Rising Shards

 

I put a spiraling circle onto a worksheet with my trusty pink pen as Iris and Maia looked on.

“And then…you add a little squiggle here,” I said. “And that makes the star of the formula!”

I scooted the homework assignment sheet back over to Iris and Maia.

“Thanks, Zeta.” Maia said.

“That one was a definite puzzler,” Iris said. “But I think I get it a little better now?”

“No problem!” I said. “I’m glad it was this assignment you asked me about because I actually know it.”

“Yeah, same,” Iris said. “Except for the like, knowing it part.”

“We got it, Iris,” Maia said. “But we’ll see ya later, we gotta head out.”

“Oh, you do?” I asked. I was hoping the three of us could hang out a bit longer.

“Yeppers,” Iris said. “Maia’s spending the weekend at my place. It’s been a bit since we’ve visited home.”

“Weird, the love trio’s gonna be gone this weekend too.” I said. “They all got spa tickets together. I only found out about that because they all lost their tickets at the same time and they had to help me find them. I still am not entirely sure how they ended up on the roof of the boys dorm."

“The love trio going to a spa together…sounds hilarious.” Iris said.

“Not really.” Maia said.

“Whatever,” Iris said. “See ya, Zeta!”

Iris and Maia left, leaving me alone in the club room. I had been keeping myself busy the last few hours with errands, helping Aira find her cat again, the love trio with that spa ticket set they lost, and Iris and Maia with homework. I hoped I would run into someone else that would help me keep my mind off things. Otherwise, it was up to wandering to keep me steady.

I had really taken to wandering when I needed to clear my head. I found that my immediate worries could lessen if I could just move my body and be somewhere else. It was tough to force myself to get up and move sometimes, but the reward was usually worth it. After the Ovie incident, I had been taking a lot of walks in the evenings by myself. I hated to mope when I was down, but it was hard to not think about everything with the Ovie incident when I was by myself. It was hard to think about getting attacked, and even harder to think about the new layer to my relationship with Jeans.

It was nice when I ran into a friend in need of something, I was wandering around the gazebo area of the grounds, which had a fancy fountain at its center. I really liked sitting at the fountain and just watching the water flow, even if my appreciation for the statue work of the fountain was ruined when Kalei pointed out it was a bunch of awkwardly placed Cani spraying water from their mouths (in her words, "See that fountain. Cani puking their guts out.") instead of a neat looking assortment of shapes that weren’t anything like I thought.

When I was alone and unoccupied, I couldn’t shake the idea that I knew I wasn’t Jeans’ ‘main’ girl. Even though I had no way of knowing, and Jeans kept it completely hidden from me. I kept wondering if I should have done more. Any site I had Jeans added on, was she not on her main account so Ovie wouldn’t see? So I wouldn’t see anything with her and Ovie? Did she give any accidental hints in person about it, and if she did, how did I miss them?

My usual stop and think time was interrupted, as the fountain was crowded with students from Rising and Falling Shards, all chatting about something I hadn’t heard of. Hade-o something? I tried searching what they were saying but wasn’t getting anything. Even Elisa Burwell was there, so I had to assume her idol Osiris was involved with whatever this thing was.

“Honestly, this and Dentist Haircut so close together, we really are in a cultural renaissance,” a girl from Rising Shards said.

“I don’t like the casting of Grado Diconius though,” a boy from Falling Shards said. “I’m not going to buy the guy from Delectable Sunrise taking down a whole helicarrier.”

“No, it’s perfect, you idiot,” another girl from Rising Shards said. “He’s gonna capture the pathos Grado needs, don’t you get it?”

“The important thing is that Osiris is doing the title track and curating all the other songs for the soundtrack,” Elisa Burwell said, butting her head into the conversation.

Whatever they were talking about was giving me a headache, so I went back to my room.

“Zeta!” Oka said as soon as I opened my door. She was at the small table in the front area working on homework. I wasn’t expecting her to be back in our room already.

