In hide-and-seek, Take was always found first.

Every kid in town glowed a little. You could see their faces even in the dark, and when they laughed, a warm light bloomed in their chest. Take glowed brighter than any of them — the brightest kid in town, and in this town, brightness was the highest honor there was. Nobody could say who’d decided that glowing mattered so much. It just always had.

But brightness was useless at hide-and-seek. Wherever Take crouched, the shadows around him lit up, and whoever was It found him in seconds. “Found you.” Every single time, first. The kid who was supposed to be the best in town at everything came in dead last at this one game. It ate at him.

Suzu was dim. She’d always been dim, since the day she was born. Her light was so faint that in the dark you couldn’t even tell if she was there. At hide-and-seek, nobody ever found her — not because she hid well, but because whoever was It always forgot to count her in. Not one seeker had ever found Suzu first. Not once, ever.

That evening, hide-and-seek started up again on the square at dusk. “Counting to ten,” said Gen, who was It, closing his eyes. The other kids scattered, each carrying their own private glow.

Take ran, thinking hard. Today he wanted to win. How could he possibly hide this light?

In the middle of the square stood the town’s night-lamp, the biggest light around — so bright that nothing cast a shadow within three steps of it. Get too close and your own glow just dissolved into its white. The other kids called it “the boring spot” and never went near it.

Take froze. That’s it. What if he stood beside something even brighter than himself?

He pressed his back flat against the lamp post and crouched down. Instantly, the brightest boy in town vanished, swallowed whole by the lamp’s white glare.

“Ready?” “Ready.”

Gen opened his eyes. One by one, kids’ glows popped up from behind bushes and walls. “Found you.” “Aw, caught already.” But Take was nowhere to be found.

Gen circled the square again and again, and each time he walked right past the lamp without a glance. Nobody would hide somewhere that bright — least of all the brightest kid in town.

Inside the glow, Take was grinning. He’d won. For the first time in his life, he’d actually won. Any second now, everyone would come running, shouting, Take, that’s amazing.

Nobody came.

Soon the smell of dinner started drifting out of houses all around. “I give up, forget it,” Gen finally said, and the other kids wandered off one by one, their lights swaying as they went. Nobody was looking for Take anymore.

Take was left alone inside the brightest light in town. He’d won, and no one would ever know it. He opened his mouth to call out, then stopped himself. Step out now, and it counted as losing. Someone, please come. Standing in all that brightness, he felt like he might cry.

That’s when he heard it. Small footsteps, coming out of the dark.

Suzu.

She walked up to the lamp and quietly raised one hand, cupping it over her eyes, right where the light was worst. Every dim kid knew this trick. If you wanted to find someone hiding inside a glare brighter than their own, you had to block the light yourself. Suzu’s older sister had found her the exact same way, once, a long time ago.

Behind her shielding hand, the white blur slowly took shape: a curved back, crouched low. Take’s.

”…There you are.”

Suzu tugged gently at Take’s sleeve and pulled him one step back from the lamp. Behind him, the light swallowed his glow whole and put it out.

And that’s when, for the very first time, everyone finally saw Take’s face.

One of the kids heading home turned back. Gen rubbed his eyes.

“Huh. …Is that what Take looks like?”

Nobody in town had ever seen the face of its brightest kid.