Rising Shards

Early on as summer started, Kalei and Risa had a typical hangout. The best friends ended up at a park where Kalei could work out a bit and smack a practice beam chasers ball around, while Risa had one of her tables set up as she tried to start her business. Kalei never went too far away from her bestie, knowing that Risa’s eccentric business ideas sometimes had people coming trying to get in her face. Those attempts were quickly halted by a girl with a beam chasers staff who clearly knew how to use it approaching any would-be bullies. Once Kalei finished her practice and Risa packed up the card table, the two sat on a hilly area overlooking the park, which had a playground, a big field, and nature trails that sprawled outward. Kalei took the pitcher Risa had made lemonade in and chugged the rest of it.

“I could charge you for that, you know,” Risa said.

Kalei burped. “Put it on my tab.” Still thirsty, the two got sports drinks from a cooler Kalei always brought because Risa would forget to hydrate otherwise. Between sips, Kalei threw her ball into the air, seeing how high she could get it and still catch it. “How much did you make today?”

Risa counted some dollar bills and coins. “Fifteen bucks in lemonade with some change, and let’s see…thirteen pamphlets taken! I’m pretty sure it’s thirteen. Three blew away with that big gust of wind, but I’m pretty sure I got them.”

“Thirteen’s pretty good,” Kalei said. While she didn’t get Risa’s business ideas at all, she still wanted to support her best friend. Risa had a tie dye shirt on that said “SEX-ED” on it, while Kalei was in loose workout clothes.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Risa said. “You’re surprised I even gave away that many pamphlets?”

“No, I was thinking that a playground probably isn’t the best place to try this.” Kalei said.

“Shut up! I’m not even set up at the playground, my table is way far away. I learned after last time! Plus, I’m like twelve, I’m not being creepy despite what that guy said. I looked it up and he was lying about being on the county board, so he was the one being creepy.”

“You’re sixteen, dude,” Kalei said. “Or fifteen, I forget.”

“Whatever,” Risa said. “If I don’t say for sure, I can probably convince you my birthday hasn’t happened yet this year and get double presents from you.”

“Uh huh,” Kalei said.

“My financial backer will be pleased about these numbers for sure.” Risa said.

Kalei’s main theory on Risa’s ‘financial backer’ for her door-to-door sex-ed business empire idea was that it was just her savings account filled with allowance checks from her mom.

“I know that look too,” Risa said. “Door to door sex ed is gonna be a game changer.”

“Not even what I was thinking.” Kalei said.

“You were thinking about my financial backer and having doubts about my potential financial success.” Risa said.

“OK dude, sorry, I kinda was.” Kalei said. “Didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

“You didn’t!” Risa said. “I’m fully confident in my abilities and ideas.”

“Right, so thinking on that confidence,” Kalei said. “How to say this in a not mean way…”

“The lifelong Kalei Koridia struggle.”

“Pfft, kinda true actually,” Kalei said. “Alright, but like. How?”

“Two words: Business empire.” Risa said.

“Not gonna lie, I was totally expecting you to say three words there.” Kalei said. After throwing the ball one more time, she biffed it coming down, the ball bouncing off her head when she saw someone she knew at the park. “Oh my god, please don’t notice us…”

“Who?” Risa asked way too loudly. The Cani girl ahead of them had catlike ears, and they twitched.

“Way to go.” Kalei said as Arielle Roux approached them.

Roux always managed to find a way to be around. Kalei would suspect stalking but Roux didn’t seem like the type to intentionally follow her around. She just had the kind of luck that brought her into Kalei’s orbit regularly, whether it was at school, the mall, and parks too, apparently. “Koridia.” Roux said. She looked over to Risa. “Last name I don’t know.”

“You don’t know my last name?” Risa asked.

“I know your full first name is Narkisssssa.” For some reason, Roux hissed out the ‘s’ sounds like she was a snake when saying Risa’s name.

Kalei’s second-best guess at Risa’s financial backer was that it was Roux somehow, but that would mean Roux’s stories of coming from money were true. Roux alternated between backstories for her family so Kalei didn’t believe much of anything she said. Partially because of that theory, Kalei kind of hated when Risa and Roux talked. Mostly it was because Risa was a lot more tolerant of Roux’s annoying behaviors. It wasn’t like Kalei was a jerk to Roux, it was more that Roux would be a jerk and Kalei would tell her off while Risa would ask follow-up questions. They connected in a way Kalei didn’t get, and that bugged her.

Kalei tried not to scoff when Risa asked, “So whatcha doing here today, Roux?”

“Oh, I’m trying to get my steps in,” Roux said, holding up her eGame handheld. “I got that new game where you play as an alien that walks around but he can only walk if you physically do the walking.” She laughed at her own joke—well, it wasn’t even a joke, she just described a video game—snorting as she did.

“Oh, neat.” Risa said. “I’d sell you some lemonade right now, but Kalei drank all of it.”

“Of course Koridia gargled whatever beverages you have down.” Roux said. “The girl’s a slurper when drinkage is in the mix.”

“Whatever.” Kalei said. “We have a cooler too that we’d totally give you a drink from but oops, I slurped all that drinkage.”

Roux’s ears went down. Kalei hated feeling bad for making Roux feel bad, so she tossed her a sports drink from the cooler. Roux missed the catch, but as soon as she held her drink and had some gulps, loudly “ahhhh”-ing afterwards, she was back to ears up mode.

“Put it on her tab,” Kalei said.

“I heed not your tabs,” Roux said. “The only tab I yield to is the tab button on my keyboard when I need to indent things.”

After an elongated debate about the tab button, Roux stuck around and the three ended up playing games for a bit together. Kalei didn’t like her solo time with Risa getting stepped on, but gaming in the shade outside after some beam chasers practice was pretty nice. As she looked out at the park, trees and grass moving with the wind, Kalei found herself wishing summer could stay like this the whole way through.