Phase Three of Crush: Stella somehow senses it, and through unseen and potentially evil circumstances, finds herself in the same room with me and the crush and proceeds to reveal as many embarrassing things about me as possible.

She managed to somehow accomplish this with Jeans, Premitri, and Delilah through various absurd means that I can only guess is dark magic.

Stella stopped me in the apartment’s parking garage as soon as I stepped out of her car.

“OK, lemme see it.” Stella said, grabbing my tail.

“Stella!” I said. “That actually kinda hurts.”

“Uh huh,” Stella said. “I did get a stress tail once and I remember it being very annoying. I wrecked a few shirts cutting holes into the lower back part thinking that this is just what fashion was going to be for me then forever but then it fell off like, immediately after I finished mangling them.”

Oka looked like she was buzzing from excitement about seeing my place as we rode the elevator up. I assume Stella sensed that her initial embarrassment tactic wasn’t enough and had to up the ante.

“Did Zeta get her Octremberlies yet?” Stella asked.

“Her…what now?” Kalei asked eagerly.

“Don’t you dare,” I said. “It’s bad enough you have a name for it.”

“Well, every year during the first few weeks of this month, Zeta gets a real bad case of—"

I punched Stella in the arm.

“Ow, fine!” Stella said. “I got you a bottle of the stuff, it’s on the kitchen counter.”

“So where’s your kitchen counter?” Kalei asked. “Because I just have to know what this mysterious bottle is.”

“You really, really don’t.” I said.

Oka still wasn’t super affected as the elevator dinged on our floor. Stella seemed to take this as a challenge as Oka followed me to my apartment.

“Hey, this kinda looks like the dorms!” Oka said.

Oka gasped when as the door opened. Our apartment wasn’t anything special, but she looked like she was stepping into a fairytale world. Kalei, on the other hand, zipped straight to my kitchen after we took our shoes off and started scanning my kitchen counter. I gasped louder than Oka when she grabbed a bottle off of it.

“Magnesium cit—" Kalei read.

I swiped the bottle from her and tried to rip the label off. When that didn’t work as it wouldn't peel off right, I took a marker and scribbled all over it.

“Hey, don’t mess with that too much,” Stella said. “I don’t really want to drive down to Sky Clay to hand you another one either, so maybe drink it while you’re here? Otherwise, I’m sure you’ll forget it.”

“I’ll drink it when we’re back at school,” I muttered.

“So you did get the Octremberlies,” Stella said.

“Shut up.” I said.

“They’ll probably figure out what it is when you’re there.” Stella said. “It’s probably hard to be discreet about it.”

“I’ll find a way.”

“As will I,” Kalei said, smugly looking at me.

We sat in the living room and devoured our burgers for a bit. It had been too long since I had fast food. But in the bliss of the junk food, I let my guard down, and Stella sensed it.

“Did Zeta tell you two about the skate competition?” Stella asked. I nearly choked just as I tasted a pickle.

“Stella, stop, ugh!”

“Hold on, let me get my notes app up,” Kalei said. “I must document this.”

I was too far away to smack Stella, and there was nothing good in my reach that I could chuck at her.

“A few years ago there was a new Raina Starlight book that had her be into skateboarding,” Stella said. “So Zeta actually entered a skating competition.”

“Shut up,” Kalei said, already doubled down on the floor. “How’d…how’d she…” she couldn’t even finish the sentence.

“Yes, please shut up!” I said.

“When her turn was up, she did about three jumps around her board, not on it, just around it, then ran off into the forest scream-crying after she couldn’t do a trick.”

“I wasn’t screaming,” I said.

“If not screaming then crying very loudly.” Stella said. “Please don’t choke on your food from laughing so hard, Kalei.”

It took Kalei a while to stop laugh-crying.

“I grew a tail, you know!” I said.

“Yeah yeah,” Stella said. “So why are you here again? A game thing?”

Kalei finally recovered, but my bruised ego had not. “We need to go to Twin Wolves for the eGame 3 midnight launch!”

“Twin Wolves? I did need an excuse to go. I’m not standing in line with you three, so you can handle that on your own.”

Oka tapped Stella on her shoulder. “Hey, so lemme see Zeta’s room.”

