Chapter 26: Mixed Messages
Later that afternoon, after Wakka took his family to Luca for the day, Tidus finished viewing all of his spheres. He sorted them into piles and returned to the airship for some small containers to bring back to Wakka's hut. While he was there, he asked Yuna to help him pack them, and she was more than happy to follow along.
"Okay, these are the ones that will never see the light of day again." He dumped them into a trash sack, not caring if they cracked and spilled their precious memory fluid.
Yuna gasped as if he had been cracking golden eggs. "You mean there's nothing useful in them?"
"Nothing that I can't live without." He drew the next pile to himself. "These are the ones that we can let everyone else see. Some of my old man's best games are in here. Some of my games are in here, and there's also a bunch of festival events and com cast programs - everything from news to movies. We can donate them to the library."
"I can hardly wait to see them!" Yuna helped him place them carefully in a small chest. "Why is this one marked?" She held up one he had flagged with a piece of tape.
"That one goes to Kimahri. It has the Zanarkand library in it, inside and out. It's not much, but I remember enough now that I can probably tell him more about what he needs to know."
Tidus pushed the chest aside and drew the third pile to himself. It was smaller, but he paused over them before explaining. "These are the personal ones. I'm keeping these. But you can have these two... if you want them. If you don't, this one can go to the library, and the other can go in the trash."
Yuna tilted her chin in curiosity, both at his tone and the fact that he was offering them to her.
"This one first." With a smile, he offered the one in his right hand.
Yuna touched the activation button for the one he recommended. Then she drew a breath of surprise. "Lenne in concert?"
"You wanted a music sphere from a time when Zanarkand enjoyed things like concerts. This is Lenne, but I'm sure the library has others. You can use it for your own concert and then donate it if you want."
"It's perfect! Thank you so much." Turning off the sphere, she gave his neck a hug and planted a kiss on his cheek.
Tidus responded with a small, uncertain smile. "Don't thank me yet. You might not be so happy after you see the other one."
Yuna accepted the sphere from his left hand and hesitantly activated it.
Shuyin and Lenne sat shoulder-to-shoulder at the keyboard in his room, and she was kissing his ear as he tried to play a song.
"Cut it out." He tucked his ear to his shoulder and tried to avoid laughing at the ticklish sensation. "I'm trying to concentrate."
Soft, feminine chuckles ... "Okay. I'll behave."
"Okay. Ready?"
"I'm listening."
He began to carefully play the haunting melody that he penned himself and committed to memory. Every note had to be just right. No mistakes.
"Wow, that's really good. No, it's more than good - it's beautiful." Lenne wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned against him with a contented sigh as he continued playing. "Can I have it?"
He chuckled at the request. "No. You have enough songs; this one's mine."
"But you'll never play this for anyone else. You're too shy. And then it will be wasted, just like all those years of piano lessons."
"Hey, those lessons weren't my idea. If my mom had her way, I'd be playing classical concerts instead of blitzball. I'm just trying to salvage something useful from all those hours of banging my head, more than my fingers, against the keyboard."
"Well, I think you should be proud of this."
"I am."
"Then share it with more people. You've got a real gift here. But, I guess it's also kinda nice to see you shy about something... for once." She grinned.
He glanced at her without pausing the song. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're such a humble soul." She laughed as soon as she said it.
He smirked, tolerating the joke at his expense.
"So, what did you name it?"
"I haven't yet. Guess I'll name it when I feel inspired."
"And then you'll let me have it, and I can add lyrics and sing it at my concert."
He laughed. "No."
"Please?" She leaned in and kissed his ear once more.
He tilted his ear toward his shoulder and chuckled again at her bribery. "Nope."
"Please," she repeated with a grin, leaning in front of him to kiss his lips instead.
"Nh-nh," he denied one more time. But as the kiss lingered, his hand reached blindly for the memory sphere, groping to turn it off. The sphere slipped from the back of the keyboard and wedged next to the wall at a precarious tilt. "Damn," he muttered. "Why do I always do that?" Then, it hit the floor and blinked off.
Yuna stared at the memory sphere as if it were still playing. She had known the song that she fell in love with was Shuyin's song, but it evoked an entirely different feeling watching him play it for Lenne.
Tidus leaned around her with caution, trying to read her expression.
"You... remember being with her... don't you?" Yuna guessed.
"Yeah," he reluctantly admitted.
Yuna tried not to show how much it hurt to know that. "Why did you want me to see this?"
