It was well known that Seifer Almasy liked to push people to their limits. People saw him as the tough guy, who treated everyone as inferior and took crap from no one. But no one would have guessed that he really had a soft spot for his so-called-enemy, Hayner.
The two fought constantly; in school, out of school, and just generally when they saw each other. It wasn't always physical beating and bruising, but it usually left Hayner reeling.
But over time, the relationship between the two had developed into something of a mystery to them. Their friends could certainly tell something was up, and they didn't like it – although that was probably just because it involved Seifer, and anything that involved Seifer was generally disliked.
While Roxas would just be left fuming if he was involved and Pence was way too passive to do anything somewhat damaging, Olette had actually attempted to analyse the situation. She could tell something was going to happen between the two – something weirder than usual – and she worried for ages about what it could possibly be.
[...]
By the age of around twenty, Seifer decided to take things a step further. The first time this was noticeable, the Hayner had just been innocently walking to Olette's house to meet with his three good friends, when he heard a call from one of the alleyways.
"Hey, lamer! What're you doing here?" He knew who it was before he turned around to glare at the taller man.
"None of your business." He tried to be calm about it and not start a fight, but he was known for his short spark.
"I could just force it out of you, you know." The taller blonde smirked arrogantly.
"No you couldn't, asshole." Hayner really hadn't meant to let the last word out, but he didn't care. His fingers started to curl slightly, preparing for the inevitable fight to come.
"What'd you just call me?"
"You heard me... jerk." Seifer had a strange smirk on his face – the kind that Hayner would imagine a sadistic person to have when they inflict pain on another. The shorter blonde was testing the other now, but barely had time to react to the punch that was thrown suddenly.
His nose cracked violently upon impact, but Hayner was never one to back down from a fight. He balanced himself and took a few punches unexpected from the other. Hayner was proud to know that those punches would develop into some well-deserved bruises on the other. Unfortunately, Seifer quickly recovered and pushed Hayner into the rough wall behind him, and stared menacingly at him for the slightest moment, then leant in. The taller man, crouched over so that his head was in the other's neck, worked his magic and – to the other's shock – left a hickey.
"Now you won't be able to think of anyone else." He whispered into the newly-marked man's ear, and strode off as he usually did.
The whole scene had happened so quickly that neither man had known what the hell had just happened. Without thinking, Hayner hastily made his way to Olette's, to receive different reactions.
"Fuck! Hayner, what happened? Seifer, wasn't it?" From Roxas.
"Oh man, you're bleeding!" From Pence, and...
"Hey, hey, hold on... is that a... hickey?" From Olette.
[...]
During the weeks that followed, Seifer continued his strange marking crap, as Hayner called it. Olette watched the two for signs whenever she could see them making some sort of exchange, and she definitely didn't like that she saw. The bizarre behaviour continued until when Seifer took it too far and. When the other was backed up against the wall as usual, he pulled his hair until his head was facing the sky and kissed him roughly, until his lips were slightly swollen and sore. It didn't help that Seifer always had a sort of stubble, either.
Afterwards, Seifer had let go the other and taken a few steps back, admiring the damage done. Hayner had stood there for a moment, breathing oddly, until he processed what had just happened and ran as quickly as he could to Olette's house, trying to explain it.
And for once, she had absolutely no idea what to say to him that could possibly help, choosing instead to sigh and give the almost-hysterical man a hug.
[...]
Hayner barely went outside after the last Seifer ordeal, so whenever he did anything with his friends, they all went to his house. It's not like they minded it – Hayner's house was pretty nice, just like the rest of theirs – they, minus Olette, had just started to get quite suspicious.
When Hayner had tried to reason with them, they had only let it rest when the woman of the group warned them not to push it. After two weeks or so, however, Hayner decided that he couldn't stand being indoors so much, and he went outside. Around this time, he started getting closer than usual to Roxas.
The two had started a strange sort of relationship, which was more like experimenting than a real romance. Hayner didn't even know why he agreed to it. He wasn't even sure that he felt any special feelings towards his long-time best friend. It might've been him coming to terms with not liking women, or the distraction it provided him with from Seifer, but it certainly ended differently than he thought it would.
