In the store, we teach the group more sign language. "The group" of Hamme, Anemon, Sta and Mackere, with me, an off-branch in the coral stem, joined to the rest of them by my brother and his boyfriend, who actually know how to talk to me.

The group sits around a table cleared off of children's shirts (the children's shirts that used to live in a shelf along the middle of the right-side wall, before we re-organized the store), Parro leads the lesson, focuses on bodies today--hands, fins, how we're feeling, what personality traits we've got. Me and him buddy up and lead Hamme and Anemon in conversation, Ange teaches Sta and Mackere on the other side of our square table.

"I am fun and good-looking," Anemon signs.

"No you're ugly," Hamme signs.

"I'm fine," Anemon signs.

"Nice things," Parro signs.

"You're funny," I sign to Hamme. "You're artistic," I sign to Anemon.

"What?" Hamme signs.

Parro says something aloud.

Hamme shows his--their--teeth to me (I'm terrible at remembering they, I'm honestly trying, but at least I can't do specific pronouns in signing and I haven't written anything yet so Hamme doesn't know I keep messing up their pronouns in my head when I think in words more than sign motions), "You're nice," he--agh no they--sign. (Hamme is a they, Hamme is a they, Hamme is a they.)

"Thanks," I sign. (Hamme is a they.)

"What?" Anemon asks.

Parro says something aloud/signs, "we haven't learned please and thank you yet."

"No polite," Anemon signs, nodding seriously.

"You're friendly," I sign to Hamme. "You're intelligent," I sign to Anemon.

"No polite," Anemon signs, flashing his teeth.

Hamme vaguely signs "thank you" from the way Parro did it. Parro shows them how the wrist fin is supposed to be tucked in for thanks, and Hamme signs it better this time.

"Good job," Parro signs.

"What?" Anemon flutters and sits on top of the table, long shorts spreading out like a sea fan.

"Did we not teach you good job?" Parro says aloud/signs.

Anemon shakes his head.

"Good job," Hamme stares at their hands and repeats it, "good job."

Anemon says something aloud. Parro replies back.

"Your hands are pretty," Hamme signs.

I blink, I hesitate, I glance at Parro and Anemon to check if either of them are about to reply to Hamme but they're not. "Me?"

Hamme nods.

"Thanks," I sign, staring at the wood table.

"Did you just call my sister's hands pretty?" Parro signs/says aloud.

Hamme's eyes widen. They shake their head. And shrug. Anemon laughs and rolls off the table, on the other side of our rectangle table Ange and Sta and Mackere laugh too. My skin prickles.

Hamme says something aloud.

Parro turns to me, teeth showing. "Hamme meant, your hand motions are pretty. Fast. Clear. Whatever."

"Oh," I glance at Hamme's arm fins. "Your hand motions are improving," I sign.

Parro laughs. I hide my hands under the table. Ange nudges Parro and gets all in his face, signing, "at least she's honest, unlike you."

What?

"Your hands are pretty," Anemon signs at Hamme. Hamme glares, then says something and points at Sta and Mackere, who are actually holding hands.

My face stings, my fingers tap the underside of our smooth table.

"You can't forge my signature and tell Sta it's my autograph before I'm famous!" Ange signs, elbowing Parro, but Parro grabs his hands and kisses him in the face and I stare at the table. Everyone's voices vibrate at the same rate because kissing equals people making sounds. My skin prickles, my jawbone buzzes.

It's not like I've never seen my brother and his boyfriend kiss before.

In the mornings after breakfast sometimes when I'm around they peck like old lovers.

Before Ange goes up to the surface for a day and brings inventory back their mouths stick like remoras.

Sometimes at home after a concert they kiss like giddy, skittering crabs accidentally bumping into each other.

But a little part of me never wants to look at them dead-on, or any other people's faces touching--Mum and Da, strangers in the street. Like the sight of their lips touching makes a bright pulse in the water, stings me like a sea anemone clinging. Like, lips touching on the other side of the room opens the door to me witnessing two sets of stinging anemones, eager to cling and jolt but not painfully, like, electrically alive, and no, what I mean is, I get invited into their skin by intimate proxy--but lips touching, anemones stinging each other alive, don't belong on proxy skins, that's just slimy and weird.

A little part of me never looks at them dead-on, but tonight, my brother and his boyfriend kissing in my periphery lights up a big part of me aching with a heart-hunger.

I ache.

Clownfish, in the wild coral reefs, have skin that's protected from the toxin of an anemone. They make their homes inside them, lay their eggs, raise their young.

