grounds, laughter echoed, games rang, food stalls sizzled. Even the beanbag-toss-for-prizes booth had a queue—and that prize was literally just Saki’s old notebook full of gossip redacted in pink marker.

  Taiga tried to fluff his scarf dramatically, but it got caught in the hinge of the booth door and yanked him sideways.

  “Perfect,” he muttered from the floor.

  And then—

  “Hey loverboy.”

  He sat bolt upright.

  Saki stood at the edge of his booth holding a poster. Smirking. Dangerous.

  Taiga’s eyes narrowed. “You here for a reading?”

  “Oh no.” She slapped the new sign over his original. In aggressive brushstroke red:

  NOW WITH ACTUAL REJECTION!

  “Saki!”

  “I’m adding realism to your delusion.”

  “No one asked for—”

  “Someone has to manage expectations,” she said sweetly. “Also, you stole this booth design from my ‘Fortune-Telling Doom Tent’ from last year.”

  “I improved it! Mine has emotional resonance crystals!”

  Saki tapped the orb with one finger. It shorted out and turned green.

  “…It glows?” she offered dryly.

  Taiga crossed his arms. “Mock all you like. I am simply ahead of my time.”

  “You’re ahead of shame.”

  Someone passed by. Paused. Read the new sign. Snorted. Kept walking.

  Taiga wilted slightly.

  Saki crouched beside him, oddly gentle now. “You know, you could’ve just asked someone you like to walk with you tonight.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “Instead of building a shrine to your loneliness.”

  “I—! It’s not—! This is about science and destiny and—!”

  Saki raised one eyebrow. “Mmhm.”

  Taiga rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish now. “I thought… maybe someone would think it was cute. Or funny. Or… y’know. Step inside.”

  Silence.

  Then Saki, standing again, said, “Fix the ‘fated’ typo. I’ll be back later.”

  Taiga looked up, stunned. “You’d actually—”

  She was already gone, waving mockingly over her shoulder. “Only to reject you properly. For science!”

  He sighed, slumped over the booth wall.

  Still. He pulled out a brush and started fixing the sign.

  Just in case.

  Scene 3: Ren in Yukata

  —-: Ren

  Ren was pretty sure he’d forgotten how to breathe somewhere between the obi knot and the death clogs.

  “This is... itchy,” he muttered, tugging at the collar.

  “You look dignified,” Grandpa said, adjusting the sash with the precision of a man who once commanded sky cruisers and now fought fabric wrinkles with the same intensity.

  “I look like a ceremonial dumpling.”

  “Nonsense. You’re a young man of honor and tradition.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “I can’t feel my ribs.”

  “Perfect posture, then.”

  Ren winced as the door to the storage shed creaked open and a rush of evening wind swept over them—cool and scented with soy broth, roasted scallions, and festival smoke.

  “There,” Grandpa said proudly, stepping back. “Now go.”

  “Where?”

  “To the food stands.”

  “I can’t—”

  “March, Ichiro!”

  And with one mighty shove to the back—far stronger than any retiree had a right to be—Ren was launched into the flow of festival traffic like a reluctant torpedo in a linen wrap.

  The path through the festival was alive with motion: students darting between stalls, lanterns flickering above like dancing stars, bursts of laughter and too-loud game bells, and the occasional poof of steam as someone over-pressured a mochi fryer.

  Ren tried to walk naturally. The sandals betrayed him immediately. Every step clacked like he was trying to announce his location to enemy forces.

  People stared.

  “Is that Ichiro-senpai?”

  “Whoa, yukata mode!”

  “Ren! Strike a pose!”

  He nearly tripped into a food cart.

  And then—

  “Ren!” Hana called from near the takoyaki stall.

  She was already in line, waving him over, chopsticks in one hand, her jacket tied loosely around her waist. Her cheeks were a little pink from the grill heat, or maybe the lanterns, or maybe—

  He stumbled forward.

  Mei stood beside her with a small bowl of dumplings and nodded at his outfit. “Acceptable.”

  “Look at you!” Hana grinned. “All traditional and festival-proper. If you bow too fast, you’re going to snap in half.”

  “Thanks,” he muttered. “I can’t feel my ankles.”

  “Want a dumpling?” she asked, holding one out with her chopsticks.

  He nodded, leaned in—

  The dumpling fell.

  Right down the front of his yukata.

  He froze.

  She froze.

  There was a beat of absolute stillness.

  Then Hana cracked up. Full, unfiltered laughter that made her shoulders shake and her eyes scrunch up and Ren’s entire internal processor go into thermal overload.

