'nother chapter! Man, I have no life. Anyhow, just getting the story to start rolling, bear with me. Thanks to all who reviewed, 'specially Saranomy for reviewing every chapter! Wind Runner: vegetarians rule! Oh, and for anyone who missed it, I'm going to camp for four weeks, starting Sunday, so don't expect any new stuff for a while after Saturday! Sorry, I'll really miss writing this, but I'll probably have loads of new ideas when I get back. Note: anyone know how to change my settings so I can accept unsigned reviews? If you do, my E-mail's lgreenleaf@patmedia.net! Thanks, and let's get on with it already:-)
"Ding Dong!" rang the doorbell, just as my stomach had started grumbling. Man, pizza delivery is slow. Tidus answered the door. "Hello," he said cheerfully to the pimply teenaged pizza guy.
"That'll be twenty-six bucks, dude," said the pizza guy, sounding bored.
"Wow, twenty-six, that's it? We have got to stop buying food from Rin." Uh oh, I realized with a jolt. Tidus was going to try to pay the man with gil. I fished around in my pockets, but only found three dollars and thirty cents. My mom must have left Ma'am some money for food. I tried to think of where she might have put it.
"Sorry, dude, we don't accept foreign money."
"What?" yelped Tidus, sounding surprised, "What do you mean you don't accept gil?"
"Tidus, wait a second," I told him as I fished around in the kitchen drawer. I found it, and realized I was screwed yet again. My mom had left three fifties. "Tidus, ask him if he has change for a fifty," I called, hopelessly, already on my way upstairs to find twenty-three more dollars.
"He says no," Tidus called. Less predictable, however, is whether the sun will come out tomorrow, I thought, as I headed to my room.
"Is the pizza here?" asked Robbie when I passed the computer room.
"Oh yeah," I responded. "My mom left Ma'am food money in fifties."
"Shit," said Robbie.
"Well, come on, I need twenty-three more bucks, man! Help me look!"
"I'll help too!" said Rikku excitedly.
"Okay," I said, "we're looking for these." I showed Rikku a one-dollar bill from my pocket.
"Roger," she said and started digging around. A few seconds later, she called, "one of these, with a number twenty on it?"
"Rikku, you're a lifesaver. Three more to go." Ana came tearing into the room.
"I have money in my duffle," she said, pointing to the navy blue bag in the corner that she had dropped off when we got back from the airport. She pulled a ten out of the side pocket and handed it to me. I took the ten and the twenty and ran downstairs.
"Look," the pizza guy was saying, "are you gonna pay, or what?"
"Here," I said breathlessly, shoving the money into his hands. "Sorry."
He handed Tidus the pizzas. "You better be," he mumbled heading away from the house. I chased after him.
"Dude, what about my change?" But he was long gone. I sighed, and turned around to face Lulu and Wakka, who had come around from the back to see what all the commotion was. "I just blew four bucks."
We went back inside to find Robbie looking around for paper plates. "Cabinet on the left of the fridge," I told him, plopping down in a chair. I pulled the three fifties out of my pocket, and threw them on to the tray in the center of the kitchen table. "Damn, pizza is expensive."
"You know, that brings up something important," said Lulu, taking a seat. "It may be tough to function with ten people in a house made for half that many."
"Yeah," Ana sighed, "we all need to take showers, sleep, and eat you know."
"Well," I said, as Robbie handed me a plate with a slice of veggie pizza on it, "There's the shower in my parents' bathroom, and we have a tub that can be used as a shower in the big bathroom upstairs." I sighed too. "That means if everyone takes a five minute shower, we should be done in around half an hour."
"With no shampoo left," grumbled Robbie.
"We'll just have to use it in moderation," Yuna said.
"Robbie got Sam on IM!" chirped Rikku. "He said he could have his parents gone by seven-thirty."
"Not bad, Sam," I murmured.
"Why do you want to be at Sam's house so early?" asked Yuna. Everyone now had pizza. Robbie, Ana and I had dug right in, but everyone else looked at it distastefully, prodding it, and looking around at the others, daring each other to be the first one to take a bite. This made Ana exceedingly frustrated.
"It's food, for the love of God! Just eat it! Look, I'm almost done with my first slice already, and I'm not dead! Eat the goddamn pizza!"
"Ana is taking this as a personal insult," I explained, smiling a little.
"Oh, this is ridiculous!" Lulu groaned. She took a huge bite of her pizza. "It's actually rather good." Everyone looked at Ana guiltily. She glowered back. Almost as one, the rest of them took a bite out of their slices.
"Hey, Lulu's right. This is good stuff, ya?" said Wakka. Ana relaxed, satisfied that no one was dissing her favorite food. Soon, some people were heading over to the box for a second.
