I never really saw myself as the 'other woman' type. Sure, maybe a load of other people had, but they did not know me. They only went by appearances. Stupid people... I'm not a bad person. I am not even close to a bad person. No, of course not... They thought I looked like some kind of stripper or something. Not true...

They just did not know me, and that was why I could not admit that maybe they were right... Maybe I am a bad person. How do you define a bad person, exactly? I saved the whole world for Yevon's sake! I am a great person, right? If I asked Rikku she would probably say, "Yeah, Painey, of course! You're great! Why would you ask a silly question like that?" I would bet a thousand Gil that Yuna would probably agree. So would everyone else I consider a friend, I'm sure of that.

But maybe that was because they did not know what I knew about myself. They did not know where I went after I made some random excuse for having to leave the Celsius. They did not know where I really spent my nights, or what I really did.

What if they knew the real me? What if they could see this me... If they only knew the things I did...

Would they still say: "You're a good person, Paine"...? Or would they say just the opposite?

I try not to care about what other people think. I try not to care about how much trouble I am in, or may get into. But this... This, I just don't know about it...

Right now I am standing in someone else's bathroom, in front of someone else's mirror, wearing someone else's very large shirt. That someone else is still asleep in the next room. I stared at my red eyes while twirling my short silver hair around one of my fingers. I constantly have to keep telling my reflection that I am not wrong... That it is everyone else that just does not get it. They were the wrong ones. They were the unjust ones. Stupid New Yevon priests and their stupid laws... They started this mess. They started it... not me...

"I love him," I said. "I do. I deserve to be with him. He wants me. He does not want her." Every word of which was very true. With this in mind I walked out of the large bathroom and into the even larger master bedroom of his apartment home. He was, as I said before, still asleep in his bed. He looked so calm and innocent, lying on his back, with one arm outstretched. Yawning, I climbed underneath the covers, resting my head against his bare chest. "Baralai?" I whispered, looking up at his face as I gently shook him. He opened his eyes and then stretched, yawning loudly and rubbing his eyes.

"Yeah...?" he groaned, looking down at me with only one kind brown eye.

"I'm not a bad person am I?" I asked worriedly. He sat up and I propped myself up on one arm. He was wide awake now.

"Of course not," he assured me, running a hand lovingly and gently through my hair. I closed my crimson eyes and leaned against his hand, sighing with content. "Why?" he asked. I did not answer right away. I only reopened my eyes and stared through the darkness at him. But he had this look on his face which showed that my silence was beginning to worry him. He was always worrying about me... I knew that some days he worried so much about me – about us – that it actually made him sick.

"It's nothing," I said finally, smiling the small little smirk he always said that he loved. He looked relieved to see it, and I gave him a small kiss on the cheek before we both lay back down on the bed together. He put his arms around me and was almost immediately asleep again, but not before he whispered that he loved me. I looked over at the blinking light from my comsphere which rested on the table next to the bed. It showed that it was now three in the morning. "One month..." I said quietly. "Exactly one month until the wedding, 'Lai" It was going to be his wedding to her... not his wedding to me.

All because of those stupid little people that just could not understand...

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Yeah, I revised it a little...