Ugh… I hate staring at a blank page! It makes me feet like I have so much to do. But oh well. I'm in a good mood because I survived my first final and because I have all weekend plus Monday to study for my next two, so screw today! It goes to FanFiction! ^_~ Background info for things to come: Tidus and Wakka both strike me as the guy who would assail his dignity and screw his own honor and outright humiliate himself for his girl. So they will. And often, too. ^_~
For goodness sake—I DON'T OWN FINAL FANTASY X! LEAVE ME ALOOOOOONE!
~*~
Chapter 5:
Daydream Believer
"Attention teachers and students," a voice came over the PA system but it was different from the one that usually made announcements. The students recognized it and listened closely because for the last few weeks, since just after Halloween, someone had been making prank-y announcements and making everyone laugh. The voice spoke again. "We regret to announce that, due to circumstances beyond our control, lunch… will be served today."
Laughter erupted in the classrooms and a few teachers went along with it. In a cold, dark janitors closet in a far-off corner of the school, Tidus switched off his cell phone and put it back into his pocket.
"I love me," he murmured. Ever since he figured how to rewire the PA system to accept the frequency from his phone and a six-digit code that only he knew, he had been having a considerable amount of fun with it. Random times during the day, he would go off and make some kind of announcement just to spice up the day. One time he said that anyone taking the "Health Education" class would be showing a sex film. After hearing the cheers, he added that it was a STD film. He loved that stunt.
He wandered back to his classroom and passed Yuna on the way. She smiled and nodded politely at him, but said nothing. She was still so shy and quiet, and he wondered for a while if she regretted associating with him but Rikku assured him that her cousin was a freak and she would act this way around her own family, meaning herself. Tidus found himself thinking then that he would probably avoid Rikku, too, if he was related to her.
It was third period, and the bell rang to start class; students herded into Seymour's room and took their seats. Tidus had migrated over the course of the last few weeks and managed to get himself near Yuna. Now he pretty much saw and heard everything that Seymour did or said to her. Now that he knew of the man's intentions for her, it was blatantly obvious. Perhaps not blatantly obvious, but the way he looked at her, the way he spoke, the fact that he rarely gave the girl her personal space—all of them gave him away. He was surprised that no one else had figured it out. Then again, he hadn't known, either, so he let it slide with everyone else.
He watched Yuna, who was seated in front of him. She had her head down and was alternating drawing in a sketchbook and writing notes on what Seymour was saying. Tidus was alternating between doodling on his notes and writing nasty things on the desk. Without thinking, he wrote Yuna's name in funny-looking block letters letters that he had colored in to make them look different. He craned his neck to see what Yuna was drawing, but she had put the book beneath her chair to hide it from Seymour, who was headed their way. She kept her head down; Tidus watched out of the corner of his eye.
"Miss Bamarre," Seymour said, putting his hands on Yuna's paper and leaning very close to her. Yuna swallowed.
"…" She opened her mouth, as if to say something but no words came out. She looked up at him, eyes wide.
"May I ask what you were doing with this?" He reached underneath the chair and pulled out the sketchbook, waving it in front of Yuna's face. She didn't really look up at it, but her cheeks were flushing. Seymour smiled to himself. "If I catch you drawing in class again, it'll be a detention for y—"
"'Scuze me," Tidus stood up and managed to wedge himself between Yuna and Seymour. Seymour looked annoyed, and Yuna grateful but also puzzled. What was he up to? Was he playing "hero"?
"What do you want?" Seymour growled.
"Can I have my book back?" He reached for Yuna's sketchbook. Seymour's face fell slightly. He was obviously looking for a reason to keep Yuna in his classroom alone with him.
"This is yours?" Seymour asked, meaning the sketchbook. He looked at the drawing, then at Yuna, then at Tidus.
"Yea…"
Purple eyes narrowed and he pushed the book into Tidus' chest a little too hard, as it made a very audible "thud" against it.
"Don't let me see it again," he warned, and walked back to the front of the class. Tidus sat down, putting the book beneath his notes. He kept looking at it throughout the class, wanting very badly to look through it but knowing that looking through someone's sketchbook was just as bad as looking through their diary. Still… curiosity got the better of him and he decided that it would be all right if he just looked at the one drawing that she had been working on. He moved his papers slowly and glanced at the picture, nearly dropping his mouth open. The picture featured a girl with wings, sitting on what appeared to be a very large tree branch. One leg hung down and the other was drawn up to her chest. She looked like she was staring off into space, and in the upper left-hand corner of the picture was written, "Just because she does not flap her wings all the time doesn't mean she cannot fly." He found part of his situation funny, because Seymour probably thought he was a fruitcake. Nonetheless, Yuna was quite an artist.
