Rising Shards

I must have been spacing out to intense levels cuz Zeta and Oka were waving their hands in front of me like I got my soul ejected and my body was just a husk.

"Everything alright?" Oka asked.

"That was kinda freaky, you had this super distant look in your eyes," Zeta said.

"It's nothing," I said. "Well. Kinda something. You hear that thing that’s going around?”

"What thing?" Zeta asked. "Like a bad thing? Like that stomach virus that all the third years had?"

“I’m guessing she means that blue superhero guy,” Oka said.

“Well, that is also going around,” I said. “My mom got on my case thinking I’d go do something like that. But I don’t even get what’s different about what blue dude does compared to us. We have powers. We fight monsters. I dunno.”

“Blue dude,” Zeta said. “Blude.”

“They should so call that guy Blude!” Oka said. “That’s so good, Zeta.”

Zeta snickered.

“The Berint also warned me not to do any vigilantism if I get inspired by him,” Oka said. “Apparently all the safety checks they have for us in the void are not there if we’re doing battle like Blude, which makes sense, I suppose."

“Maybe he can beat that Exile guy up, I haven’t heard of him doing anything in forever,” Zeta said.

“What if the Exile got bored of whatever he was doing around here and took a trip out to East Valataran, got a new look, and is trying to turn a new leaf as a hero?” Oka suggested.

“It’s possible!” Zeta said. “But ya know, we’re not sure if Blude or the Exile are even guys. They could be lovely ladies. Though I guess the Exile probably isn't too lovely. But a lady? It's possible!"

“You are on a roll today, Zeta!” Oka cheered like Zeta suggesting some masked dude could be a masked lady was this mind-blowing thing. I liked how they hyped each other up.

“Wait, if Blude wasn’t what you were talking about, what’s the other thing going around?” Oka asked.

"Just a riddle type thing," I said. Why I didn't just say that it was something Michi said, I don't know. I didn't want to rat them out, maybe? It was part of how this had me all twisted up, my reactions weren't even making sense. “What if you had a crush on the wrong person?”

"What would 'wrong person' mean?" Zeta asked.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out!" I said. "Like say it's one of you. What do you picture when you hear that?"

"I guess me having a crush on someone who isn't Oka?" Zeta shrugged. "That feels wrong just saying it."

Oka's lip quivered, then Zeta's did. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes because I knew where this was going, but I still had to ask. Maybe I could gleam something out of the Zeta and Oka reaction I was about to experience.

"So then what?" I said.

"So then...I don't know, like if I had a crush now?" Zeta said.

"Let's just say before you two dated so we can avoid—" I started.

"I think my whole entire world would collapse if Zeta had a crush on someone else," Oka said, having a look probably twelve times more hollow and distant than the one I had moments before.

"—this kind of thing. Just think of the hypothetical and try to not get all. Anxiety disorder about it."

“But! If Zeta...” Oka’s voice got all warbly, shaking her head like she was about to throw up. “If Zeta loved someone…that wasn’t me. I would be brave…and let her set sail on those open seas. Those endless, boundless waves of Oka-free ocean..."

She's such a theater kid. 

“That’s not really the premise I was talking about,” I said.

“I’m following up on the story,” Oka said, wiping her eyes. “The story you inflicted upon me.”

“Okaaaa...” Zeta’s voice was even shakier. "I-if you, if you were, if you were gonna—if you loved the wrong person, a person who wasn't me, I'd I would, let you too."

“You’d do that for me?” Oka asked. At least that’s what I think she said, she could barely form a sentence at this point.

"It'd be like a sacrifice for true love," Zeta said. "Loving someone so much you let them pursue their own love, even if it isn’t you, even though the very idea is a dagger of despair in your heart, but—" She wheezed from how sad the idea made her. And then Oka started making these weird quacking noises.

And now they were both crying.

Yeah, this went about as well as expected.

"Ahhhh, then it turns out that both of you had a spell placed on you by an evil witch and you actually loved each other all along!" I winced. "So you don't have to make a big romantic sacrifice or whatever."

Zeta wiped her eyes. "OK..."

Oka couldn't form words for a few minutes. I really had to restrain myself from calling them babies, but I knew how sensitive they were when they started getting anxious about their future, so it was a tightrope between teasing and giving them an existential crisis.

"What the heck..." Oka said.

"That was really sad," Zeta said. "I guess we failed the riddle, huh?"

I shrugged. "Honestly, I have no idea. Maybe the right answer was somewhere in that sobbing mess you both plunged into immediately. I just can't stop thinking about this stupid question for some reason."

"Do you think you have a crush on a 'wrong person'?" Zeta asked.

"I mean..." I had my crush on Nikki that I wished I didn't. She was the wrong person in that she probably never liked me back and also had no idea I liked her and she started dating a bully in a sci-fi helmet, and was an airhead. But... “The weird thing is my Nikki crush feels all but…crushed? So I dunno why I keep thinking about this.”

"Maybe there's something that's triggering a response in you about it deep down that you can't understand yet," Oka said. "But one you want to understand, so you keep thinking about it."

"Like how we have a response to thinking about us not being together," Zeta said.

"That response is not deep down at all, and it's pretty easy to understand..." I said.

I left lunch without any answers, but still feeling like I needed to do something. 

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