[intermission]
Fittingly, his last two days in Balamb were filled with cloudy skies and biting winds as Summer faded out into Autumn. If you asked Zell what his favorite time of year was, he wouldn't have told you this time of year. But he did very much enjoy it even though he did not remember. The air smelled fresh and clear and the streets quieted down considerably. There were less screaming children, they were probably all inside solemnly enjoying the last days of vacation. Hushed footsteps trailing under sparesely turning trees. Their voices filtered in through his window.
He wondered if Ma would call up just out of habit. She still was surprised that he could finally take care of himself. Thanks Ma. He packed the last tank top into his round duffel bag and hauled it over his shoulder. With some trepidation and more than a little relief, he was returning to Garden. He never thought his vacation would ever leave him longing to return to Garden, but anything was welcome over this confusion.
He hadn't thought of Seifer much in Garden and he was hoping it continued. A night's sleep and he had decided that this whole deal was a little too fucked for him. He was trying to get away from messed up relationships, not find more to participate in. Sorry Seifer, but this shit was too weird for most people.
He tromped down the stairs, his Ma waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She probably didn't realize it, but it was exactly where she was standing when he first left for Garden and where she always stood whenever he was leaving for Garden. She wasn't necessarily a creature of great habit, but she had hers now and again.
"Bye honey, I'll miss you." She said to him softly, giving him an affectionate hug when he reached the bottom of the stairs. His head was staring over her shoulder at the china closet they'd gotten when he was seven to replace the ratty old hutch.
"Miss you too, Ma." He squeezed her back and walked towards the door. He'd be right on time to catch the train that would have been there if the train was ever on time. But it was always late. So he'd be right on time to wait a god awful long time for the train, but the day he didn't get there on time...it'd be early.
His Ma stood in the open door as he stepped outside. She smiled and waved, "Write me when you get back!"
"Yeah, Ma!" He answered, waving over his shoulder. She used to get so angry at him for doing that, but couldn't for the life of her get him to change that habit. After he'd become a SeeD she'd stopped bugging him about it. Oh Hyne, might as well please the woman. He turned around and waved at her with a bright smile and she laughed. He laughed too and set down the street in the mid-morning sun. The clouds were beginning to clear. Figures.
[Garden]
He'd arrived at Garden approximately four hours and thirty-two minutes after his train had (finally) departed Balamb. He hadn't anticipated the gauntlet awaiting him. Maybe gauntlet was too harsh a word to use with the well-meaning people that spoke to him, but it felt like one to him. He was stupid to not have been prepared for it.
What gauntlet was he thinking of? "How was your vacation, Zell?" "Hey Zell, back already? I thought you'd never wanna come back!" "Instructor Dincht, have fun in Balamb?" It would have been easy enough for another, more demure person to give a noncommital answer, but this was Zell that everyone was speaking to. You could teach him to kill a dragon with a jump kick. You could teach him to argue better and to interpret sarcasm. You could not teach him to accurately lie about his feelings.
But worst of all, he was afraid that he'd get caught up and reveal something he didn't want to. The something being Seifer, anything to do with Seifer, and any fact that he'd seen him at all. He'd managed to avoid seriously talking to Quistis three days later, but she was beginning to suspect something was up. Everyone else had gotten some pathetic story about getting caught up in his work. Ouch, he'd be paying for that one somewhere down the line, he was sure.
For now, he'd take everything out on the punching mat. Geez, a little under two weeks of light hour-long workouts and he was all rusty. His heel drops just didn't have the snap they had when he was under intense regular training. It'd take him days to get back that power again. He raised up his leg and hurled the sneaker clad foot downward at his target. It landed with a satisfying whap! and he grinned. Alright, maybe minutes to get back. He was wearing a black tank top and a pair of red jogging shorts with black stripes.
His new discipline included working out in the very, very early morning. which for others, was just the early morning. He'd made a promise to himself that he'd be more disciplined than ever when he returned from his vacation. Five-thirty AM workouts, bay-bee.
"I see you kept your word, Zell Dincht." Enter, Quistis. It wasn't often people saw her in the training room anymore. She usually used the intructor's training room. In fact, she always did since she'd become an instructor. Zell still used the SeeD rooms, it made him feel less stuffy. Which meant that Quistis had a reason for being here besides doing warm up stretches before she started snapping that whip of hers everywhere.
