Though I was the only one eliminated between us, Oka was still technically in the game, so she darted for the nearest energy ball to ‘accidentally’ get hit so we could sit and watch the rest of the round, stealthily holding hands while we did. Things were getting intense between the Matora sisters, Kalei, Lillia, and one of the new girls, Marmalade. Oka and I cheered for Kalei and Lillia, but our time on the sidelines was interrupted by a floofy lilac squirrel tail.

“Um, excuse me,” Oka said.

Caeda Firae turned around slowly in front of us. “Oh, didn’t see you there,” she said.

“So.” Oka said as Caeda’s floofy squirrel tail was basically directly in our faces.

“Uh…” I said.

“Oh!” Caeda said. “Sorry, still not used to this thing yet. My mistake, carry on with whatever you were up to, ladies.” She turned away, her tail swooshing through the flowers as she moved.

“Your tail’s better.” Oka said when Caeda was out of earshot.

We watched the rest of the round. Kalei slipped a little and the Matora sisters hit her with two of the remaining energy balls. Lillia was a bit entranced by Ko’s moves there and got distracted into losing. Shortly after, Marmalade was taken out by Kai.

As the Matora sisters volleyed back and forth intensely, Kalei and Lillia found where we were seated and joined us.

“You better now?” Kalei asked Oka. “You good on the you two front?”

“Yes,” Oka said, licking her lips. I couldn’t hold in my laugh at that. And it felt super nice that Kalei was so concerned about us being alright, it was sweet and well-needed after Clover in the morning.

“What’s this about?” Lillia asked, mostly paying attention to Ko.

“They wanted some flirt time is all.” Kalei said.

“And we got it.” Oka said.

“I see.” Lillia said.

After some very rapid-fire energy volleying, Kai managed to just barely win the round. Diast promised her some kind of prize. She presented Kai with a single energy drink when she couldn’t come up with anything, but Kai still held it up like it was a Haven champion’s title belt.

After class, we had a quick dinner before Oka and Lillia headed to play practice. Kalei stared into her dinner like it was a mystical well that had all the answers of the universe within it.

“Is it hitting you now that Nikki’s back?” I asked.

“Kinda, yeah.” Kalei said.

“And that you’re going to ask her out today?” I asked.

“Something like that.” Kalei said.

“Still feeling terrified?” I asked.

“Yeppers.” Kalei said.

“Well, I won’t pressure you into anything, just do what you gotta do.” I said. If that meant her staring into her dinner for even longer, I’d be there for it. Our club status was up in the air, so it wasn’t like I had anywhere to be.

“Well. This is deflating. Not just deflating, this sucks!” Oka announced, making me flinch as she sat down beside me. “Hi, Zeta.”

“Hi, what’s…what sucks?” I asked. Lillia was with Oka (who was pouting again, very cute), and I could see students from the theater club leaving behind them. “Practice cancelled?”

“More like the entire play is put on hold for the entire rest of the semester out of entirely nowhere.” Oka said. “All because of this Recreant Protocol business.”

“Oh no!” I said.

“Reit says he can’t deal with all the acting students who got raided,” Oka said. “So he’s banking on them being back for spring, but in the meantime Penteldtam is taking the entire auditorium to work on his rap musical about the Kilanders while we’re out.”

“That seems…unrelated to the Recreant Protocol business.” I said.

“To be fair, it was getting a bit straining to try and put this play together with about a third of the cast missing.” Lillia said. “Though I suppose Reit could have made more of an effort in recruitment.”

“Still.” Oka said. “This is the first dang play I ever got cast in and this is where we end up.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I hope you guys get to come back stronger!”

“Maybe we can get a less nonsensical script when we’re back,” Oka said. “Right when I was starting to remember lines for both my characters too, ugh.”

“You’re not going to be in that Kilander musical, are you?” I asked.

“No, it’s just about Penteldtam and Kitty.” Oka said. “I’m pretty sure it’s just lifted from the show but with songs added to it. And they plan on ‘shopping it around the big cities,’ so too big for our little school…”

“Man…” I said. With both theater and my club in limbo, there was a chance to have some more time with Oka. “How about we, erm…” It was awkward to ask this in front of our other friends. “You want to go head out somewhere?”

Oka stretched. “We do suddenly have a lot more time this evening than I thought we’d have. My room or yours?”

I looked at Kalei and winced. She sighed, but still gave a slight smile. I think she was starting to like being like a guardian protector type for our couple. “I should probably get going anyways.” Kalei looked to Lillia. “We probably should.”

“Right,” Lillia said. “Are you ready for it?”

“Not really, but we swore on it.” Kalei said as she held up a pinky finger. Lillia did the same, and they linked theirs together for a moment. “Alright, wish us luck.”

“Good luck! You guys got this!” I said before Oka and I awkwardly excused ourselves. We headed to my room. When I was just a few steps in, Oka hugged me from behind. The sun was setting, but snow swirled outside, glittering gold ahead of us through the windows.

“Thank you.” Oka said.

“For what?” I asked.

“For this morning,” Oka said. “I can’t believe I didn’t thank you yet.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “I can’t believe I did that.” I also couldn’t believe I didn’t cry after attempting to tell Clover off, or from how nice it felt to have Kalei and Lillia back me up there.

