“Pinky… I hate to be that kind of girl, but can you stop swaying so much, I think I’m going to lose my lunch,” I told her.

  “Oh shoot,” Pinky murmured as I held on for dear life. Pinkies back pressed firmly into my gaping chest, “Sorry. Sorry. Didn’t mean to… Wait, why am I apologizing? Good. You get the consequences of your actions. See if I care. Hmph!”

  She said Hmph like it was a word all on its own. I could tell she was pouting, but I was too out of it in pain to tease. Honestly, I was too out of it to do more than wings like a little bitch.

  “Consequences. Yeah. But can I suffer a little less? Like maybe don’t swerve so much?” I asked.

  “I would, but we keep getting targeted. We’re almost back, so suck it up, you big baby. You have a lot of explaining to do. Like why you decided to fight Blackbird in the stupidest way possible! Or why you didn’t just bring me along!” She told me sternly.

  “Ok, mom. I have some questions of my own because there are a few things that don’t make any sense,” I told her.

  “Like, why was there a fucking alien in the basement?” Pinky asked.

  “And why the girl it grew out of was so familiar,” I told her, “I know I’ve bumped into her down here.”

  “You sure? You would think you would remember a half-alien girl… Unless you think everyone looks alike,” she told me with a huff.

  A lot of lunatics looked alike, but that was the case for basically every group. Smiths looked alike, lunatics looked alike, and Chroniclers were basically the only group I could think of that were dead on the same. Most people were mostly similar, and proximity just made the differences blend together.

  Hell, Golems had more differences between them, and they came off a factory line.

  “A little alike,” I told her. “But I think I would have noticed if she had an alien. And if not me, Lilly. She figured out Norman.”

  “That’s a little racist,” Pinky said, “Tell me how you really feel.”

  “Everyone’s a little racist, Pinky. I’m not going to say I’m better than average when it comes to that. Besides, I doubt I could mistake you for anyone else; I’m not going to forget you. Now… Where did I see her…” I started murmuring.

  Pinky tried to shake me, tried to trick me into not falling in on myself, but I had a problem, and the second the fight started to fade I started getting sleepy. She was probably worrying over me, and while I would feel like an asshole for not paying attention to her now, I felt that little part of me that liked detail pulling on the unravelling strands of my memory.

  There were only so many places I had gone here on Luna. I wouldn’t have remembered her if we had passed in the street, not like this. I was damn sure I had seen her somewhere, so we had spent some time near one another.

  My mind jumped to the mercenaries; she was closely tied, clearly. She had been at one of their bases, but I wouldn’t have noticed if I had met her when I had gotten here. They were all dolled up like rent-a-goons. No face meant no memory of her face, and while I might have had an eye for detail and a gut feeling so accurate I chose it over iron sights, I sure as hell wouldn’t have remembered her profile at a distance in the middle of a warzone.

  She didn’t look like she went out like a former soldier, she looked like she hid in a hole.

  So, where else had I met people? The bar? No, that was mostly the first kin, and Mei. Maybe she was one of the girls on girls' night, but if she was, how would that help me? My gut wouldn’t care about that.

  Pinky spun around just for the hell of it before coming down to land inconspicuously on the balcony of all places. I stumbled, slumping against the wall as I found balance, my eyes wandering around until they found the tiny can of cigarettes in the corner. That can brought to mind a good rule of thumb for me, as dumb as it sounded.

  I probably would remember if I spent long enough to smoke there, so where would I have been able to smoke? I ran through all the places I had spent more than five minutes and came up with a shortlist. The Voidrome, Pinkies place, the bar, the bank, the guild, a hand full of street corners, a few stores, the red light district, a few alleys, the warehouses, the shit hole the building was in, the…

  The Warehouses, my gut whispered. It was the warehouses. That’s the only place it could have been. There were a few people that had been there. Hell, they were related to the Lotus, too, even if it was as mules instead of mercs.

  “Ow,” I lightly whimpered.

