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Niko was sad.
Crystal and Charles had conferred, and they agreed - something was off.
Even Edwin had noticed.
And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to tell them what was wrong. They were her friends - her only friends, she couldn’t help reminding herself - and if she just talked to them, they’d jump to help. She knew that, knew it deep in her gut, and she wanted to talk to them. The problem was that she couldn’t figure out what to say. She did her best to keep up appearances with them, but that would only last for so long. Niko did her best to try to figure it out on her own, but that just led to her zoning out.
Which was why she nearly jumped out of her skin when she realized Crystal was looking at her expectantly. “You startled me!” she said, pressing her hand to her chest.
Crystal looked unimpressed. “I’ve been standing here for a full minute,” she said. “Do you want to go or not?”
“Go where?” Niko asked. She felt bad, but she genuinely hadn’t heard.
“The cat cafe,” Crystal answered, like she’d said it a thousand times already. “I mentioned it yesterday? I even got us a reservation.”
Niko vaguely remembered having been asked if she wanted to go somewhere and saying it sounded interesting because it felt like the better option than admitting she hadn’t heard again. She decided doubling down on that was her best bet. “Oh! Yeah! When is the reservation for again?”
“Half an hour, and it takes fifteen minutes to get there.” Crystal was calling her bluff, and they both knew it, since Niko hadn’t bothered to get dressed for the day.
She was nothing if not committed to the bit, though. “I’ll be ready in ten!” she declared, getting up from the couch and running into her room to change.
It wasn’t Niko’s most coherent outfit - yellow and blue in equal measure, since Ainsley had said those were the colors she had been able to see most strongly as a cat - but it worked well enough.
Crystal had looked her over when she emerged, gaze lingering on each piece, and said, “Someday, you’ll have to teach me how you always manage the perfect outfit.”
Niko hadn’t been sure how to respond, and said the first thing that she could think of: “A magician never reveals her tricks!”
The cat cafe was on a side street lined with a variety of small restaurants, and was clearly the newest business on the block. Crystal had explained on the way over (probably for the second time, Niko thought) that their reservation was for an hour in the cat room, starting at a specific time, and they could get drinks and food at the attached cafe before they went in. Crystal got an iced latte, and Niko got a sugary blended concoction that matched her outfit.
The blue haired twentysomething at the check-in desk for the cat room grinned brightly when they made their way over. “Hi, welcome to Cafe Meow! Do you have a reservation?”
“Yeah, for two people, I think we’re right on time,” Crystal said, looking over her shoulder at Niko, who was staring past the desk with wide eyes. She smirked to herself and looked back at the person checking them in, whose name tag read “Avery”. “Should be under Crystal.”
“I have you right here!” Avery said brightly. “Have you been here before?”
“Uh, no, first time,” Crystal answered. Niko was still staring into the cat area - at least she wasn’t zoning out again.
“Alright, quick run down of the rules, then,” Avery said. “You can pet and play with the cats as much as you want, but no picking them up. All of our cats are up for adoption, and if you’re interested in adopting one, we can arrange a private room with that particular cat for you to hold them, but only if you’re seriously looking to adopt. We also ask that you not let any of the cats eat or drink anything you bring in from the cafe, and please make sure only one door is open at a time. If you agree to these rules, please sign here” - Avery turned the point of sale tablet around to face them; Crystal signed, and so did Niko, after Crystal elbowed her to clue her back in - “and you’re all set! These tags will tell you when to come back to sign out.” Avery handed them two repurposed luggage tags with their check out time written in dry erase marker and gestured to the door.
The door to the cat area was like an air lock - one glass door led from the check-in desk to a small vestibule, and a second led from the vestibule into the cat area. Niko was practically vibrating with excitement now that she could see in, and Crystal could hardly blame her. The cat area was decorated like a fever dream, with brightly colored cat trees and shelving and beds, plush sofas and low tables in complementary pastels, low pile rugs shaped like clouds, and cat toys strewn everywhere. There were about fifteen cats in the room, some lounging on the trees or beds, some chasing toys, some sitting in the laps of other patrons.
Niko was grinning ear to ear, and immediately crouched down to scratch a cat that had come up to rub up against her ankles. It was fluffy and grey, with yellow eyes and a long tail, and purred loudly, shoving its head into Niko’s hand.