At least I had her. I didn’t want to cling to her and force her to deal with me being mopey as I was dealing with the Ovie incident’s aftermath, so I hadn’t talked to her too much about it after we met in the nurse’s office. I didn’t want to burden her with my problems.

“Hi Oka,” I said. “Don’t you have play practice tonight?”

“No, we have the night off,” Oka said. “Say Zeta, why is everyone who's not talking about Dentist Haircut talking about Hado Diconius? What’s Hado Diconius?”

“Is that what that thing is called?” I asked. “I keep hearing about it too, I have no idea what it is!”

Right as I said that Kalei got back from whatever she was doing. “Kalei, what’s Hado Diconius?”

Kalei marched past us and went to her bed, opened her backpack up and started to throw stuff into it.

“Big comic going right now,” Kalei said. “It’s getting a movie adaptation soon, and there’s a convention in LE this weekend about it.”

“Oh,” I said. “What’s it about?”

Kalei finished putting her stuff in her backpack. She pulled something out of it before zipping it up.

“Here, take a look,” Kalei said, handing me a paperback comic.

I opened up Hado Diconius Volume #37 and it fumbled out of my hands right away as if she had just handed me a scalding piece of metal. “Ew, Kalei, why is everyone naked in this?”

“Oh come on, not everyone is naked.”

“I opened up to a random page and saw someone’s…” I said, then whispered. “…dingus.”

“It’s a raw, brutal, true to life comic.” Kalei said.

“I just opened to a random page too and everyone was naked on it,” Oka said, paging through the comic. “How are they gonna make a movie of this? Aren’t there like decency rules for movies?”

“It’s a raw, brutal, true to life comic, how many times do I have to tell you?” Kalei said. “And the movie is gonna be so faithful it’s probably gonna be unrated. But there hasn’t been any footage released yet.”

“I don’t know how you can release…any footage of this.” Oka said, continuing to page through the comic. Kalei swiped it from her.

“It’d probably be better if you started from the beginning,” Kalei said. “I’m going to the convention right now actually so I’m gonna be gone for the weekend. Then when I’m back it’s just a few days from Dentist Haircut!”

“What, really?” I said.

“Zeta, you bought the tickets, you know when Dentist Haircut is,” Kalei said.

“Not that,” I said, remembering how long I had to spend verifying that I actually did buy the Dentist Haircut tickets before Kalei believed me. “The gone for the weekend part.”

“Yep, you and Oka have the place to yourselves, so you know the rules. No Tower eps for Oka until I get back.”

Oka looked a bit sad.

“Well, I got play practice off today because of weekend practice,” Oka said. “So I wouldn’t go to the dingus comic convention even if I wanted to. And that’s ‘dingus comic’ convention, not ‘dingus comic convention,’ I’m not making fun of you for liking it, Kalei.”

“Thanks for the clarification?” Kalei said.

“Oh, that reminds me!” Oka said. “I told you guys I would be at theater camp this weekend, right? It’s in LE, too. We’re gonna go to this college and then a big theater and everything!”

“Maybe, if you did, I wasn’t listening,” Kalei said.

“You mean I’m gonna be all alone this weekend?” I asked.

“You could use some space after everything, right?” Kalei asked.

“Yeah, that’s true…” I said. I didn’t want to sound too bummed out because Oka was really excited about her camp, and she was even more adorable when she was excited about something. 

* * *

I was already dealing with strong moping energies from the Ovie incident, and I felt even worse as Oka left the morning after for her theater camp. I was hoping I would sleep in, so I didn’t see her leave, but I woke up right as she finished packing.

I knew it was just going to be for a few days, but it still hurt to think about at breakfast. The cafeteria seemed emptier, not just because Oka wasn’t there, but a lot of people were gone. I had a sinking feeling the school was going to be pretty empty that weekend from people either going to the Hado Diconius convention or at theater club or whatever other club decided this was the weekend for trips.

Kalei patted me on the shoulder.

“You’ll be fine, Zates,” Kalei said. “I have a surprise for you before I go.”

Kalei handed me a blindfold.

“Put this on,” Kalei said.