"Yeah well, when you're as good as me, it takes a new level of training to hit that next level!" He grinned and aimed a three-hit high-punch, low-kick, mid-elbow combo at the target at a blinding speed. Even without GF, he had become a combat specialist on at least a hemispheral level.
"How's the whip goin? Can you hit a Quarter-pieceyet?" The only trick he'd really learned with Quistis is to start in early and academic. She'd read that true world experts with a whip could hit a quarter-piece with their whip. Many of these people had been older and had more time to just practice than Quistis had. It counted as hitting if you could show a council that you could hit the coin five times in a row, or at least spin it. They gave you retries, but apparently it was almost impossible to do by luck and the coin was tossed by a randomizing machine. Quistis could "hit" a two-inch disk currently, but that had been damn hard for her at first and now was like child's play. She was aiming to be able to hit a single piece. That kind of shit puts you in the world record books for, like, ever. Anyone with hand writing as good as hers could do it.
"Not yet, but I sent a video to one of the oldest council members who saw someone almost do it. He said I wasn't as good as that person, but they'd been a year older than me and trained for hours each day." She shrugged and twined the fingers of each hand together and leaned forward as far as she could go, stretching all the joints in her arms front and then back. Every person who became a SeeD was so used to stretching that they treated it like going to the bathroom. Just something you had to do everyday, regular as breathings. "He thinks if I pick up my training that I might be the next one. I've considering taking some days off when we reach Galbadia to see a specialist and pick up some pointers." She stood upright and looked right into Zell's eyes, who was preparing to send one ass load of a combination at the innocent computer generated target. It told him how much power was behind each attack and how accurate it was. It gave a lot of greens to him (which meant great!).
"Shit, you're going to be in the record books, Quistis. They'll give you, like, a crystal whip or something." He joked before sending a flurry of punches in repetition and as fast as he could go. The screen blinked green with every attack.
"Yeah, maybe. But until then I'll just have to satisfy myself with knowing why you're avoiding saying anything about Seifer." Shit, there was a yellow one, one punch had landed just a little off. He kept the motion going to avoid saying anything to Quistis. Look! I'm punching at a holographic target, I'll talk to you later! He could keep this up for minutes, maybe she'd just drop it. Yeah, right. "You didn't...sleep with him?"
Red. Red. Red. Quistis gasped. "You did! Didn't you!?" She put one hand up to her mouth while her jaw was agape.
"What?! No!" As if he wasn't shocked enough, her next question was to ask him how far he'd gone. He told her nowhere and she barraged him with questions. He'd been avoiding this inevitable conversation, but for entirely different reasons than he had thought because Quistis wasn't asking him why he had let Seifer get that far from him. She was asking him why hadn't he because he didn't have a good reason either.
"You need to call him." She concluded.
"Why?" Talking to Seifer shouldn't be her objective for him. Not talking to Seifer, yes. Talking, no.
"Because you obviously need some sort of closure." Closure? Had she been reading the student's magazines she confistacted?
"Soooo you wanna see me call him and tell him I don't want him near me?"
"No, I mean call him and set up an...appointment."
"An appointment."
"Yeah."
"Sounds like a date to me." Of course it sounded like a date, unless she expected him to bring files and grade him. Then again with Quistis...nah.
"Well, that tells you something doesn't it." It didn't tell him anything, which meant Quistis was trying to make him learn some stupid lesson his own. Shit on that.
"Shut it, Quistis." He was learning to hate it less and less when she was right. But it was still really fucking annoying since she was right like all the fucking time. And he meant all the fucking time.
While Zell taught his students and trained, Seifer lived his life among oil slicked walls and pounding engines. Balamb had a steady flow of ships coming to and from the city. Either returning from large fishing trips or fueling up for longer journeys. He was there as an engineer. His days were spent out of the sun and below decks, toying with machinery with sometimes as little as a pocket flashlight between his teeth.
Some of the ships had been made during the long war, when parts were scarce. This meant that there was literally only as much room as necessary. This meant that sometimes he would be below the water line in a ship with no electricity with only enough room to squeeze his shoulders between the machinery and the hull. The ceilings sometime were so low that he'd have to spread his legs out as if he were imitating a frog while squeezing. Then as best as he could he'd fix the problem with a lantern. It was grueling work, stretching out warm hours. He hated the way he often could not get the smell of oil out of his skin.
