With Wings

2

My second conversation with Opal Pak occurred the following day.

A bunch of the drama kids, including Sam and I, were splitting up a massive sushi lunch in the loft overlooking the drama hallway when I looked down and spotted her, tucked into a nook near the entrance to backstage. If she had eaten, she had already neatly discarded all evidence of it. She had nothing with her - no backpack, no lunchbag, no phone, nothing - just a paper airplane, which she was turning slowly in her hands.

I looked down at my plate, which was loaded to the point that it was overflowing, and in a split second of complete impulsivity grabbed it and hurried down the stairs, ignoring the sudden startled cries and questions.

I walked over to Opal and stood in front of her, waiting for her to look up. When she did, finally, her eyes partially hidden by her bangs and by the paper airplane, she didn't say a word.

I gestured up to the loft. "Come sit with us."

She turned slowly to look up at everybody sitting in the loft as if she had only just realized that we were sitting there - which was impossible, by the way; drama kids are flipping loud - and then looked back at me. "Uh, no thank you. Thanks for offering, though, I just-"

"You just?"

She blinked. "I'm... not good with people."

"Have you eaten yet?"

"...No."

"Do you not... have a lunch?"

"No. No, I don't have a lunch," she clarified.

I placed the plate down on the ground and sat down, edging it slightly towards her. As previously stated, so much nigiri, wasabi, tempura, sashimi, dumplings, maki rolls, and california rolls were loaded onto the one meager paper plate that it was practically a semisphere of fake, Americanized Japanese food. She stared at me for a few minutes, clearly waiting for an explanation.

"Eat," I commanded her, helping myself to a california roll. "I have way too much to eat on my own."

She blinked. "I'm half-Japanese,... Alex." I started slightly with a jolt of euphoria when I realized that she somehow knew and remembered my name, then nearly died of dread with her following words. "Do you have any idea how insulted I feel at being offered this... this desecration of my mother's culture's cuisine?"

A few seconds of shocked silence followed. "I-I'm so sorry," I stuttered finally. "I didn't realize-"

She laughed suddenly, a bright, harsh sound that suddenly made the world seem like a better place. "Relax; I was joking," she said, dipping a squid nigiri into the wasabi and popping it into her mouth. "...Joking about being insulted. Not joking about how this is a desecration of Japanese cuisine."

I smiled slightly. "It is very Americanized," I admitted.

"I'm assuming the owners of whatever restaurant all this comes from are not Japanese?"

"Yeah, they're white. They're actually the parents of... Scott? Do you know Scott? Well, he plays Wealth," I explained when I saw Opal's blank expression. She snorted. "Ironic," she said.

I pointed at her with my chopsticks. "Hey," I said. "So you do laugh. And make jokes. I'm impressed."

I instantly realized I'd made a mistake when she seemed to visibly, completely, shut down. An invisible defensive wall sprang up between us. The hint of teasing in her eyes, gone; the upturned corners of her mouth, gone. She turned away ever so slightly. "You have no idea," she said, her voice hard and angry.