The plus side at least was Stella’s embarrassment assault really had no effect on Oka. I saw Stella’s nose twitch at that. But I won, via my best friend/crush’s incredible eagerness to see my room despite Stella’s best embarrassment efforts. Stella got up to lead us there, and I jogged in front of her to stop any last-minute efforts to embarrass me even more.

“Ahhh, so this is Zeta’s room!” Oka said as she took a big sniff.

“Oka, why are you doing that?” I asked.

“She’s just getting a whiff of the place,” Kalei said. “It does have a funk to it.”

“What do you mean funk?”

“Well, the funk is your dirty—” Stella started.

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence.” I said, not even able to look at Stella's smug expression anymore.

“Well, anyways, if you wanna drop your stuff off, we can get going?” Stella said.

“That’s the thing, Miss Faleur,” Kalei said. “If it would be at all possible, would you mind taking multiple trips to drop us off at Twin Wolves? I’d like to get in line as soon as possible, and I know my fellow friends are a bit more on needing the decompress time before the going out to wait in line time.”

“…I can’t tell if you’re being polite. But I kinda dig that. I don’t want to drive there a bunch of times in one night, but I can call you a Stuba?”

“I’d be most gracious for that.” Kalei said. “Text me when you get to Twin Wolves, Zates.”

“Hey, you know I could text you too,” Oka said.

“You don’t even have a phone,” Kalei said.

“Well,” Oka said. “Still. I could call you with my wristband thing, maybe.”

"Calls and stuff on them don't work outside the school," Kalei said.

"What, for real?" I said. "So what's this thing good for, anyways?"

"Making sure you don't wreck this place anymore with your thunderstorm powers, maybe?" Stella said.

"Stella, just go away already!" I said.

Kalei left with Stella to go wait for her taxi (I took it as a somewhat win if Stella just told Kalei embarrassing stories about me), leaving Oka and me alone. Alone in my room. 

Alone in my room with my crush.

“Did you catch that? I said I’d text her. I’m catching up on the lingo.” Oka said.

“Yeah,” I smiled.

I gave Oka the tour of my room as she looked around inquisitively.

“So this is my bed,” I said. “And I have that little table with the little TV on it. And…a bookshelf. My room is boring.”

“It’s not boring,” Oka scoffed.

To distract myself from that reaction, I knelt down by my bed.

“Look right here!” I said, sounding way too excited for what I was about to present. “See how the floor is like slightly warped? That’s where my powers came in, I made so much rain the floor was all messed up!”

“Whoa,” Oka said.

“Stella tried to fix it, but we’re just going to hope the landlord never notices.”

Somehow talking about floorboards calmed me down a bit. We chatted like normal for a while, and I didn’t even notice how much time had passed when Oka took a pose, standing in front of me as I sat on the bed.

“Hey, so Zeta,” Oka said.

“You’re doing the pose,” I said, causing Oka to undo the like supervillain style hand-finger claspy thingy she was doing. “And you started with a 'So, Zeta.' I’m guessing you’re going to ask me about the Jeans thing again.”

“Is there a good way to ask?” Oka asked. 

“Well, maybe just…” I said. A sudden zap of a thought somehow escaped through my voice and I immediately mentally screamed why was I even thinking it, let alone speaking it. “No, that’s a terrible idea.”

“What is?” Oka asked.

Something about Oka’s pure expression as she asked me something embarrassing broke some of my mental walls down.

“I was gonna say just get it over with and like…ask what you think we,” I sighed. “…er…went the farthest with.”

“Well, sex, but—”

“AHHH OK, NO.” I said, rolling back and forth with my pillow covering my face. “Oka?”

“Yes?”

I couldn't see her face with the pillow over mine, but her tone sounded like the pure look she was giving me. The mental wall breaking look.

“You’re literally the only! Person! I’d tell this to!”

“Yes yes, I know! You have my word that it will be secret!” Oka said. “And it might be good to let it out! I am your Jeans vent source, after all.”

“AAGH, FINE.”

I got up and locked my door so Stella wouldn’t bust in when she got back, because she so would at the worst possible time. Then I realized I just locked myself in my room with my best friend/crush. I paced back and forth in front of her a bit. Thinking about Jeans actually might help douse my crush-excitement and calm me down. I sighed and sat back down on the bed.

