Dude Looks Like A Lady
Chapter 4
Blue Light Special on Aisle Four
Rinoa was not speaking to Seifer. She was furious at him, or her, or whatever for killing Mr. Snuggles. The teddy bear had been a gift from Squall on their very first date. He'd taken her to a carnival in Balamb, and he'd won Mr. Snuggles at the ring toss. Rinoa remembered the way Squall had unceremoniously handed her the bear, even though he was blushing a thousand shades of crimson. Now Mr. Snuggles was in two pieces and totally beyond repair. What had Seifer been thinking?
And for him to be so indifferent and heartless about it. He really was a cold, mean meanie. For the first time, she didn't feel bad about turning him into a girl. In fact, she was glad. Let him be miserable. He could stay a girl for the rest of his life, for all she cared.
When she'd entered her room last night, she was happy because she had found something in an old book about Seifer's condition. It seemed that occasionally Hyne saw one of his children in need of a lesson, and through magic, circumstances were rearranged so that something might be learned through the experience. The magic would not wear off until the victim of Hyne's prank realized the error of his or her ways and changed for the better. Rinoa had wanted to share this with Seifer when she entered the crime scene, and all thoughts of helping him went out the window.
Rinoa was generally a sweet girl, but to be fair, she did have a slight cruel streak in her, and thanks to Seifer's actions, that side was coming out. Because of what he'd done to her bear, she was no longer going to help him. She smiled at the thought of what might come next. There were many things about being a girl that were mildly unpleasant - shaving your legs, bikini zone and armpits every day, hormonal induced mood swings, high heels, and of course the monthly visitor. Rinoa knew that Seifer was completely unprepared, and would thus be mortified to know what he'd soon have to deal with. She planned to sit back and watch him squirm. He deserved it.
She put her thoughts of Seifer's misery aside, took out her Tactical Negotiation text book and settled down to study. The SeeD exam was just over a month away and she wanted to graduate at the top of her class. She wanted to prove to everyone, including Squall, that she was capable of being a top notch SeeD. No more feeling left behind for her. While she studied, she daydreamed about scoring even higher on her exams than Squall had. That would show everyone that she wasn't just the commander's ditzy girlfriend.
When Seifer stomped into the room, threw himself onto the bed and sighed heavily, Rinoa ignored him. She wanted to make him suffer for killing her beloved bear, and she knew the silent treatment was the most effective tool she had.
It seemed to work, too. After a moment, Seifer sighed and cleared his throat. Then, he sighed again. Rinoa refused to respond.
"Don't tell me you're still mad about your stupid bear," he said.
The distain his voice made her want to scream. Instead of replying, she pretended to be very interested in her studies.
"Oh, so you're not speaking to me?"
Rinoa didn't look up. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
"I thought we were going to go shopping. I could use a change of underwear." Seifer sat up and looked at her. "I know you girls love do shop, so let's get this over with. I don't want to spend all day."
She closed her book and glared at him. "You're perfectly capable of buying your own underwear, Seifer."
He looked baffled. "I thought you were going to help me!"
"You're not helpless," she said and opened her book again . "You can get any supplies you might need at the canteen."
"But, I don't know what I need! I don't know what size to buy, and what about soap and stuff? Don't girls have to use special soap and special razors and lotions and stuff?" Seifer sounded as if he was about to cry.
Rinoa had to suppress a giggle. She was going to make him do this on his own, but she felt bad about leaving him completely without a clue. "You're probably a size four. Buy the pink razors, the gyshal lotion in the green bottle and some lady speed stick. And if you want some body wash, I suggest Galbadian Glory," she instructed. She fished ten gil from her purse and handed it to him. "Oh, and since you're going, could you pick me up some tampons? The biggest box they have, please."
Seifer flushed. "No. Oh no. No, no, no! I will not be seen buying feminine . . . hygene . . . products. No way."
"Why not?"
"Because guys like me don't do stuff like that."
Rinoa shook her head and sighed. "You're a girl. No one will care. Besides, you might as well get used to it."
Seifer cocked his/her head to the side. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Rinoa just smiled and settled down at her desk again. "You'd better hurry, Seifer. The canteen closes in fifteen minutes." Then, she opened her book, turned her back to him and grinned down at the pages.
Seifer stomped downstairs, Rinoa's gil clutched in his fist and his cheeks burning. He couldn't remember everything she'd told him to buy, but he remembered the tampons.
Tampons. Holy Hyne. He wasn't even sure what a box of those looked like. Those were in the aisle of the canteen that he and every other male at Garden avoided like the plague. He'd never been down that aisle and wouldn't be caught dead there under normal circumstances. But these weren't normal circumstances. He'd been turned into a friggin' girl, and now there were all these special things he was supposed to buy, and he didn't know if he could go through with it.
