Disclaimer: I don't own any of the FFVIII characters or the Final Fantasy enterprise thingy, nor do I own the rights to "Boys Over Flowers."
Summary: In an elite school run by the four sons of influential families who call themselves the S4, Selphie Tilmitt of the working class finds it hard to fit in. First, she gets snubbed at by almost everyone. Then she gets tagged and bullied. The absolute worst is when she realizes she's in love with the jerk who tagged her.
Warning: I apologize beforehand if anyone's OOC.
The beginning is based off of the manga/drama "Hana Yori Dango" (Boys Over Flowers, weee!) 'cause, unfortunately, I'm not that brilliant. But it's mostly based off the Korean drama. Also I wasn't sure whether to put it under Romance/Drama or Romance/Humor (they're called dramas for a reason), so I opted for Humor. :s
Rated the way it is because somebody has an affinity for curse words.
Also, because it didn't fit in the summary, this is a Selpher or a Selfer, whatever you guys wanna call it. It also has hints of (I cannot for the life of me remember what the other strange names are) Irvine x Quistis and Zell x Selphie. I'm kind of undecided about whether or not to make this into a Squinoa, but we'll see!
Feel free to skip the prologue, it's not too important, I don't think.
Flower Garden
Rawr It's Kizami
Prologue: Super Selphie
With her weapon deliveries tucked carefully in the rack behind her and a beaming smile plastered on her face, Selphie Tilmitt could not help but revel in the morning sunlight. Sure, things hadn't gone so smoothly that morning starting with the batteries of her alarm clock dying minutes before it were to ring, and later when she found her bicycle chain broken, but was she deterred?
Nope, nothing could stop Selphie's cheerful demeanor! Of course, she occasionally received the odd stare from onlookers as she rode by on her neighbor's eleven year old daughter's pink unicorn bike with glittering pastel tassels, but she would just look back at them with a stare of her own and stick her tongue out childishly. Up your nose with a rubber hose!
She wouldn't let those kinds of people get to her! If they wanted to pretend they were better than everybody else and above pink unicorn bikes, then let them, but she was not about to let them tell her that she had to, too!
As she pedaled by the glimmering gates of the elite Balamb Garden, a school which she knew she could never afford, Selphie couldn't help but turn her attention to the beautiful yet condescending structure before her as she did each time she passed.
A large, gleaming monstrosity of curves and edges loomed over the petite girl as if telling her, in the words of pop culture, "If you ain't got no money, take your broke ass home." Students dressed in elaborate navy blue uniforms with bright yellow accents strolled throughout the campus behind the silver fence, flaunting their mommies and daddies' money at her.
Well whatever, Selphie rolled her eyes and smiled to herself. She didn't need some fancy school to be happy. She was perfectly content going to her public school where financial standing didn't matter. Sneaking one last peek at the Garden, Selphie turned back to the road in front of her and narrowly dodged out of the way of a car. A parked car.
Her neon bike swerved onto the sidewalk where she stomped her feet down onto the cement and stopped. The brunette breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't know what she would have done if she had hit that car; nobody else she knew ever hit a parked car before, let alone two in the same week!
"OH MY RUBY DRAGON!" she cursed, causing some passerby to stare at her awkwardly as she grabbed behind her for a delivery tag with her free hand. Some delivery girl she made; she almost passed by without a second thought! If it weren't for that parked car, this Garden student would be missing his rapier.
Shaking her head and smiling at her own inattention, Selphie wheeled her bike around and pedaled onto the school grounds, ignoring the harsh comments and haughty looks she received. She glanced around at her surroundings with wide, twinkling eyes, completely caught off guard by its splendor; it all seemed so much more beautiful now that she was inside! The grass seemed greener, the trees appeared fuller, and even the cobblestone walkway looked shinier.
Finding a bike frame, she quickly parked the neon bicycle and grabbed the long leather case from the rack installed in the back of the bike. Her next challenge was to find this person. She wandered inside the main building and sighed at its luster; she took back all the bad things she had thought about it before. This school was so beautiful and grand that she couldn't imagine anything but well-mannered children of high-society residing within these walls.
"I knew he wouldn't last long," a boy was telling another female student as a group of people walked past her.
"Declan was always a weakling," another boy snickered.
Selphie tilted her head and snuck another look at the name tag on the dry-cleaning. That was him all right! She quickened her pace and frantically tapped the boy on the shoulder. He glanced at her with judgmental eyes that asked, "What could you possibly want?"
"Did you say Declan?" she asked. "Declan Adera?"
"Uh, yeah," he replied haughtily. "If you're looking for him, he's on the roof," he added with a smirk.
"Okey-dokey! Thanks a bunch!"
As the group of students shrugged at her working class presence and left the building, Selphie made her way up the stairs, taking two at a time. She giggled to herself, imagining a handful of gil as a grateful Garden student tipped her grandly, thanking her for biking all the way to his school and taking the time to deliver his sword personally.
-x-
Standing on the ledge of the roof with hundreds of his peers staring up at him with expectant yet glaring eyes, Declan Adera gazed down at them and wiped a droplet of blood from his cut forehead. His entire body screamed in pain at him, but the boy tried his hardest to ignore the dull, throbbing sensation pulsing throughout his limbs.
"This is what you want, right?" he shouted, poised to jump. Sighing sharply, he took a step.
"Weapons Upgrade!" Selphie announced, bursting through the door behind him, causing the battered man to pause in his steps and face his sudden hindrance. "That'll be fifty gil for the delivery, Mr. Adera!"
The student scoffed and turned away from her. "You can get the money from my parents after I'm dead."
