Emails:

"So, will you tell me how you got together?" A cheery barista smiles at us. It's nice to know Clair's boss is so down to earth, unlike my last boss, who was a stuck-up prune.

"Ahem," Clair nudges me.

"O- OH uh, should I start?" She nods. "Well, it was the beginning of this year. I was working on a new game. The idea: vacations, romance, and shenanigans with a happy ending. I was three months in and had barely written a single line of code. I kept procrastinating it by focusing on the plot."

It's pouring outside.

Clair continues "That was around the time my dog, Wrinkles, died, so I wasn't feeling... great." I squeeze her hand under the table. Deep breaths. She squeezes back. "Blake had come around to try cheer me up with 'videogames and ice cream, a broken heart's best cures!' - or so he said."

Blake chuckled from the corner of the room. "Turns out that only works for me," he said, scratching his head.

He conspicuously looks away, his ears red.

"It's the thought that counts," Rose, the barrister, says, and I can't help but agree.

"Yep, so cheer up," I hear Vivian whisper, followed by a quiet thanks.

"He had brought one of River's first indie games, and it was awful!"

I sigh. "I don't know if it was awful, but I admit it wasn't my finest work."

The rain grows heavier.

"River, it was, but that only shows how much you've improved." I felt my cheeks heat up as Clair shot me a mischievous grin. "As soon as Blake left, I wrote the most horrible review I've ever seen, it was definitely over the top."

Vivian laughs, clutching on to his sides. "It was like you took personal offence to his rubbish game! And oh my God, when River read it," he's laughing ten times louder, "his face!"

Everyone looks over curiously. "Look, I was stressed, and that thesis on why my game, which I thought was pretty good at the time, sucked, hurt like a stab in the heart." I notice Clair's eyes dull and a small frown etch on her face. I want to hurry this up. "I replied to it."

I hear people running for shelter outside as Rose deadpans, Vivian laughs monstrously loud, and Blake smiles at him.

"It was bad," Clare states.

"Very..."

Suddenly, Vivian's laughter concedes, so he can genuinely say, "It worked out in the end."

"Besides," Blake adds, "if that hadn't happened, you wouldn't have met." I appreciate the sentiment, but I can't help but wonder when they got so close that they could tag team people like that. It makes me smile.

I continue the story: "We started duking it out in the comments."

I hear a spout of lightning and catch Vivian jumping out of fright.

"Apparently it was amusing because a crowd formed," Clair says.

I nod. "They're all trying to get involved and add their opinions."

"Very annoying."

"Agreed." We both laugh. "I ended up sending her my email—not my best idea because I had to block a lot of randos after." I shake my head. "It was worth it, though. Anyway, we continued arguing till we both fell asleep."

"How romantic?" Rose seems a bit lost.

"Uh..."

Clair looks down. "I woke up first the next day and sent an apology. I felt so bad about it. I had taken out my pain on a stranger who I learned was also struggling at the time."

"I apologised too. I really shouldn't have been fighting someone over an opinion; it was childish."

"To make up, I decided to give River constructive criticism instead, and we talked it out. It was also then that I found out that you were struggling for inspiration, so we started sending each other random ideas and pitching them every day."

That was really kind of Clair. Even though things didn't start out great, that really helped, and "at some point, our daily inspiration divulged into telling each other how our days went."

"I remember once you said your roommate pranked you by hiding three of your things, and you were so annoyed that you could only find two! Then, over the next few days, you started questioning everything, like when you said that 'my remote stopped working—I think Vivian changed the good batteries with rubbish ones and then hid the good ones. Aha! I'm a genius.' Then you found out he only hid two things."

"You remember all that?" How embarrassing. "I was so annoyed about it that I added a short cutscene of it in my new game. It was funny to see the reviews when people said they were looking for the third item for ages before they asked the other character, who said there were only two!" I think I saw Vivian patting himself on the back for being a great roommate, which is debatable. He never does the dishes.

"Oh, and remember that time?" I start, "You said that Blake invited you to watch a movie at the cinema. It was a comedy movie about dolls that came to life and wanted to party. You didn't tell Blake you were terrified of dolls, and when you got to the cinema, you couldn't stop screaming!"

