This chapter is for Hidden By Shadow, for being the very first person to review my fanfiction writing :D. Also for the uncanny predictions left in the review haha.

Disclaimer: Still don't own FF8. Sad, I know.

"Please don't make me do this!" Clay was begging, and he was alright with that fact. He had tried threatening, screaming, and reasoning, and it was getting him nowhere. He was certainly not above begging as a last resort if it would get him out of this.

Kivan didn't even turn around. "No. And stop begging. It makes you look pathetic."

Clay pouted.

Xan glanced back at him. "Seriously dude, you'd think we were dragging you to your execution or something. All we're asking you to do is sit in the cafeteria for a couple of minutes. You do it all the time when you're stuffing your face with hot dogs."

"That's totally different! They're delicious! Orgasmic! This is unbearable!" He tugged uselessly on Kivan and Xan's grips on the sleeves of his brown leather jacket. He was quite literally being dragged through the Garden's hallways by his wrists.

Tom glanced at him from his right where he was blocking him in, preventing any possible escape. "Come on, man. Just think of it as a favor to us. It may lead to several orgasmic nights for us, as well. Think of it as paying your debt for all those times we bought you hot dogs."

Clay gaped blankly at him. "You're comparing sex to hot dogs?" He stumbled as he attempted to dig his heels into the smooth flooring and Cory shoved him forward from his position at the rear before piping up himself.

"Of course. They both involve cylinders slipping through buns, after all. Besides, I'd say you like hot dogs about as much as we like pretty girls." Then he realized what he had said and smirked at the unintended double entendre.

Clay glared at him. "What are you saying about me?"

Luke grinned from his left. "He's saying that your obsession with 'hot dogs' and your incredible reluctance to speak to hot girls inevitably leads us to reach certain conclusions about your sexuality."

Clay's voice nearly squeaked he responded so fast. "I am not gay!" He shouted, and a couple of seeDs walking by turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow.

Tom waved them off with a sympathetic, "Just ignore him." He turned back to Clay. "Alright, so if you're not gay, prove it. Come with us to talk to the girls."

Clay groaned. "Why can't I just go make out with one and be done with it?"

Tom shook his head, grinning. "Nope. It's gotta be this. So are you in?"

"Fine," Clay muttered, looking extremely sullen.

"Now that that's settled," they reached the cafeteria doors and Kivan turned to them, "let's get this show on the road."

One by one they moved their fists into the center of their little circle and grinned. Clay groaned. And then they turned and entered the cafeteria.

A blonde haired, blue eyed girl noticed their approach first. She not-so-subtly nudged the girl next to her, who in turn nudged Kit who was next to her. Kit glanced up and saw the approaching guys. She smiled a bit of a shy smile.

"Hey again Kit. Fancy seeing you here," Tom told her, grinning.

Immediately all of Kit's friends turned to stare at her and she flushed dark red. "Hi Tom," she muttered, pointedly not looking at her friends.

"Well, well, well," the blonde spoke up, her eyebrows raised as she examined Kit, "what else haven't you been telling us?"

Kit muttered something incomprehensible at the table.

The blonde rolled her eyes and glanced up at Tom with a large smile. "Well since Kit does not seem to be jumping to introduce us, I guess I'll do it. My name's Katie. And this is Liia, Ava, and Harper," she pointed at each girl in question as she spoke.

Tom grinned back at her and she flipped her hair over her shoulder. "It's great to meet you. I'm Tom and this is Kivan, Xan, Clay, Cory, and Luke." He gestured vaguely behind him, too focused on keeping eye contact with the blue-eyed beauty in front of him to really pay attention to his introductions.

"So," Katie tilted her head coyly to one side and coiled her hair around her index finger, "what brings you guys to our humble corner of the cafeteria?"

Tom ran his hand slowly through his hair, effectively disheveling it. "Clay and Kit apparently had some kind of run in before and he hasn't stopped going on about her since," well it wasn't exactly a lie… "So when he saw you guys in the caf he couldn't help but go and say hello."

Kit's eyes flickered to Clay and she raised one eyebrow. "Seriously?"

Clay snorted. "Don't flatter yourself, honey. He's confusing the word 'hello' with 'hate'."

She rolled her eyes, "Yeah, that sounds more like you. Are you always this obnoxious?"

"No, only when I- OW!"

