Chapter 3

...

Rikku shoveled her breakfast into her mouth like a wild animal while her dad watched silently.

"You've got your mother's appetite," he said after a long minute of silence. A small smile formed on his face as his daughter rolled her eyes.

"Dwad," she whined, her mouth full of cereal. "Doont shay depreshing tings whilsh em trieeng oo eep."

"Hmpf."Cid scratched the back of his bald dome and muttered, "You're sounding just like one o' them damn hypello!"

The now annoyed girl swallowed and scoffed at her dad, making sure to give him one extra eye roll before slinging her bag over her shoulder and rushing out the door.

"Be safe!" he called out just as she slammed the door. He sighed heavily, knowing she didn't hear his warning, but a second later, the door opened again and Rikku stuck her head back in.

With a smile, she said, "It's just school." Then, a little more enthusiastically, she chirped, "See you later!"

Gippal was waiting patiently for Rikku outside, and was wearing a navy blue baseball cap over his spiky blond hair with lightly scuffed, white vans.
He heard a door slam and grinned as Rikku came bounding down the steps, looking oh, so cheerful.

"Stuffed your face good and well at breakfast, didja?"

With a laugh, she punched him in the arm playfully, but hard.

"Oh, owww!" Gippal yelped, feigning hurt.

"Let's get to school already, you big faker," Rikku giggled, flashing him a bright smile before she suddenly stopped, looking down at Gippal's shoes with an expression of mild disgust.

"Vans are so outdated. And yours are dirty."

"Excuse you, Vans will never be 'outdated', as you say, and these beautiful babies are what one would call, "gently used"," Gippal retorted with a snarky undertone.

"Sure." Rikku rolled her eyes as she began walking ahead. Despite his passé fashion sense, there was something Rikku really liked about the way Gippal was so laid back and nonchalant about everything. She could be all in a tizzy over something, but then he'd respond to her as calm as ever. It was a contrast between the two of them that she had grown so used to. That certain trait of his also made it extremely fun to mess with him and see how much of a reaction she could get.

A little farther behind as Gippal trailed after her, his thoughts were still on her lovely smile, despite her recent insult to his choice of dress. 'If you only knew what you do to me, Rik. If only.'

With a loud clank! the shabby, white window hit the frame, allowing Yuna to temporarily hold it open.

She stuck her head out of the small pane and looked down to the front of her house where two very familiar people stood, arguing about something.
Smiling, she propped her head up with her arms and listened to them bicker while the chilly early morning air stole the color from her the apples of her cheeks.

"...Rik, if you hit me one more time.." the lanky boy threatened as he shoved his hands in his pleated school uniform slacks.

"What? You gonna make me paaay?" With rainbow colored beads in her hair that bounced around with her braids when she did, Yuna could easily identify the two.

'Of course. They are definitely unmistakable'.

Right before Yuna could call out, Rikku smacked Gippal on the back of his head and danced around him tauntingly.

"Rikku! E cfayn, cusadesac E naymmo lyh'd vnaygehk cdyht oui!" he shouted. "All you ever do-" (I swear, sometimes I really can't freaking stand you!)

"Hey!" Yuna intervened, "Did you two come here to stand in front of my house and argue, or did you come to pick me up?" She grinned.

"To pick you up, of absolute course!" Rikku called back.

"I'll be down in a minute, then." Yuna closed the window and rubbed her flushed, ice like cheeks and made sure to pull her favorite beige chocobo sweater over her uniform.

" You sure took your sweet ol' precious time, huh?" Rikku commented when Yuna came out of her house.

"Oh, stop it," she mock-pouted. "The both of you wasted a lot more time so completely invested in your lover's quarrel than I did coming down."

At this, Gippal's cheeks heated up, but Rikku simply glanced over at him.

"A-anyway, we'll be late if we don't hurry," he muttered.

Yuna gave Rikku a knowing look before prancing off ahead of them, as to say, 'He looooves you.'

"Shut up!" Rikku shouted, chasing after her friend.

"But I didn't say anything," she laughed.

And Gippal... poor Gippal just followed behind.

–-

Tidus slammed his the door to his locker, completely lost in thought as he shoved his textbooks into his messenger bag.

"My, my, my. What's got you in such a foul mood, Mr. Baroque?"

Tidus swiveled to face the Home Economics teacher, Ms. Dona Greene. Her boyfriend was Barthello, the gym teacher.

"Ah! Hey, uh, Mrs. Greene. You kinda startled me for a sec there."

"Oh, did I? I.. apologize," she replied, taking the time to trail her long, tan finger down Tidus' arm.

"My, what fine muscles for such a young man.."

'Even though she has a boyfriend', he thought with a grimace. Just the smallest touch from her made his skin shiver in repulsion. He watched as she licked her pursed, bright pink lips and battered her eyelashes seductively.

