Fandom: Final Fantasy XIII

Rating: T

Pairing: Hope E. & Lightning/Claire F.

Genres: Romance

Summary: Set on the soil of your very world, a young boy named Hope Estheim is quite the unfortunate one. With his parents divorced and unfit to take care of him, social authorities are forced to have the young boy sent to live with a new guardian named by one of his parents. And this guardian just so happens to be our favourite pink haired soldier!

A/N: This is set on Earth. Can you guys catch me a break and pretend that there's some place called Bodhum, Palumpolum and whatnot? I'm really… Gee, I don't even know how I pieced this together! The relations between Hope and Light are simply family friends. Lightning and Nora are close friends and they met through a time where Light came to request a promotion from Bartholomew because of money and something to do with supporting her sister and whatnot. Of course, he gave her the… You know what? I went really off track. I was just meant to tell you how Hope and Light know each other. This is my first fanfic that I've written that I've actually tried to do good in. I have another one but it's… Just… I'm not kidding when I say it's cliché and really, really horrible.

The Game of Life

Chapter 1:

In the sky that night

"Light, look!" the young, silver haired adolescent fourteen-year-old said while pointing at the explosion of lights, glistening in the sky.

The older woman looked up from her feet first to steal a short glance at her companion. His eyes reflected the beautifully bright turquoise fireworks which was enough for Lightning to call beautiful. A childish grin played on the younger male's face while he admired the blazing show. Slowly, she turned her head again to look up at the display. Usually, she never enjoyed the fireworks much. It was more or less something for her that just happened every year that made her job that little harder as people went out to drink, cause trouble, get into fights and do everything else a drunken person gets up to. But during the short moment that the fireworks were set alight something was triggered in her heart – almost like a snapping coil.

The coloured fire danced before Hope's eyes, unique shades of red and yellow spiralled around each other, not caring for what was happening around him. He didn't care about his surroundings, he didn't care that he would have to get back to school soon and he didn't even care if Lightning thought he was childish. All he needed to know was that at that very moment, nothing mattered anymore. It didn't matter to him that he had to be babysat for the next week by a family friend while his mother and father were on a 'break' from each other.

"Hey, Hope?" the pink haired woman softly whispered to the young male.

"Mmhm?" he hummed, intended as a reply.

"Yesterday I- … Well, your parents called me yesterday and…"

A long silence – too long to be comfortable to Lightning – filled the air between them. If it weren't for the loud crackle and burst of the fireworks and the occasional 'ooh' and 'ahh' then the space would be completely - almost eerily - silent.

The soldier sharply inhaled. "Your parents are having a divorce," the older one finally said bluntly. She slightly turned her head again, her azure eyes piercing into his as his teal orbs darted to her direction.

There was sincere panic in the boy's eyes and he clenched his fist yet letting his lips tightly purse in a strained attempt at holding back something – what was it? He released a deep sigh as his eyes dropped to look at his shuffling feet. After an awkward minute had slowly crawled by between them the silver haired boy averted his attention from the soldier and back to the annual play of lights.

"Hope?" Lightning called out with a brush of worry tainting her usually strong voice. Her thin eyebrows furrowed while she gulped.

"I'm fine. I knew it was gonna happen soon anyway," the younger one replied in an attempt to reassure the older woman.

She gingerly nodded as a response and asked Hope if he was hungry, thirsty or needed anything else. He replied with a simple, "no thanks. But I do think I might go for a walk around Bodhum. You know, just to take some time for myself."

And with that, Lightning told Hope to be careful and to come back to the house by an hour at the latest. He weakly smiled at her and gave her a faint nod of the head before he turned on his heel and walked off with the usual bounce to his step missing and replaced with dragging his poor flats across the golden sand.

'And whatever you do please don't end up like me when you grow up to be a fine man…' the pink haired sergeant thought to herself while looking at the back of Hope's head as he walked away. True sympathy was present in her celeste coloured eyes. Slowly, she closed them and sighed while recalling her childhood past.

You guys actually read to the end? Wow, that's some endurance you've got there. I'll try a lot harder next time, I promise! I've got it really briefly planned out in my head but right now I'm just writing whatever comes to mind. Ugh, that's a really bad way of doing it. Anyway, until the next chapter guys! I haven't got an editor as my usual one is… Well, I haven't spoken to her in a while and I think she's really busy at this point in her life.

Oh and a late Merry Christmas!