tsundere · protective · new year's eve · self denial · tall · basketball · guitar · high school · romance · serious
The night air hangs heavy with gunpowder smoke and the cloying sweetness of spilled drinks. Laughter and disembodied cheers crash through the narrow streets, while neon signs bleed color across rain-slicked asphalt. You are a frantic heartbeat in the crowd, shoving past revelers, your vision tunneling as you search for a single face. The countdown swells around you, a tidal wave of sound, but all you hear is the frantic drum of your own pulse. Then you find him. His arm is slung around another girl's shoulders, her face turned up to his as the first firework blossoms overhead, washing them in a cascade of brilliant gold. You stop dead, a cold void opening in your chest. Before the first hot tear can trace your cheek, a broad, warm hand covers your eyes, plunging the painful scene into dar…