  “If you’re going to whine so much, take another injector,” Pinky murmured, though she was just being pouty. “I gave you a tone of them specifically so you could heal up and- Ew. Oh gosh, there's a lot of blood. Ugh. I’m going to need to wash this now. Phooey.” Pinky said, looking back as she checked the back of her robe.

  “Sorry about the blood,” I told her. I guess you could say you really wear my heart on your sleeve... and on your back, and probably on your leggings too.”

  “Well, I’m glad that you're checking me out, but I would rather get the two of us out of sight before someone spots us out in the open,” she told me, opening the side door and quickly looking back and forth down the alleyway like someone would magically appear and spot us.

  I decided that given my luck dept, I would rather not tempt fate and stumbled in, doing my best to keep the blood off Pinky’s floor. A task at which I failed almost immediately because, despite the use of one of Pinkies miracle cures, the wound was still open.

  At least I still had blood. I guess that’s where it was going, straight to blood so it could scab and grow over my wounds as scabs. You needed blood to stop bleeding. The last time I had needed one of these badly, the squirming of my body had closed the wound easily, but a few nasty burns were small change compared to the giant fucking wound from my chest down to my gut.

  I felt around the nobby bits of bone that still sat between my ribs, left over from Lilly, shielding my organs from getting ripped up.

  Pinky slapped the door shut behind us as she slunk in, and I said, “Listen, sis, mom isn’t home; you don’t have to go sneaking in.”

  She turned to me, took the joke, and made both a happy and a dour look at the same time with an accompanying wiggle before she held her hands out like she wanted to strangle me.

  “First it was Mom, now it's Sis,” she said. Make up your mind.”

  “Well you can’t be my mom, I already have one of those,” I told her.

  “Well… I could certainly fix that” she snorted. “Maybe if I married your mother you would pay attention,” she told me.

  “You can’t do that; I have a dad too,” I told her, “They’re in this thing called a marriage.”

  “And I think I’m good enough to get this thing called a divorce,” Pinky told me, “Call it petty, but I bet that would turn your head.”

  “Maybe I’ll go after your mom then,” I told her.

  “Go ahead,” she chortled, “I would love to see you suffer through ten minutes in the same room as her before you call it off and crawl back here, missing your will to live. It would be like now, but unlike now, you wouldn’t have anything I could help you with. Now, shut it and stim yourself again. You bleeding is getting my nice floor all sticky.”

  “Yeah…” I told her halfheartedly, “Speaking of stims. What the hell do you put in them?”

  I was sure she was one of the people I had stimed back at the warehouses. She was a monster today, but just yesterday, she had been normal. The only change was the stims.

  I asked it bluntly, making it sound like I didn’t particularly want to take more of Pinkie's medicine, which confused her.

  “Why?” She asked, taken off balance.

  How did I answer that question? Did I just go, ‘Oh yeah, the woman that was an alien, I might have given her one of your stims to wake her up, and she sure as hell wasn’t before I used it?’

  I knew better, even without the damn peacekeeper form telling me not to say that. It offered to deflect, trading like for like.

  “I’m just wondering,” I told her, “Lilly said they were fascinating.”

  Good choice. Decent phrasing. Piss poor delivery. It just set her from balance to suspicion, even with the half-assed compliment. I should have stuck to bickering. I was almost good at bickering.

  I also didn’t want to backpedal.

  “Don’t give me that look,” I told her.

  “Sure. I’ll just pretend that you aren’t acting funny. I know you’re keeping something sus in that little head of yours. Anyway, I can’t believe you got hurt like that. Whats wrong with you?” Pinky chided.

  “You’re not my mother,” I belly ached. “We’ve already gone over this.”

  “You’re damn right I’m not! I’m supposed to be your friend, so don’t make me act like I am! I’m too young to go grey trying to keep your insides unoxidized, you great big dumb ass! Do you know how hard that is when your insides are still outside? It’s hard!”

  The tone shift and the swear actually brought me up short for a second, despite being desensitized, Pinky swearing wasn’t all that common.

  “I’m fine, Pinky. I’m Good. I don’t even know why I’m so cut up, but I did it to take Blackbird off the field,” I told her, lightly distributing the remains of the carefully picked papers on the closest flat surface.

