First off, sorry it took me so long to update! Another thing, it's missing something, I think, so think of this chapter as kind of a filler-just something I had to put in. Not the best, and I don't like how I ended this chapter either, but...Oh well...It's something! Second of all, as for my characterization of Rikku, I just wanted you all to know that Rikku just so happens to be my FAVORITE character from Final Fantasy X and X-2. I'm not trying to portray her the way some of you seem to think, but you have to put yourselves in her shoes. In this story, she's apprx. sixteen, and is a junior in highschool. Yuna's her cousin, and stole her lifelong crush, Gippal. Then, Rikku decides to move on with her impossible crush on Tidus, only to have Yuna steal him. So, Rikku kind of does what her mind tells her to do. She steals Gippal. In this chapter, I hope you all realize that Yuna and Rikku make up, and Yuna realizes that it's better with Gippal and Rikku together. (Worst of all, Yuna never really liked Gippal, he was more an excuse, which angered Rikku even more...) Whoops, sorry, am I rambling again? Anyway, to the story! Enjoy!

Chapter 9: Explosion

"'Heard you were out with Lord Braska's daughter last night."

Tidus gave a little flinch. He was supposed to be listening to his coach, who was standing in front of them, scratching out some play on the chalk board, but Kiryl, Tidus' teammate who had been the star player before he came, had just told Tidus what he'd heard. He said it in a nasty, unbelieving tone.

"Who'd you hear that from?" Tidus questioned, trying not to make it obvious to the coach or the other players that he wasn't listening to the long boring lecture on how if they didn't get the ball away from the defense, they'd be hopeless against their upcoming game with the Kilika Beasts.

"I read about it. 'Sides, I've got connections. So, is it true?"

By now about half of the team was all tuned into Kiryl and Tidus' conversations, all of them looking quite obvious.

Tidus, however, didn't know what to say. So, he decided to just play cool. He figured it didn't matter to his teammates if he stretched the truth a little, either.

"Yeah, it's true," Tidus said in a slow tone.

"Yeah right," Kiryl said, "You really expect me to believe that?"

"You're the one who wanted to know," Tidus just said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Did you two have a nice night?" Kiryl finally just asked in an unsatisfied tone.

"It was pretty good," Tidus said, putting a quirky smile.

"Uh-huh," Kiryl just said sarcastically, as if he still didn't believe Tidus. Tidus shrugged, knowing that Kiryl was just jealous.

"If you two aren't going to finish what you're talkin' about right now, you'll both be doing one hundred pushups for me!" the coach had realized that they two hadn't been paying attention.

"Sorry coach," Both Tidus and Kiryl said at the same time.

"You'd better be," their coach just said nastily and continued on explaining his hopeless plan.

"Nice goin', Tidus," Kiryl sneered, and his two friends snickered.

"Whatever," Tidus just said, leaning back and stifling a yawn as he tried to pay attention to the plan that made absolutely no sense to him whatsoever.

"I'm so sorry I'm late," Yuna breathed as she walked into class.

Her teacher, Maechen, was incredibly old, and was also very moody at times, and at other times very easy, and let anything slip. She prayed he was in one of his good moods.

"Just because you were out late with some boy is no reason to be late for my class!" Maechen said calmly, although the entire class snickered as he said it.

Maechen nodded toward her seat, and, with her cheeks red with both anger and embarrassment, Yuna took her seat, trying without much luck to focus on the history that Maechen was talking about.

Everybody handed in their homework assignments, and Yuna scribbled down some answers, and turned hers in with everybody else's. The bell rang for dismissal, and feeling somewhat lousy, and completely ready to end the day.

Soon enough, but definitely not soon enough, it was lunch, and Yuna hurriedly finished up her homework, without really talking to anybody, and then rushed to make her afternoon classes. After what seriously seemed like a decade to her, the final bell rang, causing Yuna to sigh with enormous relief.

Yuna literally ran outside, a huge smile on her face, as if with the ending of school came the ending of all of the rumors and problems. Her smile grew even wider as she saw Tidus waiting for her, drumming to some song on his steering wheel, apparently waiting for her.

"Yunie!" Rikku caught Yuna's arm just as she started off toward Tidus, "It's true? That's him, isn't it?"

Yuna smiled, and nodded.

Gippal came up then, putting his arm around Rikku, and blushing slightly at seeing Yuna.

"Uh, hi Yuna," he said, not looking at her.

"Hi Gippal!" Yuna said cheerfully, which seemed to surprise Gippal, but at the same time, he looked relieved. Obviously there weren't any hard feelings.

"Look you two, I've got to go," Yuna said, her smile growing wider yet, "I'll see you later!"

She ran off, jumping into the front seat, her smile so huge she thought it was unreal.

Gippal and Rikku just shook their heads, both looking confused.