Something tapped his knee, and he looked down and to the left. Yuna had her left hand dropped to her side with a piece of paper between her fingers. Tidus took it, and she brought her hand back to her own desk. He opened the note and read it.
Thank you, Tidus… Now I owe you two—for this and for the girls' bathroom escort.
Tidus smiled to himself and wrote back in his own scrawl: Don't mention it. Besides, I don't need you getting sick again. I can't ALWAYS follow you into the girls bathroom! As appealing as that sounds…
He passed the note back to her. He couldn't see her face to gauge her reaction to his little joke. He heard a suppressed giggle, so he figured she was okay with it.
Because neither wanted to get into trouble with Seymour, Tidus kept her book until they were out of sight of the classroom. When he was sure that the teacher could no longer see them, he pulled Yuna over in the halls and gave her the sketchbook.
"Be careful next time, okay?" He told her. "That guy'll look for any excuse to keep you after school."
"I know," she whispered. She looked up at him briefly and then looked down at her untied sneakers, but not before he noticed the color in her cheeks.
"So, Homecoming game is next week," he said, referring to the yearly blitzball game that took place around this time, so called because that was when all the university students came home to watch their old schools play. "You gonna come?" He hoped she would; after all, he was playing.
"No," she said, just as quietly as before. "We lose the homecoming game every year."
"Yea, but this year you've got a damn good blitzball ace on your team!" He said, shamelessly promoting himself with a cocky look. Yuna couldn't help but smile. He was boyish, and she found herself attracted to it.
"I'll hear about it the Monday after. It's all everyone ever talks about for days afterward," she told him. She knew he was trying to get her to go, but she couldn't sit through a blitzball game. Especially not a school one, because people would gang up on her and play nasty tricks.
"Well, then…" he paused, trying to get the right words. "What about… what about the Homecoming dance?" He asked. Yuna stopped shuffling her feet on the floor and looked up at him.
"What about it?" She asked suspiciously. Was this a joke?
"Are you going?" He felt nervous and he didn't know why. He'd asked tons of girls out before. Maybe he was nervous because all of those girls would fall all over themselves just to hold his jersey. Yuna would probably reject him. Ah well.
"No… I've never gone to one before, either."
"Well… would you go with me?" He asked quickly.
"I beg your pardon?" She asked.
"Come to Homecoming with me?" He asked again.
There was a very long pause; Tidus began to feel stupid when he looked towards her again, and was surprised to see her smiling slightly.
"All right," she whispered.
Yuna wrestled a stick from Ursa while Rikku read out loud a pamphlet that she had gotten in class about Homecoming. Lulu sat nearby, stitching up a hole in her Cait Sith doll. It seemed Ursa liked the taste of enchanted dolls. The Cait Sith sat patiently in the folds of the black dress, glaring murderously at Ursa.
"Lulu, make sure your doll doesn't go casting hexes on my dog," Yuna said, throwing the stick. Ursa turned and chased after it, barking her deep, loud bark.
"It'll only do what I tell it to do," Lulu assured her. "I've told you that before."
"Well, if you're sure—"
"Oh my God! Yunie! Lulu! Look!" She shoved the pamphlet in front of Yuna's face and she couldn't read it. "Read it! Read it! Read it!" She commanded.
"Rikku back up! I can't breathe let alone read this stupid thing!" Yuna shoved her off. She took the pamphlet and read it through, looking puzzled. "What am I looking for, exactly?"
"The Machine Faction is playing! Your school is getting the Machine Faction to play at the Homecoming dance!" The blonde put both of her hands over her breastbone and sighed, falling to the cold ground. "It's destiny!"
"What is?" Yuna asked.
"Yunie? Have you ever paid any attention to the many posters I have hanging up in my room?" Rikku lifted her head to look her cousin in the face.
"Not really."
"They're my favorite band. And the lead singer and guitarist… Gippal… oh my God he is dead sexy."
"So you think that just because he's coming to play at your high school's Homecoming dance that you are destined to marry and live happily ever after?" Lulu suggested, face deadpan. Her eyes glimmered with mirth, however, at her own comment. Rikku crossed her arms and stuck out her lower lip in a pout.
"No! Just… maybe a chance for a one-night stand."
"You could never do that, Rikku," Yuna said. "You get attached too easily. He'd have to get a restraining order on you!"