"WHAT?" Selphie cried, unable to believe her ears and furiously stomping over to him with the upgraded rapier's case waving behind her. "Why do you want to die? You go to a nice school, you have parents who love you, and I bet you live a super-duper privileged life!"
"Hah!" he roared, gesturing to the ever-growing crowd of students below. "This isn't school. It's HELL!" he spat disdainfully.
"Excu-use me," the petite brunette argued, her free hand perched on her hip, "the real hell is outside."
He shook his head. It was painfully obvious to him that this girl was not of Garden. "Do you know who the S4 are?"
"No," she replied curiously. "Is it like a boy band?"
"Hardly," he told her, his toes dangling dangerously close to the edge. "They're like tyrants. They practically rule this school. Everyone follows whatever they say blindly." He paused and Selphie saw a sullen look flash across his face. "When they tag someone… that person gets bullied until they end up leaving." He shot her a meaningful look. "Or worse."
Selphie stopped and stared at the suicidal man before her as his words sunk in like a penny on melted ice cream. Suddenly, it all clicked in her head and she realized that it was because of this S4 that this man in front of her was about to jump off the three story structure.
"That's horrible!" she shouted, stomping her foot indignantly. "Are you going to let them get away with that? You should stand up for yourself! If this were my school, I wouldn't let them do whatever they wanted! This is so not cool!"
Declan smirked. "You're a good person. Your friends are lucky to have someone like you." He turned back to his awaiting audience, and suddenly stepped off the ledge.
The students gathered in the quad gasped in awe and surprise as Selphie lurched forward and grabbed hold of Declan before he could totally fall past the building. With her shoulders burning under the stress of his weight, she struggled with every fiber of her being and finally managed to pull the tattered student back onto the roof.
-x-
"You're a hero!" Mr. Subi, the blacksmith, announced as Selphie slumped in her seat.
It had been a week since the incident at Balamb Garden, and since then, Selphie Tilmitt had been dubbed the Super Girl of the Working Class. The media couldn't get enough of her; they would wait for her at her apartment, and they would stalk her all the way to work and school. The most damage, however, was to the Garden and its affiliations, so she heard. People had started to boycott the stores of its biggest supporters, namely those of the Almasy Group and Ma's Incorporated.
The worst, by far, were the demonstrations held in front of Garden. Upset citizens would picket in front of the school's pearly gates, harassing anyone who passed by to the point that instilled enough fear and frustration in both the students and faculty that no one dared to leave the campus.
"This is the latest story about you!"
Suddenly a newspaper was thrust into her face. Sighing, Selphie conceded and took hold of the paper. "What?" she exclaimed, slamming 'The Balamb Journal' onto the counter, narrowly missing the "Ring the bell ONCE for assistance" sign. "Do I really look like that?" She pointed a defiant finger at an unflattering photo in which her face was scrunched up with her eyebrows furrowed tightly together.
Mr. Subi glanced quickly at the picture. "Not usually."
"What do you mean by that?" Selphie pouted and crossed her arms.
"You were probably sneezing," he answered reluctantly as he slowly backed into the back of the store. "Stop staring at yourself and get these deliveries done!"
She groaned and stopped prodding at her eyebrows. Grabbing the pile of cases on the counter next to her, Selphie bounded over to the door and immediately regretted it; the entire sidewalk was filled with photographers and journalists, each desperately trying to catch a glimpse of her.
"Ms. Tilmitt!" they called, waving recorders and microphones and cameras in her face. "Can we get an interview with you?"
"What do you think of all these demonstrations?"
"How do you feel about Balamb Garden now?"
-x-
Headmaster Cid Kramer sighed sharply and begrudgingly turned off the television. So much damage had been done after just a week, and his students were suffering for it; the demonstrators at the gate stopped anyone they could get their hands on, especially those going in and out of the Garden. For that week, his students were stuck at school.
He recalled having Edea inform him of one of the newer students crying in the hallway because she couldn't go home that weekend like she always did. He wouldn't have minded as much if they only targeted the school, but to involve his innocent students was another matter entirely.
"What do we do now?" he muttered, holding his head in his hands and rubbing his temples.
"Do you know why all this is happening?" Edea inquired, holding up a hand to silence him when Cid perked up his head. "They're ignorant. They don't really understand the situation."
"What do you mean?"
Mrs. Edea Kramer sighed. As strong as she appeared on the outside, she was wracked with worry on the inside. "They know that it was an attempted suicide, and the reason they're angry is because they think it was Garden's fault."
"So what should we do?"
She sighed again. "There's only one thing we can do."
-x-
"Congratulations, Selphie!"
Holding the phone a foot from her ear, Selphie grimaced. Her parents had called ten minutes ago to tell her that Balamb Garden was offering her a full scholarship and how she would be crazy to say no to something like that, and, moreover, would be much cheaper attend, as irony would have it, than her current school since she could stop paying for that stupid apartment.
"Besides, honey," her mother's voice continued, "the rich and powerful families would KILL to have their kids go to that school! And here you are being offered not only attendance, but FREE attendance!"
"But, mom-"
"They have festivals and a farewell ball at the end of the year," her mother told her in a singsongy tone.
Selphie immediately sat up. Her mother really did know her. She'd always wanted to plan, or at least be a part of, a festival, and she'd never attended a ball before… Maybe she would have to reconsider her hasty decision.
-x-
(To be continued.)
This is just the prologue, so that's why no one besides Selphie has been introduced yet. Never fear though! I hope you guys like it! I don't see many AU fics around though, so I'm kind of… worried? I'm not sure if people will like it. :s
Tell me what you think! 'Cause if I find that it's not too popular with the public, then maybe I won't continue and I'll have to set my creative (which is pretty uncreative) gears whirring again!