Devotion & Desire
Chapter 2 – Primping, Posing, & Partners
Written by: Oneiromancy

Disclaimer: I don't own FFX-2; or its characters.

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Rikku's alarm clock starts blasting "Move Along" by All American Rejects. The Al Bhed girl's eyelids pop open as she turns to her side and turns off her alarm. 5:30 A.M. Ugh, This day is gonna be so long. She pulls off the covers, jumps out of bed and stretches as she walks over and opens her door peering out her room. She looks at the door across her room. Closed. Good, no one's awake, especially him. She tiptoes to the bathroom and undresses to take a quick shower. She finishes and hurriedly dresses in her uniform. White collared shirt with plaid red and gray skirt. She puts on white knee-high socks. She blow dries her hair and quickly and elaborately works on her hair and makeup, in a matter of minutes she had her hair up in a ponytail with intricate braids and beads. She smiles in the mirror blowing a kiss to her self admiring her pink lip glossed lips.

She quietly runs back to her room and puts on her black platform shoes. She looks herself over in her full length mirror and twirls around. "Looking good, if I do say so myself." She laughs and does a couple of poses. Grinning, she grabs her bookbag and purse and steps out the room closing the door behind her. She glances down as a shadow moves about the other room. Crap. She quickly runs down the stairs and into the kitchen. Quick breakfast, quick breakfast. Uhmuhm. She grabs a banana and grabs the keys to her car. She opens the garage and throws her bookbag and purse into the passenger seat of her silver altima. She hops into the driver's seat, turns on the car, peels the banana and shoves it into her mouth, looking at the clock. 6:08 A.M. not bad. She turns up the volume as "Slow Down" by The Academy Is blasts from her speakers. She puts on her sunglasses as she backs out of the garage and heads for school.

She parks in her usual parking spot at the school. She looks around the parking lot as hardly any cars were parked. Ha, yah right. Who'd come to school before 7 on the first say of school? She sighs. Obviously, me. She looks at the clock again, 6:23 A.M. She adjusts her seat back. I'll just nap for a while. Hopefully Yunie won't get mad at me for ditching her. She drifts into a light sleep.

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Gippal's eyes flicker open when he hears the running water coming from the bathroom. He looks over at his clock, 5:37 A.M. I wonder who's up. He gets out of bed and fixes it. He opens his suitcase and goes through it, pulling out some gel, shampoo, and other bathroom accessories. He listens as the shower stops running and a blow dryer starts up. I guess I'll have to pass away time as someone's still using the bathroom. He starts taking out clothes and putting them in the dresser drawers. When he finished unpacking he hears the door across from his room close shut. Rikku? He heads towards the door and listens as he hears a girl giggle in the other room and say, "Looking good, if I do say so myself." He smiles. Same old, Rikku. He continues to listen as the door opens again. He could feel her presence on the other side of the door. He shifts away from the door and pauses as he hears her run down the steps.

He walks over to the window as he watches a silver altima pull out of the driveway. She's avoiding me. She never got up for school early when we were younger. He looks over at the clock. 6:08 A.M. He grabs his things and heads to the bathroom to shower and change.

He walks back to his room and throws the stuff on his bed. He looks over himself in the mirror. God, I look stupid. He attempts again to tie his tie, having no luck, gives up. He puts his hands in his pocket and feels something sticky. Ew, His eye widens and he pulls out his hand. Jelly? What the hell, Brother.

He grabs the bookbag from his suitcase and goes downstairs. I'll cook some breakfast for the others. He goes through the cupboards and finds everything he needs and all his ingredients. He makes some bacon and eggs. He places the food on the island counter. He puts some food on his plate and sits down on a stool. Ha, I'm such a good cook. He continues eating and looks up to see a girl standing in the kitchen doorway. She was a brunette with medium short straight hair. She walked closer, tilting her head, "Good Morning." She smiles sweetly.

Gippal stands up and smoothes his shirt, "Hi," he holds out his hand. "I'm Gippal." He looks at her eyes. One blue and one green. Interesting.

She takes his hand and shakes it, "I'm Yuna, Rikku's cousin, nice to meet you."

"Yah, I cooked some breakfast if you want some."

"Oh, thank you." He watches as she gets some rice from the rice cooker and scoops some scrambled eggs onto her plate. "First day of school, exciting, huh?"

He laughs, "Sure, I guess. What year are you?"

"I'm a senior."

"Oh, me too."

"Good, you met Yuna, my favorite niece." A voice comes from behind us.

I turned around, "Morning, Cid."

Yuna softly laughs, "You're only niece, good morning, Uncle Cid," Yuna smiles.

He plops bacon and eggs on a plate. "Have a good sleep?"

"Yah, the bed was comfortable."

"OOOOH, BACON AND EGGS," a screech comes from behind near the doorway.

A young man with a blonde Mohawk comes in and dumps the rest of the bacon and eggs on his plate.

"Ah, I see, Brother still has the same appetite." Gippal laughs.

Yuna laughs quietly. Cid lets out a hearty laugh, "Yuna, is Rikku up, yet?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'll go check." She gets up and leaves the room.

Cid turns to Gippal, "The school knows you're enrolling and have your past school records, so they'll tell you what classes you're taking."

Gippal nods, "Okay. Thanks."

"I'd expect to see you in my Advanced Al Bhed class."

Gippal chuckles, "of course."

Yuna walks back into the kitchen with a worried expression on her face, "She's not in her room, and she must've left early."