"Listen, Ms. Greene. I, uh.." Just then, Tidus caught sight of the recognizable orange hair sticking up in the large crowd of high school students, "have to go! Yeah, I have to go or I'll be late for class! See ya," he finished and darted off.
In four long strides, he managed to make it over to Wakka.

"Phew. Made it out of Grabby Greene's clutches again.. oh, come on!"
Tidus groaned as Wakka and Lulu didn't even stop their current make out session in front of the ginger-haired boy's locker.

"Wakka... Stop... People have to be staring at us by now," Lulu said heavily, managing to rip her mouth away from her boyfriend's for a few second.

"Nah, Lu. I guarantee you, no one... is paying any attention to us," he whispered, trailing kisses down her pale neck.

"Um, I think everyone is paying attention to you," Tidus relayed to the duo.

Lulu shoved Wakka away in embarrassment just in time to witness everyone in the hall quickly try to hide the fact that they were, indeed staring.

Some guys even patted Wakka on the back and said a couple "you lucky dog"s to him.

"No one is paying attention, huh?" Lulu said, her cheeks flushed red. With a huff of her breath, she spun on her heel and stalked off.

"Nice going," Tidus smirked.

"I know," Wakka muttered, still a little befuddled at Lulu's reaction. He never knew her to be that kind of easily embarrassed girl. He himself didn't have any issue with a little audience.

Tidus placed a hand on his best friend's now sagging shoulders, trying his best to be comforting. "Hey, if it makes you feel any better, she was probably overreacting. So cheer up, man."

'That's kind of what he gets though' Tidus thought, shaking his head as he walked with Wakka to their next class.

The ever-charismatic Baltheir confidently made his way down the semi-crowded school hallway, winking at every young maiden who dared to direct their gaze at him. Fran walked alongside him, taking notice of all the attention she was receiving from the other young men. She could just feel their eyes on her long legs as they moved briskly along, and her perfectly rounded bottom that swished back and forth with her movements.

"I don't like this," Fran declared with an annoyed sigh.

"I didn't think you were the jealous type," Baltheir replied, turning his head to look at her after giving one more girl a blush-inducing look.

"Not you," she rolled her eyes slightly, "these boys. They stare so much more and much harder than anyone in Ivalice. I can practically feel their eyeballs touching me."

Yes, Baltheir was already well aware of the eyes on Fran– his Fran– and mostly just from the guys who were already smitten with her. From the time they entered the school and until then he had been giving dirty glares to every soul who dared to ogle her.

"Well, it's just that they're so amazed by you, Fran.." he replied, trailing off just to glare at another guy for a moment. "Don't worry about it." He smiled his charming smile up at her, causing her heart to flutter a little.

Then, on the other side of the school, two fair haired blonds were in their usual heated morning bicker, and once again it was about nothing of importance.

"..Well, if you had just walked around it, there wouldn't have been any need for me to throw my jacket on the ground just for you to cross," Vaan remarked.

"The end of the puddle was halfway across the parking lot! The courteous, gentlemanly, and chivalrous thing to do would've been to just put your stupid smelly jacket over it so I wouldn't have had to walk a mile to get around," Penelo snapped back. She had been watching a few extremely cheesy soap operas last night and ended up being so taken with the idea of having a gentlemanly boyfriend, even if the two weren't dating.

"It wasn't a mile. You're exaggerating. And if my jacket's so smelly, then you shouldn't have any use of it," Vaan retorted, rubbing his finger across his nose and looking away.

"Ugh! Vaan, you are just–"

"So infuriating, I know," he finished for her.

Penelo rolled her eyes and hiked her bag up higher on her back.

"This is my class, so I guess I'll see you at lunch," she said, gesturing to the Math classroom.

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

Penelo huffed and stomped away as Vaan turned from her, brows furrowed.

'Geez, we argue about the stupidest of things' he grumbled to himself. It's not like he enjoyed fighting with Penelo, but more than often, it was just unavoidable. They were like two cats or something.

He was rounding a corner when he realized he didn't even know where his next class was.

"Of all the things to not know–"

––––––-

The day passed by rather quickly, 5pm quickly happening upon any unsuspecting person it could get.

"Lulu, if your boobs weren't so humongous.."

"Ouch! Rikku, you said the corset would look nice by itself, but all you're doing is making my breasts bulge out."

"Exactly! Your jugs are huge!"

A light blush came to the shapely girl.

Yuna and Paine just stood off to the side, Paine looking unimpressed, and Yuna with a funny grimace on her face.

"Maybe you should just play it safe with a T-shirt," Paine put in flatly.

Lulu's face burned even more as her hands grasped the top of the corset, attempting to pull it up.