Crystal looked around and spotted an open loveseat off to one side. She tapped Niko on the shoulder and said, “We should go sit down so we’re not blocking the door. Maybe your new friend will follow us?”
Niko looked up at Crystal, then back down at the cat. “She’s right, we are right in everybody’s way here,” she said to the cat. “Come on, I’ll keep giving you scritches if you come with us!”
The cat seemed to consider the offer, and Crystal would have sworn it shrugged as it followed them to the loveseat, immediately hopping up and settling on Niko’s lap as soon as she sat down. Crystal just watched for a minute as Niko happily fulfilled her promise. If she didn’t know better, she’d have sworn Niko had completely forgotten her troubles, whatever they were. But as she watched, she caught it - the smile faltered briefly, and her hand slowed just for a second, before she remembered herself.
“Thanks for bringing me here,” Niko said after a bit. Her smile kept dropping, and her new friend had apparently decided they were done with scritches and wandered off. “It’s good to get out of the office. Do you know what Charles and Edwin are up to today? We don’t have any active cases right now, do we?” Maybe asking about the boys would keep Crystal from asking how she was doing.
Crystal laughed and took a sip from her latte. “I knew you weren’t listening yesterday!” she said, triumphant. Niko pouted as she went on. “Edwin flat out asked if we could find a way to give them some ‘alone time’. Those were his exact words. He said he found something that could make it so they could, you know, actually properly feel it, and they wanted to try it out.”
“Is that why he had that look on his face?!” Niko gasped, vaguely remembering thinking that Edwin looked like a cat that got into the cream. Crystal was laughing again and nodding. “Good for them!” She was feeling better again, and took a long sip of her concoction, watching a couple of kittens play nearby. After a moment, she tilted her head to the side. “And because they’re ghosts, there won’t even be any mess to clean up after! At least, there hasn’t been when they’ve snuck off before.”
Crystal spluttered and nearly choked on her latte. Somehow, she never remembered what kinds of manga Niko liked to read until she said things like that, and it always caught her off guard. When she recovered herself, she decided a topic change was in order. “Seems like you’re feeling better than you have been lately. I’m glad to see it.”
Niko’s face fell, despite her obvious efforts to keep it up. “Oh,” she said, and, “Yeah,” and Crystal wished she hadn’t said anything.
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Crystal said quickly, putting a hand on Niko’s arm. “I just hope you know you can if you want to.”
“Thank you,” Niko said softly, eyes still trained on the kittens. She was quiet for long enough that Crystal thought the moment must have passed, until she took a deep breath. “I do want to talk about it. I just don’t know how.”
“Is that why you’ve been zoning out so much?” Crystal asked.
Niko nodded. “I’ve been trying to figure out the right words for it,” she said. “It’s really hard and I don’t know why.”
“Do you want to try after we get home tonight?” Crystal put her arm around Niko’s shoulders, and they leaned into each other. “Maybe bring the boys in, see if they can help?”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” Niko decided. “Can we just enjoy the cats right now?”
“Yeah, we can just enjoy the cats right now,” Crystal said. She squeezed Niko’s shoulder. “Look, your new friend is back!”
The grey cat from earlier had, indeed, come back, and was in the process of climbing back into Niko’s lap. “Your nails are the best here,” it said as it settled back down, just loud enough for them to hear.
Crystal and Niko stayed out the rest of the afternoon, stopping by a book shop and a magic shop before making their way back to the office and their flat. They’d been gone for several hours, but Crystal still knocked instead of going right in, just in case.
Charles answered right away, an easy grin on his face that turned confused when he saw who it was. “You lot live here, why are you knocking?” Crystal and Niko just raised their eyebrows at him, and he at least had the decency to look chastised as he stepped aside to let them in. “Yeah, fair enough.”
“I should see if my parents will cover some more renovations, make us a front door that doesn’t go through the office,” Crystal mused aloud on her way in. “Not sure if that would make them start asking questions, though.”
“They haven’t asked so far,” Charles pointed out, closing the door behind Niko once she passed him. “They bought you an allegedly abandoned office suite and paid to renovate part of it into a flat without batting an eye.”
“So, Edwin,” Niko cut in, a mischievous grin on her face, “did it work?” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively, just to drive her point home.
“It did, and that is all I am going to say on the matter,” Edwin said. He was smiling like a cat that got into the cream again. “I trust you two had a pleasant afternoon as well?”
