Hey everyone! I got an idea in school yesterday, and I went with it and today I have enough oomph to get on with it. So, here we go! Wow, you people probably love me for getting a move on with this sucker quickly. Or fairly quickly, anyway. Well, I'll shut up now and get a start on this story and hopefully have it posted in a week. I won't be able to work on it this weekend (the 19th-21st) because I'll be in New York visiting *dun, dun, dun!* relatives! *scream* Okay, enough. I'm writing, I'm writing…
I won't cave and write more disclaimers!
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Ch 10
All's Fair in Love and War
Rikku sat on the edge of Yuna's bed, watching her cousin pace back and forth, walking into her closet, then burying her head and shoulders in her dresser drawers, and then heading back to the closet. It seemed that her "charade" with Tidus was becoming more than just a charade, or so it seemed to her, anyway. She glanced at the clock—black numbers blinked 7:45.
"Maybe if you started to dress a little more like a girl and a little less like a burlap sack, it'd look more like you guys were going out," she suggested, watching Yuna disappear into the closet again. "Could even lead to other things. Come on, you know you'd like that."
"I know I would, but I don't think he would," she said, voice somewhat muffled. "Besides that, the only reason he's doing this for me is because he feels sorry for me. That's all." She sighed again, growling a little and tossing a heavy winter jacket out of the closet and onto the floor. She stepped out of it, still wearing her camisole and underwear. Rikku rolled her eyes. It was lucky for them that they had an afternoon half-day that day, or they would already be twenty minutes late for school.
"Hey, why do you wear those things?" Rikku asked, regarding her cousin's choice of undergarments. "They're probably hot in summer, aren't they?"
"A little," she admitted with a shrug.
"So why not be like every other girl and wear a thong and a bra?" She suggested, preparing herself for an onslaught of yelling.
"I don't wanna risk it. Don't wanna look too nice, remember? Seymour?" Yuna reminded her.
"I don't think he stays awake at nights contemplating your underwear, Yunie!"
"Look, if I thought it'd turn Seymour off, I'd wear boxers!" Yuna snapped. "Besides, wearing a thong would be like walking around with a constant and self-inflicted wedgie."
"Suit yourself," Rikku said with a shrug.
"I will, thank you." After a few more minutes of searching through her closet for clothes, she gave up and sat on the other side of her bed from Rikku. "Pypa, I never thought I'd live to see the day when I started asking you if I could borrow clothes."
"You wanna borrow clothes from me?" Rikku's eyes went very wide and a huge grin spread over her face. "Well, it's about time!" She yipped, bouncing around. "I'll get you a cute little denim mini and a tank top and some makeup—"
"Don't jinx it or I'll wear sweatpants," Yuna threatened. "I just want to borrow a pair of jeans and a shirt. Just until I can get some of my own, all right? And don't bring anything pink or covered in hearts and sparkles, or I'll vomit."
"You are such a killjoy!" Rikku huffed, getting up to go to her room and look for the requested clothes.
"One step at a time, Rikku. And if I told you I wanted you to give me a total makeover, you'd have me committed to a mental institution, admit it!"
"That's only because you've never shown any interests at all in what you look like. Until you started fake-dating Tidus, anyway," Rikku hollered back from her own bedroom. She came back with a pair of dark flares and a red shirt with embroidery up one arm. "Will these work, your royal highness?" She asked dryly.
Yuna nodded. "Yes, thank you, Pypa." The clothes fit her rather well, and she had to admit that they looked nice on her, albeit not really her style. It had been a very long time since she had worn jeans that fit properly.
"So how's your little act going, by the way? I mean is it working out like you'd intended?" Rikku asked.
Yuna shrugged, threading a cloth belt through her belt loops to close the enormous gap that the jeans left around her waist. "Truth be told, I don't know what I expected. I just figured it was a way to make sure that Seymour would never get the chance to be alone with me. Now I guess he's absolutely seething at the appearance that Tidus got to me before he did." She giggled, remembering the wide-eyed look on Seymour's face the morning she walked into his classroom hand-in-hand with Tidus. In the few moments before the end of class, when the students had nothing to do and were just talking amongst themselves, she and Tidus had been whispering back and forth and pretending to be flirty about it, as Seymour couldn't hear what they were really talking about. Out of the corner of her eye that morning, Yuna could almost swear that she saw his facial varicose veins about to pop.
"Hmmm, it does sound serious," the Al Bhed giggled. "I smell a date coming along soon."
"Rikku, we're just friends. I don't think he'd date me for real. He could hook any girl he wanted—and probably a wide range of guys—so why would he just settle for me?" She sounded a little melancholy, the same way a person sounds when reality has given them a slap in the face.
