Disclaimer: (See Part I.)
A/N: Chayn is a character that I made up; I own nothing else but the plot of this story.
To QueenAdreena I knew I could count on you to leave a review. Thank you very, very much! I KNOW I've taken forever! I hope to never do it again! I even stayed up until 10:30pm last night so that I could finish that last part! (I already had most of it typed.) Anyway... I hope you are enjoying you reading experience! Here's another update for you.
.-.-.-.-.-
After another day of rest and full night's sleep, Zell was well enough to go back to his classes. He had missed so much though, that he was doubtful that there was any hope in trying to pass them - especially with his current marks.
He stuffed his books into his backpack and went on his way to class.
What he hadn't anticipated on was the discomfort that he would now have while sitting beside Irvine in class. He had thought that confessing his feelings to Irvine would make them closer, but it appeared that Zell was having a rather difficult time concentrating on the lesson. 'Oh well,' he thought. 'At least it's Friday.'
.-.-.-.-.-
After a difficult day of trying to catch up in his classes, Zell flopped down on his stomach on the squeaky couch in his dorm room and put his face into the crook of his elbow. He could fall asleep he was so tired, and he hadn't even stayed up very late.
Not including seeing him in class, Zell hadn't seen Irvine around for a couple of days. He had thought that things were going perfect between him and Irvine on Wednesday when he hardly even had to say anything to him. The cowboy had obviously been thinking about Zell for a while too, because it hadn't taken him very long to decide that they would try taking their relationship to the next level.
It had been two days now though, and Zell found that he had too much free time to worry about what might be going through Irvine's head.
Zell pushed himself up into a sitting position on the couch and pulled over his textbook. He flipped it open to the lessons that he had missed and began to read. Maybe if he kept himself occupied with his studies then he would be able to keep his mind off of Irvine.
.-.-.-.-.-
Rinoa happily bounced over to the unsuspecting cowboy relaxing in the cafeteria with his booted feet on the adjacent chair and the Balamb newspaper unfolded and spread across the table in front of him. "Hey Irv! Can I sit with you?" Rinoa asked happily.
Irvine nodded, eyes remaining on the article that he was currently reading.
Rinoa took a seat and put down her drink. Then she folded her arms, leaned in, and rested them on the table.
Irvine knew that she wanted to ask him a question, but he just continued to read. He wanted to see how long it would take her to talk. He glanced down at his watch.
Rinoa stared at Irvine, but could see that he wasn't going to give in so easily. She leaned in closer to him, trying to get in between him and his newspaper.
Irvine moved the newspaper slightly and continued reading.
She picked up her drink, put it to her mouth, and slurped in an annoying fashion, but still Irvine's eye remained locked onto the paper.
Rinoa slammed her cup back down on the table. "Ugh! Why do you have to be so rude! You ask me to sit with you and then you ignore me... I can't believe it!"
Irvine put down his newspaper and checked his watch, before giving Rinoa his total concentration. "Fifty-three seconds. I'm impressed."
She smiled sweetly. "Thanks. Wait! Don't try and change the subject. I haven't seen you for a while. You have to tell me what's up."
"I saw you this morning, remember?" Irvine picked up Rinoa's drink and took a sip. "Mmm... What is this?"
"It's a banana-strawberry- HEY! That's mine!" Rinoa took her cup away from Irvine. "I know I saw you this morning, but you still haven't told me what you've been up to lately. You talked to Zell right?"
"Yeah... How do you know?"
Rinoa smiled and took another sip of her drink. "I can tell..."
"You can, can you?" asked Irvine.
"Yep!" Rinoa replied simply. "So when was your first date?"
Irvine stared at Rinoa without expression.
Rinoa's voice became harder. "Common, you've had to have had one by now!"
Irvine shook his head.
"Why not?" Rinoa demanded.
"It's only been two days!" Irvine reasoned. "Don't rush me."
"Only two days? Two days can seem like forever! You have to get this ball rolling sometime."
Rinoa's eyes suddenly lit up as an idea came to her. "I know! You could come with Squall and me for lunch on Sunday! It'll be like a double date!"
"I don't know..." said Irvine with a little quiver in his voice. "Lunch with you..."
Rinoa hit Irvine's shoulder in a teasing way. "Hey! It'll be fun! See if Zell's doing anything on Sunday at noon and then get back to me." She stood up to leave.