“Is that what we’re calling it now? Pleasant?” Crystal teased. Edwin raised an eyebrow at her, and she smirked. “We had a good afternoon, yeah. We’re tagging you two in tonight, though.”
“Did you volunteer us for another case?” Charles said. He’d made his way over to Edwin and was leaning on his shoulder, and they were both giving Crystal a look.
“Kind of,” she said. “Niko needs our help. I figured you wouldn’t mind.”
The boys shifted their look to Niko, whose smile had gone nervous. “And does Niko need the help of the Dead Boy Detective Agency,” Edwin asked gently, “or her friends?”
“My friends,” Niko said. She was fidgeting with the charms on her phone case.
“Is this about whatever it is that’s been bothering you lately?” Edwin asked. Niko nodded, and he smiled at her. “Of course we’ll help.”
“Glad you’re ready to talk about it,” Charles added. “D’you want to set up the living room all cozy, like for movie night?”
“I was thinking sleepover-style in my room,” Niko said. “Just as cozy, and way less time to set up, since I’ve already got all the pillows in there.”
“Fair enough,” Charles said with a shrug. “Give us a shout when you’re ready. I’m not braiding your hair, though, ‘cause I don’t know how.”
“Is hair braiding a traditional sleepover activity?” Edwin asked.
Charles shrugged again. “It is in the movies.”
Crystal ordered a pizza, and she and Niko changed into their comfiest PJs while they waited for the delivery driver. When the pizza arrived, Edwin and Charles joined the girls in Niko’s bedroom. Niko and Crystal settled in at the head of Niko’s new, much larger bed, with the pizza box open in front of them. Edwin sat by the foot of the bed, and Charles sprawled artlessly but comfortably across his lap. Niko had set some music to play from her laptop for extra vibes, and piled her bed high with pillows.
“You know, this is my first real sleepover,” Niko said once they were all settled in and she and Crystal had finished eating. “I didn’t really have friends back in Japan, and then that didn’t get much better in the dorms.”
“Does it count as a sleepover if the guests are all people you live with?” Charles asked. He was idly runnings his fingers over the back of the hand Edwin had laid on his chest.
“It totally counts,” Crystal said, shooting Charles a look. “We’re a group of people piled into one room together in our PJs with food and music, and we don’t all sleep here regularly. Therefore, sleepover.”
Charles shrugged. “I guess I can roll with that.”
“So, Niko,” Edwin started, “you had something you wanted to talk about.”
Niko sat up straighter, folding her hands in her lap. “Yes,” she said. And then, “No.” And then, “Kind of?” She sighed and started again. “The problem is I don’t know how to put it into words. I know something’s wrong, and I can kind of tell what makes it feel worse, but I don’t know why.”
Charles sat up as she spoke, taking hold of Edwin’s hand as he did. “Could you describe it, maybe?” he suggested. “You know, tell us what makes you feel worse, and we can try to riddle it out with you?”
She nodded, and took a deep breath in, gesturing to the boys. “That, kind of,” she said. “Like, I’m really happy you guys are together, and I get really excited for you when you sneak off for some private time or kick us out for an afternoon. But then other times, I see you holding hands, and I get this ache in my chest? And I feel really alone, even when it’s all four of us together.”
“Is it just us, or does it happen with Jenny and Ainsley, too?” Edwin asked.
“And do you want us to, like, stop holding hands in front of you?” Charles added. “Or is it more like seeing it makes you think of something?”
“The second one?” Niko said. “I don’t want you to stop holding hands or anything. And it does happen with Jenny and Ainsley. When they come over for movie night, and they cuddle on the couch together, that does it, too. But when they leave and go back to Jenny’s, I get excited again.”
Crystal sat forward, an idea starting to form in her mind. “Do you maybe feel alone because you want to be holding somebody’s hand, or cuddling with somebody on the couch?”
“Maybe?” Niko said, looking at Crystal. After a moment, she said, “I think that’s part of it, at least.”
“And what about the sex part? Do you want that, too, or just the holding hands part?” Crystal was looking at Niko really intensely, like there was a specific answer she was expecting.
Niko looked down at her hands to think. She could almost see what Crystal was getting at, but not quite. “I don’t think so,” she said finally. “I like the idea of holding hands and kissing for myself, but I can’t picture myself having sex, only ever other people.”
