Chapter 4 - Network Square

Rinoa fell backwards onto the couch cushions with a bounce. She hadn't purchased decorative pillows for her new apartment yet, so instead her head rested softly on a folded fur and leather jacket. This jacket was a new acquisition of hers.

She'd 'borrowed' this coat earlier in the day from a coworker, and somehow she still had it. She really should have given it back to him immediately, but she didn't. She wasn't sure why.

Was it because it just slipped her mind at the time? Maybe. Was it because the jacket was so nice and warm on this wet and dreary Balamb day? Possible. Was it because she wanted an excuse to talk to him again? Not sure. Or was it because she was an idiot? Uh...

She certainly felt a bit idiotic at the predicament she had gotten herself into. She was pretty sure he hadn't meant to let her borrow his coat indefinitely. Although she sighed because she kinda wanted to keep it on her couch as a souvenir of a lovely memory.

And it was a lovely memory, wasn't it?

Rinoa turned her head and pressed her face into the soft fur collar and remembered what had happened. She'd been caught in the rain like a damsel in distress and a handsome stranger came to her rescue. He'd given up his warm coat so she wouldn't suffer. He was like a gentleman from a romance novel. She felt so silly remembering it fondly, but she couldn't help but smile. Her legs dangled lazily over the arm of her couch while she let out a long sigh of contentment.

Well, it was romantic in her highly edited memory. In reality it hadn't gone so smoothly. She'd been left feeling embarrassed after the 'handsome stranger' said some socially awkward things. But what was the use of having an imagination if you didn't force yourself to creatively edit your memories? Right now when she was all alone, she just wanted to remember the sweetness. She petted the soft fur of the jacket and smiled. It had been so nice to not be cold and damp, and it was really, really nice to be hugged by a prewarmed jacket.

It had been a wet and drizzly day, but now that she was home, she'd gotten herself toasty warm. She'd gotten out of her work clothes the second she came home and had taken a shower. Now she was comfortable and clean in her soft cotton loungewear. Heat radiated off her body from her long steamy shower. Her muscles were warm and relaxed and every bit of chilliness of the day was gone. She combed her fingers through her damp hair while the fresh botanical scent of her shampoo hung around her.

So nice, she thought as she stared upwards at nothing, feeling the leather jacket beneath her head. The last of the sunset's pink light danced across the white ceiling. I could do nothing the rest of the night.

Although after a few minutes of relaxing, doing nothing all night with only a jacket to keep her company sounded pretty pathetic to Rinoa. Now that she'd refreshed herself, she wanted some mental stimulation. Mental stimulation and maybe a tasty snack.

Internet and food, she decided. She sat up and tapped her fingers on the her knees. Time to get a snack.

A little while later she was seated on the carpeted floor of her apartment with her legs tucked underneath her coffee table. It had been a long and crazy day at work, and she was so glad to be home.

Home was a place she could unwind, be herself, and hang out with her dog. She missed Angelo, her collie-shepherd mix, so much during the day. And not only was it great to be at home with Angelo, it was also great to be anyplace where she could use the bathroom or get a snack without having to ask somebody to cover the receptionist desk for her.

It made her feel like she was in the third grade. Ms. Quistis may I go use the restroom please? Oh well, that was part of her job. She didn't need to worry about that now that she was home.

Anyways, it was Internet time. She reached out and turned on her laptop.

"Angelo, come," Rinoa said clearly.

Her dog immediately responded to her command and came over. She nuzzled at the back of Rinoa's arm before flopping down next to her and giving a big doggy smile.

"Good girl," Rinoa said sweetly while giving Angelo a few head scratches.

Rinoa took a sip of steaming tea from a mug and took a bite of a sugar cookie from the small plate next to her. She made kissing noises at her dog. The tea warmed her insides pleasantly and she smiled. She munched on the cookie, and little bits of crumbs rained down on her coffee table.

"Love you," Rinoa cooed. The dog's tail hit the floor with several heavy thuds of happiness. "I wish I could take you with me to work." That probably wasn't allowed, but it would be fun.

Rinoa was happy that she was an animal person. Living by herself would be extra lonely and scary without a pet. A hamster would have been cute, but she wanted more than that. A cat would have been cute and a companion, but Rinoa like going places in the great outdoors. A dog could be a cute companion whom she could take anywhere, and in addition to all that, her dog could protect her. Angelo was the perfect pet for her. Not that she was just any pet. She was special.

