Blast from the past: While I remembered certain elements of Valentine Sweethearts, most of the details were very fuzzy and I giggled all the way through from the sweetness and cheesiness overload. In Chapter 1, I remembered Sakura's outfit quite well and I've been on the hunt for a dress like that for years. I recently purchased something similar and wore it on my last birthday a couple of weeks ago when I visited my grandmother. I probably recalled Chapter 2 the best since Takashi and Chiharu are my faves but I forgot about the blossom effect in the end. As for Chapter 3, I completely forgot that I made Kai a poet until KID-Z4P reminded me of the fact last year. I was really impressed with my past self's poetry! I remembered absolutely nothing from Eriol and Tomoyo's chapter so that was a very strange thing to revisit. What surprised me the most about the final chapter was that the Valentine Card was based on a fairy statue that was given to me 20 years but has only recently come back into my possession after over a decade.
The New Trials Connection: New Trials is no stranger to Valentine's Day! While the first one in Arc 2, Chapter 21 brought on pains and misunderstanding when Syaoran thought Sakura gave chocolates to Eron and Sakura thought Erika gave chocolates to Syaoran, at least there was a Valentine's Day. The next my February rolled around was Arc 3, Chapter 51 but the gang was knee deep into the Plague crisis. The next proper Valentine's Day was in Arc 4, Chapter 67.5 and that was rather fluffy.
Reading the relaunch: For Valentine Sweethearts, KID-Z4P chose to remaster Chapter 3: Words of Beauty. He's a Kai fan so I'm glad that he took the time to single this chapter out. At always, Jeremy manages to raise the name game of my minor characters. I used to create names by the mashup technique, which I don't recommend. There were some twists and turns in this version that I didn't see coming at all. My favourite part of the relaunch is when Kai was storming after the creep with a kendo stick. What a wonderful image!
Review spotlight: I received 73 wonderful reviews for this story and the one that stands out the most was a long and rambling one from Midnight Moonlight who followed me ever since Destined Love in lurkdom and finally commented on the penultimate chapter of this story. However, the one that I'm spotlighting is a tiny excerpt of a longer review from another anon who signed off as "grl who reads 2much fanficsmushlover" because she was the one who called out Kai's low self-esteem and made me see that I had low self-esteem too. In elementary school I was picked on every day and in high school I worked really hard to be invisible. By the time college came around I realized that I didn't really know myself and by university I became a more confident person. But that journey began with this comment because Kai was me and if he came off as someone with low self-esteem, it only meant that I was going through it too, which is why this review was such a turning point for me.
so kai likes poems eh? an has incredibly low self-esteem-aaw, kawii. poor kai(pat on da head)
Art: Around the same time I wrote this story, I was gifted a
Wildflower Angel: Violets for February angel and I used it as my Valentine Card for this fic. It, along with my other fairy statues, stayed with my mom after I got married because my husband didn't like "dust collectors" and she had a curio cabinet while I didn't. Fast forward ten years later my husband and I made the hard decision to go our separate ways because after being blackballed from a field he worked 20 years to get into, he changed his profession a few years ago to become a pilot and just when he was going to enter the work field, COVID happened and tanked the industry. He got a job in Russia and for the sake of his mental health he had to take it and since I have a stable job here we decided it would be best if I didn't follow him. It was tough at first but I'm okay now. For my birthday a few weeks ago my mother returned my fairy statue collection now that there's no one to complain about dust collectors. So to read this story at the exact same time that my fairies returned was pretty special to me.
Up next: It's time for the girls to deliver their thank you gifts on White Day! This is probably the fic that I remember the least in the Destined Love Trilogy so I'm looking forward to the surprises coming my way.