He kept his apartment up to date and stylish because it was the only place in his life he could really control. He could no longer control what people thought about him in their towns, or their cities. He couldn't tell them what not to say behind his back after he left the diner or the laundromat or any other place. In his own home, he controlled exactly who was let in and what went where. He wasn't one for leaving his home very often, which was the number one reason it was so clean. He'd picked up reading in his spare time and still trained with a mock gunblade out of habit.
Although he'd really picked up a new and most unnerving habit. Brooding. He even had a place for it. He'd lay on his spotless white couch, like he had been more and more frequently since the incident with the other blonde. Incident with the other blonde...sounded like a matter for the police. He had his feet propped on the arm of the couch. No way around it, almost all couches weren't made for someone as long as he was. His feet were bare where they stuck out from the slightly too long black slacks. He wore a white wifebeater. He kinda looked like shit, but who the hell was going to see him?
he cradled his new pillow in his left arm. He'd bought it specifically for his new brooding. It was satiny on one side and downy like a child's stuffed animal on the other. He couldn't have bought it if it was soft on both sides, or he would no longer be able to delude himself that no one would notice. He was positive that if someone had seen it that they would know what it was used for, which was ridiculous, but what else was he to do?
He had been very ready to set into a long thinking session about where exactly his life had gone wrong: the sorceress, the other sorceress, joining SeeD, the matter with Zell, being mean to Zell in the first place, giving Squall the scar, Rinoa, or just being an orphan in general? Choices, choices. It could take him the whole day to only elaborate on a few of those events! Fortunately, the phone rang. Which was in itself odd because the phone never rang after he returned from work. Even if they needed to speak to him, they were too paranoid about his personal life for whatever reason to call him at home. The phone served to have messages from telemarketers who were absolutely delighted that there was no sorceress to prevent tele-communication.
Fuck it, every second on the phone meant one more second of avoiding a full day of depression on the couch. He fumbled for the simple white plastic phone on its shiny black surface and brought it to his face. It had taken him by such surprise that he was almost afraid of what he'd hear on the other line. So his greeting sounded more like a question. Should I even be greeting you? "H-hello?"
"Seifer?" The connection had a little crackle to it. Like the person was talking from very far away and had to pass through the cans on string a megaphone and then into his phone. Even still, the voice was familiar, although deeper than he was used to.
"Zell?" To say he sounded surprised was an understatement. He sat up quickly and looked around like he might be being watched. If he was, they'd be able tot tell that he had been caught completely off guard.
"Yeah, hey. S'up?" What's up? He was being awfully casual, which put him off. He desperately wanted to regain control of this conversation, but he had to first decide if he was awake or having some kind of delusionary fantasy which would probably turn out very badly.
"Uh, just the usual." It was the reply he gave to the guys at work he was friendly with. Hey, Seifer, what's going on? Oh, just the usual. Feeling shunned by the world and knowing it's because they hate me for good reason. Oh, and I have no idea what I'm going to do with my life. Did you notice I'm remarkably young to have fucked up so badly? me, too.
"Cool." The voice replied and he couldn't decide if the silence afterwards was awkwardness or if Zell was even there. With the crackling of the line, he wasn't able to decipher if there was breathing on the other end of the line. Had they been cut off and Zell was trying to call him back?
"Zell? Zell, are you still there?" Good, that hadn't sounded too desperate.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm still here." The voice sounded startled, like he had been thinking about something or...nervous. Shit, he was going to tell him to step off and not tell anybody.
"I thought we'd been cut off." Seifer answered, his defenses finally up to at least a small degree. He wasn't going to play any of his cards first, let Zell jump the gun.
"Nah. I was just, y'know." Y'know what? Was Zell laughing at him with someone he couldn't hear? Getting ready to record the conversation?
"Yeah."
"So."
"So."
"So?"
"Yeah, um, I'm at Garden now."
"And?"
"The connection's sorta bad. Sorry about that. They're tryin to get it fixed up, but it's takes fucking forever."
