Rising Shards

Michi watched the very loud arrival of Roxana and some other Echela cadets from the stands. Zeta sat to their right, and Tay was in front of them, cackling madly as she scribbled unintelligible notes down on a page.

”Really good thing Lillia didn’t come with to this,” Zeta said. ”Though Ko doesn’t look super thrilled by any of this.”

”Something to investigate,” Tay said. Michi couldn’t tell if Tay was responding to Zeta or just off in her own little world.

”Nobody looks super happy out there,” Michi said. Most of the players looked like it was hitting them that they agreed to practice on a day off. Or maybe all that drama was wearing on them, whatever.

”For real, Kalei looks super annoyed,” Zeta said.

Out of everyone in Zeta’s immediate friend group, Zeta would probably be the last person Michi would suggest to lead some kind of investigation. It was too much of a burden for an anxious person to handle, and just asking around seemed to be taking a lot out of her.

”So, uh, Tay,” Zeta coughed with a strange, high pitch tone, wiping sweat from her brow. ”Have you noticed anything strange about Kalei?”

”Kalei? Hm,” Tay paged through their notebook, landing on a page with a really detailed drawing of Kalei, an inverse of the writing that was entirely scribbles. She slammed the notebook shut as soon as Zeta looked at it. ”That’s premium intel. I don’t give that out for free.”

”O-oh,” Zeta looked like she was about to throw up. ”I...might have...a dollar?”

”She’s definitely been...sleepier,” Michi said, stepping in out of pity.

”Yeah, exactly!” Zeta said. ”Maybe she’s doing secret extra practice? I’ve never really seen how she is during a beam chasers season.”

”That could be,” Michi said.

Michi hadn’t seen Kalei practice before. As she played, she didn’t seem out of sorts or anything. Michi had only known Kalei for a bit, but the last few weeks she was definitely acting different. That wasn’t really Michi’s business, so they didn’t step in. But if Kalei’s close friends were wondering if something was really up, it made Michi feel similarly to watching Zeta fumble through her pockets trying to see if she had any money to pay Tay for gossip info.

”Gosh, I have...some paperclips...a lot of paperclips. Heh, why do I have so many paperclips?” Zeta asked.

”Unless you have at least 10,531 of them, I can’t accept them as payment,” Tay said.

Frustratingly, the only info Michi could think of right away was one they said they wouldn’t share. Marmalade crushing on Kalei was pretty obvious, but she didn’t want that info out even to close friends. Could that explain why Kalei was acting strangely, though? Marmalade had a crush on Kalei, and it made her...sleepy? It didn’t really add up. Even if Marmalade was somehow so overbearing that her excitement around Kalei was wearing her out, they doubted Kalei would really be upset by that.

”It just feels like ever since the beach trip...” Zeta said.

Absentmindedly mirroring Tay quickly paging through her notebook, Michi did the same to their sketchbook, stumbling on their sketches of the hypothetical scenarios. It was during that beach trip that Michi told that ’crush on the wrong person’ bit to Kalei and the others.

There’s no way that’s responsible, right?

Michi wasn’t sure if they should feel guilty if whatever was going on with Kalei spiraled out of that. But maybe Kalei did have a crush on a wrong person. And if she was aware of Marmalade being interested while she was crushing on someone else, that could be tiring.

As that theory rattled around in Michi’s mind, Marmalade nearly fell off one of the beams, sliding too fast until she derailed. Kalei caught her by her waist, carrying her like a backpack with broken straps until she placed her on the next beam. The two laughed for just a second at each other, and that brief laugh made Michi’s theory seem silly.

”Maybe we could follow her,” Michi said.

”Huh?” Zeta said.

”Like, tail her and see if she’s doing something,” Michi said.

”That’s how I get a great deal of my information,” Tay said. ”My advice is to not get caught.”

”Thanks, never would have come up with that one,” Michi said.

”I guess that might work,” Zeta said. ”I was hoping I could just see something while she’s playing that could help crack this case.” She huffed as she rested her face on her hands. ”But so far it’s just like, ’yep, this is beam chasers.’”

”For whatever you’re trying to do, sure,” Tay said. ”But I’m getting loads of info about this Roxana character already.”

”Are you?” Zeta asked. ”Like what?”

”Unrefined, unedited intel is uncertain,” Tay said. ”I also charge a premium rate for it.”

”Don’t pay her,” Michi said as Zeta started reaching for money in her pockets again.