Author's Note: Well, I must say first of all that my other fanfic, Eyes on Me, is on hiatus. I have the whole storyline in my head but I can't bring myself to write it and I'm rather bored with it at the time. On another note, I've always wanted to write a story that many people found rather interesting and kept everyone talking about it for some time after completion. I don't think I've yet to do that. So I'm taking this story seriously and putting everything I have into it. Please, comment accordingly. No flames! If you don't like the story you can either a)stop reading or b)give me constructive criticism. There's no reason to bite my head off.
Kings and Queens
Chapter One Again
I looked from my window at a boy my age as he stood and watched a black car drive away. He didn't seem upset, but then again, I could only see the back of his head. In his left hand was a modest looking suitcase; the other held a duffle bag overflowing with what could only be clothes and an assortment of toys that only a young boy would find appealing. He was rather small in his jeans that were a size larger than they should be and an oversized shirt bearing the emblem of some beer company. Appropriate, I thought sarcastically.
He turned his head back and caught my stare. The only thing that caught my eye before I turned away was his emerald-green eyes. Even from upstairs inside the house, I could tell they were pained and jaded, no pun intended. Though he bore a smirk that I would come to know all too well, his eyes were dimmed from whatever Hyne put him through. My heart was racing for some unknown reason and I dared not look out the window again for fear he was still watching for me.
I eventually gathered the courage to take a peek out the window again only to find the boy was gone. Instead I heard her voice echo through the house and up the stairs to where I was in my room which I shared with another resident of the household. "Everyone, come down here! I want you to meet someone who will be staying with us for a while!"
I sighed and extended my legs out a bit after being pulled up to my chest for far too long. Oh well, guess I better go greet our new guest.
The harsh buzzing of an alarm clock woke her from her slumber. She slammed her hand over the top of the clock, silencing it immediately with the snooze button. Peeling one eyelid open, she read the bright red numbers. It was only five-fifty in the morning. Quistis stared lazily at the numbers and moaned in what could only be half-sadness, half-annoyance. Five-fifty was about the time she would wake up to get ready to teach her first class of the day if she were still an instructor for Balamb Garden. Of course, that was back a few months ago. Now Quistis was just a SeeD waiting for another mission to come along so that she might have something to do. Oh sure, there were the occasional riots and rebellions among the several resistance members in various countries around the globe, but those really weren't anything to get worked up over, especially since the long battle against Ultimecia.
Quistis rolled on her back and rested an arm over her forehead, her eyes half-closed as she tried to focus on the ceiling in the dark. She found herself reflecting on the journey to defeat the sorceress. It seemed so long ago when in reality it couldn't have been more than a few months before. In a way, it felt like some nightmare Quistis just awoke from yet the after-effects of said nightmare were incredibly real. The battle scars, the memories, the fame, and the couples that resulted from the escapade weren't going to disappear with the blink of one's eyes.
The alarm buzzed again, startling the young blonde out of her trance-like state. She cursed under her breath and instead of pressing snooze again, she switched the alarm to off, quieting the offensive noise for good. By now the clock read six o'clock and the sun had started to peak over the horizon, shading the sky a very dim shade of violet and pink. No longer feeling an overwhelming sense of sleepiness, Quistis stretched one last time in her bed and threw the covers from her body. The cold air stunned her for a minute but she quickly recovered and stumbled over to her dresser drawer and slowly pulled out a pair of black gym pants and a white tank top. As she got dressed, Quistis, still in a semi state of slumber, moved to her bathroom and grabbed a toothbrush from a cup by the sink and, putting toothpaste on the bristles, proceeded to brushing her teeth. Finally, she grabbed a pair of headphones attached to a small mp3 player and slipped her feet into her running shoes which were placed neatly by the door of her dorm room. Ever since the end of Ultimecia, Quistis started to wake up to nightmares every morning. She read on the internet somewhere that jogging was one way to relieve stress which Quistis chalked the nightmares up to. When the alarm clock went off, Quistis would jog a few laps around Balamb to hopefully clear her mind.
