The Tanabata Festival in the boundary was bustling with supernaturals walking around to the colorful stalls and the hanging wishing tags. Y/n was mesmerized on how mysterious the festival is— she was used to supernatural stuffs anyways, why would she be scared?
There are different types of supernaturals roaming around the boundary, seems like they brought their liking to the festival even after death. Nene and Y/n bought some candy apples from one of the stalls. "I'm surprised that in this boundary they only exchange stuffs instead of money." Y/n stated while taking a bite of her candy apple.
"Mermaid scales are rare, so you can buy whatever you want." Hanako added. The three went to the stall where Kou was playing a shooting game in which he successfully shot one of the prizes displayed. The supernaturals were impressed by his skills causing them to surround and clapped for him. "What cha playing kid?"
"Wanna try Y/n-nee?" Kou asked, handing the sniper to Y/n.
"Hell yeah. I guess I could shoot my shot, hehehe?~" Y/n takes the sniper as she closed one eye to focus on her target, and when she finally pulled the trigger, she accidentally hit a mokke. "Oop, my bad—"
They managed to get some prizes from the stalls. Y/n got herself a mokke, a pair of shades and some clips. Kou rummaged through his paper bag and pulled out a tag. "Oh those are tags." Y/n shows him three of the tags she got from the games. "I heard that you can get wishes from them."
"That's right. This is the Star Festival, they give you tags when you shop at a booth. If you're able to collect them all and write your wish, hang them by the bamboo tree at the banquet hall." Hanako explained as he pointed at the bamboo tree filled with different colored tags. "Then, anything you wish will come true."
"Hold up, anything?" Y/n smiled ear to ear at the idea of any wish coming true.
"If it's a rumor from a boundary..." Kou said.
"Then it could be true..." Nene finished his sentence. The two began visualizing on what their wish is going to be. Y/n stared at her tags, there are many things that she wanted to wish for: Her mom to come back, her condition to be healed and something that's out of the ordinary,
For her and Hanako to be together. She knew it's impossible since she's a human and he's a ghost, it would never work out. There's nothing wrong about making a wish about that, right? "Just so you know." Yako interrupted Kou and Yashiro from fawning over the tags. "Collecting all the colors is really difficult." She sourly states. "But even if you don't collect them all."
"—They're still good at making wishes." Hanako smiled.
"Let's collect them all, Kou-kun!"
"Yes!"
"I think they're not listening..." Hanako and Y/n said in unison as if they were a married couple looking at their children being dumbasses. "Let's split up then!" Hanako announced, raising his pointer finger. He walks behind Y/n and wrapped his arms around her, putting his chin on top of her shoulder. "The kid and Yashiro along with Number Two can go together while I get to spend some time with my personal assistant~"
"Wait— why is Y/n-nee going with you?" Kou asked as his eyebrows furrowed at the idea, who knows, Hanako might do something perverted to Y/n if they're alone.
"Just let them be, Kou-kun." Yashiro smiled sweetly at the blond junior. Yako seems to agree that Hanako should spend some time with his assistant. The fox pointed at a nearby stall and suggested that they should try to get some tags, leaving Y/n and Hanako alone together.
'These three, I swear to god—' Y/n clenched the handle of her pouch with a sweat-dropped expression. Hanako waved his hand as the three figures disappeared through the crowd. 'I guess this counts as a date between me and Hanako...'
She felt Hanako's cold hand grab her wrist, catching Y/n's attention to make her look at him. "Where do you wanna go, Hanako-kun?" Y/n tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear, then she looked over to a random stall. In Hanako's perspective, the festival lights surrounding her figure, making her look breathtaking, no cap, as the voices of the chattering supernatural faded away when he looks at her. "Hanako-kun? Hello?"
"Oh sorry!" Hanako slightly jumped in surprise when he heard Y/n call his name to snap him off guard. When Y/n was looking away, he muttered some profanities under his breath for being distracted around Y/n's presence. "Right, let's walk around the festival."
