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Which wouldn’t be too concerning, if I also didn’t happen to notice the other judges who had left long before she had still hovering about near the vicinity, wielding their mighty pens and brandishing their large wooden pads, on the prowl to slay another unsuspecting couple with controversial moral dilemmas of love.

If I wanted to hope, I’d presume she had just simply gone to a section of the park where the crowds were much bigger so she didn’t have to share the spoils with the others, eliciting discomfort with her ambiguous questions… but no, I knew better than to believe, and the fact of the matter was I’m sure somewhere alone for the time being is where she’d rather be currently.

As for the gift she wanted absolutely nothing to do with… though I did manage to find the garbage bin she was talking about… for some convoluted reason or another, I ended up disposing of the box into the bottom of my pocket instead.

Don’t ask me why I did. Maybe I just wanted to hope.

Then again, I don’t even know what it is exactly I was hoping to happen. Honestly, this whole dilemma with Hayley and her father was just a giant jumbled mess of virtue and vice that’s so entangled, it was kinda difficult to tell apart one from the other.

And as much as I wished I could somehow get started on even making sense of it all, I couldn’t really do that now, ’cause right at that moment—the participants from the other tent had started to funnel out.

I headed over, watching as couple after couple began coupling arms one after the other, keeping a keen eye out for Adalia amid the leaving party, and there… catching my gaze only a split-second after spotting her, a limp sway of a loose santa hat sharply pivoted in direction, heading straight for me like a bear spotting honey.

Peace and comfort immediately began coursing through me, something about her presence now, seeing the murky swirl of her eyes was just extremely pleasant, and I found a smile was already on my face, forming on its own volition.

.....

Adalia halted in place barely a foot away, and at once she pounced, dove straight into her place of respite, and once again my left arm surged with the tender cold of her touch, all without a single word exchanged to each other.

Then something else came surging, an intrusive thought, a stupid thought, no doubt stemming from Hayley and her unnecessary piece of trivia. It was thanks to her my imagination was rousing with ideas, really stupid ideas… about Adalia and I.

I vaguely remember that one time swimming in the lake, just after I confessed to her, and promptly following her inquiry to me as to how she should feel, and the moment my answer left my lips—I saw it, can never forget it—Adalia went blank.

Her eyes grew sharp, the tip of her fangs protruded, and her breath left heavy with a heave of struggle, of arousal… of a frenzy.

Nothing came out of it, then. Ash came paddling just in time to interrupt that, to interrupt us. But now, but here, there was nobody and nothing to suddenly come interjecting, so if it were to happen again… if she were to… blank out again…

No. Stop there. Head out the gutter, you’re better than that. Just think of Adalia, if she could read your mind what would she say?

Actually, forget that. I get a strange feeling that anything she’d say wouldn’t help deter me anyway.

Quietly, I coughed a nervous lump out my throat, and breathed.

“Missed me, then, I’m guessing?” I said, reciprocating her embrace by brushing a hand across her silky silver locks. “Yeah, feeling’s very mutual.”

“I do not… like that game…” She grumbled softly to me, her muffled voice reverberating through my sleeves. “I do not like… doing… anything… without you…”

And just for that extra dose of sweetness, I gave her an even more head patting. I couldn’t help myself.

“It’s all for the win,” I reminded her.

“Win… yes…” That perked her up, brought a sense of purpose back to her tone. “Did you… win…?”

“Seven in the first round. Eleven in the second,” I summed up my trials with a bittersweet sigh. “Got second place, but… it’s not exactly a big winner.”

“I don’t… care…” I felt her nose rubbing against me as she slowly shook her head. “You did… your best…”

“If only sentiments like that could get us the win,” I sighed again wistfully. “But who needs that even, when we already have you? So, go on—tell me all about how you pretty much swept the competition. I’d love to have been there.”

“Fifteen…”

“First round? Yep, didn’t expect any less,” I felt my eyes widen with pride. “And for the second? Should I guess?

“Two…”

I felt my eyes widen even more, alas, if only all for the wrong reasons.

“Two?”

“Two…” She repeated again.

“Two? Two… what? Two as in, y-you got fifteen twice in a row? That two?

