A/N: Yes, I'm currently stuck on two of my three stories, and have been meaning to write this for ever – at least a week now. Pairings are a mystery, so is everything else. I'm just scratching the writing itch. Yes, there is an original character. Does she have a MS complex? I hope not. We'll see though. All I'm writing off is a Character web, so who the hell knows where this is going? Rating is subject to change without notice, as is the title. Mainly because at this point, I don't have one. Coming up with a school name was hard enough. And yes, this is a school story. I sure as hell didn't come up with the idea, though I hope this will amuse you to a certain extent, and if it doesn't, I'm still amused.
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone except Juri. Which is nice, though I'd trade possession of her in a second if someone would offer me Squall instead. What? You don't have him? Goddamn.
The bus had obviously seen a lot, and was overdue for a retirement. Either that or a mercy kill, Yuffie Kisaragi wasn't entirely sure which would be better. She preferred the later, truth be told, but perhaps she was just an eensy bit biased against the bastardized excuse for a heap of junk metal. After all, she had been on the god damned piece of shit for over three days, along with companions, all either too damned quiet or too damned loud, and coming from a perpetually over caffeinated sixteen year old, that was saying a lot. She had run out of Advil two days ago, and her last set of batteries had died this morning. This leaves her staring out the window and listening to two teenage boys roughly her own age gabble non stop. Was it irritating? Yes. Was she going to throttle someone if they didn't get there soon? Absolutely.
The bus trip hadn't even supposed to have been three days, the company had practically sworn a blood oath that the passengers would get to the school safe and sound within a day and a half. This sucks. She curls up as best she can on the hard leather seats, cradling her head in her hands, stomach growling. She had also run out of food this morning. "Euhh." She pats her stomach, trying to console the poor thing. Granola bars and graham crackers did not a meal make. No arguments there, old pal.
She couldn't remember falling asleep, cheek mushed against dirty window, but she wakes up, so she must have fallen asleep at some point or another. The sun is setting, and the other occupants of the bus are finishing up their food. She looks around, trying not to stare. The two boys, obviously friends, are stuffing their faces with burgers and some sort of drink in a white paper cup, swiping each other's fries, sticking ice cubes down shirts and pants, and generally trying to amuse themselves. The girl sitting across from her is still the way she had been for the past three days, headphones on, fingers flying wildly over a small computer balanced on her knees, eyebrows curling downward with concentration. And the fourth and final member of the bus, discluding the bus driver, was sitting at a diagonal from her, eating a stick of sad looking celery and drinking Gatorade. As she watches he stands, balancing easily on the tremulous automobile, and carries his now empty bottle and plastic baggie to the back of the bus.
A moment later the girl sitting across from her looks up from whatever she's been doing, shuts her computer with a click, and lets the headphones slide down around her neck. She looks down beside her feet, and slips the computer into a bag, before pulling out a slightly squished apple and bagel. Yuffie can't help herself anymore, she lets out a little whimper, somehow forcing all the tension and fear, anger and hunger she had been feeling for the past three days into a two second sound. The girl snaps her head up, meeting Yuffie's Hershey colored eyes with pitch black ones. Yuffie flushes, and offers a tentative, "hi?"
The girl doesn't smile, but a dash of sympathy tinged with amusement flickers in her gaze, and she rips the bagel in half, handing over the larger half to Yuffie. "You look like you're about to die." She begins munching on the apple, saving the other half of her bagel for a later time.
Yuffie turns a gratifying tomato color and crams about half the bagel down her throat. It wasn't her favorite, not by any means. She prefers berry blend cream cheese on cinnamon bagels to garlic cream cheese on a tomato bagel. But hell, it was food, and at this point she would have eaten a chocobo, providing it came smeared in honey mustard. Movement flickers in her peripheral vision and she turns, looking up as the boy returns from the back of the bus and sits down. Wow. It just doesn't seem fair to her, a boy being so pretty. Hell, he was easily more feminine that herself, his hair was even longer, and probably a lot softer and healthier to boot. Not fair. Her eye twitches, and she looks up into the dark eyes of the God sent girl who had given her the bagel. "Uh… thanks."
The girl shrugs, "it was a bagel. A squished one at that." She looks over Yuffie's shoulder, eyes widening.
Yuffie turns, getting her first good look at the school that she would be spending the next several years at. "Wow." She knows her eyes are the size of dinner plates, but seeing a black and white picture in a book and the whole kitten caboodle are two entirely different things. "It's big…"
The girl nods, and watches the silhouette get ever closer as the bus creaks up the winding road, grabbing her bag and cuddling it on her lap as though it was a kitten. "Yeah."
Apparently one of the boys, the younger one in all likelihood had a similar reaction as Yuffie, because, as the two girls stare out the window at the oncoming castle, an amused voice cuts through the silence, "Yeah, you like things big, don'tcha, Sora?"
There was a limited number of times where she could recall being bored. Limited being she could counts them all on one hand. She was almost always plugged into something, be it her computer, game boy, headphones, or even a miniature radio. And if separated from her precious electronics, she could always just watch people, and wonder what their price per square inch was.(1) But she had already done that for all of her compatriots, and they had been sitting around in the vestibule of their new head's office for almost a half hour now, and almost all of them seemed to be losing it.
Her eyes track over to the two boys, and her eyebrows wrinkle. They were… weird, to say the least. The smaller and probably younger brunet didn't bother her as much, outside the fact that he dressed like a clown – big yellow shoes and all. It was the silver haired boy who drove her distracted. He was so… shiny. And that bothers her. People shouldn't be shiny. That was something that computer chips should have the sole honor of being.
