“Alright, darling Vallerie. Today, instead of practising your calibration, we want to see what your natural affinity is.” Sanne starts. 

The Cupid's club is currently in the shooting range again. Loukas is currently stringing his bow as Sanne collects arrows to put in his quiver. 

“Do you know what you're good at? I have a feeling your natural affinity is Eros.” Sanne guesses, trying to piece together what little information he already knew. 

He had an inkling Vallerie's affinity would be strong on the Eros scale. By how fast, intense, and chaotic her arrow felt… it just has to be Eros. 

“It's Storge,” Vallerie answers, putting on her archery glove. “And Philia.” 

“Storge and Philia…?” Sanne mutters, completely wrong on his assumption. 

“Wait, you have two natural affinities?” Loukas pipes up from the background. 

“Yeah, Eros isn't really my strong suit. I love my friends and family the most. I've been surrounded by all of them most of my life; romance can wait.” 

“So… when you shot that arrow… what affinity did you use?” Sanne asks, dumb founded. 

“Storge, I thought about my mother at the time. She was my best arrow, the only one I'm ever good at.” She smiles at him, playing with the arrow in her hand. Her fingers unconsciously reach for the point to fidget with it. 

“O-oh.” Sanne snaps out of it. He had completely let it slip his mind that her mother had passed away. With how radiant and outgoing she is, it's easy to forget what she lost. 

There's not a moment when Sanne sees her without a smile; she talks about her mother with such fondness that if other people were to hear about it, they would believe she was still here. 

“That was a really strong arrow.” Is all he could say. 

“I miss her.”

This was another aspect of love Sanne couldn't delve into. Eros was the only affinity he was familiar with; the affinity Vallerie showed for Storge was so strong he mistook it for something else. 

He still has no understanding of love. He was still so far from it despite the solution being in front of him. 

Smiling even though her mother is gone—it must have been so wonderful being loved as much as her mother did for Vallerie to continue smiling as much as she is right now. 

“Wait, what's up?” Loukas walks up to them.

“Right, he missed breakfast yesterday,” Sanne remembers throwing him to the wolves, aka Piko. 

“Yeah… yesterday.” Loukas glares. 

“I mentioned my mother's death. I noticed, umm… Sanne was spacing out a bit. I kind of tried to move on to avoid being awkward. Sorry about that.” She sheepishly continues to play with her arrow. 

“No, no, I'm more embarrassed I couldn't be tactful enough to mention my condolences first before talking about the club again.” Sanne shakes his head. 

“It's fine, it was a long time ago. She'd be upset if I kept dwelling on what had already happened.” Her soft smile doesn't falter. 

“Why don't we get some practice in? I've been fidgeting with my arrow for a while now. I think the point wore itself out.” She jokes, bringing the two back to reality. 

—---

“Whoa, now I understand why you guys suggested we have the trial so early in the morning. You two have horrible aim.” The arrow Loukas had shot completely missed the center… by a meter. 

“Okay, in my defense, I have horrible eyesight. Imagine what I can do without my glasses.”

“He’s better at close-range targets.” Sanne nods.

“What’s your excuse?” Vallerie turns to focus on Sanne. 

“Uhhh…” 

“He doesn’t take care of his equipment; he doesn’t even check if the string on his bow is fastened correctly.” Loukas rats him out. 

“You don’t have time to do that out in the field!” Sanne defends himself. 

It was ironic how these two were arguing over what and why they had such horrible aim when it had been ages since they actually tried to matchmake. All they’ve done is lure girls to get a semblance of love and dump them when they didn’t get what they wanted.  

“You miss more times than me!” Loukas argues. 

“You cannot be talking; you literally pay to see me.” 

“Girls, girls, you’re both pretty.” Vallerie cuts them both off. “I just wanted to see you two in action. I just didn’t expect the results.”  

“I thought every cupid was automatically a good aim.” She picks up an arrow and draws it back, taking note of how the breeze lifts her hair. “Spent days and nights getting really good.” She hits the farthest target.

“Show off.” Sanne playfully scoffs, but he was more impressed than anything. 

“Come oonn, this could be fun! You teach me how to calibrate more accurately, and I can teach you two how to aim,” She draws her arrow, “And never miss.” Piercing through the previous one in the target. 

“Why are we doing this again?” Loukas whispers, “I’m down. It’ll once and for all prove I’m better than you.” Sanne whispers back.

“You’re actually so insufferable sometimes.” 

“Insufferable but better than yyyooouuu.” Sanne holds up an ‘L’ on his forehead, “Can’t spell Loukas without a capital L!!” 

Loukas sighs before snatching his bow and arrow. He musters up all his focus, suddenly very aware of the way the notch settles between his fingers. 

“If you can’t see that far ahead, try anchoring your vision of what’s already close to you.” Vallerie encourages. 

Loukas adjusts the way his feet are planted on the ground, how his arm is drawn back, and brushes the string against his nose–taking his time to align himself. It’s blurry up ahead, but with the little clues he had with the string brushing against his nose and the hand positioned under his chin, he could make out a faint but better angle for his arrow. 

He gently lets go of the notch, and the arrow flies through the air. His arrow didn’t pierce through the X ring of the target, but this was already a major improvement.

“No shot.” Sanne murmurs, “Yes shot!” Vallerie cheers. 

He actually did it. Loukas never bothered to actually learn how to shoot from a distance that didn’t align with his vision; he always relied on Sanne or Velt to shoot the long-distance shots. 

“Massive improvement, hello?? See what you can do with just a teeny bit of adjustments? Easy, right?” Vallerie's praise and the way her eyes lingered longer than they should on him made his heart rate spike again. 

“I-I mean, no biggie, I could have like… done a better shot if I was serious. But I wasn’t; I totally could if I wanted to… yeah…” 

“That was a one-time thing; you can’t possibly do it again.” Sanne swipes the bow from Loukas’ hand. 

“Yeah? Give me back my bow, and I’ll prove I can do it again.” 

“Not right now; I’ll show you how it’s really done.” Sanne draws an arrow. 

Loukas was right earlier; the only reason he kept missing was his constant user error with the way he strings his bow. Loukas had the better bow out of the two of them; surely, with a proper bow, this time, he can effortlessly hit the target better than his best friend. 

The difference between Sanne and Loukas is that Sanne is the type of person to rush, to get results as soon as possible. Even if that meant missing the target by an inch. 

…

Loukas bursts out laughing, “Bested by a person who pays to see you.” 

“God, man… shut up. Way to bruise my ego.” He wasn’t the type to throw tantrums, fortunately enough. 

“Here.” Vallerie comes closer. Grabbing another arrow, making Sanne draw it back. 

“If vision isn’t your problem, then pay a little attention to the environment. And take note of how your arrow flew.” She held his arm steady. 

Environment… 

It is windy today, and he tended for his arrow to be more left-leaning. Combining those two is a guaranteed miss. 

He took it slow this time. 

Paid attention to the wind, the way the sun’s light shone on him, and even the way Vallerie had snaked her hands over his. 

He panicked at the realisation and released his arrow before he was ready to. 

“Wow! Good aim!” Vallerie withdrew her hold on him. 

“Is it really? We both hit the six-point mark, and I have astigmatism!” 

“Oh, hush, I say you two did fairly well after my help.” 

Loukas and Vallerie bickered for a bit, but Sanne couldn’t be bothered. He wasn’t upset that he didn’t do better than Loukas; he was upset that he panicked. 

All he could do was look at where his arrow pierced the target and scowl. He made the mistake of panicking once; he will not do it again.