Secret Passages- Chapter Four: Anywhere but Balamb Garden!
The heat was intense, both outside and in of Balamb Garden. The first major heat wave of the summer had hit, and hit hard. Students, as well as faculty, were carrying around fancy spray bottle with Styrofoam fans attached to them. Some were tempted to jump into the one of Gardens many fountains and few were tempted to jump into the ocean that was just outside.
:akuru:
"You don't think you're overacting? Even just a little?" Quistis sat with perfect posture on Rinoa's bed as she watched her friend throw piles of clothing into the light blue suitcase that lay open at her side. To busy her hands, Quistis took the garments and began to fold them.
"No, not at all. He's made it clear to me." Rinoa pulled the last handful of clothing from the dresser and stumbled over to her bed. She sat down next to Quistis and the instructor quickly took the clothes from her hands.
"Well, it does make a little sense that you are leaving— being that you aren't a SeeD or even a student. But you can help out with things in the office for Cid and-"
Rinoa waved that topic away lazily with her right hand, not looking at her friend, but at the dresser on the other side of the room. She dropped her hand back to her lap and let out an exhausted sigh.
"…What concerns me is why you won't tell anyone that you're leaving…" Quistis tucked the last piece of neatly folded clothing into the suitcase and closed it.
Rinoa pulled her legs to her chest and rested her head on her knees, facing Quistis. "Zell is always with his students or helping out with the Garden Festival. Selphie's been extra busy with the Garden Festival herself, apparently running herself into the ground, even with all the help she has at her hands. …Squall is just busy around the clock. With Zell and Selphie, I would at least catch them in the halls and they'd hang out with me if they could, but talk to me no matter what. It's different with Squall though; I have to schedule an appointment if I want to talk to him and even then he says he's busy." Rinoa smiled and let out a small laugh, almost forgetting about their favorite cowboy. "And Irvine isn't here anymore, so there goes half the fun."
"More like half the annoyance." Quistis spoke sarcastically and rolled her eyes. The two comrades laughed openly at this, but the room eventually fell quiet once more.
"It's not like I won't visit you guys. You're my friends…" Rinoa dropped her feet to the floor and leaned into a tight squeeze from Quistis. When Rinoa pilled away from the hug, Quistis patted her on the shoulder, as if to give her strength for the path ahead. "My comrades."
Rinoa stood from the bed and walked to the dresser. She grabbed the small silver object off the top of it and looked at it carefully, as if it would be the last time she ever had the chance. Quistis stood to meet her and Rinoa took her friends hand, placing the griever ring in her palm and closing her fingers around it.
"I can't give it back to him myself." Rinoa fought back tears, but Quistis could hear the sadness in her voice. "Hell, I couldn't even ask him for it myself." She laughed at her silliness and Quistis smiled weakly to her.
"Will you be alright?" Quistis was worried for her, even though she knew Rinoa could handle herself.
"Of course." Rinoa smiled and walked around Quistis to grab her suitcase and pulled it off the bed. She continued when she turned back to look at Quistis. "Zone and Watts will be in the city, waiting for me at the train station when I get back to Timber. Caraway knows where I'll where I'll be, so I'm sure that wherever I am, there won't be any problems. Especially since Timber was liberated!" Rinoa gave a very weak smile, not feeling in high spirits, as she remembered the argument she had last week at the celebration of Timber's Independence with Squall. She shook the thought away. No more of that; I'll make better memories now.
"I gave you the Keycard, right?"
Quistis nodded and Rinoa walked to her door, the instructor just behind her. The door slid open and Rinoa was hesitant at first, but stepped out into the hallway, turning to look at the door as Quistis exited as well.
"Goodbye room 307." Rinoa whispered loud enough for Quistis to hear. She looked over at her and the two laughed somewhat nervously. Quistis locked the door. With the keycard in her hand and the ring in her other, the two ladies started up a conversation about Timber as they made their way down the female dormitory hallway.
:akuru:
"Zell!" A boyish voice called out from the opposite side of the room, as Zell had his nose planted in the Garden Square BBS system.