"Maybe he sees something in you that you don't see in yourself."
Yuna gave her a wicked-evil glare.
"Just admit I'm right and move on, Yunie," she said cockily.
"So how do you plan on getting to school for the rest of the year?"
"Hey, that's hitting below the belt!"
A telephone rang, shaking Wakka out of a deep sleep and a nice little dream about Lulu and a swimming pool. He groaned, silently cursing whoever was calling him at eight o'clock on an afternoon half-day morning. He rolled out of the hammock he slept in, stumbled across the room, and grabbed what he assumed was the telephone off of the small desk on the other side of the room.
"Hello? Hello? Hello?" He tried over and over again to engage in conversation, but no one answered—and the phone was still ringing. He'd picked up a shoe. What was a shoe doing on his desk? Who knew? He grabbed the telephone this time and answered it.
"Finally, man, how long's it take you to find a freakin' phone?" The voice belonged to Tidus.
"Tidus? Brudda, you know what time it is?"
"Yea, about five past eight."
"Exactly! I don't have to be in school for another hour and a half, ya? Whatcha callin' me for?"
"I need to ask you a favor and you're the only person I can think of besides Rikku to do this with me."
For a few seconds Wakka was a little nervous. "Do what, exactly?"
"I' wanna do something to Seymour, but I need your help. Rikku can't pick up a car. You're strong enough to do it, and I want you to help me. And you will help me."
"What are you talkin' about?" Wakka yelled, looking confused.
"You'll see. Just wait outside, okay? I'll pick you up."
"You gonna pay me or somethin', brudda?"
"No, but if you don't help me, I'm gonna hang up this phone and call Lu and tell her that you still sleep with a stuffed animal."
Horrified, Wakka yelled into the telephone, "How do you know about that?"
Tidus was laughing so hard on the other end that he briefly feared slight loss of bladder control. "I didn't. I guessed. Everyone's got a dirty secret, man, and I found yours!" He managed to gasp. He laughed again. "Hey, I won't tell. Just wait outside; I'll come pick you up. We got some stuff to do this morning, right?"
"Okay, but answer me dis—what the heck you wanna go do somethin' to Mister Seymour, ya? What's he done to you?" He paused. "He fail you on a test or somethin'?"
There was a long pause on the other end. "No. It has to do with Yuna, and I'll tell you some other time. I can't tell you right now."
"Fine, I won't ask. I'll be waitin' outside. And Tidus?"
"Yea?"
"Don't go wakin' me up like this when I could be sleepin' in!" He slammed the phone down.
True to his word, Tidus was there in only a few minutes to pick Wakka up. When they got to the school parking lot, the student lot was near empty except for a few scattered cars, and two lone figures standing by a motorbike. Yuna and Rikku had also shown up.
"Hey, Rikku, I thought I told you to come alone!" Tidus said, looking over at Yuna, who was leaning casually on her bike with her helmet tucked underneath one arm and resting on her hip. Her head was tilted slightly to one side and her eyes held an inquisitive look.
"Sorry, Tidus. I hadda get here somehow, and Yunie's my ride," she said apologetically.
"What's going on here?" Yuna asked, switching hips with her helmet.
"I, uh…" Tidus tried to answer without giving it away. It was meant to be a surprise for her, and she was not to know about it until after Seymour found out. And he was having trouble concentrating on anything other than her choice of clothing. She must've borrowed clothes from Rikku, he thought, and he was damned glad of it. Her figure wasn't hidden inside of her clothes, and he found himself at a loss for words and very short of breath.
"I get it," she sighed. "I'm not authorized personnel. I shouldn't know about this." She faked a dejected look. "Fine, then, I'll just leave you guys here and go make a mess in the art room. Adios!" She waved behind her and leaped the hedges that separated the parking lot from the front of the school. Tidus watched her until she disappeared into the building.
"Hey, brudda, you sure this ting between you two ain't more than an act?" Wakka teased. "I mean, just an act don't mean ya have to stare at her when she walks away!"
"Huh?" Tidus snapped out of his little daydream-world.
"Never mind."
Turning to Rikku, Tidus asked, "Hey, you get the license number on Seymour's car?"
"Sure did, sweetheart," she said dryly. "I had to pretend to be looking for a quarter for almost twenty minutes, but I finally found it. It's a green Passat. License number BHV-562. Or that one, right across the parking lot." She pointed out a car that was badly parked, nearly taking up the space next to it as well as the one that the front part of it was parked in.
