A/N: This is in regards to aura king's review about Serah, Snow, and Fang not being in the story: Serah was actually first mentioned in chapter 1, then finally appeared in chapter 4. Snow was mentioned in chapter 3 (not by name though, so it's understandable that no one has guessed about it yet). As for Fang—she does have a role, I'm just not sure when I'd be able to get to squeeze her in since other stuff have to happen first.
Thanks to H-thar, summerIIfire, Anti-Nihilist, sunflowerspot, Guest, final fantasy 7, The-Devil-Butterfly, and 7281 for commenting about the previous chapter(s).
Sorry it took a while for my jumbled ideas to finally come together for this chapter T_T
Chapter 11: Good Intentions Aren't Always Best Intended
From half-past three after school ended until the mall's closing, the Galleria was busy with students hanging out within its stores and food courts. Serah Farron was among the myriad, content simply with browsing and offering advice to her friend, Olette, who seemed to be in the middle of a life-altering crisis.
Inside a convenience mart, Olette held up two colourful boxes on either side of Serah's head.
"Which one do you think?" asked the brunette, lips pursed as she examined the hair dye cartons at arm's length.
Serah gave either boxes sidelong glances. "Which one what?" she asked puzzledly.
"Which one is closer to Marluxia's shade?"
"Hmm…" the rose-haired gave the question a careful consideration, then bumped her head on the box to her left. "This one."
Olette sucked in her cheeks as she brought the box closer to her, eyes darting back and forth between it and Serah's hair, then nodded, putting the other hair dye back on the shelf. "Alright, then. Thanks."
"No problem." Serah shrugged with a smile, tugging the chosen dye from Olette's grasp and looking at it closely. "You'll probably need to bleach your hair first, otherwise with your dark hair, this dye probably won't come out the same shade as advertised."
Olette wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, maybe you're right." Taking the box back from Serah, she read the directions at the back, a worried look clouding her features. "Do you think I should just go to the hair salon for this? They'd do a better job than a home dye, because, you know, they're supposed to and all."
"Yeah, it'd probably be better, but I think it depends on if you have money for it."
Olette put the box back on the shelf and retrieved her wallet from her bag, counting the gil. "How much for a dye job, anyway?"
Serah shook her head. "No idea. But we can shop around. There's bound to be a salon here at the Galleria that you can afford."
The brunette slipped her wallet into her skirt pocket, then took hold of Serah's wrist. "Let's go, then."
They marched out of the store to make their way to the mall directory. Olette, having fallen crazy in love with the idol, Marluxia, had been wanting to show her devotion to her crush by dyeing her brown locks into the closest shade of pink that she could find. She had been mildly jealous that her best friend, Serah Farron, didn't have to go to such extremes seeing as her own hair was already naturally pink. Weeks of making her own lunch instead of buying them at the school cafeteria, performing random paid chores, and saving her allowance and whatever gil she could pinch from various furniture around her house had graced her with a steady enough fund for her obsession. Other than the pink hair, Marluxia was known for following the gothic fashion trend, and so Olette had also decided to customize most of her everyday apparel and her school uniform with gothic flair—the latter with just some minor details here and there since she could get in trouble with the prefects if she should overdo it.
Leaning her cheek on Serah's shoulder, Olette released a lovelorn sigh. "He's so dreamy."
Serah bumped her temple on top of Olette's head. "You're over Roxas already? That means I can have him for myself, huh."
Olette squeezed Serah's wrist as she began to hop excitedly. "Oooh! Ooh! Ooooh! You should totally date that transfer student who looks almost exactly like him. Ven-whatzisname or something—"
"You mean Ventus?"
"Yeah!"
"Hmm…I don't know…I think I gotta hear him sing first, and then we'll see if he's good enough to substitute for Roxas."
"Oh, please. Nobody can ever substitute for Roxas," claimed Olette with an eyeroll.
Serah snickered. "I thought you're into Marluxia now."
"Oh, I am. I still love Roxas, don't get me wrong. But I'm willing to branch out now and try other fish in the sea. Roxas is great and cute and wonderful, but there's just something very alluring about Marluxia that I can't help but be drawn to him, you know?"
"Maybe it's because Marluxia's older and therefore should be more mature."
"Hmm-hmm. That could be it. I just absolutely fell for him when I saw his music video where he was twirling a scythe and petals were falling all around him." Olette sighed once again. "He was just so pretty." She pumped a fist in the air. "That's it. You and me are going to see him in concert one day."
Serah wrinkled her nose. "Hmm, I dunno. I think I'd rather see Roxas in concert."
Olette's mouth fell, feeling affronted that her new idol just got dissed by her friend. She let go of Serah and hopped forward, walking backwards so that she faced her friend as she readied herself to launch into a detailed tirade of the things that simply made Marluxia all kinds of wonderful. Not seeing where she was walking, and distracting Serah that the pink-haired wasn't able to warn her in time, Olette bumped into some sort of solid wall behind her before she could utter a single word.
