The Elsewhere Chronicles
DISCLAIMER: Don't own Kingdom Hearts. If any person on FF-Net should own Kingdom Hearts, it's Uzumaki-sama, and I am not her. But anyway, this fanfic and all the weirdness of it are mine, as is the universe it comes from (the same one as Finding Mr. Right and Overnight). What me no owny, you no sue about… and what me owny, you no stealy, unless it's your idea of fun to be murderized by a bunch of homicidal muses. Yeah. I thought so. Just read and enjoy, then. :D
Prologue
Our creative writing professor told us today that at the end of our four years here, we're expected to turn in a fully written and edited work, so I know that if I'm to have anything by then, I'd better start it now.
I don't have any kind of plan behind this, no rhyme, no reason, no ideas at all—nothing. In fact, most of the stories I start with the end in mind seem to go anywhere, so right now it's my best bet. It's the same as saying I'm filming without a script. From here on out, it's all going to be totally honest.
They all tell you that when you start out, you have to write what you know.
This isn't anywhere near my first crack at the industry, but this is the one that's going to have to mean something, so I know that I have to take every chance I can that it'll be a success. So I'm going to write what I know—more, I'm going to write what actually happens.
A biography? Nothing that proud—more of a journal, really. Enough of what happens in my day-to-day life is crazy enough to base a story on, or at least that's the way it feels to me. What happens in our lives. Our crazy, mixed up, intertwined lives.
Hell, we're all at this college enough that it'll involve all of us just about the same amount, even though this is supposed to be my story.
We're the weirdest selection of guys who've ever been thrown together, that's for sure. I'm here at the University of St. Ajora to get my bachelor's in Japanese, because I want to write. Seph wants to be a stage actor. Cloud—well, he's just here for now, he has no idea what his major is going to be. Ansem is out of college, but he's been working down in the bio labs for long enough that he feels like he's still going. We break all the rules by being together, being nonconformist in a world that likes everything nice and neat in its places.
Something good might come of this, or it might just flop. But at least I have my material. It's all right here in front of me as our little dramas play out.
My name is Squall Leon Lionheart, but that's Leon to my friends. I'm nineteen years old, medium tall with darkish brown hair that falls to my shoulders. Depending on whether I'm having a good hair day or a bad one, it comes off well enough or looks like a mullet. But I never have the time to do anything real with it, so I guess I shouldn't complain. I have gray eyes that Cloud fixates on, and which Ansem—ever poetic—tells me look like a stormy sky. I don't dress to stand out, and the only real thing about me that's noteworthy is the nasty scar on my face. You can blame Seifer for that; he's doing time now, though. Nothing more than the little bastard deserves, for all the trouble he caused—but that's in the past, and I'm digressing already. I don't have a hope at this.
Aside from Cloud and the others, the only things really important to me are this writing thing working out and Griever, which Ansem gave to me years ago. I'm pretty quiet most of the time, I guess. I don't like being stuck at the forefront of things, and I'm not what you could call outgoing. But Sephiroth has enough of that to make up for the lack of it that the rest of us suffer.
That's all that's important about me, I suppose. Oh, sure, I'm gay—so are most of the guys I know, in fact—but that should be self-evident, considering the company I keep. No straight guy would ever, ever be caught in the company of Cloud Strife, the infamous one-time drag queen of our neighborhood, without lots and lots of straight backup. And I live with him—talk, eat, breathe, and yes, sleep with him. Every day, in fact.
From the mundane to the insane, our lives are going to revolve around this damn crazy college for the next four years—or more, depending on whether or not Ansem decides to stay in the labs in the adjoining building.
The would-be writer, the beautiful and ambitious young actor, the brilliant but unlucky scientist, and the student with enough potential that he doesn't know what to do with himself yet… good things come in fours, or so they say, so maybe things will look up for us sooner rather than later.
Everyday things will make up this story, but I want to try to capture some of the magic that's the four of us, and the very real something we have between us: Not quite love, not quite hate, not quite lust or celibate friendship, but some kind of equilibrium in between.
Is there anything missing? Oh, yes—a title, every good story and most of the bad ones have one.
Yes—I know what I'll call this weird and unplanned tale.
Our story isn't in the college, though it's around it. Nor is it in this little apartment on 9th street. No, it's somewhere in between my head and the typewriter paper, or the ink of my pen if need be. It's in a place that I don't know how to get to, a place that might even be ruined if I did know how to get there.
I'll call it "The Elsewhere Chronicles".
:to be continued: