Rising Shards

Sai still wasn’t back yet. I kept going upstairs to check if they returned without me noticing, but Stella didn’t even see them leave, and Dr. Diast was too busy dealing with Kalei. 

”How many anime DVDs do you have, Diast?” Kalei asked as she scanned the video shelves in the living room.

”Just for that, I’m buying twelve more,” Diast said. ”If you break any of my figures, you’re paying for them, too.”

”I won’t touch them,” Kalei said. ”I’m so good at being careful and I am super dexterous, ya know? Zates is the one you gotta worry about, she’s always breaking stuff.”

”You break just as much stuff as me, shut up!” I said.

I was firmly planted by a window, sitting on the carpet as I looked out, trying to see where Sai had gone. They didn’t seem to be in sight at all down the sidewalk. Did I screw this up so bad that they just left entirely?

”Although, do I even want to associate with someone who would diss Tower of Hate and Love like that right to my face? In my own home?” I muttered to myself.

”Oof,” Marmalade said.

”Did that sound as bad as I think it did?” I asked.

”It was pretty bad, yeah,” Marmalade said. ”I’ll diss Tower to your face and in your own home too, you know. Are you going to stop associating with me?”

I grumbled. ”No.”

”Then you’ll be fine with Sai,” Marmalade said. ”I mean, I’m not saying your bad or anything for liking this show so much, it’s probably good to have something like that even if it’s a show that sucks. You can like it and still be friends with people that think it’s awful.”

”When did you even get up here, anyways?” I pouted.

I knew Marmalade was right (well, she was being pretty rude about it, but her and Kalei were in full snark at me mode) but it was still a bitter pill to swallow as such a huge Tower fan. Obviously, if I took a step back and thought about it, friendship was probably more important than me being weird and cutting anyone out of my life because of a show. Well, if someone was really mean to me about that, I probably wouldn’t want to spend time with them. The diehard Tower fan went to war with my more rational side for the next chunk of our party, as everyone else pretty much decided to hang out upstairs. 

I thought Stella might be annoyed by all this, but I think she really liked chatting with my friends. Even when Roux kept trying to give her their game console controllers.

”I don’t know how to use this thing,” Stella said. ”My only console was from like ten years ago!”

”You recommended me books, now I recommend you games!” Roux said. ”You strike me as the type that would like Strike Typers, or its spinoff Type Strikers.”

Marmalade was distracted from delivering judgment upon my social errors by Roux’s game, then a few minutes later was distracted from that when Kalei had Myles and Ash lie down on the ground.

”I can’t believe I agreed to this,” Ash said.

”I’m not, I wanna know if she can do it, see if she’s all talk or not,” Myles said.

”There’s less space up here, but we can still make this work,” Kalei said. ”I was hoping we could do this with Sai too so I could show how strong I am, but I bet you two are just as easy as Zates and Oka to pick up.”

Kalei got ready to hoist the Althea sisters up by their tails.

”Um, can we not do that?” Diast said. ”I’m not studied up on my devil Cani biology enough to act like an expert, but I do know you shouldn’t try to pick up any Cani by their tail.”

”I told you it was a potentially dangerous idea!” I said. 

”Maybe just get back over here and look at my movies again, I moved all my figures into my room,” Diast said.

Diast was somehow able to talk Kalei out of the attempt, bringing her back to look through more movies.

”How’d she get you to agree to the tail thing?” Ash asked, the sisters finding me still in my pitiable spot by the window.

”Kalei’s very persuasive, and annoying,” I said. ”She either convinces you to do something by saying something in a tone that makes you wanna do whatever she’s up to, or she just acts so annoying that doing what she wants will at least get her off your back.”

”Yeah, same for us, I guess,” Ash said. ”Myles agreed right away, though, so I don’t know what that says about her.”

”That I’m...agreeable?” Myles said.

”I’d say gullible but...” Ash said.

”OK, that’s not fair!” Myles said.

While they bickered, Kalei gasping drew my attention.

”Duuude, you have the full five movie set of Full Tilt and Total Clamp?” Kalei asked.

”I do yeah, fantastic movies,” Diast said. ”The third one is signed by Crystaline herself, so you can’t touch that one.”

”Shut up, no way,” Kalei said. ”Damn, it really is signed. I’d frame that, honestly.”

”I wanna get a duplicate set of the movies first,” Diast said. ”Even if I mainly just stream them when I watch.”

”We should watch one!” Kalei said.

”What even is Full Tilt and Total Clamp?” I asked.

”It’s this series about two agents, one is a chaotic rebel, and the other is a by the books android,” Marmalade said. ”They’re really campy, but some of the set pieces are crazy.”

”You know, Tower is really campy and it has crazy set pieces, but you made fun of it, isn’t that interesting?” I said.

”If you’re going to try and call me a hypocrite, you probably won’t like my response,” Marmalade said.

”Or mine,” Kalei said.

”Geez, you two are dangerous together,” I said. I knew that from being roommates with them, but still.

”Just relax a bit and watch this dumb movie,” Kalei said.

”No, better idea!” I said. ”Clearly Sai just needs to see the best Tower has to offer and know all the history behind it. So we show them the twelve part making of Tower of Hate and Love documentary—”

”We’re putting on Full Tilt,” Kalei said.