this felt so weird for me to write because of my writer's block, but im glad i still managed to get it out. inspirations are odd things. anyways, i hope you'll enjoy it still! (despite the dubious quality.)

Tenma had a skip in his step.

Shinsuke noticed this, of course. It was too hard not to. And Shinsuke also knew exactly why Tenma was in a joyful mood.

He smirked and nudged his taller friend with his elbow.

"You seem awfully excited for your date with Tsurugi, Tenma!"

"W-W-What date?!" Tenma shouted, arms suddenly flailing everywhere and almost hitting Shinsuke in the face. His feet stopped moving as he continued his stuttering, desperately trying to deny his friend's assumption. It was futile, of course, especially when his face is as red as a tomato. "I-It's not a date! It's a group outing, group outing! Plus, you're going to be there too?! And Shindou-san and Kirino-san?!"

Shinsuke burst into a fit of laughter, clutching his stomach as he found himself leaning against the wall for support. "Chill out, Tenma! I was only joking!"

Haha, joking, yup.

It took Shinsuke a while to stop laughing, and it took Tenma even longer to get his blush to go away. The rest of their walk towards the summer festival, the brunet's face still had a tinge of pink on his cheeks.

As they came closer to the rendezvous point, they began hearing the chatter of the crowd, and they could see the orange glow of the lanterns casting shadows on the ground. Giant grins stretched across their faces. The two boys looked at each other, eyes twinkling, nod, and immediately started racing towards the entrance.

"Oh, I see them." Shindou said to his companions, nodding his head towards something in the distance.

Kirino and Tsurugi looked over and weren't at all surprised to see the duo speeding their way through the crowd. With a chuckle, Kirino raised a hand and called out, "Ooi, Tenma! Shinsuke! Over here!"

They must've heard his voice over the noise, because the blurry silhouettes of the duo immediately came towards them. The trio waiting for them sweatdropped.

Tenma and Shinsuke skid to a stop in front of them, amazingly not crashing into anyone. The two of them raised their hands in salute and said in unison, "Sorry we kept you waiting!"

Shindou, with one hand on his hip, smiled. "Don't worry, we just got here too."

The two first years smiled at him back, before Shinsuke looked at Tsurugi and Kirino and shouted in awe. "Whoa! Kirino-senpai and Tsurugi are wearing yukatas!"

When Tenma turned his eyes towards them, his jaw dropped, his face went red all the way to his ears and down to his neck, and he swears his heart stopped beating. (He didn't realize it but he forgot how to breathe too.)

Tsurugi, clad in a royal purple yukata, undoubtedly looked simply, well, amazing.

The taller first year noticed Tenma's eyes on him and looked away, a blush tinting his cheeks.

Kirino looked between the two of them, his eyes curious before a devilish smirk pulled on his lips. With crossed arms, he said, "Tenma, I'm wearing a yukata too, you know."

The brunet jumped in response, sweating and eyes looking everywhere but at the group of soccer players. "Y-Yeah!" Tenma started. "Y-You look good too, Kirino-senpai!"

"Hmm. Well, I don't know about that…" Kirino said, his devilish smirk turning into a blank look as he completely ignored the warning glances Shindou was giving him. The pink-haired boy turned to face Tsurugi, who faced the defender in return with furrowed eyebrows.

"What?" Tsurugi asked.

Kirino held out a hand and…

Casually pulled on Tsurugi's sleeve, revealing even more of his partially exposed chest.

"Yukata service~" Kirino sang in amusement, as a very flustered red-faced Tenma yelped and turned a full 180 degree away from the sinful view. Everyone could still hear him stammering and mumbling incoherent words of embarrassment.

Shindou pat his best friend on the shoulder and gently pulled him away from the also very flustered, speechless, and quite possibly a very much emotionally scarred Tsurugi. "T-That's enough, Kirino…"he said. "Stop bullying Tsurugi…"

"Eeeh… You're spoiling the fun, Shindou. I mean, look at Tenma's reaction! That was priceless!"

Shinsuke himself was staring at Tenma with disbelief written all over his face. "You do realize you change clothes next to each other before and after practice, right?" the short one whispered, making Tenma blush even more.

"This and that are different!" the brunet whisper-yelled to his smaller friend, pouting in dissatisfaction right after.

Shinsuke could only sigh.

The group of five continued on with their outing, simultaneously agreeing on getting food first. They went from stall to stall, from looking at takoyaki to candied apples, from admiring the yakisoba to the chocolate covered bananas… Everything was unbelievably mouth-watering.

And of course, the most indecisive ones had to be Tenma and Shinsuke. If the second years and Tsurugi weren't there, it's possible that the two of them alone could buy out all the food stalls.

Thanks to the crowd, they also had to stick close together to avoid getting separated, and Shindou often had to grab Tenma and/or Shinsuke by their collar when they showed signs of running off and disappearing into the crowd because they saw something that caught their attention.