"Oh? Oh, yeah! And we ended up getting kicked out, so we went to watch a different movie, which ended up scaring the both of us witless, and we couldn't sleep without the lights on for a week."

Vivian piped up. "Huh, what movie was it? We should watch it together, Blake!"

I'd never seen anyone look so horrified. "No, absolutely not." Blake's voice wavered—that movie must have been scary if thinking about it did that to him. I looked over to Clair, who looked as pale as a sheet.

Reminder: Make sure you don't watch that movie.

"ANYWAY," I try to shift the topic away from the movie for the sake of those two "I was starting to feel a lot less stressed, and I managed to make a lot of progress on the game thanks to Clair." It was around then that I noticed Clair seemed sad, so I asked what happened. She didn't tell me. I figured I should skip that bit. "I asked Clair to tell me more about herself, but she didn't." I left it at that.

I was so afraid that Clair would ignore me for the rest of forever after that. I was starting to think happy endings only existed in fiction—that I would never find one, that my mum was right, and that there was a reason Dad wasn't there.

I was so scared. But why? Had I already fallen in love? How hadn't I realised?

How long did our daily emails stay on hiatus? Was it a week? No, it was longer.

I made a lot of progress on the game during that time. Trying to race to that happy ending. Trying to prove myself and my mum wrong by saying it's possible.

Vivian did that, though. He insisted that it would work out. When? He didn't know, but he was so sure, so adamant. Someone squeezed my hand. It turns out he was right, at least this time. "I emailed back a little over a week later, and we continued talking."

"I really wanted to meet in person, since we had never met each other at the time." I continued. We had talked things through already; there was no need to worry. "I was really worried about asking, but Vivian convinced me to."

"Great job, Viv!" I hear Blake say, but I think I misheard because how did they become friends so quickly?! Charismatic people are weird...

"I know I'm great! Thank you, thank you, Blakie!" I... I look at Clair, who looks just as confused, or maybe even more so than me. Then I look at Rose, who's just happy that everyone's having a good time.

Blake looks at Clair. "It's actually pretty funny what happened after that." I'm confused.

Clair nods excitedly. "Yeah! I forgot to mention this earlier, River, but Blake was accusing me of having 'a big fat crush that towered over elephants' on you."

"Can you imagine something worse than the elephant in the room, Viv?" He shakes his head dejectedly at the question. "Exactly, and she kept denying it, so when she got an email from River asking her out and her eyes lit up, she'd sold herself out."

"I hadn't been so happy since before Wrinkles death. I was so much happier than I'd been in months!" Clair said she had been having a hard time back then. I'm glad I was able to help somewhat.

Clair says, "Blake had started laughing even harder than Vivian was earlier!" She pauses to drink some of her tea while I note that the rain's calming down. "The day before Blake came to mine to help me pick out an outfit."

"Haha, we did something similar; I gave Rivers outfit my seal of approval." I rolled my eyes fondly.

"Aha nice! After me and Blake got ready together, I think he was going to some kind of party."

"Without me?" I heard Vivian whisper, making Blake chuckle.

"Then he drove me to that bar." Clair finishes. "Then I saw you for the first time."

"And I saw you." I smile, looking into Clair's eyes as the after rain sunshine illuminates her. She's so beautiful with her blonde hair and honey brown eyes; her little beauty marks are sprinkled over her face; her dry lips, which she's been trying to take care of so they aren't as crusty; those wild bushy eyebrows. I love it all.

I want to close the distance between us, but everyone's watching. What a shame! I feel a hand cup my face and smooth out the wrinkles under my eyes from being too excited to sleep before pulling me in for a quick kiss. "I've never been happier that I left someone a shitty review."

"I've never been happier to get a shitty review."

By the time we come back to reality, Blake's staring absentmindedly out the window, drinking his bitter coffee; Vivian looks inexplicably happy for us; and Rose is pouring another drink for Blake. He goes through that stuff like water.

Then I realise what we've just done. "Ahem..." I don't need to look in the mirror to tell I look like a tomato. I'm so glad Blake and Rose aren't looking over as well, because that would have been too much.

