#chikariko week

[giftedsun]

may i have this dance?

(for @chikarikoweek day two!! ballroom/cooking)

[taco-and-his-base-of-awesome]

ChikaRiko Week DAY 2 (Cooking)

Hello everyone, I hope you're all doing well! This is just a quick blog to show you all the results of... DAY 2 OF CHIKARIKO WEEK!

I was thinking to myself... "Boy I wish I could literally cook ChikaRiko related food..." Because that would be awesome. If you can... I salute you, my friend.

Then I thought... What if I drew that??

And thus, I spent too long on a crappy drawing that is HOPEFULLY good. (Seriously, I hope it's at least satisfactory ToT)

Here it is, day 2 of ChikaRiko Week, the theme being cooking.

Let me know what you think because I could really use advice for drawing. I admit this was rushed, but I'm always open to advice and suggestions.

See you all, hopefully tomorrow!

Until next time,

Seeya all later!

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

SHIT I FORGOT ABOUT CHIKARIKO WEEK THE 2ND

[whateverwhateveritsbradley]

ChikaRiko Week Day 1 - Distance/Sunsets

Pairing: ChikaRiko Words: 1610 Summary:  Riko writes a five-page essay to her college of choice about an important person in her life. -- Chika Takami is like the sun.

No, rather... She's... Well, that's not actually entirely inaccurate, but I feel a bit embarrassed opening up with something so bold without the proper context. When I was reading through the essay prompts again and saw "describe someone who has helped you grow as an artist," then I must have gotten a bit ahead of myself. Is it improper to refer to the essay prompt in the essay itself? This is supposed to be stylized like a cover letter to the college, so I suppose not. Chika and another friend were the ones who said my first few attempts were too stuffy and said to write it in a more improvisational tone - or rather 'off the top of my head' and 'more artisterly-like' were the exact words they used. Although, by this point, I'm sure I've overdone it.

Let me start over. At the very least, I know that it's proper form to begin by introducing myself first.

My name is Riko Sakurauchi. I am currently eighteen years old and a recent graduate of Uranohoshi Girls' Academy in Uchiura. I am looking forward to hearing your prompt response in regards to my application to study abroad at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. I have been rewarded several awards for youth musical composition, dance, piano, and vocal performance here in my home country of Japan, and I feel like my devotion to music and desire to pursue new avenues of creativity resonates well with the values of your school.

I would be lying if I said that wasn't copied directly from my first draft. Once again, Chika and her silly ideas are pushing me out of my comfort zone, which I believe is a perfect example of why she is the topic of this letter. She has done more for me as an artist than anyone else, and if I had to be honest, I'm not sure I would be applying for this school at all if I had not met her. On your school's website, I read a quote from your dean that stated, "Anyone considering Juilliard needs to be open to [the] potential for growth, because you never know when that miracle is going to happen and how it's going to strike." To put it in simple terms, Chika Takami was my first miracle. Before that, however, she was my classmate.

I transferred to Uranohoshi from a high school in Tokyo during my second year. At the time, I was having a hard time connecting with music. I didn't know what I wanted as an artist, and I was scared to put myself out there and be judged for not being able to capture the sound I wanted or for messing up. I was afraid of failure, and more than that, I was afraid that all of the passion I had at the start was withering away. Part of why I moved was because I felt that a change of scenery would inspire something in me that I had lost, but it felt for a while that that wasn't going to be the case either.

This was the time when I met Chika. She was pushy and impulsive and she had a lot of crazy ideas - not the least of which was that she wanted me to join her new song and dance group and compose for them. She didn't have a group name. She didn't have a songwriter. She had two girls, including herself, and a poster of a band I never heard of who she just loved. Above all, she had passion, which was something that scared me. I felt like I had nothing and that having me in my current state would do nothing but hold them back.

Chika Takami insisted, though. She insisted a lot. She told me that the passion I was looking for was hopefully buried inside of me and that if I joined them, she could help me find it. It seemed silly to me. It felt like she was some prince out of a fairy tale who showed up and had all the answers to my problems and a rose in hand, and the sensible part of my brain didn't believe it. Luckily for me, some part of me did end up believing it, at least a little, and so I eventually joined the group anyway. (We also eventually chose a name - Aqours.)

