Chapter 9 – Misunderstood

The young journalist walked up towards the brown door. Beyond this was the stern cold woman who was unfortunately his boss. He adjusted the hat, which sat, upon his head and then walked straight into her office without knocking, unlike any other fellow employee would do.

The young woman with silver hair turned around startled and then sighed when she saw who it was.

"Don't you ever think of knocking before you enter?" she said with annoyance.

"Oh lighten up a little Fuj, don't hate me because I'm the best you have," the cocky man said.

The woman rolled her eyes. "Kinneas, take your head out of your ass for once and do as you're told."

"Hey! That hurts, you know I'd never do anything to hurt my wonderful boss Fujin."

"Yeah, whatever," she said her arms folded. "I have something for you to do."

She walked over towards the back of the office and leant against her desk. "I need you to try and find out anything else about that suicide in Balamb. You have as long as it takes; try socialising with people. See if you can find out about anymore mutants living in the area, if any."

"Serious stuff, eh? Well you came to the right person to do the job."

Fujin let out a silent sigh because of the attitude of the man she had to deal with but made herself feel better by thinking that she had come to the right person as he would be gone for a while.

"Report back to me if you find out any information."

He nodded his head in thought. "This doesn't sound like the work of a journalist to me. Is this anything to do with that Commander guy that came here this morning?"

Fujin paused for a moment. "You better go home and pack, I've arranged a hotel for you to stay in and you can collect a train ticket to Balamb from the reception," she said ignoring his last comment.

"Okay," he said as he turned to leave.

"Oh and Irvine," Fujin called from behind him. "Don't mess this up."

~*~*~*~*~*~

The two young women chatted to each other inside the four walls of the grocery store. Since no one was inside the shop there was nothing else to do. Since she had learned about the girl Rinoa, Quistis took the advantage of this spare time to ask about her.

"I've never met Rinoa before, what's she like?"

Selphie turned to her friend smiling. "She's nice, I can't believe I still haven't introduced the two of you. I'm sure you'll get on like a house on fire."

Quistis nodded her head. "Do you know when I'll be able to see her?"

"Oh Quisty, Quisty, Quisty," Selphie said fiddling around with the cash register. "You don't have to worry about her, she's not going to steal Seifer from you…even if they did have a past."

Quistis rolled her eyes at her friend. "I know that, I just want to meet her, that's all. She's quite new here so she won't know that many people yet."

"Okay! And just in case the thought ever crossed your mind you don't have to worry. Besides she seems much more interested in Squall." Selphie said with a wink.

"Squall?" Quistis said, now interested in what was coming out of Selphie's mouth. "He hasn't really mentioned much about her but it'll be good if he has a female companion in his life. He's really not the social type."

"Exactly," Selphie said giggling.

The conversation was interrupted with the jingle of the bells when the shop door opened. A smile crept over the young mans face when he saw the two shop assistants by the counter. He walked up to them, his smile widening on his face.

"Hello beautiful," he said leaning on the counter. "It seems that it's my lucky day bumping into a stunner like you."

Quistis stared at him emotionless, not sure if that was a cheesy chat up line or just him being polite, in any case she wasn't in the mood for it.

"I've made you speechless, it's my looks isn't it?"

"Yeah, right…whatever," Quistis said, rolling her eyes.

She grabbed Selphie's arm and pulled her where she had just been standing. "Customer for you," she said walking away to stack some shelves. Selphie looked at Quistis who was walking away confused for a moment but then turned her attention to the customer that stood in front of her.

"Can I help?"

The grin grew yet even wider on his face. "Believe me you already have."

Selphie studied him for a moment. "Excuse me?"

Irvine cleared his throat. "It doesn't matter, could you tell me where the hotel is?"

"It's the next street on the left."

"Thank you…Selphie," Irvine said looking at her name tag. "By the way I'm Irvine."

Selphie smiled slightly. "It's nice to meet you Irvine."