"Yeah." Zell was definitely avoiding saying something he didn't want to. If he had to give one more yeah, he was fucking hanging up the phone or he'd explode. Open this guy and he'll explode in ten seconds. Please clear the general area.
"So, uh. Yeah. I was wond'rin if y'know maybe you're busy but whatever Balamb's not that far and we ain't travelin since these techies and shit, but uh yeah I was thinkin we could make an appointment."
"An appointment?" What in the name of Hyne was a bloody fucking appointment supposed to mean. was he going to advise him on his taxes?
"Yeah, so maybe some night like you said you got most fridays off." He was talking in long, quick sentences. Seifer took a moment to process this new information. Some night, fridays. An appointment? It was sounding better by the second. He answered affirmatively. "Cool, two weeks OK?" Yeah, it was okay. Better than okay maybe. He told him sure and hung up the phone, amazed that he'd clung to some sort of dignity.
"Huh." He said to himself, laying back down, absently stroking the downy side of his new pillow. He stared up at the plain ceiling. An appointment two weeks on friday. Just this once, he indulged himself and let a slow lazy smile spread on his face. Since the curtains were all closed, he even let himself rest on that soft material. If it was pressed down, you could imagine it was someone's skin.
End Chapter 13
This is my longest chapter yet! I've started to put two spaces between all my paragraphs, does it help? Honestly, single spacing everything is a bizarre and probably bad habit I've had forever. I just don't know why, but I can't help it. I think it's that I feel like I'm cheating and can't accurately say how much I've written if there's more than one space between paragraphs. It is really useful when writing essays for school (when I went to school, that is). You'd have two and a half pages 10 font single spaced and BAM, when you reformatted your paper would be almost done. That was always kinda cool!
Additional notes include the fact that I have NO SPELL CHECK PROGRAM on this computer. Can you believe it? Even more unbelievable, can you believe with that fact that I do not make more spelling errors? Also, I really think it'd be more phonetically correct to have Seifer's name be "Seiffer" and it's my most common mistake. I've worked hard to correct this, but at least I'm not as bad as some Doujinshi out there!
Thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed! It really makes my day and totally motivates me to write more! xox
Fittingly, his last two days in Balamb were filled with cloudy skies and biting winds as Summer faded out into Autumn. If you asked Zell what his favorite time of year was, he wouldn't have told you this time of year. But he did very much enjoy it even though he did not remember. The air smelled fresh and clear and the streets quieted down considerably. There were less screaming children, they were probably all inside solemnly enjoying the last days of vacation. Hushed footsteps trailing under sparesely turning trees. Their voices filtered in through his window.
He wondered if Ma would call up just out of habit. She still was surprised that he could finally take care of himself. Thanks Ma. He packed the last tank top into his round duffel bag and hauled it over his shoulder. With some trepidation and more than a little relief, he was returning to Garden. He never thought his vacation would ever leave him longing to return to Garden, but anything was welcome over this confusion.
He hadn't thought of Seifer much in Garden and he was hoping it continued. A night's sleep and he had decided that this whole deal was a little too fucked for him. He was trying to get away from messed up relationships, not find more to participate in. Sorry Seifer, but this shit was too weird for most people.
He tromped down the stairs, his Ma waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She probably didn't realize it, but it was exactly where she was standing when he first left for Garden and where she always stood whenever he was leaving for Garden. She wasn't necessarily a creature of great habit, but she had hers now and again.
"Bye honey, I'll miss you." She said to him softly, giving him an affectionate hug when he reached the bottom of the stairs. His head was staring over her shoulder at the china closet they'd gotten when he was seven to replace the ratty old hutch.
"Miss you too, Ma." He squeezed her back and walked towards the door. He'd be right on time to catch the train that would have been there if the train was ever on time. But it was always late. So he'd be right on time to wait a god awful long time for the train, but the day he didn't get there on time...it'd be early.
His Ma stood in the open door as he stepped outside. She smiled and waved, "Write me when you get back!"
"Yeah, Ma!" He answered, waving over his shoulder. She used to get so angry at him for doing that, but couldn't for the life of her get him to change that habit. After he'd become a SeeD she'd stopped bugging him about it. Oh Hyne, might as well please the woman. He turned around and waved at her with a bright smile and she laughed. He laughed too and set down the street in the mid-morning sun. The clouds were beginning to clear. Figures.
