Rising Shards

“Oka, why are you here?” Kalei asked.

“Wow, am I not allowed?” I asked.

“No, it’s just you never care about gaming unless it’s Farlet Kart.” Kalei said. “And we’re not playing that today.”

“Well!” I said. “Zeta’s busy with her sister today and Lillia’s studying so I’m here! Let’s see what all these video games are about, yeah?”

The setup for Kalei’s group was pretty cool, I liked that already. They had checked out one of the study rooms that was effectively a small classroom, with rows of theater-like seats and a projector they had their consoles connected to. Today they were playing some shooter game. I wanted to observe a round before I tried. The game could have four players at a time, so Kalei, Marmalade, and the Matora sisters squared off.

“Marms, been meaning to ask,” Kalei said. “You crush it at gym, you play any sports?”

“I…just basketball for fun, pretty much.” Marmalade said.

“Basketball’s pretty cool, I guess,” Kalei said. “I like beam chasers the most, though.”

I had recently read an article that had the popularity rankings of various sports, with mat ball unsurprisingly topping the list. Beam chasers and basketball were relatively high up, with the former in the top five according to this survey. I didn’t think that’d add much to the conversation, so I tried to analyze everyone’s strategies in this game. Those strategies seemed to mostly be ‘run around and shoot people with big rocket laser guns.’

“Watch any void golf?” Kalei asked.

“Who, me?” I asked.

“Uh, anyone, I guess,” Kalei said. “Was mainly asking Marms, though.”

“We’re here, too, you know,” Ko said. Kai didn’t answer, intently focused on chasing a floating gold coin that was rapidly flying around the game.

“Uhhh, I watch highlights videos, sometimes. Some of the courses are pretty nutso.” Marmalade said.

“Right?” Kalei asked.

The game wasn’t entirely interesting to watch, but I was finding Kalei’s growing friendship with Marmalade really nice to see. Kalei had been through a lot, and had a lot of potential drama looming with Nikki and Risa, so having someone she seemed to really enjoy talking to like this was nice.

“Alright, Oka,” Kalei said, handing her controller to me. I hadn’t even noticed the round had ended.

I cracked my knuckles before taking the controller, feeling pretty smug that I could crush this after my winning performances in that racing game.