"What is it?" He answered, not a hint of care in his voice.
"When can I come out of this corner? It's been over an hour!" The boy silently whined about how much his butt had been hurting for the past thirty minutes.
Zell looked over the top of his computer monitor to have his 'I could care less' expression meet with a 'If I were older, I would so kick your ass' glare from the small boy in the corner of the classroom. His medium length black hair fell in front of his narrowed dark blue eyes, as he lowered his head at Zell. He was a junior classmen, as were the other three students in the classroom. Two of them were playing against each other with their Nintendo DS systems while the other was sitting quietly, waiting for the class to be released.
Three boys and one girl. All that made up his summer Martial Arts class. It didn't help his ego to acknowledge that two of them, the boy in the corner and the quiet girl, were kids he used to play with from Balamb City.
"No, Dale." Zell looked at his watch. "You've only been there a couple of minutes anyway. Where'd you get an hour from?"
Dale Cerulean was a fourteen-year-old version of Seifer Almasy. He wouldn't get along with anyone unless they were his slaves and did as he pleased. Or so, this was the impression he made on everyone who did not know him personally.
"Zell?" The small girly voice caught Zell's attention and he quickly looked to meet the direction from which it came. "May we go now? It is past three o'clock."
Zell looked down at his watch and noticed it had stopped. He turned to his computer to look at the time and almost jumped out of his seat.
"Yeah, go ahead. For homework, since it's Wednesday, you don't have any." He watched as the two boys playing their video games ran out of the room, followed by Dale Cerulean, who strolled out of the room with his arms folded behind his head and an evil death glare at Zell. Noticing the girl had not left, he turned in his seat to look at her, still at her study panel.
"Is something wrong, Dani?"
"No." She shook her head and looked up at Zell. "I just wanted to read and not have to listen to Dale screaming in my ear the entire time or listen to Brent and Beau go on and on about who was beating who in that video game."
"Oh… makes sense." Zell offered her nothing more than a blank expression, so she turned back to her study panel and continued reading.
Danielle Laurel was also fourteen-years-old with brunette hair that was more red than brown and always tied in a loose ponytail, thrown over her shoulder. Her eyes were a beautiful light shade of blue. She was mostly quiet, but if anyone managed to get under her skin, she would 'rip you a new one' in an instant.
Zell couldn't help but be curious as to what she was reading, so he pulled up Danielle's computer file and opened it to see her computer screen pop up as a window on his own.
"If you wanted to know what I was reading, all you had to do was ask." Danielle grinned when she saw Zell look over his computer monitor at her. "The screen glitches when you check in on us. It lags for a couple of seconds, too, and also when you close out the file on your computer. Dale figured it out the other day, just to let you know…"
"…Thanks, Dani." Zell closed out the file on his computer and shut it down. Why didn't I figure that out when I was just a student?
"I'm just checking up on the Garden Festival progress. The girl who runs it has been working really hard on it, but she says here that some loser got her detention for three days and she might have to leave out some of the stuff. I hope that doesn't happen though, 'cause I like everything she's mentioned having." Danielle looked up from her study panel to see her instructor hovering over it, trying his best to see the screen from an upside-down point of view. "Whoa!"
"Where does it say that!" Zell searched the screen for where Selphie had written such a thing. "Ugh, I can't see anything. Scoot over, Dani." Zell rushed around to her side of the study panel and pushed Danielle over so that he could sit in front of the screen.
"I take it that you're the loser who got her detention, then." Danielle quirked an eyebrow at Zell, who turned to give her a similar expression.
:akuru:
Selphie stretched her arms before her. The touch of the cold tile wall against her finger tips triggered the search for the easily found knobs that turned off the shower water. With her eyes still shut tightly, Selphie pushed aside the shower curtain and reached for the jade green towel that hung on the wall, just far enough to keep from getting wet by any extra water that the curtain was unable to block. She pushed her face into the soft fabric and pulled away as soon as it had filled it's purpose. She smiled and wrapped the towel around herself.
