Rising Shards

“Huh?” Oka asked as she rolled out of bed. “You know, I am keyed up. Let’s go somewhere!”

“Alright! Where?”

“…I don’t know!” Oka said. “But I’m feeling all cramped in here.”

“I think you need to go out somewhere and talk like a normal person and not a sociopathic shopkeeper.” I suggested.

Oka promptly changed into more comfortable clothes and rushed me out into the hallway. I had no idea where we would end up, but her enthusiasm was infectious.

“Kalei’s out and about too, we might run into her.”

“That’d be great!” Oka said. “It’d also be great if we don’t. Cuz, you know.”

Oka suddenly gave me a goofy light headbutt to the shoulder.

“You are so hyper.” I said.

“I just,” Oka said. “I dunno, it’s just so nice to see you. Being at play practice and having choir makes my Zeta time that much more special.”

“Aw,” I said. “I agree. Even if my club isn’t the same kind of stressful as yours.”

“How is your club going?” Oka asked.

“Well, we’re working on the script for the second commercial now,” I said. “And by ‘working on,’ I mean we haven’t gotten anything done. At least KJ lowers the intense infatuation for Rain whenever cameras, scripts, or filming are mentioned. But then Amara sees that as an opportunity to ultra fawn over Rain.”

Oka was walking so fast it was hard to keep up. We went outside and wandered the school grounds, following the stone paths dividing the grass that zigzagged around from building to building.

“And you have til the end of the semester to make it all?” Oka asked as she leapt onto a little stone side wall next to the path we were on, holding her arms out to balance as she walked.

“Yeah, til the end of the semester for at least five,” I said. “Did they give you an energy drink today or something?”

“Nope, this is all Zeta energy,” Oka said.

Oka looked a little embarrassed that she said that out loud, but any reaction I had to that was overridden by my heart feeling full just hearing it. And also bathumpy. But I was having too much fun already to worry about that.

As we did a few laps of the school grounds, we passed by plenty of other students that looked like they were gearing up to head into town. Since the premiere was still hours away, they didn't seem to be in a hurry. One student did, though. Ko Matora marched along one of the paths, looking like she was in a big hurry. She paused for a second when she saw me, giving a quizzical look before continuing on.

Before I had time to really think about that, my phone buzzed.

“Alright, Kalei just texted me when we’re gonna meet up,” I said. “She said we can take the bus down and that our…wheatbands? Oh, she must mean wristbands…anyways, they can work as tickets, so we don’t have to pay anything.”

“How much time do we have?” Oka asked.

“We have an hour before we have to be there,” I said.

“I declare this hour to be just for us, then!” Oka said. “Zeta and Oka time!”

I suddenly had an idea.

“Why don’t we just take the bus down now?” I asked. “Just you and me, we can meet Kalei in Sky Clay proper then.”

“Zeta and Oka, cruising the mean streets of Sky Clay,” Oka said, speaking it out loud as if she needed to hear it pitched as like a TV show before she could picture it. “Let’s do it! Would Kalei be OK with that?”

I texted her if we could meet her at Sky Clay so we could head over there now, and she said that was fine as she needed to burn off some more nervous energy. I told her she’d have to get in touch with Nikki then, to which Kalei responded with a keysmash and a few all caps “NO” messages.

“Planning things is hard,” I said. “Maybe we should check with Nikki before we go because I don’t have her number and Kalei’s running around.”

“Or we can just go and not see Dentist Haircut?” Oka asked.

“I’d probably like that too,” I said. “But Kalei would kill us.”

“But then we could skip seeing Dentist Haircut,” Oka said. “We can pick up the main details through cultural osmosis anyways. That’s how I learned about that space movie with the bee guy. You know?”

“I don’t know what any of that means,” I said. “We’ll find her quick and then go, and then it’s Zeta and Oka time!”

“Do you know where she’d even be?” Oka asked.

I realized I had no idea, and I really didn’t want to waste potential solo Oka time hunting her down. I called Kalei.

“Kalei, where do you think would Nikki be around now?”

“U-uh, well,” Kalei said. “Around now…I think she goes to play guitar on the grounds in the gazebo with the yellow flag on top.”

“You know her routine pretty well,” I said, teasing her a bit.

“Y-yeah,” Kalei said. It was weird to hear her all flustered like this, but still kinda sweet. “Are you going to tell her the plan then?”

“Yes, so you don’t have to,” I said.

“You’re a very good friend, Zeta,” Kalei said.

“And don’t you forget it.”

As Kalei said, Nikki was in one of the gazebos on the school grounds. Each one had a flag on the top. On such a nice evening, most were pretty full, but Nikki was alone in hers, strumming on an acoustic guitar and singing lightly.

“She has a really nice singing voice,” Oka said. “She should join choir with me. But then you’d be out a club member. Or! If she was in two clubs. But then again, I don’t know if someone who joined a lazy club to be lazy would want another club on their resume. And a club that takes up a whole class period, at that.”

“Nikki seems pretty free spirited so I don’t know if I could guess either way.” I said.

I wasn’t sure how to interrupt her mid song, so Oka and I just stood there awkwardly until she finished.

“Oh hey dudes,” Nikki said. “Ready for the movie?”

I relayed the plan to her, and she was characteristically chill about it.

“I’ll catch Kalei and meet you guys at the theater then,” Nikki said. “Oh hey, do you have her number?”

I resisted giggling as I gave Nikki Kalei’s phone number. I could not imagine how Kalei would react having her crush randomly text her.

“Alright sweet, thanks!” Nikki said, and went back to playing music.

“She definitely is a free spirit,” Oka said. “So it’s us time?”

“Yes!” I said. I almost said, “It’s a date.” But caught myself and turned date into deal at the last second, saying “It’s a daa-eeeeal.”

As we waited for the bus, I realized I had wanted to cute myself up a bit more for the hangout tonight. I was fine in casual clothes, but I wanted to look extra nice for Oka. The bus pulled up.

“Come on!” Oka said, and I decided not to bail to run back to our room to take an hour on that.

“It’s kinda weird we never go to Sky Clay,” I said as we sat down. “We don’t even need day passes for it like LE and Iho Vinai.”

“We’re just two crazy cats with too little time on our hands for the small flies at Sky Clay.” Oka said.

“Huh?”

“It’s that play dialogue, it’s breaking me,” Oka said. “But hey, I memorized a line enough to paraphrase it so that’s good, right?”

The ride from Rising Shards to Sky Clay’s main street only took about five minutes, but the long and winding road from Rising Shards would have taken us forever to walk. The main street had lots of stores and restaurants all crammed in together, and the movie theater had big glowing lights on it so it was hard to miss.

“I see two movie theaters,” Oka said. “They’re right next to each other at least so we can correct easily if we go to the wrong one.”

Both theaters had signs on its walls declaring how much better it was than the other movie theater. I tried to not let it hit me too greatly that I was alone hanging out with my crush/best friend, who was in the giddiest and cutest mood she’d been in and said it was because of me. But like how trying to not think about something usually goes, it just made me think about it more.

“S-so, now what?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Oka said.

“Let’s get dinner,” I blurted out, my voice cracking as I realized what I was asking halfway through. Logic part of brain screamed in panic, and emotional side screamed in joy.