[Garden]
He'd arrived at Garden approximately four hours and thirty-two minutes after his train had (finally) departed Balamb. He hadn't anticipated the gauntlet awaiting him. Maybe gauntlet was too harsh a word to use with the well-meaning people that spoke to him, but it felt like one to him. He was stupid to not have been prepared for it.
What gauntlet was he thinking of? "How was your vacation, Zell?" "Hey Zell, back already? I thought you'd never wanna come back!" "Instructor Dincht, have fun in Balamb?" It would have been easy enough for another, more demure person to give a noncommital answer, but this was Zell that everyone was speaking to. You could teach him to kill a dragon with a jump kick. You could teach him to argue better and to interpret sarcasm. You could not teach him to accurately lie about his feelings.
But worst of all, he was afraid that he'd get caught up and reveal something he didn't want to. The something being Seifer, anything to do with Seifer, and any fact that he'd seen him at all. He'd managed to avoid seriously talking to Quistis three days later, but she was beginning to suspect something was up. Everyone else had gotten some pathetic story about getting caught up in his work. Ouch, he'd be paying for that one somewhere down the line, he was sure.
For now, he'd take everything out on the punching mat. Geez, a little under two weeks of light hour-long workouts and he was all rusty. His heel drops just didn't have the snap they had when he was under intense regular training. It'd take him days to get back that power again. He raised up his leg and hurled the sneaker clad foot downward at his target. It landed with a satisfying whap! and he grinned. Alright, maybe minutes to get back. He was wearing a black tank top and a pair of red jogging shorts with black stripes.
His new discipline included working out in the very, very early morning. which for others, was just the early morning. He'd made a promise to himself that he'd be more disciplined than ever when he returned from his vacation. Five-thirty AM workouts, bay-bee.
"I see you kept your word, Zell Dincht." Enter, Quistis. It wasn't often people saw her in the training room anymore. She usually used the intructor's training room. In fact, she always did since she'd become an instructor. Zell still used the SeeD rooms, it made him feel less stuffy. Which meant that Quistis had a reason for being here besides doing warm up stretches before she started snapping that whip of hers everywhere.
"Yeah well, when you're as good as me, it takes a new level of training to hit that next level!" He grinned and aimed a three-hit high-punch, low-kick, mid-elbow combo at the target at a blinding speed. Even without GF, he had become a combat specialist on at least a hemispheral level.
"How's the whip goin? Can you hit a Quarter-pieceyet?" The only trick he'd really learned with Quistis is to start in early and academic. She'd read that true world experts with a whip could hit a quarter-piece with their whip. Many of these people had been older and had more time to just practice than Quistis had. It counted as hitting if you could show a council that you could hit the coin five times in a row, or at least spin it. They gave you retries, but apparently it was almost impossible to do by luck and the coin was tossed by a randomizing machine. Quistis could "hit" a two-inch disk currently, but that had been damn hard for her at first and now was like child's play. She was aiming to be able to hit a single piece. That kind of shit puts you in the world record books for, like, ever. Anyone with hand writing as good as hers could do it.
"Not yet, but I sent a video to one of the oldest council members who saw someone almost do it. He said I wasn't as good as that person, but they'd been a year older than me and trained for hours each day." She shrugged and twined the fingers of each hand together and leaned forward as far as she could go, stretching all the joints in her arms front and then back. Every person who became a SeeD was so used to stretching that they treated it like going to the bathroom. Just something you had to do everyday, regular as breathings. "He thinks if I pick up my training that I might be the next one. I've considering taking some days off when we reach Galbadia to see a specialist and pick up some pointers." She stood upright and looked right into Zell's eyes, who was preparing to send one ass load of a combination at the innocent computer generated target. It told him how much power was behind each attack and how accurate it was. It gave a lot of greens to him (which meant great!).
"Shit, you're going to be in the record books, Quistis. They'll give you, like, a crystal whip or something." He joked before sending a flurry of punches in repetition and as fast as he could go. The screen blinked green with every attack.