  “You’re—snrk—a menace,” he said, fishing the dumpling out of his collar.

  “And you wore a food trap to a snack festival.”

  He rolled his eyes. But he was smiling. And it felt… easy. The first easy thing all week.

  From behind the booth, Taiga popped up. “I saw nothing. But also everything. Also, I brought tissues.”

  He held one out like an offering to the gods.

  Ren took it, gave him a nod, and muttered, “Traitor.”

  “Romantic disaster and traditional wear? I live for this,” Taiga said dramatically.

  Hana leaned in again, nudging Ren lightly. “Come on. Let’s find noodles before the lines get worse.”

  And as they walked into the blur of colors and steam and voices, Ren tried not to think about how warm her shoulder felt next to his. Or how he was pretty sure she’d brushed her hand against his on purpose.

  Or how part of him… really didn’t want the night to end.

  Scene 4: Game Theory Breakdown – Festival Class

  —-: Jiro

  Jiro did not know why he was here.

  It was the Spring Festival. There were dumplings to eat. Lanterns to admire. Maybe a chance to sneak off and get lost in the crowd before someone started a pie-eating contest again.

  Instead?

  He was in Room C-3, which had been hastily converted into “Game Theory & Strategy Analysis (Festival Bonus Session)” and was now filled with mismatched chairs, half-eaten sweets, and the chaotic energy of a substitute teacher who had read exactly one book and decided she could do it better.

  Saki stood at the front, pointer stick in one hand, chalk in the other, eyes gleaming like she’d been waiting her whole life to command a blackboard.

  “Welcome to Racing the Rings: How to Outsmart Victory!” she said, spinning on her heel and stabbing the board.

  It read:

  RING MATH: WHY 2 POINTS CAN BEAT 3

  Behind her, the blackboard looked like a madman’s conspiracy web—doodles of flight paths, point charts, stick figures yelling “TOO FAST!!”, and one badly drawn picture of Taiga marked “don’t do this.”

  Saki launched in.

  “Contrary to popular belief,” she declared, “the person who finishes first isn’t always the winner in a ring race. Most official air competitions run on modified point systems. Every ring you pass gives you a set value. Skip too many, you fail. But if you skip just right?”

  She drew an arrow through a ring set labeled R3-R6, bypassing R4 completely. “Boom. Time bonus. Lower fuel burn. Better altitude for the final pass. Win.”

  Taiga raised his hand. “What if you go back and do the ring twice? Double points?”

  Saki stared at him. “That’s a disqualification, air goblin.”

  Taiga nodded solemnly. “Worth it.”

  Jiro slouched further in his seat. “This is somehow both incredibly useful and completely unhinged.”

  Mei, from the front row, raised a finger. “Does this apply to the Inter-School Illumination Race, or just National qualifiers?”

  Saki grinned. “Ah! Excellent question.”

  She grabbed a scroll from the side table, dramatically unfurled it, and smacked Jiro in the head with a rolled-up chart labeled “KNOWN RING PATTERN SUBTYPES (Classified).”

  “Answer: both. With slight variation.”

  “Ow,” Jiro muttered, rubbing his forehead. “I’m learning through blunt force trauma.”

  “Good,” Saki said. “It’s the fastest method.”

  Taiga, meanwhile, had constructed what could only be described as a paper ring cannon using a scrap launch spring and a cup noodle container. He aimed it at the chalkboard. “For science,” he whispered.

  “Don’t you—”

  POOMF!

  The ring hit Jiro squarely in the back of the head.

  Again.

  “TAIGA.”

  “BEHOLD,” Taiga declared, raising the launcher in triumph, “THE RING BLASTER 9000!”

  “Put it away!” Saki yelled.

  “Never!”

  “Put it away before I enter you in a single-player romance bracket!”

  Taiga hissed like a threatened cat and dove under the table.

  Jiro sighed. “Can we go back to getting pelted with rice cakes? At least those were edible.”

  Saki resumed her lecture, tapping diagrams that now included several angry stick figures. “Anyway! Ring placement is more than aesthetics. It’s a mental game. Racers who rely only on speed lose to those who think strategically.”

  She paused. Smiled—sharp and knowing.

  “Which is why certain pilots”—she glanced at the back corner, where Rin’s name was written above a graph marked X-Factor Chaos Flight—“can consistently outmaneuver more traditional fliers.”

  Mei nodded. “She never takes the full arc.”

  Saki shrugged. “She doesn’t need to. She takes the path that breaks your brain.”

  Jiro stared at the board.

  Even with a headache and a paper ring mark on his back, he had to admit… she was right.