"Oof!" said the wall, dropping a messy pile of what appeared to be papers and folders that it had been carrying.
Olette turned around, and both she and Serah looked up, and up, and further up, at the mountain of a man that seemed to be making his way down to earth to retrieve the pile that had fallen from his grasp.
"Sorry!" the girls exclaimed in unison, quickly crouching down and proceeding to help the mountain gather his papers.
Serah started, interest piqued at what she found on the sheets. They were drawings—mostly of women, she couldn't help smirking, some performing day-to-day normal tasks and some wielding various weapons, dressed in clothing that she could only (kindly) describe as...fascinating.
Handing the papers back, the mountain smiled and thanked them, about to rise back to his height, when Olette shrieked at him, eyes wide, with a finger raised and pointing at the mountain.
"Oh Maker! You have Marluxia's hair!"
"Huh?" responded the mountain, the hand not holding his papers automatically rising up and fingering the feathered pale blond locks.
"It's the same style, I mean," elaborated Olette.
"Ah. It's just the current fad, yeah? I usually wear a hat so I don't really notice it much." He barked out a laugh.
"You are, like, the awesomest guy ever."
The blond stranger's smile grew. "Because of the hairstyle?"
Olette nodded sagely. "Because of the hairstyle."
He chuckled. "Marluxia, huh? Wow." He cleared his throat, then held out his free hand. "Snow Villiers."
"Lumina," Olette introduced herself enthusiastically as she shook the proffered hand, causing Serah's eyebrows to rise and her eyes to widen at the sudden pseudonym.
Snow nodded, then offered his hand to the pink-haired, and she was obliged to introduce herself as well.
"Serah."
"Nice to meet you."
"Same."
The three rose from their crouch, Snow arranging his pile into some sort of order.
"So, did you draw all that?" asked Serah.
A sheepish grin stretched his lips. "Er, yeah. Just some practice and research, you might say."
"Oh? Research?"
"Yeah, just life in general. Or at least, you know, life in some semblance of normalcy or routine, and I figured this is a good place for that, since, you know, work would be a kind of routine. And there's lots of people working here, or on their way to or from work. And I'm trying to capture what would be a kind of comfort to be found from that, and—I'm babbling and I'm sorry."
The younger two laughed. "No, it's fine," said Serah. "It's fascinating."
"So you're an art student, huh," said Lumina/Olette.
"...yeah," said Snow.
"So, I guess we'll be able to see your work somewhere out there someday," said Serah
He laughed. "My work is actually already out there. I've had some pieces out; you probably might have seen them." All throughout, his expression was of a pride that he couldn't quite quell.
"Really?"
"Yeah, we're getting great endorsement for them. So, I guess you could say they're becoming popular."
"Just what kind of art is it?"
At this, Snow appeared to think, lips curling with mild bitterness as he recalled something. "Well, a certain someone called them 'not practical.'"
Serah nodded in understanding. "Oh, a critic wasn't pleased with your work."
A commiserating silence fell, and Lumina/Olette saw this as an opportunity to resume their earlier mission. "Well, I'm sure things will work out for you," she said, taking hold of Serah's hand and beginning to draw her friend away. "Sorry, but we gotta go. Also, sorry for dropping your stuff. It's been nice to meet you, though, Snow."
"Yeah, you, too. Sorry for talking too much."
"No worries," said Serah with a wave. "Good luck with your art."
"Thanks."
And then the three were swallowed up by waves of people heading on opposite directions.
After a few minutes of silence wherein the two girls were ambling away in the general direction of the mall map, Serah sent her friend a heavy sidelong glance.
Olette fidgeted beside her. "What?"
"'Lumina'? Where the hell did that come from?"
The brunette rolled her eyes. "He's some random stranger. You just don't give out your name to random strangers."
"O-kay, that's a fair point. But still, why 'Lumina'?"
Olette shrugged. "It just popped into my head at the time."
Serah's eyes narrowed. "It's from a Marluxia song, isn't it?"
Olette made a zipping motion over her lips and winked coyly at her in lieu of a reply.
The girls managed to find the directory and, after seeing the list of all the available hair salons that the Galleria offered, decided to simplify their search by staying in Galleria Building B and only going through five floors on their quest for the most affordable dye job.
But impatience got the better part of them after only two floors, and Olette finally settled on Beauty Is Only Scalp Deep, finding them to be the least busy of the salons they'd visited and managing to score a walk-in appointment immediately.
Serah figured it would take a while for the colour to be applied to her friend's hair and so called out that she was going to browse around the mall and would come back to meet up with Olette later.
