A/N: I'm trying to include as much of the cast as possible. See if you can identify them.
Super thanks to cupcakegirl for making me do a (much better) rewrite of this chapter.
Happenstance
Chapter 2 – Hidden Safe Behind Scars
you told me I'd fly
though I had no wings
you told me a lie
said I had huge wings
that we'd go up high
and don't you cling
cause up in the sky
y'don't have to cling
no need to cry
cause you'll happily sing
and we won't die
just happily sing.
happily sing
don't cling
have wings
and we'll fly
Today, Red-Eyes has a scar on her face. She's trying to hide it with her bangs, but it doesn't work too well. The mark stretches across the edge of her cheek, disappearing faintly before reaching her jaw. It's small and light, but stands out and blemishes her untouchable character. It's strange to see that something can actually injure her. Can actually make her hurt. And yet she sits there, calm and collected, underlining her stoic nature.
She's clearly the oldest in our class, and I suppose she's been held back at least a grade. She's not a sociable one, and no one wants to be sociable with her either. She sticks out like a dead rock in our class of energetic, spirited students – or maybe more so disappears behind them. At least that's one thing we have in common.
The period is over, and the teacher, Mr. Wakka, lets us go for lunch. I get shoved a lot on my way out. Deliberately or accidentally – I don't bother dwelling on it. It doesn't make a difference either way anyway. When people have grown accustomed to doing certain things, viewing certain people in a certain way, it's usually hard to get them to change out of that habit, Mom told me that. Especially when you're the last person on earth they want to have anything to do with.
Another shove shatters my short reminisce, and brings me back to the reality of our crowded high school hallway. "Watch it, Al Bhed!" the person yells at me. A teacher down the hall hears her and tells her that's not a nice thing to say.
My locker is all the way at the end of the hall, away from my homeroom classmates who've all been together since the start of school. But since I came in later, there's no room for me with them. That's okay. I don't like them very much anyway.
I get another shove – a rather harsh one that makes me stumble into the wall. "Snobby, Al Bhed, slut," the same girl from three days ago hisses as she passes by me. Her friends giggle with her as they follow her lead. I always dread their giggles; they always curl the air around my neck and make me twitch with immense discomfort. Unexpectedly this time, my eyes begin to sting, like cactus needles are pricking into it. I try not to blink and hope that the air will simply evaporate the water away with her words.
I eventually reach my locker and fumble with the lock as I decide what to do with my lunch hour today. I had thought that it would be less lonely here with Yunie around. But she's the vice-president of the student council, president of the environmental club, and member of dozens of other clubs that she hardly ever has a spare lunch. She tells me to join with her, but I always refuse. It's not my thing anymore.
I put my books in my locker neatly, unconsciously trying to stall for time. I could always go to the library again, but that would mean another day without lunch, and I'm really hungry today.
I sneak a glance around, hoping that maybe Yunie will show up out of the blue and tell me she's canceled all her meetings just to hang out with me. But I know that'll never happen. She'd be letting down too many people – and she can't bear that. Unfortunately, I wind up catching someone else's eyes. A Yevonite male's eyes, and silver white haired.
I turn away immediately and pretend to reorganize my books, shoving each of them furiously through each other. Behind me, I can feel his footsteps approaching, and my heart begins to sink into my stomach. I try to calm myself down. Oh! This is stupid – so stupid to be acting this way. He probably didn't even notice me. Not everyone notices you, Rikku. Geez, you are a snob.
"Hi."
I jump in surprise and my binders topple over and fall on my head. They bust open and all my papers fly out. I bend down and gather them quickly, waiting expectantly for the Yevonite to laugh and step all over them. But he doesn't. He kneels down and helps me. I look up at him in surprise.
"I'm sorry," he says. He holds up the pile of sheets in his hand. "I didn't mean to scare you," he explains with a guilty smile.
I tentatively take the papers from him and shove them into my binder. I'll sort them out later. "T-Thank you," I reply, unable to look at him directly. My fingers fumble clumsily as I stand up and put everything back in my locker. He's still on the ground. I look down at him curiously.