"No, no Lulu. You're fiiine!" Rikku said. "It'll make Wakka and even other guys have the hots for you!"

"Look," Paine started, coming up to Lulu's side. "Wakka's already a pretty horny guy. Do you really think you need this," she motioned to the corset, "to 'seduce' him?"

"No..."

"Then just wear what you usually would and you'll be fine."

"Wow Paine, who knew you could be so wise?" Rikku snickered.

"Look, we're wasting time!" Yuna shouted from her position beside the window. A small group of young men could be seen walking down the street, nearing the house. "The guys are practically already here."

"Okay, okay!" Lulu took off the corset and replaced it with a hot red top that was just a taaad too tight in the front.

"Better," Yuna said with a smile.

The four hurried out of the house to meet the guys just as they arrived at the front door.
Wakka, of course, was the first to comment. "Sexy as ever, Lu," he said with a wolf whistle as he looked her up and down. Lulu did her lovely little flattered blush as always.

"Hey Gippal!" Rikku called out as they began walking down the street. "Aren't you going to compliment me, too?" She did a pose, showing off her orange crop top and black leggings- the ones she knew gave her butt a nice look.

"You look cool," Gippal replied without even really looking at her.

"Cool? And you didn't even look!"

Everyone ignored them and left them to bicker at the back of the group as they continued to walk.

Yuna and Tidus walked next to each other with Wakka and Lulu in ahead of them and Paine in the very front.

"You look especially pretty today, Yuna," Tidus said, with a handsome, eye-crinkling smile.

She gave a little laugh, her cheeks heating up a bit. She'd planned out her entire outfit and makeup in advance, having used a bunch of extra things like Rikku's Glowy Skin lotion.

"Thanks. You don't look too shabby yourself." She punched him lightly on the shoulder.

Tidus laughed too, swaying a bit at her little punch. "Gee, thanks."

Their hands knocked lightly against each other, but neither of them jerked away. Instead, it was Tidus first who hesitantly entwined his fingers with Yuna's. Then, just like that they were holding hands.

At this time, Yuna was distracted from thinking about the possibility of Tidus liking that other girl.

'His/her hand is so warm,' they both thought happily to themselves.

It wasn't much of a big deal, though they were not together. They hadn't even told one another that they liked each other.
Sigh. With these two, it'd probably be a while.

Shiva's and Geneva's, unusually, was packed full.

It was a miracle the seven were even able to get in, but the manager of the place was on very good terms with them.

"Why's it so crowded?" Rikku shouted over the music. "It's a Tuesday!"

"I don't know, maybe something's going on?" Tidus shouted back.

They all made their way to the bar, and upon arriving there noticed that Lulu and Wakka had already slipped away together.

Gippal began ordering a drink, but Rikku managed to pull him away to the dance floor just as the song, Otherworld-her favorite rave song-started to play.

Then it was just Yuna and Tidus, with Tidus trying to see if he could spot anyone else.

"Do you see them?" he asked loudly as he turned to her.

Yuna looked around, attempting to see if she could pick out any unusual looking people. She spotted Fran-how could she not? She was so tall-and pointed her out to Tidus.

"Over there!"

The two made it over to her and saw the rest of their group at a table as they got closer.

"Hey!" Tidus called out.

Including Fran, only two others were there, with Basch currently trying to get Ashe to put a jacket on over her saucy top.

Despite his best efforts, she simply shrugged him off and was the first one to wave at Tidus.

Yuna felt a surge of jealousy, but she hid it well behind her smile.

"So how do you like S and G's so far?" Tidus asked, blushing a bit at having Ashe wave at him. He leaned on their table close to her face.

Ashe called back, "It's very loud!"

"I know, right!?" Tidus grinned.

Basch looked at him warily, though he said nothing and just watched their exchange.

"You wanna dance?!"

"Okay!" Ashe quickly agreed, wanting to hurry up and get away from Basch, who was basically her stand-in father at that point.
Tidus stretched out his hand and helped Ashe to her feet, then lead her to the crowded dance floor.

And Yuna was left there, having been completely forgotten. She stared after the two, not only feeling hurt, but angry and jealous. 'How could he just take her and forget I even exist!?' Her face was on fire from embarrassment as she headed back to the bar. 'Did us holding hands just 20 minutes ago mean nothing?'

She ordered a raspberry sprite and sipped it in irritation. 'And what about saying I looked "especially pretty today"? What a... a... a jerk!'
Just then, the song ended and another one came on, "Too Late to Apologize".

"I love this song!" Penelo exclaimed, tugging at Vaan's shirt. "Come on, come on!"

"What?! But I don't know how to dance!" he said, trying to resist her.

"It doesn't matter! You just go with it!"

