♡outro♡

The day of the contest results announcement. A morning filled with near explosive anticipation.

Rika and I had our breakfast together, and now both of us were refreshing the official sites to see the results as soon as possible: I was refreshing their website and she was doing the same for the social media accounts, in case one of them posted before the other.

I tapped my feet nervously. This wasn't just a matter of my own happiness, it involved Rika too! So I couldn't help my impatient self. Her familiar jasmine scented perfume was the only thing keeping my sanity together.

We had worked on this for so long, and having to wait further for months for the results had taken quite a bit from my patience at this point…

Suddenly, the results appeared on my laptop's screen. I jumped from my seat and with a shaky voice, asked Rika to check the results. My heart couldn't take this…!

She sat down in my place, and examined the results.

She sighed.

"Nope, we didn't make it. Not even the honorary mention for the shoujo category."

My heart felt like it was pierced. All of our hard work... All of our efforts... It was such perfect work, too...

Was it all for nothing...?

She stood up, gesturing for me to sit back on my seat. So I did, and she stayed behind me, covering the top of my head with kisses as she played with the brightly colored tips of my hair. I chuckled.

"Rika, you won't even let me feel the anguish of this failure?"

"I won't, because there's no such thing. We did our absolute best, and brought an amazing story to life. Plus..."

She hugged me from behind.

"We may have lost in the competition, but we won in love~"

I held the hands who were resting in front of me and shook my head with a grin.

"What a cliché line, Rika..."

"What? Our talented scenarist-sama wasn't impressed by my killer line?"

"That's not it~ Jeez... I love you."

"I love me, too~"

Oh, Rika... You and your jokester self... We had won in love, huh?

...it's not like she was wrong.

ʚ♡ɞ the end ʚ♡ɞ