  They were in poor condition; the ink had run with the blood, leaving washy letters on the torn paper.

  “The vapour blade is condensed air, but it’s not static,” Lilly whispered to me while clearly also talking to Pinky, “Its edge is moving; it’s like a… Well, like a chainsaw, just with less penetrative power and more teeth. It’s a very unclean wound. Some of your skin was torn in a few hundred places all at once and scooped out.” She said, and then, not to be out momed, Pinky continued, “Don’t you dare do that again! Not without armour. You absolute animal.”

  That was a bit grisly, and I did my best not to outwardly wince at that.

  “Listen,” I said, “It’s not-”

  I got cut off with a unanimous “Stim yourself!” from both of them, and I did so. Exaggerating my movements in jest while also doing my best to not piss them off. Then, because Pinky didn’t stop glaring at me, I threw up my hands and sat down, though not on her couch.

  I was considerate like that. Cleaning a wood floor was worse than cleaning a couch.

  “There,” I murmured, “Got anything else you want to shout me down over?”

  “Yeah, get better soon, idiot. People die when they lose all their blood. If you die of blood loss, I’m going to find out where you grew up and cuck your dad for teaching you how to be a dumbass. I’ll do it, don’t test me!” she told me.

  “Leave my parents out of this; they didn’t give me my charm,” I told her.

  “I wouldn’t call near suicidal stupidity charm,” Pinky quipped.

  “Hey! It was the best choice. It was a wise and well-thought-out decision,” I told her.

  “It was stupid. Don’t pass this off as some kind of good choice,” she told me, though it was mostly banter.

  “My stupidity is so dumb, it wraps around into being wise. I did the math on this… I’m just bad at math,” I told her, my entire smart mouth out. “Besides, you do dumb stuff all the time. Saying something is stupid rings hollow when you’re the girl that rushed a machine gun.”

  “Friendship is all about sharing, but if you can’t tell the difference between having plot armour where we got a few scrapes and you having a duel and nearly getting cut in half, then I’m going to stop sharing with you,” Pinky told me sem-seriously.

  That almost brought a smile to my lips, that was Pinky behind all that fear.

  “What did we share?” I asked her, “A felony?”

  That, of all things, relaxed her. It even put a tiny smirk on her face.

  “Everyone knows that the real friends are the felonies we committed in the name of doing good. We do a little crime around here, but only the cute ones,” she told me, bending over until her face was just above my slumped form next to the couch.

  I fought my baser nature and ignored the mountains just below my eyes with all my heart. Instead, I stared between her brilliant pink eyes and the curve of her pink lips.

  “It’s a damn shame,” I said, thinking about things I shouldn’t before I caught my blunder and said, “I guess getting turning into cold cuts is less than cute, not that I’m well known for being so.”

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  Her eyes lost a little of the light in them as she seemed to pull back a little in mind, if not in body. I had said the right thing… And the wrong thing. If there was chemistry between us, it was as friends; she was too kind to do anything else.

  “We can change, we can become whatever we want. If we are broken, we can mend ourselves,” she said, poking me just close enough to the pain zone to make my eye twitch, “if we are chained to the lives we live, we can escape. We are spirit alone; we are free will made manifest. It’s kinda fun.”

  There was some truth in that, but there was also a warning.

  “Being free means there is nothing to hold you down, no gravity beneath your feet, nothing holding you from flying too close to the sun,” I told her, “Especially with how you fly, little miss poet.”

  “We are very different,” Pinky said. “I can’t tell when your being real or not. You can normally tell by the eyes, but yours are all funny.”

  “We're surprisingly similar,” I told her. “All but the eyes. Be glad that you can’t read my eyes, Pinky; I hope you never can.”

  Pinky clicked her tongue and said, “It’s a shame you’re such a mess that you’re going soft. That can’t be good. I think I’m going to prescribe you extra medicine.”

  “I’m not going soft,” I told her.

  “Yes, you are,” she told me. I can tell. After you went all soft yesterday, I can tell that much.”