"I knew how much you liked the song, so when I remembered it was in a sphere, I thought I'd see if you wanted it before I trashed it. A thousand years later, and I still don't have a clue what to call it. That's why I couldn't remember the title. That's why you'll never find any spheres of it except this one."
Yuna knew he hadn't meant to insult her by showing her the sphere, but… "I'm having a hard time with this," she confessed. "Her picture was in a locker with your name on it. Her picture was on a keyboard you remembered playing, and you wrote that song for her. Now, you remember being close to her, and I don't really want to know how close. I like Lenne, and I'm not normally a jealous person. I know she's long gone. It's just that..." Yuna considered her feelings and tried to reason a way through them. "She was supposed to be with Shuyin, not you. And I know you're not exactly the same person he was, but if you can remember how he felt about her..." She wiped the corner of her eye, refusing to cry over something that shouldn't have upset her.
After a moment of contemplative silence, he said, "That song wasn't written for her."
She looked up at him, surprised.
"It wasn't written for anyone." He shrugged. "Except maybe me. It's just something I heard in my head, and I wanted to see if I could make a real song out of it."
"But… won't you always think of her when you play it?"
"Not always. In fact, probably not much. I have new messages now."
She had no idea what he meant by that.
"I didn't want to play the song for you before because I was afraid that if it awakened old feelings for her, I might lose myself in him. But now, I have a better sense of who I am because I know for sure how different we are. I remember feeling what he felt, but my feelings are mine. And he can't take that away. Ever. Maybe I used to be him, but I know now that he can never be me."
Her brows still rose with worry. "Then tell me I'm being silly?"
A small smile curled his lips. "You're not being silly. But I knew you before I remembered her. In my mind, you will always be first." He paused and made a face at his own logic. "That didn't make sense, did it?"
"It makes wonderful sense." Leaning forward, she kissed him. "Can I have it?"
"What? The sphere?"
"The song."
"You want me to give you my song?" He acted offended. "My song that I worked so hard on and managed to keep to myself for a thousand years? The only song I have? I didn't give it to her. What makes you think I'll give it to you. I can't just give away something like that." But when he was able to make her laugh, he easily shrugged. "Yeah, okay, you can have it."
"Can I call it my song?"
"I suppose."
"Will you play it for me whenever I want to hear it?"
"Well, if it's your song, then, technically, you should play it."
"I don't know how."
He gave a light laugh. "Well, then you have a problem, don't you?"
She grinned at his teasing. "What if I call it 'Tidus's Song'? Then, you have to play it for me."
"No, because then it's my song, and I can do whatever I want with it again."
Yuna laughed and gave him a light elbow in the ribs for being contrary on purpose. Then, she looked back down at the sphere in her hands and sighed. "Well, I think you should keep this. It will probably never be one of my favorites, but it's a good memory for you. And, you shouldn't pretend your past never happened. It's part of who you are. Besides, I didn't realize until I was given the sphere of your sending that the only sphere I have of you is the one you left behind before we fought Sin."
Tidus's eyes widened, and he scratched his head, embarrassed. "Oh, that. I kinda forgot all about that one. I guess I should throw that into the sea, too, huh?"
"No. No, I treasure it. But, I guess I get so caught up in hunting the past that I keep forgetting to record the present. Would you let me make my own memory sphere of you playing that song?"
He cringed at the idea. "Playing for a sphere is like playing in front of an audience."
"Please?" She gave him her best big-eyed kitten face.
"Well, you're being civil enough to not throw the sphere at me, so okay. But only one sphere. And no concerts!"
"No concerts." Yuna happily gave the song sphere back to him. Then, she noticed the other spheres in his personal stash. "Are… all of these about Shuyin and Lenne?"
"Nah, the others are personal because of the other people in them - my mom, the Abes, my friends. I thought I made some of Auron and me, but I guess that part of what I remember wasn't real. Not until I came out of the dream, at least. I would have liked to have at least one sphere of him." He saddened a little.
"I still have the ones with him and my father," she offered in consolation. "And those spheres have our fathers together with him."
Happy to hear that, he set another sphere in front of Yuna.
"And what's this?" she asked.
"The sphere that will explain where my name came from." But he pointed a finger of warning at her. "No laughing, okay? I mean it. I wouldn't be caught dead showing this to anyone if you hadn't asked about it."
Yuna grinned expectantly and touched the activation button.
The sun shone brightly above the beach's rolling, white-capped waves. A blitzball rolled across the shore in the sphere's field of view. The wind pushed it toward the sand, only for the tide to pull it back toward the sea. A child's laughter could be heard, and within seconds a very young boy with sun-bronzed skin and scruffy, sun-streaked hair ran after the ball. "Watch this trick, Mama! Watch this trick!" He grabbed the ball from the water with both hands and attempted to hold the bulky thing to his tummy in one hand, while he hitched his somewhat-too-big shorts back up to his tan line with the other.
