They were too white, Cloud thought to himself. Too white, and too new, and they labeled him for what he obviously was. Inexperienced, easy, stupid. He scuffed at the toe of one with the pad of the other, dismayed that there was no visable result. He could have looked up and maybe thought about eating, because he actually was hungry, but that would have defeated the self fullfilling purpose of shoe angst. Cloud wasn't quite through feeling silently sorry for himself yet.
I should have taken the drugs and run or something, he thought to himself, replaying the scenereo in his mind. I should have done something stupid and daring that would have made Seifer respect me and see me as more than just some pretty fucking errand boy.
The sounds of wooden chair legs scraping on tile was like a miniature symphony in the lunch room, combined with the clack of silverware and the clang of the kitchen. It was like that occasional note from some random percussion section. So by now, Cloud was used to tuning it out, because it was a good distance away.
The scrape that brought him nearly to his feet happened directly across from him, and when Cloud stopped himself from jumping ten feet into the air, he found himself staring into the half-faced soft smile of Kuja. Blinking a few times and looking around to make sure he didn't look too much like a complete idiot, Cloud needed a moment to register this.
"What the hell-"
Kuja put a black, half-finger gloved hand to his lips and pursed them, closing his eyes. Be quiet. Cloud lowered his voice and glared despite himself.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Coming to check up on you, shouldn't it be obvious?" Kuja was dressed differently than before, now, in a black vynal shirt that hugged the contures of his body and creased dramaticly at the crooks of his elbows. A very thin pair of sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose, designed to look as though they'd slip off at any moment. The feathery white hair, however, remained as it had been, only this time not confined. One of the gloved hands moved with a calculating slowness across the table to pluck a stray fry from the edge of Cloud's plate. The presicion of his movements reminded Cloud of a panther, and of course the entire time, Kuja stared intently at the fry he was going after with his mouth just slightly slack, not even paying attention to Cloud.
This wouldn't have bothered Cloud so much if the fry Kuja was going for in this deliberately suggestive way wasn't on his side of the plate. Breaking the hypnotic stalking of Kuja's hand across the table, Cloud pushed the tray towards the black clad individual, satisfied at the disruptive scratching noise it made on the tabletop. "Take it, I'm not eating."
"Such a freshman," Kuja said softly, more to himself than anything as he abandoned tormenting Cloud via french fries. "You're going to loose weight, just like all the frosh do, because you don't eat when you have the time."
"Why did you give me the vial if you didn't think I could take care of it?" Cloud folded his arms and sat back in his chair, glaring, his voice hissing in a whisper between his teeth.
Kuja chuckled, turning slightly sideways in his chair and looking towards the window that faced the main street on campus. "You're so naive."
"I'm not a toy!"
It was like a lightning bolt had struck him. Kuja's movements and eyes were a too fast to follow. One minute he was reclining looking out the window, and the next he was leaned across the table with his hands folded and elbows propping him up, glaring with the intensity of Hellfire straight into Cloud Strife's eyes. There was no insinuation of sexuality anymore, no gaming, no torment. Kuja was showing him the collar that was around his own neck. "Make no mistake, Strife, you are most certainly our toy," His voice, the same low and sultry one that had spoken before, was now serious in a way that was chilling enough to make Cloud's stomach turn. "You made the mistake of letting Seifer have you- now you're his, and that's how you're going to stay. So either learn that," Kuja took a deep breath and closed his eyes slowly, leaning back into his chair and recoiling from Cloud's face. It was like a cat coiling back up into a sunbeam. "You either learn that, or we'll teach you."
With a fluid movement and a practiced flick of his wrist against his hair, Kuja rose to his feet and stepped away from the table, smiling just as suggestively as ever, and began to walk away.
Cloud put his head down on the tabletop, arms folding around him in a wall. What the hell was I thinking...
"Oh, and if you really want to know," Kuja's voice murmered, so close to Cloud's ear that he could feel the other's breath tickling the hairs on the edge of his ear. His shoulders coiled close to his head, but Kuja didn't back off in the least. A hand closed on his shoulder as the voice continued. "Seifer wanted to see if you'd turn him in. And you didn't. Good for you," The last statement was so sacharine Cloud felt a knot building in his throat. "Keep up the good work."
The hand and breath withdrew, the voice silenced, but Cloud didn't know if Kuja was really gone and didn't want to risk another encounter, so he kept his face down and cheek against the tabletop, staring at the weave of threads on his shirt sleeve. His bangs hooded the world, kept it out, and that was how Cloud wanted it right now. He wanted prestige, and to be on the good side of upperclassmen, but this wasn't how he wanted to do it at all. Maybe if he could stick with it...but...