Yuna landed with a thud in the front seat, smiling so broadly, only to have her broad smile completely disappear as she noticed that Tidus wore a huge frown.

"What's wrong?" she asked him.

"Nothing," came Tidus' bland answer, as he just looked straight ahead, and started out of the parking lot.

"Oh..." Yuna just said softly, "You sure there's nothing wrong?"

"Yeah," Tidus said, although the tone of his voice sounded annoyed.

The two rode in kind of a weird silence, not necessarily awkward, but weird.

"So," Tidus finally said, "You got to go to ballet?"

"Yeah, at four," Yuna said softly. He sounded so angry.

"Okay." Tidus just said blandly.

Another long moment of this weird silence passed before Yuna finally sighed and said, "Seymour started a rumor about us."

"So," Tidus just said after a while, and was overly-focused on the rode ahead of him.

"It made me kind of uncomfortable, being that everyone assumed that we were like together all night."

"So."

"Uh...Yeah..." Yuna finally just said, wondering what Tidus' problem was.

They reached Yuna's house, and Yuna said, "I'll go change quickly into my warm-ups, and I'll meet you back down here, okay?"

"Whatever," Tidus just said, and, feeling confused, Yuna ran up to her room, changing into her ballet outfit, and grabbing her shoes, and rushing back downstairs throwing her bag in the back, and then jumping into the front seat.

"Sure you don't want to tell me what's wrong?" Yuna finally softly asked after another long while of the weird silence went on between the two, as they sped toward Yuna's ballet academy.

Tidus slammed on his brakes, causing a loud screeching noise as the car skidded for a little bit, and Yuna was quite shocked from the experience.

"Do you really want to know?" Tidus yelled at her, and she flinched at hearing him so angered.

Yuna didn't answer, for she didn't really know what to say. Of course she wanted to know, but she didn't know if that's what he wanted to hear her say.

"You and your stupid little highschool problems," Tidus said, softer, although his voice was still loud and quite angry sounding, "So what if Seymour started a rumor about you? There's a lot worse things that could happen. Do you know what it's like to be seventeen and on your own? And to have been on your own since you were seven? Huh? Do you have any damn idea?"

"Uh..." Yuna didn't know what to say. Tidus was shaking uncontrollably, and looked very angry, not to mention as if he was going to cry any moment.

Tidus slammed his fist on his steering wheel, and finally just leaned back in his seat, taking deep breaths.

"Look," he said, calmer, "I'm sorry I blew up on you. But..."

"Why don't you just tell me what's on your mind," Yuna said, placing her hand on his arm consolingly.

He stared at her, as if contemplating in his head whether or not to tell her, and finally said, "I don't really want to talk about it."

"It'll feel better if you do," Yuna said, almost more to herself. She was beginning to wonder if she wanted to know.

"My whole team's out to get me," Tidus finally said softly, "They're all unbelievingly jealous, all of them angry 'cause here I am, this seventeen year old, who makes them all look bad. And then this guy, Kiryl, is even worse than all my teammates combined. He's twenty-five, and spends his days drunk more than sober, and used to be pretty good. Thing is, he's a total jerk, and when I came along, well... And then the rest of the team, they do whatever he does, and I've heard so many rumors that he's going to frame me for this, or put something in my bag, or hire someone to kill me, or..."

Yuna's eyes grew wider and wider with each thing Tidus mentioned.

"'Course, they're just threats," Tidus said, smiling at Yuna's amazement, "But still...I mean, I just want to Blitz. Beat out my old man, know what I mean? And then...well, when I took you to school this morning, it made me think. Think about how much I wished I could be going to school, living a normal life, maybe being the star player of the highschool team instead of this professional team. There's nothing in my future other than Blitzball. I guess...I guess you could say I'm jealous of you."

Yuna gave a little smile. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, today, I would have done anything to be out of school."

"Seymour's rumor that bad?"

"Even the teachers were giving me a hard time! I'm surprised my father hasn't called yet!"

Tidus turned a weird shade of red, and he looked away from Yuna, making her automatically sure that he'd done something.

"Spill it," she said, "What did you do?"

"I hung out at your place earlier, after Blitz, and the phone rang, and on the caller I.D. it said it was 'Braska's Cell', so I didn't answer it. But then he left some message, roaring at you about me. I deleted it though, 'cause I knew it would upset you. Sorry."

"That's fine," Yuna just said, "You realize he'll probably be back soon, though, right?"

"Right," Tidus said, nodding his head.

Tidus started off again, as if just then realizing that he'd stopped, and Yuna noticed she was going to be late for ballet. She decided she honestly didn't care, however.

Tidus dropped her off, and went off to who-knew-where, and Yuna entered the ballet academy, hoping it went faster than school had gone by.