Hi guys! Well...I honestly don't have much to say now, other than thank you for reading this story and I appreciate you guys for keeping up with it! =)

Happy reading!

Of Blitz Stars & Praetors

Chapter Three: Day & Night

Baralai

Words cannot describe how wonderful being back in Bevelle is.

It's not as if Luca was the worst thing possible, it's just that Bevelle has so much more to it other than Blitzball, or partying from night to day.

"Baaaabe," Rikku's whiny voice brought me back to my attention, "do we have to eat dinner with your parents? You already know your parents don't like me very much."

"Yes," I replied sternly, "it's not like it's going to be a daily thing, they're leaving in two days to head back to Luca."

"But you have no clue how scary it is when they just look at me," Rikku pouted, "it's like their eyes are burning into my soul."

My parents are very judgmental with people outside of my family, which brings me to the reason as to why they don't really approve of Rikku. First of all, they see Rikku as a spoiled young heiress due to her being the daughter of Cid; second, they do not like the way Rikku dresses with her short shorts and tight tops; and third, Rikku's not exactly the brightest chocobo in the herd.

"It's okay, it's just one night." I smiled at her and gave her a kiss on her forehead.

"Fine," Rikku still had a pout on her lips but giggled when I kissed her, "well, I'm hungry, can we go get something to eat?"

. . . . .

"Ugh! I cannot believe her." Rikku muttered as she looked down on her phone screen and sipped her smoothie.

"What happened?" I asked her, giving her a puzzled look.

The two of us were sitting at this quaint smoothie shop by the beach after having an exhausting day at the amusement park. During the entire time spent in the amusement park, Rikku was sort of in a cranky mood and I had yet to figure out why.

Rikku looked up from her phone and stared at me, her upper lip curled and a small crease apparent in between her eyebrows, "Yunie is just being ridiculous right now!"

Yuna is Rikku's best friend of six years. I've never really had the chance to meet her before because I was just so wrapped up in a plethora of activities back in high school. However, I'd seen tons of pictures of her and Rikku during their wondrous preteen years (brace face and all) up to just last year. Rikku had only told me good things about her before like how she won a contest for this or for that, or how she's guaranteed to be valedictorian or student body president. Whatever it was, it was always about praising Yuna. Hearing Rikku going on a tirade about Yuna was something very unusual for me.

"How?" I cocked an eyebrow up in interest.

"I told her to stay away from him, I warned her so many times," Rikku ranted, although appearing as if she's talking to herself.

"Who?" I asked, I couldn't help myself but just be so amazed at the idea of how irked Rikku was with Yuna.

"My dumbass brother," Rikku rolled her eyes and continued, "he decided to follow us to the beach two weeks ago and he made the moves on Yunie and Yunie fell for it.

"Yunie's excuse was that he kept insisting they go out sometime and he kept bugging her about it."

"Oh," I had no clue what to say, "but doesn't she know about his reputation?"

"Yeah!" Rikku nodded her head for emphasis, "I mean, I told Yunie everything about Tidus but she's still hanging out with him and stuff!"

Rikku let out a sigh in frustration and a small tear rolled down her cheek.

"Yunie promised!" Another tear rolled down her cheek and I was completely dumbfounded.

I've never really been there when Rikku cried. Hardly does Rikku ever cry, actually. Before I had left for Luca, Rikku was always happy and cheerful, never did she have a bad day. Even on the day of my departure, Rikku didn't cry one bit. Instead, Rikku just gave me a hug and kiss on the cheek and whispered in my ear, "Be safe, love you!"

Rikku's emerald eyes were trained on her smoothie and her once angry expression had now shifted to a more vulnerable one.

I was speechless. In these two and a half years of our relationship, I had never been confronted with a moment like this.

Ever since Rikku's brother had come to town, Rikku's been acting quite strange.