Y/n and Hanako competed each other in a game of katanuki where players have to carve out the shape from the candy in exchange of a price. "You're really good at this Hanako-kun..." Y/n smirked as she tried to cut out the shape of an umbrella using a toothpick. Hanako bit his lip in concentration as he tried to scrape the sides of the shape so perfectly, he's really determined to get the prizes. "Oh for the love of—" She shrieked when she broke the shape. "Fucking dumbass."
Hanako chuckled, placing his hand on his cheek as he watched Y/n being frustrated over katanuki just to get a tanzaku to complete her collection. They went to another stall after that in which they will try to get a koi fish using a paper scooper—-whatever that is. Y/n finds it difficult to catch a fish since the paper gets wet easily. "Here, let me." Hanako floated behind her and placed his hand on top of hers to guide her from scooping the fish. "Just wait till that one comes close..." He whispered.
Good thing Hanako was behind her or else he could've seen the blush on Y/n's cheeks on how he was guiding her to catch a fish. She was distracted by looking at his hand on hers despite there's a lot of times that he played with her hands and the handholding. "Y/n." Hanako snaps her out of her trance. "The fish." Hanako uses her hand to grab the fish but it swam away before they caught it. "Well, that's a bummer. Aw.."
Y/n stood up, dusting her yukata and smiled sweetly at Hanako. "It's alright. Let's go to another stall." She said, grabbing his hand and leading him to some stalls they can try out. And so they played, and played... and played their way through the festival. Y/n and Hanako had fun together, and both teens felt like it was a date, although they're happy to care about it anyways. "Sheesh, where the fuck is the red tag." Y/n grumbled as she counted her tanzaku.
Kou and Nene are having a depression moment, whereas they can't find the last tag to grant their wishes. Hanako is in the same boat as well, still can't find the red tag. "Is it just me or are these stalls hiding the red tags from us or just simply ran out of it?"
"I only need one more, too." Kou says.
"We went to almost every booth, how did this happen..." Nene adds.
"I told you it's like this every year." Yako corrected the two, like a mother proving her point that she was right. Y/n chuckled, she doesn't mind about whether she's missing a tag or two, as long as she gets to hang out with Hanako, it felt like a wish came to her. Hanako tells them that the final fireworks are about to appear so he reminds them that they have to hang their tags by the bamboo tree.
"Cheer up, you two." Y/n puts her arms around Kou and Nene's shoulder with a toothy smile. "Hanako-kun said that there's gonna be fireworks." She said, making sure to sound excited so the two will be convinced. Y/n stopped at the moment to look at her tags, upon realizing that she did chunk out a huge secret that the last time she went on a festival was with Fuji. 'I wonder what he's up to right now, I'm starting to get used to the fact that we'll never go back as friends...'
Y/n realized that she was being left alone in a crowd, she looked left and right to see supernaturals making their way to the bamboo tree. She panicked internally, one of the biggest fears she could ever imagine is being lost. "H-Hanako-kun!" She called, jumping up and down to notice that she's far away from them.
"Y/n?" Hanako turned around with a confused expression on his face, walking over to his assistant who seemed like a lost puppy. "How did you end up over there?"
"I almost got lost."
Hanako held out his hand, a small blush tinting upon his cheeks. "Let's hold hands... so that you won't get lost...." He demanded with a slight glare. Y/n wanted to tease him for being shy all of a sudden— Hanako felt so real at the moment, he's not teasing her, flustering her and it made her melt at the feeling. "Can we?"
"You can always hold my hand without asking though." Y/n takes his hand and intertwines their fingers together. His hands were cold, he's a ghost, but somehow it radiated warmth at the way they're holding hands. She smiled while squeezing his hand softly. "Lead the way Hanako-kun..."
The two teens held hands, squeezing between the crowd of supernaturals and yet they never lost sight of each other. That is until a bull procession decided to ruin the precious moment—-well more like Y/n's clumsiness got hit by a bull and stumbled backwards. "What the actual crumbs—?" She said scratching her ass after she fell on the cold hard ground. "Hanako-kun?" Y/n nervously looked around to see if the apparition boy was around but then she saw people walking around instead of the supernaturals.
