This is fan fiction. Neither Absolute Boyfriend nor any of its characters belongs to me.

Soushi hadn’t looked at it — it hadn’t seemed right to look in front of his classmates, and he knew what it said already — so when it caught his eye from the refrigerator, he had a moment of shock before he realized what that gilded paper was.

He shouldn’t have been ashamed; his mom wasn’t. She’d stayed up late helping him, so it was just as much hers as his, and it would be rude to imply that it wasn’t good enough. And after all, he reflected, second place was a very big honor.

But it wasn’t the same as first.