It's hard to say when I started to find the fun in it again. At first, I joined on a whim, simply because she had begged me to and sounded so enthusiastic about it. Over time, we got more and more members to join, and I started to realize that these sorts of doubts and insecurities were shared. I learned that a lot of people felt the same as me.

As a concert pianist, I was always the lead performer or the only performer. When something went wrong, it was like the whole world was looking at me. It was an incredible weight on my shoulders. Now, with Aqours, the fear of failure never went away, and neither did the failures themselves. There were times when we hit a wall, when people were on the verge of giving up, or when we had bad news that we just couldn't fight. Even Chika, who seemed to have all the answers and to be such a beacon of positivity, had to rely on the rest of us sometimes. We all felt powerless, but we were together. In my search for my missing passions, I found something else that I never even realized I didn't have - a home in music.

Once that sank in, everything sort of became easier for me. The trials that seemed so easy and the rock bottoms that felt so impossibly hard; we were able to get through it all with each other by our side. They were the same things I faced when I was alone, but now, they were feasible. They weren't the crushing, horrible threats I always dreamed they were. They were things that people conquered all the time, and I learned that I was just as able to do it myself.

One of my first concert awards in years came during this time, when I was still struggling to learn what it meant to fight by myself. Once again, that push came from the hand of Chika Takami. It was the first recital I was invited to perform since my move to the countryside and joining the group. It also happened to be on the same day as an important concert for Aqours.

At first, I actually felt content in this supposed conflict of interests. A part of me was still afraid of being alone again - I had my friends by my side in Aqours, after all, so why would I have had to face a recital when I could stay with my new family in my new home? It's hard to tell how much of this decision was about denying my own desires in order to avoid being alone again versus how much of it was about how much I enjoyed being a part of this new family, but the end result was the same.

Chika, however, found out about the recital and encouraged me once again to take a chance and try something I feared. She told me that even if I was performing by myself, and they were performing by themselves, we were still together. It was sappy and silly and it was every bit of sentimentality that I would have been scared away by earlier that same year, but at the time, after all we had been through, it made me cry. It was, once again, an encouragement to push me out of my comfort zone and to find comfort in the hope that I would be better for it.

In a lot of ways, right now feels a lot like that time two years ago. I feel like the me back then would never have applied to a school like this - the expectations put on me would be daunting, the threat of failure would be absolutely terrifying, and I would have to face the world without my friends again. Now, I'm prepared. Now, I can say "I look forward to your prompt response" and feel like I mean it rather than that I'm copying a formality.

So, that is to say, Chika Takami is like the sun.

When the sun sets in the evening, the world seems to become dark and frightening. It feels like it's disappearing from us, just like the passion of a scared heart. The sun, however, never truly goes anywhere. The world is moving around it, making its own path and living and breathing every day. In the night, grass grows and sometimes rain falls and everyone is resting for the next day. The sun always rises again.

As frightening as it will be taking the next step and waiting for my new miracle, I know that my first will always be here in Uchiura, Japan. As frightening and dark as the dark may be, it won't last forever, and I will grow during it. Whether the distance between us is the bus ride between Tokyo and a small beachside town, the half a world between Japan and America, or the ninety-three-million miles between the Earth and the Sun, I know that I'm not going to be facing anything alone anymore.

Even with the proper context, it's still a bit embarrassing, isn't it? I probably won't show her and the others this draft, after all.

[umikichi7]

For The First Time

Pairing: ChikaRiko

Rating: K 

Words: 1223

Summary:  Riko never thought one change could alter her whole life completely - AU where Chika transfers into Otonokizaka

I hope you enjoy reading it!

AO3 || ff.net

There she was. Her long claret hair was swinging with the breezy air. Her mature smile was impossibly inevitable for those who were looking at her. As the rosy sunset has become more evident between the high rise buildings, her amber eyes born like a sun in the new dark.

Her name was Sakurauchi Riko, the Otonokizaka’s most popular and beautiful girl. Even though she had claimed to be called plain, no one seemed to have thought that.

Today was no different than any other day. Teacher would come and teach, then she went home or socialised. That was her routine, nothing special. But she would’ve never guessed just one change could alter her whole life completely.

