April.
Standing with Jiro.
About to walk the carpet.
His face changed.
"April!" His voice cracked. "APRIL! Tell them!"
She didn't turn.
"I'm her boyfriend! Just—April, get me in!"
He realized, suddenly, who she was standing with.
His expression shifted from desperation to awe.
"Wait—is that—JIRO?!" Chad's voice went up another octave. "April, introduce us!"
"APRIL!"
April
APRIL TURNED TO JIRO, “That’s him.”
Jiro looked at Chad for exactly three seconds. Not dismissive. Not cruel. Just… indifferent. Then he turned back to her. "Walk with me."
Arthur’s hand squeezed hers once, brief and grounding, then he looked at her with a question. April nodded, and he passed her hand to Jiro like fragile cargo being transferred between careful handlers.
“Ready?” Jiro asked quietly.
“Yes.”
“Smile for the camera, starshine.”
They started walking. The cameras erupted.
Flashbulbs turned the world into a wall of white light. April couldn’t tell where one flash ended and another began. The sound was physical: shutters snapping like tiny locks, photographers shouting names she didn’t recognize, the low roar of the crowd against the barriers.
For half a second, she almost looked back, at Arthur, at the rope, at the girl who would have apologized for the noise.
She didn’t. April kept walking and hoped she didn’t look as dazed as she felt.
Behind them, Chad was still yelling. His voice cut through everything else, desperate and loud and incoherent.
Funny how I’d spent all day worried about being the mess, and here was Chad proving that some spills don’t catch light. They’re pollution.
They reached the threshold at the end of the carpet, and the noise muffled as they stepped into a quiet corridor just inside the venue, a pocket between the spectacle and the event itself.Sponsor logos lined the walls. The sound from outside lingered, distant now, like the ocean heard from underwater.
He leaned in and grazed her cheek with a soft kiss, caught by a lens she hadn’t noticed.
“You don’t have to be loud,” he murmured. “For people to hear you.”
Then Jiro pulled out his phone and started typing.
“What are you doing?” April asked.
He didn’t look up. “Writing.”