Yuna covered her mouth with both hands and tried not to laugh.
Tidus rested his arms on his knees, then buried his head with a groan, already regretting letting her see it.
"I'm watching," a woman off-screen assured the little tyke. "Going to do a trick shot?"
"What trick?" a man's gruff voice asked with sarcastic amusement. "It's the same kick every time, and most of the time he misses the ball."
The woman chuckled. "He's just trying to be like you."
"That may be, but he takes after your side of the family - a natural-born klutz."
"He's three. All three-year-olds are klutzes."
The boy set down the ball and placed his hands on his hips. "Are you even watching me?" he scolded his parents with a serious frown.
His mother giggled. "I'm sorry, Shu. We're watching. Go ahead."
The ambitious tyke bent to pick up the ball again. "I'm going to do a Jecht shot!"
"Which one?" The out-of-view man played along.
The boy looked at his fingers and held up two. "Four," he announced.
The off-screen man snickered softly. "There is no four!" he fussed back at the boy.
"Two." The boy corrected, holding up the same two fingers again.
The man chuckled. "There is no two!" The child looked utterly confused about how this numbering system worked, and the expression on his face made the man laugh even harder.
Yuna's snickers turned into a snort as she fell sideways to the floor, laughing.
Tidus shook his head at his own humiliation but resisted the urge to turn the sphere off.
"Never mind, boy! Just do the kick! Remember, high into the sky!"
"High into the sky!" The mop-haired little guy ran toward the water and tossed the ball into the air as high as he could. But he was momentarily blinded by the sun and had to cover his head as the ball came back down on top of him. "The sun's in my eyes," he complained.
"Oh for the love of ... Uncover that head! Send the ball up there to meet it!" his dad coached. "Come on now! Sky-high!"
The persistent little waif reached for his ball once more and turned his back to the sun and the ocean. "Sky-high!" Tossing the ball high into the air again, he watched it come down, then scrunched up his face and hopped up to meet it. "Tidaaa!" he proudly called out as he did a rather impressive volley with his head to keep it aloft. "Tidaaa!" he called out as he did another and tried hard to bump it higher. "Tii-daaaa!" His third volley was followed by an attempt to kick up into a spin to complete the notorious shot like his father, but as his feet left the ground, a large wave slammed into his small body from behind. The ball landed safely on the water's surface, but the boy was dragged under and disappeared from sight.
"Oh my god! Jecht!" His mother panicked, almost dropping the sphere.
Jecht was already in the ocean, snatching the boy out of the powerful undertow. A few minutes later, he brought him back to the sand, safely out of the tide's reach. The boy coughed up the water he'd inhaled and clung to his dad's shorts. He was shaking with fear and started to cry. "One too many 'tidaas' there kiddo!" Jecht laughed. The blitzball pro then looked to the woman holding the sphere and recounted the incident with a humorous gesture. "Tidaaa - slam! Flattened by a knee-deep tidal wave!" He laughed again. "See! Your side of the family!" he pointed to his wife.
Upset that his dad had laughed at his misfortune and fear, the boy ran to his mother.
"It's okay, baby. It's okay." She comforted him with a kiss to his forehead and sighed with relief that he was safe. "Jecht, he could have drowned," she scolded her husband for his teasing.
Jecht continued to chuckle. "Oh, stop coddling him. He's all right. Just got some water up his nose. He'll be a mini-tidal wave himself one of these days. He'll own the whole damn sphere pool if he ever figures out that shot instead of crying about it."
The boy's small face turned away from his father directly toward the memory sphere at his mother's side. As his azure eyes blinked at the sphere, he sniffled and coughed some more.
"King Tidus of the blitzball arena, right? King Tidus of the sun and the waves," Jecht added with another laugh, as his strong hand settled on the small boy's head and scruffed his wet hair.
His mother used a sympathetic touch to smooth the wild, wet hair back into place. "It didn't feel very funny, did it."
The boy shook his head and fingered the edge of the sphere a bit as he sniffled.
"That was a pretty big wave. Why don't you show us your trick later when the wind dies down a bit, okay? Then you can show him who's king." She gave him a small wink.
The boy sniffled again. Wiping a small fist over his eyes and runny nose to rid himself of the last of his tears, he lay his head against her arm. "Okay."
His mother's hand reached for the sphere and turned it off.