I've only seen Rikku's brother twice since my arrival a month ago. I must admit that he was a rather...interesting person. He was really friendly to me and he gave me a handshake when he introduced himself to me as "Tidus, star player of the Zanarkand Abes". His values quite obviously do not correlate to mine what-so-ever, however, he was still a guy that was easy to get along with.

Knowing that a girl like Yuna fell for Tidus' wit and charm, nonetheless, struck me as quite odd. It's not that I cared whether or not they were together or if they were planning on getting married anytime soon, it just sparked my curiosity a tad bit.

From what I was capable of analyzing from Tidus, his charm is basically translucent. If you were smart enough to look through this "charm" of his, you would see right then and there what he wanted out of you. When I add all the wondrous things Rikku had said about Yuna to that, it just didn't make sense. It was as if I was dividing an equation by zero. Maybe it was because I had higher moral expectations for Yuna or maybe it was because Yuna isn't really as Rikku had consistently explained her to be. Regardless of the case, it was none of my concern and I had no business to interfere, even if it did hurt Rikku.

. . . . .

Dinner with my parents didn't go as badly as I had expected. Rikku was quiet most of the time and she only talked when she was addressed.

At the end of that hour, my parents kissed me good bye and Rikku and I decided to just hang out at her house for the time being.

There was nobody in her house, to my relief. We took advantage of it and decided to just watch S.V. in the living room, on high volume. It had taken us a while to finally settle down on one channel, and we ended up watching this hilarious cartoon that made me, and even Rikku, laugh.

It felt as if a weight had been carried off my shoulders when I saw Rikku laughing again, however it all came crashing down with ten times the force when Rikku and I heard a couple of giggles outside and the sound of the front door open.

The expression on Rikku's face hardened as she pried her eyes off the S.V. and onto the entryway. Yuna was the first to enter through the door with a huge grin plastered on her face. However, when she saw Rikku and I, her smile automatically faded away. Tidus then slowly came up behind her and placed his hands around the front of her waist with a grin on his face.

"Hey Rikku...and Baralai!" Tidus greeted, his grin unwavering.

Rikku let out a grunt in response and her eyes narrowed into slits.

Yuna then looked down on the floor beneath her and started to fiddle with the hem of her shirt.

Rikku mumbled out a "whatever", rolled her eyes, and looked back at the S.V. She crossed her arms firmly above her chest and I knew she was paying attention to anything but whatever was happening on the S.V. screen.

"So watcha guys watching?" Tidus asked as he found a seat on the opposite side of the couch and set Yuna right next to him.

Tidus then turned to Yuna and gave her a grin before he placed one of his hands on her exposed thigh. His fingers were curved around her inner thigh and his thumb caressed the top of it.

This gesture caused Yuna to blush profusely and completely turn the opposite way of me and Rikku.

Tidus had a huge smirk on his face and kept his eyes trained on the S.V. with occasional glances to Yuna.

Rikku, on the other hand, was basically fuming with anger. She let out an exceptionally loud sigh before she stood up from her seat on the couch and briskly walked up to her room upstairs.

The entire living room got even more tense than it had been before and even after Rikku marched her way upstairs, Tidus still continued to stroke Yuna's thigh.

I had no clue what to do. I wasn't sure whether or not to follow Rikku to comfort her. I even felt like I was about to sweat just thinking about what to do in this predicament.

"Just leave her alone, she's probably just on her period or something." Tidus said to me. He gave me a shrug and crooked smile before turning back to look at Yuna.

With that, I decided to relax into my seat and follow Tidus' advice.

I still had the slightest feeling in the back of my head that I had made the wrong choice.

In the end I figured out it was one of the worst choices I could have ever made.

Hey guys! =) sorry for the late update again )= I guess I'm just a really slow updater overall. I'll try my hardest to update as fast as possible for the next chapter! It's pretty early in the story but I had a writer's block with Baralai's chapter for some strange reason and therefore causing this chapter to be up really really late.

Well I hope you enjoyed it!

-igmv