“We didn’t like…do it. We…held hands. And we hugged. And we kissed. And that’s about it.”

“No way,” Oka said. “That’s IT?”

“Hey, kissing is pretty far!” I said.

“Yeah, but she was like head over heels for you! And you were rather enamored with her as well.” Oka strummed her jaw like she was a famed detective solving an impossible murder mystery.

“I guess, but…”

“Were the kisses at least like…tongue?”

“OKA.” I chucked my pillow at her. A direct headshot, but with no effect.

“Sorry.” Oka said.

“Once. Does that make you happy? We made out that much once. And then she bit my neck and my shoulder, and it hurt really bad and then she went home.”

“Oof.”

“Yeah. Cani fangs hurt, dude. I think I still have scars from it.”

Oka shuffled in her seat just a bit and said just enough of a sound to show she was starting to say something.

“Don’t say it,” I said. “Or…just let it out, you’re gonna anyways.”

“Can I see the marks?”

I rolled my eyes (a defensive maneuver to hold back the symphony of internal screaming I was doing about this scenario actually happening in real life and not an afternoon class daydream) and pulled my shirt over my shoulder a bit. Oka rushed over to look. She looked at the small spots on my shoulder.

“Oh, it’s like a vampire bite. But on your shoulder. Did that feel…good…?”

“It felt like my shoulder getting bitten.” I said.

“That sucks,” Oka said. “And that’s not like a vampire joke.”

Oka sat by me and huffed.

“You sound like you’re mad that’s as far as we went.” I said.

“I’m not like mad, I’m more disappointed for you, really.” Oka said.

At this point I was firmly like full red on, a like house paint red color scale on the little cards you get at hardware stores with colors. Like probably the reddest on those little sample cards.

“Did you want me to h-have…erm. Relations…? Further relations with her?” I asked.

“No, and it’s genuinely probably for the best that she didn’t. If she had the control over you that she did, having even more intimacy would have furthered her power imbalance that she used to hurt you.”

“Wow,” I said. “You keep catching me off guard here and I don’t know how to react.”

"Sorry," Oka said. “I just feel bad that you didn’t even get really anything good out of that whole thing.”

That kinda hit hard. There were happy times with Jeans, but looking back even the good times were tainted by the bad times.

“You know what else?” I said. “She was an awful kisser.”

Oka burst out laughing. “No way.”

“Yuh huh," I said. "I mean, I guess I don’t really know what a good kisser is because Jeans is the only person I’ve kissed, but every time we kissed it was like kissing a ham sandwich. Like I felt nothing back any time, and I tried, but I never felt anything back, except for that one time, and that time she more just mushed her face into mine which. Isn’t a great kiss!”

Oka couldn’t stop laughing once I said ham sandwich.

“Was this before or after she bit you?” She wheezed.

“After. And she bit me like, again, really hard and not in a fun way. But she was trying to be fun about it.”

“Oh, is there a fun way to bite you?”

“Oka.” I said, smacking her with the pillow still on my bed.

“I’m just teasing!”

“Are you?”

“I mean. Kinda? Also kinda curious?”

“I need a squirt bottle for you, it’s like a cat that won’t listen when I tell it to get off a table.”

We laughed together for a bit before we cooled off. Laughing honestly helped ease the pain of everything Jeans related. On the other hand, it did not help my other crisis.

In that brief moment, I suddenly became really really aware that Oka was still lying on my bed with me. For just a second or two, I caught a glance of Oka as she stared up at the ceiling, her face still red from laughing so hard. It was maybe the cutest thing I’d ever seen. Then I noticed shirt riding up on her tummy just slightly. For some reason that activated a side of my brain that had no basis in logic or manners or whatever, just pure crush activating with a heartrate increase as I stared at like 3 centimeters max of skin.

“Hey, you two ready?” Stella asked as she pounded on the door, slamming me back into reality. “I want to get this over with.”

“On our way!” Oka said, rolling up to her feet.

I zoned out in a crush induced bliss as Stella drove us to the mall. It wasn’t too far from our place, so I figured Stella wouldn’t have time to embarrass me too much with her stories to Oka on the way.