It was a three day weekend and I got a lot of "loafing" out of the way, so now I'm off to writing again. Anyway, on a note about the traditional roles of Squall and Yuffie—I figured it'd be an interesting change. I've never really seen it done before. And despite the disappointing lack of review for the last chapter, I write again anyway in hopes that more of you will realize I've updated. I've apparently lost a lot of readers to my extended absence from HDILT. I hope you all come back!
Disclaimer: I don't own any of this stuff. I mean come on now, if I did isn't it a bit pathetic that I'm writing fanfiction about my own creation? Yea, I thought so too…
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Yuffie snuck back into the hotel once she noticed Squall leave. She wanted to get her clothes together and leave the Green Room before he got back—that way he wouldn't have any opportunities to persuade her to stay there with him when she was not ready to face him after what they had done.
She was still confused and a little scared, not to mention disgusted with herself. She had, lately, been forgetting to differentiate between her fantasies and her realities. She had always dreamed of sex with Squall. The way the events played out in her mind over and over again, however, were considerably different than the ones that had take place. She shivered, overturning drawers into a suitcase and sitting on it to keep it closed as she tried to zip it.
"You're being a coward, aren't you?" An inner voice said. "Running away from you problems like that. Is that all you'll ever do? Just turn tail and run when the going gets' tough? Or should you more like to face it, so it's not hanging over you all the time like a big hairy monster breathing down your neck?"
Yuffie sighed heavily, stopping her argument with the suitcase zipper. Whatever "Inner Voice" was speaking had an overly logical point, but she didn't like it. She had to face up to this eventually, but she did want a little time to gather up the broken bits of her dignity, particularly as Aerith also knew of their little "escapade."
But how would she do it? It was hard enough trying to think of something to do—executing the plan would be even harder. Until then, she decided, she would not be able to share even a room, much less a bed with Squall. She went back to forcing all of her weight onto the suitcase to make it zip, muttering curses at it.
"Come on, you son of a bitch, close up! The sooner I get packed the sooner I can get out of here!" She hissed, balanced on her knees at the edge, hoping that the zipper wouldn't burst when she got up. "Come on, before he gets back and sees me here!"
"So you're just givin' up, huh?"
"Gyyaaaahh!" She leaped from the suitcase and backed all the way into the bed and hitting her head on the night table. "What the hell are you doing here and what do you want?" She yelled, rubbing her head.
Squall had come in when she wasn't paying attention. She didn't know how long he had been standing there, looking sinfully attractive leaning on the doorframe wearing his black leather pants and black leather jacket and no shirt. She averted her gaze before he noticed her staring.
"Did Aerith tell you?" She asked suspiciously.
"No, I came back myself," he said simply, moving from the doorframe to sit on the long dresser in the room.
"So what do you want?" She snapped, knowing that she was being rude and not really caring. The sooner she could turn him off of her, the better.
"Can't we talk?" He asked gently.
"Talk about what?" She went back to her suitcase, trying to push everything down enough to zip it again.
"You're just gonna up and leave, is that it?" He asked again. "Give up, move out, pretend it never happened, and go on with your life and forget all about it?"
"That's the plan," she grunted, zipping her suitcase successfully before standing up and taking a hold of the handle.
"Why?"
To that, she had no answer. Squall was confusing her now. He was talking more to her the last few minutes than he usually talked to her in an entire day. Not suddenly he wanted to talk with her. She sighed and sat down on her suitcase, putting her elbows on her knees and putting her chin on her crossed forearms.
"Because… because… this was wrong," she stated simply. "It was… I don't know, I can't explain it, I just wanna forget it as soon as possible."
"And for that you have to leave."
"Well duh!" She snapped, amazed at his apparent stupidity. "I mean how in hell am I supposed to forget what happened when I live every day with you and sleep every night with you? How do I know… how do I know that you won't make a move on me? I'm nervous and scared and confused about this!"
"And I'm not?" He asked. "One day you seem like you're head-over-heels for me, and then the next you're completely turned off of me. Why is that?"
"Because it all happened so damned fast!" She struggled to keep herself from yelling at him too much, lest Aerith hear. "A few days ago I thought you hated me, then you get so mad at me that I swore you were going to kill me, and then we fuck. Does that sound just the littlest bit screwed up to you, Squall?"
"Yuffie!" He stood up and clenched his fists, then closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. She didn't seem to grasp this from his perspective. "What part of 'I love you' don't you understand?" He asked. "I love you!"
"No, you don't! You're just mad!" She hauled on her suitcase again, trying to get it out of the room before things got heated—again.
"Please don't leave, Yuffie."
This stopped her. Was Squall Leonhart actually pleading with her?
"Why?"
"Look, just stay in here with me for a little while longer—I promise I won't do anything. Just… don't leave."
"You won't do anything?" She said slyly.
"No, I won't."
"I'm getting a futon and we won't be sleeping in the same bed anymore," she warned.
"That's fine."
"I'll be showering in Aerith's bathroom."
"Okay."
"I'm keeping my suitcase packed, so if I get too uncomfortable here I can leave."
There was a brief pause before he agreed to this, too. With a nod, Yuffie dropped her things and went off to find an unused futon.
…0…0…
For the billionth time in her life, Yuffie was amazed at how horribly loud crickets could be when a person was trying to sleep. She rolled over and put a pillow on top of her head to block out the sound, which worked until she needed air. Resigned to her fate, she sat up on the futon, looking at the window. There were no stars and there was no moon. Everything outside was dark.