  I cringed a little. How much had I told her? The idea would be bad enough with a stranger. It had happened, but I strived to be better than that. At least I hadn’t slept with Pinky. I didn’t ask about it, I was sure I didn’t want to know and that asking would just get me into shit. I could figure it out, bit by bit, until I knew what we had talked about.

  “Well, doc. If we're going to start treating me like a delicate little flower, what is my prescription?” I asked her, “And before you say something sappy, don’t, all right? Try as you might, I’m not cute and will hiss at you.”

  “A magical girl will always prevail, and the first step is right below your notice,” she told me before giving her chest two firm taps from beneath.

  Out came a genuine cup made from opaque plastic with a lid and pink swirly straw coming out of the top.

  I looked down at the cup and looked up at it before asking, “Where do you get off doing that? Couldn’t you like… Take it out of a pocket? Or a handbag? Or anywhere that’s a little more serious than the cleavage of holding?” I asked her.

  She looked at me and then daintily took my hand, fumbling it up and onto the cup as it came free, a clear look of disappointment on her face as she shook her head.

  “A handbag is too extra for combat, even if they can hold a lot, and my pockets are full of glitter. No one expects the chest, and it's super awkward for anyone to grab it. I mean, could you imagine someone trying to pickpocket me? Yeah, sure, just feel her up in public. Also, one of those two would be a whole extra artifact, and I have a limit. A body mod like this is top-end stuff, but it runs on calories when I’m not reaching in, and because my body is already basically an artifact, it just works. Hammerspace fueled by noodles.”

  “Bio resonance-based storage,” Lilly murmured, “Now, what I would give to get my hands on that.”

  “Lilly, your hands are my hands, and I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m not getting my hands on Pinkies boob window,” I chided.

  “Works every time,” Pinky said with a giggle before she left my personal space. “Though I have to admit, you and Lilly continue to surprise me.”

  “W- Why did you do that?” Lilly asked, horrified.

  “She has a mind of her own,” I told Pinky, passing it off as a joke.

  I still wasn’t sure what oracles were like normally, and Lilly and I were abnormal, but how abnormal?

  “Very,” a familiar voice whispered into my ear, a phantom warmth bleeding through with it. "We’re one of a kind, my other half.”

  I blinked, but I was sure it sounded like Lilly.

  And then Lilly asked, voice stuttering, “J- Jjjacalyn! She’s going to think I’m weird!”

  I ignored Lilly for the moment. She was just too adorable when she got all stutter. Instead I took a second to orient myself. I had felt confused for a moment, and I couldn't place why. It was the darndest thing. Like a dream, it left me quickly and without notice, until all that was left was just the memory that it had been there, and then those too faded. I was just sitting there, blinking at nothing.

  “I’ll make sure she keeps her hands off of you Pinky. Besides, she needs to get her fingers in my chest and remove the bone growths,” I told her, looking down at my chest as the flesh finally scabbed over, the lack of rubbing and pressure and spinning letting it close off so it could get to healing the wound.

  “I’m not going to do it all at once, I’m going to smooth it out for now and let the bones fix it slowly,” Lilly told me dejectedly. “I used the same pathways as your warform, but I dipped into your normal peacekeeper material to do it. Best to just let it reclaim it so it goes back to normal. I don’t want to give you bone cancer or something.”

  “Damn,” I told her, “I don’t know, what are the side effects of bone cancer?”

  “Your skeleton decides it wants out. On the plus side… Spikes are badass, and overcoming this would make you really cool?” she told me, though it was clear there were no decent plus sides.

  “Mmm. Very bad for my ass,” I told her though I did it with a grin, “I’ll deal with the discomfort, I like my skeleton remaining non-hostile.”

  Lilly didn’t object, but she did titter slightly, but I was pulled away from that by Pinky, who impatiently made a ‘drink up’ gesture, and I did, sucking on the straw until the terrible drink made it to my mouth and I gaged out an “Ugh.”