Placing the headphones snuggly on her ears and making sure she grabbed her card key for her room, the SeeD quickly took off for her morning jog. She turned to a random rock song by some obscure band that Zell had so generously placed on her mp3 player and fell into a groove, her eyes unmoving from the ground and the scenery around her a blur. Very few students had classes so early in the morning. Those that were around the Garden at six in the morning were either coming from the Training Center with an array of cuts and bruises or staggering to their dorms with a friend or two, too drunk to know where they were after a long night of partying in nearby Dollet. Quistis ignored the students and concentrated on keeping her rhythm as to not tire easily. After about seven songs played and Quistis passed the hallway to the dorm rooms three times, she slowed to a walk to calm her heart as it beat rapidly due to the exercise. She winced as a cramp ached in her lower side and tried to soothe it by placing a hand on the pain. Oh well, it was better than mental agony any day.
"Quisty! Quisty, wait up!!" a high pitched voice called out. Pulling her headphones down to rest around her neck, Quistis turned to see her friend, Selphie Tilmitt, run after her. Always the cheerful one, Selphie was wearing her usual bright yellow dress with her shoulder-length brown hair flipped out ever so stylishly. Quistis smiled at her and when Selphie finally caught up to her, both continued walking. "Quisty! I feel like I haven't seen you in forever! How have you been? Is there anything interesting going on in your life? What about your love life? Is that good?" she asked in what could only be described as one long run-on sentence.
Quistis laughed. "Selphie, we saw each other just last week. Nothing's really changed," replied the taller woman, motioning to a nearby water fountain so that she could get a drink. Selphie huffed and crossed her arms as Quistis bent down to quench her thirst.
"Quisty, a week can be quite a long time. The fact we even went that long without so much as a phone call concerns me."
Quistis looked up from the fountain, confused. "Why does that concern you? Many people go weeks without talking. It's not a big deal, Selph."
"But we're not just anyone. We spent the months after Ultimecia inseparable. You, Rinoa, and I went out to dinner every other night and sometimes we'd get all dressed up and go to the bar in Dollet to talk over drinks. Or what about shopping? We haven't been shopping in Hyne knows how long!" Selphie listed. Quistis stood up and wiped her mouth with the tips of her fingers. She shook her head and smiled as both walked toward the dormitory hallway, moving at a much quicker pace now that the cramp in Quistis's side had subsided.
"Selphie, you've been with Irvine. Rinoa's been with Squall, which we both know is a blessing that Squall is that happy to be with someone. I've been enjoying my alone time as well. We're still close friends; you don't need to worry about that. Oh, and for the record, we were never 'inseparable.' We took just as many days off from each other then as we do now."
"I guess you're right. I just miss the stuff we did together and I miss you!" concluded Selphie, her arms raised above her as she exclaimed the last part of her sentence. Quistis giggled a bit and reached into her pants pocket for her card key. Wiping sweat from her brow, Quistis approached her door and swiped the card through the scanner, a green light brightening and the sound of a 'click' as the door unlocked for Quistis to enter. She held the door open for the smaller teen, to which the teen obliged and both entered the dorm room.
"Hey Selph, I have to take a shower so feel free to make yourself at home. There's some food in the mini refrigerator under my desk and the remote for the TV is on my nightstand," she instructed warmly, grabbing a pair of jeans and a salmon pink t-shirt from her closet and taking them with her into the bathroom. She closed the bathroom door and turned the water on so the water was mildly hot when she finally stepped into the shower. Quistis removed her jogging clothes and placed them neatly in a pile by the toilet to be picked up before she left the bathroom. Her skin was sticky with sweat and she could hardly wait to scrub the feeling of filth from her body so she could feel clean again.
