H'lo there, cyber-buddies. I have the next chapter right here just for you!
And see? Didn't I promise it would be out much faster than the last one? See, I am a good person!
Leon pulls up in my driveway, right behind my mother's convertible. Hmm, so it seems she's home now. Though I know she's not going to be here long, since her car is parked outside, instead of in the garage. She's a busy bee, that woman.
After Yuffie finally managed to get Leon out of the crowd and away from his high school buddies, she called me and I left Riku sitting in the library. We road to Yuffie's house first so she could grab the outfit that she had carefully picked out last night. She decided to change and primp up at my house. And I agreed, so she could help me pick something to wear, since I hadn't thought to pick last night. Obviously she's taking this more seriously than I am.
It had taken a great deal of begging and bargaining to get Leon to drive us to their house and then to mine, when he originally wasn't even planning on giving us a ride. Yuffie and I now have to wash his car for him sometime this weekend, which I don't really mind doing. At least we're getting a ride to the party in Cloud's car. But that also means that we have to ride with the evil being that is Tifa. Cloud had mentioned something about her being completely psyched about Hayner's party, which was an indirect way of saying "Sorry, guys, but my evil stuck-up girlfriend from hell that totally thinks Kairi wants me is coming to the party with us. Hope you don't mind." But that was indirect. Or how I took it, at least.
When Yuffie and I enter the house, the strong smell of coffee fills my senses. The first thing I hear is the television. The second thing is an irritatingly, overdramatic sigh that's so irritatingly over-dramatic that it's got whatever Lifetime movie my mother is watching beat in the drama department. Believe it or not. And that can only mean one thing. Rita. My mother's annoying friend that has such a dramatic life that she might as well be a Lifetime movie. Remember her? I'm sure I've mentioned her before.
Yuffie glances at me and laughs at my facial expression. She knows Rita, and is sadly familiar with the Rita Sigh. We walk into the front room and my mother is on the couch with Rita next to her. There's coffee on the coffee table (which makes sense) and a box of tissues on the arm of the couch closest to Rita. Coffee, tissue, and Lifetime Movie Network. That must mean that my mother and Rita are having, what I like to call, their therapy session at the moment.
I spot Rita's son, Tidus, in the armchair, slouching so far down that his butt is almost off of the seat completely. The bored expression on his face quickly changes to one of amusement when he sees Yuffie and me. He quickly sits up in the seat as if that will actually make him less annoying than he already is. Well, I guess the boy can't help it; his mother is Rita so he's bound to be annoying. Poor kid had no chance from the start.
"Hello Kai, Yuffie," my mother greets us brightly. Rita smiles her greeting.
I say "Hey mom" as Yuffie chirps out a "Hey Kaila". Yuffie's been calling my mother by her first name since forever. My mom likes it that way. Cloud's the only one that adds a "miss" in front of her name. Out of habit, I suppose. Cloud is very polite towards adults. My mother thinks it's absolutely adorable. She can be terribly embarrassing when it comes to Cloud. She thinks he would make an excellent boyfriend, if you follow. Too bad Cloud's my best friend. And too bad we're not into each other. And too bad he's too busy making out with Tifa. My mother has yet to meet Tifa.
"How was school, ladies?" my mom continues, bringing her coffee mug up to her lips.
"Great," Yuffie answers for the both of us, "Hayner's party's today." I could practically feel the excitement in her statement.
"Alright, well you girls have fun," she ends this short conversation with another smile before focusing her attention back on Rita, who had been watching TV.
Tidus takes this as his cue to rise from his seat and make his way toward us. I groan loud enough for him to hear me. My mother gives me a look of disapproval but Tidus doesn't pay it any mind. He never does.
"Hello," he says, looking back and forth between the two of us.
"Hey, Tidus," Yuffie replies. I nod my head in greeting before turning around to head to the stairs. The others follow. And I hear loud and obnoxious footsteps that could only belong to Tidus.