Even if he wasn't the captain anymore, apparently he was still the team's guardian (in a sense).

"Tsurugi, let me have one!" Tenma exclaimed, his eyes sparkling at the sight of the sauce-covered and steamy box of takoyaki in Tsurugi's hands. Tsurugi, not even bothering to put up a fight, chose one ball of seasoned octopus-goodness with the pick and held it out for Tenma to eat.

They were on their way to one of the gaming stalls (candy carving, if Shindou remembered correctly) when he felt a hand on his elbow stopping him and pulling him back. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw Kirino looking directly in front of him, in the direction of the Tsurugi-feeding-Tenma-takoyaki duo.

He looked to the side and saw that Kirino was also pulling back Nishizono, taking the two of them further and further away from Tenma and Tsurugi, deeper and deeper into the crowd.

Uh-oh.

"Um, Kirino…"

"Sshhh."

Even though he really should have scolded his best friend for pulling such a childish prank, he also couldn't lie and say he didn't want to do this just to see what would happen to the other two who had been dancing around their mutual feelings for each other since forever.

And so, the trio ditched them.

The takoyaki practically melted in Tenma's mouth, and he savoured every bite of it to the very end.

"Mmmm, that was so good!" he exclaimed, arms raised and mouth stretched into a wide grin. Tsurugi returned his smile with a small one of his own, and Tenma's heart did a little dance.

Deciding to distract himself, he turned around and said, "Hey, Shinsuke—!" only to stop short when he sees that Shinsuke is not there.

Not only that, Shindou-san and Kirino-san weren't there either.

"Eeeh?!" The brunet pointedly looked around, left and right, up and down, but he saw no sight of the rest of their group. Completely gone. Vanished into thin air. Disappeared!

"Did we get separated…?" Tsurugi wondered out loud, also turning his head around to find their lost friends.

"Should we call them…?"

There was a momentary silence between them, despite the noise and chatter of every other festival visitor. Then their eyes met.

It was another moment of silence, this time with them looking at each other.

Tsurugi coughed into his fist and looked away. "Uh, I didn't bring my phone with me…"

Tenma quickly rummaged through his bag, searching and searching, only to gasp in despair not long after. Slowly, he turned to face Tsurugi again. "I… I forgot mine at home…"

"…Oh."

"Oh."

Another silence came upon them, but it was broken sooner than the others when Tsurugi said, "I guess it's just the two of us then…" his cheeks turned pink. "Until we find the others again, that is." He coughed.

Tenma, feeling unbelievably giddy at the words 'the two of us', quickly nodded his head at Tsurugi's last statement. "Yeah, until we find them!"

(Deep down inside, neither of them actually wanted to find the others again, but it's not like they would ever admit that.)

The two of them decided to continue on with their original plan—heading down the gaming stalls.

They tried the games out one by one. Carving pieces of candy (both of them broke their candy), scooping goldfish into their bowls (both were surprisingly very terrible at it), and buying a monster mask each.

They laughed and teased one another, challenging each other at every game too to see who was better at it, turning the entire thing into a tournament of sorts without any prize at all.

So far they were technically on a tie. (Tsurugi's candy broke after Tenma broke his, so he lasted longer, and Tenma managed to scoop at least one goldfish whereas Tsurugi got none whatsoever.)

When they came across the target practice booth, it only took one look into each other's eyes for both of them to understand. They grinned.

The man at the stall explained the rules, and they got three cork bullets each. Whoever managed to knock something down off the shelves first, would win.

Tenma and Tsurugi began shooting at the same time, their first bullets flying past the items and the shelves, practically missing their targets. Their second and third bullets also missed, and it made them laugh.

"What the heck, Tsurugi! I thought you're the team's ace striker, you're not supposed to miss!"

"Shooting for a goal on the field and shooting at a booth for a prize are two totally different things."

"Uh-huh, sure." Tenma continued to tease, smirking.

Tsurugi, in his amused slash annoyed state, slapped another 100 yen onto the counter of the target practice booth. "One more round, please!"

"Eh?!" Tenma exclaimed, not really expecting Tsurugi to play again.

Another two rounds from Tsurugi later, he won himself a plush animal doll.

Tsurugi stared at it as he was handed the plush by the man at the stall, and Tenma jumped up and down beside him to look at it.

"So you can shoot after all!" Tenma exclaimed, giggling. "But you didn't need to go that far just to—" however, the brunet was once again stopped short in the middle of his sentence that night. Only this time, it's because Tsurugi had shoved the animal plush right up his face.

"You can have it." The striker said.

"Eh, wait, what?" Tenma looked at the wolf plush now in his hands, and then to Tsurugi again. "W-Why?"

Looking at the ground and scratching the nape of his neck, with the festival lanterns illuminating the red on his face, Tsurugi said in a soft and low voice, "So that… you'd remember me… when you go to sleep."

Tenma felt his heart expand by a million times.