Rising Shards

It felt like everyone in the restaurant stopped talking as soon as Alix slammed her fists down, flinging a chunk of pancake at the former principal Penteldtam, who I did not realize was also here. Really, only their table and ours probably noticed, but it still felt like all eyes were our way. Then when we get over there, Kitty starts arguing with her family, who apparently had this same brunch at the same place planned, and Kitty just forgot or ignored them to hang out with us instead.

”So, hey, what’s the deal with Aki?”

Then while they were arguing, Alix cut in to ask about Aki Kilander, the mysterious Kilander family member that Caya was somehow married to, something that never made much sense as unless Aki was a completely different person than the self he portrayed on the Kilander reality show, it made negative sense for Caya of all people to be married to. I obviously couldn’t guess all of someone’s romantic preferences just from knowing them, but I couldn’t picture Caya being romantically interested in any man, let alone some idiot from a stupid reality show.

The look everyone at the Kilander’s table gave Alix for randomly asking about a sensitive subject was pretty objectively painful from a socializing standpoint. And then Alix just winked at me like she had turned the tide presenting shocking new evidence in a court case.

It was...OK, I kind of loved it, honestly. And I could tell that Alix’s latest social blunder (one moments after her latest physical blunder with Penteldtam there) was because she was trying to do something for me, which I found sweet.

Caya finally broke the awkward silence by clearing her throat.

”That’s a subject for perhaps another time,” Caya said. ”I’m sorry to interrupt your time with...” Caya looked between Kitty, Alix, and I, visibly calculating how our trio would even be a possible combination of folks spending time together outside of work. ”...right. Hm.”

I could just gently scoot Alix away and let Kitty handle this on her own, but maybe it would be best if we just dealt with this now.

”Would you mind if we joined you?” I suggested. ”It looks like you’re just about done with your food, too. I don’t know what Kitty had planned next, but that could maybe make up for her missing brunch?”

”Er, that is, if you don’t mind spending time with the food flinger that got food flunged in your eye there, Mr. Penteldtam,” Alix added.

”Oh, it’s fine, this happens to me pretty regularly,” Penteldtam said. ”Usually it’s more malicious.”

”Yeah, I get that,” Alix said.

Penteldtam sighed and bowed his head low. He was still looking pretty bleak after losing his principal gig, so I wondered if this time together was to try and brighten his mood? If so, maybe we could help?

”I mean, we were gonna go to a theme park after this,” Kitty said.

”We were?” I said.

”Uh huh,” Kitty answered sounding surprisingly earnest.

”That might be great for Penteldtam,” Berin said. ”You love the rides at ColaBLU World, don’t you, buddy?”

Penteldtam shrugged. ”I guess...”

”Then it’s settled!” Kitty said. ”Actually, let me huddle with my pals here...”

Kitty waved for us to follow her, then actually had us huddle. Normally I’d feel like a huge dweeb doing this right in the middle of a restaurant, but Kitty and Alix had enough confidence to overcome that.

”OK, sorry for springing that on you all, I did legitimately forget about that whole thing, my bad,” Kitty said. ”Also, if we do this, Penty might not leave us alone, and I’ve used all my yell at Penty to leave us alone cards that Berin gave us for the month, so. We’ll have to find a way to deal with him when it’s time to go.”

”Want me to handle him?” Alix asked, rolling her sleeves up.

”No, don’t like hit him, he already got that frying pan to the head like I think that’s enough probably, maybe,” Kitty said. ”Unless...? Actually, wait, I huddled because I wanted to check if you’re all OK with this?”

Another weird moment in a day full of them. Kitty, who was usually just rude and kind of generally an asshole all the time, genuinely asking if we’d be OK with hanging out with her family at a theme park?

”There’s a lot of dudes over there, kind of guys this whole thing up if you ask me,” Alix said, rubbing her chin.

Kitty snort laughed again. ”Yeah, true, but it’s just family, and it’d just be for a bit if we can get them to fuck off afterwards. So weeee can keep having our fun girl talk time! We are having a fun girl talk time, right?”

Kitty looked right at me with practically sparkling eyes.

”We are, yeah,” I said, also being genuine.

”Absolutely!” Alix said.

I would never have guessed the day’s plans would take this turn, but I also wasn’t sure what any of this day was going to be like with Kitty, so the out of nowhere nature of this felt like the only thing about today that somewhat made sense. Well, that and Alix being a sweetheart.