"Okay, okay!" he quickly downed the rest of his drink-they were at the other end of the bar-and let himself be pulled off to the least crowded spot of the dance floor.

They started off fairly slowly, Vaan repeating in his head, 'Just go with the beat, go with the beat, go with the-woah!'

Penelo suddenly turned her back to him and draped her arms over his shoulders, beginning to grind against him. Her moves were rhythmic, in sync with the song's beat.

Vaan blushed wildly, wondering what the heck she was doing. But he liked it, so he didn't try to stop her. Instead, he hesitantly let his hands come around to rest lightly on her hips as she continued to grind.

'I could definitely get used to this.'

Fran stood awkwardly by the table by herself, since Basch had left to keep an eye on Ashe, and of course she'd lost Baltheir at some point.

She looked around, trying to think of what she should do now that she was alone. She was perfectly capable of fending for herself, but she usually just went with whatever Baltheir was doing. So him not being there kind of left her confused and bored.

"Hi!" came a friendly voice from behind her. Startled, she whirled around to see a dark skinned guy with bright white hair who, of course, was shorter than her. "Would you like to dance with me?"

"Um..." Fran began, not really knowing what to do. "No..no thank you," she called down to him.

"Aw, why not? It's a shame to see someone as gorgeous as you just standing here all alone."

Fran blushed, looking away at the table for a moment. She still wasn't going to dance; that would be too awkward for her. "Thank you. I will not dance, but would you like to sit with me?"

The guy looked uncertain for a second, but it was quickly replaced with a smile. "Sure!"

As soon as they sat down, he reached out a hand to her. "I'm Baralai."

Fran shook his hand, smiling all the while. She was so glad she wasn't alone with nothing to do anymore, even if it was with someone she didn't know. Clubs just really weren't her.

"Fran."

"Nice to meet you, Fran."

The two talked for a while, managing to do so easily on the not-so-loud songs until Baltheir finally reappeared, drinks in hand.
His eyes immediately went to snowy-haired stranger, narrowing upon seeing him. He came over to the table and slammed the drinks down, saying to him, "Beat it."

"I was just keeping this fine lady here company. A better job than you were, I'm sure," the young man remarked with a smirk. He left without a fight though, throwing Fran a polite and charming smile over his shoulder.

Fran turned to Baltheir after Baralai had left, a frown on her face. She almost looked... mad at him!

"Why did you do that?" she asked piercing him with her gaze, her fist curling around the long sleeve of her lacy black jacket.

Suddenly feeling a bit nervous, Baltheir gave a dry little laugh, sliding the drink towards her. "Because he was bothering you. Here, I got you
something to drink."

Fran looked down at the cup for a while. "I don't want it." She looked back up at him, still frowning. "You disappeared, and then you chase off the only person who came to keep me company in this," she motioned all around her, "weird, loud place."

Baltheir sighed, feeling quite guilty now. He really hadn't meant to leave her alone, but some girls caught him and then he'd had a couple shots...

"I'm sorry."

That half-assed apology wasn't even for Fran to forgive him, and so he was ignored by her for the remainder of the night.

Paine wandered around the area near the club's backrooms, bored out of her mind. Some guys had offered to buy her drinks-which she accepted- and some had asked her to dance-which she most certainly turned down. She wasn't even going to come tonight, but Rikku had just insisted.

'I don't see the point in inviting me if you're just going to run off with your little boyfriend,' came her extremely disgruntled thought.

Suddenly, she bumped into someone, whom she instantly recognized to be Baralai, the governor's kid.

"Oh! Hi Paine!" he cheerily greeted her.

She recoiled from him and took a couple steps back.

"Baralai." She really hated that sleazy, shady, two-faced governor, and no less his son.

"It's funny to see you here. I didn't think you were one for clubs." He gave her a pleasant smile; he quite liked Paine.

"I'm not." She crossed her arms over her chest.

"I see. Do you want to dance with me?"

"No," she answered bluntly.

Baralai sighed, knowing he'd probably never get her to agree. "Okay... I'd like to spend some time with you, Paine. Won't you at least have a talk with me in one of the rooms?"

Paine looked warily at the rooms back there; they were there so people could make out and do everything else in private. She didn't know how she felt about that... 'But Baralai isn't one to try anything, right? And I'm not doing anything but walking around.'

She could just leave-she would rather have been home that night, curled up on the couch with a book in only her underwear and socks anyhow.

"Only for a little while."

"Great!" Baralai grabbed her wrist to lead her to one, but she immediately and almost instinctively yanked it back.

"I...I can walk there myself."

"Okay... I know you can."

So they went into one of the rooms and closed the door, ending the brief tale of the night.

...

A/N: I've suddenly had a renewed passion for this story that I hope will last and gain me new readers. Thank you for reading! :)