Angelo had been trained well. General Caraway had pulled some strings and had gotten an instructor who had previously trained Deling City police dogs for Angelo. The dog's sweet face and gentle nature hid her training and toughness. She could handle an attacker or a burglar as well as a police canine. She was protection in a adorable furry package. Caraway had insisted Rinoa be protected if she lived on her own. It was either train Angelo or get a gun.

And Rinoa with a handgun? She could just imagine herself hobbling into the ER after shooting herself accidentally in the foot. And that was the best of the worst-case-scenarios she'd imagined. Having a big dog for protection was much more her style. And Angelo was also much more cuddly and comforting than a gun.

And a gun wouldn't cuddle her at night when she woke frightened from a nightmare. Reaching out in the night and feeling her dog's warm fur beside her was calming. Angelo was her big teddy bear. She loved Angelo so much. She was her sweet furry friend. The dog had been with her for years, and she hoped for several more years to come.

"You're my furry roommate," Rinoa said to her dog. "I'd go crazy without you to talk to." And that was somewhat true. She's only moved to Balamb for this job two weeks ago and she'd been feeling lonely ever since.

Her dog was a great companion, but Rinoa also needed some human interaction too. She could talk to the dog all she wanted, but she wanted somebody who could talk back to her.

She was jolted out of her thoughts as her computer let out a familiar sounding chime. It finished booting up. She stopped petting her dog and logged onto the Internet. Instead of real life human interaction, she was going to settle for being on social media tonight. Close enough.

Until she got some in-real-life friends and acquaintances, she was going to be hanging out a lot online and in libraries. She hadn't checked out the local library yet, so that just left the Internet. Now that she had moved away from her familiar surroundings, she felt like she had to connect with something familiar on social media.

As soon as she was online, she logged into her Network Square account. She was greeted by ads and photos. She cringed at the ugly layout and tried to see if she had any messages from her friends.

She didn't have any messages, but she did see a notification for a friend request. She narrowed her eyes at it. Who was it? Was it just some spam or a real person?

The small and grainy pop-up picture showed the smiling face of a girl with hair that flipped out severely at the ends. Rinoa had only seen one person in her entire life with hair like that. It obviously was Selphie, the overly enthusiastic girl from work.

Should she accept the friend request? Did she want to mix personal and public life? She thought for a moment as her hand hovered over the keyboard.

She clicked the accept button. She wanted to have a new life and that included making new friends, right? Selphie seemed nice. Rinoa shrugged to herself. It would be okay.

She wondered what sort of life Selphie had. Was she the same person when she was at work as when she was out with friends? How could somebody be happy all the time? Rinoa felt the urge to find out. Was it being nosy? Maybe. But Rinoa was curious. If Selphie didn't want Rinoa to know about her, she wouldn't have sent a friend request Rinoa reasoned.

Should she Internet stalk her? Maybe just a little.

Rinoa clicked into Selphie's profile and was stunned. The numbers! She couldn't believe how many friends she had! Was collecting friends a hobby of hers? There was NO way somebody could be real friends with that many people.

Okay, Selphie definitely was a people person. Was she friendly and beloved by all? It appeared to be that way.

It made Rinoa self-conscious of her own Internet presence.

Rinoa thought about her own friends on Network Square. Not very many people. Some extended family members. Some acquaintances from high school that she didn't really talk to anymore.

The only people she had that much contact with on Network Square were Zone and Watts, guys who were roughly her age, a bit older, that she met when visiting her maternal grandparents in Timber several years ago. Zone was really the only person who messaged her that much. He was like a pen pal in that way. Without his friendship, she might not bother with Network Square at all anymore.

Zone was great because she could share all kinds of life drama and secrets with him because they didn't live in the same town. It was therapeutic. No judgment. And part of the fun of being friends with him was that her dad wouldn't approve. She smiled. Zone kinda was a pervert, but mostly in a humorous way. She wasn't scared of him or anything.

Well, now she'd be 'friends' with Selphie now. Rinoa's friend count just went up by one.

Rinoa wanted to know more about Selphie. She went to click through Selphie's 'friends.' She instantly noticed some people from work. Zell. Irvine. But then she saw a familiar face without a name. It was that brown haired man who gave her his jacket. The one that sat on her couch like a trophy. What was his name?