Rikku sighed and stayed quiet for a few moments before saying, "Lets go to Homecoming. The three of us. Just the Witches Three, you know?"
"Pass," Lulu immediately said. She waited for Yuna to make some kind of a sarcastic comment about it, but nothing came. She glanced at her friend, confused. She was drawing in her sketchbook.
"Yunie?" The blonde asked.
"Yea?"
"What about you?"
"Huh?"
"Come to Homecoming!"
Yuna sighed. She hadn't told them yet that Tidus had asked her to go—and that she had accepted his invitation. "Tidus asked me to go with him." She finally said.
"He did?" Lulu asked, actually seeming surprised. "When?"
"Today."
"Oh, Yunie! You have to tell him yes! You can't just blow him off, I mean, come on he's gorgeous and nice and sweet and—"
"Rikku…"
"He's like… the perfect guy for you, Yunie!"
"Rikku, what the hell do you think I told him?"
"You said no, didn't you?" Rikku said.
"No. I said I'd go with him."
"You did?" Both Rikku and Lulu said at the same time. Yuna grinned and nodded. Her cousin hugged her tightly.
"Oh, Yuna! That's so great!" She bounced a little and began to get lost in her own little fantasies. "We can wear long flowy gowns and trim our hair with flowers, and we'll dance all night and then you and Tidus can kiss under the stars and Gippal and I can…" she was off. There was no bringing her back, now.
"Are you serious, Yuna?" Lulu asked. "I don't mean to inject a not of pessimism, but what of Seymour? Should he see you dressed up there's no telling what he'll do."
Yuna thought of that, her face and excitement falling. Lulu had a point. Seymour never got to see her dressed up because she never really went any—
"He won't be there," she replied, somewhat confident.
"How are you so sure?"
"Because I never leave home. What'll make him think that I'd go to Homecoming this year?"
Lulu paused. Her friend had a point. "Vas avec amour." ["Go with love."] She said with a smile playing across her lips.
"So, Lulu, you comin'?" Rikku asked.
"No."
"Yea, you are," she snapped. "Come on, Lulu, you gotta come! It'll be so lonely without you and your nasty comments every few minutes! And what if Gippal is there? I'll need some moral support and Yuna's gonna be too busy goin' off with Tidus so… oh, c'mon, Lulu, it'll be fun!" She begged. "Please?"
"No."
"Yunie, help me out here!" Rikku said desperately.
"Why?" Yuna asked. "She's not gonna bend to me any more than she'd bend to anyone else."
"Please, Lulu? It'll be lonely without you! We loooooooove you, Lulu!" She jumped up and hugged her friend around the waist so tightly that she squeaked.
"You'd best agree with her soon," Yuna whispered to her childhood friend. "Before she hugs you any tighter. She won't hesitate to squeeze the tongue right out of your mouth."
Lulu gasped and finally caved in. "J'ai assistu! J'ai assistu!"
"Translation?" Rikku loosed her grip only slightly.
"She said she'll go."
"Ohh! Lulu, that's so great!" She let her friend go; Lulu gasped for breath.
"You've got a better grip than I give you credit for," Lulu commented, inspecting her flesh for red imprints of Rikkus' arms.
"We have to get dresses," Rikku said on a serious note.
"All I own are dresses, Rikku," Lulu said.
"I mean a nice dress, Lu," she snapped back. "The kind that isn't chopped up the front and with belts all over it and fur lining."
"Is there any other type?" She asked sarcastically, biting the string that sewed up the "wound" on her Cait Sith. "But I suppose I can find one if it'll make you feel better. I know of a secondhand store near here where I could find a dress."
"A secondhand store?" Rikku asked, slightly disgusted. "You shop at secondhand stores?"
"I have to, Rikku. I live alone, and my job doesn't pay much. I work as a veterinary assistant in an animal hospital. Not a glamorous or high-paying job, to say the least."
"You'd be surprised what you can find at secondhand stores," Yuna put in. "I say it couldn't hurt to look around."
"Someone's being unusually optimistic," Lulu said, point blank.
"Does this have anything to do with a certain blonde blitzball player with blue eyes and a smile that could make your knees turn to pudding?" Rikku drawled.
"Perhaps," Yuna told her, and went back to her sketchbook and her dog.
