Zell sat,
tired and depressed at one of Balamb Garden's many lunch benches, alone. As
usual. Zell was a hero. Supposedly. But there was one thing missing from his
life, and it didn't take much to guess what he felt he was missing.
He looked out into the park, where Rinoa
and Squall were playfully kissing and cuddling on the grass. He smiled, but
only because he knew the two of them weren't squabbling anymore with Squall
'Whatevering' all over the place.
He looked over to the canteen, where
Irvine and Selphie were also canoodling in the shade of a parasol, it was a hot
day and at the moment Balamb Garden was pretty inactive.
He was happy for them. Pity nobody was
happy for him. Then again, that was his nature – He was pretty selfless, and
despite his endlessly cheerful exterior, he was actually burning up inside.
Zell leaned on his elbows, and stared
into the middle distance. Every since they'd come back from defeating
Ultimecia, it seemed that every guy had a girlfriend. Oh, he was told
millions of times by Quistis that there 'was somebody for him out there' but in
his opinion that was absolute rubbish.
He'd come back, the conquering hero,
crowds of people had been there to greet them home – but not a single girl had
gone near him. The closest he'd got was at the celebratory dinner in the
evening, where he'd met a very pretty girl, whom he'd entirely failed to get
off with.
'Oh well' he thought 'I guess
I am destined to be lonely after all, I mean…'
He decided to stop thinking about it, and
decided to take a walk.
Zell thought that maybe a refreshing walk
around the parade ground would do him some good, take his mind off things.
He started towards the path, ready to just
forget his own inadequacies and then-
"Hey, Zell!"
Zell turned, only to see Irvine swaggering
towards him, clutching Selphie to his side, grinning like a cheshire cat.
'I REALLY hate him when he puts that
grin on' Zell thought, smiling in a forced way 'it's like he's doing it
deliberately'
"So…Zell? How's it going?"
"Not bad" Zell remarked.
Selphie looked at him sympathetically.
"Cut up about not having a girlfriend,
huh?"
Zell tried not to show any emotional
reaction, but failed miserably.
"I see" Selphie said "Don't worry!
There's loads of pretty girls in Balamb, and I'm sure at least one of them's
crazy for you!"
"Yeah, right" Zell muttered "That's what
Squall said when we came back from beating Ultimecia"
"Look, it's not that hard!" Irvine insisted
"Just grab a girl, flick on the charm and you'll have her in no time"
This time, Zell just cracked – It had
been building up, but now something had snapped.
"It's easy enough for you to say!!" he
yelled, his voice cracking "I don't happen to have that aura of charm that you
do!! You've got Selphie, Squall's got Rinoa!! Who have I got?! Nobody!! Some of
us in this big old world DON'T have the luck others do!!!"
"Calm down!" Selphie soothed.
"NO!!" Zell yelled "IT'S JUST NOT FAIR!!!"
He turned and ran down the path,
furiously angry. As he ran, he began to cry – For the first time in years, Zell
Dincht was crying.
He just wanted to run away and never
come back. Ever.
Zell ran and ran, until the shouting
forms of Selphie and Irvine were left far behind.
Zell ran and ran, then suddenly he
clipped his foot on a stone and he found himself tumbling down onto the ground.
His face met soil as he fell off the path, and he cried hard into it, thumping
the ground in anger and despair.
He just wanted the ground to swallow
him up, to remove this feeling of inadequacy and pain that hurt him so.
He implored the sky to strike him down
with some freak bolt of lightning.
He just didn't want to carry on any
longer.
Why did everybody else get somebody?
What had he done to remain single? What single fault had prevented him from
ever meeting anybody? It just wasn't-
"Are you okay?" a soft voice asked
him. He looked up, to see a pair of very attractive and lightly tanned legs,
clad in traditional SeeD female dress. The legs had a skirt wrapped firmly
around the top of them, and as he looked further up, a well formed body clad in
a fully trained SeeD's uniform. He looked up further to see a kindly and very
beautiful face, probably only a month or two older than his own. The face
belonged to instructor Xu.