Yuna repeated her question. "Why do you want to go to Sam's house so early?"
"We want to try and get the game to work," said Robbie with his mouth full, spraying Rikku and Wakka.
"Woa, take it easy man," said Wakka, shielding himself with his arms.
"You still think we came from one of those games?" murmured Tidus. "Like the one Rikku won at earlier?"
"Yeah, but yours was different," I explained. "The gamer has to guide you through Yuna's pilgrimage. Then, sometimes, you just watch, and it shows conversations and stuff."
"I still think it was Sin," Tidus grumbled.
"Keep an open mind," Auron told him. "The only things that are impossible are the things you tell yourself are."
"Another lecture?" muttered Tidus, but Auron gave him the evil eye, and he stopped there. There was a long pause.
Robbie, of course, ended it by wondering, "Where's everyone gonna sleep?"
"Uh, well," I thought for a minute. Wakka got up to get another slice of pizza. There were four slices left. "Well, I guess Yuna, Rikku, and Lulu can share the big bed in the guest room. Uh, Robbie's gonna be in my brother's room, because his stuff is in there. Ana and I'll be in my room." I looked around. "That leaves Wakka, Tidus, Auron and Kimahri. You guys can bag where ever you feel like it." They looked at me, confused. "You know, sleeping bags." They understood. "I'll go get the sleeping bags from the garage. We need five, right? Me or Ana, Wakka, Auron, Tidus and Kimahri." Nods. "Okay."
"I'll help this time," offered Yuna, and she followed me to the garage.
"Here." I handed her two sleeping bags, and we headed back in. Wakka and Auron were having a pretty vicious sounding fight.
"Oh!" cried Yuna breathily and ran over to break it up, dropping the bags on the living room floor. I followed suit. We were only in the garage for a minute, I thought. How can you start a fight in a minute?
"The teachings say machina are forbidden! How can we atone for our sins if we came from one? It's not possible. Sin brought us here! All this machina must have…attracted it, because the teachings say…"
"You'll just follow the teachings, no matter what they say? Have you not your own mind?" Auron growled. He seemed only slightly less pissed than he did in the part of the game where Seymour kills Kinoc. It wasn't pretty.
"Maybe," Yuna cut in, "you are both right. I think the teachings have their…ups and downs, but Wakka, be reasonable! Machina can be used for good as well as evil. I do not think Yevon classifies video games as forbidden machina. It does not hurt anyone, and it is merely used for entertainment, like the blitzball stadium. Just try and go with the flow." Wakka sighed, looking drained.
"You're right, Yuna. Sorry, Sir Auron. I just have trouble breaking teachings I've followed all my life." Auron nodded in acceptance. The two still seemed uneasy around each other as the talk shifted to blitzball, and we headed upstairs for showers. We decided to go in age order, youngest to oldest tonight, oldest to youngest if they were still there tomorrow night. I had a feeling they would be. For the first time in my life, I didn't have a plan.
Showering turned out to be more difficult than I thought. Somehow, Kimahri managed to step on my T-shirt, leaving a big, wet, ronso footprint on the back. I had to dry it off with a blow dryer, while still in my towel and the pants I had been wearing that day. Tidus kept on "accidentally" walking in on Yuna. The thing about he closet came to my mind as I listened to, "sorry" "I can't believe I did it again." "Oh, you're showering in this bathroom."
Robbie cut himself on Auron's sword, which had been unwisely left on the floor, Rikku didn't pull in the shower curtain and flooded the bathroom, soaking the clothes that she left on the bathroom floor, which I blow dried along with my T-shirt. Auron "accidentally" flushed on Wakka, who ran out of the bathroom naked, screaming about damned machina and clutching his scalded butt. He tripped over the cord of the blow dryer I was using to dry Rikku's stuff, and I tried my best to avert my eyes. Auron and Wakka obviously hadn't forgotten their argument from earlier.
Somehow, everyone managed to shower, and get back into dry clothes. I finished drying everything that had gotten wet, Lulu helped Rikku clean up the bathroom, and Yuna used cure to heal Robbie's cut. Ana, Robbie and I also slept in what we had been wearing that day, I guess because we wanted to fit in or something. Auron and Tidus were bagging with Ana and me, and Wakka and Kimahri went with Robbie. Ana and I flipped for my bed, but she won. I grumbled as I laid out my sleeping bag on the floor next to Auron's.
We talked a little, musing about how bad we were going to be a practice on Tuesday, and contemplating Sam's response to our situation. It wasn't long before I realized I was exhausted, and Ana, Auron, Tidus and I all agreed it was time to shut off the light. I fell asleep rather quickly, and didn't wake up once that night.