When the two were having a public affectionate moment, Hayner noticed Seifer walking past them, giving them a full on glare. He knew that glare. It was the sadistic look he had noticed before, that said that something bad was going to happen soon. It would have worried Hayner if he wasn't already mentally scolding himself for noticing the man he hated so much – because he totally wasn't looking, of course, not at all.
If he were to be honest with himself though, he would have acknowledged the feeling of excitement at the pit of his stomach, the thrill of finally seeing and having been noticed by the other.
[...]
A couple of days after Seifer's signature glare upon what was their last public display of affection, Roxas was sent to hospital. Hayner was in total shock – as were Pence and Olette – and the three friends went to visit the beaten blonde.
Upon hearing that it was in fact Seifer who had caused the damage, it was only guilt that Hayner had felt. He thought it was his fault that this had happened – and it sort of was – but this information just confirmed Olette's suspicions of a possible thing between the enemies. And Pence was just completely shocked.
"He told me that if I ever went near Hayner as more than just best friends, that he would kill me." Roxas had explained.
"Well, he's not actually going to kill you, of course," Olette said as if it was obvious, "but really... I think it's a bad idea."
The other three knew that Olette had never approved of the relationship, that it was nothing more than mistaken feelings and a distraction, really just something new to try. The two ended their relationship that night on good terms, upon realising this.
But Olette still had a plan to confirm the whole defensive-Seifer issue.
Meanwhile, Hayner had a lot of thinking to do. As much as he would have liked to deny it, he really felt quite flattered by this weird ownage business of the other's. He had come to think of the other differently as of late, and found their relationships like their own dysfunctional and abusive one. He figured it was just another one of Seifer's games, merely pushing his buttons for his own amusement like he had when they were younger.
Olette assumed that if Seifer was being protective of Hayner, that he'd rage again if he was seen with another person, so she thought that if he pretended to be dating her, then they would see another reaction. This way, she'd know for sure what was going on.
It took Hayner a while to agree to the plan. He didn't want to risk anyone getting hurt, it was awkward, and he thought she was just being crazy in general. But he finally admitted defeat when being practically forced into it.
It would be easy. They would stand in the sandlot, where there would be the highest chance of seeing Seifer, and they would hold hands, maybe with the occasional kiss. So, that's what they did. They only gave each other a short peck, but it was convincing enough for the sneering blonde who was not-so-subtly jealous of the two.
"Ugh, look at them. For fuck's sake. Making some sort of huge show out of it all." He said with his signature smirk to his friends, Rai and Fuu.
"I know! And that people actually want to see something like that, y'know?" Rai said, more out of wanting to agree with the other.
"Who does he think he is? Think they can do whatever they want." He kept talking, even though all three of them – especially Fuu – knew that he would just ignore it if it was anyone else.
"Yeah, he—" Rai was cut off.
"And he just dumped the other, too." He paused and mentally patted himself on the back for this. "He's like, whoring himself out or something."
"Totally." Fuu said, after he didn't continue and Rai didn't risk being interrupted again.
"I mean, she doesn't even deserve him!" Seifer exclaimed without thinking.
"Knew it." Fuu said.
"Wait, what?" Rai asked, giving his female friend a puzzled look.
The blonde just looked at her uncertainly, as if pondering some deep issue, and Fuu gave him a slight smile.
Hayner and Olette noticed this, trying not to be obvious about it. They could faintly understand what Seifer was saying, but while Olette gave a quizzical look and muttered, "see?" Hayner just tried to ignore it and tell himself that he was hearing wrong.
The next morning when Hayner woke up, he heard the doorbell ringing while his parents were both out, and instead of seeing someone there, he noticed a ripped piece of paper on the ground, which he promptly read.
"You're lucky Olette's a girl, otherwise I wouldn't hesitate to cause harm."
[...]
Hayner told Olette about the note, and as usual, she worried about her friend in that motherly mode she went into often, but then realised that she had no idea what his feelings on the whole matter were.
"Well, Hayner..." She tried to figure out the best way to go at it. "Do you really not like all this attention?"
"...What do you mean?"
"I mean, like... If this wasn't Seifer, you wouldn't be getting fired up, right?"
"Uh... I guess." He was starting to get suspicious.
"But... if it wasn't Seifer, what would you do?"
