The Disciplinary Committee originally was supposed to be a joke.
Of course, she was the one that took it seriously before the Head of the Committee could catch up to her maturity. Her counterparts, the "Founders" were just joking around as young pre-teen, early teen boys did. It was supposed to only be a group title for Seifer's posse.
Yet, Seifer extended the invitation to the closed-off Squall Leonhart under the pretense of "Fujin needs some help with setting these other cadets straight" several years later after the Committee's inception. What Squall didn't know, is that the invitation was an order. That he will be helping Fujin whether he wanted to or not.
How did he know?
He received obnoxious knocking on his shared dorm room's door at 2100 hours when he was halfway settled into his bed to sleep. Sighing in aggravation, he opened his bedroom door and strode impatiently towards the door of the dorm and opened it. When he did, he saw the grey-haired young woman in question standing before him in her usual attire.
"PATROL NOW." Fujin said succinctly.
Squall knew he had the most incredulous look on his face before he answered tonelessly, "Sleep. Now."
When he tried to close the door, Fujin forced it all the way open before kicking him in the ankle. An uncharacteristic yelp came out as he hobbled out of the way and hissed at the throbbing pain. Realizing that Fujin wouldn't take no for an answer, he carefully put on his military boots, disregarding that it was windy and his Garden issued shorts and tank top were not going to cut it.
Tying his shoes, he looked up irritably, not at Fujin, but at the situation itself, "Where is Seifer? Why isn't he doing this himself?"
"BUSY."
Figures.
The first night, Seifer would naturally be caught up in something and not doing what he is sending Squall and Fujin out to do.
"Whatever." Ensuring that his keycard was in his pocket, he closed the door of the shared dorm room. What he didn't realize, was that he closed the door on a full night's worth of rest.
Traversing out of the dormitory halls, Fujin showed Squall a rather intricate map of Balamb Garden. He originally shrugged it off until she pointed out that the places circled in red were the usual spots that troublemakers would congregate.
"... Who gave you this map?" He was tired and curious.
"SEIFER." She shrugged, not caring to bother with further logistics of it.
Of course, why wouldn't Seifer not know where all of these places were? He's gotten in trouble for being there several times already.
Then another thought crept into his head, which caused him to tilt his head and his face contorted into confusion.
What was Seifer doing in these places?
"HALT." Fujin caught the first set of students in the parking lot. Triple Triad cards scattered on the floor, gil as well. They all scrambled upon seeing Fujin, but when they attempted to run past her, the steel-blue eyes of Squall Leonhart caused them all to balk and cower.
"Oh shit, it's Leonhart! We're sorry, we gotta go!" The group consisted of a few cadets around their age and some junior classmen running with the wrong crowd.
Turning to watch them all running as fast as they could out of the parking garage, the stoic teenager just appeared bemused of the whole scene.
Fujin was the one that said to stop, yet they freaked out when they saw me? Am I that terrifying to others?
He stared down at his boots, hand on his hip contemplating. In all fairness, Squall was probably the least threatening of the two. However, Fujin just had a presence that caused other students to straighten up.
Plus, she did kick him in the ankle earlier, and it still hurts. How does Raijin tolerate having one brain cell and having the back of his knees kicked, repeatedly?
"CONFISCATE."
Coming out of his thoughts, he turned to Fujin who was knelt down to pick up the Triple Triad cards and gil that was just laying around the parking lot area. Between the group of about five people that were there, the number of cards did not add up to the bodies.
Squall did help Fujin, just carefully when he tried to crouch down and pick up the cards. Throbbing hadn't subsided yet, and Fujin did notice. A few moments passed before she said, "Sorry about that."
That caused Cadet Leonhart to pause.
Did she just apologize to me?
Then another realization…
She.. spoke normally to me?
"... It's fine." It did not hurt that bad, just… surprisingly painful.