  Speed meant nothing if the sky didn’t play fair.

  Scene 5: Hana & Ren Festival Moment

  —-: Hana

  The lanterns above them swayed gently in the night breeze—paper spheres glowing amber and lilac, strung between the rooftops like lazy fireflies caught mid-dream.

  Hana blew on her bowl of spicy yuzu noodles, cheeks pink from the heat—not that she’d ever admit it. Across the little folding table, Ren did the same, completely failing to hold his chopsticks properly.

  “You know,” she said, eyebrow twitching as he dropped another slice of fishcake, “you fly a top-tier high-pressure maneuvering ship but can’t pick up a noodle.”

  “I work with joysticks, not wooden torture sticks,” he muttered.

  “It’s chopsticks. They are a cultural staple.”

  “I’m stapling nothing. I’m barely managing to scoop.”

  Hana tried not to laugh. Tried.

  Failed.

  Ren grinned too, sheepish but genuine. There was something in his expression—open, soft—that she didn’t usually get to see. Not in the cockpit. Not on the practice field. Not when Mei or Rin was around.

  Just here. Between steam curls and the distant hum of festival bells.

  A burst of sparkcrackers went off somewhere down the path—bright white against the indigo sky. Ren flinched just slightly. A piece of scallion flipped off his chopsticks and landed squarely on his lap.

  “You’re under attack,” Hana said, flicking a napkin at him.

  “Defenseless,” he said, catching it with mock solemnity.

  He wiped it up slowly, then looked at her. Really looked.

  For a beat, neither of them moved.

  Then his hand drifted to the edge of the table. Just a twitch. A knuckle brushing against hers. Not on purpose. Not quite.

  Hana didn’t pull away.

  But she didn’t move closer either.

  And that space between their hands—tiny, electric—felt suddenly very loud.

  She opened her mouth.

  Was about to say something—

  “Smile!”

  FLASH.

  A burst of camera light blinded them both. Hana yelped and dropped her chopsticks.

  Saki stood three feet away, holding a tiny steam-powered snapshot box and wearing a grin worthy of criminal prosecution.

  “Captured!” she announced. “Now I can print ‘Festival Couple of the Hour!’ with photographic proof!”

  “Saki!” Ren groaned, covering his face.

  Hana grabbed a napkin and launched it like a discus. It bounced off Saki’s head with a satisfying thwump.

  “Please,” Saki said, undeterred. “That’s going on the bulletin board. Maybe the flight team newsletter.”

  She vanished into the crowd before either of them could throw anything sharper.

  Ren slumped forward. “So much for subtle.”

  Hana sighed, twisting her noodle bowl between her palms.

  But when she looked at him again, he was still smiling.

  And somehow, that made the almost-touch matter more than if it had actually happened.

  Scene 6: Rin Alone in the Dark

  —-: Rin

  The lanterns moved like stars too tired to stay in the sky.

  Rin sat alone on the edge of the garden path, one boot tucked beneath her, the other toe drawing lazy circles in the dirt. Around her, steam drifted through the hedges—thin ribbons of warmth from the food stalls across the hill, sweetened by mochi smoke and fried sugar.

  She didn’t hear the music anymore. Or the laughter. Or the game bells.

  Just the slow hum of the crystal cores lining the garden path, buried beneath sculpted iron lanterns. Low, pulsing blue. Like a heartbeat she didn’t want to admit was hers.

  Above, a thousand tiny firefly lanterns hung in the trees. They blinked gently, out of sync—some warm white, some gold, some pale green. Students had made them earlier that week. Wound with tiny steam threads and filled with soft-glow crystals.

  Hers was up there too. Somewhere.

  Maybe.

  She hoped it had broken.

  She hated how pretty it all was.

  "Should’ve stayed grounded," she muttered, tugging at the cuff of her jacket. “Too much sky tonight.”

  “You say that every time,” a voice answered softly.

  Rin didn’t startle.

  Of course it was Mei.

  She walked like moonlight on steel—graceful, silent, inevitable. A pale silhouette in the shadows, hair loose now, sleeves brushed by the breeze. She didn’t sit right away. Just stood nearby, watching the same firefly glow blink through the branches.

  Rin looked away.

  “I’m not hiding.”

  “I know.”

  “I just didn’t want to smile anymore.”

  Mei nodded, slow. “It’s exhausting.”

  Rin let her head tip back until it thudded gently against the garden post behind her. “They’re all so... sure of themselves. Hana with her tools. Ren with his stupid quiet eyes. Even Taiga, with his dumb kiss booth.”

  “Don’t forget Jiro. He has emotional damage and a noodle addiction.”