The mirrors had begun to fog up with steam and Quistis promptly stepped into the shower. Her conversation with Selphie echoed in her head as she lathered her hair with shampoo. Selphie, you've been with Irvine. Rinoa's been with Squall... What about your love life? Is that good... Quistis didn't know why it bothered her so much that everyone in their so-called 'group' had significant others. Even Zell had managed to settle down with that one girl from the library, though she never did manage to catch her name. Ok, so she knew that it did bother her a little that she was still single while everyone gushed about how great love was. It made her sick. She thought by now at least that she would have adjusted to seeing her friends so happy with each other while she grew accustomed to the thought of herself dying alone with her fifty cats around her bedside. Yet nothing could ease that hollow feeling she felt when she was invited to join one couple or another on a date. The dreaded…third wheel. Shuddering at the thought, Quistis ran a loofah full of soap suds over her skin to wash the dirt away. She shook her head and chose to think of other happy thoughts. Like having a boyfriend…
"Hyne dammit!!" she hissed at the fleeting thought before finally settling on some random thought of her teaching days. Eventually her thoughts drifted back to the previous conversation and Quistis found herself thinking of one certain couple that got underneath her skin the most. Right before her Instructor's license was revoked, Quistis found herself quite attracted to one student she taught in particular. Squall Leonheart always sat in the back of the classroom, never saying much unless he was called on to answer a question. Quistis admired his battle skills and couldn't deny the fact that Squall was indeed good looking. Despite how much Quistis sucked up to the man, Squall never returned her affections and remained just as cold as ever. Yet during their journey to defeat the sorceress, Squall had fallen in love with the girl who hired them originally to help liberate Timber. Rinoa Heartilly managed to achieve the impossible and that was making Squall open up to her and only her. Eventually they fell in love and kissed and soon enough everyone in Balamb knew about the happy couple. Quistis put on a front around them, constantly telling the pair how cute they looked together; too bad it just hid how much it hurt to see Squall happy with someone that wasn't herself.
Almost ten minutes upon stepping into the shower, the girl finally turned the water off and pulled the shower curtain aside. She grabbed a towel off the hook above the toilet and quickly dried herself off to avoid the cold one experiences after a hot shower. With her body completely dried off and the towel wrapped around and piled on her head to further dry her hair, Quistis pulled her jeans and shirt on but not before putting on her undergarments. Feeling refreshed, she grabbed her jogging clothes and opened the bathroom door, stepping out into her room and throwing the clothes in a basket full of other dirty clothes to be taken to the washer and drier a few doors down. When she turned around to talk to her friend, she found Selphie dancing obliviously to some obscene rap song playing from her television. When she heard Quistis clear her throat, Selphie froze and whirled around, grinning sheepishly.
"Sorry, I was bored and there was nothing on TV," was Selphie's only excuse. Quistis rolled her eyes and changed the channel and Selphie sat on Quistis's bed, pulling her legs up Indian-style.
"So since you asked me how I was doing, I guess I'll ask how you're doing?" the blonde inquired, removing her hair from the towel and running her hand through her damp, blonde locks.
The cheerful girl smiled at the question. "Oh, I'm good. I'm planning another festival to take place sometime in December so that's taking up some of my time, but not much."
"Oh? And what's this festival for? We just had one to celebrate our defeat of the sorceress. And December's kind of far away. Come to think of it, it's almost three months away."
"C'mon Quisty! What do you think it's for?"
Quistis shrugged. "I have no idea. Um, you and Irvine are getting married," she replied sarcastically as she pulled her hair back into a ponytail and then pinning it up in a clip. She turned her back to Selphie as she rummaged through her drawer to find her makeup bag which only contained some eye shadow, mascara, blush, eyeliner and some tubes of lip gloss.
Selphie jumped off the bed excitedly and jumped from one foot to the other. "Close! Qusity, don't play dumb. It's for Rinoa and Squall's engagement, duh!" The bag of makeup that Quistis had just found fell from her hands and landed on the ground, the contents spilling all over the floor.
Engaged?
Author's Note: Oh, just for future reference, I'm using titles of songs that would go well with the chapter if they were played along with it or whatever. This one is "Again" by Lenny Kravitz. I'll try to remember to put the artist at the end of the chapter but if I don't, just remind me.