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Hey. We're having a pre-Xmas celebration and Iida and Baba - my mom and dad - are yellin at me to invite u over or something. 6? Tonite?

I stare at my phone, sitting on the table, free hand holding a ham sandwich from the campus Flasks.

"So?" Lev asks, mouth half-full of his own lunch treat. "Wha'shit say?"

"She's inviting me over... for dinner."

Lev swallows immediately. "She's WHAT?"

I shush him, as other people turn our direction to observe the commotion. I smile awkwardly until they look away. "Apparently..." I paraphrase the following couple of texts I receive. "Her family usually does a little dinner party for Evren's friends and since she knows I couldn't make it yesterday-"

"Because I'm more important."

"Yes, Lev. Since I was with you yesterday and you spent four hours interrogating me about Hadley, she's asking if I want to come today."

"Wow." Lev takes another bite out of his sandwich. "Dinner with the parents already. Damn, Aika, for someone who's never dated you sure are good at speedrunning it."

"Lev!" I slap his hand and his sandwich falls onto his plate.

"What?" He elongates the word. "I'm only joking, I know that's not your jam." He winks at me before picking up his bread again.

"It's not that it's not my jam, it's just that... I never met someone I was interested in that way."

Lev doesn't even have time to take a bite before his head perks up. "Wait. Are you being serious right now?"

"Am I ever not?"

"Well-"

"Never mind, don't answer that." I throw my hand up to stop him. "Yeah, I'm being serious. She might be different."

"...Well. Shit. Wow. Ok, then congratulations for doubly joining the Rainbow Coalition!" he nearly squeals. "You gotta go! Oh man, I'll help you pick out an outfit." He's now rubbing his hands together, having stuffed the rest of his bread into his mouth.

I laugh. "This isn't a formal, I just have to wear something decent."

"Jush... Don' go in bwack," he says, still chewing.

"Sure, sure." I wave my sandwich his way. He's delusional if he thinks I'm actually going to listen to him though.

I show up outside Evren's apartment complex just before 6 in black leggings and a matching tee. One of the nicer ones though. I'm not that fashion-dense. And the blacks match. The complex is pretty unassuming. I half-expected it to be super high end, since it's the Commander of Space we're talking about here, but it looks like it's an average middle class place. Clean. Probably 10 to 20 years old. Not leaking like our own place sometimes does.

Dad waves and gives me his obligatory 'text me when you need to be picked up or call if you need to leave suddenly' speech before driving off toward the setting sun. I take a deep breath. The gnawing's already started but I need to ignore that. Evren said we wouldn't talk about it until after the competition is over. If she can deal with whatever she's feeling, which is probably way more intense than what I'm feeling from what I've heard from Lev, then I should be able to tuck my shit away too.

Deep breaths, Aika. Just be normal.

"Hey!" Evren opens the door to the lobby and greets me. She's dazzling. I smile instinctively.

"Hey!" I can already feel my defenses crumbling.

"Thanks for waiting."

"Oh, it hasn't been long," I assure her.

Evren pushes the elevator button and we wait for a bit before hopping in. She hits the key for the 11th floor. "Sorry, not gonna climb all those floors."

"What, you can't handle 11 measly floors?"

She scoffs. "Oh, I can. I'd be more worried about you."

"Excuse me!" We laugh, but I'm grateful we're not climbing. I already have Nevaeh to make me sorer than sore.

I'm greeted by Evren's parents: Iida, a blonde and pale lady with a bit of a crazy look in her eyes that reminds me of Evren's fighting expression, and Kibwe, a much calmer glasses-clad man who is several shades darker than Evren. I can easily guess they're the Kinnunen and Mwangi halves of Evren's last name respectively.

Evren's home is about as fancy as the halls outside its door, with steel appliances that look lightly used and matching décor. Nothing too crazy, like floor-to-ceiling one-of-a-kind paintings. Just family photos and some plants.

It's quite neat and I wonder if I should take a picture for Dad to see how a proper place should be decorated. I just want to see his knickknacks gone from the kitchen table, to be honest.