"Yeah, maybe. But until then I'll just have to satisfy myself with knowing why you're avoiding saying anything about Seifer." Shit, there was a yellow one, one punch had landed just a little off. He kept the motion going to avoid saying anything to Quistis. Look! I'm punching at a holographic target, I'll talk to you later! He could keep this up for minutes, maybe she'd just drop it. Yeah, right. "You didn't...sleep with him?"
Red. Red. Red. Quistis gasped. "You did! Didn't you!?" She put one hand up to her mouth while her jaw was agape.
"What?! No!" As if he wasn't shocked enough, her next question was to ask him how far he'd gone. He told her nowhere and she barraged him with questions. He'd been avoiding this inevitable conversation, but for entirely different reasons than he had thought because Quistis wasn't asking him why he had let Seifer get that far from him. She was asking him why hadn't he because he didn't have a good reason either.
"You need to call him." She concluded.
"Why?" Talking to Seifer shouldn't be her objective for him. Not talking to Seifer, yes. Talking, no.
"Because you obviously need some sort of closure." Closure? Had she been reading the student's magazines she confistacted?
"Soooo you wanna see me call him and tell him I don't want him near me?"
"No, I mean call him and set up an...appointment."
"An appointment."
"Yeah."
"Sounds like a date to me." Of course it sounded like a date, unless she expected him to bring files and grade him. Then again with Quistis...nah.
"Well, that tells you something doesn't it." It didn't tell him anything, which meant Quistis was trying to make him learn some stupid lesson his own. Shit on that.
"Shut it, Quistis." He was learning to hate it less and less when she was right. But it was still really fucking annoying since she was right like all the fucking time. And he meant all the fucking time.
While Zell taught his students and trained, Seifer lived his life among oil slicked walls and pounding engines. Balamb had a steady flow of ships coming to and from the city. Either returning from large fishing trips or fueling up for longer journeys. He was there as an engineer. His days were spent out of the sun and below decks, toying with machinery with sometimes as little as a pocket flashlight between his teeth.
Some of the ships had been made during the long war, when parts were scarce. This meant that there was literally only as much room as necessary. This meant that sometimes he would be below the water line in a ship with no electricity with only enough room to squeeze his shoulders between the machinery and the hull. The ceilings sometime were so low that he'd have to spread his legs out as if he were imitating a frog while squeezing. Then as best as he could he'd fix the problem with a lantern. It was grueling work, stretching out warm hours. He hated the way he often could not get the smell of oil out of his skin.
He kept his apartment up to date and stylish because it was the only place in his life he could really control. He could no longer control what people thought about him in their towns, or their cities. He couldn't tell them what not to say behind his back after he left the diner or the laundromat or any other place. In his own home, he controlled exactly who was let in and what went where. He wasn't one for leaving his home very often, which was the number one reason it was so clean. He'd picked up reading in his spare time and still trained with a mock gunblade out of habit.
Although he'd really picked up a new and most unnerving habit. Brooding. He even had a place for it. He'd lay on his spotless white couch, like he had been more and more frequently since the incident with the other blonde. Incident with the other blonde...sounded like a matter for the police. He had his feet propped on the arm of the couch. No way around it, almost all couches weren't made for someone as long as he was. His feet were bare where they stuck out from the slightly too long black slacks. He wore a white wifebeater. He kinda looked like shit, but who the hell was going to see him?
he cradled his new pillow in his left arm. He'd bought it specifically for his new brooding. It was satiny on one side and downy like a child's stuffed animal on the other. He couldn't have bought it if it was soft on both sides, or he would no longer be able to delude himself that no one would notice. He was positive that if someone had seen it that they would know what it was used for, which was ridiculous, but what else was he to do?
He had been very ready to set into a long thinking session about where exactly his life had gone wrong: the sorceress, the other sorceress, joining SeeD, the matter with Zell, being mean to Zell in the first place, giving Squall the scar, Rinoa, or just being an orphan in general? Choices, choices. It could take him the whole day to only elaborate on a few of those events! Fortunately, the phone rang. Which was in itself odd because the phone never rang after he returned from work. Even if they needed to speak to him, they were too paranoid about his personal life for whatever reason to call him at home. The phone served to have messages from telemarketers who were absolutely delighted that there was no sorceress to prevent tele-communication.