"Finally! That felt so good." Selphie was more than happy to step out of the shower and pull the curtain closed behind her, fully satisfied with her cleanness. There would usually be steam collected on the bathroom mirror from where she took her hot or warm showers, but the glass that hung just above her sink was as clear and steam-less as it would be any other time. Selphie pulled a smaller, sunshine yellow, towel from the towel rack that stood three feet tall next to the door.
"The trash wasn't bad, but the heat! Come on, it's way too hot in Garden. I know the weather is nice and everyone has their windows open, but JEEZE! Turn down the AC." She bent over, allowing her hair to reach toward the floor. She draped the smaller towel around her head and twisted it up to where her hair wouldn't fall out of the now, turban-like structure she had made on the top of her head.
Standing up straight, Selphie looked into her mirror at her face and double-checked the towel on her head to make sure it wouldn't fall down. She smiled at how silly she looked when she heard the phone ring in the other room. She turned around and poked her head through the doorway of her bathroom to look at the plain white phone on the dresser next to her bed. She waited for it to ring again, as if secretly confirming that it really was ringing, before she hurried over to it and plopped down on her bed.
"Hello?" She answered the call and pulled the white spiral cord away from the base of the phone.
"Hey, Messenger Girl." Selphie heaved an almost silent sigh, aggravated with who greeted her on the other side of the line.
"What is it, Seifer?" She pilled a picture frame off the small dresser to clean off the glass and stared at the picture of all her friends with her inside it.
"Fujin told me you almost black out." His voice sounded just as much like the jerk he was if you were standing right next to him. "Not that I care if you get sick or anything. I just don't feel like doing any funerals any time soon."
"Yeah, right! If you care, Seifer, you don't have to hide it from me. I can keep a secret or two. I mean, we all –except for Rinoa- grew up together so there wouldn't be anything wrong with showing that you care."
"Tch… You can keep your stupid love and peace crap to yourself, Messenger Girl, because I'm not listening."
"Would you call me by my NAME for just once!"
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Selphie pulled the phone away from her ear when she heard the click on the other line and stared at it before tossing it back onto it's receiver.
"What a jerk." Selphie stood from her bed and walked to her dresser by the door. "I didn't even tell him if I was okay or not and he just hangs up like that." She pulled out an outfit of a lavender tank top and a pair of khaki cargo shorts to spread out on her bed. After returning to her dresser and throwing on her undergarments, Selphie attacked the clothes she had laid out on her bed. Her khaki shorts went on first, reaching just above her knees in length. As she pulled the light purple tank top carefully around her wrapped-up hair and over her shoulders. She was smoothing out the wrinkles when a knock came to the door.
She turned around to face the door, fixing the towel that was still wrapped around her head. Selphie walked to the door, wondering if it was Seifer- come to continue their conversation that he had ended so abruptly. Just as Selphie reached the door, the person on the other side knocked again, a little more strength put into it. She looked through the peek hole first to ready herself for who it might be. It wasn't Seifer, but –to her surprise- Squall. She snatched the keycard off the hook it hung from on the wall and unlocked her door. When it opened she pulled the towel off her head and walked away, slowing Squall the space to come into the room.
It wasn't until after she had sat down and heard the door close when she noticed that Squall had not entered. She rubbed the towel over her damp hair, trying to dry it as quickly as she could, and stood from her seat at her desk. Walking back to the door, she stomped on the mat and waited for the door to open once more. She couldn't help releasing a small fit of laughter when she grabbed Squall by his arm and pulled him into the room before the door had hardly a chance to open.
"Selphie!" Squall angrily pulled back his arm and crammed his hand back into his pocket. He stood, in all his awe, in the middle of Selphie's room and watched her walk from her bathroom, where she had tossed aside her towel, to the chair in front of her desk.
"What are you doing?" Squall asked her, wondering why she went straight to her computer without even saying a word to him first.
"I finished up the Trabia Garden information on who I want to take with me." She looked over her should at Squall. "You can to get my last mission report, right? I figured that since I had decided on the third member of the party for the Trabia Garden clean up assistance, I would go ahead and give you that request as well. You know, killing two birds with one stone." Selphie turned back to her computer, muttering to herself about how she hated that saying, but used it anyway.
