Rising Shards

Oka looked down to the ground, thinking about something, and I let her deal with whatever she was dealing with instead of prying until she told me. Because even if she knew it or not, she was letting me deal with whatever I was dealing with because I wasn’t about to tell her a few days into Phase Two.

“So Zeta.” Oka said.

My heart bathumped. Stupid heart. I was not ready for a bathump right then. I kept my cool, at least.

“So, Oka.” Keeping my cool did not necessarily mean I was any good at clever responses.

“While Kalei’s gone, I have a question.”

“…which is…?” I said. My heart did a like double bathump which was not pleasant and even less pleasant to try and hide. “If it’s about the game thing I probably can’t help.”

“It’s of the Jeans-y nature.”

“Oh?” I said. That wasn't what I was expecting her to say. I really had no idea what I was expecting her to say. “Really? What is it?”

“Well…”

Oka pressed her fingertips together.

“How far…did you two…go?” Oka asked.

Every mental alarm went off at once, forcing all my mental fortitude to strain my body to look not freaked out by that question. I grabbed my tail, because my new appendage felt like it was about to betray me with a frantic movement or something.

“W-where is this coming from?” I asked. I got my tail under control, it seemed at least. 

“What, sorry! It’s…for my research.” Oka said.

“Oka, I adore you, but please don’t ask that question and say it’s for research.”

“…personal research.”

Did I just say I adored her out loud? I sighed and flopped backwards on my bed.

“Didn’t the void play…like…show enough?” I asked.

“Enough to get my imagination going!”

“Oka.” I said. Firmly. I don’t know why. I was trying to show some authority over this despite having none. I was mostly just trying to keep from exploding from how not ready I was for that conversation on that night.

“I’m sorry, I’m curious!” Oka said. “I’ve been wondering and I have some theories…”

“You have theories?”

“Well, I think about your maturity level, and Jeans’ being a bit older…and you wanting to please her…I could see some…perhaps, TV-14 level incidents occurring between you two. Possibly even TV-MA.”

“Oka, the more you phrase things like this the less it makes me want to tell you.” In that moment I also regretted showing her any TV show that had ratings.

“But there’s still a chance you’d tell me?” Oka said.

I definitely would tell Oka, but I wanted time to prepare. Talking anything about Jeans is hard, but such a touchy subject was even tougher. And the whole thing that I just realized I had a massive crush on her, and that this conversation might let slip things I wasn’t ready to say.

“The court is not in session,” Kalei said, making her trademark sitcom-esque entrance once more. “But this judge still has judgment to dish out.”

“…what?” I asked.

“Beam chaser court’s closed,” Kalei said. “I forgot, but I did get to get some of the stress out running there and back.”

“We’ll continue this talk later,” Oka said.

“Continue what talk later?” Kalei said. “You’re not talking about me, are you?”

“Definitely not,” Oka said.

“Cool,” Kalei said, not entirely paying attention. I could see she was looking at pictures of the game system on her phone. “Roux will have to eat dirt when she sees me with the eGame 3…”

After a quiet-ish hour or so of phone staring from her (she was watching breakdown videos of the new game console and trailers and stuff for it), Kalei fell asleep. Oka and I stared at each other, a mix of concern and relief on my end that Kalei didn’t press on our conversation that she interrupted. I hadn’t thought about it until Oka brought her up, but I hadn’t had any friends in my room since Jeans, and now I was bringing my best friends there, one of which I now had a crush on. It brought a queasy mix of emotions to close out my night.

* * *

“Alright gang, we’re entering Echela territory, so be on your toes,” I said.

We were waiting at the train station in LE for Stella. Oka stared wide eyed at everything once we got close to the city, making me wonder if she’d spent any time in a big city before.

“Zeta, why do you talk like that?” Kalei said. “All of us have been near Echela, it’s normal. Super normal, even.”

Echela didn’t have fangs, or any other Cani sign. I didn’t have fangs until very recently. But I still always felt different around Echela even if we were like pretty much exactly the same technically speaking. We just each had a different junction point in our development that put us on separate paths. I hadn’t been back in the ‘normal world’ since I got to Rising Shards, but for me it was still weird.

