I twirled across the room, and I was in front of Stel now as the me-stagehands wheeled her reer forward. There was a knock at our door. We looked at each other.

  “Are you expeg someone?” Stel asked. “Oh, wait, it’s probably the uhh what’s his name. I know. Ugh.” She dragged her feet as she got up.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t go to the—” Stel said as she opehe door. “Oh. Hi?”

  “Is Zeta there?”

  I zipped over at hearing her void for the first time in person, I was greeted by Jeans’ smiling face. Stel stepped behio get out of our way.

  “Hi there,” Jeans said. “Did you watch it yet?”

  Jeans was in the exact clothes as the st time I saw her. I had a brief mental battle to stop myself from asking about the possible “denim” to “her name is Jeans” e.

  Stel looked overjoyed that I actually had a friend and didn’t pry for questions. After a bit of small talk, Jeans made me grab her copy of Grove of the Ued Harmony and took me to my room.

  “I ’t believe you didn’t watch it yet!” Jeans said. “It’s not super long.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  I wasn’t able to watch it because I didn’t have the exact kind of video cartridge pyer thing for Jeans’ copy.

  “It’s fine,” Jeans said, holding her own video pyer up. “We’re just gonna have to watch it now!”

  We sat down in front of my small TV. Jeans sat very close to me, and immediately had her arms ed around me. I wished we had the A because I suddenly felt very warm.

  “They were gonna remake it with Raina Starlight as Iliyanra but it got celled.”

  “Wait, for real?” I asked. I thought I knew everything about Raina Starlight. It was weird talking to someone who knew more than me. Jeans was incredibly into the movie. She ughed at every joke and gasped at every dramatic point like it was her first time watg it, huggiighter when it got moderately scary. It was a musical, and every song was almost bookmarked by a little piano cue. The movie was cute, but I didn’t find it really revetory or anything. I was a bit distracted.

  I uood what Jeans was making when the movie hit a single lihe main character Iliyanra suddenly said it towards the end of the movie.

  “I want to make a world, somewhere far from here, where everyone is safe. Where no one has to fear, doubt, or have pain. I ea this pce. It’s the real ued harmony, because it’s a pce this world doesn’t want.”

  Iliyanra, despite like a hundred songs about pead love, wasn’t able to make this magical pce. The vilin of the movie, a dark sorcerer named Sharai, crushed her dreams at the st minute and froze her lover Etta in a crystal. The movie ended on kind of a downer h like a five-minute se of the heroine g that she couldn’t make this magic world with her lover.

  She closed with “And summer ended with rain. And I was alone again.”

  I didn’t really want to see Raina Starlight do a se like that even if the rest of the movie was 'delightfully irreverent' as described iing on the box. Jeans still squealed as the credits came up.

  “OK, now that you’ve seen that…” Jeans said. “You get it, right?”

  “Yeah, I think so!” I said. “You wao do what Iliyanra was gonna do. But in the void.”

  “Yes!” Jeans said. “And what else?”

  “I…am not sure?”

  “Illyanra wasn’t alone,” Jeans said. “And I think I just found my Etta.”

  Pop songs prepared me for someoalking to me like that. But irely as I froze as though someone had dropped a fizzy drink plus fizzy rock sugar dy reted co in my very soul at that moment. Jeans smiled.

  “You are so cute,” Jeans booped me on the nose again, which was weirdly motivational. “It’ll be eveer once you have your fangs in. It’ll be any day now, I bet. You be the oo ge the world with me. ge how this void works.”

  I retty much melted goo at that point, or at least I felt that way. Jeans stayed a bit longer, reg me in a hug to watore stuff before she left. This was what friends did, right? Then why was I so warm?

  The stage swirled, and I was on a subway now. Every day that fall I went to see Jeans. She didn’t live far. Every day we’d sit in her room or my room together, watch a movie or a show and just talk. Jeans would show off her proje powers, and she’d always trick me when her proje was there or not because it was so perfectly done. Some days we’d try to go into the void, but it still hurt. Jeans instead showed me what she was imagining for her perfect world. She showed me how she was crafting it. She had a dark, silvery metal mask that looked like something a knight would wear.

  “With this I could be the Osiris!” Jeans said.

  “Osiris?” I asked.

  “How have you not heard of Osiris? Osiris and his Speed k? Really?”

  “I have no idea what those words mean?”

  “The like, most famous Kanibari ever?” Jeans asked.

  Even though it had hollow eyes, the mask Jeans held up felt like it was staring at me. She told me it was ented, and that it had the power to hold all the pain of the world in it. She said her entire paradise was ihe mask.

  “Are you being like…metaphorical?” I asked.

  Jeans’ beaming smile slowly faded.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have shown you that.”

  On days when Stel was w te or had a show Jeans was always hugging me or holding on to me. I was still red faced, but every day it got more normal. It felt mht. Snow fell, theed, then summer came, then snow again. The most joyous seasons I could remember.

  As the sed spring since meeting Jeans came to a close, I found myself on the puter looking up “girls and irls as like a couple is that a thing please” which I had the lovely pleasure of having Stel walk into the rht as some websites popped up that I very much would not want my sister walking in on me looking up came up in full view. That did at least lead to a very positive discussion that let me know I had Stel's full support no matter what.

  Stel’s car stopped in the middle of the stage, and I stepped out in a cute but not too fancy dress, holding a single flower. Stel gave a thumbs up as I walked toward Jeans’ apartment.

  It was the lo elevator ride of my life. But at the top Jeans was already waiting for me. I took a cautious step into the hallways, already shaking.

  “Hey, so uh,” I said, holding the flower out. “Here…and…I…”

  Jeans just let me stumble through this one.

  “I…think…” I coughed. “So I really like you. Like. Like like. Like if you want…would you want…to…”

  I trailed off, but the message I tried to sputter out nded. Jeans covered her mouth as she took the flower. I remembered her eyes welling up, but the Jeans on stage was full for a sed. With a giggle, Jeans pushed me bato the elevator and kissed me. I remembered how her fangs looked after she stopped, smiling as the doors closed behind us.

  I slumped down in my chair as much as the void would let me. Watg this again was bad enough, but the fact that Oka was seeing all of this was so much worse. If it ehere, fine, not the worst things she could see at all. If it ehere it would have bee.

  But the curtains raised on act two.