'Holy fuck, I lost them!'
"Hey, what are you doing?" A small boy with dark choppy hair and big amber eyes came in front of Y/n, holding his hand out while chewing on his candy apple. "Are you okay?" He asked. He was wearing a dark blue yukata with crescent moon patterns. In Y/n's point of view, it felt like she saw him, she estimated that he's around elementary considering that he's a small kid.
"I'm alright." Y/n winced as she took his hand and stood up on her feet. "I'm fine." She replied, like a liar since she knows that she's not fine at all in both ways. 'Lmao, stop faking, we damn know you're not fine.' Y/n cackled internally. 'But thoughts aside—where the fuck am I?!'
Y/n had a flashback moment, recalling the events that happened before she ended up being alone in an unknown place with a grade school kid. "Where am I? Where's everybody?!" She was on the verge of having a panic attack, she took a deep breath to calm herself down and turned to the kid's direction as she released his hand. "Yo kid, can I ask you something?" The kid hummed in response. "What's the date today?"
The little boy points at a poster on the wooden pillar next to him. Y/n squinted to read the poster until her eyes widened when she saw the date of the festival.
STAR FESTIVAL
July 7th, 1964
"What the crumbs—" Y/n stepped back in shock, rubbing her eyes to see if she misread it but it clearly states what date it is today. "Omfg, 1964?! That's the Showa Era!" She silently exclaimed while putting her hands on her face. She dropped on her knees and had a mental breakdown. 'I went back at least 50 years but how the fuck did that happen, unless that bull deadass hit me so hard it took me back to 1964!'
"Are you lost, Onee-san?" The little boy asked as he continued to chew on his candy apple, pointing in the direction of the bamboo tree. "There's a lost children's center somewhere near the bamboo tree, should I take you there though?" He seems to have a mindset of a mature boy, he's not like the annoying spoiled brats that she dealt with a long time ago, at least she can converse well with this kid.
"I'm a teenager, boy." Y/n corrected.
The kid whips out a red tag from his pocket and smiles proudly. "I'm going there to hang this." He said. Y/n suddenly remembered that she was only missing a red tag, she thought that if she collected all of them she might go back to her own time. The problem now is that the kid is in possession of the missing tag. "Onee-san?"
She wouldn't like the idea of forcing the kid to give her the tag. Maybe Y/n should stay with this kid for that matter and be buddy-buddy with him until he trusts her enough to give her the tag. "I wish I had a red tag." Y/n was obviously hinting towards the red tag on the kid's hand. "It would be nice if someone is kind enough to give me one~" She sighed happily, then the mood was ruined by her stomach rumbling, catching the kid's attention.
---
Y/n was seated on one of the benches under the shade while waiting for the boy to come back. When he did, he brought a lot of food containers with a pitiful expression written on his face. "Here you go Onee-san." He said while handing her a juice bottle and takoyaki.
"Thank you." Y/n bowed slightly before taking her juice and food from the kid. The fact that this kid brought a lot of food with him made her wonder if this kid was really hungry or was he waiting for someone to eat with him. "You can sit next to Onee-san. Sorry for the trouble, you don't have to buy a lot of food."
"It's fine." The little boy happily sits next to Y/n as he opens his first container in which it has noodles in it. He takes his chopsticks and takes a huge amount inside his mouth, guess she's not the only one who's hungry. "You can't have my tag no matter how much you want to bribe me— I bet Onee-san is a hopeless romantic person that wishes for someone to like her back so she decided to ask for a higher power for it to come true."
"I know damn well that didn't happen yet why did it feel like I got real-talked by a kid." Y/n felt arrows struck her conscience, this kid is being too realistic now— he's at the age where he believes that tooth fairies are not real, the type of kid who'd diss you when you told him you like fictional characters. "You sure did buy a lot, kid." She looks at the platter of food on the bench they were sitting on.
