Idle Math

The four of you are about nine seconds into lunch—your chill, relaxing, counteract-the-bullshit-from-this-morning lunch—when your friends, god bless ‘em, decide it’s the perfect time for a match. They’re kind enough to take the theatrics to the other side of the diner (kind to you, if not the employees of the Staple), but it still leaves you to babysit the new girl.

Kiara. Not yet spent a week in Shuffle City, but she attached herself to your little crew without a second’s hesitation. Probably just lonely, you reckon: doesn’t seem like she’s got family here, she basically admitted that she moved for the cards. No scene where she’s from, she says.

Fucking good at the game.

Kiara takes a looooong sip of her smoothie; you get the sense she’s trying to avoid starting the conversation. Maybe a year ago, you’d let her stew in it, run out of drink and reckon with the silence. But, well… You take pity on her. It’s a thing you can do, now.

“How long’ve you been running that deck?”

“Hm!” You weren’t pitiful enough—you asked her mid-sip. “Ah… Not long, this one,” she says, carefully lifting a pristine stack of cards from her battle disk and leafing through them. The disk, too, is pristine—which is weird, for a twenty-scarab piece of spruey Ymart junk, must be brand-fucking-new.

Chill, Eterna, she’s talking. “I’ve played a few decks, but I had to settle on something before debuting in Shuffle,” she explains. “La Forêt’s only a couple months old, but”—she shrugs—“it’s my current one.”

You gesture for a card; she selects one, carefully closes your thumb and forefinger around its corner. Ancient Oak. The deck’s name suddenly clicks—man, you’re bad at languages. “Forêt… Forests, huh?”

“Mhm.”

She gestures for you to return the card, and you do; her nails are immaculate. It nags at you, and you don’t know why. The paranoid bit of your brain that you haven’t killed yet starts counting. Ten’s probably twice her age, Nine’s a foot taller, Eight is… Spoken for. Seven through Five are too dark, Four and Three too pale.

You’re not thinking all that deliberately, it’s just. A thing you do, now.

Something nudges at your shin, the rubber stop of a skate; “You okay?” Kiara shuffles her deck idly, but her eyes are fixed on you.

“Yeah, just…” Man, you’re a bad fugitive. “Trying to figure you out,” you admit.

“Why the rush? I’m not going anywhere.”

You shrug, leaning back in your chair until you start to worry about its structural integrity. “I’m not nice,” you eventually say—your friends will call you a liar for it, but you’ll be the judge of that—“I’m working on it, but…”

She waves a hand, dismissing the need to finish the sentence. “Old habits, right?”

“Yeah.” This chair sucks—you return to standard sitting. “Don’t let me interrogate you, okay?” (You would come to regret saying this.)

“Okay.” She takes another looooong sip of smoothie; this time, you’re watching her think. “If you don’t mind my asking…?”

“Shoot.” Heh. (Gun jokes are not funny anymore, Sen.)

“What happened to your…?” She gestures to her cheekbone, where your scar sits.

“Papercut,” you say, and she giggles.

“Really?”

“Really.”

She looks at you expectantly, but you’re not about to elaborate—you look back. Your veteran-sniper-nascent-photographer’s eye catalogues her details: the faintest of freckles speckling her nose, the scar on her lip so tiny you could swear you imagine it. She has dimples, which eliminates everyone, and scarab-gold eyes, which eliminates everyone again. Phew.

Well, almost—you don’t think Zero ever smiled. You certainly never saw it happen—and he never saw a damn thing, pretentious blind git. (Is that ableist? Oh god, you might be an ableist.)

Still, doesn’t matter. He’d never leave, even if they let him.

And, you reason, Kiara’s a nice girl. Zero’s neither.

(In about six months, you will kick yourself to the fucking moon.)