He then seems to snap out of his trance, turn away bashfully and stand up. "You're new here, aren't you?" he asks.
I nod hesitantly.
"You're in my biology class." He gestures his hand behind his shoulder. "I sit three seats behind you," he says cheerfully, but nervously.
I nod again, but this time trying to hide a giggle from escaping my mouth. He's kind of cute when he's shy. "Really?" I say for the sake of replying.
"Indeed." He glances downwardly. "I can help you catch up with some of the work – if, you know, if, if you want..."
He actually gets a smile out of me. "I would appreciate that, thank you very much," I answer.
He smiles back. "Great…" The hallways are silent now that most of the students have left, and hearing our gentle talk makes this place seem a bit more peaceful and comforting. "So…. Are you busy now?" he asks.
I scrunch my face teasingly. "You mean you want to study now?"
He shakes his head immediately. "No! Of course not." He laughs. "It's just…" He rubs the back of his neck. "I just… Heh…eh…"
This time I can't hold it in, and I giggle softly as I close my locker. "Sure," I say casually. I tilt my head to the side. "Rikku."
"Baralai," he responds with a boyish laugh. "Hungry?"
I nod vigorously. He leads us outside of the school and towards a nearby. My stomach growls in agreement at the sight of a small deli.
Even if he isn't the ideal friend I was hoping for, he's still pretty nice, sweet, and funny. At least I don't have to worry about skipping another meal. But my hand rests securely over my pant pocket the whole time I'm with him.
- - - - - - - -
"Tidus, you doofus!" Yunie screams excitedly as she snatches the flower away from him. "You're not supposed to smell it that close to your nose!" She then turns to me and sighs as she lazily points to her boyfriend and says, "Rikku, Tidus. Tidus, Rikku."
"Hey," I say, managing a weak smile.
"Hey!" he says back excitedly, before taking the flower from Yunie and giving it to me. "Smell it. It smells like nothing!"
I notice and appreciate the lack of hesitance in his attitude towards me, but I guess it's expected considering his girlfriend is half Al Bhed. I bring the flower up to my nose and sniff it in. I crinkle my brow. "You're right, it doesn't smell like anything!"
He gives Yunie a smug look. "See? Told you."
"Pft." She blows at her bangs and makes her way around the shop counter. "You just don't have a keen nose for flowers."
Tidus shrugs his shoulders. "Yeah, but I can always tell when you're burning something on the stove."
Yunie narrows her eyes before shaking her head at him disappointedly and adding another green plant to the vase filled with fresh orchids. "Oh, Tidus…" she sighs absentmindedly.
"Yes… Yuna?" he says in a similar daydreamy tone.
She gives him a sweet look before pointing to the garbage can in the corner and saying, "Can you take that out?"
He rolls his eyes but follows her command. "Just because I didn't work overtime last week," he grumbles.
Yunie comes out from behind the counter and approaches me with the vase in her hands. "Well, my Mom was pretty upset. You promised her you would stay until closing time, remember?" She then turns to me and gives me the beautiful arrangement of colourful flowers and plants. "Here, you go Rikku!" Then, she frowns slightly. "I hope you're not angry with me... It's just, the environmental club has a charity event coming up, so I've been really busy. I'm really sorry… But next week, I'll be free from Wednesday to Friday! So we'll do something fun!"
I smile, her excitement contagious. I can never be angry with her. "You bet!" A frightening rumble from the back of the shop followed by Tidus's cursing draws away Yunie's attention and she runs to attend to him. "I'll see you tomorrow," I tell her.
She shakes her head. "No, I'll call you tonight! We have so much to talk about!"
I nod and return her smile before opening the door and stepping outside, red baseball cap securely on.
The shop door's wind chimes ring throughout the brisk air and sends little waves of shivers down my spine. It's nearly four-thirty in the afternoon. Pops will never let me go out on my own again if I don't make this curfew. But it has gotten colder within the hour, and my fingers are starting to numb. The heavy vase – though very lovely – is starting to become quite of an annoyance.
