Rising Shards

"Nosebleed Seats"

Kalei didn’t look up as I approached. She sat at the front of the bleachers, with the only other students not taking part in the swimming being Ema Kari and Snake Riley, who were at the top of the stands napping in what appeared to be awful sleeping positions that hurt my back looking at them.

As I sat down next to a heartbroken Kalei, I tried to think of some ways I could make her feel even a little better. It took me the time for a set of girls to finish a relay before I had the idea to crack the tension Kalei style.

“So…bloody over here today, huh?” I said, nodding my bloody nose at Kalei's taped up hand. When I first saw her hand on the rescue mission, I assumed she got wounded during a fight with Ovie and 09, but she confided in us afterwards that the fights only worsened the cuts and bruises on her hands, and that she really got them when she went into an understandable rage punching and stomping everything up when she found out about Nikki having a girlfriend.

“Pfft.” Kalei said. She had the slimmest of smiles, which was a win considering everything she was going through, and because my joke was fairly lukewarm. “What, you get a nosebleed to get out of swimming?”

“Accidentally, I belly flopped a bit trying to show off.” I said. I stopped myself before saying ‘for Oka,’ as we talked about in our friend meeting, none of us dating anyone wanted to make Kalei think we were rubbing her nose in how good our relationships were going compared to hers.

“Sounds like a real Zates maneuver there,” Kalei said. "At least your tail didn't get sucked into the vents."

"I tried keeping it in my swimsuit," I said. "Which was really uncomfortable, maybe that contributed to me flopping, my balance was off!"

"Well, at least it's not all gross then, I guess," Kalei said. "I hope you don't smell like Marshy when I have to give him a bath."

"After we were at the pool at Oka's place, it just smelled like chlorine." I said. My tail was still a bit damp, but I aired it out a bit while I was nose bleeding in the showers, because it wasn't fair to be uncomfy all over. "You know, this belly flop isn't a bad idea if I ever need to get out of swimming again. Just hop down in the water and get a nosebleed right away. Usually I would just tell Stella to get me out of it.”

“I’m sure,” Kalei said. “How’d you ever learn how to swim then?”

“I had lessons outside of school,” I said. “I’m not…the worst swimmer.”

Not wanting to make this about me, my attention turned back to the rest of class swimming up and down the lanes.

“Junea called them ‘back and forthies,’” I said.

“She’s so friggin’ annoying.” Kalei said.

“I bet you’d be crushing these back and forthies right now if you were out there,” I said.

“Oh, for sure.” Kalei said. “Half these girls have real crap form, that’s making me more bummed out than…” She stopped herself mid-joke.

“How are you doing today?” I asked.

“Bad.” Kalei said.

“I’m really sorry.” I said.

“Yeah…” Kalei said.

“After my thing with my parents, Diast took me out in the void to go smash up some void monsters,” I said. “That really helped me. So maybe we can go do that during void class?”

“I definitely would want to break some crap,” Kalei said. “Slashing up junk in the void with bloodsabers would probably be better than just smashing up something on campus.”

I nodded, feeling like I was getting somewhere. I couldn’t be too eager about it, and I had to remind myself the goal wasn’t to rush and try and fix Kalei immediately whenever it hit her, getting her back to her snarky, constantly talking back self, just to help her through the rough patch.

“Would you want to play some games afterwards?” I asked.

“You’d want to play games today?” Kalei asked.

“Maybe not me playing,” I said. “But I’m pretty invested in that story one you started. Not the horror one, the adventure-y one.”

“Zup is pretty badass…” Kalei said.

“Oh, also,” I said. “Would you want to try out Operation: Do We Like Boys soon?”

“What?” Kalei asked. “What the hell is that?”

“Remember at the sleepover?” I asked. “We were gonna go to Falling Shards and observe boys.”

“Why?” Kalei asked.

“To see if we like boys?”

“You know that’s just gonna confirm our gay asses are still gay, don’t you?” Kalei asked.

“Yeah, but,” I said, trying to phrase it delicately. “After the weekend, it’d maybe be like good to know that our gay…butts. Are still gay. So no like, self-doubts or anything?”

Kalei had talked a lot to us about worries and doubts she had about liking girls, so my worry, well, our worry, it was something we all kinda came to together after Iris and Maia left and we could talk more freely about what our intents were without the duo getting us all distracted with their confusion, was that she’d respond to the Nikki incident by bottling up those feelings, instead of letting them flourish.

“I dunno if I wanna bother,” Kalei said. “At least not yet, sorry.”

“That’s totally fine,” I said.

"LIke maybe at some point but...eh." Kalei said. “But like can we all meet up after class? I mean, like the quartet. Marmalade is awesome, I’m just…I feel like I might cry a whole bunch and you guys are the only ones I’m cool crying around at school.”

“Of course!” I said.