Our date wasn't perfect.
It rained in the morning. Koharu got us lost on the way to the bookstore. I spilled matcha on my shirt. A kid called me "onii-san" and then tried to steal my wallet.
But none of it mattered.
Because for the first time, it wasn't about the script. The club. The rumors. The puzzles. It was just us. Kuroda and Koharu. Boy meets girl. Boy tries to resist romance. Girl steamrolls him with chaotic sincerity.
Real life had finally caught up to fiction.
We sat under the sakura tree again—the one where all of this started. The blossoms had just begun to bloom, faint pinks scattered across green like punctuation on silence.
"So... this counts as a real date, right?" I asked.
Koharu stretched her legs out and leaned back on her palms. "You paid for lunch, we got lost, and you awkwardly dodged every hand-holding opportunity. It definitely counts."
"I wasn't dodging. I was—"
"You flinched like I was handing you a live grenade."
"Maybe I was nervous."
"Why?"
She leaned closer.
"Because it matters," I said, almost too quietly.
That stopped her.
She reached into her bag and pulled something out. A small plastic-wrapped box. Inside, a keychain. Rough, handmade. Two little chibi characters stitched in felt—her and me—holding hands under a sakura tree.
It was unmistakably our first play.
"I made it," she said. "Well, Mina helped. Okay, Mina did most of it. But I stabbed myself with the needle like, six times, so I deserve partial credit."
I stared at it. Then at her.
"You're giving this to me?"
She nodded.
"Why?"
"Because you saved my story," she said, voice softening. "When I didn't know what I was trying to be, you stayed. Even when I acted like a total gremlin. You never tried to rewrite me. Just... helped me turn the pages."
She looked away for a moment.
"Now let me be part of yours."
There wasn't a breeze. No music swelled in the background. No fireworks. No audience.
Just two idiots beneath a sakura tree.
So I kissed her.
It was clumsy. Our noses bumped. My glasses fogged up. But she laughed, and I laughed, and when our lips met again, it felt right.
Not scripted. Not rehearsed.
Real.
Across the courtyard, hidden behind the drama room's window blinds, a small audience had formed.
Yuki stood with her arms crossed. She said nothing, but the faint curve of her lips betrayed the smallest smile.
Noa leaned on the window with a pout. "Ugh. I should've brought popcorn."
Mina handed her a tissue without a word.
Makki wiped away a tear. "My boy. My sweet, cynical, tsundere boy... he did it."
"You're acting like this is the season finale," Yuki muttered.
"IT IS."
Tsubaki-sensei stood behind them all. Unmoving. Watching with that same distant fondness one reserves for favorite books and forgotten memories.
Her voice, if imagined, might've said:
"And thus, the author chose a heroine. For now."
"But stories never truly end. They simply find places to rest."
"Until the next chapter, dear reader."
Koharu and I stayed under the tree long after the sun began to dip behind the school rooftops.
We didn't talk much.
Sometimes, words aren't needed.
Sometimes, a keychain in your pocket and a girl resting against your shoulder are enough.
Not because everything was perfect.
But because this time—finally—
I wasn't afraid of being the protagonist.