"All right," Irvine agreed. If Zell weren't busy, it looked like Irvine had himself a first date.
.-.-.-.-.-
A knock on Zell's dorm door brought him out of his daydream. He had been trying to get his reading done for his classes, but he couldn't stop his mind from wandering off. He cursed his classes for being so boring, and got off the couch to open the door.
It was, of course, Irvine standing at the door. Zell smiled and let his best friend into the room.
"Hey, have you been doing some reorganizing in here?" asked Irvine with his back turned to Zell.
Zell nodded. "Yeah, but you can't really tell."
"No, it looks much better," said Irvine, though he agreed completely with Zell.
"Thanks... So what brings you here?"
"You, of course," Irvine turned to face Zell and gave him a slight grin.
Zell felt his knees weaken as his friend gave him a quick look up and down. "Yeah?" he asked, the tone of his voice wasn't as natural as it could have been.
"Yeah." Irvine paused. "And I wanted to see how your classes are. I'll bet you've missed a lot of work, seeing as you were feeling under the weather for so many days."
Zell rolled his eyes. "You have no idea how much I missed, and I thought that it was all review!"
Irvine chuckled. "It is all review."
Zell scowled at Irvine. "I know, but I just don't get it!"
"Hey man, don't worry. If you are serious about doing it this time, the offer is still available for me to give you some tutoring. What do ya say?"
Zell thought for a moment. Tutoring... from Irvine... He would never be able to concentrate on his work with Irvine around, but perhaps his friend could at least help him get caught up. "I'll definitely take up that offer!" Zell said enthusiastically.
"Great!" said Irvine. "But this time, don't leave me waiting in the library like last time... In fact, why don't I just come here? Then you won't have to be tempted to go into the Training Center like last time."
'Oh no!' Zell's mind panicked. 'Alone in my dorm with Irvine?' "Uh... sure," he managed.
"Okay, then how about we get together tomorrow? Will that be all right? What time do you thing?"
"... 3PM?" asked Zell.
"3PM!" Irvine agreed. "See you then." He left the room, closing the door behind him on the way out.
Irvine walked down the hallway, proud that he had finally set up a time with Zell. It hadn't been for the date that Rinoa was planning on Sunday, but he would still have the time to ask Zell if he wanted to go out for lunch tomorrow during their study session. He didn't want to rush things.
.-.-.-.-.-
The study session went better than Zell had expected. Irvine didn't try and lay any moves on Zell, or make him feel uncomfortable at all, and Zell had incredible concentration on the work that he needed to catch up on that even Irvine had commented on Zell's new found commitment to the work.
After working for two hours straight, the boys decided to take a break, and Zell brought out some munchies that he had been saving for himself, but had decided to share since he was taking up most of Irvine's afternoon.
Zell placed a bowl of Bits & Bites on the table that he had set up for them to work on, and watched as Irvine picked out the pretzels and popped them into his mouth.
"Thanks for helping me, Irv."
Irvine looked up at Zell from his spot on the squeaky couch with his eye brows raised as if he didn't understand the language. "Oh! Not a problem at all!" he said through a mouthful of pretzels. "It's my pleasure."
Zell took a seat by Irvine and ate some of the Bits & Bites as well.
"Oh," Irvine continued, "and before I forget, what are you doing tomorrow?"
"Uh..." Zell thought a moment. He hadn't had anything planned, though he was thinking of maybe going to visit Ma. "Nothing really. Why?"
"Rinoa and Squall are going out for lunch tomorrow, and Rinoa asked me if you and I would like to go with them, so I told her that I would ask you." Irvine waited for an answer.
"Where are they going?" asked Zell.
"I don't know," Irvine confessed. "I wasn't planning on going without you, so I didn't ask her too many questions. I can find out if you want."
"Well... as long as it's not that place in Dollet where they don't serve hotdogs, I'd love to go for lunch!" said Zell excitedly.
Irvine gave a hearty laugh and smiled. "All right. I'll let Rinoa know that as long as there are hotdogs you'll be there."
.-.-.-.-.-
Zell combed his hair to one side, then to the other, and then in it's usual straight up way. Who ever said that girls take a long time to get ready obviously hadn't met Zell. When he decided to go with his regular 'do, he walked to his closet to pick out his clothes. He opened the door to find that all he had were 3/4 length dark blue jeans, black t-shirts, and red vests. Nothing more, nothing less. So he chose the regular.