I ache because I am neither clownfish in the forest of a pink anemone, nor the anemone with a friend in my embrace.

I am not anemone reaching for another anemone either.

I'm just there.

Just here.

I get up from the table, sign "I'm tired" even though no one's watching, since Sta and Mackere kiss real quick and Parro and Ange break apart and Hamme's making sounds and Anemon's swiping at his eyes and I swim into the back room, away from the storefront oddly foreign with its new layout, cubbies and aisles and shelves rearranged.

I go to one of the dead-ends in the back door maze, boxes stacked floor to ceiling, the maze is nearly pitch black here but through the floor I can still make out the smooth mud under our anchored store.

A tiny crayfish, invisible in the mud except that she moves, drifts through the water. Her antennae swing about, prodding the glass floor. I flatten my hand to the cool glass, the crayfish doesn't notice, her antennae flail about and she sinks back to the mud. Goes still. I keep blinking at the outline of her, her claws, face, tail, but I stare so long my vision goes blurry and the crayfish has vanished into the mud.

I lift my hand from the warmed glass. I spread out on my back, bobbing in this dead end in the box maze, thinking up reasons I'm hiding here in case Ange or Parro come to find me.

***

Ange comes. I sit up from the warm glass and tell him I just needed somewhere still and dark for a bit. He tells me we're playing a game now, I ask what game, he spells out L-E-T-T-E-R-S. I ask how you play that. He says you need to see it to understand. So we swim back into the store, and round little rocks painted with neon letters cover the rectangle table.

Ange explains the game, moving the rocks around for examples. Everyone but Mackere and I has played it. I halfway understand it; it's something about spelling a word in one of three rows, then going around the table and replacing letters in one row on your turn to try making new words to get points. But usually you can only add letters to the end of the word, which bumps out letters at the start of the word, but if you get neon pink letters you can ignore that rule and replace letters anywhere, and sometimes you can change the length of the word but only sometimes.

I don't know how the point system works exactly.

Apparently Hamme wins the first two games.

I'm proud of myself when I turn "canyon" into "yonder."

Hamme turns "squid" into "quadrant" using one neon pink letter plus four blue letters and a turn later after everyone's only touched the other two words, they turn that into "ranting."

Sta's turns take forever, and I spend the time bouncing up and down, and memorizing the cubby contents on our ceiling, and sometimes staring at the letters in front of me to work out what words I can create.

Midway through the game, Mackere goes to her bag beside the door and pulls out a box of brittle cookies. We pass those around while Sta decides what to do. I don't take any; I'm trying to think about letters and chomping on a brittle cookie will drown out the thoughts I'm having.

Hamme goes to their bag beside the door and comes back with a little bowl of shells; black oyster and yellow bonnet and speckled cowrie. Sta finishes her turn, changing "tingle" into "glean." Hamme passes the basket of shells around, everyone takes one, Hamme says something about the shells and Parro signs under the table to me that the shells are inscribed with good luck symbols inside. I take the last speckled cowrie shell, hand the basket over to Anemon, who gets the yellow bonnet. Anemon says something. Hamme shrugs. Parro signs under the table that Anemon asked if he could paint his.

Midway through the third game, we stop for some reason, and too many hands clean up the round little rocks, and I glance at Parro but he's devouring brittle cookies with both hands so I glance at Ange but he's swimming back and forth to put children's shirts back on the table. So I hover in the water with the round little cowrie shell in my hands and the rocks end up in Hamme's green kelp bag and Sta's talking a lot.

Mackere grabs her gray bag by the door and waves and she and Sta leave together and I don't know how this happened. I poke Parro in the arm. He glances at me. Anemon trails out the door, followed by Hamme. I hover there by the table and don't know what to ask. Parro's eyes go half-lidded. Ange arranges shirts in neat piles, brushes away crumbs that came from the cookies.

"Why did we stop?" I sign, cowrie shell held in two fingers.

"Sta and Hamme have to get up early tomorrow," Parro signs. "So after we finished that game everyone left."

We finished... "Who was winning?"

"Ange," Parro rolls his eyes. "Finally someone who wasn't Hamme."

"Mackere beat Hamme's score that round too," Ange signs across the table. "Hamme's reign is ending."

"Watch them not bring L-E-T-T-E-R-S back for a long time," Parro laughs. Ange does too.

Oh. A long time?

But I want to figure out the point system still; how did Ange win when I thought no one was even halfway to a hundred points yet?

With one hand--my other holding the cowrie shell--I help Ange finish replacing the shirts on the table. I almost ask how he won the last game, but I don't, I want to figure it out on my own.