This sucked. Royally, totally, completely sucked. Extreme suckage.
He entered the canteen, which resembled a pharmacy with it's selections of toothpastes, shampoos, cold remedies and first aid supplies. He'd never really thought about the place much. He'd always been able to go in, grab what he needed and got out. Or more recently, he'd gotten Rajin to do it for him.
Too bad this wasn't something he could get Rajin to do. And there was no point in asking Fuujin. She'd just bark "NO" and kick him.
With a sigh, he approached aisle four, which was the dreaded aisle of death. He stared down it as if he were staring into the seventh circle of hell. He would almost rather jump into the pit in the fire cavern than walk down that aisle. He was so mortified that he'd actually begun to sweat.
After a moment of lingering there, his cheeks burning and his brow damp, he took a deep breath and grabbed a basket. It was now or never.
Ok. There was the lady speed stick. Good. And the pink razors. Wonderful. Lotion in a green bottle. Excellent. Galbadian Glory body wash with a free scrubby thing. Joy.
Four down, two to go. This wasn't so bad. Not so bad at all. He could just get the stuff, pay for it and get out. No harm done.
He took a deep breath and eyed the selection of panties. His heart pounded. What to choose? There were too many different types to pick from.. Briefs. Bikini. Rio. French. Thong. Low-rise Boyshorts.
Hmmm. Boy shorts. Those looked like a short version of his fitted boxers. Yes. Size four. Eight in a pack. Briefs sounded good too. No picture but underwear were underwear, so long as they weren't a thong. He'd never wear one of those vile contraptions ever again. He grabbed a pack of those and stuffed them in his basket.
Almost done. Now for the hard part. The thing no guy ever wanted to be seen purchasing, even if it was only for his girlfriend. The dreaded tampon. After searching for a moment, he found the 'feminine' products and scanned the shelves. Personal dryness crème? Eww. Yeast infection medication? Blech! Maxi pads? Getting close.
Seifer was sweating profusely by the time he found the tampon selection and almost started to cry when he saw how many different types there were to choose from. Light. Regular. Super. Super Plus. Multipack with all four. Scented, unscented. Plastic applicator. Paper applicator. No applicator. Tampax, Always, O.B. and ten different other brands with a billion variations on a single theme. What did it matter? Weren't they all the same?
Applicator? What the hell did that mean? Seifer didn't know. He didn't think he wanted to know. He just wanted out of this place. He grabbed the giant sized multipack, dropped it into the basket and made a break for the register.
The clerk began to ring up his order and Seifer drummed his fingers on the counter impatiently. He had to get out of this store. Soon. It felt as if the walls were closing in on him. It wasn't right. Never in his whole life had he felt so panicked. All over some stupid girl stuff.
He'd started to calm down when the clerk grabbed the supersize box of tampons and it wouldn't register the price then he lost his grip again. His skin grew cold and he silently willed the clerk to punch in a random price, if only to save him from the embarrassment of what he knew was coming.
No such luck. The clerk grabbed a small microphone and held it to her mouth. "Price check on Tampax Tampons. Super Mega Multipack."
Seifer felt as if every eye in the store were on him. His vision began to blur and then his whole world went dark.
He woke up in the infirmary, an ice pack on his forehead and a wicked throbbing behind his eyes. What the hell? How did he get here?
Seifer sat up and groaned. Dr. Kadowaki looked up from her desk and smiled. "Welcome back."
"What happened?"
"You passed out in the canteen. How are you feeling?"
"Like crap," he replied and held his hand to his head.
"You took a header right into the counter. Bumped your head pretty good, but you'll live," she said. "I took the liberty of sending your things up to your room. Your change is in the bag."
"Great."
"Any idea why you might have passed out?"
Seifer shrugged. "Stress, I guess. Going through a lot of changes."
Dr. Kadowaki nodded. "That's to be expected at your age. Get some rest, try to relax and stay away from the hotdogs. If you get dizzy again come see me and we'll do some blood work to see if your problem is a little more complicated than stress. Girls your age sometimes develop anemia due to menstruation and are prone to dizzy spells because of a lack of iron in their diet. With that said, I think you can return to your studies now. And come see me if it happens again."
Seifer stared at her not understand a word of what she was saying. He'd never heard of any of this, and he didn't care that girls were prone to anemia. He didn't want to hear anything else about what girls need and what their bodies do. He didn't want to know anything more about bras, underwear or special soaps. He just wanted his life back.