We walk across the way to my room and Yuffie shuts the door upon entering last. Out of habit, I suppose. Yuffie always shuts the door.
She tosses her outfit on my desk and instantly does a belly flop on my bed, landing in the center and messing up my throw pillows that were so beautifully arranged prior to the attack.
So I take a seat on my spinny desk chair and watch as Tidus settles for the edge of the bed, at Yuffies feet.
"God, we have, like, five whole hours until the party," Yuffie whines, burying her face into one of my throw pillows. She's usually always eager to party, but I know this one has got to be the most exciting for her. I can almost relate. That is, except for the fact that Demyx pays more attention to Yuffie than Sora does to me. And that's a bummer. I wish we could just be happy and coupled up. Me and Sora. Yuffie and Demyx. Tifa and Cloud. Riku and…himself. And such.
I feel my cell phone vibrate against my thigh. Curious, I pull it out.
"Who's that?" Tidus asks, as if it's any of his business. So I ignore the nosy question.
And it's Cloud who's calling me now. I flip the phone open.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Kai," comes Cloud's voice, "I'm coming over to your house now, kay?"
"Why?" I ask him, "We have almost five hours."
"Yeah, I know." He says, "but my mom's in a pissy mood, and I need to leave before she changes her mind and doesn't let me go to the party."
From the sounds of low music and what sounds like the humming of the car, I'm guessing he was already in the car before he called me. So he was coming over anyway, regardless of whether or not I answer the phone. My, wouldn't he have had a surprise when he saw that my mother was home. She rarely is home, and so Cloud usually just comes and goes as he pleases. His mother gives him lots of freedom, you see. He doesn't just show up at Yuffie's house, because her parents are there, and Cloud is polite towards parents.
"Kay, Cloud," I say, "See ya in a few." And with that I hang up and flip the phone shut.
Yuffie sits up and crosses her legs criss-cross-applesauce style.
"Let's do something," she proposes.
"We could play spin the bottle," Tidus suggests, lifting one shoulder in a half shrug. I stare at him blankly.
"What?" he holds his hands up in defense, "If I get picked, I get to make out with one of you, and if the two of you get picked, then I get to watch you guys make out. It's a win-win situation, really." He ends this ignorant comment with a cheeky grin. Yuffie snorts a laugh, though I don't know why she finds this funny.
"What do you wanna do, Yuffie?" I focus my attention on my best friend.
"I dunno, Kai," Yuffie singsongs, glancing playfully at Tidus, "maybe Tidus has some more interesting ideas." Tidus smirks arrogantly. I know Yuffie is kidding, but it irks me when she entertains his stupid comments.
"Yuffie," I groan, rolling my eyes.
"What?" Yuffie's eyes widen in innocence, "he's just so cute!" she pinches his cheek, then wraps her arms around his slim, but not badly built, shoulders. His grin slightly falters.
"I'm not a baby," he states, "I'm a man." I roll my eyes again.
Yuffie just hugs him again and continues with the baby treatment.
"I'm a man," he repeats, placing his hand on her thigh "and I could show you just how manly I—"
"Hello?" I interrupt before these two start getting it on in front of me. On my throw pillows. They both look at me. Yuffie releases Tidus, but his hand remains on her thigh.
"Oh, c'mon, Kai," Yuffie replies, "we're just messing around."
The doorbell rings and I'm thankful for that.
I murmur an "excuse me" before hopping out of my spinny chair and exiting the room. I reach the stairs just as my mother opens the door to reveal my Cloud. He looks slightly surprised to see her standing there, as predicted.
"Hey there, Miss Kaila," Cloud gives a small little wave.
"Cloud!" my mother greets him rather enthusiastically, "Come in."
And so he comes in. He nods his head to Rita and spots me at the top of the stairs. He excuses himself from the parents and heads my way.
We walk back to my room. Yuffie's now on my computer and Tidus is laying on his back on my bed.