After a minute of standing in silence, Squall shifted his weight to his right leg and looked around the room. He wasn't nosy, he was just bored. Why couldn't Selphie just tell him her report? Why did she insist on typing up everything? But his thoughts were disrupted when he heard a loud grinding sound. He looked back at Selphie, who was now hovering over the printer on her desk.
"Something wrong with it?"
"Yeah." Selphie grunted and hit the printer as hard as she could before she turned back and looked at Squall, satisfied with her workmanship. "It's old." She smiled and turned back to the printer, awaiting the papers to slowly print.
"…Right."
Even though the printer took it's time in printing the documents, it didn't take long at all, since there wasn't much to print. Selphie had pulled two pieces of paper from the printer, each bearing a short title and a simple paragraph. Selphie explained the papers before handing them to Squall.
"Look, this one has Trabia Garden Clean Up, as the title, so you should know it's my request for who I want to bring with me." She eagerly handed the paper to Squall, who took it without so much of a glance at the print. "And then this one is titled The H.E.S.B.L.T.R.H.O.I. Mission Report."
Squall looked at Selphie with a quizzical expression as she handed him the second piece of paper.
"Did you really have to give it a title like that?"
"Well, it makes sense." Selphie shrugged and kept smiling. "Anyway, I need to finish cleaning up." Selphie raised her chin, mockingly, and walked past Squall to her bathroom. She stopped in front of her bathroom sink. Feeling a sneeze coming on, Selphie stepped back, knowing they were a little powerful at times.
Squall didn't make it out the door before he heard Selphie sneeze, followed by a loud 'clonk' sound. This was a loud clonking sound that caught attention and, out of curiosity, turned back to look into the bathroom and see what exactly it was that made the sound.
Selphie sat on the bathroom floor, holding her head with her right hand. He stepped into the small bathroom and looked at her closely.
"What did you do?" She was holding her head, so she must have hit it with something. He looked around the bathroom for the suspected object before she answered.
"Oww… It hurts." Selphie couldn't help the laughter betraying her words, since it was a rather funny story she would have to explain to at least three people. "The sink."
"What, it attacked you for sneezing on it?" Squall folded the papers in his hands and stuffed them in his coat pocket so that he could help Selphie to her feet.
"How can you wear that thing? It's so hot." Selphie stood, barely though, since if she didn't have Squall's help she would still be sitting on the floor.
"I'm fine." Squall made sure the toilet seat was down before he sat Selphie on top of it. That would have been funny. "Let me see your forehead." Selphie didn't have to be told twice. She pulled away her hand and looked at Squall's vacant expression.
"Is it that bad?" Not that Squall usually let his thoughts show with his expressions, but when it's her head he's looking at, she got kind of worried. When he didn't answer, she turned to look in the mirror, but Squall stopped her.
"You did a better job on yourself than I did." He tried to crack a joke. Only, Selphie didn't think it was funny at all. How could it be worse than the huge bump that wouldn't go away for hours?
"Is it bleeding!" Selphie looked at her hand, but there wasn't any blood there. Was Squall trying to freak her out?
"Not much. You should see Dr. Kadowaki though." Okay, so how much does he consider not much?
"If she sees me with you again, she's going to say something about it. I mean, this will be a second time you've taken me to see her in less than twenty four hours." Selphie grinned and put her hand to her forehead again. The pain increased ten fold if she tried to laugh, but it couldn't be helped with Selphie's personality.
"True." Squall straightened himself and turned around like he was going to leave the bathroom, but instead, found what he was looking for. When he snatched one of the purple washcloths off the towel rack, Selphie felt somewhat relieved that he wasn't leaving. "This is the darkest color washcloth you have?"
"Yeah, why?"
Squall shrugged and pulled off his gloves. He tossed them on the edge of the sink before he ran warm water over the purple washcloth. Selphie watched him wring out the majority of the water and fold the washcloth neatly, before holding it out to her.
