My cheeks were burning hot with, and the shock and embarrassment had rendered me speechless. I wanted to say something, an apology, anything - but another hiccup cut me off. For a second that seemed like an eternity, Blaze just stared at me. And then he covered his own mouth with his hand, to muffle a bout of laughter.

Despite everything on my list of millions of things that could go wrong, I hadn't prepared for this.

And it just didn't stop. With every hiccup my diaphragm contracted so painfully in my chest that it was beginning to make me feel sick. Every breath I tried to take was pushed out of my body almost instantaneously with a violent spasm of my lungs. I felt tears well up in my eyes, and tried to tell myself that it was because of pain and the lack of air, and not the humiliation.

Blaze got to his feet and said something that I couldn't hear over the sound of my hiccups. Not that it mattered. I couldn't bear looking at him, and buried my face in my hands. I wished that I would just suffocate right then and there, so I wouldn't have to face him again. I only noted that suddenly, the feeling of his warmth beside me was gone. I couldn't blame him. I would have gotten up and left myself sitting here too if I could. Instead, I opted to just sit there and wallow in my self loathing and mortification.

So much for carpe noctem. I used the night, alright. To make a total fool out of myself.

"Sky. Hey, Sky."

Slowly, I raised my head and looked through my fingers. Blaze had appeared before me again, holding out a glass filled with a clear liquid that he had procured from somewhere.

"Just warm water," he explained, probably because of the wary look I gave it. "Drink. It's said to help."

Maybe it was the shock of the confusion I felt, but the hiccups had anyway subsided as suddenly as they had come. I just stared at him with a sheepish expression as he gently pushed the glass into my hands nonetheless.

"I suppose that drink was just too cold for you," he said as he settled back down next to me. "I'm really sorry...."

"...sorry? For...what?"

My voice came out raw and raspy, and I felt breathless, but the hiccups had ceased for good. I hesitantly took a sip of the water, and it indeed seem to sooth the pain in my chest.

He shrugged in response and cast me a sideward glance with a hint of a smile on his lips.

"For not asking what you wanted before getting you a drink, I guess," he said pensively. "And for laughing at first. But... at least now I know you're really human."

"Eh... what?"

"Well..." He turned to face me again, and for a moment wore the strangest expression on his face – he looked at me with the confusion of a person who had just finished a jigsaw puzzle, only to realize that they had a couple of extra pieces leftover and no clue where they were supposed to go.

"There's a lot about you that sometimes makes me doubt you're really human. You're just too perfect at everything you do... it's actually quite intimidating."

I almost spat out the water in my mouth. "Intimidating?" I repeated in disbelief. "Me?"

"A little bit. But I like to challenge my fears," he replied and cracked a grin.

I blinked at him, trying to process his words. The unarguably best-looking guy in our cohort, that universally adored and charmer, who was also an audaciously brilliant EVA pilot, found me intimidating because I was too perfect. It was ludicrous, and it actually made me let out a raspy, short laugh.

"You're one to talk..." I muttered under my breath.

Maybe it meant that I was just another challenge to him. Something to conquer. Fresh prey. I furrowed my brow at the thought.

Then again – he had been nothing but sweet to me. Perhaps I wasn't doing him any justice in being so suspicious. And I remembered my motto for the night: to have some fun for once in my life. Fun didn't necessarily require any kind of serious intent. Or commitment of any sort. I just didn't quite know yet if that made it all better or worse.

I tapped my fingertips against the now empty glass in my hands and tried to make sense of what I was feeling.

"I'm sorry too," I said quietly, breaking the silence between us.

"For what?"

"For, eh.... ruining the moment, I guess."

"That's alright. Nothing's ruined," he said with a smirk, "I'm having the time of my life with you."

"Oh come on. The line between flattery and blatant lies is not that thin, Blaze," I replied drily.

"I'm being totally serious."

I didn't know what to say to that, and just averted my gaze.

I was still in a daze, unable to grasp the reality of this situation. It all felt like a weird and convoluted dream that made no sense. Why was I here? What was I doing? And what in the world was he doing here with me? Or rather – after that phenomenally embarrassing display just now, why was he still here?

And not just that - he had put his hand back on mine, and traced the edge of my medical bracelet with his thumb. His touch caused a pleasant shiver to run through my body, and I sighed quietly.

He is still here...

Maybe Moon was right, and he was prepared to put up with my awkwardness and social inability because he simply liked me, for whatever inconceivable reason. And the more I thought about it, compared to almost breaking his nose with a headbutt from a violent hiccup, most things that remained on my list of potential disasters seemed pretty tame. There was something comforting about that thought, and it was an adequate substitute for my lacking bravery.

I cleared my throat and raised my head again to meet his gaze.

"So... what did you mean to say, before...?" I asked.

"Ah, right. I wanted to show you something."

He fumbled in the pocket of his pants for something.

"Remember this?" he asked, as he produced a familiar looking memory module. "There's a room in the back that can run it. It's just a simple VR sim, but I thought you might like it."

"What's it about?"

"That's a surprise."

"I don't like surprises," I said flatly.

And I still don't like the idea of that ominous backroom.

"You will like this one. I promise," he said and cast me a friendly smile that seemed much less intimidating all of a sudden.

Or maybe I had really just become braver in the last minutes.

He got up and stretched his hand out to me. I hesitated another moment, then I sighed and let him pull me to my feet.

"Well, alright, but maybe I should tell Moon-"

"Blaze!" a voice called out from behind him, and his smile froze.

