Kawaii princess's Arc

Chapter 3 of 54

The cheering from the next hall stayed in her ears all night. Kawaii Princess walked the contest grounds at dawn and stopped cold. A sleek metal podium stood in the rival's practice yard. A frost-etched plaque listed every past win. Fans pressed close to read it. Kawaii Princess had a crown. That was all. A crown was a start, not a self. She went back to her room and spread paper across the floor. The crown alone would not stick in anyone's memory. She sketched a full look around it. Pink ribbons. White gloves. A short cape with snowflake trim. She drew until the shape felt like a person, not just a hat. Then she ordered a tall billboard printed with the finished design and had it raised outside the practice hall where anyone passing could see. She stood beneath the billboard in the matching outfit and waited. A small girl stopped first. Then two more. Kawaii Princess pulled out a stack of cards she had made that morning, droplet-shaped, glittering, each signed in looping pink across frosted snowflakes. She handed one to the girl. The girl clutched it to her chest and ran to show a friend. By noon, the cards were gone, and a thin line of new faces lingered by the billboard, pointing up at the crown and the cape and the gloves. It was not a crowd like her rival's. But it was hers. The look was whole now, and the cards carried her past the stage into hands she had never met. The signature was set. The next problem was already forming at the edge of the small crowd — they wanted to know when she would perform, and she had no stage of her own yet to give them.