Rising Shards

”This is an absurdly long extension cord,” I remarked as Oka trotted forward. She had a death grip on the microwave, and its cord dragged behind us.

”I know we could just find a wall plug in,” Oka said. ”But at this point I just want to do this quickly before anything else can interfere, so this gal is staying plugged in.”

I was trying to somewhat steer our group towards the sparkly snow patch. I wished I had a flower or something if I was going to ask Oka out. I would be fine doing it in front of the others, but did run the risk of getting made fun of by Kalei. Still, I hoped if I did end up having to ask with the others around that Kalei would read the room and not goof on me.

”There’s Aira and the others!” Oka said. ”I’d wave but I don’t want to risk Chickadee showing up and swiping this from me again.”

”She’s not gonna sneak up on us again,” Kalei said. ”If I hear her I’m just gonna start stomping everywhere. Or make brass knuckles made of ice.”

”Everyone’s really violent tonight, huh?” Marmalade said. ”I could join in and do some violence if needed.”

”That’s my Marmalade,” Kalei high fived her.

Aira excitedly held up a plastic bag filled with batteries when she rejoined us, which made Oka cackle in a way I’d never heard from her before. She apparently had a real destructive side, or was suppressing one. Either way, I wanted to be supportive in her endeavor and shared in her desire to see what would happen.

”It’s a good thing we got this back,” Oka said. ”I don’t know how much longer I can wait.”

Michi adjusted their glasses.

”That’s not the same microwave,” Michi said.

”Huh?” Oka said.

”The one Penteldtam had was blue,” Michi said. ”That’s red.”

Oka squinted. ”I...hm.”

”Did we just steal someone’s...” I said.

”That would explain why Chickadee wasn’t guarding it,” Marmalade said.

Kalei snickered. ”Oka’s a thief now.”

”Let’s not worry about that,” Oka said. ”We’re in too deep! We need to see this through! Dreams or whatever the frick!”

Oka plopped the microwave down in the snow, and Aira put a handful of batteries in. It hit me that this wasn’t just stupid, it was really stupid, and if my girlfriend wasn’t the one so excited about it, I probably wouldn’t have agreed to do it. Especially when Kalei helpfully pointed out that this will probably make poisonous chemical smoke and we should all stand way, way back.

Once all of us got in position, Oka volunteered to be the one to start it. She pressed some buttons and took off, returning to my side.

”Even with all the risks, I just have to know,” Oka said. ”Right, Zeta?”

As she turned to me, her sparkling eyes made me feel like I’d already gotten to the snowy field. We had almost made it, but decided a random spot between the beach and the buildings on the school grounds was a better spot for our explosive idiocy.

”Y-yeah,” I said.

The batteries started sparking immediately. I did my typical yelps and grabbing onto Oka in a panic moment, but I couldn’t look away.

”It’s kinda pretty, actually,” I said. As the batteries started bursting out little flames, the words fell out easily. ”Oka, do you want to go to the dance with me?”

”What? Yes!” Oka said. She gasped, as if it hit her even after confirming what I’d just asked. ”Oh my gosh, yes! That’s so sweet, I was just thinking now would–”

She was interrupted by the flames getting a lot bigger, and smoke started to billow out of the microwave.

Did I mention this was incredibly stupid? As I was shouting nonsense out loud, internally I was debating if conjuring a rainstorm would help or cause some weird chemical reaction, Marmalade used her powers to drop the microwave into the dirt, with Kalei adding her own abilities to bury it in snow.

”And that’s taken care of,” Kalei said. ”We should probably get out of here, I think Roux probably already...” She scanned the group. ”Yeah, they took off, that means it’s time for us to go, too.”

”I’m satisfied!” Oka said, taking my hand. We turned around to run, stopping immediately as Lillia Cadence stood, glaring with a level of intensity I’d never seen from her.

”L-Lillia, fancy meeting you here,” Oka said. ”We were just...well, Zeta just asked me out to the dance?”

”Why is there a smoldering pit behind you?” Lillia asked.

”We were...well, we saw this microwave, and it lit on fire,” Kalei said.

”In our defense, we didn’t do it, we merely only watched!” Oka said. ”Alright, so maybe we did do it.”

”But! We only did this because...someone...told us to?” I said.

”Nobody told us to, we just heard about it,” Michi said. ”I am confident enough in myself to own up to it.”

”And our curiosity could not be satiated unless we saw for ourselves!” Oka said. ”Should we be punished for enriching our minds and following our imagination? Nay, I say.”

Lillia didn’t answer.

 * * *

After a long detention session that took up half of my classes, I had watched five safety videos about chemicals, household goods, and explosives, two about stealing, and written three essays apologizing for my behavior. Stella didn’t ground me this time, but she gave me the whole ”I’m very disappointed in you,” spiel in front of the others in detention, which was very embarrassing. But we’d all gotten a similar one from Lillia, which eased the pain a bit.

”I think it’s entirely unfair that our friendship with Lillia didn’t grant us a freebie,” Oka said.

”In her defense, there was a bit of fire,” I said.

”Fire that we put out!” Kalei said. ”Marmalade and I make a killer team.”

”That earth and ice move is pretty sick,” Marmalade said.

Oka had a fourth essay on hand, one just for Lillia, that I’d placed into one of my apology cards usually reserved for when I had a fight with Stella.

”Honestly, it makes me feel worse that Lillia said she was disappointed,” Oka said. ”They should make her a prefect, I would never get in any trouble with her on the take.”

”I’m sure she’ll get over it,” Kalei said.

Lillia was elsewhere for lunch so we didn’t get to give her the card yet, but Iris and Maia joined us.

”I heard a rumor you guys got suspended,” Iris said.

”Just detention,” Kalei said.

”Because you exploded the Falling Shards dorms or something?” Iris asked.

”Just a microwave,” Oka said.

”That’s pretty cool,” Maia said.

”After we had dinner, Maia and I watched that rap battle, it was awesome,” Iris said.

”I totally forgot about that,” Kalei said. ”Dang, that rumor was true?”

”I guess the lesson here is you can’t believe everything that uh, that you...hm.” Oka said. ”I dunno. I feel bad but I also am glad we did it, if that makes sense. But that’s maybe because Zeta asked me out to the dance.”

”Hehe,” I felt bad too, but as far as us getting in trouble at school went, this was on the lower end of things. With all the drama we had going on, sometimes it was nice to just chase something dumb for a bit, with a bonus bit of sweetness between Oka and I.