Going out for the weekend, so here you go! Still realyl busy irl :c so you aren't wondering why I can't update much, or even write D:
izek: You will find out in a while!
HallowBat: Awww, I'm sorry! Like I said, irl is pretty busy x.X Also, I said I would update faster with 3 or more reviews D= Anyway, enjoy!
When nothing came, I ripped open the door and ran in, screaming, vase above my head.
My feet came to a halt as soon as I caught sight of something I'd never thought I would see any time soon.. or at all.
There was a naked man in my bathtub.
"WHAT THE HELL, ZACK?!" I screeched, attempting to cover my eyes without wrecking the ornament in my hands.
"Oh, hey, Spike!", he said cheerfully, starting to rinse off his hair. "Did you wanna put flowers here? That's nice of you!", he chuckled as if I was the crazy one here.
"What... are you even doing here?", I looked at him sideways with half hidden eyes, putting down the vase. "I thought you were a thief."
A laugh was the answer. "Ooho haha, no. I just thought you could use some company, so I decided to move in until your roomie returns. If that's okay with you? I wanted to ask first, so I haven't brought my stuff yet, which is why I had to use your bath and shampoos!"
'Glad he invited himself in...' I grumbled. "I don't mind. But next time, ask first before you surprise me like that. I guess it's okay, did you ask your superiors?"
"Haha!" He turned off the water, making a move to stand up. I shook my head, tossing him two towels. "I'm a first class, I think nobody gives a foop. Got its perks to be a 'firsty'!" I joined him with his laugh, thinking of being the General's right hand. "Yeah, I bet..."
In order to not see more of my friend than I wanted to see, I turned around while he dried himself off and got dressed.
"You should be at our company dinners or parties. They always end up being hilarious... I think I'll invite you to one once everyone's back!"
Zack's kind of "hilarious" would most likely end in a disaster for me, I was sure of that. I knew what this man was capable of, and it was nothing for a round of serious people I had to impress with my competence.
"But first things first. How about some video games? I saw a console in the common room, so we might as well make use of that! I'll go get my stuff first, then!", my raven haired friend cheered and I was glad that he was back in his clothes when he one-armed hugged me from behind.
I had never been great at fighting games, but losing in this one still was funny, even though "Super Smash Sis'" sounded a bit girly to me. The game itself wasn't girly at all, and really entertaining.
Back at my hometown I had been alone most of the day, so I'd played video games in the morning before having my private teacher visiting. I didn't have one because I was a snotty brat, but simply because there weren't enough teenagers to open a real school anywhere within a 50-mile radius. Since I didn't have a driver's license yet and the buses were coming like twice a day, there was no way for me of getting there.
I didn't really have many positive memories about it, but it was in the past now, and I didn't brood much over negative things that had already happened.
Video games and movies had always been my friends, however, even though I was lacking real ones. There had been my childhood friend, Tifa, who'd turned into my 'girlfriend' when I was like 14. Neither of us had known how to act as a couple, so we had just sticked to holding hands – but otherwise continued our friendship as usual. This and my lack of romantic feelings had lead me to avoiding the topic of love, until I met a certain somebody... of the other gender, too. I didn't mind gay people at all – not knowing any personally, though. 'Beside me, apparently...'
My mom's hairdresser was homosexual, apparently, and she always gushed about him being the sweetest person ever. Speaking of my mom, I E-mailed her once every few weeks, just a short information of what was currently happening in my life. She herself had also left our home as I left, deciding to search for my lost father. I had never met him personally, so I didn't have any relationship to him at all... and therefore stamped it as "It's her thing to do, I'll just leave her be".
Living there had been nice, but also stressful. All in all I was glad about my change of environment, but I would never forget my family. I would inform her about my new Rank later...
"Haha! You lost again, Spike!", my friend teased me, leaning over to give me a friendly headbutt.
"Hey! You're a cheater!", I complained. "You've already played this a dozen times. I only played Marco Kart and Marco Party as multiplayer games in my childhood..." Of course I wasn't really angry, I just wanted to tease him. It always worked, but not always the way I wanted it to.
"Don't be sad!", he pulled me closer, snuggling. I tried to escape his vicious grip, mumbling something about him having to meet his girlfriend again.
"OH!" He let go of me at once. "I invited her over for tomorrow... gotta tell her I live here now!" With that, he hastily got up, looking for his phone.
"It's on the cabinet in the bathroom...", I helped. "I'd love to meet her!" My eyes followed him as he almost slipped on the round carpet in the middle of the room as it moved. Fortunately, and before I was forced to call a medic or even perform my first CPR on a living object, he managed to catch himself and rushed to the room more carefully this time.