  It was terribly slimy and thick and very clearly not meant for consumption. I couldn’t quite tell if this was Pinky trying to kill me because I was being a pain in the ass or she was getting tired of me bleeding everywhere.

  I dropped the drink dramatically, “Oh god, what is this?”

  “Medicine,” she told me.

  “Poison,” I told her as I tried to get the taste out of my mouth. “I’ve been poisoned.”

  “I literally told you about it; it keeps you healthy,” she told me, “It's algae.”

  “What the hell do you put in this stuff?” I asked, “How do you make something made of food that bad?”

  “Poison,” Pinky said with a grin, “It’s honestly a skill.”

  “I really do need to ask you about what you put in your stuff. I need to know some things,” I told her.

  “Oh?” she asked, “How about you finish your drink first.” She told me sweetly.

  It was a dangerous tone. It was an ask that wasn’t asking.

  I looked down at the cup and wondered how best to get rid of it without her noticing. Would Lilly rat me out? I had a feeling she would because she cared about my health enough for her to stop working once before.

  I opened the lid and stared into the terrible slop, the light revealing the shimmery ooze nature of it that had so cleverly been concealed by the stupid cup.

  I took a deep breath, and then like anything I didn’t want to eat, let alone put in my mouth but needed to; I sucked the entire thing down in one go.

  It was truly awful in every conceivable way, but if it would get me off my ass quicker that I would do it, even if it was swallowing chunky slime and I needed to suck in a few deep breaths to keep it down after.

  “See,” Pinky told me, “Not so bad. That has enough nutrients to get you where you're going.”

  “And gasoline has enough calories for a lifetime, it doesn’t mean you should be drinking it,” I told her.

  “Yeah… Well, I guess that’s why they put lead in it,” she told me.

  “Sure,” I told her, “But about those additives, I was talking about… I am being serious, I need to ask about them. It has to do with that monster you saw.”

  “The one that got blasted to death?” She said, “I was wondering about that. Where did it come from? Did you find out?”

  I let out a breath and then stood because that was going to be a Duesy. I took a moment to think about my words and tried to think of the best way to explain something to her, but the look she was giving me was too open. Her face was too soft, full of intrigue and kindness.

  There was no easy way to tell her what I felt was at fault.

  “Pinky,” I hesitated. “Is there any chance that your medicine contains something… not native? Or something that can be contaminated?” I asked, trying not to reduce the idea to pointing the finger at Pinky.

  “Huh?” she asked, “I’m not sure what you mean. All of my stuff I make myself. The supplies aren’t entirely mundane, but they’re all ok… Why?”

  “Because the monster… Hatched… Grew is a poor word for it. Whatever. Hatched from someone I used the medicine on. They were fine before I used it on them, and now she’s a broken eggshell crushed under a blasted building… Do you see what I’m going on about? Something was wrong with it.”

  “No. That can’t… No, it’s not the stims. They’re safe! They’ve been tested. I’ve tested them,” she said, clearly not believing me, instead taking it as a theoretical.

  I reached out and took her hand, my fingers wrapping around hers to hold it steady, making a firm physical connection.

  “Pinky, I’m not talking about a theory. Unless you can explain someone going from totally normal to monster fleshworm in one day, that’s the only answer. I’m sure you’ve tested it, but how many long-term tests did you do? It doesn’t do that to us, but somehow, the stims I used to wake them up changed them, I’m sure about it.”

  Pinky looked me dead in the eye, and the denial set in.

  “No. You don’t understand, Bandit,” she told me, pausing for a moment when it sounded like she was going to call me anything but Bandit. “I know how it works. The pathways, the replication, everything. It can’t do that. It didn’t do that to the mice, and it's magically inert.”

  There were a few things in that that made me think. I had presumed she could figure out my name, but I was damn sure she knew it now; she just didn’t want to open that at the moment. The second important part was the magically inert.

  Colour me suspicious, but if it was a normal material, she probably wouldn’t mention magic at all.

  “Magically inert, but from something magical?” I asked her while doing my damnedest to both try and be non confrontational and also run right through her denial. “Could the material have reacted with whatever was keeping them asleep? Have you tested it on other people? Other than the two of us, that is.”