Evren's parents are easy to get along with. They'd probably make good friends with my dad. They seem to be more mature than he is, at least right up until Iida says "My petty revenge was putting an ice cube in his shoe" halfway through her second revenge story over mashed potatoes and fried chicken. So that means their maturity levels are actually completely compatible.

And I wonder how we hadn't all met until now.

"All right, maybe we should give Aika a chance to speak," Evren's dad, Kibwe, says as he catches my eye. There's mischief in his gaze and I see where Evren gets her ability to talk with her eyes.

"Oh, of course, of course! I get so carried away sometimes," Iida says. "Tell us, what do your parents do?"

"Oh." I wasn't expecting that. "Uh, my dad's a physicist."

"Whoa! What? You never told me that!" Evren suddenly pipes up from beside me.

"Yeah, at the local college he teaches some courses," I continue. "Totally clueless though. You'd never be able to tell."

Ms. Iida laughs. "He sounds like a fun personality."

"Yeah, he is fun, I guess." I grin. I'll give him that.

"Does he have his figure?" Iida asks.

"Yeah, it's darkness. Mostly uses it to help him fall asleep, though."

"Well, not everyone gets to use their figure for the punching and kicking," she teases.

I laugh. "Fair, fair."

"What's your brother's figure?" Evren asks.

"Takumi's? It's like electrical conduction or funneling."

"A lightning man," Kiwbe says.

"Yeah."

"Takumi, was it? That's your brother. What's your dad's name?" Iida asks.

"Tsuyoshi." It's weird saying his first name out loud. "Japanese. Takumi goes on about cultural heritage and history to me all the time. Dad's less intense about it, but he did insist on our names."

"Well, it can be important to know where you come from," Kibwe says.

Evren nods. "Baba's family's from Kenya," she says, post-swallowing the last bit of her potatoes. "Oh, I never asked, what about you? Also mixed?"

I shake my head. "Don't think so, but we're not first generation. Mum was also Japanese, though don't know past our grandparents on her side." I never got to know her long enough to ask.

Evren nods. No one points out the 'was' I just used to describe Mom.

"Speaking of figures, actually, now I can finally ask you to tell us about your figure," Iida says, leaning towards me.

"Hm it's... essentially speeding up time."

"Oh, that we know. The figuration is the more interesting story."

"Mom!" Evren exclaims, indignant. I just laugh. Her mom's bluntness rivals her own.

"It's ok, I don't mind," I manage to giggle out. "My figuration was sparked by, uh, making peace with a fear I had in childhood. Actually, Evren, you know Lev." Evren nods, eyebrows furrowed as she no doubt tries to get where I'm going with this. "He's my best friend," I direct at her parents. "We met when I accidentally ran into him. He got badly injured because I crashed into him too fast, and so my figure grew out of that. Going fast, losing time, anxiety about running out... that all got lumped into the figure I have today."

There's a brief silence before anyone speaks. Was that... too blunt? I can't tell. I'm all warm from the potatoes and the weird surreal feeling that comes from being at Evren's house. The home of the defending Grand Champion. My mouth's just rolling on its own.

"That's a fascinating story," Iida finally says. Kibwe nods, also impressed.

I wonder what Evren's figuration was like. I glance briefly at the blue-haired woman next to me, who is nodding at my story in fascination.

"I didn't know you and Lev went back like that."

Her story's probably just as dazzling, if not more.

"Thank you," I say as I move to finish the last of my potatoes. "And thank you also for the meal," I say after I swallow. "It was great."

"Of course, you are our guest." Kibwe winks as he gets up to clear the table. "Iida and I will leave you and Evren be to go grab some dessert."

"After their movie..." Evren says, rolling her eyes. "They decided to plan date night this close to Christmas."

What. And Evren didn't tell me? I make a face at her and hunch my shoulders sheepishly. Great first impression, Aika: waltzing in to interrupt your girlfriend's parents' date. Wait... not girlfriend... what are you doing, Aika? Focus on the task at hand. "Sorry to interrupt," I squeak out.

