I waited another day before trying to get in touch with Cerise again. Ostensibly, this was because I wanted to give her plenty of time, to not make her feel rushed or pressured. Or too suspicious that I might have a hidden agenda of trolling her, I guess.

But really, I had to admit that it was more complicated than that. It's not like I was avoiding her. Honestly, I really really wanted to talk with her more. I was even beginning to regret the whole affectation of pretending to be Nocturnia. I wished I could just speak with her normally…

But, I was also seriously nervous.

It had to be because of the trolling. At first it was no big deal, but now all of a sudden it felt like this had stakes that I cared about. I didn’t want her to realize that I was messing with her. I didn’t want her to think that I— Well, I mean, I didn’t want her to catch on, because then it would be no fun.

But I couldn’t be scared to talk with her because I was afraid she’d stop talking to me. That made no sense. It just ends with us not getting to talk either way. I had to make the effort, and trust in my ability to think on the fly. I could make this work.

That afternoon, I logged onto the trojan control program and immediately saw activity. I took a deep breath, trying to organize my thoughts a bit better, and then opened up the window to see what she was doing.

I was immediately greeted with a whole web page of colorful dresses. I had to snicker to myself - she was clearly taking my advice to heart, alright. She was browsing some shopping site, scrolling through to look at their clothes.

Something caught my eye. “Oh! That light blue one with the buttons down the front is really cute,” I said. And then felt silly. And a little sad that she kept scrolling, so I couldn’t get a good look at it.

She stopped a bit lower, mouse cursor hesitating over a different one, black and trimmed with white flowers.

Again I wanted to say something… But I realized: I could.

Suddenly eager, I snagged mouse control, opened up our text editor, and began typing.

THAT ONE IS VERY CUTE
PERFECT FOR A CUTE GIRL LIKE YOU

Her quick response put a smile on my face.

Nocturnia!! You can’t just SAY things like that!

WHY NOT? IT IS TRUE

My grin deepened as a string of unintelligible characters spilled out as she smashed the keyboard. I had some mercy left in me, so I took keyboard control back to continue our conversation.

SO WHAT iS THE OCCASION?
ARE YOU WORKING ON YOUR ASSIGNMENT FROM LAST TIME?

This is more like… extra credit.

One of my eyebrows drifted up.

OH?

Yes, I did something like you said already. ...I 
went to Target. One far away from my house. And 
I bought some clothes. Women’s jeans… It’s not a 
dress or a skirt but it felt like kind of a 
start at least? And something I’d be more okay 
with wearing out of the house.

Huh. Yeah, that definitely counted. As someone else who had endured the vagaries of retail, I recognized the struggle.

I was really nervous about using the changing 
room to see if they fit or not, but no one 
seemed to care?

I blinked. Really? That was, like, above and beyond. 

You know, the more that I thought about it, the more that I realized that Cerise was really clever. Doing this at some far away place meant that even if something had gone wrong or the experience had turned weird, she could just leave and never come back again. And jeans? Brilliant. A lot of other people might just think you were wearing skinny jeans or whatever, but you would know the difference. Subtly affirming. That's good stuff.

Huh. There were lots of Targets around here too. I didn’t have a car, but I bet I could get Avery to drive me, and then find a way to ditch him in the home appliances aisle (he had opinions about water filters) and then by the time he found me, I could already be in the men’s section with a couple of pairs of girl’s jeans in between a couple of pairs of boy’s as camouflage. Even if he did notice I could fall back on the ‘oh, I wonder how these ended up in this section’ and ‘but they do fit well, why do we have to label clothes by gender so strictly’ and it wasn’t like Avery was all that observant to begin with—

Wait, what. What was I thinking?

...

I could take a bus, that’d be much easier.

But that wasn't the point. The point was I had to properly evaluate Cerise’s effort here, both in terms of ingenuity and in terms of effectiveness. And she scored highly on both counts. It wasn’t the most ambitious of ways to present yourself… it lacked the certain je ne sais quoi of, say, painting your nails a really awesome color with sparkles. But it was such a solid start.