I let out a deep sigh, my breath turning white in the air as I bury my nose in the unscented orchids. My bag is unbearably heavy today – so many classes that I need to catch up on having came in the middle of the year. And what sucks is that I'm not exactly a genius in anything.
I mean, I guess I'm alright. I'm occasionally on the honours list, and get a couple of perfect test scores once in a while but… I miss elementary. When school never really counted for much but stickers and pleasing Mom and Pops and getting ice cream. Now, it counts for university. It counts for life. It counts for my future and the difference in whether I'm sitting in an office building or an abandoned building. And Al Bhed are only useful for fixing cars anyway.
Pops doesn't want me working as a mechanic… anymore; rap music videos and popular magazines don't exactly give off a pleasant perception of female mechanics. Although he's in construction himself, he's planning to make some extra money fixing cars on the weekends for our neighbours. That's what he used to do a long time ago. He's still good at it – really good. All our Al Bhed friends look up to him, and its nice to have at least your father looked up to.
Aniki's another case.
I see my building come into view, and quicken my pace. The vase's weight has increased tenfold in the past couple of minutes, I swear, and it feels as if it'll slip out of my hands any moment now. With a couple of small grunts, I focus my eyes on my grip against the slippery glass container, as if intensely glaring at it would fuse my fingers to it. I look up to see how much further away I am from the entrance of the building when a huge body suddenly appears in front of me.
The vase shatters on the ground.
The man looks at me through his circular glasses, and then at the drowning flowers sprinkled in fragments of glass on the pavement. He's quiet, gloved hands still at his sides and legs unmoving, his mouth drawn into a thin frown. Waiting.
I avoid his stare immediately, stepping back and crossing my arms across my chest to hug my shoulders. There's a lump in my throat, a shiver down my spine, and I suddenly feel the air's too thick to breathe.
I want to run. But I want my orchids. And I wish he'd just say agoddamnthing so I'll know if –
"Aren't you going to pick that up?"
I run. I turn on my heels and race toward the building entrance, only glancing back for the briefest moment to see his unusually long brown hair whip in circles around my broken vase.
- - - - - - - -
Aniki decides he's a world class chef and cracks an egg into the frying pan only to have its contents spill off the side and burn into a crisp on the stove a few minutes later. The fire alarm goes funky for the next little while and he tells me to open the balcony door to let the smoke drift out. We end up eating butter and raisin bread instead with warm tea.
"What do you want to watch?" he asks me as we plop on the couch with our snacks.
I skim my eyes over the TV guide and shrug. "Whatever. Doesn't matter."
He flips through a couple of channels before decidedly stopping at the news channel. There's a story about the discovery of a billion-million something year old skull found in Bikanel and another about the health benefits of tomatoes. When they switch to a local news story about a recent rape, Aniki turns off the TV and offers to help me with my homework.
We're in the middle of deriving the derivative of the logarithmic function (which Aniki constantly insists on copying the answers out from the back) when Pops comes home with a box of spicy wings and a large pepperoni pizza, and of course, a case of Coca Cola. He talks about some bastard Yevonite that nearly ran over him in the morning and how the city's corrupted with so many bastard Yevonites. I remind him that Yunie's only half Al Bhed and he tells me she's exceptional.
He then asks if I got home on time, and Aniki nods and tells him how I had "accidentally stepped into a puddle" and that's why my jeans are wet (and unscented) and hanging to dry over a chair. Pops reminds me I have to be careful more often because we're a little tight on money now. Hypocritically, he tears open the case of cola and drowns down a little more than he really needs.
- - - - - - - -
It's two in the morning, but I still can't sleep. Outside I can hear the cars chugging down the streets, a group of friends laughing and yelling about, their voices echoing against the walls of the clear night sky as the shattering of beer bottles illuminates the sound of Yunie's wind chimes.
Yunie's forgotten to call me. And that's alright because I know she didn't do it on purpose. We'll talk tomorrow. Or next week. Or y'know, soon. And I'll tell her about my flowers and that big, strange man with the long ponytail, and for sure we'll talk a lot then.