"Is tomorrow at ten fine? After the military training...", his voice echoed from inside.
"Sure thing!", I called, remembering that this was going to be my first military training, or short: MT. My books had already informed me about its details; all of the exercises were there to improve one's abilities on a real battlefield – mostly stamina. It would start at six every day, you were obligated to do at least three per week. Involved was an hour of running, then, at an artificial training area, climbing up rocks, trees and other objects, crawling through mud under wire (Zack had told me that the wire was charged... I hoped that was a joke), hopping over obstacles, swinging, and, in the end, swimming in cold water.
This certainly wouldn't be my favorite training since it involved Angeal and not Sephiroth – no, not ever, not a chance. Maybe he didn't like barking at his students and shooing them past their physical limits until they coughed up blood. Okay, if I had gotten to know him under these circumstances... we probably wouldn't be where we were now.
I had decided to go four times per week for now to strengthen myself in every way possible. Maybe I could impress my General with some stunning abs once he was back... although I doubted that it'd go as fast. Knowing my body, I couldn't say from myself that I was wimpy. I wasn't exactly muscular, either, but that was going to improve even more now. My biggest wish was to be useful in battle, to be able to save something or... even someone who was dear to me. I also wanted to be able to protect myself, so I wouldn't be a bother to anyone on a mission...
"Okay, we should probs head to bed now if we gotta get up at five. We can go to the bus together!"
"Alright, sure! Is there anything I should bring with me?", I asked curiously.
Zack slapped my shoulder playfully before hugging me, chuckling. "Spare clothes for sure!", he said before disappearing into his bathroom.
I stood huffing and puffing before the common showers of the MT, next to Zack. The training had been harder than expected and I had definitely drawn on my last resources to finish the course within the given time, of which close to one hour had already been the "extra time" for new 2nds that we wouldn't have anymore after a month. "Puppy license", Zack called it, and I did understand its necessity more than anything. He ensured me that two and a half to three hours would be the end result, and it seemed to be true since he'd already taken a shower and changed after having disappeared from my sight after mere two minutes after the "start" whistle. In a few months, I would be a pro like him as well...
He moved as if to pat my head, but abandoned his mission as soon as he looked at it. "Uhm... you should probably check the mirror. I'll be waiting at the bus, you've got 15 mins!" My raven-haired friend snickered and chose to wave instead, moving to the parking lot.
I went into the entrance room that connected to the showers. A painting with a foreign looking creature stared back at me when I looked to the right wall... only that it was not a painting, but a mirror, and the mud monster was me. Now I knew where Zack's snicker had come from.
My clothes were obviously drenched with mud and lake water, arms having some small, bleeding, muddy bruises from the climbing. Same to my face, framed in a big sloppy mess of undefined... mop. Since I had left the head above the water, the mud hadn't quite washed out of my hair, so it clung to it as if its life depended on it. It was truly a sight to behold.
All of a sudden, I was immensely glad that Sephiroth was not the instructor for this training.
Knowing that nobody here would care, and neither caring myself, I opened the door to the next room.
Beside me, there were only a few students left here since the others had long passed already. I watched how one guy finished showering off in his clothes, then moved to a closed stall to clean himself.
I chose to follow his example and did the same; roughly rinsing off the dirt until I felt like the washing machine would manage the rest, then moved my messy little butt to the stalls. I hadn't exactly expected great shampoo here, but one bar of soap was nothing I wanted to do to my hair. When I checked another empty stall, I praised the gods to find a shampoo bottle someone had left behind. Smelling it, I noticed it was... Zack's. I grinned, both for the possibility that he'd forgotten it, as well as for the one that he'd done it on purpose, knowing my hair.
After finishing, I went into the dressing room to put on my spare clothes that I had kept inside a locker, noting down to bring my own shampoo next time.
I tossed the wet uniform onto the pile of other messed up ones in the middle of the room, then made my way outside, happy that we SOLDIERs didn't have to bother with washing those ourselves. I had overheard people talking that you could also sign yourself up for a permanent locker that would be refilled with a fresh uniform every day, if necessary. That sounded like a good idea to me, since I only had three pairs of uniforms in my dorm – so I would let Zack sign me up.
When I noticed my friend waving from the door frantically, I spurted there because the buses motor was already running. I was the last, apparently, only Angeal got in after me.
Mmmmh, Cloud getting a lil dirty ;D