Crystal nodded, and reached out to hold Niko’s hand. “I think I have a word that might help,” she said. “I had a friend before - very briefly, since this was in my heinous bitch era, and she had standards - who was asexual.”
“Asexual, meaning without regard for sex, rather than reproducing without it, yes?” Edwin guessed.
Crystal nodded. “Yeah, exactly. My friend wasn’t interested in sex, or even dating. She said some asexual people are interested in romantic relationships, and others aren’t. Or, well, she screamed it at me, after I made fun of her for being perpetually single. Not the point.”
Niko looked stunned. She realized she was squeezing Crystal’s hand and deliberately let go, stretching her fingers out. “I need to do some reading about this in the morning.”
“Let me know if you want some company down that rabbit hole,” Crystal said, bumping her shoulder into Niko’s.
“Wait, hold on a tick,” Charles said after a moment. “Niko, you think about other people having sex?”
Niko blushed bright red. “I didn’t mean it like that!” she said. “I just— I read manga about it, and it makes me happy when other people get to do it!”
“Other people having sex makes you happy?” Crystal teased, leaning in close and raising her eyebrows suggestively.
“You know what? Yes,” Niko said. She was still embarrassed, but she leaned into Crystal right back so that they balanced out to more or less upright. “I like it when other people have sex.”
“You also said you like the idea of kissing,” Edwin said. “Have you never actually been kissed?” His tone was gentle in the way he only ever was for Niko. He’d been in the same place himself not that long ago, after all.
She shook her head, sitting up again and looking down at her hands. “Just like I never really had friends before, I was never in a relationship before, either, and I’ve definitely never kissed anyone.”
Crystal sat up, too, and was looking at Niko curiously. “Do you want to try it, see if it’s something you actually like doing?”
Niko looked a little like a deer in the headlights, so Charles jumped in, asking, “Is snogging your mates a traditional sleepover activity?”
“It was at mine, anyway,” Crystal answered with a shrug. “We had to get good at it somehow, so the boys would be impressed. Or maybe we were thirteen and some of us were exploring a little bit and decided to stuff that down as far as we could and say it was just for practice. Is that not universal?”
“Nope,” Charles said, and Niko shook her head, and Edwin said, “Definitely not.”
“Huh. Might have to dig that back up, then,” Crystal said, shrugging again. “Anyway, Niko, the offer stands.”
Niko considered the offer, looking at Crystal, searching for something in her eyes. She wasn’t quite sure herself what she was looking for, but she must have found it, because she heard herself say, “OK.”
“OK?” Crystal said, shifting so that she was facing Niko.
There it was, Niko realized: Crystal wanted to kiss her, and the offer was actually more of an ask. She nodded, turning so that she was facing Crystal as well. “OK.”
Crystal smiled and nodded. With one hand, she reached out and took Niko’s hand, guiding it to her waist. She slid the other hand from Niko’s shoulder to the back of her neck, gently urging her forward.
Niko caught on, putting her other hand at Crystal’s side and leaning forward to meet her in the middle. She would later reflect that it was probably the best first kiss she could have ever imagined, gentle and sweet and soft. In the moment, however, she simply relaxed into Crystal’s guidance, leaning in where the hand at the back of her neck pressed her to, turning when another hand came up to move her.
And then it was over, and they were both smiling, and then they were giggling, holding hands in the limited space between them.
“So, what do you think?” Crystal asked after a moment. “Do you like actual kissing?”
Niko nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, yes, I definitely like actual kissing.”
“Were we that sappy after we first snogged?” Charles said, looking at Edwin, who was smiling fondly.
“The circumstances surrounding our first kiss were a bit more… charged,” Edwin said. He turned to Charles and kissed him, quick and sweet. “We have time to be just as sappy, if you’d like.”
“You two are plenty sappy,” Crystal interrupted, rolling her eyes. “You’re just weirder about it.”
“I feel we have a license to be a bit strange,” Edwin argued. “We are, after all, ghosts.”
She held her hands up in surrender, letting go of Niko’s in the process. “No argument here,” she said. “I’m just pointing out that if you get any sappier, you’re liable to turn into a tree.”
“Thanks for helping me talk through everything,” Niko said. “I do feel better getting it out there, and I’ve got something to look into. I really appreciate you guys.”