The following day was a professional day, and because there was no school Rikku dragged them all out shopping for dresses when they would really have rather been in bed, sleeping. Since it was Rikku doing the dragging at first, the first place they hit was a big store, but being high-school students, they couldn't afford anything there. They saw the popular girls from school shopping here, though. They'd probably borrowed their Daddy's credit card. Yuna felt her chest twist from the inside. When they managed to pry Rikku away from the flashy displays, they went into one of the small stores at the edge of the small town. Nearby was the cathedral, where the Yevonite Catholics spent most of their Sundays. They slipped into one of the shops.
The old woman who owned the shop knew what season it was: Homecoming Dress Season. She had all of the dresses within reach of whoever would want one. She nodded politely to Lulu as the three walked into the shop. After a painful inquisition, Rikku admitted that they were nice dresses. Not to mention affordable. The Al Bhed girl immediately began looking for a red dress. Rikku loved red. Yuna looked through the most simple dresses she could find, and Lulu wanted something in black. She and Rikku got into an argument about it after not quite ten minutes.
"You can't wear black forever, ya know!" Rikku protested, trying to sway her friend towards some rose-colored gowns. Lulu dodged her and went looking for a black one.
"J'aime vêtments noires," she hissed. ["I like black clothes."]
"I don't care what you just said, but why won't you try wearing something different for a change?" She planted her fists on her hips and pouted.
"Rikku, leave her alone," Yuna called. She picked up a purple dress. She liked this one. It was long and laced up the back like Lulu's dresses, only without all of the buckles. There was black embroidery on the sleeves and on the bottom of the dress. It looked like the same person had made this dress as well as most of Lulu's favorites—the ones with the fur lining and the myriad of belts up the front. Yuna tried the dress on and found that it fit nicely, albeit left more of her bosom exposed than was appropriate for her taste.
Lulu, sick of hearing Rikku's endless pestering about black dresses, picked up a red one. It was a dark, dark shade of red, like blood. Like most of her dresses, this one, too, had a corset-like lace, although this one laced up the front instead of the back. The sleeves were flounce-y and covered her hands completely when she put them down by her side.
Rikku, on the other hand, had trouble with her own dress. She knew she wanted something short and sleeveless, although Yuna and Lulu had tried to explain that November in Besaid tended to be on the chilly side, especially after the sun set. After she didn't listen, they decided that it might just be best that she catch pneumonia and figure it out for herself. Yuna cringed when she saw what her cousin had picked out: a little black spaghetti-strap affair with red trim. Lulu got angry when she saw that the blonde's choice was a black dress.
"Are you upset that you couldn't find anything Velcro?" Lulu asked her.
"Why?" Rikku asked, puzzled.
"Velcro is the only thing that a lust-crazed male in a dark room can open. Besides maybe the zipper on his own trousers," she replied. Rikku turned pink. "It's the truth," Lulu said absently.
Tidus sat in the locker room after the Homecoming blitzball game. They'd won the game—the final score was 6 to 4. the rest of the team had gone out to celebrate, but he hadn't been invited. Even Wakka blew him off. He sat dripping on a bench, the puddle beneath him getting bigger and bigger. He'd called Auron earlier to say that he'd be going straight home. Auron was a control freak. He had to know where Tidus was constantly.
Once he figured that he had decently dried out and drenched the floor, he got up, took his keys and his bag, and went out into the parking lot. As he walked towards his car, he passed three members of the blitzball team either on the grass or in the backseat of their cars. He shook his head. His own car was parked at the edge of the lot. It was a little foreign affair—Volkswagen Beetle. "The bug car," as one of his friends in Zanarkand called it. It was bright blue although now it was a bit dusty and needed a cleaning. People thought that Beetles were total chick cars, but he didn't care. He liked his, for reasons unknown even to himself. He sat down and made a squelching noise on the vinyl seat—he hadn't dried as well as he thought he did—and drove off.
Auron was waiting up for him when he got back. He was sitting in the living room with a cup of what appeared to be that morning's coffee in one hand and a news paper in the other. One of their two cats, Gadget, sat in his lap, asleep.
"You're late," he said without looking up from his paper.
"I know. I drip-dried in the locker-room. I'm sorry," he replied. He felt a bit uneasy, even though his jitters about asking Yuna to Homecoming were over. Maybe he was just nervous because of what might happen at the dance. After all… not many people thought Yuna was even human, let alone a good date. He threw it out of his mind as best as he could.
"Something troubling you?" Auron asked over the paper. Tidus stopped in his tracks. Damn him.
"No," he lied.
"Nothing at all? No girl problems?"
He damned his guardian again and dropped his duffel bag on the floor. The other cat, Ace, a bobtailed tabby, wandered back and forth at his feet; he picked him up. "Maybe some," he admitted.
