Chapter 4: Dinner and Derision
The hydraulic legs of Skyjar made a low, cosmic groan beneath them, a sound felt more in the teeth than heard. The entire restaurant was a glass chrysalis suspended two hundred feet above the neon grid of the city, its floor a transparent membrane over rushing streams of electric blue and violent violet light. It was like dining on the skin of a living, breathing circuit board.
Opal had, of course, reserved the best table. A crescent moon booth at the very edge, where the glass curved up to meet the canopy of floating lanterns. Their light was soft, golden, and merciless.
“Symmetry is a calming influence,” Opal explained, her tentacles arranging people with the gentle insistence of a spider weaving a web. One curled around Amabel’s upper arm, guiding her into the booth. Another tapped Kelvin’s broad shoulder, nudging him right beside her. “You two here. Optimal for line-of-sight and platter passing.”
Amabel, still wearing the new clothes like a borrowed skin, slid in with a grunt. The structured waistcoat felt foreign against her dirt, a pleasant pressure. Kelvin folded himself down beside her, an avalanche of careful limbs. The difference in their size was absurd; his shoulder was level with the top of her head. He kept his long arms locked tight to his sides, as if afraid his elbows were offensive weapons.
“Don’t crowd the biologist, Kel,” Rouge said, dropping dramatically into the seat opposite. His clock-face ticked, the minute hand jerking forward. “She needs room for her… specimens. And her newfound sense of style. Seriously, dirt-goddess. You clean up apocalyptic.”
Amabel flipped him off without looking.
The food arrived, a procession of small, artistically tormented plates. Eclaire ignored hers, a deconstructed sea-urchin foam, in favor of leaning over the table, her giant tail coiled around the base of her chair. Her eyes darted between Kelvin and Amabel.
“Fascinating,” she announced. “Observe the proximal distance. Less than eighteen inches, entering the social-intimate zone. Note Kelvin’s posture: a forward cant of approximately five degrees, oriented toward Amabel’s center mass. His left hand is retreating, a self-soothing behavior, but his right remains on the table, open-palmed. An offer. Or a trap.”
Kelvin flinched, yanking both hands into his lap.
“Eclaire,” Rye’s voice cut through, cool and flat. He was a study in contained stormcloud at the head of the table, meticulously adjusting the placement of his cutlery. “Your observational commentary is contaminating the ambient mood. It’s gauche.” His eyes, however, flicked to Kelvin’s napkin, which had slipped to the floor. A tiny, almost imperceptible smirk touched his lips. “And your napkin is committing a felony, Kelvin. It’s lying. Put it out of its misery.”
Kelvin looked down, his one visible eye wide with panic. He started to bend, a monumental effort, but Amabel was quicker. She scooped it up with a dirt-softened hand and tossed it back onto his lap. “There. Justice served.”
Rouge made a loud, wet, smooching sound. Then another. He puffed out his cheeks and mimed explosive heartbeats with his fists.
Sherwin, vibrating in her seat, saw her cue. Her bioluminescent markings flared from a gentle blue to a hot, pulsating pink. She focused, her helmet tilting. A wobbly, shimmering heart of pure light projected from her chest, washing over Kelvin and Amabel’s faces in a rosy glow.
Kelvin froze, a forkful of some glistening fungus halfway to his mouth. A deep, plum-colored blush crept up from his collar, over his jaw, staining the skin around his bandana. He looked like a dying star.
Amabel’s reaction was internal but visible. Her dirt composition darkened, the rich brown turning to the color of wet clay, of stirred earth. It wasn’t a blush; it was a seismic shift. “Rouge, I will fill your lung cavity with silt. Sherwin, turn that off or I’m swapping your helmet batteries for potatoes.”
Sherwin’ visor flashed a laughing-crying emoji, but the heart-glow intensified.
“The pupillary dilation is extreme,” Eclaire murmured, fascinated. “Classic autonomic response to heightened stimulus. Likely romantic or terror-based. The data is conflated.”
“It’s annoyance-based,” Amabel growled.
Cordelia had been silently dissecting a layered gelatin cube with the sharp edge of her fin. She’d counted the lanterns (forty-seven, an irritating prime number), the bolts in the glass panel (ninety-six, acceptable), and the number of times Rouge had made the kissy noise (eleven, which was ten too many). The low-grade hum of the hydraulics was drilling into her temples.
She watched Kelvin struggle to breathe. She watched Amabel’s knuckles whiten around her fork. She watched the stupid, glowing heart wobble.
She set her fin down. It made a tiny click on the glass.