"Don't worry, hun, we're sorry to have to go so suddenly," Iida says. "But, I figure you're more interested in hanging out with our daughter than us old geezers." She winks at me and my nervousness deflates only briefly until ramping up again for another not-so-subtle reason. She has a Nevaeh-like effect of instantly changing my mood, for better or worse. Both she and Kibwe remind me a bit of Dad, too. They speak to me like they've known me for years.

I glance at Evren. I guess it's just her family power to have that effect on people.

Evren gives me a tour of her apartment and is showing me her room when my thoughts about figurations return again. I stop partway into her room. I don't even think before I speak. "Hey, Evren, can I ask you something?" Were those potatoes laced with adrenaline?

Evren stops mid-point and looks at me curiously. "Yeah, of course."

Would she find this an offensive question? She got mad at her mom when she brought it up earlier. Aika, you should be watching what you're saying. Stop getting caught up in the excitement.

"Is it about... the other day?" Evren asks hesitantly, wrenching me from my thoughts.

I thought I had forgotten about that for at least the rest of the evening. Nope. Not at all. There's the gnawing again. I shake my head, to mean no and to also get the gnawing out of me. "No, no, your figure." Well. Looks like I asked about it in the end.

Evren raises a brow. "What about it?"

No turning back now, I guess. "Just... how did you get it?"

She's unusual, like me. She has to have had an unusual figuration too.

But what if it was also traumatic?

Evren's face hardens and I immediately know I shouldn't have asked.

"Sorry, I know my figuration was really traumatic. If yours is, you don't have to-"

"Nah," Evren sighs. She takes a seat by her bed and pats the floor next to her. I sit down as well. "I trust you. And besides, you told us earlier too, though an abridged version probably." She laughs, a bit nervously, which I'm not used to hearing from her. "I'm not really good at abridging this kind of stuff." She pauses and shifts her position a bit.

I listen intently.

"My fear was of closed spaces. Crowds, small rooms, cramped cities, it was all overwhelming when I moved to the city as a kid. To be honest, I did not cope well with the move at all, but Iida did it for a better job and we had enough money to afford the city. Baba could move school districts easily. Iida always preferred the city anyway, I think. But me, I'd... panic in small spaces. Panic in the middle of the crosswalk."

Oh. Oh. "So... you were afraid of being too close to other people?"

"I was afraid of being too close to anything." Evren clenches her jaw. "The city was heavy. I felt caged – forced to always have to move closer to one thing to have space from another. I felt like I'd be crushed any second." Her shoulders tense and curl inward a bit, emulating being stuck in a cramped confine. "Fighting saved me, in a way. Learning that moving closer was something useful, something that could be to my advantage, was what got me this figure. Now closing space is what I do for a living." Evren laughs at the irony, but I'm stuck on two words, two vital words that echo over and over in my head.

Closing space.

Closing space.

Closing space.

Her title has been the Commander of Space and all this time we've all thought her figure was some sort of teleportation. A bending or a folding of space. Some convoluted complicated mess no one could decipher, all done in any direction. And I assume that for the sake of having an edge, Evren never felt inclined to clarify exactly how her figure worked or what her figuration was like.

Because if she had, we'd all have known her weakness.

Evren can't use her figure to move away.

"Holy..." I think I said that out loud because Evren is giving me a strange look. I don't care. I turn to her, seriously. Her expression changes to a mix of curiosity and confusion. "Evren... do you realize... you've just told me your weakness?" Evren doesn't react immediately, but when she does, it's not how I expected she would.

The blue-haired undefeated champion of the NCC gives me a smirk before shrugging and looking away. "Yeah. I did."

I stare.

What.

She turns to me again and smiles with amusement. "What? We've already shared other, arguably more embarrassing secrets. And, I mean, you asked."

I feel a twitch at the corner of my mouth. I asked for her figuration story, out of curiosity. She's right. The story usually reveals the secrets. But... "You didn't have to tell me everything." Evren's expression tells me, without her saying anything, that that might usually work for other people's figuration stories but it wouldn't have for her case. I know she's right there too. Some things need context. But that means... "You've given me an advantage no one else in the Battle Royale will have."

