Chapter 7
"Your friend Blank makes me uncomfortable," Kuja said to Zidane that night as they were preparing for bed.
"Oh dear." Zidane thought back to the earlier talk he had had with Blank. He should have known better than to trust the man when he said he wouldn't make any moves. Blank was just born to be seductive; it was part of his nature. "Do I need to have a Talk with him?" Zidane inquired.
"No..." Kuja's voice was soft and vaguely curious. "I believe he may actually wish to become my friend. Truly. And for no other reason than he finds me an interesting person. It's odd. I've never had that happen to me before."
"Yeah well, be careful around him, okay?" Zidane said, not wanting to squelch Kuja's enthusiasm, especially when it was directed in such a positive manner, but still feeling the need to warn his brother.
Kuja looked over at him with a strange expression that Zidane had seen only once before. "I do feel uncomfortable around him, but it's not... it's not a bad feeling. I feel... very close to him. Which seems strange to me, since I have not known him long at all."
Zidane stared openly at Kuja, only looking away when his brother gave him a questioning look. Because he recognized the expression Kuja had been wearing; it was the one that he had worn when he realized that Zidane had come back for him just because it was the right thing to do. It was the expression he got when something about Gaia's people surprised him so much that it shifted his way of thinking.
Zidane decided to approach the next topic carefully. "So," he said slowly, not looking at Kuja, "how exactly do you feel around him? Besides uncomfortable, I mean."
Kuja appeared to consider this, and Zidane realized once again how new all these emotions were to him. Kuja was simply not used to feeling things the way other people did.
"I feel a little bit nervous," Kuja said finally. "Nervous, and excited at the same time. I get this strange churning feeling in my stomach, but it's warm... I don't know. It is difficult to describe."
Zidane closed his eyes. 'Oh shit. Don't be falling in love with Blank. Please please don't be falling in love with Blank. I love the man, truly I do, but he does not know how to care for someone as emotionally damaged as you. He's way too much of a flake.'
But he didn't say it out loud. Instead, he simply climbed into his bed and blew out the candle on his side of the shared dresser between them. Kuja shortly did the same.
"Just be careful around Blank," Zidane repeated when the darkness shrouded them. "He's a nice guy, but he's a little bit of a flake."
"Oh, I will," said Kuja.
Zidane wondered if Kuja really knew what he was getting himself into. 'Just don't get your heart broken, Brother,' he thought to himself.
Oh God, that was hideous. Take me back.
or
Oh God, that was hideous. Let me complain to the author.