He could hear the heavy clomping of someone either very big or very angry...or maybe both...coming towards his table, and hoped it wasn't something involving him. Hadn't there been enough torment already today? Did it have to get worse? Jesus, he hadn't even gone through the entire day yet. The boots that made the sound passed by the opposite end of the table and Cloud could hear them shift directions. He didn't want to know, but at the same time he had the sinking feeling of dread that if he didn't look, something even worse would happen.
The person standing in front of him was probably the tallest person Cloud had seen since...Well, ever, most likely. He could have been called a giant, if he was out of preportion in any way that would have indicated a disease. There was most deffinitly something abnormal about him though. Maybe it was the hair, which was white enough to hurt when framed up against the windows outside. Maybe it was the lime green eyes that were quite intently focused on Cloud.
Or maybe, Cloud thought dejectedly as he pulled himself back into a sitting position and stared up at this stranger, Maybe it's the fact that he's not saying anything, but staring right at me, and he's twice my height. He let out a sigh before speaking, not really wanting to get in any deeper than he was, but having a feeling that would soon be unavoidable. "Do you want something?"
"Are you gay?"
A long string of mixed reactions went through Cloud's head. The first to reach him was the indignation at being acused of it, because he didn't know this guy, and it must have been based off of appearance. That was just stupid. Under that was the realization that he didn't have much of a memory left of what had happened before dawn the night previous- and so beneith that was the truth. That he didn't know. But damned if I'll say that to this guy. "Who wants to know?"
"A guy."
"You?"
"No," Cloud suddenly got the distinct impression that while this was the kind of guy who would be painfully blunt with you, he would also never admit or let slip anything about himself. The white haired giant made the slightest incline with his head, his green eyes never leaving Cloud's face. It was an unnerving intensity, like being pinned under glass. At least he's straightforward about doing it, Cloud thought sickly, And not like Kuja. "He is."
Following the miniscule signal wasn't that hard, thankfully, since the hall was so devoid of life. Through a set of double doors that his interogator would have had to duck to get past was another stretch of the hall, lined with booths and tables. The only evident occupants were a blonde with a tail and a dark haired guy who looked like he was trying to decapitate himself on the chair.
"Taily-po?"
"No, the idiot," There was no malice when the white haired student spoke, although his voice carried a certain gravity with it. "His name is Zack."
"So why are you asking me instead of him?"
"Because I feel sorry for punching him." There was that unnerving ability to say something without changing mood at all again. Despite it, the serious tone in which he had said the statement caused Cloud to snicker slightly. The nameless giant continued stoicly. "He helped you last night. You need to thank him, at least."
Oh...So this was the guy who Cloud had woken up to curled at the edge of the bed. Shit. That complicated matters. He wanted to know, but at the same time he had an inexplicable dislike for that Zack for seeing him when he couldn't see himself. It bothered Cloud. A lot. And he didn't want to deal with having to confront that now, or ever really. "What if I don't?"
"I won't feel sorry about punching you." Emerald eyes slitted dangerously.
Cloud's cringe in reaction was fairly visable. For a moment, it looked as if the white haired student really was going to decend down on him like some twisted avenger of the sexually indecisive and beat Cloud into a new shape, but a shadow passed over the green eyes and nothing happened. Instinctively, Cloud felt himself returning to his old viewpoint, worrying about others, and wasn't able to stop himself in time. "Are you alright?"
"Fine," The nameless white-haired one paused a moment after speaking, then reached across the table and closed his hand around the straps of Cloud's pack, lifting it towards him in such a way that he dared Cloud to even try to stop him. "Zack needs to run errands today. Do you have other classes?"
Cloud shook his head dumbly, he'd scraped in for one of the earlier ones and the next wasn't until two. He wanted to say he was busy and go back to his room, sleep maybe, but it was difficult to say no to someone two feet taller than yourself.
"Then you're going to go with him and help." The white haired student spoke with a certainty that unnerved Cloud and began to leave through the same double doors he must have entered. A momentary emerald glance over his shoulder was enough to snap the blonde out of his stupor and scramble to his feet, the confiscated bookbag the very least of his concerns right now.
At least now Cloud could see what was making all the noise when the white-haired behemoth walked. This person wore steel toed work boots, possiably one of the most solid things that could possiably cover someone's feet. Cloud had owned a pair a while ago, but disliked how they confined his ankles. He attempted to keep with that train of thought, about the work boots and anything related to them -trends in grade school, raking the yard in fall- but it became nearly impossiable when they reached the circular lunch table where the tailed blonde and apparently masochistic Zack were.
Zack was slumped back in his chair, slouched far enough down to continously lift and drop his head onto the back of the chair, thumping against it with a rough intensity, eyes closed. The white haired student put a hand between Zack's incoming head and the rim of the chair, and the spikey haired boy stopped almost on instinct with a frustrated sigh. Arms folded across his chest, Cloud could barely make out the logo on Zack's shirt. It was a character from an old cartoon he used to watch religiously on saturday mornings, and he felt compelled to say so, but was muted by the awkwardness of it all.