She wracked her brain to see if she could recall it without looking. Was it Paul? Maybe Saul. She was so tired from Selphie's first day tour that maybe she never fully caught his name at all. Maybe she couldn't remember it because she'd never really heard it correctly in the first place.

She clicked on his profile. Squall Leonhart? Squall? That was a unique first name. Leonhart. Was that his last name? It sounded fictional, like it was from a trashy romance novel. Seriously, was that even a real name? How did a quiet guy like that have such an awesome name?

She kept looking at his account.

For a guy with such a dramatic name, he sure didn't have many friends. Actually she noticed he only had one friend, Selphie Tilmitt. Rinoa thought he seemed really shy at work, but having only one Network Square friend was pretty sad.

She reached out to click and 'friend' him. Now he'd have two friends. Well, he would if he 'friended' her back. If he wasn't annoyed that she had run off with his jacket.

Now that nobody was around, Rinoa could indulge her curiosity about Squall too. She could stare at his photo without anybody seeing what an Internet stalker she was being. She took her time to look at his photo, and even though it was a grainy, she could see that he was cute. It certainly was NOT the best photo of him. She'd seen him in real life, and this photo, while cute, did not do him justice. It was blurry and he wasn't facing the camera. It was as if he didn't even know there was a camera there. It looked like he'd been completely unaware that somebody was taking his photo.

Rinoa pushed back from her laptop somewhat confused by this. Why would he use a picture like that for his avatar? Strange, but it left her curious. She wanted to find out more about him.

She poked around some more on his profile. There was almost no information about him. His birthday was listed. And underneath his name, where most people had a small blurb about themselves, it just said that he 'liked to work.' There were only a few photos of him other than his profile too. They all looked like they'd been taken when he was unaware, almost like the picture had been cropped out of a larger photo.

It was the blandest Network Square profile Rinoa had ever seen.

While she was staring and wondering how he got such a terrible Network Square profile, a notification popped up on her screen. Zone was online! Her heart leapt in her chest. Friend time. She rushed to chat with him.

What should she say? There were so many new things happening in her life. Where should she start?

"I'm doing okay at work, in case you're asking," she typed and hit send.

Her cursor blinked while she waited for a response from him. She hoped he would be in the mood to chat and not just log off.

She waited a minute, her anxiety building. She just had to tell somebody about her day or she'd burst.

"I didn't ask," Zone typed back, "at least not yet. Rinoa smiled at his response. He seemed chatty and playful. That was a good sign.

"You didn't give me the chance to ask." He typed. "But how are the people in Balamb? Are they treating Princess Rinoa well?"

"Princess, yea right!" Rinoa responded. "I'm not a princess here, I'm just regular Rinoa."

"You'll always be a princess to me," Zone typed. "But are the people nice?"

"Yea, everybody is really nice. They are so much nicer than people in Deling City. Everybody is smiling at me all the time. This one girl brought in food and coffees in my honor this morning. It was really sweet and embarrassing to be the center of attention."

"LOL, I bet you loved it," Zone responded.

"Good attention is good, but I had some embarrassing stuff happen to me today too," Rinoa typed.

"Uh-oh, I feel like you're going to tell me a story now," Zone typed back.

Rinoa scratched at the back of Angelo's head and got ready to spill her story. It was pretty ridiculous.

"Zone, you'll never guess what happened!," she began to type. "I totally WET myself in the bathroom while fleeing from a surprise fire drill!"

Rinoa waited for a response. It took a minute.

"OK, I did not expect that at ALL!" he responded. "I was imagining you falling on your face while wearing heels. THAT, I could see! But peeing your pants is pretty bad."

"ZOOOONE!" Rinoa typed. "I didn't pee in my pants! I splashed water all over myself in the bathroom sink when the fire alarm went off. Totally different!"

"But it still looked like you wet your pants?" he asked.

"Yea..."

"Yea," he responded in agreement.

Rinoa sat there feeling stupid. She wanted to tell Zone more about her day, but sometimes he got weird when she mentioned other guys. She really wanted to tell somebody about it, and another woman would be ideal, but she had always been really short on having actual women as friends. She sighed. She decided to keep typing. She'd pretend everything was cool about it, maybe he wouldn't react harshly.