Clair doesn't seem to feel embarrassed at all; she's just really proud. "When I saw River, he had his wavey brown hair pulled back into a raggity ponytail. His hair was a bit too short for it all to be pulled back, so there were many fly aways, especially with the windy weather. He had some pink-tinted sunglasses on, which blocked the view of your radiant blue eyes. OH, and you were covered in freckles head to toe because you didn't put enough sun cream on, you goose! We had to quickly retreat inside to the shade." She tutted at me.

"Hey! At least I didn't down five shots in the first half hour."

"Fine, fine. Not my best moment." Definitely not. She was crying as she apologised again for disappearing for a week. She told me about Wrinkles and how she thought it was all her fault for not getting him the best dog food, which she saw online claiming to extend a dog's life. I told her it was probably a scam and wasn't her fault.

She told me she was scared about meeting me because she "always ruins everything," but she was really happy Blake convinced her to say yes.

I said she didn't ruin everything. I told her she'd improved my game, she made my days better, and she made me feel more relaxed because she is such a calming person to talk to. I told her that, and I meant it.

I'm not sure if she knows that or not, but I'll remind her.

"I drove her back home after that." I continued the story. "I started going over my code to find and fix any errors or glitches."

"And I started to take better care of myself again. Eventually River finished his game, and I felt good enough to come back to work. Thanks for all that time off, Rose; it really helped."

"No worries, love. It's just nice to have you back. You're great company, and you're a model employee!"

Clair smiled "After that, we started meeting up more, talking more," almost kissing, "and eventually Blake demanded to meet River; fair enough, it had been at least nine months or more, and I was constantly talking about the guy. So, he organised a get-together for today to come here, and then after we're going back to mine to play some games."

Rose beams "That's lovely! I'm very happy for you." She leans over and ruffles Clair's hair. I think mine is safe, but it turns out it's not because, not a moment later, she ruffles mine and just as messy as Clair's. Not like my hair doesn't always look like this, though.

"Anyway, thanks for having us, Rose," she says after we talk awhile longer while splitting the bill between the four of us.

On the walk to Clair's house, Blake and Vivian lead the way; more so, Blake and Vivian is turning onto the wrong streets or walking past our turn while talking about something very enthusiastically. Then, at some point, Blake decides to pretend to be our tour guide, pointing out random places and telling stories about them.

For example, he points out a streetlamp with a faulty bulb that he ran into while racing Clair back to her house after drinking. Not a great idea, but it's a funny little story.

Meanwhile, me and Clair are hanging back, splashing each other with the puddles, hand in hand, talking about whatever catches our fancy. It's sweet.

We arrive at Clair's house; it's rather late. Blake looks like he's about to pass out despite the amount of coffee he drank; Vivian's trying to keep him standing; Clair's running off to the bathroom because she drank way too much tea; and I'm left shrugging off my soaking coat as I wait for the others.

It's only 10 p.m. ; who goes to sleep before then?

…

Don't answer that.

After five minutes, everyone returns, and Blake has another cup of coffee in his hands, suspicious.

We play classic Mario Kart, and I'm happy to say I won twice; sadly, Clair came last every round; Vivian came second nearly every round; and Blake won most of the rounds, so we now hail him as the Mario Kart champion. I think he likes the title. Then we play Ace Attorney, more specifically the second game; we skip past the third case. But the forth? Chef's kiss! Engarde is really goofy, and his cat is the so cute. Also, De Killer? The best name for an assassin ever!

Lastly, we play my new game. More like me and Clair play it since Blake and Vivian fell asleep an hour ago.

Clair gets all the random little references in the game; we're bursting out in laughter every other minute.

Eventually, sleep starts crawling up on the both of us, and we turn the game off. We huddle up in one corner of the couch, and Clair hugs me tightly. It's really warm.

It's silent now, apart from Vivian's snoring and everyone's breaths. "Clair, are you awake?"

She responds in a sleepy voice, "Yeah," and though I can't see her, I know she looks beautiful right now. I hug her back.

"I love you."

"I love you more."

"Nuh-uh, I do."

"Sorry, I think you mean I do."

"You know what I mean."

"I do."