'You know Selphie, I'm your friend, I'm going to be here for you regardless of the problem.' He looked at her with a concerned face. 'You can talk to me.' Selphie bit her lip and she reached up to touch him on the cheek where his tattoo was. She nodded and walked through the gate leaving Zell more confused than ever.
In the lobby Xu and Quistis were standing looking around at the new applicants, trying to tell them to move up to the second floor corridor. Selphie put both fingers in her mouth and whistled. Every hopeful turned to her and, using her drama training, she projected her voice to tell them to assemble upstairs. Throwing a quick nod at Quistis she moved to her quarters.
*
Selphie gave a long drawn out sigh and collapsed on the double bed, it was right now when she wished she was back at Trabia, she waited for him. She didn't wait long.
'Welcome home, babes.' He said in his low voice and threw her a lopsided grin. Irvine stood there in his cowboy gear; she didn't know how many times she had threatened to throw out that damned coat. He liked it though, and she was loath to do anything that would make him madder at her.
'Hi Irvine. Had a good day?' She asked, he slid himself onto her bed and smiled.
'It's getting better now you're back.' He kissed her gently and she took it stoically. 'What's the matter?' He looked at her. 'Oh, you're not still pissed off at me are you?' Selphie frowned at him and moved off the bed across to her wardrobe, since she wasn't a new SeeD she was allowed to wear what she liked. She pulled out her new green dress and faced the mirror, noticing how drained she looked. 'Well?' She turned to Irvine.
'Well what?'
'Don't be like that. Selphie you know I love you, are you going to give me an answer?' She turned on him.
'I already gave you an answer, were you deaf? Didn't you hear it?' She went into her bathroom and began to get dressed.
'I'm not accepting that answer Seffie, I love you and you love me.'
'I'm beginning to doubt that.' She muttered to her reflection. 'I said no and I meant it Irvine.' She zipped up the dress and stalked out into her bedroom. 'If you think you are going to badger me into something as big as marrying you, you are mistaken.' She took a hairbrush to her hair and smoothed it out into its short shiny tresses. 'Are you going to get dressed for the ball sometime soon?' She turned to him and watched the slightly pained expression on his face. 'I'm going to get Quisty and Zell, I'll see you in Squall's office in an hour.
*
Quistis had only just gotten out of the shower when Selphie stalked into her room. She wrapped the towel around her tightly and looked through the door waiting for Irvine to follow. She looked at Selphie in puzzlement when he didn't. Selphie ignored the question on her face and looked her up and down.
'Nice dress, think you might want to fasten it more securely though.' She said deadpan, she was getting better at that mock seriousness thing lately. Mind you she was having trouble deciding whether it was mock or not lately too. Quistis grinned and went across to her wardrobe to show Selphie her new dress. Rinoa had offered to take them both out for a girlie shopping trip but Selphie hadn't been in the mood, she had spent all day in the training room and after a few hours even the monsters had begun to avoid her. Quistis smoothed the elegant black dress over her hips and struck a pose, Selphie giggled and flopped back on her bed.
'Don't you'll wrinkle your dress.' Quistis told her. She looked down at the very short green dress, there was no room for it to wrinkle it was that tight, she felt as though she was shrink-wrapped. Quistis giggled when she told her, it was good to see Quisty enjoying herself, she was always so serious, and sometimes Selphie forgot that they were friends as well as colleagues. Zell knocked on the door in the middle of an argument about shoes, Selphie kept on stating that her boots were fine and Quistis kept on trying to force her into dainty little shoes that would cripple her. Quistis won, Selphie knew she invariably would, she was merely arguing to keep up the pretence that she actually cared.
'Looking gorgeous as ever ladies.' He made a move to hug Quistis but she sidestepped him.
'You can look but don't touch.' She said with a smile. Zell shrugged good-naturedly, he was wearing his SeeD uniform and a grin.
'Yeah well there ain't enough time for what I wanna do.' He leered at them both.
'Oh please Zell I feel ill enough already.' Quistis retorted. 'And we should be going to see Squall anyway.'