But for now I need sleep. I haven't had more than six hours of sleep since we moved here, and my brain kinda goes thump-de-thump in the middle of Mr. Issaru's world religions class. Ms. Lulu said something about it the other day in Biology class; your brain not enough oxygen or something. And Mr. Wakka thinks oxygen isn't that necessary for brain function because he also coaches the swim team.
I know I like oxygen, thank you very much. But tonight I'd prefer it cold. The air in my room is humid, and sticky, and sweaty and gooey and making me feel like I'm sitting in Bikanel in a snowsuit.
It the first night this year I have to wear shorts to bed. I didn't expect April nights to be so warm, so I hadn't gone shopping for new clothes lately. I'm wearing an old pair, which hardly covers my butt and is well below my waist. But it doesn't matter, because it's just me and my little room. And it's a comforting feeling – to know that you're not being watched.
A faint breeze rustles my curtains as a howl of laughter erupts from outside, down below the building. I listen to their murmurs for a while, the sounds soothing my mind a little. A little.
My throat feels too dry now, and I blame the humid air for my dehydration. Stepping out of bed, my bare foot hits the cold hardwood floor and I let out a sigh of relief as the cooling sensation surges throughout my body. The apartment's quiet, except for the occasional snore from Aniki or Pops, so I tip-toe very quietly toward the kitchen. It's dark, and I almost trip over a couple of things before finally opening the cupboard and searching for a cup.
I pull out my large orange mug – identical to Mom's green one but orange; we got it during a 2 for 1 sale – and gently pour in the boiled water from our kettle. The water gushes out all lumpy and loud in the silent apartment.
And then I hear footsteps.
I flinch a bit, spilling some of the water over my toes. The footsteps are clearly coming from the building's hallway outside, but who would be out this late? I glance at the clock on the wall, the moonlight revealing that it's yes, two in the morning still. Deciding that it's none of my business, I carefully take my mug and begin to walk back to my room. It's when I pass the door that I hear a familiar voice.
"I'm fine," he says. "… No, I'm sleeping… Yeah, at home …"
I don't move for a few seconds, too surprised. The voice sounds like it belongs to Eye-Patch, the guy who stole my money and my glue the other day. But what's he doing out in the hall? He lives here?
"… Didn't see him… Okay, I saw him… No, he didn't… He didn't."
It's only natural that I find his strange conversation more interesting than my hot, humid room. As long has he doesn't know I'm listening, it's alright.
"… Okay, just a little… A little, wasn't even – what? Hah… Whatever, just a small scratch."
I'm leaning against the door now, my head pressed against it, trying to hear a second voice to understand their conversation. But I only hear his voice, so I guess he's on his cell phone.
"… Oh quit worryin'. I'm fine… Go to sleep… Seriously, stop askin, I'm fine… FinefinefineFINE."
There's a little slit in the metal flap of the door where the mail comes in, and I squint to try and see if I can see him through it. I gently poke my finger against it, opening it a little wider before I can recognize his crouched frame. His back is toward me, and his hand pressing a cell phone to his ear.
He's wearing a grayish hooded sweater, with a hint of lavender, black jeans faded to a ghostly white and shoes scuffed up and old. But his hair is cleanly spiked, shining underneath the hallway lights as if his hair was stolen from a golden statue. I see a glimpse of his eye-patch strap behind his head, and there's a little silver earring that I hadn't noticed before.
And then I see a thin red line.
Trailing from under his eye-patch strap and down the far end of his cheek. It looks painful. He's gripping onto his phone as if it was a stress ball, and his back's hunched over in semi-defeat. I have half the mind to go out and offer him a bandage or something to wash off the blood… But then Aniki, and Pops, and Blue Devil. My short shorts don't help. So I decidedly remain silent and quiet, watching him from safely behind my door until he disappears into his own apartment.
"I'm fine… Don't worry… Hah, g'night, Dr.P."
Thanks for reading. Please Review.
(++Revised May 5/07)