"But people here are so nice, this one guy gave me his coat when I ran outside for the fire drill because I was wet and cold," she typed. Rinoa smiled at the memory, but she had mixed feelings about it. It didn't help that it was an extremely awkward situation on both sides.

"A kindly old man?" Zone asked.

"Actually, I think he might be close to my age," Rinoa responded while biting her lip. Uh-oh, that might set Zone off.

Five minutes went by before he got back to her. Rinoa wondered if he was angry. Or maybe he just had gotten up to use the bathroom without telling her. She drummed her fingers on her coffee table and shook her hair out nervously.

"I doubt he GAVE it to you, I'm sure he wants it back," Zone typed. "Unless it was a crappy old jacket."

Was Zone getting annoyed?

"No, it was really nice. Black leather," she typed.

"Bad boy?" he asked.

There was that term again. Was Zone irritated? She kept biting her lip.

"I don't think so. He seems shy. And he didn't ever take the jacket back, "she responded.

"Did you let him?" Zone asked. He could just imagine Rinoa taking it as her own without a second thought. She didn't mean to be a rich and spoiled princess, but sometimes it showed that she'd had a wealthy upbringing. For all Zone knew, that was the guy's ONLY jacket. And the weather was turning cold. Wasn't it the rainy season in Balamb? And if he was shy, maybe he was too timid to take his jacket back.

"He didn't come and get it," Rinoa typed, as if that was a good enough explanation. That sounded like a really bad excuse now that Rinoa was saying it to Zone. She was starting to feel like a jerk! Of course she should have given it back to him at the end of the work day. What was she thinking taking it home?!

"Come and get it?" Zone asked, mocking her. "COME. AND. GET. IT. BAD. BOY."

"Shut UP Zone!" Rinoa responded. He was really sticking it to her today. Was he joking or not?

"Are you trying to make this guy your boyfriend?" he asked.

"NO!" Rinoa typed back quickly, her face feeling hot at his accusation. Squall, or whatever his name was, clearly was a good looking man. Not that she was going to admit that to Zone. Zone had a jealous streak in him when it came to her. Brotherly affection maybe? Just thinking about her interactions with Squall was making her face feel flushed, but maybe it was just her proximity to her laptop that was making her feel the heat. The laptop was old and overheated a lot.

She felt flushed and nervous, so she fanned her face with her hand. She was just glad Zone couldn't see her now.

"Just because you take a guy's jacket, doesn't mean you are his girlfriend," Zone explained. "Unless he's a jock and it's his high school letter jacket. Rinoa, were there letters on the jacket?"

Does he think I'm a little girl? Rinoa complained to herself.

"I'm not a silly teenager in high school anymore!" Rinoa defended herself. Zone was older than her, and pretended to be so mature. Rinoa didn't think being a few years older than her and owning a collection of naughty magazines made him mature, but that was just her opinion. And girls matured faster than boys, so they were about equal. "I KNOW I'm not his girlfriend!"

Zone quickly messaged back, "LOL, classic Rinoa. I'm just teasing you. But I'm completely telling Watts about you wetting yourself at work the first chance I get."

Rinoa calmed down and smiled to herself. Maybe she was overreacting. Zone wasn't angry AT her. He was laughing WITH her. It was a funny situation. He was even going to tell Watts.

Everything was fine.

Except for the fact that she was a jacket thief!

She looked over at her couch to see Squall's leather jacket flung over the armrest. She shouldn't have brought it home, and she certainly shouldn't have WORN it home. Why'd she do that? She had her own jacket. It was still in the coat closet at work.

Angelo walked up to the leather jacket and started sniffing at the fur collar.

"Angelo, NO!" Rinoa whined. She knew she shouldn't yell at her dog. It wasn't the dog's fault. Rinoa just didn't want the guy's coat to smell like her dog when she returned it. The whole situation was odd enough to begin with.

She really had to figure out how to return it to him without it being weird. Well, it was already weird, but she wanted it to be less weird than it already was.

She covered her face with her hands. She'd only worked at this new job for two days and she was having so many stupid problems already.

Okay, starting tomorrow, she was going to get back on track to being professional. No more weird stuff.

But first she had to give that jacket back.

She would just return the jacket to him tomorrow at work and pretend that it had slipped her mind that she still had it. Maybe she should show up to work really early and just leave it on his office chair.

That sounded like a plan.

Author's Notes: I'm really looking forward to posting the next chapter. I think it's pretty funny. Please read and review!