"Are light colors not good enough for you?" Selphie sarcastically replied as she took the purple washcloth from Squall's hands.
"No. It's because blood doesn't show up as much on darker colors." He hesitantly grabbed one of the bright yellow hand towels to dry his hands.
"How much blood is on my face, you jerk?" Selphie didn't really seem to mind if there was a lot of blood. She couldn't feel it running down her forehead or face, so it wasn't that much. But Squall's response was reason enough to burst out with laughter. "I swear, if you make me laugh, I will seriously hurt you when I feel better."
"Do you think you can make it down to the infirmary by yourself?" Squall snatched his gloves from the sink and casually put them back on his hands as he spoke to Selphie, not looking at her at all.
"Well, if I can stand, I'll be just fine." Selphie stood from her seat on the closed toilet. Squall watched her as her movement was slower than molasses. Way to be cautious.
"Looks like you'll be just fine then." He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for a response from Selphie.
"Trying to get out of here that quick, huh?" Selphie smiled and looked at her forehead in the mirror. There was a small gash just above her left eyebrow, but it wasn't deep enough to call for stitches or staples or whatever Dr. Kadowaki used to mend the students back together. She raised her right eyebrow, since the left hurt too much to even look at, at Squall. "You made me think it was the end of the world and it's that small?"
Squall shrugged and turned away, leaving Selphie in the bathroom and heading for the door to the hall. Selphie looked back at her forehead, knowing Squall could find his way out of her dorm on his own.
"Just make sure you get down there to see her." Squall yelled from the door before it opened and stepped out into the hall when all was said and done.
After hearing the soft release of compressed air, Selphie knew that the door had closed, and would have laughed as loud as she could, but the searing pain in her forehead caused her to think twice about laughter at the moment.
"He really has changed a lot." She smiled and wiped what little bit of blood there was from her forehead, only to see more rise through the gash. "Dr. Kadowaki, here I come."
:akuru:
"Hey Beau, look! It's Rinoa!" Brent Haensly called out loud as he spotted the girl in light blue leaving the main dormitory hallway with Quistis. He turned around to look at his younger brother, who had been arguing with Dale about who was the better student in Zell's summer martial arts class.
"I am!" Beau stood on the tip of his toes, trying to be as tall as Dale. "Instructor Dincht doesn't treat me like I'm in detention all class period like he does with you!"
"At least I pay attention instead of playing video games while were supposed to be listening." Dale calmly replied to Beau, looking down at him.
"You wanna fight, asshole!" Beau crammed his Nintendo DS into one of his back pockets and pulled his arms in front of him, balling up his fists tightly. "I'll show you how much of a better student I am."
"Bring it on, you little shit." Dale rolled up the long sleeves of his red button up shirt and put his arms in front of himself, just as Beau had done. "You're just a--"
"You guys! Shut your mouths! It's impolite to swear in front of ladies." Brent bellowed at the two boys he was standing with, ashamed of their behavior. He turned back to face Rinoa and Quistis, who had stopped a foot or two away from the three of them. Brent bowed, in apology. "I apologize, ladies. They are very uncouth and I can't believe that I am related to one of them."
Rinoa laughed at this. For the first time in the past fifteen hours, she actually felt the urge to laugh. She didn't find the need to force it.
"Don't worry, Brent. I've always known of that potty mouth that Beau has, he can't help it." Rinoa winked at the smallest of the three boys, who was only three or four inches shorter than herself. "But whoa, you boys just don't stop growing… and Brent! I can't tell if you are as tall as me or taller than me."
"He looks just a little less than an inch shorter than you, Rinoa." Quistis was happy to point out, since she was the tallest of the bunch.
"Jeeze Rinoa! I was wondering when we were going to see you." Beau's obnoxiously loud voice rang through her ears, causing a wince from not just her, but everyone around him as well.
"You guys are early, though. I didn't think you would come until the fall." Rinoa smiled at the two boys, happy that they had decided to join Garden after all.