"I'm new here and I don't know my way around here yet. Maybe you wanna come out with me sometime."

Selphie smiled to herself, was this guy really coming on to her this quick? "I might be washing my hair," she replied.

"Could you be persuaded?"

"Maybe," Selphie said, enjoying teasing this man.

"Well, I was thinking maybe we could go for a drink and introduce ourselves properly."

Selphie looked at the hopeful man that stood before her, she simply gave a look that said 'and?'

"And…how about I take you out for dinner?" he added.

"Meet me outside here at seven?"

"Sure," Irvine said. "Catch you later Selph."

Selphie watched as he left the shop, she heard laughing coming from behind her. She turned around to find Quistis, who had obviously listened to the whole conversation.

"You've known each other two minutes and you're already going on a date and he's calling you Selph?"

Selphie gave her friend a light push. "It's not a date okay, we're just getting to know each other as friends."

Quistis let out another laugh. "You saw how 'friendly' he was. Yeah, you're probably right, I'm sure he left here thinking 'that Selphie sure was a nice girl, wonder if we'll be friends?'"

~*~*~*~*~*~

Selphie sighed as Irvine offered to walk her home, not wanting to bruise his ego she reluctantly said yes. The 'getting to know each other' date had been a total bore, she knew Quistis was right; he was just one big flirt and never took anything seriously. Every attractive woman that had walked past in the restaurant had caught Irvine's eye, he even tried to chat up the waitress.

Selphie decided to use this time alone with him to find out about him. He'd asked question about her, but she had never got a chance to. There had been a long silence since they had begun walking, which was beginning to make her feel uncomfortable.

"What do you do for a living?" she asked.

"I'm a journalist at Timber."

Selphie stopped walking and studied the man who stood beside her. "You don't look like a journalist."

Irvine shrugged his shoulders and began walking again. "I don't like being stereotypical."

"Okay, why the cowboy sniper look?" she asked.

Irvine smiled. "Something I like to do in my spare time and the cowboy look attracts the women."

Selphie rolled her eyes. "If you say so."

"They never told me Balamb had such beautiful women."

"I noticed you discovered them in the restaurant," Selphie said sighing.

"Is that why you've been avoiding me? You thought I was checking out other women?" Irvine asked.

Selphie became quiet and a little embarrassed. "Well…yes."

Irvine smiled. "I just realised I said that Balamb had such beautiful women. What I meant to say was that there is only one woman in this town that's beautiful, when I was looking at them women I was thinking that none of them compared to you."

Selphie smiled. "Thank you." She wasn't sure if he was telling the truth or if that was just an excuse but he sure knew how to charm a woman.

"So tell me, what are you exactly doing in Balamb?"

Irvine panicked for a moment; he wasn't going to tell her the whole truth why he was here so he said the first thing that came to his head. "I'm here to write a story on the suicide."

"You mean that mutant girl that threw herself off the roof of the hospital?"

Irvine nodded his head. "I want to see if anyone knows anything more about mutants."

"It looks like you're in luck. My friends seem to be interested in mutants, I could introduce you to them sometime," Selphie said stopping outside her house.

"You will? Thanks a lot Selphie, it's a great help."

"No problem, just promise me you'll stop around the shop tomorrow."

"I promise."

"See you tomorrow then," Selphie said and then turned around to go into her house.

Irvine waved to her as she closed the door. He began to walk again and took out her mobile phone. He dialled the number and waited for the person to answer.

"Hello?"

"Hi Fujin, good news…"

Authors note: I know I say this at like the end of every chapter but I'm really sorry I take so long to update! I have a week off school at the moment so I promised myself I was going to put chapter nine up and I did, YAY! Oh I love each and every one of you who has reviewed my story. Your lucky I don't see any of you in real life cus if I did I'd poke each and every one of you! Pokey pokey! 50 reviews!

Please review, I promise I won't poke you, I'll try and hold back… ^_^