Fuck it, every second on the phone meant one more second of avoiding a full day of depression on the couch. He fumbled for the simple white plastic phone on its shiny black surface and brought it to his face. It had taken him by such surprise that he was almost afraid of what he'd hear on the other line. So his greeting sounded more like a question. Should I even be greeting you? "H-hello?"
"Seifer?" The connection had a little crackle to it. Like the person was talking from very far away and had to pass through the cans on string a megaphone and then into his phone. Even still, the voice was familiar, although deeper than he was used to.
"Zell?" To say he sounded surprised was an understatement. He sat up quickly and looked around like he might be being watched. If he was, they'd be able tot tell that he had been caught completely off guard.
"Yeah, hey. S'up?" What's up? He was being awfully casual, which put him off. He desperately wanted to regain control of this conversation, but he had to first decide if he was awake or having some kind of delusionary fantasy which would probably turn out very badly.
"Uh, just the usual." It was the reply he gave to the guys at work he was friendly with. Hey, Seifer, what's going on? Oh, just the usual. Feeling shunned by the world and knowing it's because they hate me for good reason. Oh, and I have no idea what I'm going to do with my life. Did you notice I'm remarkably young to have fucked up so badly? me, too.
"Cool." The voice replied and he couldn't decide if the silence afterwards was awkwardness or if Zell was even there. With the crackling of the line, he wasn't able to decipher if there was breathing on the other end of the line. Had they been cut off and Zell was trying to call him back?
"Zell? Zell, are you still there?" Good, that hadn't sounded too desperate.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm still here." The voice sounded startled, like he had been thinking about something or...nervous. Shit, he was going to tell him to step off and not tell anybody.
"I thought we'd been cut off." Seifer answered, his defenses finally up to at least a small degree. He wasn't going to play any of his cards first, let Zell jump the gun.
"Nah. I was just, y'know." Y'know what? Was Zell laughing at him with someone he couldn't hear? Getting ready to record the conversation?
"Yeah."
"So."
"So."
"So?"
"Yeah, um, I'm at Garden now."
"And?"
"The connection's sorta bad. Sorry about that. They're tryin to get it fixed up, but it's takes fucking forever."
"Yeah." Zell was definitely avoiding saying something he didn't want to. If he had to give one more yeah, he was fucking hanging up the phone or he'd explode. Open this guy and he'll explode in ten seconds. Please clear the general area.
"So, uh. Yeah. I was wond'rin if y'know maybe you're busy but whatever Balamb's not that far and we ain't travelin since these techies and shit, but uh yeah I was thinkin we could make an appointment."
"An appointment?" What in the name of Hyne was a bloody fucking appointment supposed to mean. was he going to advise him on his taxes?
"Yeah, so maybe some night like you said you got most fridays off." He was talking in long, quick sentences. Seifer took a moment to process this new information. Some night, fridays. An appointment? It was sounding better by the second. He answered affirmatively. "Cool, two weeks OK?" Yeah, it was okay. Better than okay maybe. He told him sure and hung up the phone, amazed that he'd clung to some sort of dignity.
"Huh." He said to himself, laying back down, absently stroking the downy side of his new pillow. He stared up at the plain ceiling. An appointment two weeks on friday. Just this once, he indulged himself and let a slow lazy smile spread on his face. Since the curtains were all closed, he even let himself rest on that soft material. If it was pressed down, you could imagine it was someone's skin.
End Chapter 13
This is my longest chapter yet! I've started to put two spaces between all my paragraphs, does it help? Honestly, single spacing everything is a bizarre and probably bad habit I've had forever. I just don't know why, but I can't help it. I think it's that I feel like I'm cheating and can't accurately say how much I've written if there's more than one space between paragraphs. It is really useful when writing essays for school (when I went to school, that is). You'd have two and a half pages 10 font single spaced and BAM, when you reformatted your paper would be almost done. That was always kinda cool!
Additional notes include the fact that I have NO SPELL CHECK PROGRAM on this computer. Can you believe it? Even more unbelievable, can you believe with that fact that I do not make more spelling errors? Also, I really think it'd be more phonetically correct to have Seifer's name be "Seiffer" and it's my most common mistake. I've worked hard to correct this, but at least I'm not as bad as some Doujinshi out there!
Thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed! It really makes my day and totally motivates me to write more! xox