Authors Note: I hope the beginning doesn't bore you... O_o It won't be as boring later on. I PROMISE!


Chapter One: Seifer's New Teacher

Love, hope, joy. Pain, hate, regret.
These six words are just about everything humans are. We desire love, hope for good things, and feel joy when we are happy. We feel pain, we hate others, and regret our actions. Our whole lives are centered around trying to be happy and trying to find love. That is the main reason for humans. At least, that is what every human does.
"It's so depressing," Seifer Almasy muttered outloud. He reached his right gloved hand back and smoothed down his golden hair. "This whole damn race-- this whole damn world-- is just depressing."
"Do you really think so?"
Seifer turned and looked at Edea. He let out a low sigh and nodded. "Yeah. We're just running a rat race."
She was curious. "Why do you think so?"
"Everyday we wake up, go to work or school, come home, and go to bed." Seifer explained to her.
"Then that is not a rat race," Edea told him. "It is a routine."
"Let me finish," Seifer snapped. He waited for her to quiet before he continued. "We do the same things over and over and over, except there is different obstacles we must face everyday. Even if that obstacle is as small as having to tie your shoe, to finding out you didn't become a SeeD." He cast her a look. "It's like shoving a rat in a rat race contraption day after day, to see if it does better. It completes the same tasks over and over, facing small dilemma's, such as a wall, where it goes. Is that not the same as humans? Do you understand, Matron?"
Edea stared at him for a moment, then smiled softly. "Seifer, I don't know where you went wrong. You are so incredibly smart. Yet you decided to take the fools path. Why?"
Seifer snarled, "I don't want to be stuck in that damn rat race!"
Edea shook her head. "No. You just made the race harder for yourself."
It was an early evening when Seifer and Edea stood on the beach near Edea's House. It was nearly a year after Squall and his friends had defeated the dreaded Ultimicia. Seifer had not returned to Garden, but had decided to move as far away as he possibly could. He had placed his living on this run down building.
That wasn't entirely true. Seifer was only lying to himself. He had been at Fisherman's Horizon for several months, broke and depressed, when his Matron had found him. She seemed to appear out of nowhere, as if she had heard his silent, desperate cry for help.
Seifer would never admit he needed help, even if he was in the clutches of the devil himself.
When Edea had found him, he sat on the end of a pier, his feet dangling off of it. His face was a mask of cold sorrow. He had felt a presence behind him. A familiar presence. At first he thought it to have been one of those damn annoying villagers.
"Leave me alone," he had mumbled half heartily.
"But you look like you need some help," came a throaty voice behind him. Seifer stared out into the waters, knowing instantly who the voice was. It was as clear as the ocean before him.
"Seifer?" Came that voice again.
He sighed and pulled himself to his feet, "what is it, Matron?"
"I said you look like you need some help." Her face was etched with concern.
"I don't need your help, or anyone's help!" Seifer growled.
She smirked at him. "Yes, you do. You are a lost, stupid little boy who is as almost good as dead as a fish on a hook. Look at yourself! You're a mess!"
He didn't like that. His face flushed a bit red and his eyes narrowed into slits. He opened his mouth to yell at her, but before he could move, she had clamped a hand over his mouth.
"I will not tolerate you yelling at me," Edea told him. "Seifer, please, come with me to my home. I'll take care of you, I promise."
Seifer ripped her hand from his mouth and glared at her. "I told you I don't need your help."
"Think of your options," Edea told him softly. "You can waste away to nothing here, or you can refurbish and become YOU again if you follow me for the time being."
She was studying him hard. He studied her back.
"Why do you want to help me?"
Edea smiled at the question. "You still our my little boy I took care of all those years ago. I miss those times."
"Where's your darling Cid?" Seifer asked with a sneer.
"At Garden. Why would he leave?" Edea said. She let out a sigh, "I wanted to move back to my home.... he wouldn't come with me. I don't understand why."
"Yes."
"Yes what?"
"I'll go with you," Seifer told her. Then he quickly added, "until I am stronger."
"Agreed," Edea nodded as they sealed the contract with a handshake.
She didn't say anything else to him, he didn't want her to. They just turned and walked off together.

Seifer had treated Edea poorly ever since. Even now, he had to bite his tongue from cursing at her.
"What do you know?" Seifer demanded coldly.
"A lot more than you probably do," Edea told him. She tilted her head. "But do continue. This topic... It is not discussed often enough."
Seifer turned his head away. "I don't want to finish."
"Fine," Edea smiled at him. "I don't mind."
But Seifer was in the mood for talking. It was not like him, he knew, to talk about such petite topics with another person.
"Someone wise once told me," Seifer said as he glanced back at her. "Love and hate are not opposites. But that they are so very much the same. This wise person explained that if you love someone, you think about them all the time. And if you hate someone, you think about them all the time. So they are not different, but exactly the same."
"Who is that wise person, Seifer?" Edea wanted to know.
Seifer hesitated. "Instructor Trepe."
Edea smiled fondly at the mention of Quistis. "She is a very intelligent girl."
Seifer paused and reflected on his conversation with Edea. He was annoying himself, that he had spoken so much. In fact, he didn't want to talk of Quistis or any of her stupid friends.
However, Edea had very much brightened of the name "Instructor Trepe." He tuned her out completely as she calmly talked away about Instructor and Squall and the little messenger girl and the chicken wuss. Of course, she didn't leave out the cowboy.
A part of the jumbled conversation caught his attention.
"You know, Quistis and you are so much alike."
"What the hell do you mean?" Seifer asked, raising an eyebrow.
"If I speak will you interrupt?"
"No," Seifer lied.
She seemed to hear his lie but didn't care. "You both act so very tough and independent on the outside, but you both are so very depressed on the inside."
He waited for her continue. When she didn't, he smirked. "What? That's it?"
"It's more than enough, Seifer."
He was confused. "Why are you telling me this?"
"You should go talk to her," Edea commanded him. "I'll bet you'd both open up your real feelings to each other."
"Hardly," Seifer grumbled.
She was studying him again. "You should just try. You don't want to be alone forever, do you? Don't you want a friend?"
"I have Fuijin and Raijin."
"They returned to Garden." Edea shrugged. "I was only suggesting that you--"
"I know," Seifer said with a sigh. He felt as if he had opened enough MORE than enough feelings to his Matron.
They stood in silence for several minutes. Just listening to the sound of the waves crashing against the sandy beach.
"Matron," he began. "You are like a new teacher to me."
"Seifer...."
"Alright," Seifer said with a sly grin. "I'll go find the instructor. Besides, if she ticks me off, I can always kill her."
Edea went to protest about the killing part, but he had already turned and began to jog away.