"Okay. Rikku, you keep watch…" Tidus said, as he and Wakka went to work on Seymour's car.
Yuna sat in the art room at a potter's wheel, wearing an apron and with a towel draped across her lap, up to her elbows in clay. She really wondered what it was Tidus had planned. She just hoped that he wouldn't get caught, because then Seymour would do something absolutely sinister. She shivered at the thought.
Tidus… her mind wandered back to her makeshift boyfriend. He was just doing this to be nice to her, she was certain, but she was still drawn to him. He made her stomach turn into a flutter of moths and her mouth go dry and her heart pound in her throat.
Why though? It was all just an act. It meant nothing. At least, to him she knew it meant nothing but she wished very much that he were her real boyfriend. She sighed and went back to work.
She didn't see him during first period at all. When second period rolled around, she noticed that Seymour was not in the room. What more or less worried her, though, was Tidus. He was sitting in his seat looking quite pleased with himself, feet stretched out underneath Yuna's desk in front of him. He even winked at her as she passed him.
"What did you do?" She asked him, leaning over to him so far that only he could hear her. Her nose was nestled in his hair right near his ear and both could feel their faces heating up.
"You'll see," he answered. The door slammed open a second later, and Seymour, facial veins throbbing, stormed in.
"Something wrong, sir?" A brave kid asked.
"My car is in the parking lot, up on cinderblocks!" He roared. Several people laughed. "And it isn't funny!" He banged his fist on the table. He seethed. "A student did this, I know it!" He hissed. "And I will find out who it was!"
Tidus was beginning to feel a little on edge. Weren't there security cameras around the school? In Zanarkand, students pulled pranks like this all the time, and while it annoyed teachers, it never actually pushed them like this. He kept his cool, though, and his face didn't give away his guilt. He felt something tap his bare knee: Yuna's hand was dropped to the side, a slip of paper, a note, between her fingers. He took it and read it.
"I bet I know who did it…" the note read. He leaned forward.
"Bite your tongue, Yuna," he whispered. "Or better yet, let me do it." She felt her cheeks get warm.
Tidus noticed with a sudden swell of cockiness that Seymour looked like he was going to combust right there in the middle of the classroom from the idea of someone else having gotten at Yuna before he got the chance to. Which brought him to a current plan…
Suppose Yuna merely pretended to be defeated? What if she pretended to have given up and agreed to go live with Seymour, under the condition that she could finish school. They could use the excuse that it would look awfully suspicious if she left in the middle of the year. That excuse, if he bought it, would win them a little extra time before they had to act. They would need physical evidence of Yuna's confrontations with Seymour, though. Tape recordings and things would help but they didn't count as physical evidence. Videotape might qualify. If he could find one small enough to fit in her backpack or even on a medallion around her neck, it would be in the perfect position to capture him. But would Yuna go for his idea? What if they didn't make it in time? He didn't want to think about that right now.
"Tidus Reina!" Seymour's oily voice broke his thoughts.
"Yo," he casually looked up.
Smirking, thinking that he'd finally gotten the best of Tidus, Seymour asked, "Do you care to tell us the dominant religion of the first civilization in Ancient Northern Spira?"
"Druidism," he said. This one he knew, because Auron was obsessive over anything involving the Ancient civilizations. Consequently, some of the interest in it had rubbed off on him, but he more liked blowing things up and kicking blitzballs around the back yard, now that they had one. That and a trampoline.
Seymour narrowed his eyes, now extremely angry that he hadn't nailed Tidus with something he didn't know.
"Anything else?"
"What was their primary sacrifice?"
"Human sacrifices."
"Language?"
"Gaelic."
"Can you speak it?"
"No."
That made the older man feel a little better. He scribbled something down in his notebook and went back to talking to the class about the conquering of Northern Spira by the Romans.
Finally, the merciful bell that signaled their freedom rang and students immediately made a mad dash for the door, sometimes three or more trying to get out at the same time. Yuna had a strategy to stay seated until most of the crowd had thinned. He waited for her, like he had been doing for the last two weeks.
"Miss Bamarre?" Seymour said, looking at Tidus briefly. "May I speak with you? Privately?"
Yuna swallowed hard. She pulled Tidus to her level and whispered in his ear, "Mira a mi de la ventana." ["Watch me through the window."]
"Okay." He waited just out of Seymour's line of vision, watching through the window. He took out his cell phone to make an announcement over the PA if he got bored waiting.
Inside, Yuna stood her ground firmly, grasping her heavy backpack—her only weapon if he decided to make a move. Tidus could see them and would probably come in, but he was further from her than Seymour was, and she didn't like taking chances.
