Hey everyone! I guess no one expected this, huh? It has been two years since my last update on this story! To be honest, I had pretty much forgotten about it. A few weeks ago though, a good friend reminded me of it and told me I had to finish it. And since then it's been on my mind. So hopefully I will be able to finish it now! For her, myself and anyone of you who still had an interest in this story :)

In addition, I have also gone back over the first nine chapters. Taking out some errors and adjusting several minor things I just couldn't agree with anymore. It's been quite interesting for me to see how my writing style has changed over the years. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this story and encourage me to finish it! Thank you everyone! ^^

Chapter 10
In the Midnight Rain

Tidus' POV

Ouch, I haven't felt this bad in a long time.
My body feels heavy, my head feels like it is about to burst, and I have this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Where am I, anyway? Did I do what I think I did? My brain hurts…
The only thing that's getting through to me is the sound of rain falling and the cold stingy feeling when it hits my face.

I tried to get up several times but everything felt so heavy I could hardly even move. How did I even get here? Did I go to a club and get drunk? And worse... did I kiss some random girl?
Oh man, I'm so stupid! I would like to hit my head against something, but I can't even lift it.

I wish there was someone here… But it's like I've chased everyone away. I could've taken Wakka to this party (he'd have killed for that), I got mad and blew off Dona for apologizing (OK, she had it coming), and Yuna… I guess I should've told her how I feel. …Now she's interested in this Gippal-guy, and after what I did… How am I gonna face her?

I coughed a few times. Lying on the sidewalk in the rain in the dead of night couldn't be very good.
"I have to get home," I said to myself, but I still couldn't find the strength to do so. I felt close to passing out again. The last thing I thought of was the last thing I could say…
"Yuna…"

. . .

"Tidus..?"
"Uuugh, five minutes more…"
"Wh-What? Are you… are you alright?"

I moaned as I tried to wake up. Everything felt even worse than before… Was I still in the same place? I must have fainted again. I slowly opened my eyes and stared directly into a pair of green eyes. Or were they blue? No wait, definitely green. Or maybe… blue and green?

"Y-Yuna!" I exclaimed. I shot up but fell back in pain.
"Wh-What are you doing here?" I stammered disoriented.
"I could very well ask you the same thing," Yuna said.

Yuna had squatted down next to me and had a worried look on her face.
My mind suddenly flashed back to the party and the girl.

"Ah, I-I'm sorry, Yuna. I'm really sorry."
"Sorry about what?"
"I'm so stupid, I.. I did something I didn't want to and now I, I don't think you—"
"Just calm down," Yuna said quietly.

I squeezed my eyes together in pain, my head hurt so bad it was like a shoopuff was jumping on it.
Apparently Yuna noticed, as she gently placed her hand on my forehead. Good thing it was dark, cuz I felt my cheeks warm up.

Yuna's POV

I'm not sure why I just put my hand on his forehead, but he seemed to be in a lot of pain. I guess I hoped it would make him feel better.
But how did he end up here like this? And what was he just apologizing about? I had a lot of questions, but he was the first to ask one.

"Why are you here, Yuna? What time is it?"
"It's around 0:25 AM. " I laughed. "I wasn't feeling so great so Rikku and Lulu took me to see a movie to cheer me up, which ended late."
"To cheer you up…?"
"It's nothing, really. Let's get you home, unless you enjoy lying there in the rain."
"Not really," he groaned.

Tidus managed to get up a little bit. Eventually I helped him on his feet and he leaned against me for support. It seemed he had a bit too much to drink. And his clothes were soaking wet. Nonetheless I tried to hold the umbrella I brought over his head as well.
"So, what was up?" he asked as he slowly started walking, still leaning on me.
Though it rather felt like I should be the one asking questions, I answered anyway.

"Well, someone I thought liked me turned out to be using me in the end."
"Gippal-guy?" he guessed.
I laughed. "Yes, Gippal-guy."

