Author's Note: Random idea I thought was fun for them. Pre-FFX-2 Gippal/Rikku. Still in my writer's block, so not my best, but I tried my hardest. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own FFX-2 or FFX. But I do own a Rubik's Cube.
Things Obvious (and Not So Much)
It was a hot summer day in Bikanel Desert when Rikku found Gippal at the Oasis. He was sitting on a rock near the water, hunched over from what she could see, and concentrating very hard on something from what she could hear. Curious, she came up beside him and sat down, letting the tips of her shoes skim the water's edge."What'cha doing?" she asked.
"Trying to figure this out," he replied vaguely and unhelpfully, moving his arm to shield whatever was making him so frustrated – which did nothing to make Rikku any less curious.
She leaned forward, trying to catch a peek at what he was fiddling with, but to no avail. She supposed it must be something small, probably a machina that refused to screw or unscrew. "Want some help?"
"No," he said, though it was hard to decipher from what was for all intents and purposes a noncommittal grunt.
"C'mon, let me see!" Rikku leaned forward a bit more, then a bit more and bit more, until her chin touched her knees. Then she was leaning forward a bit too much, losing her balance and falling into the water with a splash.
She came up fully armed with a sharp retort, expecting Gippal to be laughing at her, but he was still just fiddling away. In fact, he seemed not to have noticed her spill at all, because he made no further effort to hide what he was doing.
"Wow!" said Rikku, forgetting that she was soaking wet, as she waded closer to him. "What's that?"
What Gippal had in his hands was not much bigger than his fist. It was a plastic square, like plenty of things Rikku had seen, but unlike plenty of things Rikku had seen, it seemed to be a plastic square composed of smaller squares – all of which appeared to be randomly and brightly colored. He was digging a screwdriver into the groove between two squares, which didn't appear useful to her. Gippal, who knew that once Rikku was in on a secret there was no point trying to hide it from her anymore, sighed and held it out.
"Dad gave it to me. Got it on his last expedition," he told her, tossing the screwdriver away.
"No way," she said, awed, taking the square from his outstretched hand. She turned it nimbly over, observing each side. They were all different, though the little squares were of the same six colors: red, blue, green, orange, yellow, and white. "This came from the Luca Ocean?"
"No," said Gippal chidingly, taking it back from her without warning. "It came from the Luca Gift Shop." He smirked when she turned an embarrassed pink, tossing the square in the air and catching it again. "It's a toy or a puzzle or something. I wasn't really listening when he gave it to me."
"A puzzle, huh?" Rikku snatched it from his grasp again and began pacing thoughtfully in the waist-deep water. "What's the point? What're you supposed to do?"
Gippal, who did not like having things taken away from him, masked his irritation by bringing a knee up and slinging his arm over it, appearing casual. "Isn't it obvious?" She looked at him as if to say you-don't-know-either-do-you. He improvised, "Well, there's six sides and six colors."
Rikku waited for him to finish, and when he didn't, said playfully, "Go on, then. Tell me something I don't know. Unless of course it isn't obvious."
He narrowed his eye. "Six colors and six sides means…" There was a long pause wherein Rikku stood still in the water, as if she didn't want her sloshing to interrupt the embarrassing fact that he had no idea what he was talking about. Then an idea struck him, and he finished smugly, "You have to get all the same colors on the same sides."
His explanation didn't make much sense to her. "How are you supposed to do that?"
Gippal had already exhausted his one "isn't it obvious" of the day, so only smirked and took the square back from her. "It twists, see?" He demonstrated, turning the top third of the square so that the row of blue-green-yellow was now facing him instead of her, then spun it vertically as well for good measure.
There was a sparkle of apprehension in Rikku's eyes. "Oh, that makes sense." She snatched it from him and began twisting it at random, pacing once more. "So you knew this all along?"
"Of course I did."
It was Rikku's turn to smirk. "And that noise I heard walking over, like something plastic hitting a rock, that wasn't you trying to figure anything out?"
Gippal's ears went hot, but he swallowed and said confidently, "No."
"And these dents, I guess it just came with them, right?"
The resulting argument was amusing for Rikku and frustrating for Gippal, so ended with him stalking off and getting on his scooter and riding away – which left Rikku with the funny puzzle box and a whole night before he realized she had it.
It was actually two days before Gippal asked about the square, which was lucky for Rikku because that was how long it took her to solve it. When he did bring it up (again they were at the Oasis, where they liked to waste most of their summer), she fished around in her bag and threw it to him. It took him a good minute to realize one side was solidly red, another blue, another green, another yellow, another orange, and another white. As Rikku expected, the first words out of his mouth were not praise.
"How did you do this!" He was still turning the box over, as if searching for some magical mechanism.
Rikku crossed her arms, though she was extremely entertained. "What, you don't think I can do something like that?"
"I don't think you could distinguish left from right without using your hands!"