Tom stepped on Clay's toes pointedly, cutting off his comment. He continued his conversation with Katie as though his obvious lie had not been unveiled. "It really is a shame that we're only meeting now," he told her with a charming smile, "I only wish we had met Kit sooner."

Katie was definitely charmed. "Why don't you guys have a seat? It would be good to get to know the people Kit's apparently been spending so much time with."

The guys began to take their seats and Kit and Clay stared at their respective friends, horrified.

"You can't be serious-"

"I'm just gonna head out-"

Kit got a sharp nudge to the side and Clay a swift kick to the shin.

Idle conversation started between the others, but Clay was busy watching Tom and Katie.

Tom flashed her a smile.

Katie fluttered her eyelashes.

Tom's eyes roved up and down her body.

Katie licked her lips.

Tom licked his own lips.

It was like something off of the Discovery Channel and Clay nearly gagged. He glanced at Kit and saw a similarly disgusted look on her face. She caught him looking and sent him a familiar glare. Honestly, he was getting a bit tired of her predictability.

"Great. Because of you my roommate's going to catch some incurable STI," she whispered fiercely at him from across the table, trying not to be overheard.

"Well because of you my roommate's going to get some super clingy girlfriend who will ruin poker nights!" He whispered back, just as quietly and angrily.

"Seriously? How lame can you guys be? Poker nights? Besides, Katie's not clingy and she certainly wouldn't waste her time dating anyone stupid enough to be friends with you!"

"It's not lame! 'Lame' is ridiculous girl nights with junk food and chick flicks and circling cute boys in magazines. It's just pathetic! Go out and get some from people as ugly as you and then you won't have to fantasize after guys who are totally out of your league!"

"Oh yeah? You can tell hot guys from ugly ones? Have you been using that skill when you populate your poker nights? It's all just beer, cards, and sausages isn't it?"

Clay leapt to his feet. "I'm not gay! Why does everyone keep saying that!" he shouted.

Kit struggled to keep her face impassive. "You know, my Uncle Irvine has a saying. The first time someone calls you a horse you punch him in the nose. The second time someone calls you a horse you call him a jerk. But the third time someone calls you a horse, well, maybe it's time to go shopping for a saddle."

At a loss for words, Clay just shouted, "You annoying bitch," and lunged at her. Tom and Kivan caught his arms and struggled to hold him back. That was the last straw for Kit. She burst out laughing, and was clutching her sides from the pain of her hysterics until Liia smacked the back of her head, which shut her up fairly quickly.

Clay was shoved down into Kivan's seat. Tom glared at him. "You and Kivan are switching seats," he told him sternly. "And you are going to leave Kit alone! God, what is your problem with her anyways?" He didn't wait for an answer, even though he was sure Clay certainly had one at the tip of his tongue, before returning to his seat to continue his eye sex with Katie.

Liia leaned closer to Kit and hissed angrily in her ear, "Listen Kit, there are six hot guys at this table who are interested in hanging out with us. Please just keep your anger in check and your big mouth shut for two seconds before you scare them off!" She turned away angrily.

Kit muttered, "Five," under her breath, but otherwise just leaned back sullenly in her chair.

Clay and Kit devoted themselves to being silent. Pointedly ignoring each other and the mating ritual between them, where Tom was currently feeding Katie fries, they even managed for a short amount of time. That was, until Harper suddenly spoke up, fingering the end of her long braid. "So you guys are in Kit's class, right? How do you find it? Kit says it's been super interesting so far."

All eyes turned to stare at Kit and she flushed red under their scrutiny. Clay chuckled at her embarrassment, but was fortunately out of her sight. She tripped over her words in her hurry to correct Harper. "No, I didn't say 'interesting', I said easy it's been easy, that's all. I mean, I really haven't had to put much effort in, so it's been pretty good. You know, relaxing and stuff."

Cory raised an eyebrow at her. "Level 12 weaponry engineering is relaxing for you?"

Kit opened her mouth to respond, but with only the sound of Clay's smothered laughter in the background, she couldn't really come up with anything to say. Katie jumped in to rescue her. "For Kit, yeah," she laughed. "She's like a super genius or something. She's really smart naturally."

If possible, Kit's face turned an even deeper shade of red. "I'm not a super genius! Seriously! I just- well, I've got a lot of really talented family members. My parents and my uncles and aunts all teach me this stuff outside of class as well. They want me to be prepared because they're so paranoid after the war and stuff. So it's easier for me because I already know most of it."