"But really, how did you end up here like this?" I asked.
"I guess…" he seemed to be giving this a lot of thought, "…I got drunk."
I chuckled a bit sheepishly. No really?
"And you passed out?" I continued.
"Yeah," Tidus scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.

"Hey, but wait!" Tidus nearly lost his balance as he tripped over a protruding stone. "Gippal-guy… was using you?"
"Well, yes. But it wasn't really that big a—"
"What an idiot…" he interrupted.

I smiled. Somehow it made me feel a lot better to hear him call Gippal an idiot. I guess it almost was like Tidus was standing up for me again.

We continued to walk home at a short pace. Even though it felt like I had a lot of questions earlier, I couldn't think of anything else to say now. So we just walked next each other in silence, until Tidus suddenly stopped in his step. I looked at him questionably.

"Yuna?"
He had an unfamiliar serious tone in his voice. It made me a bit nervous.
"Y-Yes?"
"I'm an idiot," he lowered his head a bit.
I gave him a surprised look. Why would he say that?

He started coughing a bit. "I.. eh.." he seemed to want to continue, but his sentence ended with something else.
"I.. don't feel so great." He bended through his knees somewhat and was trying to catch his breath. He closed his eyes in pain.
I dropped the umbrella and quickly placed my hands on his shoulders. He looked ready to fall over again any second.
"Tidus?"

Suddenly he leaned in against me and rested his head over my shoulder. I gasped silently in surprise. Was he fainting again? Suddenly I could feel him put his arms around me and pulled me closer to him. My breath got stuck in my throat. What was he doing? A strange feeling rushed through my entire body and my heart was racing in my chest. I couldn't believe I was this close to him. Close enough to feel his warm slow breaths against my neck. Close enough to feel his heartbeat.

He was shivering. Without really thinking about it I put my arms around him as well and rested my head against his chest. We just stood there for a while, the rain peacefully clattering around us as it hit the ground. By now we were both soaking wet. And when I thought for a second how strangely romantic this was, I felt a warm fuzzy feeling in my chest and a smile spread over my face. I closed my eyes for a bit and cherished the moment.

Just a few seconds later, Tidus let out a rather humorous moan, and I was brought back to the reality of the situation. I couldn't help but laugh, could this moment possibly get any more awkward? As soon as that thought crossed my mind, Tidus let out another unpleasant moan, turned away from me as quick as he could… and threw up a bit on the sidewalk.

"Oh, gross!" was the outburst I couldn't suppress.
Tidus stood bent over, his hands on his knees, spitting some more on the sidewalk. Not the most charming situation I'd ever seen him in.

"Are you okay?" I laughed.
To my surprise, Tidus let out a chuckle. "Yeah, I'm… all good."
He spat once more and slowly got back up. His normally nicely tanned face now seemed a little pale.
I laughed again. "We really need to get you home."

I grabbed my umbrella that I had dropped on the ground earlier and held it over him.
"Silly goose," Tidus muttered.
"What? After all this, you're calling me silly?"
"We're as wet as a dog! What good is the umbrella gonna do now?"
"Uhm…"

About 10 minutes later we had reached our houses. I walked with him to his and helped him open his front door. He looked at me with weary eyes. For a split second I thought he was going to lean forward again, but he didn't.
"Thanks," he muttered.
"It's okay. Just dry up and get some rest now, alright?" I smiled.
He nodded and closed his front door behind him.

I walked back to my house and went inside. I decided to take a quick shower before going to bed to warm up again. As I stood in the shower, I listened to how to water clattered on tiles, just like the rain had hit the pavements outside. It was peculiar. After all this time of being afraid to reach out to Tidus, it was surprisingly easy when he was hardly conscious. I laughed a bit. How sad was that?

The next Monday Tidus didn't show up at school and didn't seem to get out of his house. Rumour had it that he had mysteriously come down with a cold. Which was not much of a surprise.

I laughed as I talked to Rikku and Lulu about it in the hallway. "Even if he hadn't taken a nap in the pouring rain and come down with that cold, he'd still have one hell of a hangover."
"I still can't believe you just found him drunk and passed out on the street, Yunie. That's just too weirdish!"
"Weirdish?" Lulu commented her on her grammar.

