Rising Shards

Initial impressions of this game as we got rolling: while Marmalade was great in practice, I think the pressure of the game was getting to her. Her movements were stiff and she seemed afraid to go any farther than the beam she started on. Hopefully she could shake the nerves off. The Matora sisters were playing as good as always, their aggressive defense putting them in a standstill with Scrungy's super aggressive playing. Roux...was also there, doing some weird bit where they were doing an old timey character twirling their 'cane' around. I couldn't even hear them that well as they put on a weird voice. No points had been scored yet, so at least Roux's wannabe theater/standup comedy hybrid wasn't costing us anything yet.

For our rival team past the aforementioned Scrungy, P.D. was unfortunately better at this than I hoped, and Nikki clearly had practiced a lot with her. They each had little moves that Nikki probably picked up from P.D., which would have immediately sent me into my contemplation mode if not for Risa. She was locked onto me, practically mirroring every motion I took on offense, flipping it over on defense. It was impossible to ignore her. So I decided if I was going to try my usual mid-game meditations, Risa would be a good place to start.

When did she get good at this? I thought as she blocked a shot from me, getting the ball from our team to hers.

She was never into any sports back home. Was she just hiding this, too?

I still wasn't sure if I really knew her. Which hurt when thinking about a childhood friend. We had barely even talked about her rich Taramin family crap since we met up again. I knew more about how Oka's life was since getting adopted by the Kilanders than I did for Risa and her family. It wasn't just the whole rich thing, though that did contribute. It was strange having two friends who practically stumbled into rich families. Well, Oka never got to really even enjoy anything with the Kilanders having money since they went broke. Still, Oka was a good model that I wished Risa followed.

Like, just tell me. Tell me about yourself more than what I know if you're going to ask me out.

I got the ball back and made a run for the goal, but Risa ended up clanging her staff against mine, sending the ball tumbling back toward the Matora sisters.

I wondered if she knew what I was thinking as we locked eyes for a second on the court.

I can't believe you asked me out.

The first person who ever asked me out, and it was Risa. It made sense when I thought about it in like, a logical, trace the line from A to B kind of way. We were childhood friends, we'd known each other forever, I probably had feelings for her growing up that I didn't understand. But in my gut it just felt weird. I adored Risa when it was just us as friends, and I was still unpacking what exactly I felt back then, but even still I couldn't get away from the churning feeling when I thought about her now.

When I talked about it with Oka, she said that me feeling bad about it was probably my answer, and that I should tell her how I was feeling, that if we were going to be something more than friends, that she had to put more effort in than just showing up and asking me out. I was real grateful for that chat, but I hadn't had a chance to talk about any of that with Risa. I wondered if after this game I could at least say something.

I jumped between beams, skating around Risa, flinging the ball to one of the goals, getting a point as Caeda clearly had no idea how to block anything with her long goalie staff.

As Scrungy yelled at Caeda for messing up an easy block, I ended up skating right by Nikki, who just grinned at me like this was just a fun game with no drama going on.

Nikki's not bad. That was the thought that hit me as I looped back to my side. It still hurt like hell, and I did still find her so cute, and she was so tied to my whole gay awakening deal that it was almost nostalgic to smile at her. She still hurt me, but she wasn't malicious. I couldn't think of a better way to phrase it, but she just came across as kinda dopey. Maybe not dopey in like general brain business, I thought she did fine in class, but maybe emotionally dopey. Like she was too chill to notice everything going on with us. And maybe she genuinely didn't notice how bad I was crushing on her. I wasn't sure, so I didn't want to go full salt at her. She had really bad taste in women though going by P.D., but I hoped she didn't have anything to do with whatever P.D.'s issue with me was. Maybe she really was just such an airhead that she didn't notice. Thinking about it though, maybe I dodged a bullet with her kinda sorta accidental rejection. If she couldn't notice how I was feeling at all, would things be any better if we were dating?

I can do better than that. And hell, maybe I deserve better than that.

Usually when I was in beam chasers thinking mode, my muscle memory carried me through. But maybe the combo of thinking about three big stressors on my social life made me a bit less good at the whole relying on muscle memory thing, as moments after I had that thought, I rammed directly into Marmalade, knocking us both off of the beam we skated on.

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