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Secret
He'd always known Mizuho was a weird place. All of the rumors he'd heard about the mysterious village had convinced him of that. But he hadn't really considered what exactly their customs were until he'd actually paid a visit. He hadn't known that they gave each member of the village a secret name.
Which got him wondering... what, exactly, was Sheena's secret name? He had to find out...
"So, Sheena," he asked casually one day. "You have a secret name, right? You can tell ME what it is!"
"Oh, you mean it ISN'T Violent Demonic Banshee?" she retorted with a glare, referring to the name he had made up for her as a joke.
"Yikes!" he cried, feigning fear. "Looks like I've let the VDB out! Maybe that is your real name."
"Bug off, Zelos!!" she cried, and walked away.
He sighed. "I was just asking a simple question... all she had to say was she didn't want to tell me..."
Of course Sheena's secret name wasn't really Violent Demonic Banshee (although she did sometimes act like one). And of course Zelos knew that. This was precisely the reason why he made it his goal to discover Sheena's real name. It was going to take some work, but Zelos was willing to do almost anything.
He didn't like it when people kept secrets from him, although he constantly kept secrets from others. He was a bit of a hypocrite in that way. But was it really so wrong to wonder about the enigma that was Sheena?
He had first noticed how different Sheena was than all of his other hunnies at the party that had been held in Meltokio right after Princess Hilda had been rescued from the Pope. While all of the other girls had rushed out to the dance floor, Sheena had stood alone in the corner, arms crossed and eyes looking at the floor.
He shouldn't have been surprised, but he was. After all, he thought that Sheena would have loved to show off her impressive figure in that new dress of hers – all of his other hunnies wanted to. Then it hit him that Sheena was nothing like anybody else. And he couldn't for the life of himself figure out why. He excused himself from the girl with whom he was dancing with (whatever her name was) and went to go talk to Sheena.
"Hello, my voluptuous hunny!" he greeted her. "Having a good time?"
Sheena turned red. "Come to bother me, Zelos?"
"Would I ever bother one of my beautiful hunnies?!" he cried. "Come on, Sheena. You always look on the bad side of things. I just came to say hi."
"I'm sure," Sheena said sarcastically, and looked away from him. "Why don't you just leave me alone?"
Zelos raised his eyebrows. What had he done this time? This reaction was worse than usual. Or was Sheena just in a bad mood?
"What's up with you?" he asked. "I was just trying to be friendly, y'know..."
"Zelos, you're never just being friendly," Sheena replied curtly. "I think I would know better than anyone else."
"No, really, what did I do wrong this time?" he asked. "I'm curious now."
Sheena turned red again. "It's none of your business! Leave me alone, Zelos! If you love girls so much, why don't you go bother one of your other 'hunnies' instead of me?"
With that, she marched off angrily. He was convinced. Something was definitely going on with Sheena. Sure, she always appeared angry when Zelos talked about his hunnies or whatever, but not this angry. He decided not to follow her just yet. The last thing he wanted was a girl – one who could summon spirits, at that – angry enough to want to beat him up. He sighed and went back onto the dance floor.
Sheena fumed as she sat on the front steps of the building where the party was being held, alone. Didn't Zelos get it? Or was he really that much of an idiot? She had thought better of him, but perhaps she had set her expectations too high.
Zelos thought that she was just like any other girl in Tethe'alla. He thought he could flirt with her, talk about his other hunnies to her face, look in on her in the shower and get away with it all. Well, he couldn't! And she'd just about had enough.
Watching him dance with the other girls had hurt more than she'd wanted it to. But it wasn't like she'd ever dance with him. Why did she fall for the one guy who could never settle on one girl? It only made her already complicated life even more complex.
"Sitting here feeling sorry for myself isn't going to do any good," she told herself. Of course she was right. She had to go back inside and face the music.
Sheena slid back into the party reluctantly, and decided to find one of her friends. Almost immediately, she spotted Lloyd, sitting in a chair, looking dejected. She went to go see what was wrong. Maybe she could forget her problems by helping Lloyd solve his. It had always worked before.
"Hey, Lloyd, what's wrong?" she asked, moving beside him.
"Hm?" he looked up suddenly, appearing distracted. "Oh, hi, Sheena. I'm okay, but... well, Colette kind of abandoned me for this rich guy who she doesn't even know. Even GENIS has better luck with girls than me."
Sheena noticed Genis dancing with Presea. She couldn't help but smile. Love between twelve-year-olds was so cute... She shook her head and turned her attention to the real problem.
She followed Lloyd's gaze to Colette, who was indeed dancing with Some Rich Guy Who She Didn't Even Know. Sheena was about to make a suggestion of some sort, when, suddenly, one of Colette's spontaneous stumbles occurred, and the next thing anyone knew, she had fallen on top of her dancing partner.
