Rising Shards

It was getting late, but I wasn’t very sleepy. The root beer was starting to give me some extra energy, but it also rushed through me quickly, so I got out of my sleeping bag.

“Hang on, I gotta go,” I said.

“What?” Oka whined. “Not like leave leave, right?”

“I think she means bathroom.” Kalei said. “It’s on the right there if you hug the wall behind me.”

“Be back soon…” Oka said. She sounded so sad at the prospect of not being near me for like a minute, which was really endearing.

Walking along the dark hallway was oddly calming. The carpet’s fabric seemed a bit floofier in the hall to the bathroom, and it felt good on my bare feet. My eyes took a bit to adjust from the bright bathroom light. The basement bathroom was very Kalei, it had the look of a beam chasers fan with it being painted with the colors of her favorite team, with a framed jersey on a wall with ticket stubs, signed photos of players, and more memorabilia with it. The toilet seat even had a fuzzy cover with her team’s colors on it. The window in the bathroom was cracked open, and I could hear crickets outside. The night had taken a severe detour with the Ko incident, but I was glad we got it back and that things felt so calm now. It was the first time in what felt like a very long time that I felt that calm.

When I got back, Oka was apparently in the middle of telling a story.

“And I turn my head and realize that Zeta isn’t just sitting there, she’s, well she was kneeling, so she’s kneeling there all—oh, Zeta! Back already?”

“Are you…talking about that time I walked out all…unclothed?” I asked.

“Er. Maybe.” Oka said. She laughed nervously as I sat down by her. I tickled her as punishment, only stopping once she tapped out, declaring me the victor.

“Yep, she was talking about that time you walked out naked in front of her completely without any prompting from us.” Kalei said.

“She’s lying, Kalei definitely asked the second you were out of sight.” Lillia said.

“Fine, I heard your side of it, I was curious to hear Oka’s.” Kalei said.

“Why do we need to talk about it again?” I asked as I got back in my sleeping bag.

“It’s a very good story to live vicariously through.” Lillia said.

“Yes! Exactly!” Kalei said.

“Well, it wasn’t the most pleasant moment for me,” I said, thinking about how that night had gone. Me accidentally walking out of the bathroom after a shower without checking if anyone else was in the room, Oka seeing my back mostly (maybe a bit further, but she would have freaked out even more if it was any more than that), us both having a meltdown, and then Oka flashing her back at me to make us even. “But it worked out pretty great in the end.”

Oka smiled. Neither of us had really gone as far as we did that day in that regard, but I hoped we could get there again soon.

“OK, dumb question.” Kalei said, grogginess creeping into her voice more and more. “But do you guys like touch boobazes and stuff?”

“Boobazes?” Lillia asked as Oka fell over and hid in her sleeping bag.

“Yeah, you know, like your boobazes, your front balloons, your hongas fononguses?”

“Don’t ever refer to breasts as any of those again.” Lillia said.

“I know Zates only has a bit of the boobaz to speak of there—hey!” Kalei said as I threw a pillow at her. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“You’ll take that as a don’t make fun of my boob size,” I pouted, crossing my arms in an attempt to block my chest. "I have more than a bit of the boobaz..."

“Fine, fine,” Kalei said. “Oka’s not even saying anything, so I think we broke her again.”

Once she returned from her sleeping bag refuge, Oka did have that faraway look in her eyes again that she had the day after I gave her a hickey. She noticed my staring and giggled. I could barely look at her with the topic at hand, I had been staring at her chest probably too much lately anyways in addition to how much I was thinking about it, and any prolonged looks her way while that was what we were talking about would surely have my eyes drifting lower.

“To answer your question in a more TV-PG kind of way, we kinda do a lot of the same stuff we did before we dated.” I said. “But with the added knowing of like, love, and stuff.”

“You guys were always super cuddly as long as I’ve known you two,” Kalei said. “Like I’d catch you under blankets together and stuff.” She yawned. “I’m gonna shut this situation down over here.” She turned the TV off. We all gradually moved to lie down and stare up at the star projection on the ceiling. Marshy bounded down the stairs and plopped on the couch with Kalei.

“Yep, sleeping down here tonight, bud,” Kalei said. “You done being all shy? He gets shy when there’s a ton of people here. Don’t you, Marshy?”

“Marshy, c’mere,” Oka said, holding her arms straight up and clenching her hands together like she was squeezing stress balls. “I wanna pet you more.”

“Good luck getting him to get up now.” Kalei said as Marshy got more comfortable, sighing as he got ready to sleep.

“Awww.” Oka said. “Zeta, c’mere. I wanna hug you more.”

“Not in front of everybody…” I said.

“Just roll over here, they won’t care if I give you a hug.” Oka said.

“I don’t care as long as you don’t hug her hongas fononguses.” Kalei said.

“Kalei, move onto the next question before I further chastise you on this.” Lillia said.

After I rolled over to Oka so we could hug, Kalei scrolled on her note app, accidentally fumbling it and nearly dropping it on her face. “Maybe a dumber question next.”

“Go for it, as long as you don’t have any more weird words for body parts in it.” I said.

“So, um, wait, what even are you guys’…” Kalei had a sour look. “Your guys…uh. What labels are you? What labels do you go by? There we go.”

“Ahhh,” I said. “That’s a good question. I mean, trans is one of them of course, but you mean...”

"Like who you like labels, yeah." Kalei said.

“I’m still working on that,” Lillia said. “I’m fairly certain on preferences at least, but a specific label at the moment isn’t as easy.”