He had just finished tying up his shoelace when Irvine arrived at his dorm room to pick him up.
"Come in!" he shouted to his friend.
Irvine walked in wearing his regular suede pants with an ordinary black t-shirt. "Are you almost ready?"
"I am ready," Zell confirmed. "So where are we going?"
"Rinoa won't tell me, she says it's a surprise."
"A surprise from Rinoa? I'm scared," said Zell.
"Me too," Irvine admitted, leading Zell to where Rinoa and Squall were waiting for them in the parking lot.
.-.-.-.-.-
After taking the underground train and a car, the group of four arrived in Fisherman's Horizon.
"This is a surprise all right," Zell whispered into Irvine's ear, "but not in a good way."
Irvine raised his eyebrows in an apologetic way and they followed Rinoa and Squall around FH until they were almost at the Mayor's house.
"Here we are!" Rinoa announced stopping at a table in the middle of the path set for four people.
"Why are we in the middle of nowhere? What's going on here?" Zell demanded to know.
"Welcome back to Fisherman's Horizon."
Zell turned to see the Master Fisherman on the stage with several musicians preparing behind him.
"Please sit down and enjoy this special meal that has been prepared for you; compliments of the staff at Caraway Mansion and Mr. Caraway himself."
The four friends sat down at the private table, while the band on the stage began to play a familiar jig. Shortly the group was served some of the finest foods in the country, along with different flavoured hotdogs for Zell.
Squall leaned closer to Rinoa and asked, "What is all this about?" Clearly he knew just as much about what was going on as Zell or Irvine did.
"Don't you remember?" she asked. "This is where we had our first real date. Well... sort of."
"You went through all the trouble of putting this together just for that?" asked Squall.
"What do you mean 'Just for that'?" asked Rinoa, quickly becoming angered. "That night was the most memorable night I have ever had... Okay, well almost the most memorable... I mean, I've had way more memorable times with Seifer, like the night we-"
"Okay, okay! I get it. I'm sorry, it's just.. How did you manage to get us a private lunch?" asked Squall, impressed with the high quality service.
"I just had a little talk with my dad, that all, and in no time flat he was able to see my view on the situation," Rinoa said proudly, and no one really wanted to know the whole story of Rinoa's 'little talk' with her dad.
.-.-.-.-.-
Squall kept on watching Irvine and Zell throughout the meal, which neither of them noticed, but as the group finished up their fully satisfying lunch, Squall finally had to ask, "What's going on between you two?"
Irvine and Zell immediately began spewing many different excuses at the same time for them being together including that they were studying together from Zell, and that he was getting over Selphie from Irvine.
Squall looked from Irvine to Zell and back to Irvine again before looking at Rinoa for some clarification.
"They're gay," she informed.
"Oooh..." said Squall, finally understanding, and he took the final sip of his white wine.
Irvine and Zell stared at Rinoa with hurt looking expressions on their faces.
"Oh get over yourselves," she said unsympathetically. "He would have found out eventually anyway."
.-.-.-.-.-
"Did you enjoy your lunch?" Irvine asked as he and Zell reached Zell's dorm room and walked in.
"Yeah, it was great! I'm glad we went," said Zell.
"Me too. We should do it again sometime," Irvine hinted.
"Definitely! ... But maybe not with Rinoa and Squall again..."
Irvine smiled. "Yeah, but they're okay."
"Right..." Zell rolled his eyes.
"So... I guess I'll see you in class tomorrow then," said Irvine, taking a step back toward the door.
"Oh, are you going to go already?" asked Zell in an almost pleading little boy voice.
"Yeah, we've got class tomorrow and I haven't really gotten started on the homework yet," he glared teasingly at Zell, "thanks to you."
"Hey, I wasn't the one who asked you to come over and help me, or the one who wanted to go out for lunch today so how can it possibly be my fau-" Zell was silenced by a spontaneous kiss from Irvine.
"I can't stay, I'm sorry. Make sure you finish the questions on page 292." With that, Irvine slipped out of the room and closed the door.
Zell was still stunned from the kiss, but he finally snapped out of it and gave a little half smile.
.-.-.-.-.-
End of Part IX.