  She didn’t take that well, her face flickering through

  “I… I haven’t, exactly. What are you getting at?” She asked.

  I let go of her hand and started combing my finger through my hair. “Pinky, listen. I’m not trying to gaslight you… I’m not poking you. I’m just… It’s the only thing. Fucking hell, I was the one who used it on her! I just need to know, Pinky.”

  My words cut through her like paper as she seemed to realize something, the disbelief and confusion fading away like a mirage as her face gained a kind of tight control. Ridgedly, she took in a breath, mouth locked tight as her hands seemed to forget what they were supposed to do.

  I let her do her thing. She hesitantly began to pace slightly before making her way over to the couch and plopping down. Staring intently at absolutely nothing, her brows pinched as her face drew into a thoughtful one.

  I moved up to her, wincing as my twitchy nerves told me that I was dying, each footstep dragging as the weight of my body fought against the tears in my healing front. The wiggling was slowing down now. My body was spending whatever ‘Magically inert’ material pinkie was likely thinking on.

  That seemed fairly magical to me, but who was I to speak on magic?

  I pulled off my extras, so I was down to just my shirt. When I realized it was kind of messed up, I wobbled back to where my stuff was just next to the couch and got my big coat before sitting down on top of it with a wince.

  I knew better than to interrupt someone making that face; that was the insight face, where they were putting two pieces together and figuring out a third piece. I made that face when I made my bullets work or looked at something mechanical, and my mind got that feeling that everything was right in the world.

  She was tense but blissful in that moment. I hadn’t gotten one of those in a bit, and I wasn’t about to steal it from her. So I sat, and waited, watching my muscles regrow and skin try and seal.

  It wasn’t going to finish, but it would keep healing, and I wasn’t going to die, so I figured I would live with it for a day. I could stim again, but I was starting to think that the medication wasn’t mystically making more meat than I had, and I didn’t like the idea of pulling an extra pound of meat from wherever it was coming from.

  It wouldn’t be bleeding much longer, not with it scabbing, and I could deal with a bit of discomfort. The couch being comfy cancelled it out anyways.

  “They were unconscious, and you used a stim to wake them up?” Pinky asked, sudden enough that I hadn’t expected it.

  “Uh, yeah. Lilly suggested it. I stimmed them after you started fighting Norman,” I told her.

  “Smart. It worked. Obviously, it would have kickstarted a whole lot of stuff… The stims are… Complicated, I suppose… I suppose it’s possible. It was tested on mice, but I’ve never seen animals get affected, but people are different, and I’ve never used it on others before,” she said.

  I sighed.

  “So there's alien juice in the stims?” I asked her.

  “No,” she snorted, “There's no alien tissue in the serum… The microbes that produce it just eat alien tissue is all.”

  I looked at her, turning my head slowly as I blinked repeatedly. It took her a few seconds to realize I was staring at her, and she turned to stare back.

  “I’m sorry… I’m injecting myself with flesh-eating bacteria?” I asked her.

  “No. And don’t give me that look. They process the… Alien juice. They’re not alive, obviously! The microbes that produce jam are poisonous; it’s not like people die from eating jam! They’re transformative, not the final product. Dumbass.”

  “Yeah. Makes sense,” I told her, not refuting the comment, “Hypothetically, if I gave it to the rest of the people…”

  “Then whatever was wrong with it might have gotten to them too,” Pinky said, shoulders tense, “Though, for the life of me, I don’t know what did it. It’s not like it was a bad batch, you’ve been using the same stuff. Whatever is wrong with it, keep them to yourself, for now; we can’t go risking more loose ends.”

  I let myself read her, then, trying to divine her mood and found only a weariness that I didn’t expect from her. She was normally so upbeat.

  “It’s been hard on you. Or I guess I’ve been hard on you,” I told her.

  “It’s not your fault; things got weird the second you showed up. Besides, things are always weird here,” she told me before leaning over on my shoulder with a sigh.

  “I wouldn’t say that so quickly. My luck has been strangely good, it's only going to get worse from here,” I told her, and then, because I could, I gave her head a few pats.