Her classmates’ eyes were diverted by an endless energy coming from her new classmate. Whispers seemed to slither like an earworm through the classroom as the orange-haired girl came up with what they would call “uniqueness”. That was the first time Riko thought her day was rather hectic. Her cheeks started to gain redness as she made an eye contact with her while her new classmate never wanted to leave her own “stage”.

‘Weird person,’ Riko thought, her hand up to her chin.

“Takami Chika, it's nice to meet you!” she said at last, then she went back where her teacher had said to sit down.

Riko’s body felt the excitement scaling up as Takami-san winked at her directly. She trembled in her presence. Even so, she never noticed her eyes betrayed her own thoughts at that moment. Thoughts only deluded her vision, yet her gestures were the truth.

She sat down to Riko’s left, and waved her hand for taking Riko’s attention. “Hello, It's Chika! I came from Numazu. What is your name?”

‘This energy… Oh that crimson eyes, she seems to be dangerous.’

“Ah.., hai Takami-san, my name is Sakura-”

Chika immediately engulfed her hands over Riko’s as she interrupted. “It’s Chika! Don't be so informal, umm… what was your name again, Sakura?”

Riko’s collected persona has broken within seconds, leading Riko to tell her name with a little louder voice. “Riko, Sakurauchi Riko! Not Sakura.”

The homeroom teacher turned her behind. “If you'd stop introducing yourself now Sakurauchi-san, we have to turn back to our math topic,” she said having displeasure on her face. The girls around Riko giggled and even some of them boggled at how someone like a perfection would be told off.

Riko blushed at her teacher’s dissatisfaction. It was the first time she was being scolded. Since she was everyone’s favorite girl and now she was a laughing stock?! Oh no, no, no! It was that orange head’s fault. She should never talk with her again. Never!

‘Weird person,’ she thought again.

After the school bell rang, every student spurted out of the class, leaving only two girls alone. Riko had been thinking about how to fix this mess, she might have to deal with this girl.

‘’Hey, Riko-chan!’’ the orange-head shouted. She was about to come to her side. ‘’What are you doing? I thought there should be no one here around this hour.’’ she was getting closer to Riko.

‘’I should ask that to you,’’ Riko said, lifting her eyebrow. She had made a hasty decision to be precise around her unlike how she behaved around her other classmates.

Chika laughed boisterously, ‘’Riko-chan, I knew you were a funny person to hang out with,’’ as she said with amount of giggling sounds, she grabbed Riko’s hand to rush out of the school yard. Without listening to any complaints from the claret haired girl, they came to a park near side to Takami family’s traditional inn.

Riko stopped then. ‘’Wait! What are you doing? I don’t even know you that well.’’ Riko shrank back, thinking Chika was someone unreliable since she seemed to put fear in hearts by not telling anything until now.

‘What if she was a thief?!’ Riko thought fearsomely. She had never felt like this. Her heart rang through her ears with any possibilities as to what this girl would do.

Riko startled as Chika’s questioning look has grown on her. So Chika chose to speak her mind before her new friend would misunderstand her intentions further.

‘’You know, it's no good dwelling on your own thoughts,’’ the cheerful girl said, her hands conjoined in her back. ‘’I just wanted to be friends with you. That’s all.’’ Her mischief disappeared as soon as she sounded more serious in front of the flustered girl.

Riko felt a mere disappointment about herself. How could she think of her like a thief or further? She was just a curious girl who wanted to know people in this city.

‘What is this feeling? Regret? I never felt like this before,’ Riko thought. Her heartbeat increased as the next word after a long silence between them left from her mouth. ‘’I-I’m sorry.’’

Chika grinned. Before Riko would tell more, she interrupted. ‘’Hey! I didn’t mean you to take it seriously. Since we are friends now, would you like to come to my home?’’ she flashed a pure smile while inviting her.

Riko’s heart did not seem to be able to handle her pure energy any longer. Also, catching other girl’s eyes time to time was enough to make her nervous. Her palms started to sweat in the end. A cracked voice and a snap decision was the result of it.

‘’Y-yes.’’