"That jerk—" The kid pouted while eating his noodles. "He doesn't like Onee-san, he's so mean since he didn't like you back." He grumbled in frustration at his self assumption of Y/n having one-sided love to someone— but rest assured none of that happened, you can reread the book to double check. "If it were me, I would be way nicer."
Y/n blinked. 'Kid you're like 9 or something. Plus, you're literally fifty years too late for that.' She cleared her throat as she opened both of their juice bottles. "So kid, what's your name?"
"I'm Amane. Amane Yugi."
Before Y/n can scream "Hanako-kun?!" to the kid, she decided to hold back as to not to draw attention to the people walking by, then the kid would be weirded out and it would create a bootstrap paradox if she did tell him about Hanako. She decided to at least tell her name instead. "I'm Y/n. Nice to meet you Amane-kun." She smiled even though she's internally panicking that it may ruin the flow of time when she met the past self of Hanako. The two started to talk to one another while eating up the food Amane bought for them and it took them fifteen minutes to get finished.
"Ha—I'm so full!" Amane clapped his hands together. Empty containers scattered around the bench, remind Y/n to clean that up later. Y/n notices that he eats a lot so it made her think that he's hungry as Y/n. "That was delicious."
"By the way Amane-kun, are you on your own?"
"I came here with my little brother but he left me alone like three hours ago." Amane hugged his knees while looking at the starry sky from where they're sitting. "So I was thinking that I'd have to eat dinner alone, but eating alone in a festival is pretty lonely." He turned to Y/n with a big smile on his face. "I'm glad I found you."
Y/n notices that he got some rice on his cheek. 'What a clumsy eater...' She chuckled, reaching over to her bag to get her handkerchief. "Hold still, kay?" Y/n started to wipe the rice off of Amane's cheeks in a gentle manner.
"It's fine! I'm not a little kid!" Amane got embarrassed at the fact that he has someone to wipe his face after eating despite being a 'big boy' as he would claim himself to be, like that would convince the teenage girl. To Y/n, he's still a child, like look at the way he's flailing his arms and puffing his cheeks like a pufferfish, so adorable.
"Okay, okay." Y/n puts her handkerchief away from his face, giving Amane a close-eyed smile. "There, all clean, right?" She asked as she put the cloth back in her bag, the next thing she's going to do is to clean up the food containers. She stacks them up and throws them in the trash can, unbeknownst to her that Amane was shifting behind her.
"Onee-san..." Amane holds out the red tag in front of Y/n. "Here, you still want this right?"
"Why are you giving it to me?"
"Actually, the truth is that..." Amane started to walk around the area while fumbling with the red tag to answer her question as to why he's giving it to her. "I was going to write that I wish to be an astronaut, to travel up to the sky to see the moon and stars up close~!" The choppy haired boy announced. Y/n's heart started to ache for this boy, she felt bad— really bad, considering that he'll end up being a ghost in the future.
"But even if I wish for it on this tag, it won't come true."
'Well, you only have one tag and you need all five to get a guaranteed wish.'
Amane takes a look at his red tag, then he turns around and walks over to Y/n. "But I was able to eat dinner with you, Onee-san." Amane tugs on to the sleeve of her yukata and stands on his tippy toes, it seems like he wanted to tell her something so Y/n bent down a little bit. "And actually..."
"You're kind of my type."
The fireworks started to explode in the sky with different colors and patterns. The sound of the kids cheering and pointing at the sky with their sparklers boomed as the fireworks. Amane smiled at Y/n. "So I want to give it to you." And that statement caught Y/n off guard, making her blink in confusion. Has Hanako always been this smooth since 1964? "Wow! Onee-san, look at the fireworks! It's so pretty!" Amane takes her hand, leading her to take a better view as he jumped up and down while pointing at the exploding fireworks.
