Rising Shards

It wasn’t a good kiss. It was an awful and smooshy one, but it was filled with so much desperate care for the girl who had brought me through so much darkness, who had brought so much light to my heart.

When I finally broke the kiss, I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want the moment to end. Because then what if it ended? Would it just turn out to be a daydream, would Oka just run away, would I just run away, or would some horrible, unspeakable tragedy immediately strike us, rendering the whole thing pointless?

None of that happened, it was all just a rush of anxious worries rushing in as my adrenaline surged. But the kiss really did happen.

My hands snapped back to my sides along with my snap back to reality. Oka looked stunned and didn’t say anything for too long. I couldn't read her expression either past the shock; was she angry? Happy? Elated? Furious? Sad?

“Oh. Oh, wow.” Oka finally said, fingertips brushing against her lips as if to confirm that really just happened. “We should probably talk about this. Right?”

“I’m so sorry, did I just ruin everything?”

“No, no, Zeta—"

“Because I was just—"

"It's really—"

"I was acting without thinking and—"

Oka took my face in her hands this time and kissed me back. Oka was a lot less smooshy and therefore did a much better kiss than I had.

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Oka said. “We should just talk first.”

We both stared at each other, equal amounts of terror and affection in our eyes as Oka's hands moved to my shoulders.

“So we should actually talk to talk.” Oka said, half smiling.

“Sorry. I just can’t believe I just kissed you. Twice.” I said.

“I know,” Oka said, looking like everything was starting to sink in. “I can’t believe I just had my first two kisses.”

I saw tears streaking down her face.

“Oh, no, what is it?” I asked.

Oka sniffed, and pulled out a folded crumple of papers.

“I wrote a whole letter about asking about the possibility of us being something more someday, like three to five years in the future, that I genuinely rehearsed giving to you in speech form. And you just kissed me. Twice.”

“Three to five years?” I said.

“I was being optimistic,” Oka said. “And then you kissed me.”

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“I’ve never been this happy in my whole life.” Oka said, throwing the papers to the wind.

“Don’t you want to save those?” I asked.

“They’re really bad.” Oka said.

We watched as the papers tumbled around, getting caught in the sand. One landed near us.

“OK, maybe I want to save them.” Oka said, snatching it up before I could read any of it.

I felt so floaty as I helped Oka gather her papers. I didn’t read the other pages out of courtesy, but I had a glance at a page of Oka listing reasons for our compatibility in the most diplomatic and professional writing I’d ever seen for something like that.

“Are we rushing this?” I asked as I gave Oka her last paper. “I mean, we have only known each other for a bit, I guess...”

“You’re not rushing it,” Oka said. “At least not for me.”

“So are we…?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Oka asked. “Let go of how scared we are for a second. Do you like me?”

“Obviously! I love you!” I said. “More than anything.”

Time froze. Everything froze.

“I love you, too.” Oka said.

“And if we love each other…”

“Then what are we doing waiting?”

“I don’t know!”

We didn’t think, we kissed again. This one really felt like the first true kiss between us, it wasn’t smooshy or desperate, it was just a pure, sweet, innocent, loving kiss.

“Do you want to like,” I started, my face still close to Oka’s.

“Go out?”

“Or,”

“Or what, we’re going out.” Oka said.

“OK,” I said, the elation really starting to sink in. “Please go out with me, Oka Ohri.”

“Of course, Zeta Faleur,” Oka said. “Full names. Are we Aira now?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Kalei did say I was the Aira of the two of us.”

“She also said I’m the Lillia, and while Lillia is an incredibly cool person, I am no Lillia.”

“That you aren’t.”

“Do we tell people?” Oka asked. “Do we tell Kalei?”

“I don’t see why not,” I said. “The worst Kalei can do is tease us. Plus, ”

Now it was my turn to sniff, as I wiped some tears away from my face.

“You’re crying,” Oka said. “Oh my god, did I ruin everything?”

“No,” I said, my lips trembling. “I’m so happy I can't even remember what I was gonna say after 'plus.'”

Oka held me close, and we gently swayed back and forth a bit as we both cried out how happy we were.

“Me too," Oka said. "Sometimes I’d ask myself like, what if Zeta liked me back? My negative side would be like. She'd never like me back the way I like her.”

“Well, I do.” I said.

“Then you made my dreams come true.”

After our first true hug as a couple ended, it was getting to like risky levels of being outside late territory, but we didn’t really care. We were working our way back to the dorms, we’d get there eventually.

“Alright I have to also say,” Oka said. “I’ve been meaning to say this for a while. The tail. It’s really cute on you.”

“You've said that a lot already," I said.

"Well it means more now!" Oka said. "We're dating, I think the tail's even cuter now!"

"It's still just kinda weird.” I giggled. “But thank you.”

“Weird or not, I’m not taking it back. You look cuter with a tail. And you were already pretty cute before.”

“Then maybe I’ll keep it.” I said. “But if it ends up being a stress tail you can’t be mad.”

“You weren’t actually thinking of getting rid of it, were you?” Oka asked.

“No, but if it’s a stress tail it’ll like fall off, right?”

“Sure, maybe, but now you’re gonna be a lot less stressed because of me.” Oka said.

We locked eyes again as we reached a forested path back to the dorms. It didn’t look like there were any night guards around, so we had a clear shot to our room.

“You wanna run for it?” Oka said as she put her shoes back on. “Race you there?”

“If you get caught, I’ll stay for you,” I said.

“Likewise,” Oka said. “Alternatively, we can forget the race and hold hands as we walk there?”

“I like that plan,” I said.

“Then if we get caught, we can just get in trouble together easier.” Oka said.

“Sure, right,” I giggled.

“Or we can run even faster together to make sure neither of us gets in trouble!”

I couldn’t help beaming at my new girlfriend, even if I was smiling so widely my fangs were starting to poke my face.

“Either way, it’s with you,” I said. “So it’s perfect.”