Rising Shards

We were invited to the “party room” of the computer lab, where a pizza party waited for us.

“At least we get pizza for getting through that game,” Marmalade said. “This is our true reward.”

“That, and the badge,” Michi said, patting the laminated sheet of paper pinned to their shirt.

“You’d think Letoh would like shrink that down a little,” Kalei said.

“I wear my gigantic badge for completion of that horrifically bad game with pride,” Michi said.

I hadn’t had a school pizza party since elementary school. I have a painful memory of my childhood where my fourth-grade teacher announced we’d be having pizza and the date happened to be my birthday, and I excitedly exclaimed that in class and got very laughed at. So I kept that in mind as I tried to keep a low profile as I scooped some slices onto a paper plate.

“I have so much pizza,” Kalei said, staring into the pile of food she’d stacked up.

“Like right now or in general?” Oka asked.

“Like in general!” Kalei said. “Sometimes I feel like all I eat is ‘za.”

“To be fair though, pizza is really great.” I said.

“Zeta and I went to that fancy place at the mall and got the fancy stuff,” Oka said. “It was so fancy that it was barely pizza.”

Kalei nodded. “Knowing my ‘za consumption levels, I’ll prolly get that soon.” She sighed.  “I dunno if I’ll be able to eat when beam chasers is going, so I guess I’ll enjoy this now. Eh, who am I kidding, I'm gonna be eating all season like normal.”

Everyone in our class seemed to stick with the team they completed the game with. I think we all just wanted to celebrate what we all endured through with our team members. Save for Marmalade, who joined our table because she wanted to talk to Kalei about that fireball game Kalei was obsessed with for a week. She almost left when she told us, “Maybe the real school of making good decisions is deciding what kind of pizza to get, am I right?” And was met with a brief, and awkard silence, but Kalei convinced her to stay.

“So…what did we learn?” Iris asked.

“Nothing,” Maia said.

“Less than nothing,” Kalei said. “I’m actively stupider than I was before I played that game.”

“I learned that Thadley is in a lot of edutainment games.” Marmalade said. “Or I guess just Cani…tutorial videos?”

“I wonder what that dude’s deal is,” I said. “Like is he a character? Or is there actually a Thadley that they hired to just almost say lines right for Cani videos?”

“I want his autograph,” Michi said. “And I will get it.”

“I wish you luck on that quest.” Marmalade said. “I tried searching for him a bit ago and didn’t get anything.”

“Why were you searching for Thadley?” Kalei asked.

“I was just thinking about him,” Marmalade said. “I thought about how weird it is that we have to watch a video with this random surfer guy in it, then was like…who is this man? He fascinated me. I feel like the more I talk about this, the weirder I sound.”

“You’re among good company for weirdness.” Kalei said.

After we ate, and everyone else was in the middle of their own conversations, Oka grabbed my hand. “I need to borrow you for a second. Maybe more than a few seconds.”

“Are we allowed to just leave?” I asked as Oka pulled me away.

We ended up in her room, with Oka standing behind me with a brush in hand.

“Can’t believe that freaking game said brushing someone’s hair is wrong,” Oka said as she gently stroked my hair.

“Not to defend the game, but the scenario was about running up behind someone and brushing their hair without asking.” I said.

“Yeah, true,” Oka said. “Still, made me wanna brush your hair.”

“There’s one benefit to this whole day,” I said, sighing contentedly as Oka continued brushing.

 “So I went to that Kilander thing, right?” Oka asked. “Guess what we did.”

“Uh…had a fancy dinner?” I said.

“Nope,” Oka said. “We went to a mat ball game.”

“Wow…” I said.

“You and I are now united in having gone to one mat ball game.” Oka said. “And a lot of other stuff too.”

“Did you have a better time than I did at the one I went to?” I asked. I didn’t have a bad time, but for various reasons my mat ball time was pretty awkward.

“I wish you could’ve been there,” Oka said. “I found out I have gay uncles? Or gay great uncles. Still! That’s pretty cool, right?”

“Aww, that’s great!” I said. “What were they like?”

“Loud, but like bubbly and nice,” Oka said. “It sounded like they distanced themselves from the family, like the business of it all, which I respect.”

“That’s cool,” I said.

“Two cool Kilanders I wasn’t aware of. That brings the amount of cool Kilanders to like…four?” Oka said. “I totally bragged about you to them.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Uh huh,” Oka said. “They want to meet you! So another mat ball game may be in your future.”

“Well, if you’re there, I think I can do it,” I said.

Oka told me about her mat ball family trip, which sounded more fun than I would have guessed a mat ball trip with the Kilanders would be.

“Did you do anything exciting when I was away?” Oka asked. “I don’t wanna just talk about me.”

“I am totally fine with you just talking about you,” I said. “I like you, so I like…er, hearing about you.”

“Still, I’m curious! What’d you get up to?” Oka asked.

“I was just reading,” I said. “My usual Raina Starlight business.”

“Sounds lovely!” Oka said.

“Heh,” With my hair suitably brushed, I got up to sit beside Oka, cuddling against her. I rubbed my cheek against Oka’s. “Sorry, just having a cat moment.”

“You should have cat moments more often.” Oka said. “But just around me.”

“You’re the only one I want to have cat moments around!” I said. “M-meow?”

This quickly devolved into us making cat noises at each other. We were both giant dorks, but we were cackling between our mews and purrs, so it was a great recovery after completing that dumb game. I'd even go as far to say it was lovelier than an evening rereading Raina Starlight books. And I adore Raina Starlight books, so that is putting our fluffy dorky business on a very high pedestal.