Yeah but that's what I actually like about One-shots: unless you're 50 pages long, I feel it's best to have a slightly open ending.
A series can lengthen out a relation, making the falling in love process more natural and smoother. But when I read a 20 page one-shot where they meet, fall in love, kiss and proclaim they'll be together forever, and then it ends, it always feels too sudden and false to me, like it was crammed in. Whereas a more open ending is more natural and allows you to imagine what happens after, while leaving the possibility of a sequel (which are nice).
also this was cute
This isn't all to say that a oneshot can't end too suddenly, like I feel this one did, or that I don't find myself wishing something was a series, or a sequel existed or so on and so on. But I think every oneshot published this week has had at least 10 comments of "where's the sequel", regardless of how definitively it ends on a perfect note. So meh to the "empty".
I don't have anything against the principle of open endings (it's sometimes good leave things to the imagination), but the real issue lies in the "possibility of a sequel" part, with the emphasis on possibility.
I mean, how many one-shots like these are actually carried on to become series? Maybe I'm bad at picking one-shots to read or it's just my confirmation bias, but I can go through my read list and pick out open-ended oneshots pretty easily, and that's all that you get.
That's my real issue with these open-ended chapters: I've read too many of them compared to ones with "real" endings. Sure, I get why authors do it, but it's gotten to the point where I want more resolution than what's given, more often than not. I guess you could argue that this one had a bit of a resolution... not enough for me though.