"Hey Cloud," she says when we walk in. Tidus sits up and stares at Cloud for a bit before nodding his head. I guess Tidus didn't expect another guy to be invited.
"You're early," Yuffie comments, keeping her eyes on whatever it is she's looking at on my computer screen. "Where's Tifa?"
"At home," Cloud makes himself comfortable on my bed next to Tidus. Tidus sits upright when Cloud lays back against the throw pillows. "We'll swing by to pick her up on the way there."
"What are you doing?" I ask Yuffie, glancing over her shoulder.
"Responding to my peeps on MySpace," she answers. I roll my eyes.
"What peeps?" Cloud jokes earning a glare from Yuffie.
"Demyx," she replies proudly, "who's now my friend." She points at the little default picture of a smirking Demyx. She clicks on that little smirking Demyx and it takes us to his page. A song that I know I've heard before blasts through the speakers. I turn them down a notch. Demyx's profile page is mostly blue, which I assume is his favorite color, and there's this giant picture of him, Sora, Riku, and two girls I don't know in the middle. They all look happy; all of them are laughing, as if whoever took this picture took it while wearing no clothes or something. It's nighttime in the picture, and there's lots of lights and building—I recognize this place as Twilight Town Center.
Yuffie clicks on his picture albums. There's one labeled 'DMX', I assume to stand for his name; and there's one labeled 'We're getting there', though I don't see how this is relevant. Yuffie chooses the latter and a bunch of pictures fill the screen.
There's one of Demyx and some guy, both looking serious. There's one of him and a girl, the girl kissing his cheek and him grinning widely with both thumbs up. Yuffie frowns. There's lots of him and Riku, the three of them, random girls, him and guitars etc. but not as many as him and Sora. There's one of him and Sora, both looking completely out of it—Demyx is looking confused with his mouth slightly open as if he were talking when this picture was taken, and Sora's eyes are half-lidded like he wants to fall over and sleep. The picture is labeled 'dude we look high', respectively. Then there's one with him and Sora at what looks like the train station. Demyx is wearing sunglasses, his mouth turned up in a half grin, and Sora is smiling brightly and excitedly, though he looks adorably silly with his eyes squinting like that. I guess he forgot his sunglasses. And there are many, many more, but I don't want to depress myself by looking at all these Sora pictures, wishing I could be in the memories he's made so far in Twilight Town.
By this time Cloud has made his way over to us.
"Who's that?" Tidus asks from behind.
"A kid that goes to our school," I give him a short and simple answer.
"Lemme check mine," Cloud says.
"No," Yuffie whines, "I was here first."
"So, what?" Cloud retorts, "All you're doing is looking at pictures of Demyx anyway."
Yuffie sighs an irritated sigh and reluctantly moves out of the spinney chair to pout somewhere else.
Cloud takes no time to claim his seat and logs into his account. Cloud's default image is one of him and Tifa; it's a close-up, with both of them making goofy faces. It's actually kind of cute.
As expected, Tifa is his top friend amongst the top twelve. Demyx claims second, then it's Sora, then Riku, then it's Yuffie in fifth. The rest are people I don't really know.
"Why am I fifth?" Yufie demands, taking a seat next to Tidus.
"'Cause the first four spots are taken," Cloud replies, scrolling down to his comments.
"Go to Sora's page," I tell him, not being able to drop my curiosity. Cloud nods, but continues his business. And after a few minutes I realize I'm being ignored.
I wait until Cloud seems to be finishing up before repeating my request.
"Go to Sora's page."
Cloud looks at me in slight annoyance before clicking on Sora's icon picture. His profile song fills the silence at a low volume. I don't believe I've heard this song before. But then again, what song have I heard that I remember?
Sora's default image is adorable, as usual. He's facing the camera, though his eyes are slid to the left and he's got this expression on his face that looks like he's about to laugh; like he just got caught doing something he shouldn't be doing and he finds that funny. There are lots of other people in the background, and it seems as if he's at a party. One that I wasn't invited to.