“Of course, mate,” Charles said. “We’re always here for you.”
“All you have to do is ask,” Edwin added.
“Maybe one of these days I’ll figure out how to do that,” Niko sighed.
The next morning, Niko camped out at the coffee table with her laptop, while Crystal sprawled across the couch, staring into the space beyond the ceiling. Neither of them had spoken since they got up, having navigated each other’s morning routines with practiced ease, and even Charles and Edwin had left them alone so far.
Crystal was deep in thought, dredging up feelings she’d buried deeper than David after sleepovers spent “practicing” kissing with friends. It had been easy enough to tell herself she’d been thinking about kissing boys like her friends had been, since she did like kissing boys, too. And then she’d gone further with boys than she’d ever gone with her friends, and that had been fun enough that she hadn’t felt the need to examine how much she’d liked kissing her friends.
But then she’d gone and offered to kiss Niko, like it was a favor to Niko and not something she’d wanted to do for a long time. When they’d first met, she instinctively told herself that the fluttery feeling in her chest was because of the dandelion sprites, never mind that the feeling persisted after Litty and Kingham were trapped in a jar. Besides, she had liked Charles, too, and he was a very cute distraction from more than just David and the memories he’d stolen.
So, OK. She liked Niko. She could admit it to herself. And Niko had liked kissing her! But, on the other hand, Niko was having her own sexuality crisis that she hadn’t had the words to describe before. Crystal wanted to be a supportive friend and not make things messier with her own feelings. She also wanted to make sure she didn’t cross Niko’s boundaries, or make her uncomfortable.
If Niko did come to the conclusion that she was asexual, would Crystal be OK with not having sex in a relationship? The answer came immediately: Yes. Sex was fun, but not the point of a relationship the way it was for a fling or a one night stand. She’d gotten along just fine without it for this long, and she wasn’t getting antsy about it. And if that feeling changed, she could just talk to whoever she might be in a relationship with about it, like a normal person, and find a solution that worked for both of them.
Niko, for all she’d planned to be reading, wasn’t actually doing much reading. She’d read a few blog posts, some forum posts, and a couple of wiki pages, but now she was staring at her laptop screen, processing. Or, the information was settling through her, incorporating itself into her.
Really, it had settled into her the night before, after Crystal had fallen asleep and Charles and Edwin had gone back out into the office and her playlist had run out. Asexual. It felt correct, felt like suddenly seeing a pattern where before there had only been chaos. She wanted to know more, of course, wanted to know all she could, but just knowing the word and vaguely what it meant felt like unpacking a jumbled box of decorations and finally putting them up.
She’d found a whole host of words to describe some of the infinitely nuanced experiences within asexuality, too, and thought she might want to dig into some of them at some point. Even just knowing they existed made her feel more comfortable, less like she was defining herself to some rigid standard and more like she was looking for the right house in a neighborhood.
And when the information had settled, she turned to the kiss. She had liked it rather a lot. She knew that Crystal had wanted to kiss her, and that was why she’d offered. Niko, now that she knew what it was like, found herself wanting to kiss Crystal, too. She’d had trouble sleeping the night before, thinking about the kiss, and about where her boundary might be, and about finding that boundary and playing with it.
Instead of diving back into that line of thought again, Niko shut her laptop and turned to face Crystal, who looked at her and smiled. “Finished with your rabbit hole?” Crystal asked. Her eyes kept glancing down at Niko’s lips, and she kept having to drag them back up to her eyes.
“Yes,” Niko said. She was having a similar problem keeping eye contact, but did her best to keep focused. “I think you were right, last night. Asexual feels right, for me.”
Crystal slid down off the couch onto the floor to sit next to Niko. “Glad I could help,” she said. “I’ve been thinking, too, about that other stuff I said about kissing my friends at sleepovers.”
“Oh yeah?” Niko said, tilting her head to one side.
“Yeah.” Crystal took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think I’m actually bi. I wasn’t just kissing girls at sleepovers for practice - I liked it. And last night, I really liked kissing you.”
“I really liked kissing you, too,” Niko said, grinning. “I think we should date each other about it. And kiss some more, too.”
Crystal laughed and took Niko’s hands in hers. “I think you’re right,” she said. “Which should we do first, the dating or the kissing?”
“The kissing,” Niko said, nodding enthusiastically. “Definitely the kissing.”