Disclaimer: Don't own Kingdom Hearts, or XXXholic and Ghost Hunt, from which I gained the inspiration to write this.
Now this was paradise. I stretched my long legs out and relished in the fact that today would be a very good day.
The sun was shining, a beautiful beacon of today's good fortune. Everyone and everyting was glowing with joy. The birds chirped merrily, the children giggled as they skipped home, the road glittered miraculous colors…
My feet began to drag. My pace slowed considerably as my legs barely made any effort to move.
"Ahh…not agaaain," I groaned. "I was going to stop by the grocery store!" People gave me incredulous looks as I crept past them, my feet wobbling weakly as they slid on the floor. There better not be any gum on the floor, I angrily thought.
I crawled for what seemed a good hour until a pair of yellow inflated shoes blocked my way. They were ridiculous shoes that made me feel marginally better about my own ridiculous predicament that had me crawling to get home.
The previous said person bent down and smiled brightly at me. Call me a sucker, but my heart seemed to soften a bit. He didn't exactly look like he was from around here, though. His face was tan with mat of brown hair sticking on top of his head. His hair did look strange, but it seemed to fit him perfectly. He wore a red jumpsuit that made his appearance stand out a great deal more. He stuck his hand out.
"Need some help?"
His face mirrored countless others who had tried to assist me, so I humored him. "Yeah, could you get this thing off my back?"
He scratched his head. "Well…you see…" I inwardly sneered, he was probably trying to think of some nice way to say I'm crazy.
I smiled back at him. "Nah, just kidding." I nudged my legs, which were beginning to feel numb, "If you'll excuse me, I'd better be off." I once again began my crawl.
He, however, seemed to be in his own world and mumbled, "I'm not really good at this kind of thing….Riku's better…ah…oh well." I heard him vigorously argue with himself for another minute until he finally cried, "I'll do it! OK, so…huh? Where'd you go?" He stared at the spot I had occupied a minute ago until he heard my grunt. I couldn't help it though; they were getting stronger and stronger.
He ran over to me and slapped me on the back. "There you are! As I was saying, this isn't really what I do, but I'll give it a try. So what's going to happen is when I count to three, you're going to start running. Kay?" He smiled another blindingly dazzling smile.
I, however, was not in the same mood as he was, nor was I in the mood to humor him again. "Sorry, but I really must be on my way. So if you could just let me—"
He ignored me and put a finger up in the air.
"One…"
Seriously?
"Two…"
He's seriously serious?
"THREE!" He yelled as he again slapped me on the back. This time I didn't feel it at all. In fact, I felt lighter. "Come on, follow me!" He shouted as he pulled my hand up.
Ah, what the hell.
I got up and stood there, but transfixed in a daze. He stomped his foot— how girly— before he tugged me along at an alarmingly fast pace. The surroundings seemed to blur a little and my legs felt like they were going to plop out again.
After awhile, I stopped keeping track of how much we ran. Everything was a blur and time was meaningless. Or at least it felt that way. Every now and then he would shout what he thought would be supportive phrases or energetic haikus or something entirely odd of that sort.
"Here we are!" The boy announced, a hand waved in the general direction of a building. "TTIP!" I blankly stared at the building, which seemed to be a shop or sorts, with an OPEN sign on a shelf behind one of the two windows on each side of the store, with an old oak door in-between.
"…Tip?" I faintly repeated.
He launched into another excited babble. "Not tip, like 'I'm going to tip the waiter', but TTIP as in Twilight Town Institute of Psych!"
"That doesn't exactly make sense…"
He shrugged. "I've told Squall a million times to change the name, but he likes how you can just say TTIP instead of T-T-I-P, ya know?"
"Um, not really," I admitted.
"It's Leon." A voice stated from behind me.
"Whoa!" I cried and jumped. I took a swift look behind me and saw a man with…lots of leather on. And lots of belts, I silently added. He seemed amused by my gaping expression, but quickly shuffled his face back into an icy stare. "Who's this?"
The boy didn't look like he was fazed at all by the man's stone face, but, rather, he looked slightly happier. If that's possible. "New recruit."
The older man sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb. "I thought I told you not to bring in new people without telling me first."
"I know, but I just met this guy when I was walking here. I couldn't leave him, it was too good to be true! He's exactly what we need!" His face melted into a puppy dog stare.
The man sighed and glanced at me again before heading into the shop. "Let's talk about this inside, I feel a bit warm." I stared at his abundance of leather and believed it.
The boy took my arm and led me in. The moment I stepped in, it looked …dreary. The floor was a cold, hard gray, with no effort made to spruce it up with a carpet or any décor. The walls were of the same consistency, the only change was a singly picture frame of the brown-haired boy with a title that said: Employee of the Month. As I observed closer, at the other end of the long room were two couches on either side of the single room and a coffee table sitting cozily in the center. A rug donned the center of the floor there. Other than that, no further efforts were made in the room.
On each couch sat two people. On the right hand couch sat two girls. The one closest immediately jumped up when heard the door open. Even though I knew nothing about her, I could tell she was the eccentric type. Her long, blond hair was filled with beads and other knick-knacks. She wore a shorter than short mini denim skirt and a white spaghetti tank top. A yellow bikini top was visible through it. The girl beside her was dressed modestly in comparison to the blonde. Her hair was almost burgundy, but with a more reddish hint. She wore a simple pink sundress. On the other side, sat a blonde-haired man wearing nothing but black. Next to him was another black-haired woman who also wore the same attire. The blonde-haired man gave her agitated looks, but she seemed to be occupied with cracking her knuckles that were covered with black gloves.