“How do you mean?” Kalei asked.

“For example,” Lillia said. “While I mostly have had crushes on girls, if someone who identifies as nonbinary or another gender asked me out, I don’t think I would have an aversion to it. A boy I would probably say no to, but that probably suggests I’m not entirely ruling them out. I’m not sure on a specific label as of right now for myself outside of acknowledging myself as queer, but I would say I prefer females.”

“Cool, cool.” Kalei said. “How about you two?”

“I uh…I just like girls a lot,” I said.

“Yeah, specifically this girl.” Oka said, patting herself before crossing her arms and nodding.

“Normally I’m a lot better at talking about this, hold on. I was caught off guard by how eloquent Lillia is.” I said.

“Do you want me to try and dumb my speaking down for you?” Lillia asked.

“No! Just gimme a second…” I said. All my time spent reading about this stuff and I was choking when I could actually talk about it. “I think if I had to say, I’m a lesbian. But I’m fine with just having gay as a label too. Because I just…like girls a lot—wait! I can explain this better…”

“Zates, you’re dating a girl and you have a vacant, dead eyed expression in the presence of boys. We got it.” Kalei said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever really found a guy attractive.” Oka said. “The only person I’ve really felt it for outside of people in movies is Zeta, who’s a girl. But I’m pretty sure it’s just girls.”

“So your label is girls, got it.” Kalei said.

“Shush, you.” Oka said. “I guess I still want to figure out the right word for me too. But probably the same as Zeta.”

“How about you, Kalei?” I asked. “You seemed surprised when you had the crush on Nikki, so did you crush on guys before?”

“I dunno,” Kalei said. “I don’t think I really had a crush on anyone before. Well, Risa in hindsight I think I probably had a crush on.”

“Who’s Risa?” Lillia asked.

“My bestie from way back.” Kalei said. “Well, former. She had a secret rich family and dropped me once they wanted her to do more secret rich family stuff.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Lillia said.

“Don’t be,” Kalei said. “I traded up on best friends.”

“Awww.” Oka said.

“So yeah, I dunno about dudes though.” Kalei said.

“We could go over to Falling Shards sometime,” I said. “And look at boys? And see if you’re into them?”

“Operation: Do We Like Boys?” Oka said.

“I have a feeling this operation would be fairly fruitless for all of us.” Lillia said.

“I’ve never actually been around Falling Shards,” I said. “Dang, I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve seen Syval.” I tried to think of the last time I saw him. “Wait, did Syval get raided?”

“Who’s Syval?” Oka asked. I rolled to my other side to see she had the sweetest, most genuine inquisitive little smile on her face as she casually revealed to us that she had completely forgotten about one of the few (in my case probably the only) guy friends we had.

“We have class with him.” Lillia said.

“Which class?” Oka said.

“Void studies class.” Kalei said. “He showed you that Dentist Haircut game like really early in the semester.”

“We went to LE with him before getting the eGame, remember?” I said.

Oka shrugged, still wearing that adorable look.

“I might’ve been too excited about seeing Zeta’s room to notice him if he was there.” Oka said.

“But we had that whole thing with Roux where she said Syval was like her sleeper agent or something.” I said.

Oka shrugged again.

“I might’ve also been too wound up about asking you those questions from that teen magazine about past partners and stuff.” Oka said.

“Uh,” Kalei said. “What?”

“Didn’t…I tell you?” Oka asked.

“It’s lights out time at a sleepover, everything’s on the table.” Kalei said, putting on her demonic voice at the end there, turning her voice deep and raspy.

“I don’t like demon voice,” I said.

“Doth thou haveth a problem with demon voice?” Kalei asked.

“Quit it!” I giggled.

“Fine, alright," Oka said. "When I was navigating through how bad I had it for Zeta, I got this magazine that had all these questions to ask your crush. That monthly ‘questions to ask your crush’ column really helped me out.”

“A-alright,” Kalei said, barely holding back how funny she found this.

“And I was just thinking about that a lot, I dunno!” Oka said.

“What…kinda questions did it have?” Kalei asked.

“It featured questions like ‘did you make out with tongue with your last romantic partner’ or ‘have you had sex before,’ thrilling stuff like that that Oka legitimately asked Zeta about.” Lillia said.

Kalei fidgeted on the couch. She didn’t fully clasp her hands over her mouth to not burst out laughing, but she was close. “That’s…very interesting, neat.”

“That was right when I figured out I had a crush on Oka,” I said. “And then she dropped all those on me. And I couldn’t not answer them!”

“Oka, you seriously asked Zeta if she got laid before?” Kalei asked.

“Well! It was in the questionnaire!” Oka said.

“And yet you get flustered hearing the word ‘hickey’ now.” Kalei said.

“Yeah, but back then I was cocky!” Oka said. “I was riding the wave of momentum the crush and that teen pop magazine gave me. And I was curious.”

“Maybe you should let Kalei borrow that magazine so she can ask her crush some questions.” Lillia said.

“No! It has sentimental value now.” Oka said. “I could maybe scan it and give you a copy…”

“I’m…good. I think?” Kalei said.

“Let’s just move on from this then,” Oka said. “Did this Syval fella get raided or not, Kalei?”

“Nah, Syval didn’t get raided,” Kalei said. “But I guess Falling Shards had their own crap from Wildfire Hearts and he got like Elka sickness or something, said he’s been just at home puking a bunch.”

“Ew.” I said.