Rising Shards

I got up casually, not wanting to give Kalei anything she could use to make fun of me. I quickly left the room, knowing she’d see through any explanation I could try to come up with. She was too busy being proud of how her tryout went so I got lucky there.

This was somehow my first time actually going into Oka’s new room in the dorms. I wasn’t sure if I should knock or text her, but I as I stood dopily outside her door, she opened it.

While I was still mad at Caya for making Oka move to another room, something about going somewhere else to see Oka made it feel more special. The sparkle in her eyes as she lit up seeing me had me uncertain if I’d get a step into her room without a complete freak out melt down situation, but I somehow made it. The parts of her hair she usually tied up were let down, and she was in cute pajamas I don’t think I’d ever seen her wear, with a camisole and fuzzy pink pants, the latter of which really caught my attention.

“You better come in quick, or one of the prefects may start bugging us.” Oka said.

Oka had her stuff set up the same as it was in our room, but she had to split it with Lillia, who did not share our “just pile stuff up” mindset for room décor. In addition to books that looked more complicated and higher-level reading than the books on Diast’s shelves somehow, I also saw two sets of encyclopedias on Lillia’s shelves, which seemed a bit excessive. Oka had her own budding book collection. There were two chairs at their desk, which had been divided between a very neat and tidy side and a more sensibly cluttered side.

“This room isn’t as big as ours, so we don’t have that little waiting space,” Oka said. “So do you wanna sit on my bed?”

I belched out a horrible noise fitting of an underworld mutant finding a scrap of underworld mutant food after weeks of starvation; like a heavenly choir singing through busted up tin cans converted into warbly instruments.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Oka said, somehow understanding what my noises meant. She climbed up onto her bed. I blushed as I watched her make her way up, once again transfixed on her pink pajama pants. I realized what I was doing and coughed, rubbing the back of my neck.

“Is something up?” Oka asked. She patted her bed bunk. Unlike her spot when she roomed with me, Oka had the top bunk in her new room. I climbed up and tried to situate myself next to her.

“I’m needy,” I said. “Pamper meeeee

Oka giggled. “Long day?”

“Something weird happened.” I said. “Well, a lot of weird things happened today.”

“What? Is the new place haunted?” Oka asked.

“I need some time to build up to the really weird stuff.” I said. “It’s a lot.”

“That’s…” Oka trailed off. She quietly added. “It’s not about me, is it?”

“No! It’s just…something really weird and I need like a power up to talk about it. And you’re the only person I can talk about this with.”

“What can I do to help you build up to it?” Oka asked, her head tilting to the side.

“I’m not sure…something to calm me down, maybe?”

“Oh!” Oka said. “Here, I got something that might help, I learned it at that acting workshop weekend thing at the college.” Oka said. She instructed me to sit between her legs with my back to her, something I did just fine and totally not awkwardly at all. I definitely didn’t start sweating instantly and didn’t make a weird joke about our legs being parallel lines that completely bombed. And I didn’t also move my tail around and poke her thigh with it, dabbing it like a paint brush while I made another joke about using my tail as a paint brush that bombed even harder. While I really liked the pink pajama pants, I felt a faint longing in the back of my mind that we were in our skirts when we sat like this, a wish to see her bare legs that also made me let out a dry cough.

“This is gonna be a bit strange, but trust me on this,” Oka said. She froze as she had her hands on my shoulders. “Wait, how did it…? Oh! Right. Actually, wait one second.”  

She got up and knelt behind me, and started gently putting her fists on my head, like she was knocking on a door quietly.

“And this was for acting?” I said.

“Uh huh, calms you down apparently,” Oka said.

She trailed the knocks up and down my head and neck, as well as my shoulders.

“Have I ever even felt your shoulders before?” Oka asked.

“Maybe, in a hug?” I said. “Oh, and when we danced! We haven’t really done massages for each other though, right? We should more! Stella says I give a mean massage when she’s stiff after work.” I left out the part about Stella always saying how my bony elbows helped me give better massages.

“I like your shoulders, so I agree.” Oka said. I was glad I was facing away from her because I know the expression I made as I strained to not let out another dry cough would be painful to observe. “At the workshop, I was partnered up with Kyre Krista, so your head is a lot better to try this on. My hands felt gloppy from all the hair gel when I finished with her.”

“Ew.” I said.

“Right, and you have much nicer hair.” Oka said.

Her knocking turned into her holding out her hands and kind of dotting at my scalp with her fingers pointed out. When she finished, she swept her hands on my shoulders. I don’t know why, but it did make me feel more relaxed.

“I might have done that in the wrong order.” Oka said. “But did that help?”

“It did,” I said and yawned. “Kind of made me a little sleepy.”

“Here, then.” Oka said, sitting back down with her legs around mine. She hugged me. “I kind of needed that too.”

“You did say the rehearsal was a lot.” I said. “Need to vent anything?”