"We heard about summer classes and thought it would be cool to take a couple. And guess what!" Beau was so excited, he could hardly hold it all inside. "Zell is out Martial arts Instructor! Isn't that awesome?"
"Oh, that's so cool. I'm happy for you guys. He knows a lot, so pay attention in class, even if he goes on and on about silly little details or boring stuff." Rinoa couldn't stop smiling. It had only been a couple of weeks since the last time she saw these two boys in Deling City, but they always brought back memories of good times.
When she looked at Brent to ask how he was, she noticed the worried expression on his face. His face clearly asked, what's with the suitcase? Which made Rinoa wince. She didn't want to talk to the kids she used to baby-sit in Deling City about her problems, much less the strange kid with the black hair standing behind them and listening in on the conversation. With her fake smile, Rinoa gave a slight laugh and looked at Quistis.
"Well you guys, I'm glad you got into Garden, but I have to go somewhere for a little bit. Make good grades for me, will ya?"
"Aw, come on! We didn't get to hang out with you last time." Beau began to complain, but Brent slapped the back of his head.
"Just be careful, where ever it is that you are going." Brent wasn't happy to see Rinoa leave, but he smiled anyway.
"I will." Rinoa smiled back at Brent, happy to see he cared. She glanced at Quistis, who nodded in return, for lack of knowing what to say and then two of them continued down the hallway. Quistis, curious as to who the children were in the first place, looked back at them as they walked away. The two that Rinoa addressed were standing where they had left them, with their heads lowered in disappointment. The black-haired boy was walking in the opposite direction of the hallway, toward the dormitories.
I wonder why he just stood there and listened and isn't even talking to them now. Quistis turned back to Rinoa, who had cleared her throat.
"That boy with the black hair was very quiet, wasn't he?" Rinoa looked over at Quistis, who smiled weakly at the comment.
"Yes, I was thinking something along that line about him."
"He kind of reminds me of Squall..."
"Hmm… A little." Quistis didn't really think talking about Squall was a good thing at the moment, so she decided to change the topic before there was a breakdown in tears. "But who were those other two boys? They seemed rather fond of Zell for some odd reason." Quistis couldn't help her chuckle.
"Oh, they're kids that I used to watch when I lived in Deling City with Caraway. Their mother was very good friends with mine. After the car accident, I ran away a lot and stayed with their Mom, but I think Caraway always knew I was there, since he never sent out search parties for me." Rinoa shrugged and glanced over at Quistis, a genuine smile on her face. "I told them a lot of great things about Garden and the friends I had made when I saw them the other week in Deling City, after Timber's liberation. ..I think they might have taken a liking to Zell, but they said Squall would have been 'cool' to 'hang out' with. And all Brent wanted to do, if he ever met Irvine, was give him a 'good lesson' for all the things he had said to try and pick me up."
At this last comment, the two females couldn't help but laugh at the thought of a fourteen year old beating up Irvine.
:akuru:
That girl… Rinoa. She's the sorceress that Zell and his friends protected, isn't she? Dale walked down the main dormitory hallway, his hands crammed in the back pockets of his grey cargo pants. I wonder why she's leaving Garden.
Hearing footsteps in the hall, Dale looked up from the floor, to see a girl in a purple tank top and tan shorts slowly walk past him. He stopped and turned to watch her, wondering why she had a towel against her forehead. Just as he turned to continue his walk down the hall, she stopped and leaned against the wall. She was acting weird. Maybe the heat has gotten to her.
"Hey… you okay?" Dale could care less about most people, but he didn't think the idiot brothers down the hall would notice this girl for at least another hour, the way they were sulking. And it didn't seem like anyone else was going to come down the hall. He didn't want to risk it and walked back to where the girl had stopped.
"I'm fine." She spoke lightly before continuing her walk.
"Well, you don't look it." Dale took the few steps with the stranger until she stopped again and looked over at him. She tried to say something, but couldn't find the words. An instant later, it was like she was hit in the head with something and started to fall. Dale caught her and, as best he could, held her from falling onto the hallway floor. "Hey! Wake up. Jeeze…"