Rising Shards

I knew I had started my new business giving dating advice on the dance floor, but Tay had some really great pictures of Zeta in her scrapbook that took my attention. Long enough that the love trio, Michi, and Tay got up.

"Oh, sorry!" I said.

"No, all good," Michi said. "I guess we're gonna dance for a bit, then come back, if that works for you."

"Totally!" I said.

Tay crossed her arms and squinted at me. "Can I trust you for a few songs with one of my notebooks?"

"I...think so?" I said. "I'm just looking at the ones of Zeta. And me, I guess, but mostly Zeta."

"Aww," Zeta said.

Tay sauntered over and set her leather bag down next to me, where it landed with a heavy thud. She carried it with ease though, I guess I had seen her hauling that bag around everywhere. "Keep an eye on my other tomes as well."

"Can do!" I said, saluting.

Michi waved as they left with the others.

"You OK maybe potentially losing some clientele like that?" Zeta asked. "I guess they said they'd be back..."

"I'm sure they will, and hey, it's good advertising," I said. "Wouldn't you want dating advice from someone who couldn't tear their eyes away from pictures of their partner? That...came out creepy, wait."

Zeta laughed. "No, I get it. It wasn't that creepy." She scooted her chair closer to me. "Oh, hey, I remember that!" She pointed to a picture of us posing, so it was one we were aware Tay was taking at least (again, none of the pictures were really creepy, I more found it charming than anything, especially after seeing this treasure trove of Zeta pictures). I had a blue sweater on, and Zeta had a blue Tower of Hate and Love t-shirt on.

"What was that called, blue shirt day?" I said. Like within the first month of the fall semester we had an event week (Penteldtam's idea) where we had some kind of silly outfit each day of the week to give us a break from the uniforms. But it was so early on that I didn't really need a break from the uniforms yet. But it let me see Zeta in new outfits, and I got to try new stuff on too.

"Something like that," I said.

"I remember Tay asking us if she could take the picture," Zeta said. "I think that's the first one she took of us?"

"Potentially the first," I said.

"Potentially, right," Zeta said.

"We've come a long way since then," I sighed wistfully, noticing that the two of us were standing close in the photo, but not that close. Now not only could Zeta and I sit real close, but we could do a lot of other things close, too.

"Sure have," Zeta said. "I pretty much look the same though, I think."

"I dunno, Zeta, I think you've changed a lot," I said, looking back and forth between the picture and now. She was still cute a few months ago, don't get me wrong, but looking at the picture now knowing what Zeta was going through, I could almost see the burden of it weighing on her, dealing with Jeans, the aftermath of dealing with Jeans, in between dealing with Jeans again, topping that off with not knowing much about her family, going to a new school, all sorts of stuff. I guess she still had that weighing on her, and more with Ana and her parents, but...she was brighter now. Like there was an unseen glow to her.

"If you're gonna talk about my boobs, maybe just get to it," Zeta teased, circling around her chest in the photo with a fingertip.

"I didn't want to start there!" I said. "I was gonna work my way up to that."

"Or that we have tails now," Zeta said, her cat-like tail pointing upward for emphasis.

"Or that we have tails now!" I said. "Did you forget? You sound like you forgot."

"I didn't...entirely forget," Zeta said. "Sometimes I just don't think about it, you know?"

"I wanted mine for so long, I think about it all the time," I said.

"That's fair, I guess I never really wanted mine," Zeta said.

"But it's cute," I said. "I was going to say you just look a bit less...like the weight of the world is on you now."

"Oh," Zeta said. She leaned in closer to the picture. "I can see that with you, too, I think."

I guess I was going through it, too. My childhood at Tesata was something I'd probably never fully get over, and when this picture was taken I was still processing how to function in a place that didn't feel like it and everyone in it hated me.

"Now things are a lot better, right?" Zeta said.

"Mhm," I said. "Not perfect, but so much better."

Zeta pointed to the background behind us in the picture, a construction paper beach that I guess was supposed to not be the beach at Rising Shards, but a tropical one instead, as it had palm trees.

"This reminds me," Zeta said. "I wanna go somewhere with you."

"Oh yeah?" I asked.

"Stella keeps talking about going on a vacation, she feels bad she went on one with Dr. Diast without me, but I didn't mind that," Zeta said. "If Stella and Diast do take me somewhere, I want you there."

"Or we go on a trip where it's just us," I said. "But that might take a while given neither of us have jobs or are old enough."

"True, but I still wanna dream, you know?" Zeta said.

"I was gonna go on a choir trip to Jiru to the capital, but since I quit that's not happening," I said.

"That probably wouldn't have been a very fun trip, would it?" Zeta astutely guessed.

It was something we both wanted already, but I mentally moved it higher on my list of things I wanted to do with Zeta as she turned a page. She immediately turned to the next one.

"A full spread for the foil shoes incident is not cool," Zeta said.

"Even just one picture would be too much there," I said, trying to shoo away that embarrassing memory. "Kalei trying to get the heat off of us by being way too into baseball caps was nice of her, though."

"I don't think she did that on purpose, I think she was just really in a baseball cap phase," Zeta said.

We both giggled, our eyes meeting. Zeta's smile trailed off.

"Something up?" I asked.

"I...want something else now," Zeta said.

"Oh?" I said. "Another vacation or some other thing we gotta do?"

"Something I wanna do right now," Zeta said. "Would that be alright?"

Zeta taking charge moments were to be cherished, so I tried to think of the words to say I welcomed whatever she was after, provided she remember that we were also surrounded by friends and classmates.

"People might be watching," I said.

We glanced around to see, nobody was looking our way at the moment. Zeta inched closer, pressing her lips to mine slowly, but also needily, that need increasing each second as the kiss got deeper. My arms went to her shoulders, and she cradled my face in her hands.

"C-careful," I whispered, checking when we caught our breath to make sure the others hadn't gotten back yet, or if anyone was staring.

"Hey, it's good advertising..." Zeta said. "Wouldn't you want dating advice from someone who can't keep their hands off their partner?"

I couldn't argue with that. As we tend to do, we lost ourselves in each other, the rest of the dance not mattering much at that moment. Hell, if I was a bit bolder, I would've been fine calling it a day there and retreating to one of our rooms. I thought about it, but I wanted Zeta to keep kissing me as long as she could, and by the time we were finished, our friends had come back for more dating advice, catching us just a moment after we finished, where it was very obvious what we'd been up to. Good advertising, hopefully?

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