"I, uh, don't know? What do you mean?"
It wasn't working, and she was starting to lose patience. So, she went for the blunt way.
"Hayner, do you like Seifer?"
"What?" He blushed, then started to trip over his words. "Of course not! I mean, we've always been enemies, and like... you know, we're just... enemies! Why would you think such a thing? It's obviously not true. He's Seifer!"
Well, Olette wasn't quite expecting that response.
"Then why are you getting so defensive and nervous about it?" She raised her eyebrows, trying to prove it to him.
"Well... I don't know... I just..." he sighed, "Okay, maybe I do. A little bit. Or a lot. I don't know! What do you think?"
"I think you're just a little bit obsessed." She cocked an eyebrow.
[...]
Over the next week, Hayner felt like he was going insane. He tried to deny to himself that he really, really wanted to see him, but he was quite nervous about it at the same time. He was paranoid that he would jump out from some subtle alleyway and pin him down or something, then go messing with his head as usual.
But he wasn't prepared when he actually did find the other.
"This is the fifth time you've walked this block in the past 15 minutes. Just thought I'd, you know, point that out." He heard a voice behind him and spun to face Seifer, about to enter defensive mode when he realised that, hey, he was actually right. And then he just felt stupid.
"Got a problem with that?" Hayner mentally slapped himself for being so easy to annoy.
"Want me to show you the answer to that?" Seifer took a step forward, as if trying to intimidate his opponent. But Hayner felt something spark inside him, felt the anger flood through him and just ripped into the other. He had had to deal with this way to many times to be calm about it now.
"What the fuck is wrong with you? You asshole, you can't just keep pulling this bullshit of yours! Why me, anyway? Jesus fucking Christ, get over yourself! And what the fuck did you beat up Roxas for, you jerk! You think you can just do, like, whatever you want and get away with it, 'cause you're Seifer Almasy and you're obviously the boss of everyone, but you're not! Why are you doing this to me? And you're lucky that Olette's a girl, because if you had done something to her, I would just hunt you down in you sleep and make sure you don't pull your stupid alpha male crap." Hayner shouted, and then added just for effect, "asshole."
The other looked at him, astounded, and Hayner was starting to control his breathing and calm down.
"Well, I'm willing to... you know... change?" Seifer scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
"Um... what do you mean?" Hayner wasn't expecting this. At all.
"Well... com on. You know I make you feel... different..." He smirked, but it wasn't patronising as usual, and Hayner had suddenly become more hopeful than surprised.
"Yeah, in a bad way, asshole." Hayner hoped this came across as a joke.
"You know that's not really true." Seifer laughed, and Hayner realised it was something he had never occurred before.
"You're serious, aren't you?"
"Well, yeah..."
Hayner laughed, because for once, it was Seifer who wasn't actually in control of the situation. Hayner was controlling Seifer's feelings, and Seifer wasn't actually pummelling him into the ground. It was a strange moment.
"Think of it this way," Seifer continued, "if you're acting like a couple with me, then no one will get hurt..."
"Fine, okay."
"It's... uh, it's nice when we're not hurting each other, you know."
"You're starting to creep me out. I'm not used to you being so nice."
Seifer laughed again, "well, how about... will this creep you out?" He leant forward, very slowly, not wanting to mess the situation up. Their lips met after a few moments, and they continued for a while, not caring what was going on around them.
Meanwhile, Olette, Pence and Roxas were just walking around the streets of Twilight Town, when Olette spotted Hayner and Seifer finally, uh, coming to terms with each other. She pushed her two friends around a corner and out of sight, and they looked around to see what was happening.
"Is that... what the hell is going on? That—" Roxas was cut off by Olette slapping him over the head. Pence just looked at the sight in confusion.
"It's about time." She smiled.
"What are you talking about?"
"Oh, you two are so unobservant." Olette rolled her eyes, grabbing the two and leading them in the direction they had come from, so that they could give the so-called enemies all the time they could want.
Hey! :) This was a bit of a spur of the moment thing, inspired by the Alice Cooper song of the same name. I really, really love the Seifer/Hayner pairing at the moment, haha. I'd really love to know what you thought of this one, and thanks a lot for reading! :D
Disclaimer: Don't own anything, unfortunately.