Then she picked up her water glass—condensation beading on the crystal—and slammed it down.
The sound wasn’t a crash; it was a deep, final thud that vibrated through the table. Every dish shivered. Everyone stopped.
Cordelia looked directly at Kelvin and Amabel, her expression the same flat, perpetually pissed-off slate it always was. Her voice was dry, devoid of any teasing lilt, just pure, exhausted fact.
“Just kiss already,” she said. “So we can eat in peace.”
The sentence hung in the air, simpler and more devastating than any analysis or prank.
Kelvin made a choked, gurgling sound. The forkful of fungus didn’t make it. He coughed, a wet, startled hack, and the morsel flew from his lips. He fumbled for his water glass, knocked it over with his wrist. Iced water and a single doomed lemon slice cascaded across the table, straight toward Opal’s lap.
Chaos, instant and beautiful, erupted.
Opal didn’t flinch. Two tentacles shot out. One snatched the tumbling glass from mid-air. The other lay flat on the table, a living dam, absorbing the spill with what looked like smug satisfaction. Her main eye was wide, her tentacle-held eyeball swiveling between a horrified Kelvin and a murderous Amabel. She began to hum. It was a low, romantic aria from some obscure opera, the melody weaving through the panic.
“Oh, sweet tides,” she sighed melodically, a tentacle dabbing at Kelvin’s sopping sleeve with a spare napkin.
Rouge fell backwards out of his chair, howling with laughter, his manta-ray tail flapping against the glass floor. “She said it! She said the thing! Direct fire! No prisoners!”
Sherwin’s heart-glow stuttered and shattered into a dozen darting light-fish that zipped around the ceiling. Her helmet displayed a string of ‘!!’ symbols.
Eclaire leaned forward, elbow deep in the spill. “A catastrophic sympathetic nervous system response! The cough reflex overriding the swallowing mechanism—see the flushed epidermal response—this is a textbook case of social-induced laryngospasm!”
Rye pressed his translucent fingers to his temple. “The linen,” he muttered, staring at the soaked tablecloth with profound despair. “It’s ruined. The watermark will be permanent. A ghost of this embarrassment, forever.”
Amabel was statuesque. The wet clay of her face had hardened into something like terra cotta. She wasn’t looking at Kelvin, or at Cordelia. She was staring at a point somewhere in the neon abyss beyond the glass, jaw clenched so tight it could grind stone.
Kelvin was the picture of utter devastation. Water dripped from his hair and bandana. His one visible eye was glassy with shock and shame. He kept patting at the spill with his huge, clumsy hands, only making it worse, murmuring “sorry, sorry, sorry” in a voice so low it was almost a subharmonic rumble.
Cordelia took a slow, deliberate sip from her rescued glass. “There,” she said, to no one in particular. “Progress.”
The waiter arrived, a frozen smile on their face, holding a stack of towels. The romantic aria continued to hum from Opal, a bizarre soundtrack to the cleanup. The neon veins of the city pulsed below, indifferent.
In the middle of it all, as Kelvin finally dared a sideways glance—a look of pure, wretched apology—Amabel’s hardened expression cracked. Just a fraction. Her eyes, under her messy hair, met his for a second. Not angry. Not embarrassed. Just… acknowledging the shared blast zone.
She didn’t kiss him. She kicked his foot under the table. A solid, tangible thump against his boot.
“Stop apologizing,” she muttered, voice thick. “You’re making it weird.”
Kelvin stopped patting. He looked at his own hands, then back at her. He gave a single, shaky nod.
The crisis wasn’t over. The tension hadn’t dissolved. But it had changed shape, becoming something quieter, something private amidst the public wreckage. They were still floating in the glass bubble, exposed under the lantern light, but for a second, they were in it together. Rouge’s laughter echoed, Opal’s tentacles mopped, and the city’s cold neon heart beat on below, counting out the seconds on Rouge’s face, each one moving them further from the moment, and deeper into whatever came next.
The waiter finished replacing the sodden linen with a crisp, white sheet that seemed to glow under the lanterns. An uneasy calm settled, broken only by the clink of Opal’s tentacles arranging fresh cutlery. The romantic aria had faded into a tuneless, thoughtful hum.
“Well,” Eclaire said, breaking the silence as she finally poked her sea-urchin foam. “That was a statistically significant social rupture. Data recorded.”
“Can we please,” Rye pleaded to the ceiling, his form wavering slightly at the edges, “have fifteen minutes where no one vomits, spills, or proposes matrimony?”
“I proposed nothing,” Cordelia muttered, stabbing a new gelatin cube. “I proposed efficiency.”