For the first time Riko replied instinctively, not depending on logic nor intellectualising. For the first time she had thought anything she would do didn’t need any layout. Somehow, she felt like a huge burden had suddenly been lifted off her shoulders. For the first time, she couldn’t stop her fast heartbeat.

Since they were close to Chika’s home now, she invited her inside. Chika’s smile never left from her face. ‘’Come here!’’

Riko bewildered of how her new friend’s house was bigger than she had expected. When they were heading to Chika’s room, both of them were smiling to each other. A blush settled across their cheeks.

For the first time, Riko felt warm and the butterflies in her stomach.

Chika slided the door to one way to other, showing where to sit. ‘’Here! You just wait. I’ll take some snacks.’’

Maybe it was the first time she had actually made an amazing friend. Riko was impressed and she was glad too until her joy was cut off by a white ball of fur moving directly at her.

And for the first time, Riko had run through the hallway at the speed of light while Chika was telling her, ‘’Shiitake is a good dog, Riko-chan. He doesn’t bite!’’

‘Weird person,’ she thought, but now her face was wreathed in smiles.

Her colorful and halfway romantic days have begun with a sudden contact and afterwards.

Omake:

‘’Chika-chan, how do you end it like this?’’ Riko said, pouting. She has been reading the fiction Chika had written.

Chika got closer, putting her chin on Riko’s head. ‘’Umm? I think it’s pretty well written, and you should know if romance is included, there will be ka-be-don,’’ Chika spelt out of the last word as giving an ostentatious wink at her girlfriend.

Riko’s quick blush on her face was the proof that she has given permission Chika to continue it after all!

[r-escribe]

Chikariko AU where Riko is a famous lawyer but even if she looks cold and harsh, she’s actually really insecure of herself and Chika is the only one who has ever seen that side of her.

Chika on the other hand is a music teacher, she learned how to play the piano and the guitar while she was a student, she was planing on going back to Numazu but then she met Riko.

[chikarikotranslations]

Source: KOUGI | @kougiw Please support the artist by liking and retweeting the original art or following!

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I hope it’s filled with love and goodness ^^

[hanasaku-shijin]

oh SHIT i nearly forgot about the .... entire LWA and ChikaRiko fics I’d written...

[multifandom-onigiri]

I literally pushed my homework to the side for this because no way am I letting Valentine’s Day pass without drawing one of my favorite Love Live ships

[chikarikoweek]

Is Chika riko week ongoing? You guys haven't been active since posting the prompts so I wasn't sure

It is ongoing! Content is very much being posted in the tag, I’m just holding on on reblogging it until it ends for this year’s week!

[isnt-that-odd]

Day 1: Distance/Sunsets hey guess who loves chikariko (hint: it's me i love chikariko)

[giftedsun]

for @chikarikoweek ! Day 1: role swap/school i did role swap, but i guess it could count as school too!! anyways!!

[taco-and-his-base-of-awesome]

ChikaRiko Week, Day 1 (ALREADY LATE.)

Hello everyone! Firstly, I welcome you to my tumblr! This is my first post here in ages and now I'm finally gonna post more often.

My name is Liam, you may call me Taco, Baka, whatever really, I don't mind. I'll make a proper introduction some time in the future.

Right now, I'll be posting a link to a fanfic I created for THE best Love Live Sunshine event in history, ChikaRiko Week.

So! Relax, sit down and take a read!

Here's some info first...

Name: "Unsaid Message. Please Resend."

Theme: Distance/Sunsets

Length: reasonably short (3000ish words)

I honestly don't know what I'm doing, but here's the link!

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12685550/1/Unsaid-Message-Please-Resend

I'm open to suggestions and stuff. Also I apologise that the quality of this blog is not very good... I'm rushing it because I wanted to complete the story in time, and it's already late, my bad. Hopefully tomorrow will be better!

Until next time...

Seeya all later!

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Fuck it I'm not participating in this ChikaRiko week. I'd genuinely love to, but I don't have any interesting ideas for any of the prompts, and I'm already behind schedule on the whole thing anyway. It seems fun, and I enjoyed the last one, but this time I'll remain an observer instead.