"You really like that one, don't you?" He asked slyly.
"What?"
"Reina," he said. "You're dating him, are you not?"
"Yes."
"You must like him, then, don't you?" He prodded.
Deciding that this was not a time to take chances, Yuna answered slowly, "Yes… I do. Why?"
"Well, you haven't forgotten our little bargain, have you?" He asked, oily voice dripping with smugness. "You drop school and come live with me, and no one finds out about your little secret?"
Yuna winced to give the appearance that she had no plans to oppose him. "I—I haven't forgotten," she said softly.
"If I were you, I would dump him and come to me."
"Why?" She asked sharply. Then she covered her mouth.
"You're a beautiful young woman. Do you truly think he'd do right by you?" He asked, reaching for her.
"Better than you!" She yelled, finally snapping. She backed away from him, and he advanced and made a grab for herm digging his long fingers into the soft flesh right over her right breast. She yelped, and leaned down, clamping her teeth down so hard that she heard bones crunching. Then she ran. She made a tumbled out the door and landed smack into Tidus, who managed to keep his balance. Yuna slid to her knees on the floor, pulled herself up, and leaned against the lockers right next to Seymour's classroom. Her stomach lurched and her throat felt like a square knot. His taste lingered on her teeth from where she'd bitten him and she could still feels his fingers digging into her flesh.
"Yuna?" His hand rested gently on her shoulder. She wriggled away from it, her face rapidly losing it's coloring. "Yuna, say something. Make some kind of sound. Anything! Even a little gurgling noise."
"Did you see any of that?" She hissed. She didn't want to talk too much because she was worried she might vomit right here in the hallway—or worse, on Tidus. She'd already nearly puked on him once on Halloween.
"You gonna hurl again?" He asked. He saw her eyes harden, and her eyebrows go knit together. She sniffled and held herself tall.
"No," she said in a soft, deadly sort of voice. He wouldn't make her feel helpless. "No more. Not again. I hate him. He can't get away with this forever!" Her hands at her sides balled into trembling fists. She just wanted to hit something now.
"Oh, no," he knew that look. "Yuna, please, throw up, yell, scream, cry, but whatever you do don't hit—"
WHAM.
Too late. She'd rammed her fist against the painted cinderblock wall. She hadn't done it hard enough to break the skin but she had most definitely cracked a bone in her knuckles somewhere.
"Congratulations," Tidus said, taking her injured hand gently in his. "You've just turned your right hand into a maraca." He sighed. "If I stand in front of you, can you do that healing thing on it?"
"Yes. It's harder to do on myself, though. It might not heal all the way, but it'll just have to do until I can try harder. I don't do my best work when I'm rushed."
Yuna's White Magic fascinated him, but she had used it so rarely that it was still mostly a mystery. Maybe sometime he could get her to show him everything she knew. He heard her grunt slightly as the bones popped back into place. Her Cure spell wouldn't work on the bruises over her breast that Seymour had left when he grabbed at her.
"Tidus, am I bruised up?" She asked quietly, lowering that part of her shirt as much as she could at the neckline. Carefully, he glanced over at her, not wanting to look at anything else lest the state of some anatomy change.
"Yea, a little," he told her. "If you want an excuse to skip class, go to the nurse. Tell her… I dunno, tell her you got into a fight with your backpack strap or something."
"Thanks," she smiled wryly. The bell rang, and they were now both late for class. "Damn, not again…" she mumbled.
"Hey, don't sweat it, I think I'm already losing credit in Spiran Lit. anyway." He kissed her cheek quickly before making a mad dash for the stairwell. She heard him slip and fall, get back up, and charge up the two flights of stairs to the top floor of the school.
She began to head towards the nurse when she stopped dead in her tracks and touched the still-tingling place on her cheek where he'd kissed her. Was that just wishful thinking? There was no one around to act in front of… so why had he done it?
Was this becoming more than just an act?
~*~
WOW. Okay, there was originally supposed to be Christmas/Hanukkah in this chappy, but it's already SEVEN PAGES LONG and it would have been overkill. Severe overkill. So I'm posting the rest of this chapter in another chapter called, "A Time To Give, A Time To Receive," which is a line from a song. Anyway. It's late now and I'm tired, so I'll just post and sign off. Please review and I PROMISE to all of my KH fans, there WILL be an update for HDILT eventually. I'm just breaking from that fic for now. But if you review this one I might just get started on that one! Hehe. And don't worry, I have the next chapter mapped out. Yuna's gonna do something good. ^_~ Adios, my darlings!