“Two… points…” Adalia further clarified, leaving no room for doubts, or more of my adamant denial. “Third… place…”

Never have I heard such blatant bullshit before. In the ranking of absolute best girls, you’re telling me that Adalia came up third? Who in their right mind would…

“Who got first place, then?”

Adalia briefly veered her gaze to the left, and I trailed along after her, spotting in the midst of reunited couples, a bouncy, boisterous, beautiful lady bolting across the plain and practically leaping all the way into Leon’s wide open arms.

So that’s Leon’s date. The crowned winner of first place. Okay, I can somewhat see the charm in her. A lovely dame belonging and befitting perfectly her equally lovely prince charming.

And as they walked away hand-in-hand, unequivocally looking like the picture-perfect image of the perfect couple, I had the most unsettling premonition echoing in my head of who might just end up winning tonight’s grand prize.

“That man… is here too…” Adalia observed, watching Leon’s billowing locks fade into the distance. “Did he… beat you…?”

“Barely,” I said at once. “But never mind that, how did you only get two points? I know you, you’re lovely. They just needed to hear your voice one time and you would have swept the competition. What…? What exactly did you talk about with the judges?”

“I… didn’t…”

“You didn’t? You didn’t what?”

“I didn’t… talk…”

Once again, I felt myself give the longest and simultaneously shortest pause. The main point of the second round was getting to know one another, and in spite of what my many encounters with Sera might imply, having a staring contest was not a particularly efficient way to go about doing that.

I’m sure Adalia was well aware of that, and so the question stands.

“Why didn’t you talk to them?”

“I… didn’t know… what to say…” Adalia explained, drooping her head a little. “They were not… you….”

“Not me?” I said, feeling strangely flattered. “Adalia, it’s not like I’m the only person you talk to. Ash, your sister, you talked to Tyler too. Just had to talk like how you normally would.”

“No…”

“No?”

“The person… said… I had to talk… to them… like I… love them…” Adalia muttered, and slightly, so slightly I might have imagined it, I felt her body squirm. “But I do not… love them…” and then upward, her gaze, cloudy like fogged glass, my face a pristine reflection within them. “I only… love you…”

The sun must have shot a couple of hundred degrees upwards, because all of a sudden I was feeling hot all over. Had to be the sun, right? Yeah, the sun, radiating waves so powerful, so overwhelming…

“Okay, I get it, I get it,” I stammered, wiping imaginary sweat trickling down my brow. “You… you see? First place material, that’s you. No there’s really no doubt, you were robbed.”

And briefly, I tried to visualize the scene. Adalia sat with some judge silently for three minutes straight. Fifteen times in a row of the same mute strategy, it’s no wonder she scored as low as she did. The other two must have a kink of being ignored, I suppose, who knows?

If only they knew her as I did. If only they get to witness the ways she could so easily stop hearts without so much as a blink, a sliver of emotion. That’s how proficient she was.

And the most terrifying part? She doesn’t even have the faintest clue just how good she really was.

“My fault… this time…” She muttered, and I felt her tug at my sleeve. “I will do better… next time…”

“Do better, how?” I smiled at her, amused. “You already are.”

Adalia blinked at me, and rested her head against my arm, falling back into silence. I suppose that means she was flattered.

“I want… to rest…”

“Ah, bench time again?” I nodded, finally hearing the fatigue in her voice. “Okay, let’s go.”

“I want… chocolate… too…”

I nodded again, ready to give her the world and so much more if at all possible. After all, it’s the least she deserves.

“Anything else?”

She pondered for a moment.

“And… I want… your lap…”

Man, that sun just keeps getting hotter and hotter, doesn’t it?

“Sure.”

In silence, we began our klutzy stumble across the pathway, shambling one foot after the other… and definitely a far cry from the grace and exuberance exhibited by Leon and his date as well as the other loving couples taking their departure.

All of them, looking absolutely perfect.

Yet despite it though, I wouldn’t have had this any other way. This slow shuffle, lumbering mere inches at a time. It was just how things were, and it was just how Adalia was.

And that’s precisely what makes it beyond perfection.