[whateverwhateveritsbradley]

All In - Part 1 of 3

All In

Pairing: ChikaRiko

Rating: T

Words: 2717

Summary: Day 2 of ChikaRiko week. Rainy Days/Cards. Western AU. In order to help You out of a bad bet, Riko reluctantly agrees to play a night of bad poker with a charismatic stranger.

-

The rain hit the automobile windows as I looked out at the dreary sand and dirt, the rickety buildings, and the drooping plants that spotted the alleyways and porchsides of the town. "It had to be on such a poor day, too..." I sighed, turning towards the girl in the driver's seat, with such a determined look on her eyes, "Why does it have to be me? You know I'm no good at poker, You."

"You're good with money, right?" she said, "I have a bunch of money riding on this, so I really, really need your help. Whether that 'help' is winning by game today or helping budget my next few months worth of food..." Being an accountant does not make someone a good gambler. I would have told her that right then and there, but she had already heard it and disregarded it. At that moment, she turned to me with a nervous grin. "I wouldn't have bothered you with it if I wasn't desperate, so I really mean it when I say I'm sorry. This girl and I play all the time - she knows all my tricks! I can't risk it by myself!"

I groaned again, turning back to the window. "It's fine. I'll do it. Just don't be surprised when it doesn't go as well as you plan..."

She bumped me with her shoulder, loosening her grip on the wheel for a moment and jerking the car to the side as she did. She grinned and laughed, saying, "Thanks, Riko! I knew I could count on you!" If there were ever any other cars on the road in this ghost town, I'd probably be too nervous to even set foot within the same fifty foot radius of both You Watanabe and anything with wheels. Most people in this town were still on horse-and-buggy, and honestly, if You wanted to care about her budget, she would walk somewhere once in a while instead of taking this monstrosity. This town is small enough to support it.

"Besides," she continued, "She really likes redheads." I blushed, on instinct, not justifying her teasing with any more of a response than that. I had told You time and time again that I wasn't looking for anything like that right now. That was mostly because whenever the topic came up, it was because she was significantly drunker than I was and was directly asking me on her own behalf. She had long since given up, which isn't to say I would say 'no' if the question had the proper context, but... what we had now was nice enough on its own, for what it was worth. At least, it was nice most of the time. Other times, she dragged me to impromptu poker games and tried to set me up with strangers.

"Welp!" she cried out, turning the car with a screech to a building to our side, jolting me out of my melancholic haze rather suddenly, "We're here!" The vehicle had stopped before I even realized what had happened, and she exited and egged me out as well. I looked at the building in front of us. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I probably should have been. It looked like all the other buildings. Nothing in this town was ever quite dynamic enough to catch my interest anymore.

When I entered the building, it looked just like another saloon. There were a lot of those in this place. There were more of those than there were almost anything else, which certainly made my dayjob a little more secure if nothing else. I immediately saw a piano, untouched and looking a bit dusty in the corner, and my hand twitched a little as if subconsciously. I hadn't played in a while; I certainly played a lot less since I moved from the city. Whether it was the dreary town that made me give up, or if it was the giving up that inspired the move, I was still unsure.

Suddenly, I heard a voice, picking up my head to follow the sound to a table across the room. It was loud enough to cut through the crowds spread about. "Ah, You! Over here!" Sitting down at the table with half of a pint in hand was a sort of boyish-looking girl with messy ginger hair, waving her hand excitedly over her head. "Ooh, and a friend!" The main thing I noticed about her was how much she stood out from the crowd.

You led me over to an empty seat across from the girl, who shook her hand with me with a big, silly grin on her face. I'd usually chalk that sort of smile up to drunkenness, but her's seemed genuine. "The name's Chika!" she said, "You're a pretty one, aren't ya? I think You must be trying to distract me from the game, eh?" She turned to You with a cocked brow and a cocksure curve of the lips.

"Actually," You said, stepping forward before I could even speak up to introduce myself, "Riko here is going to be your opponent!" She pulled a deck of cards out of her back pocket and slapped it on the table, messily knocking aside a couple bottlecaps that were strewn about.

Chika didn't look amused. "Eh? That's cheating," she said, poutily crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back in her chair, "This is supposed to be your gamble."

