Rising Shards

“Alright,” Kalei said. “Break from questions. Next is the lightning round. No judgment lightning round.”

“W-what do you mean?” I asked.

“This is more for me and Lils.” Kalei said. “But I was thinking you and Oka start to warm us up.”

“’Lils’?” Lillia asked.

“Yeah, we got Zates, Oaks, and now Lils.” Kalei said.

“You don’t call me Oaks enough.” Oka said. “And what do you mean, Zeta and I start? Start what?”

“Lightning round.” Kalei said, doing finger guns.

“Explain what it’s a lightning round of.” Lillia said.

“I wanna…talk about my crush.” Kalei said. “So let’s all talk about our crushes. Since Zeta and Oka are dating already, they can start. And no judgment about any of this.”

“Isn’t this the same thing as the ‘how do you feel about each other’ thing you asked us a bit ago?” I said.

“Yeah, but this time I won’t say anything if Oka talks about her zooms and whoopsies or whatever she feels for you. And then once we hear you guys gush, Lillia and I will get to go. Because I really want to talk about Nikki now. But…you two go first.”

“I dislike that I can somewhat follow your logic.” Lillia said.

Oka cracked her knuckles. “I got this. I can go first.” Lillia had a slightly pensive look, so Oka gave her finger guns as well. “It’ll be just like our crush talks, but Zeta and Kalei are here this time!”

“I suppose.” Lillia said.

“And don’t overthink the whole talking about it with two people who are just gonna be talking about each other,” Kalei said. “Don’t overthink this in general. Zeta, Oka, go so then we can. Go.” Kalei did one more set of finger guns.

“Usually Oka and I have snacks for this,” Lillia said.

“We’ll keep our after-practice crush talk tradition as is,” Oka said. “And I ate too much pizza to have any more snacks right now. This can be start of the new sleepover crush talk tradition!” She cracked her knuckles again.

“Oka, Kalei, stop repeating animations.” Lillia said.

“Fine fine, here I go,” Oka said. “So for lightning round, do we just like say a thing about our crush then. That’s it?”

“I didn’t think it through to that point,” Kalei said. “But that sounds kinda cool, yeah. Everyone say a thing about their crush and then we’ll go to the next person until we run out of things to say. No judgments about anything we say.”

“So we’re going to be part of this right away, then?” Lillia asked. “Do you want us to draw straws for what order we’ll go in?”

Kalei hid her face halfway under her blanket, which was kinda sweet. “No judgment on my idea process here. Which is, uh, changeable. So it changes as we go.”

“I’m not judging, I just want to make sure I know what we’re doing here,” Lillia said. “How about Oka first, Zeta second, myself third, and Kalei last?”

“That’s fine by me.” Kalei said.

“Lightning round.” Oka said. “Let me go already! I know what I want to say first!”

“Have at it.” Lillia said.

“My crush, Zeta,” Oka started. I got flutters hearing just those three words from her. “Looks very cute today.”

“Aww!” I said.

“That’s a judgment, no judgments.” Kalei said.

“An ‘awww’ isn’t a judgment.” I said.

“It kinda is.” Kalei said. “You’re up. You can make lightning, so lightning round should be your thing.”

“Uh,” I said, trying to think of what to start off with now that I understood what Kalei wanted us to do here. “My crush on Oka started when we did a slow dance together in our room, I mean, it probably started earlier, but that’s when I figured out and. Yeah!”

“I have two crushes currently,” Lillia said. “I…er.” She stopped.

“Lightning round?” Oka said.

“You really won’t judge me for this, Kalei?” Lillia asked. “My crushes might seem. I just want to make sure.”

“I said no judgments,” Kalei said. “As long as it’s not like Kyre Krista or…yeah, pretty much just Kyre Krista. A teacher would be weird, I guess. Probably pretty gross maybe?”

“Alright,” Lillia said. “I have two main crushes right now, one on Ko Matora and one on Naomi Ratuna.”

“Whoa!” Kalei said.

“You just said no judgments!” Lillia said.

“A ‘whoa’ isn’t a judgment, come on.” Kalei said.

“If a ‘whoa’ isn’t, then an ‘aww’ definitely isn’t.” I said.

“Let’s get back to the lightning round, team.” Oka said.

“Right, you’re up, Kalei.” Lillia said.

“I have a huge-ass, big-ass, stupid-ass big crush on Nikki,” Kalei said.

“Round two!” Oka said. “One time in the computer lab, I put a picture of Zeta in the picture editor and changed her hair color just to see what it’d look like, and they all looked adorable. Even though I was basically just coloring over her hair with paintly.paint brushes.”

“What hair colors?” I asked. “I don’t really think about dyeing my hair much, but for you…”

“I tried, like black, pink, red, all sorts of colors!” Oka said. “My fav’s still your hair color right now. But you’re up!”

“I still have the first flower Oka gave me,” I said. “I keep it pressed in a book.”

“Can I please aww that without anyone getting on my case?” Oka asked. “Because. Awww!”