“You know Kalei,” I said. “I could tell Stella not to pick you up and she’d let you just sit there with your stupid game system with no plugins or nothing, all alone at midnight as everyone else plays it, as Oka and I get a good night’s sleep.”

“…point taken.” Kalei said.

“Also, why is Syval here?” I asked, pointing to Syval, Kalei’s friend from Falling Shards, who was standing next to us.

“Hi!” Syval said.

“Is he part of this adventure?” I asked.

“Yep, and I checked that with Diast too,” Kalei said.

“Not that she has any authority over a guy like me,” Syval said. “A guy from Falling Shards, I mean. It’s the boys’ school. Dr. Diast doesn’t teach there.”

I nodded, not sure if Syval was telling a joke or something because it really wasn't landing.

“Don’t worry, he’s not sleeping over at your place, Zates.” Kalei said.

"Yeppers," Syval said. “My dad’s picking me up in a sec here.”

“Well, I don’t have any follow up questions, then.” I said. “Except when you started calling me ‘Zates.’”

“What launch game are you getting, Kalei?” Syval asked.

“I just have Palindrome preordered, but I’m not really excited about the lineup.” Kalei said. “I’m mainly just gonna play Talon with better graphics to start out with.”

“I feel like Zeta would like Talon. Zetaaaa.” Syval said in a deep voice. He followed it with a softer, more feminine, “I’m here.”

“Huh?” I asked.

“Haven’t you ever played Talon?” Syval asked.

“Huh?” I asked.

“it’s a multiplayer game. Or, multiple games, there have been many Talon games. When you pick the Zeta class the announcer is like Zetaaaa. And you’re like ‘I’m here.’”

“Oh!” I said. “Is the Zeta class any good?”

“Not really. It’s more of a joke class than anything.”

“Great,” I said.

After some more talk about games I still didn’t get (Syval and Kalei corrected me for calling it an ‘Egame’ and not an ‘eGame’, something I’m not sure made sense to correct out loud), Syval’s dad showed up and they were off. Oka was still staring at the city in awe.

“Oka, are you surprised by how big LE is?” I asked. "Though I guess you have been here before, hm."

“We’re so close to your house,” Oka said wistfully.

“It’s not really like a house, it’s just an apartment.”

“We’re so close to your apartment..."

Her enthusiasm had me close to a bathump, which I felt I would probably yelp about which would be a problem explaining. Luckily, Stella’s car came up shortly after. It wasn’t as fancy as Syval’s dad’s car, but it felt more home-y to me, so it won in my heart.

“Ah, the famous Oka and Kalei,” Stella said as Oka and Kalei buckled up in the backseat.

Stella looked my best friends/roommates up and down.

“Alright, you guys want food first?” Stella asked. I sighed in relief. I’m not sure why I thought Stella was going to hate Oka and Kalei, but I’m glad her immediate reaction was not that.

“You’re taking good care of her, right?” Stella asked, which genuinely wasn’t one of the first things I expected her to say to them.

“Yup,” Oka said. “Hey, so lemme see Zeta’s room.”

My stomach lurched. Why am I being so weird about this? I gave myself some respite as in a few days I did just realize I had a crush on Oka, and I grew a tail and Oka was asking me how far I went with Jeans AND she was really interested in seeing my room.

“Oh, so direct? I bet you’re Oka.” Stella said.

“Yup!” Oka said.

“How are those Kilanders?” Stella asked.

“She can’t get you autographs,” I said, immediately embarrassed she’d even ask. I explained to her a lot how the Kilanders were treating Oka as their adopted daughter.

“They suck,” Oka said. "Sometimes."

“You got adopted by Berin Kilander, right?” Stella said.

“Yuh huh.” Oka said.

“If he’s anything like he is on the Kilander show, I am somewhat sorry.”

“He’s alright,” Oka said. “I still feel like I’m just kind of a sympathy adoption for positive publicity or something. But Berin’s not that bad compared to the others at least. And Caya’s pretty cool.”

“That’s still a depressing ratio of cool to uncool family members,” Stella said. “Zeta, you take good care of her, alright?”

“She does!” Oka said.

Stella got us all fast-food burgers before bringing us home. I hadn’t been home since school started, but my homesick relief was interrupted by Phase Three.