Kelvin, now marginally drier, kept his gaze fixed on his plate. The blush had receded, leaving a pallor that made his bandana seem brighter. Amabel’s posture was rigid in her new waistcoat, the structured shoulders like defensive armor. The kicked foot under the table was a secret, a grounding wire.
Rouge, having climbed back into his chair, now just grinned, a shark satisfied by the chum in the water. He opened his mouth.
“Don’t,” Cordelia said, without looking up.
He closed it.
The rest of the meal passed in a fragile, negotiated peace. Dessert was a cloud of spun sugar that dissolved into vapor when touched. The bill arrived on a crystalline slate. Opal plucked it from the air with a tentacle before anyone could move, her real eye softening at the edges. “My treat,” she sang, a note of finality in her tone. “For the spectacle.”
Back at Eclaire’s penthouse, the expansive living room felt like a decompression chamber. The floor-to-ceiling windows showed the same neon city, but now from a position of silent dominion. Plush, amorphous chairs dotted the space, and a shallow, endless pool etched into the floor reflected the shifting lights.
The group splintered naturally, the tension from dinner seeking its outlets.
The boys gravitated towards the vast balcony. Kelvin folded himself onto a wide lounger with a sigh that seemed to come from his bones. Rye stood at the railing, his back to the room, watching the aerial trams slide through the canyon of buildings below. His peacock tail was a tight, controlled fan behind him, held by sheer will.
“Your napkin technique,” Rye said to the night air, his voice carrying back softly, “needs work. But the waistcoat was a correct choice. It gave her a definition she was visually rejecting.”
From inside, a throw pillow soared through the open door. It passed through Rye’s misty shoulder harmlessly and tumbled over the railing into the abyss.
“Noted,” Rye said, a faint, genuine smirk pulling at his lips.
Rouge had produced a deck of cards from somewhere. They glowed with a faint, internal circuitry. “Who’s up for ‘Exploding Kittens: Calamity Edition’? I modified the deck. There’s a 40% chance it shocks you.”
“Pass,” Kelvin rumbled, leaning his head back. The city lights played over the strong line of his jaw, the hidden damaged eye. He looked peacefully exhausted.
Inside, the girls congregated around the sunken pool. Opal had submerged her lower half, her tentacles floating around her like lazy sea anemones. Cordelia sat on the edge, her thick fish tail submerged, her sharp fins flexing rhythmically. Eclaire was coiled on a submerged shelf, her massive tail taking up half the pool’s length.
Amabel remained on the ledge, still dressed in the boutique’s clothes, unwilling to get the silk wet. She picked at a loose thread on the waistcoat.
“So,” Sherwin signed, her fingers moving in quick, sharp flashes. Her bioluminescent skin cast a soft blue onto the water. Her helmet, as always, remained sealed. That was a tactical nuke, Cordelia. Even for you.
“It was getting boring,” Cordelia replied, watching the water ripple. “They were generating more static electricity than actual conversation. I just grounded the circuit.”
Opal’s humming resumed, this time the opening bars of a syrupy anime love theme. One tentacle rose from the water to gently poke Amabel’s knee. “The tension was delicious, though. So much subtext! It was like a slow-burn fanfic playing out in real time. All that fraught eye contact, the accidental touches…”
“The spilled water,” Eclaire added helpfully. “A classic metaphor for emotional overflow.”
Amabel groaned, dragging a hand down her face, which sent a little cascade of dry soil sprinkling into the pool. “Can we not? Please? My particulate composition is still regrouping from the humiliation.”
A sly grin spread over Cordelia’s face. It was a rare, dangerous expression. “Fine. Let’s talk about something simpler. Something physical. Unambiguous.” Her eyes swept the group. “Okay. Serious question. Who here’s got the most impressive front-facing architecture?”
She gestured vaguely at her own chest.
Silence fell, broken only by the gentle hum of the penthouse’s climate control.
Opal’s tentacles stopped floating. Her humming cut off. Eclaire’s head tilted, her academic curiosity instantly piqued. Amabel blinked. Sherwin’s helmet emitted a short, sharp burst of pink light—a laugh.
“What?” Amabel said.
“You heard me,” Cordelia said, her angry expression not changing, though a flicker of real amusement was in her eyes. “We’re ranking them. It’s a stupid weekend question. Mine are functional. They’re okay. Eclaire’s are basically decorative.”
“Hey!” Eclaire protested, looking down at herself. “They are proportionate to my frame! They have an aerodynamic profile!”