Evren just nods and shrugs. "Well, yeah, but you also have disadvantages no one else will have either."

"...You mean my injuries?"

She doesn't shy away from the topic this time. She nods again, this time more seriously. "Don't get me wrong, this isn't me pitying you or trying to give you a leg up. I'm pretty sure you would have figured it out on your own. But..." She stares straight through me – no, at me – and stays silent for a second before continuing. "I don't really know why I felt inclined to spill everything." Huh. So she feels that way too. Maybe it was the food... "You already know how I feel about you."

She doesn't embellish the statement. None of her giggles or that sparkle-eye that makes my chest feel like it's tearing itself apart. There's no gnawing, no discomfort, just a faint warm pulse. I feel content, because she's shared something important to her with me, trusting me enough to do so.

Huh. I guess that's what it's supposed to feel like.

That... changes some things. I don't know if we can keep casually meeting without this topic coming up anymore.

I turn our conversation to the elephant in the room. "So, are we dating now, or...?"

Evren blinks a couple of times and her high-pitched giggle returns. It also comes out partially a sigh. "I mean, if you want?!" She throws her hands up in the air, in defeat, before she suddenly looks to me with worry. "If... you want to try having a deeper relationship, of course. I'm not pressuring you. Just, again, you're asking, so..." She trails off, gesturing vaguely with her hands.

I think about it, like I've been thinking about it every day since we met in the alley. I think about what I just felt, listening to Evren's story about her figuration. "I honestly don't know what it is I'm feeling for you," I say. "I don't know if this 'crush' is what other people usually describe as a crush. I don't know if this, uh, 'attraction' or whatever is romantic." I pause and watch Evren's face. Her expression is calm and she's listening intently. She's not interrupting. She's not upset. "But I do know that you're really cool, fun to be around, someone who's already changed me a lot, in good ways. I know that hanging out with you more, talking kind of like this, is something I'd like to do. Having a relationship with you is something I'd like, I think."

Evren smiles. "Then we'll just have to define this ourselves."

"...What?"

"This." She indicates the space between us. "If you're not comfortable in a romantic relationship, or calling it that, then-"

"Oh, no, I'm fine with being your girlfriend-"

Evren sputters. I try not to laugh. Yes, yes, the tables have turned or whatever. But...

"I just want to make sure you'd be fine with someone like me," I finish.

Evren's eyes narrow. "Aika, your identity doesn't matter to me. If you want to be in a relationship, then we can be in a relationship."

"But I'm aro-"

"Even if you're aro," she says. "Someone somewhere sometime said that attraction isn't action. It... doesn't really matter a whole lot to me." She pauses for a long moment before she sighs. "Ok. Let's do this: we make an agreement. What would you be comfortable doing? I don't know about your boundaries. Regardless of identity, it's always good to talk about what we're ok with. And this way, we'll both know what we want from this and if it can work."

I did not expect her to put this much thought into this.

"Maybe since you don't experience attraction in the same way I do, there are certain things in the relationship that could be adjusted to make sure we're both on the same page. Or, like, expectations we can be clearer about. Like, just... what do you want out of this?"

"...I don't know," I answer truthfully.

"Aika, you're not helpful!" she teases.

I half-sigh half-groan. "Listen, I haven't been in a relationship before. I assume you have?" She nods after some deliberation, which I almost laugh at, but I need to stay on track. "Tell me what you usually like in a relationship, and then I can say whether I'd like that, not like that, or, uh... maybe like that if we talk about it beforehand or depending on the time?"

"So like levels of consent?"

"Yeah. Actually, yeah. That's a good way of putting it."

"Cool." She smiles her radiant smile, colour beaming from every fiber of her being, and she shuffles toward her desk to grab a marker and a piece of paper.

"Oh, we're making this official official?" I eye the paper.