Clay rolled his eyes at the other end of the table. "So basically," he began scathingly, "you're saying that you're not actually smart, but because your parents are famous, the instructors give you better grades?"

"Clay," Tom warned, but was cutting off by Kit, no longer embarrassed, but furious.

"No, I'm saying I put in extra work outside of class to get my grades. The fact that I have parents who want me to be able to defend myself does not make me 'favored'. It's because I work hard and put in effort that instructors like me."

"Uh huh," Clay rolled his eyes, "I'm sure it's all because of your 'hard work' and has nothing at all to do with the fact that you're Kitiara Leonhart that every instructor wants to kiss your ass. You have nothing to do with your marks. You get special treatment because of your parents and then you come amongst us lowlifes to simultaneously gloat while pretending not to see it. You think you're better than us because of who you are and I'm sick of people tripping over themselves to help you while you go around and pretend like this is all your doing."

Kit leapt to her feet. "Yeah, you're totally right Riley. I'm sure the fact that you're failing has absolutely nothing to do with you being a lazy, stupid, arrogant student and everything to do with you being the orphan charity case of Garden!"

Clay was stunned. Everyone else at the table had their mouths gaping, staring at him. He briefly wondered how she could possibly know about his heritage, when he had told no one and then remembered who she was… and where she lived. With all of the Garden's files.

Rage flooded him and he flew to his feet, lunging over the table to attack her. Food went flying and someone screamed. Clay and Kit landed in a tangle heap on the floor, fists flying, bodies rolling. They crashed into the neighboring table and sent it toppling over. The seeDs there leapt to their feet, crying out. One of the teens cast a fire spell and missed, exploding a hole in the wall. Their friends flew after them, screaming and struggling to separate them without getting a foot to the ribs or a fist to the face.

Suddenly, there was a giant bang, and Clay and Kit were at opposite ends of the room, both panting and glaring at each other. Clay had a black eye forming and was clutching his ribs. Kit had a bloody lip and was holding her wrist at an awkward angle. Between them stood Zell, looking so furious, every single person in the cafeteria shrunk back in fear.

He advanced on Clay, fists up. "What the hell do you think you're doing? This fight is over. Go and see the Commander now!" He raised his fist to point at the door but Kit quickly caught his arm from behind and pulled it down. He turned to her.

"Don't you dare Uncle Zell," she said fiercely, her hair disheveled and a glint in her eye.

"Sweetheart," he muttered gently, smoothing her hair, "you deserve better than this. Let me handle him."

But Kit was already shaking her head. "This is my battle, Uncle Zell, and I will finish it myself."

He glanced slowly between her and Clay. Finally he sighed. "Fine," he told her, "but if your father asks, I was never here, alright?"

She nodded.

Zell turned and, with one last glare at Clay, left the room. Immediately, Clay and Kit turned to face each other again.

There was a heartbeat of stillness where everyone in the room held their collective breath.

This time, Kit made the first move.

Hours later, Clay lay in his bed, glaring at the ceiling, wondering how he had gotten into this mess. He had two matching black eyes, three cracked ribs, a twisted ankle, and one of his eyebrows had been singed off. And yet, he was not laying in the warm infirmary, being gently cared for by Dr. Kadowaki's hot assistant, Dr. Jones. Instead he was on the hard dormitory mattresses with an uncaring and not attractive (whatever anyone said about his sexuality) Tom.

Eventually, all of the screaming had caused enough of a ruckus for Xu to come by and see what was going on. She quickly ended the fight and sent them both to the infirmary with a word. Once they got there, however, it had only taken a few minutes for the fighting to break out again with renewed vigor. Dr. Kadowaki decided only one of them could stay. And, being the biased bitch she was, she chose Kit. Sure, she claimed it was because Kit's injuries were worse, but Clay knew the truth.

It was all because she was Kitiara Leonhart.

Okay, I know I know, I'm two days late on this update! Don't kill me! I got some serious writer's block on this one. I rewrote the beginning three times. Painful. For those of you I haven't told, I am planning on updating every weekend. I have chemistry, calculus, and physics this semester so I really have no time to write on weekdays, but I should be able to take a couple hours on the weekend to get the next chapter done. Thank you for your patience and for reading! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter :). Kit and Clay are a blast to write!

We're now up to SEVEN reviews on only three chapters! You guys are amazing! Please keep it up, I love hearing your thoughts and opinions on these wacky characters!