“The First Rule of Robo-Spinners” (78.6) (Oka)

I helped Berin set another heavy box down. I crossed my fingers as he peeled the tape off of it.

"I think...this might be..." He opened the box to see it was just filled with old cassette tapes that were way heavier than I thought they'd be. "Dang. Thought this was one of the train boxes."

"It's gotta be in one of these," I said.

I had spent very little time in our new home. Ever since the Kilander finances rapidly faded away, we had to move out of the big place we were staying in. I honestly was hoping we'd end up in a nice place like Zeta's family's apartment, and Berin basically said we'd be in a smaller place, but then the new house was pretty huge too by my estimate, just not as stupidly big as the last one. He'd been busy enough with work and I was usually just staying in the dorms that we'd barely unpacked anything. Not that I personally had too much to unpack, again my stuff was all at the dorms.

We were hoping to find his boxes full of model trains, as he'd gotten me hooked on them with a gifted model engine. Well, really I was hooked on the concept as a kid from watching Trian the Train tapes, but that never really translated to collecting or playing with them, as Tesata frowned on the whole "having fun" thing, to put it mildly.

After searching through a few more, we took a break, as moving all this stuff around was exhausting. He got us each bottles of ColaBLU before relaxing on the couch in a very dad-like manner, sighing loudly, taking up lots of space. He'd say he wasn't much for the stereotypical "dad" stuff but then I'd find him setting up a barbecue grill and talking about sports like he was a dad on some sitcom. Well, technically in a way the Kilander reality show was like a sitcom, but he wasn't exactly a dad type character on there.

"Sorry, it's gotta be in one of these," Berin said.

"It's fine, I'm happy with my little engine for now!" I said. I patted the carrying case my new favorite was in, which I had been bringing everywhere. I didn't show it off in class, because I figured I'd get made fun of, but Zeta thought my newfound interest was super cool, and the close friends I'd shown it too didn't call me a dweeb for carrying a model train around.

"I'm surprised you've taken to this so much," Berin said. "Not in a bad way, and I knew you liked those Trian tapes, I just didn't think we'd..."

"Ever share an interest?" I said.

"Maybe think of a nicer way to phrase that," Berin said.

"Nah, that's the best I got, Berint," I said. "It was good timing though, I was getting buggy waiting for the theater club to start again, I was craving a new hobby."

"Yeah, there probably won't be a production this semester either with how things are going with these school swappings and mergings," Berin said.

My hopes of being in a play in my first year were dashed when the shifts between Rising Shards and Wildfire Hearts kind of crushed the department, but I just told myself that I'd channel all this pent up acting into whatever came next for the club. I'd say I'd channel it to the video project Kalei was spearheading, but with her mysterious situation that pretty much dried up too. Was I cursed to not be able to act at Rising Shards?

"At least the dance is still on," Berin said. "You excited for that?"

"I'm kinda nervous, really," I said.

"How come?" Berin asked.

"Well..." I said. I thought back to the last time I went to dance. I technically met Zeta there and had a great time, even not knowing it was her. But I learned later that that fun dance caused a situation between her and Jeans. It wasn't really my fault, and it certainly wasn't Zeta's, but I still felt bad. And I guess I still had some lingering worries that some drama like that would befall me again if I went to another dance. I said something to that effect to Berin, not going into every detail, but he knew enough about the Zeta/Jeans situation by now from me talking about it.

"Oh, right," He winced, and I could tell it wasn't just feeling bad for me and Zeta. Back then he was still figuring out the whole adopting me thing, and the whole how to juggle raising a new daughter with work thing, and wasn't particularly great at the latter, so I ended up getting a ride from Dr. Diast to that. "I'll drive you to this one for sure."

"Well, it's on campus so you don't really need to," I said.

"I still want to!" Berin said. "I'm your dad or whatever."

I nearly spit out my ColaBLU. "Or whatever?"

"That's a joke," Berin said. "Goofing on how you always say 'or whatever' when you're telling me something."

"Wait, I don't always say that!" I snorted, which turned into a laugh. "How'd this turn into goofing on me?"

"It's a father's responsibility to goof on such matters," Berin said. We both added, "Or whatever," in unison, and laughed some more.

"OK, you tell me an embarrassing dance story then, that's your punishment for this," I said.

"Uh," Berin scratched his head. "Honestly, I didn't really go to any dances."

"Whaaaat?" I asked. "Weren't you like, super famous? Or whatever?" I remembered seeing some plaque Penteldtam put up in some big display for the Kilander family's accomplishments that said he was part of some famous group.

"Or whatever, yeah," Berin said. "I wouldn't say we were famous, we, that's, uh, me and my friend group, we just got up to some business. But what Cani doesn't get up to business? It's just because of the Kilander name that my business got a little more promoted at my school."

"So you didn't have people asking you nonstop to any dances?" I asked.

"Not really, no," Berin said. "Even if I was always busy, I was still a huge geek. And I didn't really know what I was interested in back then."

"Save for model trains," I said.

"Yeah, model trains I was into," Berin said. "Dating, not so much. Some girls asked me, but...eh..."

"Ohhh," I said, a sly grin on my face. "Not interested in girls, eh? How about now, do you know what you're interested in now?"

"More or less," Berin said. "Or, whatever."

I hadn't really heard Berin talk much about this, but from the hints he'd given me and the way he talked about dating Zeta and being gay, I could guess what he meant by 'interests.'

"Well, if you're looking to date now, I can't help you, I'm a pretty good wingman but I don't know any other old guys but you," I said.

"That's probably a good thing," Berin said. "I'll figure that out on my own, thanks."

"Maybe while I'm at the dance, you can hit up the bar scene in town and meet some cool guys," I suggested. "Or whatever!"

"I'd rather...not do that," Berin said.

I teased him about that for a while, getting revenge for him making fun of me for my repeat verbiage. It was a nice talk overall, even if we didn't end up finding the train set, I felt a little less anxious about everything looming around me.