"Welcome home Squallie-poo!" The bubbly blonde cried out, her arms opened to him. Squall, err..Leon, stepped back, twitched, and then continued to take her place on the right couch.
"The front room is for the customers, not for the employees to sit. Why doesn't anyone listen?" He asked, mostly to himself, I supposed. That was because everyone was too busy staring at me.
"Awww, why didn't you hug me?!" The girl whined, her braids flipping around her neck as she bounced in place. It didn't look like she could stand still for very long.
"Rikku…could you please quiet down for a second. We have a visitor."
The girl named Rikku turned on spot to gaze at me. I weakly smiled in return.
The brown-haired boy tapped his foot impatiently. "Hire him already, Squall!"
"Leon."
"Okay, Leon, will you hire him?"
"What's so great about him?" Rikku piped in as she leaned towards me.
"They're attracted to him. They stick to him like glue! When I first saw him, he was on the floor because he couldn't even budge!"
"How'd you get him here if he was stuck?" The red-head curiously asked, taking in my appearance.
Sora stood taller and proudly said, "I stuck a ward on him and ran like hell. It didn't even last that long, it's amazing how engrossed they were with him!"
This seemed to catch Squall/Leon's attention. "What's your name?"
"Ah…I-I'm Roxas.." I stammered. He was intimidating, especially when he was staring right through you. I felt a slight surge of admiration for the brunette next to me who had stared at him without faltering.
"Do you know why your body gets like that?" He quietly inquired. Everyone else seemed to remain silent, even the girl Rikku.
"Not really…I just thought it happens sometimes…" I murmured. To be honest, I never had given it too much thought. It seemed almost normal after how many times it occurred.
Squall's gaze deepened. "The force you feel, they're—"
"Ghosts!" Rikku cheerfully interrupted, oblivious to the man's death stare he was shooting at her.
However, he continued. "To be exact, they're more spirits or supernatural monsters that are plaguing you."
"Oh…really…" I managed to get out. My head felt very feathery and had a hard time soaking in the information around me.
The man still continued as if I had not said anything. "It seems as if they're magically attracted to you somehow." He paused, submerged in his thoughts. "Do you have a job at the moment?"
"Well…I'm sort of in-between jobs at the moment." I replied. It wasn't as if I could say completely jobless and currently scrounging up for a way to pay the bills.
"Well then, I'll hire you. What do you think?"
As a reflex, I straightened up and answered, "Yes!" without even thinking.
The boy next to me patted my shoulder and said, "You're one of us now, so I'll introduce you to the crew.
"I'm Sora. If you can remember earlier, I see spirits so they call me the Watcher. It sounds freaky though, eh? As if I'm a stalker or something…
"Anyway, the blonde girl in front of you is Rikku. She does the odd jobs and…" He stopped. "What do you do again?"
Rikku huffed and retorted, "I do odd jobs, such as lock picking and well… the occasional thieving. Oh, and some chants. My family owns a shrine so it kind of rubbed off on me. My mother actually wanted me to be a miko!" She cried, finding the idea outrageous.
The boy Sora took over then. "The girl sitting next to Squeon is Kairi. She's actually a childhood friend of mine. She's Squeon's assistant and manages the some of the paperwork and missions…And she serves the customers tea and other snacks." He then pointed to the blonde man in black. "That's Cloud. He's one of the 'hunters', I guess you could call him. He's one of the people that go on the missions and deals with the actual supernatural stuff. The woman next to him is Tifa. They're childhood friends as well. She's a hunter too, if you could tell. There's a few other people that are hunters too, but they're on a mission at the moment, so you'll meet them later."
He then moved on to the edge of the couch where Kairi sat. He then pointed down. "And lastly…Namine."
I went on my tip-toes to look over the couch. Squall gave me a blank stare as if to say something particularly nasty, but kept silent. I walked over to Sora and saw a single girl sitting on the floor, staring at several cards on the floor.
"This is Namine, our resident fortune teller." The girl coughed. "I mean, tarot card reader. She feels insulted when we call her that," Sora added to me.
"Oh, well…hi everyone." I meekly said.
The crew all either waved or smiled in my direction, except Rikku who crushed me into a hug with surprising strength, and Squall/Leon who was apparently zoning out.
Rikku dived into another fast explanation. "There's a backroom where the kitchen is and all the paranormal junk we use sometimes. Squallie likes to have a little bit of everything in his arsenal against the unknown!" She ended triumphantly.
A thought had been nagging at me the entire time Sora and the others were explaining their jobs. "So…what's my job?"
Suddenly, everyone was quiet. Tifa stopped poking Cloud, who muttered a word or two after several jabs. Kairi looked up from speaking with Namine, whose eyes were still fixed on the cards. Same as Squall/Leon who was still daydreaming Even Rikku let loose of me and busied herself with a few strands of her hair that weren't braided or beaded.
Squall/Leon finally awoke from his daydream and answered, "You're the bait."
The air became very, very still.
"Oh dear, one of my cards are bent," Namine stressfully said, breaking, the tense silence, oblivious to the rest of us or my brain's minor breakdown.
And that was my first day at TTIP, formally known as Twilight Town Institute of Psych.
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