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A best couple competition. Speaks for itself, really—a contest specifically designed to discover and cultivate a love most pure, with the sole winner being declared the Mr. and Mrs. Claus of the occasion later in the night.

How it works, according to smoothie-man over here, was that participants would be graded and judged throughout the event both passively and actively in ambiguous ways we must best prepare for, by a panel of judges consisting of volunteers. Afterward all the points will be tallied and counted and the pairing with the highest score is appointed the winner.

Fail to impress, trip and fall over the span of your romantic course, then, oh well… better luck next Christmas.

All in all, I was getting serious horse-racing, sword-skirmishing flashbacks of the distressing variety, and considering that this competition extends the whole event itself where we’re to be meticulously scrutinized over every move we make… and well, keen as I was to make this date one Adalia would never forget… I’m sure there are other, less intrusive ways to make that happen.

Like ice-skating. Yeah, ice skating was fun. That’s the good idea, let’s go ice-skating again, yes.

But the thing with Adalia was that, with all the emptiness, vacantness that was a constant enigmatic swirl in her murky eyes that at times it was so easy to tell when there actually was something else rousing within it.

And this contest certainly was ‘something else’ to her, alright.

“Adalia,” I began slowly, carefully, assuringly, the loving, caring lover that I was. “Just so you know, we don’t really have to do this.”

.....

“I…want… to play…”

Goddamn. No hesitation on that answer whatsoever.

“It’s just some contest, doesn’t mean anything outside of it.”

“I want to… play…”

“Arbitrary points from an arbitrary system. Can’t really put a score on love, can you? It’s… it’s just a thing, just a game… that’s all it is.”

“Fun… thing… fun… game…” with resolve swirling fierce in her gaze, she turned back toward the smoothie man. “I want to play…”

This date, this night, like the future flashing before my eyes, and all I could see was my fate being sealed.

“The lady should get what she desires, yes?” The man beamed wide with approval, setting his sly snakey squint at me. “That is, after all, the providing gentleman’s obligation, isn’t it?”

My god, it’s like I’m getting conned all over again, same man, same tempting offers… forking my soul over to the devil in contract. I never learn, do I?

“Fine, alright,” I consented, feeling my life already null and void. “Sign us up.”

A good while later, we were strolling back on the beaten path, only expect wielding signifiers, markings, in the form of armbands displayed in the brightest festive theme of red-and-white depicting a little heart wearing a Santa hat, branding us officially as willing participants in this game of love.

We were supposed to keep the armbands on our sleeves at all times so that the judges, whoever the hell they were, could distinguish us from the rest of the crowd. And now that I was aware of its existence and purpose, it’s like my eyes were finally opened for the first time—because they were everywhere.

The same capped heart, the same bright hues of red-and-white, couples passing us by in every direction, that the only way I could escape the sight was the brief moments I needed to blink.

So many other lovers… competitors… who knew love was a battle royale game all along?

I certainly didn’t.

“At nine… at night… they will reveal… the winner…” Adalia whispered, reciting smoothie-man’s instructions. “We earn points… by showing… the strength… of our love…”

She blinked, turned to me with a slanted gaze.

“How…?”

“No idea,” I said, scanning the many unconcerned, unbothered faces of our competition. “He did say the opportunity would come to us. There’s also the optional stuff… small events… hold on…”

In a whipping flutter of wind on paper, I gazed back at the flier mob-man gave that he had so conveniently stashed in his suit, letting the words, the very incredulous words, soak into my brain.

“Yeah, snowball volley, obstacle course, etcetera, etcetera, we can earn the majority of our points in these events. So, the Grinch doesn’t like all the love in the air, and has devised these events to try and ruin Christmas and we must do our best to overcome these tests of his… ”

“Ah…” Adalia sounded, slurping her drink quietly and heeding my every word. “What is… a Grinch…?”

“Says here the snowball volley starts in ten minutes,” I read on. “So if we wanna start racking up points, then we should…”

“Okay… let’s… go…” interrupting and eager, she began tugging me forward by the hand. “Let’s… win…”

“Win…” I gave her a look. “Y’know, it’s like I said, it doesn’t really matter either way. Win or lose. Doesn’t change anything about us. We don’t have to win.”