Instead of information and such filling the spaces below, there are more pictures. He's wearing the same thing in a lot of the images—a grey and green polo shirt—so I guess the majority of them was taken on the same day at the same event. There's one with Demyx, who looks more than a little buzzed. Riku's in a few, though he doesn't seem to realize his picture is being taken in most of them.
Since Cloud is so unenthusiastic about this, I have to grab a hold of the mouse myself and scroll down. He has lots of comments. Many from random girls. It's my turn to frown. Cloud smirks.
I catch one of the comments that have been typed in all caps.
DUDE, WIKKED PARTEE! MAN I WUZ SO EFFN WASTED;;; WHY N HELL DID U PUT THAT PIC OF ME ON UR PAGE?;;;BUT FOREAL THO MAN NXT PARTEEZ AT RIKKUZ SPOT!
Ah. The comment belongs to Demyx, who for whatever reason thought it made sense to put a bunch of random semicolons.
And it was a party, I see. I don't think Riku would want a party at his house.
"Did you go to that party?" I ask Cloud.
"What party?"
"This one." I point at a picture.
"Oh. Yeah," he responds without interest, "that was recent."
"Riku's not gonna allow a party like that at his house." I voice my thoughts.
"Who's Riku?" comes Tidus' voice from behind.
"Yeah she would." Cloud disagrees.
He notices the confusion on my face.
"No, not Riku Riku," he clears this up, "Girl Rikku. Blonde Rikku."
He points a finger at the comment below Demyx's. And there's girl Rikku [blonde Rikku]: hex yes! nxt ones at mi casa! Lol dmx luks funny.
I lean in to see the default picture. It's a black and white picture of a girl with a pretty face looking flirtatiously back at the camera. And I recognize her, though I had forgotten her name was Rikku. I have her in two or three of my classes, though I forget which ones at the moment. How could I not remember her? She's always so loud and squealy. And she always seems to have a bunch of friends in every class, so there's always someone for her to talk [or squeal] to.
"Is this Rikku chick hot?" Tidus buds in again.
"Yes. Very hot." Cloud affirms
"And she's a junior." I add just to sound snooty.
"So what?" both Tidus and Cloud shoot back at me in unison. And I'm annoyed that Cloud is interrupting my snootiness towards the ever irritating Tidus.
"And you're…a sophomore." My reply is weak and dumb since I hadn't prepared to answer.
Cloud looks at me like I've been struck dumb.
"I dated a senior when I was a freshman." Cloud just has to put that out there.
"Yeah?" Tidus asks incredulously, "Was she hot?"
"Hell yeah," Cloud answers arrogantly, leaning back in the spinney chair.
"Did she give it up to you?" Tidus presses.
Cloud sits back up. "No comment."
Tidus looks at Cloud admirably, like he's some kind of hero. Figures.
"It was that Aerith girl, right?" Yuffie buds in. Cloud nods, a slightly uncomfortable look settling on his features. I shoot Yuffie a look of warning. She shouldn't push the topic.
But like the Yuffie I know her well to be, she ignores me and looks back to Cloud.
"Were you really, y'know, the guy on the side?" she asks the last of that question in a bit of a whisper.
Cloud's look of discomfort turns to one of annoyance.
"Ooh really?" Tidus looks back and forth between the two. "That's so cool!"
"Let's drop it." Cloud announces.
"C'mon Cloud," Yuffie shoos away the suggestion; "You brought it up anyway. I just wanted to get info from the source, and since you made us bury it for like, three years and Aerith isn't here—"
"I said drop it!" Cloud demands with spitefulness evident in his voice and face.
Yuffie shuts her mouth quickly and looks at the floor. And it's quiet for no more than five seconds before Tidus perks up again.
"Not that sitting here isn't fun," he starts, rising from the bed, "but let's do something else."
He motions for Cloud to get up from the spinney chair. But Cloud, who's still annoyed, shakes his head. Tidus rolls his eyes and grabs the mouse.