  Rin huffed out something almost like a laugh. “He’s the only one with a survival plan.”

  Mei finally sat—folded legs, hands in her lap, eyes half-lidded. Like a temple spirit waiting for the right words.

  “You flew like a comet last night,” she said.

  Rin’s shoulders tensed. “It wasn’t about them. I needed altitude.”

  “But you flew right over them. Just to show you could.”

  “I didn’t—” Rin stopped. Looked away. “I didn’t mean to be cruel.”

  “You weren’t.” Mei looked at her then—really looked. “You were trying to be seen.”

  Rin flinched.

  “I didn’t want to want that,” she whispered. “Not from him. Not with everything else in the air.”

  A pause.

  “You’re allowed to want someone too, you know,” Mei said.

  The words slid into the quiet like the last flicker of a lantern before it dimmed.

  Rin didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

  But her hand—trembling just barely—curled into the grass beside her, gripping a fistful of earth like she might fall without it.

  The lanterns above them blinked once more, soft and uncertain.

  Scene 6 Complete. Ready to begin the final two scenes — Scene 7 (Mini-Race) and Scene 8 (Final Frame) — when you are.

  4o

  You said:

  Ready to begin the final two scenes

  ChatGPT said:

  Perfect. Let’s close this chapter with grace, sky, and unspoken weight.

  Scene 7: Final Flight (Mini-Race Through Festival Lights)

  —-: Ren

  The wind above the academy was warm and restless.

  Below, the festival lights glittered like fallen stars scattered across the courtyards. The air smelled of fried batter, cut grass, and crystal exhaust. And Ren—hands light on the yoke—felt the thrum of the Silver Dart beneath him like a living breath.

  “Mini-race?” Hana had said, grinning just a bit too wide.

  “You in?”

  He hadn’t said yes. But she’d already climbed into the cockpit.

  Now they rose together, a soft launch—nothing showy. The crowd below noticed anyway. Cheers echoed from the promenade. Someone lit sparkcrackers off the roof.

  Mei’s voice crackled through comms, half amused. “Don’t do anything dumb.”

  “Define dumb,” Hana shot back.

  Ren chuckled.

  They banked left, easing into the updraft that curled off the academy towers. Lanterns bobbed around them—hover-crystals shaped like koi, birds, even tiny skyships. The kind of race that wasn’t about points or finish lines. Just motion.

  Just being up here.

  Hana took the lead first, pulling a corkscrew around the western dorm spire. Ren followed. Kept pace. Watched the light catch in her hair through the reflection in the canopy. Watched the ease in her posture—the way she laughed, unguarded, through comms.

  And then—

  A second glint of crystal shimmered to their right.

  A smaller craft. Sleek. Familiar.

  Rin.

  Ren’s breath caught. His fingers twitched on the yoke.

  She didn’t say a word on comms. Just rose alongside them, wings catching the lantern light. Not challenging—inviting.

  The sky opened.

  Hana dipped lower, weaving through a chain of floating lanterns. Rin shot above, riding the tailstream. Ren followed both, unsure which orbit to fall into.

  The three of them moved like a star pattern re-aligning—just a little off-center. Hana cut tight around the observation tower, Rin arced wide over the greenhouse domes, Ren split the middle.

  The crowd below gasped.

  Laughter. Applause. Someone yelling “Fly, Silver Dart!”

  But inside the cockpit?

  Only the steady thump of his heartbeat in his ears.

  Which one is this moment for?

  Hana’s laugh? Rin’s silence? Or mine?

  He didn’t know.

  He just flew.

  Scene 8: Final Frame

  —-: Rin

  From the garden wall, Rin could see the entire courtyard.

  Hundreds of students. Staff. Families. All looking up.

  Their cheers rose like steam. Laughter. Music. Chatter. Names shouted into the sky.

  Silver Dart! Hana! Rin! Ichiro!

  Their silhouettes looped above it all—three gliders caught in orbit, lanterns dancing in their wake like petals in a wind tunnel.

  To the crowd, they were heroes.

  To themselves?

  They were quiet.

  In her cockpit, Rin exhaled slowly. Let the rush ebb. Let her smile fade. Her gloves rested on the controls, untouched.

  She didn’t need to push forward anymore. Not tonight.

  In the reflection of her canopy, she saw Ren’s ship drifting beside hers. Level. Even. Distant.

  She didn’t try to call him.

  Didn’t wave.

  She just looked.

  And below, behind the shimmer of festival lights, the whole school watched like it was a story unfolding.

  But inside the sky?

  They were just three teenagers with hearts full of smoke and silence.