As usual, Rikku ignored Lulu's stoic comments blissfully.
"You should be glad he didn't make any passes at you!" she went on. "Trust me, drunk guys are damn weird!"
"Not weirdish?" Lulu called her on it again.

He did actually make a pass, I thought to myself. Or well, at least I think he did. I hadn't really given much thought to his intentions before. Now that I did think about it, I felt somewhat saddened to realize it might have been a mere result of his drunken slumber. It could be that he doesn't even remember. Or maybe it had nothing to do with me at all, he might just have well clang to Dona if she had been in front of him. Ugh, Dona. My face went sour at the thought of her.

"You look like you're biting down on a lemon." Rikku aptly commented.
I laughed, "Yeah, I suppose so."

I put the smile back on my face. I didn't really intend for these thoughts to bring me down today. Either if they were of the utterly annoying bump in the road, snuck-up little twerp-person that was Dona, or Tidus' questionable intentions that night. Today was not the right day. Since today there was another discouraging matter all together: Today, was test day. Yay!

A math test was treacherously waiting for me behind the next door. Ready to do my head in with incomprehensible equations, calculations and complications… Oh great.

Tidus' POV

"OW, OW, OW! MY HEAD!" I yelled out.
"Sheesh! Relax already, ya?"
"You're making it worse!"
"No, no, no! The coach showed me this before, ya? If you have intense headaches, it is because you hold a lot of tension in your neck! Just lemme fix it for ya!"
Wakka was ruthlessly massaging my neck and shoulders.
"NOOO, cut it out!"

I could easily tell him that my headaches had nothing to do with any kind of tension in my neck and had everything to do with alcohol, but I had a hunch he'd laugh at me so hard my head would burst. Was it even normal to still have this much of a hangover two days after…?

"Fine then, suit yourself!" Wakka gave up and sat himself down on a chair. "Just as long as you go back to school and blitzball practice soon, ya? That's important!"
"Alright, ma." I curtly replied.
"Good! …Wait, what?"
I grinned.

"So, how was that party Saturday, eh?"
"Nothing special," I said a bit too fast.
"Oh, so something happened! Spill the beans, blonde-boy!"
"Blonde-boy?"
"You got so many nicknames for me, thought I'd return ya the favor! Anywho, answer already!"

"Oh well, you know. Lots of music, lots of beer, lots of girls..."
By now Wakka stared off into the distance drooling as if he saw the gates of Heaven open up in front of him. But then I suddenly remembered something that made me feel as nauseous as I must have been on Saturday.
I kissed a girl and I didn't like it…

And I know Yuna helped me get home, but that's about all I know. Oh man, I hope I didn't do anything embarrassing. I stared out in front of me, realizing a second too late that if I did that too long…

"Yo, wake up!"
"OUCH!"

…Wakka would knock me on my forehead to see if anyone was home.

"Don't do that!"
"Oh right, sorry, ya?"
I groaned.

"So eh, I still need your help getting Lu, man."
For a second I felt like telling him to give up. Lulu wasn't into him at all. He had been trying for weeks to simply ask her out, but nothing came of it. But then I guess I wasn't much different with Yuna. After about a month or so, even though I see her at school almost every day and she lives next door to me, nothing came of that either. I wanted to get to know her better and I wanted her to know me. I guess I wanted all that Wakka wanted with Lulu, too. I wanted her to be mine.
"I'll need your help too, then."
"Wha?"
"There's someone I really like."

W00t, the end of chapter 10! Finally Tidus has put his feeling into words.
I totally didn't mean to end this chapter here though. But I was just writing what came to me and then I realized this would be a nice point to end the chapter. So it might have turned out a little shorter than I intended, but I will start the next one soon.

Remember to send me a message/review or something when you think I'm taking too long.
I hope you enjoyed it!

See you soon!
~Saekaeru