Rising Shards

All around the dorms, everyone was busy packing up their stuff. It was the Regulatory Cubicle Celebration Days, which sounded like the most boring holiday ever, but I’d take it for a three-day weekend. I couldn’t deny I was homesick, but because of Stella’s schedule I only had one day to see her in Litus Empirica. She was too busy to pick me up, so I had to settle for getting a train ticket to LE, which were apparently in limited supply for students due to the holiday.

Kalei crammed her game console into her overstuffed bag.

“Are you excited to see your family?” I asked.

“I’m excited to see my puppy, but I hear from my family plenty,” Kalei said. “Well, don’t burn the place down while I’m gone. Oh, and no Tower of Hate and Love until I get back!”

“But...I can’t wait three days to find out if Craterius died or if it was his clone-cousin!” Oka said.

“Yes you can,” Kalei said. “Because I need to see your reaction to the next one.”

Oka looked ready to pull her hair out. “That just makes me want to watch it more!”

The hallways were already weirdly quiet by the time Kalei left. Oka was staying too, so I wasn’t worried about feeling lonely.

“Whoa, listen to this,” Oka said, stamping her foot down. In the near empty hall, the pat of her foot echoed all the way down. Naturally I copied her and started stamping my foot as well.

“Oooh, a foot stamping party?”

We turned to see Aira Orbis, who looked eager to join in.

“Hi Aira,” I said. “Are you staying here this weekend too?”

After she stamped her foot until she was satisfied, Aira nodded. “There’s this whole court thing with my aunt and bleh. I’d rather stay here.”

“Why’s she in court?” Oka asked.

“You know the old story, your aunt starts on jury duty, then one of the jurors sues her for verbal and physical assault on their family.” Aira said. “She also got blamed for the whole model train college fiasco but I’m pretty sure she didn’t torch that place and I'm fairly certain she wasn't involved in the money laundering scheme.”

Oka and I stared blankly.

“I guess that’s how it goes, huh…” I said.

“Anyways, do either of you have any plans this weekend?” Aira asked.

“Not really,” Oka said. “Sleeping, probably.”

“In that case, would you like to come visit my room?” Aira asked. “Laenie has something cool!”

I hadn’t actually visited Aira and Laenie’s room yet. We went down the hall, and Aira pushed her door open, but it only opened about halfway.

“Sorry, we have a big shelf,” Aira said.

We slipped through, and Aira wasn’t kidding. About a third of the room was taken up by a gigantic bookshelf, and just about every kind of action figure and doll filled it. Books and clothes were haphazardly thrown around the room.

“Laenie?” Aira asked. “You here?”

Aira searched around her room. We heard a small peep from the top bunk of their bed.

“There you are,” Aira said. “Oka’s here! With Zeta!”

We heard another small peep. I couldn’t even see anyone on the top bunk.

“She’s shy when others encroach on her territory,” Aira said. “And all the other times. Do you guys want to step outside for a sec?”

“No!”

Laenie climbed down from the top bunk. She fidgeted with her hands. She muttered something.

“Huh?” Aira said, practically shouting compared to Laenie.

Laenie cleared her throat, peeped again, and her face turned red.

“Hey Laenie, want to show Oka and Zeta what you got?” Aira asked.

Laenie pulled out a handful of red tickets.

“What are those tickets for, the trolley?” I said. “But the trolley would only go to…”

“You got tickets to Iho Vinai?!” Oka asked.

It had been a long goal of mine to go to Iho Vinai. The small village farther north of the school, it was the place where most of the teachers lived. It was also the place the creator of Tower of Hate and Love was from, and where he based a lot of the original story elements on. So it was unofficially the official town of Tower of Hate and Love.

”Isn’t it great? She got one for me and one for herself for today, so we can get seeds for the flower club,” Aira said. “We’re going to take the trolley. It’s such a beautiful day out, too.”

Laenie muttered something again.

“What was that, Laenie?” Aira asked.

“The ticket…”

“HUH?” Aira bellowed.

“Guest…two guests…” Laenie said.

“Oh! Yeah! We can each bring a guest with these!” Aira said. “Do you two want to come with?”

Oka and I nodded so fast I felt like I was going to hurt my neck. I couldn’t turn down the chance to see the required town for any Tower fan. I had of course briefed Oka on the significance of it during the 32-episode village arc in the first season. 

“Yay! We can head over right away!” Aira said.

We had to walk a long way past campus to get to the trolley station. We at least got a nice view of the water as we walked along the beach. I guessed it would be a lot less busy at the station, but there were a fair number of students waiting to get a ride. 

Unfortunately, Ovie was one of them, with Chellsi and Mikeila-Keila by her side as always, looking strained as they stared at the train car. I was very jealous that they were Ovie’s friends, partially because I wanted them to be my friends and because it made me not want to watch their videos anymore.

“Ovie, like why is like, this train, so…” Chellsi said.

“It’s like, tiny,” Mikeila-Keila said.

“Yes Mikeila-Keila, like wow OK, you’re like, reading my mind because like, I was going to say tiny, but I didn’t remember to say that,” Chellsi said.

“That’s why we’re Chellsi-Mikeila-Keila!” Mikeila-Keila said.

The two continued to praise each other while saying their names more than I thought possible in three minutes while we waited for them to let us get our seats. Ovie looked disappointed until she saw me, then she looked even more disappointed.

“Oh, Zeta Manure. You’re here,” Ovie said. “Hooray.”

“Why are you here, Ovie?” I asked. “I would have guessed you’d be anywhere else.”

“Chellsi said she wanted to go here, so we had to get tickets for this,” Ovie said. “I wanted to go to LE.”

“How’d you even get them?” I asked.

“Did you not see my house in the neighborhood of mansions literally named after my family?” Ovie asked. “How’d you even get them?”

“Laenie and Aira let us use their guest passes,” I said.

“Ahhh, of course,” Ovie said. “Aira had to translate for Laenie’s quiet awkwardness, right? Or wait, that’s your first language, Zeta.”

I sputtered a response while Ovie turned and got on the trolley. Aira and Laenie didn’t seem to notice or care what Ovie said.

“Just let it go,” Oka said. “Just think about Iho Vinai!”

Oka was right, I couldn’t let myself be mad when Iho Vinai waited. We all sat as far away as we could from Ovie and her friends, and I tried to contain my excitement to see the sort of birthplace of one of the greatest television shows of all time. Ovie was sitting in front of me, and I couldn’t help but look at her phone for the second she had it open. I saw her wallpaper on her home screen and felt like I’d been suddenly slapped by a nightmare. For some reason, her wallpaper was a picture of Jeans.