Zell was bored. He'd gone to the library to flirt with the cute work-study at the desk, but when he'd gotten there, he discovered that it was her day off. He thought she might be at the Quad, but it was full of underclassmen watching a spear demonstration, which he'd seen a thousand times already. So, he'd decided to go to the training center to try out a new move on some of the low level monsters. He'd been itching to try it out, but hadn't been able to get into the training center. It had been closed at random times lately due to the addition of an advanced level area for the upperclassmen and SeeDs.
When he arrived, it was open and he had the place to himself. With written exams just a month or so away, most of the cadets were busy pouring over their text books and notes, while the SeeDs tended to venture outside of Garden walls in search of bigger challenges beyond what the Training center currently offered. Zell didn't mind. It was easier to concentrate when he was alone.
He wandered through the grounds in search of a monster, humming the Balamb waltz as he walked. To his left, he heard a sound and grew silent.
Not the sound of a monster. The sound of a girl crying. He envisioned a wounded damsel in distress and sprang to action. What he found was a damsel in distress all right, but not the kind he would have preferred.
Seiferia sat leaning against a tree, sobbing into her hands. Zell had never seen Seifer cry. For some reason, the sight of the girl Seifer had become crying brought out the softer side in him. He hated it when girls cried. It always made him feel bad.
"Hey," he said and crouched down beside her. "You ok?"
Seiferia looked up at him and her face twisted into a scowl. "Leave me alone, Chicken-wuss."
Zell shook his head. "Look, I'm not hitting on you, ok? I just want to know if you're ok."
"Yeah, if you can call this ok," she said, gesturing to her new appearance. "You and Rinoa think it's funny, but you don't know."
"Hey," Zell said and took a seat beside her. "I'd flip out too if it happened to me."
"You still think it's funny."
"Well, yeah. It is pretty funny, Seifer. I mean, if it were me and not you, you'd make my life a living hell."
Despite her tears Seiferia laughed. "Yeah, I probably would. Especially since you'd be one butt ugly chick."
Zell almost got angry, but then realized that there was no point. Jerk or not, Seifer was suffering. "So what's it like to be a girl? See any boobs yet?"
Seiferia glared at him and pointed to her chest. "Duh."
"Oh, right," Zell said, feeling dumb. "My bad."
"But to answer your question, it sucks to be a girl," Seiferia said.
Zell nodded. He supposed it would be pretty shocking to suddenly have to live as a girl. Girls were weird. He didn't understand them at all. He didn't understand the games they played with men, and he didn't understand why they always had so much stuff in their rooms. Lipstick. Make up. Nail polish. Stuffed animals, boxes and boxes of photographs, blow driers, hairspray, curling irons.
"Much better to be a guy," Zell agreed. After a beat, he asked, "So can we call a truce? At least until you turn back into yourself?"
Seiferia wiped her tears and rolled her eyes. "What the hell. I've got enough to deal with right now anyway."
Then, she burst into tears again. Zell didn't know if he should put his arm around her or just let her cry. He'd probably get hit if he tried to comfort her, so he just sat there for a minute.
"You know what sucks the most?" Seiferia asked. "I feel like I'm gonna cry every five minutes and I don't even know why. I almost started crying over a damned long distance commercial this morning. A stupid commercial!"
Zell didn't know what to say. That was something else he didn't understand. Girls and their emotions. It was just bizarre. They cried about everything, even the normally stoic Quistis cried sometimes over nothing.
Even more bizarre, Seiferia was confessing all of this to him, but at least he might actually make a friend of his former rival.
XXX Notes XXX
I know I promised more of this sooner than this. This story has been very hard for me to write lately. Twas such fun in the beginning…..but as some of you may know, I lost my muse, and it's not so much fun to write anymore. This chapter went through six different rewrites before I was satisfied with it, and I think the story's lost some of it's giggle factor. For me anyway. Don't know where I'm going with it, don't know for sure if I'll continue…..we'll just have to see. Back in the dark place again. Bah. I'll get over it. Don't worry.
If anyone has any ideas….e-mail them.
And for everyone who's reviewed this story. Thank you. Your reviews keep me writing here. If not for your comments, critiques and encouragement, I don't think I'd continue with any of my fix here.
If you're interested or did not know already, I do have other stories here on some of them complete, some in progress. Various genres, various subjects. Currently posting chapters for "History Never Repeats" a second generation fiction…..a note before reading it if you decide to check it out……the first couple of chapters are very similar to the game, but not (as one reader accused me of) a copy of the game. Situations and dialog are similar, but the characters have different motivations, and the story does twist away from the tale of FFVIII and becomes it's own story. I'm very proud of it, and if you get a chance, please give it a read and a review.
Again, thanks for reading. My reviewers rock.