“No… I know… we don’t… have to win…” She whispered. “But… I do… want to…”

“Why?”

“My… present…”

I blinked. “What?”

“Your present… for me…” She blinked right back at me. “Win… this… for me…”

Was she serious? She wants this win as her gift? This was her one want, her one desire? To surpass like a hundred other lovebirds and come out the one that everyone knew was a love whole and true. And I’m supposed to get this for her?

“That’s it?” I gave her a smile. “Easy.”

It’s like I said before, if for her—anything at all. Even if it is something as utterly ludicrous as this.

“Alright,” I strode forward, this time with me leading us on ahead. “Rules say the event is available only for the first ten arrivals, long way’s quieter, but,” I glanced back at her. “You won’t mind a noisier shortcut, would you?”

Adalia rose her head a little, and I felt a faint surge of pride coursing through me.

“I… won’t…”

Through an even busier swarm of the belated afternoon arrivals, we scurried past busy stalls, bore the brunt of a fallen loudspeaker laying in the snow and probably terrorizing an entire ant colony deep down somewhere.

Really, it was fairly easy slipping through a horde of people that wasn’t deliberately out to try and obstruct you. What wasn’t easy was being faced with ones that were.

Case in point:

“Excuse me, you. Both of you!”

I brought us to a screeching halt, staring inches away from the face of a young woman that I would have headbutted into next week if I was only a split-second slower.

Then appearing shortly on her left, a man pulled up holding a pen in one hand and a clipboard in the other. And the moment I saw him briefly glance down at the bands around our sleeves, I knew exactly what we were in for.

Yet at the same time, not really.

“Um,” I gave my politest smile. “Can we help you?”

“Depends,” The woman replied, holding up a pen and clipboard of her hand, smirking a smirk of mild curiosity. “If your girlfriend needed to borrow some money from you, would you expect her to pay it back?”

“Borrow…? Huh? Uh…” I could feel my pupils dart around the edges of my eyes. “Sorta depends, right? How much she needs, how many times she already borrowed, if she said she was going to.”

“She didn’t say, it’s a significant amount, and this the third time she’s borrowed from you already,” She raised her brows at me. “What do you do?”

“Well, I’d ask what the hell she’s doing with all that cash, firstly. If she’s asking for something that big, I think I’d have the right to know first.”

“So that’s a no?”

“I didn’t say…”

“No?”

“Well, if she doesn’t tell me,” I swallowed my reluctance. “I suppose not…?”

The woman thinned her lips, and quietly cleared her throat, before more audibly beginning to scribble something in her clipboard. Beside me, I could see Adalia peering up at the man’s gaze, slurping her chocolate without care.

“You find out your boyfriend has a concerning amount of female friends in his life, and quite a number of them are quite close to him,” The man said to her, and I wasn’t at all sure if Adalia was all there. “Would you trust him to continue hanging around them even if you suspect they have also taken a liking to him?”

Okay, what the hell is up with that oddly specific question there? And why us of all people, to ask it too? God, if you’re up there, cut the shit, please.

Adalia slowly drew her lips away from her straw, answering at once without even a second’s ponder.

“So long… as he… is happy… I do not… care… what he does… with other people…”

“I see, I see,” The man clicked his pen. “But if you don’t care what he does with other girls, then do you even love him at all?”

“Ahh…”

Adalia couldn’t answer that one, instead retreating back in silence into the contents of her cup. Meanwhile, the man wrote something briskly on his board, gave the slightest flicker of a frown, before both questionnaires parted off with a wave.

“Thank you for your time,” the man said. “There will be more of us soon, so be ready to answer.”

“Your score will be announced at the end of the event,” the woman said, and I couldn’t help but feel that was more of a warning than a reminder. “Do your best.”

For some reason, I had this inkling that we weren’t doing so hot on points at the moment.

Maybe winning this thing wasn’t going to be as easy as I proclaimed after all….