I AM QUITE IMPRESSED WITH YOUR WORK

…And that’s not all.

Wait. What?

I wasn’t quite sure that just that would be good 
enough. I wasn't satisfied. So… I convinced my 
sister to help me out and show me how to put on 
eyeliner.

What?

JUST LIKE THAT? SHE WAS FINE WITH IT?

I think she thought it was sort of weird, but 
she humored me. She probably figures I’m going 
through a goth phase.

WHAT DID YOU DO? HOW HARD WAS IT? HOW DID IT LOOK?

It was really tricky at first because it felt 
like I was going to jab a brush right into my 
eye. But I was really careful and it came out 
mostly straight. My sister said it was good for 
my first try.

DID PEOPLE NOTICE?

A couple of my friends did, and said they liked 
the way it looked. I definitely did. I think 
mainly just sometimes people would do a double-
take, or stare at me, but were too polite to ask 
what was going on.

Fuck.

I felt… really fucking jealous. Here I was, supposed to be the one helping guide her and instead she had already jumped past me.

But that made sense, right? She obviously wasn’t going to sit around and rely on me entirely. No matter how much I kind of wanted that.

I took a deep breath. No, what I wanted was just to be included. To get to talk with her, to know what was going on, to watch as she got to be who she wanted to be. This was about her. Not me.

None of this was about me.

I crushed my uneasiness down, and tried to just let myself feel happy for her.

CONSIDER ME THOROUGHLY IMPRESSED, CERISE
THE MAGIC RESONATES DEEPLY WITHIN YOU

Only because I have a powerful friend helping me. :)

Is that what we were? Friends? Could you troll a friend? …Should you?

But then I realized: Your friends are the best people to prank. You have to know someone very well to know exactly how to push their buttons. Yes, this was good.

Friends.

I have another picture for you.

THAT YOU DREW?

…Yes.
It’s not very good though.
Actually, forget about it.

NO
I WANT TO SEE IT

Maybe I should work on it some more first.

CERISE IF YOU DO NOT SHOW ME THIS PICTURE
I WILL TAKE OVER AND OPEN EVERY FILE 
ON THIS COMPUTER UNTIL I FIND IT

Okay, okay!

To her credit, she only hesitated slightly before going to navigate through some file folders. Finally, she opened one with a nondescript name. It had dozens of image files inside, and I made a mental note to sneakily check back when I was certain she wasn’t around to actually look at all of them. But for the time being I just watched as she clicked on one in particular.

Despite her protestations, this one obviously had much more work put into it than either of the ones before. It was the view from a hill overlooking the titular Twinkle Witch Academy. Above, a full moon hung in the sky amidst a tapestry of stars. Two figures were seated on a bench, but facing away so you couldn’t see either of their faces… but again, the hair styles and clothing clearly marked them to anyone who knew anything about TWA as Nocturnia and Cerise. Their heads were neither pointed up at the stars, nor down towards the academy in the distance. Instead, they were tilted slightly towards one another, not quite looking at the other, but making their focus clear.

And they were holding hands. I definitely felt butterflies in my stomach now.

Good art will do that, y’know. And sure, maybe my brain had been poisoned by a lot of Twinkle Witch Academy fanfic in the past week, but I was only reading it so I felt like I could have a better understanding of Cerise. Cerise the actual person, not the character. And now all of the romantic shipping was clogging up my head and all I could think was that even though it was an odd pairing, Cerise and Nocturnia together was… intriguing.

Cerise and Nocturnia the characters. Of course.

So I was just, uh, taken aback by the aesthetic qualities. That’s all.

And I also belatedly realized that I had been staring at the image for a long time with no response, and that Cerise had to be worried. I hastily clicked back to the text editor.

I LOVE IT

Really? It’s not… too much?

NO
IT IS PERFECT

Cool. I’m glad. Yup.

