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Your name is Clover. You are presently preparing to compete in a carnival sharpshooting competition, which you’re dreading. Why did you agree to this again?
Oh, right. Your girlfriend, Kanako, who you love more than anyone in the world, asked you to participate, probably encouraged by all the western movies with sharpshooting badasses you’ve watched together over the years.
There’s just one problem: you’re a terrible shot.
You used to be pretty precise, back when you were ten or twelve years old, but when you were sixteen, your vision began worsening steadily. After two years of that, the doctor recently diagnosed you with an incurable, genetic, degenerative eye condition. You haven’t really talked to anyone about that diagnosis... yet, anyway. As you try to stop your mind from spiraling on the subject of your impending blindness nervously look around to the other contestants.
Sadie looks to be as nervous as you are, while Kris, as ever, looks smug.
Kris’ ruby-red eye catches your eye contact, “Sure you can hit the shot, cowboy?” they mutter sardonically.
You don’t respond.
“Competitors, we will begin in 2 minutes! Get ready!” the elephant monster running the carnival events bellows.
You think to yourself - why did you agree to this again? Once again. You wanted to be a cowboy, baby. You had ambition. You were meant to be a bigshot. But, really... you just wanted to impress her.
Your fugue state is interrupted by a shout of “Clover, wait!” You look back to see Kanako running down from the stands. She leans over the fence and hands you something familiar; that pair of thick-lensed black-framed cat-eye glasses that you’re usually too embarassed to wear in public. “Don’t forget these!”
You look at the glasses for a second, contemplating how you even got in this situation in the first place.
But on the balance of disappointing Kanako and making a fool of yourself in public, you’d choose the latter every time. “Thanks.”
You put on the glasses. You still aren’t used to them.
“That’s a pretty hefty prescription.” Kris says snidely. “Looks like my mom’s reading glasses.”
You cross your arms. If Kris thinks the glasses make you look old, so fucking be it in your opinion. You try not to think about the fact you’ll probably need these to even get around before you’re even twenty-two years old.
“Kris!!” a voice you take a second to identify as Noelle Holiday shouts from the peanut gallery. “Don’t be mean!” she says slightly quieter, as if softening her own interjection.
“I wasn’t...” Kris whines gormlessly.
You sigh and decide to ignore the heckler, and get ready to impress.
“First contestant!”
Sadie looks incredibly nervous as the jackal monster who is setting up this contest hands her the show revolver loaded with sport blanks.
“You can do it!” you say, summoning your best encouraging leader attitude despite the circumstances and giving a thumbs-up.
Sadie smiles a little bit. Kris rolls their eyes.
Her hands are shaking as she shoots. You don’t even need to look in the direction of the target to know she didn’t get a very high score, but you decide to look anyway out of courtesy.
She hit way off course, getting a score of 3/9.
“And now for our second contestant...” the announcer continues.
Sadie hands you the gun. You inspect it carefully, doing your best to ignore what feels like a million eyes burning into the back of your head.
You take a proper sharpshooting stance as if it’s second nature, and focus through your thick lenses on the target. Your failing eyes begin to betray you, or possibly just buckle under the strain of not being properly acclimated to the prescription, as a burning sensation persists as you squint right towards the middle of the target.
You take a deep breath, and decide it isn’t worth psyching yourself out of a good shot. You exhale, line up the shot, and fire.
Your traitorous eyes force you to blink a few times, seemingly from being held open for far too long. You take off the glasses and rub your eyes, only once you open your eyes realizing that you cannot actually see if you hit the target without your glasses on, so you somewhat deflatedly put the ridiculous glasses back on.
You first hear Kanako scream in joy, and a moment later the rest of the peanut gallery joins in cheering and clapping.
You hit an 8/9. A better score at this rigged game than you’ve seen anyone get. And hell, you think to yourself, the size of the 9 is so small you can barely see it even with your glasses, so there’s no way Kris is going to hit that.
“GO CLOVER!!!” Kanako yells.
“An excellent shot from Clover!” the announcer concurs. “Alright, and for our final contestant...”
Kris snickers. You hand them the gun, which they then twirl around by the trigger like some kind of unbelievable jackass.
You back up toward the crowd. Kanako jumps down from her seat and pounces on you, giggling mirthfully. “I knew you could do it!!”
“I didn’t,” you admit disconsolately.
Kanako just laughs and buries her snout in your neck.
“Well, I always believed in ‘ya, cowboy.”
You smile, and lean into Kanako’s soft fur. “Maybe that’s what won me the day. You cast a good luck spell on me.”
“You’re obviously the good luck charm here, Clover~”
Both of you giggle quietly to yourselves.
“Look.” Kanako points over your shoulder at Kris. “What are they doing?” She asks incredulously, as you strain your tired eyes to get a good look.
They’ve taken up a seemingly incredibly casual stance. They jerk their head back and to the side to push their hair out of their face, and after that, seemingly take only 3-4 more seconds before quickly firing their shot.
The peanut gallery goes silent... and then erupts into thunderous applause and mirthful cheers. Against your better judgement, you squint at the target again. The tiny, nearly undetectable pinprick that is the (9) score is gone, covered by the third bullet hole.
They hit a fucking 9. Kris hands the gun back to the attendant and then shoots you and Kanako a look. They wink in your direction. You’re not sure what to make of that.
“What the...” Kanako mutters.
The cheering slowly tapers off. “That is absolutely incredible, folks!” the elephant announcer says. “We’ve got a perfect 9, the highest possible score on this game! We’ve broken the record twice in one game!” The crowd cheers, and no one is looking at you. You think that’s for the best.
Sadie walks up to you and says, quietly, “Your shot was incredible too, Clover...”
“Thanks,” you say, mustering a weak smile.
You close your eyes, sinking into the feeling of safety from being right next to Kanako. You aren’t sure how long it takes to get them to open again. God, you’re tired. You try to forget that the sun hasn’t even set yet.
Your eyes slowly scan the now-mostly-empty venue. Kris is up in the stands, looking like a displeased cat while Noelle hugs them.
You and Kanako stay in embrace for a while, even as most of the spectators had already began shuffling off to some other attraction or event.
After a while, the only people left in the shootin’ arena are the two of you, as well as Noelle and Kris arguing about something or other in the stands.
You take off the glasses and rub your eyes once again. “I still hate these things,” you whisper to Kanako.
Kanako looks you dead in the eyes. “You should ask for contacts, then!”
You let out an involuntary snicker at that.
“What’s so funny?!” Kanako intones.
Whatever pithy retort you were about to come up with dies on your lips as Kanako silences you with a kiss, which makes you feel like, if only just for right now, everything really might be okay in your world.