Zack pulled a face and slouched further in his chair, all but disappearing under the table. "Zik, I hate you."
"He's going to help you this afternoon." Zik didn't seem to take notice of the insult, and dropped Cloud's pack onto the table with a blaitent carelessness before taking a seat that had been already kicked out for him. Cloud, awkward as ever, reached for a chair behind him and was painfully concious of the scraping sound it made across the tiles as he brought it towards their table. When he sat, it wasn't with his feet under the table, and it wasn't exactly far away either. He hoped no one would notice.
The blonde with the tail didn't give Cloud a chance to hope that for very long. Motioning him closer, it brought up a chorus from the others to actually sit at the table with them, and not just nearby the table. Cloud complied, trying to keep his eyes down at the frustrating blush that was starting to show on his face.
"So you're the blonde kid from the party, huh?" The tailed student grinned and steepled his fingers on the tabletop, shaking his head. "Jeez, Zack won't tell us what happened. Must have been pretty bad. So- care to enlighten us?"
"I...Don't want to talk about it."
"And I deffinitly don't," growled Zack, casting a death glare that was hard to miss towards the tailed blonde. "So let's start off on a foot that isn't broken or sprained, okay? I'm Zachery Knightblade..." He unfolded his arms from across his chest and sat up straighter, nodding quickly. It was obvious that he wasn't much more comfortable with this meeting than Cloud was. "The big guy who likes to harass hapless freshmen like yourself is Zik."
The white-haired giant nodded in assent, but didn't crack a smile. Cloud noticed for the first time the caption on Zik's shirt read "Fly me to the Moon." For some reason, it struck him as funny at exactly that moment, and he fought to keep from laughing. The tailed student landed a harsh slap against Cloud's back that caused him to spit out the laugh he'd tried to repress. Reflexively, Cloud hid his mouth with his sleeve, worried despite his laughter that he was going to wind up a blood spot for laughing at Zik.
"Yes, laugh. Laugh at Zik's big poofy self! We all do. I'm Zidane," The other blonde extended his hand and Cloud took it, lowering his hand from his mouth and smiling. They shook, and Zidane went back to eating his pizza with...despite Cloud's initial confusion...a fork.
"I'm Cloud," He found himself speaking with a smile, probably one of the first he'd gotten today. It was nice to think that Kuja wasn't able to hassle him whenever he felt like it. "Thanks, anyway."
Zack smirked faintly, but refused to lock eyes with the blonde. He looked anywhere but at Cloud, the blonde noticed, and yet it didn't seem like a malicious act. "Sure, not a problem. I enjoy keeping the sheep around here in line, ya know? And keeping the kangaroos seperate from the sheep."
"Kangaroos?"
"Kangawho's? Kangayou," Zack looked in Cloud's direction, but not at his face, and spoke quickly with a smile. "It's pretty obvious, you know. Just like the rest of us, you're bouncing around between ups and downs."
"Speak for yourself," Zidane raised his forked pizza dramaticly into the air. "I am a member of the illustrious Lighting Techis, and I will be on an eternal up. That up, my friends, is my Grid. My catwalk."
"Your orgasm," Muttered Zik, nearly unintelligably. Cloud burst out laughing, although Zidane seemed to have missed the comment. Zack laughed too, cupping his hands to the side of his face and shaking his head slowly.
They exchanged banter and jokes for a few moments, and Cloud began to feel more at home, despite the fact that as Zidane pointed out 'he didn't have a frikkin Z in his name.' When he realized that they were all upperclassmen, it shocked him slightly, but decided not to let it bother him much. When the last few precious minutes of break time ticked away into oblivion on the steel-faced clock above the lunch hall entrance, four chairs scraped back with a clatter as the group left together.
Splitting in the hall, Zidane and Zik followed a stairwell down with a few parting insults while Cloud and Zack remained on the topmost landing. For a moment, Cloud thought they were going to continue on out the upper level doors before he realized Zack was holding his ground.
"Look," Zack ran a hand nervously through his hair and shrugged when he realized Cloud was watching. "I didn't mean for Zik to drag you over to us. And ...Yeah. Sorry."
Cloud shook his head and felt the awkward crimsion returning to his face. "Wasn't your fault. And thanks for ...ya know. I can't really remember."
"You don't really want to. Didn't know where your dorm was."
"Yeah."
"Fuck."
The melencholy enunciation of the swearword sent both of them into another short burst of laughter before Zack began to walk again, his hands shoved into the pockets of a pair of army issue cargo pants that looked a size too big on him. "So anyway, got errands to do."
Cloud grinned as Zack passed him, and began to walk after, adjusting the weight of his backpack. "So let's go do them."