“The Rebirth of River and Lyric” (54.2)

"Alright team!" I said, pausing instinctively waiting for Zeta to say "Team Starlight!" Even though she was busy elsewhere.

"Why do you start everything like that?" Kalei rolled her eyes. "Where even is Zeta, anyways?"

"Zeta's got her thing with Tik Moonheart today," I said. "I offered to come with, but she said she'd be alright this time, and expressed her desire that all of us enjoy the day."

"Seriously, why are you talking like that?" Kalei asked.

"Ugh, just shut up!" I said.

"You're taking Zeta not being around pretty well this time," Marmalade said. "No pleas to marry 'Zay-buh' yet."

"Yet!" I said. "But everyone making fun of me for the Zay-buh thing makes me wanna prove I can get along just fine when Zeta's busy. And I think my three-tiered fun day will do just that! I assume I don't need to go over the gameplan again?"

"You were pretty thorough when you set this up," Marmalade said.

Earlier in the week, I gathered the crew at the student lounge for an idea I had. It was just me, Zeta, Kalei, Lillia, and Marmalade, but I hoped we could get more people to come along.

"Alright, team!" I started, pointing at Zeta.

"Team Starlight!" Zeta cheered.

"Thank you!" I said, clapping and pointing at her to match her enthusiasm. "I gathered us all today to check in where we're all at."

"Is this gonna be a heartfelt chat?" Kalei asked.

"M-maybe?" I said. I like to think we were getting better at being ready for Kalei's immediate snarking, but I still wasn't prepared for Kalei to immediately go at the meeting premise.

"Before you start, lemme just say," Kalei cracked her knuckles. "We all know there's too much Wildfire Hearts, too much angst, too much BS going around. And to be honest, while I love you guys, I am tapped out on the heartfelt chats right now."

"A-alright," I said, silently benching some poetic lines I had ready to show my support for us through the rough times.

"I mean like, I appreciate you guys but I can tell when you're gonna be all sentimental and crap with me." Kalei said. "That sounds bad, but you probably get what I mean."

"Fine, fine, but we should really talk things out eventually," I cleared my throat, not wanting her to keep derailing me. "But! I didn't just wanna do that. I also wanted to plot out my next scheme..." I pulled out a manilla envelope. "Kalei is correct that there has been entirely too much bullcrap around these parts as of late. I propose that mayhaps we need some sort of recuperative party of sorts. To which I asked Berin for help, allowing me to present to you...blam! Step one!" I proudly slapped a handful of tickets in front of me. "Kalei, I know you like beam chasers, and Lillia, I know Ko wants to get you to a game. So I thought it'd be fun time for us if we went to this!"

I grinned, waiting for Kalei to get all happy emotional about this kind gesture, her dear friend putting aside her general disinterest in most sports to go to a live game. Instead, she shrugged after looking at the tickets. "I don't really follow the Flame Broiled Furniture-Salespeople."

"I know, it's such a fun id—wait, what?" I said.

"They're not one of my teams," Kalei said. "I mean with a name like that, how can I root for them?"

"M-maybe the team they're playing against?" I said.

"Nah, I'm painfully neutral about the Turbos," Kalei said. "I mean, I'll go, it's beam chasers."

"Great," I said. "Moving onto step two..." I quickly changed to the next fun thing because of my already bruised ego. "We're gonna be pretty beat after all the cheering and junk food, so after that I think we could unwind with a visit to...blam! Times two!" I held up my phone which had a picture of a store loaded up. "A really nice-looking bookstore that I discovered is a mere block or so away from the arena!"

I was ready for Kalei to argue about this or say some dumb snarky line, but she was busy looking at the tickets.

"And if books aren't your jam, there is also a video game emporium in the same building!" I said.

Kalei, Lillia, and Marmalade all lit up at that information. I had already rehearsed this for Zeta, so I knew the game store wouldn't get her too excited.

"And then, once we're all energized by shopping, I say we close our night with a trip to...blam! Times three!" I plopped another pile of tickets down. "Thanks to Berin, I also got us all passes to The Rhombus of Fun! It's got laser tag, laser bowling, laser mat ball, laser arcade, all sorts of laser related things! And food too so we can get dinner!"

I could tell this was a winner, because Kalei only had about one and a half snarky comments. We brainstormed who we'd want to invite next, deciding on the Matora sisters, Aira, Michi, as well as Iris and Maia, but acknowledging that the last two probably would decline.

"We also have to prep for Roux showing up out of nowhere and inviting themselves along." Kalei said.

"We could just skip that and invite Roux to begin with?" Zeta suggested.

"I like that idea, you're as brilliant as you are beautiful, Zeta." At least, that was the smooth line that I attempted to say. It came out like, "You're, heh, as, uh, b-beauti...brilli....yeah," But my Starlight Boo blushed nonetheless, so I gave myself some points.

"Not to be weird, but I gotta ask...I'm part of this?" Marmalade asked.

"Yeah, duh," Kalei said. We wouldn't do this right in front of you if you weren't included, that'd be a total..."

"Ovie move." Oka said. "Also, speaking of Ovie, her being back at school also makes me want to get away, she is very motivational for that. While I begrudgingly acknowledge that she's also probably going through a lot."

Kalei booed.

"I know, fair, but going from all that to just going back to the same old Ovie...I dunno." Ovie was back to being a bullying jerk like someone putting on their favorite pair of gloves, but I did still feel a little, teeny tiny bit of pity for her. Probably mostly because she'd roped my cousin 09 into it now, and Ovie got residual pity from that even if 09 and I weren't on the best terms.

"Well, she's not invited to this, she can have her own friend group plan some fun crap," Kalei said.

With that, we got to work inviting and plotting our fun weekend getaway. Zeta found out a bit after that she wouldn't be able to make it and apologized up and down.

"It's fine!" I said. "I was kinda hoping we could knock the double date out here too, but maybe this will give them the same experience."

"Hopefully!" Zeta said. She promised she'd make it up to me somehow, but I didn't want her to worry about this when she had enough on her plate.