  “Leave it to you to question magic, but believe in karma or luck or fate or whatever,” she told me.

  “I can measure my luck,” I told her, gesturing just enough that it made my chest sore.

  “Nu-uh, get your hand back on my head, Bandit,” she told me, “If I drag you out of danger, I get this. Also, don’t care, I can measure magic too.”

  I sighed and lowered my hand from its unseen gesturing and got back to petting her.

  “You know, generally asking people to pet you before you share your names could be considered loose behaviour,” I told her.

  “Well, when I was a wee little magical girl, I always thought that if I ended up with giant badonkers, I would be a massive incorrigible harlot,” She tinkled.

  “Ah… Yes. A Pinklet. Well, you got one of those two things correct,” I told her.

  I was, for a moment, content with leaving that as it was and continuing our normally scheduled banter, but I was interrupted.

  “Tell her your name, dummy,” Lilly whispered conspiratorially, “This is where you stop clenching up like an idiot. You should be the one giving it first, so do it.”

  Her hushed whisper was awkward, but not because of what Lilly said or because she was probably more on the nose about the situation than I was. It was awkward because she was right, and for some reason, I was still hesitant about it. Here I was, sleeping on her couch, eating her food, using her help, and I couldn't even fess up to my name?

  “You know you can call me Jacalyn, Pinky,” I told her, “You keep hesitating when you call me Bandit, so just use my name, dumbass.”

  Pinky looked up at me, a bit of surprise on her face. She clearly wasn’t expecting me to just come out and say it.

  Was she worried that I hadn’t remembered last night? Was she confused because I blinked first? Was calling her a dumbass at this juncture dumb? Perhaps. But she just looked up at me as I tried to read her a second time and failed completely; all I got was a face full of pink eyes and black hair.

  I couldn’t tell what was going on behind those eyes, but I managed to keep on breathing while the bubbly gremlin looked me in the eye with an intensity I wasn’t entirely ok with.

  “What about Jacky?” She asked, her tone deathly serious.

  “Absolutely not,” I told her.

  “I demand nicknaming rights,” she told me pointedly. “I will not abide without them, and Lyn doesn’t suit you.”

  “And why not?” I asked her.

  “Because it's too soft. Lyn is the kind of name you think of for a fair maiden, not you. No offence, but Jacky fits you better. You are a bit of a jackass,” she told me. It came off so dry it completely passed my mind on the first pass.

  It took me running the tape back once to realize she was poking fun at me.

  “Well,” I told her, “If you want to give me a nickname, I want your name in trade-”

  “Haruka,” she told me, “Good to finally introduce myself, Jacky.”

  “Uh. Bu—Wait a minute. You can’t just accept that quickly!” I told her, “What if I was playing the long game and just wanted to use it against you?”

  “I picked my name,” she snorted, “Why did your mom pick yours for you? I could give you a new one if you don’t like it that much, given that I’m going to marry her-”

  I interrupted her with a light elbow, “Hey. Keep my mother out of your mouth and stop plotting on how you can disrupt my parent's marriage.”

  “I’m not even going to make the mother-in-my-mouth joke. Well… I could go for you, I guess,” she told me, “Aim for the MILF, and you’ll land on the tomboy.”

  Her words stirred refusal in me, but I knew better than to go to a social showdown unarmed and that I was when it came to Pinky. Instead of puffing up or playing her game, I sighed and just shook my head.

  “Fatherless behaviour, Haru. I can tell I won’t be able to stop you from continuing, but please just stop. Lets just… Let's just watch something?” I asked.

  “Let's, Jacky, let's,” Haru told me.

  Haruka turned on a show, and I tuned out as I did my best to appease her. We could worry about the half-a-dozen issues caused by the stims tomorrow when I could stand and walk without regretting it. And before the credits rolled, I was out like a light.

  Pinky Haruka will keep Bandits Jacalyns mother out of her mouth.

  Dear god. Now as long as I stop myself from never ending yapping we can coast forward toward the crunch.

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