Rising Shards

I watched as Caya beat up a cylindrical punching bag. She looked like she was in the middle of a pretty intense workout, but she still nodded at me and didn’t tell me to beat it as I approached her. After another punch she took a breather to get a drink.

“You’re training pretty hard,” I said. “Trying to catch up to Blude?”

“Who?” Caya asked.

“That hero guy? Tokickaman?” I said.

“Ah,” Caya said. “No, not them. I’m trying to catch up to a certain wolf Kanibari who I saw rip a boulder out of the ground with her bare hands.”

“Ohhh,” I said. “That’s Kara, right? She seems pretty badass.”

“Yeah,” Caya said. “And I’m not remotely at her level, and I need to be stronger if I want to face any looming threats.”

“Sounds like you wanna be a hero, too,” I said.

Caya shrugged. “I want to protect my students, and my school.”

“I get it,” I said. “I don’t really get this hero business, though. You see all the news? Why is one Cani fighting some dudes such a big deal? Don’t we fight some dudes constantly? No offense to Tokickaman, but you’re way tougher and I can tell just seeing a five second clip of them.”

“Thanks,” Caya said. She took another sip from her bottle. “Try thinking of it this way. There are billions of people in the world. How many beam chasers players do you think there are?”

“Probably like, millions? Every school plays it, right?” I said.

“How many players have you seen that are amazing? Undeniably good?” Caya asked.

“Lots,” I said. “A good player pushes me to go farther.”

“I’m the same way,” Caya said. “But how many amazing beam chasers players make it to the pro leagues?”

“Like…way, way less,” I said.

“And what stopped the ones who didn’t? Some due to skill, sure, but many who get to the top are lucky, or have connections. These heroes are the same way.”

“I guess, yeah,” I said.

“A combination of luck, talent, media backing, and a burden you likely would not want to bear,” Caya said. “So don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get twelve news stories about the next gigantic void monster you defeat.”

“Huh,” I said. “You’re the first person to explain that in a way that made sense.”

I wondered how Caya would feel about the other thing bugging me. While I was getting advice, I figured I might as well ask.

“You’re married, right?” I asked.

“My personal life is not talk for a classroom,” Caya said.

“We’re not in a classroom,” I said.

“We’re on school grounds,” Caya said.

“Kay, fine, but I don’t mean…there’s just this riddle going around…” I said. “What do you do if you have a crush on the wrong person?”

“What, like a teacher?” Caya asked. “If you have a crush on a teacher, then I can only offer you advice on how to move on from that. Hopefully a teacher doesn’t feel that way about you.” Her brow furrowed. “A teacher didn’t ask you out or anything, did they?”

“Oh my god, chill,” I said.

“I take that sort of thing incredibly seriously,” Caya said. “Someone could be joking when they’re trying to hint at uncomfortable matters.”

“What, jumping to conclusions?” I said. “Nobody asked me out, nobody has a crush on me. Definitely not a teacher, what the hell? I don’t even think I have a crush on anyone. It’s just some puzzle someone said. Like a riddle.”

“Hm,” Caya was scary when she smelled blood, I imagine if I did answer yes to any of those worries that the teacher on the receiving end would be like that punching bag.

“It’s just the riddle, seriously,” I said. “And for some reason, I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Why do you think that is?” Caya asked.

“I dunno,” I said. “Maybe I’m sad that my crushes don’t pan out. Well, I’ve just had one, but still. It went pretty bad, and now her current girlfriend is a Wildfire Hearts student that won’t leave me the hell alone for no reason I can figure out. Or maybe it’s because someone did ask me out, but I didn’t feel like they really meant it, or really wanted it, or really put the work in to date me. It all just ties back to that crap. Maybe I feel like I’m the wrong person.”

Caya nodded, one of her solemn nods that makes you feel like she said a bunch without actually saying anything. “My advice for dating life is unfortunately not on par with my general life advice, I have to admit.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “It’s kinda nice just letting it out.”

“But I will say that if you’d care to, please report that Wildfire Hearts student. I realize this isn’t the ideal place for it, so next time I’m in my office you can, or with any of the other teachers. As much as Wildfire Hearts wants to skirt around it, bullying isn’t tolerated here.”

“Try telling them that,” I said. “I mean, having an evil school that just gets to do whatever to us? That’s so stupid.”

“It’s an absolutely broken system, and I’m sorry we haven’t been able to help you all from it more.”

I let out some kind of agitated grunt in response. I appreciated her words, but what was she gonna do about a busted system? I knew I should probably tell her about P.D. though.

