Author's Note: Another oneshot I wrote months back that I've decided to clean up and post. Some minor Squall/Rinoa and Irvine/Selphie. As usual, I own nothing of Final Fantasy VII, just borrowing the characters for a bit.
I. He has a secret liking for strawberries mixed into yogurt. It's so secret that not even Rinoa knows, but that's one secret that probably wouldn't stay a secret for much longer, not with strawberries going into season in two weeks. Sis used to make it specially for him when he was sick, and one of his few remaining childhood memories was of her sitting beside him in bed, petting his hair gently while he scooped up the delicious treat bite by bite. Rinoa caught him with a bowl of it three weeks later late one night in his office. It somehow tastes even better shared between two people.
II. Squall does not deal well with mornings. Killing a monster or two before his morning cup of coffee is okay, but having a halfway decent conversation is a no go. (His friends would claim that Squall doesn't DO casual conversations, but whatever.) He doesn't wake up properly until he's at least had a cup or two. All information regarding The Incident with the Potted Plant is classified to SeeD Commander only. Rumours abound in the Garden as to just what The Incident entails, but no matter how rare the Triple Triad card was offered up for bribery the people involved are keeping their mouths firmly shut.
III. While his SeeD Commander's desk will be neat and tidy since it's expected of him, Squall's a surprisingly messy guy in private for someone who outwardly seemed to be strict and regimented. He's never really dirty (dust makes him sneeze), but there will be piles of clothing here and there in his room, random piles of books and papers on his desk, and his bed will be left unmade every morning. Rinoa doesn't much care about the state of Squall's room while Quistis will sigh and remind Squall that he IS the Commander now and he should set an example for the rest by keeping his quarters neat and tidy.
IV. He HATES cactuars with a passion. He'd rather go up against a malbouro any day. (And Malboroughs are a pain in the ass to fight with their poison and various status effects.) And all this hate is because he got pin-cushioned in some very tender places after fighting through dozens of them to get to the Cactuar GF. That GF is also his last choice for junctioning.
Rinoa on the other hand, thinks cactuars are adorable and has miniature plushies of them hung up on the wall above her desk in her room. Squall has plans to replace them with a pair of mogs but he hasn't found ones of the right size yet.
V. Squall absolutely refuses to go to any karaoke sessions that the rest of the crew tries to drag him off to from time to time. It's not because he can't sing; it's because his ears are too good. He's got perfect pitch, and his relative pitch is almost as good, and anything the slightest bit out of tune gives him a headache. It's also why he refuses to listen to most pop singers, since he says they're all out of tune as well. It was just as well no one was singing that night the crew put on that mini-concert for him that night in Fishermen's Horizen or he would have left immediately.
VI. Despite what anyone else says, Squall's hobby isn't going out on a monster extermination treks even if he lists it as one of his top stress relieving activity. It's reading. In part it all started because he thought that if he was reading, then he's not obligated to talk to anyone and in theory people will leave him alone if he's got a book in front of his face. Of course, it doesn't always work out that way since his friends have learned to just cut in anyway. His favourite books are histories and biographies, followed by mystery novels. He started getting into science fiction novels after visiting Esthar the first time.
VII. Squall's cooking can only be considered mediocre at best. He went through survival training like all other SeeDs, so he's not going to burn water, but his food is for the most part pretty bland. His cookies however, are to die for. Squall always volunteers dessert in the team bonding potluck dinners Selphie insists they hold once a month and he always has to divide up the cookies he brings beforehand to stop any one person from hogging more than his or her fair share. There is currently a campaign in progress by Rinoa, Selphie, Xu and Quistis to get him to bake them at least once week.
VIII.
a. Even he thinks Selphie and Irvine should move past the flirting and just get on with it. Squall might or might not have heard of a plan to lock the two in a closet. He might even have been overheard to order certain persons of interests to inventory certain closets in strategic locations around the Garden. Squall was surprised the plan actually worked.
b. The next time the teaching qualification exams come up, Squall has plans to nominate Zell for them. The Garden was short on instructors and watching Zell tutor some students in history with far more patience than Squall thought Zell had in him was an eye opening experience.
c. Squall thinks Quistis wasn't that bad of a teacher. At the very least she was never boring in the classes he attended (unlike other Garden staff he could name). He's not going to say anything about it to her though, because he knows that she knows that he knows that she knows about it. If she ever wants to teach again, he'd support her in regaining her instructor's license.
IX. Squall doesn't hate Seifer for what he did because if he had been in Seifer's position, he might have made a similar choice. It's all in the past anyway, and there's no use reminiscing about what's happened before, or what he might or might not have done in some alternate world. You don't let the past bog you down; you learn from it and move on.
Knowing this however doesn't stop him from dreaming of worlds where he had failed the SeeD exam, accepted the Sorceress' hand, and set the world aflame. Thankfully, those dreams were fading away faster from his mind each time when he wakes the next morning and his friends were there to greet him with their usual bright cheerfulness.
X. There are still nights where he wakes up in a cold sweat having dreamed about the torture he went through in Galbadia prison. It is on those nights he'll generally get up, take a cold shower, then go kill some monsters either in the training centre or outside the Garden until morning. And for the rest of the day he'll act like he really did sleep seven hours last night, when all he got was three, and no amount of badgering will get him to go back to bed for a few more hours of rest. They don't bother asking him what's wrong because they already know.