"What are you doing?" I ask suspiciously.
"I'm gonna show you guys something." He says, forcing Cloud to move out of the way of the keyboard so he can type. Cloud grudgingly slides the spinney chair back a bit. And when Tidus is at his destination, he stands up straight and looks at the rest of us somewhat proudly.
"What is it?" Yuffie questions, walking over to the computer. "Hot Spot?"
"Hot Spot." Tidus confirms. But says nothing more.
After a moment of silence, Yuffie says, "Hot Spot," holding her hands out, palms up, waiting for an explanation.
"Hot Spot." Cloud says matter-of-factly, like Yuffie is stupid.
"Hot Spot." Tidus mimics in the same tone.
"Okay, can we all please stop saying that?"
"What?" Yuffie asks.
"Hot Spot!" I exclaim, and then I realize that was a trap.
Yuffie and Tidus laugh. Cloud just kind of smirks.
"Okay," Yuffie says, "but what is Hot Spot?"
"See for yourself." Cloud motions to the moniter.
"It's a gossip sight on all the schools in the area." Tidus explains. "The authors are anonymous, but the gossip's usually really handy."
"But is any of this true?" I ask, being all snooty again, "gossip is usually composed of stupid rumors kids with time on their hands make up."
"This stuff's accurate." Cloud ruins my snootiness again by taking Tidus' side. Again.
"Really?" Yuffie's face brightens, "go to Twilight High."
Tidus does as he's told. Instantly a picture of one of the sides of our school shows up, with Hot Spot scrawled across the top in red. Though I'm curious as to why it's this particular side of the school. There's nothing special or interesting about it; in fact, it's just a weird little insignificant corner. There is a text bar on the far left of the screen. The small print above it reads; password.
"Oh you've got to be kidding me," I say, "this thing is password protected?"
"Uh, duh," Tidus replies, "This site can get down and dirty. Nobody wants parents or teachers pooping on the party."
"And how would anyone know this password?" I say with mock interest. Looks like the snooty Kairi really wants to come out today.
"Only the worthy know." Tidus say ominously. Though I don't see what's so ominous about any of this. I can't help but roll my eyes at him for the umpteenth time today.
"And I suppose that's you." It comes out as statement. A snooty one.
"Well I do have the password," Tidus announces proudly.
"And so do I," Cloud adds, his pissy mood fading.
"Ah, lucky." Yuffie mutters enviously, "How did you get it?"
"The creators made it, maybe about thirteen or so years ago," Tidus explains, "they sent the password out to friends, and those friends sent it to more friends, and so on. Now it just gets forwarded around to those who are worthy. You usually get it by the time you enter high school."
"So why aren't Yuffie and I worthy?" I put air quotes around 'worthy'.
Both Tidus and Cloud shrug.
"And besides," I continue, "can't anyone just break the chain of worthiness and give the password to anybody they want?"
"Yeah," Tidus shrugs, "but only a few losers do that."
"Oh, but they can't be losers if they're"—dramatic pause—"worthy." I complete the drama of the statement by making a circle in the air with open hands and wiggling fingers.
Tidus stares at me in exasperation. Snooty Kairi is satisfied.
"Come on," Yuffie breaks the stare contest Tidus and I have going on, "let's go on already."
So Tidus nods and turns to type the password in. To my utmost annoyance, he stands in front of the computer to make sure Yuffie and I can't see. Then once securely inside, he moves back to his spot to the side.
"Well go on," Tidus gestures toward the computer moniter, "splurge."
The only thing more annoying than Tidus' arrogant gesture is Yuffie's squeal of delight as she rushes over to the computer.
Okay so this was sort of like an intermission chapter. Plus, I promised the next chapter would be up earlier, and typing the length I thought I was going to type would've taken me forever, considering it's nearing the end of the school year and there's lot to be done before I end my sophomore year. And I had to properly introduce Tidus and the Hot Spot. Hope it wasn't too boring for you.
Review, yes?
Thirt13n