Yuna shifted her gaze toward Tidus with a slow grin.
"Here it comes," he muttered.
"That was so cuuuuuuute!" she squealed, giving him an appreciative hug for sharing.
He tolerated the reaction but shook his head in disbelief that he had shown it to her. "When he started calling me 'Tidus' nearly everyone else did, too - when they weren't calling me 'Jecht Jr.,' that is. King of the Waves! That's me!" He puffed out his chest with comic pride and folded his hands behind his head, but then he chuckled. "No one knew it was because I nearly drowned trying to do his stupid trick shot."
"What a sweet little face you had! How old were you again? Three?" Yuna held up two fingers.
"At least I didn't sneeze like a squatter monkey when I got water up my nose," he returned with a laugh.
"Ah!" Yuna grabbed a pillow from behind them on the floor of the tent.
Tidus covered his head with his arms just in time to protect himself from the fluffy missile.
"Just for that remark, I'm keeping this one," she declared, hands-on-hips.
"No, no, no, no!" He tried to grab the sphere, but she snatched it first.
Holding the sphere close, she braced another pillow against him to keep him away. "But it's so cute! Rikku and Paine would love to see this one."
"Don't you dare show that to anyone else!" Knocking the pillow away, he reached for the sphere again.
She quickly scooted beyond his reach and slipped the sphere behind her back. At the same time, she used another pillow-shield to keep him at arm's length. "Not even Wakka?"
"Are you crazy? Especially not Wakka!" He pulled the pillow away, rose to his knees, and caught her around the waist with one arm while reaching behind her back for the sphere with the other.
Yuna cried out with a laugh as she tried to evade the tackle. "Stop! You're going to make me drop it and break it!"
Amused and surprised at her ability to switch the small thing between hands while twisting to keep it away from his clutches, Tidus started laughing, too. Then, just when he almost had it, she scrambled completely out of his reach and dropped the sphere down the front of her gun mage halter. Tidus gasped as if she'd done the unthinkable. "What'd you do that for?" he complained.
Still giggling, Yuna stuck her tongue out at him in a very Rikku-like manner. "I told you. I'm keeping this one." She punctuated her defiance by folding her arms across her chest.
Switching tactics, Tidus sat back on his heels with a more suave demeanor. "Oh, and you think that's going to stop me from taking it?"
She quirked a brow at him. "It had better stop you from taking it." Maintaining a smug smile, she pushed up from her knees to stand.
"Oh no you don't." Tidus crawled over the scattered pillows and grasped her ankle to prevent her from leaving. Yuna laughed as she plopped back down onto the straw floor mat, but as he drew near on his hands and knees, he grinned with mischief and kissed her. First her cheek, then her lips, her neck, her ear ...
Yuna bent her head against his to counter his tactics. "That's cheating!" she loudly complained, enjoying every minute of his attention.
"No, in the first blitzball game on the beach after I came back, you called flirting a tactical distraction and said it was okay. This is cheating." Tilting his head the other way, he brushed his lips over hers. As Yuna melted into a real kiss and slipped a hand beneath his hairline to draw him closer, he lifted the hem between her neck and shoulder and smoothly extracted the sphere. The kiss was disrupted by her laughter, though, and she caught the thieving hand before he could remove the coveted prize from her reach.
"That is so wrong! Did you honestly think I wouldn't notice those sneaky little fingers -"
"Ah, come on! Do you realize how bad everyone's going to rag me if they see that sphere?"
Still laughing, Yuna stood and made her way to the door.
))((
Tidus groaned in disgust at his defeat and let his head drop onto his arms on one of the throw pillows. He was doomed. Then, unexpectedly, he heard the storm door to the hut slide shut and lock. When he looked back up, Yuna tucked the sphere under the bottom hem of her halter, snug against her ribs.
"Guess you'll just have to keep trying to get it back." She gave him a shy smile.
Tidus blinked in mute surprise, but then shifted to a cross-legged, seated position and leaned back against the tea-table. "Okay, that's way too easy. What's the catch?"
"No catch. No Rikku or Paine. No Tobli. Just us. But I'll warn you I have ulterior motives." Kneeling before him, she kissed his nose.
He gazed into her forest green and sea blue eyes for a moment. Unable to choose which color he liked better, he decided both colors fascinated him the most. "Well, in that case, this will only get in the way." With an impish smirk, he drew the sphere from the waist of her halter and flicked it aside. Then, he leaned forward, coaxing her into another kiss, this time pushing gently against her until she wrapped her arms around his neck and sank to the floor beneath him.