She'd had half a mind to visit her sister, but seeing as Build-A-Moogle was all the way in Galleria Building A, Serah contented herself with simply ambling through the stores close to Olette's salon as, with how big the twin towers of the Galleria were, she actually hadn't had a chance to peruse through most of its shops.
There was a café adjacent to a bookstore, and though she found the aroma emanating from the place inviting, she couldn't help but be drawn instead to the store beside it: B&W Outfitters. From what she could recall, this was one of the places that the group that propositioned her sister for a modeling job, the House of Paddra, sold some of the clothing they'd made, and Serah, having been intrigued since that first time she'd heard of them, saw this as a wonderful opportunity to see what their clothes were like in person.
Inside B&W Outfitters, the walls were a soft, neutral white, nicely offsetting the racks of clothes and accessories that graced the walls and the floors. She browsed around, checking through the tags attached to the clothes.
Gullwings was one brand that seemed to Serah to be comprised of mostly skimpy stuff. There were a lot of outfits that had cutouts in the most interesting places, most of them running straight through from shoulder to heel, and Serah decided, as she turned to look at the racks on her other side, that whoever had designed these obviously did not think about underwear at all. Then, seeing what seemed to be some sort of—she could only surmise as a—swimsuit, or better yet, some sort of exercise outfit, comprising of a white sports bra over a fitted burgundy bolero that had ruffles down the sleeves with cutouts on parts of the arms, and a burgundy and white bike shorts—with the requisite cutouts down the sides—with a purple thong worn over it displayed on a mannequin, she had to rethink as this particular outfit showed that the designer very much thought about underwear...just inverted from the usual way it was worn.
She chuckled, amused, at the thought that sprang in her mind of her going to school with her underwear worn on top of her uniform and the scandalous commotion that was bound to cause with the prefects. Shaking her head, she trekked past the Gullwings' colourful display and found what she had been searching for.
Compared to the Gullwings, House of Paddra seemed rather tame—but only by a small margin. They had their share of skimpy skirts, but these were paired with either chaps or high stockings, a good portion of which were candy-coloured. Serah tried to imagine her sister modeling these, and her mind rewarded her with a picture of Claire's surly expression, glowering with distaste at what she had to wear, and Serah couldn't help but sputter out a quickly smothered laugh.
Lips curling wryly, Serah couldn't fault Claire for not having made a decision regarding the modeling offer. Perhaps it was simply not meant to be, even though it seemed like such a great opportunity.
Mindless of the time, she continued browsing until she received a message from Olette, shrieking at the picture that her friend included, and ran excitedly out to greet the former brunette at the front of the salon.
Hand in hand on Grand Avenue as they made their way home, Serah and Olette skipped and giggled, looking for all the world that they could be twins with their pink hair held up in side ponytails.
At just a little past seven in the evening, Grand Avenue was still bustling. Even though it was a school night, people flocked to the theatre at the Southern Block, since tonight the movie tickets were sold at a discount.
So it wasn't a surprise to see the streets littered with parked cars.
What was surprising – and the sight of it had Serah stopping in her tracks with her mouth hanging agape – was seeing her sister – and what the hell happened to her hair?! – getting out of the passenger-side door of one of those cars, followed by a familiar-looking silver-haired stranger from the driver's side, and the two seeming to be in the middle of an exchange.
It wasn't heated—at least, not in the usual use of the word, but there was certainly heat in the way their eyes met, in the smile that hovered on his lips, in the eyerolls Claire kept sending him that lacked their usual impatience and sarcasm, in how closely they stood together.
They were now at the back by the open trunk, and although Claire had crossed her arms and was shaking her head at him, with how these two were like together, those acts could almost be called coy.
Finally noticing Serah's sudden lack of movement, Olette was pulled from her daydreaming, turning to Serah and then to the direction that Serah was gaping at, and Olette let out a shriek.
"Maker! Is that your sister?! Oh, wow, her hair! Damn. She looks gorgeous! And—wait, is that her boyfriend? She has a boyfriend?! DAAAAAAMMMMNNNNN!"
Pulled from her stupor, Serah shook herself and quickly pulled Olette down to hide by the vehicle parked a few cars behind where her sister was.
"Shut up, Olette," whispered Serah, peering over to check if they'd been found, but finding that the two seemed to be too lost into each other to notice anyone else.
Olette raised her head and watched with Serah. "What's going on with your sister anyway? And who's that with her?"
"It's him," whispered Serah dreamily.
"O-kay, very helpful there, Serah." Olette turned to her friend, and was shocked to find Serah gazing at the silver-haired guy with star-struck eyes. She couldn't fault her friend for that, though—she found herself quite drawn in by his gorgeousness, and if she was faced with choosing between him and Marluxia...well, it wouldn't be a choice that she could easily make.