It took some time before they separated the cards from the gil that was found before they left the area and went to the next location on the map. The Lion asked what were they supposed to do with the items, which Fujin shrugged. Seifer claims that they were supposed to keep them and put them "under review", whatever that meant. She did not say anything else regarding it.
As they were going clockwise around the school to each individual location. During the walk, Squall thought about what he knew about Fujin.
His conclusion: He didn't.
He only knew that Fujin's last name was Takeuchi, they were both almost fifteen (...maybe), quiet and studious students. Frankly, Squall wondered why Fujin tolerated Seifer in the quantities that she did.
They did not talk much the remainder of the evening until they reached the final destination, which was the front gate of the school. They looked around for any students that had no business breaking the curfew code of conduct and found no one. Tonight.
Squall let out a yawn, feeling the fatigue of the day catching up to him. Then he heard a stifled giggle. He knew there was no one else around so that could only come from one person.
Turning his gaze towards the shorter girl in question, her features were unreadable. Narrowing his eyes, he then decided to ask, "What's so funny?"
She shook her head and turned around to walk back inside the Garden. Sighing, he just followed her since the sooner he got into bed, the better.
Realizing that the turnstiles going into Garden were locked going into the building, but weren't locked when exiting.
He paused. Were they set up?
Fucking Almasy-
Looking up, he noticed that Fujin leaped over the metal gate, instead of worrying about their inability to get through the normal way. Sighing, he did the same, figuring it would be best to follow the example the silver-haired counterpart did.
Until the same ankle that Fujin had kicked him in earlier, he managed to get caught on the prong of the turnstile. The fact that Fujin, who is shorter than him, managed this feat without any issues… is irritating. And embarrassing that he couldn't and he was taller.
The burning sensation in both of his cheeks and his ankle would cause him to die. It's bad enough he tries really hard to not express himself too much emotionally, but now he is coming across as clumsy.
Then he heard the sound again, but louder.
Furrowing his brows, he took in Fujin's appearance in the shadows with the dimmed light of Garden peering in. She covered her mouth, but her laughter was soft and muffled. Feminine and delicate.
If he wasn't in unnecessary searing pain, he would find it cute. But he is more or less irritated by the inconvenience, adding to the fact he feels mocked.
The laughter turned to chortles, before she asked, "Do you want my help?"
Oh, so you can laugh some more? No thank you.
He did not respond straight away, he wanted to figure it out on his own. Though really, his position was truly compromised so maybe a little help would be warranted… but he was being stubborn.
Fujin could see this, and it did not sit well with the stoic male one bit.
Sighing in frustration and feeling the fatigue reach him further, he begrudgingly asked for Fujin's assistance. She helped him, a little rough, but it did get the job done. Though the pain made it a nuisance to walk from the front of the school, all the way back to the dormitories.
There was a silent understanding that this will be the only time Squall will allow this type of help. Otherwise, he won't actively seek it again.
He hated dragging his feet when he walked, but he more or less had no choice in doing so when he and Fujin completed their clockwise walk from the main gate to the dorms.
It was silent and dimly lit the entire time. Luckily, no Garden faculty was out on the side they were walking on.
Fujin broke the silence unsuspectingly, "I wasn't… laughing at you."
Well, that could have fooled me.
Squall did not answer immediately, but he did look at her out of the corner of his blue eyes.
"You just yawn like a cat," she admitted.
A cat?
"It's cute." The last part was muffled behind her hand, she more or less said it out loud, as a thought. Perhaps she wasn't aware that Squall heard, but chose not to say anything.
He didn't say anything and continued hobbling back to the dorms. The walk seemed longer due to the throbbing pain, but at least Fujin didn't like idle small talk. That was something he could appreciate about her.
Arriving back at his dorm, he swiped the keycard and made a swift beeline to his room. Trying to shuffle out of his boots chaotically as he crashed down on his bed.
He did not know that it was 0031 when he arrived back and he definitely did not take any pain pills for his ankle.