“How Do You Ask a Slime Girl to Prom?” (62.4) (Oka)

I shouldn’t have felt such a conflicting mix of emotions as I watched my friends and classmates in a pogo stick competition, but there I was.

“What the heck?” At least it was something that was pretty strange so me muttering that didn’t draw anyone’s attention. I wasn’t even sure what I’d say if anyone asked.

Lillia and Ko were on a team, jumping on pogo sticks in tandem. Chatting like nothing was wrong beforehand.

But something is wrong! If Zeta and I—

I had calmed myself down a bit from the shakiness, but going back to that thought made my stomach lurch.

If Zeta and I split up, would we be hanging out like it was nothing?

To distract myself from that, I tried to piece together when exactly this happened. I didn’t notice anything different with Lillia and Ko recently. Lillia seemed to always be out with her, but when she was back in our room, she didn’t seem out of sorts. 

On the way over, I didn’t get a lot of info out from Lillia about any of this. I tried and maybe ended up talking about myself and Zeta a bit too much, but it came out of my nervousness.

The two managed a high score before they stopped jumping. I guess they just had to get a really high number, then the next team would go and try to beat it, and the winner advanced? I didn’t really understand it, nor was I paying that close attention. Lillia and Ko high fived afterwards, then stayed together to watch the next duo.

“They don’t look like they split up, do they?” I said, quietly enough I didn’t think anyone heard it.

“I dunno, you can kinda see it in their body language,”

I wasn’t sure when she popped up, but Chickadee sat right beside me.

“Uh,”

“Seems to be breakup season around these parts,” Chickadee said. “Lillia and Ko, the love trio…”

“Wait, the love trio broke up?” I gulped.

I once had a perhaps irrational fear that Amara would make a play for Zeta at some point. Nothing had come of it, but the idea of it still lingered. But if Amara was single?

“These things come in threes, as they say,” Chickadee said. “So maybe there’s a third on the way…”

This was Chickadee, I shouldn’t have even humored it. But when I was already rattled, it was easy to tilt the jar I kept my cool in over.

“Wait. Lillia and Ko, the love trio…hold on.” I shook my head. “No, you’re just trying to mess with me.”

“Maybe,” Chickadee winked. “I’m still stinging from you beating me with those plant balloons.”

“Well, you still won,” I said. “And you won against like, everyone else.”

“Eh, guess so,” Chickadee said.

Lillia noticed we were talking and approached, which sent Chickadee scurrying.

“Good jumping out there,” I said, nervously laughing. “Y-you know, if Zeta and I ever…” I gulped. “I dunno if I could…pogo.”

Why did I blurt that out? I wiped my eyes.

“Oka, a word please?” Lillia said.

She brought me away from the pogo tournament area, by some trees where we could talk in a bit more privacy.

“Sorry, Chickadee just…I think she was trying to say some stuff about me and Zeta," I said.

“You shouldn't put any stock in a single word she utters,” Lillia said. “You’ve been through worse bullies than her, don’t let a girl like her get to you.”

“Yeah…you’re right,” I said. I’d heard much worse from people like Ovie, Clover, everyone at Tesata. “It’s just, when things get me thinking about potential scary things with me and Zeta that…”

“It’s OK to have triggers and be affected by them,” Lillia said. “I’m sorry that you have this phobia about breakups, and I’m trying to not get upset about that.”

“Thank you…” I said. “I just…I’m so scared of that happening to me…”

I could tell that wasn’t what Lillia wanted to hear from me. Wait, ‘trying to not get upset about that.’ 

“This is why I waited to tell you,” Lillia said. “I didn’t want to send you into a spiral, but also…”

“Also what?” I said. “Is it something about me and Zeta?”

“Oh my god,” Lillia said. “I knew this would happen. I didn’t want to tell you because you’d turn it into just a thing about you and Zeta. I didn't think you'd manage it this quickly. And I know, I get it, it’s likely a phobia of some kind. Again, I’m not upset at you for having it. But it’s frustrating when you won’t take steps to protect yourself against it.”

“I do that?” I asked, my voice suddenly very mouse-like.

“Yes,” Lillia said. “The entire walk over here you were just throwing out panicked statements about your relationship.”

“I…you said you didn’t want to talk about yours, so…” I said.

“Yes, but consider how I felt hearing that,” Lillia said. “You and Zeta are fine. When you and Zeta have issues, you work through them. Ko and I couldn’t work through our issues at this time.”

Lillia's hurting, I told myself. Maybe she's just lashing out from a lot of emotions she has bottled up over this. I shouldn't take this personally. But...

“But!”

“But what?” Lillia asked.

“I…don’t even know!” I said.

“I wanted to protect you from this.” She gestured to my general self, which stung a bit realizing what an anxious wreck I was already. “But I also didn’t want to deal with another bout of helping you realize that your relationship is still fine and spending the entire trip confirming that spoiler alert, things are still fine! I didn’t want it to become all about you when I simply wanted time to recuperate, even just a little bit.”

“I…I didn’t mean to,” I said. “You know I wouldn’t do that on purpose, right?”

“I know. But you can mean well and still hurt someone.” Lillia said. “Now, I need to get back to the tournament, so please think about what I said.”

I never wanted to hurt her. But like she said, not wanting to didn’t mean it was impossible to do so. I remarked at Lillia’s strength as I slunk further back into the trees. She went back to Ko, her ex, right after a fight with a best friend, like it was nothing. But I had to wonder, was she just swallowing up the pain and hiding it under her perfect, pristine student demeanor? Was this all my fault for wrecking her mood enough that she had to do that? I braced myself leaning on a tree, accidentally getting a handful of sap in the process.

“Um, you’re not allowed to go back there,” one of the chaperones whistled at me, wrecking my plan to go hide deep in the forest and cry this one out.

“Right, sorry,” I said, deciding to go sulk elsewhere.