"It really is." It felt like she was dreaming when she saw those fireworks. The realization that she might have been dreaming from the very start and the way her heart aches when she sees Amane smiling in front of her, he will kill his brother in the near future when he gets old. This was only a dream anyways, her meeting with this kid won't affect the timeline, right? 'Maybe I should give all the tags to Amane-kun, even if it's a dream, at least these could help him make his wish come true.'
"Amane-kun." Y/n called, piling up all of her tags and giving it to Amane that made his eyes sparkle. "I collected some tags recently and I'm missing one, but I want you to have all of these." She said, determined to make his wish come true despite the fact it will never change the outcome because she's under one dream.
"Onee-san, this is a lot!" Amane was beyond shocked and surprised, counting the wishing tags that Y/n gave him. The female bent down to his level and started to explain how the tag works, just like Hanako said back in the festival boundary. "How many did you have?"
"Write all of your wishes in these and hang them by the bamboo tree. They will definitely come true."
"So Amane-kun, write any wish that you want in those tags." Y/n smiled at the kid while showing her the juice bottle that Amane gave her as they ate together in the festival. "In return for buying me juice and takoyaki."
"Thank you!"
'If I really did come back in time, would this event have prevented Amane-kun from becoming Hanako-kun?' Her train of thought got interrupted by the sound of the cow procession and that gave Y/n an epiphany on how she'll get back to her own time. She smiled, raising her hand to wave goodbye at the kid. "Amane-kun, I have to go now!" Y/n tells him.
Amane tugged on to her yukata with a saddened expression on his face, he seems to be attached to Y/n already, considering that they only met a few moments ago. "You're leaving?" He asked. Y/n mentally begged for the child not to give her that look or else she'll feel bad for leaving him.
"Yeah, but..." Y/n bent down to Amane, brushing his choppy bangs up to show his forehead and planted a kiss on it, pulling away with a soft smile. "A good luck charm, so you can become an astronaut and reach up to the moon and stars." Amane held his forehead as his face went red. "I'll be rooting for you."
Y/n dashed over to the cow procession like a dumbass to get herself hit. In this adventure of hers, she pondered. Hanako is a supernatural that grants wishes to the living, if that red tag was the sole reason for this result, what if he had all of the tags, where would he go then? Then, what is his wish? It may not be becoming an astronaut anymore but whatever it is.
She hopes that it comes true.
"Ugh..." Y/n groaned, slowly opening her eyes to see that Hanako, Kou and Nene are watching over her, it seems like her friend and junior had cried while she was unconscious from that bull incident. "God I felt like someone was staring at me in my sleep—- who the fuck is it anyways?"
"Y/n/Y/n-nee!" Kou and Nene got worried after they witnessed Y/n getting hit during the bull procession and got launched by a nearby stall and blacked out. "We're glad you're alright!" Kou says, wiping his tears as Nene rubbed circles behind his back to comfort the weeping blonde.
"I carried you all the way here." Hanako blurts in, putting his hands behind his back. He scratched his cheek and averted his gaze away from Y/n. "I mean—I hope that you don't mind me carrying you, it's fine if you get mad at me—" Hanako continues to come up with more excuses that Y/n doesn't really care about listening to so she just pulled the apparition boy into a hug before he can even say more.
"What matters is that I'm alright. Thank you, Hanako-kun." Y/n giggled at the feeling of Hanako burying his head on the crook of her neck, wrapping his arms around her waist to hold her tight. She was the warmth that he seeks when he feels cold, and only with her does he ever feel warm and fuzzy, even though he's a ghost. For decades he yearned for physical affection and he only got it from Y/n, who reciprocated it and was never bothered by it, so he's glad that he gets to be in love with someone like her.
Amane, fifty years ago, was seen tying up the tags that Y/n gave him by the bamboo branch after writing down his wish. After he was done, he stepped back and smiled to take a second look of his wish written on the tag.
I hope I can see Y/n-oneesan again
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i feel kind, and i wanted to finish after moon so yeah i'm here to give u update and we're almost at our climax *bites lip at picture perfect arc* don't worry, i'm going to be nice and not hurt you readers :>