Title: Lessons Well Learned
Rating: G/K
Characters: Seifer, Squall, slight hints of SeiferxSquall if you squint
Summary: Boys will be boys, and lessons will be learned.
Notes: For the themes "young" and "precious memories" at the Fated Children LiveJournal community. Just because I think that the scars on their faces aren't the only scars that they've ever given each other. (Yes, I did BS ages for the sake of making things work out.)


The scar on his face wasn't the first scar that Squall ever gave him.

It's only a thin line, a tiny blemish on his otherwise marble-smooth skin, and he oftentimes forgets that it's even there.

It was a child's mistake, an error of two boys growing up too fast for their own good and seeing the world through crystal clear glass and a golden frame of glory, where everyone grew up to be a hero, where nothing ever went wrong. They hadn't learned the steps right just yet, and they hadn't had enough practice.

Seifer was fourteen-years-old when he held his first gunblade, fifteen when he fought his first human opponent and received that three-inch-wide scar, the one that runs from the base of his ribcage – Kadowaki said they were lucky that it didn't hit his ribs, because that could have broke a bone – to an inch above his naval, from one of his peers. They didn't know what they were doing, they weren't prepared for it, and they were stupid to even try, but now that he looks back on it, he's glad that they did it.

They were amateurs, barely even accustomed to the weight of a real blade in their palms and hardly even able to lift the beginner level weapon high enough to call it a battle, but he had insisted that they try out the new weaponry they had been issued only a week before, and Squall had agreed without hesitation. They had marched outside in the dead of night, their favorite time to fight, and had slipped away, unnoticed, to that little place out on the rocks, tucked away in the velveteen bindings of night and illuminated by the moonlight spilling down over the dark brown stone.

It had been exhilarating. The best thing they had ever done. They learned easily, swiftly, and things had been perfect. They had been true rivals and true knights now, and the distant memories of two boys out on the beach at an equal time of night flickered through their minds to fuel their swinging blades and twisting bodies.

He had never wanted it to end.

The injury had been his fault. He had let his mind wander, let his guard down for that brief moment, and he had been taken by surprise by the swing of a blade that wasn't aimed exactly as it should have been, and the next thing he knew, he was on his back, eyes wide, staring up at the stars with a stinging burn spreading in a spider web network through his abdomen.

The rest is blurry. He remembers hearing Squall drop his weapon, hearing a rush of noise as the other boy muttered countless words of worry and apology, but he was too fixated on the sight of his blood on Squall's hands to really care that much about what the smaller boy might have been telling him. He remembers hearing Squall tell him that he shouldn't worry, that he'll be back as soon as he could and that he'll bring help, and, had it not been for the fact that he had been too delirious from pain and surprise, he would have swore that there had been tears of worry in Squall's eyes, and that scared him more than the fact that his head was starting to spin and he was getting nausea at the sight of the blood.

He doesn't know what happened after that. Doctor Kadowaki told him, the next morning, that he had passed out from blood loss and exhaustion, but he doesn't remember ever doing that, so he's not too sure if it's true.

He likes to think that that scar is a reminder, a lesson, and he traces it with the delicate swipe of a finger when he's lost in thoughts of the past.