She looks around and blinks at the girl who she had shared her bagel with on the bus. Though the term bus seemed to imply something that was capable of moving at over thirty miles an hour. The girl, the only one she had met who did not tower over her, was shivering in her tank top and shorts. She feels a flash of sympathy – she was wearing a long sleeved shirt beneath her Asians On Linux tee shirt, and long pants, and was thoroughly chilled.
She begins toying with her almost waist length black bangs, studying the final character of this charade. She had saved studying him again for last, though he had been on the trip with her the longest. She had been on the damned contraption for seven days, he had gotten on during the sixth. They had picked Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumber up on the fifth, and the other girl up on the third. And yet she could never get tired of looking at him. She watches his legs enviously, well, his pants. Hey, they were smashing pants, all black leather and buckles and clunky belts. Or maybe it was the way the leather clings to his legs. Damn. She shakes her head, and looks away as a tall man strides in.
She knows instinctively that this has to be Head Ansem Hallow. Who else in the school would be topping seven feet with ease, have bright orange eyes, and filmy white hair? She shudders, and waits for him to say something.
The Head surveys his pupils, three new, two old and shakes his head. The damned buses take longer every year. Maybe it was time to try and find a better way to transport students unwilling to fly to the school. His school, Bassion College for Young Men and Women. Personally, he hated the name, and therefore while in his hearing, the school was simply called Bassion College, or BC if someone was feeling insubordinately lazy. He shakes his head, and puts on his disturbing/ disarming smile, "Welcome to some of you, and welcome back to the rest." He takes a deep breath and continues, "My name is Ansem Hallow, head of the school. Synchratic, Kisaragi, you're rooming with Miss Gainsborough and Miss Kugyo. Leonheart, Matsu, and Tamaki, you'll be rooming with Mister Strife." He sits down in a chair across from the teens. "Gainsborough and Strife are prefects. They can answer any questions you may have. If they can't, ask the instructors. Classes start tomorrow at nine sharp. That will be all." He turns, and pauses, calling over his shoulder, "your prefects will be going over this with you as well, but this is my only warning: leave the heartless alone." He smirks and disappears.
Juri blinks, her typical response to any sort of surprise. There's an air of restlessness in the room now. Where are the effing prefects? Fortunately for her sanity, and the two who had answered to Matsu and Tamaki's health, a girl and a boy appear almost out of no where. She's inclined to blink now, more from need than anything else. The girl was… pink. Very pink. Pink from her nicely polished lips to the straight bow in her hair, to her dress, and her leathery looking cropped jacket.
The girl smiles, revealing a set of very strait white teeth. On anyone else, Juri would have expected to find expensive home teeth bleaching kits under the sink, but there was something soothing about the smile. "Hi!" She chirps, beaming around. With the head gone, and this song bird in his place, the oppressive cold lifts a little.
Juri shakes her head. Anyone who can warm up a room by smiling equals trouble. The girl beams around, "My name is Aerith Gainsborough… Squall!" She crosses the room in a single bound, tackling the boy in leather pants. "My goodness Squall! It's lovely to see you again!" She squeezes her arms around him again and then backs off. "You two are Yuffie and Juri, right?"
The girl in a tank top and shorts bounces forward with an altogether too perky salute. "Yes!" Juri just nods, hefting her bag onto her shoulder as a tall blond boy steps out from behind Aerith. This is surprising, seeing as to how Aerith barely comes up to the boy's shoulder, and his spikes of blond hair stick up even higher.
"And I'm Strife." He growls, giving everyone an impressive glare.
"Will you knock it off, Cloud?" The boy, Squall asks dryly, speaking for the first time since he had boarded the bus.
"It's ceremony, Squall, it's all about the ceremony." Cloud grins, and flicks Squall the bird. "Alright midget children. Let's go. Bright and early tomorrow. Beat it."
The next hour involves mainly Aerith leading a dumbfounded Yuffie around, showing her the various classes. Juri was quite inclined to agree with the teenager not wearing pink. This place gives a new meaning to the word fucking huge. Between a floor of class rooms, a floor of dorms, a floor of gyms, pools, and several floors given solely to the staff and head master, and a fricking lake, this place could easily swallow up her home town, and still have room left for a city or two.
Their last stop is the cafeteria, well, the major one, according to Aerith. "You see, there's a café of sorts on every level. Saves you from having to walk down five flights of stairs to get a snack. But this is where everyone has dinner, and it stays open until midnight. Probably later, depending on the mood of the staff." She smiles at Yuffie, bouncing around and waving her hand in the air. "Yes?"
The girl grins, "can we have ice cream, Aerith? Pleeeease?"
Aerith smiles good naturedly. "Sure."
Yuffie whoops and sprints over to the large freezer in one corner, slapping a rather impressive sundae together. Juri shakes her head and helps herself to a cup of fresh fruit from one of the buffet tables. She just isn't a sugary sort of person. And there's fresh pineapple. The pull of pineapple is far greater than the pull of ice cream.
Aerith leads them out of the cafeteria, now carrying a small cup of vanilla soft serve. "Our rooms are on the next floor up." She leads them up the winding staircase, to a row of doors. "Home sweet home." She intones with a giggle, pulling out a key and opening the door, to reveal a dark room. "Kairi's probably asleep."
Juri can't really see anything, so she thumps into the first bed she can find and rolls over, asleep.
(1) This is a game a couple of my mathematically inclined friends made up. Basically, it consists of estimating how much money is spent on the person, divided by their inches squared. Geeky? Absolutely. Amusing? Hell yes.