They walked in silence.
She liked the way they could do this without it becoming oppressive and uncomfortable.
Despite herself she found her thoughts landing on Squall. She sighed heavily.
"What?"
She looked up into Coryn's eyes. They were a mixture. Sometimes they were a mellow brown with hazel flacks, but then she'd look again and they'd be a light blue-green. But never was there the cold ice that always shot straight through her whenever she looked at Squall. She sighed again.
"What?" he said, anxious. She smiled; he was quite sweet really.
"Just worrying about Squall."
A slight frown wrinkled his beautiful forehead. "The guy at the dance."
"Yeah" she replied thoughtfully.
"What's wrong with him?"
"Just what his life's going to be like. I mean he's very pretty to look at-"
"I think somebody has a crush on somebody!"
"Shut up," she said pushing him playfully. "And he can fight but, y'know, what's he gonna do, just spend his whole life fighting. There's no point."
"Was he one of your students?"
"Yeah," she paused, organising her thoughts, "I resigned over him. I tried so hard," she leaned closer into him. "I had a big plan all worked out. I would confide my problems in him and in return-"
"He'd confide his in you." He held her a bit tighter. "But isn't that against the instructor-student code of conduct?"
"Well yeah, so to get around it I fibbed. I said I'd lost my job as an instructor," she sniffed in self-pity.
"Well that was stupid," he said unsympathetically.
"Hey," she replied, mock offended, "I was young and stupid then."
"And you're not now"
She elbowed him gently in an affectionate manner. "So I waited for him to comfort me and tell me something about himself and thus the reciprocal self-disclosure would begin."
"Ah, psychology speak. So what happened?"
"If I recall correctly he said 'go talk to a wall'"
"I could have told you that."
She looked up at him. "Hmm?"
"Well he probably just fancied the pants off you so - OWW!"
Quistis had placed a girly punch in his chest.
"I'm just speaking from personal experience here." She glared at him and he continued smoothly. "Anyway, he's not your problem anymore, you have to learn to let things go."
"Yeah I s'pose." She sighed again and felt his body tense against hers. "What?"
"We're here."
"Oh" She looked around and saw that they were, indeed, on the balcony. "We must have gone a very roundabout way."
"Yeah well," he said, separating himself from her and rubbing his hands together. "I wanted to be alone with you."
"Ahh, you're sweet," she said, trying to snuggle into him.
He moved away.
"What?" she asked, her voice on edge.
He sat on the bench and motioned for her to sit beside him and she did, turning her head to look out at the view.
"Quistis, I'm going to be twenty-one in a few days and I was wondering if, if um," he turned towards her and took her hands in his. "If maybe we could, um, get married, in a bit, when you're ready." He peered round trying to see past the hair that was obscuring her reaction.
She whipped round, flinging her arms around his neck and he felt her salty tears on his cheeks.
"So, um, is this yes?" he asked nervously.
She turned her face giggling to his then hugged him again tightly.
"I love you," came her muffled voice.
"Good," he said, straining his neck to look down at her head buried in his chest. "So," he said taking her arms from around him and kissing her hands. "Are we gonna get married?"
" . . . yeah" she replied slowly savouring the look of joy on his face. "Lets"