"I never thought I would live to see the day when the legendary son of Jecht Reina, Chick Magnet of Zanarkand High, would have girl problems," Auron said. He had made a joke, even though his voice was flat and he didn't crack a smile. He looked up at Tidus with his one good eye. "Need to talk about it?"
"Not unless you can make everyone at the school tolerate her."
"I thought you only dated cheerleaders. She a reject cheerleader? Or is it that she's so amazing that everyone hates her for it?"
"No, I… never really thought of it that way…" he thought of what Auron had said. He knew full well that nobody was envious of Yuna although he thought that they should be. "But no, that's not it. She's… well, she's worried about something. And it gets to her so badly that she never even leaves her house except to go to school, which makes no sense to me because that's where the problem is."
"I see. Do you know exactly what it is?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"I'm not supposed to say."
"Suit yourself." Auron went back to his newspaper.
Tidus put the cat down and picked up his duffel. He paused a moment, then finally turned around and said quietly, "Someone's stalking her and she's afraid to let anyone know. She thinks that they'll all take his word over hers." He looked to see Auron's reaction and was pleased to note that it's had at least made him put his paper down.
"That so?" He asked. "What do you propose to do about it?"
"I wanna help her, I just dunno how."
"I suggest you catch him in the act. Play dumb. Pretend you don't know. When the time it right, you can catch him."
That made sense. Simple plan. Effective. He was surprised that his own simple mind hadn't thought of it. Then again, his plans rarely worked, anyway.
"What do you propose I do until then?"
"Until he lets his pants down?" Auron put the paper back up in front of his face. "Make his life a living hell. Drive him to extremes. And for God's sake, boy, don't get yourself killed!"
Typical Auron: good advice, lousy follow-up.
Ace followed Tidus to his room and jumped onto his windowsill.
"If only I could train you to find Seymour's house and scratch the bastards nuts off," he said to his cat. Inquisitive green eyes looked back at him and he smiled. "Yea… that'd be the day. Cats can't be trained to do anything… they do what they want to when they want to." He sighed as the cat rolled over onto his back and mewed at him. Tidus unlaced one of his shoed and dangled the lace in front of his face. It was a good thing that no one from the team or from school in general knew that he still played with a cat like this. They would never let him live it down. Absently he found himself wondering what Yuna kept as a pet. He snickered to himself, thinking of what sort of rumors would circulate if he asked. On his own he came up with a list of creatures that people would suspect she had in her house. Fiends. A miniature genetically engineered version of the mythical monster called Sin. Lions. Venomous snakes. Spiders the size of small cars. Male whores wearing animals skins.
At that last thought, he let out a bark of laughter. Now that he had gotten to know Yuna somewhat, he figured that she really kept dogs, cats, birds—anything that everyone else didn't want.
Yuna… she was so different from everyone else he had ever met. He never met a girl who would willingly work up to her elbows in brown clay, or admit to being related to an Al Bhed, or not even care about her own popularity. She admitted being a WhiteMage, but didn't spread around the fact that she was, in fact, a witch. She only admitted it to him because it came up in conversation.
Yuna Bamarre. School reject, artist, sculptor, witch, mysterious unknown girl, stalker victim, all-around good girl.
He couldn't help it. He was starting to fall for her.
~*~
Whee! I have to apologize for not posting this yesterday when it was finished. My internet has been down, so I haven't been able to post or read fanfiction since Thursday. But I'm back, and to make it up to you, I've posted an extra-long chapter. I was going to include Homecoming in this chapter, but I didn't because that would've made it way long. Next chapter will be Homecoming. A little pre-fluff in that chapter but since Yuna's still skittish, there won't be much smooching. If any. Please review and let me know how I'm doing!
By the by: I grandfathered Gippal into the story. (That means I worked him into it.) I started writing this before I knew of him, so he originally wasn't even in the story to begin with, but I figured that "The Machine Faction" sounded like a punkish band and that Gippal can be the lead singer. Ta-daa! There you have it! So there could be a bit 'o Rikku+Gippal stuff in here! Oh, and the chapter title, Daydream Believer, is from a song by the Monkeys by the same name. Next chapter might be titled by the next line in the song: Homecoming Queen. (No, Yuna will not be the Homecoming Queen.)
STILL TO COME:
Wakka asks Lulu to the Homecoming dance in a slightly unorthodox way. The dance itself is quite an affair, too. Rikku gets in good with the Machine Faction, Lulu seems to have a softer side for redheads, and Tidus decides to "take action" with Seymour.