"Not to loop this back to that hero, but...that makes me think of something," Caya said. "I've studied the times where a hero craze takes hold of the public, and when they feel like they're everwhere. I've read interviews with the heroes, biographies, watched documentaries, you get the gist. One consistent thread across all the tales, all the history, is that these folks find themselves losing what they care about in pursuit of their goal."

"You sound like a crappy PSA right now, not gonna lie," I said.

"I'm not trying to scare you out of it. If the opportunity does arise for you to have that spotlight on you, to chase after a noble dream of protecting others, I won't discourage you from making that choice. But be aware if you reach that fork in the road, and you care about finding a romantic partner, keeping up with your friends, that sort of thing, you may be sacrificing that part of your life. Not a guarantee, mind you, but we aren't kidding when we say the path of these heroes is different from our own. Not just in the way they tend to end, but in what must be given up in the process."

"You sound like you're speaking from experience," I said.

"I do a lot of research," Caya said.

Damn, this one stung for some reason. It would be cool to be like that blue guy, but...flashes of my friends passed before me. My instinct was that I could totally juggle having friends with an ass-kicking hero life, maybe we could all be a big super hero team even, but Caya comparing it to beam chasers earlier made me think of all the autobiographies of the big beam chaser stars who ended up divorced, friendless, alone. Because they wanted to be at the top, and gave up everything pursuing it. I wasn't about to fly over to East Valataran to fight crime, but if that choice came my way, what would I do? Would I do something that risked me losing out on Zeta, Oka, Lillia, hell, even Roux? What would I do if I lost Marmalade? 

"I hope things do work out for you, and that if your negative feelings persist, please talk to a counselor on campus."

“Can do,” I said.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should get back to my workout,” Caya said.

I left her continue her punching, returning to the dorms. I didn’t really have a good answer for what I was feeling, but at least when I talked about it, I could verbalize some of the crappiness going on. I didn’t know how many people I needed to vent to about Nikki or Risa before I started feeling better.

“Zates is out again,” Marmalade announced when I got back. “Eep, I think that’s the first time I called her ‘Zates.’”

“Well, it’s her nickname, you don’t need my permission to use it,” I said.

“Alright,” Marmalade said. “Yeah, she’s spending the night at home again.”

Zeta had been spending nights more and more at her sister’s new place. She was a homebody at heart, so it was surprising anyone got her to stay in a dorm.

“I don’t mind it, but she better not move out,” I said. “I got lucky with you as Oka’s replacement, but who knows who we’d get next time?”

I bragged to Marms a bit about my day, offering to buy her a game if she wanted with my hero earnings. She was in the middle of playing a superhero game herself, so I plopped down beside her.

“Hey, I never got to hear what you thought of that riddle,” I said. “Sorry, I’m still on that.”

“It’s OK,” Marmalade said. “The crush one, right?”

“Yeppers,” I said, putting some extra pop into the p’s of it.

“I think it’d be very lonely,” Marmalade said.

Lonely, huh?

“That’s for sure,” I said.

“Even just thinking your crush is the wrong one, or it’s unrequited, it just kinda makes me sad,” Marmalade said. “I asked Michi about it just a bit ago.”

“Oh, for real?” I said. “Did they tell you?”

Marms almost smiled. “I shan’t say,”

“They totally did,” I said. “Is it me? Zeta? Oka? Lillia? You?”

“No, nope, no, no, and no,” Marmalade said.

“It’s a teacher then, I knew it,”

“It’s not a teacher,” Marmalade said. “I shouldn’t even say anything.”

“Now I’m really curious,” I said. “Did it make more sense after they said it?”

I tried to picture who Michi would even crush on. They were pretty quiet, so I didn’t know much about them.

“Kinda,” Marmalade said. “They didn’t say it say it, but they helped me understand it.”

“And?”

“It’s lonely, like I said,” Marmalade said.

“Dang,” I said. “Well, we don’t have to keep making ourselves sad. I hate to quote Roux of all people, but they said pretty girl smooching could be in our future, and I want to believe that.”

That got a smile out of Marmalade. Then she laughed. “Dude.”

“What?” I asked.

“How can you say that with a straight face?”

“I believe it!”

“The pretty girl smooching part, what the hell?” Marmalade laughed. “It’s the combo of word choice and you looking dead serious that’s killing me.”

“Roux came up with it!” I said. “Enough about that, how’s this game going?”

“Pretty good! The DLC is a waste of money though, don’t bother, it just gives you a top hat…”

Making Marmalade laugh was like a remedy for my confusing feelings. If I could make her smile, my worrying about some lonely riddle didn’t feel so pressing. It still churned in the back of my mind. Especially sitting across from Marmalade. What would I really do if the choice came down to becoming big and important or keeping friends like her?

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