“I’m so glad you did,” Oka said. “I’ve been worried how I was going to be around Clover today, and then my girlfriend tells her off for me.”

My hands brushed against Oka’s. We decided to sit on my bed.

“So today was kind of a lot,” I said. “Are you feeling alright?”

Oka nodded. “Again, if my day didn’t start the way it did with you and Clover, I dunno how I’d take the play being on hold. But I’m fine. I mean, I’m crabby about that junk but. Doable crabby.”

“But you’re in cute crabby mode.” I said. “Did I say how cute that pout is?”

“What pout?” Oka asked.

For all our bluster while flirting in void class, we were content to just hold hands and talk for now. Just small talk about class and homework, nothing really girlfriend-y. But still nice.

“Hey this is maybe odd,” Oka said. “There’s something I want to say? It’s not bad! It’s good! It’s about you.”

“O-of course.” I said. “Even if it was bad, we can talk about it, right?”

“Yeah,” Oka said. “But it’s not bad. So I see a therapist, right? Like for my Tesata times. The bad times. Those are actually bad. But with my therapist, I can talk through them, and other stuff too of course, like what’s going on in my life, and um, making sure I know it’s alright to not be alright about the bad times.”

“That’s good!” I said. I mean, not the Tesata time just that…”

“Yeah, yeah! I get you!” Oka said. “It helps me figure out that whole mess and stuff. But um. So at lunch I was talking to them, because I had an appointment.”

“Right, did you get the new medications?” I asked. At the sleepover, Oka told us she was hoping to get on medications that would help her panic better.

“Oh, this was my therapist, I’m seeing my psychiatrist later in the week.” Oka said. “My psychiatrist handles the medications, and my therapist handles the like. Helping with feelings junk.” She grabbed my tail and started stroking it, which seemed to really help her gather her words. “I was talking about you in my last session. First, my therapist told me to tell you hi and that he hopes you’re doing well.”

“Awww, what?” I asked. I tried to picture Oka’s therapist. Someone quiet and kind that had a lot of books was the image that came to mind. “I…gosh, I hope the same for him? Tell him that but without the questioning sounds at the end there.”

“Yeah, so,” Oka hugged me suddenly. “We just talked and it’s making me think about how you’re really good for me. And I’m really, really thankful for you.”

“Awwww,” I said. 

“Yeah that’s the gist of it,” Oka said. “I’m really glad because sometimes I say things on a surface level in sessions just because I kind of don’t want to deal with…dealing with it? I’ve talked to Dr. Sier about you before, but today I opened up about everything about you to him, and just said all of the. Like all of it! I’m babbling here, I’m so sorry, but then he was so happy for me and we talked about how it’s good we have each other for stability and how it doesn’t sound like you’re a drain or anything, like you’re not a Jeans and how good it was we talked everything out at the sleepover and it made me really happy and proud and...yeah.”

I made a few weird noises unwittingly because I was entirely overwhelmed by this.

“I hope I didn’t just fry your brain with all that,” Oka said after I was basically just quacking for a bit there. 

“No, or I mean,” I said. “Fried in a good way, maybe? That’s…super nice. I am really thankful for you, too. I couldn’t have gotten through my parents without you. I don’t know if I’d have even been recovered as much from my Jeans business without you. I might not even have any friends at Rising Shards if you didn’t go here.”

“I think you would’ve.” Oka said. “You’re a charming, radiant person.”

I held my hands up, not sure what I was going to do with them, they were just basically contorting in front of me as I struggled to keep up with these compliments. “Where is this coming from?”

“From a good place! From a mushy place. I have to let you know it, and you can’t deny any of this.” Oka said. 

Oka and I had both agreed over text a bit prior to not shoot down compliments from each other, as Oka told me that was a pet peeve of hers. “I maybe would have had friends, but I don’t think I would’ve had another girlfriend yet if I didn’t know you.” I said. “And I mean that as a compliment so that’s not me trying to take away from you.”

“What, no enemies to lovers thing with Ovie?” Oka asked.

I made an exaggerated gagging sound immediately. “Why are you always on about that one?”

“Three Hill Sunrise Z made me really anxious about the idea.” Oka said. “I think I sometimes joke when I’m scared about something.”

“Ohhh, right right, I forgot.” I said. A book series she’d read had such a terrible ending that she worried a similar romantic catastrophe would befall me. Come to think of it, that was one of the reasons she had a panic attack at the sleepover, from a series that upset her. I wondered if there was anything I could do to help Oka with this, but first I had to think more about what the issue was. In the meantime, I promised myself to just keep on course with the usual care I had for her.

“And then my crush has a rival relating to her past romance? Well, ‘romance’ isn’t the best word to describe Jeans.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about either.” I said.

Oka let go of my tail, looking at it like she expected it to flick around angrily. But it just swooshed like it normally did (I still barely had any control over it). I didn’t really like hearing Oka worry that I had remotely any potential to be with Ovie, but I more felt bad she worried about the barf-inducing idea so much. “Sorry, I don’t mean to bring up. Bad stuff.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “Especially fine when we’re talking about how much better you are.”

“Awww,” Oka said. “So things worked out.”

“Definitely.” I said. 

“But, anyways. Yeah! You’re pretty neat, you know.” Oka giggled and nuzzled against me, making a soft “Mmhmhhh” sound that was like a warm blanket for my soul.

“Gosh…” It was all I could say.