He remembered once having a crush on
Xu. Old feelings, lying dormant for ages rose to the surface, filled him up
inside.
"Oh…hi Xu…" He stood up, red with
embarrassment.
"Zell?" She peered at him, and then
drew back, face sympathetic and yet sad "Oh my…you've been crying…"
"Please" Zell pleaded "Don't tell
anybody, please!"
"Don't worry" she whispered "I won't"
He smiled, bashful and yet thankful.
"So…what's up? Why did I find you
flat out on the floor like that?"
"I …kind of…lost it with Irvine and
Selphie"
"Oh right…what were they doing?"
"Well, it wasn't Selphie really, more
Irvine…He just seems to love rubbing the salt into the wound, swaggering around
with Selphie on his elbow, grinning like a maniac and reminding me that I'm
still single"
He caught Xu's eye, and she looked
down a little, cheeks slightly red.
'Was she…?' he thought 'Nah…'
"Don't worry, I'm single too" she
replied "Nobody seems interested in me"
"Xu, how could somebody NOT be
interested in you? You're beautiful…oh!"
Zell blushed a deep red, as did Xu,
who smiled a little, placing her hand to her face to hide her blushes.
"Fancy taking a walk?" he asked.
Xu nodded.
"Sure…why not?" she replied, and
together, they took a stroll down the path.
Xu, while generally being very quiet, was
more talkative than she'd ever hope she could be.
Ever since walking into Zell, she'd felt a
feeling come over her that she'd never felt before. She'd known Zell, but she'd
never got a chance to talk to him or even get up close.
Xu realised that she felt something for
Zell now – She looked up at his face as he talked to her about an amusing
incident at his foster parents house a while ago…and realised that he was
really very cute…when he smiled, she felt electric, and her body practically
melted when he turned his bright blue eyes on her.
What she didn't want to do however, was
give off too many signals as to the fact that she was now very attracted to
him, and now it was more than that – physical attraction had led to realising that
he was a sweet, good-natured and often very funny guy. And those tears…it had
touched her, proving that even a hardened warrior like Zell was vulnerable.
Zell himself was also feeling strange.
Instead of feeling as depressed as he did earlier, he now felt quite
cheerful…now that Xu was with him…he felt…
He looked at her in profile as she told
him the story as to how she ended up joining SeeD, and admired her in the
sunlight. Perfectly shaped, gorgeous eyes, wonderful glistening hair…he suddenly
realised that he was now feeling worryingly attracted towards Xu.
She listened, she talked back, she was
friendly, funny and incredibly sweet – but unlike him, was slightly more
introverted than he was. He loved that in her, in some ways one of the things
that had initially put him off Selphie was her bounciness, which he liked, but
wasn't a quality he wanted to see in his future partner.
She was also devastatingly
intelligent – Damn it, she'd planned a large portion of their Dollet training
campaign and she'd even had the guts to have a go at Seifer and actually get
away with it!
They talked and talked, but when
they got back to the dorms, Xu asked him to stop and turned to him.
"Hey Zell…I know it's a little fresh
of me…but do you want to…meet up again?"
Zell felt himself tingle
"I wouldn't miss it for the
world…anything you want, it's your choice"
She smiled.
'He's so sweet!' she
thought, before pulling a piece of note paper she used during SeeD training
days, tore a piece off and scribbled something down with a pencil she kept in
the same pocket.
She handed it over, smiling, he
savoured the touch of her skin on his.
"Be there" she said, smiling even
wider.
"I will" he replied, smiling
also.
She walked off in the direction of the
dorms, sneaking a few glances back at him…
'Oh Xu you foolish, foolish
girl…you're in love…' she thought, sighing as she went back into her dorm.
Zell looked at the piece of paper.
It said:
THE QUAD, 6:00PM, TOMORROW – BE THERE
He smiled. He wouldn't miss it for
the world.
END OF PART ONE