He turned around slowly, and as I looked past him I spotted a girl coming towards us. She was wearing a blush pink, strapless dress and an amount of makeup that only very young people would use, to make themselves appear older. But I couldn't deny that it was meticulously applied. She had accentuated her big, brown doe eyes, and matched her lipstick to her dress. Her chocolate brown hair was styled in loose curls instead of falling straight today, but on second glance, I recognized her nonetheless. It was the girl who had been staring at me in the library the other day.

"Hi, Rose," Blaze greeted her.

Rose. That name rang a bell. Something about her struck me as peculiar, and it was not just the fact the she seemed so out of place at this party where everybody was quite obviously older than her.

"What is she doing here?" the girl asked with a scoff in her voice, and put her hand on his arm in a somewhat intimate gesture.

It took me a second to realize that she was talking about me.

"Who let you in here, Rose?" Blaze asked, ignoring her question.

"Bones, of course," she said.

The moment she glanced over at me, I finally realized why she seemed so familiar. She looked just like a younger version of Lily, reminding me of our early days at the academy. With the similarity in their names, I wondered if they were sisters. Naturally born siblings were so rare these days that it hadn't occurred to me right away, but these two would have a hard time denying a familial relationship. It was really obvious when Rose gave me that same arrogant and scornful look that I had seen a thousand times before, from those same dark doe-eyes, as her presumably older sister Lily.

"Does Lily know you're here?" Blaze asked the girl.

"Of course," Rose said.

"Is that so." Blaze raised an eyebrow, probably thinking the same as I – she was lying.

He glanced around the room, until he found who he was looking for near the bar. Following his gaze, I could spot Lily and Bones in a battle of words that looked like it was about to turn into a full-on brawl.

"Well in that case... Hey, Lil!" he called out and waved at her. "She's here!"

"No!" Rose's eyes widened and she jumped forward, trying to cover his mouth with one hand and pulling down his raised arm again. "Don't!"

Lily stopped shaking Bones and looked over at us. The look on her face turned from angry to absolutely furious, and I felt the sudden urge to hide behind Blaze. It was silly, of course. Lily had no reason to take any note of me at all in this situation. This – whatever was going on - was between her and her sister.

"You!" Lily yelled as she stormed over toward us. "This is all your fault!"

Well, maybe I had gotten my hopes up too soon.

"What? Why?" I asked meekly.

But then I realized that she was not addressing me, but Blaze.

"It's your fault that she is going completely crazy," Lily yelled at him and jerked at her sister's arm, causing her to yowl in pain and stagger to stand beside her. "Why can't you just... be a little bit more... or less... I mean-"

Lily trembled with anger as she gestured at him vaguely. I had never seen her like that, but the look on her Rose's face made me realize that perhaps I wasn't the only one that Lily was used to trampling all over.

"Let go of me, Lil, you're hurting me..." the girl whined.

Lily snapped her gaze away from Blaze and fixed the girl with an angry glare. She seemed to realize only now what she was doing to her and let go of her arm, then she threw her hands up in frustration.

"Ugh. You are all so fucking insufferable," Lily exclaimed.

Rose seemed to want to say something, but she cut her off immediately.

"You! Go find your things and then go back to the dorm. NOW!" she yelled at Rose, who scurried away quickly.

"And YOU!" She pointed at Blaze, "Stop giving her stupid ideas!"

"What?" Blaze exclaimed and raised his hands in a defensive gesture. "I didn't do anything!"

"And that's already too much! You have to tell her Blaze, that there's no chance for her. Never. Never EVER. Because she is my sister, damn it! And she's too damn young!"

"Well, I never did anything... I mean I don't know where she gets that idea from in the first place," he said and looked at me apologetically.

I had a hunch where she might have gotten that idea about him, as so many others before her, but I didn't dare to comment on the matter. "And I don't even know what any of this has to do with me," I said instead.

Lily looked back and forth between Blaze and me, and to my great surprise, the expression on her face softened a little. Then she heaved a deep sigh, and found her composure again.

"Never mind," she said, diligently straightening her dress. "I guess I will go and take her back to her room... after I flay the flesh from Bones' bones, so his parents may remember why they gave him that stupid name."

She threw her long, dark hair back over her shoulder as she turned around and sashayed away with her head held high. To describe this as a strange encounter would have been an understatement, and I stared after her in confusion for a moment before I found my speech again.

"She's not serious, is she?" I leaned in to mutter to Blaze under my breath, hoping she would already be out of earshot. "About Bones?"

"I'm not entirely certain."

"Scary woman."

He nodded in agreement.

"So why do you hang out with her?"

"We grew up together," he explained with a shrug. "Her, Rose and me. We lived in the same suburb, went to the same grade school. Rose a couple of years below us, of course."

"Oh. So they are..."

"Sisters," he confirmed again. "Rose is ex vivo born, though."

"She's adopted?" I asked, confused by their uncanny resemblance.

"No, ex vivo, but from the same parents," he clarified.

"Oh. Makes sense."

It didn't, actually. Ex vivo gestation was a matter of survival for our society, in a day and age where birth rates had plummeted so drastically that the population was rapidly shrinking. They were meticulously planned and performed by city-owned facilities. But apparently the rumors were true, and there was a semi-legal market for the private trade with ex vivo life. To some, having more than one child was a status symbol, and even if natural fertility wasn't playing along, the insanely rich and powerful always found a way to get what they wanted. Lily's parents must have spent a fortune on having another biological child born ex vivo. I couldn't imagine what it must have felt like to be a trophy child like that - or to be the biological sibling to a younger trophy child. No wonder the two sisters had such a strange relationship.

"Anyways, are you ready to go?" Blaze interrupted my thoughts, and held up the memory module.

Still confused over what had just happened and the things I had learned about Lily, I only nodded in response, and let him take the lead.

_____
A.N.
Well, now you know who the girl in the library was... :)
By the way, what are your thoughts on the new cover?