It had been about a week since her incident with Squall. True to his word, he had been a gentleman around her, and had not once done anything remotely sexual. Even so, she could still see the fire in his eyes whenever they were alone. But for the most part, things were back to normal—relatively normal. They spoke little but spent almost all of their time together; they were called off every now and then at ungodly or just plain inconvenient hours to fend off Heartless; they interacted in harmony with one another, knowing what one wanted without the other having to say a word.
She looked over at Squall, who was splayed out on the bed with his head hanging off of one corner, snoring, drooling, tongue hanging out. To think that most days he was attractive when he slept. Now he just looked weird. Of course his attitude these days was even stranger. He'd been… well… nice.
He hadn't said very much at all to her, but he was doing so much differently than he used to. He'd helped her haul the futon into their room. He'd lifted and flipped onto its' side the center table, which they rarely used anyway except to pile their junk onto. While she put sheets on her new makeshift bed, he moved the table and the remaining chairs out of their room to give her more space.
The next day they were out most of the day fighting Heartless, from the time they woke up almost until nine at night. When they got back, she had been too exhausted to go anywhere, even for food, and collapsed in bed. The next morning when she woke up as hungry as a wild animal, she discovered a tray of food next to her on the floor.
They had also taken a three-day trip to the Coliseum to fight in the Pegasus Cup as a team. Once they had made it to the top ranks, they went to face Sora. The Keyblade wielder, as usual, went after the smaller of the two targets first. Once she was cornered, Squall got up and went after him like she'd never seen before. She was flattered but at the same time annoyed. Why couldn't things have worked out differently?
Her thoughts were back in the present this time, and she continued to try to look out the window at the streets below, teeming with the little Nocturnes and Rhapsodies. She heard something stir and glanced up, but Squall had only flipped over in his sleep and settled back down.
It was beginning to get chilly again. Yuffie rubbed her arms through her sweatshirt and took a glance at Squall again. He had two blankets on his bed and seemed comfortable while she was freezing her butt off with three. He never seemed to get cold at night. Ever.
Quietly, she moved over to the side of the bed and took a hold of the corner of the blanket, trying to pull it off of him. He had gripped a large portion of it in his hands and underneath his body, and it required a considerable amount of force to pull it out. Then he abruptly tugged it back. Caught off guard, she stumbled over and landed across his stomach so that together they made an X shape. Quickly, she pushed herself up and turned her head about to look at him, terrified that she had woken him up. She had.
"Yuffie?" His stare was intense, but he didn't dare lift a hand to touch her. He could read her eyes just as well as she could his. She was frightened.
"I'm—sorry," she murmured, quickly trying to get up only to discover she'd become tangled in the blankets. She tried her best to un-twist them, but Squall put his hands on her shoulders to hold her still and her eyes went enormously wide and she took in a very shuddery breath.
"What… did you want?" He asked gently, keeping his voice low and his hands away from anything dangerous.
"I was cold," she admitted truthfully. "I was trying to take your blanket away. But I shouldn't have. And I'm sorry I woke you up."
She got up to leave him and go back to her own bed. She heard bedsprings creak and felt something warm draped across her shoulders. A blanket. She looked questioningly at him. He offered no explanation, merely wrapped himself up in the remaining blanket and rolled over, his back to her.
"Night Yuffie."
She was still slightly in shock over this. In the dead of night on a cold night he had given her a blanket when he only had two to begin with. She snuggled back down in her nest of blankets and pillows, finally warm enough to go to sleep… thanks to Squall.
It made her brain hurt to think about this. She tried to concentrate on sleeping. Tomorrow was one of their Waterway-Training days and he liked to get an early start.
When morning rolled around, she rolled over on the futon and looked at the clock on the wall, but she couldn't read it from where she was sitting. Instead, she sat up to looked around, noticing that the bed was made and Squalls' boots and Gunblade were missing. She squinted at the door, looking for a note or something to tell her where he'd gone, but there wasn't. Instead she rolled back onto her back with one arm over her eyes.
Squall was probably off obsessively training, and had gotten sick of waiting for her. Or maybe he'd tried to wake her up and hadn't been able to. Or maybe he just gave up all together on training days…
The door opened and Yuffie bent her head all the way back to see who was there. Squall walked in, Gunblade over one shoulder and his face and what she could see of his white shirt were soaked with sweat.
"You done already with training?" She asked thickly through a yawn.
"Of course I am," he said, sounding slightly annoyed with her. On instinct she recoiled from his tone of voice. He noticed this and softened his expression. "Sorry, Yuf, it was just that you wouldn't get up this morning. I've been out since seven."
"Well what time is it now?" She asked.
"Almost eleven. I just let you sleep in this morning," he said. "I mean you probably didn't get a lot of sleep last night with your being so cold you took my blanket."
"You could have kept it."
"It's okay… you needed it," he said. With that he went off to take a shower.
Yuffie was a bit stunned by this. What we he up to? He was being so nice to her. A voice played in the back of her head:
"Actions speak louder than words."
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Okay, well that chapter is out and it doesn't really move the story along much but at leas I'm updating. I don't have much time to write final notes but I will try to update again soon and move the story along. Significance of this chapter: Yuffie obviously doesn't wanna talk, so he is using actions instead. Hehehe.