“Opal’s are, and I say this with respect, legendary,” Cordelia continued, pointing a sharp finger. “They have presence. They’re part of her operatic brand.”
Opal preened slightly, a tentacle coming up to adjust an invisible strap. “They do have excellent lift and separation. The underwire is a triumph of engineering.”
“And then there’s Amabel.” Cordelia’s gaze landed on her, blunt and appraising. “Who is, objectively, smuggling two full-sized terrestrial sports balls under that very nice waistcoat.”
Sherwin was nodding vigorously, her lights flashing in a pattern that spelled out ‘F-A-C-T-S’ in quick succession.
Amabel looked down at her own chest, then around at the others. A slow, competitive grin, the first real one since the boutique, spread across her face. The embarrassment of dinner evaporated, replaced by a tangible, playful challenge. “Are we just talking? Or are we measuring?”
Eclaire’s tail gave an excited flick, sending a wave across the pool. “We must quantify! Anecdotal evidence is worthless. We need a standardized metric!”
“My sewing tape is in my kit,” Rye’s voice floated in from the balcony, perfectly deadpan. “It’s retractable. Stainless steel. Metric and Imperial.”
A beat of stunned silence hung in the air.
Then the girls erupted.
“You are eavesdropping!” Opal called out, though she sounded more delighted than annoyed.
“Professional habit!” Rye called back.
Minutes later, the stainless steel tape measure lay coiled on the wet bar like a silver serpent. The boys had been explicitly, and loudly, banished to the balcony. The glass doors were shut, the curtains drawn for a semblance of privacy, though the city’s glow still seeped in.
This was no longer a joke. It was a experiment.
“Alright,” Eclaire said, taking charge. She held the tape like a scalpel. “We need consistency. Overbust, underbust, and the apex. We’ll calculate the difference for a standardized comparison. Posture neutral. No inflating or deflating particulate matter, Amabel.”
“I don’t inflate,” Amabel grumbled, already unbuttoning the waistcoat. “I compact. It’s a density thing.”
One by one, they went. Cordelia went first, stern and unimpressed. The numbers were recorded on a tablet by Sherwin. Opal went next, her measurement a source of quiet, triumphant pride, her tentacles held gracefully aloft. Eclaire’s was quick, clinical, and as she predicted, proportionally minimal.
Then it was Amabel’s turn. She stood straight, the boutique’s silk blouse undone. The difference between her underbust and overbust measurement was, as Cordelia had implied, statistically significant.
Eclaire read the final number, her eyebrows rising. “Fascinating. That is… that is a substantial volumetric displacement. The structural stress on your dorsal particulate matrix must be considerable.”
“Tell me about it,” Amabel said, buttoning up again with a smirk. “My center of gravity is a public menace. I have to buy specialty bras from a place that also sells industrial harnesses.”
Sherwin held up the tablet. The ranking was clear, indisputable, and displayed in a neat, glowing chart:
1. Amabel
2. Opal
3. Cordelia
4. Eclaire
5. Sherwin
Sherwin’s last-place finish didn’t seem to bother her. Her helmet displayed a bouncing, pixelated trophy with ‘2ND PLACE!’ above it, followed by an arrow pointing at Opal. She jabbed a glowing finger at the #1 spot next to Amabel’s name.
On the balcony, the boys heard the bursts of laughter, the shrieks of protest, the commanding tones of Eclaire’s measurements.
Rye took a slow sip of something clear and cold. “They’re actually doing it.”
“Obviously,” Kelvin said, his voice a low rumble of contentment. He had procured a giant bag of pretzels from somewhere and was eating them one at a time, with profound focus.
Rouge had his face pressed against the glass, trying to see through the curtain gap. “This is a historic moment. A sisterhood of scientific inquiry! It’s beautiful.”
“It’s a violation of several privacy statutes,” Rye murmured, but he made no move to stop Rouge.
Inside, the competition dissolved into shared, helpless laughter. They were sprawled around the pool now, the tape measure discarded. They had moved from metrics to shared grievances—bad fittings, back pain, the impossibility of finding a good sports top.
The earlier tension of the dinner was gone, burned away in the silly, conspiratorial glow of the challenge. Amabel felt the strange new clothes not as a costume, but just as clothes. For a moment, they were just a group of friends, laughing in the dark, neon-lit heart of the city, their reflections shimmering in the black water of the pool.
On the balcony, watching the silent trams, Rye finally let his control slip. Just a fraction. His peacock tail, held rigid for hours, gave a single, involuntary, shimmering flutter in the dark—a brief, unseen explosion of iridescent green and bronze, before he clamped it shut again.