"Well, I want to make sure I don't forget. I also want to make sure you have something to refer to in case I get too pushy or anything. I dunno. Maybe Iida's legal spiels have gotten into me too much over the years." She scribbles our names at the top, under which she puts 'Relationship Agreement.' Then, she starts listing things. "Being called girlfriends."

"That's fine."

She gives the item a checkmark, practically beaming as she does a little happy dance. Or maybe more like happy squirm. It's cute. "Saying, 'I love you' or other, uh... cute stuff."

"Pfft, sure. Might be weird at the beginning though."

Evren just shrugs. "You're ok with it, though?"

I think on it. Evren saying she loves me? Me saying I love her? ...I don't know. "I don't think I'd mind it from you, but it might take a bit of time from me."

She checkmarks it. Her hand shakes a little, but her voice is steady. "Most people have to work up to it anyway. All right, how about... couple names?"

"...Couple names?"

"You know, like 'hun' or 'babe' or whatever."

I cringe. Evren laughs.

"That's a no for now." Evren puts an X next to that. "Holding hands?"

"That's fine."

"In public?"

"Yeah."

"How about hugs?"

"Sure."

"Cuddles?"

"Yeah, though not that overly mushy kind people do in public."

Evren puts down her pen. "Oh yeah, where they make weird noises like they're pretending to be cats or something? And make everyone around them super uncomfortable?" She looks like she wants to strangle someone. I wonder if someone in her past did that to her. "Yeah, skippin' that's fine by me." She laughs. "Cuddling we can keep to ourselves."

"You're... being very methodical about this." Evren looks up at me. "I've never seen anyone do this. Like, actually write down an agreement."

"Well, you've never been in a relationship," she counters.

"Fair, but I don't see this kind of thing on TV."

Evren scoffs. "As if television is in any way an accurate representation of real healthy relationships."

I stare, curiously. It never occurred to me that someone who isn't aro would say or even think something like that too.

Or maybe... Evren's just... a weirdo.

Huh. I think I'm fine with that. Maybe even prefer that.

Evren brushes her hair behind her ear and takes her pen to the paper again. "Ok, some more serious questions." She glances up at me briefly. "Kissing?"

Great question. "I guess... it depends where."

"Oh, good point," Evren says. "We'll start with cheek or forehead."

"I think I'd be fine with that."

"In public?"

"Maybe not. Seems weirdly performative."

"What about the mouth?"

I'm honestly not sure. If I stare at Evren now I'm not entirely sure I'd want to kiss her, but I can't tell if that's because kissing weirds me out, because kissing is incompatible with my feelings, or because kissing is just something I'm inexperienced with. Can't win at.

"...We can put 'maybe,'" Evren says. "Of course, you probably know I wouldn't mind kissing you," her voice gets quiet right at the end of the phrase, "but if it's something you're not sure about right now, I can ask before I do anything, and you can decide in the moment."

"But, if I can't give you something you might need in the relationship-"

"Nope, stop right there," Evren immediately interrupts. I'm surprised enough to stay silent. "I don't need anything. I would like to be your girlfriend but it's not some weird necessity without which I'll, I dunno, die. I'm not that dramatic."

Huh. I mean... She's right. But I didn't expect her to say it.

I can feel myself grinning.

"Right, so, 'maybe, ask first' on the kissing," she says, gaze back on her paper. "That's... probably a good start?" She stares a bit longer before she shakes her head and seems to file something in her head away to deal with another time. Then she looks back at me and holds up the paper. "Here it is!" she says proudly.

"Does this make it official now?" I ask, amused by her antics.

She smiles again, her teeth shining against the colour she's freaking radiating. She slips her hand in mine, leans in, and gives me a kiss on the cheek. It's a quick thing, but the feeling on my cheek lingers. I can feel my heart rate jump immediately. Huh. I guess that's something we'll have to think about later.

Then Evren pulls back, clearly over the moon with herself. I could swear she's humming under her breath. I roll my eyes and place my chin in my hand, elbow resting on my knee, which is miraculously not shaking right now. "Does that make it official now?" I ask.

She swats at me. But I let her.