Indignant, Rikku marched up to him and took the box back. "Well, if you're so curious, you big jerk, then here!" She turned it over to the blue side while digging her other hand through her bag. When she produced a screwdriver, she dug the flat end under the middle blue square until a little panel popped off.
"See?" she held the panel in her open palm. "You take this off, you unscrew the middle, and the whole thing comes apart. Then you just assemble it back the way you want it!"
Gippal, for a good few seconds, was silently nonplussed. Finally, he mustered, "That… that doesn't count!"
"And why not?" Rikku popped the panel back on and slipped the screwdriver into her bag again. She was becoming rapidly less amused as the seconds ticked by.
"You're supposed to solve it by being clever!" He grabbed the square and held it aloft, as if to demonstrate with his own inability to solve it. "Not by ripping it apart!"
"That is clever!" she argued, reaching for it. He held it higher, so, not wanting to look foolish, she put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "It saves a whole lot of time and it's resourceful! Not just anyone could disassemble and reassemble that thing!"
"That's not the point!" He lowered it and wagged it in front of her face. "The point is to solve it the conventional way! It's like a test to see how smart you are!"
"Okay then!" She took the box from him and twisted and turned until the colors made no sense, then pushed it at his chest until he grabbed it back. "Why don't you solve it? Show me how smart you are, you big stupid ape! Before I came along, you were banging it on a rock! At least my way isn't destructive!"
"Fine!" he shot back. "I will! I'll solve it how it's meant to be solved!"
"Go ahead!" Rikku pushed stray bangs behind her ears, fuming, and turned back toward her scooter. "See if you can, Mister High And Mighty Clever! I won't hold my breath!"
Once she was far and away and the only thing left of her was the sand settling in the wake of her scooter, Gippal slumped his shoulders and stared down at the impossible little square. Well, no time like the present…
"Thanks for inviting me over for dinner," Rikku said from the table one week later, watching Gippal's mother place cutlery on each side of the three plates. "Your cooking is way better than Pops'."
The brunette woman chuckled but did not argue. "Such things to say, dear, such things..."
Just then, Gippal walked in and took a seat at the table. "Hey, Sudran. Eating here again, Cid's girl? Don't you have a kitchen in your house?"
He was dirty from working, with grease on his cheek and his hair askew, but Rikku just bit back a smile and didn't mention it. "I was invited, for your information, by your mother. She's so generous, I kind of wonder what went wrong with you."
Gippal sneered and faked a laugh, but the conversation throughout dinner was amicable. Gippal spoke mostly of the digs and how Nhadala was working them like dogs, Rikku of an expedition she'd been accepted for the following month, and Gippal's mother of some of the gossip going around Home and Gippal's father off in Luca again.
"Solve that puzzle box yet, dear?" she asked while stacking the plates and placing them in the sink.
Rikku smiled to herself, sipping water. When she put her glass down, she asked, "Yeah, Gippal, how's that coming? Giving you some trouble?"
"No," he said coolly. "I finished the day you gave it to me."
His mother turned and gave him a stern look. "Don't lie, Gippal."
Rikku was now beside herself with excitement. "Yeah, Gippal, don't lie."
He sighed. "Fine. I finished it yesterday."
Gippal's mother, back still turned to them, cleared her throat loudly. "Gippal."
"All right. This morning."
"Gippal!"
"Why don't you tell me, Yihdea? Your son has such bad manners today." She smiled at Gippal, but he only replied with a glare and mouthed the words "Cid's girl."
"Seems so." Wiping her hands on a dish towel, she came back to collect the unused cutlery. "Just this morning, I came in to hear him swearing like a sailor over it. When I told him to watch his mouth, he just ignored me and asked me for a screwdriver. There was this little blue square on the counter; I think he broke the dumb thing entirely. He was trying to jam a knife in it before I took it from him." She cast Gippal another disapproving look. "You should repay your father for that. He doesn't buy you gifts just so you can break them. What a waste, what a waste…"
"It's not broken!" Gippal protested, red in the face – with anger or embarrassment, Rikku wasn't sure, but either was good for her.
When his mother left the room, she stood triumphantly and laughed. "Very clever, Gippal! You sure showed me!"
"Shut up," he mumbled. "I would've figured it out eventually."
"But you didn't!" Rikku was balancing on the balls of her feet, seconds away from dancing. "You wasted a whole week trying to be clever!"
"Yeah, well it's not my fault dad took the screwdrivers with him when he left!"
Rikku was tearing up with laughter at this point, so Gippal, supremely irritated at being beaten at his own game, grabbed her gently by the arm and guided her out. "Fine, there. Hope you enjoyed your dinner, glad to have your company, blah blah blah."
Wiping tears from her eyes, she shook him off, and standing in the doorway she gave him a mischievous wink. "At least now we know who's cleverer."
Gippal, figuring there were no lower blows to be struck to his ego tonight, decided to humor her. Dryly, he asked, "Oh yeah? Who?"
Rikku smirked, taking a screwdriver – his screwdriver! – from her bag and waving it in front of his face. "Isn't it obvious?"