The Monday after learning about Stella and Dr. Diast, I told myself to maintain a stone face and not get all giggly seeing Diast in first period. She opened class like normal, and didn’t really look my way, so that helped. After first period, Oka had choir, so I always had a sad moment where we’d part ways at a certain fork in the hallways. On this day, though, Oka just stood there, smiling at me.

“Do you have to go to…choir?” I asked.

“In a minute,” Oka said, continuing to smile. I didn’t mind spending another minute with her, but I was a bit confused by this. “Say, Zeta.” She said. “What did you get for…that third question?”

“Huh?” I asked. “What do you mean, on the study guide?”

“Y-yeah,” Oka said. She laughed as she brushed her right hand through her hair, and a burst of red petals came from her hand. She quickly swatted the tiny petals that started to orbit her head. “Heh. Just a weird little power thing.”

“They’re pretty,” I said. “Do they happen on accident like that?”

“I think so,” Oka said. “To tell you the truth, I’ve never really had that happen before this weekend…but. I uh.” She held her textbooks close to her. “I should probably go, so…see you!”

Oka took off, leaving me confused but also feeling mushy at that whole thing. That mood continued all day, as Oka was, from what I could gather, attempting to be clingy with me, while also getting tongue twisted and lost in thought very easily by it. In our desk-based classes, she seemed to have trouble keeping her attention away from me, something I only noticed because I was afflicted with the same attention affecting thing. In gym, she defended me a lot while we were playing mat ball (a sport I now had a new awareness of). In our void practice, after she, Lillia, Kalei and I finished our void monster quota for the day, Oka looked like she was gonna do a backflip or a somersault for me.

“Hey, Zeta,” Oka said. “I uh…” She giggled. “I dunno!”

“…alright.” Kalei said. She turned to me. “Did you do something to make Oka stupid?”

I shrugged, knowing full well what I did.

Blushing at the thought of me biting Oka, the taste of her skin, sharing such a moment like that in the middle of all the other stress and change around us probably didn’t help my case. Luckily, the sun in our void node was way hotter than usual, so I probably just looked sweaty from that.

“It just seems like she’s a bit…more than she usually is.” Kalei said. “Did Zates do something to you, Oka? I don’t think you’ve finished a complete sentence all day.”

“Oh, you know, just. Normal girlfriend stuff, right?” Oka said. Then she quietly added, “Girlfriend…” as though it was somehow just hitting her now that we were dating.

“Normal girlfriend stuff made you stupid.” Kalei said. “Are you sure it was something less normal? I’ve definitely narrowed down that Zeta did something here.”

“Zeta gave her a hickey.” Lillia said.

Oka and I gasped. I started stammering, while Oka turned redder than I thought possible and had a sly smile on her face as she started to reach for the collarbone I kissed/etc. to give her the hickey.

“Damn, Zates,” Kalei said. “Your tail’s all floofified so that was either so shocking you can’t believe Lillia would say that, or it’s actually true and you’re shocked because you got found out.”

“Lillia!” I said, trying in vain to hide my poofed tail. “Don’t…tell her that!”

“So it’s true,” Kalei said, eyebrows raised. “Huh.” She started laughing at my stammering/trying to flatten my tail fur down and Oka's reddening.

“Our pod’s still around here!” I said.

“It’s just us here, we’re fine.” Lillia said. “Iris and Maia are busy chasing their void monster in the field, and Ko’s wrestling Kai.”

“Whatever, still…” I said. “How do you know that I…did what you said?”

“Zeta can give a hickey, but can’t say hickey,” Kalei said. “That seems on brand.”

“I could see it yesterday,” Lillia said. “And once I asked, Oka confirmed my suspicions.”

“Ah heh…yeah…” Oka said.

“Sorry, Kalei, I know you asked us to keep that relationship stuff off your radar.” I said as I thought about poking Oka in the shoulder, as she was still beaming with a gaze of someone mentally miles and miles away from where she stood. Poking her shoulder could either snap her out of it or put her further away.

“Nah, I’m honestly glad you’re not screwing this up already.” Kalei said. “I meant more like don’t be one of those ‘face sucking around your friends instead of talking to them’ couples, and you guys aren’t like that."

“We try our best.” I said.

"The only really annoying thing is when Oka calls you 'starlight boob' or whatever, that's a bit much, don't do that around me." Kalei said.

"It's starlight boo." I said.

"Starlight boob would be better." Kalei said. "Right, Oka?" She laughed some more at Oka’s vacant stare. “So you went a bit farther, and it broke Oka. Got it.”

“I’m not broken!” Oka said, probably way too dramatically with her fists clenched but it was so cute. “I’m just…feeling a lot here. A lot of good, really!”

I bit the inside of my cheek. Internally, I think I was in the same boat as Oka—just overflowing with mushy, gooey feelings—but around friends I wanted to keep that away so I wouldn’t bug them, so I used a great amount of social energy to appear stoic, which probably just made me look constipated. But Oka basically bouncing around with me being the reason why affected me greatly and made it hard for me to not just flip out about it alongside her.

“Alright simmer down,” Kalei said. “You want some ice cubes to cool off? I could make you some.”

Even though our powers were still mostly drained, Kalei was very proud of her newfound control of her ice powers. She formed an ice cube in her palm and put it on Oka’s reddened cheeks. Oka swiped it from her, but quickly put it back on her face. “That actually feels nice. Whatever the sun is here, it’s especially hot today.”

Kalei made ice cubes for all of us, and we sat in a circle. I held the ice cube to my forehead to cool off, as did Lillia, while Oka kept alternating between her cheeks.

“And I’m actually glad I can bring this up, I was meaning to ask,” Kalei said, holding her ice cube in her mouth like a hard candy. “Eh, actually maybe later.”

“Huh?” I asked. “Is something up?”

“I dunno, it’s kinda hard to ask, if that makes sense,” Kalei said. “But like, hypothetically, if I could ask. Could I ask you guys?”

“I think I would need more information before I confirm my answer.” Lillia said.

“Crap, hang on, I can explain this better,” Kalei said. “Just…forget about it for now. But…maybe after class? Can I…discuss some…”

Caya’s whistle sounded far across the field, signifying void time was over for the day.

“Oh, thank god.” Kalei said.