You scratched the back of her head and nudged me in the side, pulling out a chair for me with her other hand. She chuckled, "Yeah, well, Riko's not exactly a seasoned veteran, here. Asking her to play for me is my gamble." I told her to stop teasing as I reluctantly took the seat and looked down at the deck of cards. Chika's hands were already reaching for it to grab it and shuffle - they were such pretty hands, which was surprising in this sort of scene.

"Riko, Riko, Riko..." she muttered as she tossed the deck back and forth between her hands, cutting it in front of her as she mused, "Oh, right! You're the pianist, from the city!" She lit up again, looking at me without missing a beat as far as handling the cards went. "Ooh! Can you play us something?"

You placed her hand on top of my head, ruffling my hair like she was peting a dog, and I brushed her aside, before she could make whatever comment it was she was going to make. "I'm an accountant first," I said, realizing that I never got a chance to properly greet Chika without being interrupted and adding, "And it's a pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure's all mine," Chika said, setting the freshly shuffled deck in the center of the two of us.

"Before she's an accountant," You said, putting a hand on my shoulder and leaning forward, finding a way to shoehorn the cheeky comment she had planned before back into the conversation, "She's a poker player! Maybe if we win, she'll be in good enough spirits to play you something."

"It's a deal, then," Chika said, smiling at me as Riko patted my shoulder in assurance, "If you win, you play me a song as a punishment game."

"Eh?" I stammered, scooting my seat back and tossing off You's hand once again, "Wait, aren't punishment games usually for the loser?"

Chika replied, "Yeah, 'cause if you win the poker game, that means you've gotten on my bad side. That's the real loss here, hehehe." She motioned You over wordlessly to the center of the table, having her act as the dealer. I wouldn't trust You to deal a fair hand as far as I could throw her, but Chika seemed assured enough. She leaned forward and put on a deep, gruff-sounding voice as the cards started to get passed, saying, "You don't want to be my enemy."

You finished passing out the cards and I lifted up my first hand: absolute crap. Chika only looked confident as ever. If You was cheating, she certainly wasn't doing a very good job of it.

Speaking of, You set the deck back on the table and looked at Chika, pointing over toward the bar. "You mind if I get us a fill-up first, before we start? Riko, you want one?" She looked at me and I looked back and forth between her and Chika before sighing and agreeing to one drink and only one. I was already bad enough at poker without intentionally impairing myself even further.

Once You had left, the air felt a little heavy for a moment, and Chika leaned forward on one elbow towards me. It was as if she was going to share a secret. For some reason, I felt drawn in to her. I felt that if anything in this city was on the verge of something special, it was her, and I had only known her for a few minutes. I leaned in close. If it was You, I probably would have thought she was just going to say something silly or flirty...

"Hey, you're even prettier than she said you were, you know that?"

It was something silly and flirty. Of course it was something silly and flirty.

I fell back in my chair, turning away. "That's not exactly tactful with someone you just met, you know?"

"Eh?" she cried, putting her other elbow on the table and tilting her said to the side like a puppy dog, "It's true, though! Besides, we're not strangers - You's my friend, too! And we're even poker buddies already! But I suppose if it embarrasses you..."

Seeing her so dejected wasn't fair. "That's not what I meant," I said, even though it was almost exactly what I meant, even if the sincerity in her voice made me un-mean it, "Thank you. You're not too bad yourself." The last part sort of rolled off my tongue, and I clasped my hands over my mouth as soon as I realized that I was flirting back. Chika just laughed.

"So, then, is it true?" she continued, "What You said? That you haven't played piano for her in sooooo long? I mean, she was right about you being pretty and all, so I figured maybe..."

"I haven't played piano for anyone besides her, either," I said. The idea of it kind of frightened me. I don't know what I was quite afraid of. When your money is as stable as an accountant's, it's easy to convince yourself that fears aren't justified. I had become accustomed to brushing the question off with just a simple 'no' and leaving the dead eyes as the only hint of what I really wanted to say.

"Ah," she said, letting that hang in the air for a second as she sat back in her chair. For a moment, it was as if she saw right through me. She still had the smile on her face, but now it was softer. I felt like I had seen it before, or rather, I felt that it was comfortable. It was a feeling I knew but couldn't recall, as if I had known her for years rather than this one moment. The kind smile felt perfectly in place on the lips of an older sister or a teacher you loved. "It's just... hearing that made me a little sad, is all. I don't know why."