Cid frowned, "That girl, sometimes she needs to think straight. Okay, well, Yuna if you need a ride, Brother'll drive you. Cid turns to the clock, 6:53 A.M. "Dammit, I'm late. Hopefully, I'll get no tickets on my way to school. I'll see you all later, I have a meeting." Gippal watches as Cid rushes out of the room and hears the squeal of tires as he zooms out of the driveway.

Everybody finishes eating, Gippal places the dishes into the sink. Gippal was about to do the dishes when Yuna stopped him, "It's okay, you're the guest. I'll do them later when I get home."

Gippal smiles, "Thanks."

"WHAAAT?! No, Yuna, you never do the dishes. You're a guest too. Rikku will do them later." Brother said loudly.

Yuna smiles and shook her head, "Oh, really, I don't mind."

The three of them head to the garage. A nice shiny black sentra sits there. Wow. Brother has nice wheels. We all piled into the car. Brother driving, Yuna in the passenger seat, and Gippal was in the back. Brother turns on the car as Breaking Benjamin blasts from his system. Gippal looks out the window as they drove away from the house.

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Rikku awakes with a startle from someone tapping on her window. She looked up and grinned, waving at a tall girl with short silver hair. She adjusted her seat and looked at the time, 7:18 A.M. She grabbed her bag and purse, got out of the car, and locked it. "Hey, Paine."

"Morning, Rikku. You've got some drool on your chin."

Rikku blushes and wipes it away with the back of her hand. She rummages through her purse, pops a piece of gum in her mouth, and reapplies her lipgloss. They walked past the tree in front of Rikku's parking spot. "Hello Mister Tree." Rikku grins and looks over at Paine.

"Where's Yuna?"

"Oh, uhm. Yah, I left early without her. She's probably mad, but she'll never show it." Rikku took off her sunglasses and giggles silently to herself as she looks over at Paine trying to smooth her skirt down. Poor Paine, She so hates our uniforms. "Sooooooo, are you gonna talk to Baralai today?"

Paine shot her a look as they approached the school's door. "Rikku, do you need to lose respect points?"

Rikku's eyes widen, "NO! Sorry. I was just wondering. I wish I was in the same grade as you and Yunie. It sucks being young."

Paine raised one eyebrow, "whatever you say, Rikku."

Rikku giggles and opens the door and holds it for Paine. "Wonder if I weaseled my way into any senior classes." Rikku winks at Paine.

"We'll find out soon enough." They walk over to a bulletin board where everybody was crowded around. Paine watches as Rikku wiggles her way through the people and looks for their names.

Scanning through the names, Rikku finds which homerooms each of them were in. Leblanc. Crap. Paine and Yunie have Nooj. She laughs. That was some weird wedding they had. She scanned through the list. Gippal has Isaaru. Why did I just look for Gippal's homeroom? It doesn't matter to me. Rikku shakes her head and squeezes her way back to Paine.

Paine looks at her inquisitively. "You and Yunie have Nooj for homeroom." Paine nods.

"All right."

Rikku spots a tall blonde standing with a couple. Rikku squeals, "Look, its Tidus, Lenne, and Shuyin." She grabs Paine's arm and drags her to them. The girl jumps up and down, "Hi, guys."

Lenne hugs Rikku and smiles at Paine, "Hey."

The two almost identical blonde boys say "Yo," in unison.

Rikku grins, "Excited for the first day back? It's your guys' last year here."

Tidus smiles, "Of course, we're excited, by the way, where's Yuna?"

Rikku bites her lip, "I left early, sorry. She's probably getting a ride with Brother."

Tidus makes a face, then smiles, "It's okay, I have the same homeroom as her so I'll see her soon enough."

Rikku grins again, "I'm pumped to see my schedule maybe I have classes with you guys."

Shuyin laughs, "Rikku trying to force senior classes and yet still acts like a kid."

She pouts, "Hey, it's not my fault all my friends are older than me. Well 'cept Baralai." As she said his name she looked over at Paine and winked. Paine glares at her. Rikku giggles. "So of course I want to be in your guys' classes."

"You're most definitely in Advanced Al Bhed with us." Lenne pointed out.

Rikku grinned, "of course, c'mon. I'm the teacher's daughter. I'd better be."

"Plus you're Al Bhed." Tidus exclaims.

Rikku laughs, "Yah, no duh. Thank you, Tidus for pointing out the obvious," the Al Bhed trademark emerald eyes shining in merriment.

Rikku watches as Tidus produces a huge grin and walks away from the group, running up to Yuna as he hugs her and kisses her on the nose. Awh, they're so cute together. Ugh. I WANT THAT! Rikku continues to watch them as they walk over holding hands. "Hi, Yunie, I'm sorry about earlier."

Yuna smiles, "It's okay. You missed meeting Gippal this morning. He cooked breakfast."

Rikku plastered a smile on her face. "That's cool. I didn't even know he cooked." And all I had was a stupid banana. Poopie.

Lenne turns to Rikku, "Who's Gippal?"

Rikku rolls her eyes, "He's a guy my family knows, who's having trouble at home, so my Pop is letting him stay with us."

"Seems there's more to that." Shuyin pitches in. Rikku makes a face.

"What does he look like?" Tidus asks.

"I don't know I haven't seen him yet." Rikku exclaimed. "Plus it's been years since I last saw him."

Yuna chimes in, "He's tall, blonde spiked hair, with a patch on his right eye."

Paine looked past Yuna and nods in the direction, "Like that guy there?"

Everybody turns to look in the direction she was looking at.

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A/N: I'm always sorry if my dialogue and grammar isn't great. Feedback is always appreciated.