“I’ll allow it.” Kalei said.

“Sometimes I think I’m ready to move on from one of my crushes,” Lillia said. “But then something happens that keeps both in the mix.”

“I wanna know what shampoo Nikki uses, but not like so I can use it but so I can smell it when she’s not around because I smelled her hair once and it smelled really good.”

“I’m the same way with Zeta’s hair.” Oka said.

“Awww!” I said. “Does my hair actually smell that good?”

“It does! I wanna like smush my face in your hair and just smell it. Is that weird?” Oka asked.

“First off, out of order," Kalei said. "Second off, if you wanted to figure out Zeta’s shampoo, why didn’t you just look in our bathroom when we were roommates? Third, yes, that’s weird. Fourth, I wanna do that to Nikki’s hair so I get it.”

“I had a dream I kissed Zeta last night and she didn’t have a shirt on!” Oka said. “And I got really mad when I woke up because it was just a dream!”

“Whuh!?” I said.

“So is the order just gone now?” Lillia asked. “I have lots of dreams where I kiss Ko and Naomi, sometimes in the same dream. Sometimes together.”

“Nikki’s music is so good I wish she had like an album or a website or something so I could listen to it. I looked up to see if she uploaded anything but got nothing.” Kalei said.

“I’ve been thinking about Zeta giving me a love bite since my crush started,” Oka said. “So I’ve absolutely been replaying her giving me a hickey in my head like. Constantly. I’m pretty sure nothing from Letoh’s class the last week or so has remotely registered in my brain because of this.”

“Um, wait, the playing in your head part,” I giggled. “Wait! I mean, me too, but—”

“You too?” Oka squealed.

“If Ko gave me a hickey I’d probably explode,” Lillia said. “If Naomi did…I…” She was clearly enamored with the idea, as she suddenly tugged at her collar.

“I’d probably be the one to give Nikki a hickey,” Kalei said, then proudly chuckled to herself. “Nikki hickey. It rhymes.”

“I doubt that, actually,” Lillia said.

“Doubt what, that it rhymes?” Kalei asked. “It so does. It’s not even a slant rhyme!”

“Not that,” Lillia said. “I mean that I doubt you’d give Nikki a hickey.”

“What are you trying to say here?” Kalei asked.

“I think you’re more of a…bottom.” Lillia said.

“Wait!” I shrieked and started cackling, kicking my feet around in my sleeping bag. “You cannot just throw that out there so casually.”

“Hold up, no way!” Kalei said. “I may be new to this, but I know that at least. You think I don’t radiate top energy?”

“You keysmash.” Lillia said. She pushed her glasses up. “I rest my case.”

While Kalei sputtered an attempt at a retort, Oka clasped her hands together. “Kay, when we say—just wanna confirm, when we’re talking about tops and bottoms, we’re referring to…?”

“It’s exactly what you think.” Lillia said.

“Right, right.” Oka said. She had the audacity to look at me then with such a cute and embarrassed expression as my face did the full overloaded cartoon thermometer bit.

“How do you rank these two then, Lillia?” Kalei asked.

“Zeta gave Oka the hickey. The hierarchy is clear.” Lillia said.

“I think we’d, I mean, we could…sw…switch…” I said.

“Switch what?” Oka asked innocently.

“Dude,” Kalei said. “Don’t tell me I know this and you don’t.”

“Alright, so I’m going to be honest and say that I’m not entirely sure what we’re talking about here.” Oka said.

“This could be valuable information, Oka.” Lillia said. “Would you rather we explain it or Zeta attempt to explain it to you in private?”

“I…that’s…” I said. I knew immediately I wasn’t going to be able to say it in this environment.

“It’s not that freaking complicated,” Kalei said. “A top is the one on top. And the bottom is the one on bottom. Get it?”

“I…” Oka said. She bit her lip.

“We’ve discussed this in a way,” Lillia said. “Remember those after practice talks when you talked about whether you kissed Zeta or you were kissed by Zeta in your daydreams?”

“You uh…” I said. “Those talks…were had?”

“So…so you think…that, um, that Zeta…would be the one that…” Oka said.

“Or the talk we had at Vita Coa where it was suggested that Zeta ‘take the lead,’ so to speak?” Lillia asked.

Oka squinted. And then gave me another cute look with her brow furrowed, which wasn’t fair.

“Yes.” Lillia said. “The hierarchy is clear, Oka.”

Lillia maintained a stone look while we all sputtered around. I thought she almost looked proud at what she induced in Kalei, Oka, and I, and how she was the only one not to be flustered.

“Did that accomplish what you wanted it to, Kalei?” Lillia asked once we’d settled down. “Did it accomplish anything?”

“Yeah, actually,” Kalei said. “I had to let a lot of Nikki thoughts in my head out, and it’s really. What’s the word. Comforting? That you guys talk about your crushes the way I think about mine.”

“Aw,” Oka said. “Well there are a lot of reasons we’re friends, after all. It’d make sense we think similarly.”