Rising Shards

We'd been sitting for what felt like hours. I was sure it wasn't actually that long, but we were all getting antsy. I started to wonder if Jeans was just playing us and this was some elaborate prank to get us to...sit down and not enjoy this dance at all. We weren't even making small talk, just sitting around playing on our phones or staring off toward the crowd of our friends actually having fun.

"Is this Blade chick still close? Because you've been sensing that for like an hour," I finally said.

Jeans projected herself outward. "Yes. She's close. And it's only been twenty minutes."

I stood up and stretched. "Alright, well if it's gonna be a while longer still, we're going," I said.

"What? No." Jeans said.

"It's one thing to sit out the lame dad band, but there's some actual good music playing now," I said. And I really wanted to dance with Marms, but I was too embarrassed to say that out loud.

"I'm telling you, we take care of Blade first, then you can enjoy the dance," Jeans said.

"I'm with Kalei," Marmalade said. "I'm not gonna sit around all day, this won't even go that long."

The rest of the group debated which side to take.

"Aira can just find us if you see Blade," I said. "Or like, sense her more strongly or whatever."

Jeans scoffed. "Fine. If that's the way you want to play this, then fine. But don't come crying to me when this doesn't work out."

"I dunno if you remember, but we're helping you," I said. "I mean, I'd be upset if Aira has to be stuck with you any longer, but I don't think I'll be crying about having fun instead of just sitting on our asses doing nothing. Like...have you even asked Aira how she feels about all this? Maybe she wants to dance."

I kind of cringed internally. I kept doing these self-righteous speeches lately, like the hero business we were doing was going to my head. I felt proud for a second before that was overwhelmed by feeling like a huge dweeb. But I did still hope I could almost get through to Jeans to maybe attempt to care about another person a little bit, too, so maybe I wasn't being that self-righteous.

Aira was just looking at the crowd, cheek resting on her hand.

"I...was half listening, sorry," Aira said. "Actually, I wasn't listening at all. I can tune Jeans out when she's talking."

"Which is the main reason I need to get out of this situation immediately," Jeans said.

"If you wanna dance Aira, and don't mind zipping around a bit to get us when Blade shows up, we should just go," I said.

I finally noticed what Aira was staring at. Or who, rather. Laenie was dancing with her new bicycle gang friends. Well, new-ish, they'd been hanging out for a while. Still a surreal sight seeing the tiny anxious girl trying to act tough around a bully duo in Ema Kari and Snake Riley, along with Kyre Krista, a girl who also looked like she was trying to act tough.

"Oh...you good, Aira?" I asked.

"Yeah, sorry. I just..." Aira said. "I miss her."

Aira blinked, and I was sure she was gonna cry, but she held her tears if she was going to. I moved to be beside her.

"Go talk to her, maybe?" I said.

"It's...not the same anymore," Aira said, a bittersweet sigh following. "We're still friends, but...just friends. We had a whole...breakup type thing. I'm trying to move on and all from us being anything more than friends."

"How well has moving on been going?" I asked.

"I ended up with better powers, and doing all this cool stuff," Aira said. "But I also...still miss her. So I haven't really moved on, have I?"

I knew Aira and Laenie had some troubles that put them apart, to put it mildly. But in that moment, it did feel like there was something wrong in the universe when they weren't on good terms.

"You don't need to go ask her out or anything, but I think you should go dance with her, at least," I said. "She'll probably be happy to see you."

"You think?" Aira said.

"I do," I said. "Come on, let's go."

As I looked around at my friends, I noticed that Roux wasn't present. They must've gotten bored waiting and left to go dance, slipping out unnoticed. We all got up, save for Syval, who kept nervously looking around as though someone was gonna rip his wig off and cast him out of the dance.

"Alright. I'm not happy about this, but alright," Jeans said.

Marms pointed at Syval.

"You're coming with, too," Marmalade said.

"Huh? Me?" Syval said. He cleared his throat, then tried a softer voice. "But I'm gonna stand out..."

"You're fine, you look great," Marms said. "You'll have fun, trust me."

I dunno how, but just saying that seemed to convince him. Honestly, as he rose to join us, I thought that If I didn't know him, I'd just assume he was a girl. "Fine, but if someone gets mad at me for being here, I'm flying away."

"Nobody will," Marmalade said.

"And I might be kind of clingy, sorry," Syval said.

With just a thin plan to get back together if the retention sprite user showed up, we split, with Aira heading toward Laenie's group, and the rest of us going into the crowd. I spotted Roux dancing with Raytris, and winked at them. They rolled their eyes in the back of their head for a second at me, then gave me a thumbs up. I couldn't quite get what they were trying to say with that, but they were having fun so that was the most important thing.

Right as we got into the big mass of students dancing, a girl with dark purple hair passed by us, stopping in front of Syval. My teammate looked like he was going to explode, but the girl laughed sweetly.

"Hey there," she said. "Want to dance with me?"

"Huh? Huh? Huh?" Syval said, pointing to himself and looking frantically at us. Marms and I each gave him a thumbs up as the girl started dancing. Syval joined in after a second.

"Told you," Marms said, but Syval probably couldn't hear that.

Now it was just me and Marmalade alone on the dance floor. Well, not alone, there were tons of people around us, but it felt like it was just me and her.

"Finally," Marmalade said, reaching out to me like we were gonna slow dance. I matched her pose, trying to remember the right place to put my hands. Marms winced and I thought I screwed something up. "Sorry. This isn't a slow dance song, is it?"

"It's fine," I laughed. "We can dance to faster songs like this too, yeah?"

Marmalade just beamed at me, not letting go as we finally got to dance together.

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