"I'll explain later. I need to find out what they're talking about." Serah half-rose and made her way closer to the two, Olette following behind.
"I'm going to be away for a few days, and it'd be a shame to waste these since they're perishable." They heard the guy say to Claire.
"So why don't you take them with you?" asked Claire in response.
He stepped back a bit and appeared to think, as though this hadn't occurred to him at all. "Well, generally, where I'm going, I don't usually bring food along."
At that, Serah and Olette stumbled from their hiding place.
Food?! thought Serah as she straightened, helping Olette up. This was about food? She didn't know why, but she felt foolish for her sister's sake. From far away there had seemed to be a lot of eye-sex and flirtation going on between the two, but coming closer it was disappointing to find out that they were having a discourse on who got to keep the food that seemed to be in the trunk of the guy's car.
For some reason, Claire was refusing him. And from what little Serah heard, he was going away somewhere. The younger Farron felt a sense of loss pierce her chest at the thought. Even though she didn't really know him aside from seeing pictures of him from the internet after that one time Claire mentioned him, and she was certain that he didn't know about her either, she knew that she couldn't allow Claire to miss an opportunity here—modeling, dating, it didn't matter which.
Serah squeezed Olette's hand, and the latter, from having known each other for such a long time, simply gave her a giant grin and a nod, showing approval at whatever plan Serah was concocting in her mind.
So Serah found herself hopping from her hiding place and throwing her arms around Claire, surprising the two who seemed to have had only eyes for each other.
"Hey, sis!" she greeted enthusiastically.
Following suit, Olette jumped from behind and also threw her arms around Claire. "Surprise!"
"Huh–what?" Claire's head turned this way and that, confused at suddenly seeing doubles, registering that the one clinging to her left side was none other than her actual sibling. And where Serah went, the other one usually wasn't that far behind. So the impostor that clutched at her back was... "Olette, is that you?"
"Yep! I love your hair, by the way."
"Thanks. You...wow, you really look like Serah now."
"Thanks. I did it for Marluxia, though."
"O-kay. Don't what that is, but good for you."
Serah exaggeratedly cleared her throat, drawing Claire's attention. The younger Farron pointedly nodded at Hope and wiggled her eyebrows.
Claire eyed her and took a deep breath, knowing that what was coming wasn't going to be good.
"Hope, this one here," Claire pointed to the girl draped on her left arm, "is my sister, Serah. The one behind me is her friend, Olette."
Serah held out a hand while Olette waved from behind Claire's shoulder.
Hope shook the proffered hand. "Hey there, nice to meet you."
"Nice to finally meet you too," said Serah in turn. Seeing Claire opening her mouth to retort over her emphasis of a certain word, Serah quickly steered the conversation. "I hope she's not giving you a hard time."
Claire narrowed her eyes. "Serah," she muttered under her breath.
"Not really," replied Hope with an easy smile. "I was pretty close to convincing her about something, though. Or at least, I'd like to believe I was close."
Serah was happy to play along. "Oh? What were you trying to convince her of?"
"Taking my share of some cakes and snacks."
"Oh, really." Serah turned to her sister with puppy eyes. "Claire, how could you. You'd deprive your baby sister of some yummy cakes and snacks."
Claire rolled her eyes at her act. "I'm already bringing home my share. That's more than enough for us."
"And I'm more than happy to add mine to your share," interjected Hope.
"We can't possibly—" began Claire, but Serah quickly drowned her out with: "Well, what about coming over to our place and sharing the whole lot that you both got? With the four of us, I'm sure we can work our way through all of that?"
Feeling Claire tense up beside her, Serah pressed on, unwilling to let her sister voice the refusal that she knew was coming. "So, what do you say, Hope? Would you like to stay for dinner?"
"Would you like to stay forever?" piped up Olette from behind Claire, who then elbowed her for that comment. "Ow."
"With an invitation like that, how could I possibly say no?" replied Hope, much to Serah and Olette's pleasure.
And Claire, too, Serah knew, though her sister would never admit it.
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy belongs to Square Enix.
APPENDIX
Olette – a character from Kingdom Hearts who shares the same English voice actor for Lumina, so yeah… *lol*
Marluxia – a Kingdom Hearts character whose hairstyle is similar to Snow's hair in Lightning Returns
Ventus – another character from Kingdom Hearts who happens to look exactly like, and shares the same voice actor as, Roxas
Beauty Is Only Scalp Deep – a quest in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn that unlocks the Aesthetician (allowing players to change their hairstyles, etc) when you complete it
Paine's Thief Dressphere – the Gullwings outfit that Serah was examining
"Would you like to stay for dinner/Would you like to stay forever" – said by Mulan and her grandmother, respectively, from the Disney animated version of Mulan
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Thanks for reading! Really interested in what you thought of this chapter (please let me know) :)
Aug/2015