"Oops," was her only comment.
"Colette!" cried Lloyd, jumping out of his chair and running over to the fallen girl. "Are you okay?"
"Oh, I'm fine, Lloyd," Colette responded, quickly standing up. "Just fine!"
"Oh, um, that's good," said Lloyd. Then he turned red. "Um, do you want to, uh, you know, dance with me?"
"Sure!" cried Colette, and they were gone.
The Rich Guy had also stood up and started brushing invisible dust off of his clothes. "Um, did he just steal my dancing partner?"
"Yeah," Sheena said.
"Oh... well, I guess it's alright. Would you like to dance?"
Then, Sheena got an idea. "Yeah."
She had a plan. And it was called Operation Make Zelos Jealous.
Zelos was getting a bit bored as he listened to his current dancing partner complain. Was there anyone interesting at this party who enjoyed something besides dresses and gossiping about other people? He hadn't used to care about this sort of thing, but now it was growing more and more annoying.
"Like, have you SEEN what Suzie is wearing?" gushed the girl. "It is, like, SOO ugly. I mean, it's like, bright green! And did you get a look at Jane's dancing partner? He is, like, so not handsome. Why is she with him? And just LOOK at how rude Sheena is! She's dancing with – "
"Whoa, what about Sheena?" he asked, interested all of the sudden.
"Like, look at her!" screeched the girl. "She is TOTALLY dancing with my ex-boyfriend!! Isn't that, like, SOOO mean?? Like, she should totally know that any boy I have ever been with is OFF-LIMITS!!"
Zelos had stopped listening. All he saw was Sheena, gazing into the eyes of some random rich guy he didn't even know.
"Hey," he said all of the sudden, getting an idea, "how would you like to get back together with your ex-boyfriend?"
"Huh?" she asked. "Like, why? I mean, he's okay, I guess..."
"Well, I have some getting together of my own to do," he informed her.
He had a plan. And it was called Operation Get Close to Sheena.
It was hard to gaze into some random person you didn't know's eyes and pretend to be in love with them. Especially since this particular guy had the most boring eyes ever. Even Zelos had more interesting eyes.
But since when have I looked in Zelos's eyes?
"Excuse me, but I'd like to cut in," said a familiar voice.
Before Sheena had a chance to do anything, her old dance partner was off with some other girl, and the person in front of her was Zelos.
"Hi, Sheena!" he said. "Having fun yet?"
"Well, I was, but..." she began, then stopped. Why did she have to be so stubborn? Why did she have to do everything from keeping the two of them apart? What was wrong with her? "Yeah, I'm having fun."
Zelos just smiled. "Good."
For once, Zelos wasn't going on and on about something. This was new. The silence gave Sheena a chance to look into Zelos's eyes. And she had been right. They were a lot more interesting than that other guy's. How did I know?
Maybe the reason why she was always so angry with him was because he never told her the whole truth. Maybe she wouldn't tell him her secrets because he wouldn't tell her his.
So now it was time to do just that.
"Hey, Sheena," he said, "I have something to tell you."
"W-what?" Sheena asked, turning red. She had been lost in thought.
He told her, "I just want you to know that... I like you a lot better than all of the other girls here."
She was in a silent shock for a moment. "Well, to tell you the truth... I'm actually really glad to hear that."
"I knew you would be!" he replied.
She moved closer to him and let the music flow through her body.
As the night moved on, people came and went. Raine dragged Genis and Presea off to bed. Lloyd got bored, and he and Colette left together. But Sheena and Zelos stayed there; together in the middle of the dance floor.
No words were exchanged between the two of them. The silence was enough to explain everything. All of the yelling that had gone between them in the past had said enough. Sometimes you didn't have to say anything at all to tell the truth.
Sometimes you just know.
Still, Zelos didn't know everything about her. And he just felt that he had to ask...
"I was just wondering about one thing, Sheena...what IS your real name?"
For once, Sheena didn't appear so surprised at the asking of a random question. In fact, she almost looked like she was expecting it.
"Do you really want to know what it is?"
"Yeah. I really do."
"...I'm not supposed to tell anyone..."
"Eh, who cares?"
"Okay... fine. I'll tell you."
He looked at her expectantly.
"It's Violent Demonic Banshee."
He grinned. "Yeah, that's what I thought it was."
Of course her name wasn't really Violent Demonic Banshee, and of course he knew that. But... There were several people who were allowed to learn one's secret name – the family of the individual, and whoever that person married. Maybe he would just have to become one of those people.
He still hadn't solved the mystery of Sheena, but hey, he had his whole life ahead of him to figure it out. The future could bring anything. He would just have to wait and see.
I hope you liked it! Please review and tell me what you think!