DO YOU

Before I could type any further, Cerise surprised me by being the one to cut in this time, moving the cursor away and spelling out a message of her own.

But enough about that, I wanted to ask what I 
needed to do next. What’s else does the magic 
require? If I did a good enough job on the 
first thing?

I was suddenly torn. She had done more than enough, but also I felt like at this rate, she would leave me behind in no time. And it’s not like I needed her to need me, but the thought of no longer having a connection to her — no, the thought of no longer getting to continue with the trolling, of course — it just left me feeling sort of... scared and alone.

This was going too fast. I knew what I had planned for the next step. But… It wouldn’t hurt to delay just a little, right?

PATIENCE, MY FRIEND
YOU MUST BURN BRIGHTLY
BUT NOT EXHAUST YOURSELF

That makes sense. But now that I’ve started, it 
feels hard to sit still.

TRUST IN ME AND MY WISDOM
I ONLY WANT WHAT’S BEST FOR YOU

I know.

She hesitated, and then tentatively typed out another question.

Nocturnia? Can I ask you a personal question?

OF COURSE

How do you know this stuff? The... ‘magic’?
Are you… are you like me?

I froze.

Was she asking what I thought she was asking?

Did she want to know if—

“Hey Greg, can I ask you a question?”

In what had to be one of the fastest reactions ever recorded, I jumped to my feet, whirling around to place my body in front of my computer screen, my hands splayed out to make sure it wasn't readable.

Avery stood at my door, which was pushed halfway open. He leaned in, looking kind of confused at my behavior.

“Uh. Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. To my credit, it was only like 50% louder than I wanted it to be. “Everything is fine. What do you want?”

He shrugged. “Well, I was just going to ask… the LGBTQ Alliance is throwing a game night—”

“So?” I snapped.

He started rambling, something about Mark, and I couldn’t quite focus on anything he was saying, what with my heart hammering and my brain bouncing between ‘what if Avery saw something’ and ‘how am I supposed to answer Cerise’ without any comprehensible answer to either.

I glared at Avery even harder as he trailed off, squinting at me in confusion.

“So, I was just hoping that you could come too?” he finally said.

“Fine. Yes, I’ll go or whatever. Is that all?”

He smiled, and dipped his head. “Thanks Greg. You’re a really good frie—”

“Shut the door on your way out.”

Unfazed, he did as I had asked.

I immediately darted over, locking the door, and then returned to my computer.

A few more lines of text stared back at me.

Nocturnia? Are you there?
I shouldn’t have asked that. Please forget about it.
...I'm sorry.

Fuck.

If I had more time, if I hadn’t been interrupted, I could have maybe come up with some kind of deflection. But now my silence was an answer in and of itself.

How could I handle this? 

How could I keep from hurting Cerise?

THIS IS DIFFICULT TO TALK ABOUT

That was certainly true. That was… safe.

Trust me, I know.

Ouch. Okay, that was fair too.

How about this? You don’t have to say anything 
more. But if you ever change your mind and want 
to talk about it, I’m here and happy to listen.

I felt oddly vulnerable, like the tables had abruptly turned. Which was silly. I didn’t have anything to hide. I mean, except the trolling part. Or whatever. I mean, it wasn’t as if I was the one who was trans. Is that what she thought? Well, what if she thought that, would that be okay?

I let it sit with me for a few moments. I mean that wouldn’t be the truth, but it’d be fine. I could definitely handle that. Hm.

But…

Ugh, I was going to rip my hair out obsessing over this.

THANK YOU, CERISE
I THINK I NEED MORE TIME TO CONSIDER THINGS
BUT I APPRECIATE YOUR WILLINGNESS TO HELP

Was that… Was that okay? Was it good enough?

Of course. Maybe there’s something else though? 
Something you could help me with, instead?

I’M LISTENING

Well, there are an awful lot of dresses on this 
site. I could really use some second opinions.

My breathing slowed. A smile returned to my face. She knew just how to cheer me up.

THAT IS SOMETHING I CAN CERTAINLY HELP WITH