When they were kids he'd watch them on the beach. She was tall for her age and trying to settle into her teenage body, black dress coming to her knees, too tight in some places and too loose in others. Her hair came to her shoulders, straight and black. Her colouring never quite fit the norm for Besaid, giving her an exotic, foreign look. Chappu, though, Chappu was skinny and happy. When Lulu'd sit on the beach, legs folded under her, Chappu would almost always be in motion, punching the air. "I'll do this, and then this! And WHAM! Down it'll go!" And Lulu would laugh.

He never knew what to say to them.

They were both fifteen, young, just starting to discover bodies and interests. Oh, they were respectable enough about it but sometimes he'd drop down the hill to the beach and see them shift away abruptly, Lulu looking out at the ocean with startlingly bright eyes, pulling the strap of her dress back up her shoulder coolly, nothing to see here, nothing to see. Chappu would go red; he blushed easily, so he'd tease him. It was a normal thing to do; brothers teased brothers all the time. It was the easy way out. Better than punching Chappu in the damn mouth, better than confessing jealousy, better than trying to take his crush away from his younger brother.

Wakka was seventeen and would just laugh and throw the blitzball to Chappu a little harder than necessary. Quit it, I don't even LIKE your stupid game-! Na, you can catch it! No little brother of mine is gonna grow up not even able to catch a blitzball! And Lulu would look out at the ocean, or at Chappu, and Wakka would eventually laugh it off. Walk away. He'd always laugh it off. He made his life out of laughing things off.

"What are you thinking about?"

Lulu was looking at him oddly, her hair elegantly coiffed, perfect body wrapped in her black fur and velvet and leather. She walked with certainty now, seven years later, and the only thing he saw of the laughing awkward teenage girl he'd fallen in love with were sharp, perceptive eyes.

He froze a moment, then tossed the blitzball at the side of the building, hard, jumping up to catch it when it came back to him. "Blitzball! It's what I'm always thinking about, ya?"

"Idiot."

He wished she'd laugh again.