This was the point when You returned, happily setting our drinks on the table and jokingly checking that neither of us cheated at all while she was gone. She grabbed the deck and slid it around the table for a moment, itching to deal as soon as we were ready. Chika still had a bit of the first beer she had when we entered.

"I'm ready," Chika said, with a new energy in her eyes. The hint of a spark that said she knew exactly how this game would play out. I looked at my junk hand and sighed, asking You for a complete redraw. She glared at me for not having any semblance of a poker face and I ignored it. The new hand wasn't much better, with only a pair of eights.

"All in."

I looked away from my cards, torn away from my thoughts, by Chika's sudden declaration. She had an arm thrown over her chair and all her cards set face down. Her look was serious, and her eyes were burning with gusto as she stared across the table at me. "Come on, quit joking around," You said, "This is a big game. You can't go all-in on the first turn."

"Sure I can," Chika said with her chin crooked up in defiance, "It's more fun just drinking with someone who's bad at poker than playing them. I want my money now so I can spend the rest of the night buying out the bar." She looked back at me, leaning forward and gently placing a stack of bills on the table. Then, with a cheeky giggle, she grabbed the discarded bottlecaps and threw them on top of the pile like chips. "Of course, if she folds, none of this matters..."

I looked at her, and then down at my hand. When I did, she told me the hand doesn't matter and directed me back to her. She had her hand over her money, as if reaching out to me, asking me to take it. She was testing me, for everything this game is worth. She was putting my pride on the line, rather than the money, and what's more, for a moment, I actually found myself caring. I had never cared about such a silly thing as my own pride before. It was such an elaborate gesture that I couldn't help but get sucked into the moment.

"All in."

I set my cards on the table, face up, before You had a chance to protest. The two of them looked on and saw the pair of eights. You yelled out in panic, grabbing my still completely full beer and asking how much I drank when she wasn't looking. Chika just laughed and laughed. It was infectious, and I almost caught the faint traces of a giggle escaping my own throat. Of course, at that moment, I couldn't laugh because I was so choked up over the fact that I forgot I only had a pair of goddamned eights.

Chika stopped laughing, wiping a tear away from her eye, and she grabbed the hysrerical You's shoulder. "Relax, relax," she said, flipping over her own hand - a pair of sevens. "You won."

You was left speechless for a moment, as Chika playfully grabbed the money in a crumpled ball and shoved it into You's chest, dropping a few bills to the ground in the process before yelping and bending down to grab them before they flew away in the light breeze that filled the room.

"Ahh, man," she said, standing back up and grabbing her drink, taking a long gulp. In my shock, I had only just then realized that I was holding my own drink in my trembling hands - or perhaps I had switched mine with You's and didn't realize - and had taken a few sips. It was already over. Everything with Chika went so fast, it seemed. Nothing in this town went fast.

"I was shaking in my boots! I knew you were cut out for this! I haven't been so excited over a hand in ages!" She kept rambling on and on as I watched You on the ground, having found a stray bill Chika had missed. "You're great! You have a gambler's heart in you - I have to teach you to play for real sometime! Oh, oh! And we should go to dinner! And, oh!"

She slapped her hands down on the table, shaking You's drink and knocking me out of my stupor so I could reach out to make sure it didn't topple. "And... right now, I need to hear your song! After all that, it'll be the second-scariest thing you do tonight, right?"

She finally broke me.

I laughed.

"Fine, fine," I said, setting my drink down and standing up, "But you only get one, okay?"

[riko-takami]

HEY

SO I’ve been super inactive these last 2/3 months!! school is a bitch and also my computer died twice and that’s hindered me on a lot of projects that have been in progress ;v;

BUTT I’m finally back!!!! Over the next few days I’ll be catching up on what I’ve missed and posting some traditional doodles I’ve done at school!

Hmm, I’ll be tagging LLSS2 stuff as ‘#sunshine spoilers’ if you’d like to blacklist it so once again I’m back and yeah!!!

PS: for those of you that have already watched today’s episode, I love Dia please yell about her with me